Photos at TeamQuest

On Tuesday I went down to TeamQuest to shoot some pics of Ellis training for a MMA Magazine in the U.K. While we were there Ellis rolled with Dan Henderson, Thierry Sokoudjou and Ryo Chonan. I am still working on getting the photos ready for the magazine and am glad that I am finally going to be published internationally. I will post about this again and post some of the final pics when the magazine is actually out.

PS. Ellis never claimed to be a photographer!

Ralphie May

If you, like anyone reads this stinkin blog anyway, get a chance to see Ralphie May in concert do it! Last Sunday we took Jen and Eric to the Ontario Improv for their birthdays to see Ralphie May and it was nonstop smiles and laughs from the time he got on stage until he bid us a farewell at the door. It's totally worth the money. If you are looking for a night of good laughs, go see Ralphie May.

Chef Gangsta Ramsey

I don't think that I am the only one that feels this way. I have been watching "Hells Kitchen" and I must admit that I wish I had a British accent. I would love to be able to tell people to piss off, or tell them that what they are doing is rubbish but it just doesn"t have the same effect without the accent. I am now going to start working on my British accent. Hopefully soon I will be able to tell people to piss off with the same vigor as Chef Gordon Ramsey!

Portland Food

We just got back from a short trip and had a blast. The restaurants are great and it seems like there is great food around every corner. We pretty much ran the gamut on the food spectrum while we were there, from Lamb Chops at Montage (a really cool place to eat great food while listening to Slayer and wondering if you are going to make it back to your car without being mugged, see previous blog) to Voodoo Donuts (some crazy donut concoctions definitely not for the carb conscious!) to Beef Satay and Grey Goose Martinis at the Portland City Grill (the entire 30th floor of a 45 story building in the middle of Portland with some of the best views of the city).

The food was great and the people were even better.
More to come...

Montage

As I type this blog we are at a place in Portland called Montage. It is by far the best restaraunt that I have ever been to. It is 1:00am and we are under a freeway overpass listening to slayer and eating lamb chops! This place is rad! We just had oyster shooters and are now sipping a libation of makers mark, lemonade and fresh Ginger with Lesley and John. Could this trip get any better?

Holga

I have always wanted a Holga camera and can't quite put my finger on why it has taken me so long to get one. Well, I finally got one. I have long been a big fan of the Holga and love its natural vignette and soft focus that is characteristic of these plastic lens toting cameras and have always wanted to be behind the lens one. I just loaded my first roll of film today and should have some pics back by wednesday. It was a little different than shooting digital, which is now what I consider to be my "traditional" way of shooting. I found myself pulling the camera away from my face and looking at the back expecting to see what I just shot and being the type of person who likes instant gratification, I find myself over-anxiously waiting for my pictures to come back so I can see them.

Really missing you...

As I am getting more and more involved in the skateboard industry and meeting and hanging out with more and more famous skaters, I can't help but think of Kevin. God damn I wish he was here to experience this with me. Everything we ever talked about doing involved both of us and now I am having to go it alone. Every time I am standing on top of the half pipe or talking with Jason Ellis, PLG or Jake Brown, my mind is preoccupied by the fact that he isn't sharing this experience with me. It really drives home the fact that we only have one shot at this life and if we don't live and enjoy every day to its fullest, we are totally cutting ourselves short.

This entry is kind of a downer but fuck, I wish you were still here bro.

Black Orchid..

Wow! If you are reading this, you know that I wear a lot of black. Tonight I made some new drinks that would be really good for a photo shoot. I am calling them "Black Orchid". Basically it is a vodka and cranberry with a few splashes.
The recipe is:
1 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Peach Vodka
2 oz. Cranberry Juice
Splash of Açai Juice
Splash of Blue Curacao

Dump that into a shaker filled with crushed ice and in the words of my good friend Ellis, "Bob's your Uncle"!
The drink comes out black as can be and is delicious. I am working on a version of this that has Monster Energy Drink in it that I am going to call the "Wild Orchid" but I need to work out the kinks. I am actually drinking one as I am typing this! I am calling it product research!

WOW! Lamb is really good....

I though I had a pretty broadened palate, but I was wrong. I have been watching Anthony Bourdaine's "No Reservations" now for a couple of seasons. The show is great and Anthony kinda reminds me of myself only 20 years older. Often on the show he is confronted with eating lamb and he makes it sound really good. The other day I was out to dinner with a friend of mine and decided to order the lamb. My friend, who is Egyptian, said that if I didn't like the lamb he would trade plates with me so what did I have to lose? He suggested I order the lamb medium rare, and I did against my better judgement. I love my beef rare but never having had lamb before, I was a little hesitant to go through with this. Wow! This meat is really, really good. I soon found my self eating lamb chops like I was a barbarian, only stopping to wipe the occasional blood that was running down my arm off. This was just a few day ago and I have ordered it a couple times since and have considered ordering a big lot of it from the local butcher to prepare the next time I have company up to my house. If you haven't tried Lamb yet, you need to.

Von Dutch website...

I am almost done with the new website layout for Von Dutch Performance. Once I am done with this I am hoping to move on to a complete redo of the Von Dutch Clothing and Von Dutch Kustom Cycles websites. This website layout has been fun and has been pretty easy to do with the customer letting me pretty much have full creative freedom. I will post again when the website is up and rockin!

Photo shoot with Ellis..

Ellis and I are working on another campaign with Von Zipper Sunglasses and so I had to shoot some more pics of Ellis sporting some VZ stuff. The night was kind of off as we were all in funny moods and just ready for the day to end but I managed to get the shots I needed. Here is one of the shots that I shot last night.

The best....

Just this past weekend I bought a new Quad-Core MacPro to add to my collection of Macs and let me tell you, this is by far the best computer on the face of the planet.. I can remember buying my first computer, because all of the ones before it I built out of scrap parts and misc. stuff that was either purchased or given to me, and thinking "Wow! This is so fast with 100MHz processor and who would ever fill up a 2.3 GB hard drive?" Wow how times have changed. I have had, and still have, a lot of Mac computers. None with as much power as this one but pretty close. I am very excited to how this computer performs once I get all of my apps running and I am working on my next big project. Just to put it in perspective, in 1997 I bought my first computer that was 100MHz and had a 2.3 GB hard drive, my new computer is, are you ready for this? 22,937.6 times faster and has 445 times the amount of hard drive space! Not only is this crazy, but I just realized how big of a nerd I am for being able to figure that out. Wow!

Latest Project

There are a lot of projects that are lining up for me this year and I just started working on one that is pretty cool, a new website for VonDutch Performance! It's not done yet but when it is, look for an update with pics of the build up.

Back in Hollywood

It's that time again! On Thursday I will be back out in Hollwood to be on the Jason Ellis Show yet again. Not sure what crazy stuff we are going to do or talk about but I'm sure it will be something worth listening to since it will be the first time we're hanging out in the new year! Tune in and check it out on Sirius 28 at noon!

Back on Sirius for the last time in 07

It's happening a lot more these days. I was back on the Jason Ellis show again yesterday only this time I was joined by the lovely Joanna Angel who wasn't in the studio for more than 30 seconds before she had her top off and WOW! We were also joined by Robbie Madison who is going to attempt a new world record distance jump on a dirt bike. He is planning to jump 360 feet at the Rio in Las Vegas as the ball drops in NY. Lets hope he makes it.

Faction Photo Shoot

A couple days ago I was asked to take some pics of the crew at Faction 28 while they were shooting for a magazine article. (Not sure which magazine). The shoot was with Tony Hawk, Bam Margera, Jason Ellis, Johnny Mosley, Shoebox, Tully and Pendarvis. We had a lot of fun and got some good pics. Here are a couple from that day between shoots.

Kick Boxing

WOW! Today was my first Kick Boxing. I had no idea that the upper half of my body was in such bad shape.. From my chest down I feel like I am in pretty good shape. I threw more punches today than I think I have my whole life. All in all it was a lot of fun and I cant wait to do it again tomorrow. Provided I can move my arms! :o)

Im not eating this!

Last night we went to Cost Plus to buy some wine and as we were looking around we found a desert that kinda resembles bread pudding but in a can. It is called "Spotted Dick" What?!?!?! I had to buy a can just for entertainment purposes. This is an actual product and I couldn't help but snap a picture of it while it was still on the shelf. The people at the register had a pretty good laugh too.

Back to the iPhone...

"The grass is always greener..." Well not this time. I recently switched from Verizon Wireless to AT&T so I could get an iPhone. As soon as I got the iPhone I fell in love. Being a Apple freak and a gadget junkie I had to have one. After I had it for about a month or so I started to feel like I might be happier if I were to switch back to a BlackBerry so I went to the store and bought one so I could really weigh the benefits of each device. After switching to the BlackBerry for the last week, I have my decision. The iPhone is the best electronic device ever to hit the market. I realized that the BlackBerry interface just isn't up to par and in some cases I would actually get email on my iPhone quicker than I did on the BBerry? Go figure. Viva Apple!

Back in Hollywood!

Back out in Hollywood today shooting pics of Ellis and stepped in on the show for a few minutes.. Bob had a pretty good time and was pretty stoked to meet Ellis and see how the radio show operates.. Hey Bob, next time we'll get you on the air!