You're asking yourself what all these pictures are and why there are so many for today's post. I have all these pictures on my hard drive from last summer when we were heavily filming for our first Bolts of Thunder video. I put all these pictures on my flash drive anticipating to one day tell all their stories to a hungry audience. But we're getting so many new pictures and stories to tell on this blog that I thought I'd just put them all up at once and tell their story as one long, continuous story. But before we start, I feel a clarification is in order from the last blog about Garrett and Shereen. I want you to know how I got my dance moves that allowed me to beat Shereen's grandma's employee at the soap factory in a dance-off at Garrett's wedding three years ago. First of all, being raised under the wing of an avid dance/pop music fan, my mother, I have a deep rooted sense of rhythm, especially for a white guy. When I think of my childhood, I have images of driving around in our red van (I would lie on the floor of the van and sniff the seats as hard as I could because I thought they still smelt like a new car, and I liked the smell), and my mom would be dancing to "Like a Prayer" in the driver seat. Fun memories... Then years of watching Michael Jackson and Paula Abdul music videos prepared me for such a dance-off. That's how I won. Ok, with that out of the way, lets get on with these stories. The first set of pictures is Nick and Dave skating a rail in Salt Lake. Nick and Dave managed to find this thing on Youtube and somehow locate it on google map or something. Dave had never backlipped a rail, and Nick had never boardslid one, so they wanted to do their tricks on this rail. When we got there, the runway was a little messed up from years of people recementing the massive crack in front. We ended up having to find good sized rocks, break up the extra cement, buy duct tape, unscrew a sign from a neighboring wall, and make a new runway. It was ghetto, but that's what should be expected with Bolts of Thunder. You knew what we were when you picked us up... So Dave just went at it, going for a back lip. The crappy runway kept messing with him, but he was undeterred. He took some good slams, said a few cuss words, crawled on the ground in pain, and then pulled off one of the cleanest backlips I've seen. It was a pretty epic trick, we were all psyched on that one. Then Nick was up to bat. He charged that rail like nobody's business, because it really is nobody's business how Nick decides to approach handrails, so stop judging. He kept slipping out on it, and he even think he got a stress fracture or something in his foot from the impact. But like those who so bravely went before him, Nick would not stop even with the threat of broken feet. Then Nick pulled off a clean and seemingly effortless boardslide on the rail. Twas a time for rejoicing... We ended the day at South Jordan with Sam while we waited for a Zero demo that started like 5 hours late. We left before it started... Ok, the next set of pictures are dark and difficult to see. They are pictures of Dave doing the craziest front board I've ever seen. No joke, it's one of the single craziest things I've seen in my life. I took a couple pictures on my little camera, but it was way too dark. I showed Dave this rail months earlier when I first met him, and he looked at it for about 5 seconds then said, "I'm front boarding this thing," then we went back to the car. Just like that. So we had to go back on a holiday when the place was closed to skate it. I boardslid it then became cheer leader as Dave went for a frontboard. I don't know how you just jump onto a rail like that, but he just went for it. He started getting close, then he stuck one and slipped out. Then the very next try he stuck on the rail and flew straight back onto his head. That was scary, and I thought for sure he was out for the count. He said he saw stairs, he was obviously dizzy and in pain, but that didn't stop him. Not even the fact that it was almost too dark to even see his own skateboard. He just kept going for it. Just a few tries later he got on to one that looked solid. He locked his knees, shoulders, hips, arms, hands, everything in place and road out the rail in style. When he road out of it I let out the most gut-wrenching and sincere "OOHHHH!!!!!!" that you've ever heard. I was SOOO proud of him for riding that one out. That definitely deserved last trick in his part, it was 100% nuts. I've got goosebumps right now just thinking about it, and my fingers are shaking a little from adrenalin. Calm down Jon... The next picture is Dave again. We thought he broke his finger skating one day. He kept skating though, as expected. Turns out it wasn't broken. Man, we encountered a lot of near bone breaking experiences last year... The next picture is Dan doing what Dans do best: frontside airs. Dan's amazing on a skateboard. He just picks it up, doesn't stretch, warm up, nothing. He just runs on his board, does a huge air, then cruises around and does whatever. He's like a cat, he always lands on his feet... Ok, we got some more Dave pictures, front board pop out on a ledge and a late night rendez-vous at an old car lot to film him grind up over and down a car display. Ok, more Dave, we have more Dave than I thought we would... So the next couple pictures are Dave super sweaty and beat. You would be too had you lived what he lived. So he did this crazy footplant thing over this drop. Like where you ollie, grab your board, take off your back foot, step on the top wall, then jump off to the bottom back on to your board. Just nuts. He had landed the trick maybe once or twice before that and just thought he'd go for it. So he went for it. And maybe 50 or more jumps down that gap, no joke, 50 or more, he road away. He couldn't walk for about a week after that, his legs turned into jello. That was another trick that was just crazy to watch. I kept thinking that if I were to try it, I would miss the wall at the top and fall off the 6/7 foot drop off balance and onto a joint or appendage of my body. I'm glad Dave didn't do that. Ok, the next couple pictures actually are of me slamming on several joints and appendages of my body. So this power box possessed my mind the entire summer. I wanted to gap out to grind then gap out over that gap at the bottom. You still with me? Gap grind gap, that simple. Turns out it wasn't that simple. My second (that's right, count it: 2 tries and I was already sweating that bad in my crotch area) try I pretty much missed the power box when I ollied up which sent me flailing to the ground all off balance and what not. It hurt really bad. And I really wanted to get the trick, so I was bummed to have slammed so hard. I actually kept skating it for another 15 minutes or so, but the feeling was gone. I don't know where we went wrong, but the feeling's gone, and I just can't get it back.. No, I've got the feeling back, just not for that power box, that's all. How bout we end on a happy note? The ditch. These are pictures of a family friendly skate session out at the ditch. My mom came to cheer us on, and we had some good old fashioned fun. As I said before, Nick and Dan are the ones that have truly harnessed the power of the ditch. Nick pulled off blunts to fakie and frontside blunts with some serious style. Dan just flies around in it and lands whatever he feels like landing whenever he feels like landing it. It's pretty fun to watch. The ditch is all broken up now, but we've got plans of restoring it to its former glory and what not. And there's this retarded purple robot in it now, some stupid kids tagged it up with some of the worst tagging Provo has to offer, and Provo's best tagging is still bottom of the barrel. So yeah, it's real bad. Thus ends some epic stories from last year's Bolts of Thunder saga. Rest assured, this year is producing just as epic of stories, I'm just not yet at liberty to tell them to you. But stay tuned for more, for more will come...
