Mac Meetup a Bust

I showed up at the HB Beer Co. for the monthly Orange County Mac Meetup, but there was no one there. Or at least if there was, I sure couldn’t tell who they were. The place was dead, dead, dead with only a few people out on the patio eating dinner. Since I saw no one, I just left. Bummer. I was looking forward to hooking up with other local Mac users.

Back to the Grind

It’s the second week of school, and that means surf class has started back up, which in turn means getting up a half hour earlier to haul Kyle down to the river jetties for “class” and then scrambling to pick him up an hour later in order to get him home so Pam & I can make it to work on time. It’s always an adjustment when this time of the year rolls around. This week will be heck, but next will be “back to normal”.

Not much else happening in the Mac world as of late. Dan East of MaMUG has recently been in touch with me regarding my utility, Yasu. He plans to do a write up on it and the story that goes along with it for print & group distribution. That’s kind of cool. My little piece of software is slowly gaining ground among users. I get at least 25 hits a day specifically aimed at downloading the software. It’s a goal I’ve had since the first time I fired up a Mac. Check that one off the list. Now, about sky diving…

Tonight is the local OC Mac Meetup group meeting in HB. The plan is to meet at the HB Beer Company at 7 p.m. There may, or may not, be several people there. I plan to attend just to see what it’s all about (and have an HBBC signature Blonde ale). I’ve been looking for a decent group of like minded Mac heads for a couple of years now, but haven’t been able to find any yet. The one user group I did visit a couple of times wasn’t all that friendly to knowledgeable outsiders. Maybe it’s time to start my own user group. HBMUG has a nice ring to it. Any takers?

It's Just Too Dang Hot for Anything

The past week has been a cooker here in SoCal. The temps in HB have been hovering in the 85° – 95° range. Right now, it’s 90° according to the Konfabulator mini Weather widget on my desktop. Don’t get me wrong. I love the heat, but only when it’s a dry one. This heat wave isn’t. The humidity from the monsoonal flow out of Mexico is making it down right yucky. At 2:00 a.m. last night, it was still 75° according to my widget. That’s just unheard of living so close to the water. Sheesh. Okay, enough griping.

Today is Pam’s birthday and it’s been a pretty good one for her. Her department at work had a little party for her yesterday, and her boss bought her a really nice flower arrangement. A couple of her coworkers were kind enough to buy little gifts for her as well, and her cake was very tasty (I got to have a piece, since we work for the same company). It was a lot better than she thought it was going to be. Then today, she was showered with gifts from the rest of us. For not wanting to make a big deal out of it, she made out pretty good. It’s nice to see her happy like that.

And, as I’m sure you know, today is also the anniversary of the WTC. I can remember exactly where I was that morning – in bed, battling pneumonia, almost on the verge of needing to go into the hospital. That was a bad time health wise. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been 3 years already.

I Managed to Miss It…

I didn’t get the opportunity to snap the shots of the result of hurricane Howard as I’d wanted. The weekend turned out to be very filled with stuff to get done around the house. Saturday afternoon was full of running around with Kyle to various places to either get parts for his broken down bike, or look at parts for the go-cart we’re building. Then for the “get parts” part, we had to rebuild the whole coaster assembly for the rear wheel. It’s been a long time since I had to do that, so it turned into “trial & error” thing, with lots of error.

Sunday, we headed south to Doheny state beach to get together with Pam’s parents. We like to go there with the tent trailer and hang out for the day to do nothing. It would have been that way if I hadn’t had to drop everything to head down to San Clemente to pick up Kyle & his friends to take them home after they were involved in a minor car wreck. He and 3 other buddies made a run to Trestles for a session and they were on their way home when they got into an accident getting back on the freeway. Fortunately none of them were hurt seriously, only bumps & scratches. I had to hightail it there (since I was the closest), run them all back home to HB and then head back to Doheny where the family was still waiting for me to barbecue. That was two hours of fun.

With all that excitement, yesterday was spent doing very little except hanging around the house, watching CSI episodes and doing a few yard chores. I just didn’t have the motivation to ride down to the beach since it was so bloody hot. That’s why I missed the big surf event. It’s okay though. September & October usually prove to be pretty active hurricane wise for the East Pacific, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty more chances.

No Waves, a Buckled Tail and 6th Place

Ah. Golden West at PCH, 6:00 a.m. Nobody else around. We were the first to show up for the contest. There’s something about being at the beach just before the sun comes up. I’m not much of a morning person, but get me out to the water early and it charges me for the rest of the day.

The anticipated swell didn’t show as I’d hoped it would. A few lines were rolling through every now and again, but they were very inconsistent and unpredictable. For the most part it was 1′ shore break. Bummer. The hot topic of conversation among the surf parents was whether the swell would hit, when it would hit, and how big it would be. The local paper is calling for 8′ – 12′. Surfline is saying it will only be 4′ – 6′ and some other forecast says 6′ – 8′. I’m going to say it will be in that latter range, mostly because the energy from the storm hasn’t had enough distance to organize into good pulses, even though the storm sat in our swell window for a decent amount of time.

Kyle didn’t do so well today. On his first wave, he managed to buckle the tail of his board. He wasn’t able to do too much with any wave he caught after that because maneuvering on a short board is all in the tail. Unfortunately, that left him with a 6th place in his heat (dead last) which meant no advancement. We were done for the day. Poor kid, he’s bummed about his board (as am I – that means we’ve gotta buy a new one), but once he blew off his frustration, he was cool. Mom & dad will pick up the cost for a new stick, and there will be more contests. He’s high enough in the point standing to have earned an invitation to the final event next month, so we’ll get ‘em next time. October is usually a good swell month for SoCal.

Big Wave Event Coming

I just took a look at the National Hurricane Prediction website for hurricane Howard, and found that he’s heading in our general direction. This should produce a good big wave event within the next few days as he moves smack into the middle of the SoCal swell window. It might also prove to be a good photo opportunity. I’ll be sure to try to take plenty of pictures if and when it does hit and post them here.

Hopefully the main pulse of the swell won’t arrive until after Saturday, since our middle son will be competing in a CCSA surf contest. Currently he’s in first place for the junior’s division, and we’d hate to see anything happen to him trying to defend it. He’s worked hard to get to this point, and deserves to take home a trophy at the invitational event in October. I’m hoping for a moderate swell for this contest, since the last three have only been in the 1′ – 3′ range. Kyle does much better in 4′ – 6′ conditions. I’ll be sure to post some photos from this Saturday’s contest too.