john w jwebs@tiac.net
Subject: personal bio: John w.
I was born in a really kooky place, Concord, Mass., about 30 miles from the closest ocean wave. I spent the first two decades of my life oblivious to the joys of wave-riding, even though my family spent a lot of time on Martha's Vinyard and Bailey Island, Maine. Up here, it was the extremely rare person that got hooked on surfing, at least back then. In fact, in all my years at beaches growing up in Mass. and Maine, I very rarely even saw a surfer. Maybe I was at the wrong beaches. I sailed and swam a lot, but there my water-activity ended. In my defense, I did put a lot of time in on a variety of skateboards, however.

After graduating from college in an even kookier place, Ohio, I took my English degree to San Francisco. Good thing, since it was there that my wave-riding life began. (It's also where I fully converted from skiing to snowboarding.) I happened to move in with a surfer from yet another kooky place, Wisconsin. He became my best friend out there, and he taught me to surf on an Aitken, a blue marble-patterned tri-fin pop-out board, 7.4, shaped like a hybrid/funboard. The thing was ugly as hell, but it was a great learning board, both stable and floaty. I would tool around on that a lot at Ocean Beach, especially since I was only gainfully employed about half the six years that I was out there. The Aitken being hollow plastic, and this being Ocean Beach, I got more than my share of duckdiving practice out there. Oh, I rode a few waves on the Aitken, too.

Professionally I split my time between a reporter position at MacWEEK, the trade weekly, and as a freelance journalist for a bunch of computer publications. During that time, I also put in about 8 months in Manhattan, living near Union Square and working in SoHo, another writing/editing position with a computer mag. I surfed at Fire Island a few times on an egg-shaped old beater, about 6^“10^‘, that I bought from a friend before leaving SF.

After I returned to SF, the Aitken was stolen (long story), and I borrowed boards from two friends, both of whom had very full quivers. These ranged from a 6^“1^‘ Rusty to a 7^“3^‘ Spyder, with a few others in between. It was on these boards that I got the hang of dropping in, making a bottom turn, and shooting down the line. I had unlimited access to these boards, and didn^“t have a need to actually purchase a new board until I moved back here in 1996, after working in Vermont for one winter and snowboarding every day during that epic winter.

Upon leaving Vermont, I house-sat for a friend who^“s going to Brown Medical School in Providence, RI. This was my introduction to the killer spots around Pt. Judith, RI. That summer, I pretty much lived at Narragansett Town Beach, all around the lighthouse, and Matunuck, surfing on a 6^“8^‘ Xanadu that I bought at the Watershed for $265. Apparently some guy had bought it for Costa Rica, but after three days on it, decided he wanted a bigger board, so I snatched it up, still in great shape.

After landing another writing/editing job in Boston that fall, I suffered a brutal knee injury from a mountain biking accident in October, and I sat out most of the ^—96/^“97 winter without surfing or snowboarding again until March. Finding it hard to get back in the groove on the narrow Xanadu after such a long injury, I figured it was time to pick up a nice longboard. Afterall I was living in New England again. Fellow kOOk John Kim wanted to sell his 9^“ Becker Pro Model Series 6.2 so he could buy a mini-gun for all the hurricane waves we^“d be in for come fall (hah! this was 1997!). I enjoyed a great summer and fall on the Becker, which with its tri-fin setup, beveled rails, single- to double-concave, and feather-weigthedness, served me well in everything from knee-high to just overhead waves. I barely touched the Xanadu, though I^“m sure I^“ll dust it off again soon. I have a deposit down on a 7^“6^‘ WRV, but I haven^“t picked it up yet.

I^“m at the point now where barely a day goes by, literally, that I don^“t surf, skate, or snowboard. In fact, think I stand sideways more than I do facing forward now!

-john