Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Photos (more)

These came to me from ShareSomeCandy.com. Michelle shared that site awhile back and I've been enjoying it since. Lots of good, consistent stuff on there. Unfortunately I don't have credit for these works. Sorry.
Enjoy.






Monday, June 29, 2009

Photo

This photo came to me from the StuidoNemo site. I like it.
Photo by Alex Mertz.

Carbon Nanotube

Science is nuts. Thats a huuuuuge understatement, but I have no idea how else to simply put it. The evolution of human development has been ludicrous since the Industrial Revolution. I mean, we could spend the rest of our lives talking and focusing on that subject and only make a minuscule dent to what it encompasses. But that is something in and of itself, the reason science came to mind is because of a newly developed material called carbon nanotube. And my eyes were just introduced to some new surf technology using that material. I'll let the article from Transworld Business give a bit more detail. Pay attention to the results from the structural strength samples toward the bottom...

Enlight Earth, LLC and Eric Arakawa Designs have teamed up to create a new “carbon nanotube surfboard,” a material that’s more than 14 times stronger than carbon fiber.

According to a release:

This board was hand shaped and uses single wall carbon nanotube infused Epoxy making it one of the strongest and lightest surfboards in the world. Nano technology is definitely the wave of the future; the best phrase to describe the amazing abilities of NANO is “Surface Area”. These particles are so small that they have many times the surface area of regular particles, being that surface area is far greater it allows for a lot more electro-chemical reaction, which can make a small wrist watch battery have the power of multiple 9 volt batteries and a bonding area which can be used to fill in the gaps for amazing structural strength. A quick comparison of the tensile strength of different materials will show that Nano materials far exceed the strength of anything known to man…

Structural strength examples:
Aluminum alloy Strength (Mpa) 600
Steel Strength (Mpa) 2,000
Silicone Carbide Strength (Mpa) 3,440
Carbon Fiber (AS4) Strength (Mpa) 4,300
Carbon Nanotube Strength (Mpa) 62,000

http://www.enlightearth.com
http://www.ericarakawasurfboards.com/

For All You Nerds...

I had a real good laugh out of these. Call me a nerd. Keep your eyes on the hype man in between the battles too.



Check the battle results here!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

MJ - RIP

The Thriller Man just passed! Condolences to the King of Pop.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Thanks FS, John, Colby, Shay and Brian!

Well, I guess I'm going to claim this one. Found it funny enough, so I thought I would put it on here.

Randomly browsing Freeskier.com today and came across a little questionnaire with Tommy Wallisch and his happenings lately. Then the questions turned to a bit of a different topic and I was lucky enough to be pulled into the conversation with the likes of Matt Margetts and TJ Schiller. Anyway, click below and read if you're interested, but it will most likely be a letdown...

A Whole Lotta BS: Tom Wallisch, King of 'Banging
http://freeskier.com/articles/article.php?article_id=3865

The End Game

Finally home. Weird. Feels good though. But I'm usually playing catch up with my stories, so lets keep that trend going and let me tell you about my pre-home experiences and the last couple weeks in Oregon that led up to now.

My final day on snow was a fun one. Honestly, I can say that I'm not ready to stop skiing this year. In the past few years, I've welcomed to end of the season, but this year I left Mt. Hood not feeling fully satisfied. But I would consider that a good thing. Happy to have that extra drive motivate me even more for next season.
I am quite hungry to spend a lot of time in the water this Summer; surfing, wake surfing, paddle boarding, swimming, canyoneering, etc. Love it. So my last days in Hood River I got that list started by trying out a bit of wind surfing. Turned out to be a pretty good time. A bit more complicated than expected, but after some trial and error I was able to make it happen. I would definitely try it again.
Up next we had some hiking to do. Pretty popular hike to some falls about 20 minutes outside of Hood River, but luckily there wasn't much traffic the day we went out. I used to do this hike when I was a kid, coming to Hood for some race camps, so it was nice to retrace some old steps.
But after a couple adventurous days, I was off to Portland to finish up things with Nimbus for the year. We got some studio time in at Nemo, which is a rad design house that I've always wanted to check out. My head has been turned plenty of times by some good people in there, that drum up great ideas and design. As expected, the building was no letdown and the studio provided, helped us finish off some great interviews for Nimbus' upcoming film Contrast. It was my first time being with the whole crew at one location, so it was a good way to close the season for me. Then we went off and got some indian food, a quick nights rest and hit to road for home.
And here's some images that you can tie to the above paragraphs...
Enjoy.
Not too sure what to say about this one.

Struggle street.

Controlled chaos. Looks wild to be out there with that much traffic, but I guess its just another day in the Gorge.

Tamanawas Falls. I'm pretty sure it was in the thick of the runoff. There was a lot of water coming off that thing.

Tamanawas' POV.

Nemo and its red wall.

Hollywood X Nimbus. Mr. Eric Pollard - Writer, Director, Producer, Key Grip, Best Boy, Head Electrician, Key PA, Driver to Chris Benchetler & Pep Fujas, Set Designer, Wardrobe Assistant and Editor. He gets it done.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

House Plants

It's been close to 3 months since I've been situated at home. I'm not quite there yet but I'm at least in the process. Yesterday we finalized some filming with the Nimbus pack and now Pep and I are currently in the middle of the Potatoe State and making good time toward our destination Salt City, Utah. Listening to This American Life, eating loads of sunflower seeds and keeping our eyes peeled for the speed jakes. Excited to get home. I'll share some stories from the past few days in the next few days. See you then.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Ticking Away

After 10 days of mostly rain, the Surface: Walks of Life shindig has come to a close. Majority of people involved with Surface relocated to Mt. Hood for some shredding and filming at Timberline/Windells. J did a great job of keeping the Surface blog up to date with his photography skills, so I'm just going to snag some photos from him or steer you that direction to get a glimpse of the past week or more.
Thanks to Mike @ Surface for making it happen and providing for more than reasonable circumstances. Had a great time.
Enjoy the photos.

XD filling our bellies with some delicious Korean cooking.



Josh Bishop was one motivated SOB throughout the trip. Good on yah Josh, way to GTS.




The Polar Bear aka Jeff Kiesel is good. Really good. I like skiing with that kid.



Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Surface Fam...

...has relocated to Government Camp to do some end of season filming at Timberline for "Walks of Life". Weather has kept things a bit slower than expected, but we're having a great time and its good to be back with the Salt Lick crowd. Snapped a couple photos with the trusty phonographer...
Mike, J and I enjoying another Oregon sunset.

Beeeshop dropping into another one of the dirt features we've been having fun with.

More to come over the next week...

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Chop Chop

I generally wouldn't post something as mundane as a haircut on here, nor am I going to justify it by the drastic change I just endured. So here it is, plain and simple...I got a haircut.

Thanks for the photos Jason.

Two Project

A good follow up to my rally post a week or two ago. Ken Block destroying once again...