for those who didn't believe

yes, I am learning to surf. here is the proof, I am in the very beginning stages, and here I am practicing:

joining the ranks

I did it. I felt a little like I did when I walked out of my final Div 3 meeting and on my own went to ring the bell. It felt right and certain to make this major purchase. I am now the owner of a digital SLR, Canon's new 5D. I'll post the images as they come rolling through the CF reader into my computer.

torry pines

T and I went for a little hike yesterday to Torry Pines. It was gorgeous. See below:

so so-cal

Andrea and Ian invited us to watch the O.B. Christmas parade on Saturday night. They were, of course, waiting at Tony's for the parade to begin, completely entranced by a video word game at the bar. The rest of O.B. was busy with various activities.

in your face

We watched the skate competition in one of the parking lots. the entire thing was crawling with gromits, waiting for their age category to show their skill. The boys wearing girls jeans thing is still pretty funny to me, and there those teenage boys were, skating and falling with their lycra mix jeans on, stretching around their asses, and still showing off their cracks. Trent whispers to me, 'They're dirtoer than surfers, ' which I agree with mostly becasue surfers bath at least once a day int he ocean, so how dirty can they be really? One particularly fantastic performance ended with a crash behind a ramp, and then an animated series of hand gestures and the shout 'in your face!' It was awesome.

wake me up for the kuzu band

The parade itself was pretty local and home-made, which isn't to suggest that it wasn't fun and worth seeing. Many, many troops of girl scouts and cub scouts and brownies marched past. There were a few local business that had floats, a slew of classic cars, the ever-present O.B. bikers wheeling around like shriners in figure eights, and of course the dog lovers paradred their dogs down the street as well. The best float was the OffKeyO.B. choir, which sang poorly, loudly and proudly.