Mt. Baker Film Fest is coming up quick on October 22nd, expect a lot of local talent coming out to participate. Mt. Baker Film Fest attracts photographers, cinematographers, production teams, snowboard & skiers of all different skill levels and passionate hobbyists.
Last year’s 08-09 fest was no joke, a lot of competitive video production teams battle it out. There is even professional level films thrown in the mix. If you going to be there, drop me a line.
Please join us for this yearly fall event to showcase the movie makers and photographers of our industry. The doors open at 6:00 pm for a Vendor Expo, carnival games for prizes, a DJ and more.
Movies
The movies start at 7:00 and will be showing at the Mt. Baker Theatre in Bellingham. We will be updating this page with the movies we will be showing when the final selections are made. Movies are rated PG-13
09-10 Passholders FREE – Prices
All 2009-10 Season Passholders get in for free before 7:00 (bring your pass – we won’t have a list!) Non -passholders $7.50 pre sale (Mt. Baker Ski Area Business Office) or $9 night of . . . Grand Prize for games is a Season Pass!
9:00 After-Party at the Wild Buffalo
Join us at the Wild Buffalo for an after-party that will have two DJs, fish tacos, alley party, raffles and lots more! Over 21 only! $6 pre sale (Mt. Baker Business Office) or $9 at the door the night of . . . this event is packed and sells out quickly so get your tickets early!
Also, picked up a new snowboard for this season! I was hanging out with Nina, the graphic / web designer for Mt. Baker Ski Resort. We’re going to hang up on the slopes, practice for a couple competitions.
Yaletown looks awesome… I have a few good memories from running rampant on the streets of Vancouver. British Columbia, the province where everything is greener then Washington State! So here’s a cute video Amy Kizaki and Laura Howren put together. Two young real estate agents in Vancouver B.C.
If you didn’t know, Amy is awesome. She is involved with the site helped I built her along with Gabe and Kirk, VancouverPowerSearch.com. Amy and Laura are trying out vlogging in an active community of real estate agents. Other agents that vlog in Vancouver, British Columbia include Kye Grace and Ian Wyatt.
I have been helping Amy Kizaki come up with topic idea’s to discuss in her vlogs. We sat down at Woods Coffee a few months back discussing idea’s of what interested home buyers might want to see. There’s a lot of topics that come to mind, and you’ll be seeing more vlogs from Amy and her team at VancouverPowerSearch.com!
See, I’m not just passionate about Nissans… I like living in houses too!
Since Forza 3 is coming out soon, I figured I’d start rocking out the office with the Forza 2 soundtrack. If you see any songs missing, please comment and I’ll add them. Booyah!
Oh, we should build out the Forza 3 playlist as soon as someone find’s the track listings!
BTW: I added a few songs at the end not relevant to Forza 2, but are some inspirational songs that a few gear heads have probably heard before
I woke up at 4am and attempted to dragged my ass out of bed. It only took 3-4 snooze buttons for me to realize I had to be in Seattle by 7am. Right around 4:46am I remembered I should probably take a shower. With nothing in my stomach, somehow I left my house by 5am. Since I was helping setup for WordCamp Seattle, I had to be there by 7.
The drive down to Seattle was great either then the fact that I ran out of gas in Mount Vernon (gas gauge broke). When the engine died, I coasted off of i5 straight towards a Shell gas station. I came to a complete stop 20 yards from the pump… The push was uphill. -_- It took a few minutes to push but I got it to the pump and gassed up! I bought a Monster Energy drink and a burrito.
By the time I reached the Fremont area, the burrito was processed and the Monster Energy was half empty. My gas gauge read below E but my trip meter guaranteed I had at least 350km left. I parked my trusty s13 outside the Adobe building. When I walked in, I saw the sign “Adobe Plaza Gallery.” I stood in awe and realized I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop since 1998.
Adobe Plaza Gallery - z0mg
I continued to walk around looking for Calvin Freitas, my supervisor for WordCamp Seattle. I walking down the halls of Adobe and looked up and saw CAT5 cables and fiber optic lines. There were production rooms with blinking lights and a massive conference room that would hold over 250 individuals for WordCamp!
Adobe Conference Center - Seattle WA
The day started out with an introduction by Josh Harrison – a developer from Clearwire. Josh welcomed everyone to WordCamp Seattle 2009 and gave a brief introduction and passed the mic onto Chris Pirillo. When Chris began his speech about Community, it dawned on me that he’s a lot shorter in real life.
Above: Chris Pirillo’s speech on Community from WordCamp San Fransisco 2009.
A very inspirational speech by Chris and I hope in the next year we can grow the WordPress community in the northwest. I’ve thought about what he said and thought “How can I apply this to the real estate industry? How can I apply this to NissanPacific?” I think in 2010, I’ll encourage more of my colleagues to attend.
Shortly after Pirillo’s speech I noticed him ping this:
Tweet about Wicket Pixie
I figured I’d introduce myself after his speech and ask him where he wanted to go with his open source project. When I walked up to Chris, he was already speaking with Donald DeSantis about Pirillo’s open source wp-theme, Wicket Pixie. I caught about 3 minutes of the end of their discussion. At that point, I awkwardly was like “omgwtfbbq-Pirillo’s henchmen banned me from his online chat room and he use to be on TechTV.” (Shit I forgot to ask to get a picture).
After strange glances were exchanged and the whole “who the hell is this guy?” face cleared up, Pirillo began explaining what Wicket Pixie was and what he wanted it to evolve into. Wicket Pixie is a social media based WordPress theme that acts as a portal, to seamlessly integrate your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc into your WordPress blog. Not only is it awesome, but it also supports WordPress Mu! While he was explaining his open source project, I sat their imagining the possibilities when applied to different industries. My mind was about to explode.
Before Pirillo wrapped up his explanation, an exited old man wearing a polo interrupted. His slacks were premium pressed and his hair well organized. Ed Pickett was his name, founder of GolfNet.com – He was inquiring Pirillo’s help to build his online golfing community. It’s already apparent that Pirillo has a full plate, but he countered by offering consultation.
I later explained my background and I lol’d when Pirillo was like “I see that you do SEO” – probably thinking “great he’s going to ask for a link.” I briefly explained that I’ve been working in the real estate industry with WordPress as well as maintain NissanPacific.com. I told him what we’ve been doing with social media in the real estate and automotive industry. He wasn’t shocked, his facial expression was, “Yeah, you and your mom.” haha, I mentioned that his theme would probably work well with what NP does. I’ll be downloading it and comparing the source code to our current theme, Atlantica.
Just after the break, the breakout sessions fired up! During breakout sessions their are 3-4 different presentations at once. You decide what one to attend, then geek out.
I sat in to watch Will Norris’ speech titled WP-Plugins: ur doin it wrong. Will is a developer, more like scientist! For you people not literate to PHP/MySQL and programing, your eyes will glaze over! Anyways, here is his presentation on how to improve plugin development:
Shortly after, everyone migrated into the lobby where the lunch food was. Immediately, I started to graze on shrimp and finger foods. The Coca-cola was crisp! I continued to mingle with random developers and front end designers. I met Donnie _______ – a developer involved with a local Seattle company that’s working on a very interesting project. I would reiterate what he said, but I don’t want to get shot for spilling the beans on a genius project. Paul A. Travis, a strategic marketing consultant walked up and introduced himself. Donnie explained to him the project he was involved with, then I explained my background.
After we were well fed, Donnie and I decided to sit in on Mark Jaquith’s presentation about BuddyPress. To sum it up, BuddyPress is a WordPress Mu plugin that intergrates a social network into your blog. I’ve experimented with BuddyPress in the past and I love it. I still think the project is in it’s infancy. After the presentation, Donnie and I both agreed that this could be huge especially the projects that we are involved with!
Okay, I’ll admit. I sat next to an interesting chick with green hair. Her stockings matched and looked like an anime chick. I didn’t introduce myself, but I was like O_O Whoa her hair is kewl! :3 If she ever reads this blog, I hope she doesn’t kill me. Anyways! I later won a book and I noticed she tweeted in the #wcsea that she had her hand up the whole time and wasn’t called on. So I tweeted her.
:( She was wearing cool pumps.
During the break, Donnie expressed interest in seeing the presentation by Scott Porad CTO of the ICanHasCheezburger.com Network. I knew this would be a killer presentation, I grabbed a Coca-Cola and some chips just before we jumped in.
Scott Porad - CTO of ICHC Network
When I walked into Scott Porad’s presentation, I figured, awesome, I hope this is comedic! My expectations fell short of a lol. The CTO was explaining the complex database and scripts used to tie all their WordPress blogs together, their web application his team developed for lawl submissions, review and approval process. Porad explained, “.. users submit the lulz, which is stored in the database for review. Upon approval, our script takes the lulz and throws it into our main database..” O_0 It was interesting to hear the CTO of a word wide phenomenon use words like “lulz” and the phrases “the internets” and “relevant to our interests.”
The presentation was insane. I really hope to see this on WordPress.TV – ICanHasCheezburger.com Network is backed by an army of developers and rain on countless servers around the world. During the Q&A, someone asked, “I enjoy numbers, how many servers does your network have?” Scott countered, “Well I have no idea” continuing to explain that their submission application runs on 5 servers in Seattle and their main blog sites run on WordPress.com. Apparently WordPress.com has a V.I.P. hosting package that offers scalability. Since ICHC Network literally gets millions of unique visitors a month, WordPress.com handles all their hosting needs. Hence countless servers around the world.
Scott Porad also showed us two books that their company is publishing, FailBlog Book and Graph Out Loud. After his presentation, my mind was overloaded with information and ideas.
Soon after, the Ignite presentations kicked off! Here is the list of presenters.
Create Your Own WordPress Theme in Five Minutes – Donald DeSantis
Fixing WordPress Search for CMS Applications – Eric Amundson
The Untimely Demise of the Webmaster, a Historical Journey, as Told by Stephen Colbert – Mark McLaren
Finding the perfect theme for you or your business – Chris Molitor
Self-hosting multiple WordPress blogs: my experience, tips and tricks – Evil ZEN Scientist
Keeping the Lawyers at Bay: How to Avoid Unwanted Attention to your Blog – John Grant
5 Free Ways to Bulletproof Your WordPress Site – Eric Amundson
WordPress and the Social Web – Mark McLaren
wp-config Tips and Tricks – Josh Harrison
I really really really REALLY want to find their slides on Slide Share and reiterate what they had to say. These presentations were very informational. If you see one that is relevant to your interests, please reference Google.com and seek out the author and/or SlideShare. Not all of them are online yet, but I will update this part as more information becomes available!
Either at this point my mind went numb and everything went blurry or I’ve spent way to much time writing this blog post… Anyways!
Liz Strauss of Successful-Blog.com, the legend of blogging stood up in front of WordCamp. She spoke about the human connection bloggers get through active communities.
Shortly after WordCamp, an army of hungry bloggers marched to The Ballroom in Fremont. I walked into The Ballroom and couldn’t believe how many people were their watching the Sounders game. The place was packed, the food was fresh and the drinks poured stiff. I had a few Gin & Tonics and Corona’s on my tab. The pizza was excellent. Everyone mingled in the back room, their even was a table devoted to the iPhone App Bump. I spoke with Eric Amundson, Josh Harrison, Dan Smith, Marla Schulman, Liz Strauss, Donald DeSantis, and Donnie I would highly recommend following them on Twitter, maybe even checking out their personal blogs. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him, but also check out Scott Porad! WordCampSeattle 2009 was epica.
What happened after I got back from Seattle? Um, well I walked into some random house and found a bunch of idiots camping in the living room. Freakin Bellingham!
A bunch of asshats camping in the living room.
The womens?
There even was a DJ!
Aside from the chaos, I woke up with swagger. I think I’ll hook people up with goodies!
Saturday morning. I wake up at 8 and roll out of bed. I am half numb from only getting 5 hours of sleep. Bumbershoot is today and I have to beat Saturday morning traffic.
I get to the Seattle Center around 10:30. I ended up walking around the entire outside of SC looking for the Will Call. Staff directed me to Public Will Call, the to Guess VIP. The short blonde lady at VIP basically told me I’m doing it wrong and that I was on the opposite side of where I had to be! T_T
Once we were in, fellow Staff Members led me to the heart of Bumbershoot, the press room! Free food, Relaxing couches and a ton of social media geeks.
After my supervisor gathered his resources, he haned over the goodies. The PR team was instructed to hand out free goodies and ask the general public to take a short survey.
When I ran out of free swag I got caught in the middle of the Katy Perry crowd. Everyone swarmed the main stage. I couldn’t leave, to many people screaming “I Kissed A Girl.” T_T
I managed to escape the evil clutches of the Katy Perry mosh pit. Screaming Tweens an bros!? After leaving the Bumbershoot Main Stage, I walked back to the press room. Right now I am enjoying the A/C and live blogging it up!
Today was an interesting day in Bellingham, WA. On rare occasions, you’ll see a 40ft container crack open with JDM goodies stuffed inside. NW360Performance received a new shipment over the weekend.
Above is a picture of Cory Watson’s new S14 front clip, an excellent purchase for his 1998 Nissan S14 240SX. It comes with a Z32 MAF, the factory T28 ball bearing turbo, Greddy Turbo 02 housing, Greddy Front Mount Intercooler and a Greddy Fuel Pressure Regulator. As an added bonus, Cory received white face Greddy Boost and Temperature Gauges.
Along with the complete front clip, Cory purchased an S14 Blitz NUR-Spec Catback Exhaust and vLSD. NW360Performance also recieved a S14 rear subframe, which Cory hopes is a clutch type differential. He is looking for a 1.5 or 2.0 way. Jerry Andriff from 360 stated, “We’ll crack that pumpkin open later this week and take a look.”
Below is the minty fresh Nardi Personal steering wheel that he snaked from me for $100!
Overall, Cory Watson got mad dealz from Jerry Andriff at NW360Performance. A full package ready to swap on his Kouki S14. I can’t wait to see it when it’s done this fall.
Above: Cory wanting some dome from Sam.
Watch out for this S14 hitting the streets near you! Above: According to Ayum, it means “Suneo Honekawa” – a character DORAEMON!
For those of you curious as to what the front clip looked like before it left Japanland, here’s the beauty… To bad it had to be sacrificed.
The other day Terrell Broomer, Darrick Snyder and I started working on NissanPacifics new upgrades. We are currently running a new WordPress layout along with the latest version on WP. We have been discussing new options, like granting server space to active bloggers and Google Apps.
Terrell Broomer and Darrick Snyder currently using Microsoft Live Wrtier to updates their blogs on the fly while I utilize WordPress iPhone App. Yes I am a champion at typing on this little mobile device! I figure that the next wave in Web 2.0 is the mobile market. Maybe we are on the edge of Web 3.0? It sounds like I need to load NissanPacific up with iPhone and WAP friendly themes!
Along with that, we are discussing social media strategies. How will Twitter and Facebook play a roll in 2010? Is their upcoming platforms out there?
With over 4,000 unique visitors hitting our site a month, it’s time to figure out what these users want and provide them with the content they seek. I am providing a web platform for our administrators to learn for free. All I ask is that they learn something they love, and pass on the favor.
Andrew Coomes in 4th place had a little over heating issue in qualifications, but came back during the top 8 battle with minor modifications to compensate in 110 degree heat. Although he placed, he had slower speeds and a little less traction in the rear. His consistent runs landed him an invite to ProAm Internationals.
Roland Gallagher took a step up during the Top 4 Battle with high entry speeds, sticking it to the wall. During Tandems, he was paired up with Forrest Wang in his S13.4. Unfortunately, Forrest wouldn’t allow for Gallagher to top him, taking aggressive initiations at high speeds. Gallagher straightened out in the 2nd corner. Later he was paired with Andrew Coomes, to battle out for 3rd place. Both drivers had solid runs, but Gallagher was able to impress the judges with his aggressive high speed initiations. He manage to scrap wall on initiation, dragging the bumper across the clipping point.
Johnny Kanavi and Forrest Wang paired up for the final battle. Both drivers carried high speed into the course, initiating with aggressive faints. Forrest Wang was able to carry higher speeds then Kanavi. Wang carved the walls like a surfer riding a wave. Through the tight and technical corners, Kanavi straightened out a few times. Wang took 1st place going fully locked in his fully built S13.4.
Congratulations to all drivers in 2009′s Vegas ProAm. We hope to see a few of you invade Evergreen Drift. I hope the rumors are true.
1.) Forrest Wang
2.) Johnny Kanavi
3.) Roland Gallegher
4.) Andrew Coomes
Out at Vegas right now, watching the Formula Drift drivers practice! The ProAm guys ran qualifications Friday. Roland Gallagher and Andrew Coomes from the northwest locked in 2nd (Gallagher) and 3rd (Coomes) just behind Forest Wang during ProAm qualifications. They are about to battle out the top 8! I will keep you updated!
So I tweeted her.
