Catskills Leaf Action

Sunrise on Beylleayre Mountain

By my estimation, we are still about a week away from peak leaf peeping action in our neck of the Catskills. But we had such a beautiful sunrise this morning that I had to dust off the drone and make a quick vid of the changing leaves.Continue reading

2022 Recap in Jake’s iPhone Photos

2022 was another super weird year. This time last year, I felt like 2022 was going to be the one where we would finally regain some post-pandemic “normalcy.” Welp, that kind of went out the window in February when all of the Ukraine stuff started. It seems like things just spiraled into bizzaro world from there. I can’t really complain from a personal perspective, other than about the anxiety caused from uncertainty of macro issues beyond my control. Overall, I consider myself very fortunate to have had another year of meaningful experiences and personal growth. Met some very cool people and spent time with people I love.Continue reading

Pond Skim at the Belle

The Author Moments After an Icy Baptism [IMG courtesy of Belleayre]

Growing up watching snowboarding videos (on VHS), one recurring theme I noticed was in the crash reel during the closing credits. Almost without fail, there would be a clip or two of someone going down like a mouse trap, face first in a glacial pond. I had never actually participated in a pond skim, but the idea certainly intrigued me. The first weekend of April I finally had my chance to be that guy from the crash reel. Belleayre, our local mountain in the Catskills was throwing a big end-of-season bash, including a pond skimming contest aptly dubbed ‘The Slush Cup’.

There was definitely a bit of trepidation on my part, since I had never attempted such a feat in all of my years of snowboarding. PS, that is a lot of years. When I arrived on the scene and discovered a very short/flat runway, I knew there was no way I was going to make it across. But I was committed to the skim, so I enjoyed the weather, threw back a few brews and resigned to the fact that I would be taking a bath in some yellow tinged water. The setting was slightly less pristine than those emerald colored lagoons at the base of giant glaciers I had seen in those snowboarding videos as a kid. But hey man, gotta start somewhere, right? Thank you to Belleayre for hosting the event. Thanks to Britt and to our friends who came to spectate (and contribute footage). Enjoy the cut below for a good laugh-

2022 Slush Cup at Belleayre NY from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

Recap of the Year 2020 in Jake’s iPhone Photos

This year was a lot different for pretty much every human on the planet, including me. As a result, the difference in this year’s photo recap, vs those from past years is pretty stark, starting around March. In keeping with tradition, I dumped all of the photos from my phone that were taken this year into a video editor and gave each frame 0.2 seconds. Some of the photos were taken by Britt and sent to me. Some were taken on a real camera and saved to my phone for sharing with others. The effect is the same- a ~9 minute flip book of 2020 soundtracked by a couple of jams that I had on heavy rotation this year. A lot less travel this year (in fact no travel at all except for a work conference in January that took us to Miami for a weekend). A lot more selfies this year. Not really sure what was up with that. There is also 1000% more Lola and nature.

Behold, 2020 in photos from my phone–

 

2020 Photo Recap in Jake's iPhone Photos from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

Craving Spring

Bella in Harriman State Park – Spring 2019

It’s that time of the winter when the holidays are in the rear view and I’m basically just waiting for it to warm up. These sentiments especially acute this year based on the fact that I have to sit out on all the usual winter sports that I like. There have been a few warm days where I have seen people out on their motos. It makes me jones a little.

I wrote about the glamping ride I did with Union Garage last fall. They subsequently put together a vid of that ride (some of the footage by yours truly). I’m embedding it here below in anticipation of it being riding weather again very soon!

The 2019 Union Garage GBGR from Union Garage on Vimeo.

25 Years of Ill Communication

This album changed my life. I can’t believe that is has been 25 years. Amazon Music made a short video where Mike D, Ad Rock, and Mario Caldato Jr. describe the journey from Paul’s Boutique to Ill Communication. If you are a Beastie Boys fan, it is definitely worth the watch.

Recap of the Year 2018 in Jake’s iPhone Photos

For a few years now, I have been making these silly recap videos from a year’s worth of iPhone photos. Here are some from past years. The one from 2016, for some reason I did not publish on here. But here it is anyway. This year’s iteration is ~6800 photos shown roughly in order at 1/20th of a second per frame. Even with the fast frame rate, the video is still seven minutes long, which is longer than most most people’s attention span. So, if you are stuck in an elevator or something, enjoy–

2018 Photo Recap in Jake's iPhone Photos from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.