Lightning strikes thrice?

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! http://vimeo.com/12816548

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

The worlds most unproductive creative process has finally finished a new photo album. I always appreciate any feedback. http://picasaweb.google.com/cjonny21/InAnAeroplaneOverTheSea#

Please

If you can, please make a donation to cancer research today.

Zurich

I can't believe it has been a year since I was an exchange student in Zurich, exploring a new culture while having the time of my life. I miss that place more than I ever imagined I would.

A Month Since Lost

Since the finale of Lost a month ago, I have experienced numerous endings. Therefore, I found it appropriate to re post my Lost finale reflection. Also, today I flew into Hawaii, and There Is No Place Like Home starting playing on my ipod, so I took it as some kind of sign.


Dear Damon Lidelof, Carlton Cuse, and JJ Abrams

The sheer fact that it took two weeks for me to organize my thoughts and emotions regarding the LOST finale into some kind of partially literate ramble, clearly illustrated the tremendous impact the show has had upon my persona. So before I am reduced to an emotional wreck, let me try and express my gratitude.

The date is May 23rd 2010, and after 6 long years, the adventure has truly reached a conclusion with a Jughead-sized bang, a bang that caused a whole theatre full of perfectly sane people to start sobbing. Just thinking of the church scene tears me up, yet to understand this situation, we need to trust in the time space continuum, and flashback to 2004.

During the fall of 2004, I was an awkward, shy, and lonely 7th grader. I had my core group of friends, but you could never describe us as the cool kids, we read vampire novels before Twilight was cool, could recite most of Empire Strikes Back, and counted down the days until the release of Halo 2. (Yet, despite these seemingly nerdy hobbies, we were also some of the most athletic kids at school, so I still don't completely understand why we were ridiculed so much.) However, one day I had an especially bad day of school, came home in tears, and in true sad upper-middle class kid syndrome, began to contemplate who I truly was. This introverted thinking just furthered my depressed state, and by 9pm, I found myself lounging on the couch, inadvertently watching the pilot for LOST. However, once the credits rolled, I picked up the phone, called my friends, and attempted to convey to them, the magic I had just experienced. It was comparable to capturing lightening in a bottle, and at that moment, I knew a new chapter in my life had begun.

Over the course of the next six years I could effortlessly relate with Hurley's quest for love, Locke's confusion, and Charlie's self doubt. As the characters progressed through there adventure, I could feel myself growing in real life, right beside the Losties. Lost also helped me meet some of my best friends. The most recent example of this was during my my senior calculus class. During those nine months of torture, disguised as an incomprehensible set of numbers and Greek symbols, I talked about Lost with the five seemingly strangers I happened to inhabit a table with. Flashing forward, I graduate from high school tomorrow, and those five strangers are now some of my best friends. I have truly formed lasting relationships with people because of your show, and because of that, I can never thank you all enough. LOST also inspired me to chase my dreams of becoming a writer. This fall, I will be a freshman at LMU, majoring in screenwriting, and I hope to one day create something that has the potential to touch lives, just like LOST has touched mine.

So in closing I would simply like to thank you all. The three of you have provided me with, as acutely reinforced two weeks ago, my favorite show of all-time. I would be perfectly happy for another show to eventually dethrone Lost, but if nothing can, that is perfectly acceptable, because I know that I simply got to experience LOST. I will always cherish the memories of sitting around the television, swapping theories and predictions about Islands, numbers, gods, and monsters. Part of LOST was the show, a large part was the experience of watching the show with people. As I watched the final scenes, tears streaking down my face, all I could think was: thank you.

So you say goodbye. You go to sleep, and you wake up the next day without it. And you smile, because you know that since you lost it, you will always have it.


Sincerely
Jonathan Crossley

Double Celebration

Today is both my sisters birthday and fathers day. I have already wished them both a happy day, but these two lovely ladies wanted in on the action.

*

Well this sucks

Diaries Of A Ski Bum

There any many reasons why people choose to ski, be closer to nature, get some physical exercise, or to hang out with ones friends. Yet, there is only one honest answer: Because it is incredibly fun. It's really as simple as that. The feeling is exactly comparable with the same kind of addicting thrill and satisfaction that others experience from sky diving, surfing, scuba diving, or any similar pastime that never gets old to those who get sucked in. This uniquely satisfying thrill inevitably brings people together, and that shall be the topic of this post: The bonds formed through skiing.

When someone mentions Squaw Valleys in my presence, a smile automatically occupies my face. Growing up, Squaw was my Disneyland, a place were my friends and I could freely explore, were parents and consequences simply disappeared for a few short hours. Through 8 years of ski team, I explored every inch of that mountain, yet with that time investment, I did not just improve as a skier. No, I felt like I had truly been welcomed into a unique and loving community.

The only way to aptly describe the Squaw community is to image you have a myriad of older brothers and sisters. These siblings will curse and swear in front you, but will also genuinely be interested in how your day is going. Will race you to the fingers on a powder day, but will also be excited just to share a beautiful afternoon with you. In short, they are the most competitive yet loving siblings in the world. When it is an epic powder day, make no mistake, Squaw skiers will race you up the Palisades. However, once at the top, they will gratefully help you with your line, and will emit deafening screams upon you sticking a difficult line.

Yet, as enthusiastic as the Squaw community can be, its most touching accomplishment is the level of support it shows during times of great tragedy. I'm going to be honest here, Squaw has had a depressing couple of years. Since 2008 we have lost Randy, Shane, Arne, CR, and a member of ski patrol. These death simply should not have happened. The people too good, their souls too pure, but sometimes shit happens to the best of people. You can make arrangements, plan for the future, but in the end, life will just happen. These deaths imposed upon the entire Squaw community an emotion that can only be describe as being trapped in an out of control flaming car, helplessly speeding down the side of a mountain. Yet, as I attended Shane's memorial service a few short weeks after his death, I realized that in that my fiery piece of speeding wreckage, I wasn't alone. Not only were other people in the car with me, going through the exact same thing, there were people on the hill watching it happen. That is where the comfort and the joy comes from – even though it felt like I may have been alone, I realized that I wasn't.

These deaths had a tremendous impact on every Squaw skier, yet the level of outreach and support present after each of these tragedies was awe inspiring. From the memorial fund set up in Randy's name, to Shane's touching memorial service on Sun Deck. It was instantly apparent that we all loved these people as brothers, because in a sense, that's what they were, family.

Squaw, I will always love you and your people.

BP Spills Coffee

This is what happens when BP spills coffee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

Nicholas Cage...Man Of The Wild

Life Of A Dead Man

Wake Up.
Drink coffee, two sugars, no milk.
Kiss the wife goodbye.
Drive to work, don't stare at the hills passing by,
you know whats there.
Arrive at work,
sit in office,
feel accomplished.
Leave at 5, drive to lake.
At lake skip stones.
Feel closer to nature.
You return home.
Play with kids.
You feel happy.

Wake Up.
Drink coffee, two sugars, no milk.
Kiss the wife goodbye.
Drive to work, don't stare at the hills passing by,
you know whats there.
Arrive at work,
sit in office,
feel accomplished.
Leave at 5, drive to lake.
At lake skip stones.
Feel closer to nature.
You return home.
Play with kids.
You feel happy.

Wake Up.
Drink coffee, two sugars, no milk.
Kiss the wife goodbye.
Drive to work, don't stare at the hills passing by,
you know whats there.
Arrive at work,
sit in office,
feel accomplished.
Leave at 5, drive to lake.
At lake skip stones.
Feel closer to nature.
You return home.
Play with kids.
You feel happy.

Wake Up.
Drink coffee, two sugars, no milk.
Kiss the wife goodbye.
Drive to work, don't stare at the hills passing by,
you know whats there.
Arrive at work,
sit in office,
feel accomplished.
Leave at 5, drive to lake.
At lake skip stones.
Feel closer to nature.
You return home.
Play with kids.
You feel happy.

Wake Up.
Drink coffee, two sugars, no milk.
Kiss the wife goodbye.
Drive to work, don't stare at the hills passing by,
you know whats there.
Arrive at work,
sit in office,
feel accomplished.
Leave at 5, drive to lake.
At lake skip stones.
Feel closer to nature.
You return home.
Play with kids.
You feel happy.

Wake Up.
Make pancakes.
Go to kids baseball game.
Congratulate child.
Take team out to lunch.
Go home, relax, feel content.
Have dinner.
Drive kids to friends house for sleep over.
Have sex with wife.
You feel happy.

Wake Up.
Eat cereal.
Pick up kids.
Help kids with homework.
Read newspaper, maybe an adventure novel.
Walk to the ocean.
Sitting down on the course sand,
beautifully comprised of a myriad of different colored rocks,
you realize your dead.

New Photo Album

I just finished my latest photo album. It is entitled "We are unusual and tragic and alive." I hope you all enjoy, and as usual I appreciate any feedback. I am very proud of a few of these shots.

http://picasaweb.google.com/cjonny21/ThingBehindTheSun#

A Rare Talent

Hey everyone,

Let me tell you about my friend Liam, one of the most ludicrously talented people I know. You know those sort who just piss you off with their immense talent across multiple mediums, and also have incredibly dashing good looks to boot? Well, that’s him.

Check out this video I made of Liam's water polo highlights from last season. It's just one of that man's many talents.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqMSr7e_tfg

The Beginning, The End

I just saw this on the internet, and it still resonates emotionally. I miss you LOST.

So Bad It's Fantastic

Nazis. Space. Space Nazis. Space Nazis with a Moon base. Oh my GOD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeAfoiN5SDw&feature=player_embedded

LOST Spin-off

Well, we all knew it was going to happen eventually. Enjoy Dana Carvey's LOST spin-off

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQB0NqRNCCo

The End Of An Era

Today I said goodbye to SI for the last time. I will inevitably return to the campus in some form, but never in the same way. I have always been in two minds about graduating from high school. On one hand, I do love my friends, and I will be deeply saddened by all of our departures. Yet, I am also extremely excited for what the future holds. However, during the ceremony today, all of those conflicting viewpoints were rendered mute. I came to the realization that I should be happy for simply having been a part of this great community: SI. Seeing all the faculty walk into St. Ignatius church instantly brought a smile to my face. These men and women did not just lecture me, but truly taught me how to live, and for that I am eternally grateful. Then interacting with my class for the final time on the lawn was a very touching moment. These strangers just four years ago, are now my compatriots, my friends. You all have shaped me into the person I am today, and for that I cannot thank you enough. We now go our separate ways, but remember, we are always SI.

Now I will write a separate reflection to my friends and fellow members of the SI water polo and swim teams.

Before I start this long emotion filled ramble, I must preface it by stating that writing this piece was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My first attempt at this reflection occurred last Saturday after I returned home from my final swim meet. Yet, when I sat down to sort through my thoughts, I hit a mental wall, frustrated at my inability to adequately articulate my emotions. The weekend passed, and I suffered through a boring Monday at school, yet when I proceeded to head home after my classes. Then realization set in that my life aquatic was truly over. All the emotions, friendships, and memories from the past four years were now just that, memories, and all my brain could focus on was that a significant chapter of my life was coming to its inevitable close. So, I went home, shut my door, turned on music, and broke down. Now, this may sound ridiculous and melodramatic to the average reader, but I felt, and still feel that a part of me has truly died. Yet, despite this apparent sadness, I believe that my aquatic experiences ultimately shaped the person I am today.

For the past four years of my life I have been immediately identifiable by a few key features. The first being my height, and the second being my chlorine drenched blonde hair. As one of my good friends used to say, "In the hallways, I can always see the lighthouse." Yet, after four years of success, failure, frustration, camaraderie, and love, my life aquatic came to an end. To understand the significance of this moment, we need to trust in the island and travel back in time to 2006.

Entering into high school, I could be aptly described as alone, scared, and depressed. I had decided to attend a "Prep School," and was woefully unprepared for the Polo's, Abercrombie, and American Apparel aspect of the schools social scene. In short, it was a bad episode of saved by the bell, and I was nerdy, lonely, weird extra # 3. To make matters worse, my best friends for the past six years had decided to attend different high schools, and I was venturing out of my cozy organic suburb to the city of San Francisco. The fabrication of the city I conjured up in my mind was that of a frightening steel metropolis at the other end of a bridge to nowhere. However, my 2006 persona actively believed that the worst part of all of this change, was that after my middle school experiences, I was making this horrendous odyssey to sit in a class filled with kids I would never truly care for. In short, I was a Salinger stereotype, and I was tossing my emotions into the proverbial duck pond.

Then a few weeks into the school year, something happened that in retrospect saved my sanity and maybe my life, water polo season. During this season, the team had its sweet successes and bitter failures, but the actually athletics were always my secondary concern. During those few short months I was simply content that I had essentially found my tribe in this crazy new environment, where I thought I wound never really fit in. However, this happiness came to abrupt end in November of that year when polo season came to its unavoidable conclusion. Then much to my dismay, this led to my teammates going there separate ways, most likely to spend time with their grammar school friends. These departures triggered an immediate and steep descent back into my saddened state. Not seeing my friends everyday was taking a tole on me, and I would come home, cry my eyes out, and count down the days until swim season began.

This pattern of varying levels of happiness, and fluctuating interval viewings of the movie,The Graduate, continued until my sophomore year. Then during that year something momentous, yet quietly indescribable happened, my tribe failed to disband. We all began a regular pattern of eating lunch together, hanging in the library, and actually seeing each other outside of school, and more importantly outside of the poisonous stench of the SI pool. We were no longer simply teammates, we were friends. During this time, my cycles of depressed crying listening to Radiohead alone sessions strongly decreased in frequency, and for the first time in a long while I felt happy. This new found comradery only continued to grow, and ultimately culminated during senior year water polo season. For the first time in history, The St. Ignatius Water Polo team qualified for Central Coast Sectionals. Yes, we had all heavily trained during our four years, but I whole heatedly believe we would not have accomplished that goal if we were not all the best of friends.

Looking into the immediate future, I am nervous about starting college next year. However, the part I'm most apprehensive about is not leaving home or saying goodbye to the beautiful bay area. No, the part that terrifies me is the possibility of losing the deep relationship I share with all of my friends. Now fast forward to the immediate past, it's still that Monday after swim season, and I'm breaking down in my room. Yet, as I lay on my bed crying, I come to a startling realization, that because I now have these relationships I will never be alone again. In the future, I will undoubtedly be back inside the flaming car, hurling back toward the abysses of sadness and depression. Yet, I can look out the window of my pyrotechnically prone vehicle, and know my friends will always care for me. On this earth, time runs out for everyone and everything - if that were not the case, there would be no point in sustaining ourselves and our memories. Writing, photographs, and home videos all tie into this human tendency to remember our past. Yet, when something dies, its spirit lives on through all the things it touched in its life, and that is why I will never be alone again. So in parting I close this chapter of my life treasuring the memories and relationships that I will never forget. I love you guys.


So you say goodbye. You go to sleep, and you wake up the next day without it. And you smile, because you know that since you lost it, you will always have it.

Redesign

If you follow the blog regularly, you may have noticed fluctuations in the design over the last few days. Now I can reveal, that after a year and a half of using a really generic set up, I decided to redesign Hunting Yeti. I hope you all enjoy the new look, and like always, would appreciate any feedback.

BP Must Pay. Dearly.

The seriousness of the BP oil spill in picture form.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html

Forever Lost

Dear Damon Lidelof, Carlton Cuse, and JJ Abrams

The sheer fact that it took two weeks for me to organize my thoughts and emotions regarding the LOST finale into some kind of partially literate ramble, clearly illustrated the tremendous impact the show has had upon my persona. So before I am reduced to an emotional wreck, let me try and express my gratitude.

The date is May 23rd 2010, and after 6 long years, the adventure has truly reached a conclusion with a Jughead-sized bang, a bang that caused a whole theatre full of perfectly sane people to start sobbing. Just thinking of the church scene tears me up, yet to understand this situation, we need to trust in the time space continuum, and flashback to 2004.

During the fall of 2004, I was an awkward, shy, and lonely 7th grader. I had my core group of friends, but you could never describe us as the cool kids, we read vampire novels before Twilight was cool, could recite most of Empire Strikes Back, and counted down the days until the release of Halo 2. (Yet, despite these seemingly nerdy hobbies, we were also some of the most athletic kids at school, so I still don't completely understand why we were ridiculed so much.) However, one day I had an especially bad day of school, came home in tears, and in true sad upper-middle class kid syndrome, began to contemplate who I truly was. This introverted thinking just furthered my depressed state, and by 9pm, I found myself lounging on the couch, inadvertently watching the pilot for LOST. However, once the credits rolled, I picked up the phone, called my friends, and attempted to convey to them, the magic I had just experienced. It was comparable to capturing lightening in a bottle, and at that moment, I knew a new chapter in my life had begun.

Over the course of the next six years I could effortlessly relate with Hurley's quest for love, Locke's confusion, and Charlie's self doubt. As the characters progressed through there adventure, I could feel myself growing in real life, right beside the Losties. Lost also helped me meet some of my best friends. The most recent example of this was during my my senior calculus class. During those nine months of torture, disguised as an incomprehensible set of numbers and Greek symbols, I talked about Lost with the five seemingly strangers I happened to inhabit a table with. Flashing forward, I graduate from high school tomorrow, and those five strangers are now some of my best friends. I have truly formed lasting relationships with people because of your show, and because of that, I can never thank you all enough. LOST also inspired me to chase my dreams of becoming a writer. This fall, I will be a freshman at LMU, majoring in screenwriting, and I hope to one day create something that has the potential to touch lives, just like LOST has touched mine.

So in closing I would simply like to thank you all. The three of you have provided me with, as acutely reinforced two weeks ago, my favorite show of all-time. I would be perfectly happy for another show to eventually dethrone Lost, but if nothing can, that is perfectly acceptable, because I know that I simply got to experience LOST. I will always cherish the memories of sitting around the television, swapping theories and predictions about Islands, numbers, gods, and monsters. Part of LOST was the show, a large part was the experience of watching the show with people. As I watched the final scenes, tears streaking down my face, all I could think was: thank you.

So you say goodbye. You go to sleep, and you wake up the next day without it. And you smile, because you know that since you lost it, you will always have it.


Sincerely
Jonathan Crossley

Another Sad Day In Skiing

After Randy, Shane, and CR I never wanted to write anything like this for a very long time, but sometimes life just as other plans for you. Today I learned that Arne Backstrom just recently died in Peru. My deepest condolences to the Backstrom family, you all are in my thoughts. Arne, you died living, and that is always the best way to go. Ride in peace.

Outside Lands 2010

On June 1st, Outside Lands announced the lineup for the 2010 festival. The last two years have been fantastic, and I'm equally excited for some of the acts coming to Golden Gate Park in August. It should be two phenomenal days, see you there.

More information is available here
http://www.sfoutsidelands.com/

Hell On Earth

Hell on earth has been confirmed...and it's not even Miley Cyrus related.

Incredible Fan Art

I know Lost is over, but you all need to check out this incredible fan art. Also, I saw the Expendables at the phoenix on May 29th in Petaluma last week, and they were incredible. If you have the chance, definitely check out there show.