Blowing it out - EXP Ramp!

Some of you may have been wondering, where is Lou?? It is true, I have not been around for the early Sat/Sun morning sesh at Wilson. Well, truth is that I have been hitting up the afternoon evening sessions. My schedule for the last few weeks is this, work on the ramp until 2pm, get my ass on the road to Wilson for shred.

Yes, I did say ramp!

And if you did not get the fact that I hooked up a link you can access the blog here. Ha! It is with great pleasure that I blow this thing out. I set out to do this at the beginning of September. But it has been in the works for some time now. As many of you know, I closed the gallery down, moved home for a while to help out my mom while she recovered from knee replacement surgery and also to pay off like 9G in credit card debt.



Well, for some damn reason I am still there, mom recovered very well and I set my cards to zero in July. Then I went crazy and went out on that big once in a life time road trip. When I got back, all of my electronics (lap top, phone, x-box, DvD player) dumped out. I had to get a new laptop. Which my school does not pay for and most of my work involves using it... I had to stick around for another month or two to pay that thing off.

At the end of August after realizing my Fall fate I got a little bummed. Some of you Wilson locals probably noticed that I was repeatedly enraged, swearing, talking to myself, throwing my board, etc. Well, I was kinda burned out, but also ticked off about work, life, women, everything.... So, suddenly I got this crazy idea (like when I pointed my car towards Oregon) and went with it.



I got permission to use my father's pole barn. Mostly because he really never used it for anything other than to pile stuff up in. But also I think he could sense my current insane state and knows that I do not do too well in winter. I usually spend most of my time driving to either 4-seasons in Milwaukee or Modern Skatepark in Grand Rapids, MI. Lots of driving and $$$..



This ramp comes out of frustration, and as a pure need for winter survival in the Midwest. As some of you know we tried to cure some of the winter pain last year by building the stuff in the carwash. I love the ramps we made there but I just wanted some big tight transition to ride this winter too.



As you can see, the ramp is almost ready for plywood. It is open to whoever wants a sesh but you have to ask me. You have to come when I am there and have no say as to how the ramp has been built. This is kinda rude but I did it this way because compromise always creates a mini ramp and we have enough of them to go around. I wanted something taller than 7' with vert, tight transitions, both metal and concrete coping. So this is what I came up with.






The barn is 30' by 40' so I was very limited in terms of size. The ramp is 8' 1/2 tall with 7' 1/2 transitions allowing for 1' of true vert. Yes, tight. It has 16' of flat and is 20' wide. SO it will be tight, fast and not too wide. THIS IS an old school vert ramp.

But it is also a reflection of contemporary skatepark design. When you think about it, my two favorite companies, Dreamland and Grindline both work with tight transitions and design everything they touch with vert and a variety of coping. So why not build a ramp that reflects that tradition?? Also, the way I see it, skateboarding came out of surfing, riding pools, then skateparks closed down. People began making ramps and the early ramps were right around this size. All of those tricks were invented and learned on this ramp. So why not try to learn them on the kind of ramp in which they were invented on??



I have no interest in doing 900s or riding contemporary vert ramps 12-15' tall? 13' transitions? crazy big.






I am more into tight transitions, fast and fun ramps. So here it is. I won't tell you where it is though. Not that it is a secret but you do need to come when a session is going on. You need to be respectful of that. This is not my property and I will not abuse it. This is not skatopia. If you trespass there will be consequences. But I will be skating it often this winter and will probably have a usual pattern set up when I'll be there. Tuesday nights or Saturday mornings, etc.




You probably won't like it anyway but that is Ok by me. There will be a group of us riding it regularly though and if you are one of those people or want to help out I am not going to ask for money directly. What I would like to do is offer anything on my art website EXPgallery for a super reduced rate of $125. I will post up some T-shirts, painted decks and other art soon. All proceeds will go to pay for the surface. I have the rest covered at this point.

Traffico

Just a quickie here. After working on the ramp all day on Sunday, Mike Owen talked me into hitting up Wilson in spite of the Marathon traffic. Once I got up near China Town, Lake Shore Drive was completely backed up to the Dan Ryan. So I got off the highway and took Ashland from 18th St. to Wilson. So what is normally a 45min-1hour drive turned into an 1 1/2 hour mess.

The sesh was great though and I was able to see a lot of people who thought I dropped off the face of the earth. Little did they know what I have been up too!!



One good thing is that I got to watch these dudes working on a huge mural at Ashland and Elston. It is entirely done with spraypaint, stencils, etc. I only got a close up but I'll have to get a pic when it is done. cool stuff!

Surf!

So the surf was happenin' in Whiting yesterday (Sunday). This was an odd weekend. One crew went on a skate trip and I for whatever reason did not go?? Then there was the possibility of surfing and the other project that is taking up more and more of my time. More on that one later.



So I skated Wilson most of the weekend which was good for a change. It was weird as most of the dudes were out of town but I had fun. I eliminated those summer expectations and just went there to skate. That's it. I seem to do much better when I am just here to have fun and not "work" on stuff. I keep getting closer to my wish list and that is cool. Some things are so far away while others are 99.9% there.

I was going to meet up with the crew in Kokomo on Sunday but there was a slim chance of surf. So I decided to stick around and get some work done in the barn. Waiting for Calabro's call. We had talked about the plan or the general plan several times the day before.


SO what happens? He forgets to call me. The surf was going off in the morning instead of the afternoon. Ugh!! It was 2pm when he finally checked his phone and called me back. He convinced me to come out there "we're gonna be here for another 4 hours!" So as I thought, they were ready to go as soon as I got there.



I was lucky to get a few attempts or runs on Tom's board before it was time to pull the plug. SO I was happy to get out a bit. Just enough for a slight eye infection... The waves were beginning to die anyway so it was over.

Calabro got to try out his new board so he was stoked. I wish I could get a used bannana board or something. It will come. I just don't want to spend big $$ on a board and only get out 5 times a year.

But Surf season is officially in now. They are talking about hitting it up on Tuesday!!

Did I mention that I finally got a camera!! Ugh, after weeks of comparing prices, models, etc. What a pain. I went with the Fuji S700 - $138 plus tax. It is 7 mega pixles and has 10x optical zoom. It is one of those SLR replicas so it is bulky. I think this may be better for me so I will feel like I am holding something that is delicate and breakable. We'll see.

Whiting Art Fair

RIP Uncle Henry


So last Sunday Calabro's mom made us participate in the Whiting Art Fair she organized. It was me, Calabro and Dacia in the booth for 6 hours. We had fun though and got to see all of the interesting people that meander around the streets of Whiting, IN. In case you are not privy, Whiting has one of the most feared and deadly skateparks in the Midwest. I love it but many do not.




It also has a surf beach, kinda secret yet blown out by now. It is called Shooters because of the gun range right next to it and all of the exploded clay birds that are washed up on the beach. Also the BP oil refinery right next door and the countless steel mills that are in the area. Offering a wonderful aroma, soil content and wonder water!!

Despite all of that, I spend a lot of time in Whiting and according to Streetcourse Tim I should move there. ha



It was a good day though. We didn't sell much but were entertained for the entire day by a very talented piano dude. He was good a the keyboard but his voice is terrible. The people of Whiting were eventually either dancing to his rendition of a showtune Freebird or were flipping him off and worse.



There was a strange goth/rave kid that did one handed cart wheels, a dude with a red Poison shirt and blue sweat pants that sported a gerrycurl, an old vet that rode around on the crossbar, a church lady that grabbed the mic and sang Stevie Wonder, and Calabro, drawing with chalk in the middle of 119th street, also one of the city guys had a wireless mic and just walked around all day announcing info about the fair.



The day ended with a metal band that kinda rocked!

We went to the park and had a good sesh and headed out.

I hit up Wilson the next day and had a good sesh with the dudes. I was there most of Sunday.

Monday was back to work with all the BS involved. Let me tell you, the last 6 weeks at school have been almost as frustrating as my first year there. SOBs Assholes and thieves.

It's A Boy!!!

I am very happy to announce the birth of my nephew, Ethan!! He was born Tuesday, Sept 9th only 5 days after his mom's birthday!! Welcome to the world little buddy! I am already plotting your introduction to skateboarding, music and art!!! Hooray! Congrats to my sister and brother-in-law, Kerry and Joe!

It is nice to see good things happen to good people.

Wisconsin run down

I am back again here. School has been pretty busy lately and time is flying by. I just finished Day 1 of week 3 of Fall 2008. I'll be giving my first quiz of the year next week. I feel like I might blink twice and it will be midterm already. I am really feeling it too. The weather hear in Chicago is instant fall. But it is kinda nice to have 60-70 degrees. The rain sucks though. At least Saturday and Sunday were perfect!! Cloudy but not precip and mild weather.

My sister is expecting any minute now so that is pretty exciting!! I am just waiting for the call.

Speaking of that - in addition to my camera and laptop dumping, my phone died as well this weekend. But it was an easy fix. I just went to walmart and picked up one of those $10 pay as you go att phones and stuck my SIM card in and bingo. New phone! I am not into those space phones with the $150 plans and all. As you can guess, I am not to be trusted around electronics. SO, I feel that if I had one of those nice phones, I would break it in half within a week!

Calabro, Owen and I decided to get out of town again for Saturday and Sunday. We chose Wisconsin this time to hit up some Dreamland 'crete. I love Lake Delton and the visit to Westin, WI was a first for me. So I was very excite! A whole crew from Chicago showed up to Lake Delton at the very same time we did. The session was epic but it was really weird. I guess they were thinking the same thing. The other group left after a while to set up camp and we decided to head towards Westin, since it was another 1:45 to get there.

We camped at Rib Mountain State Park which was a whopping 1000ft elevation. A mere foothill when comparing to the landscape out west. But oh well... It was a good time, Calabro decided to sleep under the stars. He also ate an entire cherry filled Kringle. This is a 4" x 18" doughnut!! Ha!

The sesh on Sunday was fun! Westin is also a Dreamland park. I would say it is a similar design to Tigard, OR. However, it is much smaller, probably 1/4 in size. I like the park but I need to work on my ramp skills. The big bowl is essentially an L-shaped half pipe with lots of wedges, hips and bowled corners. It is mostly metal coping with a little bit of concrete coping (poured by that famous oregon coping dude) on one end.

If you skate like Drehobl then you will be into this bowl!!

Alas, no pics again!!! I am buying a freakin' camera tonight - never will I post again without pics.

Labor Day weekend

Back again with no pics. UGHHHHHHH! I am about to write a big check to pay for part of the laptop. Hopefully a camera will come soon after. Set me back a bit. SO I did go skate all weekend so far (it is Monday morning). I hit up Wilson on Friday night and had a good short sesh and then went to Eric's for Man Night!! It is not what you think. It is a time to eat Pizza and watch low brow movies and lay on the couch and be slobs.

I was pretty ticked off starting the weekend though. They be messin' with my schedule at work again. I will be the first to admit that I have a killer schedule but that is about it. I am the dept. whipping boy when it comes to the classes I teach and have no say over anything. So when they take away the only positive, what is left???

SO, that lingered over most of the weekend and was a session killer. I was irate until about 9pm on Saturday evening. We had a sesh at Wilson in the morning but I was really not into it so I found some air conditioning at Calabro's and we watched Zohan!!

By 7pm we finally talked Mike O into going to the barn ramp jam down in manteno. We arrived around 8:30 or so and it was a great ol' time!! The two Mikes were immediately ripping and the sesh was epic. I took 1 run for every 10 but was having fun. I was more into just living my dream in this rad place. It is an organic farm and the ramp is in one of the machine sheds. sooooo good!!

We crashed out around 2-3am, I didn't get to sleep until like 4:30 and then the sun came up and heated the tent up to like 100. SO I packed up and sat in the car for a while. I sent a wake the F up text to Calabro and we scavenged around the wreckage for food. There were tents, coolers, zombie like people everywhere!! It was a great time!!

Then Calabro decided to collect a handful of grasshoppers and dumped them in Owen's tent. He was pissed!!! I took no part in it but I have to admit, the look on his face was pretty funny!!! Calabro's quote: "he screamed like a little school girl"

Dacia went to the Kankakee state park and the rest of us went to Grand Haven, MI for more shred. The drive was long and by the time we got there, I was done for. I had 2 hrs sleep and drove 4 hrs straight. MC came with graciously even though he hurt himself during the ramp jam. We were all riding an original Vision Psycho Stick and MC slammed pretty hard while attempting frontside inverts with it.

It was a long drive in and Owen kept making us miss breakfast to make time. We eventually had to stop and the Cracker Barrel was busy as hell. The car ride is always fun when you get MC and Mike Owen going back and forth talking shit. When you enter Pat and/or Cappetto into the equation all hell breaks loose. So even if the session is not good, we still have fun!!

After 3 runs I think Owen realized he was done too. Grand Haven is a great park but I wish it had pool coping. The highlight of the day was the local old dudes that showed up to hang and skate. We had a good time hanging out and trading stories.

SO we skated on and off for about 3 hours. MC set up a tarp for shade and a blanket. He spent the entire day laying around yelling at kids, talking mad shit to anyone who came near him and egged on the local crazy dude. He even tried to take him home with us. Everyone needs a meth addict that can do inverts in a 10' concrete bowl.

The arrival of the local crazy dude saved the day. I guess this guy was around in the 80s and never left them or has been in a drug induced state ever since? He had the mullet, the rolled pants and everything. He was a nice guy and would borrow peoples boards, drop in and do the most amazing stuff!! Inverts, big airs, back side air to nose-pick in, all kinds of old school tricks!!

Then he topped it all by riding a wheelie (bmx bike) up hill with one hand while pulling a can of beer out of his pocket, opening and chugging it in the other! A great accomplishment in any ones book!! So after they drank and we baked in the hot super heated skatepark sun it was time to head back. I was really tired of the bikers and neo-tight pants punk kids snaking left and right all day any how. I tried to work it all out but sometimes it takes a while.

I crashed at Calabro's last night and now Dacia is making pancakes!!! So finally, my weekend is getting better! I may try to hit up Wilson in a bit but I am afraid the parking lot will be filled with BBQers.

But on the upside, Man Night Eric is doing a BBQ with his wife and some good old friends today so the end of the weekend should be excellent!!

I hope I can get things figured out soon with work, living situation, woman situation, because when all of that is out of wack, then nothing else works. The cure for me seems to be get on the road. Even if for only a day or two. It helps me remember that I am very lucky to have great friends, a good job, art, music and skateboarding.

I'll just have to remember it next week. I think I am gonna go to either Wisconsin or Ohio. Just keep going until the big freeze.