You know a scene is pretty healthy if there are not one, but two private warehouse skate situations. Joining the Hiawatha is something called OTC. The Old Timer’s Club has about 16 guys, all with families and a median age of 34. They’ve been working on getting this thing going since last spring, and now the coping has just been welded on. In case you are wondering (because I was…) : We had a pipe bending company come in and measure it, then we welded it. It took some doing, some massaging, but it was pretty close to perfect from the factory. So add the OTC to the Hiawatha and something called the the root beer barrel (?), as well as the public facility known as 3rd Lair. It looks like some guys will have their winters covered in Minneapolis. Construction photos up on Flickr. Plus two new ones after the jump. – Thanks to Luke Leonard for the pics. ( I hope they don’t kick you out now…)

One man’s discarded toy is the best thing that ever happened to another little kid. MC origianlly had plans to have some sort of mega session with people over at his place skating the new bowl and the old miniramp, but he got over that idea sometime shortly after the coping was set. The more deck he poured, the more irrelevant the miniramp became. Now it’s leaving the H.O.M.O.S. compound and relocating to GVK headquarters. We had a lot of fun on that miniramp, and I’m sure it will be a lot of fun a t Grover’s house when it gets reincarnated, provided it doesn’t get reincarnated as a stack of rotting wood that never got assembled in his back yard.

This is a photo of Jeremy Davis taken by Richie McCorkle. The real reason for this is to point to a video of an event that Saturday Skateboards in Charlotte, NC recently had, called the Saturday on Sunday party. They’ve got an indoor skatepark with some great art on the walls. The party had live music, skateboarding and shenanigans. This is one of those things where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I don’t know if it’s the audio track or what, but the whole thing made me smile. If you aren’t from North Carolina and the name Saturday Skateboards ring a bell, it may be because we had a team rider photo as a Shot of the Week last summer.

Skateboarder Magazine. has a slide show from the opening of the Seen of Change photography show in Portland. If you haven’t checked out the show you should get over there before it’s gone. Artery also has shots from the opening. It’s in frames, so you need to hit the main site and click on the Opening Photos link at top.

Ever wonder what one of those prefab skateparks look like when they show up at the old tennis court? Well, me either, but I thought I’d take a look as long as someone already had pictures. Hopefully most of our readers won’t have to get any closer to prefab than the pictures on G.O.N.E., which stands for Geezers of New England. Nice acronym, (but it’s no H.O.M.O.S….) While I can’t condone getting excited about prefab, I did get a good chuckle out of the appropriation of the famous Sex Pistols graphic.

The Benton County Skateboard Alliance is holding their second annual music and art benefit for the skatepark they are trying to get built. These guys are making it happen, and if you are near that part of Oregon this Saturday you should make a point of helping them out. Last year’s event looked like it was well attended and fun to boot. Live music and an art show/sale to benefit the concrete. Details at the BCSA site, or you can check out a flyer for the event by Diego Banuelos after the jump.

The economy sucks, and BMX riders and skateboarders at Burnside will be closer neighbors as a result. The Burnside Bridgehead redevelopment project is having funding issues. Instead of funding some of the planned landscape architecture, a parcel of land overlooking the new addition to the skate terrain is going to be turned into a temporary BMX dirt “pump track” filled with “rolling jumps, step-ups, and berms” according to BikePortland. You’d think the city would know that once you let anyone squat, it’s going to be hard as hell to get rid of them! That reminds me, there’s a bizarre new mural at the Department that shows a skatepark under the Fremont bridge and a buttload of bicycles going over the bridge. There’s only one or two skateboards in the whole thing. It’s strange indeed. Who commissions those things anyway? There must not be much of a screening process. – Thanks to Fitz for the tip.

VIMBY has a short feature on Portland’s longest running skateshop, Cal Skate. I think I actually mail ordered one of my first real skateboards from a Cal Skate advert in the back of Thrasher back in the 80’s. I remember being perplexed finding out they were actually in Oregon instead of California. Well that mystery is explained at last. Once again, Paul Fujita is the mouthpiece of Cal. He’s hell bent on promoting local skateboard companies in every media piece he does, and once again Steve and I owe him something nice… [Source: EPM]

Nothing beats a good dork session, except a dork session with some good skating. This is a clip from Beez III – Unusual Protocol. You can buy the whole thing on DVD combined with parts one and two over at beez.wiskate.com, which leads me to believe this crew is from Wisconsin. See, I told you I love the Midwest. Check it out after the jump. [Source: EPM]

I was trying to get my skate on the other day but still dragged the camera out for a rare appearance. It seems the only thing I do less than skating lately is take photos, so here are a few warm up shots.