Then and now -20 years of Rick and Corey

For those of you who stumble across this blog after checking out camnikkel.com you'll be familiar with the reason I started sharing photos on the world wide web in the first place. Having captured images that crossed over span of three decades I felt it was useless to let them sit in storage or wait for visits from friends to have an excuse to dig through boxes and boxes of photos to share.

Looking back I realize that having a camera handy and ready to document life as it unfolded was a good thing. Peering in to the past can be a trip for anyone, especially if the majority of the images can bring back positive memories.

Your friends can't be by your side every day and sometimes there's long periods of time between visits when you live or grow apart. Realizing that as you grow up you've shared more than two decades of experiences with some of those friends is a great thing.

Corey and Rick 1987

Corey 1988

Corey 1998 in the backyard of his home at the time in Orange County

Corey 2008 outside of Triple Rock in Minneapolis when we met up for the Gorilla Biscuits reunion tour.

Rick after a Peak of Outrage jam session 1988.

Rick's return 2008

To all my friends then,now and tomorrow...thanks for letting me take all those pictures!

Check Engine

On Thursday night my "Check Engine" light rears its ugly head on the "Hayt-ona". I ignore it until Friday when the "Check Gauges" light follows suit. The gauges did have a story to tell: Time to buy a new alternator. No time for changing alternators! I had errands to run. So I charged up the battery for an A to B, then B back to A trip and the car died 2.8km from home base on the return. This of course cost me a tow and a brisk walk.

It just so happens that if my Mac computer had its own "Check Engine" light; it too would have been staring me in the face. Somehow my lovely piece of technology caused files to be corrupt all over its hard drive and my two externals causing system failure after system failure.

One alternator, one great mobile mechanic rate from Sling Shot Mechanical (thank you Fred), one extended care Apple Protection fee and one hour of my Sunday on the phone later I was almost back in the game. The Apple Care dude could help me fix the Macintosh Hard Drive,but every time I tried to run disk utility on the externals the computer crashed. After spending the money and messing around here and there for two days it finally dawned on me to take a chance with ol' faithful (my ancient Dell Laptop). I plugged the externals in to the lap top, Windows recognized the problems immediately, ran a disk check on its own and fixed me up good!

That is the cause of the hiatus currently approaching day three.

I was back up an running in time to fix up a Grey Cup meal sans football.

F*** YOU WE'RE FROM TEXAS - ZORLAC

A scan of old Polaroid slide film gone bad or art? You decide.

A little more Doug Robinson

Between this blog an my original site camnikkel.com it should be obvious by now that the archives never end.

Here's a third installment on Winnipeg local skater Doug Robinson circa 1989. Growing up in Westwood and Woodhaven we often stuck to our favourite local skate spots when we weren't downtown.

Doug relaxing at his shop A Little More skate in Westwood.

Doug with one of his seemingly effortless ollies at Woodhaven Toyota.

Westwood Collegiate.

Board sliding the rails at the legislature just for fun.

As always...more archives coming soon!

Refusing to hibernate

The majority of the things I like to do are dependent on great weather to make them thrive. Skateboarding, lowriding and photography just aren't the same in the winter. Growing up in Winnipeg teaches you how to make the best of something that's not so amazing unless your love for snowboarding, tobogganing or snowmobiling is greater than that of all things summer.

This past weekend I had a chance to meet up with some of the local lowriders to see what was going down. Hibernation was not on the menu.

"Brothers lowrider" have taken it upon themselves to find a spot to work on their rides over the winter.

The place is fully equipped! Check out the kitchen?

They insist on top of the line only for all of their tools and such.

Top all of the most modern conveniences off with a velvet Elvis and you've got a dream shop to say the least.

All kidding aside, the place has amazing character, with lots of hidden treasures all over the place.

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The fire stick! "Not to be used as a ninja sword." You've been warned.

I'll be returning to the shop soon when there's some progress to report on. Hopefully some wicked frame wraps and more!

After leaving lowrider headquarters I headed over to what I like to call the "Elmwood Lowrider Bicycle Factory".

This place was hopping, these guys have been building pieced together lowrider bikes and choppers night after night in a tight area that's wall to wall chrome bike parts!

These guys still have loads of work and good fun ahead of them that could help make this winter feel a little bit shorter!

Big Woop! Magazine Issue 4 Release Party

The much anticipated Issue 4 is hitting the streets Dec 8th at the Release Party. Good friends, good times and 32 pages of awesome!

82

A couple of months ago I was was asked to design a Pancakes and Skateboards version of an 82 for a friend and her communications agency named ...82 located in New Zealand.

 I had the concept in my head as soon as I saw some of the other "82's", but I just needed to find the time to make it happen.  This weekend I found the time.  The time to go beyond the regular 6 pancakes shared between three people and make an extra 66 pancakes to pull off my vision of a Pancakes and Skateboards 82.

Check out the other 82's that were submitted. You can also check out 82's facebook page.

We've got options in Winnipeg

In the previous post I might have lead readers to believe that The Edge is our only winter skateboarding option.  As much as it's a hassle free option, it's not always accessible.  I can assure you...if there is snow on the ground Winnipeg skaters will find dry pavement as they have been for decades.

 Mark Webster late 80's (if you couldn't tell by the board size) going underground in a parkade session.

It's all over...

...until next year.

Where would we be without The Edge?

Newsflash

I was first turned on to Riot !n Paris after a post on The North Elevation Blog. I thoroughly enjoyed the Attack of the 5 ft Hipster "Choose your own adventure" video.

Riot !n Paris dropped some new material today. So if you enjoyed the video, check out the new download here.

Adam Hopkins is further along in his Greyhound travels.

Frank Daniello keeps us up to date with his Push.ca Blog post Road Warrior Part I.

Color Magazine Issue 8.5 is now released. Get a sneak peak of Brian Cassie's photos on his Blog.

I've been following the work of Brazilian skater/artist Billy Argel for quite some time now. He just had some new boards released on Superior Skateboards. Check out the link for a chance to win some free decks!

Its for the kids...

Do you really want to see your friends and neighbors get their hands on a copy of the Call Response Book before you? Do you like to live life on the edge and take a gamble that the day the books show up at the beginning of February that there will still be a copy left for you after the crazy mob has swept through the store to grab their own copy?

If you would like to play it safe and pre-order your copy (pay less than retail), raise money for The Kids Help Phone or learn more about it in general please click HERE.

SNFU 2008 at The Zoo

Hal's spilling malt liquor...

...on his Minor Threat sticker-Dag Nasty

A line from the song Wig Out at Denkos that rang in my head tonight as I walked back to my car after far too short of a get together with a friend.

Flip the pages and let the memories rush in.

Twisted Sister and beyond

I was looking for a specific image tonight when I came across this shot of some stellar graffiti in Athens Greece.

Here's a well stocked kiosk. A one stop shop for the snack addict. Snacks are like crack to some people. Don't be a snack-head?

Below is the image I was searching for. I am patiently waiting for a package to show up that I ordered a few weeks ago. Many packages have arrived in the meantime. I need this package before December 1st. I am thinking it's coming via UPS Vespa division? Who knows?

For those of you that miss Arrested Development (Tobias and Gob in particular) you may want to check out IFC's new show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret

Take that trailer and imagine Will Arnet dishing out obnoxious curse words for the first 5 minutes of the first episode and you'll get a better idea of what you're in for.

I don't watch a lot of TV shows per say, but I am guilty of being a slave to the weekly showings of AMC's The Walking Dead, FOX's Fringe, HBO's East Bound and Down and Boardwalk Empire.

East Bound and Down's second season just wrapped up so I'm sad to say that topping classic "Kenny Powers" (Danny McBride's character) lines like "It's better to be strangled by a necklace of Mexicans than to be strangled by no one at all" will have to wait until season three.

Spine n' Grind part II

A recent comment was left on a post I made back in May about Jeff Hartsel visiting Brandon's now defunct indoor skate park The Spine n' Grind. The comment made a mention of other good memories from touring pro skaters such as Natas Kaupas, Julien Stranger etc... visiting the Brandon park.

That comment and the various compliments and phone calls that come in shortly after postings that include some gems from the archives motivated me to find another shot from Jeff Hartsel's visit back in 1989.

Unfortunately this negative suffered from severe under exposure, two hits of Farmers Reducer in an attempt to intensify it back when it was first processed and 21 years of improper storage. After all that its still lacking greatness on the quality side. The content itself is why I must post it. Enjoy!

Jeff Hartsel layback grind

Medium format 1st roll

...First roll in nearly a couple of decades anyway.

With new cameras, expect new photos. Here's a shot of a new friend named Adam I shot before we hit the skate park last weekend.

...and then there was Friday.

For those of you that used a vacation day today because you were paying attention well in advance to the fact that this year's Remembrance Day fell on a Thursday...enjoy your four day weekend.

For the rest of us who weren't paying attention, didn't have the vacation time available or work at an establishment that requires you to work yesterday and today...back to the grind.

note: I found this lovely and creative window display at a hardware store on Main St. in the North End of Winnipeg yesterday. It was well worth the stop to take a closer look.

The day after...

A big thanks goes out to all the internet friends, the facebook friends, the overseas friends, the text messaging friends and the phone calling friends who wished me a Happy Birthday yesterday. An even bigger thanks goes out to The Assistant once again for making this birthday great and organizing a get together with actual living/breathing friends for a great "DV" (Delicious Vegetarian for those of you that don't know) dinner and post dinner vegan ice cream and cake party.

If you're bummed that you didn't make the "A List", next time make sure you meet our simple requirements.

Hump Day!

So far this week has been all about the black and white photos.

In other news...The Great Canadian Talk Show has been canceled! Local radio host/voice of the people Marty Gold was fired from 92.9 Kick FM prior to this Monday's show. ChrisD.ca covers the story here. Marty talks about it on his own blog here.

Asher Bradshaw 6 year old skateboarding prodigy

My friend Dulce from south of two borders sent me this link of one amazing 6 year old kid shredding up Venice Beach.

Speechless.

Faces and places. Eastsiiiide edition.

Cole and Brennan

Coming soon to a handrail near you.

Welcome to Monday

This weekend was full of many accomplishments. One of them being that I processed a whack of film. That's that and now it's Monday.

Mystery

We were out in the North End of Winnipeg yesterday evening hopefully wrapping up with the finishing piece of the next Big Woop magazine issue.

It felt like we just finished putting the last piece in a puzzle. Just as this one puzzle was solved a new mystery was opened as we walked back towards the car...who killed Barbie?

High Five Drive -Delivers High Energy

Last night I broke my High Five Drive cherry at the callresponse/Kids Help Phone show. These guys play ALL the time and I held off seeing them until last night for some unknown reason. This band had great energy from their first song until their last. If you've been like me and have been holding off on seeing them play, do yourself a favour and check them out next time they hit the stage. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the convincing you to see them play soon!

Another band on the line up was The Bokononists. They brought less energy to the stage, but came armed with a mustache and an arsenal of tunes that make the girls get up and dance.

I'm not sure if it was the mustache or the dance tunes, but The Bokononists definitely brought out the elite and high society alike out to The Albert for a good cause.

"Like OMG there's a live band on stage right now"

Nathan Terrin of Be:Cause Industries packed the house and gave the crowd an opportunity to vote on your favourite of five photos for the cover of the callresponse book. If you didn't make it out last night you still have a chance to vote for your pick online at the Call/Response Book site.