Quality Peoples

32 weeks

2008-11-25T22:22:29Z

Through the Jungle Twilight

2008-11-25T05:34:14Z

A gnar gnar sunset and then a trip through the long jungle path back to the ride. with güerillo.

Bookmarks for November 21st

2008-11-21T16:05:35Z

Sarah Palin turkey interview
Palin gives an interview in front of a turkey farm. with worker killing turkeys in the background. whoa, slightly morbid and definitely a fucked up choice of backgrounds. File this one under: bat shit crazy.
The Perfect Storm Has Arrived « Vincent Laforet’s Blog
Laforet goes into just how bad things will probably get in the coming depression. but he's spot on. please file this one under: it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing.
SMeltery
great pay and free fonts. [via pica+pixel]
Jonathan Mannion
gorgeously designed flash-based photography portfolio. amazing
Santa Software | MainMenu
great piece of software to keep your mac running in awesome form. when things start to go haywire run this app. awesome.
This. Fucking. Election.
a nice recap.

Fleet Foxes on The Take Away Show

2008-11-20T21:29:06Z

Fleet Floxes were on La Blogotheque’s Take Away Show awhile back doing my favoritist soundtrack song from my as-yet-unrealised epic surf-culture film that plays on loop inside my sunburnt grey matter: White Winter Hymnal. The video has two songs and starts with “Sun Giant” but “White Winter Hymnal” starts at the 3:40 mark, so fast forward for the good stuff, or just push play and let’r ride.

Also check them out doing Sun Giant and Blue Ridge Mountain

Natural Water Births

2008-11-18T23:22:04Z

As I’ve mentioned previously, we’ve decided to have a natural water birth for lil’ man¹. This is a personal decision on our part and we totally understand why our friends have chosen other paths. I’m not going into this subject to ignite passions or to counteract the negative myths surrounding natural birth, but rather just to relate our experience in coming to our decision, to talk about some of the amazing people we’ve met along the way and to encourage future parents to learn more about the various birthing processes before they make a decision. If there’s one thing you take away from this, it’s that the “medical establishment” most likely will not give you sufficient non-biased information on natural birth, so it’s really up to you to do your own research in order to make an informed decision. The good part is that there’s tons of good info online and there’s probably a natural birth community near you.

Over the past few months, we’ve been educating ourselves about the various delivery methods and admittedly, I spent so much time in the earlier months worrying/learning/reading about how to be a good dad once the baby comes, that I didn’t really take the delivery into much consideration. After I got around to start asking questions, it became clear that our doctor didn’t want to explain the step by step process. She had a sort of unspoken code that went something like: she is in control and we have to have “faith” that she will do the right thing. This seems to be the standard and not the exception² and this is where the process began to break down for us. Through talking with friends who’ve given birth recently, a few things became clear to us:

Caesareans are the norm and not the exception in Mexico. Out of eight friends who’ve given birth recently, five wanted vaginal births and only two out of the five had the birth as intended. To put that into percentages, that’s a 75% c-section rate.
Epidurals, Pitocin and Episiotomies are also the norm for all hospital-based vaginal births.

We were both alarmed by our friends’ stories and started thinking about natural births more. From various visits with our doctor it became clear that we would not be getting anything close to a natural birth. Marcia began doing a bunch of research on local Vallarta options for natural and water births. This being our first time around, neither of us feel comfortable doing a home birth without an ob/gyn present, although we had tossed the idea around. After coming up blank on natural births, locally, she ran into the website of Joni Nichols, an American doula living in Guadalajara, who started a program called Plenitude, a natural birthing community and clinic. The clinic is the first of its kind in Mexico and people from all over Mexico, South America and the United States travel to Plenitude to have a natural-based water birth for their babies.

Last week we travelled to Guadalajara for an informational meeting with Joni, her staff of doulas, the ob/gyn and several couples who have had their children at the clinic. The meeting was filled with about 15-20 interested couples. The next day we met with our new doctor Jose Luis Grefnes and the following day had our first session with Joni. After the informational meeting, we were completely convinced that this is how we are going to birth our baby, the meetings with Jose Luis and Joni were to get the process rolling. The community of parents at Plenitude are all in direct contact with each other and people who’ve gone through the natural birthing process at the center, become rich sources of information for those who are looking into natural births. The clinic is connected to a private hospital and staffed with your chosen doula, your ob/gyn and a pediatrician. It’s as close to having a home birth in a hospital as you can get, without the bright lights, stir-ups and “scheduled” birth time. The goal of the program is to prepare you and your partner to have the most stress-free delivery possible. Personally, I learned more about both the “established” and natural birthing processes in the few days we spent with Joni, Jose Luis and their team than I did in the six visits³ we have had with our local Vallarta doctor.

The best advice I can give to future parents is:

Learn about the various types of birthing processes.
Find a natural birthing community in your area and go for an informational meeting.
Choose a birth plan⁴ that works for you and your partner.
Do not put your doctor on a pedestal, this is your baby and you should feel 100% comfortable with telling your doctor exactly what you do and don’t want during the delivery and after.

Your doctor will almost certainly frown upon natural/water births⁵, so it will be up to you to seek out a natural birth community to ask questions and get information – your friends and google are a good start. Further, ask your doctor to walk you through every minute of the process from first contractions, to after the baby is born. Your doctor will most likely never mention the process the baby goes through after the umbilical cord is cut and the process the mother goes through after the baby is taken away⁶.

There is definitely a “social norm” attached to hospital births and we can see it in the eyes of our friends as they glass over when we mention our decision, so for the most part we don’t really talk about it. This “social norm” also dictates that natural/water birth is somehow antiquated, old fashion and there is somehow implied ‘danger’ in the act. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Whatever your decision may be, make sure it’s an educated decision, taking in to account all the positives and negatives in each process. Here are a few resources to get you started:

We still haven’t decided on a name. I know – we’re on it ↩
I completely understand why some couples really like this approach ↩
Our baby has had six ultra-sounds, one for each visit – Mexican doctors are taught that ultra-sounds do not harm the baby, but if you do the research, you’ll find that it’s completely unnecessary and the baby’s heartbeat is raised, so babies are definitely stressed on some level. ↩
A birth plan consists of a chosen birth process and how you want the delivery to proceed in step by step detail: drugs or no drugs, lying down versus water or squatting, keeping the baby with you after it is born, breast feeding, hospital or birth center, in case of emergencies, what the dad’s role will be, etc.. ↩
it’s like asking a Hummer salesman about a Prius. ↩
The uterus cleaning can often be the most painful part of giving birth, natural birth proponents believe this step is completely unnecessary as the body will naturally expel everything within a half-hour after birth. They also believe that for the physical and psychological health of the baby, it is of the utmost importance that the baby go right to the mom’s breast for feeding and that the mom and baby not be separated for the first few hours – unless entirely necessary ↩

Good Advice

2008-11-15T15:06:18Z

This sentiment could easily be applied to Nayarit surf. I’m taking notes.

If you live in California, 80% of the surf you ride is shit. Hollow but closed out. Make-able but mushy. You don’t have to resort to a longboard. Fight back. Get in early. Make turns. Ride short and have fun, and save the 6′2 shredder for the Mentawais. - Brian Hilbers

Malwitz Surfboards + Surfrider

2008-11-25T15:02:52Z

Update: the donation drive and surfboard raffle are officially over, check for the winner. I’d like to personally say ‘thank you’ to all the people who read this and clicked over to Rick’s site and donated. You rock!

Rick Malwitz has been turning out beautiful custom shaped boards for the past few years. He combines beautiful shapes, flawless glassing and tasty, minimal tints and logos. His skills are getting insane.

Rick is looking to raise $2000 for Surfrider Foundation. In exchange for your tax deductible donation, you can be entered into a raffle for one of Rick’s custom shaped boards of your choice (peep some of his recent boards, all drool-worthy). $5 gets you one chance to win and $20 gets you 5 chances.

Further: the raffle started this past weekend and Rick has been so impressed with the response. He has decided to up the ante, to get the donation process done and the raffle prize awarded. The winner now has three options:

1. Custom board
2. Supplies to make their own. (Blank, Resin, Cloth, Fins, Fin boxes)
3. Shape it themselves in my studio and I’ll glass.

So go over to Rick’s site: Malwitz Surfboards and donate. The tax-deductible donations are being handled through Changing The Present.org

I really dig on the idea of people starting their own donation drive like Rick has, raising awareness for a cause we all feel strongly about. It’s a simple idea but very powerful. A nice way to generate interest in giving a little cash over to Surfrider and some lucky brojammie gets to walk away with a sweet prize. Great idea.

Sketchbook

2008-11-13T15:39:27Z

The Flying Longborder has some good stuff happening over at their blog. I drew these logo sketches up awhile back on a plane flight.

Triple Transcendence

2008-11-12T17:27:26Z

Three things make for the perfect sunset session: nicely groomed chest high rollers, the most brilliant cloudless sunset and a full moon. Last night these three elusive properties swirled into a near transcendental combination to make for one of the best sessions I’ve had in years. I’m still high off the stoke.

A bad night’s sleep, lead to an even crappier morning, yesterday, filled with the kind of things expectant dads in the 3rd trimester tend to worry over. At around three o’clock I headed over to a local surf shop owned by my favorite surfer couple Roberto and Barbara. These guys are always smiling and full of stoke, their enthusiasm is contagious. I’ve been wanting to catch up with them to take their portraits for awhile now and we took some awesome shots¹. As we wound up the snaps, they said they were off to catch the sunset session. They mentioned that some waves were coming in, my interest was piqued. I jammed back to the casa for my gear and got a message from Andrew² that the waves were up. I lead footed my way out to the north coast.

Gorgeous lines of chest high waves were rolling in, groomed to perfection. This was the first of the northern swells, not the biggest sets but the kind of wave that I dream about. There were some nice huge swells this past summer, but most were large, gnarly, sloppy adolescents, slashing and throbbing with teenage angst. These waves had some really nice power and shape, you could literally feel their acquired wisdom from having traveled such a long way. I was in good hands.

In the lulls in between sets I floated in tune with the horizon, in awe of the majestically cloudless sky, a radiating sunset of yellows, oranges, reds, blues, purples and greens. A million colors pulsed across the scene, fading, mutating and dancing. I meditated on the refracted light in splashes of water and in my mind’s eye, almost being able to freeze frame the water at it’s zenith, before the splash made its way back down.

The moon was one day short of being full and rose heavy and full in the sky, prolonging the sunset, allowing another hour or so of visible light. With the sunset to the west and the moon to the east, I laid back on my board staring up in the sky capturing both in a 180 degree mind’s eye panorama; an image of such beauty that can never be recorded on film/digital.

I caught a handful of waves over the course of the session and each one was a rock solid, flowing line of power, speed and grace. Even through a puño³ of people all jockeying for the same wave, I felt at one with the moment. I grabbed my last wave a full hour after the sun had set with some last bits of light still radiating and the full moon lighting the top edge of the wave with darkness in the shallows at the bottom. I dropped in to the dark bottom and then chose a high line and skimmed along the crest of the wave in shallow arcs, hip checking the lip with my tail, as the wave pushed me all the way to the beach.

Sometimes things just come together in a superfluous transcendent manner. Last night’s session was one of those kinds of sessions.

coming soon, as usual ↩
el güerito is back in town! ↩
handful ↩

Field Notes

2008-11-11T14:55:15Z

Yes, it’s been quiet time on the blog, I know sorry, having a kid will do that to you, takes lots of mindshare to prepare for the arrival of mister little man. We’re now 8 weeks and counting. Slowly slowly we’ve become seriously disillusioned with the “Mexico Baby Factor Industry”. The medical establishment in Mexico is a horror show of C-Sections and Episiotomies. So we’ve decided to go the natural route and have a water birth. More on this process in a dedicated post.

My shaper friends Marco and Amy rolled in to town last weekend and we spent Sunday catching some nice hollow sliders. No serious size just a nice day in the sun and some good waves, this rivermouth sandy bottom break is one of my new favorites. Nothing quite like the feeling of pulling a hawaiian pullout on a waist high hollow closeout toobito.

This past week we went up to Guadalajara to go to our birthing clinic, meet our new doctor and our “doula“, an amazing woman who will assist us through the birth process. I’ve learned more about the natural and “industrial” birthing processes this past week than I have after 6 visits with our local Vallarta doctor.

I also got some time in the shaping bay with Marco. I snapped some great pics and he took the time to give me my first lesson on shaping. It’s all about geometry, which happens to be the only math I excel at. We’ll be spending 3-4 weeks in Guadalajara, in late December and January as we’re having the baby there. So I’m hoping to spend a few intensive weeks in the shaping bay and glassing studio, studying under Marco. Hoping. more pics from the shaping bay coming soon.

We have a new addition to the Q.Peeps familia. Her name is Paquita and she’s a Mexican Hairless Dog or Xoloitzcuintle, pronounced like “cholo-skwink-lay”. We’ve been thinking about getting a dog and as luck would have it, a friend of ours had puppies a few months ago and Paquita needed a home. She’s three months old and has the illest, cutest personality. She’s super shy and already has impeccable manners. She gets a lot of attention on the street. Mexicans ask if she’s a Xolo and remark that Aztecs used to serve Xolos with molé at the dinner table and gringos kinda screw their faces up in wonderment at a black-as-midnight dog with no hair and creased skin like a pachyderm (hence her given name). She’s freakin awesome and once she’s crate trained we’ll be happy parents. She’ll make an excellent companion and guardian for the baby.

Lastly, I’m computer-less. My dvd drive took a crapper about 6 months ago and I’m finally getting it fixed. I had to drop the cpu at an apple service center in the GDL, they have to order the parts from Mexico City and then do the work and ship back to me. They say it’ll be done early this week. I say with luck it will be done early next week. And back to me by late next week. I’m already having withdrawal symptoms. I’m writing this from Marcia’s cpu. But I’m missing all my music and photos and work stuff. Having a mac in Mexico is awesome. Until you need it serviced and then it becomes a massive headache.