This Tigard Times article on the skatepark from July had some background on the park. Also check out some of the old info including a plan drawing at the Tigard City website skatepark page. A story has been circulating about how the changes to the original design came about. The Tigard City government folks have been pleased with the professionalism of the Dreamland crew and the progress of the skatepark. When Dreamland said they could save a couple of the big trees on the site by altering the design, they were pretty much given the go ahead to make what changes they saw fit. This is how it has been done in the smaller towns and has been a great boon to skaters. Design/Build just makes sense. Those guys get on site and discover lines as they build. If they can improve flow by altering the design, they should.

I’ve scoured the web for more examples of Skateball (or Skate-Ball – they can’t make up their mind). The only thing that turns up besides our previous post is another actual pinball game. (More on that later.) Jeff Hottle had this old low-res image of a Skate-Ball flyer he got off the web ages ago, but the original source remains shrouded in mystery. A full retail business including skateboarding accessories, roller skating and other youth oriented products. Skateball is made up of 4 different ramps, bowls, runs and moguls each with their own scoreboard and timing device. Can be located in strip stores, shopping centers and free standing buildings. Minimum cash investment $25,000. You can see the whole flyer after the jump. UPDATE 2021: 14 years later… Secured a high-res scan in the Vintage Adverts gallery.

Hello, my name is Mark and I’m a recovering mongo pusher. I read Chris Yandall’s exhortation to Cut the Jive and Jog when it appeared in the June 1976 issue of Skateboarder magazine and it made sense to me. On a long distance push it helps to switch up. I push both ways to this day. Turns out he’s still er, pushing the idea with his Skogging! website. I figured I would add a personal confession to the Skateboarding Sucks parade of ridicule.

MC Shot of the Week is the name he uses when he moonlights as a techno-trance DJ. Our own Mark Conahan is in the Shot of the Week on Skate Daily, the week being this week. MC says there’s not a lot of overlap between Skate Daily and Skate and Annoy which means I can start reading it more regularly. I had stopped because I didn’t want there to be a situation where we were just regurgitating the same stories, even though it’s likely we both subscribe to the same Google alerts. I don’t know, seeing Conahan in a SD shot of the week sure seems like overlap to me! And here I was just about to hit up BK for a SOTW on Skate and Annoy. The Portland Skate Media Mafia is ruthless. Thanks to Orezona for the tip.

The OC Register among others is reporting that one Huntington Beach skatepark will likely be shut down due to foul language, vandalism, and sexually degrading comments made to female athletes practicing at the nearby high school field. Way to keep it real guys. Ed Templeton is a local and he says he rarely sees bad behavior. Officials at the school want it gone and the parks district seems bent on relocation. The police station across the street says there are very few if any problems with the park. It’s looking more and more like a case of the people in power just wanting it gone. They claim keeping it open will cost $300,000 for maintenance. 300k? get out of town! It’s only a 6,200 square foot park that is essentially flat! You could almost build two of those parks for that amount of money in Portland. To be fair, part of that 300k would go to a bathroom facility. It’s hard to find decent pictures of this skatepark. After checking out a few on Socal Skateparks it looks like relocation (as long as it’s nearby) might be the best thing to happen to locals. The current park (albeit via the…

The city of Corpus Christi Texas banned the practice of “grinding” along their precious sea wall eight months ago, but so far have only handed out a few citations and the grinding continues. They’ve got themselves worked up in a lather to spend $50,000 on Skate Stoppers and consider an investment well spent to rid the sea walk of the evidence of grinding that is an “eyesore.” I’m sure the Skate Stoppers will eliminate all grinding. That’s money well spent, guys. Now imagine if instead they could spend half that much money on building skateable ledges nearby for kids. Problem solved. [Source: KRISTV.com]

I came across this web site (get your mind out of the gutter) while doing some, errrr, research. Gaybar Zine is a German web site that handles all your skate, BMX, graffiti and even struller needs. Kind of like a modern Action Now I guess. I’m not sure what the connection is with the Gaybar title. Maybe it’s one of those things where it means something different in German, Kind of like the time I was in Polland and saw an amusement park ride called the “Super Fahrt.” Anyway, I can’t hear the words “gay bar” without thinking of the Electric Six.

A concerned citizen at the Ed Benedict meeting last night busted the chops of Kyle from NewLine Skateparks about the fact that none of the skaters in his presentation were wearing helmets or safety equipment. I wanted to pipe up that I just think of it as evolution in action. It was too much to go into the helmets are aesthetically unappealing in photos and footage and since many skaters are all about the coverage… discussion. Head injuries are no joke, I have been getting a lot of google alerts about skaters dying all over the country because they fell on their heads while skating. A skater died from head trauma wilsoning a transfer over a four foot spine at the Pt. Angeles skatepark. Your choice dude, we’ll miss you. Here’s a story about skateboarding injuries including head trauma from a Connecticut hospital’s website. More than 50,000 emergency department visits a year are related to skateboarding injuries. Most of the 1,500 people who are hospitalized have head injuries. Dr. William Horgan, a specialist board certified in both adult and pediatric emergency medicine, works in the Backus Hospital Emergency Department. “Skateboarding injuries are very common and typically include wrist fractures and…

I actually named my cat “Rerun” after the character in this show. At the time, 10 years ago, my girlfriend and I thought it was hilarious – the cat’s name, not the TV show. Now I’m married to that girl (Not That Girl) and our cat pees on my pads. The complete season two of What’s Happening is available on Amazon. Does anyone know if there is there any skateboarding these episodes? If you need audio to get in the What’s Happening!! mood, click here and scroll down. [Source: Bobcat via Sleestak.net]

OK, I’m going to cop to not putting a lot of effort into SnA since the baby was born. The obvious lameness of this post title ought to give you a hint about how sleep deprivation is affecting me. Hopefully it’ll settle down with time. Here’s the first in a long line of quick and dirty posts. At one point in time I was thinking about having a gallery of “No skateboarding” signs from around the world until I realized how boring it would likely be. Now it could contain at least two interesting signs. All those skateboarding bulldogs on YouTube are going to pissed off about this “No Skateboarding Dogs” sign spotted on Chuck Woodbury’s Roadside Journal. Yes, I know, the sign is meant to say “No Skateboarding, No Dogs,” but it’s amusing none the less. Second, we have this “Thou Shalt Not Skateboard” sign in front of the Claremont Presbyterian Church in the city of Ontario California, as reported by the Daily Bulletin. At least they have a sense of humor. Also attached, “No Skating or Grinding,” but Kickflipping is apparently allowed. And what is that middle symbol? No Moonwalking? And now for something completely unrelated, a spider…