Coronavirus - affected your surfing, shaping, surfboard making?

The world tour is cancelled, surfing is banned in some areas, businesses are shuttered, yikes!

I’m pretty sure I have it. But the good news, for me, is that I am 90% over it now.  Getting stronger every day, cough is gone, fever is gone, but the fatigue and the “tickle” down in the lungs lingers. They are not encouraging testing for those who are already recovering, and I self-quarantined, so whats the point. 

But that’s minor compared to what its done to my world.  Right now I don’t go surfing because I am trying to respect my state’s stay-at-home order, I ordered a blank and they called to say its ready, but the next day the governor ordered all non essential businesses in the state to shut down.

I went to buy groceries yesterday, and came home empty handed because I wasn’t prepared to stand in a long line just to get in.

So, how are you guys doing? Who’s got it, or knows someone who does? Can you surf right now? Are you able to work on your surfboards right now?

good to hear youre getting better. i too was sick like 3-4 weeks ago. same stuff, weird lung stuff, fever and so on.

over it now, but that tickle in the back of throat is weird. i dry cough once in awhile. its pollen season here in norway too though,so

might just be that. norways been on a kind of lockdown for some weeks already. went surfing last monday, its a 2 hour drive from my house. just me in the car, no pitstops both ways.

it was so worth it, offshore and headhigh peaks. we are not supposed to cross countys so i guess that will be the last surf for awhile. i dont

think they want people to be at risk, so not to add pressure on the hospitals. they got enough to deal with as it is.

hope to get some shaping done in the next few weeks. moving in to a new space. just waiting for the plastering (fire regulation) and the ventilation to be done and im good to go.

stay safe!

salud!

The Portland idiots all showed up here on the Coast this weekend like nothing was going on.  Traffic jams on the main hwys  over from the Valley Friday nite.  People over here were pissed.  They started calling on our goof ball  governor to shut everything down.  So by 2 PM Sunday they closed all beaches.  My over run berg was a ghost town by 4 PM.  They took the weather with them.  Rain today.  Doing ding repair to make a few $$ today.  Our “do nothing” Congress is doing nothing.  But nothing new about that.

Yeah there is no shortage of idiocy out there right now.

SHACC like all the other museums is closed for the duration so I am sheltering in place. 

Too much rain for me to surf ; Yesterday I pulled the clamps off a Paulownia blank I just finished gluing up so at least I’ll have something to work on…   

Be safe. 

I’ve gone into mountain man hermit mode.  Will allow me to do some bodyboard prototype work.  First successful prototype contour shape was created last week.

Being over 60, I’m not willing to risk a 3.6% mortality.  More importantly, lock down is not for most of our population but for the very old, immune compromised and severely ill.  It is about saving their lives.

We are rapidly approaching the point of no return, nationwide, for hospital overload.  Vanderbilt has set up an emergency CoVid19 unit in one of their parking garages.

U.S. went from 19.3K cases to 41.5K cases over the last 3 days.  At this rate, we beat China for the most cases on Thurs. 

If the number of CoVid19 cases continues to double every 3 days, total number of cases for the U.S. will reach 160,000 by Sunday 3/29/2020 and 640,000 by Saturday 4/4/2020.

With nationwide hospital overload on the immediate horizon, time to get very serious about social isolation folks!

Projected hospital overload dates by state:

https://covidactnow.org/

There you go.  “Good on ya” as our mates say.  Keep busy and occupy your mind as well.

I had to vacate my board building space in Oct. I had several month long dry spells due to the weather, lack of waves, and the annual circus that hits us every winter. It’s funny that I don’t mind being by myself at all, but with a house full of people, I’m getting cranky. The annual spring break swell hit this week, but I’m staying home. It will probably be a really good swell because every time I’m land locked the surf gets good.

I started to glue up a few “re-cycled foam blanks”, but I lost the drive to finish them. I think I should get back to making something, anything, just to keep my mind off of the virus pandemic.

Be smart, be safe, and think positive.

Here’s why I had to vacate my old workspace.

here in France no surf, no work, stay at home, take care of family. I have some work to do in my garden with material i store. I buy some eps bloc and resin 1 week before crisis and i have a roll of fiberglass so i can build boards i have to. So i one hand i am not sad but on other hand i am a little scared because of a chronic disease and immunosuppressive treatment i am one of the people at risk so i mustn’t be infected…

Stay safe Lemat.

One pain in the ass is the demand for respirator masks has driven up the price for sanding filter cartridges.  Last I checked, the price to replace sanding cartridges for my 3M respirator had doubled or tripled.  I only have one set at the moment that have been used some.  

The new backup 3M respirator I bought a year ago isn’t much good without filter cartridges.

A few weeks ago I wanted to order some more n95 dust masks as mine are dirty, and home depot was already sold out, but even then one was going for 25$ on Ebay. I decided I would vaccuum the ones I had, and wipe the areas that touch my face with rubbing alcohol and let them air out good.

Pre crisis, Home Depot would sell two with the ‘cool valve’ for under 8$ of their HDX brand, but then one was 25$ and home depot had none.  I did find one new unused one today in my workshop, just about the same time that the news channels were saying all construction and painting companies should donate them to the hospitals.

  I have  Nurse as a neighbor and will be donating it to her.  Her hospital only has a few cases but the hospital administration has already been forcing them to use one for multiple days back to back, which is asinine.

 

I’ve seen people wearing them in stores, the little aluminum is usually on their chins instead of bent to the shape of their noses.  None have been appreciated being told they are wearing it incorrectly, and  thus ineffectively.

 

These n95 masks with the ‘cool valve’, which allows exhalations to exit much easier and keep the mask drier, do not protect others from a sick person’s cough as well as one without the valve would.  I always wondered how quickly they actually close on inhalation.  These ‘cool valve’ ones are likely a poor choice, for this virus, but it beats a bandanna tied over one’s face.

 

I might cut out and foil a fin or two, but some non surfboard projects are higher on my list for this downtime.  Not looking forward to needing more groceries soon.  But perhaps the hoarders have no more room, and shelves will not be mostly  empty of my regular fixings.

 

Seems a lot of people are not doing any social isolating, or changing their ways and some even perhaps treating it like a vacation.  Everybody seems to be driving as if there are no more speed limits, and texting while driving is apparently no longer even frowned upon.   If we are depending on mass altruism to slow the spread/flatten the curve, I’ve witnessed few examples of it when out walking my dog or getting groceries, just a whole bunch of ‘me first!, always!’

 

Not doing my misanthopic tendencies any good, I’ve had a lot of practice self isolating long before this virus jumped from bat to human, then human to human 3.5ish months ago.

 

 

Australia is following the procedures … but initially many people were carrying on as normal , so the government give everyone a rev , to make them wake up . I believe this thing will be relatively short lived , as long as rules are obeyed and everyone keeps cool with it…a bit of short term pain , for long term gain will hurt no one . Life doesn’t stop , so many people will still have work to do , although many won’t . A good community spirit is gold in times like this…as they say , think globally and act locally…stay safe everyone.

I have heard that some beaches are being closed…same here in Aus , but I think that will effect sun bakers and crowds that want to spend a day at the beach…I don’t think surfers will be prevented from going surfing , and I don’t think going surfing is an activity that will help spread this virus .

It’s nice of you to want to donate your only new mask, but I think you should keep it and figure out how to re-use it.

One extra mask makes pratically no difference to the health system, but all the diffeence to you when you must go out to get supplies. It is entirely possible that masks will be mandatory to be allowed in the shop or even out on the street.

I keep my valve masks for fire fighting, (the valve makes a difference when physically working hard) and use the non-valve masks for virus protection. I figure in Australia, the masks will likely be sterilised quite effectively if left on the car’s dashboard when parked in the sun, even in Winter. A few days on the dashboard should do the trick. I might be wrong.

At least the aptly named Corona Open Gold Coast was cancelled! https://www.worldsurfleague.com/events/2020/mct/3234/corona-open-gold-coast-canceled

That is a big question to be answered. Sea water has a very similar salt content to human blood, so I doubt it would be sterilising the virus in a hurry.

Ideally I would want an antibody test that proves immunity (or at least previous exposure). It could be very neat to be lucky and have fully recovered from a mild infection when most others are still required to self-isolate. Could also be a curse.

Owner, operator, army of one business. My boss is an asshole. Makes me drink beer whilst working and listen to rock and roll. Is that weed I smell!!! makes me use the bestest tools in the business like the skull 100.  Total asshole

 


Ha ha!  Too funny.  Have you seen airfares on Hawaiian lately?

This is well worth a read for anyone in the recovery phase.

A lesson from the 1918 influenza pandemic

https://medium.com/@ra.hobday/coronavirus-and-the-sun-a-lesson-from-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-509151dc8065

“Also, our body’s biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist infections.[11] New research suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus.”

There are people who believe modern electronics are causing a lot of health problems. They say that the G5 cell phone infrastructure and other “dirty electronics” can damage human cells. I think they may have some merit and should be studied more.

The newer electronic devices create saw tooth waves versus smooth sine waves of the past. I think we used to call this harmonics and this can be destructive. Back in the 90s, this was becoming a big deal as more and more buildings were seeing issues with power quality as more and more computers were added, and that is when everyone jumped to uninterupted power supplies with clean sine wave outputs to help.

Some people are saying the current epidemic has correlation to where there is a heavy early adoption of new G5 cell phone infrastructure. They show that Hunan and Italy were quick to move to G5. Not sure how much of this is true, but I do believe we need to think about the “progress” we’ve made. Many things are done purely to reduce costs without thouroughly thinking about how it affects our bodies. We freak out when we hear nuclear radiation, but we don’t even care about all the radio waves and other EMF waves that bombard us everyday 24/7/365.

Pinny, I tagged a “medium.com” article in an email to a friend and promptly got a message from gmail saying something to the effect that this was false information and my email was deleted.  I was stunned.  I might become a conspirisy theorist after this.  

All the best

I teach 2nd grade. I’m learning how to ‘teach’ online with zoom and other modes of communication. Its not fun like having a bunch of goofy kids around. New instruction begins April 1st. No kidding. This week is all online review. My wife is a doctor. Hopefully, we don’t have it. They are seeing patients virtually if possible. Others are seen out in the garden with mask etc. Her clinics first round of test kits was around 30 and half were incomplete and useless. WTF! All the hospitals are scrambling to set up for the worst. I have two blanks and plenty of glass and resin, but probably won’t build anything. I do have a new noserider from michel junod. Got it just before everything shut down. I’m trying to learn the art of noseriding. The learning curve is steep and I’m having fun falling and stepping on my own toes. I young harbor seal came up to me the other day. I was talking to it. Asking about the fishing and to keep an eye out for us down below. It came up and was sniffing my rail then went under and nudged my foot. Told it to knock that shit off. Mike