Photo by Jake Manlick

My buddy Jake hit me up the other day to see if I wanted to shoot some photos. I happened to be downtown already and since I keep my bike in the car at all times, it worked out. There’s a lot of fun spots to session in downtown Boise but one of my most favorite things to do is just cruise around, launch curb cuts and hop over random stuff. This curb launcher is on the corner of 6th and Idaho. Minus the zebra pants, this is what “street” riding is for me these days. I hit this thing just about every time I pedal through.

Treefort Music Fest – Boise, Idaho

I missed out on last year’s inaugural Treefort Music Fest but I made up for it this time around with plenty of partying and shutter clicking. Here are some snapshots I collected from the weekend. Shout out to The Dedicated Servers for hooking me up with a pass and Pie Hole for keeping my camera safe when I had left it on their patio. That was probably the fastest I had ever ran in my life.

Casper and Friends

Heads up. I got a rabbit recently and you can bet your ass my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are going to be filled with rabbit photos. It’ll kinda be like that time your friend had a baby… or maybe more like that other time when I bought a Ronald Reagan mask and started sexting people with him… Whichever the case, don’t worry, Casper is at least cuter than Ronald.

Casper, the Friendly Rabbit

[ Some thoughts regarding Casper. ][ He doesn't seem to know when shit is falling out of his ass. ][ He roams around freely in my office and only returns to his cage to pee and eat. ][ He can jump a lot higher than I originally thought. ][ He doesn't like Professor Fink. A day after the above photo was taken, the Professor has gone missing. ][ I'm not exactly sure if Casper's a he. Another rabbit tried humping him so if I were to make a guess based on that, Casper might actually be a girl. ][ Or maybe the other rabbit was just gay. ][ She's white as a ghost, hence her name. ]

I woke up the other day a lot earlier than usual and when I looked out my bedroom window, I couldn’t see shit. There was a thick layer of fog draping over the city and my gut reaction was to drive up to Bogus to get above it. I had this image in my head of a picture perfect inversion, similar to the ones you see from airplanes. I was real excited about the trek since I’ve never seen a proper inversion like that in Boise before. I remember seeing it in the local news but that’s about it. I had never actually driven up there to see it myself.

Anyway, when I got about halfway up, I found this triple decker sandwich of clouds instead.

I’m not sure how he did it, but believe it or not, Austin skated out of this real clean. Once for fun and twice for the camera. Shot at Rhoades Skatepark, Boise, ID.

Phone case and wallet, in one.

Main Features

• Slim Design
• Two slots for credit cards and IDs
• Still fits most iPhone docks
• Leather casing w/minimal branding

I come from a family of packrats and I’m often guilty of hoarding unnecessary items, too. As a small testament, I have a backpack full of USB and Firewire cables I collect from computer peripheral purchases. I bought a couple new hard drives this month alone and the box came with a few extra cables, non of which I had a use for. I couldn’t bare to throw them away so I stuffed them in that bag… I’m sure I’ll end up needing one of them someday and save myself $5 and a trip to Best Buy, right?

Fuck no, Francis! You probably won’t.

It’s a bit of an annoying rational I’m trying to rid myself of. In the past few years of my life, I’ve been making moves towards minimalism. My failure rate typically only spikes when it comes to electronics but for the most part, I’ve been doing a great job. One of my more progressive achievements has been ridding myself of a wallet and the ass numbing lump in my back pocket that went along with it.

My solution? The Solo Wallet iPhone case from HEX. It’s an iPhone 4/4s (and iPhone 5) case that protects your phone and has a couple extra card slots for my most used credit card, driver’s license and even some cash for whenever I need to go to the arcade.

I realized, whenever I had a wallet, it always had all these extra slots for stuff I didn’t need but tried to fill anyway just because it was there. It resulted in a clunky, unnecessary brick of leather which served as a nagging reminder to minimize. On top of that inconvenience, a wallet always made me feel like I should have cash on me at all times. As much as I love getting paid in cash, I hate spending it. In this day in age, as long as you pay off your balance each month, credit cards are your friend. It builds your credit score and there’s so many cash back and rewards programs that it’s stupid not to use it instead of cash. This case liberated me of all these pitfalls.

For the most part, it gets positive reviews whenever I pull it out. Smart and convenient are the typical buzz words and the only negative comment I get is if I were to lose my phone, I’d lose everything. However, since my phone has a tracking device, that’s not really a concern. Plus, if you want to get nerdy about this, the rules of probability are on my side;

When you have two items (1=wallet and 2=phone), you must consider the following outcomes:

A.) You lose item 1 but keep item 2.
B.) You lose item 2 but keep item 1.
C.) You have a horrible day and somehow manage to lose item 1 AND item 2.
D.) You don’t lose shit and you high five everybody around you.

There’s a 75% (3 out of 4) chance of you losing something. Now, consider the following outcomes when you just have one item:

A.) You lose item 1.
B.) You don’t lose item 1.

That’s only a 50% chance! Basically, the less you items you have, the less chance you have of losing them. Although you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, your motivation and focus to protect that one basket increases; which, in my opinion, is much better than spreading yourself thin.

Anyway, sorry for sounding like an advertisement. I’m just really psyched on this product and highly recommend it to anybody. The first case I bought had lasted me about two years and I just recently bought a replacement (exact same one). The construction’s a lot better in this newer batch so I’m sure it’ll last me till at least my next phone upgrade.

As far as suggestions for improvement goes, a plastic window on the outside card slot would come in handy so I won’t need to pull out my ID whenever I buy adult beverages.

Somewhere in Nevada

Filmed & Edited for Odyssey

I’m going to get a motorcycle this summer, fill a backpack up with all the shit I need and then ride off into the sunset. I’ll figure out the details when I reach the sun.