I'm Not Dead, Really.

In the two and a half years I've been blogging I've never taken such an extended break. It's been almost a month and a half since I last blogged here and I gotta tell you, not much has happened. Other than riding my bike to school everyday(and twice on Wednesdays) I haven't even come close to riding. My classes blow(mostly) and between that and board building I've been keeping pretty busy. I'm looking forward to my month and a half break that's coming up soon, it'll be the first time in I don't even know how long that for an extended period of time, I won't be either reporting to the man, looking for work, or relocating halfway across the country. I would like to tell you that I'm going to make the most of it, but who the fuck are we kidding? In reality, we're planning a week in Bend and I hope to get a little camping trip in there somewhere as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

To bring everyone up to date on what's happened since June 24th, I've prepared some slides:

A skateboard.

Another skateboard.

Yet another skateboard.

A really big skateboard.

More skateboards.

Bad ass skateboard.

Scarpino family reunion.

Some skateboarding.

A hipster wedding.

Bride's parents more dressed up then I've ever seen them in 32 years.

And an old skateboard back from paint.

Well there you have it. You want to know more about the skateboards? Click here.

Deck #5, Now in Eddie's Hands

Eddie finally got his board in NOLA, I've had a hard time keeping this thing under wraps for the last week. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and it sounds like Eddie is too.

I've started a new blog to chronicle these builds, it can be found here: forty2longboards

I did what I could to make it his. The flex is just about right for his weight and he should find it really nice for cruising and somewhat pumpable. Of course the NOLA touches help too. BTW, without Shannon's help the water box logo would have never happened, awesome work.

Learn how to footbrake Eddie. With no kicktail, stopping can be a bitch unless you know how footbrake. Have fun!

Michele Made The Paper

It doesn't actually make any mention of her, but that's Michele alright. It makes me so proud.

SR 520 Bridge Tour

Michele and I "won" spots on the SR 520 floating brdge tour during annual maintenance today. In a word, it was bad ass. They opened the drawspan for us while we were out there, let us walk through the pontoons, and go down onto the lower deck on the east side. It was much better than the Alaskan Way viaduct tour from earlier in the year, and more exclusive.

That's a happy tour winner right there.

And another one!

A whole bunch of tour winners!

Everybody Love the DDD

It's a hit! The double drop deck that is. Everybody loves it. It's stable, easy to push, fun to carve, and easy to slide. I've got two, maybe three more to build already. Shannon digs it.

So in case you haven't already guessed it longboards have been taking up quite a bit of my time lately. In fact deck number six is in the press right now and number seven goes in tomorrow. I'm going for nine before classes start again on the 29th. All A's for Spring quarter by the way, as if you cared.

I'm also planning on getting out and doing some mountain biking soon. Nope, I didn't forget about mountain biking. During my week off I plan on hitting the East side of the Cascades for a day or two and finding some trail. I'm going to cook brats over an open fire, drink some beer, and do lots of sudoku puzzles. Should be a blast.

Oh yeah, and even Michele has taken a turn on the triple D.

Say Hello to the Failboard

This was to be Eddie's board before I fucked it up in more ways than one. This whole building decks thing has been a bit of a learning experience but I'm definitely getting better as I go along and I'm learning more about what I can and can't do with bamboo. I had to cut this deck a little on the odd side just to make it usable and I'm in the process of finishing it out anyway. I'm just going to write sample on it and let people use it to get an idea of what this particular press can do.

Don't worry Eddie, I started a new deck for you two days ago as soon as I realized how badly I screwed up on this one(mostly cosmetic). It'll still be done when I said it would. Yours will still be a little screwed up just like every other board I've built so far, but less screwed up than most. And Eddie, just because this deck came out of the same press doesn't mean your deck will look anything like it. You'll just have to wait for the UPS guy to find that out.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The quarter ends next week and that's got me hopping at the moment. I finally got the vanity top for my parents powder room shipped out today and got started on Eddie's deck. I've got something kind of special in mind for Eddie, at this point he's not going to find out what it is until it shows up at his door but I'm fairly certain that he's going to like it.


Yesterday, I picked up enough bamboo to build all the boards currently on the horizon. That's a good sized pile of bamboo.