It's also a lot about how you present yourself. I know I touched on this earlier but when I first started surfing I told the guy pretty much "dude, I'm going to sound like I know what I'm talking about, and I probably know more than a lot of people through tertiary knowledge of surfing, but i'm a total kook so remember that". pretty much because the industry is so similar to skiing, wakeboarding, skateboarding, etc, that I'm going to appear super fucking knowledgeable, I'm going to sound like a pro, and I know I'm going to sound like I know wtf I'm talking about when in reality I don't, because I know when I know what I'm talking about and I know how much it took to know that. I also have my masters in science so I have a weird take on the world, which might explain why I think about this shit in detail. I'm also old and have the flu and haven't been able to surf or ski for 3 weeks so i'm super grumpy and pretty high on cough medication and the surf has been good and I'm stuck at home sucking on dayquill while tahoe continues to go off as well. FML. Anyways, presenting yourself, My wife says I change whenever we go into ski/wakebord/surf shops, like my confidence boosts. But she also says that because of the way I talk about whatever she has never seen someone get so much stuff for free, it's like people just assume you are pro. It makes me feel like a total poser because I know I suck at surfing, but I'm pretty frugal so I'll take the free booties thank you.

Another thing about the presenting yourself is there is a lot of crossover of knowledge and terminology that will make it appear like you know what the fuck you are talking about, but can also get jumbled as certain things have different names. I make surfboards, I know what I'm talking about with construction of surfboards, but because I have been involved in ski design so heavily in the past I use ski terminology for surfboards, so I will talk about underfoot, edges, rocker is the same, but yeah, it gets confusing, but there is a lot of cross over in design which is why designing surfboards was actually really easy for me. I really understood skis, I grew up on lakes, worked on boats, in boats, with boats, pretty much spent my winters on the snow and my summers on the water, so designing surfboards is kind of like designing a boat that you can ride like a surfboard, if that makes sense. Then theres a bunch of chemistry and physics which I have degrees in so to me it's like chem and phys 101 mixed with my childhood of being forced to ski and coached by mean eastern european olympians (This is true, my race coaches were all czech olympic skiers and shit) and then include a bunch of science education, publication, work, and then a lot of testosterone driven stupidity and I'm the result.

I really just want to stop being sick. It sucks. I've gotten to surf the last 3 days, but only for like 30 minute intervals, it's all I could do, but there has been a couple spots really going off, and I have to drive by them to even go to the pharmacy. That's what they don't tell you about living next to the beach/mountain, is having to drive by all the time when you can't go have fun really sucks.

Anyways, another thing about presentation and confidence with skiing is you don't really need a ski pass. If you look confident and cool enough they don't even give a shit. Green passing is cool and all, and I support it over what I generally do because lifties deserve tips, but if I need to ski and don't have a pass I just act extra confident and I think I scare the lifties. I definitely look like a pro when I ski, or am in a lift line, and people kind of just give you a pass. It's kind of neat, but it always makes me feel really awkward as I actually used to have really bad social anxiety, which is probably why I appeared stand offish or scary.