Man, I'm super busy so I had to ask my mom to write the captions for these photos. She was born and raised in the old school Phillippines and is slightly racist, among other things.
But you know what? She's open minded like I am.
If you can't handle her accent and left field humor, she told me she's going to kill your dog, stuff it with your cat, and serve it up for you on Thanksgiving, but only after
she eats the good parts. Her gangster name is Vanilla Rice. My dad's 100% Polish and contributed to my sense of humor by telling me a new Polish joke every day of my childhood.
He says you can sink a Polish battleship by putting it in water. I think I'll get him to write tomorrow's captions.
Let me throw in a quick two cents of my own before we get to the photos, though. Between Surf Expo in Orlando, ASR in San Diego, and now Tampa Am,
there's like 100 people here that I've seen in three different cities in the last three weekends. I can't hang out as much here because I have an actual job
to do in Tampa. Oh well, still super good times are on the way this weekend. If you're joining in on the Jail Bird deck giveaway this weekend, here's the deal. Go
to the Jail Birds Page and try to find the best or funniest arrest of a skateboarder
that happens this weekend during the contest. One winner will be picked and sent the deck next week. Sending me my own arrest record doesn't count.
The Park's already packed with well known and unknown, but soon to be known, rippers. I have a feeling
Jamiel Nowparvar and
Nate Compher are going to be making
a lot of people go "who's that kid?" A few photos and videos from the day are below. Thanks for the help, mom. I'll be over tonight
for dinner. Please don't make dogloaf again.
Rob
"Hory heck litto kid kickfrip back ripside!?!?" Yeah, that's Evan Mirchell, mom. Good call on the trick, too.
"Where otha skate board? Need a two so maka chopstick on wheel for big back heel! Oooh, me maka rhyme lika dinner time!" Good job, mom.
Yes, that's a backside heelflip by Lindsey Robertson.
"Lindsey Robertson? Why no hand betweena leg?" Yeah, usually he's Indy grabbing these heel flips, mom.
"I try find little kickfripper Torey Pudwill in registration, can't see. You maka computer mistake? No Asian wit honor maka computer mistake eva!!"
No mom, he's not in the qualifier heats because he made it to the Semi-Finals on Sunday by qualifying in a
Damn Am Contest.
"Go rook up encycropedia try find 'how catcha kickfrip' you finda Tony Tave." Yes mom, that's probably the best steez on a kickflip I've seen. Tony Tave rips.
"Robby, why you put too many white guy photo? You rida skateboard long time, why you no 360 frip lika white guy?!?". Mom, I can't throw
down a big 360 flip like Jason Martinez here. Old dudes like me usually grab their board on every trick and wear shorts.
"Kickfrip sarad grind? Hory cow!" Yeah, that's pretty sick, mom. This guy is Windsor James.
"What da herr this kid try? Looka like messed up brunt sride!" Nah, that's Danny Cerezini. He's doing a backside 180 to switch front crook.
"Wow, dat guy rearry white!" That's his hat, mom. He's Brazilian. This is Rodrigo Lima on a nollie frontside noseslide.
"Robbie now I know you do feeble grind. Where you picture at?" I can't do them switch like this kid, mom. Too bad I can't remember his name.
"You video sucka more than you photo!" I know mom. I don't usually film due to this sketchy camera, but at least you can tell this is
Aaron Artis doing a kickflip lipslide.
"Why dis guy day call Weiger? He no looka like Srim Shady?" That's not why they call him that - it's his name, mom. His last name
is something crazy so he usually just goes by Weiger VW. This video is him doing a fakie ollie switch crook pop out.
Looks like the Kiddie Course isn't going to be done until tomorrow. Here's some photos from our first session on the main course and some random bar antics at Skateboard Industry Night in St. Pete: A New Course and a New Bar Scene.
You can get a fisheye's view of the completed street course on the SPoT Facebook Page. If you're a fan of SPoT on Facebook, you already know that we sometimes do special sales and give out coupon codes there. Maybe there might be a special just for Facebook fans next week? Who knows? Maybe. The kiddie course isn't done yet. Photos from that coming up in a bit.
On the Win an All Expense Paid Trip to Tampa survey thing, I should have added, "Stay away from the Skatpeark of Tampa Party Team" as one of the options to prevent your skateboard career from derailing. When you come to Tampa, it's easy to get spinning in the party tornado, especially when 200 of your homies are all in the Ybor hotels or the Ho Jo. If the sauce is not your scene or you're trying not to make it your scene, a nice hotel for a decent price just a few minutes up the highway from SPoT is Days Inn. If you're just looking for a lower price room, a cab ride from there to the tornado in Ybor is probably about $15 or so. There's also another Days Inn on Dale Mabry that's across the street from Mons Venus. They don't serve booze there, just boobies. Boobies never hurt anyone's career. Anyway, you have some time left to enter the Tampa trip giveaway which comes with a hotel room and $500 spending cash, among other things. Since you're not skating, we will see you at all the parties that you get passes to.
I went out to shoot photos of the Kiddie Course construction and spotted Kris Markovich hanging out. Here's what things look like as of now. Gotta go, I have a conference call with 25 people from Fuel TV. 25 people??? Yep, mindblowing. It's about the live HD webcast for Tampa Am. They should put this phone conference on live webcast.
If your company has products on our site, you're welcome to a free ad in our banner pool. On your company's product page, only the ad from your company will show up. On all other pages like articles, photos, and skater profiles, your ad will display randomly from the pool of ads. The size is 970x100 and no animation is allowed. You can update it as often as you want. Email them to me at rob@skateparkoftampa.com. Below are some samples from a few companies that have sent some in already.
The main street course is done and skateable today. The kiddie course should be done late tomorrow or Saturday. Check out some construction progress: Street Course Construction and Completion 2009.
If you're in St. Pete tomorrow night, join us at Durty Nelly's for an event that The Finest Skate Shop is putting on called Skateboard Industry Night, appropriately abbreviated as SIN.
The winners for the Globe Cruiser completes have been picked. I know at least one of them is a local - Yonis came out on top. See you on the Booze Cruise this Friday. The first $600 worth of sauce is all on me. The trucks on these boards are called "Slant" as in my eyes. Sick.
What song is this in this Tampa Am promo video? That one dude, you know, the guy who will be at Tampa Am 2009 on December 3 at SPoT then
on Friday, December 4, doing a show in Ybor for our 17-Year Anniversary Party at Czar. Yeah, him. Oh, and there could be a little bit of ripping skating going on.
Today the staff at SPoT got started on putting together all the skateboard parts collected in the Shop all year long. Through your discarded skate stuff and contributions from your favorite skate companies, we build as many completes as we can and give them away to as many kids as we can find in the underprivileged neighborhoods in our area. We call this charity Boards for Bros. Check out a few photos from what we did today: Boards for Bros November 2009 Assembly.
If you haven't entered the Globe Cruiser Board giveaway yet, you have one more day for that. Tomorrow, all the emails go into a spreadsheet and get sorted random. The top two get a Globe Cruiser complete. On Friday night for the Booze Cruise, the first $600 of sauce is paid for by eBay shoe nerds who bought some of my old Dunks.
One commenter suggested we change the website every year like we do the street course. As soon as we get one of me for every construction dude out there, we can make that happen. Check out some street course construction that just started. In case you don't know, we have completely changed the street course every single year since 1993 when this place was born. This is the first year we've had a slab of granite, however.
Stalker Steve took some nice chill shots at the Harvest Jam this weekend. The skate ones are sort of like the bennihanna of photography, not that mine were any good either. I know we both can do better than that. Check them out: Stalker Steve at the Harvest Jam 2009.
A known hater on the Skatepark of Tampa Facebook page also has photos from the Harvest Jam. Thanks Kirk Hallinan. I'm putting you on the next cover of Frontside Grind Magazine.
