Years End

Well its New Years Eve and I got so much to show for it.

This year has been filled with so much fun I can't even tell you how great my life is. I have made new friends, traveled to new location all over the planet and just grew as a person.

BUT now is the time to look to the future and what it holds.

So here is a look into my future or what I hope it will be. I guess the best place to start is my New Years Resolution. Last year was to surf 150 day in the year. I am happy to say I did complete this goal. And just like last years goal this years is about surfing also. My resolution this year is to Surf 20 new locations that I have never surfed before.

I have two already planed, in a few weeks I am heading to Puerto Rico to visit my friend who lives there. I also have already booked my next big surf trip to Mainland Mexico in September for 10 days. I also have a lot of places in LA and Santa Barbara that I have not surfed so this should be an easy one to complete. So I have also decided to try to do the most popular resolution out there. Yep you guessed it weight loss. I want to try to get back down to 150-160 lbs. This means I need to lose about 15-20 lbs. Doesn't sound to hard right, Well you talking to the fast food king of Orange County and the Candyman of Billabong. And on top of that they always say the last 10 lbs. are the hardest to lose.

So moving on here is a little update in my life. This is a little of what I have been up to the last few weeks and what I am going to get into next year.

Next year I am getting more into becoming more of a watermen.

So I am go to be taking up

Body Surfing

And a new thing called Dolphin Surfing. It is just like body surfing but you ride under the water behind the wave. I can already body surf pretty good so I am hopping to pick up and get better at both of them really easy. Next I am going to try my hand at skim boarding.

I was luck to get this beauty for Christmas and can't wait to give it a try.

That about does it for new things for next year.

So here is what I have been up to.

*Hanging out with my good friend Bay at here house.

This is us at her families Christmas Eve Party.

This is me sledding in her backyard in CDM.

They have snow made for the whole neighborhood to come and have a

White Christmas.

Went shooting with some of my friends from work. We shot rifles, hand guns and shotguns all day from like 10 to 5 it was a great day out and we had tones of fun.

Got myself a Universal Studios pass. Don't know how much I will use it seeing I did almost everything the day we got the pass but who knows it could be fun to just go back and hang out.

Went and looked at Christmas lights in Balboa it was fun had a good time (some people have way to much time on there hands) this house had a soap blower on the roof to make it look like it was snowing and the lights blinked in sync with the much that was playing.

And last of course was play with my camera. I have been having so much fun taking photos with it. Be it shooting around Disneyland or of my friends jumping on the tramp. I love my camera best gift I could have got myself.

Well I hope you are having as much fun as I am these last few days of 2011. And I look forward to seeing all you next year. The last year we will be here Dec. 2012 (haha if you believe in that crap)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Naked and Famous in the Rain

No I'm not talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers song.

I'm talking about the latest concert I went to. Last night I enjoyed a great concert by

THE NAKED AND FAMOUS

The Naked and Famous is a band from New Zealand and have only been out since late 2010. I have been into them since about December 2010 when I came across their song Punching In A Dream on a blog I follow. Since that point on I have been a fan.

I tried to see them a few weeks back at Belly Up down in San Diego, but tickets sold out before I could get any. So When I found out they were playing down the street from my house at another small venue I didn't wait. I quick called the box office and snatched up some ticket and cleared my calendar. Needless to say it was well worth it. Turns out the venue SOLD OUT the next day, I guess it pays to be on Myspace sometimes still. Seeing this was the site that sent me the email first informing me that they were playing there. Well anyways the show was amazing the venue is under new management and it's looking better then even and the sound system is amazing. My only down fall was once again I couldn't bring in my good SLR camera in only point and shoots. So you will have to settle for some iPhone photos instead of others. I am working on getting a Press Pass so I don't have this problem any more.

But until then enjoy.

Here is a little video I made from the the night.

Christmas Present Updates

So I told you all about my Christmas presents to myself. And now is the time to share them with you. Here is the first things I did with my camera.

Went to Disneyland with some friends:

Was hired as the photographer for a fashion show:

(photos got published in the local newspaper)

Went street skating:

(self photo thanks to timer and tripod)

Took an almost great photo of my bros dog:

Well that was my camera next I guess would be my phone. To start off I guess I should tell you that I have yet to use SIRI. One of the main new things on the phone. And now that I have a good camera I haven't been using my iPhone as my camera that much. But I did watch a webcast of the Billabong Pipe Masters on my phone from the beach. Here are some screen shots from the event of my art work that I do every year.

And last is my new surfboard. She is a beauty. I rode her yesterday for the first time. I normally don't ride my boards for at least a week once I get them to let the glass harden. But it turns out my phone wasn't working I guess and it had been sitting in the shop for a week waiting for me. I am currently working on the art that I am going to paint on it. More on that to come.

My new T-Pat 5'11" 18" diamond tail

Hope you enjoyed the photos. More to come you can count on it.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Tis the season for giving and who deserves to get something more then...

ME!!!

I say this because I have been good all year. I have been nice to everyone I know even people I don't care for too much. And I have not seen any pay back for it. Now before you go and say

"Now Troy that's not what giving is about"

Let me stop you. I know this better then any one. As a matter of fact I would like to share a little story with you about something that happen to me.

It was a beautiful day out the weathers warm, the birds are singing and I'm hanging with some cool people at the happiest place in the world Disneyland. One in particular more then others. His name is Matix,

now Matix is only three but that doesn't stop him from being one of the coolest kids I know. He is polite, he gets along with everyone and always has a smile on. So me and Matix are at Disneyland having a good time and out of no where he says to me. "Hey why are you so nice?" I am quick to reply with "what do you mean?" He ask again "why are you so nice?" This time I tell him "Because that is how you should be, you should be nice to everyone." He tells me "NOOOOO". My reply to that was "YESSS and don't let anyone tell you different." He says to me "Oh Ok if you say so". Smart kid but I don't know who is telling not to be nice???

Anyways, I went on for the rest of the day being nice and having a great time with Matix and the rest of my friends. But this question kept popping into my mind.

WHY ARE YOU SO NICE?

I have people tell me before that I am too nice but no one ever ask me why?

Well this bring me back to the start of this post. Since I am so nice I have decided to give myself some treats this Christmas. I always give myself one gift every year mainly because I don't want anyone spending there money on me. But this year I gave myself three big gifts.

The first is still on the way. I treated myself to a new Timmy Patterson Surfboard

I have not had a new board in over a year so it was time for one.

The second was a new SLR Canon Camera.

I have been getting more and more into my photography and I decided it was time to up grade and maybe try to make some money off it. I got the new T3i Rebel. I have already been booked to shot my friends Christmas Family Photos and I might be the surf photographer for the Billabong Surf with a Pro trip to mainland Mexico in September.

And last but not least. I got the new iPhone 4S

Some might ask why? Well why not I sold my old iPhone 4 online for $290 and the new one only cost $350 so I say to you why not. Why would I not have the newest $350 iPhone for only $60.

So my last question is have you been nice all year is Santa going to be good to you this year?

Parlez vous francais?

Yeah I dont... But that doesn't stop me from LOVING the group YELLE from france and on Monday night they were in town to play a show at The Wiltern. The show was amazing none stop dancing and singing along. Oh wait you ask, I speak French? Nope but I have been listening to this band for 3 years now and can sing along. I have looked up lyrics just so I can kind of know what she is singing about. Now here is the down fall.

1. It turns out you can not bring a camera in that has detachable lens unless you have a press pass. It's totally ok to take photos but not with a camera with a detachable lens. Yeah I said WTF also. The people who run the venue couldn't even give me a good reason why.

2. Turns out the update to my video app that I did last week has a cool new feature it defaults the Mic to OFF. So all my videos have no sound.

Needless to say I was really bummed that I couldn't take good photos since I didn't bring my point and shot and now my videos have no sound. I did take one short clip vid to text to my friend. So here is that and some of the crappy photos also that I took on my phone.

FAME I'm going to Live forever

I'm getting more and more famous. So as you may or may not know I am friends with the lead singer and the drummer of DATAROCK. A few weeks back you may remember a post about a concert in LA. Well the video that they shot on location has come out on youtube and I appear in it a few times in the crowd. Now its not a clear shot of me cause of the effect and the 6 foot tall guy standing next to me but you can still catch a glimpse of my face now and then. But its cool to be in a video of the band that I have been seeing for 5 years now and have become friends with.

Here is a screen grab from the vid.

It was a great night and now I can remember it forever. Here is the video

Me and My Photography

Oh Halloween weekend my work had it's 12th annual Cosmic Creek Surf Contest. I have been going to it for the last 5 years. Two years ago I decided I wanted to try my hand at shooting the contest instead of surfing in it. I thought I did a great job, then it turned out I did do a great job. Because about 90% of the photos that were posted for some reason looked almost like mine

(as seen below).

Photo posted on surf line 2 years ago

My photo

The other photographer must have been standing right behind me. Well this year I was super amped to get my photos published. I made sure to get to the contest early. Shoot all day and then work all night color correcting and cropping them. But it turned out for the best because they used a lot of them for the write up on surf line. So I'm not saying my photographer career is starting but I am getting more and more into it. Here is the link to SURFLINE so you can see the photos and my amazing name. I will be signing autographs later this week.

Thats my photo on the news feed

On a side note this is the 3rd time my photos have been used. The first was for a poster to promote Billabong Surf With A Pro. And the 2nd time was a stock photo I shoot at a Yelle concert that they used for the all the art work for the Design For Humanity event (seen below).

Photo from Yelle Concert

Event art work

So if you ever need any photos taken don't hesitate to call. Also I shoot video also here is a video form the concert that followed the contest.