So it's been about 3 months since I've posted anything, and in that time a fair bit has happened. Chris returned from France, only to move from Richmond to Albany, then leave for South America for another month, with Moot and I happily keeping Rudy and the new house occupied, with the help of a new climbing buddy from down-under, Selina! For the better part of a month, Rudy, Moot, Selina, myself, and another Bay area climber, Conrad, traveled around the greater Bay Area scouting out all the pristine rocks that line the West Coast, from Castle Rock, to the Columbia College boulders, and several stops at Mickey's Beach. Unfortunately, I still have yet to make it up to Tahoe, but word is that's a phenomenal place to climb, as well as do just about everything else fun and enjoyable in the mountains. Here's a few of the climbing shots that I've been postponing on posting. . .







For someone like me, who strives to find work off of craigslist as opposed to signing a W-2 and committing myself to one place, the greater Bay Area has proven to be extremely fruitful in the amount of random cash jobs that can be acquired. General labor/moving gigs seemed to be the majority of work I found, but every so often, I'd find someone who wanted to pay me for my photographic services. SWEET! One of these gigs was for an Oakland based DJ who was needing some promotional shots for her website, flyers, and so on. I was lucky enough to get to hang out with her for the evening and take some shots while she brought down the house at a party in the city, but unfortunately was not wise enough to realize that the bass-bumping speaker wasn't exactly the best spot to put my remote flash, and as those situations go, I lost the ability to shoot directional lighting with an off camera flash unit. Boo, indeed! Once I got back to the house, I tried my hardest to assess the problem and try to solve it only to realize that the broken flash bulb is not something that can easily be replaced, meaning the my remote flash now sits at A1 photo in Berkeley, patiently waiting for me to come up with $240 to get it back. Oh well, that's how it goes. Here's a few of the final shots taken with my currently former remote flash.




Now, with the remote flash gone, and the house sitting gig over, Moot and I have made our way down to Santa Cruz to soak up some sun and live the beach life for a bit, at least until the Fall/Winter, when we REALLY hope to have enough cash to get back on the road and do the bouldering tour once again, but until then, this is a pretty sweet place to be!









And that's what's new.

And so once again, I've let another month slip by without posting a single photo. Shame. On. Me. It's not that I haven't had the free time, because I have. I've had it in vast abundance, and for quite some time now. All honesty, I've really just been enjoying the many simple pleasures that come with moving out of a stagnant van and into a fresh house with a view; one of which is the ability to connect my computer to an expensive surround-sound system and listen to my music as loud and as late as I want. This activity alone, takes up a good chunk of my time. According to my itunes 'top rated' playlist, I have 45 days worth of music to hear, and that's assuming I don't rip someones ipod for their tasty tunes within that time. If only I could find a way to get paid for the hours I put into good music. . .

. . . which brings me to another large consumer of my precious time; work. The job I have now, go figure, didn't turn out to be as awesome as I thought it was, which in turn, helps to support the theory that I'm going to have to create the job that best suites me, but until then, I gotta accept that work is and always will be just that. Work. Something that must be done in order to maintain a sustainable lifestyle in a dollar-driven consumers society. Work is what I do to live, not what I live to do, and that's all I have to say about that.

Good food has found it's way back into my life, but since I still can't afford to have other people make it for me, I'm stuck with mastering combinations in flavor on my own, which tends to be extremely hit or miss. Lucky for me, I've been hitting it lately, with such cuisines as dill tuna burgers with thai sweet chili sauce on baked jalapeno cheese bread, breakfast crepes with options like savory mushroom & green onion or sweet strawberry, maple and whipped cream, and butter/garlic prawn enchiladas with homemade salsa and guacamole thanks to a powder-shredding Cannuck named Chloe, who decided to grace me with her presence for 10 days, followed immediately by another visitor from Bama, Ol' Matt, who showed absolutely no objections to Chloe & I's cooking endeavors.


With a small Posse of Representatives from Alabama & British Columbia, I finally found time to explore the city and the surrounding areas, so with no further adue, I give you this past month in the greater Bay area, as seen through my view finder.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Del puts on a free show in the East Bay for his hometown crowd. . .




So that's what been going on in my world for the past 30 days. In other news, my van keeps blowing fuses in the link to the starter, and the bright side to that, is I now have plenty of subjects to practice my 'poorman macro' skills on. If you're not familiar with the poorman's macro, a macro lens is made to take super close-up shots, and cost mucho dinero. Since I don't have the money for that, I simply turn my lens around, hold it against the body of the camera, reversing the focal length from far to near, then manually open the aperture ring and boom! Macro lens!







Oh, and I can't forget this one. . .


Was able to catch game # 2 between the Giants and the Braves, thanks to Chris's season tickets! It always makes for an odd situation, going to a home game in someone else's home stadium, sitting amongst the hometown crowd and cheering for my home team(ish), while they stomp their home team into the ground, 5-2! Sorry San Fran, I love ya and all, but Chop Chop!

And that completes the post of April. I am going to make an active effort to post stories as they come so I don't let another months worth of adventures go unpublished, so please, stay tuned. . .

It's taken me a while to get back into the 'blogging' thing, as I've gone so long without it, but repetition eventually becomes habit, and I'm slowly but surely getting back into it.

What I'd like to do now, is transcribe my memories from the past few months, telling you all the story of how I got here; The east bay of San Francisco. So let's go back in time about 5 months and start there. . .

Joseph and I, accompanied by 2 other climbing-bum buddies, Thomas & Matt, left Smith Rock in the high desert town of Terrabonne, Oregon, for the beaches & forests of Northern California, and some potential climbing at the Lost Rocks, found at the mouth of the Klammath River. We set ourselves up in the town of Arcata, and began our Cali lives when disaster struck in the form of a slung rod in my engine.

For those of you who don't know much about internal combustion engines (which includes former me in this flashback), the cylinder rod is the 'arm' of the piston, which moves up and down from compression created by the ignited fuel/air mixture, spinning the crankshaft, thusly propelling the vehicle. When the rod 'slings', it warps under the pressure and heat, and eventually will throw itself through the engine block, if continued to run. Basically, at that point, the engine is screwed.

This was a major setback, seeing as I spent just about all of my summer doing strenuous labor work to get the van, which was suppose to be my mobile home for the next leg of the climbing/living journey. Needless to say, a wide array of emotions were running loose in my noggin after the mechanics at Redwood Automotive told me my engine was toasted. The main questions I was faced with, at that point were 'Do I sell the van and try to get another vehicle?' or 'Do I try to fix it?'. Engine replacement IS NOT a simple, cheap, nor quick process, so I was leaning towards selling, until the answers started falling into my lap. . .

Frist, a running 89 GMC van was thrown at my feet for the unheard of price of $150. SOLD! Next issue. . . Find an engine lift to borrow/rent. With the help of craigsist, this issue was solved in a matter of minutes. Final worry, find someone who was willing to let a novice mechanic use their driveway to try and figure out how to do an engine swap. Once again, craigslist pulled through! So, on November 23rd, using Josephs AAA card, I had the van towed to Eureka, California to see if I could, in fact, do an engine swap. . .















The initial add on craigslist stated that I would only need a week, at most. BIG UNDERESTIMATE!!! It took a full week to get everything dismantled and ready to pull the engine, (including a van-made thanksgiving dinner break, which consisted of falafels, stuffing, hummus & applesauce) then another month to put the new engine in, and figure out the modifications that come with popping a fuel injected '89 engine into my previously carbureted '81 van. Issues involved included electrical re-directing, Fuel intake fabrications, as well as shaving out holes on the intake manifold with a chainsaw file, but after all the unexpected fabrications, the van, now dubbed 'Frankenstein', left it's oil-ridden spot on the driveway, and completed a successful testdrive around town.
Durring the testdrive is when I encountered another instance of Murphy's Law. Silly me forgot to close/turn-off my laptop (which was serving as a jukebox at this point), as well as neglected to move the pot of water from that mornings oatmeal off of the stove. Needless to say, my macbook got doused with lukewarm water while I was celebrating the rebirth of my van. Boo & Yay at the same time!!!

So, after the completion of the van, I retreated back to Arcata to try and find work, which was not as easy as one would assume. Arcata has so much to offer in the form of visual and extracurricular stimuli, but little in the work field. Good thing there was plenty to keep my broke mentality occupied.




Humbly homeless, I sought after anything that would fill my mind and stomach, and after a few weeks of community service for homeless violations, another opportunity landed in my lap. This time, from a friend who was needing someone to watch a house and a dog so they could go climb in France for a month.

Needless to say, but said anyway, I took them up on the offer.

Now, Mr. Moot and I lazily, watch after a 3 bedroom house in the Richmond Hills of San Fran, happily running around the fields, climbing the rocks, and making the occasional dollar from a job that could prove to be worth the wait.




I've also taken this opportunity to clean-up a bit, no matter how unconventional the method, as well as invest a bit of funds into my musical future. Don't worry, the guitar only cost $100, and that's a steal of a deal for a 12 string acoustic!


So, that's what's been going on. I hope this post answers any question you may have, as well as serve as the renaissance of my blogging. Shots of Beautiful San Fran to follow, assuming the weather eases up. Till then, CHEERS!!!