Short Track Finals

Great racing for the last night of mountain biking at PIR. There were some stellar riders in this series, pros like Shannon Skerritt who consistently rode like the wind, usually, many lengths in front of his competitors. Other dudes like Jesse Lucket and Salvatore Bondi kept the front of my pack, the Cat 2's, spread out ahead. A super fun time this summer though - making 5 of the 7 races has got me primed for Cross season, and for my first "real mountain" race at Diamond Lake next month. I put a few more pics from last night's finale here.

Life in the Woods

Walden, A Walk in the Woods, Listening for Coyote - some of my favorite stories about man living, walking and traveling in the woods. Now I'm living some of my own stories after living high on Bucksnort Ridge. I think the most incredible thing that I keep coming back to is discovery. Discovering so many new sights, sounds, plants and animals I've never known before. Our home is surrounded by such incredible diversity in plant life, particularly berries. One such berry, the thimbleberry, is in abundance right now. It kind of looks like a raspberry, but far more delicate and a similar taste, just more exotic.

Then there are the wide variety of flowers and other berries, wild irises, red columbine, salal - it is never-ending. Don't even get me started on the ferns. I feel pretty damned lucky to live in such a gorgeous place. We get the kinds of views and smells usually only reserved for those long backpacking trips. Makes me feel... Namaste.

Portland Mountain Biking Short Track Series 2009 from Eric Todd Keeney on Vimeo.

We entered a short film contest online!

Jesse Blanchard is the man, Renee is the brains - and me? Ummm, a little of this, a little of that. After a couple of quick brainstorming sessions and online preproduction, we more or less shot this thing in a day. Jesse picked up the SFX shots at home the next day - then - like the champion he is, edited the shit out of this thing. Turned out perty-durned good I think. It's called "Borrowed Skin". If we win, we get some cash to use as funding for the next film!

Watch for yourself:
BORROWED SKIN

Wend Magazine, Oakridge, Aaron Draplin and Layer Tennis

Tuesday the 23rd of June, and all is well. Finally got on the other side of some big projects - mainly - the short film contest with Jesse Blanchard, the Wend Magazine Pingpong Party video is up and getting views and the Woodstock house is emptied and cleaned up real nice once and for all. Next up? Editing the Portland frame-builders piece, also for Wend. Oh... the Oakridge mountain-biking video from the man's weekend is also up!

In the meantime, for all you e-loafing slackholes - an old friend from Bend is still slaying the world's graphic design ass like no other. Aaron Draplin is his name - and there is way too much to be said about this bad mofo, but this is worth noting: he is in the semi-finals of a little something called Layer Tennis. Instead of regurgitating what it's all about - all just post this from their site: " We’re hosting a series of live design events called Layer Tennis. The season wouldn’t have happened without the support of Adobe® Creative Suite® 4, the weapon of choice for Layer Tennis players and creative professionals everywhere. We'll be playing matches using video, animation, sound, photos, type and lots more, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two competitors will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post it to the site live. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. A match lasts for ten volleys and when it's complete, Season Ticket Holders tell us what they think and we'll declare a winner, so sign up today."

Anywho... I've watched two of his previous matches, live, and gotten a real kick and further inspiration from it. So when you've got one eye on the clock Friday, like the postman in downtown Bend, roll your mouse and eyeballs on over to the match. Fun stuff. Go Draplin!

Summer - It's always like that.

My friend Jeffie and I used to chat about how Summer always seems to go by so fast, and you really need to pack in the adventuring to not feel cheated. This means being extremely proactive and fillin' up the spaces on that calendar. Summer 2009? Quickly becoming no different as things progress nicely in the life that is ETK. Add to it a slew of new video and film projects and things really start to get interesting. I felt like I needed to make a list here as some kind of mental purge and visual organization. Here the short list:

1. Final edits and trial with Smith Freed.
2. "The Last Orderly" 3:00 film contest with Jesse Blanchard.
3. First video projects for Wend Magazine.
4. Moving into Tuckridge Lodge above Bull Run river.
5. Man's Weekend mountain-biking Oakridge/Westfir.
6. Femi Kuti at the Zoo.
7. Three Fingered Jack snowboard retreat #29.
8. Village Idiot reunion show.
9. Ween in Bend.
10. Mt. Bike race at Diamond Lake.

Don't get me started on the "currently under construction" empty spaces on the calendar... -ETK

Do the wealthy elite rule the world?

I used to listen to Coast to Coast with Art Bell frequently on long road trips, particularly at night. Tales of Bigfoot and UFO's were such perfect mind candy to help pass the time across the long expanses of the Oregon, Nevada and California deserts. One topic that popped up from time to time was the Secret Society known as the Bilderberg Group. A "behind-the-scenes" society of the world's wealthiest individuals who are secretly manipulating and controlling the fate of the world - financially - and perhaps otherwise. As with most topics on Coast to Coast, I take it with a grain of salt. It's just entertainment, but sometimes thought-provoking. This link (click on title of this post) digs deeper into this group and offers additional insight into recent secret meetings that reportedly took place and ideas that were discussed. Interesting stuff.

My life as a “Veterinary Tech”

Everyday is a new experience in this wacky life of mine. My love works as a Veterinarian and has a bigger heart and love for animals than most it seems. It is certainly one of the things I love about her. It explains how our family now numbers at 6 total and may now be 7. Each week I get to hear harrowing tales of animal adventures that come through her clinic. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Unfortunately, her clinic is in Clackamas, Oregon and tends to attract some of the backwoods folk from Estacada. This could be everything from grotesquely wounded pitbulls from dogfights to severely mistreated and neglected cats. The good? There was a coyote puppy in the clinic this weekend! Not sure about his fate yet... but damn is he cute!

So, this Memorial Day weekend: Apparently a toothless woman who smelled like a rotting pair of old gym socks dropped off this little kitty with a badly broken leg. This fella, whom we’ve named Merlin, had 5 separate breaks in one small area of his leg. The woman claimed he was a stray, but his good nature led Kelly to believe otherwise. This is the kind of thing which normally spells euthanasia for a stray as there are no shortage of cats in the world. But my love, being the amazing humanitarian she is, sensed something special in this particular kitty. That extra gleam of understanding in the animal’s eyes that makes you ponder reincarnation. So she decided to take on little Merlin as her own, and perform an amputation. One of the few cool things about her working for “the corporation” is their ability to let doctors do this kind of work for free and extend a generous discount on drugs and materials. After several hours of a grueling surgery, removing his back leg from the hip joint down, little Merlin emerged on the other side with 3 legs and a new lease on life. Yay Merlin!

My part as a Vet Tech? We had to check in on Merlin over the weekend – only to discover he had ripped his I.V. out – so I had to firmly, but gently hold the scruff of his neck as she administered more drugs, fluids and re-applied an I.V. – and load him up for home transport. He has been living in our bathtub since – all hopped up on Morphine and doing quite well. That is of course – until he managed to yank one of hit staples out. This morning – I had to hold him down again – much to his displeasure – as she threw a quick suture in the missing staples spot. Good god does this cat make a terrifying shrieking noise – something that will make your hair stand on end if your not prepared for it. Not to mention – trying to avoid the occasional attempt at a bite due I’m sure to his complete state of terror and pain.

Whether or not we keep Merlin for the long haul remains to be seen. He is quite a loving little critter, probably about 2-years old, Tabby colored, and will make a fine addition to any cat-friendly home. I have a feeling my life as a "vet tech" has only just begun - but it has been so exciting and a fantastic learning process to see my love at work and witness her passion firsthand. She is very special and I'm a lucky fellow. :)

Following your heart and your gut.

It is a common saying - "follow your heart", but one that is easily forgotten, until you actually stick with it and see the positive results of doing so. Case in point: About five years ago, after a decade of graphic design work, I decided to go back to school. I kind of fell into the Graphic Design business after getting my Associate's Degree in design and pre-press and meeting Bonfire Snowboarding co-founder Brad Steward in my hometown Kinkos. Brad offered me a gig doing design work for his then, fledgling, snowboard clothing company. Since I had recently fallen in love with fine art of snowboarding, I took the gig, which propelled me into the industry and a ton of cool gigs. Fast forward ten years and I realized that I didn't really enjoy the 100% office/desk/computer commitment and lifestyle that was associated with graphic design. Sure, I got to work with a ton of cool people and participated in some amazing projects - but in the end - I yearned for something more.

In high school my curiosity had been sparked in film-making after being one of a handful of students that were part of the Senior Film class. I had since dabbled with home video making over the recent years - but decided it was time to take a serious look at film and video as a profession, which led me to DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, and my second Technical Degree. The very moment I took this step, and put my heart, soul and passion into what I REALLY wanted, was the moment doors began to open. My very first project while still in school was a Marketing Video for a "little" local bike company called Specialized. Imagine that? This quickly moved forward to gigs with sports documentaries, adventure/travel television and more.

Fast forward five more years. After spending a year up in Bellingham skiing Mt. Baker and working part time shooting Seattle Sonics homegames - I decided to return to my beloved Oregon - and once again, get serious about my film and video path. I landed a job at a dotcom doing video production for the web, and begrudgingly, everything else for them. After two years as a jack-of-all-trades for the dotcom - the good old economy tanked - and yours truly found himself collecting a hefty unemployment check.

Enter - Winter 2009. What do you do? Hmmm... that heart and soul thing: Snowboarding! Haha... damn straight - midweek powder days-a-plenty this season. Perfect timing really. The dotcom 50-hour office commitment had wore me down again - so the time couldn't have been better. Which brings me to this fine Spring day in May - and the reason for this post. Even though I've been looking for a new job in both Video Production and Graphic Design world - there is a serious lack of opportunity out there in town. Not to mention - the idea of clocking back into the desk cranking out catalog designs, print ads and such, for some industry du-jour, isn't really tickling my fancy.

So - the moment I decided not to settle, but to remain true to my heart and soul, is the moment doors began to open again. Those of you that have seen the film "What the Bleep..." might get what I'm talking about here. It has to do with manifesting your own destiny, believing in your path and your mass of positive consciousness altering the flow of molecules in the universe. Really? Indeed. Easy to forget and get bogged down in the day-to-day doldrums that could be blocking your chi. But very real for those who believe and practice.

Two things have happened in recent days to vindicate this power of consciousness and positivity: One - a lucrative cottage industry as a legal videographer has just fallen in my lap. Not a full-time, sleepy courtroom sort of thing, but the occasional, and remarkably easy, on-site shoots, at full production rate. Perfect. And two - and certainly more importantly - I met a guy for beers this week who produces a rather successful and respectable piece of media in the world. Not only is he cool-as-shit and seems to vibrate on the same frequency as me, he is on the verge of creating my dream job for his company. Truly. Funny, when I first approached him to chat - I just thought he had a cool product and wanted to somehow get involved. Little did I know that he would proceed to tell me he planned to create this new position, of which it seems, I could not be more perfect for. Stunning really. Not sure he feels the same way just yet - but I have no doubt the more he gets to know me and what I do, the more likely he'll have to agree. I must say - if this goes the way I'm thinking it is going, I will be the happiest, most creative, radiant and thankful man alive.

Until then - I'm off with my trusty video camera to yet another interesting part of Portland, to shoot and learn something new.

Follow your heart, trust your gut and believe in yourself. Powerful stuff.

Rollins/Keeney Spring Equinox Jam 2009 - 2 of 3.

Ralph Nader - Know Your History Please

Watched the documentary "Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man" last night - a fantastic film and important biography. I'm just old enough to remember him for his virtuous life of protecting consumers in the 60-70's, but I am sad about how many Americans really only think of him as the 2004 Presidential Election spoiler. Seriously? So sad. I encourage everyone to see it and learn about a one of our country's most amazing real citizens.

Diving Back into Graphic Design with a Half Gainer

After changing careers with a new degree in Television and Video technologies several years ago, my former skills as a Graphic Designer went largely unused as Video and TV gigs kept presenting themselves in recent years. I still had to hold down the occasional gig as a magazine or advertising designer to keep the bills paid - but day to day designing from scratch was a skill I was getting burnt out on and I was glad to put to rest for a while.

In today's economy, I've learned these skills have never been so important as I'm having to ply my craft in every skill-set I have in order to compete in the extremely crowded and talented creative pool of Portland, Oregon. I picked up a gig design logos, and identity and t-shirts for an up and coming recycled materials clothing and accessories company marketing itself to the 20-30 somethings who care about the environment and might have an inclination to surf/skate/snowboard/climb/frisbee golf, etc.

So here I sit, Day Three, Hour Fifty-Three, cranking out idea, after idea, after idea. It's funny - just when I think I'm tapped out and drawing a blank, it always seems something else gurgles to the top. And the farther along I get, the more confident I get and the quicker and deeper my Illustrator and Photoshop skills seem to be coming back to me.

Hallelejuah! Bring-it Portland design community - I'm ready.

Republicans think most Americans are Idiots... and maybe they're right.

Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots. This disdain for their smarts shows up in the whole way they’ve cast this race now, turning a contest over economic and foreign policy into a culture war of the Real vs. the Elites. It’s a smoke and mirrors game aimed at diverting attention from the fact that the party’s tax policies have helped create an elite that’s more distant from “the people” than ever before.

Unicorn Slays the Ash Street...

Or did the Ash Street slay us? Hmmm... well, now I know why it's called the Ash Street Saloon. Smokers. Lots of 'em. God help us - 2009 couldn't come quick enough to rid the clubs and public places of the smokey smokers. Blech! That's right... the LAW goes into effect - and not soon enough. Anywho... that's my anti-smoking rant. Thanks for reading. Aside from that... it felt damn good to play out live again. My Unicorn comrades are the best... and so are my fine brothers and sisters that traveled great distances across the Oregon countryside to support yours truly. I love you fuckers. Jeff-n-Pips-n-Jay-n-Erin-n-Jess-n-Johnny-n-Cliff-n-such.... until next time!!!

History of Sampling Audio

Another gem found on my colleague Aaron Draplin's site.

A rather thorough interactive breakdown of music that was sampled, when it was used, and by who. Supa cool!

http://jessekriss.com/projects/samplinghistory/

Playing live in front of the people once again.

This Saturday the 23rd of August marks the first time in several years I've played live in front of an audience. Super stoked to be doing so, and quite proud to be in the company of such bad-asses for bandmates. Mighty Unicorn is what we're calling the band - and in addition to my bass playing (for those who don't know - I used to bass for Aggro Batch and The Julian Snow Index), our band features Hans Wagner (aka Schvoontz), who's drumming resume includes: Mr. Bungle, Sweaty Nipples, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Village Idiot and Herkemer; Pat Demartino on the gee-tar, who's past and current shredding includes Village Idiot and Last Empire; Kevin Ellis on keyboards, formerly of Village Idiot, Hungry Mob and The Film fame; and our current, though temporary, singer Brad Mowen, who was an early member of Portland's Sweaty Nipples, then moved to Seattle where he fronted the incredible band Mommy, and now sings for The Accused and is also involved with the bands ASVA and The Master Musicians of Bukkake.

Ash Street Saloon's hard rock hideaway is the venue. Approximately 10:45pm is the start time for the Mighty Unicorn. Opening the gig will be Portland's Western Family featuring Brett Snyder on drums - who's "dayjob" is drumming for that famous band Everclear... oh yeah... he used to be a Village Idiot drummer too.

Bring your earplugs!

Both Hands and Both Feet - A drummer's Blog

A recent friend of mine and fellow musician, Matt Farina, has been posting this cool blog about drumming and music. Matt and I got together for a few sessions via the mighty Craigslist Musician ads earlier this year. Great guy. Fantastic drummer. Fun blog.

Go here now:
http://2handsand2feet.blogspot.com/

SEO for Video Online - or - "How to get people to watch your videos"

As video content on the web continues to proliferate, getting your videos to stand out amidst the crowd is becoming an increasingly challenging task. One of the most important recent subjects of discussion regarding video online, is figuring out how to maximize your company’s placement in search engine results and rankings. To those readers new to search engine marketing terms and acronyms, the letters SEO stand for “search engine optimization” and the SEM equates to “search engine marketing”. You’ll commonly see and hear these terms thrown around quite a bit as companies clamor to find their way into viewer’s web browsers.

Here at Test Drive Videos we quickly learned that is isn’t as easy as posting your videos online, then telling people to go watch them. There is a myriad of essential steps you need to take to start the SEO and SEM process. I’m going to list the three basic steps we’ve learned are mandatory and effective in getting the ball rolling. I will also highlight some additional things you can do that are both free and highly effective.

1. Use Descriptive Naming of Your Video Source File. When you’re creating your video file and getting ready to deploy it to your site, e-newsletter or uploading to a web video sharing site, always name the file in a very exact and descriptive manner. For example: in the early stages of our company, we might have named a test drive video we produced “Ferrari_tdv_08.mov”. Where our internal naming convention might have made sense to us for easily managing files – to the outside world it means nothing and is more easily lost in the space. Therefore, a more useful title might be: “2008 Ferrari GT430 Test Drive Video.mov”. This acts as kind of a surface level “tag” that will help search engines find your video.

2. Inserting HTML Tags on Your Site. Inserting HTML meta tags and head tags within each page that describe each video has long been the most important and basic task associated with web development and making your site visible and searchable online. Additionally, it is recommended that you let each video live on it’s own page of HTML and insert tags that describe what is in the video. One video per URL. It is also important to surround your video with relevant text about that video. Doesn’t hurt to tell viewers what they are about to see, and further helps the SEO initiative.

3. Initial Search Engine Submissions. Take the time to visit each of the top search engines and go through their process of submitting your website to be crawled, indexed, spidered, etc. Some are easier than others, but this is a crucial step in making sure you get found. Because Google more or less dominates the search engine arena (with approximately 60% of the traffic), and including the other top thre (Yahoo, MSN and AOL), they encompass about 94% of the search engines traffic altogether. Plus, these major search engine directories are shared by many other smaller search engines, including Lycos, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Excite, Go, Search, AOL, and many others. Once the major search engines have indexed your website, regular search engine submissions are no longer required. We also recommend a one-time manual application submission to dmoz.org. (DMOZ is The Open Directory Project - the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.)

4. Bonus Tip! – Using Web Video Sharing as Free Advertising! Just because you’ve posted your video on your site doesn’t mean you can’t and shouldn’t post that same video elsewhere. By taking advantage of one or more of the many free video sharing websites out there like YouTube, you can help spread your message and your video out across the web. Most of these sites have very robust description and tagging sections when you upload your video which will yield top results and can in return, be linked back to your site. We have had tremendous success in getting higher search results for some of our video content through the videos we’ve uploaded at these sharing and social networking sites. The top 5 video sharing sites that will except most any user-generated content for upload are: YouTube, GoogleVideo, Metacafe, AOLvideo and Revver. There are certainly dozens more, and every indication is that this market is going to continue to grow rapidly as the demand for video on the web continues to flourish.

These are just a few things you can do immediately after deploying your video for an online audience. They are by no means the complete answer, as this new media world is changing with new web video search technologies on the horizon. Technologies that scan the audio and video content to detect if what the descriptors say is in the video, is actually in the video are one example. We'll discuss more as we learn. Thanks for reading and good luck! -ETK

Time will fly.

Somehow between dayjobbing for Test Drive Videos, playing bass in Mighty Unicorn, and squeezing in the occasional trip to the wilderness - many moons have passed once again. I have managed to start throwing a few video bits and pieces up on the wacky YouTube. I've also began pre-production on a new indie TV production based here in Portland, as well as started shooting a fun short film. Neat stuff - but there never seems to be enough hours in the day. Cursed sleep! What did Edgar Allan Poe say? "Sleep, those little slices of death; Oh how I loathe them." Ok... not that I agree so much... but I like the quote. I guess I loathe the little slices more because they steal away time I could be productive or out soaking up adventure. Sigh.

Social Networking Online Blogging Sharing Madness

How do you put it all under one umbrella?

You don't.

You link 'em all together.

http://www.myspace.com/keeneyinwashington
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1135094874
http://www.flickr.com/keeney