Mike making the most of small waves by showing us why he’s pro and we’re not.

Last summer we met a young surfer (well, young to me) named Mike Losness — you remember, he taught the kids what a ‘corn dog’ is. Since then, Mike has traveled all over the world for competitions, photo shoots and to film surf movies. No matter where Mike was (i.e., Scotland, Africa, Mexico, Thailand), he always kept in touch with Johnny and let him know he was thinking about him and to tell him what the water temp was — (first question surfers always ask is “what’s the temp?”)

Mike knew about Johnny, Deluxe and his skateboard. Turns out Mike also skates and has his own board with a company called GFH. Being the Renaissances Man that he is, Mike is also an accomplished artist, and did the artwork for his board too. Of course the ‘boys’ exchanged decks.

At some point, Mike found out that Johnny likes to do his own ‘artwork’, and loves to color/paint/doodle on anything, antiques included — (PARENTING TIP 112: never take a nap while there is a Sharpie and a very busy 3 year old in the same room — never!), he sent Johnny special pens with instructions and ‘how to’s’ for designing his own board. — happily, no antiques were harmed during this art project.

Johnny couldn’t wait to see Mike this summer to thank him in person for the deck, words or encouragement, and pens, — and to show him his artwork. Desi (our friend at Adio) and Mike (he’s on the Adio Team) made time for us and cleared their Saturday — during one of the busiest times of the year for surfers and their sponsors no less!

We met at Mike’s house and he gave Johnny a tour of his art studio, then took us to a ‘local’ spot in San Clemente. This was definitely a highlight of the trip. How cool is it to sit in the line up with one of the top surfers and play Frisbee while you wait for a set?

(FOR MY MOM:
- A ’set’ is a bunch of waves that are evenly spaced apart, but come in at one time. “dude! check out the nice set coming in”.

-The ‘line up’ is a group of surfers in the water waiting for sets. “Look at all the people in the line-up — they’re playing Frisbee! It’s totally packed! — oh wait, it’s just the Romano’s….”)

THE LINE UP

Heath

You go Anne! Show those boys whose boss!

Joey, about to eat it…

This is Mike just as he was landing an ‘air’ (note to my mom: ‘air’ means he leaps out of the water board and all — and lands it!)

I missed the actual air shot (BUMMER!) but I did manage to get this one.

Okay, I totally don’t mean to be a prev, but, check out Mike’s profile! Dang! He looks like a super hero or something! Later as we were looking at the photos, I mentioned it to my Mike and we both commented on ‘the profile’ — or maybe it was me and Anne… Either way, male or female, I totally know that’s what your checking out right now! Go on — admit it!

Desi showing us he’s still got it!

Go Johnny! Go!

My Mikey!

I want a pool. Bad. I beg Mike for one all the time and use it as leverage whenever possible, i.e., ‘I bet I could do wash faster if I had a pool…’ He doesn’t want one because of the cost, upkeep (hello, pool boy!), and he thinks that people would ‘use’ us for the pool. You know that type of ‘friend’, the kind that shows up at your front door wearing a bathing suit, flippers and a snorkeling mask. You occasionally call them to chat, they seem totally bored with the conversation until the word ‘pool’ comes up. Then then scamper right over.

Yeah, using people for their pool is bad. Mike would never do that, he certainly wouldn’t let his kids do that. That’s just rude.

When we met up with Jeff, Travis and Desi at Adio this summer, there were a few uncomfortable pauses.

Adio: Hey Johnny! How’s it goin’ little guy — how you feeling? How’s school — bet your out already, huh? You having fun on vacation? Did you you fly or drive? Did you bring the Green Machine? Whose this new kid?

Johnny (mumbling, never really makes eye contact): Yeah, uh. Good times, good times. Hey, I heard you guys got a new pool? Can I skate it?

Turns out they would use someone for their pool. Of course they’d be totally bummed if it actually had water in it…Mike even took a few laps around the new pool (or bowl) — which made me wonder where his medical info was.

Jeff Taylor is one of the Director’s at Adio behind Johnny’s shoe. He ‘left work’ early to skate with the boys — okay, his office overlooks the new skate park, but still, how cool is that?

Anne was really studying the ‘workings’ of a large company and noticed that a guy was wearing flip flops. Which made her think, “what do I have to do to get an awesome job like this?”. So we thought we would do a little curriculum research by asking Jeff, Desi and Travis what classes they would recommend she take this fall. can’t say I blame her. When Mike and I find cool companies we always put it on the Southwest Airlines scale of coolness. C’mon — SWA was the largest distributor of Wild Turkey in the 70’s — hot pants? how cool is that? We put Adio up there with SWA on the coolness scale. They might not give our kids free Wild Turkey, but they can wear flip flops to work and have a super fast pool. Things to consider when your job hunting…

For the boys to be able to skate in a park like this one, with only a few people around — for free — is amazing. There are a lot of cities (G-town included) that would kill to have park like this, and our kids had it all to themselves. They skated until closing time and they didn’t have an ounce of energy left. I wish I could hose them off before our drive home…