I can finally upload photos again.
To fix the problem, I had to install Firefox. Maybe I'm in the conspiracy mode, but I believe it's an agreement between Blogspot and Mozilla to push the use of Firefox. Not that I'm particularly attached to microsoft IE, but this way of doing things bugs me. Talking about conspiracy, did you guys checked those sites about 9/11? I always suspected it was organized by the american government, but now that those guys explain with no possible doubt that the building were brought down by explosives, my mind is really blown away. I didn't even know there was a third building that collapsed at the WTC without having been hit by a plane!
Watch this: www.911research.com/wtc/evidence/videos/
docs/south_tower_collapse.mpeg
As explained in " Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse? " at point 9 (the whole document is 48 pages long... defenetly worth it!), without explosive the top of the first tower would have toppled over and fell well on the side of the building. Unbelievable.
They killed thousands of fellow countrymen just to have an excuse to go kill some more in Asia and get richer. Human beings are the worse animals on the planet, that's for sure.
Sorry, as usual I got caught a bit on that, I just wanted to say that I posted the remaining surf photos at the end of the "the best thing on earth" post below.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
funny papaya
Look at the (familiar) shape of this thing. I wonder if that's why it tasted particularly delicious...
the misterious toy
Ok, ok... here is what the toy is:
Check: http://www.goprocamera.com/.
You can actually buy on surfline.com for $70 (not sure if you need to be a member), but I prefered to invest 10 bucks more and buy it from target.com, because it seemed it was possible to return it for three months.
You can read all the technical specs on the web, here's my feedback after two days of use:
This is a killer product. Whoever had the idea is going to make major bucks.
It's simple, basic and cheap.
No LCD screen, one little AAA battery (I just bought a pack of 4 rechargeable ones, so I'm good for the eternity).
There's a strep that allows you to put it on you wrist. I also put it on the mast (the videos will be vertical, though), on the boom, on the harness.
Let's see how to operate it.
There's two little buttons on the waterproof housing. You push the one on the front once and it turns the camera on, in the still picture mode. If you want to take a little video, you have to push the same button three more times to set it in the video mode. Unfortunately, that only lasts a few seconds and if you didn't start your video pushing the shutter button on the top, it returns to the still picture mode.
That's the only thing that I would change so far.
If you don't push the shutter at all, the camera turns off by itself after 30 seconds. And that's good, otherwise the little battery would die too soon.
I haven't used it for surfing yet, but I think it's going to be great (specially taking videos of the other surfers).
Shooting while windsurfing is not even mentioned on their website. Operating it is not particularly easy (got to push those buttons while hooked in the harness with one hand on the boom and one on the camera), but a little practice already made me a lot better at it.
The ride is quite bumpy itself, so you better focus on one subject without moving the camera around too much. Another thing I like is that the videos are 12 to 20 seconds long (the video is stops by itself when it reaches 1MB) and that means that no editing will be needed. You go home, download them on the computer, check them out, it you got a good one, you keep it. If not, delete everything.
Anyways, for 80 bucks, I'm having a lot of fun already. And it's only the start.
Here's a little video from yesterday's sessions. It's a mast mounted one, so turn you laptop vertical to the left... Sorry, I don't know how to turn a video 90 degrees... can anybody help?
The video is called: "I get hungry sometimes while sailing..."
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing
PS I'm watching http://www.boostmobilepro.com/Live.aspx
a Trestle. Today the main event is off, but they are doing an interesting format with two surfers of the same country surfing together (they have to ride a wave together too). It's quite fun and perfect blogging background activity...
Wow! Taj Burrow just did a huge arial 360 on a small mushy wave!! These guys are incredible...
Check: http://www.goprocamera.com/.
You can actually buy on surfline.com for $70 (not sure if you need to be a member), but I prefered to invest 10 bucks more and buy it from target.com, because it seemed it was possible to return it for three months.
You can read all the technical specs on the web, here's my feedback after two days of use:
This is a killer product. Whoever had the idea is going to make major bucks.
It's simple, basic and cheap.
No LCD screen, one little AAA battery (I just bought a pack of 4 rechargeable ones, so I'm good for the eternity).
There's a strep that allows you to put it on you wrist. I also put it on the mast (the videos will be vertical, though), on the boom, on the harness.
Let's see how to operate it.
There's two little buttons on the waterproof housing. You push the one on the front once and it turns the camera on, in the still picture mode. If you want to take a little video, you have to push the same button three more times to set it in the video mode. Unfortunately, that only lasts a few seconds and if you didn't start your video pushing the shutter button on the top, it returns to the still picture mode.
That's the only thing that I would change so far.
If you don't push the shutter at all, the camera turns off by itself after 30 seconds. And that's good, otherwise the little battery would die too soon.
I haven't used it for surfing yet, but I think it's going to be great (specially taking videos of the other surfers).
Shooting while windsurfing is not even mentioned on their website. Operating it is not particularly easy (got to push those buttons while hooked in the harness with one hand on the boom and one on the camera), but a little practice already made me a lot better at it.
The ride is quite bumpy itself, so you better focus on one subject without moving the camera around too much. Another thing I like is that the videos are 12 to 20 seconds long (the video is stops by itself when it reaches 1MB) and that means that no editing will be needed. You go home, download them on the computer, check them out, it you got a good one, you keep it. If not, delete everything.
Anyways, for 80 bucks, I'm having a lot of fun already. And it's only the start.
Here's a little video from yesterday's sessions. It's a mast mounted one, so turn you laptop vertical to the left... Sorry, I don't know how to turn a video 90 degrees... can anybody help?
The video is called: "I get hungry sometimes while sailing..."
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing
PS I'm watching http://www.boostmobilepro.com/Live.aspx
a Trestle. Today the main event is off, but they are doing an interesting format with two surfers of the same country surfing together (they have to ride a wave together too). It's quite fun and perfect blogging background activity...
Wow! Taj Burrow just did a huge arial 360 on a small mushy wave!! These guys are incredible...
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
new little amazing toy
Even though I got plenty other stuff to post (you guys should check out Sharon's blog for the photos from Hana... http://www.kinel.blogspot.com/), today I received a new little cheap toy, so the other photos will have to wait.
I had so much fun experimenting this thing at Hookipa. Let's say that I have ample margins of improvement... but here's a couple of shots that already blog-worth-it.
Here's the very first one in the first attempt (camera mounted on the boom). I just like the color of the ocean...
This other one shows uncle Robby on the beach. He's barely in the picture, but I like it anyway. Looks like he got a boob job...
In this other one, for some reasons, I was able to better focus on the subject. Unseen, like 007, I secretely pushed the shutter of the little camera mounted on the harness bar and... got it!
Just in case you were wondering what size I was on...
But, let's get to what I think is going to be the killer application of this amazing little toy. Short videos. Very small and short, I think I have to buy a helmet and mount it on it to film thru the window of the sail. You can't really see much if it's attached to the harness. In this first one, though, you can see kind of a wave and a first top turn and then a second and then a wipe out and then the reef... How cool is that? Play it a few times and spot the ghost face in the reef...
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing
In this other one, I was shooting at my feet. The wind was extremely light and I was coming in at Hoo without being in the footstreps. I got that board free at a garage sale, fixed it and now is my light wind wave board (even though it's a freeride board... it's not what you ride, it's how you ride!).
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing
Well, I think I will have a lot of fun with this little thing. In five years, I'll probably laugh about it (new technologies will have made it obsolete), but so far... I'm loving it!
Can't wait till some big swells hit Kanaha and I'll sail with the longboard... and what about the surfing? Applications are unlimited. You can pretty much stick that think on anything tubular...
I'll leave this one to your imagination...
I had so much fun experimenting this thing at Hookipa. Let's say that I have ample margins of improvement... but here's a couple of shots that already blog-worth-it.
Here's the very first one in the first attempt (camera mounted on the boom). I just like the color of the ocean...
This other one shows uncle Robby on the beach. He's barely in the picture, but I like it anyway. Looks like he got a boob job...
In this other one, for some reasons, I was able to better focus on the subject. Unseen, like 007, I secretely pushed the shutter of the little camera mounted on the harness bar and... got it!
Just in case you were wondering what size I was on...
But, let's get to what I think is going to be the killer application of this amazing little toy. Short videos. Very small and short, I think I have to buy a helmet and mount it on it to film thru the window of the sail. You can't really see much if it's attached to the harness. In this first one, though, you can see kind of a wave and a first top turn and then a second and then a wipe out and then the reef... How cool is that? Play it a few times and spot the ghost face in the reef...
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing
In this other one, I was shooting at my feet. The wind was extremely light and I was coming in at Hoo without being in the footstreps. I got that board free at a garage sale, fixed it and now is my light wind wave board (even though it's a freeride board... it's not what you ride, it's how you ride!).
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing
Well, I think I will have a lot of fun with this little thing. In five years, I'll probably laugh about it (new technologies will have made it obsolete), but so far... I'm loving it!
Can't wait till some big swells hit Kanaha and I'll sail with the longboard... and what about the surfing? Applications are unlimited. You can pretty much stick that think on anything tubular...
I'll leave this one to your imagination...
Monday, September 11, 2006
Sunday, September 10, 2006
the best thing on earth
Got a lot of stuff to post, but little time to do it.
Here we go, let's start with this surf session at my favorite spot in Maui on Sept 7th. The day before I got it even better and surfed it very inspired for a few hours. This day, instead, I couldn't tune in the sesh. My arms were tired and I missed the first four waves (I never do that!). Not only I had a confidence crash, but also I didn't get any more respect from the other surfers who consistently dropped in on me. That's the way it goes. If they see you missing a few, next time they'll paddle for it even if they don't technically have the priority to do so. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Waves should not go unridden when it's crowded, so I totally deserved the drop ins.
I decided to get out of the water and take a few pics, which are posted below. Enjoy them.
Let's start with a sequence entirely dedicated to Michelle (this is the pay off for the wipe out in the shore brake at Hoo in the previous post...). Here she is with a nice take off with the hand in the water to stay close to the breaking section and hopefully getting a little cover-up.
Nice top turn with a little spray on this other one.
Here she plays with the lip. I like the "rasta" hair...
Nice shot!
I like this guy's cut back with the hand in the water.
Just like this one.
Grab the rail, hand in the water and hope to get shacked.
Look at that wave!
The same day, at sunset, I drove pretty much to the opposite side of the island to surf another of my favorite waves. We're talking top 5 favorite waves in Maui. I got in the water at 6.20pm and it was very crowded. I waited patiently until my turn came (like, half an hour later) and I scored a great one. Head high, with a lot of different fun sections to make, almost dark, people cheering from the inside. I did three cut backs (or is it cuts back?). Now, three cut backs on the same wave with a longboard... that was a damn good wave!
Around 7 I had to come out because it wes pretty dark. But I knew the moon was going to be full. And I knew it was going to rise soon.
So I went to eat something (I even scored a free hula show at the mall), and one hour later I was back on the spot. The only car in the parking was mine. I entered the water at 8.10pm, with the moon still behind some clouds, but I could tell it was about to pop out. It actually didn't. Or, at least, not as soon as I hoped. So, finding the channel was a little adventurous.
I made it to the break, and even though I was trying to line up with some lights on the shore, the positioning was pretty much left to the luck.
I had to give up on some really good ones, just because I was a few feet off the take off spot. In the daylight, I would have been easy to paddle towards the peak, but with the full moon, you only see the wave at the last moment. But in the daylight, there would have been 30 more people too!
I got lucky a couple of times and took off in the right spot.
Let's see if I can describe how cool it is to ride a wave with the full moon. I'm not even going to mention how beautiful the waves look in the moonlight. I'm not even going to mention how great it is to be the only one out.
I'm just going to say that without the full help of the vision, riding a wave is a matter of feel.
It's the board that sends the feedback to the brain of how the wave is in that moment. You feel the wave is steep and you push on the rail to make the section. You feel the board is slowing down and you walk a little forward to push the nose back down the hill. It's a quite pure form of surfing. On an uncrowded day, I should sometimes try to close my eyes while riding and see what happens... Mmmm, maybe that would be a bit too much.
Anyway, here's another thing worth to mention about night sessions.
Even though I'm never scared by the fact that I know that when I enter in the ocean I'm not on top of the food chain anymore, at night it's a different story. Big fish eat at night, I know that and my brain can't avoid to go there. I try to relax. I try to think to the statistics that make me aware of the fact that big fish eat other fish and that the probability of a mistake and hence of an attack is extremely low. But it's a tough mind game. When the wave comes, all these stupid thoughts disappear. It's when you wait for the set that it's hard to get full control of the brain.
Anyway, I had to leave around 9.30, because the tide was getting too low and it would have been a little sketchy to get back in.
On the beach, a lonely local fisherman went like:"Eh brah, I saw you carving all da way out dere!"
"Me carving? You must have smoked da kine, brah..."
We laughed.
It felt good to know that not only I was having a deep connection with mother nature, but also entertaining the only witness.
I rode the snake again... I even carved on it!
Last thing I want to add at the end of this post.
The waves in these photos are close to perfect. The waves at night were pretty damn good too. But today, at Koki beach in Hana, the waves were all messy and disorganized. Guess what? Me and Michelle had a blast anyway. I couldn't believe we were having so much fun in such poor conditions.
I started surfing 5 years ago, when I moved in Maui. Since then, the level of stoke is constantly going higher and higher. I wonder if it will ever stop. I hope not.
Because surfing is the best thing on earth.
Here we go, let's start with this surf session at my favorite spot in Maui on Sept 7th. The day before I got it even better and surfed it very inspired for a few hours. This day, instead, I couldn't tune in the sesh. My arms were tired and I missed the first four waves (I never do that!). Not only I had a confidence crash, but also I didn't get any more respect from the other surfers who consistently dropped in on me. That's the way it goes. If they see you missing a few, next time they'll paddle for it even if they don't technically have the priority to do so. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Waves should not go unridden when it's crowded, so I totally deserved the drop ins.
I decided to get out of the water and take a few pics, which are posted below. Enjoy them.
Let's start with a sequence entirely dedicated to Michelle (this is the pay off for the wipe out in the shore brake at Hoo in the previous post...). Here she is with a nice take off with the hand in the water to stay close to the breaking section and hopefully getting a little cover-up.
Nice top turn with a little spray on this other one.
Here she plays with the lip. I like the "rasta" hair...
Nice shot!
I like this guy's cut back with the hand in the water.
Just like this one.
Grab the rail, hand in the water and hope to get shacked.
Look at that wave!
The same day, at sunset, I drove pretty much to the opposite side of the island to surf another of my favorite waves. We're talking top 5 favorite waves in Maui. I got in the water at 6.20pm and it was very crowded. I waited patiently until my turn came (like, half an hour later) and I scored a great one. Head high, with a lot of different fun sections to make, almost dark, people cheering from the inside. I did three cut backs (or is it cuts back?). Now, three cut backs on the same wave with a longboard... that was a damn good wave!
Around 7 I had to come out because it wes pretty dark. But I knew the moon was going to be full. And I knew it was going to rise soon.
So I went to eat something (I even scored a free hula show at the mall), and one hour later I was back on the spot. The only car in the parking was mine. I entered the water at 8.10pm, with the moon still behind some clouds, but I could tell it was about to pop out. It actually didn't. Or, at least, not as soon as I hoped. So, finding the channel was a little adventurous.
I made it to the break, and even though I was trying to line up with some lights on the shore, the positioning was pretty much left to the luck.
I had to give up on some really good ones, just because I was a few feet off the take off spot. In the daylight, I would have been easy to paddle towards the peak, but with the full moon, you only see the wave at the last moment. But in the daylight, there would have been 30 more people too!
I got lucky a couple of times and took off in the right spot.
Let's see if I can describe how cool it is to ride a wave with the full moon. I'm not even going to mention how beautiful the waves look in the moonlight. I'm not even going to mention how great it is to be the only one out.
I'm just going to say that without the full help of the vision, riding a wave is a matter of feel.
It's the board that sends the feedback to the brain of how the wave is in that moment. You feel the wave is steep and you push on the rail to make the section. You feel the board is slowing down and you walk a little forward to push the nose back down the hill. It's a quite pure form of surfing. On an uncrowded day, I should sometimes try to close my eyes while riding and see what happens... Mmmm, maybe that would be a bit too much.
Anyway, here's another thing worth to mention about night sessions.
Even though I'm never scared by the fact that I know that when I enter in the ocean I'm not on top of the food chain anymore, at night it's a different story. Big fish eat at night, I know that and my brain can't avoid to go there. I try to relax. I try to think to the statistics that make me aware of the fact that big fish eat other fish and that the probability of a mistake and hence of an attack is extremely low. But it's a tough mind game. When the wave comes, all these stupid thoughts disappear. It's when you wait for the set that it's hard to get full control of the brain.
Anyway, I had to leave around 9.30, because the tide was getting too low and it would have been a little sketchy to get back in.
On the beach, a lonely local fisherman went like:"Eh brah, I saw you carving all da way out dere!"
"Me carving? You must have smoked da kine, brah..."
We laughed.
It felt good to know that not only I was having a deep connection with mother nature, but also entertaining the only witness.
I rode the snake again... I even carved on it!
Last thing I want to add at the end of this post.
The waves in these photos are close to perfect. The waves at night were pretty damn good too. But today, at Koki beach in Hana, the waves were all messy and disorganized. Guess what? Me and Michelle had a blast anyway. I couldn't believe we were having so much fun in such poor conditions.
I started surfing 5 years ago, when I moved in Maui. Since then, the level of stoke is constantly going higher and higher. I wonder if it will ever stop. I hope not.
Because surfing is the best thing on earth.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Hookipa!
Somebody complained about the scarcity of the posts lately, so here is another one.
It was Sept 5th in Hookipa, there were wind and waves.
Talking about windsurfing kids (see two posts below), here is Bernd ripping at age 10 (or around that).
It was Sept 5th in Hookipa, there were wind and waves.
Talking about windsurfing kids (see two posts below), here is Bernd ripping at age 10 (or around that).
He's good, but a lot of credit goes to his dad for taking him at the beach every single hour off the school. Bernd, I hope you realize how cool of a dad you got!
Keith Teboul drew a few of those turns before opting for a surf session.
I like Kevin Pritchard because, even though he's a pro, he's always smiling and respecting the priority rules in the waves. Trust me, that's rare. Thanks KP!
Yes, it got crowded...
Last, but not least, here's Michelle getting worked by the shore break... good job!
This post is dedicated to Adele, Valerio and Rachel's first baby girl. Auguri!
Forecast
Very good news.
Today there's a storm north of the Aleutians with a small fetch oriented towards Hawaii. I don't know what the shadowing effet of those islands will be, but the north shore may receive the first small NW swell of the season around Sept 11.
But the real good news (now, since in this case it's a single news, would somebody explain me why it still is news and not just new???), is that the modeled south pacific weather maps show a deep storm forming SE off New Zealand in 48 hours. That would kinldy (...not really!) send us a south swell around Sunday Sept 17. Very similar to the actual one. Generated many, many thousand miles away and that will mean sometimes extended waiting time for the big sets.
I'm glad I went to Italy in June this year, so I will be here in Sept and enjoy all of the above.
Stoked.
Today there's a storm north of the Aleutians with a small fetch oriented towards Hawaii. I don't know what the shadowing effet of those islands will be, but the north shore may receive the first small NW swell of the season around Sept 11.
But the real good news (now, since in this case it's a single news, would somebody explain me why it still is news and not just new???), is that the modeled south pacific weather maps show a deep storm forming SE off New Zealand in 48 hours. That would kinldy (...not really!) send us a south swell around Sunday Sept 17. Very similar to the actual one. Generated many, many thousand miles away and that will mean sometimes extended waiting time for the big sets.
I'm glad I went to Italy in June this year, so I will be here in Sept and enjoy all of the above.
Stoked.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Labor day in Maui
The day at Thousand Peaks started like this...
The board I'm riding is an old style 9.10 that has just become part of my quiver. When I ride it, I have the soundtrack of Endless summer in my mind. It just starts automatically. It's like a board with a stereo system included...
I want to learn to ride it like Robert Wingnut.
Then a light wind picked up. I didn't have my Superfreak with me, so I borrowed Claudio's sail (got the sail number and a few sponsors... got to be a good sailor...) and I sailed for the first time with the longboard on the south shore.
I met these two bodyboarder kids that asked me for a ride to the break.
"Sure, hop on board".
I asked them their names: Kai and Connor.
"No way!", I thought... Kai Lenny and Connor Baxter are two of the best windsurfer kids in Maui (that means in the world too). That was a sign already.
Then the youngest asked me:"Is windsurfing fun?"
"It is. Would you like to try?"
"Yeah!"
"OK, tell your dad that I will teach you a free windsurfing lesson".
So far, the dad hasn't called yet, but just the fact that I had them all excited at the idea was a pretty cool thing. I hope they will call.
Claudio closed the day with an old school freestyle move (...I told you he was good!). Got to try that...
Oh well, today another south swell hit the islands and I surfed my favorite spot again. Two double overhead bombs made the drive ultra-worthy it.
From the warm waters of Hawaii, my aloha goes to all the (internet) surfers of the world.
The board I'm riding is an old style 9.10 that has just become part of my quiver. When I ride it, I have the soundtrack of Endless summer in my mind. It just starts automatically. It's like a board with a stereo system included...
I want to learn to ride it like Robert Wingnut.
Then a light wind picked up. I didn't have my Superfreak with me, so I borrowed Claudio's sail (got the sail number and a few sponsors... got to be a good sailor...) and I sailed for the first time with the longboard on the south shore.
I met these two bodyboarder kids that asked me for a ride to the break.
"Sure, hop on board".
I asked them their names: Kai and Connor.
"No way!", I thought... Kai Lenny and Connor Baxter are two of the best windsurfer kids in Maui (that means in the world too). That was a sign already.
Then the youngest asked me:"Is windsurfing fun?"
"It is. Would you like to try?"
"Yeah!"
"OK, tell your dad that I will teach you a free windsurfing lesson".
So far, the dad hasn't called yet, but just the fact that I had them all excited at the idea was a pretty cool thing. I hope they will call.
Claudio closed the day with an old school freestyle move (...I told you he was good!). Got to try that...
Oh well, today another south swell hit the islands and I surfed my favorite spot again. Two double overhead bombs made the drive ultra-worthy it.
From the warm waters of Hawaii, my aloha goes to all the (internet) surfers of the world.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
The blog guy
A few days ago I was hanging out with some friends at Kanaha when a guy comes up to me and asks:"Excuse me, are you the blog guy?"
"Well... I guess I am"
"I'm from Germany" -he said- "and I always check your blog"
He looked kind of excited to have met me.
Now, how freakin cool is that?
My friends were quite impressed...
I can now say that I have fans all over the world. This one in the photo, though, still remains my favorite fan...
"Well... I guess I am"
"I'm from Germany" -he said- "and I always check your blog"
He looked kind of excited to have met me.
Now, how freakin cool is that?
My friends were quite impressed...
I can now say that I have fans all over the world. This one in the photo, though, still remains my favorite fan...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
