Close Encounters of Tom Tweed La Jolla, CA "I started out with nothing and I've still got most of it left." Homepages: Tom Tweed's Homepage & Tom Tweed's Rennlist Home Page

"I am a Windansea Local"

I surfed with Fang twice several years ago, once at San Onofre and once at Black's, and had a nice brunch with her and her brother Tom on breitling watch another trip, but didn't surf that time. I can't remember if her ex-boyfriend Doug the Thug ever posted to A.S. [AFAIK he never did. -tim], but I surfed with him both times also. 

I met Steve the Hulk from Santa Cruz for dinner in Old Town when he was down for a seminar, but didn't get to surf with him. 

I missed the last Foonapalooza tour of the west coast by a whisker, still regretting that, and made plans to hook up with Carson and jb on jb's last left coast/baja tour, but that didn't materialize. I know I'll run into Carson sometime, though, because he lives here in town. Same with George Barnes, posting lately as "kneed4speed"- it's just a matter of time before we hook up somewhere. 

I surfed with Tom Gilgan, a surfer from Nova Scotia who used to post more often, at Black's a few years back. He was in town visiting some friends in Pacific Beach. He was a very stoked guy. 

I met Helge Weissig from the SD Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation through his postings to A.S. but haven't surfed with him. 

I hooked up with Adam Dobrin from the east coast who used to post here with his evil twin brother Ben and had a session in Mission Beach in April of '97. It was 2' and windblown but we had fun. 

I almost hooked up with Will Borgeson during a fishing trip to Tomales Bay with my brother last year- got close but no cigar on that one. Saw his lab in the distance as we motored offshore and hauled in some nice king salmon. The surf was pretty bad while we were there anyway, and I didn't bring a board with me (or a wetsuit--brrrr!). 

I picked up on posts by Dave Marsden from UCSD years ago and we finally e-mailed enough descriptions to each other to figure out that we had been surfing together for months at WindanSea without knowing each other. I put in many dawn patrols with him over the last few years, and I've been out with him and his roomie Garrett Lisi at the same time, but haven't really met Garrett formally. Dave's finished his Phd now and is leaving town for a postdoc fellowship in Wash., D.C., but I'm hoping he will still post and keep in touch, and maybe he can hook up with some of the right coast alt.surfers and get some waves out there. 

I have many friends with whom I surfed both before and after their (or my) first discovery of A.S., who have posted to replica watches outlet the newsgroup over the years. These would include Joe Trotter, the webmaster of LJ Surfing, Ron St. John, one of the charter members of Team Old Fart at Tourmaline Canyon, Dr. Michael Nova, who just got back from another SMA boondoggle tax-write-off trip to Tavarua, Doug Jones from Qualcomm's surf team, Jan Mallis from Blitcom, Mike Maher and of course, Roger Raffee, aka Cortical. I'm sure there will be more as more of my surfing friends become computer literate, get net-connected and discover Usenet. 

Bill Higgins, a sys admin at SIO posted a "board wanted" ad to AS way back, maybe 1992, and I ended up selling him an 8'4" Murphy funboard I wasn't using much. It was kind of beat up, so I let him have it for $35. 

I met the CyberKahuna, Ted Deits, during the webcam controversy a few months ago but didn't surf with him, he just came to our surf club meeting in the evening. 

In July of 1999 I hooked up with Neal the Sponge, Tom Keener and Rontiki for this last S. hemi swell at
WindanSea, as reported by all three recently. As the swell faded we talked some story in the lot while checking it, and polished off the last box of Neal's chocolate covered macadamia nuts he brought from da islands with our coffee. T'ank's Neal! 

I hooked up with Don Scott a fun session at Black's. Don is a surfer from Arizona who must have hung out with Rick Kane at the Tempe wave pool, 'cause he's pretty damn good for a Zonie. Actually, he's spent a lot of time in San Diego for a lot of years, and knows his way around here just fine, and also remembers a lot of the oldtime guys I still surf with. 

I was at NeoN's for the Dale Davis Retrospective (I posted something about the Bikini Girls, didn't I?), and met Sunash, son of Sunash, dDaNieL, NeoN, and lower-case "mike", the scientist, who works at Scripps Research Institute (not oceanography- medical). Steve Lange was still surfing and came later, I think, but I missed him....

In July 2000, I got to meet and surf with Rod, his son Alex, and SDbeachguy (Terry Hendricks) at Black's, but missed Rod on his recent March & July trips.  While Terry only recently discovered A.S, made a flurry of postings and disappeared, I have been acquainted with him for almost 35 years, having met at UCSD in the late 60s and surfed with him many times during that era.  He moved to N. County and I lost track of him, but would occasionally see him at Swami's, etc., over the years.

Bill Andrews is another guy I have known and surfed with for years who just discovered A.S lately and has posted some hilarious messages.  He is a real LJOL (La Jolla Original Local) and has more stories to tell than you have time to hear. Through him, I met Joanne Van Meter, and have surfed with her at La Jolla Shores several times, although she may not have known me at the time, since Bill only formally introduced us at a contest at Windansea one day.

Although I missed the first SanO-palooza, I made the second one, and met and surfed with quite a few ASers.  I went out early with the other ~200 people who were in the water at SanO that morning, after not finding anyone on my first drive-thru of the beach parking lot except Skip Frye, but hooked up with them later and found that Neon, BK, "Great Lakes" Craig Kemnitz, Dan "Crag T. Bagger" King, and John Hermesman had all been out there with me at some point.  Later in the afternoon, Foondoggy showed up as scheduled, but didn't get in the water, we just shot the breeze in the shade and I ate my first Krispy Kreme donut that he had brought down from LA. Tom Keener came down on his scooter and joined us that day, but I had already met Tom and surfed with him at WindanSea when Neal came over from Hawaii earlier.

When Ben Rak was here from Israel (2001), Tom Keener brought him by my house and I got to meet him, but we didn't surf together.  I also met Stuart Gimber (who used to post to AS from SDSU, I think) one day at WindanSea by chance.  Still haven't hooked up with Carson and George Barnes, but I 
figure it's just a matter of time until we run into each other.

Met Sunash and son-of Sunash at the Dale Davis Retrospective.

AS Party at Tom Keener's - March 2003. "That's right - it's party time. Alt.surfing's Drew and Glenda are visiting SoCal, so we've got to have a party." ~TK.  Pic posted at Joanne's site:  Pic 1 and Pic 2. 

The Supreme Court posts to AS, "Come on back Tom, you are missed around here!"  TTweed replies, "Thanks for the thought, Duke, but I am swiss fake watches pretty much in lurk mode only these days on A.S.  I had my appetite for witty ASCII repartee surgically removed a year or two ago.  It was nice meeting Glenda and Drew, though, and there were two other "it's a small world" encounters for me at Keener's party
which made it very worthwhile.  I'm sorry I couldn't stick around long enough to meet Jose and Al, but I had a commitment for early the next morning, and us geezers need our beauty sleep...."

Point totals:  60