If you search for the Space Rocket XS-17, pretty much every image shows it with skis instead of wheels, but this one here has wheels on it. This is where it gets tricky when you’re trying to pinpoint the first commercially available skateboard, because there were certainly several skateboard-like devices manufactured in the 50’s and even earlier. While this may not have been manufactured for riding in an upright position, it’s an easy conclusion to jump to that assumes these were ridden standing up at some point. – Thanks to David ODK for the tip.

We’re running a 2 for 1 special on Dork Sessions today. First up we’ve got some extreme wheelbarrowing from Alexander Siegfried. The gag is executed pretty well, even if it does run a little long. Next we have a tribute to Breaking Bad in the form of a toy Winnebego mounted with skateboard trucks. Yes, that is that a Tonka Truck. [Source: Sploid] – Thanks to Tim for the tip.

Rain did not slow down the first pour of the newest skatepark in Portland. Billy Tavita Jasper and others on the Evergreen crew were hard at work. Please appreciate the new R.E.I. skatepark tent tarp which can not be deployed without a backhoe. G.V.K. out

Burnside is getting new neighbors who are reclaiming some of the territory in the north parking lot, but on the bright side, the developers have agreed to match donations up to $5000 for further park maintenance. The downside is that this post is horribly late, and the deadline for donations is on Halloween, which is tomorrow. Right now there is only a paltry $280 in the kitty. This is a golden opportunity to double your money and help fund Burnside.

It’s got big airs, lip tricks, flip tricks, and circus tricks. Tony’s new video part titled “Perched” has some amazing footage as well as an interesting remix of the Dead Kennedys song Police Truck. I can honestly say that I haven’t worked on a skate video this hard since The End. I never want to do some of these tricks again, but I am proud to have completed them and hope that you enjoy the outcome. And thanks to Z-Trip for resurrecting two classic songs from THPS… I love my job. -Tony Hawk I especially like some of the traveling foot plants, not really traveling in the conventional sense of a vert trick, more like sliding. Just watch the video, you won’t regret it. Old man Hawk still has it. [Source: Ride via Kingpin]

The Disney book Learn to Draw With Phineas and Ferb comes packaged with a random eraser in the shape of a character from the show. This particular pressing features Perry the platypus, who has appeared on a skateboard in the series. Someone must have “thought of the children” and decided to make sure he had a helmet on this time.

If this this tart could be shipped from/to the USA, I’d think about buying her. There’s not much information about these Susie dolls from Woolbro, they only seem to exist online in cases where they are for sale. This one looks like it dates back to the 70’s, perhaps a contemporary of Dashing Daisy. – Thanks to David ODK for the tip.

Hoverboards are real, or at least more real now. We’ve seen hoaxes, models, and experiments, but this latest incarnation of the dream of the future is the closest thing to a Back to the Future reality. Before you get too excited, it costs $10,000 (!) and it requires a special surface to ride on in order for the magnetic field to keep the board floating 1 inch off the ground. That, and lots of extra batteries, because where the technology stands today, the ride only lasts a few minutes. That 10K price tag is ridiculous, but they aren’t really marketing it as a consumer product. They just want to generate money and interest to further develop the technology, and not just specifically for hoverboarding. Hovering stuff? That’s cool, but everybody recognizes the hoverboard as the modern equivalent of the Jetsons flying car, in terms of where is my ____ of the future? It was an inspired decision to build a miniramp, however slight the transition. [Source: Sploid – New York Times] – Thanks to Jack H. for the tip.

This Free Former skateboarding helmet that Grover picked up at Goodwill somewhere in Western Oregon has to go down as the find of the year or maybe even the decade, considering he only paid $2.50 for it and it’s essentially mint. It may look like a hockey helmet that was made in Canada and sold for skateboarding purposes… well, because it is. Aside from the Free Former logo, these helmets appeared with the Cooper hockey logo as well as the Hobie logo. It’s amazing what passed for safety equipment back in the 70’s. These things are basically a bunch of folded over plastic stitched together with some padded envelopes.