"A little UT-Georgia pre-game golf with these beauties."

So there I was, last evening, alongside much of these great United States tuning into the SEC powerhouse matchup betwixt Texas, the number one team, and Georgia, number five. 102,000 passionate boosters filled Darrel K. Royal stadium, there in Austin, most in burnt orange. The announcers Rece Davis and Kirk Herbstreit describing the scene while the camera panned the sidelines.

“Many celebrities here,” Davis intoned as it rested on big Texas booster Matthew McConaughey. “And there’s the surf guy,” as it rested on one Kelly Slater.

“Look at that,” I thought to myself, before immediately considering the plight of his freshly-ish born son.

But you certainly recall when the 11x world surfing champion and his longtime girlfriend, Kalani Miller, announced that they had welcomed a bundle of joy into this earthly plane. Slater, 56 and a becoming a father for the second time, sat down with Barton Lynch soon after the happy event and shared, “We got a little boy and my friends think we’re playing a game with him, because we haven’t said the name. Because we actually, we don’t actually don’t call him anything. We gave him a name for his birth certificate, but, as of now, we don’t have a name to call him. So, we’re kind of just, like, letting him figure out what his personality is.”

Well, ________ seems like he’s going to be ________ for the foreseeable future as Slater is truly on his “best life tour.” From Roman fancy watch boutiques to the green golf links of Scotland down to Austin, Texas and football and more golf with disgraced bicycle rider Lance Armstrong, the surf guy is making the rigorous schedule of the World Surf League Championship Tour look like a weekend getaway.

________ trying to “figure out what his personality is” all alone.

If the boy happens to be included in the aforementioned best life tour, Airline Status Slater might be a fine name. If he is not, Emotionally Scarred Slater could work.

Do you have any thoughts?

Trigger warning.

It is not secret that our favorite pastime, this grand Sport of Kings, becomes regularly co-opted and used to describe something not even remotely related to wave sliding. “Surfing the web,” for example, which involves sitting indoors and typing URLs into a computer browser or “crowd surfing” which involves people being passed around a room via other people’s hands.

There is couch surfing, channel surfing, particle surfing and stand-up paddleboard surfing, just to name but a very few, though the most disturbing appropriation has just dropped.

Surfing the wave of heat pumps.

Heat pump water heater aficionado Joe Wachunas writing for CleanTechnica, the “the world’s #1 source for cleantech news and analysis” dropped the pastiche as part of his heat pump water heater tour across America. Currently visiting US Water Heating Solutions in Arlington, Illinois, the pixie-like thirty-something declared:

US Water Heating Solutions sees the opportunity inherent in the heat pump market disruption that is upon us. Heat pumps are growing rapidly for both space heating (substantially out pacing gas furnaces over the last five years) and water heating (increasing sales by 35% in 2023 alone). When I visited their headquarters, CEO Jim Eggert told me how his company views heat pump water heaters as an “innovative, technologically advanced product line” and wants to “grab a surfboard, jump in and catch this (heat pump) wave.” They see heat pumps as the way of the future and are excited by the business opportunity of specializing in this equipment early.

Oh.

I suppose the coinage is Jim Eggert’s fault not Joe Wachunas’.

Sorry, Joe, for calling you pixie-like.

The ghost of Zoltan Torkos is haunting.

The surf world has entered a new phase of unrest after many years of relative calm. Two days ago, Shane’s boy Noah Beschen, I think Mason Ho and likely others traveled deep to the heart of Texas in order to participate in what I hear was a Swatch Nines event. All seemed fine and well until, that is, a large piece of plywood with coping was lowered just above the surface of the waters allowing the aforementioned to slide it as if they were at a skate park.

 

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Wild polarization immediately taking hold and nearing dreaded Zoltan Torkos levels.

But you certainly recall almost fifteen years ago when the Santa Cruz magician decided to answer Volcom’s siren call and kickflip a surfboard?

Yikes.

There were those who claimed it the very peak of progression and then those who claimed it was a heretical. Surf and skate so close yet so far. Those, like Chris Cote who loves the marriage, and those, like probably Maurice Cole, who don’t.

Major infighting.

David Lee Scales and I discussed today, anyhow, but found enough time to consider the musical importance of Die Antwoord and how ice in urinals might just be peak fancy. You would be doing yourself a disservice in not listening.

Don’t be a little whiny baby.