Chris Furminger got one big ride at The Palmwood and passed this info on to me via the telephone.

Glad the procedure went well Magilla. Now get your arse in the water!
Ryan

The doctors call it enucleation when they remove an eye. So there I am in the same pre op room with a crying seven year old girl a who was about to have her eye removed because of the same disease that I have. I had the luck to have had that eye for over 55 years and I was happy for having it that long. God bless that young girl. On Thursday I went under fast and woke up groggy and confused and didn't know where the hell I was or what was going on. My good wife stayed by my side through the whole ordeal and put up with a lot of my guff.

The night before the operation my wife and I strolled all over historic Philadelphia and ended up in a Borders book store across the street from the giant City Hall that resembles a Medici palace. We saw two copies of "Surfing's Greatest Misadventures" in the book store there and that made my day. It was also cool to see the Reynolds statue in front of the city hall. I remembered that during the battle of Gettysburg that the cannon fire could be heard in Philadelphia. General Reynolds got shot and killed by a Confederate sniper on the first day of the battle at Missionary Hill.


The Magilla Schedule:


No strenuous exercise this week.

Immediate further testing.

Back to knee rehab next week.

4-5 weeks to prothesis eye.

I have to get poly carbon glasses and goggles that are virtually bullet proof. I need to develope a goggle head harness to keep my goggles from getting washed off my head in a wipe out situation.

Man I haven't ridden since July and can't get my head wet. I have a white bandage over half of my face. I have become a freaky curiosity.

This is new territory to me but I packed up my troubles in an old kit bag and keep smiling, smiling, smiling. Right now I wish there was a Cockney, piano player tinkling the keys to that song on the piano, in a pub corner, while I was sipping an ESB or Guinness with buds after a surf. The Palmwood would work with a Labatts too. Who surfed today?

Hey Magilla,
Clouds were racing SW to NE ahead of this coldfront last night. Really cool to see the clouds zipping by the moon some 2000-5000ft up, where the winds were supposedly sustained at 60-90mph. Had a glass of wine and savored the last of the warm air; it was nearly 70F around 8pm, just ahead of the front.

The offshores were surprisingly calm this am. I scored really clean chest to some shoulder high rights coming off a SSW swell that wraps into the coast, resulting in rights that tend to bend from the refraction I guess. It's always good here when you get SSW winds, say from 200-220 degrees, and then offshore winds. The swell got knocked down throughout the morning, but it was good early with some size. Had my camera, but the battery drained out, oh well.

Would have like to see Furminger on that Palmwood bomb. I bet there was some size up there today. Cool article about the seiche you linked on here. One of these days/years I'll have to shoot up to experience surfing the Niagara River. That must be a rush.

Yahh Ryan it dropped ten degrees around Scranton on Friday when we left Philly. It dropped another ten degrees around Syracuse and by evening we were in the low fourties. The gusting winds around sixty miles an hour at the Buffalo airport made it seam much cooler.

Furminger is riding in a six year old six mil and he sure felt cold on Saturday at The Palmwood. That neoprene goes through a chemical change by year two or three and isn't as warm as it was when it was fresh. Chris said he felt very cold. He knows that he needs a new wettie.

It would be cool to ride the Niagara River. The conditions have to be like they were this weekend and require a team effort. If we don't do it maybe somebody else will do it or it will never get ridden. I've seen that fickle wave and it says get on your longboard one eyed Jack and ride me. The wave reminds me of a tidal bore wave. The other thing is it flows over some places in 1812 where cannon balls were spashing and a British brig was torched in a midnight raid. The wave has piratism lore in it.


Man we are in Winter here without the snow yet on the West Side. This a.m. I was cleaning up more branches in the yard that were broken during Arbor-Gedden. The gale winds knocked some of them down.

Right now Jersey temperatures sound exotic. The water in the Lake of the Cat is still in the low fourties. We shall see if these cold temps bring ice. I hope not before I can surf. This is supposed to be a mild El Nino and maybe the jet stream will go north again and allow more warm Gulf air to warm the lakes a while longer.

I can't drink yet. I am pill bound still. It's still bothering me. Last night Christine and I went out for coffee and dessert and I put a Wyldewood Surf Club sticker over the face bandage. White isn't cool enough. People are looking so I might as well have some fun and give props to the local Great Lakes surfing heritage.

In Philly I was looking at Wakshall's Surfing Dictionary. I disagree with what he wrote about where the first surf club started in the Great Lakes. In my opinion we were all surfing at the same time in our bands and some of us had names for our clubs and some didn't but we all riding throughout the early sixties in all the lakes. It's like this. What grom in their teens is keeping track of time and documenting with photographs the waves when there are ridable waves? I know that all I thought about when there were wave opportunities was taking full advantage of them and riding till the waves died or I wore myself out. The same deal was worked by my buddies.

Relish the sweetness of this life. The waves are the topping on the cake of life.