We are heading over to Poland for a few weeks to visit Agata's family while do plenty of activities and adventures. This page as a quick reference to the media from the trip if you would like to follow along September 2 - 19th.
The still shots from the cell phone are going to go up to an album on Picasa. When I make it around a wi-fi hotspot the recent images will go up. They will be geo-tagged so you'll be able to see where they were taken on the map in Picasa I'm taking my nice camera along but won't edit anyting until we return stateside. Those will then eventually find there way to Flickr.
If any video gets taken it will go live on the youtube channel.
Any Voicemail or Text messages can go to my Google Voice number. Number below on the logo to avoid writing it in text and getting spam called. Calling back will either be Skype or phone card. Not sure if GV will allow texting or calling back via the computer.
Hope you enjoy following along! Comment up the photos if you have any questions. Links below.
Headed down to almost heaven West Virginia this past weekend to do some camping and exploring. It was a bit of a last minute trip that was supposed to end up farther north near Charleston, WV was relocated after Kanawah State Park decided to shut their gates at 9PM. So we trucked down another hour and ended up at the Army Camp primitive camp site on the New River at midnight.
I picked up this Kodak Playsport as a carry around video camera for the beach as an alternative to the GoPro cams everyone is picking up. It is a HD waterproof, shockproof and have the option of 1080p at 30 frames per second or 720p at 60 frames per second which is great for the action that will most likely be the subject of the videos. The main draw to this camera was the pricepoint for the features. It comes in at $150 which in my opinion is a bargain.
So far I've been impressed with the performance. Good for screen grabs to get a decent pic to e-mail straight from the video. Waterproof has done fine just keep an eye out for sand in the seals after every beach trip and blow them out with some end dust to make sure they're not going to fail on you, especially if you will be using it underwater. The only current complaint is the image stabilization. Could be better in my opinion, on a tripod it looks great though.
Anyway, I had an extra point and shoot camera soft case laying around. Cut a hole where the lens is located on the back of it. Sew on some high strength velcro. Wrap it around a strut tightly. Insert the already recording cam and away you go for under $20 for the rig. Let me know if you want some quick pictures of the rig.
This was the first kite cam test. The velcro wasn't originally cut long enough to wrap around the center 16M strut so I had to set it up off center. The first try there was nothing but wingtip in frame. This one turned out ok in the dieing wind. Nothing great yet but a good experiment to get it dialed before the conditions are good. It is a bit pulsy due to the choppy water that day.
Saturday fired up with the 40 knot gale winds they were predicting. The wind meter right around the corner from headlands reported some 60 mph gusts. That kept us all grounded for awhile. That is until Mark busted out a 2.5M trainer C-kite he found somewhere in his car. That led to some quick downwind sessions by Mark and Hans. Not necessarily underpowered but the kite was so small it would just get pulled out of the wind window.
The wind eventually backed down enough to being way overpowered but in control of the 6M. Mark and I got a short but intense session. Probably won't see that again until the fall or if a hurricane decides to blow up and visit us from the gulf this summer.
The weekend forecast looked pretty dismal on Friday as we were trying to make the call whether the rain and storms would be as much of gloom and doom as they were calling for. It was going to be a morning decision. A new 12M Havoc 4 just hit my porch Friday that I wanted
The fall always bring some wild weather to the Great Lakes region. After getting back from the rafting trip I took Monday off of work in hopes of catching some massive lake waves and nutty wind. That didn't go as planned. Headed out the Mentor Headlands State Park about 20 miles East of Cleveland. The wind was up. The wind was side offshore which knocked the big waves down. A group of us were all out there waiting for it to come onshore.
Blasted down south into the great state of West Virginia to take the trip down the Upper Gauley river. This year we decided to use the North American River Runners to guide the trip. Our group had 16 people in it and they were all down there by the time Agata and I made it to the campground. It was a rainy trip the last 100 miles and really slowed the travel down on the windy mountain country roads. We got there to find half the group and our guide half in the bag. That was a good sign. Joined in on the party for a few hours the crashed.
the gnar gnar
Homemade Kite Camera Rig
Mentor Headlands Gale
How to do a Roll to Revert 
Rafting the Upper Gauley River