NSFW: Surfboard Art

I'll get some shots at the beach in full sun. Granted, she'll be covered in wax.

Sharking Sharks

Found a product called SharkCamo.

Sharkcamo was created based on the scientific fact that Mother Nature protects certain species of animals with distinct coloration patterns. The technical name for this phenomenon is aposematic pattern coloration... In the documentary "Smile of the Shark", shark experts proved Tiger sharks would not eat striped poles filled with fish. After viewing this film, the quest to find a graphic that could be applied to the bottom of surfboards began. The end result was the Zebra or fingerprint design.

The most dangerous surf spots in terms of shark attacks are in South Africa. With that being the case, which is worse; being attacked by a shark or getting mounted by an overly zealous zebra?

Rather than forking over $30 for a decal, why not just break out the Sharpie? Then you could get all modern primitive tribal. Regardless, I'm betting the bottom of my board won't have stripes on it any time soon.

Patience

Now is the time of waiting. Last week I finished cleaning up my surfboard, stripping it of wax and the previous decals. Friday and Saturday was spent carefully laying out the grid I would use to transfer the selected image to the board. Today represented a crucial moment in the process. In art, the transition from concept to manifestation can leave a person disappointed, disgusted, disheartened, disillusioned, and generally all around dissed. Working from my electronically rendered art in an effort to reproduce my vision on the physical plane, I was happy. Even as I carefully removed the penciled grid work with cotton swabs and lighter fluid, the outline rendered looked beautiful. Now a coat of red paint dries on the board. This paint dries quite quickly, and the temptation to continue is strong.

Now is the time of waiting. While the paint may look dry and feel dry to the touch, I know that application of a wet coat with some overlapping areas could easily ruin the work already accomplished. Tomorrow.

It still looks awesome.

Politics as Usual

Rolling Stone ran an article saying why Al Gore is an ideal candidate for President.

If the Democrats were going to sit down and construct the perfect candidate for 2008, they'd be hard-pressed to improve on Gore. Unlike Hillary Clinton, he has no controversial vote on Iraq to defend. Unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, he has extensive experience in both the Senate and the White House. He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration's most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he's also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time.

In the last election I managed to predict 90% of the races without knowing the policy choices or even party affiliation of the candidates. I just looked at their pictures.

American Idol Presidency. My prediction: 2008 will see the Democrats trumping the Republicans with a campaign that caters to idiot America even better than the Bush campaigns did. Clinton/Gore in 2008. And it will work.

Machining Titanium

Our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up this year. My wife wants a new wedding band since the beautiful puzzle rings we initially used have not withstood the test of time as well as our marriage has. If something had to break up, I'm glad it was the rings. She was looking at titanium rings for a replacement.

Since I started machining classes, I also considered the possibility of making her a new band using the lathe after work. It's one of the benefits of my job. So I found an article on the machining of titanium. The stuff is extremely heavy duty. Pure titanium can handle 80,000 PSI and alloys up to 150,000 or even 200,000 PSI for aircraft grades. That makes it about as tough as stainless steel. But it is light. It has 2/3 the weight of your typical high carbon steels and weighs only 60% more than aluminum. What does that mean for turning a ring? Light passes at high speeds with well sharpened high speed steel cutters and never stopping the feed while the cutter is in contact with the work area. That's all stuff I should be able to handle. With my current abilities I would have no problem producing a simple, elegant ring with a couple of scribed lines around the diameter.

Why would I want to do this? First and foremost, because while I try not to let on about it, I am an old school romantic who puts great stock in the value of a handmade item from a loved one. A few years back I made her a sword that she really likes despite several flaws in the craftsmanship. My dad made her a cabinet that while not perfect it still lovely. But the ring would have to be very well done. I would not be able to tolerate an imperfection. If I made her a ring that I had screwed up it would be a constant reminder that I insisted on making a crappy ring when I could have just bought her a nice one. While being pridefully DIY, it has gotten me into trouble on several occasions. The purchase of a bunch of motorcycle parts that eventually became a chopper comes to mind. Temperance. I'm thinking I should make an attempt at a ring using cold rolled steel. If that goes well and she likes the result, I can order up a bar of titanium and make her a ring for every finger (and one for myself) for the same cost as buying one ring from a jeweler.

Owned?

I've felt it before. In about half of the foreign travel videos you will see it, and it makes me uncomfortable. But why? There they are, shooting on location in some country of little brown people and the crew thinks it is necessary to get a shot of the local police smiling and saluting for the camera. It never looks right.

Today while watching a preview of Sipping Jetstreams on the shralp surf! podcast, it clicked. There is fear behind those smiles. These cops in foreign lands have been told that if they ever come across English speaking white tourists with cameras, be nice and do what they say or it is ten years hard labor and weekly beatings. Or was it ten years hard beatings and weekly labor? At least it looks that way to me.

Berserker: Almost an AWPC

Several factors lead up to the incident. For the past several nights I have been taking a swig of mead before bed. There was being woken up several hours earlier than usual by three guys with chain saws wanting me to move my motorcycle and truck so they could remove the big pine tree from our front yard (which I really didn't want to see go but the landlord had a different opinion). Then some fool decided to make bad nicknames for the maintenance guys on our shift and write them into the log book for the night. I got 'Viking Quest'. None of these things are excuses, just contributing factors.

That was how things stood when I discovered several people had completely ruined the repair job I had done the night before. It wasn't just the blatant destruction of the new parts I had put on, but the way they had somehow managed to leave just about every single bolt on the damn thing loose. I lost it.

I frightened a lot of people last night. My face was red. I had raised heavy machine parts above my head and started waving them around menacingly. My feet were kicking at the air as I yelled and screamed at people who had gone home to leave me with the fruits of their incompetence. It was an easy fix. That is what made me so mad. There was no mystery as to what was wrong with the thing and they managed to screw everything else up by not seeing that the track had become magnetized. In a fit of rage I blurted out an embarrassingly regrettable phrase.

Why can't we ship these morons back to the retard farm where they belong!?

When angry, I should really stick to profanity. Otherwise I have a tendency to say really bizarre phrases. At least in my berserker rage nobody was hurt. All of the operators are now quite certain that they never want to do anything to piss me off.

When presented with obvious evidence, never underestimate the potential for human stupidity.

Rules

Try to remember the last 50 times you broke the law. Maybe you were speeding, rolled through an intersection, illegally parked, using drugs, urinating on the curb, or raping and murdering hookers in your basement. However you were breaking the law, out of the last 50 times you did so, how many times did you get caught?

Laws and their enforcement are a very effective means to an end, aren't they?

Gamers

Tonight it dawned on me why I'll never be a true gamer.

While gaming I always wear pants.

No Connection

I woke up this morning to the sound of my wife getting home from school. I went downstairs to say hello before she took off for work. Having just woken up and having to urinate, a certain part of my anatomy was quite attentive. She looked at me, smiled, and grabbed a banana from the counter for a quick snack.

No connection.

Not Doing It Right

In an otherwise pointless article, I learned that formerly hippie parents are disappointed in their children's apparent lack of college campus protesting.

Son, you ain't doin' that right. Back in my day we wore long beards, took drugs, acted strange, got our asses kicked by the police, and in the end nothing changed. THAT'S how you protest.

a Flop in the Making

Ocean Rodeo Sports... proudly introduces the world's first surfing drysuit!

Why is this a failure before it even hits the market? Why are surfers going to continue to favor wetsuits over drysuits?

The surf is unreal. Set after set of killer swells keep rolling in. Suddenly, you have to pee. A surfer in a dry suit will have to go on shore, take off the drysuit, find a place to relieve himself, and then suit back up before hitting the waves again. His friend in the wetsuit just lets it flow and keeps surfing. Ocean water and urine are very similar chemically. On a cold day the urine actually warms the inside of the wetsuit for a brief period. In no time enough water has flushed through the wetsuit to 'clean it up'. When the surf is pumping, wetsuits will still rule the day.

Besides, how often is it socially acceptable to piss yourself while fully dressed? Why give that up?

Stranger than Strange

It's follow-up time with Jake!

Back to the Death by Water story. The woman who died was named Jennifer Strange. While some might find this an odd surname for an odd incident, just so happens I once dated a rather nice girl with the surname of Strange (first name Angel). But it gets stranger.

In an online recording of the show, the DJs can be heard making comments joking about people dying from water intoxication, even discussing a case in Northern California two years ago in which student Matthew Carrington, 21, died after drinking too much water during a fraternity pledge.

One of the DJs even admitted they maybe should have done some research before the contest.

One female caller, who identified herself as Eva, also phoned in to warn the radio station that drinking too much water can kill.

Eva Holt was the name of the chemistry instructor at AHS who imprinted the effects of water intoxication so heavily on friends of mine, but not me. Is that stranger than Strange? Maybe as strange. Yet not Strange at all.

A spokesman for the station's parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, said 10 staff members, including several on-air DJs, had been fired from the station over the incident.

That's just typical.

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Snow

Portland received a couple inches of snow today. It started this morning and continued ever so slowly to accumulate all day long. From what I have seen, Portland has three snow plows and two snow plow drivers. Instead of clearing the streets, the buses just chain up and the mayor tells everybody to stay at home.

Of course the factory declared today a "forgivable absence". Those who made it in could work and get paid, those who didn't would not get written up. What saints. So of course I have to drive to work. While missing a day of pay wouldn't kill me, my snow driving pride as a born and raised Minnesotan was at stake.

Dude, the roads were fine. Yet there were people who would start to skid going down a hill, slam on the brakes, and immediately send their vehicle into a 180 degree spin-out. Then some guy in a wagon decides the best way to force his old rear-wheel-drive vehicle up the hill was to gun it a whole hell of a lot. This is why I like to drive when it snows in Portland. Free freak show.

By the end of our shift, out of a normal working crew of nearly 100 operators between the two assembly plants, we had six. All of the maintenance guys showed. Between the two plants that meant there were six of us. Yep, one maintenance guy per operator. Bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED!

A good way to recover from boredom is to drink at the pub. After work I picked up my lovely wife and we went with a coworker to the Pub at the End of the Universe. There we enjoyed their eclectic juke box, cheap pool tables, a fine ham sandwich, and $10 pitchers of micro-brew. My turn as designated driver, but still a blast of a night. As the place closes down, some girl is telling me that the secret to driving in this snow is to drive very slowly. "Don't worry about me. I'm a Minnesota farm boy." Still she insists that we need to drive very slowly. As we are piled into the truck I am heard to comment, "What part of 'Minnesota Farm Boy' didn't she understand?"

Snow in Portland. More entertaining than a midget rodeo.

Sign from God

MySpace seems to think I'm Australian. They keep sending me through AU.MySpace.com to login. It's a sign from God. I must now move to Australia.

Guns and Dope

For people who are not yet comfortable with self-rule, just a friendly reminder that you can write my name in for President in 2008. While I'm not sure which party, if any, my non-running mate ascribes to, I can assure you that he will bring back the slacker days of the do-nothing Vice President. I doubt he'll even show up at funerals. As for my political affiliations, in honor of the passing of my favorite author, I have selected the Guns and Dope Party. What does that mean?

[1] guns for those who want them, no guns forced on those who don't want them (pacifists, Quakers etc.)
[2] drugs for those who want them, no drugs forced on those who don't want them (Christian Scientists etc.)
[3] an end to Tsarism and a return to constitutional democracy
[4] equal rights for ostriches

First things first. We need to get the hell out of Iraq. Afghanistan, too. There is no coast to surf. At least the troops in Vietnam could get some Thai sticks and ride some sick swells. Poor kids can't even get a decent hooker where they're stationed now.

Is this in line with the Guns and Dope philosophy?

Like what you like, enjoy what you enjoy,
don't be afraid to make slurping sounds,
and don't take crap from anybody.

I think 'slurping sounds' about covers it.

Water Poisoning?

I had never heard of water poisoning. I figured too much water meant enough to drown in.

A Californian woman died of water poisoning after taking part in a bizarre drinking contest to win a computer games console, according to US authorities.

Wow. A water overdose. New one on me.

AWPC

After working in close proximity for about a year now, one of the machinists decided that I'm not just some bright weirdo with a knack for maintenance. While many say that intelligence in manufacturing is a rare find, I'd argue that the same could be said of most work environments. This week has been question after question regarding everything from theoretical conditions for a perpetual motion device to holographic data storage in computing (real) and the human brain (theory). Today he hit me with the inevitable question that always pops up in these situations.

M: What the hell are you doing in this shit hole?

Jake: I'm not sure, but it's fun. When it ceases to be fun, I'll move on and do something else.

Chaos Rising

I mentioned it yesterday and I shall wax on more about it today. Robert Anton Wilson has died. While this has happened before, the results seem a bit more verifiable this time around. Old Bob has not surfaced to reassure friends that some paper made a mistake in running his obituary.

My wife comes home from school yesterday and tells me that as part of her class, they all went around the room with introductions stating name, age, and religion. She declared herself Discordian. Usually such a proclamation requires quite a bit of follow up. Most people have never heard of this joke posing as a religion cum religion posing as a joke. But on this day a person in an earlier class had also announced himself as a Discordian. His roommate made him a Pope (Spectacles, Testicles, Brandy, Cigar, You are now all Popes as well) and told him he would never meet another Discordian. An obvious lie since later that day he in fact met another Discordian. Not only that but he need do little more than Pope somebody (as I just did to all of you) and he would know another Discordian. The poor kid had never heard of Robert Anton Wilson, so my wife threatened him. He had until the end of the quarter to read some RAW or she would excommunicate him. When all of this transpired, neither of us had any idea that old Bob had snuck out before breakfast.

Then I found out, blogged it, and went to work. As lunch approached at work, someone inquired if I would like a hot dog for lunch. Hail Eris! I ate a foot long coney dog with so much crap smothered on it had to blaspheme against religions we don't even know about yet. While not a Friday, it still felt right.

After work a group of us went to the Pub at the End of the Universe to drink some pool and shoot some beer, or something like that. There I got my group of people who had never heard of the guy to toast Robert Anton Wilson. Or maybe they offered cheers to the fact that after five minutes the crazy guy had stopped ranting about some dead writer they had never heard of.

I have twenty of his books and have read others. Several of them I have read multiple times. Not only do we have the limited edition Maybe Logic documentary but we drove down to Santa Cruz for the premiere of the film and sat in the front row. My favorite author has passed away. In my eyes he was the last of the psychedelic revolutionaries. Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsburgh, even Terrence McKenna all passed before him. So why instead of feeling sadness do I find myself wanting to cheer and chant, "GO, BOB, GO!"?

Lots of fun at Finnegans wake.

He's Gone

Robert Anton Wilson has left his shell. It was old and broken, anyway. His passing means more to me than the death of Saddam, Gerald Ford, or even James Brown for that matter. I'll just pretend that flags are at half-mast for RAW.

And I've been looking for some reason to post Dropkick Murphys. Thanks Bob for helping me to decide exactly which one to post.