Road Trip to AZ

Only 1.5 hrs left! And then we arrive at the resort in Arizona where
us and 40 or 50 other pilots will be stationed at for a hang gliding
competition.

I left my laptop at home this trip and will be using my new iPhone 3gs
for most everything - for example I'm using it to write this post
right now and took the pictures below with it. I'm also going to be
twittering so check me out on Twitter or see the Twitter posts in the
right side bar on this blog.

I hear on Monday if I am one of the top 3 winners for the HP contest-
which I'll hear about before the Stella Artois contest which ended
weeks before the HP one, oh well.

What would you do if you won $40,000? (of course after paying taxes on
it) - make comments to this post.

Last Day to Vote! | Sunrise

Sunrise this morning (click for a larger image)

Today is the last day to vote for the HP contest. They will announce the results "on or around" the 21st of September.

Also getting geared up for the Santa Cruz Flats Race comp in Arizona, leaving next week. Hopefully will increase my national standing by a little bit with this comp. Stay tuned as I will be updating this blog and twittering during the comp.

First Tweet | Day 6 of Voting

Yesterday I set up a Twitter account (http://twitter.com/lucasridley), mainly to use for the Santa Cruz Flats race coming up so I can provide updates more frequently.

On the right sidebar of this blog there is a window for the tweets so you can come here to see them too, and not go straight to twitter.
__________
Today and tomorrow are the last days to vote for my HP video.
__________
I also set up a Google Reader account yesterday, which was intimidating at first, but it is going to save me a lot of time and make things easier, I recommend people give it a try. It is especially useful for blogs like mine.

Check out the video below, but its basically one place to go to get updates from all different websites that you choose to be updated about, only when there is new content. So no more going to a many websites, wasting time, just to be dissapointed there's nothing new to look at. You can go to one place, Google Reader, and see what's new. To subscribe to my blog with it, just choose the Google option under "Subscribe To" in the top right sidebar of this blog, a new window will open and choose the Add to Google Reader option.

EPA Video | HP day 5 vote

Here's a video I've been working on for the past couple of days. It is in a contest, but this one doesn't involve any voting from the public.

But my HP Video is still alive and kicking in the contest and needs your vote each day. I'm not sure how they do it, but about half of the other videos in the contest have twice as many views as my video, like upwards of 20,000 views with me at 11,000 - so keep getting the word out, there's still a few days to catch up!

I also updated the background on my youtube channel.

Rainbow | Day 4 Voting

Here's a stitched together panoramic photo I took of the LZ yesterday after if finished raining (click it to see a larger version). Notice the rainbow on the left side.

Day 4 for the HP contest - a big thanks to everyone who is going the extra mile and passing this on to their friends and family - that helps by an exponential factor!

My video has gotten a lot of comments too, some are kind of funny because they try to knock it. One guy started with "This is so gay..." - I could remove these kinds of comments but I think they're funny when people show what an a** they are (then again that last comment probably came from a 12 year old, so maybe they'll grow out of it). Another one last night just said how mine is so unoriginal and not creative and if I wanted to see that I should come and watch and vote for his - not the best strategy to garner more votes if you ask me.

Day 3 Voting

Got a 45 minute flight yesterday, it was tough to get up, worked maybe 50 fpm for a while, but then it became easier, but cloud base was low, maybe around 4,000'.

Above is a picture of the sky yesterday, it looked like it would over develop and I needed to get back to work on another video - possibly will be viewable in a few days. So I landed after some wingovers.

Today is the third day of voting for the HP contest.
I still haven't heard anything from the Stella contest.

Thanks for everyone's continued support and spreading the word about these contests, I think that's what is going to make the difference in the outcome!

Mammatus | Healthy Community

Some nice little mammatus clouds were at sunset yesterday as some of us were hanging out.

This place, the flight park and surrounding area and it's community, reminds me of a passage I just heard (got the audio book) from Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers.'

In it, he describes a town that has no heart attacks, everyone is relatively healthy, although most get little to no excersize and even suffer from obesity, but that people were dieing from nothing but old age. What was discovered there was the importance of community and its health benefits. Here's a passage:

The townspeople in Roseta had built a “powerful protective social structure capable of insulating them from the pressures of the modern world. The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they had created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills.”

Sounds like the place I live.

||MADE HP FINALS||

What a coincidence: I found out I was in the finals and I wanted to raise my hands up and shout for joy and at that same moment happened to be flying my hang glider and needed to flare to land anyways - WOOHOO!!! ;)

WHOOOHOOO!!!!

I made the HP finals!!!!!!!!!!

What this means is: as a finalist I have won $2,500!!!

But now I have the chance at the top 3 prizes which are determined by YOUR VOTES! (1st $40,000, 2nd $25,000, and 3rd $15,000)

PLEASE vote once a day, starting today (labor day, 7th) until this coming Sunday (13th).

>>You can vote by going to HP's page or by going straight to the video and use the little pop-up voting window that comes up after several seconds in to watching the video

Day 5 Voting

Sunrise

Day 5 of voting: Don't forget you can vote once a day - and if I make it past this round, then voting resets, and I start all over on my votes for the final round that should start next week.

No word on Stella contest yet.

Got a short flight in today, worked below ridge height for about 30 minutes before flying and landing near the drive-in, not as good of a day as I was hoping for, but very fun to have to work hard for altitude and get outside the flight park!

Flytec 6030

For a little while now I've been working on an instructional DVD for the Flytec 6030 GPS/Vario instrument.

Mine has been an incredible device to give me as much information as is possible so I can make the most informed decisions - then its up to me to try and make the right one. It's really a geeks dream come true for flying, but that's not to say that it's overly complicated.

Also check out Eric's new hang gliding artwork that's going off to raffle this weekend HERE.

Today is day 4 of voting for the HP Contest.

Also I took a commenter's advice from yesterday's post about a better attitude and so I began the day with THIS, which is a good alternative to THIS.

Also there's a petition going around, you can sign it here for a vote of no confindence in how USHPA handles competition, 92 pilots have signed it so far.

Thanks!

Just wanted to say thanks for everyone's support of my HP contest video. Don't forget you can vote once a day, and feel free to email it around to your friends too! Especially if I make it past this round after Sunday - for the final round of voting.

There were one thousand views in just one day yesterday - and a lot of positive feedback. This one is looking good so far!

Unfortunately, I still have not heard anything about the Stella contest and they have yet to update their website as of this morning (even though its 7am there right now).

The contest rules (for Stella) stated they would notify the winner "on or around" the 31st, so I have basically written this one off as a loss, but would still like to see who won if they would update their website. Thanks for everyone's support of that documentary, top 10 for me was a huge accomplishment!

New HD Hang Gliding Video | Voting!

Today voting starts on the HP Semi-Finals.

You can vote once a day starting today until Sunday the 6th, then if I make it past this round of voting there will be one more round to determine the grand prize winner.

Here's how to vote:
-Go to: http://www.youtube.com/hp
-Click the "View + Vote" button (but it should already be up)
-20 videos will appear, click mine ('Life is an Adventure - Lucas')
-Then a thumbs up and down will appear to the right of the video. Click thumbs up ;) they only count thumbs up so it won't help to vote down other videos.



Below isn't the contest video, it's one I made yesterday with a bunch of extra footage I've accumulated over the past 8 months, I hope you enjoy it and I hope you have time to support my video making efforts by voting for my contest videos - Thanks!

Old School

With the possibility of making a living creating videos, its fun to think where I started.

I originally got a kick out of filming rock climbing which I started around age 15. I won my first video contest around 2001 with a rock climbing video I made and received a long sleeved pull-over and a set of indoor climbing holds. Now, I'm hoping to win $50,000 on Monday. And if not, I'll have another chance at big money with my HP video (voting starts Monday - Monday is a big day).

I filmed this video in 10 second increments on hand-fulls of floppy disks, because one floppy could only hold 10 seconds, so we had to time everything just right. Here is that camera I used. It was for a website that eventually went down, and looks like it's back up though: climbxmedia.com

Edit: I had originally posted one of the first videos I uploaded to youtube, but then I realized that wasn't the right video - I'll try to find it but I think it's on a hard drive that failed...

Semi-Finals! | 30 miler

Yesterday I landed after flying 30 miles from Lookout Mountain to 'Dunlap International.' It wasn't too difficult getting over Nickajack lake (pictured), but once in the sequatchie valley things were a bit more difficult: rough thermals, blue holes, and getting blown down wind.

While waiting for a ride I checked my email on my phone where I had an email from the HP contest saying I made the semifinals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What this means is a new round of voting begins this coming Monday, between me and 19 other people, to try and get the top 4 spots out of those. IF I do, then it will be down to one last round of voting between each top 4 people from the 6 weeks, which makes 24 people.

So get those mouse fingers ready for some voting starting this Monday, you will be able to vote once a day for a week. Also, on Monday (or "on or about" as the rules say) I will hear if I wont the Stella Artois contest.

Click images to see larger versions.

Flying over Nickajack Lake.

Claire and I breaking down our Moyes Litespeeds

Eric Graper coming in for a landing.

Tuesday - 25th

I think the HP contest is a week behind in their schedule, they just posted the top 4 from Week 3, when they should be on Week 4, so that this week would be voting for the top 20 in week 5.

I don't know, it's kind of confusing, their rules are the longest I've seen yet.

Yesterday I got in 2 hours of flying - here's a picture of the lz.

Voting Revealed

I figured out the voting for this contest:

Tomorrow I will find out if I made the top 20 for the 5th round of finalists. If I do, the voting so far will mean nothing, because that has been for the 'community award,' which is for those that aren't chosen as finalists (by judges).

If I am chosen as a finalist for my round, then voting will begin between us 20 of that round to determine top 4 and I will be removed from eligibility of the 'community award' and will now be going for the grand prize. So the votes I'm getting right now won't count and would start fresh for this new finalist voting. This is done for all the 6 rounds. So in the end there are 4 for each round so then there's 24 finalists.

If I make it to the 24 then voting starts all over again and that determines who wins $40,000 is the grand prize. We'll see if this works that way. On their 'channel' there are a ton of comments saying how theirs isn't showing up, and this isn't working. They still only have the week 2 finalists up when it should be on to like week 4 or so.

Thanks for staying tuned and seeing if I am a finalist tomorrow . . .

New Video - HP Computers

click the image to enlarge it.
This explains two ways of voting.

To vote using directions of 1, click HERE
For method 2, click HERE

You can Vote once a day!

My New Favorite T-Shirt

This was a wedding present from our neighbor, Scott, who's an awesome airbrush artist.
Angela got one too, with her glider colors.

Today is my first day of unemployment, I'm happy and proud of my decision to leave that job and pursue what I'm actually passionate about: films and hang gliding.

Stay tuned I'm working on 2 and maybe 3 new videos coming soon.

Unemployed

Today is my last day of work.

Which means I can start making films more!

I'm filming one tomorrow night and I also have a slew of hang gliding footage I need to stick together in another video, so stay tuned.

Our next door neighbor on our honeymoon.

Top 10!!!!

We did it! - a big thanks to everyone for voting on the documentary film, "A Soaring Life."

It has been picked out of 140 films to be in the top 10! That means some hollywood folks are going to watch my video, with the other 9, and decide who gets $50,000!
http://stellaartois.triggerstreet.com/ShortFilmProject/Intro

Please head over and vote for my other contest as well, you don't even have to register, and you can vote once a day!
http://hiremytvad.com/video-detail.php?videoID=TKlfvnOw73A