MorkleFeb

Since when does making a post to your blog qualify as being productive?! Stayed away from alcohol and bars for the evening in order to be "productive." So far, that's meant: watch the wire and make a long awaited (and much anticipated) blog post.

Had a shiny post prepared about a month ago, featuring all the top albums of 07 and why I was so dreamy-eyed about them. Somehow it got whisked away by the internet gods. Bunk.

Back to the music! The modern man must hustle!

MorkleFeb

01: Phoenix - One Time Too Many
02: Pharoahe Monch - Welcome To The Terrordome
03: Mice Parade - Snow
04: St. Vincent - Paris Is Burning
05: MGMG - Kids
06: I'm From Barcelona - Ola Kala
07: Tapes 'n Tapes - Hang Them All
08: Alaska In Winter - Close Your Eyes
09: Benoit Pioulard - Patter
10: Guillemots - Annie, Let's Not Want
11: Minipop - Like I Do

Should have just stuck to the wire, eh?

No but wait! Here, I gotta explain a little something about the creation of these damn mixes. I start out with a long list of songs, selected whilst i'm doing my perpetual rawking out thing that I do. From time to time I go back to that list and re-listen to all the tracks. Sometimes I'm totally clueless about what in gods name I was thinking ever putting the song on the list in the first place, but other times I find that there is a reason. Doesn't necessarily have to be a GOOD reason, but I shoot for a nice variety of trax and some sort of repeat-playability kinda thing.

January 15th: I'll go ahead and say it- the best day I've had snowboarding so far this season. Coincidentally, (or perhaps not) I had my camera with me to get a smidgen of photographic evidence to support my enthusiasm.

We got a slightly delayed start due to the now routine; wait for cody session, but no one was too stressed because the mountain had only received a measly 7 inches of new snow...certainly nothing unique amongst this seasons many 2 and 3 foot dumps. hah. Anyway, we were all somewhat shocked to see the above scene as we came up chair 6- the shit was DRY.

(Kev on Q.P.)

(Smooth slashin' Aus-10)

As I mentioned, I had my camera and some mighty interested subjects (wish I could somehow convey a thick, dense layer of sarcasm here). They did humor my photo interests for the first run, which is where I got these two photos, but after that, it was clear that the hold-up was not worth the fruits. Can't say I can necessarily blame the boyz, as conditions were nothing short of epic.


After an early lunch, I ditched the camera gear and we hiked the arm. The below photo is not mine to claim credit for, but it illustrates the hellofmad beauty that one is surrounded by as they venture out the arm. We dropped into "Safety," the aptly named shallowest gradient route down the arm. As it happens, safety has some wicked wind-lips and cornices, both of which I totally LAUNCHED over! Actually, no, I didn't launch over anything. Keving, however, did probably the most explosive backside slash-carve I've ever witnessed on one such wind-lip- totally annihilated the thing into a massive cloud of dusty white smoke. Oh the glory! Definitely the S.J.S.O.T.D.

MorkleAug

Holy SFS y'all! It's hard to imagine how someone could be so deficient at posting to a blog, but I do have a knack for being terrible.

It occurs to me that I have no idea what exactly I'm trying to accomplish with this monthly mix tape thing. .. in other words, i have no criteria upon which I select songs, and no particular direction I'm attempting to guide my listener's(uhh s', hopefully) ear. I guess that my original intention was to post songs that people with similar musical tastes as my own might not have heard.. But then I got to thinking that it'd be pretty neat to be able to look back at a monthly mix that reflected what I was listening to at that point in my life.

The conundrum is that the folk with similar musical tastes as my own will be pretty GD bored by a mix tape whose content is comprised, in large part, of songs they're already familiar with. They would be stoked to learn of some additional PHAT tracks that are low on the radar, however. ON THE FLIP SIDE, the majority of people out there aren't really indie rockers, so pretty much anything is new to their ears...so really, the emphasis should be on quality songs rather than little-know tracks.

I don't have a solution for any of this yet and the reality is that very few people actually care or are impacted in the the the slightest.

MorkleAug:
Bishop Allen - Rain
White Light Riot - Midway Souvenirs
Shout Out Louds - Tonight I Have to Leave It (Holy, 80's anyone?)
Matt Pond PA - People Have a Way
I Am Kloot - Over My Shoulder
Los Campesinos! - It Started With A Mixx
Travis Morrison - As We Proceed
Sunset Rubdown - Mending of the Gown
Annuals - Chase You Off
The Go! Team - The Wrath Of Marcie
Patrick Wolf - Get Lost
Via Audio - Presents (sorry, this one's a bit quiet fer some reason)

Chips!

MorkleMix

I seem to be pretty terrible at posting things with any respectable frequency, so I've decided to force myself to post a monthly musac compilation. I do enjoy the music and am always excited to discover new, quality tracks. I usually discover quite a few in any given month, but only a handful of those are worthy of outright music-pushing via individual emails. So, instead of continuously failing to both post new material on the blorg and spread new tunes among friends, I will hereby commence morklemix. Not necessarily ear-crushingly good tunes, but solid tracks none-the-less. I hope someone enjoys it...

MorkleJuly:

The Books - That Right Ain't Shit
Headlights- TV
Malajube- Le Crabe
Magic Bullets- Heatstroke
Metric- Too Little Too Late
Oh No! Oh My!- Our Mouths Were Wet
Animal Collective- Winder Wonder Land
The Comas- Red Microphones
Sea Wolf- Black Dirt
I Am Kloot- Untitled No.

Road Trip Post!

While you were all sleeping, Torbin and I tore down the coast of the Western United States...namely Oregon and California and proceeded to surf our brains out. Unfortunately, we didn't come away with any pictures of either of us actually surfing, but I assure you that the majority of our time was spent partaking in, or recovering from, said activity.

June 5th- We got an early start from A-train (after having rocker beers with a crew o' local and pseudo locals the night before), stopped off for a baked goods pick up from margie's house, and then did a bee line to OSwald west aka Short Sands for the first surf session of the trip. The beach looks like this:I guess the most noteworthy thing that occurred, aside from catching a few waves, was our conversation with drunken surfer dood from PDX, whose alarmingly alcoholic response to the question "how long does it take you to get here from Portland?" was "Long enough dood, long enough."

Anyway, we did a little driving, saw the gorgeous mazanita view below, stopped at the tillamook cheese factory for samples, bought some peanuts, and did a little more driving.

We ended up in Cape Kiwanda just in time for a little evening surf session which was comprised, at least on my part, of a LOT of flailing, but sweet sweet redemption came in the form of a tasty wave that I rode all the way into the beach, at which point I ran straight to my camera in a last minute attempt to capture the mind-boggling sunset. Fairly unsuccessfully....
The post-surfing activities at Cape Kiwanda are nearly as fantastic as the surfing itself. The Pelican brewery owns the parking lot from which the surf beach is accessed. Not only will they serve you up some mighty delicious brew and refill spilled pints, but they'll let you sleep for free in their parking lot right on the damn beach. Holy moses. Day 1 was pretty epic.

June 6th-
Not to praise the place too much, but Kiwanda really is pretty illlll. The community has a real friendly/ welcoming vibe to it. Nice folks in and around the little coffee shop, where again, we were offered free refills. Then it was time to hit the road...

Eh...so much for the peanuts...

After lots o driving, we rolled into Jule's old stomping grounds- Coos Bay, OR. We had a pretty fun long-boarding session at Bastendorff (toughest beach i ever met), which featured an incredibly long paddle out. I'm talking like 1/2 mile or something. Ugh. Pretty place though!

After surfing, we stopped in for some astoundingly good calzones and a few brews at Roger's Pub in North Bend, which I could not recommend more highly. THE place to go for beers in Coos Bay.

Knowing full-well another sunset surf session was out of the question, we enjoyed the sights along the road...
Our nightly drive landed us in Port Orfort Oregon, which is getting pretty dern far south in Oregon. We got our first sniff of a humbolt hippie-esque community here, with lots of organic foods in even the tiniest of local stores. We slept in some day parking lot at Port Orford Heads State Park.

June 7-
We got free wake-up service in the form of a ranger, who wanted us to get the shicagnee out of there. compliance....

Checked the surf at the beach in front of town. (Notice the bouldering potential). While we encountered plenty of small swell throughout our trip, we had to draw the line somewhere, say "too effing small," and move on.

The drive south into northern California was a stretch of road neither Tone, nor myself had ever driven before. There are numerous surf spots and lots of great views to be had along the way. We found ourselves in Crescent City in the afternoon and spotted some clean, albeit small waves at Cescent City South Beach..
We continued on our merry way towards the mythical Moonstone Beach, which is just north of Arcata, in Northern California. We had heard rumor of beach bouldering right alongside good surfing. Could such a mecca actually exist? Well...the sunset could make a guy believe...

We didn't really get too much of a chance to check the bouldering out before it got dark, but that was okay because we had a hot date with another microbrewery for some prime parking lot sleeping. This time it was the six rivers brewery, which is actually in McMinville, just north of Arcata. There was good brew, a terrible live band, and some ridiculously compelling/animated faces to watch.

June 8th-

I should take a moment to mention that by this time we were in the heart of shark infested waters. Our faithful Stormrider Guide to North America advised us that several shark attacks had occurred at Camel Rock and that sharks in Northern California/Southern Oregon were anything but uncommon. They were pretty vague with their description of what a "shark" was...calling the local sharks "white sharks." I don't know if that's great white or what... Anyway, we got a PRIME morning session in at camel rock, which is part of the greater moonstone beach area. The swell was more geared for long-boarders, but tone and I had many many good rights on a fairly predictable peak with our funboards. There were a bunch of folks on the north side of the beach (the smallll side in the picture), which left tone and I all alone in the water over at our MASSIVE peak. The lack of crowds was certainly not something we had expected for California surfing. Anyway, this was probably the best surf sesh o' the trip!

I was goddamn exhausted from so much surfing on atrophied surfing muscles, but the sun came out and recharged our batteries enough to do up a little beach bouldering!




In my opinion, the beach bouldering was somewhat mediocre when compared to legitimate bouldering destinations. It was, however, right on the beach, next to some might fine surfing... which definitely helps build a strong case for mecca-like status for the area....especially when you factor in the 3 local microbreweries and the high-quality local foods readily available at even the smallest of stores. Someone should move to Arcata!The constant pressure we were getting from Sam to get the hell down to San Diego was too much for us at this point, so we decided to press southward once again. Eh code?
We made it as far as Ukiah and checked into the Ukiah Brewery for some beers and bedded down for the evening.

June 9th-

We drove. All day. and made it to San Diego with just enough time to partake in a sunset surf session. Sam lives on Newport Ave in Ocean Beach (below), which is just one of the many beach communities near San Diego. Now I've done a bit of travelling and am always a bit baffled as to why I've never encountered a US destination that has the same feel as a tourist-infested foreign location. Well, Newport Ave in OB allayed my fears that such a place does not exist in the US! Naw, it isn't really too overbearing...in fact, it's a pretty damn nice place to chill once you get used to it.

Plus, a few short blocks away, there's some gnar gnar surfing to be had in the form of Ocean Beach Pier- the longest pier on the west coast of the states.

Sam and his girlfriend Brit put us up in proper fashion which is really mighty kind, considering how much smelly surf gear we had with us...not to mention cody. The microbrewery tour continued this evening with the Karl Strauss Brewing Company, where both Sam and Brit are employed. We got a good amount of beer tasting in...that's for sure.

June 10th-

We decided to check out the mythical Blacks Beach for the afternoon's surf session. The jerks in San Diego are apparently okay with overweight naked men on their beaches, but NOT dogs. Sure, there were 20 or so signs stating as much that we passed on our walk down to the beach with cody in tow, but we all failed to register them as we were quite distracted by the sights (the waves, not the naked people)! We were all waist deep in water without a care in the world when the life guard truck rolled up and wanted to know whose dog was running amuck on the beach. Well, lucky for tone, it was only a 3/4 mile walk on the beach and then a 20 minute hike up the bluff to get back to the truck.


The surfing was pretty good at blacks...unfortunately quite a lot better for hour that tone was absent dropping off cody. The scene here was a stark contrast to all the other surf spots that we had hit throughout Oregon and Northern California. I saw nearly every helicopter type I know fly by during our time in the water and there were plenty of other airborne visual distractions; from para-gliders to flying banners. Then i saw a dorsal fin and proceeded to panic thinking it was a shark.. turns out it was just a friendly pack of dolphins.

The crowds were not as much of an issue as we had anticipated. I imagine the swell size was a big factor in that perception, however. The small waves led to shifty peaks and, well, they just didn't draw in the hard core rippers like large waves do.

By the time we got back to the truck it was 4:00pm and none of us had really eaten anything.. We made haste back to Sam's place and found our way to South Beach Bar & Grille, which I guess was voted best fish taco in North America by the highly prestigious and credible Maxim Magazine. Don't get me wrong though, they were goddamn delicious- a little mahi mahi and civiche really hit the spot.

Relaxation and recuperation ensued for a little while and then it was time to get back in the water... OB pier style.


We went to some friends of Sam's for a sushi/ some board game which i was too inebriated to play properly party and thus our day terminated...

June 11th-

Got a morning session in over at another beach just north of Ocean Beach Pier after checkin out a few spots along the Sunset Cliffs, where we saw this dood pushing the limit...

This was the last surfing session of the trip for me and, post surfing, it had the effect of launching my thoughts towards the 7 AM flight I had to catch out of LAX the following morning. Sam had to go to work, so tone and I took the opportunity to grace the good folks at the Mens Warehouse with our salty/neoprene smelling bodies and get fitted for springer wedding tuxes. The store was conveniently located near Justin and Jenna's (friends of tone's) place in Oceanside, which is just a short 1:15 away from LAX.

We hooked up with some really cutting edge sushi over at a local sushi hot spot and my good lord it was a tasty coupla units. That, followed by a nice bike-gang (there were 4 of us) tour of beaches on some super sweet cruiser bikes (pretty close to the one homeboy's riding here), made for a fine final evening.


June 12th-

Off to LAX for some cushy tile-floor sleeping between the hours of 1:00 Am and 6:00 Am, followed by some carpeted floor sleeping, followed by some plane sleeping, followed by some more plane sleeping, followed by some work and then some more work until 2:30 Am the following morning.

juicy day

Well my time here up at Keno Hills, YT has been a mixed bag thus far. At first, I was pretty overwhelmed by the degree of clusterfucation with respect to the project in general. This led to a variety of emotions, which, aside from the mild sense of amusement (my first reaction), were mostly of the sinking dread/horror type. The combination of this negative energy alongside the stress always associated with (essentially) moving to a new home, met me with the unfortunate side-effect of a mid-sleep panic attack. Fortunately, this was a one night only sort of deal, but it was still not any fun, especially since I've was (and am currently) suffering from a heinous cold.


That low point can be nicely contrasted by today's wickedly good fun. Today broke with its usual chilliness and a wee bit of fresh snow. It continued to snow as I began working. Now I should mention that up until now, my job has consisted of following around the senior rig geologist (which is what my new title is, btw). While this has been informative and valuable, it has also been very boring...especially because senior rig geologist has been swept up with other, non-mike related tasks. The fall-out of that is that this morning I got assigned to moving objects of various sizes, shapes, and densities from room A (inside) to room B (outside). This not only put me in near constant contact with the chilly temps and snow, it also put my body to work. Both of these things ended up being quite refreshing and welcomed.

After lunch, there was a big rush to get food for camp from the nearby town of Mayo and since there was no one else free, I got the pleasure of tending to the task. It's pretty fun to shop for groceries (and i would imagine goods in general) when there's no personal financial penalties associated with it! Really, it makes me choose the opposite of what i'd usually get...i.e. get the most expensive option of the product rather than the absolute cheapest. So I actually had a pretty good time shopping, but the real goods were yet to come. Upon arriving back at camp, i figured i'd lend out substitute chef a hand and help him unload the groceries. Well, turns out that I went ahead and made dinner. Yep, just sort of happened. I got to lookin at all the veggies and thinking about how they were probably just going to waste away in the fridge unless I did something about it. So I made up a juicy spaghetti sauce chalked full of veggies. and then I put some chilli powder in it. It ended up getting quite high marks from the camp residents too.

the final great thing to happen was that I found the new voxtrot album online. and i've been eagerly awaiting it's release. which is why I will sign off and go have a careful listen!