Tag: Vlogger

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Feel More

This blog is here for a multitude of reasons. One being to advertise my work, obviously.

Another is to just express my ideas and thoughts. Once again fairly obvious.

Talk More blog

One thing I feel strongly about is our mental health. I do a lot of the things I do because they are fun, challenging and push me outside of my comfort zone. A long way outside sometimes. I’ve touched on it a bit with a fair few people.

I have very strong feelings towards a life where we just work, drink and “medicate”. I also have very strong feelings towards a life that you live sitting on your ass the whole time. I also have a few feelings towards the links to poor mental health as a result. I don’t claim to know everything but I do like to educate myself as much as I can.

In the wake of Chris Cornells death last week I sparked me into a little more research. Some of my friends express feelings of life, some don’t. As males we know we’re meant to more. I will follow this up more after you watch last Saturdays video. To say it cut up rough was an understatement

Now I filmed this clip on Saturday but I thought it deserved a single upload. We need to talk more, so here is a four minute talk

I consider myself a happy guy. I get dealt the shit that everyone else does but I don’t let it bother me. If everything was perfect all the time then how would we know it’s perfect?

How do we tackle this mental health issue/s? I would love to have a little bit of input from people.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Boardsports & Watersports – Alive In New Zealand – Ep 8

February was the best month this year, so far! The water was warm and clear. So clear at stages it was hard to believe, for the Gulf that is.

AINZ blog

The best thing about this month is that the holiday crowds have typically gone and we’re free to play. I didn’t quite realise how much play time there was until it came time to edit.

Sit back and enjoy this 12 minutes of action

I sit here frothing over Summer footage as we’ve just had our first two frosts of the Winter. Gaggh.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Get A Hobby

The dictionaries definition of hobby is this “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.”

Blues blog

As children we all have hobbies. We have plenty of free time, therefore we have hobbies. Some of us continue with these hobbies our whole lives, most of us don’t.

As “adults” we need a hobby or two. Judging by our obesity statistics my opinion is that that hobby could do with being somewhat physical. A hobby that makes you sweat and improves your physical fitness is the best kind of hobby.

A lot of retired people need more hobbies. This would help occupy their time, assist with the aging process and lastly (and hopefully) give them an interest besides targeting young people having fun.

Even though we retire from work at a late age we seem to retire from hobbies much, much earlier. Remember the days when you had time to be bored? BORED! Now most of us just work too much in order to “get ahead”. I don’t quite know what is “ahead” but I do know a life without time for my hobbies is a shit life.

One of my favourite quotes is “You didn’t stop skateboarding because you got old. You got old because you stopped skateboarding”. I don’t skate but this is absolutely perfect.

I am an obsessive hobbyist. When I find something I like, I like to do it. Every so often isn’t enough, that’s not a true hobby. I want to get good at it and everything is a competition, including with myself. It’s gotten to the point where I believe you can monetize any hobby. But why do you want to make money from your hobby?

TO DO IT MORE!

This isn’t easy. In fact it’s bloody hard, just like life.

This weekend consisted of hobbies, nothing really else. Skimboarding, diving and good food was the order for Saturday

Sunday with better viz and a beaut forecast we were off to hit the water

If you’ve been following me for a while that this is a fairly common thing here. I’m learning more about myself all the time and where my hobbies can take me. It’s much further than you would think.

I welcome you to adopt a similar view.

See you at the beach. Obviously.

-Sam

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Nature Nerd

Lately I’ve been really nerding out of that thing called nature. I have always loved the outdoors and have always prided myself in having a child and adulthood mainly spent outside.

Gannet blog

As you may know New Zealand is nice. I would sell it harder but honestly we have plenty of tourists as it is. One thing we don’t really have though is killer animals. You know like Lions and Snakes and shit like that.

When it comes to the ocean though, we have killers. Most we know about, some we don’t. It has been terrible for diving the last couple of months so I haven’t seen as many as I would have liked to. Yeap I want to see them!

This afternoon I saw something leap out of the water. My first thought was a big Shark. A bluey grey colour makes me thing Mako. I didn’t want to jump to a conclusion so I just assumed dolphin but with no fins, spray or jumping in the little while after bring me back to Mako. This is awesome! Just nature doing nature and only a couple hundred metres off the back of one of my favourite dive spots. Wasn’t a baby either.

The Far North has it’s fair share of these predators and I have been spending a bit of time there recently. The last trip was to try and spear a Marlin. I’ve dropped a heap of vlogs as usual so you’re welcome to dig a little deeper in OXS TV. The day below consisted of huge dunes, big wave and weather forecasting for the next day

Game day. As far as being nervous goes, this day was up there.We went out so try find a Marlin to spear. I was to be alone in the water in a pressure cooker situation. Here’s the day

As I get a little older I’m feeling more drawn towards this sort of stuff. After seeing what I’m pretty sure I saw today (what a mouthful), I flew the drone over the area in the hope I could spot something, did a little work out then just went back to the water and stared. Fascinated.

Long term I want to get a lot more involved with this sort of thing and document it. Nature tearing nature a new ahole is weirdly fascinating and I want to be part of it.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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I’m Staying Put!

Well I’ve had plenty of options lately. Where to live, what to do, self employment or not etc etc.

Staying here blog

Last week was really about all of those major life choices. I was working through whether or not I was happy to potentially give up my brand. If it was that simple then the answer was a simple no. But what if it was for a job with plenty of potential? That’s a little different.

In the end I didn’t have to decide as a simple email back from the ITM Fishing Show answered it for me. I will be staying put in Omaha running this here brand.

It is however time to get focused and start working towards goals. I have a much better idea of where I’m at with everything this year than I did last year. I feel I spent 2016 a bit frustrated and confused with it all. 2017 is different.

On another topic we had some rain last week and the grass is now lush. So lush in fact that I’ve been walking about 23000 steps (actual figure from S Health on my phone) a morning to mow the stuff. After the rain cleared Sunday we got some waves and I must admit, was a lot of fun!

Next week is gearing up to be quite busy with a heap of golf course shooting as it’s tournament prep time and the aforementioned with be looking sharp!

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Expecting The Unexpected

We all know the saying but how many of us walk around waiting for something really good or really shitty to happen.

We don’t, so I prefer to take it as “Be prepared for the unexpected”.

dolpahns blog

Case in point from where I have just come in from. A little (that turned into a little longer) dive at the local with the hope of spearing a Kingy. I didn’t even see one but I did mange to bag two John Dory and a Butterfish. The Dory was unexpected. Everyone loves them and it turns out, so do sharks. On my way back towards the carpark in about 3m of water I felt the tug on my gun which if you spearfish you’ll know there’s something trying to eat your catch. Camera on and swung around hoping to get it on camera only to find my line cut and all fish still in tact although one was loose and looking a little worse for wear. I don’t expect this to happen but I am prepared for it. Whether it’s going to be a great experience or terrifying one.

Back to the wharf there was some bird activity and some of natures greatest creations, dolphins. Back in the water and my best dolphin experience to date. I’ve swam with dolphins a fair few times but if you ever get a chance to do it with a mask on, DO IT! They’re a lot more banged up than you’d think. I haven’t actually seen them much spearfishing but again I was ready.

The last week has consisted of trying to get back into a groove. Scored some fun waves I must admit especially on Saturday

Sunday I was pumped to shoot a ripper of sunrise. Unfortunately my alarm setting skills weren’t up to the task and I missed it.

If you’ve been following me for a while you might know I always turn up with cameras. This is because I like to be prepared for the unexpected which is what I’m getting at here. A lot of my best videos have come from exactly that.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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And That’s It For The Holiday Season

Holidays. For “adults” this usually means a couple of weeks off with everyone else at Christmas time and a little break here and there throughout the year.

The thing is, we all have to work. We have to work because we have bills and those buggers don’t stop!

Tides in blog

Living in a small coastal town such as Omaha, it makes you very aware of the holiday season. It starts building throughout December with it’s absolute peak over New Years and it’s supporting circus all through January. Anniversary weekend is usually the send off then Waitangi weekend (if the dates make for a long weekend) then boom! Everyone’s gone. Omaha seems pretty dead this week!

If I had to pick and choose my holidays I would definitely pick right now. The weather is nice, the crowds are gone and the water warm. Yes please!

If you’re lucky enough to love your work as much as I do then all of this really becomes irrelevant. No set hours, no real rules, no dedicated holiday periods. Sounds easy huh? Wrong.

The big difference is I don’t really knock off. There’s no 5 o’clock knock when you can go home and not care. Over the last few years I’ve had to work out how to stop and start work as it suits. For instance say the surf comes up. Hell yeah I’m out there but it means I might be back at work until 11pm. Tides look good for a skim? Well it’s “R&D” time. Off filming all weekend? Well it’s the hours usually at night piecing it all together.

Long term I essentially want to feel like I’m always on a working holiday. I think that’s probably a lot of peoples idea especially when it comes to the creative field. I certainly don’t want to be stuffed in a job where I get to look forward to my next decent break at Christmas next year.

Waitangi day had the working holiday feel. A great dive in the morning followed by finishing up a big print job.

I’m eyeing up a few days away very soon. I don’t know the details yet but a few days “off” is welcome. Have fun at work.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Accepting Feedback

One thing when I set out at the start of this creative journey was to gain feedback. Whether you like it or not, everyone is curious about what everyone thinks.

Yellow brick road blog

You can legitimately care what others think and have the good and the bad affect you. While it doesn’t affect me, I am curious as to what others think about what I’m doing. Not so much those who have no real interest but those that are awake and paying attention. It helps me learn and makes decisions when I’m on the fence with things.

I asked for an opinion in my latest vlog and to my surprise I got a fair amount of positive feedback. Excusing the odd hick up, one thing I am very happy with is the feedback and interest I gather is positive! Even from strangers I’ve never met and probably will never meet. This gets me stoked about what I’m doing. Check the vlog here

There’s four big things in my life that I focus on. Skimboarding, surfing, spearfishing and of course capturing it all on camera. It seems people want to see these things relatively evenly. This gets me stoked again so this is the focus. Just to a bigger and better level. I have a wholllllle heap of other ideas but those require money and more importantly time. The latter being the thing people don’t really want to seem to spend.

To finish with and the whole point of this weeks blog post is if you’re reading this or viewing any of my content, hell if you’re seeing my in real life! Then I would love your feedback whether it be good or bad. I’m all ears.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

 

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What The Hell Happened?

I’m back to work and routine. Well sort of. The whole New Years trip is edited and all online except for one more vlog. I shot over 220gb of footage which consists of 11 separate vlogs and videos to YouTube. Add a couple more because I want to do a couple of smaller edits of a couple of places.

Pohu sunset blog

This week consisted of editing, some lawn mowing, some skimboard manufacturing, skimming and some diving. The water is warm and the weather is hot and dry for the most part. Workers are back at work and kids on holiday are busy sharing their same, generic beach photos.

So this brings me to the point of this blog post. With no late nights, alcohol or other substances consumed over the “holiday period” I’ve done well to be able to sit here and wonder what the hell even happened? It all went by in a flash and it’s halfway through January already! 2018 is only a few sleeps away!

Plans for the next wee while are getting some boards pumped out through the shop, gym, a rebuild of sorts in the workshop, getting ready for a potentially huge couple of print jobs, several blog posts and getting back on the road late this week for the next round of Thundercat action.

Anniversary weekend is pretty soon which means the busy holiday period will implode on that last afternoon.

I usually share the vlogs in this blog post but there’s been so many I don’t really feel like adding them so I will kick it off with the first one and you can follow from there if you wish OXS TV

The dream and goal for this year is somehow move towards being more of a full time creator. I’m a very firm believer is that I need a lot more inclusion from rad people to make this happen.

Lastly we’re on at the Mount this weekend (21-22) for the next round of Thundercat racing so if you’re around then come along!

See you at the beach.

-Sam

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40 Hours

norty-40-blog

Pretty simple really. The standard definition of the work week. 9-5. Get up in the morning, go to work then come home. Until you’re 65, then retire.

Sounds easy enough. Sounds absolutely horrifying if you hate your job, 40 hours can be an eternity.

40 hours when you’re self employed isn’t enough. There’s no clocking out at 5pm and not having to give a shit until the next morning. In busy times, like I am very deep in currently don’t seem to end. This blog post is getting typed at 9pm on a Thursday night as I’m nearing the end of a nice little 14 hour stretch.

Last Saturday was pretty much a full day of work which can be a little tricky when it comes to making a vlog but here it is

Sunday the  sun was out and there were a few small waves around. The wind was also up a lot more than we realised

So why be self employed? Why sign up to the well over 40 hours a week grind? To me it makes me feel a little less plugged in. Not part of the “system” and boy oh boy is it rewarding! I will take it over pretty much anything.

Good luck searching for your 40+

See you at the beach!

-Sam