SHHHELTER SKELTER

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Thanks to Graham & Kim for throwing great party at the new Shelter location last Saturday. A true "mom & pop" shop with always an "all are welcome here" good vibe.
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...shhhh-elter.
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Sat. March 29th: ART OF BOJORQUEZ AT SHELTER SURF SHOP

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SHELTER SURF SHOP Grand Re-opening Party
Featuring the art of ESTEBAN BOJORQUEZ

6p.m. Saturday, March 29

2148 E. 4th St.
Long Beach, CA 90814
(between Junipero and Cherry)

For more info call:
562-342-4401
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BLUE & BALSA

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More pics of some recently made boards to look at on the Nine Lights blog.
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PLUMB PRIORITIES

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Flush work!
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LOG IN SOME NOVELTY TIME

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Yesterday, Jeff "Copper Dove" Beck loggin' some little ones that were running along an inner jetty sand bank during a favorable tide.
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Pretty small but lucking into the novelty of it made for the kind of carefree fun that makes one feel like a kid again.
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CRUCIFIXSK8

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An abandoned modified skate found leaned up just as it is in the photo. Strange to come across it on Good Friday.
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BARRELS BIG ENOUGH FOR SEMI TRUCKS

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A short excerpt from the documentary film, THE GLEANERS AND I, released in 2000 by acclaimed French filmmaker Agnes Varda.
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A review and description below for those who have not seen this inspirational film:

The French filmmaker Agnès Varda, digital camera in hand, roams around her native country recording the movements of gleaners. Traditionally, as in the archetypal Millet painting, gleaners were women who gathered the remains of the harvest; their modern counterparts are mostly scavengers, searching in dumpsters and other likely places. The French, of course, give the practice a wonderfully perverse twist-many gleaners do so by choice, disdainful of wastefulness and rampant consumerism. Varda's photographic eye is much in evidence, and her narration is both shrewd and whimsical. When she leaves a camera on accidentally, she uses the unintended footage to create a "dance of the lens cap," a filmic gleaning that acts as a perfect grace note. In French. -Michael Agger, The New Yorker

Agnès Varda, Grande Dame of the French New Wave, has made 2000's most acclaimed non-fiction film-a self-described "wandering-road documentary." Beginning with the famous Jean-François Millet painting of women gathering wheat left over from a harvest, she focuses her ever-seeking eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads us from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism. Varda's own ruminations on her life as a filmmaker (a gleaner of sorts) give her a connection to her subjects that creates a touching human portrait that the L.A. Weekly deemed "a protest film that's part social critique, part travelogue, but always an unsentimental celebration of human resilience." This Edition features the 60-minute follow-up film GLEANERS: TWO YEARS LATER.
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TIME TO GET THE CROPS IN THE GROUND

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Moving into Spring it's time to get a jump start on the gardening. Here's a simple how to for the urban beach head:
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1. Comb the beach shell litter line for seeds, otherwise known as Nerdles.
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2. Collect Nerdles to your heart's desire.
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3. Find a patch of sand with bubble holes below high tide line.
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4. Plant one Nerdle per hole.
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5. Wait for high tide to rise over planted sand patch and return after tide has fallen. Nerdles will have sprouted into straws.
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6. Harvest and wrap straws in paper sleeves and store in glove box for future trips to your local corporate juice bar chain, ice coffee slinger, or slurpy outlet.
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A note about Nerdles: While growing up as a grom spending the whole day at the beach, laying around in the sand between sessions, many a Nerdle was found, popped into the mouth and chewed on while pondering the mystery of where the Nerdle came from. They were chewed to pass the time away until flattened out into really thin patties that couldn't get any more wafer thin, then spit out. I've heard many an explanation over the years of where Nerdles actually come from. From... God given grom-mana from heaven, hacky sack innards, and Barbie doll poops, to the squished remains of little spherical plastic balls used by the thousands to facilitate the easier moving of shipping containers across the decks of freighters. But of all the explanations, the only thing I've ever seen living proof of is their sprouting into straws when planted correctly.
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CHRISTENED BY WIND

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Escaped Orange County to go pick up this custom Malcolm shaped Campbell Brothers 5-fin Bumblebee I ordered a few months ago. The volume is more foiled out then the standard Bumblebee, along with a 9" tail block as opposed to the usual 10". Malcolm nicknamed it the "Wafer Bee", Warm Jet is calling it the "Super Bee", and I've started calling it the "Mint Chip" even though it's not really too chippy.
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5'11" • 14 1/4" • 20 5/8" • 15 1/2" • 2 1/4"
Glassed opaque with 3-step 4oz. deck, single 4oz. bottom, and 101's bamboo side runners.
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On the way back home I stopped to paddle it into some blown-out, head high, brown waters. Though the above photos favor the lefts, I actually only got two. On the first, the M.Chip delivered the Bonzer overdrive. By the time I got my second, the wind was blowing too hard as a head-wind into the lefts... so hard in fact that if a board was allowed to lay flat on the water it was immediately scooped up by the wind and sent spiraling off into the air. So it became a session focussed on riding tail-wind rights on my backhand. It felt really good on my backhand— transitioned really smoothly from bottom turn to top, and seemed to just want to solidly follow whatever direction I pointed my leading shoulder. Can't wait to get it into something round.
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Thanks Jet for letting me session your 5-fin Bee which prompted me to order the M.Chip, and Thank You especially to Malcolm!
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SAME WEEK, DIFFERENT COAST

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While we've had a fun run of waves over the last week or so here in Cali, "Far Off Friend" just sent me the pics below sharing the haps from another coast during the same stretch of time.
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ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG/DOOR TO THE PAST

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My parents are remodeling the house I grew up in. The door to the bedroom I moved out of so many years ago finally got pulled off its hinges and given to me last night. At some point I had taped a bunch of pics, that didn't make it in to my photo albums, over the hallway side of the door to cover all the stickers I got sick of looking at when entering my room.
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Immediately after getting the door last night I peeled off all the photos to reveal the original layer in all its chaotic glory.
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A lot of the stickers are indiscriminate slap ons from grommet-hood— any free sticker from anyone or anywhere ended up on the door. But some are real jewels for jogging the memory bank, such as the "Sidewalk Surfer" skate shop sticker, etc, etc.
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Photos enlarge with click.
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NINE LIGHTS "OPEN FACE SANDWICH" #2

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The second stringerless "Open Face" composite sandwich constructed board with flextail, made for me by Jeff Beck at Nine Lights, waiting for a tinted glass job. If interested in the details that go into the construction of the "Open Face Sandwich" Flextail board, they can be read on the post of "Open Face Sandwich" #1. "Open Face Sandwich" #2 will be glassed with Resin Research's 2020 epoxy to compare the overall board flex to "Open Face" #1 which was glassed with Resin-X.
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The deck of balsa wood "skin" composited over shaped, stringerless, EPS foam core with balsa rails.
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The foam bottom, with balsa rails, and balsa tail block. Although hard to see in the picture, the wood of the rails ends where the leading edge of the front fins will be to produce the flextail.
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