The happiest of families

We're so proud of Matt. We've tried our best to raise him in the ways of uprightness and virtue, and he's turned out quite alright. He's on his way to an interview for grad school today, and we're wishing him the best of luck. This family portrait shows the unity and love we have in our family, and we look at it everyday when we start yelling and throwing stuff at each other to remind ourselves of the kind of family we want people to think we are when they walk in our home and see our pictures on the shelves, and that calms us down somewhat. Until the next outburst of uncontrollable rage that is, usually on Rachel's part.

I bring up uncontrollable rage because there's something I've been wanting to get off my chest for a long time now. A story, if you will. An incident when I was 15. In the car. My entire family was there. It was truly embarrassing. I don't tell this story to confess or repent, but just to get it off my chest. You know when you carry something, a weight on your shoulders for 12 years +, you just need to get it off sometimes. That's what this is all about, I need to get this great weight off my shoulders and finally move on. Because I know this is not who I truly am at heart, it's only who my bowels tried to make me look and feel like on that long car ride home from the Las Vegas Olive Garden on Flamingo and 9th so many years ago. And thus it begins... You know when you're 15 you can eat and eat, and then eat some more just for good measure. And if you really feel like pushing it, you'll eat at least one more time, just to spite the world. Well I felt that the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden was mocking me by making me pay $10 and saying I could eat all I want. Serious? I can get my money back in 2 plates, max. Every plate after that that I eat, I'm sticking it directly to the man and taking money straight out of Olive Garden's pockets. Sign me up! The exact details are slightly fuzzy, but I know I ate at least 3 solid plates of spaghetti because my mom was in complete shock when I finished it, and I was probably on my 4th plate. Throw in a couple bowls of faggioli soup with a good serving of bread sticks and you've got the perfect storm brewing in my stomach. An angry storm. One that sticks a dagger straight into your gut and paralyzes your very movement, gives you the sweats, and makes you rethink your goals in life. Another plate of food and I could have joined that fat guy on "Seven" that ate until his stomach exploded. It was this kind of pain I was experiencing walking out of that Olive Garden. But I got my money's worth, that's for sure. I made our entire pay check worth it, and the tip. And even though my stomach couldn't physically handle any more, I ate a couple of those chocolate mints they give you on the way out. I had to.

With six people in our mini van, 5 of us male and 4 us of teenagers, and having just eaten at Olive Garden, you've got a fart to minute ratio of about 2:1, so I didn't see any harm in letting out my stomach pain in gas form every couple minutes or so on our hour and a half drive home. I positioned my stomach, legs, and back in the straightest position I could to allow the smoothest, easiest passage I physically could, and when I felt it was ready for departure, I simply relaxed my tightened stomach. You know the feeling, when you get more than you bargain for... As I relaxed my stomach, the dregs of hell quickly shot out of my body and into my undies. A lot, too. This wasn't a little squirt of stomach juice, this was full on diarrhea, and a lot of it too; as soon as it started coming out, I had a hard time stopping it, so a healthy amount made its way into my pants. As soon as it happened, I said to my dad, "Can we pull over, I have to go to the bathroom!" Just as I said it, I watched the last exit in Vegas pass by with a sign shortly after it that said, "Glendale 45 Miles." "Can you hold it until Glendale?" was the only thing my dad could say. If they only knew the abomination that was in my pants. If they only realized the stench that was about to fill the car. If they only knew what it was like to be a true sharter... Well, they actually probably all know full well what it's like to be a true sharter. We're Harts, who am I kidding?

Ok, I didn't think it was going to take this long to get this off my chest, and I have to get going. But there's more, oh so much more to this story, so I'll finish it tomorrow. Be sure and come back! But for now, let's all wish Matt good luck on his travels!!!

Inspiration

About where Randy's board is when he pops his tricks

You didn't believe me the first time I told you that Randy has springs in his legs and that his flip tricks are just amazing. Here's a second set of pictures just to prove my point. And you know that in the good book it says something about in the eyes of two or more pictures, all truth shall be established. Or in both eyes of the beholder, beauty is found. Or something like that. Point made. Randy's got some amazing classical trained ninja floats on his shoes that allow him to pop a good 3 feet in the air when he does his tricks.

I would like to give a special shout out to the one who commented on yesterday's post. You know who you are. No, you inspire us. Your aged youth, wisdom, and strapping beard have long been a symbol of what Bolts of Thunder stand for. You have gone into the world, unyieldingly demonstrating what it means to be a true Thunder Bolt. You inspire us...

Most innovative stuff since Prince and the Revolution

See that look of concentration? You can't teach that to people, you're either born with it or you ain't. I is. An interesting fact of those pants I'm sporting: they're supposed to be black. But they're slowly turning purple. I've been listening to Purple Rain too much lately, and I just want to be happy and laughing in the purple rain. That's all. I guess these photos show you the direction Bolts of Thunder is slowly headed in: pure technique, skill, originality, and innovation. We're impressing all y'all up and down the Wasatch front and then some, and we ain't stoppin at your door. Yeah, we're sitting on your chairs, shoes on your couch, don't care who you are. That kind of stuff. So get ready for it because its going to hit you like a ton of bricks when it finally hits....

This brings me to the second point of this post. I don't even know what "it" is. It's nothing. Always has been, always will be. Try to wrap your brain around that one!

With the next couple days being Thanksgiving break and all, I don't know how much I'll be able to get onto the blog and write what I write. So I'll leave you all with the smiling face of Sam Milianta over the week to remind you that Bolts of Thunder is dedicated to the friendship and well-being of all mankind, and we're sticking to it. Have a good Thanksgiving!

Baby-eating men

Collette, Nick's baby, doesn't look too happy about the idea of me threatening to eat her. Nick looks a little puzzled too that I would talk to a baby in such a way. Especially to his own baby and right in front of him. Either way, the baby lives, and I have yet to follow through on any of my feeble threats. Nobody takes me serious anymore... So how about a rock to fakie in a scary cement half pipe? Gonna take that serious? Probably not, because you could do it too. Man, I saw this girl Laura hit her head so hard in this half pipe trying to do a nosestall in this thing. Her head sounded like a basketball falling on the ground, it was pretty disgusting. She's fine though. I think. Maybe she was never fine? Guess we'll never know.

good beard bad beard

I put in that first picture just to show you a very good comparison. It's what one man that can't grow a beard looks like when he tries, and what another man that can grow a beard looks like when he tries, plain and simple. But doctor says I've got more testosterone in my blood as of late, so the beard should be coming in thicker and darker. The second picture is purely for your entertainment. The thought of you coming to this blog looking for skateboarding and only finding nasty beards broke my heart. I couldn't do it. I have to give Sam credit for this picture, he took it. That's a fun boardslide, when you finally get past the shaky nerves and the constant looking over your shoulder for cops coming after you. Now I've got a test I have to go study for, wish me luck...

The Dark Sith Avengers

The title of this post tells you everything you need to know about it. And Dave's about to get gnarly on a quick drop to a fast stop. But he rolled out, don't ask me how.

Memory Parking Lot

In today's Dave sighting, we're giving a shout out in remembrance to Nick at the same time. Thanks, Nick, for your comment yesterday. I'm glad that you're still in the game and doing well. So when Dave was on his mystery trip to Provo, he stopped off at one of our old warm up spots which happened to be Nick's back yard. Some of our most epic flip tricks ever landed (double-barreled casper rotated stall, pop wheelee to shinner, snap crackle to pop shillings, and the likes. You know what I'm talking about. ) Wielding double pop shuvits, Matt and Dave gave us a glimpse into the past, about a year and a half ago... That's it. I'll end by saying that Dave and Nick are greatly missed. I'll throw Dan in their while I'm at it, we really miss you too.

Return of Wizbang

After that Lord of the Rings scenario, Wizard went out and got himself an Elvish ring that gives him great power and makes him invisible. No joke, he really has the ring of power on his hand now. As Gollum, he's hiding in his cave, loving his ring as it spoils his mind and his appetite. But last weekend, Wizard decided to take off the ring of power, and I saw him skating. It's been a while since I skated with Wizard, but it was good old times as usual. So I went looking for some pictures of Wizard that you haven't seen yet, and I found some of him skating over this gap. I believe these pictures are Nick's handy work, as I was filming. Which reminds me, we haven't heard from Nick in a while. Nick, how are you doing? What's going on? I need to find some pictures of you now and put them up... Anyway, Wizard did a hardflip over that gap, and we have video and photo proof of it.

Injun Jo

This is Joey Harding. He's Navajo, and as such, nature has endowed him with  amazing capabilities that it hasn't given the rest of us. I've been good friends with Joey for a long, about 12 years or so. The first time I skated with Joey, me and Nick Graff saw him standing on a skateboard and staring at us as we rode down the street, so we stopped and talked with him. We invited him to skate with us. He was on a kmart board with japanamation dudes drawn on the bottom, so I didn't think he knew how to skate. But then he started ollieing all these drops where we were skating which really surprised me. But then, in the middle of our skate session, he asked what time it was, then got up in a hurry and took off. "Sorry guys, gotta go, I'm late for Dragon Ball Z!" That was my introduction to Joey, and I've loved the guy ever since.

Actually, funny cop story just came to my mind. Two of them. Both of them were with Joey. First off, you have to know that the St. George cops have some kind of personal vendetta against skaters, and they will pull their gun on you at the slightest hint of non-cooperation on your part. They're hard core and unashamed of it. So I have a million and a half cop runnins in St George in the 6 years that I lived there. I have 1 that I can remember in Provo in the 4+ years I've lived here. There's just a quick comparison to let you know what we were up against. So The first story, this cop rounded us all up and was super pissed that we were destroying St. George's beloved parking lots and sidewalks, as skateboards are known to just wreak havoc on pavement. Those silicon wheels will do a number on a parking lot where as a 2 ton truck pulling a trailer and dripping oil all over the place couldn't possibly do damage to asphalt. So the cop saw us skating somewhere and sat us all do. He was lecturing us pretty good about how much trouble we were potentially in depending on how nice he was feeling that day. Joey sat quietly the entire time and didn't seem to really care what the cop was saying. The cop, noticing Joey's indifference towards him, thought he'd take control of the situation and said, "hey, China boy, what's your name?" Joey answered in a very monotone, dry, emotionless manner, "I'm not Chinese." We all laughed at that, and the cop stood there feeling stupid on his bad judgment call. "Ok, what's your soash (short for social security number. the cop had asked all of us for our "soash" so he thought Joey would play ball. He underestimated Joey)?" Without changing his tone, Joey answered, "What's a soash?" Somehow, in his emotionless, dry response, Joey defeated that cop. We all laughed really hard, and the cop stared at the ground for a second. You could see the frustration and feelings of self-doubt on his face. He didn't take anyone else' info after that, and he just let us go another day, with our wax to destroy curbs and our broken arms to sue business owners. It was pretty awesome.

Ok, like 4 more cop stories with Joey just popped up into my mind, but I don't have enough time to tell them all right now. I'll stop there. But I will say just a couple words to remind myself of what they are so I can tell them another time. "Joey, run!" and a simple shake of the head. Welcome to the blog, Joey!

How long has this been going on?

This comes as quite a big surprise to me, but turns out Dave has his own blog. Yeah. I never even knew about it. Just found out yesterday. How long has this been going on, Dave? Anything else you'd like to tell me? So this picture comes from his blog. Dave took this picture over a year ago, it was an epic day trip up to Salt Lake. It's the day that Dave learned he can back lip rails and Nick proved to the world he's a man by boardsliding his first handrail. I didn't do anything worth noting. Matt was on camera duty and just looking scary as usual. He attracts some shady people sometimes when we're out skating because they think they see a kindred spirit in Matt. They don't realize that he brushes his teeth, cleans his dishes obsessively, and enjoys being clean. It's the beard, it's very deceitful. Remove the beard, and you'd see a big softy. Now that I look at it closely, Matt almost looks like G G Allen in that picture. I think if you got rid of the beard and kept the mustache, he might be able to pull it off. So never mind, get rid of Matt's beard and you'd see a G G Allen woman/people hater pretender... We met up with Sam at the South Jordan park for what was supposed to be a Zero demo, but we'd seen enough radical skating that day and we left. I don't know how it is, but Sam is always there. I was looking through old pictures a couple days ago, and in looking at them, I saw that Sam was there for like half of the tricks. He's always there...

I'm off track. Back to the point: Dave has his own blog. I like to think of it like an ally to the the Bolts of Thunder blog. Not a branch off, but a good friend. They converse with each other and call upon each other in times of need. Sort of like that. So I put up the link to his blog on the homies and vatos section, check it out if you want...

Tale of Two Matts

"Alright, let's shoot this, and I want the sound and light

guys to be on it this time. Action!"

 "No, you can't be my wing man any time, and you can get

aitch out of my video!"

This post is about the dynamic duo that has always been Matt Hart and Matt Pace. You know who they are, and you wish you had what they got. They've been killing it for years as the two Matts, and they're coming together in a never-before seen power keg, coming out sometime in the future. Try to decipher what that even means because I don't know... Up above, M Pace shows us how to bump up to back lip in the skinnier, taller regions of the world. M Hart, he's just angry. He's been regulating on ex patriots and charades that have been trying to use him for his camera skills and not for his friendship, and he just ain't down for that. Get on the program or you can't be his wing man. Nuff said!

Randy Delucchi

This is Randy Delucchi. Randy is Italian, he has a soul patch, he has the most beautiful kickflips and heelflips you've ever seen and any variation thereof, he hasn't aged in 15 years, he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, he's a great photographer and filmer, he can soul grind rails on roller blades, every muscle in his body is clearly defined by a virtually non-existent layer of skin and fat covering his body, and he's an old, good friend of mine. Randy's one of the OG skaters of St. George. We met him when I was 15, I think he was 16, and he just moved to St. George from California. He had these springs in his legs, and he could pop his kickflips a good two and a half feet high on flat ground. So on my recent scouting trip to St. George, Randy showed Bolts of Thunder that he's still loyal to the game, and the springs in his legs have never been stronger. In the photo above, Randy demonstrates the finer points of hardflipping a couple feet high on flat ground. You know, just in case you wanted text book lessons on it, that's all... We're planning on giving the fans what they want which would be a healthy serving of Delucchi in our next Bolts of Thunder project. We left Randy in charge of the St. George chapter of Bolts of Thunder, and so we'll plan on getting some good St. George homieness in our next video. Randy might even battle Dan in our next video as Bolts of Thunder's male model?... I didn't even think this was possible, but now that I think about it, Randy could be an excellent male model. He has no issues in taking off his shirt in public, he's naturally hairless, so he doesn't even have to shave his chest, and he's got that Italian suave that the rest of the world so desperately desires. But why can't Bolts of Thunder have two male models? I think we have room on the team... Welcome aboard, Randy!

Dave vs the giant volcano

These are some archive pictures from back when we were filming the first Bolts of Thunder video. Dave, after not having skated for a couple years, came straight out of the gates and gave every spot everything he had. We skated this flat gap pretty often because it was really smooth, close to our house, and we couldn't think of anywhere else to skate. So we got quite a few tricks over it in the video. So Dave had been doing 360 flips a lot lately, and he had them down pretty good. For me and Dave, 360 flips are an illusive trick that come and go. Out of nowhere, I'll be able to land them every try, over stuff, off of stuff, whatever I want. This phenomenon will last for a couple months, and during this time I wonder how I was never able to do them. But when this phase ends, I have to concentrate on them and give them everything I got to make them work. From what I understand, Dave goes through the same cycle. So this was when Dave was landing them good, and he wanted to get one over the gap. He tried it for a couple of hours, I don't know how many tries. Our batter was fully charged, and he tried it until the batter died, and it was too dark to see anything anyway. He could barely move when he was done, and he just laid in the ground and moaned for a good while. We ended the night by going to Village Inn and discussing how stressed we were to finish our little video that nobody would probably ever even see. Fun times...

Deciding time

There comes a point in every man's life when he has to decide if he's going to do it, if he's going to jump. Bolts of Thunder and Matt say jump. As long as it's skateboarding that we're talking about, and you're confident in landing your trick. If it's not skateboarding, step back from that ledge my friend, I would understand... My lawyer just told me to insert this statement and make sure there is no mistake on our stance towards mental and physical health: Bolts of Thunder advocates a long, robust, healthy, and vigorous life. We discourage all forms of life-abusing practices, and we want you to be healthy and happy. Live in a way that will give you both. That's all we have to say about that.

To add to this post, I would like to give a special shout out to Coleman. I put up that picture of him a little while ago trying to ollie over that barrier. Coleman, we need to get another picture of you to put up on the blog. I don't want to introduce you as someone that doesn't land their tricks because you're a shredder. Let's make it happen...

Thunder Dan Stripper

Being the ever observant person that I am, I noticed in our stats for the blog that someone stumbled upon our blog while doing a google search for "Thunder Dan Stripper". Well, whoever you are, if you want Thunder, Dan, and Stripping, or any variation thereof, you have come to the right place. For those of you who know Dan, you know that those three words are virtually synonyms for each other. For those of you who don't know Dan, take my word for it, they are. For those of you who don't know what a synonym is, look it up. Actually, I'll just tell you, it means the words mean the same thing. Stripping is Dan, and a thunderous one at that. You see?

So here are some pics of thunderous Dan popping up from the little to the big and sliding a mean lipslide as he slowly strips off his pants all the while. Don't believe me? Look at that last picture and you'll notice a large gaping hole in Dan's britches. Believe me now?

Dave in a concentration camp skatepark. I think

The full frontal Dave assaults have not stopped as this week I received some more pictures of Dave destroying an across over off hubba on Matt's old school board. How he got the board, when he did these tricks, I know not. All I know is that Dave is not going to stop until he's grinded every square inch of grindable terrain on that old school board. However, from this week's pictures, I have been able to put together a large piece of the puzzle. Dave has apparently enlisted himself into some kind of concentration camp surrounded by fences and such. They obviously are not feeding Dave, they trimmed his beard, and they cut his hair, and from his lips they drew the Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah... So I think we're one step closer to finding out where Dave is and what's going on. Now we just need to locate all the concentration camps on the world and systematically go through each one, seeing what their skatepark facilities are like. I think that's how we could find him. Either way, Dave looks happy to be there and to have so much free time dedicated to skating...

Actually, looking at these pictures makes me think of a funny story. When we were in Paris this last summer, the last day we skated we went to this hubba down a double set that Dave tried to kill himself on. He rolled both of his ankles and jacked up his wrists trying to 5-0 and tailslide it. He tried until he was pretty much beaten into the ground and couldn't walk anymore, standard Dave fashion. At times like that, all you can do is try to console your friend and assure him that there will be sunny days in the future. You know, the sun will come out tomorrow. That kind of stuff. So I was filming on his camera, then I set his camera down for just a second to give Dave some moral support. We then picked up the camera and set it down at least two more times that I can remember because we filmed some more stuff. Somewhere in setting it down and picking it up again all these times, the bottom of the camera was covered in this massive bird dumpling. Seriously though, it wasn't your average bird crap, but it was huge. Like an ostrich or something had taken a dump there, there was tons of it. So Dave, after wrecking himself, filmed me grind down that hubba, and he put the camera on his lap to film. After we watched the footage, we all noticed that we had stuff on our hands. We looked closer and saw that it was bird crap, and it was all over the place. It was on all of our hands, all over Dave's pants, in the deep recesses and crevices of Dave's camera, everywhere. I didn't know birds could crap so much. This was the final beating to an already beaten Dave. After he wrecked himself trying to get his trick, he got himself covered in bird crap.

Seeing that we were in France, public bathrooms are an extreme rarity, so we had nowhere to wash our hands or anything. We used pieces of school paper we found on the play ground and wiped up the camera as best as we could then just got on the metro back to where we were staying, completely covered in bird crap. It didn't help that we were over an hour away from where we had to go, it was like 10 at night and we had been skating all day every day for a couple weeks and were completely exhausted, and the metros can get really cramped at times, so we were likely wiping bird crap all over the seats and on other people. Whatever, when in France, do as the French do. We were sure to leave our mark on that city and country by the spread of harmful bacteria throughout the subway. I guess it was the most fitting way to end our trip over there, and it's just really funny now that I look back on it...

Jon scared stupid

This is the other angle of Jeffery's power boost over that rail. Remember, the one from his interview last week. My boy's got some mean pops, and this is just the start of it. He's going to be assaulting other tall railings and objects up and down the Wasatch front, so look out for him. So remember how I can't tolerate scary movies? I almost had to go through intensive counseling after watching "Insidious". So for Halloween this year, we thought we'd water it down to my level, and we watched "Earnest Scared Stupid". Well... Yes, I even had a bad dream last night about a troll trying to get me... Turns out that my mind just can't grasp any kind of evilness. I just don't understand it. I'd rather see happiness and love everywhere than all this hate and goblins. That's kind of what this blog is about. That's why you haven't seen any ghosts or anything on it yet. Just skateboarding stuff. And other stuff. But no ghosts. I guess I'm kind of writing this post as a therapeutic way of getting my chills out...

So I'm watching this guy and girl in one of my classes study together right now. They're working on a homework assignment together, a pretty hard one. But really, the guy stayed up all night last night working on it, the girl laughs really hard at everything he says, rubs his arm to make him think he might get some, whatever it is, and after about 5 minutes of seducing him, she's copying all of his hard work. She just finished the assignment that took the rest of the class hours to do in a couple of minutes. Man, if I was a girl and was somewhat decent looking, I would use makeup to cover whatever I was lacking, flirt with all these genius tuna fish dudes, and get my answers that way. She's got it all figured out... Except we just had a midterm where you had to work by yourself, and she didn't get hardly any of it right. Kids, this is a message for you: work hard and learn it yourself. That's the first law of Thunder Bolts, hard work...That's your lesson for today.