winter break.

yeah, yeah, i know. it's been forever since i updated. i'm not sure if i can promise this update to live up to all the hype... but i'll start typing away i suppose.

so rewind to last friday, well even before last friday, let's say that week. i returned from my brothers wedding to a snowy seattle, and the first of seeing how people drive in the NW in poorly plowed snowy roads. the entire week at school everyone was sure we'd have some sort of delay or day off during the week. i learned that it doesn't take much to cause a closing or delay on the peninsula, but each day it didn't snow or ice hard enough to close the schools. thursday looked to be our best bet, but i woke up to schools being open. i figured friday would go by fast enough, i even packed a lunch for friday when i heard while playing WoW from Lois (the school's secretary) that we had a 2 hour delay. i got a call soon after from the teacher above me on the call pyramid. i thought it was cool that we get to sleep in at least! morning came and i got a call at like 5:30am from the same staff member that schools were closed. i thought it was odd because the forecast called for like an inch of snow tops. when i woke up and looked outside it was beautiful and sunny, and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground.

i got a call from darren asking if i wanted to go snowboarding somewhere. i wasn't expecting much, maybe just find something to dork around with, a hill to cruise down, or something. i stopped by darrens and was content with just riding down the hill by his house, but he suggested trying to find something to ride. i hadn't really explored the peninsula too much for street stuff because i heard it never really snows up here. sure there's a couple rails up by the schools, but that requires a lot of work to make happen, and darren had never had any experience with that kind of stuff. we ended up driving toward what looked like a decent hill (probably as big as boston mills) in hopes of taking some turns. we drove on this backwoods road which i had no idea went as far back as it did. the hill was way too grown in with trees, even around the powerline structures. we came to a dead end, a sign about some goose hunting grounds part of the state parks. we got out and walked up hill to what looked like a maintenance facility. after exploring i saw some potential for some fun to be had. i think darren was skeptical. anyways after we set the thing up, it turned into a blast of a session. reminded me of riding with the dudes back in ohio.

darren shot this tailpress of me. fun times.


later friday i embarked on the voyage to portland. i soon realized that roads get pretty treacherous as the elevation rises. what should have been a little over a two hour drive easily doubled as trees fell on roads, and people swerved into ditches, shutting down 26 for an hour.
we woke up the next morning intending to get a late start and avoid the traffic to the mountain, as well as the pass picture line. nate had arranged for us to stay with leia at the burton demo center in government camp. basically in the summer, when government camp turns into a mad house of ski and snowboard summer camps burton has this place where the kids can go to hang out, play wii, watch snowboard videos, and demo next seasons gear. the first floor is the shop/lounge, the second floor is an apartment. leia has always been super nice and let us crash on a couch or the floor which makes getting up to the resorts a breeze the next morning.

(alright so i haven't been able to take any decent photos with my DSLR, these were taken from my crappy point and shoot.)

the drive up


sunrises on the drive up


government camp blanketed.


the burton demo center.


icesicles


so the season for hood was looking pretty bleak for awhile... it was thanksgiving and there was no snow at all. people kept saying how odd it was that there was no snow. then last week it started snowing. a lot. i think as i'm writing this 110" has fallen since last week. it's not showing any signs of stopping either. they're calling for 1-3ft by sunday morning of new snow.
we headed up to meadows to get some late riding in. i had never ridden hood in the winter, so it was a new experience for sure. i'd like to think that i adapted pretty well though. we rode together as a crew, we would find something to hit then stop and watch everyone hit it before moving onto the next part of the mountain. it was a blast riding with everyone. leia and her roommate christy came up with us as well, and they were shredding! we rode for a few hours before the light faded away into the night. we went back to the burton house, and nate made some amazing dinner. i crashed pretty early as we were planning on getting to meadows as lifts were opening. we had another amazing day of riding, and i started to figure out my way around the mountain, as well as pushing my riding in this new environment.

we came back to portland sunday afternoon and it was chaos. the city was getting paralyzed by snow, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. i decided to brave the roads and try to make it back up to the peninsula, which was a challenge in itself.

i spent a few days up on the peninsula letting my muscles recover, and just all around relaxing. went into school one of the days and got some work done. received a new project, so spent some time figuring out how it works. i made plans with kyle (one of nate and evans friends who rode with us on sat/sun) to ride meadows on christmas day. it seemed like we were the only ones still around for christmas. we made the voyage to hood early thursday morning and were blown away to find the resort blanketed in waist deep snow in most spots. we were like the eigth chair up the mountain and had endless amounts of untouched snow in front of us. it was surreal riding such deep snow. as the day went on, things started getting tracked out more, but we found some way fun things to ride.

we headed back to portland, grabbed some chinese food for dinner, and retired to kyles house. the plan was to ride this morning, but they mountain received roughly 4 inches of new snow... not spectacular, and it didn't help that i did not stretch yesterday, so when our alarms went off at 6am, we both seemed to hit off rather than snooze.

i'll be meeting tony and cody who are flying in from ohio to ride out here for a week. we plan on taking a trip either up to baker or down to bachelor. ride hood a bunch, maybe surf up here on the coast for a day, and overall just relax the rest of my break.


(here are a few random SLR shots from a few weeks ago that i enjoy)

the walk to short sands beach in oregon.


short sands. light breaking through the trees.


chris about to stand up at waikiki.

updates.

So it's been a minute since i last updated. I've been keeping pretty busy with school, but i suppose the greatest reason for the lag was the fact that Jesse Mason was up hanging out here for a week. Jesse's taking this crazy road trip all across the country. I was his first stop, and he made the drive up from LA in one shot, 18 hours or something close to it. Pretty nuts. He got in two Thursdays ago real late at night. He caught up on sleep and met me at school two Fridays (Halloween) ago. I gave him the tour, introduced him to the principal, then we headed down to the old shop to play around. Afterwards we ran up to Long Beach to deposit my check before driving on the beach down to check out Waikiki.
We were planning on Saturday to go for a surf at Waikiki, but after watching Darren and Travis try to fight the strong incoming tide, we decided against it, as did they. We went down to Astoria to explore the city and a few sights. A couple weeks ago i was shopping down in Astoria and heard an overwhelming noise off in the distance that sounded like a hundred sea lions barking. We decided to check out the piers and sure enough the lazy sea lions were hanging out on the docks.

Lazy Sea Lions.


Haaaaa


For those of you who know Sans well, you know that he would fit right in here... Cheeseburger Walrus...


Afterwards we headed down to Fort Stevens. As we were checking out the ship wreck the tide was going in and out. As the water drained out we went to check out the wreck. Jesse joked around and said if the water came back he was going to climb the thing. I didn't think it would fill back up as we had been safe for a couple minutes. Sure enough a wave was closing in. Jesse overestimated, or so i thought, and climbed like halfway up the thing. I laughed at him and thought i would be fine like 3 feet up. Then the water splashed up against the wreck and went up over my feet... Jesse looked down at me laughing his ass off...

Shipwreck as sun sets.


Neat.


Stupid wave that rolled in...

We stuck around town for the "nightlife" after checking out a few places we met up with a crew of people with similar interests and tagged along. Supposedly everyone was beat from Halloween the night before, so the city was a ghost town. Nonetheless it was still cool hanging with the people we met.

Sunday Waikiki was too big again to surf. We decided to head down to Portland to hang with Nate. We met up at Nate's house, picked up a few things at ikea, hung out on Hawthorne st. (equivalent of Coventry area in Cleveland), got some dinner at ChaChaCha's (super affordable, amazing authentic burritos) and headed back up north.

Monday after school Waikiki was going off! Chris, Darren, Travis, and a couple rangers were all out sessioning. Jesse was determined to give it a shot even though it was pouring rain and he had a 2mil wet suit (as opposed to our 4/5mil suits (twice as thick)). After staying out for about ten minutes he paddled in and attempted to shoot some film of us. The waves were big and heavy, and had good form. I was catching some of the better rides I've had, but Jesse was only able to stay out for a few minutes amidst the pouring rain.
Tuesday, Darren and I went back to Waikiki. This time Jesse decided to film. The waves were super small, and you really had to fight to catch a half ways decent ride. We both got a couple good rides on film. I'll have to throw them up on YouTube or something...

The rest of the week we pretty much hung out after school. During the day Jesse was going back and forth between Astoria and here interviewing a few people for his trip/documentary.


Rainbow in my backyard, cute, i know...


Oh yeah. I got a kitten a couple weekends ago. I figured Kiki has been super lonely not being able to hang out with Artemis (my old roommate/current sister's roommate's cat). I went to the humane society and picked up a little Hemingway kitten dude (they've got 6 fingers/claws which makes their paws look gigantic). At first the dude wanted nothing to do with us or my place. He hid behind the couch for almost two solid days. He slowly warmed up to us. Now, he annoys Kiki constantly, and it's hilarious. They hunt each other, Lazarus (that's his name) does all these sneak attack missions all the time, etc. They're good buds, and he's always down to hang with me.

On the prowl with Lazarus.


For those of you who know Kiki well, you'll find this next shot amusing, and know that Kiki is not very happy...


Poor Kiki, and poor Special Friend.


We've got the day off tomorrow for veterans day, which is nice because we never got it off back in Ohio, plus it doesn't hurt that it's my birthday. I think a bunch of us are planning on heading down to Oregon to surf, if Waikiki's no good. Probably hang out in Astoria for a little bit, and enjoy a nice relaxing day. Wednesday after school i head up to Seattle for a conference. I'll be able to hang with my brother and a few friends I've got in the city amidst the conferences in the morning. Should be a good time!

waikiki.

This past week flew by because of the half day conferences. Basically, Tue-Fri we had periods 1,2,3 or 4,5,6 till 11:30am. Students were released to go home, and we had either conferences or meetings depending on the day. This gave me a bunch of time to hang out with the staff. I met up with Kelli who is the art teacher to talk about a printer Marc's about to order for us. We also talked a bunch about the screen printing we're getting into.
I was also able to get a chance to figure out the stupid minute detail that prevented me from getting the CNC router to work. It's now up and running, and I'll be spending the coming weeks figuring out what's the best settings for different programs.
The weather this week was amazing. Upper 60s lower 70s and sunny. It worked out great with the surf. We were able to hit up Waikiki on Wednesday for one of the best sessions I've had in Washington. The waves weren't really that big, but it was super consistent and smooth. With the lack of force because the waves weren't huge, you really had to ride the face of the wave rather than the white water from the resulting crash of a wave.
After the success of Wednesday's session we were looking forward to Saturday morning. High tide was around noon, and if we got out there around ten we figured it would be set up perfect. The forecast called for BIG swells on the main ocean, but we figured we'd be protected.
As i was on my way to pick up Darren i received a text from Michael (he works at the ranger station right by Waikiki) saying it was HUGE, that driftwood was smashing up against rocks, and the crashing of the waves sounded like thunder. Because i was already on my way, Darren and i decided to check it out anyways.

This is when Waikiki is unsurfable.


Doom wave rolling in part one.


Doom wave rolling in/crashing part two.


Crashing against the rocks.


The clouds broke and the sun came out.


Crashing waves.



Darren took a couple shots. It almost looks like I'm superimposed.


Balancing on the logs.



Today i received a text message from Michael saying Waikiki looked amazing. Soon after i received another message from Travis saying he was heading down. I picked up Darren and we met up with Travis and his girlfriend. It was a lot bigger than Wednesday's session, but nowhere near as crazy as Saturday. The waves were big enough to give us a scare. Travis caught this one wave that was crazy. He like drooped into a huge wave, then a wave came from the side after bouncing off the cliffs, and formed this super wave. He carved the inside of the first wave while this like abyss pit formed from the union of the two waves. We like went up and around the pit and dropped in just before the two waves smashed closing out, and escaping death with a smile on his face. Definitely the gnarliest ride I've ever witnessed. I dropped in from the top of the biggest wave I've ridden and felt like a million bucks hanging on for the ride. We were having too much fun to stop and snap any pictures.

harvest weekend.

So last Tuesday the weather was looking super nice out. Michael, Darren, and I hurried down to Indian Head in Ecola State Park to try to get an epic Oregon surf day in. The swell had a different plan for us. Instead of the waves being super mellow, like every time I've surfed Oregon, they were big and heavy, and had this tumble effect that followed each wave. I've never gotten into a situation with surfing that has been out of my control, but one or two of the waves that caught me in the tumble were enough for me to chill out on the "outside waves" and stay inside catching some smaller waves. We were able to catch a couple good wave, and even though the trip was not a total success, it was nice for the change of scenery. We watched the sun set, and headed back up to the peninsula.








Saturday i had every intention of sleeping in. Stayed up a little later Friday night, was prob going to lazily wake up around 10am or so... I woke up to my phone ringing around 8am. Kim, my landlord/neighbor was calling. I rolled over and went back to sleep. About ten minutes later there was a knock at my door. I got up and threw some clothes on to answer the door. No one was there... My phone started ringing again, and Kim was asking if i wanted to go harvest some cranberries. Now, i had been attempted to be recruited by two different teams of harvesters a week ago, but i wanted to lay low after the weekend from visiting Ohio. There was a team that consisted of a teacher from my school, a student in my 8th grade class, and others. The other team was Kim, and Steve McPhail (the guy who has the pickle ball court in his barn). From the sounds of it they needed me to help out, hence the morning wake-up drill, ha.
Anyways, i decided to go since i was out of bed already. I drove down to Steve's farm and was fitted for those like super tall like waist boot things (i can't remember the name). Then we ate some bagels and i was taught the ropes to harvesting cranberries. I took these pictures when we were taking a break, so didn't really get to get a chance to take any action shots...

So this is what a field looks like initially. There's about a 2 1/2 foot drop in to the field. The cranberries are planted (this particular field was in the process of being re-planted) and when ready to be harvested look something similar of a small vine.


At about 5am Steve activated his network of pump systems, which pump water from this 20 foot deep pond, and flood the fields (this day we were working two fields worth). The water comes up about between knee and thigh height on me, higher on other folks. You've got to be careful when walking around, if there's any sort of trench, especially around the outer rims, you could fall victim to the bog.
Next, Steve drove around in this contraption that shuffled the cranberries to the surface of the water. This field was the second field we worked on, and was way easier because the wind blew most of the cranberries to one end.


Next, we took these containment systems that are commonly used in containing oil spills in water. It's basically a float, with a sheet of plastic that is held about 6 inches beneath the water. We start at one end of the bog and work our way to the other. During this time we use push broom type tools without the brushes (so basically an angled board) to push/pull the cranberries away from the shore. We are careful to lift the containment system over any sprinkler heads.


Roping the cranberries in.


Though, this may not seem like much, in reality this is 6,000+ pounds of cranberries.


This was a picture taken while we were switching trucks on the other bog. Once the cranberries are pulled into a corner, and escalator type system pulls the cranberries up and into the truck. During this process we stand in the middle of the circle and push the cranberries towards the escalator. As the surface area of the berries begins to spread out, you pull two points of the circle together to make a smaller circle, and a piece of the containment system link is removed.
This bog produced around 12,000 pounds of cranberries.


The truck being loaded up. Done with this bog.


A lot of cranberries, and Bob. It was Kim, Steve, Bob, and myself as the core workers, with Steve's wife switching out the trucks and driving to the Ocean Spray processing plant. About half way through the day we stopped and ate lunch. I had some of the best chili i think I've ever eaten, rolls, salad, and all the Ocean Spray you could drink.


This is Baloo. The entire time we were working Baloo would try and get us to throw whatever he managed to find around so he could run and retrieve it.


He had way too much energy.


At one point he brought me a rock. I threw the rock into the bog, and he honestly did not give up looking for it for a solid hour. At the end of the day we threw objects into the half drained pond. Baloo would launch off of about a 5 foot wall into the water.


All in all, it was an awesome experience. I had a lot of fun with the guys, and it was way more laid back than i think it would have been with the other guys.
Every year Kim, Steve, Chris Jacobsen, and others go down to Costa Rica to hang out and surf. Someone in Steve's family has a place down there. Anyways, Tom, one of my fellow workers would be into going if it was during out spring break. Everyone's considering holding off till then, which means, if they do, i'll be heading down to Costa Rica with them...


Today, i decided to run down to Astoria to hang out for a bit. I found out that if you're a teacher you get 15% off your ATT cell phone bill, so i went to the store to hook that up. Went into downtown Astoria and hung out at a local coffee shop while glancing over my contract to see how much coach's get paid, as they're looking for a head and assistant middle school track coach for the spring... After the coffee shop i decided to check out the Astoria "column". It's like a light house, but on top of the tallest hill in Astoria. You can climb up to the top, and get a crazy view of everything around. Unfortunately it was closed for repair. But you're still pretty high up from the base of the tower that you can get some good shots of the surrounding area.

Looking across the Columbia River, and the bridge, and Washington.


Looking south at the Oregon countryside.


Another view.


This is the column, but it was closed.


Picked up some groceries and headed back up the peninsula. I picked up Darren and forgot to grab my booties when we went out for a surf. My feet were soooo cold. We met up with Michael, and i stayed out for awhile. But the cold water, and the fact i kept slipping off my board because i didn't have my booties led me to retire early.

It's conference week this week, which means everyday except Monday we have half days... Not exactly sure how this business works, but we'll find out.
Jesse Mason is taking this crazy 2 month road trip from LA all over the country. He's going to stop up here for a few days, he's thinking hopefully be up here around the weekend if he can get this project done in time. It'll be cool to hang.

interview

Matt over at Autumn Line interviewed me the other night for their blog. It was fun reminiscing. Check it out.

http://www.autumnline.blogspot.com/

chilly weekend.

This past week flew by pretty quickly. It was homecoming week at our school, so a bunch of activities and shortened periods helped, i'm sure. I helped supervise a bonfire on the beach as part of the events they were having each night. It was pretty funny because noone could get the thing started. It was this massive pile of pallets. Probably the biggest bonfire i've been to. Once this dude got it going, it was pretty ridiculous. Cool watching the fire with the sunset over the ocean as the background.

It also got pretty cold out here this weekend. It's usually been in the 60s for the past couple weeks, but this cold spell rolled in and drops the temps into the lower 40s at night. I'll have to spark up this wood burning stove here soon if this continues.

Friday went by super quick because of a pep assembly, and the normal early release schedule. Chris Jacobson stopped by to hang out and chat for a minute. His hand is out of the cast, and he'll be back to normal in another couple weeks. Probably no bungee boarding for a minute, haha, but it'll be rad to surf with Chris again.
After the staff meeting i headed to North Head to walk around and take some pictures till Michael got off work at 4:30. We headed to Seaview approach and went out for a little bit, but it was pretty much mush, and no getting to the outside.

Saturday Travis and i took a trip down to Indian Head in Ecola State Park in Oregon. I forgot to take some pictures, but the scenery was amazing. There was a "shoulder", kind of like a half cove that the swells formed off of. The waves were super smooth and mellow for the most part. I had some difficulty adjusting to the new board, but once i started getting the hang of it, it was a blast to maneuver it around. It wasn't quite as crowded as Short Sands that day Nick and i went down, but then again, the weather is getting colder as the days pass.

Today, i slept in till around ten. Hung out around the house and graded some papers. Learned that Michael's car had broken down and he had the day off work because of it. We decided to check out Seaview in the afternoon.
So i guess the next couple days are the lowest the tides been/going to be for another 6 months or so? It was weird seeing it out so far, we got in the water and waded out till we were about chest deep, then hit a sandbar and kept walking till we got in the water again. My car was so far away, definitely not what we're used to. Michael and i paddled and tried to work our way to the outside where the waves were breaking in a line and looked super fun. However, the harder and more exhausted we got from paddling, it seemed like we were not making any progress at all. We kind of gave up for a minute and just sat around on our boards. We decided to give it one more shot. We made it past the breaks, but then the ocean turned into a lake with no swells in sight. Every once in awhile a real good set would roll in. Out of nowhere i started getting real nautious. I think maybe the combination of the ocean just being real weird and tossing us around, with how far we were out, made me sick. I decided to bail and paddle towards shore. Not the most productive day, but it was fun to get out nonetheless.

Here's a few photos i took at North Head with my phone and a Holga filter application. I have some pictures on my SLR too, but haven't looked at them yet.

Ohio and Back.

This past weekend was a blast. I got out of school on thursday and headed down to crash in Portland for the night before flying out. Hung out at the Holden office with Nate and Katie for a minute then grabbed some food at ChaChaCha's. Woke up the next morning and headed up to the airport. I arrived in Cleveland around 6pm and got picked up by my dad. Hung out at my parents for dinner and caught up with how everything's been going. Borrowed my brothers old car and headed towards Kent. At this point noone really knew that i was going to be in town. I got a call from Zach asking what i was getting into after he heard from Brian who heard from my sister that i was going to be in town. I found out Julia and Sans were up working at Susans so decided to head up there before it closed. It was pretty funny having Sans nonchalantly walk by the door and say "oh hey what's up" before a soild second went by when he dropped the mop and was like "wait a second..." haha. After hanging with them for a minute, decided to drop by Tony and Cody's with Sans. There was a similar reaction when i walked through their door... Went up to the Zephyr and hung out with a bunch of people. It was real good seeing everyone. I was surprised how many people were out, including the twins who were in town for Josh's wedding. Went back to my old place and crashed there for the night. It was rad hanging with Artemis.

Saturday woke up and skated for a little bit at the Ravenna skatepark. Met up with Julia, Brian, Rebbecca, Tony, Cody, Josh, Ian and Bob at El Camp. Headed up to the premiere afterwards. It was a super good time. All smiles turned out way good. Kevin worked so hard on it and everything came together so well. Seeing the final version of Technicolor was rad. Mark and the Porters rule. It was awesome seeing the usual premiere crowd, Pete was hanging out. Just seeing everyone from Ohio in general was a great time. I got to lay down some three doors down vocals too... Hit up the after party for a minute before driving back to my parents house and flying back to Portland on zero sleep. Hung out in Portland with Nate and Evan, then came back up to the peninsula and passsssed out.

Tuesday i got back in the water, and holy crap... Waikiki was surfable. It was kind of crazy and all over the place, but the waves had some pretty good form to them when you caught a good one. Aside from Michael, Darren, Travis, and i there were about four other people out there with us. Everyone was saying it should have been way better but it was still a good time, and we got a good session going. I hopped out of the water for a little bit to snap some pictures. Waikiki is perfect for photos because it's a cove and you can walk out on some logs/rocks so that you're parallel with the rider. The photos turned out pretty well for the first time shooting surfing.


The backdrop of Waikiki, waiting for a set of waves to roll in...


Michael dropping in...


Travis


Michael


Michael


Michael grabbed the camera and i got a shot... thanks Michael.