I must have done something really nice to Continental Airlines, as practically every time I fly I’m getting these mysto upgrades to 1st class. I’m a cheapskate by nature, literally buying Imperials over mixed drinks when I go out in town and haggling over a couple bucks when buying trinkets for my kids from the local vendors in town. I’d haggle if it was or 0 or 00, I guess thats how one gets ahead in business, or at least one way to do it. I found a 0 ticket to California and somehow I’m sitting in seat 1B somewhere over Belize or Mexico and I’m thinking about how I’ve just embarked on another surf adventure and how I’m truly stoked. My staff think its funny that I plan trips but wait until the last minute to actually buy my ticket and go. To me it makes no sense to leave Tamarindo when the waves are going off and while California is windy and lacking swell. Last Thursday the surf started to drop in Tamarindo and the swell models started forecasting the waves to arrive to Cali from the big storms that have been formed in the north pac for the last week or so. Me, with my commitment issues, finally bought a ticket on Friday and here I am, on my way to surf big waves in cold water, the endless winter. The decent sized NW swell should be coming in tonight. My buddy John Alexander will be picking me up in LA in Uncle Rico’s van and we’re hitting the road for a week of California surf. I had a thousand Witch’s Rock Surf Camp stickers sent to my parent’s house, my dad sent them, a couple of boards, my 4/3 suit w/ booties and hood, a cell phone and some other random necessities with Justin McCabe back to LA, I’ll be seeing him in Venice Beach this afternoon and then heading north after perhaps a PM surf if theres waves or just chilling out with old friends for a couple of hours. I’m not quite sure where we’re going first, I need to check the surf report once I get to LA, but it looks like we’ll go north to Big Sur or perhaps even Santa Cruz and then follow the swell as it travels south back to San Diego. I’m getting amped and making sure to listen to plenty of punk music to get me in the mood for surfing in FREEZING NorCal water more…

Word is that Magnum Martinez will be at the Witchs Rock Surf Camp on Friday the 13th!  I do not think Costa Ricans have any delusions about the day Friday the 13th but I sure hope all goes well for them.

It seems Joe Walsh is promoting the Magnum Martinez autograph session during a boozefest of Happy Hour specials from 5-9pm. For those of you who do not know about him, Magnum was born in Caracas Venezuela but according to Quiksilver he now hails out of Carlsbad, CA. His bio on the site reads “Magnum is a soulful, spiritual surfer from Venezuela who is an Alas Tour champ known for his powerful style. He’s well traveled and his intelligent, easy-going nature has made him a ton of friends around the world” Happy Hour at WRSC doesn’t sound like the ideal environment for autograph signing for this spiritual warrior.

Maybe we can persuade Magnum to come on down to Jaco and Hermosa so he can check out the diggs prior to the 2009 Billabong ISA World Surfing Games in Hermosa this August. Plus, I don’t think any host here will disrespect him by presenting him for autographs during a chemical intoxication session for this great athlete and surfer. In addition, this past weekends CNS Nosara Surf Contest winner Jairo Perez who is another spiritual warrior and a major up and coming star in the Latin surf world will be in attendance with Magnum Martinez according to the flyer posted on Joe Walshs’ blog.

Recently I sent an email out asking our readers to send in surfer lingo that drives them crazy or is just unique to the surfing world. Here is a partial list of the responses.

“Talk Story” and any other Hawaii-isms.

When people say “It’s a bonzer, mate” and it’s made even worse when surfer’s use an Australian accent. Unless yay aye frohm Australia.

“neeple high” as opposed to what? Chest high

My ears cringe When I hear the word “bro” and I’m kind of sick of “sick” too.

Question: “How did it go?” Answer: “Real good. It was so sick, bro.”

When the media or people use the descriptive “Free surfing.” In a pure sense, surfing has always been “free”  Now that big business has entered the surfing world, they created this monster called “pro surfing” hence their polar opposite “free surfing.” It gives a confusing and stupid picture of types of surfing. Quite simply there is surfing and there is contest surfing. In the surfing world, contest surfing is a speck of dust compared to the whole. Surfing is free. The phrase “free surfing” is redundant.

Any person and any word that has “hull” added to it, like:

That was hulltastic, He is such a hullmaphobe, Dude that was hullascious, Yo, this is hullicious…um what is it? more…

Here I again sit in the airport, this time in San Jose Costa Rica. The last four days has been a whirlwind tour of Costa Rica. This last weekend we (the surf camp) hosted the CNS surf tournament in Tamarindo. Marcela and Hazel really did a good job at overseeing everything and helping coordinate with the CNS, the judges, the 911 radio station and their dj, Red Bull, etc etc. The party was pretty fun even though I wasn’t really in the mood. Its hard sometimes, when you live upstairs above everything. You are always on display, especially during big events. Without Holly and the boys being there I was focused on work, but more focused about leaving at 9am the next morning.

Sunday at 8am I was showering and throwing some clothes and other items into my bag and backpack, grabbed my surfboard and took off guiding a surf tour south to Mal Pais. I took Karen and Pam, multi return WRSC guests, plus three guys from Finland. Team Finland were awesome. I learned that #1 they received 4 hours of sunlight in the entire month of December and #2 they go balls out when they surf. Their only other surfing experience was taking a month off last year in Indonesia. Classic. Big Balls is Iso Moona in Finnish in case you were wondering. Funny enough that was the only Finnish I learned while with those guys. more…

I’m back in Tamarindo, today was a long day. Actually it has been a long week. In the last seven days I hosted the CNS Red Bull surf contest at the surf camp, led a surf tour to Santa Teresa, Playa Hermosa de Jaco, and then San Jose. I flew to Orlando to the surf expo, back again to Costa Rica three days later. As soon as I landed back at the surf camp I had back to back meetings. At least they were with cool people. I’m tired though.

Check out the swell model I just pulled from wetsand right now:

I heard a rumor that there were some sets coming in at sunset. I’m pretty sure from what I saw downstairs that everyone is going out partying, hence no dawn patrol. Not me… I’m going surfing early tomorrow morning, I’ve already got my board ready… super excited like when I was a kid.. probably because I haven’t surfed in a few days. more…