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I screwed up and lost track of my old board near Trail 5 at San Onofre Bluffs campground this past weekend. Seems like it walked away. If you see this board, please let me know.

Specs:

• 9'6"
• D-fin
• Serial Number 2699
• AWFUL patch-jobs on the deck
• small rounded tail block

Though it may already be on a 747 to Tokyo, it's probably not super valuable. Hope to see this thing again...

I found an ad for this one on Craigslist a few years ago. At that time I had been watching a bunch of old videos on YouTube and drooling over pics of early Bings on classicbingsurfboards.com was really curious about how these old boards felt on a wave. When I saw the ad for an old 9'6" bing, I jumped on it.

The guy who sold it to me said that he had done some repair work to the nose. He added the paint to the deck (probably to cover up some of the work on the nose), but mentioned that that was common for boards from this era. He offered the following advice about the leash-hole in the tail:

"Someone drilled that leash hole. Not me. I don't use a leash -- with two exceptions. 1. when there are rocks that will break your board. 2. when you know there's a shark in the water."

Bing Copeland, added some info about the board's history:

"Your board #2699 was ordered by a local Hermosa surfer named Steve Lupo on August 3, 1963. I'll send you a birth certificate for your board to your email address.

Bing"

Sure, enough, Bing shared a Birth Certificate (pdf) from his log book when the board was born on 8/3/1963. Super cool!

This thing has taken a beating. 2" balsa stringer, neat red lamination job, big d-fin. What's not to love about it? In the water it really screams (once it gets going). It's kind of like riding a torpedo. I rode this board exclusively in all conditions for a little over a year. It really helped my surfing: strength, balance. Maybe even style.

Lots of gaps in the story. Who was Steve Lupo? How did this thing end up in Santa Cruz? I hope to add a few new stories before the stringer rots through.

Oh yeah: Skip Hoard snapped my pic at Linda Mar one day. I ran into this pic on the wall of a cafe after a morning session.

I found some wisdom on the bing forum while collecting some info on my surf board. Tom points out that dents and dings are part of each board's story while steering someone away from a restoration project:

"How much more would it be worth restored? Well, some people might pay more if you just left it as is, in its original condition. Every ding is part of its story, it's history. I once asked Dr. Ding to fix the only ding in one of my vintage Bings and he said I should leave it cuz it might be where David Nuuhiwa dropped his can of beer. Cool! You never know."

The full post is over on the big forum site.

It's true, you never know unless you can ask at least! Some are like scars from childhood adventures: a mark on the dining room table where my dad put a hot sparkler when he was a kid. Those buckle-rash scratches on that guitar I bought used: wonder what happened there? What stories do you have?

In the next few weeks, I'll put a few posts together about my surfboards and the stories behind each one.

So, New Year's day. Again.

This is a pretty good one for me. We're healthy & happy. I wish the same for anyone who stumbles up here. Consider this the birthday of this site. NetScrap.com has been around almost 10 years. March will be the 10 year anniversary of its launch in fact so maybe this year we'll have a birthday party... Email me if you're interested.

Here are some personal high points from 07:

• Ginger's arival
• Jumping from meez to gofish (from frying pan to fire? the jury's still out)
• Our trip to Savannah, GA for my cousin's wedding
• Cleaning up our backyard
• Reconnecting with Z after far too long
• Wave of the day on a local photographer's site
• Eve's tonsillectomy. She's much better now.
• Amy finished her novel!
• Amy also came up with two great ideas: Sierra Vista Fruit Exchange and the monster spray (more on that one later)
• Sketchiest LBI trip of all time. I'll tell you about that one later.
• We're still talking about Jared's profiteroles...
• '07 was the year that Amy upgraded our espresso machine (from the Capresso 121 Ultima) to a Pavoni. We've become masters at pulling shots on this thing.

What's 08 have in store for us?

• Get a better car (hybrid?), our Audi A4 Wagon has served us well. We're going hybrid.
• Eve will start Kindergarten. Public school, here we come!
• GoFish will do something big
• More words from Ginger (the new boss), She'll turn 1 and start walking soon too.
• Our contractor will probably take us to court for some absurdity
• Let's get bashWebTest off the ground
• Hellz, let's toss all the netscrap code up there too. As it turns out, the whole cms-ation of the site is its strength. Multiblog + catalog!
• Let readers post comments to this blizzog. Yeah, I'm pretty close with this too.
• Maybe holidays on the east-side?
• Jersey Shore this summer? I'd like to finally get my hands on a surfboard there
• For that matter, I'm thinking about trying to do something like the LogJam this year. I'm pretty good with the Bing these days. Just need to get used to surfing leashless!
• Amy will finish her 2nd novel.

So, yeah. This site is brand new. What's the goal here? Get writing. Reach out. Share some things that other folks might find neat. What else? You tell me!