Surfing on a Long Weekend
The weekend before last, I was busy working on the INFOCOM paper. Thus, by the end of the day last Thursday, I had already accumulated over 40 hours, not including vacation time from the Independence Day holiday. Thus, I opted to take Friday (the 6th) off. :-)
Matt (my buddy from college) and Eric take alternate Fridays off, and that Friday was their day off. So, we all went surfing--yay! :-D They work for the Navy (computer/IT work), which means they rented me a surfboard for $10. That's quite the steal. I had only been one other time, going to Del Mar with them when I was here over spring break. This time, we went to La Jolla shores, which is the closest beach to where I live, about a 45 minute walk away. Also, this time I didn't need a wet suit.
The conditions were pretty rough. Waves weren't huge or anything, but they were very frequent. I had a long board, which made it harder for me to cut through the waves--not to mention the fact that my arms are weak and tire easily. :-) I tried for at least an hour to just get out to where the waves were starting, but I couldn't do it. Twice, when I was on my stomach and trying to paddle my way through the onslaught of waves, the 2nd wave of a double-header caught me and carried me--backwards--almost all the way back to shore. That's not supposed to happen!
Eventually I realized that this meant I didn't need to be where the waves were breaking. With my long, bouyant board, I could just catch and ride the wash. The problem with this is that the waves were coming, on average, about every 6-7 seconds. (I counted.) That didn't leave a lot of time to recover from the last wave, swing the board around, mount it, and paddle to catch the next wave. But I got quicker at this, and sometimes the ocean allowed me a brief reprieve. I actually pulled it off once and surfed (on my feet!) for about 10 seconds. It's official: I'm a surfer now! :-) A couple of other times, I rode on my knees for a while. It was so much fun! ...but it was also exhausting!
After stopping by In 'n Out on the way to Matt's place, and then resting and showering, I went with Matt and Eric to hang out with their friends from work, who were having a get-together. That group is big on "Catchphrase", a game kind of like Taboo, where you have to get your teammates to say a certain word or phrase. You get the token, a little electronic device with an LCD screen and a few buttons, get your team (teams alternate around the circle) to say the phrase, and pass it on to the next person. It's a lot of fun--so much fun that we played it for 3-4 hours, and it didn't get old. We ended up not getting back to Matt's place until around 3:30, so I decided to just spend the night there. (Good thing I had that Red Bull before the party, or I would have been wiped out!)
Saturday, Matt and I lazed around his place most of the day. We went to a Lebanese house-restaurant called "Mama's" for lunch. Matt has an old Nintendo (the original NES), with games like Double Dragon II and Super Mario Brothers 3. Classic. I played games and watched TV for most of the afternoon, so I felt pretty brain-dead by the time Matt took me home at like 9pm. It was fun to play those old games, but that was too much for one day.
Sunday, I caught a ride to church with Keith and Kristin. After church, we went to a Mongolian barbeque place. I had never been to one of those before. It's an interesting concept, and tasty. After that, I hung out at K&K's place before going to a home group in the evening. For such a long weekend, I didn't spend much time at home, but that was fine with me.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend!
Matt (my buddy from college) and Eric take alternate Fridays off, and that Friday was their day off. So, we all went surfing--yay! :-D They work for the Navy (computer/IT work), which means they rented me a surfboard for $10. That's quite the steal. I had only been one other time, going to Del Mar with them when I was here over spring break. This time, we went to La Jolla shores, which is the closest beach to where I live, about a 45 minute walk away. Also, this time I didn't need a wet suit.
The conditions were pretty rough. Waves weren't huge or anything, but they were very frequent. I had a long board, which made it harder for me to cut through the waves--not to mention the fact that my arms are weak and tire easily. :-) I tried for at least an hour to just get out to where the waves were starting, but I couldn't do it. Twice, when I was on my stomach and trying to paddle my way through the onslaught of waves, the 2nd wave of a double-header caught me and carried me--backwards--almost all the way back to shore. That's not supposed to happen!
Eventually I realized that this meant I didn't need to be where the waves were breaking. With my long, bouyant board, I could just catch and ride the wash. The problem with this is that the waves were coming, on average, about every 6-7 seconds. (I counted.) That didn't leave a lot of time to recover from the last wave, swing the board around, mount it, and paddle to catch the next wave. But I got quicker at this, and sometimes the ocean allowed me a brief reprieve. I actually pulled it off once and surfed (on my feet!) for about 10 seconds. It's official: I'm a surfer now! :-) A couple of other times, I rode on my knees for a while. It was so much fun! ...but it was also exhausting!
After stopping by In 'n Out on the way to Matt's place, and then resting and showering, I went with Matt and Eric to hang out with their friends from work, who were having a get-together. That group is big on "Catchphrase", a game kind of like Taboo, where you have to get your teammates to say a certain word or phrase. You get the token, a little electronic device with an LCD screen and a few buttons, get your team (teams alternate around the circle) to say the phrase, and pass it on to the next person. It's a lot of fun--so much fun that we played it for 3-4 hours, and it didn't get old. We ended up not getting back to Matt's place until around 3:30, so I decided to just spend the night there. (Good thing I had that Red Bull before the party, or I would have been wiped out!)
Saturday, Matt and I lazed around his place most of the day. We went to a Lebanese house-restaurant called "Mama's" for lunch. Matt has an old Nintendo (the original NES), with games like Double Dragon II and Super Mario Brothers 3. Classic. I played games and watched TV for most of the afternoon, so I felt pretty brain-dead by the time Matt took me home at like 9pm. It was fun to play those old games, but that was too much for one day.
Sunday, I caught a ride to church with Keith and Kristin. After church, we went to a Mongolian barbeque place. I had never been to one of those before. It's an interesting concept, and tasty. After that, I hung out at K&K's place before going to a home group in the evening. For such a long weekend, I didn't spend much time at home, but that was fine with me.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend!