Goodwrenchin’
Posted: October 23, 2011 Filed under: Bags I've Made Leave a commentSo for a lot of the weekend, I worked on flushing my radiator and replacing the thermostat. I figured it was time since my truck recently started running at the “A” and “L” of the word “NORMAL” on my dashboard temperature gauge. It started out just fine; I drained the radiator (and most of the block, I think), took off the housing to the thermostat, and I had all my replacement parts and fluids ready to go. But, as many things work out when you’re fixing your car, it all went a little downhill. I was tightening the last bolt to the thermostat housing and twisted the head right off, which only left a little stub of thread to work with. If I had had some vise-grips yesterday, I would have been done yesterday, but instead I spent a couple hours squeezing plier handles in hopes of getting it out. Once I bought some vise-grips this morning however, that bolt was out in about 5 minutes. Reassembled and filled up, my truck now runs at a cool “N” or “O”. It’s always the little things that get ya and take forever when you’re goodwrenchin’, such a stupid bolt that you can only loosen/tighten a 1/16 of a turn at a time (that’s about 30 minutes to get it out/in if you’re wondering). In the end its fun to take your car from operable status, to inoperable driveway clutter, and then revive it back to a better state than before.
To accompany my possibly boring truck fixing story, here is a new bag that I just finished today:
This bag was a little different than my others. I recently bought some Haniabags, which are considered by many to be the freestyle footbag of choice, and aimed to recreate them. The things I did differently were to first run the fabric through a washer and dryer, use a combo of steel shot and glass beads to get a more full bag, and also to use slightly different dimensions of my hexagons. Washing the fabric yielded a bag that is much more “juicy”, and this one feels pretty good! When dropped from the same distance onto a flat surface, this bag plops much like my Haniabags, which is probably a good indicator that it should play just as good!
Oregon
Posted: October 15, 2011 Filed under: Bags I've Made, Footbag 1 CommentI’ve made it to Ashland Oregon and have just finished up my first week as a fabric development intern. It was kind of slow, but a huge information overload at the same time. It is a little strange going from a year of unemployment to 40 hours a week at an office; I’ll have to do some adjusting, just like any new situation.
I haven’t been climbing since I went to the Rockreation in Los Angeles, but I think that will change later this afternoon. I have been playing some footbag, and even managed to make a new bag since I’ve been here:
It is another new pattern that I came up with, which is kind of a criss-cross pattern. It’s basically a blur pattern with four pentagons connecting the 8 hexagons that make up the points of a cube, if that makes any sense. This one is a bit smaller than usual, about the same size as my other small bags.
I have also been following videos that Jorden Moir has been posting about proper footbag form, drills to do, and other mistakes to watch out for. Check them out, they’re very helpful.
Top 11-20 Drills for Footbag Progression
Packing Up
Posted: October 5, 2011 Filed under: Bags I've Made, Climbing, Footbag Leave a commentIn a few days I’ll be driving across Nevada, hopefully for the last time in a while, to begin an internship in Ashland, Oregon on Monday. I’m really looking forward to contributing to something, and having the good fortune to be getting paid for it! Its been well over a year since I’ve earned a paycheck, but I’ve made good use of that time. I think I’ve lived out of a car and slept on the ground/floor more than I’ve had an actual room to call my own. It surely doesn’t feel like over a year has passed since I drove back to Colorado from graduate school in Oregon only to have all my adventures begin with a wheel falling off my truck in eastern Oregon. Having more memories makes time fly by.
It is maybe a little somber to be packing up my stuff at my parents’ house; it could be a long while before I spend much time here again, but it’s all for the best. Being at home is very comfortable, almost dangerously so; it’s incredibly easy to spend a week doing basically nothing. Now I get to wake up in the morning and join all the other morning bicycle commuters on our way to work! I think one of the most notable things I acquired over the past year is a wider perspective of the choices I have as far as work, lifestyle, recreation, and hobbies. No doubt I enjoyed all the climbing I have been able to do, but its also no doubt that some type of work enables all that climbing. I’m ready to apply myself and earn a paycheck, which will then be used to have fun climbing, footbagging, running, etc. We’ll see how it goes!
In between packing sessions (alright, I haven’t spent that much time packing) I have been able to sew some bags and get in some good training sessions.
A pattern I created which I'll dub "Quark"
"Quark" because quarks come in 3's, and there are 3 stripes
If you play footbag and haven’t come across the name Jorden Moir already, I’d recommend looking him up on youtube. He has a video out that outlines the Top 10 Drill for Footbag Progression, and they make for a pretty good session! In addition to that, he is starting an online footbag coaching program where you send him a video of you playing and he then sends you back a video describing all the points of your game that you should work on. I haven’t done it, but from his samples, it looks like it would be a worthy endeavor.
I had a fun time a couple days ago just drilling some basics like mirage, illusion (mine suck), clipper, and stuff like that. But, I did hit mixer for the first time ever, and on both sides! I was excited because that was the first time I had done two dexes in one trick.
A custom leather bag filled with sand and steel for my Dad!
And check out this video, its just really good!
Jorden Moir and Johnny Suderman
Umbrella Footbags 