what more surfing >> design has not been forgotten

I feel a bit bad/lazy having two posts in a row with a video from youtube in them.
gabes sent me the link and it made me feel so happy I had to share it.
it has such a great feel about it really makes me remember just how many great days at the beach I have had with hopefully many more to come.
even the song is written by: (b. gallagher/g. lyle), who funnily enough I went to see at the brighton dome in 1976, with due reverence to davidthedesigner's post today with the fabulous stevie wonder youtube clip, giving me an idea.
granted gallagher & lyle live was not the best concert I have ever been to but the surf film is so good and the music fits it.



strange then at the same time I was in deep consideration about some of the interesting thoughts muted by digital nomad & others got side tracked in to looking at fusionview however both blogs are well worthy of a look.

I am the one who introduced the 'innovation equation' you know (insight/ideas/impact) in to the conversation but I do like the idea that information + experience = knowledge taken directly from soho-quest friday the 13th post.

perhaps I should watch the donavon frankenreiter (green board-shorts) & rob machado (multi coloured board-shorts) surf clip again? yes, do you I think I will.

another short blog

not feeling too great tonight, I spent the most of the day not doing much except worrying about gabes.
poor guy he had a very long journey from here in cornwall to brighton today.
and after two coach accidents and 18 phone calls between the two of us, he is fine and safely back so that's good.

I will have to wait for another day to be inspired.

gabes >> coffee >>

I have only turned my computer on once today and that was to do this no work for a whole day!
the images I have put in the is post today are not random, but considered.
gabes goes back to brighton in the morning, hope you have had a good week (enjoy the surf dvd) and the steaming coffee well I like it. no links today and yes it took less 5 minutes to do this.

ollie >> skating video

this is ollie smith from brighton.



I have known ollie since he was born, now he is a good friend of my sons, luca & gabriel.
a long, long time ago I used to skate the same streets both in brighton and london. I was born in brighton and lived there before eventually (via hampshire, london, even france for a bit) chose to live in cornwall. as an old has-been I still skate (rarely) but never as good as this.
when I did skate a lot (in the70's & 80's) with people like melvin (before ollie was even born!) it was on days when there was no surf and so we did nothing like this no doubt some old school skaters will disagree.

I added it simply because I think it's such a good video made by people with a passion.

family eating out >> pizza express, starbucks

today we were in our city again, first to starbucks then after a good look around the shops and the new mall! rather too long in waterstones looking at books is so unbelievably absorbing. as me, carol, gabes (13) and ben (8) were all totally engrossed in books for ages. all we bought was a dr who book (ben) and a small model of stonehenge (don't ask).
we decided to go to eat, now I have probably as much trouble finding somewhere to eat as the fussiest child. I don't eat any meat or cheese but I have started to eat fish in the last few years, so starbucks is fine for a coffee and a snack.
I have always liked italian food and much as english style pizza especially at pizza express is not really italian in the true sense well it is close, much like starbucks isn't only a little coffee shop I am prepared to buy into the world of a corporate money making image. if it tastes ok, does not harm any one, does at least something positive (fair trade coffee, for example) and is designed well.

pizza express is somewhere I can remember going to as a child, it has been around since the mid sixties I know that italian interior designer enzo apicella designed a lot if not all of their restaurants and the corporate identity / logo. I was looking at their logo today while enjoying the meal all with the rest of us and I am sure that is has changed over the years, I have no basis for this just I think it looks different than it did in the 70's. does anyone know if I am right?
any way thats all except to say the idea of having a children's menu at last is nice especially bambinoccino a bit corny but ben liked it.

surf-time >> even if there is no surf

strange how having some-one around who is keen to find out about something that you are obsessed with. gabriel my 13 year old son is staying with us for the school easter break and he has started to become interested in surfing not through any major influence form me I have purposely kept away from pushing any of my children in any particular direction. (though obviously if I go on about stuff enough things rub off, gabes also has a rather nice mechanical pencil).
He has spent the last day and a bit asking question after question about when I started surfing and what I did when I was in Spain or France and how big was the biggest wave I have ever surfed, to be honest I love it but I have also got to get the surf article written for the new magazine only got about 700 words I need a minimum of 2000, they are hoping for more.

I relented and did something I prefer not to do with my children (sticking them in front of the TV). I put on some surfing videos from the era of surfing that I grew up with so that I could get on with writing but I ended up watching the films with gabes, and I spent most of the time talking through them he didn't seem to mind.
so I haven't done anything except spent some really good time with him watching 'old school' surfing videos. that isn't a bad way to spend and evening.

I love the way the surfing film became influential as far as lighting, colour and concept, being outdoors, often not telling a story, even creating such quality/inventiveness from pretty much always limited funds.
the surf movie was not often under funded because there wasn't the corporate sponsorship seen so often on the 00's. films were often made by surf obsessed hobbyists, and even some successful surfers would pay for a film to be made with the winnings of a surf contest, including them of course.
the visual impact of the all films we watched tonight was incredible considering they were made more than 35 years ago! it was really nice to see surf films without product placement and sponsors logo stuck all over the place. two stand out as classics crystal voyager and the morning of the earth I fully understand they are not to every ones taste but if you are involved in surfing they are must.

shame really I would have liked to gone surfing tomorrow but the ocean has already decided for us as currently cornwall is not getting any surf and is unlikely to get any before the weekend, but hey that is the way of surfing and part of its attraction. not like football were you all arrange to meet at a certain time and have a game, surfing has its own unique way you surf when the ocean says, I like that, I really like that.

sunshine >> good to see gabes >> a bit like summer

it felt like summer today as we drove across cornwall on a trip to sort out some quite important stuff, we were running late as I had all off a sudden started working on the surfing article this morning (has to be done by the 5th) and carol was waiting for the post.
then over to dhl in north cornwall to pick up a new body glove wetsuit courtesy of surfgirl magazine for carol.
then back down to the city (in devon) for me to sort out my broadband account with orange and pick up a new phone. sorry people but its a blackberry I know probably more than half the people reading this will be waiting for the i-phone (from apple) to reach the uk, but I have to think about the service I use and what I need.
in cornwall if I want to get information from the beach by email I need a phone that I can do that with. I know that blackberry work predominantly with a windows user in mind and the rim technologies are again set to work with microsoft. I got the 8100 so a small phone, and to my eyes at least a nice looking phone, be interesting to see if it is any good?


the indulgence of the day was another visit to mcdonalds for the second time this year, it was my son ben (8) who wanted to go. I was surprised that they accommodated my strange dietary needs, I am vegetarian and don't eat cheese anymore, as you can see from the picture it looks a little odd but it tasted fine, I just can't help fueling the all these american monsters.

then towards evening we went to met gabes another of my sons from his coach journey. he had been on a coach since 9 in the morning and had pretty much seen the whole of the south coast of the uk on route to cornwall. all things considered it was a successful day. that's better much better.

today went to fast >> sunshine and thoughts of summer

today went too quickly I only had a short time it seemed until I was eating lunch with maria and jules. I couldn't resist taking this picture. It was of part of my lunch, it looked so good in the spring sunshine. after that the day simply flew past.
we had sunshine pretty much all day today. just spoken to gabes he was full of the joys of a spring day he had got down to the beach even had a skate as well. specially for him I thought I would add this publicity picture for the 60's film endless summer a surfing classic. it says a lot about how things have changed but even gabes at nearly 14 can relate to parts of the surfing lifestyle or his perception of the that lifestyle, any way it is a great picture.

whilst on a nostalgic theme I have to include a picture of a man that I hold in particular high esteem, george greenough (pictured here in about '73) who was and still is a phenomenal surfer and photographer and if that wasn't enough a very creative designer as well. surf boards, it was george who really brought kneeboarding to the notice of other surfers and non-surfers in the late 60's early 70's.
he is responsible for designing the 'spoon' the board he is holding in the picture. as well as camera housing equipment, and inspired many through his use of film images set to music. echos (pink floyd) at the end of the classic surf film crystal voyager being his most famous film. It is amazing how different a day can be just because it is bright and sunny, I was busy all day but don't really feel I produce much of the things I wanted to do.

I did finally get my podcast to work check it at dgthekneelo.podbean by going round in circles but eventually sorting it out. then after that davidthedesigner left me a very welcome message telling me about some audio software audacity (I had not heard of) I also downloaded an extra patch in addition to audacity enabling me to export to mp3 LAME no excuses now.
already I have had a play with and it seems it is an answer to making the audio podcast bursts I have been trying to create for the past couple of weeks, at what is good is that it is free! thanks for the tip davidthedesigner.

any way must get on I have too many projects on the go at the moment and to really need get back in to the design for 'the hub'.

lazy day >> papers and non-achievement

hardly done anything today, a long (well sort of long) look / read of the newspaper this morning and watched the rugby this afternoon.
so many ideas that I have been thinking of don't as far as design stuff and software stuff have been moved aside by other stuff but they are still in there.
had a nice chat with gabriel today "go with what you will be interested in for two years and remember there will be many boring bits!"

I will have to make some time to get the work stuff done tomorrow.

I have played around with the Firefox browser a bit downloaded/updated some of the new add ons. I like it, really useful stuff (it's cross platform so works as well on Linux, Mac and Windows) oh dear! I am even beginning to a bit too geeky even for me. must remember that it is the design and usability that is important. I will just have to think 'cow gum', to make me get things back it to perspective!