Just a quick update on what's happening down here; had a nice cold for the past few days.  Haven't had one for a couple years I don't think.  Went up to Ubud last weekend; it is a thriving artist community and tourist destination about an hour north of kuta.  We didn't have much fun; this kind of hung around and looked at the handicrafts.  Bought a couple of DVDs for a dollar and watched them back at the hotel.  What we should have done in Ubud: went to the bird park, rented some bicycles and rode around, maybe check out the elephant Park, take one of those wood carving courses.  The next time.  Here is the website that I frequently [...]

Quick summary of the past few days: Went to the skateboarding park a couple times.  When surfing today.  The swell is getting bigger so it should be a good day tomorrow if I go to sleep any time soon.  I need to buy a $600 knee brace if I want to continue my skateboarding career because my right knee is just an accident waiting to happen after it was weakened in my motorcross accident and injured further in my wake boarding accident.  But $600 is a small price to pay for the pleasures and rewards that skateboarding gives you.  I will make an entry for the skateboarding park here in Bali just as soon as I get my new photo [...]

Last Friday a monster swell hit Bali creating some pretty decent waves for those brave enough to venture out.  Check out the link below for some photos.  Sitting on the beach the waves looked big but not that dangerous; in fact they look like they were moving slower than normal.  But it was an optical illusion because the waves were so big they appeared to be moving slower.  I tried to paddle out (quite stupidly in retrospect) and was not able to make it through the whitewash and was washed 300 yards down the beach.  I gave up and paddled back in to shore to collect my wits and then spotted the riptide that could quickly transport me through the [...]

Short summary of today: Woke up around 11 a.m., wrote up an article on remote backup for my blog, handled some business-related e-mails, read some articles on infowars.com and the Seattle Times about the North American Union, then drove down to Padang Padang, waves were small so Tawan and I did some spelunking and snorkeling, drove back to the house, had a shower, actually I had a bath because our water pressure is pathetic, did another hour or so of nonbillable work on the computer, took the family into the city over to our friend Gday's for some Babi Guling (Balinese for pig cooked on spit), exchanged my rental car for a new one with no battery problems, enjoyed a [...]