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Although they are based in Florida and here in California we can’t just cruise by and drop off our old boards you can still support a great cause.

In 2008 founder Kelly Kingston decided to give away her old board to a teenager on Craigslist after unsuccessfully trying to sell it. She simply asked the kids to explain why they deserved it. She got a flood of responses and the non-profit Share the Stoke was born. Basically, they give away free boards to kids without cash. It’s a great way to turn them onto something good and keep them out of trouble.

If you have extra cash and want to help out, while you can’t stop by and drop off your board, they accept donations via their website. Check ‘em and feel good – http://sharethestokefoundation.com/

It only takes a couple of overtly conservative people to ruin the introduction of the Happy Lens by Spy Optic. Get your mind out of the gutter boring, old people! “Happy to Sit on Your Face” is about the revolutionary light therapy lens, not

what you’re doing behind closed doors. Thank goodness Spy Optic toned it down with the new Encinitas billboard that reads “Happiness is Coming!”

Oh, yeah! Point goes to Spy Optic.

What if you were out surfing Cottons and ol’ “Tricky Dick” dropped in on you? That’d be pretty surreal, right? Well there are no reports of the 37th President ever being spotted surfing, but his mansion, La Casa Pacifica (a.k.a. the Western

White House),would make any surfer drool. It sits atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and some of Southern California’s best surf breaks. After sending an aide to find a secret Southern California getaway, Nixon bought the estate in 1969 from H. H. Cotton’s widow (the name of the break below the Spanish style mansion).

Get your start by tuning into the daily action-sports industry news service at Shop-Eat-Surf.com! Their goal is to provide industry news as it is going down and to keep all those in the industry informed.

They focus on those who have built multimillion and multibillion dollar companies starting from where the action goes down to the far reaches of the earth and everywhere in between. Check it out – http://www.shop-eat-surf.com/ and become one of those big-time action-sports executives!

Little did you know that peanut butter has carrageenan in it. What is carrageenan? It’s the generic term used for specific compounds that are pulled from red algae, which grows in the ocean. Carrageenan is added to peanut butter to help give it its consistency and make make it easier to spread on bread.

Bon appetit!

Use them to track your progress and improvement out in the waves. When you win your first ASP title, you can look back and remember the first time you got enough speed up to realize you were ready to boost air.

If you haven’t heard, stingrays can put a quick and painful end to your surf session as you are strolling out through the tide to begin paddling out. However there are a few things you should know and do to avoid this premature end to your day out in the waves…

Stingrays are found at breaks where the ocean floor is flat and sandy. The likelihood of getting stung for the general public is much higher when the tide is dropping and moving to low tide because waders can walk out to where the water was just much deeper a couple of hours before and where stingrays have buried themselves during high tide.

The best way for surfers to get out into knee-high water and above without getting stung is to do the stingray shuffle or scoot your feet along the ocean floor, stirring up the sand to scare the stingray away. Scaring it away is your best bet to avoid stepping on one of these unsuspecting “ocean landmines” and get barbed.

Give yourself 20 points if you can name the shaper who invented the thruster surfboard…

Australian surf champ and shaper Simon Anderson back in 1980.

Give yourself another 20 points if you know where Tom Curren was born and first surfed…

Born on July 3rd, 1964 in Santa Barbara, CA, Tom Curren first learned to shred surfing Rincon Point!

It seems to be the age-old question each year when it comes time to pick up a wetsuit for the upcoming winter, “Which one, if any, is truly warmer than the rest?”

Review after review is pointing at Matuse wetsuits as the standout for warmth. They’ve got some top secret technology that they’ve incorporated with the super warmth and flexibility of Yamamoto neoprene. Because their neoprene does not absorb water it stays super light weight.

Get your Matuse wetsuit and stay out in the water longer, with more warmth and strength in each paddle stroke this winter!

….actually scratch that. Stay in the wetsuit you’ve got. I don’t want you out in the waves as long as me.