A series of short films on Guides

I saw this a couple months ago and have been meaning to post them. It is a really interesting look at the life of a fly fishing guide. I will post the first video and then post a link so you can watch the rest. There are seven videos. Have fun watching and dreaming of your dream job as a guide!

"The Take" Episode 1: Origins from Costa Sunglasses on Vimeo.

Here is the link to the rest of the videos.

The Bowl

A number of years ago (in High School maybe around the summer of 1996) we went to Los Alamos with Dave, Katy, Mark and Dee. I remember it being a really fun trip in many ways. We got to rollerblade a lot, play at the park, explore and just relax. Of all the fun things that we did, I remember one the most. One day we went to a sculpture gallery with my dad and uncle Lawry. The sculptures were pretty cool but on the same property there was a little glass blowing shop. We wandered in and as we sat down to watch, we saw him put on the the liquid glass on the end of a long pipe. We watched him shape, blow, shape, blow and manipulate the glass over and over. Once the glass was in a fairly large ball about the size of a baseball he rolled it in shards of metal. As he did this he explained that the metal will turn a certain color when heated and rolled with the glass. I don't know how much time passed but it was probably close to an hour. All of us sat patiently waiting for the next step and everyone was entranced by his skill. We were amazed at the bowl that he made right in front of us. I seem to remember being surprised as my Dad asked the lady at the counter if we could buy the bowl. She said we could so he paid for the bowl and had it shipped home once it was cooled.

There are many people in this world that have amazing talents. Some of them we don't get to see because we look at the trip as a boring escapade to a sculpture gallery. If we take the opportunity to look beyond what we may think is mundane we may actually find something that really surprises us and gives us a little insight into something new.

Thank you Dad, for taking us there and showing/teaching us about real ART. Here are a few pictures of the bowl from New Mexico.By the way, just so everyone knows, my name is on the sticker on the bottom, not Daniels. ;-)

White Elephant

There is a store in Spokane called White Elephant. It is probably my favorite sporting goods store, no my favorite store, in the world! Here is a video of Logan riding the elephant out front last summer while we were visiting. I think you can tell that White Elephant is his favorite store as well.

Trip to California

Here are a couple pictures I took while on business in California.
Passed by the LA temple on the way to meet with Beverly Hills School District. This shot was from the sunroof as we drove by.I took this on Manhattan Beach between meetings with a couple of different districts. Don't get me wrong, we only spent 15 minutes there so it wasn't like we were sun bathing.

A Magazine Cover I played with a Few Years Ago

A few years ago I wanted to put myself on the cover of a fly fishing magazine. I had a lot of fun with it and included my Grandpa on the cover as well. Here is the result.I am not a photoshop person but I was pleased with how it turned out. Maybe someday I really will make the cover of a magazine. It probably wont be for my ability to fish. It may be more of "Here is an example of what not to do" article.

Updates and High Tolerances

I have been working every night to get some of the processes done on a couple of rods. The high tolerances you work with can be difficult and frustrating but in the end it is satisfying to see things come out right. This picture shoes the tickness of one shaving of bamboo from the hand plane. That is 1/1000 of an inch!

The dark bundled sections are for the rod I am building for myself.

After you cut all of the sections to length, stagger the nodes, flatten the nodes and straighten the strips you need to rough them into equilateral triangles. This helps in the heat treating process as well as final planing to come later. Here are the butt sections of Dave's rod bundled together for heat treatment. Heat treating will actually help to temper the bamboo as well as straighten the strips a little so that final planing goes a little more smoothly. So far there are about 15 hours into this rod, not even close to looking like a great fishing rod yet.

My Fishing Boys

When I came home tonight Lincoln was wearing a little fishing vest. He looked so good, I had to dress the boys up to take some pictures. I hope they like fishing as much as they like wearing all of the gear!
It's too bad it is winter and there is 5 inches of snow on the ground... these guys are ready to go!