Snow Day!

A few inches of snow is not the end of the world...unless you live in Seattle

Irrational Thinking

It's funny how the faintest lines of yellow and green on the radar can cloud our judgement. And even more amazing how all rational thinking goes right out the window when BIG red blobs are headed our way. Recent images from a 6 hour round trip for 2 hours of water/camera time.

Blowin' Up The Spots

Read the whole story here.

More about this later.

Catching Up

Lots to blog about - Trips to Mexico and Oregon, photo shoots for Lexus, and a new place to live. I'm not sure where to start. Maybe a few pics from the trip to Mexico with Lorn, Nic, Drex, Dano, Clem, and Kate.










Check the rest of the pics here.

More to come.

Random

I'm posting this because-

A. I'm trying to avoid work.

B. Because it drives me crazy how shitty everyone parks on the hill and they should take lessons from this guy.

C. Because it fits the name of my blog.

Either way I should be concerned with more important things like...what version of Tomcat would run best in the #6 lab environment, or figuring what to do with my life.

via The Sensus

Enjoy!

The Forgotten Files #1

Thinking Outside The Box

Mandarin oranges on my "Quality Signature" QFC salad are the most exciting thing to happen as of yet today. As much as I enjoy the tiny slices I would gladdy sacrifice them if I thought stuffing some of my salad into the ports of our F5 would resolve some routing issues and end a 4 hour long bridge. Some of my colleagues don't seem to agree that it's the right solution, but I would argue the biggest risks offer the greatest rewards. Maybe I'll test my theory with some almonds that garnish my salad. I don't like almonds. I guess I have nothing to lose then, huh?

Return to La Push

I can't remember the last time I spent a weekend in La Push. I'm pretty sure I didn't make a single trip out there last year. A lot has (and hasn't) changed since then- crappy Twilight souvenirs and signs at every stop; permits for camp fires; noise ordnance banning fireworks except for a 3 month period; TEAM JACOB carved into every piece of wood, and no more hot showers. I'm not sure why this should surprise me when it's being run by a grown man riding around the campground on a 50cc child size quad-runner. You have to love the res.

We couldn't have asked for better conditions this weekend on the coast. Sure, my sleeping bag got a little wet overnight and there was a few early morning hours were we stood around trying to figure out what to do with ourselves, but afternoon sun and glassy conditions easily made up for it. I'm pretty sure everyone got their fare share of waves; maybe even more if you were dropping in on everyone and claiming birthday boy status.


I ate like shit this weekend. Hopefully the 8-10 hours of surfing burned off some of the crap I ingested. I had one actual sit down meal that consisted of a cheese burger, onion rings, and a Oreo shake. I'm sure through out my stay I consumed a few pounds of hot dogs, chips, trail-mix, beef jerky, and High Gravity beverages. Maybe it's time for a cleansing, or at least a few salads this week.

FreeHub Profile

Brandon over at FreeHub was kind enough to give me the next issues "Behind the Lenz" page. It's also currently the article of the week. Check it out here .

My favorite part of all this was making my profile pic. I hate having my pic taken so I figured I would try to make it as fun as possible. Pretty stoked on the results seeing it only took about 2 hours to shoot (1 hour 45 minutes of drinking beers and 15 minutes of shooting pics). Thanks to the Casual Industrees boys for helping out. It couldn't have been done with out you.

NWCup #3

Spent the weekend in PA @ Dry Hill shooting the NW Cup #3. Pretty stoked on some of the shots and have already found a home for a few. It was a good crew as usual which makes hiking up and down the hill much easier when you know you have a tent to kick back in and enjoy a beer when you get tired.

Lars Stenrberg ended up with the win in Pro Men. Not much of surprise since he used to practically live at Dry Hill. Jill Kintner took 1st in Pro women which is also not much of a surprise seeing she's a badass. Matt Patterson won his division again with a time that beat most of the pro division. Good thing he was generous with the beers after the race or else people would be calling him a sand-bagger.

The plan was to catch some waves after the race, although the wind was not going to let that happen. Nic and JR got skunked out west. Drex made an afternoon trip out and caught a few when the wind backed off. Would have been fun to wait it out, but I was also ready to get home and pass out. Hopefully some surf next weekend.

Not weekend related...

Some strange circumstances and a few unexpected questions at work have once again made me weary of my employment. If I've been back to work less than a year can I collect unenjoyment again?

Great Lakes Sessions

I ran across this the other day on Boardistan and just couldn't help but laugh. I wasn't laughing because the thought of surfing the lakes is ridiculous, but because 15 years ago that was me. I have at least 20-30 sessions under my belt surfing the waters between Frankfort and Glen Arbor.

On windy mornings I used to wake up and call the Coast Guard station in Frankfort and get real time weather reports from on-duty officers working the harbor entrance. Depending on how hard the wind was blowing and estimated wave height at the mouth of the harbor, I would make the call to drive out to the coast. From a tall hill right outside of town I could check to see if waves where breaking over the harbor walls- that was a good sign.

Great Lakes surfing didn't have as many variables to consider when and where to surf. It was always pretty small, the swell period never even came into play, you could always count on it being windy, and is was going to be cold. I also knew that I would be the only guy out.

Looking back the place had a perfect setup with jetty's you could walk out and jump off of into the lineup. Waves would break along the wall and remain pretty clean as long as it was out of the wind.

FrankFort Harbor

New Gear

Long night of work so I figured I would blog some recent shots I took for ContourHD helmet cams. Pretty stoked to get my hands on the final product that I can mount to my surfboard and immediately fall on it. I should have one in a few weeks, but until then this is all I have to show-

Surfboard Mount

Wakeboard Mount

I guess they (ContourHD) has a few being tested in Mexico and CA, but I haven't seen the footage yet.

Pacific City Flop House

When a rental house says it sleeps ten you can always plan on at least being room for 15 which of course we interpreted as “Plenty of room for 18 people, 3 dogs, 34 boards, and 24 wetsuits.”. Actually it was enough room as long as you were ok with sleeping on floor, and waiting to take a shower. Surprisingly we ended up with too much food and not enough beer.

Surf was fun at best which meant there was plenty of time for heckling from the shore, poker games, and sun bathing. One night we even decided to make the journey into the town and belly up to the bar. The Sportsman was one of two establishments in all of town that would serve drinks after 10, so you can just imagine the crowds there on a busy weekend. It was perfect people watching and listening to cover bands. We closed it down and moved on.

Next stop that night was pretty random and unexpected. While walking home we passed a home that appeared to be having a party and figured it was ok to knock on the door. Despite not knowing a single person there we were still invited in, offered beer, and asked to participate in a beer pong game. Otter and Eli agreed to play, but made them wash all the cups first to avoid contracting herpes (HSV-1) from a bunch of college kids. I vacuumed the floor.

We ended that night by going back to the house and making sure to wake everyone up. After that the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful- surfing, DVDs, Yo-yo'ing, Lorn attempt at sandboarding, poker, beer, hiking out of bounds, and grilling.

First Time - The Sounders

Stolen from the interweb

So far I've been reluctant to attend. I've endured tremendous amounts of peer pressure, and have even been made fun for not participating. I guess everyone has already been doin' it for a season or two. It's not that I was afraid to join in, but mainly due to games being on the weekend and could possibly take time away from surfing plans. Oh yeah, and I can't stand soccer.

Otter convinced me that I would have a solid support crew (Peterson, Lorn, Alexis, Ryan, Sophia...) to make sure my first time was enjoyable and since it was on a weekday it would not interfere with a trip to the coast. I went as far as to find a green shirt and spent $8 for a 16oz beer to order to fit in. I also did my best to pay attention and applaud only at appropriate times, which really wasn't that difficult because the seats were near the action and it was what most fans would consider a high scoring game- Sounders 3 Argentina 0.

In the end I will admit to having a good time. I still could give a shit about the Sounders, but could easily fall victim to the mob mentality fueled by stadium food, tap beer, and kept warm with blue & green scarves. I can't say I'd be willing to buy a jersey yet even though I love the "friendly game" color- Electric green.

Carrying Baggage

This is pretty much what my life feels like- a pile of surf wax, wetsuits, bike pads, helmets, sleeping bags, camera bags, light stands, changes of clothes, and somewhere under all of that is my laptop for work...and that's not even the beginning of the baggage I feel I'm carrying right now.



Thank God for 4 day weekends in sunny North Carolina where I can pretty much do what I want and don't know anyone well enough to feel I have to explain my actions. Back home now, but already feeling I desperately need to find that place again. Too much going on here to even think sometimes.

I have a lot to deal with still and a long road ahead before I can clear my head again...funny how that long road always leads to surf.

Race Days - Pro GRT #1

I usually don't get too excited about races. As a matter of fact I don't stick around for the actual race. I seem to get much more accomplished during the practice rounds. This past weekend was a different story - round #1 of the Pro-GRT. Thanks to the Iceland volcano the turn out was much better than usual, and the caliber of riders was right up there with the World Cup. I'm not a racer, and no aspirations of becoming one, but I could still appreciate the skill these World Cup guys and gals bring to the hill.

Dan Atherton - 5th place

Congratulations to the New Transition Bikes team. Bryn Atkinson took 1st in Men Pro Downhill and Jill Kintner placed 3rd in the Womens Pro Downhill. Pretty impressive for the newly formed team and Jill's 3rd (maybe 4th) downhill race ever. Here are the rest of the results:

Pro Men (Top 10)

#1 Bryn Atkinson

#2 Justin Leov

#3 Luke Strobel

#4 Andrew Neethling

#5 Daniel Atherton

#6 Aaron Gwin

#7 Dan Stanbridge

#8 Danny Hart

#9 Neko Mulally

#10 Curtis Keene

Tracy Moseley - 1st place

Pro Women (top 10)

#1 Tracy Moseley

#2 Rachel Atherton

#3 Jill Kintner

#4 Melissa Buhl

#5 Jacqueline Harmony

#6 Katie Holden

#7 Strand Katrina

#8 Anka Martin

#9 Darian Harvey

#10 Dawn Fidler

Dan Stanbridge - 7th place

High Surf Advisory

Didn't even get in the water. Hung on the beach and snapped a few pics. Was planning on surfing the groins after lunch, but conditions turned for the worse. Ended up at the mini mart were Clem and I purchased a few Steel Reserves to fuel surf heckling session. At the time "High Gravity" malted beverages sounded like a great idea...not so much this morning.

In the office today wondering if anyone is going to even bother sending me an email concerning work. Not sure how I feel about not having any work to do. I guess it gives me time to update my neglected blog.

Home this week

I've been on a short break for awhile in Paris. Work pretty much sucks up every second of computer time I can handle in a 24 hour period. Some free time on weekends to walk and get to know the city. I have a few pics, not much time to post. I get back to Seattle this week and with every timezone I cross I'll be adding another hour of freetime to my day- I'm so over 12-14 hour days.
Gonna miss my Paris apartment.

Not my apartment ;)See the rest of Paris here.

Fiberglass and Megapixles

Just ran across the trailer for the documentary FIBERGLASS AND MEGAPIXLES. Of course I've always dreamed of being a surf photog, but on the other hand I could never imagine lined up on the beach with 50 other guys snappin' shots of the same exact thing. I don't have some profound artists statement touting my creativity, or uniqueness, I just know it would be tough to do for me. Who am I kidding? Of course I would do it just to say I've done it I guess.

And then you have the water shooters. That seems like a little different skill set required to get the shots. Even though I was in the line up with 50 other guys I bet I would get a certain amount of gratification just trying to get a shot.



Check the trailer for a great clip of Sunny Garcia's fin smacking the dome of a filmers water housing. That's one guy I would hate to have run into me.

Making Changes

Little surf and a little snow this weekend. Equally average conditions, but still a good time. Also started a new project this weekend and it's turned out to be a pretty big one- cleaning up my catalog of images. I'm not trying to implement anything different than what most serious photogs do, just better than what I've been doing. Basically it involves a lot of re- naming, importing, converting, and saving, a few hundered gigs of images.

Lost Images: honestly can't remember taking this. Nothing special other than single dude out catching a bomb.

In the past I imported all my RAW files, converted to DNG (with the embedded RAW file), processed the selects, upload a full res copy of the JPG to online site, backed up everything on mirrored drives, and save in batches to DVD. Sounds like a lot, but it's not bad as long as you stick to your plan and set up your programs preferences up correctly. I've done my best to stay consistant, although I'm not always perfect.

Lost Images: No matter how many times I see this one it still makes me laugh.

So I'm changing my naming convention, updating and syncing meta data, creating multiple catalogs in Lightroom to keep the file size down to a minimum, and making sure everything is once again mirrored. Some old scripting skills have really made the job a lot easier. Not going to worry about the DVD backups right now. Hopefully I never will have to.

Best part about the whole process is coming across some hidden gems I've forgotten about.

Trying New Things

If you ask my wife what the plans are for the weekend she'll typically say she's going to try and get up to the mountains and I'll be surfing. This weekend I did my best to expand my horizons and take in a few different activities.

We never even made it to our seats...because with action like this you are always on your feet!!!!

I also learned that a zombie needs to be closer than 40ft feet for me to get a clean head shot.

A Buck Hunter tournament was also on the agenda for Saturday night, but few tumbler glasses full of Jager got in the way. I was told I had a good time. Only thing I have to confirm that is a few bruises.

Keywords

Courtesy of StuffSurfersLike

Since I've just recently started contributing to this blog again its' been awhile since I've checked Google Analytics. The best part of G.A. is the breakdown of keyword searches that brings traffic to your site. Generally some results are informative, some disturbing, and at least one that makes me do a little research to figure out how the hell they ended up here. This time the lucky winner is "SURFERS PEE".

So when I searched for "SURFERS PEE", Slidesideways was #12 on Googles links. What does one need to know about surfers pee that they would need to check the second page of links? Here's what beat me out:

The Butthole Surfersx4
Stuff Surfers Like
FaceBook
Suite101
Daily Stoke

Anyone know anything about SEO? It may be tough to beat out the ButtHole Surfers, but how cool would it be to have the #1 blog when it comes to searching for "Surfers pee".

Grindstone

Back at it. Started a new full time gig with Voxmobili- small French company that provides mobile applications for T-Mobile in the US. Pretty stoked on job and work I'll be doing. It's not photography, but...

Not sure what the work schedule will be like. I do know I'll be working from home a good portion of the time, which means random trips to the coast when the surf is good. It just may be awhile until I feel the situation out with crew overseas.


They've mentioned a trip to Paris to visit the home office. Of course a trip to France would include a few days in Biarritz and it's surf soaked beaches.

Last Seasons Shots

Shooting bikes is fun. Not much has come from it so far other than a few published pics and some new friends. I'm still pretty pleased with the results considering how much, or how little, time I've invested. Here are two shots that just made it into a UK downhill mag - Wideopen.


Adam Frink - Fluidride Cup


Adam Ransavage - Trail 27

The Downhill race schedules for next season are out now and it seems like an event every weekend. There's a few that I'll defiantly make, but would like work more on individual planned shots instead. I have a tough time going through hundred's of pics after a weekend of shooting. Process too many shots they all look the same.