Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Green Machine
Amazingly this 350kph F1 racing car is claiming pole position in the race to save the world.
The marketing angle on this is, by making a donation to the myearthdream trust will result in your name and pledge eventually appearing on the bodywork of the Honda Formula 1 racing car, there are 600,000 pixels per car. Ok, the non-logo car with a globe wrapping the entire bodywork makes a nice change from the archetypal Formula 1 car and thats pretty much it! What this evident marketing stunt can’t hide is the fact that it also drinks a litre every 2 kilometres and pumps out 138 tonnes of carbon a year.
"Tell 'em they're my earth dreamin'!" and the car should go straight to the pool room.
The marketing angle on this is, by making a donation to the myearthdream trust will result in your name and pledge eventually appearing on the bodywork of the Honda Formula 1 racing car, there are 600,000 pixels per car. Ok, the non-logo car with a globe wrapping the entire bodywork makes a nice change from the archetypal Formula 1 car and thats pretty much it! What this evident marketing stunt can’t hide is the fact that it also drinks a litre every 2 kilometres and pumps out 138 tonnes of carbon a year.
"Tell 'em they're my earth dreamin'!" and the car should go straight to the pool room.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Wollumbin Leg Burner
I ran up Mt Warning (now officially also known as just Wollumbin) again this afternoon. Record time for me. 48mins up from the car park to viewing platform - 33 down. Again it was a beautiful day with a stunning view of everything from the top.
Going up is a no brainer. It's merely a thigh and lung burn. The challenge being to push on as hard as possible. Coming down is a different challenge.
I rolled my ankle during a momentary lapse of concentration about half way down but kept going as fast as I could favouring the good leg, the twisted one's a bit swollen now. I like to run down fast letting gravity do most of the work. Its a zen activity requiring total attention to every step because of the stones and tree roots and general irregularity of the track. When the mind wonders from the immediate present moment - the next foot placement - an ankle injury is more than likely, or worse still tripping over at full momentum.
Near the end I was startled by a loud crunching crashing sound. Just off the track I watched a big dead palm branch fall to the ground. First thought was, "good thing it wasn't on my head", then all I could think was that was the answer to the question... If a tree fell in the forest I'd bloody hear it alright.
Going up is a no brainer. It's merely a thigh and lung burn. The challenge being to push on as hard as possible. Coming down is a different challenge.
I rolled my ankle during a momentary lapse of concentration about half way down but kept going as fast as I could favouring the good leg, the twisted one's a bit swollen now. I like to run down fast letting gravity do most of the work. Its a zen activity requiring total attention to every step because of the stones and tree roots and general irregularity of the track. When the mind wonders from the immediate present moment - the next foot placement - an ankle injury is more than likely, or worse still tripping over at full momentum.
Near the end I was startled by a loud crunching crashing sound. Just off the track I watched a big dead palm branch fall to the ground. First thought was, "good thing it wasn't on my head", then all I could think was that was the answer to the question... If a tree fell in the forest I'd bloody hear it alright.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Epic Surf Session
I just got back from a 3.5hr surf at Cudgen Reef a new spot for me that I surfed for the first time last week. This place is gold. I reckon its the best spot on the Gold Coast if you aren't here for the point breaks.
Last week we had some good swell and this day it was clean and about 5 foot. I paddled out not really knowing where the take of spot was or the reef for that matter. It sits about 150 metres off the beach. This is a real deal reef setup with heavy dredging perfect tubes growing out of deep water. I was there for no more that 15 mins when 8 bodyboarders and 3 photographers turned up. Still with that many guys I got more than my share. One other surfer came out who had the drop wired and got the best barrel I'd seen for a while. The boogers where taking off really late drop knee and busting some big airs. That was last week.
So with another good south swell running and nice conditions I went up there again this morning. 3 guys out one being WCT pro Troy Brooks (with a photographer). He went in about half hour later. So it was pretty good with only 3 of us for about an hour with perfect conditions and some amazing waves coming through. One of the guys was an Italian guy who reckons the surf in Italy is underrated. A big pod of 20 or so dolphins were fishing and swimming around us. At one point a few metres away a bunch of bait fish breached the surface followed by some metre long Tuna flying through the air. Pretty full on. I've never seen something like that. It was a live marine wildlife show out there (no I didn't see any man eating fish which was ok with me).
Then out of nowhere world no. 3 Joel Parkinson, Acher Pacey some hawaiians and a few others show up including the guy that got the barrel of the day last week. Then the jetski with the camera crew.
Well I must say the conditions were right, the tide dropping out making it really shallow and hollow. I witnessed the most critical late drop behind the peak heaving deep ass tube riding I had seen for, well probably ever. Inspiring. The break was somewhat shifty so there was the odd wide ones that I could grab and watch the pros on the paddle back out. Acher got the wave of the session, super late free fall drop and sooo far back in the the tube. Joel and I were poised on the shoulder screaming. When he paddle back out, Parko was clapping claiming "that was a 10". Frankly all those dudes were tube masters. I seriously have a new appreciation for how critical a wave can be surfed.
I finally snapped my leg rope and had to swim back to the beach. I was pretty over it anyway. I'd been out for ages and was getting sun burned and thirsty. This was the best surf session I'd lucked into for years.
Last week we had some good swell and this day it was clean and about 5 foot. I paddled out not really knowing where the take of spot was or the reef for that matter. It sits about 150 metres off the beach. This is a real deal reef setup with heavy dredging perfect tubes growing out of deep water. I was there for no more that 15 mins when 8 bodyboarders and 3 photographers turned up. Still with that many guys I got more than my share. One other surfer came out who had the drop wired and got the best barrel I'd seen for a while. The boogers where taking off really late drop knee and busting some big airs. That was last week.
So with another good south swell running and nice conditions I went up there again this morning. 3 guys out one being WCT pro Troy Brooks (with a photographer). He went in about half hour later. So it was pretty good with only 3 of us for about an hour with perfect conditions and some amazing waves coming through. One of the guys was an Italian guy who reckons the surf in Italy is underrated. A big pod of 20 or so dolphins were fishing and swimming around us. At one point a few metres away a bunch of bait fish breached the surface followed by some metre long Tuna flying through the air. Pretty full on. I've never seen something like that. It was a live marine wildlife show out there (no I didn't see any man eating fish which was ok with me).
Then out of nowhere world no. 3 Joel Parkinson, Acher Pacey some hawaiians and a few others show up including the guy that got the barrel of the day last week. Then the jetski with the camera crew.
Well I must say the conditions were right, the tide dropping out making it really shallow and hollow. I witnessed the most critical late drop behind the peak heaving deep ass tube riding I had seen for, well probably ever. Inspiring. The break was somewhat shifty so there was the odd wide ones that I could grab and watch the pros on the paddle back out. Acher got the wave of the session, super late free fall drop and sooo far back in the the tube. Joel and I were poised on the shoulder screaming. When he paddle back out, Parko was clapping claiming "that was a 10". Frankly all those dudes were tube masters. I seriously have a new appreciation for how critical a wave can be surfed.
I finally snapped my leg rope and had to swim back to the beach. I was pretty over it anyway. I'd been out for ages and was getting sun burned and thirsty. This was the best surf session I'd lucked into for years.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Ok back on the blog
Well. We have been slack with updating our blog for the past few months haven't we.
It feels like quite a lot has happened. Especially Tia's growth. She is now mobile. Crawling and swimming and eating.
Christmas at our place. Sydney over Australia Day weekend. Ayako driving a car. All time surf more than once in the past few months. QuiksilverPro at Snapper had awesome waves. New job contracts. Run up Mount Warning in under 1hr. Tool.
That's it in a nut shell.
Make sure you check out and book mark our new picture gallery http://picasaweb.google.com/ayakojordan
See ya
Jord
It feels like quite a lot has happened. Especially Tia's growth. She is now mobile. Crawling and swimming and eating.
Christmas at our place. Sydney over Australia Day weekend. Ayako driving a car. All time surf more than once in the past few months. QuiksilverPro at Snapper had awesome waves. New job contracts. Run up Mount Warning in under 1hr. Tool.
That's it in a nut shell.
Make sure you check out and book mark our new picture gallery http://picasaweb.google.com/ayakojordan
See ya
Jord
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
TOOL
TOOL at the syd ent centre cranked. Good 'ol fashioned power rock at its finest. The sound was amazing from straight front and centre (I had to go check it). It lost a little bit of its beautiful clarity on the high frequencies, as to be expected from where we were seated right around the side of the stage. But Bass is not so bad. The show was pretty long (over 2 hours) playing favs from their repertoire and a good chunk of the new album. No encore. No over showmanship. Just perfectly played solid heavy slab riffing.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Electric Storm
Sometimes I love the awesome power of nature. This truly amazing electric storm passed through Cabarita last night. Natures fireworks in full glory. It was some of the most spectacular lightning I have ever seen. Flashes every few seconds, some forks filling my view of the sky and many seemed to be earthing themselves. Again I was too late to get out there with my camera and actually a bit apprehensive to go up on the headland for fear of being fried. It was seriously that full on. This photo (a 10 second time exposure) was taken in the 5-10 minutes I had before I got hammered by violent wind then rain and mini hail stones. Clearly armageddon was upon us. Shame I couldn't capture the really good forked spider web strikes on camera. Incredibly the whole storm blew by and had gone past us up the coast in about half an hour leaving relative calm and nearly clear sky. Cool.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Face plant
Richy dropped by Saturday, no surf, couldn't find a tennis court to play on, so we hit the skate ramp. I lasted about 3 turns before landing on my head. No big deal for a guy like myself with no brains. 3 stitches should at least keep me from bleeding to death.
Koichi's Birthday
Food, beer, table tennis championships and more bouncing babies than you can giggle at all at once. Happy 32 million Koich.
Zoe & Teresa
It was good to see Zoe and Teresa Miller down here. Thanks for the splaydes. See you again soon.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
DC vs Distillation
After including some statistics for jetboats in the previous post it got me to thinking. I'm not really a motor sports person but somehow have been involved in witnessing a fair bit of motor sport recently - stay with me on this one - I conclude, the fact that a jetboat uses 20 litres of fuel in 50 seconds is impressive - sort of, fun - yes. But I think it is rude to the person who spends their money on a hybrid technology motor car for example (to hopefully do something about our suffocating planet), and insulting to the children of the world (or will be by next generation). Have they (the petrol heads) read the news. If that's too convoluted maybe this isn't, read the Stern review summary. Could it be really excessive combustion engines aren't that cutting edge and cool any more?
Right, before you shout "killjoy!", you might want to see this first. If you haven't heard of associations like NEDRA - click here. Imagine how cool it'd be with Indy cars, F1 and jetboats powered by volts instead of burning fuel. They'd be relatively silent and just as fast within a couple of years of manufacturers innovation. Bring it on... remembering consideration to correct battery recycling and renewable electricity production.
In 1982 20 litres in 50 seconds was impressive. I think post year 2000, 336 volts, "Inpira" 12V batteries, Zilla 420 kW controller, is much more impressive. It's all about Amp's baby.
See an Electric Wrightspeed X1 beat a Ferrari, its modified from an Ariel Atom - Top Gear TV test the Ariel Atom
Right, before you shout "killjoy!", you might want to see this first. If you haven't heard of associations like NEDRA - click here. Imagine how cool it'd be with Indy cars, F1 and jetboats powered by volts instead of burning fuel. They'd be relatively silent and just as fast within a couple of years of manufacturers innovation. Bring it on... remembering consideration to correct battery recycling and renewable electricity production.
In 1982 20 litres in 50 seconds was impressive. I think post year 2000, 336 volts, "Inpira" 12V batteries, Zilla 420 kW controller, is much more impressive. It's all about Amp's baby.
See an Electric Wrightspeed X1 beat a Ferrari, its modified from an Ariel Atom - Top Gear TV test the Ariel Atom
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Inland Jetboat Surprise
We went for a nice impromptu little Sunday drive today, to check the surf conditions mostly, down at Hasting Point. On the way back, only a couple of minutes from home, I drove up a rural street to show Ayako where I had explored a few days earlier. It leads off past the local pony club around the back of the hill at Cabarita. There are some really nice properties with horses and cows and open fields, it feels like real deal farm country and very pretty. I bought a big bag of bananas for $2 at an honesty system roadside stall here the other day.
This time just before the bananas we noticed a small helicopter flying low and a bunch of cars parked up a dirt track. Curiosty taking over I drove up the track slowly, with beer and hot chips vendor vans coming into view. This must be a rodeo or a boxcar speedway or something we thought. To our laughing surprise we saw a hill of revheads and a muddy little swamp racecourse at its base. Crikey! Its a bloody jetboat track. Well this was unexpected to say the least. About 5km inland next to a sugar cane field there was this Australian Superboat Championships taking place. We turned up for the finals. Brilliant. I didn't bring my camera, oh well (photos are from the official website). This apparently is one of the premier circuits in the country. It was quite low key with no big signs or fanfare for such a serious event.
"Likened to rally driving on water, the boats can accelerate from 0 to 160km’s in under two seconds while completing 180 degree corners pulling 5-6 G’s similar to those found in a F-111 fighter jet. It is a visual spectacular unseen in any other form of motor sport" to quote www.v8superboats.com.au
"Producing in excess of 900 horsepower. V8 Superboat engines use methanol fuel and have an incredible fuel-burn rate of 20 litres per average run lasting around 50 seconds."
So that was it. 20 minutes or so later we were off continuing our nice little drive in the country, having watched about 5-6 runs and the Australian champ be crowned. So much for pony clubs.
This time just before the bananas we noticed a small helicopter flying low and a bunch of cars parked up a dirt track. Curiosty taking over I drove up the track slowly, with beer and hot chips vendor vans coming into view. This must be a rodeo or a boxcar speedway or something we thought. To our laughing surprise we saw a hill of revheads and a muddy little swamp racecourse at its base. Crikey! Its a bloody jetboat track. Well this was unexpected to say the least. About 5km inland next to a sugar cane field there was this Australian Superboat Championships taking place. We turned up for the finals. Brilliant. I didn't bring my camera, oh well (photos are from the official website). This apparently is one of the premier circuits in the country. It was quite low key with no big signs or fanfare for such a serious event.
"Likened to rally driving on water, the boats can accelerate from 0 to 160km’s in under two seconds while completing 180 degree corners pulling 5-6 G’s similar to those found in a F-111 fighter jet. It is a visual spectacular unseen in any other form of motor sport" to quote www.v8superboats.com.au"Producing in excess of 900 horsepower. V8 Superboat engines use methanol fuel and have an incredible fuel-burn rate of 20 litres per average run lasting around 50 seconds."
So that was it. 20 minutes or so later we were off continuing our nice little drive in the country, having watched about 5-6 runs and the Australian champ be crowned. So much for pony clubs.
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