“Only a fool has a pool and keeps it full. Only a traitor doesn’t drain his pool.” US Bombs, “Jaks”

Ryan Lochte recently obtained two gold and two bronze medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics for his swimming. He even set a world record for the 200 meter backstroke.  However, the Olympic trials in July were in question for him due to an injured ankle acquired while (skateboarding) dropping from the deck of his house, as noted by the folks at Yahoo!Sports.

-Thanks Sarib for the tip

Hey every one my friend Andy was in town for the Dew A.S.T. tour, and yours truly got a media pass. I saw him Friday afternoon at practice he told me he and Chris Miller were going to skate Pier Park. It was nice to see that place properly ridden. Those guys were also very nice. Not like your normal skater with something to prove. Anyhow I hope you like the footage, backlight setting mishaps and all. It was a great session. Maybe you will get the next one. – Skate Off Grover.

P.S. The door is obviously easy to go over as you can see. I did not see Miller bail it ever. True Dat.

This week’s Shot of the Week is Greg Baller at a bowl in Halifax, Nova Scotia as shot by Steve Hayes, AKA “Shayes.” Said Greg,

We paint the park regularly because the graffiti is awful here! Right now it is beige/brown, and with a few throw pillows would be quite tasteful.

What about some shag carpeting? Check it out.

“… and hitting the concrete, with the new skateboarding.” This looks like a brief out take from one of those independent surf films. It’s pretty short (and dark if you are watching on a Windows machine) that is typical for the era. Nice jazz guitar soundtrack. Someone should make an updated version of this with the ladies, but in the same campy style.

I just added another 30 pictures from the Tigard stop of the 2008 Oregon Trifecta.

(Oops! fixed the link.)
Check it out.

I’ve always found this cover image… appealing. I had assumed it was actually a surfing rag when I first saw it, but later found out it was the precursor to Concrete Wave. I tried to pay the four bucks to download a hi-res pdf but found the whole process convoluted and unsatisfying. (Update: It was a stray link that was supposed to be removed. free now!) You can see a larger version of the cover after the jump. What’s with the handstand shot? It’s just filler I found here while looking for a big version of the cover.

There’s a new wackyboard in town, and it’s called the Soul Arc board. I’m not sure why everyone keeps feeling the need to further refine the basic skateboard in hopes of more accurately mimicking the surf or snow covered slopes. I think the skateboard does a fine job as is, but then again the world would be a dull place if we never tried anything new. These guys may have loused up a perfectly good skateboard, but they might be actually onto something as far as getting closer to the feel of steering like forefather and son of skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding respectively.

[Source: The Skateboarders Journal]

Oh the drama. Remember the brouhaha over Jim Phillips and the cease and desist from NHS over his continuing use of the screaming hand logo? Well it looks like they must have worked it out because Santa Cruz is having a book signing with Phillips at their ASR celebration of 35 years of the Santa Cruz brand. It looks like there will be quite a few “celebs” in attendance.

The first time for any park on the Trifecta is always fun, and Tigard was a blast, as well as a blast furnace. I don’t know what the official temperature was, but it was nasty hot. the topic on everyone’s mind was which half of the park were they going to use, but they used the whole park for the contest, which was cool. The double layered coping that seemed so bizarre during construction now seems like something completely normal. There were two fireworks explosions, a bad collision and a lot of sweating.

I took about a million photos at Tigard, and rather than do a good job of editing them, I’m going to dump them all on you, but in two parts at least.

Check out Oregon Trifecta 2008: Tigard – Part one

People are recycling old skateboards into shoes, jewelry, purses and furniture these days. Add Sansfurnace to the list if you don’t already know about it. It appears to be the work of Jeff Schaid, and it’s pretty interesting. A lot of it is obviously skateboard centric, but some of the pieces don’t even hint at their former existences. Sometimes the graphics play an integral role in design, and sometimes they are not even visible. Some of the pieces are just smart looking furniture that happens to be made from skateboards. A piece that screams “I’m a skateboard” can be good if it isn’t too clumsy. Sansfurnace is able to go to the next level. The shots above are from the “Work” section of the web site. Each piece has multiple views that do a better job of giving you an overall feel, so check it out.

[Source: Ashbury]