I Went to Costa Rica. I cut off all my hair. I surfed. Now I am back. Check out my daily pictures or some new Costa Rica Pics i've posted to see with your own eyes as i freed my scalp of many lbs worth of knotted weight. I got some video of the process but dont think im going to release it until i can find something interesting to do with it.

In preparation for a much needed Central American get-a-way, its time to get the mind and body in shape for another run down to Costa Rica. I decided to pick up a hobby that a 4th grade teacher put to rest years ago, a little thing called reading. As it would be a fib for me to say this was the first time i have picked up a book (out of pleasure) since, i have not done so since last year and i think my 4th grade experience would be the last time before that. Recently, I have picked up a couple of books to get me in the mood for a surf trip. The first being "In Search of Captain Zero," to get me in the Costa Rica mood and the second "Pipe Dreams," the auto/bio of Kelly Slater to make me feel better about my inadequacies in the water when the waves get a bit larger than i am comfortable with (i have not got to the part where he inevitably gets comfortable in big surf yet). As reading has not been my idea of a super fun time in the past 20 or so years, im glad i have finally got in the mood to put my nose in a couple books. Now that the mind is happy, hopefully i can get the body in shape for a couple hands full of two-a-day sessions. To try and accomplish this in the next month i just got a Stand up Paddleboard that i have put in the water every day since it was delivered at the end of last week. If, I can keep that streak going until i get out of town, the body's delight will rival the mind.

As rough as the previous week was, This week has turned into a spring cleaning in so many ways. Broke macBook Pro Turned into Fixed and cleaned off macBook Pro. Lost Phone turned into New faster 3G Phone. Now all i need is a way to be in the water more.

Recovery is the key word for this week. Last week brought a computer and a cousin crashing at the same time. My cousin Nellie was on spring break and decided to make a trip down to KW for and extended St. Paddys Day, as my macBook Pro's video card wanted to join in the festivities so it decided to go out as well. As my radio show is pretty dependent on the machine, lets just say that trying to do it without, and on an old PowerBook G4 is like trying to sprint with bad knees. You get a few yards down the line and then the issues begin. So while we are at it, why not throw a wedding of a good friend a mere 8 - 9 hour drive away, up in Jacksonville, and a couple nights of too many drinks while staying up a couple of hours too late into the night to catch up with some old cronies. It not being good enough to almost loose my phone after an intoxicatingly fun night of rehearsal dinnering, to finally sealing my old friends fate as i left him in a cab after wedding standing and receptioning only for my friends to continually get called by my old phone as a cabbie tries to figure out how the contraption works and then after countless times trying to call and text my old buddy, to ransom a possible return, im guessing the cabbie got tired of all the beeping and vibrating so he chucked it into what ever river he was passing over at the time. So to make a long story end, the recovery begins.

For the Super Bowl (that just past) Doritos was putting on a commercial contest where you do a 30 second spot, if its good and gets to the finals you win 25Gs and the Grand Prize winner get a cool $Million. So Aileen and myself decided to put something together and submit. I found out about the contest with only a few days left to get it in so our attempt was thought up, written, directed, edited and uploaded in less than 24 hours. We started at 9AM and uploaded our final product at 11PM the same day and i think we gave a good go at it. Although we did not get into the contest's final round (probably because is was too much of a thinking piece), im just glad we were able to produce in such a short time period. Click the above video to hear a little conversation about it we had on my key west radio show and then see the video we submitted.

For the past couple of years i have been trying to come up with new and creative ways to design websites that make it simple for who ever owns it to update themselves. Basically, i would like to be able to update stuff easily from anywhere with any device and i believe i have gotten on step closer. The New ChrisHiggins.Net may not look much different to the untrained eye, but, it has been seriously overhauled from the ground up. The main part that you will see considerable change on, in this update, was the Photos and Video Sections. They now are about as easy to update as my main news page. I found a way to pull photos into my site from my google picasa account and they update when ever i add or change photos in my picasa account. And for the video, i have found a kick ass player that wizzard media has as a beta test right now but it is quite solid and once i get a video produced and it goes up on my server it goes directly into the first position in the video section as well. So take a look around and i think 2009 will be the year of the update, because now it is just too easy.

Happy New Year to All and thanks to everyone for the good birthday wishes. And for 2009 i decided to do a picture a day so check out the top picture to the right over there and i think i will try to stick to updating every day of 2009 and do something with the pics at the end of the year maybe-

chris

The Garin Nolan Trio is playing at Paddy Oquiggly's in KC Monday Dec.
22nd at 9:00PM with verry special guest Me. It will be my first gig in
quite a while so I'm thinkin I will drink a litte between my flight
getting in and faces melting - come join in the fun if u can

So i haven't done and sent out christmas cards in a couple years, but this year hopefully wont be such a disappointment. I have written a new song and i am trying to lay down all the tracks in the upcoming week. So hopefully i can get it all squared away by xmas. Send me an email if you dont think your on my christmas card list or check back here on the 25th. And for all the people residing or visiting the KC or Wichita Area around christmas week. ill be in the big KS from the 22nd - 27th.

I finally got a video up at higgins.tv of Aileen and Myself at the final night of Key West's 2008 Fantasy Fest. We dressed up as the Weather Channel and we told people a hurricane Omar was coming and are they prepared and why are they not evacuating (as the actual weather channel does when key west is in the projected cone of real hurricanes). We had some good reactions so i made a little video short of some of the footage. Check it out at HIGGINS.TV.

So Unfortunately i slept through Homeless Toga this year because of a late one at the Red Party the night before, but for the FF08 Saturday Night finale, a new fantastic Costume was born. Take 1 part rubber boots, 1 part ponchos, add a logo here and there with a super aggressive "that camera is way to expensive to be a costume" HD Camera and Wireless Mic, and what do you get... a ton of drunk people thinking you are the Weather Channel reporting live. The camera was rolling all night and a new episode of higgins.tv will be coming very soon. The picture may say a thousand words but drunk idiots in front of a video camera say way more.

Im super excited to announce the launch of a mobile version of higgins.tv for your iPhone and/or iPod Touch. It is basically all the same videos in an iPhone and iPod friendly format. If you go to higgins.tv on your iPhone you will be automatically taken to the new mobile version. 

So its been a little while since i was lucky enough to snatch up the higgins.tv domain name and i threw some stuff up that was mostly flash video. Some of some stuff up was what I produced along with some of my favorite videos that could be found and stolen from youTube or other various sites around the web. The sites design was kind of simple and not much to it and i really wasn't happy with the overall feel so i went back to the drawing board and have been attempting to redevelop it in the past couple of weeks. Well its still in beta but while i attempt to get the rest of the videos and links added, i might as give it a plug. Let me know what you think, but there will be plenty more updated in the coming weeks.  Just give HIGGINS.TV a quick look and let me know what you think.

Check out the NEW design i did for kwsurf.com and also please take a look at a video I produced about a friend competing in the Paddleboard Race around the Island (Key West). - 2008 Paddleboard Video

8 Days of 4-5' Glass in Nosara was just what i needed but now thats still all i want to do. We got a lot of video and some pictures that i will get up soon.

Its that time once again. Costa Rica is almost here, a little sooner than usual but whatever. Its time once again for me to ride some waves in CR so lots of pictures and video to come in a couple of weeks...

Went up to New Smyrna for a little Long Surf Weekend. Started Small
and glassey then got bigger and choppy. Check out little clips of Day 2 and Day 3.

Ive been pretty busy as of late and haven't been updating my own site because of all the video and stuff im doing for kwsurf.com. i should have a few things in the works so be on the lookout.

Happy April Fools Day. But I am still dumbfounded when i think that i have been in Key West for 6 years. Life is good. Some of the projects i have done in that time can be found at willisandco.com and my newest current project check out kwsurf.com

Yo, check out kwsurf.com. I have updated it with a ton of new pics and a new video that shows a session we had at Sand Key. The sea was angry that day my friend... Angry enough to produce some decent waves.

kwsurf.com
KW Surf Videos
KW Surf Pictures

Yep its true, and i didn't believe it either really until i got out and rode some waves, but last sunday, myself and a couple buddies went out to Cottrell Key with a steady 20 mph wind coming out of the north and that wind produced a beautiful 1-3 ft. day. Check out a little of the footage i took at kwsurf.com. And stay tuned to kwsurf.com for info on when surf is hitting the Keys along with trying to get a network of people who wants to get out there together and also more video and pictures to come.

So i have been working on willisandco.com (Willis+Company, Inc.'s web site) and added a new little part where i am now on the opening page welcoming anyone that is visiting. Its kinda fun, so check it out. willisandco.com

I've been working pretty hard for the past couple of weeks along with pretty much everyone else in my office to get willisandco.com (Willis+Company, Inc.'s web site) updated. Its been a lot of work along with many long hours so check it out. And we will be adding more and more in the following weeks so keep checking back at willisandco.com and there will be lots of new animation and video as the new year goes on.

So its been about half of January and the beginning was quite fantastic. Lots of time off for the holidays and a 31st Birthday mini surf adventure got my mind ready for what has now become a seemingly nonstop work week. Working as much as i am now will surely drive me to get back in the water, well, after completing a couple more weeks in the near future that look to be the same. Check out the DLC Show until i can get some more of my pics and videos updated.

Merry almost new year everyone. Since i will probably be too hung over from the The NYE Key West festivities, i thought i should just go ahead and send out a best wishes and Happy New Year to all. It has been quite a year for me with lots of good times and plenty of hard work, that usually seems like a good time as well. Although i didn't accomplish all that was in my head in '07, 2008 will hopefully further advance the DLC show and start working on developing more material for higgins.tv along with trying to become as solid on the back end of the web as i say i am on the front.

have a happy rest of this and a prosperous next -

chris