Austin Hice

Descending Säntis

Austin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:55:50 +0000

I’ve been sitting on this footage from Switzerland for nearly 6 months now. I was unsure my little point-and-shoot could do the day justice. No music, commentary, or labels – Just the cold whistle of Swiss death.

Ljubljana and Lake Bled

Austin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:57:24 +0000

Slovenia is a relatively new member of the EU on the eastern edge of the Shengen Area with low population density and high suicide rates. Not quite developed, but not quite abandoned, this stoic little land provides rightly three things a man should do:

1. Row a boat to an old church on an island

2. Sleep in a run-down old school

3. Eat a horse

Dinner and Balloons

Austin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:44:11 +0000

Last night was the Carlo’s Grandmother’s 80th birthday. To celebrate, we had a dinner party and launched balloons into the air. The custom is to write your wishes on a balloon and, if it flies high enough, those wishes will come true.

Switzerland: Day 1

Austin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:57:02 +0000

I don’t have much free time here, so I just cut together quick highlights from our first day in Switzerland. We spent most of the time eating, walking around and adjusting to the time change.

Like Encino Man?

Austin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:08:35 +0000

Call me lazy, but I’ve been lazy about editing my last few videos. I promise they’re coming, slowly. Here’s Estonia.

Election Day, 2008

Austin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:57:03 +0000

Just a little video of election day. Trying out manual flash video instead of YouTube.

St Petersburg

Austin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:09:06 +0000

When I was in Russia, I packed up my backpack and took a little time off to travel. First stop, St Petersburg.

Leaving Kaluga

Austin — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:33:16 +0000

Time to continue my adventure…

Russia and Georgia

Austin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:50:09 +0000

I don’t want this blog to become political, but a couple of you have asked me what my take (and the take of the Russians) are on this situation. I’ll keep it brief: Everything you’ve heard from US media is a lie. Every word out of John McCain and W’s mouth has been a lie.

My take overall is that war sucks and I don’t support any type of aggression, but once again the US is directly responsible for an awful situation. This was intentional and was instigated by us for political gain. Now the people in Russia I talk to mostly ask some variation of “why is the US media doing this to us??”

I’ve compiled and expanded on some basic videos and info from other independent media, blogs, etc. I’m keeping it simple and it’s not all my wording, so it will be quick. Hope this helps some people understand what actually happened.

Basic facts:

“1. The citizens of South Ossetia have long expressed a desire to break away from Georgia and, in fact, declared themselves independent from Georgia in the 1990s. This is exactly like Kosovo/Serbia, where the US takes the exact opposite stand. Our double-standard exists for our political purposes only.

2. On the first day of the 2008 Olympics, Georgia launched an all-out, “shock and awe” attack on numerous civilian targets in Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Osseti.

3. Russia, which shares a border, CITIZENS and a long historical connection with South Ossetia, sent troops into the region to fight back the attacking Georgian military.

4. Media reported the US provided transportation to Georgian troops. The truth is, the arms for Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia were also largely provided by the US. The US was involved in the very planning of Georgia’s attack.

5. The US and UK news media have successfully managed to portray these events as a random, unprovoked and savage attack on Georgia by Russia, partially because of lack of solid facts or eye witnesses, partially because of lazy reporting, but mostly because of the same white-house-mouthpiece nonsense that we’ve been dealing with since media ownership diversification regulations have been stripped away.

In this video, Mikhail Gorbachev responds.”

And in this video a young girl from the SF Bay area lays it out for FOX:

That’s all I got. Don’t trust US media or leadership and certainly don’t trust McCain. If anyone has any additional information or counter-point to this, by all means, I’d love to hear it.

The Work We Did

Austin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:26:49 +0000

Here’s a little story about some of the work we did in Russia.