Annoying words! Like am I blonde?

Okay so like is one of the most like annoying words when like used in as a filler when a person like is trying to speak or make like a fool of themselves. I hate it. Go to speech class! They have that in college you know. They even have it in high school; I guess high school English teachers have given up hope on the like cause. It's like so annoying.


Today in one of my classes I counted a girl saying it over 20 times and she only talked for 1 minute. I wanted to tell her how many times she said the word like OMG. The word like in the English dictionary is to be similar to something else. Not, "The girl in the book was like married and like had kids and like in those times there was no water, cuz like she lived in the desert where like camels live and like like she like got like ammonia or like something like that." Now if a person would type up a paper for a class and wrote like how they talked a 20 page paper would take no time how many times did I just find myself using the word like.

Now I think I'm beginning to be someone who says like a lot. When someone says like way to much like the girl in my class earlier I want to say do you watch too much E! T.V. or MTV, or even some of the Commentary on VH1 geese o' man where did you learn to talk. Do you realize that the word like does not make you sould smart and it's definitly not cool anymore to talk similar to a dumb blonde bimbo. Or am I out of the loop here.

Since I don't like the word like and as I keep typing the word like, I feel like a blonde bimbo. I'm going to stop maybe you can add to it and give a dis on like.

The drop in

The drop in is one of the most feared things for beginners to do when they go to skatepark.  Its actually quite simple once the rider commits to doing it.  The drop in takes place on a quarter pipe or half pipe were the rider simply rolls down the side of the ramp from the top to bottom.  This is scary because the bodys natural reaction is to lean back which will give you a nice bruise on you butt.

The right way to do it is to place your board on the coping or edge of the ramp and just take that step forward and place your front foot over the bolts and slam your board down onto the ramp leaning forward and absort the curve of the ramp.  After doing this you have just taken another step in skateboarding next try to learn some tricks on the coping. 
Happy Skateboarding.

The Pop Shuv-it

The pop shuv-it is a fun trick for beginners its pretty simple to explain, the board does a 180 while the rider does not.  There are 2 ways to do a shuv-it, in front of you which is backside, and behind you which is frontside, confused? It happens some things in skateboarding do not makes sense.  This is skateboarding were talking about here there are no rules and no making sense of it.  It's a form of art were the rider can express themselves on a peice of wood with wheels on it.

To do a shuv-it the rider will put pressure on the tail of the board with their back foot while using their front foot to guide the board so that it does not flip.  Once the board is popped or snaped the backfoot will scoop the board with a downward motion.  This causes the board to do the 180.  That however, is not the hard part of the trick the hard part of the trick is landing on the board and making it look like you know what you are doing.  With practice this trick is very simple and does not take alot of practice to master.  Like most tricks this comes easier if you are light on your feet.

Happy Skateboarding

Fallen Footwear Fails

There are many ways to view a skateboarding company, like all companies some are great and some are horrible, and then the inbetween that seem to be there not really doing anything great or anything bad.  Fallen shoes in the last few weeks had to decide on hiring a new sales representative.  Skateboarding companies aren't like other companies most are privately owned and operated and then choose the people they hire based on friendships or aquaintances throughout the industry.  Well Soon after Fallen had decided to hire a new sales rep, they had gotten some resume's from a few people that had high hopes of getting the job and with there high hopes had already achieved high goals in their previous carreers.  Fallen then had made it a requirement for the position to send in a skateboard tape of the possible new employee.

Jamie Thomas the owner of Fallen footwear and apparrell then stated, " I want people who shred working for me, its not the reps that will sell the shoes if the shoes are good and that they; they will sell themselves." After hearing that you may think that Jamie Thomas is on crack because, from a business standpoint that does not sound like a good thing.  To put the icing on the cake however, Jamie hired a dirt ball kid who was completely content on doing way to much work for little pay just to be able to work for a skateboard company. 

Fallen footwears team of reps and other parts of the companies internal recruites seem to have an unpleasant odor about them.  Fallen wanting people who shred to work for them have accomplished this but in the long run is this a good business decision?  Although I will completely back other decisions and business tactics made by Fallen I do not support this one,  I believe that if you want a company to do well you need a team that can support the company backed by knowledge on how to let the company grow. 

BACKSIDE 180

The backside 180 is a blindside 180 degree turn in the air so the how to part of this trick is to ollie and begin to turn your shoulders so that your back is facing forward.  You can do them slow of fast depending on which way the trick looks cooler to you.  This is my favorite trick I love the way the trick feels when I do it down steps or over something.  I tend to start off the 180 very slowly or not at all then turning the rest or all of the 180 at once or at the last second before I land on the ground.  The very first time I had realized I liked the trick was when my friends and I were ollieing over my neighbors guard rail and I tried a backside 180 over it and came close at this time I wasn't the best at doing them.  I got it second try and it wasn't as hard at it seemed the scariest part to this trick for anyone is that at one point you can't see where you are going at all so this makes spotting your landing when going down steps or over something a little more difficult you need to get to know your going to land where you want to land and not kick the board away because in some cases kicking the board away in the air can hurt your feet landing with all the momentum going from your feet into the ground at a dead stop rather than letting the skateboard be your cushion and taking a great deal of impact off your feet.  Have fun with this trick I know I do.

GREAT IDEA

In skateboarding there is usually hype about new videos or what is happing in the industry.  Well the thing is there are only magezines and skateboard videos online chat rooms and articles that you can read but what skateboarder likes to read that much that there going to spend all day trying to find out what pro is riding for what company and what company has just released the coolest shoes and where you can buy these cool kicks to please your feet.  The great Idea that you may have seen on the TV show Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory the other night called the berrics whos owners are Steve Berra and Eric Koston had this idea to keep skateboarding footage from getting old.  Before the berrics began skateboarders would get sick of watching skateboard videos that they would wait years to see.  The berrics recruites new filmers all the time and they invite many different pros and amateurs to the park to film and do othere things that might be found humorous.  Every day theberrics.com posts new footage so that when you are sick of watching all the stuff online and other websites free videos you can go to the berrics and watch days worth of videos weather it be there very funny buttery ass mondays or there battle commanders. Heres the link to the berrics check it out its the best thing to ever happen to skateboarding.GREATEST IDEA EVER!

THE OLLIE

In skateboarding there are many tricks but without learning the ollie theres not much you can do on a skateboard.  This trick is simple, its getting your board to jump off the ground using your feet.  How you would do an ollie would be to push down on the tail creating "pop" in the tail and then with your front foot slide it up toward the front of the board.  This is a trick that takes practice to do well but once you learn them you can ollie down steps, over rails, over puddles, ollie into grinds or over your neighbors garbage cans that he puts out blocking the sidewalk and that really fun bump to roll over on your skateboard.  Now those garbage cans won't stop you from having fun on your way to getting that great gas station burrito that you've been thinking about all day.

Like I had mentioned in my last post I would be talking to you about different flip tricks well I figured befor I get into that I would post some footage new and old of me skateboarding. http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isDlQIgn8kE this is some of my old footage some new footage can be viewed at:http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU8-jZnMXSI&feature=related In the new video I have the opening bail or fall and then most of the tricks I do are at the very end of the video.
Happy Skateboarding.

Skateboarding has been around for a long time and is now becoming more and more popular. The X-games and many T.V. Shows have made skateboarding more mainstream. With skateboarding becoming more and more popular there are many kids that want to learn how to skateboard and do the tricks that they see the pros doing. The final idea that I had was to have a blog about doing flip tricks such as kickflips. Were kids and younger adults can come and talk about the tricks that they learn from day to do and share input on new tricks or give tips for certain fliptricks. My Plan is to link this blog to a youtube account so that I can post certain tricks and what they look like and hope to expand off of that. Flip tricks are becoming very popular in that when playing a game of skate which is like playing horse in basketball, the more shots that you can make the better your odds are for winning the game. Skateboardings game is similar to this the more tricks that you can do and the more consistant you are with them will help you to win when playing against other people, and just to note this game is a great way to make friends at the skatepark.

My suggestions for my blog.

I have I guess a few ideas for this blog...
I love skateboarding and think that theres alot of different things I could talk about like trends in skateboard clothing since I work in a Retail Skateboard shop that also competes with mailorder companies.
I could talk about different tricks in skateboarding like my favorite trick to do is kickflips where the board does a barol roll under your feet.
I could talk about the pittsburgh skateboarding scene and how many skateboarders from the east coast are not recognized as much as on the west coast of the united states.
I also like to snowboard and have been doing so for over 10 years I could publish an east coast blog were the riding conditions may not be the best but we still make the best of what we have.
I also enjoy listening to music and skateboarding and music go hand in hand in skateboard videos there is always music and what types of bands are in most skateboard videos and how it sets the tone for the video.

ALL ABOUT ME

I first fell in love with skateboarding when I was very little probably the age of 3 years old i would sit on it and ride it down the sidewalk. When I would do this I would be at my grandfathers apartment. My aunt would teach me different things to do on the skateboard and how to ride it on the weekends when I would go to visit. The first time I had ever experienced skateboarding was when I saw these older kids skateboarding around my paps neighborhood and it looked like they were having so much fun trying to jump off this ramp they build and I just kept thinking that it was so cool to fly off that ramp and one day I myself could do that. My Aunt had a skateboard that she got when she was little and decided that it was time to teach me how to have fun and ride a skateboard. After watching those kids on there boards my life evolved around skateboarding its all I could think of in school and now even to this day I think of skateboarding everyday. If I see a set of stairs I think about what trick I might be able to do down them or if I see a curb how inivative can I become with a trick sliding or grinding across the curb. I find myself now taking classes so that I may have a job that has something to do with skateboarding. I have a job where I work with skateboards and help kids who were once like me pick out their first skateboards and help them to have fun. I work at a skateboard shop in white Oak Pennsylvania. Who would have thought just seeing older kids who seemed so cool when I was little would change my life forever. Since I Started to get better and better at skateboarding I entered contests some of them I would loose but some of them I would place in. The one contest was in september of 2004 it was the last contest held at PA Cheap Skates I felt I had to do good all my friends were there and I was having so much fun and once i Realized what tricks I was doing in my runs It was the perfect day I placed 2nd and at the end of the day it wouldnt have mattered if I had placed last.