Quote Originally Posted by newenglandflatness View Post
OR if you're using paid time off i.e. the aforementioned sick and personal days that would usually go to other uses. Really though, comment was only intended to point that you don't need to "live it up while you still can" - I'm still living the very much not-a-pro-surfer dream and have no plans of stopping! I don't live right on the ocean, or even in a town/city that fronts the ocean, and the current state of my quiver can certainly vouch for the cost of surfboards - doesn't mean you can't take some time (especially sick and/or personal time, which in most cases is paid time that goes to waste if not used) to get out of the office for a day!

Vacation days, now those get stored and used en mass on surf trips. There's a method to the madness.
I only have 15 days off & I am the youngest of four surfers within my company. My boss is well aware of the sporadic "dentist appointments." "Live it up while you still can" was not intended to be applied to a location or surfing expenditures, but rather the fact that life is only going to present more and more obstacles. It would be presumably easier to skip school than a job, which has a direct impact on your financial status. You can call in sick every day for a month, but the juice will never stop flowing. Balance does more justice to life than it does surfing. In my post, I mentioned that it would have to be prime conditions to justify taking a day off, like the two days I took off for Sandy. The key to "live it up while you still can" is what preceded it: "know what's ahead of you."