If you happened to poke around on the site a little bit the last few days, you might have noticed the new section on the navigation called “The Union.” Basically, this new section is just a little place for me to showcase and give a little back to the brands that have helped BMXunion and myself out since 2007 to get to where this site is today. I’ve pretty much talked to every brand I’ve done an On the Horizon or review with but I’m sure there’s a few I missed. Also, I’m still waiting on a few brands to send logos back over. So if I missed your brand, please feel free to email me. Also, keep checking back because this will continue to grow.

So head on over to The Union and see who’s down.

Cranadall taking care of some bizniz… Out of focus of course.

Alright, my second stop of the day. I spotted my dude Steve Crandall running around and gave FBM a look through. I get stoked whenever Crandall is around- always a good laugh or five. However, FBM and The Take have a few new products for you to check out.
Check it! »

Alright guys, I dipped out of the tundra known as Minnesota for this week. I am going to try and give a day by day update of what I am up to. Seeing as I am staying with Alex from Give D! so you know good things will go down…

A last look at 4 degree weather called Minnesota for a week.

This is day one…

To be entirely honest today’s post might not be the bomb because I didn’t really take any pictures… Tomorrow I will, I promise.

So, today I woke my ass up at 5 a.m to drive an hour up to Minneapolis to hop a plane to San Diego. It was weird because I was a row behind a kid who skateboards where I am from. Totally unplanned. It was cool since I hadn’t seen him in close to a year.
I have been planning this trip for 9 years. Not really 9 years, but I have wanted to go since I started riding. This trip actually semi got planned at Interbike and just now happened. I am pretty stoked to finally make it happen too.

“I expected the Rockies to be a little more… rocky. Yeah that John Denver is full of shit.”

I got into San Diego about 11 a.m their time, 2 hour time zone difference throws me off. I am super tired and it’s only like 10 p.m right now. Oh well.

Alex scooped me up at the airport, we went and met up with Chris Hervan. Hit up a little bit of street, and a sketchy little “skate park”. There were a bunch of little ghetto kids playing basketball next to the park. I thought it was funny how they were following up the match with a cigarette…kids now days are so messed up.
After that Alex and I went over to Mission Valley. It was fun, the ramps there are huge. I was most def. not surprised to realize due to riding once a week if that due to winter that I could hardly do anything. Oh well, still really cool to check the place out.

After that we hit up some mexican resturant that I am sure I will regret later. Following that, we proceeded to cock block Kosman at his place, and steal his Red Bull. Kosman probably just made a G reading this. After the blocking of cock we headed back to Alex’s where I am right now.

That was day one. Tomorrow sounds like a lot of riding, doing some moving for a certain somebody whose name drop will not be said (better check back tomorrow), and a few other things. I will document better tomorrow with lots of photos.

If you’re a San Diegoian or live anywhere in So Cal, be sure to come to Andre’s for a kickass jam!! Bring that bike and shred or just swoop on by and hang out with everyone. Its going to be a damn good time!

After 5 years of shreddin, Andre, the dude behind the SBL Edits, has to say goodbye to his backyard ramps in National City. The ramps brought plenty of good sessions to all the local dudes down there and though the ramps had times when they were out commission and dilapidated, they will most certainly be missed. We’re going to have goodies flying out from some kickass companies and I’m going to be bringing tons of good food for the BBQ and beverages of the alcoholic and edge variety. Give D! dudes will be shreddin the ramps, partying, serving up food, shoutin out on the mic and putting holes in every ramp! I may even throw down for a 69 dollar best trick, high air or gnarliest dude contest, it all just depends on the turnout… So everyone come down to National City for the day and have a good time!

The Date: December 13th

The Time: Noon till dark. Show up early or late. None of this matters!

Location: Corner of 16th and E st. National City, CA 91950

Other questions? Contact Andre via Myspace… Andre’s Space

As much as I want to stay on top of writing stuff for this blog it is weird to think about what runs through my mind in a given day. I think this might be a good time to just give a little update with some projects of mine…

Numero uno, like always is BMX union. I need to start hustling on that to keep my stats growing. I love it.

Dos- This past week has been fairly exciting. I had been asked to do another contest at Renegade Skate park. I wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to then I realized how many people were into the last one and wanted me to do another. I have been talking to Red Bull about the event and I think it could be badass. Also, I had been talked to breifly about getting involved with another contest with Bawls which would be really badass from the details I had been informed of. As much as I get stressed out organizing things like that.. I like to do it because the end product usually ends up being real good.

Trace- I am pretty sure I am going to San Diego January 5th-10th.. I just need to do it.. I know it will be a good time too so I really need to follow through with it. I would be going down there to chill and ride bikes with some buddies who live down there. Once again like Vegas, it is all convincing.

Quatro- School has been going well surprisingly enough as is.. I am getting all A’s and B’s which I didn’t expect at all. I didn’t realize how little homework there would be this semester too haha. I guess I got lucky..

I seriously just lost track of what I was going to say so I will just call this quits for today…

I am no economist or stock broker. I am probably not even qualified at all to be saying this… However, I think this little theory (idea) of mine should hold true.
Seeing as I have had stock literally all my life thanks to my mom, I learned at a young age how to follow the stock market.
Now that I am 20, a business major in college, and well aware of where my money has been going these last few months. I think it is time for a little positive motivation for how long it will be till the economy and stock market comes back.

When the Great Depression first happened in the 1930′s it obviously had a huge toll on the country. When I think of it personally I see the images from all the history books I read in grade school. Pissed off farmers in a dusty cloud (no, I am not mistaking for the dust bowl.. even though that would be a similar image).
The biggest difference is technology, just compare the technologies of then to today. We were a national market at the time, now it is a global economy. Telephone service was weak and nothing. The word computer was basically a made up word, and the Internet is about 40 years away from becoming a word. People wrote letters and it took weeks for it to get across the country and to get a response sometimes. To get away from that depression it took years to fix. I doubt it will even take half the time to fix what we have gotten into this time.

Now fast forward to 2008, the global market is in crisis and people don’t know what to do. People are going crazy because they sit and watch the stock market channel where they literally know exactly what is happening the very second it happens. People are making trades from their computer over the Internet every second, the United States government has groups working around the clock to figure out how to fix this financial crisis, and the world is following suit. Why is it that you can be having a conversation with somebody in Australia on AIM, while chatting with old friends on Facebook like they are sitting there with you but, it has taken a few months for this economic hic-up to even begin to be figured out? We have the technology to connect people, the brilliant people we need to make the discovery of what the hell is causing this downward spiral!

Sure, 98% of us are uneducated enough to make these big economic decisions, but don’t you think that if the whole world is connected things will be happening a little more rapidly? Somebody is bound to have an answer, or at least a piece to this puzzle to fix it. Why don’t we have a place to put all these ideas together? If we know the exact reason for why big businesses are failing and banks are hitting the shitter than why hasn’t there been any solid solutions besides a great “bail out” where the government throws up this money that can be printed and made up that shouldn’t even exist?

All I am saying to sum up these blasts of words is that this depression/economic crisis or whatever you want to call it is not even that bad. For the majority of the people who might read this, answer this question. How much has your life really changed because of this? Do you still go out? Do you still buy food and gas? Have you been running around on fire or being shot at for your wallet? Okay so it isn’t that bad. I am saying that because of the technology we have, everyone should be coming together to figure out what the problem is… I am saying that because of technology this shouldn’t take 5 years, shit this shouldn’t even take until 2010 to be fixed. The world moves at a million miles an hour and isn’t slowing down. Why should business? Get on it.

It’s funny to think I had a gun pulled on me by a mexican dude who tried to steal Wyatt’s bike back in the day. The bike didn’t get jacked, but if that guy saw the beefcake Wyatt is today he wouldn’t have thought about that one.

A funny little fact about Wyatt is that he has a cartoon version of himself tattooed onto his shoulder. Enjoy the video I made for him.

Today we got a little bored and decided to pull out the costumes one last time. Halloween isn’t quite over yet. A good riding friend of mine was a hot dog for Halloween. Obviously, the joke of Meat Spin kept coming up and that we had to go riding in the costume. We had to make the video too. Enjoy haha.

If you don’t know what Meat Spin is. I highly advise you to not find out. Then again if I tell you not to do something you probably will. I warned you at least.

Technically it is November 1st, but that is just because it is 12:30 and Halloween just ended.
Did it ever begin?
Growing up every year Halloween kicked ass. I remember the great snow storm of 91′ when there was a crazy blizzard that came through this city, and I still went out to fill my bags with candy.
I remember being Power Rangers, Scream, G.I Joe, and a ton of other things over the years. With age I obviously grew out of being able to trick or treat which is a bummer. The sad thing is, it seems like the Holiday has really died.
I was driving home around 6:30 tonight, and I remember seeing about 3 groups of kids out running door to door. I thought to myself “Well, that is a good sign.. it’s early and they are already kicking ass” thinking that was just the beginning.
After a bit of screwing around the house, getting stuff done, it was time to go back out. I knew I had to drive slower and be extra careful because kids are not always the brightest and could bolt out in the road at any second.
At least, I remember when I went out there was so many people on the sidewalks sometimes the street was the best route.
Instead, I spent most of my time driving slow because I was trying to find out where all the kids were! zip, nadda, none. I didn’t see a single kid in the 5 miles I drove! What is wrong with that?! Why am I so disgruntled that there isn’t kids out running around raising hell on a sugar overload? I should be happy that it isn’t happening and I don’t have to worry about my car getting scratched or egged.
Where has the tradition gone!
I remember easily running 5 miles while trick or treating growing up. The theory that kids just aren’t being born in this area is completley out the window and useless. So, what exactly is it that causes this? Are kids not allowed out past 5 p.m on a Friday night? I mean yeah, candy is bad for you.. but not so bad that you can’t go out once a year and eat way too much of it. Where has this holiday gone!?

It seems like every year my mom buys less and less candy, and has more and more left over. It just doesn’t seem right how all of this candy can exist to be given away for FREE and nobody wants it! Why?! Why!? Halloween is DEAD. Which it shouldn’t be!

Someday, when (if) I become a parent I am going to make my kids love Halloween more than their birthday and Christmas… Simply because they will be the only kids who will be out on the streets going door to door past their curfew! I don’t care if the people are sleeping, we are still ringing every damn doorbell on the block. I mean, that is if people even hand out candy by then. It seems pointless to buy any if nobody will come get it in the first place.

As I get older, I start to realize why the older people always tell you their old “war” stories of walking both ways up hill 5 miles in the snow to get to school with no shoes. It is because as you get older things change so much from when you were a kid that you almost feel like you had it bad! Maybe kids don’t walk the sidewalks because their parents drive them door to door? I don’t know! Maybe they are afraid some creeper is going to jump out of the bush and get them. Wasn’t that suppossed to be expected on Halloween? Scary people jumping out at you.. That is when you kick their ass with your awesome powers you obtain when you put on the masks.

All I am saying is that if Halloween is dying, at least let it go out in style and not fade away. I would much rather have the government prohibit it because there are too many riots, and crazy stuff happening than to see it just go out of style.

Maybe, that is just me, but maybe I am right? I sure as hell hope not.

Happy Halloween to all of our fellow shredders and friends everywhere!

I remember when Halloween used to kick lots of ass, now its just kind of a forgotten holiday… Its a definite bummer because my favorite holiday growing up was Halloween, not Christmas, Thanksgiving or anything else. I took a drive around my local area just a little while ago, I don’t know why I’m surprised about there being little to no kids out. There’s no sound of pitter-patter or laughter over on the sidewalks, no sounds of trick or treating, there’s minimal Halloween spirit out on in the neighborhoods and there definitely isn’t any carved pumpkins out to welcome kids, no lights on in any of the porches for that matter… Am I the only person noticing this? Halloween seems to get betrayed worse and worse every damn year… Is it just the area I live in?

I don’t mean to rant on about the decrease in the celebration of Halloween, I’m clearly a little too old to partake in trick or treating, vandalism and mischievous acts… I grew out of all that myself, but it’s just lame to see kids not partaking in anything of that stuff that used to bring me so much joy. Not that I condone vandalism or any of that shit, but toilet papering and egging houses used to be pretty damn fun when I was a youngin’, probably still would be too…

Well, its been dark for over 2 hours so far, my streets are silent and my mom hasn’t had the opportunity to open the door to any costumed kidsies wanting delicious treatsies yet. I’ve got a slight feeling that the provided candy will just go into my belly as the first week of November progresses… Even if I do live in a small town, Halloween used to pop off around here when I was young. At least I got brought up properly with the awesomeness that is Halloween or that was anyways, it was rad while it lasted. I hope everyones out partying, gettin rad and having some Halloween fun tonight, even though we may be too old for the kiddie shit now, we can always party for what’s still good.

I was stoked on this fireball pumpkin photo… I carved this pumpkin last minute and it shows, janky and sloppy as fuck, but I still love her. I plan on smashing it later tonight or tomorrow… That D! pumpkin is definitely perched up in my bike and thats definitely a Vermont sprocket silhouette below it… If you read this, thanks for listening to me bitch and complain.