Tuesday, January 12, 2010

2010... things to do.

So, this is my year end assessment of 2009 and my things to do in 2010 note. Like I always say, I have never been one for New Years resolutions. I always tended to make my goals at the beginning of an upcoming school year; but alas.... I am no longer 21 and I find for most adults, me included, live revolves from January to January as opposed to August to June, three months of holiday and then back to August again. So... here goes.

2009 Yearly Assessment* of goals and realizations and probable outcomes:

1- find a dentist and go
(check... now, I just have to work on the whole flossing everyday thing.)
2- find a personal dr. and go
(check... several times, it doesn't hurt that she's cute)
3- put money into a travel fund for chile/argentina
(check...I did do this, but right now that money seems to be funneled into traveling to Sweden this summer as well as new bike and new snowboard funds.)
4- eat more meals at home
(I actually did do a slightly better job of this than I was doing half-way through the year. For this, I commend my girlfriend and her excellent cooking, our general lack of funds, and the idea that we would rather sleep in on a saturday and sunday morning and eat pancakes in our pj's than get dressed up and go stand in line to have brunch.)
5- spend more quality time with anna, my dog
(This year, Anna went sooo many places with me. We went camping all summer long and I've learned that she is a great dog to have around by the campfire (most of the time) and at the park because she is obsessed with me and will go everywhere I go. We've had great opportunities to bond this year.)
6- call my mom more often
(ummm.... could be better. This will go on the 2010 list of things.)
7- hug more
(check :)
8- let some things go
(check :)
9- have a good first season in bike racing
(see related post)
10- be a good and safe bike commuter
(sorry about the cussing thing) :|
11- be more focused at work
(where do you think I wrote this? Just kidding!)
12- don't be late for spin class
(I was doing much better at this, but then my spin class hit a mid-summer slack and it got cancelled. No worries though, within a few months I was working at a new gym with new members who are ten times more enthusiastic about class than my former folks. It doesn't hurt that classes these days aren't at 5:30am like they used to be, which also makes it easier for me to not be late!)
13- read more
(I kinda sucked at this this year. It makes my 2010 list as well.
14- knock off Mt. Hood (or some other glaciated peak) this year
(On Memorial Day I climbed South Sister. Check! However, this still needs to be on my 2010 list.)
15- floss more, always always floss more
(see goal number one)
16- use less single use plastics
(check. I was very pleased with my limited consumption of plastic and remembering to bring grocery bags with me when I go to the store. Regardless, plastics in our environment is still a massive issue and I will continue with this campaign through 2010 as well.
17-sketch and doodle more
Actually, I didn't do so bad at doing this.... but, much like flossing and reading, it can always be improved upon in 2010.
*My mid year assessment of 2009 can be found here...


2010 Goals for the future:

1- floss more, always always floss more
(see last year)
2- knock off credit card debit
(i've actually been working on this for the past three years and I'm happy to say that the majority of my debit that I accrued in college in the years after, is almost paid completely off. I've been so much better since 2006 about not using my credit cards (unless I'm buying airfare)... and after that gets completed, I can use that money to finishing paying my dad for the Levoru.)
3- call my mom (and my brother) more often
4- call my friends who live far far away and are never on facebook more often
(i have a tendency to only communicate via facebook)
5- put money into a travel fund for chile/argentina as well as sweden
(basically, save more money)
6- eat more fruits and vegetables
(one cannot survive and be strong on beer alone)
7- spend more quality time with anna, my dog
(I can never do too much of this)
8- more date nights
(who doesn't like to get dolled up every once and while and spend QT (quality time) with someone they love?)
9- be more focused at work
10- sketch and doodle more
11- read more
12- keep spin class fresh and exciting
13- knock off Mt. Hood (or some other glaciated peak like Adams) this year
14- use less single use plastics
15- pay it forward
(I was overwhelmed by the response I had from my friends regarding my stolen snowboard. As a result the best way to repay kindness someone has showed you, is to show and share with someone else that kindness.)
16- work hard at being a better biker
(no longer am I concerned about having faster 2k erg time like I did in college, but I can still be just as competitive and OCD as I was then- but this time when it comes to bike racing. I'm gonna be a CAT 3 soon and I really want to do well at the crits's as well as hammer it down at the track. Read a full report here.)
17- get my website done!!!
(and do a better job of having a quick turn a round time for freelance clients)
18- do the dishes more frequently
19- download less free music that you're never going to listen to more than once
20- hug more, smile more, make more people laugh, make the world a better place

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food for thought....

Just some updates about things going on in the world that are pretty darn tootin interesting. Consider yourself informed.

If you haven't already planned out your wardrobe for tomorrow (cause some people do that, in fact... in high school and college I used to do that too, but enough about me and my OCD tendencies...) plan to wear blue! Tomorrow, January 12 is Wear Blue Day in support of our oceans and a strong National Ocean Policy. This national policy is under review by the Obama Administration and will protect, maintain and restore ocean, coasts, and Great Lake Ecosystems. And, if you live in San Francisco, New Orleans or DC, tomorrow you can even take part in rallies to show your support. (Here in Portland, we can show our support by buying blue doughnuts at Voo Doo. True story.)

Speaking of oceans. Who out there likes pirates?
When it comes to movies, I like pirates! And when it comes to choosing between pirates or ninja's, I'll gladly choose pirates any day. However... some people out there do not like pirates; most notably, those who make their living with traveling the high seas and live in constant fear of Somali Pirates. Many of these vessels whom live in fear are in fact illegal commercial fishing trawlers parked off the coast of Somalia who for many years, have been scooping up the oceans bounty and limiting the supply of fish to local fishermen providing their families and communities with fish. In response to these pirate attacks, many of those illegal fishing boats have not been returning and as a result, the bounty of fish that local fishermen have been able to catch has been outstanding. For many, they are catching fish like marlins, barracuda, red snapper and oranda, that have not been in supply for many years. This is bringing even more sport fishermen to the coast which is helping local tourism and put money in the pockets of the local communities. All this doesn't mean that the piracy is okay, in fact... it presents even more problems in some aspects, but it is a nice little silver lining to the murky cloud of piracy.

Wanna talk about murky clouds? Talk about the murky cloud of what goes into a filler that helps contribute to 70% of the ground beef that Americans eat each year. This murky cloud is called "Pink Slime" and last year, the Federal Government bought and used 5.5 million pounds of this processed meat to be used in our public schools and fed to our kids. Pink Slime is basically an answer that the food industry developed in response to recent outbreaks in E. coli and salmonella in our food supply. What happens is that a company (Beef Products) buys the cheapest, least desirable beef on offer (fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor, chock full of E coli 0157 and antibiotic resistant salmonella), then it sends the scraps through a process which grinds the scraps into a paste, separates out the fat, and then ammonia is added to kill pathogens. This paste (known as pink slime) is then marketed widely to hamburger makers. To the food industry, this seems like a great idea: pink slime is really really cheap, it's sterile, and because it is so laden with ammonia, it helps kills what ever pathogens remain in the ground beef it's mixed with.

However, according to an article in the New York Times that ran last week, more often than not the ammonia added to the meat paste doesn't always kill the pathogens, infact... tests have proven that it helps add to the pathogen levels. Apparently, from 05-09, the school lunch program officials tested Beef Products (the meat made with the slime) had 36 positive results for salmonella per 1,000 test in comparison to a rate of 9 positive results per 1,000 tests in other suppliers. And the thing is... this is new news to the public, but not to the Government, the USDA, and not to the fast food industry, who have been aware of the potential harm for pink slime all along. The only thing "pink slime" has going for it, is that it's cheap, and that's why it's in our food supply. And.... even in light of this recent revelation to the public, the AP reports that fast food chains McDonald's, Burger King and agricultural conglomerate Cargill Inc. (who all use Beef Products "pink slime" in their burgers) say that they'll keep using the meat and that their products are safe. Kind of makes you want to go out and rent Food.Inc huh?

Oh, and in attempts to clear up some murkiness regarding water... have you guys heard about Katie Spotz? Katie is a 22yr old from Ohio who left home a while back headed directly for Sengal armed with only a 19ft row boat, two oars and three months worth of dehydrated food in a quest to become the youngest person to row across an ocean solo and the first American to do so from Africa to South America. The trip is 2,500 miles long and will take Katie appx 70 to 100 days alone at sea. And why is she doing it? Well, not only does she like a good challenge, but she likes a good cause. Katie has teamed up with Blue Planet Run Foundation to raise money for communities around the world to have access to safe drinking water. Spotz, who apparently is no stranger to endurance challenges has prior completed a 3,300 mile bike ride across the US for the American Lung Ass., completed a 150 mile run in the Mojave and Colorado desert, ran a 62 mile ultra-marathon in Australia and just last year she became the first person to swim the entire length of the 352 mile Allegheny River to increase the awareness for the need of safe drinking water. You can help support Katie and her efforts by donating to Blue Planet Run, who since 2002 has been working in 214 projects in 18 countries to bring safe drinking water to over 200,000 people. $30 may be a tank of gas for you, but to someone in a third world country, it can bring a lifetime of safe drinking water. You can follow Katie and her epic trip here, as she's updating her status frequently on her progress. Good luck Katie and watch out for those pirates!


There are some nice media articles on Katie, her training and video footage on her website and here. Check em out.
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Friday, January 8, 2010

This is for the shut-ins

So, it's no surprise to many of my friends that if I go to a concert, more often than not I'm going to bring my camera with me. And, no... it's not just so that I can relive every single moment of the show and over and over again in the enjoyment of my own house, but... it's pretty much to be able to share the excellent music that I listen to live with folks all over the place. See... once I lived in a tiny coastal town that didn't get many concerts coming through. And, before that I lived in an even smaller midwestern town where the closest thing there was to live music was the neighbor kids to had band practice in their garage. So basically, there are a lot of isolated people out there in this great land.

This is for the shut-ins.

Basically, this is my 2009 in live music video footage:



(I've shot this video before, but with the fiddle and the banjo added, there was an energy that was present with this show that i hadn't noticed at other shows. Which is why, to film this was an afterthought - but a happy afterthought. They really hammered it!)


(this hands down was one of my highlights of the summer)



(shot for the band, ps... Tegan Quin from Tegan and Sara, produced his new album coming out this year.)

(shot for the band)

(shot for the band)

(a simply beautiful song... love love love)

I decided to post this one, because hands down... it has to be one of my favorite videos I've ever filmed. Brandi seemed so spot on for that song, as if she just channeled the feelings she was feeling when she initially wrote it. I've never been so moved from a singer giving a "performance" as I was for this moment.


(everyone seems to love this one.)

Fences - From Russia With Love
(shot for the band)



-I shot a fair amount of video at other gigs as well that just hasn't made it to the youtube yet, but this pretty much some of my music highlights of the year (all aside from not bringing my camera to Neko Case).

-If you'd like to see more videos from some of the shows, just follow the links.

-My video of Brandi Carlile playing The Story at Mississippi Studios back in March of 07 is still going strong with about 1,182,000 views to date. Still, close to three years later it pops up in blogs all over the world and just last week, was on the nightly news in Seattle.

-My account is kind of in jeopardy at YouTube thanks to some "copy write infringements" over videos that I have of people singing covers of other songs. Most notably, no thanks to Sony. So, basically it's a "three strikes and you're out" policy and I already have two strikes. Meaning, if you are a subscriber to my account (and I have over 400 of them) you might want to stay tuned to where your favorite videos pop up next in the highly likely event that I'll get cancelled. I've got all of the hard copies saved, so losing the actual videos isn't a problem... I'm just not looking forward to losing all my viewers. Sure, I could remove videos and beat Sony to the punch, but all my account really is - is just videos from shows so pretty much everything I've posted, if folks want to be technical, is a copy write infringement. The way I see it is, I'm not making money off of posting videos or anything... I'm not playing it off as if it's my work, I just help share great music with people who can't be there to see it themselves. Hopefully, if folks can listen to music here and find something they like.... they'll be more likely to make it to a show or go out and buy an album (as to sit in front of the computer whenever you wanted to listen to music would get kinda boring and tedious).

-Shameless plug: As well, and as always... I'm available in the Portland area to film your stuff if needed be.

-And, more often than not, if you are a musician and you asked not to be filmed, I'll respect your wishes.
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Thursday, January 7, 2010

a pretty decent year

So, it's that time again when I rewind the past year and review some of my favorite moments, which..... luckily for me, I happen to capture many of those with my camera. Ideally, I don't know if I remember more events because I have photos of them and thereby can remember them with more accuracy than other events that seemingly fade into obscurity? I don't know... I can't remember those other events to know if they were worthy of having photos of or not.... hmm. Anyways, while I ponder that, I'll leave you with some of those memories from 2009, a pretty decent year in my book.

Bringing in the 09 New Year at Cindy's playing rock band with my softball girls.

Brandi played up in Bellingham, WA in early February and a few of us made the trek up there to take in the show.
And also to take advantage of boarding at Washington's Mt. Baker. And, it just so happened that an old school mate of mine that I haven't seen since we graduated from HS ten years ago was going to be there too. Hanging out with Natalie and her BF made for a fun day.

It just so happened that my 29th Birthday fell on a Tuesday this year. Which, if you live around Portland and spend time playing in the snow, you know this as "Ladies Night at Ski Bowl". So, a bunch of my friends all got together and went up. And, it just so happened that on this night, the first REAL GOOD snow of the season started falling. For many reasons, 2.10.09 was an eventful night.

That Friday, February 13th, I had the My House is Too Small for this Party, Party. Amazingly enough, throughout the course of the evening we crammed over 40 people in my tiny abode. Including singer-songwriter Anne Heaton who finished off my Newman O's.

In March, my ex bf and best friend in my later years of college, Jonathan, came from Finland to visit!

April pretty much started my year long efforts and pursuits of bike racing. I spent one whole weekend in The Dalles for the Cherry Blossom Stage Race. I learned here, that I hate hills and I love crits.

In May, my brother and mother came to visit. That was all sorts of fun!

We even had one of many summertime "porch parties at the sausage house" in their honor.


Memorial Day weekend, I went with some friends to climb my first fully covered glaciated peak at Oregon's South Sister. It was a fun weekend of building "snow camps", falling down hillsides with fully loaded packs and unstable snowshoes...

and photo-ops!

In June, my good old buddy Joanna Lane came out to visit for a softball recruiting thing and a few days later... her family joined in and were off for a little while on a PNW vacay. More of my friends should do this!

In early July, Sam and I left for the coast for a long holiday weekend head start which included camping and surfing... and then.....

the Tour De Franzia on the 4th...

followed by Lindsay's party bus birthday trip back to the coast for fireworks and bonfires on the beach. It was a great 4th of July!

I raced my bike ALOT this summer. At most, four to five times in one week! This photo is from the Swan Island Crit, one of my favorites!

Also in July, a few friends and I loaded in the car and headed up to Seattle to the No Depression fest which was chock full of great musicians. I was thrilled to see Sera Cahoone, Justin Townes Earle, Iron and Wine and one of my personal favorites... Gillian Welch.

On one steamy hot lazy summer day... I called Julie and convinced her to bring her dog and go to the Salmon River to hang out for the afternoon with me watching kayakers and rafters shoot the rapids. I sweetened the deal by throwing in a promise to swing by Hood River's Double Mt. to fill a growler. Let me just say... that water was COLD!

Every summer, one of the highlights hands down is the LCP softball tournament. Teams come in from all over the PNW and it basically turns into one large party/softball playing. This year... we pooled three teams together to make a massive encampment of fun that included grill outs and flippy cup. One of the best signs of a good LCP is fuzzy memories and sunburns.

At LCP, everyone knows where the action is and what teams to root for!

One sunny Sunday in August, we loaded up the car with our dogs and hiking gear and treked out to Mt. Hood to see the wildflowers in full bloom. Along the way, we met some older ladies who kicked our asses at hiking and we vowed to be just like them when we were in our 70's.

I really enjoyed the OBRA Crit Championship race this summer in Salem. Late in the summer I bought a brand new bike (as seen here) and while i wasn't that happy with my results in this race (I was still getting use to the new bike) I'm happy that overall for Cat 4 women I tied for a second overall placing in Crits this year!

Another highlight of the summer was proudly getting to attend my friends Kristen and Vanessa's wedding at the Ponzi Vineyards. It was a beautiful evening and such a great opportunity to enjoy in the special occasion with my friends.

Also this summer, on top of regular road bike racing, I also tried my hands at track bike racing at the velodrome. I fell in love with it. :)

One weekend, a bunch of friends and I went to Clear Lake near Mt. Hood for a interesting venture in camping and dealing with local red necks.

Labor Day Weekend, Lauren came to visit and she and Amy and Julie and I went for camping and surfing at the coast. It was an adventure in making sure our six person tent with two dogs didn't leak.

From there... it was then up to Seattle for the Raise the Roof benefit concert with Brandi Carlile. I designed the poster for the event and it was a lot of fun getting to see friends from near and far all in one place for one good cause. That weekend, I also went to Bumbershoot and met up with another friend of mine, Nick Teich who was in town for a conference. It was a loaded but fun weekend.

In late August, Sam and I headed south to Northern California for a few days to go camping and surfing in the Redwoods. It was a great trip! I felt like it was the equivalent of jamming four vacations into four days with the varied terrain we went through and experiences we had. Beware of things that go bump in the night when you're camping where you shouldn't be!

The beginning of October was a jammed packed as well. I had gotten into my first real live art show.... Artcrank, which kicked off the month long Oregon Manifest in Portland. Myself and about 30 other artists showed our bike related artwork at the First Thursday open house at the Ace Hotel.

From there, Sam, Amy, Julie and our dogs headed south to Bend for a weekend of camping and mountain biking.

Needless to say, we ran into some surprises from Mother Nature....

I also took Sam on a nice little hike up Dog Mountain this October, one of my favorite hikes. I'm glad Sam didn't kill me after that one as I forgot to mention to her how steep it is.

Obvy, I'm pretty good at making it up to her. :)


We celebrated Thanksgiving over at Sarah G's house with friends playing flag football with tube socks in the mud and playing rock band. It was all sorts of awesome.

Speaking of all sorts of awesome, so is playing paintball with about 1o of your friends.

After this point in the year... I had some problems with my camera which oddly enough... aside from going home for the holidays... provides very few memories. Hmm... I'll have to work on that next year. Happy 2010 everyone, to new friends and new adventures!

(note: blogger is pretty good about not making my photos smaller by itself. It's nothing that I'm taking the time to change... but somepeople get cropped out of the horizontal photos. So, if you'd like to see the whole photo and you're currently reading this on blogger... click on the photo to see the whole thing.)
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A hella good listen!



What do you get when you have 40 top and upcoming artists donating their music for a hella good cause? A hella good listen!

1% for the Planet, who I've blogged about before, has just released a compilation of tunes where 100% of the proceeds from the sale go to help fund environmental non-profits. Included in the disc are fan favorites such as Jack Johnson, G. Love, Mason Jennings, Josh Ritter, Katie Herzig and my personal favorite... Brandi Carlile (singing a new unreleased tune!!!)

I picked it up yesterday early on amazon.com for $3.99, but apparently the cost of the compilation will be $10. You can find it on itunes, amazon, or select retail stores.

And, unlike other "save the world" music compilation cd's, this one happily isn't full of songs you'd never really want to listen to again. You know the type, songs about saving the whales and hugging trees don't exactly get top billing on my itunes playlists... but this one is full of acoustic chill worthy music. So, for 40 songs... it's worth a buy and a listen, over and over and over again.

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Monday, January 4, 2010

The gift that keeps on giving....

Well, as many of you can see.... I've been a little MIA over the past few weeks. And I promise to fill you in on my Christmas, New Years and 2009 in Review, Resolutions, etc and all that fun stuff later (because I know you care), but right now I'll just leave you with my favorite holiday posting for the former festive season. I hope that everyone had a safe and happy holidays and New Year. Kudos to wiping away 2009 and bringing in 2010!

The gift that keeps on giving....
So, once again the holidays have come and gone and we can tell which gifts were successful and which were complete flops by the packages still resting under the tree. Usually it's the tin of stale popcorn, the matching umbrella and coupon wallet, and the fifteenth bottle of lotion that sits around the longest. I hate for a gift to be given and not used, it's seems like such a waste. Henceforth, when it comes to gift giving, I've made a resolution to give a gift that will never go unused and unappreciated. I am speaking of course, about the gift of toilet paper.

It's the little things that go unnoticed in your life and you don't realize they are important until they are gone; you know, like a loving family, a roof over your head, good bagels, and plenty of toilet paper on the roll. Really, when you think about it, in most modern societies, toilet paper is essential to a clean and functioning household. Some of the worst memories in my life have come from the end of the toilet paper roll.

Once, I lived in a house with male roommates and when it came to toilet paper, it was deemed as "community" (which means that we all used it and took turns buying it.) I always monitored the toilet paper supply and when it was my turn, I would immediately purchase more, this way we would never run-out. However, my experience in living with boys has led me to believe that they eat toilet paper for breakfast. It seems that no sooner would I buy a pack of toilet paper than we would be out of it. Unfortunately, my roommates did not have the foresight and priorities that I had, so days would go by without proper toilet paper representation. I would remind them, but no toilet paper ever greeted me when I walked in the door. Days turned into weeks, and I couldn't take it anymore. It scared me, what kind of people was I living with that didn't understand the need of toilet paper? No matter how badly I needed toilet paper though, I couldn't give-in and buy another roll out of turn. The boys would never learn that way, but something had to be done. So, when I could manage, I would buy a pack of toilet paper and place it in my closet, taking one roll out at a time and hiding it under my towels in the bathroom. My clever little plan worked for a while, the boys suffered from their own laziness, and I had my own happy stash of quilted toilet paper. The bliss was short lived though, eventually the boys wised up and realized I hadn't been complaining about the lack of toilet paper for a few weeks. As a result, they went on a household search and found my quilted toilet paper along with my collection of Wilson Phillips tapes.

Really, as much as I love using it, I hate buying toilet paper. In an ideal world, the government would issue toilet paper and toothpaste to the masses. It's part of a whole social services plan for good hygiene that would be covered by taxes. Depending on your tax bracket, you could get single ply, double-ply, or quilted. This way, you never have to be embarrassed when your grocery bag rips and toilet paper spills all over the sidewalk and you would never run out at inopportune times. I don't want better roads and safer schools; I want government issued toilet paper.

So until the day comes when the government freely distributes toilet paper, I will bring toilet paper to the masses. The next $10 gift exchange, I am going give something that my boss, my neighbor, and my grandma can use and appreciate. I'm going out and buying $10 worth of toilet paper. No more massive bars of chocolate, pink ear muffs, or tins of popcorn, give the gift that keeps on giving, a truly shitty gift, the gift of toilet paper.
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