The past couple weeks have been chaotic as we’re building out our new office space here in Portland (which I’ll post about separately), in the middle of which I took off to PA to shoot some snowboarding at Seven Springs Resort. Forum Snowboards sponsored a “real street” inspired snowboard park, and I headed out to the mountains near Pittsburgh to shoot the grand opening for Yobeat. The resulting video can be viewed after the jump. That’s Austen Sweetin above.

I had nothing to do with making this, but The Big Lebowski is, without a doubt, my favorite film. The Coen Brothers are brilliant. This is the story of the dude behind “The Dude,” Jeff Dowd, produced as part of the USA character project. Since I also watch almost exclusively documentaries these days (after the Big Lebowski, nothing else really seems relevant), the fact that this exists is basically a dream come true. Or something. Watch it in its entirety after the jump (it autoplays so I had to put it on another page).

I mentioned this video a couple weeks ago, that’s been up over on LevelMag.com in their player. I had a bunch of great stuff left over from the Yobeat interviews I did with Draplin that I posted a little while back, and just couldn’t leave this stuff on the cutting room floor. Like the Yobeat videos, this one got featured over on the design site Notcot.org, and received a lot of good feedback. Aaron’s become a big name in the design world in recent years, and his work hold up to the image he’s built. Check out his workif you haven’t already.

I remember a few years ago as photographers we’d labor over strange ways and devices to get cool POV perspectives. In the last few years, GoPro and a few other manufacturers have made it incredibly easy and cheap. I’ve been itching to try some flatland stuff with it for a while, but kept forgetting. This time around, I remembered to bring it, but forgot to charge it, so I only got a few clips, but I thought it was neat. These suckers have become cliché in an “everyone’s doing it sort of way.” Nevertheless if gives a neat perspective that can be used well in moderation. Next time, with more planning and battery charging, I might try it with two of them, to splice different angles together.

We went up to the 2011 Holy Oly at the Summit at Snoqualmie near Seattle on Saturday. Holy Oly is a fun, mellow snowboard contest, which features a huge quarterpipe, and jib/rail set up. The winner for the day (as judged by a panel of notable snow industry veterans) wins a pallet of Olympia beer, and gets his (or her) name etched into the “Holiest of the Holy” trophy. This was the 8th annual event, and past winners include Peter Line, Austin Hironaka, and Wille Yli Luoma. This year, Manuel Diaz gets to lug a bunch of beer back to Chile. I put together the above video for Yobeat. Yes, the soundtrack is sarcastic.You can also check out the story and Brooke’s photo gallery on Yobeat.

I also put together a “Show and Tell” video for Level Magazine, with some cool footage I had of Aaron Draplin that wasn’t used in the Yobeat video series from a few weeks back. In this one, Draplin shows some of the neat old packaging he’s collected from estate sales over the years. Some would consider it junk, but as Aaron points out it has a “Fuckin’ Rad value of millions and millions of dollars.” Check it out here.

The second part of the video interview I did with design guru Aaron Draplin is up on Yobeat. This one talks a lot about his work ethic… scrapping together a lot of “little stuff” versus working with the big guys. He also touches on early graphic influences including legendary skate artists like Jim Phillips. If you get the chance to see one of his design lectures around the country, do it.

This is part one of an interview we did with Graphic Designer Aaron Draplin. Draplin cut his teeth in snowboarding, working on Snowboarder Magazine, Snowboard Mag, and on identities for brands like Union Binding Co. and Coal. He’s since evolved into national design speaking gigs and has done work for the Obama administration. Part Two next week.

I spent this weekend out at Mt. Bachelor filming the the 2010 Dirksen Derby, a snowboard slalom race put on by legendary pro snowboarder Josh Dirksen. This is the fourth year of the Derby but the first one I’ve made it to. We tried to go last year, but an insane ice storm kept us in Portland. This year, we headed out a day ahead of time to be safe, and spent the weekend in Bend, and riding Mt. Bachelor. The first day was absolutely miserable — rain, lots of rain — but the second day, which this video covers, was awesome. The event is super-fun, with a great low-key vibe, and it’s all for a good cause. The proceeds go to Josh’s friend Tyler Ecklund, who was paralyzed a few years ago snowboarding. Check out the full coverage and photo gallery on Yobeat.

I shot video of a snowboard rail contest in the pouring rain on Saturday up in Seattle (who knew it rained in Seattle) for YoBeat.com. The resulting short video went up last night. If you’re into mini-shred snowboarding, or in this case, slushboarding, check it out. Despite the rain, it was a fun event, and had a surprisingly large crowd of plastic bag wearing snowboard enthusiasts.

When I moved to California in 1999 I faded out of riding flatland and started riding more ramps and skatepark, mostly because that’s what the guys I liked riding with out there rode. The last full flatland video part I filmed for was Moronics in Action, a New England area video made by Mark Florek around 1997. While I was pulling together some old footage for the interview ESPN did a few weeks back, I came across this section, and figured I’d upload it so I’ve got it archived. The first link is over a minute long. At the time I was really into the whole linking shit forever thing. There were some other clips spread throughout the video, but this is my main part in the video. This video came out about two years before I stopped riding flat regularly, so I’m sure there’s some newer footage somewhere out there, but I haven’t come across more than a couple clips. A few months back I posted an older section from Wire’s “Live Wire” (1995), which you should check out here.