the other morning i go for a surf by myself. i drive, park in terra-san parking lot at isounora, i walk to the right, and i watch the waves. looks fun! i grab my board, i don’t know how to paddle out so i jump off the jetty in front of a huge wave. i start getting to the lineup and there is starts. “itai, itai, itai.” something is biting me. little chikui or sea lice biting my whole body. i hold it in, catch 3 waves, paddle in, and ever since, i’m super itchy all over my body. the worst feeling sweating at night scratching all over your body. i don’t know how the other guys stayed out so long. but the waves were 4-5′ and good so i guess that’s why.

we wake up early, check out this other super secret spot, and see only 4 guys out. the waves were 4-5′ and clean. it’s unbelievable how many good secret surf points there are in japan. i love it!

Good morning!
5 am and fantastic!

my friend has one of the best trucks on the island of oahu. a ford 150 super cab twin turbo truck! fast, good on gas, and huge. it’s brand new and when it was time for the first servicing, i did the right thing and took it to the best place, ford in honolulu. that was back in march earlier this year. i’ve never opened the hood or even seen the motor before. yeah, there was no reason too right??? WRONG!!!!

i opened the hood up for the first time the other day and seen something weird. why was there oil all over the brand new engine? what’s happening? then i see something terribly wrong. the oil cap was missing??? why?? did it fall off? looked around more and the oil cap was sitting on the side rail. eeh? did the guy who changed oil last forget to put it back? YES!!!! OMG!!! the mechanic at ford who changed the oil forgot to put the oil cap back on. i was shocked!!!!
so i call ford and make a complaint to customer service. the lady was super nice. she apologized and told me that they will take care of everything. just bring it in, and we’ll take care of it. i felt better. well, just a little better.
so on the way to the airport, i drop the truck off. the service manager came out and asked “what’s wrong.” i told him the problem. first, he didn’t even say sorry, second, he told me that they will wipe the oil off, fill it back, and i can take the truck home. what????? i told him “hey, the cap wasn’t put on by one of your guys. this is a brand new truck. for the past 5 months, i’ve been driving around without an oil cap and all kinds of junks was probably flying into the engine.” then he said “ok, 6 months service time is coming up anyway so we’ll change the oil and filter. but you have to pay for that.” what????? pay for your mistake???? i was pissed. i just left the truck there and went to the airport to get on my flight. i called the customer service lady before i got on the plane and she apologized again. what’s going to happen when i get back to hawaii? i’m going to get off the plane, get a taxi to ford, and hope the truck looks the way it did when it was purchased. if it doesn’t, i’ll be bummed.
but guess what? i learned something very valuable. i learned to take responsibility for my mistakes from now on. i don’t want to make anybody feel the same way i felt down there. it was a shitty feeling and i lost a lot of respect for ford. i’m sure if the same thing happened to the service manager, he’d be pissed too. if you give bad service, you lose trust. if you lose trust, you lose sales. if you lose sales, your finished. pretty simple business.
i don’t like to post things like this on my blog but things like this have to be shared. so next time you have your oil changed, check to see if the mechanic put the cap back on. or better yet, take your car to get serviced by my brother. i knew i should have done that from the beginning. i just wasted hours of my precious time and that’s the reason i’m really upset. i’d rather be surfing.