new WRSC entrance

You saw it here first, next week it should be

The Worst Kung Fu Movie Auditons EVER!!

Langosta Beach House website live

http://www.langostabeachhouse.com

This is the same beach house we were renting from the previous WRSC website. If WRSC is booked, or if you want a quiet beach house for a group or for simply a change of pace, try staying here. The surf is really fun in Langosta!

summer is HERE

I don't care if it rains again. I don't care if my roof leaks, as it has been for the last two months with the heavy rains. You're sitting on the toilet, water droplets falling on your head. Or you're on the couch, trying to get a nap or watch HBO, and drips falling on your head. Not any more. The wind has been blowing offshore all day today, and most all yesterday. The surf is tiny, but it doesn't matter, just grab a longboard and cruise! As my buddy Chris said yesterday, "Longboard Fever!". I'm getting ready for Peru, taking the 9'0 and the 6'0, only 11 days to go. I still need to make some phone calls to everyone who is going on the trip, its going to be a great trip.

Tommy, I read your message, and yes how cool that SOJA and Slightly Stoopid are playing together in DC. I am torn. Large shows mean more work on my end planning, they mean doing the show off of the beach. Smaller shows mean I can host them at WRSC, less planning, everything is right here. Should I go for three or four bands, or should I go for three or four shows? Please peoples, guide me here.

I have a verbal agreement with Agent Orange, they are stoked to play the show by the way.

Check out this trailer for a new longboard film called Picaresque. Keith Novosel, who used to be one of our photographers at WRSC, is working on the film and has traveled to Europe and the US for filming. They are considering coming to Costa Rica as the last part of their movie, I've offered to put them up at the surf camp and take them to some sick waves, a great to end what appears to be an awesome flick.


Picaresque from Dustin Miller on Vimeo.

The web cam is going to be down at some point during the second half of this week while I move servers, so if you're hoping to check the surf and can't don't lose faith. Just read the surf reports while the cam is offline and relish in the fact that soon you'll be able to control it for 2 minutes at a time. Relish, is that the word? Or did I just make that up? Oh, and of course thank you Tim Eizner for your help with the web cam :-)

Hey dad, I made you this little photo gallery widget so that it was easy to see the pics of your car. For those that don't know, PK just pimped the shit out of his convertible Caddy. I can't really explain it any better than these pictures, so just check them out. Make sure to look for those Charger taillights, hopefully the magic we need to turn this season around.... you heard it here first (well, actually, you heard it from my dad first, then from me, now the rest of the world hears it!)

long week

Hola. I've had a friend in town, so I haven't done any work. The surf was going off, so I was surfing. And drinking import beers that I bought from Automercado. I have responded to about 5% of my email. Sorry! I should get back on track this week, now that the surf is flat.

Here I am chilling with Soulwax, an electro/house band from Belgium . They played a big show in San Jose Saturday Oct. 18th and then came to Tamarindo for a few days. We showed them how to surf. I introduced them to Guaro. That was fun.

Happy is getting huge. He is taking a bottle now, hopefully my wife can take a break from having to wake up through the night. Now at least I can help feed the kid. He is really starting to like the guitar, always strumming it when I'm playing it and playing with it when its lying on the ground. We put Happy on a surfboard today for the first time. He loved it.

Otis is getting huge, makes me feel old!

The surf camp at a rare moment (no guests!). Right now as I type this, Tico Hendrix is wailing some opera version of a Ted Nugent song and the restaurant is packed. I am seeing that I must get more tables, thinking that high season this year is going to be our best year to date. I took a trip to the Zephyr finca yesterday. The drive was beautiful.


Here is Kent taking some pics as we cruised through the most lonely stretches of jungle road I've been on in a long time. Late October is the rainiest time of year, and even though there hasn't been much rain in Tamarindo lately, up in the mountains its a whole other story. Here is a pic of me, arriving to the normal river crossing and seeing the river swollen higher than I'd ever seen.


Wading the river, which was flowing really hard. So hard I could barely keep standing and almost lost my sandals.

This river ended up being 3 feet deep at it's deepest point. The video clips are shit, but you get the idea.

No water flowing in the cab, so that was good. We ended up finding some pretty sweet offroad tracks that we drove in my truck. Then we got to Zephyr and hiked along the river and to a few outlooks, it was pretty sweet. Here's a pic of the mountain-

I was really tired after the hike and driving through crazy late-October rain-saturated roads. I took a fat nap yesterday, was really the first time I didn't surf in a week. The waves have been so good this last week, just great really. I've been stoked. Except for the fact I have weeks worth of work to do and only two weeks until I'm in Peru.

Another pic of Happy, getting huge too. Check out Holly's guns from carrying babies for three years!

Part early-morning coffee, part hang-with-kid, part keep-an-eye-on-the-surf.

OK everyone, before I go a couple last things.

#1 the Tamarindo concert. I'm afraid its too big for the beach so I've spoken to Brandon from Pacific Coast Storage about having the show on his land (near the Tamarindo airport). I have an opportunity to book SOJA with Slightly Stoopid, local boys from OB San Diego. It helps that drummer Rymo is friends with Kent, who is currently knocking on my door and waiting to hang out. I also have a past guest who is good friends with Agent Orange, they are waiting for me to call them. I think everyone should jam out a bit to their music (urls below), please tell me what you think. SOJA? Slightly Stoopid? Agent Orange? All three?
http://www.myspace.com/stoopid
http://www.myspace.com/soja
http://www.myspace.com/agentorange
Please give me feedback. Should I try to pull off the multi-band music fest? We are looking at late February now...

#2 Beloved Shawna will be leaving WRSC next month. I am looking for someone to take over my sales office here. This is an in-country job. I am unable to communicate anything with anyone regarding moving from the US or Canada or the UK to Tamarindo. If you are here and want to apply, please stop by and lets talk. If you know Shawna you know what she does :-) You can email me by clicking that link at the top right of the page.

#3 Peru trip. Everyone, I am going to call you over the next couple of days to confirm surfboards, pickups, other details. You need a 3/2 full suit, you should bring booties as there are a couple of reef spots we may surf. Like all of you, I am very much looking forward to this trip.

#4 I love you Mom and Dad

thats how it goes

well, Chargers lost. bummer. I can't let it ruin my day. I painted my room, cleaned it up a bit, it actually looks really nice. Took me about 2 hours to remove all of the staples from the wall. My deck is coming along nicely, thankfully the weather has been clear two and a half out of the last three days. The surf was really fun until today. Actually I don't know because I didn't go, I just assume it sucked but it never really sucks to go surf. I'm going to the airport to pick up my college buddy Kent Oberlin. He has a studio in San Diego, Koberlin Studios, he also has this sweet Halloween cd (http://sonicrealm.koberlinstudios.com/products/products.html or download straight from itunes) that he produced called Sonic Realm, check it out on the wall of my facebook page. Good info on the concert here in Tamarindo. WRSC is donating all proceeds we earn to a Tamarindo sidewalk/speedbump fund. I mean come on... seriously... it must be done. SOJA is able to play late February. Those guys jam, they have like 30 minutes of music on their myspace page myspace.com/soja I'm really stoked, though thinking that its going to be too big for the beach and needs to be moved to an empty lot, perhaps one past the hardware store. I don't want to worry about the show being "too big", instead I'd rather find a way to make a big event, perhaps more of a weekend-long music festival. 911's Marco Alfaro is driving here tomorrow, we will hammer out details. Last night the band Soulwax played a big 911 show in San Jose, they are now in Tamarindo. We picked them up at the airport, they are having sushi in my restaurant tonight. Too bad the show was five hours away. I got to get to the aiport, hasta... Oh I forgot to say, Agent Orange is another band showing interest in playing the show. And also I am still waiting to hear from Skullcandy on whether or not they want to headline sponsor the show...

whoops

Flip, thank you so much for letting me wear that Dan Fouts Chargers jersey during the game a couple of weeks ago, I think it helped us win that game. I heard that you told all of your buddies at work to watch you on the web cam go surf, and they did.... and somehow the web cam got turned around to the roof top deck of the penthouse and there was your wife sunbathing topless. I wonder what stories the water cooler at your office heard that day... All I can really say is whoops! The web cam is now fixed so that you can't see the roof top decks. uh.... Go Chargers!

Rains all day

I had big plans today, but since it rained all day I pretty much just
listened to music, painted another room in my house, watched the
debate, and waxed up a new green 6'0 fish. Hopefully there are waves
in the morning.

Sound the charge!!

New England is going down

random Sunday observations

I just bought a surfboard for $80 from a guy who needed to fly back to Brazil and couldn't take it. I get offers for so many boards I don't know what to do with all of them. I lost count at 200 surfboards in our inventory. I have so many I have to put them up on the ceiling as I've ran out of space. I make sure to ride every single board at least once believe it or not.
My neighbor Polly woke up this morning to a 6 foot boa in the rafters of her bedroom. One of her renters helped pull the snake out to in front of Economy Renta Car and we all got a good look. It was pretty big, my camera bugged out and erased my pics so I'm waiting for one to post on the blog. I showed Otis, he seems to like snakes, probably because we have so many down here. One time we found a boa under the hood of our truck that had been parked next to the hotel for a couple weeks. Then there was that one that lived in the floor of our house that ate the skunks. Its amazing how close we are to nature here, I dig it.

Here is Otis. I figured I hadn't taken a photo of him in a while, it was time for you all to see how big he is. Crazy! It has been awesome to raise the boys at the surf camp. I'm really happy living in Costa Rica, but I'm sure if we moved to Panama or Micronesia or anywhere with waves out in front, I'd be just as happy. I drove the family to Avellanas this morning and surfed the incoming tide. I can't believe how few people there are in Costa Rica right now. Normally Avellanas on a Sunday would have meant no parking and barely enough room to drive my truck by Lola's. There were maybe 20 people surfing a half mile of beach.
I was sifting through some old pics yesterday and found this great photo of my parents on their wedding day in 1972. I love the 70s blue tux my dad is sporting with the single button. The old car in the background is pretty tight. My dad has got a mustache and that 70s hair thing going. I laugh when I think about the fact that my father was in a jail in Tijuana the morning of his wedding day and was released in time to cross the border and go straight (without even a shower) to the church. What in the hell ever happened to proper bachelor parties like that?

Mom and dad, I love you two very much. This photo really makes me smile. I do have a question though, who is that picking his nose in the background?
I also found this photo of me with my first VW camper van. I learned how to drive stick in this thing and drove it multiple times into Baja, to Lake Tahoe, as far east as Park City, Utah and as far north as Grand Targhee, Wyoming.

I think we were at Punta Cabras or Punta San Jose in this photo. I can recognize a Tecati beer can even from here.
Besides old school photos and some chill time with the family (stoked they are all taking siestas at 4pm on a Sunday), I've just been surfing, waiting for the Chargers/Patriots game tonight, catching up on emails to friends I never get to talk to, and try to figure out where I'm going to be when over the next few months. I can't believe that in four weeks I'll have gone to California, back to Costa Rica, and then be in Peru. I can't wait for Peru...
I am talking to Frank Lemes about going to Micronesia this next July. It might or might not be a trip with available space, I'll keep everyone posted. It will be 17-21 days long and journey to the edge of the earth. Frank spent two years there in college in the Peace Corps. There is a pretty sick wave over there that is still under the radar. I am thinking that I will be doing at least 8 trips in 2009, with another one to Panama in January or February. We will be surfing Bocas del Toro on this trip too.
Regarding the Tamarindo concert, we are still in talks with SOJA for the dates that will work best. I am not going to allow something that will be totally kick ass fun to stress me out at all, so if it doesn't happen January 10th or 24th, or if the CNS Tamarindo surf contest happens on one date and the concert happens on another, this doesn't really matter. The point is that we're going to have some solid music and a really good time. I love surf + music + good friends and good times. I can't wait. If you didn't read last week's post about the show, or just to hear some good tunes, www.myspace.com/soja and www.myspace.com/pinback

anyone need a palm tree?

For those of you who remember when we built the surf camp hotel and pool area, we made this planter and planted all of these little plants and trees. Now, years later, they have grown into big plants and trees. I am taking out a very large palm tree, it is approximately 20 feet high and very full. I think it is a Queen Sago Palm.

The tree is very beautiful. I'm going to take it to Avellanas unless someone here in Tamarindo wants to buy it, or trade me something cool for it. I'm a video game whore and wish I had a PS2 again, the PS3 would be even better, so that would be a good trade. You'd have to have some sweet games to go with it though. Realistically, nobody is going to want my tree. Not a big deal, but I had to at least ask.

me with baby happy

live it up

Hello world,
have things been going ok? I'm worried about all of you. I don't own any stocks, but I know that all of you probably do. I'm watching tons of news, and from what I can see in the skybox on my tv is that the market is almost half of what it was a year ago. Two trillion dollars in people's net worth has vanished. Thats pretty big. What should you do? Smoke some of this really crippie weed Johan's friend has, thats what. And then? Listen to these tracks and think about how if you lived in Costa Rica you wouldn't give a shit about the market because you A) wouldn't be driving your car nearly as far and wouldn't need to buy gas nearly as much B) you would be surfing good waves for the last however many days straight C) you could avoid political conversations with your neighbors and coworkers D) you realize that quality of life is worth more than your portfolio and you're happy with the simple things in life.

Irving - The Longest Day In The Afternoon
Millencolin - No Cigar
Run-D.M.C. - Rock Box

I'm sure there's more reasons than that, but I didn't write this blog to talk about why you should move here. In fact, I'm quite happy that you didn't because I surfed for two hours in front of WRSC today by myself and scored. I freaking SCORED! really fun waves, as many as I could surf, it was great. It has made doing work that much harder. I get the rivermouth all of the time by myself because the surf camp stares out at it, so that means I stare out at it. When it gets good it takes me about a second to be in the water. I'm pretty lucky to live here and get these waves so often.
As you read from my last blog, WRSC and 911 La Radio are teaming up to produce a concert in Tamarindo. I have been in contact with Hillary and Halloran from San Diego's 94.9fm (the best radio station in San Diego if you're ever in town), Halloran is stoked on the show and is helping me to get Pinback to Tamarindo. I'm still waiting for SOJA to confirm when they can make it, currently we're looking at January 10th or 24th 2009, or if these dates don't work then in early February. I have already been offered help some locals here in Tamarindo including Shannon from Coral Reef Cabinas, there seem to be a lot of people here who are stoked to know about the show. If anyone wants to help, just let me know. I am planning on donating any money that the surf camp makes to the Pro Mejores association, with the funds being used towards projects that the surf camp believes in. Can you say sidewalks? speedbumps? street lights? The list goes on and on. Again, any brands that want to sponsor the event, let me know. We are still waiting for word from Skullcandy if they want to be a main sponsor...

WRSC and 91.1 La Radio to produce Tamarindo beach concert in January

Although dates and artists are not yet confirmed, Witch's Rock Surf Camp has teamed up with Costa Rica's largest radio station to produce what should be Tamarindo's biggest beach concert ever. We are trying to organize this concert in conjunction with the Tamarindo CNS surf contest event and we will be hosting this event from the surf camp property.

Music acts potentially include reggae artists SOJA (www.myspace.com/soja) from Washington DC and Pinback (www.myspace.com/pinback) from San Diego.

If your company is looking to get more involved in the Costa Rican surf/music scene and would like to sponsor this event, contact WRSC at 1-888-318-SURF.

Rock Ice, our first concert sponsor, has already committed $5,000 towards the concert. This event will be free to the public. With 3 months of in-country radio promotions we are expecting this to be big (and really fun!).

Uncle Rico's van has moved to the Central Coast

This is Uncle Rico's van.

If Uncle Rico had two vans, this one would be his other one (mine)

When I found out that I was going to be a father, I kindof freaked out a bit, bought this van, and drove my pregnant wife from San Diego to Maine (would have gone to Nova Scotia for hurricane surf but didn't realize we needed passports). Lots of folks know the story by now, but basically the van drove as far as it could possibly drive within the continental US. It then sat in Patrick McNulty's driveway in Rhode Island for a long winter where field mice made it their home. We eventually drove it to Atlanta where I had to leave it in the airport parking lot and fly to Costa Rica for something, can't remember what exactly. Then surf photographer Jamie Bott drove it back to California and shot pics all winter two years ago. Since then Uncle Rico's van was living in my driveway in OB, but, like a good pet or a kid entering college, it was time to let the van move on to new adventures. Fortunately I met John Hugo from Central Coast and he met me in SD a couple of weeks ago and helped me fire up the beast, hose it down, clean it out, and he was on his way. It was a little ballsy to drive the van 5 hours after it sat for a year, but Uncle Rico's van is dope and won't let you down. He and his family are now camping in it on the weekends and totally stoked. That van can't be sold, it can only be loaned for long periods of time.

Me and John Hugo rocking out somewhere far away in Panama

((skybox + college football) - 2 kids)*4 Cuba Libres=ahhhhh...finally relaxed

Hello world, I am so incredibly tired of work its not funny, I am sick
of my computer, don't wanna look at it AT ALL hence the cell-phone-on-
my-couch blog. Both Otis and Happy didn't sleep well last night, they
kept waking up crying. It really sucked.

Wisconsin almost upset Ohio right now. I didn't watch much college
football until now, mainly because I need more tv to watch besides
Clifford, Barny, Mr Maker, Cayu, Lazy Town, Hi-5, or any of the other
brain numbing kids shows on Discovery Kids.

I painted my living room today instead of surfing, a rarity for me.
The house is finally coming together. This next week I'm building a
little deck off of the Skybox with a sliding door, which will be a
great perch for checking the rivermouth, crippie with Flash, a place
to chill outside that isn't amidst my employees and work. Living at
WRSC, I'm here always, its nice to have a couple of hiding places
whenever possible.

Check out OJ Simpson, going to jail. Finally. Weird how things end up,
13 years to the day, jury deciding verdict after 13 hours, in Vegas...
13 has always seemed to be my lucky number, maybe Im the only one.

Not much else to report from the home front except that Happy just
woke up. Having kids, however awesome, can get old at times like this.
Its hard with two little ones. Then I think of our friends Pete and
Michelle Muzzy who are pregnant triplets and I shut up.

$700 Billion Zillion Dollars

After a year of GW Bush denying the existence of a recession (sorry GW, I mean "slow economic growth"), these last few weeks have all of a sudden been a huge crisis where we must act immediate or else the sky is going to fall.  So why not take $700 Billion in tax dollars and give it to our country's largest banks?

This is what Wall Street looked like an hour ago:

Meanwhile, here's a headline from cnn.com right from an hour ago:


What the fuck?  

Does this mean that since the mortgage on my Ocean Beach Cottages is about to adjust and I'll be strapped to pay it, I can tap into that $700 billion?  Of course not.  Maybe I just won't pay my mortgage, since the American people need vacations to San Diego so without the Ocean Beach Cottages America will truly suffer.  They're going to bail me out next, right?

up late playing frogger + another cheap ass flight

It seems like the older I get, the older the video games I like. Super Mario Brothers was so last summer, not its all about Frogger. sweet. I can thank widgetbox.com for that one. I love the whole concept of widgets, although it does piss me off when I think about some of the things I've developed in the past that are now instantly available in 5 minutes with a bit of code to embed and thats all.
My new favorite thing is project playlist. If you like music enough to know what you want to listen to, this is something you should check out. Make your own music player, stuff it full of music, listen, repeat. I like. I just put it on the blog down there to the right, just press play and rock out.
Speaking of rocking out, instead of watching the Vice Presedential Debates, some folks went to the Ken Club in San Diego and checked out Secret Apollo instead (good move). Watching Susan Palin talk about offshore oil drilling having a miniature footprint gave me chills, obviously she isn't a surfer.
More to come after I go to bed, so I can wake up for the 5am high tide. Surf is going off right now.

Oh before I forget CRAZY!! $18 roundtrip flights from Ft Lauderdale to San Jose Costa Rica.
http://marketing.spiritair.com/sales/current.php?p=1#1
$18 for a roundtrip ticket to Costa Rica, or order a pizza from Domino's.... hmmm.... tough..... not a supreme pizza, just pepporoni.... hmmm. I say go to Costa Rica or order Pizza Hut and get the pizza with cheese in the crust.