Monday, September 28, 2009

New news.......

New Christenson Logo should be appearing on a log near you!
9'6' Mickey Detemple double ender.

9'3" Detemple Green and Brown and a 9'3" CC Slider. Compliments to the chef......
7' yellow C bucket, 7' Bluegrey C Bucket, 7'6" Black Dagger Ninja Bucket (comes w/ 2 cases of wax)
Sunny Sea Bucket
El Nino commander.
Classic Christenson color magic.
nice tail ends.
Yellow 5'9" and blue 6'1" Creek Fish
The new breed.
5'11" Green Creek fish
Lime w/purple pin lines.

Howdy cyber lurkers, been on an unintended hiatus for a bit here on the blogness but I got some interesting stuff to talk about today. We got a 30% off deal going on all of our Jerry Springers and jackets, the water out there is still hovering in the high sixties to the seventy degree mark so if you need some thin rubber come save some pennies. Also the Pavel/Rainbow/Greenroom minds have been working on a new design template for awhile now and we got three of em in a couple days ago. The "Creekfish" is a full waisted, wider tailed, slightly flatter step child of the tried and true Pavel Quad Quan Speed Dialer. This should be a better planing small wave mush killer than it's counter part with a wider tail to give you squirt on those ever common flat spots of the wave. Also a little more skatey off the tail and able to be ridden several inches smaller than the the Quans. We were also visited by the Christenson surf company last week and again today, We got some beauty C-Buckets in the seven foot range, two two tone Mickey Detemple models and a forest green CC Slider. If your curious about riding a retro single fin pulled pin tail with a more forward wide point these C buckets could fill your cup. Narrow up that stance and prepare trim right into minute 312 of the Morning of the Earth. We're starting to get our new full suits in if you're in the market for a new steamer, winter 2010 Body Glove, Matuse, and Xcel should all be hanging in the shop within the the next three weeks. Rumors of El Nino have been scurrying around everywhere I go. Heaps of rain, pumping northwesters and a hopeful busier than normal surf schedule might make one or even two nice new wetties that much more essential for this winter. Thanks for checking in, -Kenny Bloggins-

Friday, September 11, 2009

Ya don't know whatcha got til it's gone.....

Gifts o' plenty peel off for not that many.
I was going through some stuff and found this little rant I wrote my brother while I was living on the opposite end of the country and thought it may hold some relevance to any of those who enjoy surfing like I certainly do. There is no qualm that surfing is a greedy sport. The drive to get more waves, to get more of that magic feeling, to travel to far off places for waves with no intent or regard to help or better those destinations, to wake up at the crack o dawn to get out before the rest of the guys do to get more waves and more of that undeniable ,unexplainable soul settling stoke is in all of us. We can't help it, it's an addiction no doubt about it, it's a feeling that can make your day from just a sheer ten second ride of weightlessness and total detachment from everything in life that is for certain.
Well for a while there I got the privilege of having empty, heart pounding, hooting to yourself sessions in some pretty surreal places with just a couple other rubber clad troopers here and there. Often times I came to feel that deserted island effect, no one there to share the stoke, no friends to compare notes and baffle in astonishment with. Nobody to watch on the paddle back out that you know exactly how they're feeling and how their surf life is changing at that moment. I think there is selflessness to this whole thing for certain, watching your pals ride waves and seeing that focused eagle eye look as they blast past is undeniably exciting. After all I can't remember 90% of my rides but sure have a good memory log of my friend's killer ones. Maybe the other half of our addiction is having someone to share it with, give praise to, compare perceptions with and watch when they're high as a kite. Thanks for listening, - Kenny B-









I Pulled down the coast after I talked to you, all lurked out on a solo mission, half blown from an early morning poke of the smoke. Driving into the thickening fog on a winding road to the edge of the world it felt, enticed by each new corner and the discovery of the next craggy beach with promise of some sneaky peak with no one out that might make my day. Checking spots that are more mysto than Carmen San Diego, eager to make the trek through the reeds down the gravel roads past the no trespassing signs to get some. I knew I'd score, the buoys were twelve at fifteen and Micheal Glassoff was definitely still dwelling in the straight. I couldn't help but keep heading west, totally intrigued and curious with definitive clues to crack the case wide open. The random action vehicle seeming as it wanted more of that winding wet road, psyched to be a part of the mission and get the man where he needed to be. Two hours from home out west on the last sliver of the mainland I felt like an explorer, a fearless ambassador with big balls and an innate sense for danger and discovery...until a westy full of dudes and surfboards rolled by. Alas I pull over the last cliff and peer down over the tree tops onto the most gut dropping set up I've ever seen, A frame explosions washing up on the shore and three faint specks bobbing at the base of a fifty foot rock wall, holding position in the foamy backwash current waiting for their pick of the litter. I jolted, sped the car back down the road a bit and stuffed it into a tight squeeze along the highway. Frantically pulling five mil rubber on all my parts, I had cracked the case wide open! What happened after I trekked a half mile through shin deep mud down the enchanted napali-like trail that spilled onto that hidden cove was the most special moment I've ever had in the ocean and on my surf stick. It took until about yesterday to digest all my thoughts and the meaning of that session, when It happened and even now it was missing depth, like the best t ball game you ever played except your parents weren't there to see it. I know now that an experience is a bit void if you got no one to share it with, as I sat out there alone I thought a lot about you and what if you were there, you even made me miss waves damn it! I feel like there's blank pages in the story of that day, you weren't there to write em, I guess you can't be an author without any characters. Words don't do it. Miss you man, love you!


























Tuesday, September 1, 2009

North County surf shop Exposed!

I woke up yesterday morning and was buzzing about my little abode pulling my usual not enough time for breakfast scramble for surf gear, work clothes, coffee, fruit and toast when I realized it was Monday! This enlightenment would allow me about eight extra minutes to get my arse together, the motorcycle shop next door is closed on mondays so we can park in front of their shop which is uniform with our parking lot. This means no parking in the nieghborhood out back and unloading boards and carrying all my mess of morningness from car to shop ( bout 8 minutes). The shop opens at 10:15 to make it real easy for us to be on time if we slide in the morning. Get outa the water at ten and you should be able to make it to work on time right? Mmmmmmm.... the shop usually opens between 10:18 and 10:23 a.m. heheheh... The boss doesn't seem to be too chapped though as she usually rips into the parking lot about the same time. Lucky for us we get to work for the sweetest lady I can think of. Morning usually unravels pretty quickly as there's a grip of used boards to put out on the racks and about fifteen padlocks and doors to open with a king ring full of unlabeled keys bigger than your high school janitor's. Around eleven or so we get the trickle of the regular blank picker upper guys (shapers) rollin in. Blanks be our bidness I guess, Ernie the US Blanks guy shows up twice a week to drop off heaps of assorted foam, more often then not just about the time we get lunch in front of our face. Mind you the lunch indecision and confusion paralizes progress toward any hope of a unified phone order for about an hour. This usually makes for grumpy, hungry poeple by the time it's actual feeding time, this does not make Ernie's call to say he's out back with a truckload of blanks to unload a good call at all. Post lunch food coma usually cripples us for a good hour, meager groans and sighs can be heard as aimless zombie wanderers parooze the shop trying to work. Most days our UPS man will drop off some boxes o stuff in the afternoon for us to dismantle and go through. On the best days one of our shapers will drop off new boards, these times are fun, I like when we get new sticks. As the day rolls on sometimes we'll sell a board or two or maybe some wetsuits, if we're lucky we'll get a crazy rude, arrogant on a rampage customer who yells at us and storms out as though we've ruined thier life. This is a good time for us as we get to laugh try to guess what thier real problems are. Alright this day in life is taking up your whole life. At day end we put all the used boards away, water the garden, yell at our shaping machine guy that it's time to go home, hit the lights and contemplate where to go surf.
Creamsickle Kookbox twinpin floaty boat mush killer and a Jeff McKallum Greenough kneeboard replica.
THis here is one of the sickest colorbursting tiger stripes i've seen in a decade of shopness.
9'4 Bing Silver spoon, ride the rainbow man....yeah.....
9'2" Bing NR-2 two tone color dip will help you rip!
9'4" NR-2 Coffee w/ Cream
uhhhhh??? Like, what that says eh.......
We have a huge blank account here, come make a withdraw.
R2D2 spent the past decade hangin with surfsters, now he lives here and programs surf shapes.
Jim Swarthow's mad science workshop of robotic computerized foam mowing intelligence.
Jim Tell's R2 to tell this thing to do stuff and this thing has to do it!
Damn Jim you got mind control over these machines.
Our trusty, crusty, quiver of lunch getters.....
It's safe to say skateboarding and surfing go hand in hand...one in the left, one in the right. Surf to the beach, surf, surf home, surf to the store, shoot surf in yer living room. Roll your bones. We have a fine selection of sidewalk surfers.
We hatched our little vegetable growery at the beginning of summer and have been able to harvest nice rewards from this little plot of dirt. Everytime I walk by it i think crack a little smile, who get's to have an organic garden at their surfshop? Green thumbs abound!
The bosses car and the shop, our shop got smoked out a couple years ago from a fire the motorcycle shop next door had one night. We lost most of our clothing and accessory inventory to smoke damage and were forced to do an entire remodel inside which ultimately ended up being a good thing but the times were definitely rough there for a little while.
These neat people have been doing this thing for a long time now. There is quite a bit of San Diego heritage behind these walls, lots of great minds and faces stroll in and out of here everyday.