Jedediah - Stuck in Rough Surf

Jedediah Paulson - stuck in rough surf

The winds were blowing hard and surf conditions had diminished to zilch.  I looked down at the gash running along my leg.   This was not good.  Too rough to get a helicopter out here, I was going to need to try to swim.   I had tied my surf leash around my thigh, in an effort to stem the bleeding.  I was okay with loosing the leg, survival was my primary goal.

Suddenly, I heard a shout from the cliffs above.  It was Jim, and in his hands was a rough rope which he was lowering towards me.   As the rope neared the rocks where I was resting, I grabbed ahold.  Jim had tied a not that I looped around my body and gave him the thumbs up.

Jim saw my approval, and up I went. 

Why be an accountant

Once upon a time, accountants were pretty much idolized like Hollywood movie stars.  It was a field dominated by women, and many regarded it as the it career.  Today, that couldn't be farther from the truth! Accounting is now one of the most boring professions in today's job market. Here are five reasons why you should not become an accountant.

1) MONEY. You'll be making a crap salary as an accountant.  Accountants have one of the lowest starting salaries in the jobs market today, right alongside education and bartending. Furthermore, the career path for accountants tends to follow a very flat progression: start off as a junior accountant, get crapped on for a half dozen years and finally when your boss gets promoted, you have a chance at a senior accountant position.  If you are lucky, your bald ass will then get promoted into middle management, where your life will pretty much end while you kiss ass to the controller or VP of finance.  Be sure to get your CPA (Certified Public Accountant) title - it's a pain in the ass, but you actually will make a little more green .

2) SELF-EMPLOYMENT. Accountants will usually start working with another firm straight out of school, but in todays market you are likely living at home like me.  Surfing your friends couches, and eating pizza and ramen.  You might have a shot at delivering newspapers.

3) CRAP JOB MARKET. Petty much everyone got laid off during the financial crisis.  Now, you'll be lucky to find a job in fast food. Having that sexy accounting degree probably wont do shit for you.

4) LACK OF VARIETY . If you like pushing buttons on a calculator and playing with a spreadsheet, then this is the job for you.  You'll get stuck crunching numbers while all the marketing guys are playing grab-ass with the hot interns.  

5) ACADEMIC PREPARATION. You'll study your ass off to graduate.  This stuff is as complex as engineering, but without the respect.  The engineering students will not invite you to their private fraternities because of your slide ruler.

  So, as you are considering this as a career, I would say think again.

jedediah paulson, surfer

Day Three:

Jim was right, the waves were huge.  Enormous, black, moving fast and breaking with tremendous force about a mile off the coast.  We were an hour north of Tamarindo, and there was a broken fence with a dilapidated shanty on the far side of the rocky beach where the jeep was parked.  I looked at Jim, his face tan with pre-mature wrinkles and a 2 day stubble of pepper black and grey hairs.

He seemed content to watch the waves roll in, not really blinking, eyes fixed to the binoculars.   "Shit" he muttered, "this is epic"

The second day

I stubbed out my cigarette and looked south, where the palm trees had started to sway with the breeze.  It was going to rain..  "Damn it", I thought, "why hadn't I brought my jacket."   and I knew why, because it was red and it made me stand out through the town of tamarindo and I really didn't feel like looking like a gringo today in my North Face just stinking of the US or perhaps the east coast which is how I always felt in that jacket.

I had hoped to meet up with Elsa, but she had been called into working a double at the bar and restaurant that her brother owned.  Ever since her parents passed, she had dropped out of school and ended up working for the Enrico.  She was pretty, and smart, and she should have been working on finishing high school and getting the fuck out of this town with its dirt roads and local drunks and gringo surfers like me from up north.

We met a couple months back, out at the break along the north edge of town. Someone had slashed the tires on my jeep, a reminder from the locals that this was their break.  Such bullshit always seemed to happen to me at the worst possible times.  I was working at a luxury hotel, as a line cook, and my shift started in an hour and I was starting to wonder if I would lose my job when I caught sight of her jeep rolling slowly up the dirt road to where I was parked.   She was with a few guys that I recognized from town, and as she pulled up she slowed the jeep and asked if I needed help in the lazy Spanish that was typical of a local.

I asked if she could give me a lift back, and surprisingly the two guys hopped down from the jeep and headed down to the beach while she looked me over, then down to the tires with a sly, knowing grin on her face.   "Do you know who did this I asked?", "no te preoccupes." she replied, "don't worry".  I left it alone and hopped into the worn front seat.  I noticed her tan legs and cheap pink flip flops as she backed up the jeep into a small clearing and turned around.  "my name's Pablo" I said.  I went by Pablo because it was just easier.   Everyone could pronounce it, and I liked how it sounded.   She pretended not to notice as the jeep bounced down the dirt road.  

Secret code

It's not hard to imagine a code so secret, that it could only be known by one name.  The code.  UCHQXRCG5H8N which does not mean much until you break it down.

U = Ugly
C = Cookies
H = Horizontal
Q = Queen
X = xray fish
R = Rookie
C = Charlie
G = Golden
5 = the letter 5
H = Hoops
8 = 3 + 5
N = Nancy

Put these together and it breaks down to the Horizontal Queen was Ugly, ate Cookies with XRay Fish.  and some other words'

Beach time, surf time

I friggin love the beach.  Nothing is more relaxing that heading to the beach after a rough day at the office.  Pushing pencils, working the slide ruler, then I head out and jam for the ocean.  I created a pinterest board to capture some of this awesomeness called Surfing and I think it's pretty awesome.

I learned to surf back in Puerto Rico, after the wall fell.   Jim and I headed down there to get out of the States, really, we had just finished college and we were in need of something different.  He got distracted by a girl, and I left him in San Jose, but I made it to the West Coast to a sleepy town that I can't even remember and pretty soon I was riding every day.

I met a grizzled old dude named El Rey, who could hardly speak any English but that was fine with me.  I told him about the states, would give him packs of US cigarettes that my mom would send me from time to time, and pretty soon he was giving me lessons on the beach and showing me the best breaks.  He made these amazing breakfast burritos in a small cafe that his family owned. It was rumored that he had once cut a woman's hand off, for stealing one of his salsa recipes.  Who knows, but it was fucking good salsa.

It didn't take too long before I was surfing without Rey's guidance.  With one eye, it was hard for him to catch the waves and balance, so he started to slow me down.  He did come in handy though, cause he know the locals and sometimes they wanted to start fights with a gringo like me.