Ivan I's Footblog

[krustykrakk]

You are the man. I am happy that you still practise even though there's finals coming and that you work right after our sessions.
Edit:

...big onion, sweet vidalia.

[isirc10]

Kicked with a bunch of people today, biggest session I've attended since I started kicking again so it was super fun. My highlights from today's session:
Ripwalk BS
Sumo
footed 69
gyro pickup bs
a few tiltless runs of over 10 contacts
Blur BSOS
Atomic ss muted whirl

I tried Nuke sets today for the first time in over a year. They were actually very consistently hitting underneath/to the inside of my knee so I figured I would actually try them seriously. It took about 15 minutes to get a good set out of it, but once I cleared it, the pdx mirage was super easy to hit. Went for drifter and it rolled off. Decided the set needed more practice and stopped before hurting something. Haven't been this happy in a while. Realizing that I can still step is also nice I suppose - for a while I was seriously worried that I wouldn't be able to do it because it required a significant jump off of my left foot, but apparently now I can do that without pain. Yay for progress. I really missed the feeling you get when you hit new tricks. I guess I'll school flip nukes next. It is my strong atomic side so it will be fun. Nathan is coming back to SC on Monday, so it will be cool to pick his brain on spinning and nukes, and life in general.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

There's like half a tear in my right eye, chills up my spine, and a smile on my face.

I understand why you haven't been this happy in a while about your game... because I also haven't been this happy about your game in a while.

[isirc10]

Today I shed like, half a drop of sweat during the session. Who am I kidding, I sweat way more than that. (And thanks for the comment, Nick)

I played with Ben and April for about 2 hours, which was more than I planned on, but oh well. Tomorrow is going to suck. Played around with spinning, stepping and other silly stuff. Ended with double downs.

ripwalk BSOS
tapping ss pickup > tapping ss pickup
drifter BSOS
paradon BSOS
barfly BS

Hit a few strong nukes that were decent, no luck with flip side - the clipper seems to be the issue, and the dex just doesn't feel snappy enough yet. Oh well, it will give me something to do. I feel like I'm coming close to the end of this footbag honeymoon where I get really excited when I hit tricks I have already hit before. Guess I'm actually gonna have to start getting better now, instead of just retracing my steps.

edit: holy shit my legs are dead. No more of this kicking 2 days in a row crap for me.

[MetZelRio]

wOw Ivan.

I'm not familliar with your shred, or what your level was previously, I haven't seen much video of you, but your highlights man...

[krustykrakk]

Thanks for being a total badass and kicking the whole weekend. I thought it would take you a lot longer to get even this far. You'll be back in no time!

Paul: to give you an idea of Ivan's level, right before he got injured, he was working on blurriest b2b

[isirc10]

wOw Ivan.

I'm not familliar with your shred, or what your level was previously, I haven't seen much video of you, but your highlights man...

Thanks man! I'm not not in many videos because I usually film them. I know I have a few runs in Nick's Riverrock video and the bigDawgs in Bethlehem one. As Ben said, one of my goals before getting injured was blurriest b2b. I was also pushing atom>atom x6 and gearing up to hit the rubberman drill. I think the biggest thing missing from my game right now is definitely consistency, which tends to happen when you don't kick for 6 months. Balance is also a bit of an issue because my left leg is a bit weaker than my right. However, the cool thing is that the muscle memory still exists for most tricks and it's just a matter of getting over a few mental roadblocks to get back to where I was previously. Surprisingly, certain tricks feel easier, even though I hadn't practiced them when I was injured.

[isirc10]

Played with the Pipebomb the past two days and it was cool. (For those of you who may or may not be government agents/computers tracking my online activity, that's a nickname for Nathan Pipenberg, might as well get it straightened out before we starting knocking on people's doors)

String length has been on a considerable upswing as I'm now getting stuff that is more than 10 contacts at will. Sure, I have scaled down the difficulty a bit and use some 2 add bails, but I need to get my stamina up before I can push string density. I didn't play great the past two sessions, but I don't really remember what I consider great anymore, and I'm alright with that as progress was made. Nathan wasn't on top of his game either, but it was still a lot of fun to be in a circle with him.

Atomsmasher b2b
Paradon BSOS
Blurriest (tried for BS, needs work)
DOD BSOS
ducking out of osis BSOS

Going home tomorrow for winter break, ought to be kicking with Nick a few times in the next 3 weeks. Gonna be a busy break, all things considered.

[krustykrakk]

Have a great break, man. Your comeback sessions have been a real treat.

[isirc10]

Played hacky with Nick and Nathan B yesterday. I had fun, even though they seemed frustrated because they were filming for a video. I didn't film, so I just went for fun tricks, throwing together some runs to keep warm. Paradons were on point, and barfly got easier all of a sudden. I regret not doing more ducking runs, and would like to work on my whirls a bit now. Drifter is still getting more relaxed which is a good sign, but it's still a relatively hard trick for me. Looks like I'll be kicking again next weekend.

[isirc10]

Well, the Calendar is over, which is both a relief, and rather sad. Tonight I instinctively checked FB and Modified for a video and remembered that there was nothing scheduled. Oops. Back to the reality of getting like 1 video a week, at best.

Not gonna lie, day 23 left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, as the Evan trailer was a bit rushed to get the deadline (still missed it by a full 64 minutes), and I wasn't sure if I wanted to release it at that point. Still think there may have been a better use for the footage, but dwelling on the past does nothing for our future. The main vegas video was done a week ahead of schedule as a backup if I didn't get the full Evan video finished in time (which I obviously didn't, and I'm glad it get's it's own special day). I ended up staying up pretty late the day before the (Vegas) video was released, wondering how the hell I was going to make it stand on it's own. Around 3am I just said fuck it and threw in some timelapse footage I got from a friend who visited Vegas three years ago, and I think that was the key piece for that edit. Yeah, I half-assed it. I don't admit to doing that very often, but day 23 definitely caught me with my pants down, and probably on fire.

Oh, the fan on my graphics card in my laptop died during a recent test render of Evan's video... I was asleep and woke up to the smell of melting plastic. Computer wasn't making any noise, so I assumed it finished rendering and I went to check. Nope, still 40 minutes left. Aluminum shell was warm, which is the case when I render stuff, then I checked my system monitor. Memory at 65%, CPU at 99% load, CPU temps stable at 96 degrees, GPU temps unresponsive, showing an error. Immediately cancel the render, turn the computer off, crack open the shell. The plastic fan is horribly deformed, and upon further inspection looks like this:

I ran diagnostics on the GPU, it seems like it shut off when it thermalled, but that saved it from destroying itself. New fan should be here in a day or two, in the mean time I'm stuck using the integrated graphics card on the laptop, so everything is twice as slow. Could have been worse. On another note, I need to update my laptop. It's 4 years old, has an i7, 16Gb ram, NVIDIA GT540M graphics, and an optical drive that is held closed with electrical tape. I've replaced the power jack twice, and now the headphone jack is starting to fail. I wanted to upgrade it to an SSD, but that never happened. Badly need USB3.0, but still stuck with 2.0. My video editing demands have seriously outgrown this poor thing.

First world problems, all of them.

Today I went on a walk (hike on gravel roads?) with my family. It was nice. I hung out with my younger sister, who I rarely get to see anymore - it's funny how much more you appreciate family when you don't see them for the majority of the year. I never really got along with my sister before (we didn't hate eachother, it was more like ignoring your younger/older sibling thing) but now it was cool to hang out.

My foot was pretty sore after walking for 3 miles. Any other time, I would be embarrassed by that, but that's just the way things are gonna be for now. NYJ is suddenly starting to look like a possibility. At this point, it will come down to me being able to finish up some work before the trip, and maybe scrapping together some money so I don't have to eat saltines and peanut butter the entire time. We'll see about that.

[isirc10]

Nick stopped by today and we kicked a bit at Wentz Run Park. It was beautiful out, and the session was nice and chill. Nick didn't do anything crazy, but he helped me a good bit on various tricks. I learned how to zoom, I guess. It's pretty cool, especially since I hadn't really thought about that set/trick before (I messed with it once before break, and only gave it 2 attempts) Doing my best to finish up work and other projects before the new year. Starting to think that I might actually make it to NYJ.

Also, it's super weird to play outside. On all of my good spins, I ended up looking directly into the setting sun... I forgot that existed...

[isirc10]

Well, NYJ is a no-go. There is just too much work to be finished before the deadline (I have to deliver a somewhat presentable GUI for a database application, and even though I've been making leaps and bounds, it's gonna take the entire weekend for me to tie off all of the loose ends)

I'm also mentoring a high school robotics team, and this year's game is being released this weekend, so it would have been rather hectic coming back from NYJ and straight to work and volunteering...

With a new fan in my computer, I have been plugging away at Evan's video. I decided to break out the After Effects with this one. Sure, I may look back at this in a few years and laugh, but it's a hell of a lot of fun, and should make for a cool looking video. I do my best to try out something new in each video I put out, and this will be no exception. Also, I just got a good bit of footage from Ken, which ought to be fun to edit.

2014 is almost over - I'm not really gonna reflect on it because I'm on a roll with good stuff happening recently (I'm not even mad I can't go to NYJ). Went to the doctor for my Achilles and things are progressing nicely. Tendon strength is at around 90% now, so I can really work on getting the muscles back in shape.Job is super interesting right now, and next semester looks to be a good one. Things are definitely looking bright.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

*flips table*

[akprice]

sorry you can't make it to nyj. you will be missed! good luck with the gui!

[krustykrakk]

It's awesome to hear about your Achilles getting better. Good luck in your job and your studies. I look forward to the kick with you!

[boyle]

Nice video bloke. Will you go to Worlds this year?

[isirc10]

Thanks! I've thought about going, but once again, tickets aren't cheap and the time is even harder to get. I'm not ruling it out completely just yet, but it's not a very likely scenario.

It seems like people enjoyed the video, which makes all of the time spent worth it. The After Effects graphic work took about 25 hours (only my second time I've used AE, so it was pretty slow going at first) and I probably spent about 10-15 hours developing the concept, revising, test rendering and cutting footage. I remember Jay saying something about how long it took for him to make the sports/life videos, and I can totally relate. There are a few things I would change with the video, but they are all minor - I'm happy with the effort I put in, and the product I got out. I've got the second half of the footage to edit now, as well as some nice Ken stuff he just sent me. Pro tip: when transferring footage over the internet, use Google Drive instead of Dropbox. Sooooo much faster.

Oh, I played footbag yesterday. It was the first solo session in a while, and I played outdoors. It was around 37 degrees out, which made things interesting. It took about 15 minutes to warm up, and my lungs hurt a bit from the cold air, but overall I found it to be no different from an indoor session. The surface was better, as was the lighting. I played pretty shitty at first, and then somehow dislocated my right shoulder... that hurt like a bitch and I was on the ground for about 30 seconds before I able to pop it back in, but it also forced me to really focus on relaxing my upper body for the rest of the session. All of a sudden, I started playing really well. Coincidence? I think not.

ss butterfly x 3 bs
DDD bs
pdx mirage > butterfly > rpt > pdx illusion > butterfly rpt (for 24 contacts)
legbeater BSOS
osis x 32

So my arm still hurts, and I'm missing the biggest footbag tournament of the year, but I'm still happy. Zooms still surprise me every time I hit them, but they are coming along, and atomics are finally starting to feel easier. Haven't touched stepping much, as my leg just doesn't feel quite right with the jump, but I will have plenty of time to work on that later. I'm taking a short break from editing ANYTHING... so life is good.

[boyle]

your injury recovery looks to be right on track. Doing stuff like legbeater must be giving you a lot of confidence. The editing is a hard one, because (for a good video), it's a huge amount of hours into a short reward. Some people say "yeah cool", and a few might say "wow", and a couple may say "that's the best video ever made". But all of those compliments are a little short lived.

The best thing, not just for the creator of the video, but for the community in general, is having these kind of high quality videos as a record showing not just people pushing their games, but the whole of the sport. Thanks for all your work on the videos. Can't wait to see the next section.