This installment of Shot of the Week features Matt Lee at a high school in Portland, Oregon. I’m trying to come up with a pun or play on words for No Child Left Behind, but it’s not in me. Noprize to the best reader contribution. Thanks to Joe Stevens for the photo. Enlarge-o-rama.

Checkout this video from Tom Bender featuring a summer’s worth of skating in Portland, Oregon with nary an old man in sight! Go on a PDX bender after the jump. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Jesse McDowell works a mean trowel and rides for Merde. Egbert had this to say: Jesse has been riding for us for about 5 months now, I think. Whenever he was in town, we’d try and get some filiming in, but he’s a pretty busy guy…building parks and what not. Either way, welcome aboard Mr. McDowell! We’re happy to have you as part of the family. Catch the sponsor luv after the jump.

The spot from yesterday’s Shot of the Week is in Salem, Oregon. Thanks to Ryan Hass for the picture.

This shot of Jeremy Tuffli taken by Garric Ray recently appeared in Skateboarder magazine: I shot the photo of Jeremy on January 2nd and he did the trick in 23 degree weather! I think I spent a couple hours with a weed wacker to clean up the spot so you can see the drop as well. I still trip out that he landed the blunt fakie in the first place. Not sure if you’ve been to the St. Johns quarter pipe under the bridge or not, but you can get really hurt skating that spot if things go wrong. You can check out the Shot of the Week, but I would stay here for enlarge-o-rama so you can see what’s happening. I need to get that incorporated into the SOTW.

This week’s Shot of the Week is a Micah Breshears photo of Jeff Taylor taken at John’s Bowl in Albany Oregon. Check out the Shot of the Week.

The Shot of the Week is Cameron Schafer with a kgrind 180 out as captured by Joe Stevens. It looks much better in enlarge-o-rama.

We stopped by to check out Spohn Ranch’s modular bowl being assembled for the Dew Tour. It’s pretty impressive. Up close the individual sections don’t appear as massive or thick as you might think. There were a couple local faces in the crew which was nice to see. Word is that a Wally Holiday crew is coming in to do the finishing. Grover was ribbing the crew because some of the sections were out of numerical order, judging by the big numbers scrawled on the back. One interesting thing, the parking lot is sloping, so the whole structure is being erected on scaffolding with a giant corrugated metal subfloor. Check out the pictures after the jump.

So… an “unlocked spot” courtesy of the Dew Tour: We’ve unlocked a cool spot for all you Portland locals to skate next Wednesday 11am at the Pioneer Courthouse Square. There’s normally no skateboarding there, but we’re hooking it up for you guys. While I applaud the idea of lifting the ban, if only temporarily, I have to laugh at the suits at Pepsi “hooking me up.” Still, that’s a novel form of social/guerilla marketing. I wonder how much it cost to “hook us up?” ( Egads that’s awkward punctuation. Any English majors out there that can tell me what I did wrong? ) The photo on the bottom? That’s Spohn Ranch’s portable concrete bowl system being disassembled and loaded up for the trip to Portland. Grover is chomping at the bit to ride that thing. – Thanks to Craig Smith for the tip.

Billy Meiners quickly recaps the Mt Tabor Downhill challenge after the jump. Photos by Dabe Alan.