Before, during and after IPATH Demo at Komenda

Yesterday started off with some delicious blueberry pancakes, but took a turn for the worse as it started raining in Winnipeg and the Steinbach as well taking Street Havoc off of our calendar for the day.

This morning was a bit more successful. After breakfast we headed out to Komenda for a mid morning session plagued with some severe humidity, but fun none the less.

After a leg break earlier in the season it was great to see Ryan Anderson back on the board. Front side board slide.

We took off to go round up the assistant and grab some lunch before returning to the skate park to see if the 2010 IPATH Tour demo was underway. That it was...

Steve Nesser with a giant ollie despite the creepy dark rain clouds threatening the skate demo in the background.

Speaking of broken bones, Kevin Friesen was in good spirits after frightening pictures of his severely broken arm were generously posted on his facebook and the Big Woop blog

Nick Serduletz is so awesome that this is pretty much a celebrity sighting.

"No seriously dude...IPATH team in the park right now"-Marky (okay that's not what he said)

Trick of the day in my opinion. Steve Nesser blew my mind with this one.

I hope someone got this on video!

Winnipeg local Lucas Thorvaldson doing a Benihana (invented by Lester Kasai and named after the Benihana restaurant chain just so ya know) while Matt Rodriguez passes by.

The sun finally showed up while Josh Torvaldson broke out an Indy 270

The always stylish front side rock n' roll.

A different type of pancake.

This week we finally broke out the "secret project" I was hinting about in earlier posts.

This past fall my buddy James approached me and another friend to juice his ride for this summer. That conversation was what led to the beginning of the first official Low Life Customs/Winnipeg's Most Wanted build.

As soon as it warmed up a bit in the spring, we got to work.

...and here you have it!

It was a fun little project...and now back to skateboarding. Street Havoc Saturday!

Betty Mag release party.

Check it out!

A little more history...

...A Little More Skate. While working on a project the other day I stumbled across some more archives. A Little More Skate as I've mentioned before was a skate shop deep in the heart of St. James.

Here's a shot of Jake Stewart sitting on the counter and ??? sitting on the couch watching skate videos.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the city... you had a shop run by Lana and Doug. Then, the parents their skateboarding son Remy Shand, who years after the shops closure took a musical path all the way over to being signed with Motown records.

It was always worth the journey over to the North End of Main Street to skate the mini-ramp in the shop. Who could resist a plush, fully carpeted mini-ramp?

If my memory serves correct, this dudes name was Dean? It was probably the one and only time I ever saw him.

Procrastination, Green Fields and green dresses.

I am supposed to be picking, editing or possibly printing photos for a show early in September (details to follow soon), but I am still in procrastination mode. I am currently listening to Big Drill Car "In Green Fields" on repeat, which reminds me of a green dress I saw the other night when a friend stopped to say hello while cruising by on their bike.

My friend and her green dress.

A little song from one of the most played cassette tapes out of my dwindling collection.

One amazing memory.

Fun never ends...

...'til you bury a friend.

R.I.P.

The Business

Oi!

Someone is skipping town. For the record...I voted against it.

The big take over?

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice the BMX to skateboard ratio getting out of hand at the SKATE parks lately. So much metal, so much traffic, so many lines to look out for! It's a BMX comeback to say the least.

Up until this week, I haven't seen a higher BMX to skateboard ratio since the days of Woodhaven 1/2 pipe circa 1987.

The one good thing I appreciate about a big crowd is familiar faces. Two of those faces from tonight let me share their ramp back in 87', so it only seems fit to be sharing the park with them tonight.

Dave has been going strong since the first time I met him.

Wes is about 2 years older than me and mumbling some crazy talk tonight about retiring. So I figured I better get some pictures while I can.

Malcom did his own thing amongst the sea of bikers.

I've said it before...

...for all the haters on the world wide web. Put your keyboard down, take something you love to do, shut up and go do it! You be you, I'll be me and others will be themselves. Enough said.

There goes the neighborhood.

I did a double take while driving by this reader board on Saturday. I figure this sign can only mean one of two things...

...either the local pranksters have a questionable sense of humour or there are some people in white hoods getting together tonight for a meeting in Charleswood. Yikes!

The Gathering

The rain broke this weekend just long enough for the Blue Bombers to lose a game, but then carried on throughout the rest of the weekend. So needless to say, there are no new skateboarding pictures to post!

I was invited out this weekend to what I consider quite a special event involving some of the local lowriders.

The rain may make it hard to skateboard, but it didn't stop the lowriders coming out to meet....

...Kita Lealao who founded USO Car Club (which is now called UCE Car Club) in 1992 in the Harbor Area of Los Angeles. Some of our local lowrider enthusiasts have created a local UCE Car Club Chapter. They brought Kita up to Winnipeg to meet the chapter and get things rolling.

Brendan just finished juicing his Regal in time for the visit.

This Regal used to be a clean, but boring and beige "old lady car". Now it's juiced, has a slick black paint job and it's sitting on 13's

Winnipeg has Lincolns...

...Cadillacs and...

...Chevy Impalas. Three great staple ingredients for creating a classic lowrider.

Although Justin's Delta 88 has similarities to many of the GM lowriders, it isn't the most common choice of car picked to build a lowrider. Once this car is painted and finished it should stand out in a crowd.

One of the most enjoyable parts of this particular gathering of lowriders was the presence of more than one club to celebrate the starting of a new UCE chapter and a new Car Club for Winnipeg. There were some Players, Discipline 204, Luxurious, UCE Central Canada and UCE Winnipeg Car Club members all united to share a common love of lowriders.

UCE Car Club Winnipeg with Shaun from UCE Cenral Canada and Kita Lealao

The rain was unfortunate this weekend, but all in all it was a nice turn out for the event.

Juiced

Forecast for this weekend: Lowriders

Fixing cars, vacuuming pools, BBQ's and skate photos

One day I met a girl named Lisa Varga. She sold me some Tofurky. I bump in to Lisa from time to time. From what I've learned, Lisa loves taking pictures (she's good at it) and loves all things photography.

She posted up a link the other day to check out Nirrimi Kakanson's photography. I checked it out and would suggest you do the same. Nirrimi is shooting professionally at 17 years old. Impressive to say the least.

I promised more skate photos so now this is happening...

Mike Sudoma

Pole jam!

I hear the rain

Today should have been for skateboarding and taking photos of the same, but instead it is time for the rain.

The rain is always an excuse to dip in to the archives!

Kevin Gray Chornick Bowl early 90's

Kory Gray Chornick Bowl early 90's

...or vice versa, but I think I got it right.

Crossing Borders

A little birdie in my head (named Kristin) is telling me to keep this post positive. So I'll do my best.

We planned a few months ago to accept an invitation to a little family vacation south of the border. We expected the usual relaxed weekend filled with dining out, water slides, games rooms, shopping for back to school clothes etc...

Insert relaxed looking photo here:

All of that did happen, expect for the only difference being that this time to get to...

...the litter,

the graffiti,

the ???,

and the area that had 7 tornadoes touching down on Saturday evening...

...we had to get through customs.

No...that wasn't the customs officer, but maybe a not so distant cousin? Less than a week ago I went through customs and the dude was relaxed and listening to Black Sabbath on the radio. It was a 30 second transaction. This past Friday during a routine? search this gem of an officer keeps going on about smuggling weapons and people that lie to him. My son tries to assure him that "we don't have weapons and we are not robbers". He informs my son that people tell him that all of the time, but "they are liars". So rude, but fair enough a guy has to to his job right?

He's so good at his job that he accused me of withholding information, accused me of being a drug user, accused me of lying to him, threatened to catch me lying, charge me, deny me access and fine me...and then he says he's letting me in THIS time, and away we went. He did tell me I needed paperwork to prove I wasn't a criminal NEXT time. Nice. I wonder if that's similar to the multiple criminal record checks I've had done for various employers over the years and when I applied for and was granted "Reliability Status" with the government of Canada?

I could go on and on about the sillyness of it all, but I digress.

The experience got me thinking and I grew curious why someone would smuggle weapons into the land of weapons?

To get back on to a positive track I will show you the outstanding qualities of this weekend and goings on in the U.S. this week that should make them proud.

The B-52's, Cheech and Chong (I think they threw Chong in jail), AND Scott Baio! Amazing window display in East Grand Forks.

One of the most if not the most popular news clip of this past week:

...and the amazing Auto Tune The News version of Antoine Dodson's rant!

I was also informed that Pancakes and Skateboards inspired some Double Rainbow air time during a short films competition at a a friend's Theatre in Arizona this weekend. Awesome!

More skateboarding soon!