A Tetanus Shot Tuesday Surf & Culture Report

Lost Boys & Co...

As we were getting ready to send the S&CR out this morning, we heard news of the 5.8 quake on the east coast.  With many of the traditional media outlets in a dither (including vast swaths of the internet) we relied on our dependable network of Lost Boys around the globe to send us word of the situation.  We got the following report and photo: 

Well it's official, experienced my first earthquake here on the East coast. After being evacuated on account of what we were pretty sure was just the subway, I've attached a photo of the shocking aftermath of what occurred here in New York City.

Hope all is well in the West!
Josh Terrill

(Thanks Josh!  Glad to hear all is well on the right coast and we're imagining clean-up isn't going to take too terribly long...  Things remain calm on the left coast - but that can change at any time.  Moamar Gadhafi, has been reported, with his family, shopping on Melrose.  No wonder where he gets those great outfits!  Let us know when you'll be in California - we hope soon!   Ed.)

All the cams we looked at this morning appeared to be hazy and limited visibility, so that's what we're going with.  The air at checkout was 64.0° and the water is 65.3°.  THREE tides today with a high at 8:02am +3.2', low at 11:05am +3.0' and a pm high at 5:40pm +4.9'.  The 46221 buoy is reading a hopeful SSW swell out of 200° at 3.3'.  Take a look!  With all the tidal fluctuations there might be something happening at any time!  The deciding factor:  The "hawk."  Like Lou Rawls said, "They call the wind the hawk..."  Find a protected place and check'em out!

So, the Professor knew he was leaving for Idaho and decided that since he was going to be out of the water for a week, that he'd do a bit of exploratory surgery.   About a year and a half ago he was clearing some detritus out of the back yard and got stabbed in the right great toe.  Some thorny thing (?) got imbedded on the distal side of said toe and it continued to fester and dig itself in for the duration.  The Professor convinced LoLa to bring home a carpule of novocain and the syringe for numbing the area, so he could dig around with a scalpel he just happened to have lying around and find the offending spike.  Initially, he was going to have LoLa apply the anesthetic, but every time she touched him, he'd jump (kinda like when he steps on a piece of kelp.)  So, she convinced him that he might be able to take care of this himself, if he used the proper technique.  That is, one sticks the needle in a millimeter or so and then injects a small amount of novocain to deaden the area, then repeats the process, little by little, until you've anesthetized the area you plan to work on.  The Professor, took to the task enthusiastically and was plunging and pushing the needle along with no ill effects - that is until LoLa screamed and jumped, having been squirted with novocain.  Apparently, he had been doing such a bang-up job that he came out the other side!  He had gone through about an inch of big toe and somehow had missed the bone!  He sat there and said, "Now what do I do?"  Unfortunately, LoLa was unable to respond immediately, having worked herself into a fit of laughter that took some minutes to abate.  Especially, since every time she would look at the needle sticking through, she'd experience another round of the hysterical fantods.  She finally wheezed, "Pull the damn thing out..." and the Professor managed to retract the needle without breaking it.  If this wasn't enough, he now had to slice open the toe and look for the object dart, so to speak.  Boy - those scalpels are sharp!  In no time he had sliced his way about 3/8ths of an inch into his toe and was digging around trying to find the shard.  You'd be surprised how much your toe bleeds when you can't feel yourself cutting the shit out of it.  That, combined with his assistant giggling uncontrollably to the point of being incapable of sponging the field, encouraged him to stop before he did irreparable harm.  He is convalescing and his prognosis is "hopeful."  No foreign object was retrieved.

 ✠

"When the surf breaks, we'll fix it..."
 The Professor!!