Just a number...

Here's an editorial cartoon from today's "Daily Press" that I think fits pretty well with my previous post.

Still smiling...

"US President George W. Bush poses with an injured soldier at the Center for the Intrepid, Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio November 2007. The death toll of US soldiers in the five-year Iraq conflict has hit 4,000 in what the US military said Monday was a 'tragic' loss of lives after four troops were killed in a Baghdad bombing." (AFP/File/Jim Watson)

This is what 4000; just the number; looks like:

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1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
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1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
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1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
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1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
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1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
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This is how many of those brave lives I think our heartless joker of a president is worth:

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Virginia Weather; Manic Depressive

We just had three days of perfect weather here in Virginia, with highs in the 70s and ample, albeit gusty, SW winds. After five months of windsurfing in a thick scuba wetsuit it felt immensely liberating to wear only a thin, shortsleeve suit; to feel the warm wind and the cool water splashing on my skin. Then the weekend started...

I suppose it's just as well, in light of the real-life obligations I need to catch up on. But here are some pictures and video to recapture the glory of the past week.

This first one was taken yesterday afternoon after the wind had died down quite a bit but it was still warm. Beginner windsurfer Heather Wiseman was cruising around on my Kona with a small sail. I told her to come up to the end of the pier at York River Seafood and do a jibe at the last minute, but she started to do a tack and got REALLY close to the pier before she remembered the difference between a tack and a jibe. So the jibe was a lot closer to the pier than intended. She made it, though.



Next are some pictures of some new (to me) gear that I got to use this week. The first is a 25 cm weed-wave fin designed by a guy in California who goes by the handle "Wardog". The cool thing about this fin is that it has lots of surface area so you can use it with a big sail, but it's short and curved so you can use it in shallow, weedy water. I love it.

The second picture is my new medium-sized sail; a 6.6 meter squared 2005 Aerotech Charge. I like it because it's manouverable, powerful in light winds, and stable in high winds, whereas my previous medium-sized sails never had more than 2 out of those 3 qualities.

The final picture was actually taken before the 3-day run of warm weather. It's ODU student John Gelinne standing by my car last Sunday at "Canadian Hole" in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We had just finished up an intense weekend of windsurfing with a group from the VIMS Sail and Paddle club, led by kiteboarder Sam Lake.

Longboard Windsurfing is SO Lame...

Some people think you need a shortboard to windsurf fast. This is not the case, as demonstrated by these Polish windsurfers riding the Mistral One-Design longboard. This is the board that they used in the last 3 Olympics, before they switched to the shorter, wider RSX board.



If you notice, they are riding the board in two ways. When they are really ripping and jumping they are in the back footstraps with the daggerboard folded up inside the board. However, you also see them sometimes going quite fast with the daggerboard down and their feet in the "railing straps" further forward on the board. The high level of performance possible in daggerboard-down mode on a longboard is often overlooked, but you can see it illustrated even better in the next video.



Cool, huh? Now get back to work.

Amateur Stoke for SUP and Longboard Windsurfing

In beach jive, "getting skunked" means going to the shore with intentions to surf or windsurf, but finding the wind and / or waves inadequate for proper use of one's toys. Skunking is a common occurrence for "wind snobs" and "wave snobs"; those who only own equipment for ideal conditions. Fortunately, with the right tools and an un-snobby attitude, one can beat the skunk almost every time.

In the video below, some South Carolinians dramatize the "Slaying of the Skunk" with their new longboard / stand-up-paddleboard toys. These versatile watercraft can be used for windsurfing in flat water or waves, in light winds or strong, and can also be rowed across flatwater or surfed in waves by a standing rider with a long-handled paddle. Compared to regular surfing, S.U.P'ing is easier because the boards are bigger, you're already standing up when you start, and you can catch smaller waves. The boards featured in the video are the Kona ONE (the same model I have), and the Mistral Pacifico.

Frisco Woods Windfest is Coming; 4/17 - 4/20

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! We're only a month away from Frisco Woods Windfest in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Windfest is the most WONDERFUL extended weekend of the year. It's so many things: windsurfing, camping, the beginning of summery southern weather, friends old and new, free beer, barbecues, bonfires, pizza, my birthday... Did I mention windsurfing?

Here's the deal: Every year in late April, a bunch of windsurfers from all over the Eastern US and Canada pack up their vans and trailers and migrate to Frisco Woods Campground for an epic, 4 day gathering. Equipment manufacturers like Starboard send representatives to the event with giant u-haul trailers full of the lastest model-year windsurfing toys, which they let you SAIL FOR FREE! They even have lessons for kids, significant others, etc. Note- pictures swiped from someone else.

They also have a sports video company come and shoot pictures and video of everybody from a little boat, then they play the video on a big screen at night so you can stoke your ego by watching yourself whiz by the camera again and again, all while warming your buns around a campfire and drinking free budweiser.

Last year I had a blast riding the Starboard Serenity and Apollo and the Exocet Kona and I actually bought a Kona on the way home. Score!

If you're an East-Coast windsurfer and you haven't made windfest plans yet, get on the ball! It's a ridiculous deal because you get all the windsurfing toys and beer for free and you only have to pay for the camping. As an added bonus, all the east-coast windsurfing bloggers are going to be there this year for an in-real-life sailing and bullshitting session. Sweet!

Family News

My little sister Anna and her husband Joonas just had a baby girl, Ayla Ojanen, the first of the generation in our family. Woo hoo! I love my sister and brother-in-law and I look forward to meeting my new niece sometime soon. When she gets older I'll make sure she learns all about windsurfing and marine biology. Yay! :)