Besides spending what I consider an exhorbitant amount of money on supplies, the hassle
of packing an 8-6 gun and a 7-2 short board has been a nightmare.
I'll leave out all the gory details of how difficult it was to get my boards into
an 8-6 FCS travel bag, but finally I got the damn zipper to close. It took about
three different evenings with scissors, foam, pipe insulation, duct tape, exacto
knife, duct tape, board bag, duct tape, a couple of towels, duct tape, and tons
of sweat to get it done.
I have to give credit to Jade. I brought the board in to work where we have a huge
shipping and receiving department. I told him that I was having a hard time closing it
and it was the foam padding that I was using that was making the bag too thick.
So I took it all out and brought the boards in and we shopped the padding section of
the warehouse and came up with better, firmer foam that was half as thick as the
gray foam. It's the hardcore white foam in 1/4 inch strips. So we stuffed it under
the rubber bands holding the pipe insulation, and covered the decks of the boards
on three sides (two outer and one separating the boards, and put the board on it's side
(a real key element) and voila, it closed. I brought it home and re-inforced the tail
and nose areas, and it's friggin' done. So I'm packed and ready to go on Wednesday for
a Friday a.m. flight.
This is my last pre-Hawaii entry. I will be making updates from Internet cafes in Waikiki
while I am there, if I have the strength to do so after each day. So if you want to keep
up with what I am doing, where I am surfing and the things that I see, check back here!
I don't know if places will let me upload my photos from my camera to a public
computer or not, so the photos are a bit of a question mark. However, I hope to be able to do
that as well.
I'm outta here.
- Cliff
