July 6, 2011
Written by Daniel Evon
All About Bikes Magazine
Click on photo for full size version - Photo Credit © 2011 John Villegas
The world is full of armchair warriors. People who dream big and dream often, but rarely get the chance to live out their fantasies. Ryan Grassley was one of those people, and then he hit the road.
Grassley, who you might know better as “HalfThrottle,” has made a living by fulfilling his motorcycle fantasies. With his camera and his KLR 650, Grassley has been shooting motorcycle videos for the last four years throughout the Americas. It hasn’t brought him fame or fortune yet, but Grassley is one of the few, lucky people, who truly loves going to work every day.
Spontaneity
Grassley grew up in Springville, Utah, and bought his first motorcycle in 2005 with big dreams of the open road. But Grassley wouldn’t be able to seize the moment, as he was shipped off to Iraq with the US Army. But a few years later Grassley would get his window of opportunity, and he jumped at the chance.
“We didn’t do too much planning for the trip,” Grassley said. “We were both very inexperienced motorcycle riders. But we didn’t care. We wanted adventure.”
Grassley and his friend, Mitch Curwen, decided on a whim to head for the Panama Canal. It would mark the first adventure for HalfThrottle, and the first true long distance trip for Grassley.
“The longest trip I’d ever been on was probably a three-hour drive,” Grassley said. “Until we left for Panama.”
So without experience, guidance, or training, Grassley and Curwen headed out onto the open road.
“People will try to plan a trip for years,” Grassley said. “I need this, I need that… we just went.”
Half Throttle
The biggest flaw in most long-distance trips, is that the rider feels like he has to abide by a certain timeline. With only so many days to see so many things, it’s easy to skip sights in order to make up miles. If you fall behind your schedule, you could find yourself hopping on the highway where all you can see are license plates and speed limit signs.
But Grassley doesn’t fall into that trap. He travels at half-throttle.
“The point of our trip, was to see everything. We figured that we were never going to do this again, so we were going to take it slow. We were going to take our time. We stopped at every waterfall, beach, Mayan ruin, everything.”
Grassley spent three months traveling to and from Panama, but for some people, there just is no cure for the travel bug. After the Panama trip, Grassley went to Canada, Thailand, and France. He brought his KLR 650 to Italy, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates. Grassley has been to more than 20 countries in the saddle of his motorcycle, and there will be plenty more in the future.
“Traveling by motorcycle leaves you exposed to everything. The environment, smells, people, smelly people. If you are going to visit a country then experience that country. Don’t cut yourself off by staying in an all inclusive resort. Traveling by motorcycle lets you get in touch with the real side of the places you’ll visit.”
Photo & Design Credit © 2011 John Villegas
Experience
The Half-Throttle channel is about a lot more than just bikes, it’s about people. Grassley uses his motorcycle as a tool to dig deeper into unfamiliar cultures. “I never wanted a motorcycle so people would think I was cool,” Grassley said. “I wanted a motorcycle so I could go cool places.”
And Grassley has done just that. The army vet is currently living in Panama with his wife, exploring the jungles, rivers, and beaches of Central America. He’ll be heading back to the US soon, but he won’t let himself get too comfortable.
Grassley has a few more empty boxes on his places to ride list, and he’s inviting everyone to come along for the ride.
“There are so many arm chair warriors out there that wish that they were on the road,” Grassley said. “So many people sitting in an office dreaming about somewhere else. You’ve just got to do it.”
Grassley has turned into a bit of an adventure touring guru, fielding questions from his fans about everything from how to do laundry on the road, to how many spare tires you should bring along. If you’re planning a trip in the near future, check out Grassley’s page. You might learn a thing or two about being on the road.
You can check out HalfThrottle’s Youtube Channel here.
All photos © John Villegas 2011
Or just step outside!
Tuesday June 7, 2011
Editor
The Red Devils, just who/what are they anyway?
Nope, they are not the national soccer or baseball team. And they are not a cheerleader or glee squad.
Affectionately called “Diablo Rojos”, they’re Panama’s Bad Boy, smoke-belching, people moving, bumper car, get-outta-my-way, pimped up retired USA school buses.
And they will soon be going the way of the T Rex.
Get the full back story from Video Guy Ryan Grassley:
Tuesday May 24, 2011
Editor’s Note:
Meet Ryan Grassley; motorcycle freak, adventurer, explorer, all around good-guy. He also happens to be one badass amateur videographer!
To the best of my knowledge, he’s the first to video document the mystical moods of the Boquete Cloud Forest and it’s twisty, turny mountain passages.
I’ve been checking out his productions for a couple of months now and this guy has talent!
Ryan’s creative implementation of slow motion and dramatic soundtrack are over the top!
Check-in every week as I roll out his new productions and wipe the dust off of his past productions.
I can’t think of a better way to breathe in the raw, natural beauty of the Chiriquí highlands than riding sidekick with Ryan!
Crank up the volume, and if you have the bandwidth, click the 1080p High Definition button, then Buckle Up… you’re going on a wild ride!
Here’s Ryan’s commentary for this video:
Above the mountain village of Boquete, Panama there are some amazing twisty, steep roads. I was very lucky to not be drenched in rain while I was trying to film. I got some great footage of the clouds, roads and forest. I stopped for a while and stood in silence surrounded by a cloud and listened to the silence, mixed with birds chirping. It really is a magical place.
The music for this video was created by Scott Altham. You can hear more of his great tunes on his myspace page here. And on www.ccmixter.org here.
Song: Never Heard A Rhyme Like This Before
Artist: Scott Altham
Kicking off this week’s selection of must-have iOS games is a brand new soccer game from X2 Games – the team behind the award-winning X2 Soccer titles. First Touch Soccer promises to be the true next-generation of soccer on iOS, offering the “most complete, realistic and addictive soccer sim available.”
Spider Jack is the latest puzzle release from Chillingo and I’m betting this game will be the next iOS game craze. Inspired by Cut the Rope, this game features a similar gameplay mechanic and all the ingredients needed to be a fantastic iOS puzzler.
Frisbee Forever is a whole new way to play frisbee and the only official frisbee game for iOS. It boasts super crisp 3D graphics and a frisbee experience like no other!
Find out more about the games above and check out Pulse: Volume One – this week’s final must-have – after the break!
First Touch Soccer – ($0.99) iPhone – Games
First Touch Soccer claims to be the most complete soccer sim available for the iPhone, and with its impressive list of features, it could be spot on. To complete with the big boys like FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer, you need something pretty special – and this game is just that. It features an intelligent AI engine that provides smart defensive and attacking play with a challenging and addictive experience. Boasting intuitive controls, excellent visuals and multiple game modes. It really shines with ‘Dream Team’ mode, which allows you to create your own team from players all over the world – past and present. You can even design your own kit! With over 250 clubs, 30 competitions, and 7 game modes, First Touch Soccer is a must-have for soccer fans, and currently on sale to celebrate its release at an incredible $0.99!
Spider Jack – ($0.99) iPhone / ($1.99) iPad – Games
Spider Jack bears an uncanny resemblance to Cut the Rope and offers a similar style of play mechanic, but instead features an adorable green arachnid called Jack, whose mission is to return to his web to get his fill of flies. It features 75 levels skilfully designed levels that promise to test your reflexes and foresight. Using pieces of web (not rope) you must carefully avoid electrical beams and guide Jack safely home to his web. Use hairdryers to you advantage and try to collect as many stars as you can along the way. Each level features multiple solutions, and the impressive visuals have been hand-drawn and optimized for the iPhone 4′s Retina display. Realistic physics attempt to give you a taste of “what real web-slinging is like,” and offer a puzzler that’s suitable for players of all ages and abilities.
Frisbee Forever – (Free) Universal – Games
www.youtube.com/watch?v=213OQ4nDVzA
Get ready for blast off with Frisbee Forever on your iPhone and iPad, offering 100 crazy tracks which you must fly through at breathtaking speeds. Twist and turn in the California Theme Park, climb the majestic mountains in the Wild West or send the waves blazing in the pirate-filled Caribbean oceans. Play with classic Wham-O Frisbees or brand new discs exclusive to the game. Collect more than 100 frisbees as well as plenty of trophies and secret bonuses.
Pulse: Volume One – ($4.99) iPad – Games
Enter an absorbing world where players become part conductor, part note-captor and part multitouch master. Pulse is a brand new music game in which you must tap speeding notes as they cross the radiant pulse in an attempt to conduct beautiful melodies. There are 8 cores levels featuring original music with eclectic soundtracks of varying genres. It features unique and intuitive multitouch gameplay which is easy to pick up, but hard to master. Pulse is one of the most original iOS games I’ve seen for a while a truly magical idea that is executed perfectly on the iPad.
View post:
This Week’s Must-Have iOS Games: First Touch Soccer, Spider Jack, Frisbee Forever & More!
The video player of YouTube supports quite a few keyboard shortcuts to help you quickly skip forward or backward in a video.
For instance, while a video is playing, you can press the ‘0’ key to move the play head to the beginning of a video. Press the left or right arrow keys will let you go back or forward in a video by 10%. Alternatively, you may use number keys to jump to specific sections of a video – the key ‘1’ will move you to the 10% mark, ‘2’ to the 20% mark and so on.
Other than supporting shortcuts, the YouTube player now also lets you alter the playback speed of a video so that you may fast-forward, or slow-down, the video with a click.
You may increase the video playback speed by 2x (a 4 minute video will play back in two minutes) or slow it down by a factor of .25 so that the same 4 minute clip takes 16 minutes to play back. This new option is still being rolled out and may not be available across all YouTube videos.
Thus, you can easily increase the play speed if you are watching a boring presentation on YouTube or decrease when you are transcribing what’s being said in the video.
Also see: Change Playback Speed in QuickTime
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2fpgpanZAw[/youtube]
And this is crazy popular vid that launched them to fame:
OK Go – Here It Goes Again from OK Go on Vimeo.
YouTube users are doing all sorts of creative things with annotations, a feature that lets them easily add interactivity to their videos.
In the past, they have created video games, a working piano and now you have an antique-style radio that has knobs to switch radio stations just like the real thing.
For best results, hit play followed by pause to let the whole video buffer locally. You can then use your keyboard keys or the channel buttons on the radio video itself to change frequencies.
It’s a clever implementation – all the music is part of the same video clip and, upon clicking the station buttons, you are merely jumping to a different location in the video.
Thanks Guy Dayan for the tip.
Your Grandma’s Radio is on YouTube
Celebrity Nerds confirms what you always knew, deep in your heart of hearts: that stars are nerds like us. Send in your own confirmations of this fact right here.
Thanks, Luis
Continue reading Celebrity Nerds: Oprah has an EVO 4G and you don’t
Celebrity Nerds: Oprah has an EVO 4G and you don’t originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 May 2010 15:23:00 EST.
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