User:Dconolly

Surfing ruined my life. I blame my dad for introducing me to the sport -- which I finally agreed to try at the age of eight. But being an only-child, raised by a single father whose life revolved around riding waves, I didn't really stand a chance at picking up something more gender-appropriate like joining Girl Scouts or playing with lipstick and mascara. Instead, I became addicted to chasing the product of giant cyclones in the Pacific Ocean -- swells.

So how did surfing ruin my life? Fast forward nearly 20 years and you've got my current predicament -- a college graduate who quit the position of Managing Editor at an online surf publication to...you guessed it...surf. Now I'm living off the meager compensation of random freelance jobs in order to enable a surf-centric global itinerary. Okay, so maybe surfing didn't actually ruin my life, but it certainly lead me down a non-conformist path.

Despite being the quintessential "surf bum," I'm a decent stringer-togetherer-of-words with an educational background in researching, writing and editing, and a penchant for obtaining new knowledge. In essence, I'm a random fact-fiend who has a firm grasp of grammar, and in turn, Wikipedia is a tool that I access on a daily basis. Although I'm far from being an expert in any traditional fields of study, I have plenty of random facts to contribute from the microcosm that is surfing.