Fanzine

[C-Fan]

In Northern California this week for work. Hoping I can meet up with Littlefield on Thursday night, but I don't have a lot of control over my schedule unfortunately. It was sunny and warm yesterday, but such insane wind I couldn't shred. Today I was luckier, and got in a solid hour shred outside. My body felt good, but my precision felt off. Sucks how in footbag being half an inch off on any trick means you're going to drop. Insane how much precision and control is needed in this sport. Even though I didn't play particularly well, it felt good to get some exercise in the sun for a change. The week leading up to this trip was crazy snowy in Denver, resulting in the rare snow day from work. I'm hoping Spring will be more locked in by the time I get back, and I can get back to playing regularly.

On the flight out here I had a good time listening to my old ipod, and picked out a few songs with routine potential. I don't even know if I'll go to USO or not, but if I do now is probably a good time to at least start the routine building process. If I do make a routine, I'd like to try something significantly different than my past routines.

[C-Fan]

it felt good to get some exercise in the sun for a change. The week leading up to this trip was crazy snowy in Denver

I think I even got a bit of a sunburn from that session! Meanwhile, my wife texted me a picture of our dog playing in the snow. Apparently Denver got a couple inches yesterday, and may get some more before I get back.

Drove to Fresno today for the second leg of this work trip. It was sunny and in the low 70s when I got off work, so I took advantage and got in a shred outside the hotel. The hotel's in a bit of a sketchy area, so I left the GoPro in the hotel. I also figured that if I manage to shred with Derek tomorrow, I'd want to save the battery and memory space for that session instead. I ended up shooting a couple clips on my iPhone just to have a record I played in a new town:
Nothing big this session, but it felt great to play outside in the sun two days in a row, especially in the middle of a work week.

Due to a bunch of logistic challenges, I'm not sure when I'll get to Sacto tomorrow, and consequently whether or not Derek and I can shred, or just get dinner. It'll be good to see him no matter what, so I'm just going to make an effort to push work to finish on time, and cross my fingers that everything works out. If we shred, I'll try and snag some footage.

[C-Fan]

California trip ended up better than expected. The work itself went fine (I was auditing another region's program), the weather was great, I got to play 3 times, and I got to hang out a bit with Derek. The weather was an especially nice surprise, since it snowed a couple times in Denver while I was out in Cali, so I definitely felt like I was getting a bonus.

I didn't expect to play as much as I did, so I didn't pack my camera charger or a backup memory card. I should leave a backup memory card in my camera bag just in case. But yeah, I ended up filming most of a short session in Willows, not filming with the GoPro in Fresno (see previous entry), and filming as much as I could of my shred with Derek in Sacto. It ended up working out pretty well.

My weather timing was great, since once I got back to Denver the temps went back to spring time. There was still snow on the ground on Friday afternoon when I got back and walked the dog, but I didn't even need a jacket or a hoodie and everything was melting off. I got outdoor shreds on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday since it was so nice. So in a 7 day span I played 6 days...that's pretty awesome. I'm still not sure what my summer footbag goals are, but its probably a good idea to start getting back into shape so I at least have the option of training for USO.

I'll blog about my session with Derek next, but for now here's video from my shred in Willows:
On a non-footbag note, last night I watched the college basketball men's championship game between Villanova and UNC. I was only half watching until halftime, but in the second half it was almost always a 1-3 possession game, so I paid closer attention. In the last minute or so both teams missed a bunch of clutch free throws, which built the tension. When Nova was up by 3 with 5 seconds left, I figured it was over. Then one of the UNC players (Paige) hit a desperation, double pump three pointer to tie it! I literally screamed from my couch it was so amazing. Nova had to inbound under their own basket, so I assumed they'd have to heave from midcourt and we'd go to OT. Instead, somehow they get the ball down to the 3P line, one of the Nova bigs shoots a 3 with time running out as the ball is in the air...and swish! Again I yelled from the couch, jumped up and just started applauding at the TV. What an insane 6 seconds to end a basketball game, much less a championship. Sports can be pretty awesome sometimes:

[C-Fan]

Weather is getting nice enough that post-work outdoor shreds are possible. Nice. In unfortunate news, I picked up a minor injury yesterday. I got to my spot, warmed up, was feeling good physically and mentally, and turned on the camera. Literally my second attempt at a combo on film, I booted my left calf super hard and came up gimpy (shutdown to pdx whirling rake). Crossing my fingers it'll be good by the weekend, cause weather is supposed to be nice through Sunday afternoon. In related, and bigger news, I'm unexpectedly making a work trip to Yakima Washington next week. This is news because I'll have one night in Seattle, which I'm hoping means a shred with Justin and Reilley, or at a minimum some hanging out. Similar to Sacramento last week, there will be schedule wildcards associated with driving and work obligations over which I have no control. Crossing my fingers things work out as well as they did in Sacto though. Step one is making sure I heal up before the trip.

When I got back from California, I was very pleasantly surprised to find a package from Evan. Just a totally random and awesome gift of a book and a footbag. Definitely feel lucky to have friends who do cool stuff like this. I'm still working on the book, but I put the footbag to good use pretty much immediately. It's a Mike Wilson bag, and I have to say I'm impressed with how shreddable it was right off the bat. Here's vid from my first session with it:
So yeah, while I probably can't (and shouldn't) shred for the next couple days, maybe I can use the time to work on my footbag project. I'm really hoping to get that off the ground this summer.

[C-Fan]

Crossing my fingers it'll be good by the weekend, cause weather is supposed to be nice through Sunday afternoon.

So yeah, while I probably can't (and shouldn't) shred for the next couple days,.

Leg felt about 85% on Saturday, and today it felt 100%. Nice. Excited that I'm heading into next week's trip in playable condition.

Saturday I mostly dicked around trying to hit tricks with a half rotten clementine for Sergio's challenge. It was super hard and frustrating. The clementine is a good size for footbag, but the skin was half petrifiied, which made it hard to stall.
Sunday I took it easy, mostly feeling out the leg to see how close I was to recovered. Had fun playing around with swirl tricks:

Stoked to see the Seattle crew in a few days.

[C-Fan]

In Yakima Washington now. Tomorrow I have a full day of training, then a 2.5 hour drive to Seattle. Hoping I can get there early enough to get in a quick shred with RCS, then get food and watch the Warriors game together. Gonna try and go to bed early tonight, since I know tomorrow's going to be exhausting. Hanging with Justin and Reilley though will be like a reward for pushing hard this week.

Today's weather is what I basically expected of Seattle: overcast and cold, with the threat of rain throughout. I skipped playing because of it. Yesterday though the sun burned through in the afternoon, and I was able to get in a light shred. I found a really nice park which had an elevated wooden platform. I was able to get some nice shots from up there, though shredwise I didn't hit anything notable. The cherry blossoms were in bloom, and it was just nice to be outside surrounded by so much green.

This trip I remembered my camera charger, so I should be able to film tomorrow's RCS shred no problem. Hopefully seeing them will give me an energy boost, since I'll likely be tired from my training and the drive.

Random vid of some footage I shot in Denver earlier this month, that I never turned into a video: My dog Barkley turned 4 today. Definitely miss him and the wife. At least work travel should calm down for a while now, and my next 3 trips are personal ones that should be fun. All this work travel has been draining.

[C-Fan]

Seattle. Hoping I can get there early enough to get in a quick shred with RCS, then get food and watch the Warriors game together. .

So this almost fell through completely. I'm going to give the gory blow-by-blow here cause it's funny in retrospect, but at the time it was just incredibly stressful and demoralizing.

Flash to that afternoon. My training in Yakima wrapped up a little ahead of schedule, so we were able to hit the road around 2:30. The drive from Yakima to Justin's part of Seattle is about 2 hours 20 minutes, so I was hopeful I'd get there before 5. I text Justin we're hitting the road, and he texts back he will try and get out of work early. Awesome. The first two hours of the drive go fine, but then we hit some rush hour traffic coming into Seattle. Not great, but not the worst. We're just a little behind schedule. We get to the hotel and check in, and I'm antsy to just dump my stuff in the room and go meet Justin. Unfortunately there are people ahead of us at the front desk, taking up time doing nothing. I finally get to check in, and the lady only gives me one card. Normally I ask for 2, but I'm in a hurry so I take the card and walk to my room. Which is a solid 5 minute walk, cause its on the other side of the hotel. I get to my door, and the key doesn't work. Of course it doesn't. I leave my suitcase at the door, and run all the way back to the front desk. More people in front of me, more waiting. I ask for 2 re-keyed cars, to ensure I don't have the same problem. I get the 2 new cards, and run back to the room. Neither. Fucking. Card. Works. Now I'm steamed. I grab my suitcase and run back to the front desk. It's bad enough this hotel doesn't have free breakfast and makes you pay for parking, but all this BS to even get into my room is just insane. I get to the front desk, explain to them that I'm already late meeting up with friends, and I can't afford to waste any more time trying to get into my room. I tell them that I'm going to my meeting, and that when I call them later they better have a room with a working door for me.

I grab the car, tap the address Justin sent me for his house, and drive to his place. As I pull up into his street (a cul de sac with a bunch of houses and an apartment complex), I hear Siri say: "arrived at destination." Nice. I pull out my phone to text Justin I made it. That's weird...the screen is black and unresponsive to touch. I try and power it off to restart it, but I can't power it off since the screen is black and doesn't respond to touch or swipes. Crap. I didn't write down Justin's address, so I don't know which number it is. I tell myself not to panic, and decide to get out of the car and look at mailboxes to see if I can find his name. I'm also hoping he might see me from a window or something, since he knows I'm coming soon. I wander the 2 block area for a bit, and realize nobody labels their mailboxes. Then a stroke of luck: I see a family walking their dog and baby, and I approach them.

Ken: Excuse me, but do you know a guy named Justin who lives here? He's 6 foot 5 and lanky, wears glasses?
Lady with baby: Yeah...I'm pretty sure he lives in that house over there. *points to house*

Awesome. I trot over to the house and ring the doorbell, and I'm already thinking: "this will make a fun story for the blog."

An older lady opens the door, which is a bad sign, but in the room behind her I see a lanky guy about 6 foot 5, and I get excited it's Justin. It is not. Damnit! I go back to my car, and bump into another lady who's letting her dog out to pee. I describe Justin, and she points to another house. I go up to ring the doorbell...and it has cobwebs on it. Not promising. Nobody answers.

As I do all this, I keep feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket. First the long vibrations of somebody calling me, then the short double bursts of somebody texting me. I can't pick up or even read the texts though, since the screen is dead. What a tease. Now I'm getting a bit desperate, since my search for Justin is going badly and also since I'm not sure I remember how to get back to my hotel. Then a bolt of inspiration: I never checked into the hotel, so I have my work laptop on me! I just need to find an unsecured network, or try and get into a secured network trying "password" to get in. I fire up the laptop, and it shows no networks at all in the area. Damn! I decide my best bet is to find a Starbucks and ride off their network. How hard can it be to find a Starbucks in Seattle, right? I drive to what I think is the nearest mini-mall (I later realize if I had gone left instead of right, the closest mini-mall is where Justin's gym is), and am relieved to see a sign for a Starbucks. I pull in, but where I expect the Starbucks to be, there's a pharmacy instead. I look around, and see a supermarket with a Starbucks logo in the window. Nuts. I go into the Supermarket and try and get on the WiFi, but all the connections are locked. I ask the Starbucks barista if there's free WiFi, and she responds: "not here, but there is at the franchise Starbucks." She points to the pharmacy that I dismissed, and when she sees my confusion she explains: "it's actually inside the pharmacy." I run over the real Starbucks, log into the WiFi, and just feel a flood of relief. At least now I can find directions back to my hotel, in worst case scenario. I log onto Facebook to see if I can find Justin's phone number, with the plan of borrowing a stranger's phone to call him. Instead, I see him logged onto FB messenger! I explain my situation, and he gives me directions to his gym. At this stage I should have sent a quick email to Haley explaining I don't have a phone, but I was so frantic at this stage I don't. I hop in the car and head back the way I came, and pass Justin and Reilley walking to the gym. I roll down the window and yell at them: "Get a car, ya hippies!"

I pull into the mini-mall with their gym, exchange some hugs, and apologize profusely for the communications snafu. They're remarkably understanding, considering how much time I must have wasted for everybody. We go into the gym, but the main exercise room is in use for a class. They seem cool with us playing in the main gym area, which works out alright. I have my GoPro with me, but I feel a little weird filming since there are people walking everywhere, and I also don't want to creep out the women at the gym by setting up a camera. Justin discreetly sets up his iPhone to film, and I figure I don't need to replicate the same footage anyway.

The shred itself is fun. Reilley hasn't been playing much, but managed to hit some big and new tricks, including ducking far symple dyno, and leaning toe. Very stylish. Justin focuses on strings, which makes sense since he's going to Jamps next week. I was most impressed by a symp flurry, and also bothsided janiwalkers. It's good to see him playing again after all his injuries. For my own shred, I didn't really hit anything notable. But really, it just felt like such a relief that I managed to meet up with Justin and Reilley, and it felt good to burn off some of my nervous energy.. The previous 90 minutes were incredibly nerve-wracking, so distracting myself by just hitting some tricks with a footbag was just what I needed.

Here's a highlight video I'm stealing from Justin's blog:
We wrapped up shred relatively early, and walked over to a bar in the same mini-mall. We watched the Warriors game and caught up for a bit. During half time I call the hotel, and negotiate free parking and 2 breakfast vouchers out of them, which is like an $80 value at their hotel. That's crazy they charge so much for those basics, but I'm also glad I was able to get something in exchange for the headache they gave me earlier. We wrap up dinner and I ask Justin to draw me a map back to the hotel, since I can't use the phone to get back. We say goodbyes, but it's a little easier since there's the hope we'll all be at USO in 2.5 months. I should probably start planning for that, both in terms of logistics but also training.

Driving back to the hotel in the dark, navigating by landmarks and street names makes me feel like I'm back in the 90s. I'm exhausted...7 hours training, 2.5 hours driving, the dead phone ordeal, and then footbag and being social...I was just out of gas.

So yeah, pretty lucky I even managed to meet up with Reilley and Justin at all. At least it makes for a story though.

[boyle]

I like how despite all the frustrations etc that you are already thinking, oh this will be a good story for the blog! Glad it worked out in the end.

[Ian Brill]

Happy Birthday, Ken!

I was thinking about you earlier yesterday. I was thinking about double-dex sick threes that I might be able to hit one-sided and how you could probably repeat them in a handful of tries. Then I started thinking about all the challenges I used to give you when I was playing. So, here's some b'day challenges:

Paradox Barrage - Butterfly Swirl - Whirling Swirl, repeat

I could probably hit the first three steps. Here are some I could never hit:

Paradox Blurrage - Paradon Swirl - DSC - Repeat
Paradox Blurrage - Toe Blurrage - Fusion - Repeat
Paradox Blurrage- Pixie What!? - Fusion - Repeat

Anyway. I hope all is well.

Best,

Ian

[DC Clinks]

Pretty sick tale Ken. Sucks about all the negative stress stuff but I'm glad it all worked out in the end. Shred looked super chill, form is smooth as always. Hope to see more footage soon, been enjoying all these recent clips.

[boyle]

PS - any reason they're sending you out on so many work trips? Sounds like you are covering some pretty serious mileage. Don't they have any other staff?

[C-Fan]

Thanks for all the positive posts everybody!

Ian: those combos are all way hard, but maybe I can take a link here or there and put it in a combo.
Danny: I'm not sure why I'm traveling so much, but we're definitely understaffed and overworked. At least my next few trips are for fun (2 weddings then Japan!). Hopefully that helps with the stress some.

Driving back from the airport on Thursday, it was 70 degrees out and sunny. It put me in a good mood for the weekend, until I saw signs on the highway that read: "We're prepping for the big winter storm! Are you?" That sounds ominous. Sure enough, by the time I got home I had heard a radio warning as well, and just as promised it dumped snow on us all weekend. We bunkered down at the house, and my only exercise was shoveling snow and walking the dog in the snow. So no footbag, but that's OK. It was kind of jarring though to come back from beautiful spring weather in Yakima, to summer temps on Thursday in Denver, to 2 feet of snow on Saturday and Sunday.

Speaking of Yakima, here's a short vid of my Yakima session:
The biggest footbag news on my end is related to my phone. In my last post I laid out in gory detail how my phone screen died, and all the inconveniences associated with that. What I didn't mention though, is that I had some key files related to my footbag project on the phone. These files were irreplaceable, and I never backed them up anywhere else. Losing these files would set me back a lot on my project, and in all honesty may have killed my enthusiasm for the project altogether. In a stroke of huge luck though, my IT department was able to recover the files! The footbag project lives on!

[C-Fan]

Not much footbagwise to report, but wanted to put some thoughts down.

Trip to North Carolina was nice. Work didn't replace my phone in time, so still felt a bit off kilter in terms of not being able to navigate or take pictures. It was hot and sunny the whole trip, which made it nice to be outside. Went to a minor league baseball game, rowed a boat on a lake, and went for a forest run all with the wife. Also had a good time dominating the dancefloor at the wedding we attended. I brought a footbag on the trip, as well as the shoes I took to our honeymoon which are playable. I never did a proper session though, and only did a few adds here and there when I had waiting downtime outside restaurants/etc.

Its been rainy, snowy, and cold in Denver since I've been back. Definitely a wetter and colder spring than normal, but since I'm not really training for any tournaments I don't mind that much. I do feel like its killed any momentum I had with the various high school kids I was getting into footbag, but maybe over the summer I can rekindle that connection?

My parents aren't doing very well healthwise, which is weighing heavily on me. I'm considering canceling the Japan trip to check on them instead, but I'm not sure yet. Need to make a decision this weekend. The parents health, combined with work and house issues, are all kinda bumming me out. Gotta try and stay mentally strong and push through as much as possible.

I'm hoping to work on the footbag project this weekend. I knew this time of year would get crazy with weddings and trips and work, so I purposely am delaying the official launch of the project until I have 4 units of the project completed, so I can release them in a steady stream. If I push hard this weekend, I should be able to get 3 units done.

I haven't filmed any footbag lately, mostly cause I haven't played any footbag lately. In the spirit of making posts with vids though, here's an old favorite of mine from 8.5 years ago:
Also, thank you Allan for fixing the YouTube button on Modified. People notice and appreciate these things.

[boyle]

I like that you put a video on each post. Was that a symp whirling flapper I saw along the way fairly early in that vid?

[C-Fan]

Boyle: Yep, that's a singularity. Jon Schneider invented that trick, and named it that way because it has one add from each category, and also cause he likes astronomy. Haven't hit one of those in years.

Realized today that USO is less than 2 months away. I haven't been shredding regularly, I don't have a routine song picked, I haven't practiced a routine a single time, and I have close to 3 weeks worth of travel between now and USO. Add all that up, and I'm not sure I'm even going to go. I just checked airfares, and not loving what I'm seeing. Blergh.

On YouTube the other day I saw that Paul Gressett's channel was active, so I checked out his video. Apparently he's doing a series where he reviews mapmakers Mario maps. I left a joke comment just to tease him, so I was surprised when he responded with a video to it:
Weather has been nice this week, so I've been trying to get back into playing more. The wife and I started a free 2 week trial at Corepower yoga, so some days I choose yoga instead of footbag. I think yoga might be better for me mentally, but definitely not as much fun. Here's a quick vid of my last shred:
As for Japan, I decided not to cancel the trip. Don't want to go into a ton of detail, but after considering a ton of factors (parents health, sunk cost of tickets, stress at work) I decided on balance its probably better to go, even if we haven't been able to prep as much as we'd like for it. It should still be fun.

[jay7]

Howdy Ken,

Man, I just watched C-Fan Raw for the first time, since likely 2007/8. I knew exactly which music would kick in, and when it would kick in, and I recall having that video play as part of my shred-video-play-while-I-practice loop playlist. I can't believe how many elements of your game improved so drastically since that video.... Most notably for my eyes, your 5's and 6's have just enormously improved.

Really neat, since when I watched that video, you were already in the top tier of players... I haven't looked back and re-evaluated in some time. So much refinement

Thanks for re-posting.

[DC Clinks]

Blows my mind that there are people who have been playing footbag for longer than the time that I've spent in high school + college combined. Your shred is looking on point, going to second Boyle's opinion that a video every post is very cool. Hope you have fun in Japan dudeskiez.

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the comments guys!

Jay: Always makes me happy to see you've posted on modified, regardless of topic. That it's also a compliment in my blog though...that's just like icing on the cake. I hope the next modified post I see from you is a long blog entry about what you've been up to. We miss you man.

Blows my mind that there are people who have been playing footbag for longer than the time that I've spent in high school + college combined

I started playing in the summer of 97, so I'm over double that (assuming you aren't a super duper duper senior ). The craziest moment for me was at Worlds last year backstage at the Finals, when I was talking to Jakub M and realized I've been footbagging longer than he's been breathing.

No footbag this past weekend. We had crazy rain on Saturday and Sunday, which was all the excuse I needed to bunker down and take care of house/trip errands before we head to Texas on Thursday. I only did 2 footbag related things all weekend. First, I checked more flights to USO, expanding my range of dates in the hopes of finding better fares. No luck. That sucks...I feel like this whole spring I had the expectation that I'd be going to USO even if I didn't compete, but now its looking pretty unlikely. At this stage, I know I'm too out of practice to have done much damage in the competitions, but I still wanted to go just to see friends. Unless I see a big price drop soon, I don't think I'm going. Sometimes, it's just not in the cards.

The second footbag thing I did this weekend, was finally finish editing my Vegas Jam video. On one hand I'm embarrassed how long I sat on the footage. On the other hand, the shred doesn't feel outdated at all. I also don't remember a lot of footage being released from that weekend, so for most people this should have felt pretty fresh. I worked on this video intermittently over the course of several months, putting it down for long stretches at a time. I had so much footage it was a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, I had to cut out a lot of strings/clips since the video was going to be way too long. On the other hand, any time I needed to find a clip of any length, I usually had a good clip that fit exactly somewhere. I did my best to fit the clips to the music, but between some technical difficulties and the sheer length of the song/video, I wasn't always able to get it perfect. At the end of the day, I decided it was better to release an imperfect, but very good video, than continue sitting on a video that may never be perfect. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out, and it was pretty well received from the community, so I'm glad I finally pushed it out.

[isirc10]

That was a very good video Ken. Really very quite good. Of course, as the creator of any project, only you know all of the weak spots. I thought it was clean and the cuts were unobtrusive and the clips flowed well. I think the greatest achievement of a shred video is to highlight and build on the energy of the players, and your edit did just that. Thanks for everything you contribute to the scene!

[Kylescook]

Ivan puts words to my thoughts. great video ken.