I decided to head out to Linda Mar today for a surf session. I didn’t expect much given the forecasts. Gloomy weather, moderate onshore winds, mild swell. What surprised me was an empty summer lineup at Pacifica. There was one other surfer in the water with me for the first half-hour or so, and he was easily 100 feet north of where I was positioned. The next two hours I had the ocean all to myself. Took a fun board out and caught a few really good rides. Fun day. Came out of the water, got dressed, then saw this sign.

When the contest light turns green at the Billabong Pro Tahiti, all eyes won’t be on the greatest surfer of all-time, Kelly Slater, who has won this event three times. Nor will they be on former three-time World Champion Andy Irons, who was a winner at Teahupoo back in 2002. They won’t be on goofy-footers Bobby Martinez and C.J. Hobgood, both former Billabong Pro Tahiti Champions. Neither will they be on local Tahitian chargers like Manoa Drollet and Michel Bourez. No, all eyes will be on the number one surfer in the world, Jordy Smith.

A Hungarian Catholic priest has got the marketing strategy down for recruiting young people into the Church. Using an amazing display of skateboarding skills, Father Zoltan Lendavi dazzled a young crowd with his surprising abilities. The 45 year-old Father Lendavi, who learned as a teenager how to skateboard, thinks he can use skateboarding to help spread the word.

Having been involved in the action sports industry for the better part of a decade, I have somehow managed to not once attend the industry’s largest trade show, ASR (Action Sports Retailer). With an exciting new business venture about to get underway, the time was now to attend what was once an action sports retailer expo and is now an action sports extravaganza of epic proportions.

With hilarious narration, video footage shows a little grom armed with a calendar or poster of some kind running on the beach. The kid approaches Jeremy Flores, who is leaving the water after finishing a competition heat. Despite the little kid’s begging and pleading, Flores shakes the kid off. The kid is left to his knees, with tears being his only consolation.

General Motors is hitting overdrive on their marketing campaign for the soon-to-be-released Chevy Spark, GM's answer to the Mini Cooper. The new Chevy Spark Woody, which is wrapped in wood-colored vinyl, is part of GM's attempt to connect with the youth culture. The specially-designed model of the Chevy Spark was introduced on the southern coast of Great Britain at the annual Boardmasters surf, skate and music festival in Newquay, England, with a surfboard attached to the car's roof.

Sooner or later, the massive amount of oil leaking from BP’s oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was going to cross paths with surfers. Two different video accounts show graphic descriptions and first-hand accounts of the tar balls hitting Florida’s Pensacola Beach area of the Gulf Coast.

Within every tragic story exists a silver lining. In the case of the recent Nashville, TN floods, the silver lining came from an individual who decided to use the flooded city streets for a wakeboarding session. Political satirist and comedian Stephen Colbert not only showed strong support for the wakeboarding exhibitionist, but went on to reveal a picture of himself in all his wakeboarding glory.

The Moviestar Peru Classic, the fifth stop of the ASP Women’s World Tour, was postponed for a day when Head Judge Dave Shipley decided last week not that the waves were too small, but rather that the waves were too big. Shipley’s decision further eroded the professional credibility of the ASP Women’s World Tour.

The Sunset Beach community, realizing how pathetic it is that Huntington Beach still calls itself Surf City even though it only sees a few good days of surf each year, has decided to make an attempt at denying being annexed by Huntington Beach, preferring to become its own city.