(Almost) A Step By Step

 What you don't see me doing in this is using a pencil to go over the lines on the printed out drawing.

Bike Check beginning of 2K11!

THROWBACK

THROWBACK

I've been a little quiet.

So, I hope to have some more pics/videos up on here soon. Mostly snow bike action, but a little of neither here nor there as well.

In the mean time, an explanation for my silence can be found with the time that I've been putting in over HERE.

Ray's MTB Milwaukee trip

The new Ray's Mountain bike park opened in Milwaukee a few weeks ago, and as luck would have it, I'm on a paid vacation, so it was decided that a small road trip was in order. Just across the Wisconsin border in Marinette, we stopped at a place called Blue Bike Burrito, which was super rad. They had old bikes, photographs of bikes, and even chairs and tables made with bike parts. The burrito was dang good too (note: we ate burritos every day of the trip).

Winters of past

I was just reflecting on a previous winter when Justin and I traveled a little west of Chicago. We traveled to Starved Rock State Park. When we arrived we were blown away by some of the massive frozen waterfalls that graced the side of the valley walls. We parked the car abruptly at the entrance to begin shooting photos. Our adventure had begun.

Skiing. Biking. Crashing. Whatever.

Step one, get a bike and some skis from the trash. Doesn't really matter what, as long as the frame and fork are usable, you should be good. Though, probably, the simpler, the better.

Cut some shit up. Bolt it together.

Voilà! Winter fun.



Really though, staying upright and not bleeding are all on you from there.

Trailbreakin'

For the first winter in my life, I am not feeling the effects of cabin fever. I have definitely embraced all kinds of different activities, and it was the best decision ever. Two years ago, I might have turned down an offer to go cross country skiing, saying that it's lame or whatever. Now, I see fresh snow and I am eager to get outside and explore some trails. Here's a few snapshots of yesterday's outing- only my third time skiing this winter. I've decided that winter isn't so bad, I just needed to change my way of thinking and open my mind to some new experiences.


(More, after the jump)

A follow up to eating.

I'm purging the annals of my photo collection. I promise, it won't be too messy.

Just a couple more shots of some of the fire antics that, for whatever reason, are a normal thing in my family. My father, in the first two shots. 

Sometimes I travel.

There are just some places in this world that feel like a dream. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't have to be far away, in some tropical part of the world. It could be anywhere. Someplace new.
Someplace, where you don't know the names of any of the streets, and, maybe, there aren't any names for them anyway. Someplace where, maybe, they speak the same language, but the accents are a little bit different, or harder to understand. Everything is foreign, but not necessarily a foreign land. At least that's the way I feel when I travel.

I'm probably romanticizing it a bit much, but it's something close to that.

The snow is thick (and I can't wait for it to be gone)...

So I thought I'd throw up some more pics from the past. Some people may have seen some of these... some people, maybe not.

 Hip transfer tailwhip. Seth McDowell; Lincoln Park, Holland, MI. Also some time in the past.

Good Vids

Just out of curiosity, do any of you onlookers know of any good independent bmx dvds that would be worth scoring? Definitely interested in the kind of stuff that has some reflection of what the local scene is like in a given area.

If you do, feel free to point me in their direction with a link to buy or a trailer. Gracias.

Sick

I think it'd be nice to move some place that's warm all year around, never had snow or monsoons, and had streets spots for days that were mellow, and you never got kicked out of them.

Time Travel 101

3/5

The dude that came everywhere with the baby seat still makes me laugh.

Goodbye, Philippines. Part 2/2 (sort of)

Well, first things first. So, in the previous post where I said that I was coming to the end of pictures from the Philippines... "end" might not have been the right word. Apparently I'm just very disorganized, and I do in fact have more photos--just not from the Sagada portion of the trip.

So I was right, and I was wrong. Mostly wrong. But... whatever.

Moving on...

In the works.

The grooves were a bitch.

(Almost) a completely new bike.

So, after quite a bit of dilly dallying, I finally ordered a new frame (not the T1, though--which I am still planning on getting, as the long-term plan is to have two bikes built up). It's pretty damn beautiful. The only thing lacking, at this point, is my new bars, which should be here tomorrow.

Also today, while I was waiting for my frame to arrive, I got a new seat made up.

Anyway, here you go...

Goodbye, Philippines: A two part ender. (Part one)

 I've pretty much run out of what pictures I have (with me/from this roll) of the month in 2009 that I spent with family and friends in the Philippines. The sad part is, I still have several rolls that I have yet to develop (if they'll still even turn out); both slide & standard film. Eventually, I swear, I'll get them developed. I just don't know where to do it out here in Mass.

This was, obviously, the first shot on the roll--one of those lessons learned about advancing the film far enough forward before shooting. 

I'm on board now. Hopefully I'll come up with some posts in the near future!

A fun experience

The other night was kind of a fun night. I really didn't want to go out and do anything at all. I just wanted to stay home and be lazy and possibly paint, more or less think about painting and never getting around to it.

I decided to go out.

I met with a few friends at the coffee shop, ended up having a coffee (which was free because I had filled up my punch card). After that, I ended up spending the majority of the night doodling with markers and just having a great time with friends. It was nice, no pressure to finish unfinished art pieces or do anything important, just coffee, art and good company.

Later that night, I parted ways and headed home.

Wide awake from the coffee, I decided to grab my camera and shoot some photos of the ice sculptures and the downtown area while it wasn't congested with people. Numerous times during the night, I was stopped by the police or had a spotlight shined on me from a cruiser driving by while shooting photos--I guess the combination of educated idiots, from a nearby school, mixed with alcohol makes people lose respect for art and respect for other people's property. Politely, I just told the cops that I wasn't trying to vandalize anything and I was just shooting some photos and they left me alone.

Library book quandary

I found these books in the NMU library, but I had my doubts as to the authenticity of the signatures inside. In a copy of This Is The American Earth by Ansel Adams, I found this forgery:

















However, in the Galen Rowell book Mountains of the Middle Kingdom, I'm thinking it might be a real signature. If the library ever catches fire, I am rushing in to save this book.


















Anyways, I can't sit here and type about Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell without showing some of their work (after the jump). So good!

Unique video

Puttin' on the Binders.

-S&M Cardona frame, 21"
-Fit Blade forks
-Terrible One 8.25" bars
-Fly Fino grips
-Diatech Hombre brakes
-Odyssey lever -Animal Jumpoff stem
-WeThePeople headset
-Profile cranks 175mm
-Animal Hamilton pedals unsealed
-Tree original sprocket 25 tooth
-KMC 510 chain
-Odyssey rims
-Odyssey Hazard 14mm front hub
-Shadow Rant V2 cassette
-Fly Ruben tires

Summer, 2009

Again with the older pictures. But, like all things, I feel that they need a place to be, and this seems like a place just as good as any.

Okay. So, the first picture... It's not at an angle because I was having some sort of epileptic seizure induced fit of artistic license. On one of the days when we were up in Sagada (which is where all of these pictures were taken), we were supposed to go visit some caves, see more of the hanging coffins, and pretty much just do some more of the kind of bumming around that tourists do when they've driven two-track way up the side of a mountain and out of their sedentary, comfort-inducing surroundings.

Edit 7/01/11 ~ (Sagada is located in the Philippines, roughly, about a day and a half's worth of driving north of Manila.) 

Basically, we weren't able to go through the foot path that we needed to make in order to get to the caves because there was a ceremony that was closed to outsiders (and, if I recall correctly, it had to do with the blessing of the rice crops--but  whether or not that is a truth, is yet to be determined). While we were waiting around be the end of the roadway, just behind where the little boy is sitting, to find out why/if/when we could/couldn't pass, there were some little kids running around (presumably waiting for school--based on their backpacks and clothes).

Most of the kids were in little groups. They were running around, chasing one another, throwing rocks. Everyone. Except this little boy. Waiting patiently. Off to one side. By himself.

I'm back

I put the d80 in a box a couple days ago, and it likely won't come out any time soon. I'm taking all my landscapes on film from now on, and the rest on a snazzy pocket sized camera, which I will be carrying with me a lot. Hopefully this produces a lot of good random stuff I would not have gotten with my slr tucked away in a backpack.

casperskizz.blogspot.com

So I started a separate blog to just try to persue making income from a blog and see where it leads. Justin and I talked about it over the christmas break and it definitely got me thinking and interested. Where it will lead, who knows? The ball is rolling, so its a positive start to a new year.