Jason things

Normally I'm not crazy about chiptunes songs (songs that sound like old 8-bit games, like Nintendo), but this one is just too brilliant.

5 Worries Parents Should Drop, And 5 They Shouldn't : Shots - Health News Blog : NPR

As if I needed another reason to hate the corporate world of action sports.

As if I needed a reason to despise all those X-Games veterans who skate like circus monkeys with no style.

As if the $50 tickets to go and get blasted by corporate advertising wasn't enough to drive me into a frothing rage.

Now I have a new piece of information that makes me want to set fire to the whole scene.

You know those energy drink chugging action sports stars you see on ESPN?  The ones standing up on top of the vert ramp, or mega ramp, or dirt ramp, or half pipe in the snow?  The ones that have their helmets completely covered with Monster or Rockstar energy drink stickers?

The ones that all the aspiring young kids look up to and want to emulate on their own skateboards/bikes/snowboards by hammering down a $1.50 energy drink after every run?

Know what these extreme adrenaline junkies are drinking up there to keep their bodies in prime condition for competition?

Water.

Yeah.  Turns out that they have these extra-large logo cans filled with water for the riders.

So that way it looks like they're knocking back all that anxiety attack fluid like it was the essence of life.

As if that is what gives them their edge.

And all the kids buy it, and then buy it.

And then they get heart issues and obesity.

Rock On.

Well... I hate to say it, but summer is about 1/2 way over.

Although another anniversary is coming up quick. The Oregon Trifecta.  This is a 3-day, 3-park skate contest.

Last year Noah and I went to the one in Tigard so I could see some professional skaters rip it up.  It was at that contest that I heard of "Old Man Army."  It's a company and website that is made up of skaters 30 years old and older.  I signed up in the forums and eventually met up with some of the Portland/Vancouver members.

This was last August.

Last August, I didn't skate ramps and parks very much.  I grew up skating street and big ramps terrified me.  The thought of skating a vert ramp was laughable.

But here I am, one year later.  I've put in a lot of hard work and have pushed myself to try things I've never tried before.  I can drop into a vert ramp like it's nothing now.

My goal is that over the next few months to a year I'll start being able to get air out of ramps.  I want to get up and above the lip and be able to fly.

I've learned this last year that I'm capable of so much more than I think I am capable of.  I can still surprise myself.  I can still grow and do things I've never done before.

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. -Marty McFly

I've still got a checklist of things I need to do this summer, though.  Here's a few of the highlights.

Glenhaven: Grind deep end of pool + grind big wall in bowl

Pier Park: Drop into 12' vert end + backside slash grind deep end.

Hood River: Grind over mousehole gap + Grind deep end of big bowl

Burnside: Grind big bowl + drop in on wall

Vancouver: Backside air in 6' end


Don't worry, I'll be filming all of these tricks (plus more). There's no point in doing them if they're not documented!

Failure is not an option.

I know how to spell Lincoln!


Went out to Lincoln City this last weekend.  Hit up the skate park, of course.

I didn't get any video of me, but I was able to get my wheel up on the coping on the 13' deep end of the snake run. 

Here's a video of Doug, Joe, and Gabe tearing it up.

I guess I never posted this here.

I dropped into a full vert ramp for the first time about a week ago.

My heart pretty much stopped but I ran back up and did it a second time.  That's just how it goes.  If you're scared of something, do it. Twice.

I went back to Battleground a couple days ago and started really getting comfortable on the ramp. Even almost got up to a grind.

Amazing how quickly progress happens once you pass those huge hurdles.

Aside from my mom taking our whole family to Lion King (which was incredible) and being able to see the PDX fireworks from about 200 yards from the launching site, I was able to get out and skate a bit.

Disclaimer: As promised, I'm not going to be doing political posts on this blog. This isn't a political post. It's not about politics, it's about the music industry.

I didn't write this, but I think it's an interesting challenge to bring true change to the music industry.

I've given up on complaining to congress. They don't even listen when you threaten to have them voted out. Money talks in Washington and if you don't have money you aren't heard. I can't tell you how many times I've emailed congress (literally thousands of times) about various issues where I wasn't in the minority (or at least, the mostly non-vocal) with the position I held and I get the same old tired form response with a few key phrases tossed it to make it look like they even care.

Want to fix this? Stop buying RIAA member's products. If that means giving up your favorite bands, so be it. I'm willing to go completely indy (or even music-less) if it means someone finally listens.

Don't give the RIAA your money. Don't go to concerts by member bands. Don't engage in gross copyright infringement of their members (or at all, really). The NMPA hasn't been hurt by this. They just want a piece of what they see as the gravy train. They are just another four-letter abbreviation.

Stop consuming (this encompasses illegal downloading as well as legitimate purchases) products from their members, too. Turn to indy bands who have trader-friendly and file-sharing friendly policies. Turn to indy labels who have the same. Support those who support your point of view.

Lobby the bands instead of congress. Enough people telling them that they will not consume their product at all will get them to change their point of view rather quickly. No music artist wants to be poor and destitute. No group can have concerts if no fans will show up.

This is a two-way street. If consuming their products lets them keep the old way of doing things, stop consuming their products.

So everyone says that we should go to Mars.

It's the next step in space exploration, right?

Well, the actual ramifications of this desire are monumental.

Setting aside all technological and budgetary issues, what about the strain on the human psyche? A Mars mission would be over a year long.

Over a year without friends and family.

Over a year stuck in an enclosed space.

Over a year stuck with the same people.

Well to test this, a mock facility has been created and a crew is about to embark on a 520 Day Mission.

Six men from Europe, Russia and China embarked on a 520-day mock mission to Mars, heading out to a crew module in a warehouse in Moscow and locking the hatches behind them today. The mission runs from June 2010 to November 2011, and like a real Mars mission, the crew will live and work like astronauts, eating special food and exercising the same way as crews aboard the International Space Station. Additionally their communications with their mission control and anyone else from the rest of the world will have a delay of up to 40 minutes.

I salute these men and wish them the best of luck.

Can't wait to read the journal entries they start posting.

Let's just get this out of the way right now. I'm NOT going to use the line you're thinking of. It's more over used then the "Were not in Kansas" line.

Good?

Good.

Ok. Let's begin.

If you want to get to the good stuff, skip this first section:


Background

I've been with my company for 10 years and they gave me a catalog of things to choose from for a present.  There were knives, letter openers, and other various items with which to slash your wrist.  I looked for hemlock but it was conspicuously missing.  Perhaps it's the recession.

Anyway as I flipped through this catalog I spotted what I wanted.  A telescope.

My dad has a telescope and I always looked forward to times I could use it. Well now I could have one of my very own. (Granted its not as nice as his, but it's a start).

So I started using it. I'd go out and just look at the moon for long periods of time.  Look at planets.  Whatever. It was just fun to look up.

I had forgotten that I used to lay out in my backyard as a kid during the summer and just  look at the stars for hours and hours on end. I somehow had forgotten that wonder and enjoyment.  This telescope brought back that wonder to me and I loved every minute I had my hands on it. 

This continued through the winter, spring, and summer.

Near the end of summer I was told that my company does tuition reimbursement, and it doesn't even have to be a class related to your job. 

And they had online classes.

My eyes lit up and I grabbed a catalog and said: "Astronomy/Physics 121 please."

I was a college student again after a 10 year break, and I could do all my reading and homework and tests on my own time without having to sit in a class.

Fantastic!

I took the first semester and was hooked. I thought I knew about astronomy, but I was so so wrong. I was so ignorant to so much. My brain was expanding and I was absorbing information like a sponge.

I even listened to an Ohio State Podcast where they actually, for free, released the entire 161 and 162 astronomy series.  I couldn't afford to attend Ohio State, but I was learning right along with the students there as a way to supplement my own learning.

I was hooked and quickly signed up for the second class in the series for Winter term.

It was at this time that my teacher presented a very unique opportunity.


You have no idea what you are getting yourself into.

I was told that NASA was offering an opportunity to qualified/selected students to travel down to Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.

Yeah, THAT Houston.

Houston as in "Houston, we have a problem" Houston.   (NO! I was forced to use the line!  Ok, you get that one, but no more).

 All we had to do to sign up was to write a letter about why we wanted to attend. We also needed to have our teacher write a letter of recommendation as well.

I agonized over my letter, feeling deep down that it'd never really do any good but I was willing to do my best anyway.  (More on this subject to come) 

My teacher also wrote an amazing letter of recommendation, and between the two letters I figured I had as good of a shot as anybody.

Time passed, I kept rocking at my class and then one day got an email.

It said that I was one of about 300 people to be chosen to partake in the next selection process.

The selection process was far more difficult then I had expected.

Mind you, I'm working a full time job, raising kids, taking an astronomy class, and on top of it had the brilliant notion of challenging myself by taking a pre-calculus class. I hadn't taken math in 10 years and got a D last time I did.

Now I essentially had a 3rd class added to it.

Our job was to design a Mars rover.  We had to come up with a mission proposal (What do you want to do?), a full budget (How much will it cost and where will the funding come from), a line drawing of the rover, and put it all together into a massive mission proposal package.

I was in over my head for sure.

But with the support and encouragement of friends and family I somehow got all the pieces completed in time. This required many late nights and hours and hours of research.

Essentially my proposal was to use the currently existing rovers with a few less features. The difference is that I decided to setup a network so that control of the rover could be handled remotely by qualified college/high school classes. This way kids could get excited about space exploration by actually partaking in the mission.

They were to plan how to move the rover from its current location to a specified destination. It'd have to perform some kind of action, and at the end would take a picture that would be sent back to the class.

Well, I submitted my final proposal but felt that there was no way it was worthy of making it. I knew that there were people much more qualified than I that would be applying as well.


I wrote it off and went about my normal studies.
 Near the end of the semester I got an email. It stated that out of 300 students I was one of about 50 chosen to travel down to JSC to partake in the NCAS (National Community College Aerospace Schollars) activity. 

I was in.

They paid for my flight, my hotel, and my food. They even offered a special vegetarian menu!


You REALLY have no idea what you're getting yourself into!!!

So the first day of the event came and we all sat in a conference room around these round tables. We were in teams of 10 students.

We were told what the weekend would entail. We were to, as a team, do what we did to get here.

Design a rover, plan a mission, and devise a budget.

Only this time we had to actually build a mini rover out of a robotics kit.

We were also going to have to present our proposal to some NASA employees to have our work judged.

The intro lasted for about 40 minutes and laid out the rules. Then they said:  "Go."

We all came back to our table and sat around looking at each other, blankly.

This is our team:

Someone spoke up and said: "Um.....   what is everyone's major?"

We quickly found out we had some engineers so they dove right in and dumped out the robotics kit and got to work building something functional.


They had to keep close track of what parts they used because each part cost money.  We had to plan our budget around what we wanted to do, what parts we could afford, and what bonuses we would get depending on how the rover operated.

We came up with this initially, but eventually changed the way the steering worked. We used the back wheels on a swivel which worked far better than most other rovers.


While they were busy with legos, I got to work on the presentation.

Essentially, I sat at the arts and crafts table and worked on our presentation board. I also helped to frame the speech we would use to present the rover.


We started around 3:00 on Friday. 

There was a break for dinner and an astronaut came and talked to us and showed us a slide show. He talked about what it was like working with NASA. It was really interesting.


As soon as he was done, it was right back to work and we went officially, until 9:30 pm.

But after we got back to the hotel our team kept working until around midnight.  Planning how we'd present the next morning.  I worked on the logo and had to color it in so it'd look good.

The alarm clock went off at 6:00am and I was not happy.

By 8:00 we were back in the room and dove in feet first.  No "good mornings" by the NASA staff.  No, it was straight to work.

We had our initial presentation and it went well. We got additional funding which allowed us to add more features to our rover.

About noon that day we had a special guest come and visit us.

Gene Krantz.



Gene was the head of mission control for the Apollo program.

Including Apollo 11 which landed on the moon, and Apollo 13 which was truly NASA's finest hour.

To help put this in context, Gene Krantz was played by Ed Harris in the movie Apollo 13.

They don't make them like this anymore.

It was truly an inspirational message.

He coined the phrase "Failure is not an option" which is essentially NASAs slogan now.


This is the same spirit that helped me get there in the first place.  With the support of my friends and family, I didn't allow failure to be an option. There were times I wanted to drop out but with their encouragement I kept going.

This same spirit was alive during our experience as well.

This was no vacation. This was 99% work and only 1% play. 

I've never worked with a team of people so dedicated and driven to succeed like I did there. It was very inspirational and very exhausting.

Well, after Gene's presentation we worked for a bit, and then it was tour time.

Finally, what we had all been waiting for.

Only the tour was very rushed and on a time crunch, like everything else.

I wish we could have had more time, but they really wanted us to keep going on the projects.  I'd expect nothing less from NASA.

Regardless, here's a few of the pictures I took.

This was to be the Apollo 19 rocket. It was never used due to the program ending.  It's hard to explain how huge this thing is. 




After that we went to the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.

This is a 200 foot long, 40 foot deep pool.

They put the astronauts in suits and send them to the bottom.

There they work on underwater models of whatever the mission is to be.  In this case, it was International Space Station (ISS) components.

This way they get used to working with strange tools and heavy suits in very low gravity situations.



After that it was on to mission control.

This is it. The brains of NASA.

Cape Canaveral is where they launch from, but Houston control is where they monitor, communicate, command, and oversee the entire mission.

I think one of the shirts had the best slogan.

"It's no rocket science.  Oh wait, yes it is."

Currently they were working with the NASA astronaut crew onboard the ISS.


The best part was still to come, though.

We were given access to a part of JSC that the normal tour doesn't get to go through.

I thought we were going to have to just look from behind glass, but I was totally wrong.

We were able to go into the original mission control room and sit at the very desks that the entire Apollo program was run from. They also ran shuttle missions from here up into the mid 90's.


This was it!  Ground Zero!

This is where Apollo 11 was controlled from.

This is where Apollo 13 was controlled from.

Many of the shuttle missions were run from here too, including the Challenger.



This was beyond a one in a lifetime opportunity because most people never get to even go into this room.

This made all the work worthwhile, and let me tell you, there was a lot of work. That's how cool this was.

I love vintage computers. I love all the buttons and dials.

And yes, I even pushed some of the buttons.  I was so stoked.



 Well, like I said, the tour was too short.

It was like going to Disneyland and having the tour guide go: "This is tomorrow land. Over there is Space Mountain."

"Cool! Can we go on it?!"

"Nope. No time. Next is adventure land where you get to walk past another amazing ride..."

So, it was short, but it was still fantastic.

The day ended around 10:00pm and we all went back and just collapsed.

The next day we took our rovers for a spin and demonstrated their capabilities.  We performed really well.

We gave our presentation and had our group pictures with Gene Krantz.

Awards were given out (our team didn't win), including the standard: "Great job, you were one of the 50 that made it" awards.


After it was done around 1:30, all the other students flew out.  I had booked the trip so I'd go home a day late and so Jaqui could go with me as well.

I sat there in the pool around 6pm just totally stunned.

"Jaqui.... did.....   did that just happen?"

I was totally shell shocked.

I worked harder than I've worked in my life. I was mentally exhausted and thrilled at all that I had seen.

I floated in the pool just trying to process it all.

We flew home and that was it.

That was the trip.


Oh, fine, I'll get to the part that you all actually came to hear about.



Yes, the Lee and Joe Jamail skatepark was INCREDIBLE.

It was right on the edge of the city and had an amazing view.

It was humid so skating was weird, almost like going through water.

There was a kidney bowl with granite coping that I tore up for a little while. It was so rad.





Ok fine. Here's the video I took while I was down there.

It repeats a lot of the stuff I talked about, but it's still fun to watch.

I'm leaving for Houston tomorrow  morning.  Nice and early.

Ah well, at least I enjoy flying.  I even enjoy sitting in airports. It's comforting somehow.

I'll be blogging and facebooking my experience down there as I visit Johnson Space Center.

I'll also, of course, blog my visit  to this little mecca:



Stay tuned!

I know you all probably don't care, but I just want to post this so I can track my progress.

Had quite an amazing weekend this last weekend.

It started with me going to one of the most magical places I've been.

Hood River Skatepark

It's 1/2 skatepark, 1/2 nature walk.

The best part was when we went up to the bowl.

We had a nice little session going. The other guy I was with was doing 50-50 grinds up on the 9' wall.  The challenge was on and I started hitting it pretty hard as well.

I was nearly hitting grinds on it... on the biggest bowl I've ever skated.  It was an epic day.

2 days later I took the kids to Pier Park.

I swore I'd do something that's been haunting me for a while.

No, not the vert drop in, although one of the guys I was with was doing it. It's on now.

Instead, I focused on the "Mouse Hole."


It's a 9' roll in that rolls right into a giant 20' full pipe.

There's no flatbottom, so it's a quick transition from going down to going up.

Here's what it looks like from the entrance.


(Not pictured: pants crapping feeling looking down into the pipe)

I stood on my board with my hands on the doorway.  I was in position. My heart was pounding.

I was about to let go, but that self defense mechanism kicked in and said: "No. Don't do this. Try it again some other time."

I took a slight step back, but then I refused to be controlled by fear.

I focused on the opposite wall and rolled in successfully.

I went around a bit, feeling the total rush and climbed back out of the pipe.

My adrenaline was pumping, and my hands were literally shaking. I hadn't been scared like that in a long time.

Then I went right over to the entrance, only this time I started up as I as I possibly could.

1....2......3..... go.

Successful roll in.


It's only May and I'm doing things I've never done before in my life. I can't wait to see what the rest of  this summer holds.

But more then just doing cool stuff or going big, I'm really stoked that I was able to conquer my fear.  I was able to see that panic hit and then shut it down.

My motto the past few months has been: "Are you scared?  Then do it.  Twice."

And I did, and I feel incredible.

With a week chalked full of depressing, stressful, and really heavy stuff, I was granted a huge break of sunshine yesterday.

I found out that the kids didn't have school, and that my wife didn't have to do any work. Her only plan was to get Logan in to have his picture taken.

Well, while she was doing that, I took Noah and Gracie over to Gabriel skatepark.

Noah was rolling into the ramps and doing long turns on the other side of the snake run.  He finally felt that 'carve' you feel when you hit a wall just right.

He was hooked.

Gracie rolled all around the park on her scooter, going super fast and up and over bumps.  She jumped into the big bowl and rode around for a while too, having a blast.

Eventually she decided to climb this huge grassy hill and pick little daisy flowers and packed my backpack full of them. She then realized it'd be more fun to roll down the hill over and over again.  Then she played in the giant sand box (aka beach vollyball area).

I had my eyes on the big wall at the park.  A giant 9' tall half-pipe that I threw myself at as hard as I could.  Almost got a grind too.  Almost... 

I've never been up that high on a ramp before. It was probably the biggest and fastest I've ever gone.  It was such a rush.

We went home and got some lunch and then went to the zoo as a whole family.  I gave Noah my camera and Gracie has her own little one and I also gave them a list of things to photograph as a mission (Fire Hydrant.  Monkey.  Logan making a funny face.  Lion.   Etc).  They had a blast.

If you want to keep kids in line and busy, just give them cameras. It worked great!

After that we dropped Gracie off at ballet lessons and the rest of us went to Old Navy to get some clothes.

I bought my first pair of 34" waist pants ever.  I've been at 36" for a while now, but they've gotten baggy on me.  I was pretty surprised at this.

Jaqui tried on pants and was SO close to dropping down to the next size. Not much more and she'll be there.  She was so excited to be buying clothes right off the rack at Old Navy and not having to go to Torrid or something.  She's worked so hard to get to this point and I was so excited for her.

We went home, had a dinner that everyone loved (which is a rarity!), dropped Noah off at his baseball practice, went to the gym, came home and put kids to bed.

I then did ironing and watched "Biggest Loser" with Jaqui.

I went to bed with thoughts and visions of me carving 9' up on a huge concrete wall.

That is how you live a day.

While I wasn't really a huge fan of Mike Valley back in the day, I've found his longevity in skateboarding very inspiring.

He's still keeping it alive old-school style.

Well, on his website, he's started a new segment called "Monday's with Mike V."

Pretty cool to watch. enjoy.

Mondays With Mike V

Perhaps I shall enter.  This years contest

Here's some photos from Last Years Contest

This last weekend Noah and I went down to the Aumsville skatepark, just south of Salem.

It was a bowl type park, built by Dreamland Skateparks (the guys who build Burnside).

There wasn't a lot of street terrain (stairs/rails/ledges/etc).  It was basically a giant U shaped bowl of half pipes.

But one spot in particular was really fun for me.  There was a huge roll in across from the vert bowl. This meant that I could do an easy roll in and fly up to the vert wall as fast as I wanted to.

This allowed me to start doing kickturns (180's) up in the vertical part of the ramp.

It was really freaky at first as I hit a point of total weightlessness.  But instead of jumping off like I have in the past (which ended up in massive foot injuries), I stuck to my board and trusted that I'm come out of the turn.

Which I did.

I kept bombing at the wall time and time again, trying to see just how high up I could get myself.

I can't explain the feeling of that rush.  It's indescribable.

Flying up a ramp with lots of speed, pumping and pushing from the bottom in order to get as high up as possible, sitting and looking down at a 90 degree angle with the ground, then rolling back in and feeling my stomach drop as I do.

It's so addictive.


Here's a picture, but realize that anytime you see a skateboarding photo, size and scale is lost.

This is an 8' tall wall.  You look up at it and it's at least 2' above your head.


Need some relative scale?


If you were standing in front of the wall, I'd be skating in an arc about a foot above your head.

I could have skated over top of a person in a top hat.



This is like heroin, only far cheaper.


Now that I'm used to this feeling, I'm one step closer to dropping in on vert.  Now that I know what the weightless feeling is like, I'm going to be ready to take the plunge.


Another super fun part of the day was watching Noah skate in the bowls. He's been working hard to get some confidence on his skateboard and when we were at the park he was rolling up the ramps about 1/2 way.  It was actually pretty impressive.


It's good to see his confidence increase. See him conquering his fears.

So often he is controlled by fear and doesn't try things that he really wants to.

I've seen him defeat his fear time and time again at the skateparks.

I don't care if he skateboards or not. It's simply a tool we're using to help him master his fear, and it seems to be working.

Also, another guy there had a long board and Noah was skating around and down hills on it. He really like it.


So, fun day, good times had by all.

And spring has just started.

You know, I enjoyed Summer camp as much as the next kid.

Going to Tadmor was definitely an experience, but all I wanted to do when I was there was go back home and skateboard.

Tadmor was also the place where I saw my skater friends slowly fade away into other activities, leaving me alone.

This last Saturday me and a couple guys I know went up to a place called "Windell's" that's outside of Sandy, but before Rhododendron.

Just take a look at this place.

There was a place where you had all the cabins on opposite sides of a grove of trees.   But there were sidewalks with skateable objects all over the place.  Ramps banking from one cabin to the next.  Two trees that were too close together had a curved ramp going through the middle of them.

This is what you do when you walk out of your cabin at Windell's.

Not to mention the fact that they also have a full sized outdoor skate park that they're still adding onto.

Oh, but that's not all.

They also had a full 15,000 square foot indoor skatepark as well.

It even had a foam pit so you could practice your airs without slamming into the ground.


So that pretty much cinched it for me.  I need to either get my time machine working, or I need to fake my age and try to get enrolled into summer camp.

The new Gorillaz album Plastic Beach is awesome.

I've been digging these guys ever since my sister came back from England and wouldn't shut up about them until I listened.

Plastic Beach might just be their best one yet.  I can't stop listening.

You've got that good Blur euro-trash sound, you've got electronic synth going on, and you've got hip-hop.  That's my tri-fecta right there.

One of the best parts of Plastic Beach?  You've got a song they do with De La Soul.  I love De La Soul.

Anyway, check it out. It's fun and will be my soundtrack this summer.

Here's a little something to keep you happy in the meantime. Stylo Video

Guest vocals: Mos Def.