Weekend Warriors

One week later and another nice well hits...this one isn't nearly the swell event we got last week... last week was something like 14' @ 17 secs, this week I think the SF bouy maxed at 8' @ 16 secs... but plenty to get all the local spots producing well OH surf. After spending last weekend behind the camera, I was keen to get in the water and somehow convinced my beautiful and charming wife (are you reading this AP?) to shoot some footage. Of course just as Brando and I cleared the rock some fog rolled in and pretty much made it impossible to see how much we were killing it!!!! Well, sort of anyway. With the reduced swell, the rock was still in play (suprisingly so) and hassled everyone to varying degrees. In the first minute of the video Brando starts way right and gets swept quickly left... same thing happened to me. I know my day is coming when I'm going to be upclose and personal w/ the rock, just a matter of time. Sunday saw some very, very nice conditions at the local... featured riders this week include Denton, Rob, Jeff, James, and Rock-on Randy.

Burning Man

Burning Man. It was a while ago, but since I'm catching up on posts, figured it would at least be worth a segment. The 2005 event was my second and Ana Paula's first burn. I tried my best to prepare AP for what the whole experience would be like, but in the end, I think its just one of those things that you have to see first hand to really understand. In fact, I'm not even going to try to describe it here other than say we had a small group of friends that all pitched in on an RV and had a fun 4 days of partying and taking in all the sights and sounds of a fantastic annual ritual in the Nevada desert.

Some photos mostly taken by AP... http://www.flickr.com/photos/pradoteeple/sets/1229800/

Singapore Ultimate

Ultimate frisbee. I haven't been active in the Ultimate scene for several years primarily due to age, but also due to getting more into windsurfing and surfing in SF area. So when I got the call to join up with a group of ex-singapore-ultimate players for a team in the upcoming Singapore tourney, I was a little unsure about how this would play out. In fact, it wasn't until I realized that the tournament was the weekend before an already planned work meeting in S'pore that I was even confirmed to play.

The above photo is of one of the original 'Angmo Freakshow' teams that traveled around Asia to play in Ultimate tourneys, this one, I think was in 1999 and was from a tourney we put on at Sentosa. I remember Dennis (second from top left) and Kenny (far bottom right) were two of the best players I'd ever played with at the time.


So 6 years later... I'm back. Having hardly touched a frisbee for the past 3 years, I had some definite kinks to work out of my game. The team name 'been there done that' was very fitting and had some really great players... the photo to the left includes Paul and Mark who I played with when I used to live in S'pore. Great to see those guys. The team organizers, Yayoi and Yohan matched their great on-field talent with a fun (yet competitive) spirit. Our first game was a sort of get-to-know each other game, then from there I think we just got better, winning our next few games, until we ran into the Manila team. These guys were almost entirely made of up local players (unheard of in my time) and totally kicked our asses! They had all the throws, well organized offense and defense strategies, and most important, ran us into the ground. We hung in there and I think only lost by 4 points or so, but they handled us pretty well. We finished day 1 with a 4-1 record, pretty good!

The next day I could barely walk. My legs more stiff than I can ever remember, almost laughable in fact. Anyway, we loosened up and played pretty well (except we lost a game that I think we should have won) for the rest of the tournament finishing I think 11th out of something like 25 teams. We easily beat the HK team, which was sort of satisfying since they were our main rivals in the old days.

Click here to see some great photos that Ana Paula snapped...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pradoteeple/sets/1216314/

First swell of the season...

Sat out this sesh, so unfortunately can't claim any of this wave riding, but few of my buddies can... nice work Rob & Joe! Lots of carnage on the beach, broken boards, several narrow misses w/ 'the rock'... lot less intense from the safety of a 100ft cliff wall. Hope you guys enjoy this.

Photos from the same sesh can be seen here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pradoteeple/sets/1217022/

Summertime in the Sunset

Ok, the first thing that should be obvious about this picture is that there is NO WAY this pic was taken in the Sunset during the summer... shorts in SF in August?? This is AP in the middle of a huge water fight at our family 4th of July picnic up in Oregon (Columbia River Gorge). These guys look pretty fierce, but its for a good reason... on the opposing side is Benjamin!! We took two trips up to Oregon this summer, the first for windsurfing and the 4th of July picnic, the second for our wedding party / reception (also managed to squeeze a little windsurfing!). The Columbia river gorge is absolutely one of my favorite places on the planet... for soo many reasons... whitewater rafting, hiking, windsurfing, winery tours, cherries, Hood River, and of course relaxing with the family.

Maybe part of the reason we love (pretty sure AP is w/ me on this) Oregon so much during the summer has to do with the weather we have in SF during the summer. You'd think that living in Northern California would be fantastic in the summer, which it probably is in most places... except in the Sunset district of San Francisco. We were expecting some gloom when we left the Mission and into our home in the Sunset, but July and August were simply depressing... I guess I shouldn't complain too much because I was able to get several days of windsurfing at Crissy field, several of which I was on the 5M sail (means good wind), and we took lots of fun trips to south to Santa Cruz and north up to Sonoma. But really... its crazy to think that I regularly had to use my windshield wipers driving to work (due to the fog), and wintertime jackets in the middle of August if you want to hang out in your back yard. Last comment on SF summer temps... average temperatures in August in SF were LOWER than Anchorage, Alaska!

Here is a link for more pics... http://www.flickr.com/photos/pradoteeple/sets/1216335/