Winter Skateboarding - Alex Kuss 360 Shove

Skate Perspective: First Glance Skatepark

Skateboarding to the outside world is viewed rebellious and destructive. However, skateboarding is an art form. We are creating and recreating what others have done. Our daily lives involves the act of exploring and thinking about what could be done that no one has done yet (also known as NBD). To create art we use our surroundings. A simple piece of metal is turned into a pipe that we dance across. This photo series is to display those pieces/surroundings that allow us to create what we view as beautiful.

5 Ways My iPhone Ruined My Life

1. Maps

This is actually one of my favorite features on the iPhone. It is extremely convenient. I can add locations to my calendar and simply click on it, showing me how long it will take to get there. It makes it so easy to keep up with my schedule and the places I have to be. I love it for road trips and going to places I've never been before.

However, it has destroyed me! I now am so depended on my smart phones map program that I don't know how to get to areas that are only 15-20mins away from where I live. This is sad. I can easily compare my two lives with and without a phone because I lived in Taiwan for two years without a smart phone then moved back to America for two years with one.

In Taiwan I could easily get across town, on a bus or scooter with no problems. I could take a train to a city that was two hours away and know how to get around in the city fairly well. Keep in mind this is in another country, making in 10x harder to know street names and to describe to people where you are going etc.

Now fastforward to living in America for the past 2 years. I know use my smart phone to get me to locations I've been 2-3 times already. I use it to get to other cities that are only 45 min away. I never needed this before. I use to just look at a google map print it off, within the first day of using it I was fine without a map the next time I went to that location.

2. Money

This is a pretty obvious one. When I used to be satisfied with my sad little flip phone. I paid about $10 a month and put more minutes on it when I needed it. I mostly only used it for emergencies. Made a call like once a week only. Now I can get into contact with people a lot easier and don't have to worry about my minutes running out, but I am paying $60 for unlimited voice and text then $10 for data. That $70 a month, $60 then my previous phone! Add those months over a year or two and I am short a ton money! I got my iPhone when I had a better paying job, but not being locked into a contract has me trapped. Even if I pay early termination fee's I will still come out with more money if I switch my plan...

3. Photos

Now this topic isn't so bad, but there is a point I would like to add. Having a mildly decent camera on my phone has been wonderful! I love it so much. Its one of the most used features I have. The only down side is, I bring out my professional Nikon camera a lot less because I know I have my phone with me. Then later I will look back and say man I wish I brought my camera with me today or I wish we got some higher quality photos of this.

4. Time

Phones are a great device to have with you all the time. They help me organize my life. However while they are helping me get more organized, I find myself wasting hours staring at their tiny little screens for no good reason. Rather if its killing time on a terribly made game from the app store or just scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, etc. I have found that I have to force myself to not just grab my phone whenever I feel slightly bored and unsure of what I want to do at the moment.

5. Distraction

My phone has become a huge distraction. I find myself staring at its screen while friends of my wife talks to me. It drives me crazy when I realize what I am doing. My wife and I have always made it our goal to never pick up our phones while we are out on dates or having dinner with people (this is one of my biggest pet peeves with some of my friends) but they still seem to claw there way into the pawn of our hands at other occasions. Its one thing if its for a photo, but to just scroll through Facebook or reply to an unimportant text.

 

Bellevue Skatepark Trip

One Year Anniversary Pictures

On one of the days that we celebrated our one year anniversary, we decided to go to the park to take photos together. I guess you could call these photos selfies...

Kickflip Tailslide

I've been trying to land a kickflip front tail on and off for five years now. Finally I started landing them on a normal height ledge about two weeks ago. Then I decided to take it down the hubba...

Photo Re-edit from 2010

Left: Re-edit                                                       Right: First edit in 2010

I've recently been looking through old photos, for memories and as part of a project to put together a website. I decided to try to re-edit some old photos that I originally edited terribly. The problem with this is I only have a single jpg file and destroyed the original photo in the process of doing the first edit. One of the many mistakes I made when I was first learning photography. Not long after this photo I started shooting only in RAW and started saving the original files un-touched.

This photo was one of the easier ones to do a re-edit on because it was mostly color that was off. Which photoshop can make up new colors and put color in that didn't exist. However a lot of my other photos I did stupid fake blurs and such which can't be undone. I believe the original edit was done in iPhoto (on the right). I wish I could just go back and re-due the whole photo though the only thing I did do right with this was the way I composed it.

Hocking Hills Camping

My wife and I - photo by Larissa Ley

Anne Marie and I took a three day weekend camping trip to Hocking Hills with three other married couples. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow all our camping equipment. The first night we arrived we mostly just set up camp and sat around the fire. Putting up the tents wasn't as easy as it usually seems to be. The construction of my tent was different then the usual. After we got about 5 different people to help us we managed to put it together. That night we spent some time fishing and hanging out by the lake, then of course sitting around the camp fire talking.

Photo by Larissa Lay

The next day we headed out to go for a hike. We started at the visitors center and just followed the trail to Old Man's Cave. Old Man's Cave is apparently a location, that looks more like a natural rock over hang, where a man once lived by himself.

There was a designated path but we chose to stray off it a bit.

Many tourists here besides us.

This is part of Old Man's Cave. It was actually hard to get a good picture of it without standing on the other side of the valley. It is a really big natural structure of rock creating a roof for the man that lived here.

Trying to catch Craw Fish

It wasn't long into our hike that we arrive at this waterfall. First Josiah went for a swim and before we knew it most of us were in the water swimming in our clothes too.

Anne Marie and I on the far left - Photo by Josiah Ley

Myself crossing the log - photo by my wife

Eventually we made it all the way to this waterfall. In pictures it looks cool but I assume those pictures where taken in the spring when there is more water flowing. By this time most of us were ready to get home. I would have been fine with hiking more but my wife's knee was bothering her. We headed back to the camp sight then enjoyed the rest of the day at the camp sight and swimming the campground's pool till dinner.

After dinner we headed out to get ice cream and to just drive around. We ended up stopping by Angel Falls which was my favorite sight in Hocking Hills. It has a tiny 100ft water fall and was once  known to be occupied by Indians.

The next day we headed home and spent the day relaxing.

Go Skateboarding Day 2014 - Pittsburg

Go Skateboarding Day is the most important day for skateboarding. Yes, you can skate any day you want but thats not the only thing its about. Its about uniting together with other skaters, meeting new people, and just having fun skateboarding.

I originally planned to go to New York City with a childhood friend, who now lives up in Grand Rapids. However, because of a new internship that he just accepted the week before we had to change plans. We did decide where we were going until the night before we left after he arrived at my house. We decided the best option would be to go to Pittsburg, PA.

Our first stop was Bayne Skatepark in Bellevue. The weather wasn't looking to great. Upon arrival it was still raining. We decided that it was going to probably be like this all day, so we skated anyway.

David Tanner - bs 180 by Dale Nolan Jr. - iPhone 5

Everything was extremely slick, the worst fall I had all day was because I slipped out on the quarter pipe in the back of the photo.

After checking out Plank Eye Skateshop, we headed into the city. Today, there was a famous country singer in town, which explained all the people dress in cowboy/cowgirl outfits later on.

David Tanner warming up for some skateboarding

Myself - Kickflip by David Tanner

I normally make a skate spot map before going into a city but because of the short notice I didn't have time to do much research. We just started exploring. Not before long though, we ran into another group of skateboarders which guided us to some good spots.

 This is a DIY spot that hasn't been fixed up in a long time. This was an ok spot but could have been really awesome if some locals fixed it up.

We skated a lot more then shown in the photos. Sometimes its more fun to just put the camera down and enjoy skateboarding with your friends for what it is. Along this river is a giant fountain with a stair set that leads right into the river. It reminded me a little bit of the Sea Wall in Chicago, which I lost my board to and a friend of mine did too. However, the stairs were to perfect to not be skated, with some luck and skill I managed to kickflip them in a few tries without my board going into the river. (Photo: Brent Moore - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_State_Park)

We skated up to Haines Stadium, where the concert was being held, with lots of ledges along the way. By this time, the group of skaters wanted to keep moving on while David and I wanted to just enjoy our time at different spots, so we split up. We ran into a few other groups of skaters after this but never hooked up with them to skate spot to spot.

David taking a break

myself - wallride by David Tanner

Doing a little bit of sight seeing.

Its been a while since I skated around a city like this. I love just skating around the city and exploring a new place.

First Glance Skatepark: Game of S.K.A.T.E. hosted by Sun Vally Sports

Sun Valley Sports called me asking if they could host a contest to get canned food donations. I was actually planning on doing a Game of S.K.A.T.E. contest anyway. It worked out perfect to have them come in and host the contest. I am always happy to work with other people in our industry. The First contest was on June 10th and the next one will be July 15th.

Skater: Alex Kuss

The game of S.K.A.T.E. went great. Our local favorite Alex Kuss placed second as Ryan ??? came in First. It was a close game with both skaters coming down to the last letter. 

Skater Ryan Photo taken by Tim Pryor and edited by myself

After the match we took a 10min break then had a best trick down the stairs. I normally don't compete because I am generally hosting/judging the contest but I decided to join in this time. I don't have that impressive of a list of tricks. I kickflipped the stairs, did a tailslide and then tried to do a kickflip to front tail down the hubba but never got it. Ryan and Alex Kuss skating amazingly. At one point we had 4 or 5 people land the tricks they've been trying each after one another. In the end, it was declared a tie for first between Alex and Ryan, with Ben placing 3rd.