The Blue 'Tater Lounge: 12/1/07

Benny Butler had a bit of a rager for his birthday party. His parents went away for the weekend, so he drained their pool and we trashed the house. It was awesome!

Here's the Birthday Boy, playing in his backyard. Ben Butler, Frontside Air

Just kidding. Actually...

Ben is one of those guys who actually did what we all dream of doing. He was in the market for a house, and made a skateable backyard pool THE stipulation of his search. His efforts paid off with this beauty of a right hand kidney. Steep and deep, with four-finger thick, pebble encrusted Anthony coping, that thing is no joke. It's unofficially called Tater's Pool, named after his dog. Of course Ben makes it look easy, but don't be fooled. It's a PIT! Eric and Aaron were killing it with ollies, nollies and impossible speed lines. Some of the younger guys showed up later and also killed it. After a few sessions and about a dozen Tecates, I manned up and managed to pull a few frontside grinds before calling it a night. Ray was there and he took some quality photos, so I was able to, ahem... "borrow" a few for you guys to check out.


I got a couple of these frontside grinds and my nuts shrunk a little. Grrrr

Eric killed it. He's a warrior. This is either an ollie or a nollie. Either way, "...what?"

DJ El Don Cesar kept it rocking, as usual.

The first ladies of the Skatercrat administration. (Mines third from the left. Hands off lurkers!)

All in all, it was a fun night and good times were had by all. Can't wait for the next session! For the full story, visit the holy grail of southern California skateboard websites, Concrete Disciples...
http://www.concretedisciples.com/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum=28&topic=5404

On second thought, you should make them your homepage.

Cropped and Dropped: Project 11/24/07

Little Project
Photos/Scans: Scott

Tree Photo: Kerri

Map/Birds: Kerri's old map

Thriftstore Vampire Captured on Video!

TSV rider for life, Tom Bateman was recently captured performing some skateboard manuvers at an undisclosed east coast location. Reports are sketchy, but he seemed to be sherdding heavily. We will continue to bring you updates on the situation as we recieve them.

The Formative Years

Thanks to Maurice for hooking me up with this footy. Here's Jason Lee long before his Name was Earl, Danny Way long before jumping the Great Wall of China and the Gonz when he was... well, I guess he's always been the Gonz. Totally ripping the ponds at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Pretty cool. Let's go skate!

Destroy All Monsters!

Hide the women and children.

Real Rock-n-Roll is scary, dirty and kicks your ass.

Nick Cave understands this basic concept, and along with the boys from The Bad Seeds, proceeds to pummel your undeserving hide.

Behold... Grinderman

Minton's vote for 2007's Record of the Year. Yah!

Kitty and the Stash

Photos From Mr Hafner

I stole these shots from Jerry's Flicker page. The tricks arent too crazy, but Jerry has amazing photography skills and I think they would look mighty nice on my page here. I also wanted to show the world my super doo-rag. You'll probably only catch me rocking it on a road trip. (top) Blunt and (right) Sweeper in the "Hot Pocket" with my man Moose lurking like a Sasquatch.

A Sad Farewell to J Church

If I die, I dont care about heaven,
I just want to know,

Would you visit my tombstone

I would for you...

I would for you.

If I died would you even notice?
Would you bring a date to the funeral service?
I would for you...
I would for you.

Lance Hahn.

Rest in Peace brother.
Thank you for everything.

Major Home Renovation Progress Today

I Finally made headway on the hallway. This feels awesome. This stupid hallway floor has become my nemesis, with its crazy angles and retarded intersections. But after about 10 hours total work time, including but not limited to carpet removal, prep, soundproofing and calculation brain twisting, crying, cursing, banging stuff with my hammer, annoying the neighbors and three trips to my work to use the table saw, I got it dry fit and it is tight! I'm getting a hot dinner, cooked in fair trade form Kerri... pluse some Boddingtons Pud Style Ales in the fridge. Cheers mates.

That Must have Been Some Spicy Curry!

When an entire city witnesses a phenomenon, it is hard to write it off as a hoax.

"A WHITE dazzling fireball streaked across the dark sky over Kolkata (Calcutta, India) in the wee hours of Tuesday, dancing as it were, emanating myriad colours, and leaving many Kolkatans who saw it, agape. It hung in the skies for roughly three hours, allowing an intrepid photographer to take video clips spanning the entire period of time. The Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) was shown on a regional TV channel."

Check it!

Articles:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/UFO_puzzle_has_Kolkata_in_a_tizzy/articleshow/2500882.cms

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ET_Cetera/UFO_comet_Holmes_or_Venus/articleshow/2503158.cms

Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=140155485163973002&q=KOLKATA+%2B+ufo&total=3&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

More Pennsylvania Paranormal Fun

In a victory for UFO enthusiasts, NASA has agreed to search for documents related to a mysterious incident that the government has tried to downplay -- or, some would say, cover up -- for decades.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/nasa-opens-keck.html

Pennsylvania Proof?

This is pretty cool!

This image was obtained with a Bushnell trail camera in Northwest Pennsylvania on the evening of September 16, 2007 by R. Jacobs. Jacobs had placed the motion-sensing camera on a tree along a game trail in a remote forest area in order to photograph any deer that might be using the trail. He did this in preparation for the Fall deer hunt. Jacobs was not trying to obtain images of a bigfoot/sasquatch.

To read the entire article and see full sized images, visit http://www.bfro.net/avevid/jacobs/jacobs_photos.asp

Last time I checked, there were no primates native to the Northeastern United States.
Pennsylvania Rocks!

UPDATE: The collective belief at this time, even among the Sasquatch investigation community is that these images are that of a juvenile bear. but again, who knows. Absense of proof is not proof of absense. -Minty

Recent Design Work

I've been working my ass off for the past year. Here are a couple of my recent design projects. The renderings are a project in the works. The photos are obviously a completed project. Enjoy!


Helly Hansen: 40'x 60' tradeshow booth

Bugaboo: 30' x 40' tradeshow booth

Happy Birthday Sasquatch

This Saturday is the 40th anniversary of the world famous, 16 mm footage filmed by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin in an area near Bluff Creek, CA. It is widely known as the best evidence ever captured of what is supposedly the legendary creature known as Bigfoot.

In the years since it was filmed, the footage has be analyzed by hundreds of experts, artists, scientists, believers, debunkers, fools, dreamers and regular everyday people. With modern advancements in technology, there have been plenty of opportunities for it to be proven fake, yet that has not happened. On the contrary, many reputable people have been UN-able to prove that it is fake, instead finding further evidence that suggests that it is completely authentic.

Here is a frame by frame rendering of the original film. Very cool... http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/mk_davis_pgf.gif

If you have the time, check out this link to a complete analysis of the facts surrounding the film, as reported by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization http://www.bfro.net/REF/THEORIES/pgfdebunkings.asp

You might also want to listen to this interview with anthropologist, author and scientist Jeff Meldrum on the November 10, 2006 Talk of the Nation on NPR. (Hard to call Ira Flatow a liar, huh?)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6469070
Of particular interest in this clip is an excerpt from an interview with noted primatologist Jane Goodall.

Happy Bigfoot Day!

Anti-Monday Initiative

Everyone should be lucky enough to have a memory like this to get the bad taste of work out of their brain basin. First night in our new house. No electricity, no furniture, no problem.

Achin' Bigfeet

My city slicker feet are aching for some moss between their toes. I need to travel to where the Sur is big and the people are few and far between. Time to get back to the place where time stands still. Let's go kids, before it's too cold. The misty mountains are calling.

Janky Driveway Skate Spot

Blast from the past... Man, I remember I used to call people all the time to tell them to come over and skate our secret spot. But nobody ever did except Casey. I think no one thought it would be worth it. I mean, at this point in my life, I dont think I'd fight the beach traffic to skate some crap, but then again, that might just be the California talking through me. I dont know how it started, but one day Mikey and I decided to build a quarterpipe for the driveway, which eventually was joined by a little box set-up as well. The best part about it, besides the impossibly tight transitions, was the fact that half way through the construction, we decide to turn it into the Afro Banks (legendary Philly spot) by applying a faux brick surface instead of masonite. Every once and a while, some random skater would to push by and stop for a few minutes. Most of them couldnt handle the quick tranny though. They tended to just skate away after watching us throw ourselves at the contraption for a few minutes. On this particular day, our good friend Willy Sions decide to try out some new camera toys and we decided to step it up a notch by screwing the box on the quarterpipe deck. After finally prying the photos from his artistic grasp, I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with my form. I look like I actually know what I'm doing. Dont let the photos fool you though. I'm still just a Minton.

Here's Clyde learning disasters on two foot tranny...



Here he is with a slightly more successful Smith grind... Mr Clyde Crossan

Working hard...

... or hardly working.

I found these "meeting notes" from a few months back. I feel like I captured Patsy Cline's essence on this one. She really did walk like that, even wearing the cast.

She's all better by the way. Slightly crooked toe, but no worse for the wear.

Full-On Shredding...

... with my face! Good times in September.

Here's the recovery zone... Las Gaviotas, Mexico...


I'm telling you, it's all gore and rainbows up in this piece!

Two 35 millimeter shots from my dusty old Olympus OM2 and some five year old fim. Thanks to Kerri on the assist for the bloody shot. I was kind of dizzy. Holla!

mmm... nature cake

for more radness from the infinate abyss of the galaxy, tune into this website for your daily humbling... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html. thanks NASA!