Vancouver BC resident Natalie Porter is a self described Librarian by day and greasy motorbike wrench-monkey by night. She self-published a book titled The History of Women in Skateboarding, which is available in electronic format from Amazon. There are only 56 pages in the Kindle edition, which seems kind of short, but then again it only costs $6. If you have an iPad or Android there is a free Kindle app. I haven’t read it yet, but I imagine I will. At $6 I feel it’s my (pretend) journalist / historian’s duty. Anyone else? Betsy?

Prefab and DIY are two things not commonly associated with each other, but it turns out they were a good fit in at lease one case. Confusion Magazine documented a renegade skate spot perpetrated by Skate DIY that required a quick install, with most of the work being done off site. Unfortunately, the spot came down almost as fast as the installation, lasting a mere 12 hours.

Jenkem Magazine has a short video on Fritz Mead’s combination micro house (which he lives in) and its attached mini bowl. NYC is the locale, so I can understand the desire cut down on your rent. Amazingly, it’s not even his backyard. The main renter (or property owner?) is absent from the footage.it would be interesting to hear that perspective too. Fritz is living the dream. It may be the dream of a 13 year old boy, but he’s still living it. This video is the second installment in Jenkem’s Locals series. The first one is about a guy named Eugene Kang who’s been running an unpublicized skateshop out of his apartment. I did the same thing for a couple months once, but it was in Urbana, Illinois in the mid-80’s, and it was really just a lark. Terminal Skateshop is in NYC, and the cutover base is potentially huge, it’s still a hard way to make a living.

Evergreen Skateparks just finished a new park on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana. Thunder Park is yet another skatepark funded by Jeff Ament, and it looks like a fun one. Aside from the usual elements we’ve come to expect, there’s a moonscape-like mogul field reminiscent of some parks that were built in the 70’s, but you know, good.

Day 5 of 5 Days of Ohio (for no particular reason.) Yes, there are lots of obvious things I could have covered (Skatopia, Rob Dyrdek’s Kettering Skate Plaza, Devo…) but you know about those already. Instead, here’s a bunch of random, unrelated Ohio items.

– Thanks to Zack, Dan, and Clint for the tips.

Day 4 of 5 Days of Ohio (for no particular reason.) Public Square Group is part skateboard/skatepark advocacy, part community outreach, and part skateboarding support group. They are named after the Cleveland’s public plaza, a not-built-for-skateboarding spot that has a history in the scene dating back to the 80’s. They also run the Skate Kitchen, which until this year had been in an actual physical location with an indoor miniramp. The non-profit membership based model (with public hours) seems to have been replaced with pop up skate events while they look for a new space. Grindline recently finished Cleveland’s Crooked River Skatepark on the riverfront. Opening day was snowed in, Meanwhile, Broadway Skatepark in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland has already gone through early design presentations. Public Square Group is acting as the conduit for feedback.

– Thanks to Dan Overfield for the tip.

[Video Still: Share the River]

The Morro Bay Skateboard Museum is in the middle of their annual fundraising campaign, which includes a screening of the Signal Hill Speed Run documentary at the Palm Theater on Saturday, November 22nd at 7pm. Some of the original racers will be on hand afterwards for audience Q&A. You can buy tickets online or stop by the museum to pick them up. Watch the trailer and learn more about the event/museum after the jump.

This is day 3 of 5 Days of Ohio posts – for no particular reason. This came in from reader Jeff Haynes:

When I think of Ohio, I think of G.S.D., Donnie Humes and Smelly Curb Zine, the Dayton Visitor’s center, and most recently Fickle Skateboards. What makes this Cincinnati skate “company” different is that Lew Ross is known to drive to Canada to pick up veneers, presses his boards in his workshop, and does all production work d.i.y. from pressing to printing to shipping.

It looks like Fickle has been around since 2009. Even while early boards were made by Pennswood, the DIY spirit was still going in those early trucker hats that look like the logo was spray painted on with a stencil. Fast forward to today, and Everything is done in-house, even the pressing and screen printing of the boards.

Still need suggestions for 5 Days of Ohio.

On day 2 of 5 Days of Ohio (for no real reason) we have various, assorted histories of Alien Workshop, from Transworld Skatebaording, Realm 3, Quartersnacks via Will Staley, and Jenkem (Musical history). If you’ve got any good Alien Workshop links, leave them in the comments.

Send your tips for 5 Days of Ohio.

Steve Ping from DesertPipes.com shot some photos of the newly completed Hubbard Homestead Skate Spot located at 11203 5th Ave NE in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle. It’s still behind fences and the official grand opening is allegedly December 5th. It looks like Newline is credited wight the design concepts. There’s a firm in charge of the larger park complex, but I’m not sure who built the skate spot, as Washington law somehow prohibits a design and build situation. Bobcat says this spot has been in the works for 5 years. Hubbard Skate Spot backs up against a Target store, so if you forget your pads, helmet, or skateboard, you can run right in and buy it.