Rainspot Rebuilt

All kinds of new construction, along with some incredible street art, has been going down at rainspot. I got the new work camera out and after a few ugly shots, and a few reminders from a professional, I got a decent shot of Ryan blasting up this wall.

The photo really does no justice to how fast he was going. Still photography is limited like that, I guess.

MIA

It's been 2 months or so since I've updated the ol' blog, mainly because I got an iPhone (see previous post) and now just use Instagram to send out random images with a few words attached. I believe the kids call it microblogging.

I think I like sending out random pictures to the world one at a time instead of 2 paragraphs of my ramblings per serving.

That doesn't mean that won't still be rambling. Oh, I'll ramble.

If you've got an iPhone I suggest you check out Instagram; I'm on there as kmart202, and most of my photos so far are of skateboards and skateboard-related activities, food (usually cooked by annieB), Obama on my caller ID, things I like to look at, and of course shower beer:

Back in the day...

...I was always pumped for Halloween.

All Hallow's Eve

Still the best holiday ever. If you're not in a costume you're doing it wrong.

Baby in a bar

Evan's looking thirsty. Someone get that little fella a drink.

Shower Beer

A cousin of shower coffee. Usually only seen on weekends.

Birthday Explosions

For the first time in years, I went down to the Mall to see the fireworks. I've kinda stayed away from there the last few years, mainly because the security has gotten out of control and it wasn't worth the hassle. Also because I didn't want to get crushed by all the morbidly obese tourists that walk in huge obese packs of obesity as SLOW AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

Anyway, I sucked it up and it was pretty fun. The fireworks were cool, because they were fireworks. Bonus was getting a creepy photo of the Monument.

Illo Dump

I've been meaning to post these on the blog for a while now...they've been up on my flickr page (which, according to this blog, is kinda updated) for a bit. I figured after the tease it was about time to deliver.

ILL

Spent the weekend in Chicago, visiting the Midwestern Martins and their child prodigy (aka Evan), who is probably posting daily on Facebook.

It was a great all-inclusive trip...met up with DC friends and saw the Reds play the Cubs at Wrigley (and lose in dramatic fashion...nice work, Cordero, you fat bastard), celebrated annieB's birthday (29), visited family and ate like a champ.

The only downers were some crap weather the one day we had outdoor plans and these really weird, super-mega-short ties the wait staff wore at Carnivale, a Brazilian-Spanish fusion place (ednote: I'm repeating the waiter verbatim) that had some kickass plantains and meatstuffs. I ignored their poor choices in neckwear and plowed through a bigass steak.

While we were there, Evan had his first documented crawl and updated his status on Facebook (ILL, which works on so many levels). His weekend was easily 2x as productive as mine, but mine had more steak. I win.

Rampsaturday, 11 a.m.

The Ethiopian Egg

Ethiopian food is one of the kickass things I learned existed when I moved out of the Land of Chili and took up residence in DC. I'll admit it's not for everyone, though...you have to eat with your hands, which is pretty f'n gross sometimes, but I don't mind when Ethiopian food is on the table for some reason. Another case of situational ethics, I guess.

Another issue is that you'll get some food served up that you really have no idea what it is. My best advice is to grab a double handful when that happens. Just dive in and own it. I think I've eaten some animal's stomach more than once, and that ish was outstanding. Had I known it was stomach, I would not have gone forward with the eating.

One thing I always recognize, though: The Egg. For some reason, if you get one of the group platter meal things (just a shitload of food on one big tray, so multiple sets of hands can be a-grabbin'), they 'garnish' it with a gigantic hard-boiled egg. The egg is covered in all kinds of spices and sauces, and even though it's probably an Ostrich egg or something, I'm always pumped about eating that thing.

I usually have very little competition from the other diners, which rules. I'm happier when I don't have to share.

Illo Dump Tease

During the summer of 2009, I drove with a friend from LA to DC, riding our skateboards and getting into adventures along the way. I kept a journal for most of the trip and took close to 500 photos.

At some point about a year ago I started to put the photos and text from the journal together, making a glorious photo+text art project.

I've finally finished enough of these that it feels worthwhile to do something with them, so here's the first one. I think this one is on the facebook or something, but F the facebook.

I'll probably post the rest of them later this week or this weekend in one big photo/illo dump.

I said dump.

The Beacon

I know some guys. They live in an apartment. There's a plant growing through the wall, on the windowsill, on the 3rd floor. You can see it for miles.

Ok, blocks. Maybe one block. Whatever. You can see it.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that I have one friend who can only find this apartment by looking for the plant. Hence the title 'The Beacon'. I'll get better at this blogging stuff. Promise.

Dirtier Jerz

AnnieB insisted I see some of Jersey's dirty side before our vacay was over, so we stopped by Wildwood on our way out.

It was indeed dirty, with lots of bad tattoos. It was also fixin' to rain. I was kinda grumpy that day, but still managed to give a point in current Jersey resident HP's honor before leaving to 'make good time' or some garbage. I'm a whiner sometimes.

Sightings

A 3-day weekend of skating, going to stupid hipster bars, skating, and watching the World Cup culminated on Saturday with a positive sighting of my favorite head scar and the newly-wedded Jbanks .

I then ended Saturday with a healthy slam at one of the dirtiest spots of all time. Seemed about right.

Tragic

Check out this satellite photo of the ever-growing oil slick, courtesy our friends at British Petroleum. Good thing that we'll be drilling more and more of these wells off the Eastern seaboard.

Everything you see that's reddish-brown is oil. Keeping in mind that this photo is from 400 miles above the earth, all i can say is holy shit that's a lot of oil:

photo via GeoEye

I Think He's Gonna Pork Her

From the Straight Lurkin' files, Tokyo-based artist Kohei Yoshiyuki has earned legendary criddler status by sneaking around a park in Tokyo and taking pictures of couples making out, etc.

I'm not sure who the other guys in the frames are, but they are full-on Park Lurkers in my mind. If I was in SF this week I would totally go see this, just so I could point at art and giggle.

via WBE

New Setup

In honor of the spring solstice (not really), I'm sporting a whole new setup...here's the spring line:

shoes: Adidas
deck: Chocoloate/7.81
trucks: Thunder Hollows (hollow axles & kingpins, like bird bones)
bearings: Bones Swiss, bitches
wheels: Convoy/54mm

Breaking in the new trucks is always a bitch, but at least I got it outta the way today, and put a few marks on the board so I don't feel like Special Agent Utah at the next spot.

Shower Coffee

Some mornings, when I decide it's warranted, I reward myself with a truly special gift: Shower Coffee.

I figured that the shower is pretty kickass, and coffee also kicks ass. Instead of forcing myself to enjoy these pleasures individually, I decided to try combining them. It is glorious. It also lets me multi-task while not really doing anything. That's a daily goal.

The only required materials are fresh coffee, a cup (preferably plastic, for safety's sake), and a shelf that's above the Water Zone in your shower.

The great thing is that it's not limited to coffee. Tea and beer are also acceptable shower drinks, in the right circumstances. I haven't figured out the full list of rules yet.

The Other Day...

...I rode on this wall, and Flynn shot photos.


At the time, I thought I was like 4 feet up the wall. Reality, as always, is a beyotch.

JB scared away the neighborhood kids.