When Oregon Scientific decided they needed some on location shots of their helmet mounted waterproof action cam, the ATC2K, they chose Portland’s Pier Park instead of some other less family friendly locations. Not surprising since the company is based in Tualitin Oregon. Actually, it is surprising since Newberg would have been a heck of a lot closer. California parks show up in tv commercials and print ads all the time, so it’s interesting when a local Portland park is featured. Or not. This poor, unfortunate youth appears be using his helmet cam to avoid seeing footage of himself looking very stiff or possibly posing himself on a skateboard. The waterproof ATC2K is being hawked on Costco, and shows video footage of from a trip down a waterslide which makes me think they are missing out on a potentially more lucrative niche market, adult watersports. (Cue track six from the Surf Punks’ album Local’s Only.) Now to hit up these guys for a review model. Thanks to Roger Harrell of Skateboarder Magazine for the tip.

Great thread on Concrete Disciples about a guy who took his kids to Burnside and got vibed by the locals. His threats to start a petition to try to get Burnside closed ruffled a few feathers. Abuse is heaped, the terrorists win. Pretty funny that he ends up getting vibed on the website too! I’m going to go out on a limb and call the TimK SnA’s Douchebag of the Week. I’m guessing his next petition will try to close down the Indy500 because they wouldn’t let his kids ride their pedal cars on the track.

A tutorial on removing your bearings can be found at About.com which is a New York Times venture.

About’s treatment of Skateboarding is squeaky clean. Marketers to youth and school teachers should find the site useful, making it easier for them to rap with the young people. Amazing that this Steve Cave character gets paid to rewrite the book of skateboarding making sure everything is spelled correctly. I’m waiting for the Time Life how-to series.

Are there skateboarders out there who haven’t figured out how to use an axle to remove a bearing? I wonder if About.com can help?

Which brings to mind an amazing skate repair tip I watched at Pier Park one day. A kid was looking for spare bearings because his were totally seized. Mike Swim took one of the kid’s non-rolling bearings and applied a little PBR. No shit, it freed up the previously frozen bearing. You can’t learn nothin’ in school they don’t teach you on the streets.

At least when you’re playing a skateboarding themed pinball machine, you’re standing up.

Enlarge the advert. This and a bunch of other old game images are here.

Update: Looks like they have this thing over at Ground Kontrol in Portland.

Update: Kilwag has more pictures of this thing coming soon.

From SnA contributor John Aguliar:

Ok so im driving back from visiting my mom and im going 70mph on I-5 and my daughter looks over on the drivers side and says look!!! I turn over and theres this old lady with a full covered ear pro tec helmet on.

Doesn’t that crazy old lady know her helmet is older than her? Let the “barney” jokes begin!

A website called Office Politics had a recent query by someone who might lose his job because he isn’t into skateboarding. Oh and because he/she’s 40-years-old. Your supervisor isn’t named Shawn Fendick by any chance?

I wonder what would happen if it was a 40-year-old vert skater or the guy pushed mongo?

old guy photo by Rich Burton

I won’t be making any updates this week. Here’s my 7 pound 10 ounce excuse named Simon, who was born Saturday evening at 8:14pm, Goofy foot.

(Cue the Devo Corporate Anthem) Hey all you Rad Daddy Warbucks, TheStreet.com has some pros and cons on investing in Zumiez stock.

I confess to getting a kick out of analyst reports describing Zumiez customers as “antimainstream kids” and referring to the company’s focus on the “action sports teen lifestyle.” Before going over all the positives, let’s get one thing straight — Zumiez is very much in the mainstream. It’s not some bastion of coolness or a hush-hush hangout where the skaters go. Rather, it’s a chain of stores in the mall where kids go to spend their allowances…

…The fact that Zumiez is pulling customers in while the competition loses them is a pretty obvious indicator of who has the right stuff in their stores. There are a number of forces at work here. First, Zumiez has identified what’s cool and, more important, captured the attitude necessary to convince customers that even though they’re shopping in a corporate chain located in a mall, it’s still cool. Yes, teenage tastes are fickle, but Zumiez has staked out an attractive niche between the more vulnerable one-brand clothiers (such as American Eagle and Abercrombie (ANF – Cramer’s Take – Stockpickr)) and “old school” skateboard shops that cater to a cultural group (this is where the Street likes to use the term “lifestyle”).

So go put your parent’s money where your mouth is.

The BBC has an article a Brit who has set an as yet unverified world record for speed (112mph) on a jet powered street luge. I don’t know if there is a separate category for non jet powered luge or what. They have video as well, but for good pictures you have to go to Gizmodo’s exclusive interview with Joel King. I don’t know how a gadget site scooped us on this, aside from the fact that we don’t pay any attention to street luge. At least we scooped them on the World’s Biggest Skateboard. Joel King bills himself as the Gravity King, which makes me the Duke of Sketch. [Photos: Top and Bottom Right – Richard Eaton. Bottom left and center from the BBC video]

Cooky Cucumber is no kook. She’s on a skateboard, but her friend Katie Carrot on the balance board… well, we can’t vouch for her. Actually, these gals may not even know each other, I think Mr Potato Head is playing the field a little bit. “Hey baby, nobody said we were exclusive!” 2025 Update: At the time of the original post there weren’t many images of this anywhere. Today there are all kinds of images available, so I’ve updated some of the low res pics. It’s funny because if you do an image search a lot of them are from this original post.