The US Sailing Windsurfing Instructor Certification is a curriculum designed by US Sailing to teach windsurfers how to teach windsurfing. The 4 day course covered everything from windsurfing theory, physics, safety, weather, sports physiology, rig design, communication techniques, coaching fundamentals, and demonstration skills. After all this input we are then evaluated on all of the above as ‘mock teacher simuations’ along with swimming, windsurfing, and rescue skills test.

It was a lot to fit in in 4 days. But Tinho, our Instructor Trainer helped us through. Tinho hails from Merritt Island, Florida. He’s got a windsurfing history of nearly 30 years and he’s definitely earned the title ‘guru’ as used by the many windsurfing publications he is in and has been in. Along with design patents used on much of the windsurfing equipment I use today, he owns and runs his school, Calema, which in itself is a site to behold. At his location he can teach 30 students, in 3 hours what we teach here in Alameda, in 2 days of 3 hour instruction with 6 students. The man and his school is a machine! My fellow classmates and I were starstruck during the duration of the course.

Being starstruck though did not make me whine any less. I was exhausted every single day of the course. From Thursday to Sunday I was up at 7, at the beach at 9, freezing to death through lectures until lunch, tripping through simulator demonstrations, and resuming freezing mode while performing swimming tests and balance techniques in the water, to finish up and finally be at home around 8pm, cram that days reading fast enough before I fall asleep only to wake up the next day to do it all over again. The thing that surprised me the most was not only my lack of energy through the course but my immature attitude of ‘damn it, I want to go out, this is cramping my social life’. Oh poor little ol’ me, couldn’t go out for four days. That’s embarrassing to admit, but eh, it happened.

The course taught me immeasurable amounts of windsurfing knowledge. I soaked up like a sponge, total brain food. It was great to learn the theory behind what I love, why mast positioning is important, what a ‘kicker’ is, what the rounding of the nose of a board is called (the rocker), and learning new stances that improved my old maneuvers one-hundred fold. I am still a new and young enough windsurfer that teaching me new ways of doing things won’t throw me off as much as my older classmates. There were a few arguments, trying to convince Tinho that something doesn’t make since, but Tinho didn’t budge and eventually the ‘older ones’ were convinced.

After repeated stressing and being calmed down by fellow students in the course, I had no reason to be worried. I passed with flying colors, we all passed. My teaching presentation was great, Tinho loved my voice (I’m very loud and clear), even used me as an example to the other students, and only suggested that I work on my tacks and tuning up my stance on my back leg. I was undecided about going out for a victory windsurfing session, but in the end I decided to head home and rest up, as to not take out my exhaustion on my boss the next day.

What to do from here? Now that I’m certified I can go teach anywhere I’d like. I can even start up my own school if I so choose. I would definitely like to travel a bit and teach in Baja, Hawaii, Brazil, or even on the East Coast. But until then I’m going to take all this in, and let it soak and settle. The whole experience was incredibly rewarding, and I can’t wait to put it to use.

For once I am worried about the future, I use to always be positive, that things would be generally a-okay. But now I’m having to change habits to compensate the hit my wallet is taking because of the oil prices. I drive slower, I never go above 65mph and that helps me add another 30 to 40 miles to my tank. A few points in time I’ve even refused to go out and socialize because I didn’t want to use gas.

I keep asking myself, ‘What is the government going to do? How much are we going to stand for this? Are these steep prices the works of oil companies and their money hogging? Are we really running that low on oil? Would releasing the reserve stock of oil help? Or how about off shore drilling?’

The last question scares me the most, because at this point in time, I say go for it, drill where ever in the hell you need to, we need the oil and we need the prices to go down. But would they go down? Why am I for environmental destruction just for my own personal gain? I can’t help it, I’m selfish, and entirely way too attached to my car. But I refuse to be force to stay put because I can’t afford the gas. I stayed stranded for so long without my car that I’m happy to foot out the $800+ in total expenses for my car, for that freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a complete environmental evil-doer. I rarely use my A/C, I keep my car maintained, I recycle, I carpool when I can, and I’m investing in a bike soon to take care of local errands. So to say ‘yes go drill in the oceans, tap into that bank of oil that might be in Alaska’, is quite hypocritical to the previous statements, but with freedom comes sacrifices.

I’ve tried another approach to offset the price of oil, by earning more money. If I can increase my cash flow, it will compensate for the extra that I’d have to put in on my normal income. But to get more income requires more time. Another sacrifice. One of my own.

I heard a story on NPR today, that Chinese officials release gas subsidies to offset the price of gas. But instead of a decrease in price, it went up. That in turn caused barrels of oil to go down. Why did they go down? Because if there is an increase in price of China’s oil, less people will buy it, making more oil available to other countries. That story left me with a sour taste in my mouth and horrible thoughts. If China has that kind of influence on the economy (don’t get me started on the stories of China’s recent increase in corn and beef consumption and how its hitting the economy), why not let China have any oil at all? Or how about we keep their prices high? I don’t want to have these negative thoughts.

Sigh.

So is oil the price I have to pay for freedom? I’d gladly pay it, and do what needs to be done, and yes selfishly find a way where it doesn’t affect me so much. Freedom doesn’t come free, right?

Dear Bic Techno 160,

“Have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you there’s no one else above you
Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do”

You are a wonderful board, and I don’t get to take you out often enough as I’d like. You do make it a tad diffcult, you only let me play with you when I’m at Coyote Point in San Mateo. How about we reach a compromise, eh? Isn’t that what relationships are about?

What? What’s that you say?! You’re going to be a bridge snob and not come over to Alameda?!

FINE!!! I see how it is! I’ll just take out the lovely Kailua 160, Twin Fin. Yeah, how about that? Hmm? It comes with better foot straps than you anyway!

Kailua 160, by Oz

So much more cushier too. Easy to plane, easy to slide into the foot straps. Look at those blue curves, oh man, and that finger hold! OH THE FINGER HOLD!! What a delight to take down to the beach and rig.

Oh but my lovely Techno, you’re so responsive, its like you can read my mind. When we went out on the 6.3 Dawg; 10-13mph winds on Monday, it was like the windsurfing gods had smiled down upon us and filled up our sail and let us bounced along the waves into the glowing sunset.

We will make this work dearest Techno. “Ease my troubles, that’s what you do”

Dear new-favorite-band Justi*fi,

You know just the trick! You turned my frown upside down, you got my feet movin, and made my deodorant work for its money! Where in the hell did y’all come from and why did it take me so long to discover you guys?! What is it going to take for me to convince y’all to play some more?!

Your next day performance in Livermore was just as off the hook as the previous night’s. You all did the trick and your CD is now in my car on repeat. LOVE IT!

Keep rockin’ and I’ll keep my feet movin!

-Oz

Dear Ra Ra Riot,

You dears, my lively, stage jumping, rock inducing hotties sure now how to put on a show! Maybe its my weak spot for strings in a band, or maybe it was the violinist cutie that was jamming it right in front of me, but hell I loved your Cafe du Nord show on the 14th last week.

Can I make a nice suggestion though? Keep your merch table manned at all times. I tried to sneak out early to avoid the rush at the merch table, but noone was there to take my money. So I had to leave the venue sad faced and empty handed. Other than that, I do plan to pick up your CD which I know will do no harm to my ears.

Looking forward to seein’ you all again!

Loves and kisses

-Oz

Dear Port O’Brien,

You rock. I love your new single “I Woke Up Today”, its great, choral-like, harmonizing here and there, that single alone makes your quintet of a band sound like huge 30 piece ensemble. Though I have to say, the rest of your album take some getting use to, especially since all the rest of the songs sound the same, and nothing like your amazing single.

None the less, I’m still open minded. Your free show at Rasputins last week was cute and full of authentic effort. Pots and pans to bring in audience participation?! Always A+ in my book. Keep up the good work and one day your CD will end up my car stereo.

Loves and kisses

-Oz

Wowee, what a whirlwind of concerts! 5 in 4 days! I started off with Ra Ra Riot w/The Little Ones at Cafe du Nord on Wednesday, a free concert by Port O’Brien at Rasputins in Berkeley on Thursday, a grand finale at Blake’s in Berkeley with Monkey, Coup de Ska, Chris Murray Combo and Justifi but not before heading up to Sacramento to catch Middle Class Rut again, ending with an encore outing in Livermore to catch Justifi again with the Suppressors.

And it doesn’t stop! I got 4 lined up for the end of this week, Mates of State, Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s, Monkey, and Here Here tonight.

I have to say there is NOTHING better than going to concerts and being surrounded by music. Ask any of my friends, I’ll hit up any concert, even if I don’t know who is playing. Being that close to something that I love so dearly is the best kind of therapy I can get.

I’m still deflating from all those shows, but I’ll post a play by play recap soon.

The person that was responsible for the photo snatching was the band manager, who then put the video together. They then tried to tell me that they grabbed the pictures off of Myspace (which I totally forgot about, I thought they had picked it from my flickr), and hence making any copyright null. Meaning anything on Myspace is free game. At the time I read that message, it made odd sense to me. I mean come on, Myspace is a breeding ground of ‘ick’, and anything goes in Myspace, its all fair game. So, I conceded and told her to go ahead with the video that my picture was found in.

But boy was I wrong. After sharing this story with a friend, he informed me that just because things are on Myspace that doesn’t mean its fair game. And he was correct. I was a dumb fuck and totally ignored the terms of service. So I decided to check it out.

9. Protecting Copyrights and Other Intellectual Property. MySpace respects the intellectual property of others, and requires that our users do the same. You may not upload, embed, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any material that infringes any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights of any person or entity. MySpace has the right to terminate the Membership of infringers.

Its right there, loud and clear. She also tried to bring up that the picture (a snapshot of the setlist) was of the bands intellectual property. This too, incorrect. The set list is in a public place and free to be photographed.

I’m still in the process of emailing the manager of the band and will clue her in soon. She might have been under the same assumption as me, that ‘Myspace is a free for all’. This whole thing has definitely been educating.

Bing bing “New Bulletin”

From: Bandnamehere
5/13/08

Hey guy’s check out this video our fan Joe put together!
Video starts, “Bandnamehere @ Bottom of the Hill”
Opens with a very familiar picture…..wait… thats my picture!

This totally threw me off guard. I doubled checked my CC rights on my picture, I put Attribution-No Derivatives on all the shots I took that night. So I’m not flying off the handle right? They can’t use my picture without giving me credit. So I prepared a message…but wait, who do I send it to? Who actually made the video. I know a fan recorded it, but did he put it together? I wasn’t sure so I messaged the band first.

After messages back and forth, it seemed that I have scared the band, and they opted to just take down the video to avoid any further conflict. I insisted that they leave it up and just take heed in the future as they grow in their music career. I know they are just a little local band, but that doesn’t mean they should get away with this, but at the same time I feel horrible just messaging them in the first place. Thats why I’m being a little lenient. And secretly because its a shitty pic.

But the quality of the picture should not determine how harsh I am on someone who violates a CC license. Grah. So, yeah this is frustrating and making me feel awkward.

Thankfully I’m not the only that has been in this situation and I’m also not the only one that feels this way.

I have yet to hear from the actual guy that made the video, but will post here when I do.

What would you have done?

Now I love all genre’s of music, and I’ll make fun of them all equally, so lemme say this. Skankers are funny. And in ska music, there is only one kind of dance…the ‘Hop and Kick’

Exhibit A:

Chicken Dance, by Oz

Anywho, despite the chicken dancin’ going on around me, it was a great show, and like my post title says, it was 1/2 a cold show, because I knew 2 out of the 4 acts playing that night. On the list we had:

Random Hand
Knock Out
Mustard Plug
Voodoo Glow Skulls

All very good acts, dance inducing even for myself. And I say its a sign of a good show if I still can’t hear out of my left ear the next day.

Last time I was given a free ticket was also to a ska show and I had made the mistake of wearing flip flops to that show. Word of advice, don’t ever go into a ska show with flip flops expecting to leave with a complete pair. I was lucky that time, stayed on the fringe of the mosh pit and left with both my shoes. *phew*

Last night though I decided, there can’t be such a thing as a bad ska show. To me ska music is just so much more lively, and energetic, sometimes happy that you can’t help but tap your toes or swing around a bit. What are signs of a good show to you?