when i was in wakayama, yuke-san drew me a classic painting…. he looked at a magazine i was in and drew me in a barrel….

that says GO-NAMINORI in japanese. yeah, that’s what i like to do…. i’m going to get a frame for this and hang this on a wall in my house forever… thank you so much yuke-san….
**and last, check this out….
The latest Top 10 names for baby girls, based on 2008 in America:
Emma
Isabella
Emily
Madison
Ava
Olivia
Sophia
Abigail
Elizabeth
Chloe
The Top 10 names for baby boys:
Jacob
Michael
Ethan
Joshua
Daniel
Alexander
Anthony
William
Christopher
Matthew
how come my name wasn’t in the top 10? haha…

salamat pagi from nias, sumatra. after 3 days, i finally got here. jet lagged? wait. what do you call it when you feel like surfing at 9pm at night, and feel like drinking a beer at 4am in the morning? haha.. yeah, i got to jakarta airport at 9pm looking for the other guys. i found them and everybody looked tired. me? i was ready for anything. but being stuck at the airport in a hotel, there’s not much going on. so i drank 5 bintangs, got a foot massage, and tried to sleep at 1am watching the news. 3am, my eyes opened and that was the start of my day. i went to the breakfast buffet at 4am and ate like i haven’t eaten in 3 days. then i wanted to drink a beer. but at 4am? i passed.. we jumped on a flight at 6am, landed in padang at 8am, bought 2 bottles of jack, and boarded the sanssouci2. 20 hours later, i’m pulling up to nias right now. going to wax my board, put on my leash, and surf. then grab my camera to shoot a few, then spear some fish. i got internet connection here via a friends cell phone but i don’t know if any photos will load. but will try. oh, i can’t check my go-naminori email for the entire trip so please send email to my hotmail. thanks and be back soon. first, going to find some barrels at one of the most famous point rights in the world. the trip has officially begun…

this is timmy. timmy is from nias and is the 2nd captain to the sanssouci2. i’m so stoked he fixed my board while i was gone. i rode it just now and it worked so good. by the way, i just go out of the water at nias. got barreled on my 2nd wave. eating lunch now and will go diving for tonight’s sashimi for sunset time. i think my barrel fixed my jetlag. i feel 100%now. well, gotta get going. going 10 hours up north tonight. be back soon….

when i was traveling through malaysia, i seen something pretty crazy. there are tobacco stands everywhere you go and a lot of malaysians smoke. but what caught my eye were the packaging. look close….

the government started putting gruesome photos of what can happen if you smoke tobacco. premature babies? lung cancer? throat cancer? take your pick….

or what about gum disease?

i think this is a very effective way to make people quit smoking. how can you take a cigarette out of this box and enjoy it? i almost threw up looking at these photos… i guess the malaysian government is sending the right message to its people. you can smoke if you want to. but just understand what can happen….