Still in CA, so chill out! Everything will be cool!

John DiGenni sends me good links and I like this a lot:

The story behind this man sending me this link is that I've been looking for a lamp similar to the one in my favorite movie of all time (Joe Versus the Volcano), but it doesn't exist.

It never existed.

But this person ("Sandy") wasn't satisified with that result... they went to the EXPERTS!

In other news, San Diego is great, but there's only one place I want to be this time of year and it ain't here.

Thanks for hanging in there folks, there's been some difficulties with getting this thing updated because: (1) we're looking for a new house; (2) it's that time of year when the Brendan Borek High Tides Memorial Fund gets its thing going; and (3) I was getting ready for a trip to San Diego for a very important conference (last minute preparations included late-night age model syncronization—so hot).

I have lots of photos on the camera, but no time as of now to upload. So, I will first provide you with the logo for the conference I am attending (someone you know designed it):

And there is also this new study that really makes me think I am old... it is on the so-called "Perfect Storms" from the fall of 1991. I remember surfing with John Donatone in Stone Harbor for these swells and it was definitely hairy for a couple days. There was a lot of debris in the water (think dune fencing—everywhere!). Here's the abstract from the new study:

I can only see one reader of PRafterDotCom understanding this abstract and I'm not even sure that Andre Patantayus checks this site.

The newest Arcade Fire album just came out.

(1) it is good (of course)

and

(2) the digital download (only ~ $8) has this feature where the "cover image" in iTunes changes throughout the song, showing the lyrics in real time... 21st century awesome.

I recognize that... picture on the wall!

(it is a radical photo taken by Scott Soens that has appeared on the cover of Surfer's Journal among other cool places)

In other news, the Soens will be in NJ very soon.

In case you've been wondering why a blog that is run by two guys (ostensibly) can't be updated for two months (basically), this guy explains himself:

CHROMAGNUM MAN from Brian Herron on Vimeo. 

Sorry to post two YouTube videos in a row, but here is an amazing follow-up to the original Tarp Surfing video:

In other news, I was supposed to drive down to Avalon last night to hang out at a bitchin' house party with a bunch of friends... well, by the time I got on the road it was 7:30pm and we had to come back first thing in the morning. I blew it.

This might be, has to be the funniest thing I've seen in weeks. I just keep watching it over and over (Tim and Eric's Awesome show with Paul Rudd):

Don't try to understand it, just go with it.

I will be trying a lot of these dance moves as soon as I get a chance.

When celery man gets "kicked up to 43d3d3d", his moves look just like John DiGenni.

This weekend: lab weekend with Jake.

Last weekend: beach weekend with the Chapmans and Vescis.

Here's the spread. I didn't take too many photos at this location because the sand was ultra-hot; you're only getting a partial view of the legendary 110th street beach in the Stone Harbor of New Jersey.
A couple of fun ones out there.

Cole Patrick Chapman made an appearance.


He likes to eat sand and think about Russian literature (just like his dad)

Baby Scarlett Vesci showed up later and I forgot to take photos. My bad. Next time I'll get a photo of Dan with his Captain shirt holding baby Scarlett.

Pat Chapman made a really great painting for Dr. and Mrs. PRafterDotCom. Here it is:

She is holding a rose.

Pat has new work up on his website: patchapmanart.com. Go check it out.

Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention.

I've just been handed an urgent and completely unsurprising news story and I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen:

BOB AND LEAH ARE GETTING MARRIED!

As you were...

A fun fun weekend hanging out with the latest and coolest Chapman family. Very fun, but I haven't uploaded those photos yet and all I have is a photo of me and some tri-athletes flexing:

And one of these people had a baby just a few years ago (I bet you can't guess who).

My thanks to staff photographer GiGi for the photo.

Imagine this; you wake up and proceed to check your email, eat breakfast and watch a morning quasi-news program.

On that program, there is a pop star performing live that morning and when you get to work you find that one of the songs is stuck in your head. Annoyed, you wonder why it got there in first place and remember the pop star's performance and her downright crazy fans. You remember one sign that was especially notable, "I'm Goo Goo 4 Ga Ga" and laugh.

You decide that you will instigate some conversations if you send the following text message to some of your friends:

I KNOW YOUR SECRET. YOU'RE GOO GOO FOR GA GA

Now imagine that among the people you sent the message to, there actually was someone who watched the same program that morning and was embarrassed that I somehow found out.

The Honda that has carried me safely through all three North American countries is now in the hands of a new owner. Sad to say, but all things must end and the Civic has done its job.

In Canadia

I can't find any photos of the car in Mexico, but believe me, it was the best Baja car you could want. With all the rust and bad paint, no one wanted to bother messing with this car–it was clear that its owner was poor.

Photos grabbed off the Book of Faces:

First up, me, my brother, and some friendly guy watching my nephew school some kids in soccer. This was a massive beach soccer tournament in (you guessed it) Wildwood, NJ.

A few days later, Brookie and I drove to Doylestown, PA to see our friends, The Smiths, who were visiting from out of town. They have a son who likes it when you throw the ball so that it becomes stuck in a tree. But who doesn't?

Group Photo:

I think every photo should be taken this way; "Ok, Donnie will have the smirk, Linden will have the lip bite, Julie will look directly at the camera, Brooke will look at Linden and try to make him smile, and Pat, you'll just look confused..."

Had a great time down in my old home towns last weekend–craziness as usual on the 4th of July.

First, load up the new car with everything (including dog and 9'6" longboard!). This car is epic.

This is what it looks like between towns in South Jersey–the beautiful wetlands (taken from my speeding Toyota Matrix).

Brooke went to this 4th of July parade in "Anglesea," which is a nice way of saying "North Wildwood". I kinda like that town.

Brooke also saw a nice bulldog dressed patriotically.

Didn't take any pictures of the ocean because it was uninspiring, but this guy has a rad surf mobile. Parked on 110th street of course.

These people on 107th street were selling a silver surfer statue. I considered, but where the heck would I put it?

Instead of dealing with the crowds on the beaches to watch the fireworks, we went to an island in the bay. The Slug leds the way in his plywood, hand-built boat.

Jake had never been on a boat before–happy b-day buddy.

On the island, the fireworks were really good. Could see every town's display for miles.

Last weekend, I was hanging out at one of my favorite SoJo hangout spots (behind the counter at Yum Yums Ice Cream) and Mr. T ("T" for Ternosky, not "Tough" although he is tough) came in to get his "usual" (water ice and soft serve). He told me and Mrs. PRafterDotCom that our friends Mike and Steve T. had this interesting interview on the innernets...

Ternosky Brothers of Obey Clothing from 80's Purple on Vimeo. 

Baby Wes and Baby Cassidy

What a week: a long weekend down in South Jersey at the end of June, then another long weekend this past to celebrate the birthday of the U.S.A. and Jake Serwatka.

Here is a video showing our first 4th of July with Jake (just after being rescued) and how he looked just a month later.

Rescuing a dog is the right choice.

As I prepare to depart for a three day weekend down in SoJo, here's some images from the last swell (with appropriate patriotic touches for this upcoming holiday):

No waves again... or are there?

Through my doctoral-level training, I was able to determine that there are–in fact–rideable waves down in south Jersey, but not up here in "North" Jersey.

Ahhh!!! Check the evidence (frame grabs from this morning):

Manasquan Inlet (it was similarly flat at Mantaloking and Belmar)
Good luck trying to ride that

Now, to Ocean City, NJ

It not only is rideable, but there are two guys going out and it is looking downright fun.

This does not look good for my summertime surf medication.

And now a word from our sponsor:

What a weekend... absolutely no waves, hot as hotness and it's not even "officially" summer yet. And I spent the whole time reading science-y papers. This isn't entirely a bad thing, but it definitely doesn't compare to riding some waves.

Speaking of which, I heard that today was "International Surfing Day" (whatever that means). Most of my friends on the Face Books that don't live on the east coast, were saying how much fun it was to ride their surfboards.

I didn't have this option, so when the sun started to descend below the tree-tops here in Princeton, I put on a pair of pants, slipped on a pair of skate shoes, gave Jake something to nibble on and walked out to my car. The skate park isn't far, but it's far enough that a bike ride home after skating wouldn't be my favorite thing to do.

Get out to my car and (surprise, surprise) the damn thing won't start (again). Last time it did this I ended up missing a Phillies' game with Shauny Bacon. So, I'm about to get on the bike when I realize that I have a perfectly suitable 4 wheeled, combustion engine form of transportation (that needs to be started up every now and then) sitting underneath the protective tarp right next to me.

As they say in NJ, "Oaawwwhh Yiee ah".

I pull the tarp off the 1963 VW bus and I'm stoked to get my skate on... and lookeee here! Here's that damn digital camera I've been looking for, for over a month now! Here's the last photos on the "roll":

Jake, Tommy and Saki Serwatka

Wife and Brother-in-law Serwatkas.

I fire up those nearly 50 year old cylinders and head on to the skate park.

It's hard to be inconspicuous when driving this thing.

Here's the Princeton skatepark:

The layout isn't the best, but it is (1) concrete, (2) close to my house, (3) never crowded, (4) free and (5) everyone there has been super friendly. Also, helmets seem to be semi-optional (i.e. if the cops don't come, you don't need one). I have never owned a helmet, so this is nice.

I'm hoping that more people will come visit (Seth, Bob, Gimp, Johnny, Whitey, HTP, Willy Sions, Scott Soens, Ray Barbee, etc.) and we can shred the concrete.

When our friend Zeus died nearly two years ago (has it been that long?), I told myself to keep his spirit alive by writing down all the stories I have about him.

I have not been good about doing this (mostly because of work), but I will now tell a story about two clueless kids playing rock n' roll. And later, I should tell you about the lightning bolt story. Please remind me to do so.

I think it was the end of my Senior year of High School (1993) and Zeus and I really wanted to play some rock n' roll–he on drums and me on guitar. Many of our friends were very good at playing guitar, but they would play cover songs of Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead, etc.

Not that there's anything wrong with this music, but we didn't want any of that.

So, I got a cheap red plastic electric guitar.

And Zeus got some drums.

We learned how to play Minor Threat's version of "Stepping Stone" and Bad Religion's "Part III" in my parents' living room (while they were away) in order to play our first "show" at Shaun Bacon's backyard bbq (at his 92nd street house). I remember that Zeus' kick drum kept moving away from him, so we got a big rock to put in front of it. My guitar amp (borrowed from the Gabe Berkey) was clearly a fire hazard (smoke poured out the back when a certain switch was thrown).

So, Zeus and I set-up in Bacon's backyard and cranked through our two songs and it was great... most people just stared and wondered what the hell we were doing. I would have had great memories from that "first show" if Gabe Berkey's step-dad hadn't informed me that my guitar was tuned completely wrong... I was a little embarrassed because I had been playing that way for a couple of weeks and hadn't noticed (although Zeus and I were always wondering why our songs didn't sound exactly right).

We eventually got better instruments to play and when Bud's Market shut down at the end of the summer, we played in a storage container that smelled like rotten vegetables. Here's a photo:

Taken nearly a year after our first "show," we've now acquired real instruments and realized that toilet paper was excellent for saving us from hearing damage. We used the Santa Claus as a microphone stand and used the boom box to record almost everything.

Much later, we were still rocking:

Still with the toilet paper in the ears.

I'm coming to the realization that my digital camera ("our" digital camera) really is lost. I haven't put any new images up in weeks because of this... here's some old-school stuff that perhaps 3 people will care about:

Oz

Yeah, that's for real.

You know, just your everyday loading of the piston core

Classy young lady

It's not often I post YouTube videos, but when I do, you know it's good. You may have already seen this on Surfline... it's amazing:

This may not mean anything to most people who read this, but PhD Comics is a good illustration of what graduate school is like (procrastination, scrounging for free food, smashing computers...). The author also makes some really neato plots on subjects related to research science. Here, he compares the U.S. budget for research compared to everything else:

There was a temporary interruption in our programming last weekend–it looked like this:

At least she's cute, right?

Good to hear that Ant Scrocca has graduated college, he's back in NJ (for a little bit) and he is in an art show in Philly next Friday. Here's a link to the show:

And here's a neato image from his "rough" website:

He was pretty dang good before he went to school (see here), so I can't wait to see all his stuff.

Hey, it's Memorial Day and I'm working.

But not right now. Right now I am looking for something to post. Oh, what the hell, let's do this:

Stolen from one of those surfy surfy blogs.

From the looks of their teeth, those guys on the left look like relatives of mine.

It's a great holiday weekend to be at the NJ "shore" or as I like to call it, "home".

However, I will be waking up at 4am to start the isotope ratio mass spectrometer in order to pursue my goal of world domination via isotope measurements (only about 2 people will understand what I'm talking about).

Recently, there has been some brilliant writing over on Caveman Chronicles and by "brilliant" I mean it's about PRafterDotCom! With epic photos that few have ever seen... including me. In fact, I'm wondering where the heck that shirt I am wearing in the second picture went to... it's my RV Atlantis t-shirt and if you've seen it, then you probably took it from me 6 years ago.

And in completely unrelated news, this happened about 8 years ago to an unknown person by unknown persons:

House painters do the funniest things. Lucky for me, I had my camera with me for these moments.

email me:
patrickrafter1 (at sign) hotmail.com

Shred:

PRafterDotCom–Good Things (20100707):

(1) The Plot Against America

(2) Kids with personality

(3) TCB

(4) You can fit a 9'6" inside the Toyota Matrix!

(5) Doggies running free, playing, swimming, smelling, necking, exploring...

PRafterDotCom–Playlist (20100525):

(1) French "screamo" like Daitro and Sed Non Satiata (think French 12 Hour Turn meets Saetia. Yeah, that's really good.)

(2) The latest Thermals album (poppy punk rock with intelligence)

(3) New Ted Leo album (yeah, I know I said I didn't like it, but now I love it)

(4) Bringing back The Appleseed Cast to my listening line-up. Very nice.

Dominican Republic 2010

Cross Country Aug. 2009

The Hunter Wedding Jan. 2009

Zeus Memorial Happenings 2008

Brendan Borek 2008

Pellini Wedding 2008

Kristopher Zuccato--Good Times

Help out A Wish from a Fish: A fundraising event for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation

I hear that it went well, Click here!
I still want a poster...

Santa Barbara Basin Cruise 2008

Pat and Brooke got married 2007

Brendan Borek Art Show 2007

Brendan Borek Surf Contest 2007

A Wonderful Trip to NJ 2006

Old Music Reviews(01-4-07)

Photo of the Month
(yeah right, "month")

Top Ten

Chris and Emily Got Married 2006

Borek Events 2006-ArtShow

Borek Events 2006-Surf Contest

Borek Events 2006-Party

Fourth of July 2006

Paul and Lorrie Got Married 2006

Brooke's Birthday 2006

Stone Harbor in the '90s

"It's Science"

Leonardy Wedding

Seymour-Miller Wedding

2005 Brendan Borek Events Photos

NJ Trip 2005.1

Galapagos/Mexico Trip

New Year's 2005

Seymour- Stafford
Wedding

2004 Brendan Borek Event

2003 Brendan Borek Art Show

2002 Brendan Borek Event

A list of Essays from Brian Herron

Brian Herron, Matt Pellini, and Robyn Alley's Trip in the Southern Hemisphere

Roadtrip to Florida 2002

Surf Photos shot in the water by Jaime Hunter.

I started writing down some quotes I heard, never really finished it though.

Spartacus

My story of driving through the desert--away from my love

---------------------------------------------
LINKS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH PRAFTERDOTCOM (what I do when I'm cruising the internets)...
--------------------------------------------

Friends

Centennial Guest House

The Brendan Borek High Tides Memorial Fund

Politics

Daily Kos
Cursor
Talking Points Memo
Firedoglake
Eschaton

Research

Web of Knowledge
UCSD Library
AGU Publications
Nature Magazine
Real Climate Dot Org
NOAA FTP Data
NGDC Sediment Core Search

People That Make Stuff

Fecal Face
Art Prostitute
Tim Biskup
Blaine Fontana
Joshua Krause
Gregory Euclide
Deth P. Sun
Jeff Soto
Souther Salazar

SURF

Surfline
Surfshot

"Desert Island Discs"

Bad Brains - S/T

Minus the Bear - Highly refined pirates

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating infinity

Elliott - False cathedrals

Sufjan Stevens - C'mon feel the Illinoise

Hot Water Music - Forever and counting

Lucero - That much further west

Mastodon - Leviathan

Operation Ivy - Energy

Planes Mistaken for Stars - Mercy