February Trip and Round 2 of Beach Weekend

We headed down to Carolina Beach for the polar plunge 2 weeks back. Jensen's family owns a cottage about 5 blocks from the water- just far enough away that you can walk to the ocean in a few minutes, but don't get all of the traffic. It's not just any place though; her grandfather built it with his bare hands back in the 60s. Homes built with the original owners' bare hands carry just a little more love within the walls.

I love some Carolina Beach. The place had a reputation for being a little rough for many years, but has cleaned up nicely. It's perfect actually; you still get to see some pretty special people if you catch my drift.

My routine when I get down there is usually about the same for Saturday mornings; roll out of bed with a headache, walk out to the screened-in porch, ask jack if he wants to go for a car ride (and he's already shot up and raced to the door after "you wanna go---") and head down to the bean to grab some coffees. On the way back I'll check the water for waves, which there usually aren't any in front of the house.

We then head down to Fort Fisher, a nearby state park. That's usually where we find a wave or two, like we did this time, as evidenced by the photo below, taken by government satellites. I love the kinds of days where we half-reluctantly get wet suited up (just doing that can be a real pain in the balls) and paddle out to end up finding 2-3 foot, fun little waves.





Jensen got a new board from a friend and was taking them down the line with Corbin. For one reason or another, I got a good several months' worth of face plants in along with a few good rides.


Graaaaant, will you wax my board?



Slaving away. I even caught some sunburn in February. Of course, I'm an easier target than most with the amount of coverage on my dome. The sun was probably saying, "man it's too early in the year to fry all those beach patrons....wait, check out that dude with the five head- I got this"




Considering the amount of pain I go through when having to leave CB on Sundays, I really should be living closer to the beach. Two hours isn't far, but still. I'm even more thankful to be able to have the freedom to go there, or OBX when I want, without some a-hole manager scratching his chin while deciding whether or not I can take some of my vacation time. Besides, now I just work from wherever I am at the moment.

This leads me to thinking....2 more beach trips coming up, the second being the 2nd annual beach weekend with my college friends. I say annual because I'm really hoping we can do this every year.

I don't have much in the archive in terms of leftover pictures, but regardless, let's take a stroll down memory lane.

Last year involved whistling pigs, several thousand busch lights, 80 degree beach days, face plants, admittedly a cheese slam, typical Darrenisms, and all sorts of good times.

Here's how I ended up one night.



Btw Jack thanks for the pillow effect; you've earned your spot on this year's trip.








As I got up and looked around, everyone was in this general condition...








Solid, Owen, solid.

And this wasn't just him, it was the entire room. Amazing how everyone falls asleep sitting up, beer still in hand with no spills or drops. This takes some serious balance, and plain old talent in general, but what can I say, we are a group of talented guys.


Unfortunately Cooper (see below) won't be able to make it, but I'm hoping him reading this will convince him to sell some valued personal belongings or family heirlooms on craigs list and fork out the 7 hundo for a plane ticket from Washington state.








"Man, sitting here with the dog playing poker with everyone is like heaven. I can't wait to do this next year.....oh wait"


On a brighter note, Dool show and Cal have confirmed for this year. Instead of imitating Dooley the entire time, we get the real thing this year. Shaping up to be another classic.

btw Corey you are in, whether you like it or not.

Good Songwriters

I've got a lot of places to go and a lot of living to do in the mean time, but when I'm old, gray and tired, I'm gonna sit on my sailboat or porch, depending on the day, and listen to John Prine....







Even if you've never heard of him, which most people I'm sure haven't, how could you watch something like this and not want to have a chair across from him and learn some things?

Though the guy never truly made it big on a commercial level, a few decades ago many people were predicting he'd be the next Dylan.

Are you OK?

Yes. The answer is always yes. Even if it's "yeah, but..."

This is a rule that should be followed by all guys. If someone asks you if you are ok, no matter what the circumstances, your answer is always "yes." I don't care if your leg is broken the opposite direction and you are bleeding profusely, your answer needs to be yes. Otherwise, you're acting like a you know what (I'll keep it clean).

A reasonable example for this situation would be the following:

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah I'm ok, but my leg is shattered and I'm bleeding. I need some help right away."

If you say no in this situation, the only thing left for you to do is scream cry.

Looking back on it, Matt and I were ahead of our time at the ripe age of 6. I remember even back in kindergarten, we'd always make a big deal out if it if someone said they weren't ok. As terrible and soulless as it sounds, we'd even imitate them and pretend we were crying.

What I'm talking about is not a matter of being 'tough' or anything. I'm not sure what it's a matter of, actually. Maybe just my [sometimes humble] opinion.

This was just inspired by a situation I was in the other day. I won't go into specifics because the person might be reading this, but let's just say that yeah he was OK and it really wasn't a big deal. I gave Jensen this rant and she just listened with a half smirk, as if she was thinking "well I kind of agree with you, but you're sort of an asshole at the same time."

Cracked My First Homebrew

(if you don't like tasty brews don't bother reading)

The first carbonated one at least. For the last two months I've had roughly 9 gallons of beer fermenting and getting all happy in one of my closets, and about 2-3 weeks ago Britton and I bottled it up.

My first batch was an IPA and the second a brown ale. Now the IPA was based off of someone else' recipe, but the brown ale was my own from scratch. I wanted to dive right into making my own. The way I see it, if you only brew off of others' recipes, it's like being in a band and only playing cover songs; it might sound good and have stage presence, but you ain't too original now is you?

Flavor wise, the brown ale is exactly what I was going for. The only change I'll make is to add a little more body and up the alcohol a little - it clocked in around 4.3%, just under what I wanted.

I've got another few gallons of a new pale ale in the closet, another recipe I came up with. I figure that within a few more batches, I'll be making world class tasty beverages.

The homebrewing community is a collection of many interesting people. Despite my limited experience, I've tried my best to narrow it down into three main categories:

1. The kind of guy who brews beer (and does whatever else he does) between rounds of world of warcraft.

2. 42-48 year old males who refer to their wives as 'the old lady.' They wear tshirts tucked into very light colored jeans, big sneakers, and are often named Larry or Barry.

3. 25-29 year old males who answer "right on" to just about anything you say to them.

Good people regardless of demographics and what they choose to do in their spare time. Not sure where I fall into the mix, but I don't really care. I just like learning how to do stuff. Right on.

On a side note, had an awesome Christmas--spent about a week and a half up in PA with the fam and Jensen came up for a few days as well. Heading to Carolina beach in the AM---supposed to be 67 on New Years day, and hopefully we'll get some waves..

Hiatus '10

This November's beach trip was a good one. Like last year, it lasted about a week and a half- I wanted to stay but had to make it back to Raleigh before driving up to PA for Thanksgiving.

When I first got to the Outer Banks, there had been another Nor'easter that decided to set up shop off the coast. Fortunately there wasn't any rain, but there was a lot of wind, and at one point the ocean was hurling 15-20 footers, and it wasn't clean at all. Even if it was clean, hauling my 9'2 out there would be the equivalent of making out with a revolver.

The wind was blowing 25-35 and it was a little chilly because of that, but it almost felt good for some reason. Maybe because the air smelled clean, like salt, instead of exhaust.

And just as I like it, an empty beach. The color in this picture is a perfect depiction of stormy, fall obx weather:





I wasn't complaining about the windy, overcast weather because I pretty much had to work the entire time - we're busier than hell, which is also awesome.





Britton came down for part of the time to do work from here, too, so it was oyster time. The shack down the road has the best oysters I've ever had. They're referred to as crab slough oysters, which are picked about 10 miles down the road near the Oregon Inlet. Because they come from brackish water, they're really salty, and sweet. Also, about half them have tiny little pea crabs in them. You can pick them out or eat them- apparently they're considered a delicacy. I bit into one accidentally but threw him out instead of eating him; I don't know if I can get down with that. Since I'm interested in about everything in the world, I looked them up and learned that they are the smallest species of crabs known on the planet. On top of that, it turns out that they are also a pain in the ass to the oysters, since they eat the same food the oyster does.

Since I'm a nice guy, when I find these little turds who make life harder for my delicious oysters, I don't kill them- I'm all about second chances (Mike Vick is my quarterback). I place them on the counter top and play a game called "whoever makes it to the ocean lives." None of them have made it yet, but at least they get a shot. This year, we lined a few of them up on the counter in front of one another to see if they'd fight. Sure enough, a scuffle followed.




It's funny watching them fight, since they pretty much move in slow motion. I had my money on the guy on the far left, but the guy he was fighting scored a take down early on, so that was reason enough to feed all of them to the dogs.

This was the kind of thing we had to resort to, since fishing was out of the question due to water and weather. I was a little bummed out about that. Britton and I had a few bottles of scotch ready. Considering our natural fishing prowess, experience, and ability, combined, I figure we really only had about a 3% chance of actually catching something. Everyone knows that drinking scotch while fishing would take it to somewhere between 6 and 7%. Oh well.

Jack was happier than a pig in shit, since the beaches were wide open to run.
















Jensen came down late in the week, and over the weekend some friends, Brittany and Jeremy came down as well. For the last stretch of the trip, it was just me there. The weather shaped up a bit, and every evening around 4:30, like last year, you could catch a pretty mean view from the back porch. Since there aren't many tall trees, you get a clear view of the sky, which is painted all sorts of colors by the sunset.





Since I had only a few days left and was bombarded with conference calls all day, the weather cleared up and the ocean calmed down. I spent a few days alone with the dog, and really didn't want to leave. There's something that fascinates me about the solitude of being out there alone and I can't quite figure it out.

When I was on my last few conference calls before hitting the road, everything being packed up, I had to stare helplessly at the ocean doing what it does best in the fall: 3-4 foot, clean, peeling waves. It was as if the ocean was taunting me, and I had no time to suit up and paddle out. I would've done anything to have had another few hours to catch a few of them, sit out there, maybe sing to myself. I literally left with a lump in my throat. To make matters worse, my friend Dooley called and said he was down in Rodanthe to surf for a few days. I haven't seen him in about 4 years now, but couldn't meet up because I had to hit the road.

I kept complaining to Jack that I didn't want to leave. He doesn't speak English, and I don't speak dog, but I'm pretty sure we were on the same page.

Bummer.



It's little trips like these that I live for. Leaving is always a little bittersweet, but it's almost Thanksgiving and I can't wait to get back home for a little to see the friends and fam.

My Own Beer

I've been looking into brewing my own beer for almost a year now, and after digging through craigs list for a while, I pulled the trigger on some equipment last week. Three days later (this weekend) I brewed my first batch--an IPA. I made about 5 gallons of it, which will give over two and a half cases of beer, roughly. I won't know how it turns out for another 3-5 weeks, so we'll see, but I can say it tasted pretty delicious before going into the carboy to ferment.

Anyway I'm like a little kid with this stuff already. I've already made my own recipe for a brown ale that I plan on getting going this weekend before I head to the beach. I've also been cruising the online forums to learn more about the process. These people in the brewing community are like mad scientists, talking about measurements and percentages and chemical reactions. Another funny aspect of it all is that if you go to google videos and look for some how-to vids, you'll notice that about 80% of the guys in the videos look like the type you wouldn't allow within 100 feet of your kids on the playground.

Anyway I plan on getting another few gallons racked away to do their thing over the next few weeks while I'm on the coast with some good friends and the Jackson dog.

New York City

I haven't written anything in a long time- like everyone else on the planet I've been really busy.

Wedding season has come to a close for Jensen and me this year. We've been to approximately a thousand weddings starting back in the spring, and the grand finale was one of Jensen's sorority sisters' weddings in Brooklyn, NY.

Now I've never been to New York City accept when I was 12- I got to explore the city back then for 15 minutes or so i.e. buy a genuine, high quality rolex for $15 and eat a slice of pizza. Pretty awesome for a kid huh? Well it was immediately ruined by having to sit through a 3 hour musical. Now I could probably get down with a play once in a while, but musicals are number two on my list of most hated things in the world, sitting right behind number one, parades.

But that's beside the point; this time was much different. Contrary to what my expectations were going in, turns out I liked it a lot. Mattafack, I loved me some New York City.

The first night we were there was the rehearsal dinner (Jensen was a bridesmaid) and all kinds of drinking. The second day the girls had to get together 6 hours before the wedding for 6 hours of hair and makeup, so I set out to meet the two other guys we were with, who were staying in a hotel in another part of Brooklyn. The hotel calls a cab service when you need to go somewhere, so I hopped in and gave this lady the address--something something 3rd street. I must've forgot to specify Brooklyn because a half hour later we were stopped at what we thought was the address but there wasn't a Super 8--I read the address again and she said "honey we are in Manhattan." So I guess you need to specify the borough, too (I don't know how this shit works, I'm from Collegeville, PA).

My screw up ended up taking me all around the city and getting a tour from Ramona, my cab driver. Turns out she's half Dominican, half chinese, and has been cabbing it for 23 years. I learned about the different sections of the city and her family and the struggles everyone 'cept the rich folks are going through. She explained that property taxes and insurance for running a business are almost impossible now, and people who have been open for more than 40 years are closing their doors. Insurance alone for a dry cleaning business can get upwards of 16k per month, when it used to be $350 - ouch. She was only referring to China Town. I can't imagine what it would run in the other parts. Makes you wonder what's gonna happen to the entire town when everything get's that pricey. The rest of the trip I kept trying to figure out how some kind of a frozen yogurt shop could ever stay open on Broadway, and exciting things like that.

So after my tour (which thankfully only cost me 25 bones) I made it all the way back and met up with the guys for food and beverage. The wedding was awesome, and the day after that was awesome, too.

One thing I noticed was that there are a lot of funny, actually pretty friendly people...not just the assholes you hear about- but there are a good number of them, too. It's a good place to go if you need to blow off steam and are tired of being friendly. I think some people there are so brash because they're expecting to get it anyway in return. I held the door for some lady and she looked at me like I was St. Peter. It was cool seeing all the different types of people there, and if get tired of one scene, you just go to another part of town.

I was thinking that big cities would have more superficial people, but it seemed to be quite the opposite. Everyone is in too much of a hurry, or too stressed to really give a shit about anyone else. I could have had a green monkey sitting on my shoulder the entire trip and maybe gotten one or two double takes.

But yeah, I loved the place, and would love to go back once in a while, so if anyone's ever down for it (and i've got the money), I'm all for it.


Almost hiatus.