Feliz Año Nuevo
A big, fat Happy New Years to everyone out there. Here’s a pic we took a few days ago, after a mellow session at La Lancha. Marcia + Edmundo + Lola:
Archive for December, 2005
Can’t Catch A Break.
Happy Holidays to all. and to all may you surf better and catch more waves then I’ve caught, over the past few days.
Yes, that’s right. there are waves, here, finally. On the 23rd our second major swell of the season rolled through town and I was there to enjoy. Only something was off. I rolled over to Burros with my sister who had just gotten in to town, with my new camera and the fatty 100-400 telephoto lens. I set the thing up, turn the camera on and one minute later the battery dies. who forgot to charge it?
What a complete rookie I am.
And to top it off, I only caught 2 waves as I battled it out, in the line-up. the waves were around 6 feet, but mushy and totally inconsistent. I was dejected. As I knew the swell was rising, I headed up to Anclote later that day, to find nothing going on, at all. the gods were not at my back.
Christmas day I was dead set on catching some waves in my new .05mm long sleave wetsuit. Did I forget to mention that I’ve acclimated to the weather here and the water is freaking cold? well, it is. Christmas day I checked out Veneros for the first time in months. The beach break was going off, but it was all closeouts, nothing to ride. Dejected again, I went home.
On the 26th I set out mid-day, no real swell going on, but after the past few days, I’d settle for anything. Burros had nothing special, so I hot-footed it up to Anclote, to find even more nothing special. I then dropped back down to La Lancha. Ah yes, La Lancha, my favorite little secluded beach, a 15 minute walk through the jungle. Well, the waves weren’t really going off there either. I guess the tires were bald on all sides. But I did have fun at La Lancha with the mushy waves that kissed you like big lethargic dogs. topping out at like 2 to 3 feet, they weren’t much to ride on a shortboard, but I did manage a few drop-in-and-pump-like-hell rides, as the longboarders all looked on, in that sympathetic, well-at-least-he’s-trying kinda way.
note to self: quit being a nerd and get a longboard.
Yesterday, another swell came into town. Supposedly 6 to 8 feet. I’ve been wanting to hit Anclote on a nice swell. Anclote is a point break with a nice long rolling wave. From the beach you can see 4 or 5 breaking waves coming in, in neat little rows. Anclote, like Sayulita, gets crowded this time of year, but the rows of waves and the length of the break, make it more manageable for people to ride together on a single wave, kinda like the surf breaks in Hawaii, I see, in the surf videos. Anclote is also nice because they have palapa restaurants where the ladies can get some shade, drinks and food. So Marcia, her mom, Martha, and my sister, Beth, came along to watch. I brought the new camera for effect.
As we rolled in, I could see 2 and 3 foot waves with about 30 longboarders in the water with 1 or 2 odd shortboarders. It took me a few minutes to realize that the waves were really only longboard material. I conferred with Marcia as to whether we should stay here or move to La Lancha, which I could see in the distance across Punta de Mita’s shallow bay, going off, with onshore winds sending plumes of water high into the air. gotta love off-shore winds. well, with the crew in tow, I decided to battle it out at Anclote. I paddled out into the lineup and tried my hardest to seize the day. The waves lacked force and getting into them was next to impossible. They were great rollers for the longboard crowd, but not enough push for a shortboard. I tried my damnedest for an hour or so, before I gave up and headed in. Marcia took pity on my soul and marshaled the troops for the truck into La Lancha. We stopped into Agro-Gourmet to pick up some cheese, crackers and fruit. So, we be in Mexico, but we still sophisticated n shee-it. Actually, it was a total fluke, but they just opened Vallarta’s version of a gourmet specialty food store, in Punta de Mita. Awesome for us, bad for our wallets (A pomegranate costs 6 bucks, ouch).
The ladies enjoyed the walk into La Lancha and Beth proclaimed it her favorite beach. I quickly scanned the incoming sets. One consistently breaking section that mushed up as soon as it broke, making it unrideable. A few close out sets, big and closer to the beach, but total close-outs. After a few minutes a nice outside set came in, and one of the longboarders had a nice long ride. I geared up and headed out.
Some guy shortboarder from Santa Barbara was out in the lineup with me. Since there were only about 5 of us out there and he and I, the only shortboards, it was nice to have a fellow shortie out there to gauge where to take off. The waves were actually pretty good, in the sense that they had some real power to them, unlike the waves of the past week or so. The normal sets were a bit hard to catch, either close-outs or just to mushy, it was all about the outside sets. You can see them rolling off the horizon, in big giant rows. Normally these kind of rows would rise up and become 10 foot waves as they neared the break. But these waves couldn’t really stand up. They just sorta came in at 4 feet and maybe grew to 6 feet, but nothing more. If there was an A-frame, you had to be exactly at the crest to get into it. And it was breaking everywhere. Needless to say i didn’t catch much. A nice one here or there, 3 rides tops. But nothing to feel confident about. I sat out there for easily a half hour waiting for my last wave, knowing the girls were on the beach getting fried to a crisp, I headed in, paddling, doing the surfer walk of shame.
once again i had been dejected.
Back on the beach, Beth had been shooting the entire time and we did a cute little photo shoot with the surfboard and Lola, our new dog. we’ll see how it turns out. If nothing else, over the past week, I’ve gained my surfer’s physique back and my swimmer’s arms. i am now ready to do battle with the fiercest of solid sets, not to mention my tan is coming back after months tucked away in the office. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve surfed, consistently day after day. And even if I’m not catching waves as easily as I’d like, it’s still great to be back out on the water.
Project Goal
Project Goal. my friend Darius’ after-school soccer program. logo done by yers truly.
Lola’s story.
Lola used to live on my street. actually in the street. I would see her day or night, sitting out in front of the house where she lived, barking at cars and riling the other dogs in the neighborhood. Her owner was a gringo who kept her outside all the time and let her roam freely around town. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of dog choice, but roaming freely in mexico can be a dangerous activity for a dog. back to the story. Lola’s name was Shiba and she was known all around town as the wonderful, sweet dog that needed a little structure.
About three or four weeks ago, Shiba showed up on my doorstep, obviously looking to come in. Since I knew that she was someone else’s dog, I didn’t let her in. As I turned her away, I joked with Marcia that we should take her in. I had a fleeting feeling that she was asking me to take her in. either that or she was just looking for a good meal and I was a sucker.
The night before we left for Yelapa, my mom sent me an email from the Bucerias gringo network, that Shiba’s owner had sold her house and moved back to the states, Shiba had been abandoned and subsequently hit by a car. Her hip was badly damaged and she was at the vet, waiting for some lucky person, to adopt her and pay for her surgery.
I knew in my gut, right away, that the dog had chosen me that night, so before we left for Yelapa, I went down to the vet and checked her out and I really wanted a dog. Marcia wasn’t so happy about the idea of a dog, maybe a puppy but a quasi street dog that needed intensive hip surgery?
When I got there, she seemed like she was very happy to see me. Her injury didn’t seem serious on the outside. The vet told me that the ball of her back, right leg had popped out of the socket, tearing all the ligaments. Shiba would need surgery to reattach her leg to the socket. Marcia and I talked it over. She wasn’t so sure, i.e. she felt like she was being dragged into something. It was a big step for her. I talked it over with mom and we agreed that we’d split the surgery and when I got back from Yelapa, Marcia and I would decide if we wanted to keep her. (thanks mom! don’t forget to have me pay you back!)
Over the next few days in Yelapa, we had plenty of conversations about Shiba. The agreement came down to this: I wanted her, but I also needed Marcia to take responsibility for her. Shiba had to be our dog, not my dog. I proposed that we test her out, Marcia would try to figure out what her boundaries are with the dog. How much was enough. and if the dog wasn’t working out for her, I’d help find her a better home.
The day after we got back from Yelapa, I went to the vet to check up on Shiba. Again, she was very happy to see me. The surgery had went well and she was ready to leave but the doc wanted to keep her a few more days. She was looking pretty skinny, I thought to myself that I don’t really know if she could last a few more days on whatever this doc was feeding her.
Over that next weekend, we were in LA. talking about our soon-to-be new dog. We both decided that since she had been abandoned and then hit by a car and then hip surgery, we decided she deserved a new name. She deserved a new life. A new name was a good start. I wanted to call her “Jimmy James”, seriously. Marcia couldn’t think of a good name. As we sat in front of the dog tag making machine in Petco, Marcia said her name is Lola. Lola was a name in a song, that we listened to together. I thought it was perfect. Henceforth, Shiba would be known as Lola.
Oh here you dog name purists go with the old “you can’t change a dog’s name?!” stuff. I can. and I did. and you know what? she likes it. and more importantly, she responds to it. It turns out that Lola is the best dog ever. Literally. She loves our house. Loves our cats, well, maybe not Citlali, but Citlali is a hard customer to please, she even gets territorial over Lola’s food. Lola loves my parents’ dogs and cats and can get along mostly with anyone. She won’t jump on the bed or the couch, she knows where the bathroom is and she never barks in the house. She doesn’t chew on things at all and even turned down one of the rubber chew toys filled with peanut butter.
She’s like the perfect dog. She is the perfect dog. Marcia has taken to Lola quick and fast. They are developing a bond I believe that Marcia never thought was even possible. She didn’t grow up with dogs. Lola couldn’t be more of a cooler dog to have. She has her rough edges, like if I let her off the leash and she’s feeling the call, she take off down the street with me chasing her. Yes, it’s happened twice, Marcia is quick to point out. I just get in the car and follow her until she’s too tired to walk further, open the door and in she hops. How far can a dog go on three legs.
Lola’s hip is on the mend, she’s not using her back leg yet, and we were worried about the vet botching the operation. he’s not the most talented vet in the universe. so yesterday Marcia took Lola to another more reliable vet for a second opinion. the vet reassured her that the operation was pretty standard and that Lola was doing fine. we need to re-train her to walk on the leg again but other then that she looked good. Marcia also noticed that she had a temperature, Lola would be lying down, panting and her nose would be hot. So the vet is tested for the animal version of Lymes Disease. It’s common down here for outside dogs and one of my parents’ dogs has it. It turns out that she has it, in the early stages, so we have her on meds. lucky thing.
I better end this thing now.
Lola turned out to be one of the greatest things to happen to Marcia and I. we both feel blessed. Lola loves it with us and all looks good. If there’s a moral to this story, it’s that animals choose their owners. Lola showed up on my doorstep and against my better judgement, I turned her away. Now, weeks later, she’s the newest member to our family and exactly where she wants to be. Marcia rather considerable comprehension has melted away as she’s found herself the perfect dog. not a new puppy that you have to nurse and train. a funky-ass mexican street dog turned out to be the coolest dog in the world.
who knew?!
Retouching
Back in the day, I used to design movie posters. This is why I stopped: Media Photoshop Retouching. incredible right?! [via boing boing]
the internet changes everything
I found this guy on the pass, about an hour up river from Yelapa, towards the waterfall. He and his daughter were preparing a drink called “Atole”, outside his made-with-whatever-was-lying-around shack. it was beautiful. and he couldn’t be more welcoming and a pleasure to talk with. the internet really does change everything.
whole nother level
So here they are, the first pics I’ve taken with my new Canon 5d. it’s the bomb. so are it’s lenses. the whole set up makes me feel like a giddy school girl. I am Ed’s complete and utter lack of restraint.
check here for the whole 15 pic slideshow
LA Restaurant Tour 05.
Los Angeles was great. not so much a vacation, more a reality check for my “state of affairs”. getting things in line was the order of the day. Marcia and I got to eat all the good food we’ve been missing. in fact, it occurred to me, while uploading all the images to Flickr, that most of them are of us eating at various restaurants. So here’s to the places we chowed down:
Palms Thai Restaurant, Hollywood Ca. the pad-thai is always a safe bet and the palms doesn’t let you down. The Tom Yum Gong soup was especially good. I always save the delicious thai iced-tea for dessert, since well, it’s sweet enough to be one.
Starbucks, corner of Highland and Franklin, Hollywood Ca. yeah, i know Ima sell out, i’m writing about Starbucks on the internet. how un-couth. of me. it’s a convenience thing, my man. and a good place to people watch. and the double tall cappuccino is the bomb.
Electric Karma, 3rd street, Los Angeles Ca. the vegetable korma is insane. one of the 3 best indian joints in LA (i know i’m gonna catch hell for that one). The slick looking younger guy in the leather jacket wasn’t the best waiter, but the food is on point.
Ita-Cho, Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles Ca. Best non-sushi japanese in the world. yeah, the world. the grilled peppers. gomaei. lotus root. yellowtail sashimi and last but not least the karaage flounder, holy balls. get the cold sake, the one in the light blue bottle, and have it served in the wooden box. classic.
The Griddle, Sunset Blvd. Hollywood Ca. best to go before 9:00am, before the In Touch / US Weekly crowd get there. The service is awful but the food is the jammy. Best bacon on the planet and the “poached y papas”, an eggs benedict style dish is too. oh and don’t forget to share one lemon raspberry pancake for your table, you won’t regret it.
Urth Cafe, Melrose west of La Cienega, West Hollywood Ca. the best place in LA for a sandwich, salad, soup and tea. the butternut squash soup was perfect. the place can get glitzy, go at night, wear a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, see, now your famous!
The “I don’t know the name of the japanese BBQ restaurant” restaurant, La Cienega Blvd. West Hollywood Ca. best smores in a restaurant i’ve ever had. wait. the only smores in a restaurant i’ve ever had. oh and the sapporo drafts for a buck, make this place a perfect happy hour retreat.
The 101 Cafe. Franklin Blvd. Hollywood Ca. just down the street from my house, the perfect place to roll out of bed and go for breakfast. keep it to the week days though, this place can get crowded with all types of hipster trash. i stick to the eggs and toast. the waffle wasn’t so nice. don’t let that stop you, the 101 is stone cold classic
and last but not least:
Dough Boys, on 3rd, Los Angeles Ca. always one of my first stops in LA. the bread is amazing. the french onion soup isn’t a meal, it’s 2 meals. the salads are big, chunky and funky. the hot chocolate is perfect for LA’s blend of winter. did I mention the bread?
Yelapa.
Yelapa is a small town on the south arc of the Bahia de Banderas, accessible only by boat, it’s a modern mexican version of an old pirate town. Just 45 minutes from Puerto Vallarta, Yelapa is close enough to make it easy for travelers to get to, but isolated enough so that all supplies must be trucked in by hand. This makes for an interesting dynamic. Yelapians are the kings and queens of using what’s available to you, living off the land and doing it in fierce, colorful and bold style.
There be magic in Yelapa.
There are no roads here, just a meandering footpath shared by persons, horses, dogs and the occasional chicken. Funky signs everywhere, hand painted, announcing the newest local cafe or restaurant. 2(!) waterfalls and endless miles of hiking trails. a long broad beach separating the sea from the lagoon, always a fun morning activity watching gringos trying to jump the channel (only succeeding in getting soaked). this place is the young travelers paradise that hasn’t been ruined yet by jaded philandering backpackers. a true jem. and easy on the wallet.
Marcia and I spent a few days in Yelapa, recently and here are 83 images to prove it. check the photo descriptions for a running commentary.
and thanks again Brad and Vero
Nestea Ice
sometimes there’s a web site that comes along that makes you smile. this is one of those: Nestea Ice. by Juxt. top notch art-direction, writing and coding.
We’re home.
To LA and back. it ’twas a nice little trip. dare I say the best time we’ve had in LA yet. Tons to report. but instead of huge long boring bouts of text, I’ll upload the photos. ah, yes, the photos. I spent both 3 hour plan rides fixing my very broke iPhoto library. After I got ‘er up and running again and took the digital machete to the library and trimmed the size from 12,000 photos to 6,500 photos. mostly pictures of me taking my own picture and my trip chin. and blurry pictures of marcia eating in dimly lit restaurants. suffice to say iPhoto has a new lease on life.
While in LA we did what comes best in LA. shop. and shop we did. I was a bad little tech geek. and boy did i get the hook up. First, I splashed on a new Canon 5D. yeah, the 5D. I’m officially a pimp yet the camera is too much for these young hands. it’s a beast. and it’s beastliness is only outweighed by it’s beastly lenses, three of ‘em. holy schamooly. this camera set up rocks. pictures to come soon. it’s gonna blow your gourd.
And next up on the geek factor, I’ve been designing all this print material. brochures, signage, stationary billboards. all on my little 12inch powerbook. try designing a 72 dpi billboard at 12 x 8 meters. the photoshop doc is 425mb and takes a half hour just to open. This is my way of justifying my need for a new machine. a tower. the idea was to get something used. a G4 tower maybe, a quicksilver. something to handle photoshop better. well, i spent 3 days casing craigslist and ebay. I finally settled on a Dual 2ghz G5 powermac with 2.5 gigs of ram. yeah, i know, it’s the latest. but it is used. maybe a month old, I got it off some guy in Canyon Country, for quite a deal. It’s suhweet. Oh and did I mention that it runs Aperture? woo-hooo.
We rolled in last night and today we spent the day “adjusting”. We have added a new member to our little family and her name is Lola. A local street dog that has come to call our home, er um, home. She’s the best dog in the world. Story to follow.
and last but not least, I wanna give a special congratulations to my good friends Mel and Lilia, they are celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a trip to Paris. It was wonderful seeing you guys again. thank you so much for making that happen.
LA LA
Amidst the haze of work, we’re off to LA for the weekend. I don’t think it’ll be much of a vacation. but I do hope to pick up a new digital camera while i’m up there. yay for new toys!
Lost
We just finished watching Lost - Season 1. Was the finale a let down or what? 24 freakin’ episodes and we’re no closer to finding out anything about this dumb island.
I loved Lost, or maybe I’m just missing tv so much I’m willing to put up with Lost’s dangling thread mania. Miguel put it best when he said that Lost is essentially a tv show that introduces a ton of dangling threads, never resolves them and goes nowhere. I’m paraphrasing of course, but he’s so right.
Lost is like Seinfeld, it’s a show about nothing. nothing ever happens. all these little side stories happen and we see all these flashbacks, but nothing concerning the general set-up of the show, happens. ever. There is no follow-up. No pay-off. No resolution. and the finale is a big fat screaming example of this.
With that said, bring on Season 2! I can’t freakin’ wait.
switchers
I know I’ve been having a mac freak out. it’s all I can talk about right now, as I try to resurrect my precious powerbook hard drive from the depths of grey-ness. Disk Warrior’s hard drive diagnostic test tells me that my drive’s “smart something or other” says the drive is fine. I’m weary.
Keeping on the mac tangent, my mom switched to a mac about 6 months ago. Yes, my mom like most people around 60, is a bit allergic to reading manuals. For some reason, she thought that switching to a mac would solve all her problems that she was having with her Sony Vaio. Obviously her problems didn’t cease, but they sure did get a bit better (when it came down to large scale issues like networking).
Now that my computer is in jeopardy, she casually offered hers up to me, in exchange for a new Dell.
So why the switch back? I’ve deduced her problems down to one make or break issue. It has nothing to do with how well she knows the two operating systems (or how well she doesn’t know them). It has nothing to do with the computer experience. Basically, it comes down to one thing. Mom loves MS Word, or rather, she knows how to work the app really well. If there’s one thing on a computer she does well, it’s work MS Word and MS Excel, at this, she is a pro. Mom also loves her web based email, further, she loves her web based email that has the WYSIWYG MS Word-style rich text editor.
Now both Yahoo and Gmail have these editing features on a windows machine, but they do not on a mac. Why? maybe it’s because neither company can get their programming crapola together to have a mac compatible text editor. But I hardly believe this is the case. why just look over yonder at Dojo Editor a free ajaxy browser text editor, programmed by two guys and no financial backing. so why then? Honestly? who knows. I sure don’t. But one thing I do know is that, this is the make or break issue for mom and her mac, I’m sure other business users have the same gripe. Why not just use Apple’s Mail app? Well, I agree there, but mom just doesn’t like it. She likes her mail in her browser, she knows what she’s doing and getting her to change her ways is a losing battle.
It pains me to see that one single issue could push mom into Dell territory. and that issue isn’t even Apple’s responsibility. But it is one that Apple needs to address, they need to gently prod web based email providers into getting serious about their mac customers. or more people like mom will switch to a mac and then switch back when their Yahoo or Google email doesn’t behave as well as their windows counterpart.
And as we say on the farm: It’s just a dern shame.
bout to die.
We’re back from Yelapa. and had a great time. many thanks to Brad for a wonderful weekend getaway. I’ll write more as soon as I can get iphoto to play nice again. I got a ton of great pics, can’t wait to post em.
Speaking of mac wonkiness, my internal drive is about to die, i fear. I got a blinking question mark start up screen this morning. ran Disk Utility and repaired the drive, but Disk Utility was unable to fix the problem. big uh-oh. I’m about to run Disk Warrior. let’s hope this drive isn’t fubar, good thing I’ve been backing up daily. If things go pear shaped, Apple’s Backup app can restore everything, which some people are saying it can’t and furthermore that it sucks.
Basically, my mac is in a world of hurt. Good thing we’re coming to LA this next weekend. I’ll have to make a stop at the Apple store. This powerbook could use some mac genius lovin’.
RIP Emigre
Rick Poyner gives a wonderful eulogy for Emigre, the premier graphic design discourse magazine that rocked the scene for most of the 90s and was made up of the writing, arguing and design of several of my teachers and fellow students at CalArts. In 20 years Emigre will be a snap-shot of that early to mid-90s post-modernist and post-post modernist (what comes next?) design discourse of which I felt as if I was at the center of. Emigre was my bible for 5+ years, taking me weeks to traverse through each issue, studying it like an L.Wild graphic design history course. It’s sad to see such an institution go, but like Poyner says, it was a good time to bow out.
Arrival in Yelapa
So we just arrived in Yelapa and Brad has put us up in the cutest little casita right off the main beach, just above his new office. The casita is a bare bones affair. perfect for my taste and romantic as can be. How am I able to write this? interesting you asked, Brad has an Airport Extreme downstairs. Nice to be so dialed in, in a town that isn’t even accessible by car (only by boat or on foot). It’s a wonderful place and we’re both happy to be here.
Now I need to go, before I get in trouble…
Year One
Today is our 1 year anniversary. marcia and I have been dating for an entire year (and living together - she wants you to know). It seems, simultaneously like it’s been such a short time, and such long time. But one thing is for sure, we’ve both had the best year of our lives. together.
Tomorrow morning, we head out to Yelapa for the weekend, thanks to the generousity of Lazy In Yelapa. Thank you so, Mr. Brad.
I woke this morning, walked into the bathroom and found this on mirror:
I love my baby.
