Sometimes I get PR for industry events, and sometimes I take them up on their offer to attend the event under the guise of “covering it,” which usually means I get in free with my kids, and we all enjoy it for the most part. It’s fun, but I’m not paying for it, and I can take it or leave it each time. Sometimes I feel guilty, not for the big corporation, but for the freelance PR agent that gave me the press credentials and got essentially nothing from it. I hope that doesn’t affect your job performance review. To make up for it, here are some photos from the San Francisco stop of the Dew Tour. Thanks to Lorrie Palmos for sending these in. You might remember her from her long standing “Shot of the Week” that’s been up since June. It might be time to retire that part of the web site. (The SOTW curator spot is open!)

Blowing It starts off with a moving eight minute tribute fallen crew member Keita Farnsworth who died in 2012. The rest is dedicated to three years of good friends and good sessions. It’s amazing how many spots there are in the Oregon area. Watch Jake Arciniega Doug Weaver’s Blowing It after the jump.

Skateboards made from recycled aluminum. There’s no guarantee it was a beer can in a past life, but Beercan Boards sound better than “Diet Pepsi can Boards.” They’ve taken the old aluminum death plank board of yesteryear and upgraded it with a channel beam which I assumed was to give it stiffness, but it turns out that’s also part of the “TruckTrax” system that allows you to micromanage your wheelbase to your OCD heart’s content. Who needs that? Downhill guys, of course. The boards aren’t even expensive compared to their wooden brethren. Right now, the corporate site only features downhill boards, but Keystone Skate Supply also has some more traditional shapes. I don’t know if those are also traditionally priced because Keystone’s web site is kind of jacked. To help preserve the ends, Beercan boards have “bottle caps” made from 100% recycled milk jugs. In the event that you do wear it out, you can recycle your recycled board and get a new one for $40. I’ve never seen one or ridden one, but the concept seems pretty solid, especially given the target audience. If I had a beef it would be that those concaves look a little clunky. It’s all made from extruded aluminum, so the concaves seem to have a very defined bend point even though the side profiles can look more organic. Replacement tips are $20 a set, which seems steep, but they are custom to each board design and I haven’t priced out the machining cost of the molds. Of course there was a Kickstarter campaign, somehow we missed that one. The video is pretty flat. Interesting that they are trying to diversify a business that makes custom auto parts. I’m not getting a vibe that these guys actually skate. For instance, there’s no pictures of anybody actually skating on these things.

Here’s another video about the Detroit’s Ride It sculpture park, this one from the Tony Hawk Foundation, that just raised another 25k for the project. Portland’s own Evergreen Skateparks is there working on it.

I bought this Australian stamp from 1990 on Catawiki for $1. It’s actually a postcard with a stamp and a postmark of Stanwell park. I guess the guy could be Billy Ruff, since he is riding a G@S ‘Clown puppet’ bootleg deck from 1987! The clown on the stamp doesn’t hold a puppet and  there are no names or brands, but still …

That’s Skreech on the cover of the latest Confusion zine. Apparently he’s turning over a new leaf after evaluating his life via Dragonslayer, so he’s going by Joshua instead of Josh. He didn’t ditch the “Skreech” moniker though. He’s no dummy when it comes to marketing. In addition to the Skreech interview, this shot of Elias Assmuth on a skateboard made out of a fingerboarding ramp got my attention. Radness! Those guys at Blackriver Ramps take their skateboarding every bit as seriously as their fingerboarding, or vice versa.

Rip City Skate grand reopening on Friday. This thing should be skateable by then. Yeah, it’s a blurry cell phone shot, sorry. Maybe there’s something to those Nokia commercials. The new location is kind of accross the street from Jiffy Lube. It’s basically a half a block south of NE 33rd and Sandy Blvd.

UPDATE: Added a little video of the event.

Skateboards made with surfboard technology is nothing new, I recall it was Hamboards that used to offer a foam and glass construction board, although it seems like they’ve gotten away from that. I was ready to dismiss this kickstarter project for Hydroflex Skateboards almost immediately, but in the interest of pretend skateboard journalism, I decided to check it out. I’m pretty impressed, actually. They’ve taken technology they developed for surfboards, adapted nd improved it for skateboards. Besides being waterproof, they appear to be highly durable and functional as well. You usually don’t see radical (no pun intended) alternative skateboarding manufacturing technologies put to the test in the street. It’s a foam core board with a honeycomb of resin running vertically, connecting the top and bottom layer. Of course, it’s never going to replace 7ply Canadian maple because it’s too labor intensive to produce. I’m not sure how the materials cost compares, but these the prices range from $90 to an unbelievable $230 for the deck alone. As durable as they are for some applications, you aren’t going to want to slide these on anything. Maybe there’s a place for Hydroflex boards in the industry, who knows. Do yourself a favor and watch some of the videos. Even if you don’t see the need for the process, it’s still interesting to see.

While wasting time on Alibaba.com, I saw a lot of bootlegs. Especially the more recent Tony Hawk designs from Birdhouse seem popular to rip off. If you order a minimum of 100 decks, you’ll get them for a few dollars a piece. Yes, I definitely took most of these pics from the sellers, but what will they say? That I stole from them? Also, take a quick tour in their factory here.

A sneak peek at the proposed design being discussed at tonight’s meeting.

Basically the options are on the snake, a new snake or this snake that replicates the old with some new more practical renditions. We will most likely replicate the old if the decision to raise the OG happens. Leaving it up to the city and board to make that decision. The only change would be the down sidewalk would get transitions on its side almost all the way up, and the banks would get smoother radius with coping…

Whatever the decision is, you know it will be built right.