Posted by Mark:
Inside my garage is a 9'4" Colin McPhillips/Phil Stewart Noserider longboard. I traded my 7'4" funshape about 4 years ago for it... put out a little extra cash and it was mine. It's beautiful. I call it the big banana... it's bright yellow, white, just a gorgeous longboard. In fact, whenever I'm with it I frequently get "nice board" comments. Unfortunately the "big banana" has been on a ladder rack in my garage for the past two years... imagine living at the beach and not having time to just... go. Go surf. Go have fun. And somehow it happened. Work. Cookies. Work. Other stuff. Farmer's Markets. Weekend stuff. Work. Cookies. School. It got cold. I forgot. I got lazy.
A couple farmer's markets ago, one of our regular customers came up to the table dressed in beach attire... I said "you been the ocean early this morning (as it was 8 am)" and she says "yes, my dad likes to get out and surf and we've been at the beach since 6 am". And it's then I realized... what the hell have I been waiting for? I said "next time your dad is here, tell him to come by the booth and I want to go out". And he did... John came by, and we set a date and time.
So I got out the board, my old gear, kicked off the cobwebs, and prepared myself for the morning. And I got up at 5, was out the door by 5:30 and in the ocean by 6. The waves were ankle to knee, but I didn't care... I was in the water paddling around and having the time of my life. The sun came up... glistened a "wake up" beam across as far as my eyes could see... 7 dolphins surfaced... and John says... "makes you realize what you take for granted doesn't it?" And I agreed. All this time and I hadn't made the time to do these little things. Oooh, and I was rusty too. It was ugly out there, but who cared... not me. I left around 7:20... went home, showered, got dressed, and was out my door and on the road at 8 am. My day started like none of my clients I saw today did... and it made all the difference in my attitude for the day. Organic cookies for me... and my board.