We're halfway there

Apologies for the dearth of posts lately. I was enjoying a few days hanging out with Holly, and the time just flies.

My sabbatical is past the halfway point now, and it seems like a good time to take stock of what I've accomplished and what I still hope to achieve.

For starters, I got the angst and anger about my old job out of my system. That actually took surprisingly little time, and the mental cleansing was so thorough that I almost wonder if I'm going to be able to coherently summarize what I did for the last few years when it comes time for me to write a resume or do an interview. Whatever. Good riddance, I say.

I haven't had any epiphanies. I haven't thought up the next great startup idea or the next major world religion. To tell the truth, I haven't done very much thinking at all on this trip, and it's been very refreshing.

I've read about 20 books so far, including a handful of excellent ones. Having the Kindle has totally changed the experience of reading on vacation. I won't bore you with book reports - at least until I run out of other ideas for posts.

I've got an insane farmer's tan, and the hair on the crown of my head has started to go blond. I think my tan has reached its fullest potential and stabilized. My hair will probably continue to lighten. I would like to add some lemon juice to the mix and see what would happen, but lemons do not exist in this country. There has been speculation in some quarters about whether lime juice would work. Your thoughts are welcome.

My surfing has improved a lot. I hear this from various people who've seen me in the water over the past weeks. When I arrived, I had a lot of difficulty catching waves. My paddling was weak. My wave reading was not very good. My popups were slow and inconsistent, and I used my toes. When I was riding a wave, I had a lot of body tension. I had not successfully done an angled takeoff, much less ridden a wave for more than a few seconds. Today, my paddling is pretty strong, and I'm able to chase down a decent number of waves. I don't have trouble catching waves (unless the waves are intrinsically hard to catch, as determined by whether everybody else is having trouble catching them). My angled takeoffs are solid, I usually pop up quickly, always without using my toes, and I can frequently claim a good high line on waves that don't close out right away. I've had a few rides that were pretty damn good. I still have a long way to go, and I'm honestly not very satisfied with my progress; then again I'm never satisfied with my progress, so I will defer to wiser minds and acknowledge that all things considered, I am doing all right.