i want to thank Akudo-san for the wonderful lobster dinner last night. also want to thank him for the fish, squid, and jacksan from japan. oh, and also for the cool Standard California clothes! i’m a pretty lucky and happy guy right now!

can you believe that Jason Mraz is coming to hawaii to play live at the waikiki shell? i just found out and was trying to get tickets. all the good seats are sold out so i went online to look for front row tickets. couldn’t find any. then i dug deep and found a professional ticket scalper. no front row tickets, but still pretty good seats.

so late last night, i meet him in a dark parking lot. he pulls up with his cadillac escalade. i’m carrying a lot of cash, and he’s carrying a lot of valuable tickets. who do you trust? he pulls out the tickets printed on paper? i pull out the cash. we make the exchange and the transaction was done in 5 minutes. i’m starting to give people the benefit of the doubt so i take the paper and trust a total stranger. then i ask him if he can get me front row tickets. he says, nope, can’t get them and nobody can sell them. what? he explained to me that the developed a new ticketing system so if you want the front section tickets, you have to pay by credit card and the name of the credit card holder must be there. this is to prevent ticket scalpers like him to make millions on scalping. i’m still not giving up and will still be looking for front row tickets.
as for the price, i ended up paying 2x the face value of the ticket. it’s this guys job to stand in line overnight, drop the money, and try to sell it for double. i ended up staying in the parking lot for a long time talking story with him. he taught me the ins and outs of ticket scalping. it’s a gamble, but must be paying off for him because his car was nicer than mine. haha.
anyway, got tickets to Jason Mraz on July 1st. but still not giving up on getting closer to the stage. see you up front!

Stand up Paddle Surfing going crazy! OMG!
Good morning 6:15am.
Small waves today.
North is knee/waist high.
South is waist/chest high.
Wind is strong tradewinds at 15-20mph.
Conditions are morning sickness. Getting better later.
Super sunny day.
I’m going surfing!
Have a wonderful day!

the right chicks name is Pepper, the left chicks name is Salt.
meet Salt and Pepper!
make me some fresh eggs chicks!
today the waves were super fun. went surfing at bowls with Akudo-san.
Akudo-san has a cool shop in ebisu, tokyo called Standard California. a
super nice surfer with great taste in clothes and style. his shop is
awesome with super cool staff!
guess who was surfing out at bowls this morning? Johnny Boy Gomes. yeah,
if you don’t know JBG, he’s one of the heaviest locals in hawaiian
surfing history. won the Pipeline Masters one year, and people from all
over the world respect his power surfing. also one of the scariest guys
if you don’t know him, but if you do know him, the coolest guy in the
world. i had a great time talking and surfing with him for 2 hours in
the lineup. talked about surfing shikoku, talked about the 80’s, and
talked about his comeback. he was ripping today and was looking pretty
lean. i’m super stoked to see him today in the water.
going to sleep. had a long day today and tomorrow will be another long
day in the ocean. i’m having a super fun time and the more i think about
japan/bali/mentawai next week, i’m getting more and more excited. but
still have lots of things to do and lots of waves to ride before that.
see you in the water.