TED – Elizabeth Gilbert – Your Elusive Creative Genius


[YouTubeUlar] <— 1,392,643 I was surprised to see the date on this February 2009 TED video and the fact it took over 4 years to reach me. When Elizabeth Gilbert speaks about the genius of creativity and where does it come from… it directly reminds me of an interview I conducted in 2010 with a true musical genius, Doug Smith.

I really enjoy how Elizabeth talks about the source of creativity and her Ruth Stone Example. Doug couldn’t explain where his creativity came from either… other than it hitting him with a ton of bricks from somewhere above. He was simply the messenger to transcribe the grand message and deliver it to our ears through his grand piano.

To conclude, Elizabeth brings up a very good point to ponder…
is creativity directly linked to suffering?

[Elizabeth Gilbert – Facebook] <— 80,049 [Ruth Stone]

Future of Gaming – Microsoft IllumiRoom + Bungie


[YouTubeUlar] <— 441,095 Ummmmm, I've never been a fan of Microsoft ever... and especially since they acquired Bungie back in 2000 to steal Halo away from the macintosh platform in favor of their unreleased XBox platform.

Not many people realize how integral Bungie was to the Macintosh platform for keeping Apple’s computing platform more awesome than the others (Windows)… but it’s true. If you can remember Pathways Into Darkness then you most certainly will remember Marathon, Myth, and totally fucking awesome Oni.

Obviously Marathon was finally ported to Windows in 1996, and the entire trilogy is now available for free on all platforms – but that didn’t completely change the company from abandoning the Macintosh platform as Bungie’s developing platform of choice. Bungie loved Apple and during the 1999 MacWorld Keynote Address Steve Jobs allowed Jason Jones to unveil Halo for the first time to a public audience to showcase Apple’s new adoption of OpenGL.

On June 19th, 2000 Microsoft announced that it had acquired Bungie Software and that Bungie would become Bungie Studios underneath the Microsoft Game Division. Luckily the core team of Bungie game developers resisted all of Microsofts efforts to ‘boring’ize the group and they were actually able to finish Halo specifically for the XBox and thus changing the world of gaming… again.

Bungie continued making Halo 2 (2004) and Halo 3 (2007) underneath Microsoft and specifically for the XBox until 5 days after Halo 3 was released and they announced they were leaving the ‘boring’ giant. After leaving they continued development work on the Halo brand for a couple years until finally parting with Microsoft with a new publishing deal with Activision Blizzard in 2010.

And now, finally – that your slightly educated – we can announce the future of gaming… Pathways Out of Darkness — Destiny.

[YouTubeUlar] <— 4,949,334 I just hope IllumiRoom does some stellar work with this game.

[Geek out on Illumiroom – Engadget]
[Geek out on Destiny]

My Highest Bowling Score (278)


Greg Hydle's Highest Bowling Score

April 4th, 2013 is the day that I almost retired from bowling. After Pizza and Beer League play at Golden Bowl, Donovan Rossi and I stayed late to work on our game. I’m pretty sure Donovan had a personal best a couple games before I bowled my 278.

Tonights 10 games of Golden Bowl bowling looked like this…

238 144 181 163 191 170 195 179 236 278

…for a night average of 197.

I’ve never gone 9 deep… therefore I’ve never gone 9 deep and dorked it in the 10th :(

Until that illustrious 300 perfect game, Cheers.
-Greg Hydle

Mat “Condor” Hoffman – Toughest Guy in Sports

Mat Hoffman - Toughest Guy In Sports

ESPN claims Mat Hoffman as the toughest guy in sports. After reading this intriguing article about the history of this legend… I would have to agree.

“I was flipping and tumbling through the sky, holding on as tight as I could. I felt like someone had put me in the dryer and turned it on high. At 8,000 feet I threw my bike and stopped spinning. My chute opened at around 6,000 feet and I started looking for my target. Flying above the desert, the ground below looks like Mars; nothing but cracked earth. I saw what I thought was our van and started flying toward it. I went about three miles before I realized I was headed toward an abandoned house. I dropped into the backyard and noticed a kid sitting by a fire, roasting marshmallows. In the desert. In 100° heat. He saw me, pulled his stick out of the fire, reached it toward me and said, “Would you like a marshmallow?”

Hoffman shares even better stories about his childhood growing up and how his parents never limited or stopped him and his brother Travis from accomplishing danger. I was very entertained by this write up from Alyssa Roenigk from ESPN The Magazine.

[Read Full]

Tits & Ass Group Run – Saturday, April 6th – Golden

T&A Ted Archuleta on Mt Falcon

It’s Springtime Bitches!!!!!!

This means a couple things….

1) Race season is here.

2) The shorts come out, and you all get to experience the 12th wonder of the world that is Ted’s ridiculously, ridiculously, enormously massive incredible hulk legs. I’ve attached a picture from our trail run at Mt. Falcon last year for reference. Enjoy!

Saturday we’ll be hitting a trail I don’t believe we have done yet. North Table Mountain. It has a nice 8.5 mile loop around the rim up top with plenty of options to cut off for shorter distances. I believe it is relatively flat once you climb to the top so it should make for a nice, enjoyable spring day on the trails. Hope to see you there!!!

DATE: Saturday, April 6.

TIME: 9 AM SHARP!!!!!!!!!!!ish.

WHERE: North Table Mesa. Just North of Golden off Hwy 93. Directions can be found HERE

WHY: If you’ve ever wondered what truly embodies Russian culture, I’ve found it here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrU1hZxSEXQ

Hope to see you all out with us. Supposed to be a very nice day for a run.

Much Love,

The T&A Propaganda Machine

Jake Manley – Z06 Hand Control Race Car

Jake Manley - Hand Control Race Car

Sounds like Jake Manley is up to a new project for Craig Hospital

“Next project! Dad, I got to get you over to the shop! You will love it. The owner said you could come over and help work on the cars any time!

This Z06 will be race ready in July complete with state of the art hand controls! This is going to be bad ass!

I get to drive it on the track in June!

Sounds like a job for GoPro.

John Spriggs – Corbet’s Couloir Backflip


[YouTubeUlar] <— 74,524 Apparently this session with John Spriggs backflipping into Jackson Hole's infamous Corbet's Couloir took place last year - but none the less it is still impressive and probably will be for the rest of my life. Teton Gravity Research (TGR) was actually conducting a ski shoot for their upcoming film The Dream Factory and they had this shot into Corbet's covered by 10 different camera angles - but it was this RAW shot by Erin Lunsford who just happened to be at the right spot at the right time to intrigue me to look up this epic morning of shooting for TGRs Dream Factory. Now I want to see the movie. The Dream Factory- Teton Gravity Research

Straight from TGRs Behind the Scenes at Corbet’s video

“In March of 2012, Teton Gravity Research filmed a segment for The Dream Factory on the most challenging in-bounds run in the United States — the infamous Corbet’s Couloir at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. On a bluebird day, the TGR crew put together what may be the heaviest session to have ever gone down on this run riddled with history. John Spriggs kicks off the session with a giant back flip, Griffin Post sends the West Wall, 13-year-old Daniel Tisi airs it bigger than most grown men ever have, Matt Phillipi spins a giant 360, Max Hammer throws a huge switch 180 and local Jeff Ledger does his signature front flip. There’s no doubt about it, this session was “all-time.”

[Teton Gravity Research – Behind the Scenes at Corbet’s Couloir] <— 64,085 John Spriggs is a local kid (younger then me) who I have spent some time with in the past. I actually sold my old Sony FX1 camera to him a couple years back for him to shoot his ridiculous skiing antics. It's good to see Spriggs continuing his skiing career to new levels. The Dream Factory- Teton Gravity Research

Kickstarter 2012 – The Stats

Kickstarter 2012 - The Stats

Kickstarter continues to be the worlds largest funding platform for creative projects. I recently reviewed Kickstarter’s 2012 year in review. The stats are unbelievable and continue to grow as their demographic base increases. Last year Kickstarter collected a total of $274,391,721 million in pledges which is 85.6% of of all pledges given. This does not mean that 85.6% of all projects reach their goal, actually only 44% of all 41,765 projects launched reached their goal. And of those 18,109 kickstarter projects, there were a select few that completely blew out their goal.

Hydle’s 1 favorite kickstarter highlight from last year – The Griz Coat by Buffoonery Factory.

Our successful Blackbox Case project from 2011 pales in comparison to some of the numbers being generated today. I feel like it is time for another Hydle project in the Kickstarter arena again.

Immediate potential projects:
Blackbox Case needs an iPad Mini Case
VersaTowel
Suitcase Speaker + mini Keg

Doug Smith – I Am Craig Video

[Vimeeeeeo] <— 1848 LinkedIn recently inquired me to write about some projects from my past, so I thought I would share this little write up on the 2011 Craig Hospital Push Dinner video with Doug Smith, the most amazing pianist (sorry doug) in the world.

The 2011 installment of the “I Am Craig” PUSH Dinner Video was a fun one. Getting the opportunity to interview Doug Smith, a true musical genius, was a treat for me to figure out where his creativity comes from. Tying his story into a live show was a first for the Craig Hospital PUSH dinner videos… something they have now copied three times since this 2011 showing.

If you could have only been there to feel this transition take place… to see my work presented on such a large scale to tell the story of Doug Smith and then have him revealed and play such a powerful song live — It was such an amazing feeling.

I shot, edited and directed this piece with a small team of Jake Manley, Mary Bonner and myself. We all had a fun working road trip to Lubbock, Texas were everyone on the team learned a lot about each other, the local watering holes, and the man Doug Smith!

After the 6:40 mark in the video… I had zero control of shooting and editing. I feel as if the impact could have been a bit better matched to my original work – but you still get the impression of how impacted the audience was. [raw video]

I can’t wait to actually tell this entire story in Hydle detail sometime in the near future for all of you loyal readers and newly Doug Smith fans :) But for now – it stays in the memory bank.

Don’t hesitate to pick up the most amazing Doug Smith album of all time. It was recorded live in 2000 before his injury. The stories behind the recording of this album are incredible, but Doug Smith’s playing is even better.

[iTunes – Live – Doug Smith]
[Doug Smith – The Amazing Piano Player – Homepage]
[Doug Smith – The Amazing Piano Player – On Hydle.com]
[Craig Hospital]

Katie Aring – 1 Year Later


[YouTubeUlar] <— 2655 I don't know what to say... 1 year ago today, and I just learned of your loss now :( Katie Aring's final post: Katie Aring - Final Post

Four days later:
Katy Aring - From Dad

Absolutely unbelievable… I’m at a loss for words right now Katie, but Francis Do and I will meet very soon and recap one of the best post Dew Tour rain delay parties ever conducted on a judging tower. I’m so sorry. Your final post says it all :(

[Cleveland.com]
[Toronto Sun]
[NelsonStar.com]
[Survivor Story]

Jesse Lakes – GeoRiot


[YouTubeUlar] <— 479 A long time in the making and a lot of hard work, GeoRiot now has a pretty face to put in front of their affiliate clicks program. Back in the day when we conceptualized Ski Movie Music and figured out we weren’t getting paid on more than half the affiliate links being clicked, we realized we had a problem. Finally, after writing an entire book on Mastering the iTunes Affiliate Program and actually working for Apple on the subject, Jesse Lakes finally created a solution — GeoRiot.

[GeoRiot – Every Click Counts]

Awesomeness Lakes.

[Jesse Lakes on Idea Mensch]

Snubby J’s – Original PVC Instrument


[YouTubeUlar] <— 5,407,693 Soon to be future Blue Man Group extraordinaire Snubby J‘s video is touring the interManets yet again. I’m actually surprised it took over 2 years to reach me, but that’s how the webs works sometimes. Not every viral campaign moves as fast as The Harlem Shake.

This feed came through TJ Fry and has a surprisingly good list of songs.

Songs are…
-Office Theme Song (0:18)
-Linus and Lucy (0:38)
-Turkish March (1:13)
-Mario Brothers Theme (1:27)
-In the Hall of the Mountain King (1:54)
-Bad Romance (2:07)
-Viva La Vida (2:50)
-Like a Virgin (3:03)
-Crazy Train (3:23)
-Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (4:01)
-James Bond Theme (4:15)
-Pirates of the Caribbean Theme (4:35)
-The Final Countdown (featuring my friend, Quin) (4:56)

This kid is making moves now showing up in Pringles ads and with his music now available on iTunes.

[Snubby J – Facebook] <— 29,376 likes [Snubby J – YouTube] <— 55,059 subscribers [Contributing Article]