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.