Direct Development Treat

In a bag factory in the middle of a Philippine jungle, and they pull out these for us. Yay.

GoPro HeroCam HD

I took the HeroCam HD that my friend Steve sent me out for a test ride today, and I'm pretty impressed with the resolution and quality. I haven't played around with all the settings yet, and it'll take a bit getting used to in the field because there's only a small LCD that only uses a few characters for each mode setting. I'll be attaching a mount to my Santa Cruz Charger surfboard soon, and I'm looking forward to seeing how those videos turn out.

Surfboard Complete!

I've finished the 6'-2" Retro Fish that I've been shaping for some time now, and was able to actually ride it at Linda Mar in Pacifica. The full build sequence photos can be viewed here: Shaping my first Surfboard

Fantasy Design Workday

Courtesy of Lunchbreath and Core77...

The Cavello Cup Roller Derby Championship

We finally saw our first roller derby match, which happened to be a quick walk over to Kezar Pavilion. Some great action, spills, fights, and speed. What I didn't get is the lack of decent protective gear; no real knee pads, hip or tailbone pads, and the helmets looked like filmsy party hats with single straps that didn't keep them on very well.

http://www.baycitybombers.com/

Celebrate the Dream, Reject the Nightmare

Nice infographic courtesy of David Neiwert on CrooksandLiars.com, on the anniversary of one of the most historic speeches in modern times...and also the day some shock jock used donations to pay for a publicity stunt in DC...

$38,000 iPhone at 36,000 feet

Not quite sure what Branson is thinking with the diamond studded and 22karat duty-free iPhones, but it's got my attention.

Glassing the Fins

So I have the fins fixed on, finally. I'll have to put another layer of glass on the joint to reinforce it, I don't think I was able to apply the glass rope quite right on the first pass.

Inception: WTF? Structural Chart

So we went downtown and saw Inception the other day, and aside from being very well done from a script and cinematic viewpoint, it was one of the most complex movies I've ever seen. A mix of Nolan's Momento and Batman Begins, with a dash of The Matrix and Mulholland Drive. Maybe even a little of DiCaprio's last movie, Shutter Island.

In order to try to make some sense of it after the first viewing, I pulled my own perceptions and some of others off the web to create a structural chart outlining the opening and final scenes, as well as one scene in the middle that was a bit cryptic.

Let me know if there's anything to be added, changed, or taken away. Enjoy...

PDF | JPEG (150 dpi)

Building a Surfboard

I'm finally starting the surfboard project, and I've just completed
the surfboard shaping stand out of 2x4's, pipe foam, and a steel
sawhorse. I'm using 2" XPS Dow blue foam, the same stuff I made models
from in design school, and I picked up fiberglass supplies today. I'll
do the shape design in CAD and print out a template on a plotter, and
I'm going to design the fins in Rhino and get rapid prototypes made
and glass them in.

Camelbak Test Team Cycling Kit

Awhile back I was asked to design a new cycling kit for the CamelBak office, which turned out to be a bigger investment in time than we had all originally thought due to some internal politics. Eventually, we settled on a design (notice the bottle in the back pocket) and had the digitally printed apparel made by Capo in Italy...

Inaugural ride...

One of the initial colorway ideas...

Here's the finished dining room table...

Side View of the table

Dining Table Progress

So I've been making our new dining room table over at the shop for a
few weeks now, and I'm getting pretty close. I had wanted to lay down
a base coat of varnish tonight, but a worm hole that I tried to fill
didn't take, so I'm filling it again. I won't be able to get back to
it until after my trip to Portland tomorrow. Overall it's looking
pretty good, and I've decided to use a water based coat I unstead of
an oil base to let more of the natural wood color show instead of
having a yellowish hue like our coffee table.

Bob Barker's BatBoat

So another one of Bob Barker's anti-whaling ships collided with another Japanese freighter recently, except this one was actually named the Bob Barker (I thought you always named ships after women?).

The previous Sea Shepherd boat funded by Bob Barker, which was wrecked awhile back after colliding with another whaling ship, seemed to take many of its design cues directly from Tim Burton's 1989 Batman...

Bat Boat:

Tim Burton's Batmobile:

iPad, iPad, iPad!

http://www.apple.com/ipad/