OCEAN

Success has somewhat tapered off the past few weeks in terms of actually catching any fish, but that doesn’t stop us from going back.  Last weekend I got the opportunity to go fish my favorite river, which is more or less of a creek.  What’s intriguing about it is because of its small size, there is a lot of strategy that has to go into maneuvering into a spot that will put you in a good position to get the fly on the water, and not in a tree; which caught me off guard more than once……Not so rock n’ roll.  With the line tangled in the branch of a small pine tree, the line slipped through my fingers as the bend of the branch pulled back.  Leaving me with a barbed hook stuck all the way down in my finger.  I did get it out after about 30 minutes of psyching myself out.  Surprisingly it left nothing more than a small hole that healed up within an hour.  I’ll be more cautious next time.

Wes Jones

Picked up a Loaded Dervish yesterday and I’m reading to shred all summer now.

Mini Review: The best set up anyone could ask for, I wouldn’t waste your time on anything else.  The Flex 2 is just so smooth, jumping in/out of turns with no effort, along with holding its edge all the way through the radius.  It has the perfect amount of bounce and pop, and does it consistently.  The Orangatang Stimulus (70mm) wheels are super grippy, but will break away at the right time to give a nice swish through a turn.  Other than the deck, the Paris 150 trucks are what make the board.  If anyone has the option between 180mm and 150mm trucks, go with the 150′s.  They are much more responsive, getting over from one side to the other so quick it’ll take some getting use to.  I didn’t think the 30mm difference would be enough to notice, but side by side, its night and day.I love how the Ocean Wave blends so nicely with the bottom graphic, and how it pops off the dark purple wheels.

These past two weeks I’ve finally been able to get Up North to go fly fishing.  Pictures are scarce at the moment because the only camera we had was one of those Kodak instant cam’s where you have to wind the film.  I hadn’t used one of those in so long, but I think they would be fun for an art project or something, not really sure yet.  Anyways the highlights have been the 14″ brown trout, that is the biggest fish that I have caught in MI, and when I thought I ran out of tipped and didn’t have any leaders left.  I decided to look once more and like magic I had a bran new spool!I was so happy at that moment, resulting in this post.

Something I had never done, was eat crab, or any type of shellfish for that matter other than the occasional shrimp.  Anyone who has had it will tell you its quite an ordeal to go through only to yield such small quantities of meat.  Pretty eclectic undertaking with all of the tools and utensils that only a veteran crab man can wield deftly, letting them easily take half the time as it took me for one crab.  This may be a little out there, but I’d be willing to bet eating crab is like eating celery in that more calories are burned, than what you’d get from the food.Night boating has been somewhat of a hot topic lately.

I wish I would have thought of this, too cool!

http://boxedwaterisbetter.com/

I’ll hit the brakes, he’ll fly right by … of course one of the iconic quotes from Top Guns fly by the wire, Maverick, falling nothing short of the flying from the Red Bull Air Race pilots.

Reaching speeds up to 230 mph, and G-Forces up to 12G’s.

Blue pylons must be crossed with level flight, and Red ones the planes must be in Knife Edge flight, or where the wings are perpendicular to the ground.

I took the camera to get some footage, haven’t really gone through it, but I hope that theres atleast a few good shots!

For the second year in a row, instead of traveling, I stayed home for the 3 day Movement: Detroit Electronic Music Festival, known by many as DEMF.  Being its 10th year, it went off huge.  Upon arriving, Saturday night the party was already going strong as DJ Kenneth Thomas was making things happen at the Torino Stage.  I’d never heard of Kenneth Thomas before, but his style of progressive house/trance was captivating, now making him one of my all time favorites.  The night continued on, as we checked out the other stages waiting for it to be 10:30.  Around 10 we made our way into the Vitamin Water stage, where DJ Richie Hawtin would be performing as Plastikman.  Seemingly the whole crowd was there, as the thousands of people were all snaking their way through the crowd, vying to get a spot at the front.  With about a 10 minute delay in between the sets, once he started playing, the place went nuts.Plastikman opening the set.Richie Hawtin.

After some bad weather put a halt to some of the shows on Monday, we made our way back for the final sets of the festival, put out by Pretty Lights and Booka Shade.  Each of these performances at the RedBull stage had everyone moving the entire time.  Pretty Lights took it away by laying some of their tracks live.  Both performances took it to the next level with their live drum beats laid in with the mixes.  Ultimately the night had to come to an end, but not after Booka Shade put on an unreal encore that was shut down by the police.Pretty Lights at the RedBull Stage.

All in all, I cannot wait until next year, but I have a pretty solid concert line-up this summer to look forward to, and maybe Benny Benassi next Friday?

Photos are a little thin, as taking them were not something I was thinking about, therefore some of these photographs are from, Jason Clark, and all credit is to be given to him.

The other day I had the chance to go to one of those high ropes courses.  These are the kinds of things the military uses in their training exercises for strength and team building things.  It was a lot of fun.  Most of the time you feel like your some trapeze artist, or tight rope walker, which gave me a sense of how crazy those people actually are.  Knowing that I was harnessed in and attached to the safe-lines it was very hard to let go and just balance on some of the obstacles.

Artsy foreground.

Balancing act.

We brought it back this weekend with a long game of street hockey.  How this came up I don’t know, but if you can break out the sticks and get a game going don’t think twice about it.  The bounces were pretty one sided the whole game, which ended up being 5-1 with my team on the short side.  It probably had a lot to do with our goalie not holding up between the pipes as the ball transitioned from team to team.The one thing that closed the first period, and got the crowd to its feet was the surprise unveiling of the Ferrari 430 that came out to resurface the court, and take a few hot laps before the 3rd period got underway.

Skipping stones was another old time favorite, that never gets old.

This past weekend was the Downtown Hoedown, what I’m pretty sure is the largest country music festival in the United States.

Not that this is our favourite kind of music, but how could we not go.  When we got there late in the afternoon on Saturday, the first thing we saw was an Air Force fly-over, which reminded me of the time I was in Pensacola, FL where the Blue Angels are from and got to go to their base to watch them practice.

What surprised me most was the amount of people that were there.  I was at the same venue last year for a different concert, and this time there was atleast double the head count.  While the music was good, there wasn’t too much interaction with the bands as most of them weren’t headliners until later in the evening, so we started to take notice of the eclectic variety of people that populated the event.

Even Jack Sparrow decided to show up.