Movember!

I've donated my face to a good cause. For all of November I will not shave my mustache. This is to raise donations for The Prostate Cancer foundation as well as LiveSTRONG. I am also doing a few promotions for this including; any donation over $10 will receive a free 11"x14" print of mine of the donators choice. On top of that I will donate 70% of what I make from print sales the whole month. The selection of photos that are available for print can be found on my flickr page. If you would like to donate you can do so by clicking here.

Memorial Day Weekend

This last weekend was Memorial Day Weekend, but of course you don't need me to tell you that. Noelani and I made our way South to "The Hole In The Wall" which is a Harrington Family camp site located near the Anchor River in Anchor Point Alaska. We arrived Saturday afternoon and stayed until Monday morning. Overall it was a wonderful trip, with great weather and better company. Sunday we went on a small hike at Happy Valley Falls which was an awesome site. Nothing too eventful happened really, and I didn't shoot as much as I had wanted. Below are a few of the shots I did take.

Robert, Brittany, and Sierra near Happy Valley Falls

Noelani and Warren "Buddy" at Happy Valley Falls

Eric Baxter at "The Hole In The Wall" with dinner

Warren "Buddy" Baxter

and of course, Happy Valley Falls.

Ghost Chili Pepper Challenge, featuring David Boots.

The other day there was a challenge thrown up onto facebook for The Anchor Pub's 6 Ghost Chili wings. Once I saw the post, I had one man in mind, my good friend David Boots. When I asked him without question, he was ready. We headed down to the Anchor to get in started, on the way there we got word that David Blome had just finished the wings! Boots now had a challenger. It was on.

If you are not familiar with the challenge, you have to eat six chicken wings in five minutes. First they cover the wings in their habanero sauce, then each wing gets six drops of the special ghost chili sauce. They throw the wings in a bag, shake em up, and there it is!

We arrived at The Anchor and met up with Bobby who was sponsoring the wing challenge for the day. Blome had finished his about twenty minutes prior and you could still see he was feeling it. The wings come out, Boots gets the run down, puts on the gloves, and dives in. After the first wing, his only complaint was the actual temperature of the wings, as they just had been out of the oven. Boots finished the wings, no problem, in two minutes and twenty eight seconds beating his opponent Blome by half his time! Only problem here....Boots has to now wait another two minutes and thirty two seconds before he can take a drink. With a full glass of milk sitting in front of him, mocking him, Boots sweats it out, what I can only assume felt like a lifetime, and dives into that glass of milk.

In the end, the two Davids got free wings, free t-shirt, and hours, maybe days of pain. For us on-lookers and witnesses, we were provided with great entertainment and I, great pictures. The pictures I will now share.

Props to Dave Blome for getting it done also! We didn't get there in time to get photos of him getting at it, but he finished the challenge with one second to spare!

On an unrelated note, my website is up and almost running at 100%. Feel free to check it outand shoot me an email or something. Let me know how you like it.

David Boots talking to the bartender about what he's getting himself into.

The wings arrive.

Gloves on, timer out. Game on.

One down, working on number two.

Almost done.

Finished. The face says it all.

Two and a half minutes until he can drink that milk.

Sweet Relief.

Ready for more.

Ice cream to mellow the burn.

This mouth is on fire.

We tried to walk to Skinny Raven after. Not a good idea.

Hope Trip #1

Saturday a group of friends made our way out to Hope Alaska to our friend Ian's families cabin. We were blessed with a great drive, honestly probably one of the best I've had in a long time. It was a true Alaskan experience. We had weather that was all over the place, but when we arrived to our destination it was beautiful! We started a fire, chatted for a bit, then began the festivities. Mainly beer pong, sauna, and running through the woods in boxers trying to find Grant who decided he would rather sleep in the forest. Oh, I should probably mention that he won 9 games of beer pong straight (most of which where down to last cup) and 3 of those were him playing by himself. He was toasted.

Next day we all got up (except Grant), dressed, and geared up for an awesome lunch at Tito's, courtesy of Ian. After lunch we packed up the guns and ammo and headed to the shooting pit. Shot a good 150 rounds of 12 gauge and close to 200 rounds of .40 and .45 then packed up to head home. It was a short trip, but a lot of fun. The crew this time included myself, David Boots, Ian Markis, Rebecca Huerta (Beckie), Grant Oney, and Sara Belarde. Below are a couple of my favorite shots.

David Boots

Ian Markis

Turnagain Pass

Jay Kuzma and crew came by and picked me up around 10:30 a.m. this morning and we made our way South. The drive was pretty nice until about Bird Creek and it started raining. We could see breaks of sun above the low level clouds so we kept moving. Once we hit the Girdwood turn off, the rain turned into snow. We were now, even more stoked. Once we got to the turn-off for Tin Can, it was snowing a little bit. We got geared up and began the hike to a kicker Jay had built a few weeks prior.

When we got there the snow was coming down pretty hard and the visibility was pretty limited. Regardless of the poor visibilty, the snow was amazing, so we built up the kicker a bit more. I found my angle and it was only a matter of minutes before the first rider shouted "dropping!".

Overall it was a fun sesh, and a tiring day. I got to try out my new snowshoes and had a blast with that. Got to ride with some great people. Today was a good day.

The view out of town, heading South.

Parking at Tin Can.

Noah Gotthardt getting gnarly.

Kuzma steezin' it out.

Kolby Saetre getting fresh!

Phaze One

So the other day I was asked by employees of Zaks Boardroom to come to their new skatepark and shoot some photos for a flyer. I was stoked. I've been wanting to check out the park, and getting the opportunity to shoot for it was awesome. This is Anchorage Alaska's only indoor skatepark, and they did it proper.

The park is kinda small, but they way they are working around that is wonderful. They are doing 2 hour sessions on weekends. You have to call or stop by the shop to make reservations, and each session only allows 10 skaters at a time. Now, 2 hours might not seem like a lot, but if you're like me, and out of shape, 20 minutes is all you need!

Very well constructed, fast flow, helmets required, under 18 years old needs parental consent.

Phaze One skatepark.

Slackin...

So its been awhile since I've posted anything, I've been pretty lazy actually. Plus I worked a bit during the holidays, and I hate the holidays, so I've just been slumin around....if Im not shooting.

On the bright side, I have been shooting a lot lately, so I've been feeling rather productive. I'll probably do two posts today, but for now, I'll just show a couple of my favorite shots from the last few weeks.

Some fairly good news, for me at least. Im finally making my way to Southeast Alaska for a much needed snowboard trip. I am very excited about this, I've been talking about doing it for about 4 years now. In about 12 days I will be in Juneau Alaska. I will be meeting up with the Webbers from Cordova and shredding with them, and just taking in JNU life.

Matt Wild - Nosepress

Logan Imlach

Jay Kuzma - Tailpress

Review of the Goomba stomping

Kolby Saetre - Overcrook