Post-Apocalyptic Graduation

Bolts of Thunder is proud and pleased to announce that two of its members, Matt and Nick, are graduating from college this semester!!!!!! Matt wanted to document this epic event, so we went out last week and shot some graduation pictures of him in his gear. You know those cheesy graduation pictures you see of your roommate's cousin on the fridge? Well there's no way Bolts of Thunder would reproduce that. So we asked ourselves, "What will graduation pictures look after the Apocalypse?" With  BB gun and hammer in hand, Matt and I headed out to see just exactly what post-apocalyptic graduation announcements will look like. I rather like them. Kind of that rugged look that Western society is losing these days. You know, when grown men used to fight grown men in the parking lot of 7/11 to defend their woman's honor. Western society is losing that ruggedness and turning into a bunch of shaved-chest Jersey Shore pansies. Matt's bringing rugged back. He's bringing crazy back. He's bringing creepy back. And let's not forget sexy, he's bringing that back too. I wonder if Matt's school would keep his diploma if they saw these pictures because they don't want to release this kind of raw aggression into society. Is society ready to handle Matt with his hammer and BB gun? Not likely. But we're releasing Matt on you all, hammer, BB gun, and degree in hand. We don't have any pictures of Nick in his cap and gown to prove to you that he graduated. I guess it still all depends on him passing his American Heritage class. But Nick, the world wants to see you in cap and gown. Show yourself!

Bolts of Thunder of America

This post is big news for all of us. Bolts of Thunder has successfully infiltrated the Boy Scouts of America. Not just the fact that several of us have Eagle Scouts, that's not what we mean. What we mean is that Bolts of Thunder is the new face of Boy Scouts of America. So we were recruited to help with this promotional movie for the Scouts, and we did it yesterday. So Nick was there to supervise and make sure everything met BOT standards. They did. Dan busted a few twisted maneuvers on the corner coping grind spot, and I assisted in action sequence riding shots. Then things turned for the worse and Dan fell on his head. Not wanting blood on their hands, Matt and two of the movie making kids discussed possible ways to dispose of the body. I documented it all with video and photo so I can blackmail the scouts if they ever come after me. So stay off my back! Turns out that Dan's a better actor when his shirt is off, but the scout silver screen couldn't handle all his muscles. They made him put the shirt back on. Speaking of shirts, I wore my Bolts of Thunder shirt in the movie. That shirt had 7 of our faces on it, so most of the Bolts of Thunder team made it into the movie! Ok, I'm getting distracted by Conquest of the Planet of the Apes on TV, I'd better focus my attention on that for now...

This ends here

This post has a lot of pictures. "Less talk, more shooting" is becoming a new motto at Bolts of Thunder. We don't even ask questions, we just shoot and talk. We assume a lot of things when we don't ask questions... But our new motto is not what I'm here to tell you today. I'm here to tell you that Bolts of Thunder has never been harder at work than we are now to bring you what it is that we bring you. You're not even sure what it is that we bring you, but we're bringing it full force. Actually, I take back my earlier statement. This is not the hardest we've ever worked to make a skate video. Last summer was insane, I was so stressed. And for no reason, but I was super stressed trying to film and make our video. The way I gauge my stress levels is I count the zits per square inch on my face and the number of hairs on my pillow when I wake  up in the morning. Last summer I was at an average of 3 zits per square inch and roughly 2 pounds of hair mass fell off on my pillow at night. That's like a 9.4 on the stressed scale. Anyway, back to the issue at hand, we went skating today. It's in the 70's here in Provo, just perfect skating weather. After not seeing the sun all winter, my skin is fried and red. So we met up with Dave Law and Sam Milianta today and got some good footage. I'm happy to say that they're both filming for their Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild parts. And, if you take a closer look, you will see that I am sporting a pair of original red Andrew Reynolds shoes, spray painted black. This is good news for all of us because they protect my feet and encourage me to jump off of bigger stuff. The sun has fried my brain and I don't know what else to say. This ends here... PS Matt, thanks for adding color to the pictures with your pants, greatly appreciated. And thanks for filming too...

more time for you

So these are photos of yet another Bolts of Thunder family outing with Matt, Weston, and me. It's at this bank to ledge, one of the steepest banks you've ever laid eyes on to one of the tallest ledges human beings can possibly skate. It's in the middle of some strange suburban barnyard water treatment dreamland. You should all be happy that we had this outing because Weston showed me a trick or two on the camera, and now I am more capable of taking higher quality pictures. The photos of Weston I took were before I knew how to change anything, so they don't count. But from here on out, expect only the highest quality of pictures. Who am I kidding, this is Bolts of Thunder?... The only high quality pictures you'll find on this blog will not come from me. But that will not deter me from taking pictures... Anyway, while you're at home worshiping America's Idol on your TV, Bolts of Thunder is hard at work bringing you the best that low budget, busy, late 20's university students can bring to the skate world. Here's a random thought, but I thought I'd share it with you. It's the end of the school year, finals are these next couple weeks for some of us, so school will be out soon. You should all be really happy that I'll be out of school soon because then I'll have hours and hours every day to dedicate to building up our vast Bolts of Thunder empire. School ending is especially good news for me because my engaged roommate is moving out which means I won't have to listen to his fiance talk to him in her 3 year old trying to be cute/funny Tickle-Me Elmo voice, and I won't have to listen to them argue on skype until 3 in the morning. Being better rested, I should be able to get more done in the day. Spring is going to bring some great changes. And thanks for showing me how to use my camera Weston.

This just in!

Yes people that's right, Bolts of Thunder is making clothing now!!!!!! I, for one, am very excited about this new clothing line.This is the first of what I hope will be a clone army of shirts, taking over the clothing industry. So this is 7 of the members of Bolts of Thunder (from right to left, top to bottom) Nick Edwards, Dan Shaw, Matt Hart, Weston Colton, Brian Hart, Dave McDonald, and Jon Hart. Just as an update for those of you that might be wondering, we are anticipating on having more people in the video besides these 7. So far we're looking at Sam Milianta, Dave Law, and Garrett Taylor as having stuff in the video as well. So as you can see, our Bolts of Thunder empire is expanding, and clothing is part of it. If you want a shirt or some kind of Bolts of Thunder memorabilia, let me know, and we'll get on it. Seriously, we want you sporting Bolts of Thunder gear.

Ok, so let me tell you the story behind why I'm making these shirts anyway. So this is a news update post. It's good to have one of these every now and then, kind of serves as a benchmark and lets you know where we're going as a team... Ok, so Bolts of Thunder is going to be staring in a Boy Scouts of America movie! They recruited the free video services of a BYU student to make a promotional video, and he heard me talking about skateboarding at school, so he asked if we could be in their video. They're having a "skateboard scene with really fast action shots", so I said Bolts of Thunder specializes in action. I showed him parts of our first video on youtube, and he was impressed with Matt's camera-handling skills, so he recruited Matt to come and help as well. Dan, down for pretty much anything, will be there too. So we're scheduled to film for it tomorrow, should be fun. So I made this shirt to wear tomorrow to wear in the video and get Bolts of Thunder onto the silver screen. Here's another update: Collin Greenwood from Radiohead knows about Bolts of Thunder! Seriously. My sister Ginger took him on a tour at Disneyland (that's what she does for work). So when she told me he was coming, I told her she needed to talk about Bolts of Thunder. It's a good ice-breaker when you're meeting a celebrity... So she did! And turns out, he knows a lot about skating and wanted to watch our video. So Gin sent him clips of our video, and then a couple days later we had views in England! So Bolts of Thunder is getting its name out there people, you just keep spreading the word. I think that's it for now... Yeah, and let me know if you want any Bolts of Thunder clothing, it's the hot new thing...

Milestone

You might notice that Matt's name has been showing up on the blog a lot recently. That's  because my boy Matt's been on the scene and killing it for years. We've finally got out one of the sure-to-be classic trailers for the up and coming "Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild" video. This post is a monument to Matt and his skating career, and this trailer encapsulates it all. Enjoy!

Bizkwik in your face

"There's a war going on,
it's a freestyle battle,
mind's goin blank,
I'm upstream without a paddle"

-DJ Bizkwik