The Marginal Way project is having thier annual BBQ and fundraiser this weekend, but their generator gave up the ghost, so be a local hero and contact them if you have a temporay generator hookup for the event. If you can’t bring a generator, bring your board and support the scene.

Oh yeah it’s that time again, the end of the summer Marginal Way Skatepark 2nd annual BBQ. Come down and see the progress of the park. we have been doing some cool stuff over the past year. hopefully this next year we can continue to make more rad shit. the BBQ is going to be fun food, skating, game of CRETE (our version of SKATE) and music. Plus our pal Quincy Quigg illustrated a cool new shirt for us that will be for sale during the event. come down and see what going on at your local Seattle DIY park and help us celebrate and make some money for the start of Fall 07.

Marginal Way Skatepark BBQ
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2007 1:00PM
SKATEBOARDING, MUSIC, FOOD
GAME OF C.R.E.T.E (REGISTER AT 10 AM)
SUPPORT SEATTLE‚S D.I.Y. SKATEPARK

..for their cheese! Haw, har! But seriously folks, Dreamland just broke ground on a small skatepark in Lake Delton, Wisconsin. Secretary for the village of Lake Delton, Kimberlee Czuprynko is trying to organize a demo for opening day in Spring of 2008, but she’s been met by silence from everyone she’s contacted. Midwest companies, this is your chance to step up. Beer City and Character Skateboards are the closest neighbors I can think off the top of my head. The folks at Midwest Bowlriders might have a few ideas. Maybe even Indy’s Toast Skateboards could get in there. Lake Delton is excited about the new park. They’ve been updating the village web site with progress pictures (in annoying pdf documents) almost every other day since construction began. They’ve even been keeping tabs on how many members of Deamland crew are in town. If you think you can help with the grand opening, contact kimberlee at charter dot net or 608 254-2558 ext 225. More info: Skatepark site, Press release with park plans.

Grover’s Video Korner often reaches for greatness, but Rory Sheridan is like Icarus flying too close to the sun. Ok, that’s a bit much, but his Behind the Griptape skateboarding exposés are damned funny. They can be a little too drawn out, but as the second episode shows, he’s honing his craft and they are getting tighter. Good scripts, some decent acting, skateboards and copious onscreen beer bongs. What else could you ask for? Watch the videos after the jump.

[Source: South of the North]

Be careful what you wish for. If you spend the time and money to make something worthwhile online, you want people to read it. If you get too many people reading, it can become quite expensive and time consuming to maintain. I used to spend a lot of time on Concrete Disciples and Sleestak. As I started to develop Skate and Annoy more, I gradually chose to spend more time creating on SNA and less time reading other sites. Maintaining these things can be a bitch, just ask the guys who do it. Adding forums generates a headache of a different level of magnitude. Imagine every jackass commenter you see on this site multiplied by 100 or 500. Flame wars, server overloads, spam posts… I know, cry me river right? I haven’t been following it in detail, but I know Jeff Greenwood over at Concrete Disciples had some health issues for a while, and I think he’s turned over the reigns of CD for the most part. A while ago they made the decision to contract an online advertising agency to help generate ad revenue and pay for the heavy usage the site gets. At first there were a lot of “crossover” ads for action sports related companies, you know, lifestyle stuff. Buy your surf trunks here, etc… I was over there the other day and got a little bit of a shock when I pulled up a page and found geographically targeted ads trying to sell me a car in Portland, as well as ads for Verizon. Basically, non skateboarding related in any sense. It kind of bummed me out a little, but I know they aren’t “selling out”, they just need to pay the bills.

A comment in yesterday’s post about the Skate-Ball ramps got me thinking about an eBay auction I saw a few years back. The parts for a complete fiberglass skatepark were listed with a $30,000 opening bid, and as I recall, nobody bid the minimum. I saved the images because I thought they were interesting. These were relics of the 70’s rotting away in a desert somewhere, and for some reason I find that stuff fascinating. Someone spent the time and money necessary to make the molds for these giant prefab pieces, and maybe sold a few and then lost a bunch of money. Fiberglass seems like it would be not quite the best surface for a skate park. A little web investigation reveals the park in these pictures was likely Thrasher Land park in Glendale Arizona. At some point in time they tried to incorporate modern street skating elements into the park, and the end result makes Frankenstein look suave. The domain name (thrasherland.com) is parked at a hosting company and the phone number has been reassigned. A web forum reports that the whole facility has recently been razed. It’s amazing that they weren’t demolished in previous decades. So what do you do for the sake of history? Sk8parklist.com appears to be the only skatepark directory with actual pictures of the park, but even then, they barely show the telltale blue ramps. Concrete Disciples has a listing with no pictures. How can you not take pictures of giant prefab blue fiberglass ramps? It’s not like you run across them all the time, or even, ever.

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.

Gizmag, is a web site devoted to presenting high tech gadgets in the most low tech way possible outside of chiseling it in stone. Seriously, learn how to work Photoshop, would ya?

These days the term skateboard tends to refer to a whole raft of different transport modes that go way beyond the two-axle, four wheeled conveyances that rose to prominence in the 1970s – everything from in-line caster boards to spokeless mini-motorcycles and sit-down street machines tend to be categorized under the genre.

Err… yeah. Some guy is trying to bring to market a hydrogen fuel cell powered version of something two different groups of college kids have already done, but Sony felt compelled to file a patent for anyway. Also working against him is the fact that there are already at least two technologies called iSlide, namely an oven made by Siemens and a handful of software slideshow utilities. Just looking at the “inventor” riding an iSlide in his socks will assure you that he’s going to succeed.

[Source: Gizmag]