Veteran's Day 2024

On this Veteran's Day, I just wanted to take it easy with La and Marlon.

First up was a dawn patrol with Marlon and longboards!  Although if I knew what the surf was going to be like, I think I would have brought the Sweet Potato.

Marlon brought his recently made longboard and I brought the Viking.

The surf was fun - and all the regular foilers were looking at me funny (like what are you doing on a surfboard???).  I caught several fun ones and didn't want to get too tired (long, fun day ahead).

W:139/PW:2/FD:80/F:5/S:20

Next up was errands.

I fixed our gutters on the side of the house I couldn't previously reach (you'll have to ask me about this in person if you are interested).  Then I got the last coat of epoxy onto the board Greg asked me to fix.  Then I cleaned up the garage a bit - and then we headed out.

We hit some stops and had to fight through some traffic, but ended up at the North Shore.  We got some new threads at Xcel (mahalo for the discount!!!), and then ended up at the new Patagonia shop!

Pretty cool shop!  They had some pretty cool imagery up on the walls - one was Moona Whyte kitesurfing a sizeable barrel at what looked like Teahupo'o

Which reminded me I used to do stuff like that - and that subsequently made me dig out some equipment (and get mentally prepared to do it again).  I really haven't had the desire to kitesurf because you can't do it near where I live (have to drive to Kailua or Mokuleia).

Maybe it'll be fine to take a little drive....

And lastly, Greg came over to pick up the board I repaired for his daughters.

Fun, relaxing day!!!  If you are a veteran - I hope you had a good one!

Random Pictures from a Random Surfer's Journal

I took a break after lunch - we went back to Patagonia and I sat on their couch and browsed through a Surfer's Journal.  Cool pictures abound -

I love the surf culture and how prevalent it is everywhere you look up here.  Oh, and the shop had these cool patches.

La got the Whale Shark one for me!

North Shore Chicken Hunting

We packed up the truck and went out to grab a couple of pieces of lumber - then made a trip out to Haleiwa to grab a Kua Aina Burger (drooling)!  To pass a few minutes in hope of letting any lunch hour lines die down, we checked out the Patagonia shop.  Without fail, there were chicken families in several stages of development.  My kids went into "hunt" mode..

Ever since our trip to Kauai, my kids love to catch recently hatched chicks, study them, and release them to continue hunting bugs.  I love to hear the hen scream bloody murder - I realize the hen may not think the same of the situation as I do, but this never gets old for me or the kids.  I'm sure it gets old for the birds.

No animals were physically harmed in the making of this blog post.  In fact, the chicks we picked up got belly rubs and hugs.

Patagonia Haleiwa Board Swap

I got an email from the Patagonia Shop up in Haleiwa. They held a Board Swap similar to what the shop down in Kakaako holds. This one didn't have the foot traffic that the other shop's swaps have had in the past. There was some bigger surf in the ocean probably drawing away anyone who would be looking for boards. I brought a couple of boards we have not been using just to see if there was any interest - nope. One thing that Marlon noticed that was different was the addition of several wind sculptures - the gallery at the corner on Kam Hwy has them all over! Nice addition (but I wonder if they bring them in every night so people don't steal them...). Lastly (no pictures though), Marlon and I hit White Plains to end the long streak of not surfing - felt really good to get back into the water. I definitely need to surf more (for more fun and to whittle away my extra chunk)!

Pattie's on Taco Tuesday

We went to the Patagonia shop up in Haleiwa tonight to check out a book tour stop Dylan Tomine was making. His book is a series of stories over the course of a year in his family's lives - with a focus on how he brings his kids outdoors and gets them excited about finding their own sources of food. I actually thought it was a fly fishing movie premiere - but a book reading is cool too. Grab a copy and enjoy the stories (fishing!!!) Anyways - I got to take a closer look at the store decorations and came to the realization that we actually have stuff that is cooler than the stuff at the shop... with the exception of this really cool old map: It has the commonly found reef fishes on the bottom and their names in Hawaiian. Oh - I forgot to mention that since we were in area, we decided to just have pupus at Cholos for dinner. I used to eat breakfast post North Shore dawn patrol all the time, but I hadn't been back in years. I used to love this place - primarily because the island was a little skinny on mexican restaurants - but several wonderful burrito shops have opened up since those old days... Since moving back here and bringing the family out, it has been really fun taking La and the kids to the places I used to hang out at. It is the coolest surfing with them all though - time has flown but I'm hoping these fun times in the water and enjoying life on an island are the things they remember.