Big Lizard[s] in my Backyard.

I love where I live. Growing up here I really took it for granted. Now there are miles and miles of world class mountain bike trails less than five minutes from my house.

Single track, sandstone and million dollar views abound right in my backyard!

I'm not the only one who loves this place, I share the trail with the lizards. These cute little guys are getting fat and colorful. They were scurring accros the path often today. I wanted to get a picture of one and I tried many times but they would dart off to the cover of the rocks before I could get my iphone out. I gave up and headed for home. On the last hundred yards of the trail I spotted a biker speeding toward me. We were both on the same single track headed right toward each other so I decided to step off the track to let him pass. I got off of my bike and moved over. Right then this friendly reptile darts accros the track and leaps onto my tire! I must have looked crazy awkward with my iphone in one hand and my bike in the other trying to take the picture one handed but this little guy just hung out and posed!

The whole time I was riding today I had the DEAD MILKMAN classic stuck in my head. Big Lizard in my back yard was the first punk rock cassette I ever had. Ed Johnson traded it to me in math class and the rest is history.

Ready for spring

I skate regularly but rarely pad up. Normally I take it easy, think old man in teenager clothing. Today was different, I was bent on a full ramp assault. My pads have been sitting for so long there were literally spiders falling out of them. Sorry mom. It was chilly and I felt rusty but nothing was going to stop me. I had not done an invert in almost a year. My goals were simple:
1. Get upside down.
2. Get air
3. Get stoked
4. Do it all again for as long as possible and
5. Be able to walk away when the session was over.
Mission accomplished.
I bashed the top of my foot on the coping pretty good but I'll be ok and it was totally worth it!


first knee slide blew out my laces.



My sweet wife shot this make and cheered me on. Not my best form but I landed it and rolled away. I'm guessing I made 14 out of 19 attempets not bad for a a year off. I am stoked.


My girls had a blast.





Confession:
I am always finding excuses not to skate, they are usually legit, responsible reasons like: help the kids, fix the house, work for a living, practice music etc, but other times I contrive totally lame reasons driven by fear and guilt. Sometimes I feel like I just don't deserve the time for myself. Other times I am just too scared of crashing. If you let fear and guilt stop you from doing what you love to do then you are not living. When I step onto a skateboard I am overcoming my fear and that is a great feeling.

The Friendly Alien World

My boys made these cute little "alien" creatures out of eye balls and foam letters. We had lots of fun with the project. We made a little stop motion video to share. Fun!

Family

I am always inspired, refreshed and positively motivated after talking with my Dad. I hope I can have that effect on my kids. I love you Dad! My whole family is amazing. I am so lucky and blessed.

Pull yourself together man

This may sound crazy but if go too long without skateboarding, I start to come apart at the seams. How long is too long? It just depends. For some reason this activity from my youth has become necessary for sanity. I don't skate enough I guess. Sometimes I'm too scarred. I don't want to crash. The stoke is worth the risk. I don't need to destroy a mega ramp or execute a perfect impossible flip to twenty stair hand rail to feel it. All I know is that riding a little wooden toy with wheels levels me out. I am thankful to be able to ride.

The way I see it.

I always wanted to be so good at something that my heros would want to meet me.

I posted this on FB and an old friend Named Fred pointed out that my kids are my "real" heros. It brought totally new perspective. Thanks Fred.

Backstory:
I had seen a pic of Hosoi and Cab and wished I could hang with those cool cats. That pic prompted my statement.

It's funny, My heros Hosoi and Cab were totally into my kids when we met.

Life... time does pass so quickly... I have plans... it feels like there is no time left to be what I wanted to be. Maybe I am what I wanted to be... I am trying so hard to enjoy every day for how much it is worth.... maybe I have had too many glasses of wine. Maybe everything is perfect.

Hello Blog!

Whew! I lost access to my blog for a while... and I was lazy (busy) and did not post for a long time. I really want to start posting to my blog again. I like the personal journal aspect of blogging, it's something that facebook lacks. I mean when you post to facebook EVERYONE see's it. I think I have grown to like the fact that few to no people ready my blog. It feels less scrutinized! I like it here!

The weather outside is delightful! 12-27-10

WOW! The weather has been unseasonably warm. 50+ degrees every day! P,A and Andrew came to visit the day after Christmas. Great weather and the best lil sibs ever make for an epic winter session. Two sessions today in fact. We hit the ramp once in the morning then again after taking the kids to Bananas fun park. Fantastic day!

PJ Slashing!




Kvon Backside. Some things never change.



Andrew, A.K.A. "Keanu"



Andrea kick'n.

One NEW song EVERY Sunday in 2010!!!

I am writing and posting one NEW song EVERY Sunday in 2010! The songs will be available for purchase on Facebook as singles. Albums will be available on itunes say... every twelve weeks. You can listen to full songs on myspace. Here are links:
HAIL THE SOUND on myspace
HAIL THE SOUND on facebook









Artistic expression

From the looks of my blog I have been doing quite a bit of photography. It's true, "shutter-bug" is my middle name... or something. Back to topic: 2010 means a new year and new focus on the artistic things that define part of "kevin". Why leave the camera on a shelf when you can be clicking away! I had an opportunity to work with the lovely Sarah on a shoot. Above are three of my favorite shots from the shoot.

The Ring flash goes back.

I purchased an Alien Bees Ring flash a few weeks ago for my photography set up. The Ring Flash gives you some crazy cool effects but it has to be plugged in to a wall outlet. The Ring flash is mounted directly to your camera so the cable to wall makes you feel like a dog on a chain. To further complicate things my so called big feet tend to catch stray wireing at random. I don't want my shoot to turn into a pull over, knock down session. In short, I sent the ring flash back and will likely purchase a conventional b800 flash head from Alien bees instead. Below are a couple examples of the ring flashes effect. ps You know what they say about big feet right ... "Big shoes".

Family Christmas card 2009

Just in the St. Nick of time! The 2009 Family Christmas card! Let me know what you think of it!

SNOW DAY!

Today school was canceled due to lots of fluffy white snow. My wife set up Muppetts Christmas on her laptop and all the kids crowed onto the couch for a fun morning off!

Pics with Mom and sibs 11-26-09

A9 and Andy came to visit us for Thanksgiving weekend. I SO love hanging out with my sibs. We skated. We jamed. We ROCKED! it was fun. We snapped a few pictures and A9 snapped his board. SNAP! Good thing I have a stock pile of yard sale decks from last summer.

Happy Thanksgiving from Martinellis!

This is how we do! "A wine glass of Martinellis? Don't think so fool! I drink it strait from the bottle YO!"

Every thanksgiving we have several bottles of Martinellis Sparkling apple juice left over. In years past I have just poured it down the drain. I assumed it was full of high fructose corn syrup and other poison. This year I happened to read the ingredients...100% apple juice... and carbonation of course. The carbonation is real bad but finding out that its just apple juice was enough to make me refrain from wasting the excess. After a bottle the room was spinning... "Crap! Did this @#$% ferment???"


Don't worry Ma, it's just apple juice! ;)


Today, I put down a bottle of Martinellis and skated without pads. Livin on the edge SON!

Hail The Sound album cover

In the face of economic down turn...
With a newborn a wife and three other kiddos counting on me to put food on the table...

I have decided there is no better time then the present to try [once again] to "make it" as a performing songwriter. 0% talent 100% PASSION!© I also make weird combinations with my musical gear, take pictures of myself and pretend to be a graphic artist. Oh brother! Here is my subtly offensive album cover.

Facebook notes vol 1

I have decided to included some of my facebook musings here on my blog. Facebook notes vol 1:

11-18-09 10:34am
Shea is vocal training me and it is working!  But I have a long way to go still. I can hit notes real well but holding them is tuff. I over correct and over correct. Vox really are just like any instrument: takes tons of practice. Thoughts? Advice?


11-18-09 10:20am
I think I want to get a piano for the living room.... maybe.

11-17-09 6:07pm
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rory Grace! Eight pounds two ounces! She is a princess! :)

11-17-09 9:02am
...working on my 2009 album. (narrowing it down from around 50 songs. What will make the cut?) ...waiting for a new baby. ... wishing it would warm up so I could skate. ...wishing it would snow (in the mtns) so we could shred (after the new baby comes). My thankfulness increeses exponentially.

11-16-09 11:16pm
Kevin Decker is.

11-14-09 10:02pm
Working on my songs! Wrote two this week. stoked. Over the past few years I have developed a thing for orchestration.

11-13-09 11:44pm
I always want to do everything at the same time.

Hail the Sound

I purchased the Adobe production premium software bundle. My pockets are empty but I have this killer software. Don't know if I will get the full benifit of this powerful platforme but for now I am delighting in the camera raw update that comes with photoshop CS4. It has enabled me to open a few ".cr2" photos that were taken at the best ever Hail the Sound gig. Me, my sister, brother and cousin had the opertunity to rock together. We're a family band! At least we were, for one shining moment! Now the sibs have gone off to collage and my cuz has been consumed by the City. Cuz is a 911 dispatcher and for the moment has no life outside of the PD. "crrrk we have a 411 on the nothing is blog... over. crrrk". "crrk rodger that. crrk". Side note: one of our other friends on the force was bass player and co conspiritor in ,SMA. SMA was a killer band that I was in some years back the likes of wich the world will never see again. Liten to SMA Here. End side journy. Hail the sound is now pretty much just me, doing my Trent Reznor thing wrighting tons of music and wondering if the world will ever care. At the front part of 2009 Hail had the opertunity to open for Autumns Chase another cool band in which I loved playing drums. End second side note. Here are some cool pics taken by my friend Seth from Hoptocopter at the infamous Hail show earlier this year.

Rocktober 09

October 2009
In a effort to get back on board with my blog I have prepared a little October 2009 recap. This is how it all went down... at least this is the way I remember it. The names are the same because no one is innocent. Bam! October started with the fall 7 days self portrait shoot out. & days is a photo group I belong to over on flick-r. here are my entries:

This was my day pic. Flikr actually used this pic as a "feature pic" what ever that means. All I know is it got a lot of extra hits as a result.



This was my day two pic. People in the group said this pic scared them.


I missed day three this was day four. I wanted a silhouette with the soft box in the shot... well there ya go.


I missed day five and seven here is day six. Long exposure at dusk, cell phone... yep.








October 09 continued on. The leaves turned and then fell. I did a few photo shoots fro friends and did a ton of local Television commercial production. As usual I started a few musical compositions and practiced electric guitar like a mad man. It was much of what you would expect from a Kvon October. What I did not see coming was a 24 hour stomach bug and the uh.. swine flu!?!? These inconvenient illnesses hit me one week apart, each put me on my back with less than enough strength to move and BOTH had their low point on Saturday. I have a gig every saturday playing guitar at a church that has about 3000 members. yep, I played two gigs totally sick as a dog, I learned first hand the true meaning of "The Show MUST go on". On top of all that my whole family got hit with said illnesses. No fun... no fun at all! Since we were sick we stayed in on Halloween and watched "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". We are over the sick stuff now. Hopefully we have the immune system of super heros!

The boys are very talented, they draw and create all kinds of lego masterpieces. The other night when I was tucking B in he informed me that he is "a genius" to which I replied " yes, yes You are"

I purchased a line 6 M9 in October and love it. If you play guitar, get one... or two.
I still have a weak spot for Gibson les paul standard guitars. I have been watching ebay and saving my money.

I organized my garage and my studio.

I have a plan to tear down my ramp and build a full on vert backyarder!

D is doing very well at his new school.

Mommy is going into labor any day now.

We got hooked on Battle Star Galactica and then I got mad at it and for now I have very little interest in watching it any more.

I met some cool producers here in Happy valley.

I watched my Kook friends awesome coverage of their awesome trip to Cali to skate with Cab.

I decided persons on Social security are not allowed to send spam emails bad mouthing other government systems. I don't believe in government, I just believe in me.

I learned that the simple rebellious saying "Shut up and skate" is profound and may be the answer to 48.6 percent of the worlds problems.

So that was my October 09. It came to pass and pass it did... with the joy and fragrance of a good flatulation and ya know what... MAN do I feel better! :)

10,839 feet above sea level! Color Sunday 2009

My kiddos.



Princess S.



The kids with Grandma (my mom).



Smile boys!



They were disipointed to find out we had no plans to take this boat out on the lake.



The D man.



Two boys and a boat.



Big B.



Big B.
"I told you so" ... that's what she said. She in this case is my sweet wife. She told me I would be sorry I did not bring my 5d mark II on our little expidition. Color Sunday is sure to be a photo op. I decided to bring our old camera, it's lighter and smaller but not up to the level of the 5d mark II. In the end the sb800 flash saved the day. Here are a few pics of my family!