Goodbye Cruel World...

     ...I've gone to join the circus! Not really, I've just been up in the great white north doing a little cold-weather flat-spell research on a close sibling of the surfboard. That's right, shredding some pow. It was my first time snowboarding in I believe 10 years or so, and after a few minutes getting myself acclimated to my feet being strapped in and my stance a little further apart, not to mention the lack of fins and the board being completely on top of the surface instead of submerged, I picked it back up relatively quickly. Every time I've snowboarded in my life I've gotten the hang of it pretty fast, I think it's because of a healthy lack of caution. Had a few fun falls, but nothing too bad. In fact, I was about 100x more sore after sledding on a hill by our cabin than I was after snowboarding. But that's what the Snow Thrasher will do to you...

 

     We all had a lot of fun, and of course it went too soon, but maybe I'll get to go again this year. I don't know if it's accurate or not, but snowboarding seemed to be similar to surfing my newest board, the displacement hull. I think it might be because both boards are very dependent on the edge of the board digging into the face of whatever medium you're on. Maybe it's because on the hull, your more forward, leaning with the board, as opposed to a normal thruster setup, which takes uses a lot of back foot over the two forward fins action. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm full of it. All I know is that when I'd take a sharp left bend frontside on the snowboard, leaning way, way over, back arched and hands clasped behind me, all I needed to do was trade the snowpants for a wetsuit and I'd be doing a big, long, leaning bottom turn on a driving left in Holgate. It was fun. 

     Almost every day, at least every day at work, and a lot of days in my car, I listen to AM 1340 Classic Oldies WMID. This is the best station on the radio, FM or AM, satellite or HD or whatever. And that's not just my opinion. That's a fact. If you want to hear where rock and roll came from, and I'm talking pre-Beatles, listen to this station for half an hour and be amazed. Want to hear the where Lou Reed got about 90% of his inspiration? While the other rock outfits of the time were looking to blues for their influence, Lou was adoring the girl groups and doo wop of the 50s and early 60s, all of which can be found on 1340. But all that aside, it's just good music. Most of it. I'll admit, sometimes a song will be way too dated, but then it's kind of funny. Besides, it balances out when you take into account it has a fraction of the commercials and none of the DJ garbage that FM stations have.
     But yeah, so I've decided that from now on, there may or may not be an Oldies 1340 song of the day. If I hear something during the day that really catches my ears, then I'll post one. If not, then I won't.
The song for today is "Goodbye Cruel World" by James Darren. This is one of those oldies that you can't really take too seriously, but then again, it wasn't meant to be (taken too seriously). Whenever that circus music line that opens the song comes on the radio, followed by lyrics "goodbye cruel world," I can't help but laugh. And I hope you can't help it too.

 

  

     A couple weeks ago Jeannine surprised me with these two cameras as an early Valentine's Day gift. They are an Olympus OM-1 and OM-4. A co-worker of hers was selling them, and it was a good deal for how good the cameras are, but I couldn't really afford it. So she bought them for me, along with a case, a couple lenses, the original manuals, and other odds-and-ends. She's too good to me, and that's a fact. But anyway, I've been taking some pictures with them, mainly the OM-4, and I just got them back today, so I figured I'd scan in some of the ones I like and post them. So, like it or not, here they are:

 

Barrel!

     Looks like good swell for this Sunday. It'll be nice to get back in the water, especially if the forecast holds true. That's all for now, a long post but that's what happens when I have to battle a virus on my computer for two days. Watch out for the Internet Security 2010 rogue antivirus program virus. It's a blast.