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Ye Olde Trick Machine

// August 14th, 2010 // View Comments // Videos, Yo-Yoing

So I just realized today that it has been over a year since I released this clip video. Besides the BassBoost video I released this is probably one of my most watched yo-yoing clips. As it stands this video has over 1834 views on Vimeo and 932 views on YouTube. Just thought I’d share it one more time, enjoy

Fun at Cowboy Bridge

// August 1st, 2010 // View Comments // Everyday Life, Videos, Yo-Yoing

Hey guys, we went swimming at Cowboy Bridge today on the southern side of Gem County, had some fun, filmed a few yo-yo tricks and stupid human tricks. It was pretty cool. Definitely nice and refreshing after it was 100+ degrees out all day.

Yo-Yo Trick Combo Concept: Metal Fatigue Ver 1.0

// July 26th, 2010 // View Comments // Tricks, Videos, Yo-Yoing

Working on a rough trick combo involved a slack tower and some whips. This is what I’ve got so far, as I improve it I’ll re-record the trick and name it Metal Fatigue Ver 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.234203951, etc. at needed. When I perform and watch this combination on camera it brings to mind an archaic, collapsing Eiffel Tower. Hence the name ‘Metal Fatigue’. I have seen other do similar tricks to this, I am not sure who they are though, If you know let me know in the comments.

Working on a rough trick combo involved a slack tower and some whips. This is what I’ve got so far, as I improve it I’ll re-record the trick and name it Metal Fatigue Ver 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.234203951, etc. at needed. When I perform and watch this combination on camera it brings to mind an archaic, collapsing Eiffel Tower. Hence the name ‘Metal Fatigue’. I have seen other do similar tricks to this, I am not sure who they are though, If you know let me know in the comments.
Eventually the final version of this trick combination will be abandoned and will take over the name ‘Metal Fatigue’ as the final edition of the trick. If you have ideas on how to build the trick further please record them, upload them, and post them as replies to this video. We can adapt it as needed.

Where Have I Been?

// July 23rd, 2010 // View Comments // Journal, Yo-Yoing

Hey folks, I feel like I owe you an explanation about the Learn to Throw show. For the last month and a half (give or take a week) I’ve gotten busy working on Double-Take Industries and the various yo-yo contests I organize. I decided to stop doing the Learn to Throw yo-yo show to free up some time and to take what footage I had made already and make it in to one trick tutorials. Those tutorials are now up on the DTI website at: http://dtiyoyo.com/tutorials It is a work in progress but to me it’s far more manageable. I will fill it as I have time.

I just want to take a second and thank all of you for your support and enthusiasm towards the show format of trick tutorials and for making that so fun for me. From this point on I’ve decide to turn this website it more of a personal blog. I’ll talk about the random cool things that have happened for me, projects (like the Idaho State Yo-Yo Championships) that I’m working on, and other various things.

Until next time I hope you all have a great weekend!

The Road to La Grande

// July 23rd, 2010 // View Comments // Stories, Yo-Yoing

So this last weekend my buddy Cody Lewis and I drove from little old Emmett, ID to little old La Grande, OR. Jacob Jensen organized his very first yo-yo contest and needed help judging it. It seems however that the trips there and back were riddled with scares.

On Saturday morning after a long night of making sure everything I needed was in my car I drove over to Cody’s house to get him and his stuff loaded up into my car, after a little while of chatting and grabbing what we needed for the trip we were on the road making our way towards Oregon. If was only a few minutes until my car started shaking really bad; my tire alignment was slightly off. There wasn’t much for us to do at the point so we decided to keep going. That was a definitely a big mistake, as after only 10 minutes of being in Oregon my car gave on last tremendous shake, and then suddenly the passenger side front tire blew out.

I pulled the car quickly to the side of the road, in a flash I had my cell phone out and was texting Jacob to let him know we had a blow out and were going to be a little delayed. At that point Cody started making comments about how it was pretty funny that I would text Jacob before my parents. I simply ignored his comments and pulled out my AAA card. I was told that in about 30 minutes we’d have a truck out there to help us change the tire out on my car (we didn’t have a wrench). At this point the stress of the situation finally hit me, and I called and texted both my parents.

After a few minutes a guy pulled over and was out of his car with a jack in seconds. We got the tire changed out in minutes and went ahead and cancelled the AAA call. It took a little bit of shaky driving but after only a few minutes we were back in Ontario at Les Schwab getting the front tires switched out on my car. We were back on the road shortly and quickly made it to La Grande with two hours to spare.

The contest was really fun, there were only a handful of competitors but that’s expected for new, smaller contests. We had a family there that pretty much dominated the competition, the father, his son, and his daughter pretty much cleaned up all the placements. It was pretty cool to see a family so in to yo-yoing. Not something you see all that often anymore.

After the contest wound up Cody and I went and crashed over at Jacobs. We ordered in some pizza, watched old yo-yo videos and caught ourselves back up; sharing new yo-yo tricks, old stories, and thoughts on the competition. We had a pretty good time. Jacob and I even had some time to create a cool, yet annoying, ‘this song doesn’t fit here’ video. I’ll post it below.

The morning came pretty quickly, Cody and I were up around 10 and were back on the road by 11. This time I wasn’t so worried, it felt like we were making some pretty good time. I had smoked a few cigarettes on the way back, I was stressed out after the competition and it was really helpful to calm me down and keep me from driving too fast. Well that’s where the second mishap came in. I got to where I was done smoking and for one of those random ‘i’m really tired’ sudden braindead moments, I forgot whether or not I threw out my cigarette. After a few minutes Cody and I were starting to smell smoke. For awhile we were pretty convinced that my subwoofer had blown out and we were imagining in quite vivid detail that we’d be pulling off the road, opening the trunk, and immediately falling back as smoke rolled out of it.

Well we made it to a gas station, and will great care we made sure to pull far far away from the gas pumps. We jumped out of the car and made our way to the back, Cody stood a rather good distance away, and I opened the trunk. I expected the worse, and nothing happened. The sub was fine, there was no smoke. We couldn’t figure out what happened. Cody walked back up to the door of the car and suddenly exclaimed that the smoke was in the back seat of the car. In seconds we located the source and ripped a towel out of the backseat. It was in flames. It turned out that the cigarette I flicked out had been blown back in my car and landed on a towel. Cody was pretty quick to grab a water bottle and put it out.

After that we were back on the road and made it back to Emmett within 30 minutes. After such an eventful weekend we skipped going home and went straight to Cowboy bridge and went swimming. It was too intense of a trip. We have had fun talking about it though!