Not quite, but it sure seems like it. Once again, a huge, massive, adoring thank you to Bud Dickman for saving all of these and taking the time to bundle them up and send them to me. There’s a lot of random stuff here: complation videos, rider videos from the Dirt Bros website, random single clips that I used to throw up on sandiegobmx.com, some random edits from other people, and Andrew Callaci’s high school project video, Building Block. Some good stuff, some embarrasing stuff…it’s all fun, though.

Another round of disappointments for ya’lls.

First off, I can’t remember this guys name. It was something simple, but not at the same time. I feel like an asshole for not remembering it, but this bunnyhop to drop was over stem height and he let it fly at least five times, but couldn’t hold onto it. I must have been about 40 feet away shooting this and one attempt had his bike flying right at Stew Johnson and I almost taking us out.

I guess this is sort of cheating, but I really want this gap to happen. Dan Lacey had a rough one with this gap on two separate days. Broken parts, bloodied everythings, and some bad times. I’d post the attempts, but Dan is planning on coming back to wrap up his part for Nice Try… Anyway, this is a kicker to 12 foot-ish drop. It’s fucking crazy.

Jason Owens had a similar photo in the Kink article recently with a feeble-to-360 table out of the shapes in Boston, but he was trying to float a truck out of it. He tried it somewhere around 160 times. 160 times! He gave it his all, but it just didn’t work out.

And probably the most nerve-racking photoshoot I’ve ever had, Brian Kachinsky at El Toro. Certifiably the toughest man alive after shooting down this rail four or five times. You’ve probably seen the footage of the wreck in Insight, but it was fucking crazy?really. I’ll just say that the night ended with me calling a couple of friends asking them what it felt like to rupture their spleen while Brian ate Rold’s Golds Pretzels. He then flew out the next day to go to a wedding with elbows the size your thighs.

This all happened a while ago. Kachinsky always sends me random texts. Sometimes when he?s had too much gin, other times when he feels that I?m missing out on some fun, and sometimes when he?s looking at an old rollerblading magazine. I think he was at Woodward or something and spotted this gap-to-rail that was claimed to be in Santee, California. Apparently the idea of a three-flat-infinity peaked his interest, so he sent me a photo of the spread and asked if I knew where it was at. I didn?t, but I do know Chris Myers knows where every nook and cranny is in Santee. So I forwarded Chris the image?two minutes later I get a text back with, ?Dude, my kid plays soccer there and I?m going to be there in two minutes. I?ll send you photos.? No later than two minutes later, I get two additional photos (notice there?s two rails?one with three stairs, one with six) along with a text that says, ?I have a key to that fence.? Amazing the way things work these days. Short story even shorter, I forward them onto Kachinsky, and we now have tentative plans to at least check this rail out next time he?s in town. Thank you text messaging, Chris Myers, and ?The Key? for still opening gates five years later.

It’s still weird having people know things about my life, but I shouldn’t post them up if I cared that much. It was awesome to get some random “ah, maaaaan’s” from some random people about my cat. Thanks to Jody, Mark, and others who all caught me off guard with some sympathy.

I ended up taking her to the vet on Friday to get his opinion on what I should do, since I was at a lost. He told me to give her until Monday to see if she showed any improvement, being that it was a neurological problem (compounded by the asthmatic-type attack she had two nights before, he said the problem was probably blood clots blocking the nerves in her legs?something to that affect). So there she sat, still purring when I touched her, for three days. She would pull herself across the floor when she wanted to go somewhere, but her front legs wouldn’t listen to her brain. If I lifted her up and attempted to make her stand, her front paws would remained curled underneath and she was slump down. It was a bummer for me, but she had a similar, smaller episode, a couple weeks earlier, so the vet thought that it left the door open to her getting through this episode, as well.

Throughout the weekend, I thought about the idea of the ultimatum: “Get better by Monday, or get euthanized.” There’s no way I could even comprehend that idea, especially since she still show’s no signs of pain. Although she does look pretty pissed off at times that she’s just sitting on the couch. I would be, too. The weekend was rough, really, as she seemed to be eating and drinking less and sleeping more as it went on. Then, as I was about to head home from the office yesterday, I called my girlfriend to find out that Mercedes had somehow just decided to get up and walk across the room. Still wobbly and very disoriented, but for the first time in four days, she just got up and went somewhere. Seriously amazed. She still lays 98% of the day, but she walks across the house when she wants food, water, the cat box, or when she for some reason wants to be behind a chair. So, she’s staying. Hopefully for a good while.

I’m considering this a gift to end my streak of really, really bad shit happening. Bad shit quotta has been exceeded in the last couple of weeks, so I’m ready for another lengthy time of inconsequential nothings.

Fearsome duo, from a couple years back:

It’s not over yet, but my cat of thirteen years seems to be fighting for her life. She had fluid in her lungs and her heart isn’t looking too good either, according to the vet. She sits next to me unable to move, I imagine from just being too weak, but she still eats, drinks, and purrs at a single touch. I’ve done all I can, I guess. I’m by no means rich, and I feel like you can’t quantify the price of a life, but no one can fight age. She’s at least fourteen years old, and we’ve had a good time. I sort of figured that I was ready to handle this, but it’s still hard to deal with.

To the cat who’s turned many-a-person into a cat lover, stay with me. I love you.

I got this video in an e-mail from Bud Dickman from PerspectivesBMX.com, so a serious thanks to him. This was an edit I did based around a bunch of Super 8 footage that Travis Gardner filmed. Edited to Danzig, a bunch of messed up transitions between the DV clips, and some old-ass riding. I’m not sure what to say, this is some nogstalgic stuff to me. At one point I had aspirations of making a full video and actually had about three mix-sections done and edited, before I threw them all online after I got my job at Ride. And then my computer self destructed. I honestly think I wouldn’t even know the first thing to do in Final Cut these days, let alone design and impliment my own web site…pretty funny to think how far I’ve come in some ways and retracted in others. Either way, get a laugh out of it if you’ve never heard of my old site, or enjoy it if you were into it back in 2001 or whenever.

Bouncers in Rochester like to pull hair. Is that a dog head?

Twenty some odd days of owning an iPhone. I haven’t broken it yet.

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I got this text from Keith about 45 minutes ago: “I just saw the exact tree on Long Island that I learned fakies on 16-18 years ago. Holy crap I’m old.” I told him that as long as he can still go do that fakie, he has nothing to be bummed about. To which he replied, “I’ll never lose that trick. Now I just gotta dial in the no-handed version.”

I’m not sure why that makes me happy, but it does.

———-

Vegas was a good time. My girlfriend won $600 while I lost $300. Goes to show?not you?but me, who’s the better gambler. NORA somehow managed to be the best one yet. I’m already stressing what’s going to be in-line for next year…fortunately the first meeting for that is in two weeks. People don’t realize how much time, effort, and money from all of us (even from people that you don’t know at Transworld) goes into putting that single night on. I have a ton of amazing photos from the stage, but I need to hold onto them for the magazine.

Anyway, I only started typing to show you these photos from the trip back from Vegas. About 15 minutes out, one car flipped, three more crashed into it, and the freeway shut down for about an hour or so while we sat about 30 cars back. Since it was a Friday night, the sample of people on the freeway was pretty amazing. People got out of their cars and did the following: skateboarded, rode a bike, rollerskated (?), smoked weed, drank, stood on cars, blasted music, pissed on the freeway, etc… I decided I’d break out the camera and pop off a couple of photos that I found to be pretty funny after-the-fact. Hope you do, too.

The last photo is of the cleared accident as we passed it. Nothing gory for you, sorry.