jr conlin's ink stained banana

There's a video out on the intertubes you've probably seen. In fact, if you haven't here it is:

That's footage of the 60' swells they get in January on the north shore of Maui. Some call it "Jaws" others call it Peahi (po'nounced peh-a-hee dere yoo hauli). This is the big surf, where you're riding just in front of the liquid equivalent of a fully loaded, 60mph cement truck with no breaks.

Well, that is unless you screw up.

Then you break a lot of things.

Still, talk to anyone who's survived that and they'll tell you that they want to go back in.

Oddly, that's kinda what the new job has been like. My position is to work on the back end stuff and somehow foster the illusion that it's all not as broken as it actually is. i've got a long sheet of paper that lists all the various bugs and issues that desperately need to be fixed yesterday, but there's tons of stuff that also needs to be done. Every day, i paddle out and stay one inch ahead of the several hundred tons of high speed water.

The cool thing is that when i do screw up, the folks i work with are fairly cool about it. Still, when i get home, i'm pretty beat. There's so much i'd love to screw around with and poke at, but i can't get myself in the mindset to do it.

Thing is, i know that i'll eventually get past all this. i'll get things under control and eventually do this job practically in my sleep. That's how i've gotten with everything i've done. That's when i'll get back to doing weird crap folks don't expect and building stuff just because it's fun.

But right now? i'm trying to stay out of that deafening whitewash roaring behind me.

All the time laughing and having one hell of a ride.