Three periods and six hours later, I was all lectured out. Talking that much will cook your brain- even if you do break it up with activities, jokes and weird life-stories that don't have much to do with the subject at hand. On the bright side, I did receive an email from Kelly over at Emerald City. Evidently, there was a giant cardboard box there waiting for me- it could only be one thing! My Hooked SUP demo board must have arrived from Seattle- yeah! Alex Aguera told me it was coming but I just could not believe how fast it got to me- those guys have got the shipping game WIRED!
A quick bike ride home and I was ready to zip up to Emerald City when my cell phone rang. Wait, what? We've got a lesson set for 3pm? Wait a minute- let me check my calender... no way! How could I have blown it like that- I've got you for 3:30pm on Monday. You're Sherri? Oh no, I've got two Sherris booked- I must have forgotten to put you down onto the calender when I saw the other Sherri- can you give me fifteen minutes? I was horrified.... I never blow it like that! I'm the guy who's NEVER late... gimme a sword to fall on- how embarrassing.
Photo: My students, practicing the finer points of splashing each other- can you see how disappointed they are with me?
I had totally blown it and forgotten to log the day's lesson appointment onto my calender. What was going to be a super relaxing cruise up to the surf shop now turned into a mad scramble. I had to load three boards and paddles, bungee them down and get to the lesson beach all in fifteen minutes. Man, you've never seen these little legs move so fast!
Luckily, Sherri and Scott were awesome- obviously too happy, excited and fired up to paddle to let my tardiness ruin their day. And- these guys were naturals. Both hopped right up and started cruising around- a couple pointers about their strokes (end at the heels, crunch through the power phase) and we were off and cruising. The lesson turned out to be a winner and, once again, I am reminded about how cool stand up paddling people are in general. Thanks guys for being so positive! And, yes, I did come right home and carefully go through my whole calender to make sure I wouldn't make that kind of inexcusable mistake again.
But the fun didn't end there. As fast as I could, I stuffed all the boards into the back of the truck, pointed it north and hauled it up the highway to Emerald City. I really wanted to get that board and take a look at it. Shoot- I was itching to paddle the thing! I got to E.C. and found the board just where Kelly said it would be- now I just had to get that thing to my truck. I gave the carton a test-lift.... hmmm, this thing's not that heavy afterall. So I did what I do best and went full caveman-style. No finesse just brute force. Basically I just heaved the thing over my shoulder and trucked it right down the middle of the busy Orange Ave. sidewalk all the way to my truck.
Photo: My brief case is the eight foot bed of my four wheel drive truck... stuffed full of paddle gear.
As I was loading the carton into the back of my truck and stacking the stand up boards on top of it, I had a chance to reflect on what the last nine hours had held for me: Chemistry Lectures, beach cruisers, new boards, new friends, a mile and half stand up paddle in beautiful flat water and a whole lot of lifting, strapping and loading. All under a killer, blue, California summer sky. Man, what an awesome, crazy life I have- can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring (especially since it's my "surf day").
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