Alas all is well in the land of Joe

Houston has some nice white trash bars where I feel right at home. As I depart for Costa Rica Saturday morning, hung over, I don't realize that the stars have aligned. Good luck seems to follow me a little bit. For example, it has been raining TONS in Costa Rica, literally more rain than in the last 30 years. Then I show up, and it stops, and now is totally sunny and beautiful and I guess the end of the rainy season? And what happens to San Diego as soon as I leave? FIRE. Holy crap. I've been watching CNN and wondering just how much of my home city was going to be affected. One million residents evacuated, including many of my close friends. With the city shutting down and going into emergency mode, I'm on the beach in Tamarindo surfing on my new Witch's Rock longboard. Its a 9'6, blue, pretty much the most fun surfing I've done in a long time. Heres some AWESOME news- the new WRSC webcam, yes, the one you can control from there and see all of the surf breaks in front of the camp, is LIVE. Well, if its not, it will be by the time I paddle out in the next hour... Look out for Carlos and Luis as they ride their brand new boards. The Witch's Rock Surf Team is ripping these waves, you can watch them surfing on the web cam as well. The waves in front are really fun and its supposed to get only bigger for the next 3-4 days. My family from Montana and Utah just left. Poor Tito left with more than just WRSC t-shirts, I had to take him to the emergency room after his board slammed him in the head. The gash, from his forehead to the back of the top of his head (3-4 inches) was the biggest I'd seen in a long time. I guess it could happen doing anything, and trust me it won't keep me from surfing! Holly, Otis and I are living in the Penthouse of the surf camp. Oh, and Luna and Gus (my dogs). Its been sweet. Tico Hendrix played a couple of shows the first two nights we were here, that guy is a riot.Everything here is going better than good, its great. The sun is out again, the waves are up, the water is back to normal. As you can probably imagine, with all of this rain and all of this construction, rivers and creeks had completely flooded much of the country. The Tempisque River, the one you cross from the Liberia airport on your way to the surf camp, was 16 meters higher than normal and overflowing the bridge. It was amazing to see, but sad when I learned that many of the homes in the town of Filadelfia had been flooded (a nearby town). The water was chocolate milk colored with everything from tree branches to livestock floating downstream, but everything has seemed to clean up nicely. The waves are just looking too nice right now, I've got to go surf. aloha