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Puma + Subaru join forces for the Global Rallycross Championship [vid]

russ — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:48:07 +0000

It really doesn’t take much to get me excited about Rallycross: Fast cars driven at top speed over rough terrain with a good chance of glorious crashes? You had me at “Fast”; not to mention how big of a Subaru nerd I am. So naturally Puma sponsoring Subaru’s 2012 Global Rallycross team got me more than a little interested.

Their team lineup choices are pretty interesting: Dave Mirra: BMX legend, Bucky Lasek: vert skateboard pro and Sverre Isachsen: Rallycross Veteran from Europe. Mirra can hold his own, but I’m glad they reeled in Isachsen because they are up against some stiff competition and need all the experience they can find. The Ford team has Ken Freaking Block on their team, not to mention Tanner Foust from the American Top Gear. Check out the video for some monster Subarus, roaring engines and blatant Puma product placements. And Make sure to check out the Rallycross circuit which starts on May 26th. Probably on ESPN 12 or something, but its better than nothing.

Officially hitched!

russ — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 03:19:17 +0000

It’s official. The dishes are done, man. Yup, I got married! On October the 15th, my fiancé Kat and I tied the knot here in Los Angeles. It was a whirlwind of crazy planning and a heck of a lot of last minute scrambling, but we somehow were able to get everything in place and we pulled it off.

And of course by “we” I mean my wife. She did the lion’s share of the planning (and bore a lot of the stress) to get this done, along with an amazing rag-tag team of awesome friends who helped get so much done. They were like the A-Team of wedding helpers and we couldn’t have done it without them. After the reception we went straight on our honeymoon to Playa del Carmen. We just got back so when I get a chance I’ll put a post with some Mexico pictures.

Tokyo Slo-mode [vid]

russ — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:03:19 +0000

Seriously sick. This is why after the wedding I’m saving all my money for a Tokyo trip.

Pour a refreshing bowl of Kevin Garnett Murder-Ohs

russ — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:26:18 +0000

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I’m a sucker for packaging: great or horrendous. You know this. Having sat in one too many creative brainstorms in my day, I inevitably find myself taking guesses at what the creatives were thinking when designing something like this cereal box. I’m sure they were trying to capture the “raw intensity and determination” of a professional athlete, but to me it’s more like Kevin Garnett is saying, “Buy my cereal or I’ll murder you In your sleep!!” which, hey, I mean I guess it worked either way because I bought it. So… we’re cool now, right KG??

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The pros & cons of handmade wedding invites

russ — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:55:10 +0000

This weekend Kat & I decided to silk-screen our wedding invites by hand. Why, you might ask? Mainly we wanted to do something handmade fitting our style, but it was also a heck of a lot cheaper than having someone else do it! One caveat: neither of us have silkscreened anything in the last 6 years and we had no equipment. Minor technicality. Yeah.

We started by making the background design in Illustrator, then dropping it in Photoshop and adding the text. We took a couple days going back and forth to finalize the layout, then saved out the color separations at full size. That was the easy part. The hard part was finding someone to actually burn the screen for us. After calling 9 local shops to no avail, and one that kept flaking on me, Kat found a shop that would do it for only 35 bucks! Super score. We had a lot of small text (size 10 font) so we had to go with a 300 mesh count screen. Anything less and the text might be illegible. We also chose to use oil-based ink because I heard that it might pass through the fine screen a little better. Screen and ink in hand, we got a simple press loaned to us by our buddy Kenny, and we were in business.

Friday we started printing the background design which was definitely a learning experience. Our screen kept drying out when we ran out of space to hang up the wet cards, so we kept having to stop and clean out the screen. By the 5th time cleaning it, we realized the cleaner was starting to deteriorate our design! it was just a little bit, but we freaked and just decided to finish out the printing. It was a major relief to get that half totally done so we called it a night.

Saturday we were reinvigorated and had learned from our many mistakes. We recruited two good friends to help hang cards and added more hanging lines. We were all ready to rock, but when we started printing test sheets, none of the fine print was coming out! We started to freak out yet again, but we couldn’t stop printing for fear of the screen drying, so I just kept printing more tests while Kat kept mixing more and more thinner into the ink. Finally we got the ink thinned out enough to the point where all the small text coming through and so we just started rocking it. An hour and a half later, 350-ish invites were printed and we were done. It was hard work and a real learning experience, but we are super excited for the results and we couldn’t have done it without all our awesome friends helping us out!

The WRX gets racked

russ — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:18:15 +0000

I bought my little Subaru in the beginning of 2008, and a few months later I bought the Thule rack for it. One problem; nobody had the fit kit for it! Thule didn’t even have it available to buy yet. And so I forgot about it. And then when I remembered, I was too broke. Then I forgot again.

Regardless, I finally got the missing pieces – 3 years later – and the car is now officially ready to ride. I sent this picture to my brother Carl and he instantly pointed out a major flaw: There isn’t a second bike tray for him.

Apple busts out the Golden Ratio

russ — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:23:56 +0000

Yeah, they went there. The Golden Mean is a mathematical formula that is both complex and simple at the same time. Basically when you compare two objects and the difference between the two is the same ratio as the difference between the two objects combined compared with the larger object. Or a ratio of 1.618, if you are like me and didn’t study math. The Mona Lisa, the front side of Parthenon in Athens (intentional or not), works by Salvador Dalí and more all use close approximations of this equation, and lots of people will argue that it helps make the art more appealing and physically balanced. Well add Apple’s new iCloud logo to that list. Although to be totally honest, I don’t get what all the internet buzz is about (harmonious? Really?? gag). It just looks like someone got a little bevel/ emboss crazy on a couple circles.

Mountain biking with an IMAX point of view [vid]

russ — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:25:21 +0000

I finally dragged my butt of the couch and got my first mountain bike ride of the year in. It always takes the first ride to get the single track fever back and now it’s hit me in full force. Between scouring Google maps for trails and pondering which bike parts I need to upgrade, there’s a whole slew of videos to I need to watch. Framed is a short but gorgeous video showcasing just how awe-inspiring mountain biking can be. Some scenes were filmed with the Red One; one of the highest quality digital video cameras out there.

Everything seems more extreme with the Go Pro Hero HD[vid]

russ — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 06:28:22 +0000

Ever since that space video, I’ve wanted a GoPro HD camera; I just didn’t want to drop 300 bones on one. Thanks to the REI Used Gear sale and some chump who returned a perfectly good camera, I scored one for $20. Here’s my first pass with it on the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain. I can’t wait to hook this up to my mountain bike and hit some trails.

Stud of the week: Lonnie Johnson

russ — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:11:13 +0000

Inventor of the Super Soaker, genius, really nice guy and all-around stud. He holds 91 patents, consulted for NASA on multiple space shuttle projects and lately he’s been spending his time trying to change the face of solar technology; you know, nothing major.