Happy Halloween

Some members of the Edmonton Skateboard Association decided to get into the Halloween spirit at the Kaskitayo skatepark today. Alex airs it out for a group photo.

Travis backside cowslide.

Kyle nose manuals in what appeared to be a teddy bear's skeleton costume.

Worst costume/best frontside flip was awarded to Shane Barlow.

Seriously, I have no idea what your costume was suppose to be. Frontside flip was sick though.

Beer keg front blunt by Colten.

Brad and Daniel play follow the leader. You show up dressed as a banana and a gorilla, you better believe I'm putting the two of you in a photo.

Mitch Phillips front crooks through the pumpkins.

Andrew nosegrind. The thing I liked best about the costumes was that since I am incapable of remembering a person's given name, I could just scream out something like, "Hey Popeye! Do that nosegrind again".

I'm not sure if this guy was dressed up as a serial killer or that guy from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Mitch back noseblunt while doing his best greaser impression.

Supa wins my award for most disturbing costume.

Someone even carved, Roll Forever Teebs!, into a pumpkin. So sick.
Happy Halloween!

Say hello to my microscopic friends

Above: Derek Swaim with a ghetto pizza joint K.O.
Our hotel in S.F. was super cheap and, therefore, was right in the heart of the ghetto. It was also filthy. As a self-diagnosed germaphobe sleeping in the hotel was like living in my own private Fear Factor episode.

I sure as hell didn't see anyone smoking. Maybe they were referring to the all the black mold in the bathroom.

Keita and Kento chill in the hotel lobby. The velvet couch they are sitting in looked like someone had been sweating in it for the past ten years.

The Japanese guys always wanted to eat pizza. I guess pizza is expensive and crappy back home. One night we went around the block and ate at a local pizza joint. On our way out we discovered why our hotel seemed to be the epicenter of S.F.'s zombie contingent. It was right beside the local needle exchange.

While exploring the hood, the Japanese guys really liked to play practical jokes on me. Their favorite went something like this. Upon purchasing beer from the sketchiest corner store they could locate, imagine homemade "bullet proof" glass shields for the cashier, they would nonchalantly walk out into the zombie hordes with their hands full of beer and proceed to count their "funny" new American money in the middle of the street. Getting shanked is apparently really funny in Japan.
Not sure why it took me so long to check this out.
Kyle Berard's line at the end of this is crazy.

Flower Shop

Getting to skate the Flower Shop was a personal highlight of my S.F. trip. Basically it's a super tight little pool style DIY skatepark. We peeked over the fence and waited awhile before I felt I had no choice, but to hop the fence.

Skated a few minutes before one of the builders Timmy Jak showed up and killed it. I apologizied for barging the spot and his response was, "Barge! Barge all day!". I asked him to do a tail block for a photo and he proceeded to do a line where he peeled off a million variations.

Above: stalefish
Then Tony Manfre showed up. Took three runs. Destroyed the spot and bailed.

Above: Tony kickflips on some tight transition.
I didn't recognize Tony at first. As he was leaving I asked him his name. When he told me, my response was, "Oh yeah, I've heard of you." I'm sure he was really stoked.
This is pretty much exactly how I feel about 3D, but I'll probably end up buying the video anyway.

Hippie dippie

Above: Gerardo Jr. Peniche hippie jumps in downtown S.F.
Always like Ben Stewart footage. Even if it's a little old.

Back to the Future

Above: an expensive China Banks carve
So I'm back from vacation, and while my first inclination is to blow out all my photos in one giant blog post, I'm going to have to hang on to the real gems for at least little bit. Until then here's a photo of my fat ass at the China Banks. It's from my personal photo series titled, "Lame ass tricks at famous spots". After 3+ months of knee rehab, I rolled my heel my second day back on the board, and my second day in S.F. I didn't even know you could roll your heel. It's all the fun and agony of a heel bruise, except both sides of your foot hurt at once. The rest of my trip was spent walking around on my tip toes. Despite this, it was awesome to be skating again, for however short a time. Prior to the trip I was seriously loosing my mind there for a while. I was at the point where I wondered if I'd ever be able to skate again, or if I should try and walk away for good. I was pretty miserable and was becoming someone I didn't like. Hanging out with a bunch of awesome skaters in a city that is basically one giant skatepark was amazing. So even though I'm stuck on the couch with a purple foot, at least I'm back to thinking skateboarding is awesome.
Two things rule about this. #1 How happy Jamie's mom looks, and #2 the photo with Chris Kendall in the background wearing a t-shirt which appears to have a cow dancing with banana on it.

Away from my desk

So I'm off to skate with our Japanese pal Watcho in S.F. for a week. I just spent several hours using Google Maps' Street View to try and track down a single S.F. spot. Until my return here's a link to some young guys coming up on the Edmonton skate blog tip. Looks like they might even have some sort of Winnipeg connection!

Don't forget to go to the skatepark meeting. No ledges with coping and no asphalt base!!

Super bummed I'm going to miss this. Super good cause. Hope you all have fun.

Skate Park Open House

Above: Nathan Roline escalator K-grind bigspin out.
If you read the new SBC you probably spotted Roline's interview where he said he considers Vancouver home now. Vancouver just got a hell of a lot more waxed.
Now for something way more important. There is a Public Open House Oct. 14 for the proposed Ottewell skateboard park, at Ottewell Jr. High, 9435 - 73 Street, from 6:30p.m. to 8:30 p.m. You should go! You should bring some friends and go! The rumour's I've heard are that these guys are building the park. After browsing their website it looks like these guys make parks similar to the City's summer temp parks, except these one's are made out of precast cement. None of the parks on the site look particularly good. Actually they all look really boring. The only one that looks halfway decent is the Salt Lake one. The Salt Lake model with some interesting ledge combinations could be really sick. (Except get rid of that ledge with the stupid taco thing behind it.) While were at it could we please get away from using square coping on any ledges. I've never in my life skated a real street ledge with coping. Some nice flush angle iron would be awesome though. And God, I'm hoping someone makes sure they don't dump their lumps of cement on an asphalt base.
Skateboarding is awesome.

Finders Keepers

Above: Jess Atmore front board in Kamloops. B.C.
We tried to shoot this photo the night before, but my flashes were blinding Jess so we left. However, he forgot his cell phone, cigarettes, and wallet on the curb at the bottom of the rail. When we came back to shoot the photo the next day it was all still there, except someone had helped themselves to a few cigarettes.
I guarantee that Neilba is considering riding his bike back from New Jersey after seeing this.
Jaime Tancowny made it to ESPN.

First Blood

Above: Nathan Bartlett front bluntslide to manual kickflip out

For some reason Nathan was dressed as Rambo that day. If you look closely the bluntslide ground a groove into the middle of his tail.
Some moving picture skateboarding.