I cleaned out my closet a couple days ago and found my old surf calendars from 2000 (my first year) and from 2003-2006. (Don’t know what happened to 2001 and 2002. Weird.)

So, in 2000 starting in June, I surfed 68 times.

In 2003, my best, my favorite year in the water, I surfed 155 times.

Then, a steady decline:

2004=134 times;

2005=102 times;

2006=79 times;

2007=70 so far.

The main reason 2003 was such a good year was because we had a few people, a couple families, that we surfed with often. The group vibe naturally lended to making more surf days happened, as we were all checking in with each other almost daily. The best reason to have a surf friend is to make sure you go more often – keeps surfing a priority in life, whereas one might otherwise cave to the responsibilites of family, work, school, etc. Case in point: 2004. Everyone’s lives changed and, although we all still surf, schedules now rarely accommodate everyone’s time needs simultaneously. So we see each other in the water instead of in the driveway. But that same year, I started working mostly from home, which one would think would lead to more, not fewer, sessions. Instead, a month’s worth of days, lost. Some of that can be attributed to crappy conditions, if I remember correctly – I think 2003 had been a magic year for the Jetty sandbar while 2004 was rather not – but I also surfed less from not having as many people to surf with. And from feeling pressure to maintain my job productivity once out of the office. (Guess I’m not as much of a slacker as I thought.)

Looking at those numbers discouraged me somewhat: the pattern reaffirmed the fact that I’m in a decline. On the flip side, though, I’m inspired. I have proof that surfing at least a third of the days out of the year can be done. While my goal has always been half the days, plus one (183), next year I’ll aim for simply 122. Which is also a nice blood sugar number.

On that front, Nick’s numbers have been all over the place as we’ve adjusted this, adjusted that, guesstimated this, tried to figure out that. From the 50s to the 300s in the same day; every time I think we’ve narrowed the highs or lows into a pattern, he has another number that blows whatever theory we’re currently working on. Not every check, but enough for concern. He was fine at dinner – 111 – then slightly low at 11 p.m. – 68 – then, after some juice and eggnog (all these middle-of-the-night snacks are sure to rot his teeth), back to a good number – 116 – around 1 a.m. So that wasn’t too bad. Hopefully today’s numbers will fall within that 80-150 range. We could really use a breather.