Nathan

[Nathan]

I seem to only update this thing when something important happens. So keeping with the trend.. I just graduated from college. Cool. It feels pretty strange, especially since I don't have a job lined up. That said, I do have a pretty inspirational to-do list on the horizon, which includes several writing projects, some paid, some not. I will be documenting a few day-to-week-long hikes and getting paid for it. I'm going to start working with a friend on a graphic novel-style retelling of my hike on the Appalachian Trail. And hopefully I'll start writing some fiction. I'll be in State College most of the summer, with some extended travel time interspersed.

In terms of footbag, I've been playing with the club a lot since I won't see some of these guys again. I think our jam really motivated everyone around here and we've had great attendance (like 10+) at some recent sessions. It's pretty crazy, considering that 2 years ago it was just me and Ian Brill playing a couple times a semester. This past year, I'm not sure if I've even had a solo session.

There is of course no one else to thank but Nick Polini for the revival of footbag at Penn State. Seriously, this guy is a hype machine. Nick and I definitely bring a different attitude to footbag. Whereas I can rarely be bothered to promote the game unless someone seems really interested, Nick is all about it. He will instantly turn any session into a chance to teach someone toe stalls, and the end result after two years at Penn State is nearly a dozen people decked out in Lavers and 32-panel bags. He also drills more than I do and stays connected with players from all across the country better than I do. He's a constant source of motivation and he's the man.

Over the summer, at least 3 of these new members are sticking around, as well as two guys that just reappeared, who used to play with me and Dave when I was in high school. Weird. So I will have people to play with all summer.

Anyway, I have been playing quite a bit in anticipation of USO and Worlds, if I am lucky enough to go to either. Some recent highlights include:

-Ending last night's session with b2b runs of 45, 47, 62, 49, 44 contacts. No drops, no rebates, just 5 long runs. Dropped my 6th around 30 contacts, after trying too many fives. I'd like to end every session with an attempt at this, hopefully getting to 10 eventually.
-Mullet both sides
-Vertigo>Blurry Fresh Egg (miraging flail)
-ending a sesh a couple weeks ago with 85 contacts
-Gig>69

As well as some easier stuff that is nevertheless really tough for me, like stepping reaper and reaper>egg bsos.

Thanks for reading, modified. If you'd like something to look at as well, here are some photos from our jam a couple weeks ago.

[DTank126]

Woooo, East Coast for the summer! You made the right decision. I heard only jerks with 3-letter monosyllabic names live out in Denver anyway.

You doin any trails nearby? I still really wanna go on some day/week long hikes. Eh eh, nudge nudge.

[rjadamson]

Woooo, East Coast for the summer! You made the right decision. I heard only jerks with 3-letter monosyllabic names live out in Denver anyway.

You doin any trails nearby? I still really wanna go on some day/week long hikes. Eh eh, nudge nudge.

Like Gdn Bevier?

Vertigo > blurry fresh egg sounds cool. Last summer I got into a phase of hitting legeater a lot, but fresh egg seemed way to hard to even try. Nathan, we would love to see you at the U.S. Open in a couple months!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I'm touched, Nate...

Just like Sandusky's boys BOWWUNGGGA!!! Too soon? ZING!

But really, even though you're in the room across from the livingroom right now, I figured I'd post here to say thanks and goodbye. I'm leaving in less than 3 hours, I can't believe it. The year of ShredHaus is finally coming to an end. We had so many sick memories in this house, like the apple-face-punch-lip-bleed, and launching off of longboards over a foam clubhouse and onto a purple marshmallow. And other things too. This has been the most funnest year of my college life. Thanks for putting up with my stupidity and loud noises and/or nonsense sentences. I hope you have a great life and fulfill all your footbag/hiking/writing/life goals.

Keep drilling and hitting 40+ x5 every session and I am almost certain you'll be BAP-worthy, you just have to have a cool style and be guiltless and then you get BAPped

It's been real dude.

PS. Disc golf this morning was a blast. Hope to play another game with you in the future sometime. Also hope you can make it to my FootGrad Party (aka The Gradionships) June 15. Also, make sure to be super teachy to the new guys, Cocoaman and Kaiser this summer.

PSS. Also your Blurry Fresh Egg is the equivalent of a holographic Charizard

[C-Fan]

Big props on these three things, in this order:

I just graduated from college. Cool.
-Ending last night's session with b2b runs of 45, 47, 62, 49, 44 contacts. No drops, no rebates, just 5 long runs.
-Vertigo>Blurry Fresh Egg (miraging flail)
.

It'd be great to see you at USO or Worlds this summer for sure. Or just drop by Denver for some hiking...that'd be cool too.

[Muffinman]

Great stuff, Nate!

[boyle]

Great to hear things are going so well. You are really getting great at footbag. I hope the writing projects go really well.

[C-Fan]

I'd love to see an update in here, especially in light of how well you did at Worlds. I re-read this part:

-Ending last night's session with b2b runs of 45, 47, 62, 49, 44 contacts. No drops, no rebates, just 5 long runs. Dropped my 6th around 30 contacts, after trying too many fives. I'd like to end every session with an attempt at this, hopefully getting to 10 eventually.
.

...and it definitely made me smile, knowing this helped you in circle at Worlds.

Hope the new, post-college life is off to a good start.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah dude, I second Ken's update request. Hope all is going well for you in NH.

[Ian Brill]

I've had so many great things happen directly to me this summer, and yet one of my highlights was getting to root for you in circles comp over the internets. Even my girlfriend had to hear about it. Pipebomb was blowing it up. Hope all is well in your new digs. Finally getting back into playing (3 days in a row now- after a week of swimming and running I think I got this year-long back-thing beat) and it's a number of things that you taught me (about torques, drifters, dlo's, whirls, swirls and atomic) that I keep coming back to. You're a beast. And, I'm finally getting the chance to break in some of those bags laser cut. Awesome.

[Nathan]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments. I have about 10 minutes of internet use today, so I can't add much, but it's awesome to see comments in my blog.

[boyle]

Looking forward to a longer writeup! Congrats on your performance at Worlds.

[Nathan]

Umm, hi.

Just had a really good session so I felt like posting. And I know that I like reading my friends' blogs so maybe my friends like reading mine?

Anyway, the session: Played for about two hours with Ivan, Kat and (briefly) Khoa. Kat is a new player this year who reminds me a bit of Vasek when he had been playing for like, a month. If you guys remember those videos. I guess Kat might not be improving as fast as Vasek did back then, but she's also not playing in Kampa Park six hours a day. But yeah, the super low, flat clipper, the easy osis.. good stuff.

Kat left towards the end so it was just Ivan and I for a while. He was trying to learn spins and I was just trying a bunch of hard stuff I don't often bother to give a shit about. it's been a while since I've had that kind of session -- usually we have like 6-7 players around and I kind of just hit my strings and if something good happens, I roll with it. So it was good to drill and sweat and work for things. Some of the things I've hit recently are pretty good by my standards (for myself)

-PS Egg
-A run with alpine blurry whirl bsos and blurry torque
-new beast: shooting butter>69>mullet
-13 fearless

Anyway, I ended the session with 60, and I pushed Ivan to end with 30 - he got 29 - which was awesome and we both left feeling pretty beat. So that's footbag.

Other than that, I have been applying for many jobs and I think finally have an offer coming my way that I'm excited about. Most likely I will be moving to Santa Cruz, CA to do a 6-month Americorps term as a conservation corps member. So like.. building trails in national parks, chopping trees down to thin forests in anticipation of wildfires, organizing volunteers.. that kind of stuff. I am pretty excited. Before I leave to do that (early March) I am hoping to play footbag with some East Coasters, e-publish a short story I've been working on, and reduce my shit so I can fit it in a couple suitcases and start a pretty mobile lifestyle for the forseeable future. Also I have some really funny trick tip videos I recorded with Nick Polini to edit and upload, so hopefully writing that down here gives me the incentive to get it done.

Peace!

[krustykrakk]

Cool! Rollin' in my 64.

[boyle]

Good stuff. Cut down you crap as much as possible, the less you have the more you can just jump at any opportunity.

[C-Fan]

Nice to see you post. What was the 13 fearless combo?

Hope you get the Cali job.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo! I'm stoked to shred with you this weekend! Don't know if I've made that clear enough! haha

And at first, when you mentioned the trick tip videos, I thought you were talking about those videos we made for shred global with you doing Pdx Torque and acting super stoked and flipping shit, throwing the bag at the camera hahaha I have that on my mac, somewhere around here. Then I remembered what you're actually talking about and started laughing because I remembered how ridiculous they were! I hope you get those up soon!

Also, again dude, huge props on the highlights! Looking forward to the Blurry Drifter video, too. Man, I can't wait, we're gonna do Clippers and Jesters and Rainbows! It's going to be fun hacky sack weekend.

[MetZelRio]

Man, I can't wait, we're gonna do Clippers and Jesters and Rainbows! It's going to be fun hacky sack weekend.

Rainbows lol !

[Nathan]

Thanks guys.

I took the job in Cali. I start March 6, finish Sept 10ish.

My rough schedule is gonna be like this. I'll work 11-day projects mostly. Day 1, I'll hike up to 10 miles to get there, spend 9 days clearing trails, cutting fuel, building retention walls, putting in rock stairs, etc (9-hour days) then hike out again. I'll have 3 days off every other week, most likely in Santa Cruz.

This is going to mean a few things

1. I'll be really happy, since this is exactly what I wanted to do this summer
2. I'll be really tired on my days off, and probably not play much footbag
3. I'll almost certainly miss every summer event this year

So big pros/cons ultimately I think a really good opportunity for me. It's another situation where I've gotten myself into a pretty intense job, but so far I've enjoyed those. My experience so far is that I enjoy these kind of physical challenges, meet amazing people, and generally feel great about what I'm doing.

I am considering a extended trip through Europe in Sept-Oct when this is over. I'm going to reserve judgment on that till I see if there are any jams/tourneys happening during that time that would make it really worthwhile. Even so, I might just go anyway. I've never been to Europe, and with various connections through footbag, wwoofing groups, hostels.. I know a lot of people who could help to make the trip very enjoyable and inexpensive for me.

What was the 13 fearless combo?

Didn't get it on film, already starting to forget, but my recollection is: matador>blurry drifter>bs blur>dark>fog>phoenix>mat>sumo>fucking butter>blurry drifter>blurry whirl>blurry whirl>ps whirl

[Asmus]

You are welcome in Copenhagen any time!