How to replace a bodyboard cover

Today, I'll show you how to go from this:





















To this:

So, you decided to get one of those cheap bodyboards, a piece of styrofoam with a cloth sleeve around it, not very sturdy. Maybe you didn't have much money to spend, or maybe you were pretty sure you wouldn't use the thing enough to warrant spending big money. Perhaps now you used it more than you expected, or perhaps you got into some pretty serious waves, but now the cloth cover is torn and coming off, and you aren't in a position to buy another one. Have no fear! Making your own new cover is totally doable and, depending on the cloth you buy, can be WAYY cheaper than buying a new board, particularly if you don't live in a place that sells boards at every grocery store.

Materials: 

1. Cloth: Enough to cover your board. Depending on the size of your board and the width of the cloth you buy, as little as a yard may be enough. Measure before you buy.
2. Needles, pins, and thread
3. Chalk, pencil, or something else to draw on the cloth

Directions:

1. If your board has a leash attached, you will probably need to remove it before you put the new cloth on. You may need to remove your leash to get the old cloth off. Turn your board over onto the back. The back of the leash apparatus may have a notch on it like a large screw. If so, you can probably unscrew the leash from the board. 

   

   This is the back of my board's leash attachment. You can see the notch in it. The attachment is in two pieces which screw together and come apart when unscrewed. 

2. Figure out how much cloth you need to cover your bodyboard. Measure the widest part of its width, making sure to account for its thickness (it may help to measure around the board and divide the number in half) and measure its length. You will need to cut out two pieces of cloth slightly larger than this board. It is easiest to round the amount of cloth you need to the nearest yard or meter, depending on which system your country uses for cloth sales. (If you're used to one system and are shopping in the other, remember that a meter is significantly larger than a yard). It also helps to consider the usual width of  cloth, which is typically about 60 inches (152.4 cm), although some bolts are narrower. Always check the width of a bolt of cloth before buying. This means that a yard of cloth purchased from a 60 inch wide bolt would be a piece one yard (36 inches) wide by more than a yard and a half long. Say, for example, that your board is 26 1/2 inches (67.3 cm)long and 18 inches (45.7 cm) wide. Assuming these measurements, you need a piece a little more than a yard long (or about a meter long) and a little less than a yard wide (less than a meter). A yard of cloth 60 inches wide is enough to cover this board. However, if your cloth is one yard wide, buying a yard gives you one square yard, which would probably be a bit too narrow for the width while being plenty for the length. A piece a meter wide and long would be just enough. 
3. Buy your cloth. I used a type of nylon, a tough cloth, which is just right for this project. You want something strong. 
4. Make your pieces: If you have a reasonably intact piece of cloth from your board (I had the whole top piece) you can use that as a pattern. Otherwise, you will need to make some more measurements of your board. Trace around your board, adding about an inch to accommodate its thickness and use your measurements as reference points to help you. Cut the cloth, leaving a GENEROUS seam allowance (I left more than an inch in some places) so you can correct any pattern errors. 

   

   The colorful cloth is my old cover which I used as a pattern for the new one. Note the green cloth around the bright cloth cover and notice the white line around the colorful piece. The white line is what I used to guide my sewing. 

5. Pin the pieces together. You will not sew all the way around the cover. You must leave the wide end un-sewn so you can fit the board into it.  You will sew the rest up by hand. 

   

   If you look closely, you can see the pins around the piece of cloth. Note that none of the pins are on the top of the piece. That is the widest part, and that is where I won't be sewing with the machine. 

6. Try your cover on for size and see if you need to make any adjustments. You may want to try it on inside out so you can baste (make large stitches to hold together cloth that will later be sewn by machine) wherever you see something that needs to be taken in. 
7. Once you have your board cover the way you like it, it is time to sew the board into its cover. Start where your seam ends, fold the raw edges inside, and sew using a whip-stitch (over and over stitch). 
   
8. Now it's time to put that leash back on. Feel for where the hole is where the leash was attached. You will make your hole with a knitting needle or something similar. A pencil might work. If you have more than one kind of knitting needle around, start with a small knitting needle. Push the needle through the fabric, into the hole, and out the fabric on the other side. Be patient. Be prepared to put the thing in and take it out several times. You are tearing the fabric a bit, but you are also pushing the threads apart.
   
   Once your hole is big enough, push the larger end of the leash attachment into place. The fabric will probably tear a bit, but that is all right. Seal the hole from fraying with clear nail polish or fray check. Screw in the other end. 
   
9. Now go catch some waves!

Cherry Oatmeal

This weekend, my parents and I were in the country. As the sour cherries are just coming out, I decided to make oatmeal with cherries in it. As I have already made oatmeal with apples and dried fruit in it, I thought I would try the process with seasonal fruit, knowing that sour cherries taste very good cooked. The result was quite scrumptious, if a bit sour.
Here's the recipe. Apologies in advance that it isn't very specific on amounts. You won't get such a result as we had with just one or two cherries. Half a cup or more per serving should be good.

Cherry Oatmeal
Serves: 1 (multiply the recipe for more people)
Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
a generous handful of sour cherries, pitted
black currants (optional)
salt to taste
sugar to taste
cracked walnuts (optional)

Directions: 

1.  Measure out the water and put it on to boil. Add salt. While the water is boiling, pit the cherries and measure out the oats. 
2. As soon as the water is at a rolling boil, add the oats, cherries, and currants, if you are using them. Boil for about five minutes, or until the oats are as cooked as you want them to be. 
3. Serve the oatmeal with sugar and, if you want, butter and cracked walnuts. 

When the peaches come out, I just may make this recipe again and report how it turns out!

The Dangers of Relativism

           So what is our problem today? The rejection of absolute truth is the main danger in our day. When we reject the outside reality of truth, we reject the outside reality of falsehood. How long before the alt-Left wises up to the terrible weapon they have taken up? How long before, instead of using relativism as a sort of short-cut weapon to defend against oppression bolstered by lies that cannot be easily refuted or against truths cruel people misuse, greedy people start using it merely for power? How long before the phrase “Women and People of Color” becomes nothing but a stock phrase to twist people’s consciences into acquiescing to whatever the person who said it demands, whether or not the thing demanded benefits anybody? How long before historians start churning out blatant lies and calling them history? How long before scientific studies come out that were never conducted at all, merely concocted as expressions of The Narrative? How long before juries turn a blind eye to the facts and condemn the white innocent with a cleaner conscience (and greater awareness of the role of race in their choice) than when they condemn the Black innocent? If there is no objective truth, there is no objective falsehood! There is only the Narrative. 

           One problem is that those who wield this weapon, be they on the right or left, have man’s better nature on their side. Nobody wants to be racist. Nobody wants to be sexist. Most people honestly wish everybody well and prospering. The scholarship bashing the West has taken so many steps that few white people of goodwill can resist the call to self-abasement. Who want  be considered selfish? So what if we don’t like the world the Left wants to bring about? We are privileged. Surely we can afford to give a little. The world we thought was so good and lovely was actually very bad, and it must be abandoned for the good of The Oppressed. So what if we don't like it. The very fact that we don't like it is what is wrong with us. We must trust those who aren't poisoned by Toxic Whiteness to build a new world for us, instead of combining perspectives and designing things with all races together. Don't you see that this kind of talk dismisses white people's perspective, making us out to be blind and deaf? Must we go, without any gradation, from having all the say to having no say? Is there really no other alternative? Now, I have heard that to counteract one extreme, the other extreme may be needed, but I fear the balance may be tipping. 

              The perspective I am talking about is perhaps best summarized in the little saying, “When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” I have trouble even beginning to go through the problems with this saying. For one, it is a kind of dogmatic assertion. While this saying can be used to attempt to palliate people who make fake oppression claims to delay or deter the cause of justice, it could also be used to mask the truth. Try saying that to the victims of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Many of them were privileged. Instead of an inditement of the excesses of that movement, might not their suffering have been, rather, a proof that equality had been achieved? Can we be sure that this saying won’t be misused? Yet perhaps the most important thing about this statement is the fact that, by and large, it isn’t true. Most white people won’t feel oppressed if fewer unarmed Black men are shot. Most won’t feel oppressed if fewer Black people go to jail. Most white people won’t feel oppressed if more Black people do well in school.