Ode to myself

backflip

Yes, ode to myself. Just finished my second knee surgery and the surgeon said it was time to let go of snowboarding due to my knee conditions and bow legs. It was fun while it lasted, but also the easiest of all my hobbies to retire from. It's darn expensive, hard to get together and do with other people and my schedule, and as fun as it gets, doesn't have the replay value for me unlike at a skatepark where I can go and go and go - hit after hit. At the hill I have to wait for chairlifts and if I am lucky enough to find a jump I like it takes all day to hit it 15 times. That bothers me. That and I hate the cold. Oh well eh? Now I will save my knees for more hockey and bmx. That's a thought I enjoy.

Here's a few photos to celebrate the retirement. Self indulging loser!

Thanks to Chitaroni and Ray for the photos

Happy bday Jorden and Ginger

Gordy and the wheel jam of death at L'Orignal. Shot on my t3i with Chit's 10-20mm wide lens.

 Happy birthday Jorden and Ginger. Don't know what dates or how old you guys are. I don't have Facebook and can sooner remember NHL pro's stats. But I don't love you guys any less. Here are some  classics of Ginger and more from an NYC/Philly/NJ trip we took in 2008. With the crashed hard drive I was extremely lucky to come across this cd with the trip photos (shot with the old 40D) I had burned for Chris way back when, but forgot to give the disc to him a thousand times. My fav part of that road trip with Jeff, Ginger, and Prashant, was Philly. It had amazing street and really felt like a true adventure with new things to ride around every corner. The only thing we mapped out were those cities. Nothing else. It was get in the car and go. A proper bmx road trip. Hope to go back someday. Do people ride street anymore though? And Hey, that trip made a lot of footage for Hate This. 90% of ginger's part was from this trip. Dude shredded it up road fools style. Won't be a ton of updates coming up here. People got lame for Hallowe'en, so nothing there to share. And I am off on a double knee surgery for the next good while. It's going well. hopefully I can be riding for Feb or so.

Happy birthday guys!

Beautiful September

Derek cruises with style on his Honda Shadow

September has proven to been one of the nicer months we have had all year. It's been sunny and perfect for wearing jeans and a tshirt. Can't complain. Check out some stuff going on in life while you are stuck at work not enjoying this weather. All shot with the 50mm on the t3i, except for the bmx photos of me, that was Chitaroni with the 7d and 15mm fisheye.

Lake Placid moto trip 2013

our first real stop for photos, that's white face mountain in the background


Frank, Ray, and myself packed up for a weekend in Lake Placid on the motorcycles for 2.5 days. This place and the surrounding area of Adirondacks is seriously a racetrack full twisty turns and hills surrounded by perfect landscapes of mountains, waterfalls, and rapids lining the roadway. It was insane. Like nothing else I have done before. It felt like linking the perfect run together in a skatepark. I certainly made use of the outer treads of my tires too. We packed light and I was only armed with the t3i with 50mm and my my buddy's gopro 3. Photos couldn't do this place justice, and to be honest we couldn't be bothered to stop in the best spots, because the riding was too good and stopping meant breaking the perfect flow we had going.  Everyone road really well and we covered a fair amount of ground considering the time we had, shorter days, and colder weather. Absolutely awesome. Can't wait to go back next year when it's not deathly cold out.

It's a boy!

a bee themed event. What will it bee? I guessed boy and was right

What a busy weekend. Here is some non bmx content to poke around at. Myself and Brenna shot photo and video at her sister's baby gender reveal/baby shower. Then again at the River Float they held afterwards. Then it was time to celebrate Brenna's bday!

Sudbury roadtrip edit 2013

Here it is. I finally paid for a vimeo plus account. Not happy giving them $60 for a year, but at least this way I can upload video way sooner since I can never ever remember how to compress things while maintaining decent quality. It seriously took me days with my work schedule to just get this crap online. My internet is as slow a volkswagen and my brain is getting dumber. Now that onus is on you as riders to make me ride more and film more next year to and pump out more edits to justify this expense. I prefer wasting money on this from kijiji that I can re-sell on kijiji when I realize I don't need them. Anyone want to buy my edit? Didn't think so. Oh and make sure to have the HD option on.

Enjoy.

Big Nickel Trip 2013

Josh gainers unknown water off a train bridge in Sturgeon falls. We estimated this jump at about 48-50ft. He did the gainer first jump. Then did it again perfectly as well. Then he called it there like a wise man. Don't think you're cool by saying it's not that high. A: you can't even see how much more he drops into the water. B: he did it first jump, INTO UNKNOWN water. C: the friggin' guy jumped off a beam, sideways, no running start, just standing balancing on a beam. D: Josh is the shit

It's important to me to make it down to Sudbury at least once a year. I have good friends there that do lots of driving to hang out on my account. Last year I failed, I didn't even make it once. I was able to break the slump. I didn't ride as much as the maniacs pictured below, but I felt good and had a blast hanging out and laughing. And yah, this post can only start with the best move of the trip. Josh is nuts. Oh and that is Rich Red photoshop job above there there. I opened all the photos I wanted to make a sequence of in some foolish paint program for 4yr olds and cut and past Josh into the relative area he should be, overlap and all. All shot on the T3i with Tamron 18-270mm which has been acting up. I also broke my fisheye trying to film Kyle. But I just got a new 50mm lens to sorta make up for that. It's my third one after smashing one in Spain and having one stolen in Gatineau. Enjoy.

Costa Rica photos part 4

canopy ziplining

This is the last of the photos. All the ziplining photos were were taken by the company photographer. He did a good job considering the low light and foggy weather. There is a random go pro shot in there, and then some off a point and shoot we bought for Brenna for the trip. The point and shoot turned out to be an utter pile of junk. Anyway, thanks for checking in. Plenty of bmx photos and video coming in the next week.

Costa Rica photos part 3

we took a pretty serious kayak ride around an island and found our own private beach

These are a bunch of go pro photos. Go Pro2 is pretty useless in the water. That and I actually chipped the casing area over the lens, so that didn't help photo quality. That being said, it did a pretty good job and got us lots of cool angles.

Costa Rica photos part 2

this felt awesome

More photos with some more tidbits. Our main reason for doing Costa Rica mid Canada summer, was for the opportunity to see the Green Sea Turtles lay their eggs in the middle of the night in Tortuguero. It's a very sanctioned tour in this area as it is protected and only during the night hours (paid and guided of course). You can only wear dark clothing, no camera gear, no lights. Just the guide with a red head lamp. They wait until the turtle is physically laying her eggs (50-100 eggs) before we can view, otherwsie we could spook her back into the ocean. Then we get to watch her cover the nest and go back into the water. It's a tremendous thing to watch and take about 2 hours for the whole process. It's hard to explain, but it's avery special. Pretty much most of the world's sea turtle come the 24 mile stretch of beach in Tortuguero to lay their eggs. It is possible to watch turtles lay eggs elsewhere, but it is also possible to get killed by the poachers who make a living killing turtles and taking their eggs for drugs, etc. So it's a true memory. I mean, you can only get there by boat, you have to pay to get on the island, the guides are certified and checked every time they arrive, and meanwhile on the other side of Costa Rica, people are killing people trying to guard the turtles in non sanctioned areas. Humans are truly the worst animal ever.