Looks like the system that dumped all that snow on us also contributed to making some crazy surf on the East Coast. I’m pretty sure it was cold out there waiting for those bombs to roll through. Brrrr…..

There’s a short story about it on Surfline, as well as the usual write up and pics on Ralph’s weekly ‘Pic’s of the Week’ column over at Cinnamon Rainbows’ site.

The wave pictured above is in Delaware.

Car even more buried, originally uploaded by steveyb.

The blog section of the site was down for a few days, but it’s all back now. …minus a couple of pictures that I will have to see if I can track down.

While it was down we got another dumping of snow. Another 31 cm in fact, putting up our total so far this winter (not even started yet officially) to 110 cm which is about half of our yearly average for the past while.

And we are expecting another 10cm tomorrow. Holy cow! What a way to start the winter.

Though I have to say, that winters (snowy ones anyway), in the city are not as pleasing as ones in the country. Basically 30cm of snow makes the city a messy, hard to get around kind of place for several days afterwards.

But the slopes should be amazing!

Grabbed the pic from Stevey’s Flickr page. Haven’t been pointing and clicking much lately. Have to fix that.

Stevey in Costa, originally uploaded by Form<->Function.

The crew just came back from a trip to Costa, where they got a chance to enjoy the sun and waves. (Marc is due back shortly)

The above is a pic of Stevey catchin a wave on the Fish I made him. He has a bunch of pics of the crew riding waves here. These pics were taken by a girl in Costa, who works for a company called Matos Films.

Jesse has photos of the trip here. It looks like a beautiful country.

I’m stoked to see some of the boards that I have made for my friends getting some action, as well as my friends having a blast; but; I really need to save some pesos up so I can join them on the next trip.

Snow, originally uploaded by Form<->Function.

Our first major snowfall dropped down on us yesterday on the 3rd of December. We got somewhere in the neighborhood of 30cm of perfect powder snow.

Now we often get storms like this during the winter, but it has been quite a while since we have had anything like this happen so early. One of my neighbors; an old timer; said that he hasn’t seen anything like it since the seventies.

Wonder what the rest of the season will bring?

News story of a surfer who has proposed a new; and simple theory of everything. It is based on the E8 symmetry, a mathematical formula discovered in 1887 but only recently understood. (pic of the geometry of the E8 above)
I’ve read the news stories and some of the discussion on the interwebs and it’s very interesting. It also can; and I assume will be; tested when the new LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is completed sometime next year. That could verify that the 20 new particles that the theory proposes do, or do not exist. This would be a pretty big deal if it is verified and could theoretically lead to all kinds of things.

The full paper can be downloaded here. I’ll delve into when I have some free time this weekend and see how much of it I can make sense of.

And people say that surfers are just bums!!

templates, originally uploaded by Form<->Function.

I just finished off a couple of new templates this evening.

I made a spin template for the 9′6″ longboard. A spin template has a half side of the board on each of its sides, so you can make a long template out of a shorter piece of masonite and save some space on storing them as well. I think I’ll be converting a bunch of my existing templates to spin ones for those reasons as well as the fact that it will allow me to mix different curves from different templates to come up with new shapes.

The other one is a template for a 6′10″ Diamond tail, which I will be shortly using to try out a 5-fin Bonzer style board.

I’ll finish that one up in the next few weeks, as I am also on the lookout for a new shop space. I am looking to cut my costs a bit with a smaller space. If anyone knows of a decently priced space in the neighbourhood of 500 square feet let me know.

Semi-Gun Complete, originally uploaded by Form<->Function.

I am constantly testing out new shapes and different designs. Here is a semi-gun shape, made for when it gets a little bigger. (not a rhino chaser by any means)

It is 7′ x 20″ x 2 1/2″ with a tri-fin setup and single into double concaves.

We’ll see if gets any suitable action on the east coast; if not; maybe one of my friends will have some space in a board bag for their trip to Costa.

Tiny Tree, originally uploaded by Form<->Function.

Today is Blog Action Day where bloggers post on environmental issues; the idea being to get as many people talking about this as we can.

Mike over at the surfmtl blog had asked me some questions regarding his post on sustainable surfing, discussing the things that surfers can do to minimize their environmental impact.

As far as what the choices I have made are; as a surfboard maker; I have decided to use EPS foam and Epoxy resins so that the manufacture and use of my materials is less harmful than others and so that the finished boards I produce are more durable than the standard issue boards out there so that they will end up in landfill much later(and provide more fun to the user). As a surfer I always carpool to get to surf spots and the vehicles I choose to use tend to be fuel efficient ones. (If I don’t need an SUV, I don’t want one)

I also thought that I would post a link as well. The University of British Columbia has published a paper detailing the findings of 2 scientists as to how the health of Canadians is impacted by pollution.

It would seem that pollution is killing us off in greater numbers than some of the ‘hot’ issues that the government and media would have us focus on. It has always struck me as silly that our society has prioritised the support/protection of big business and jobs, even when those things are slowly poisoning us.
Doesn’t our health and prosperity mean more than some dollar/market figures?
Maybe we can all become more aware and make more responsible choices, and maybe get our government and business to care less about money, and we can become a little more …civilized. ……..maybe

I mean, it really is like the little tree in the photo, life is in a precarious balance clinging on above a precipice.

This weekend is the SacredCraft surfboard show in Del Mar California.

There will, of course, be tons of sweet boards and fins and things to peruse, but there will also be several talks on surfboard shaping and technology.

There is also going to be some talks about the industry, specifically there will be folks speaking out against the outsourcing of the sacred craft by many of the big industry players. It would be very interesting to see the debate between JP St. Pierre ,of Moonlight Glassing, or Jim Robertson of Lokbox fin system and reps from Lost, Channel Islands, Boardworks and 9Fish(who are all making boards overseas).

Long Board design, originally uploaded by Form<->Function.

Had this outline printed up the other day. I should be working on the actual templates very shortly.

Both my friend Steve and I want to have a longboard for those small days, and my next batch I will be getting a long block of foam and making at least 2 of them.

Making templates now, and next season cruisin’ and hopefully walkin’ the nose.