so tight

The Chi

This city has straight up good people. What a worth while way to put my bank account way in the red. Name another city where you can meet someone that night and they'd let you kick it at there place for the night to save you another in your car.

Tea and Hitler

...And grape soda

Beautiful

What are the chances that on the same day a girl walks into my sub shop bearing a striking resemblence to my ex someone would decide to park their 1996, matador red pearl, 4 door Inegra LS right outside my window so that every time I look outside I'm reminded of how shitty it feels to have your car stolen? Why would the two most emotionally significant events of the past four months come full circle on one rainy, shitty day like today? And as if only to add insult to injury, parked in the foreground is my current whip flaunting its sheek new trash bag eye-patch. Super.

questions

Why do you ride bmx? Do you ride alone or with friends? It’s for the thrill right? Do you wear a helmet?

Why are we living. Why do we choose to live instead of just wither away? Tell me that and you have your answer.

favorites

Verde BMX Team Edit from Verde Bikes on Vimeo.

number before the next number

A few days ago my physical therapist had a moment of intuition and explained that "it's not like I'm making a million dollars [riding bmx]." Back when I started riding a fellow student said to me; "so basically you just ride around and do random shit" while trying to grasp the concept of BMX. Another engineer always tried to get me to "stop riding before I kill myself." He would say it in such an all-knowing sort of way.

they just don't understaaaand maaaan. They don't understand passion. Thats a shallow ass life.

number

I get stupid some times. Depending on how social I am, and how much I'm enjoying life, I get more dumb. I end up answering questions like "what is 7 plus 16" with a delayed "I have no idea" because my mind is off. The arithmatic is usually solved by the other person at which point I just say whatever number they said, think about it some more, and nod my head once I get it. Sometimes when people are talking to me I just hear words and end up blankly staring at them as I haven't formulated any sense out of what they just said. I like it when my mind is off and plan on keeping it that way for as much of summer as possible.

4288

havent watched this yet, i know it's going to be good.

4289

My camera phone died on me, which means I couldn't take a picture of the tricycle I saw in a bike rack next to two road bikes, or the "YO <3 ESPANA" bumper sticker I saw earlier. Here's a few randoms in memory of the camera.


See the gap above the front wheel? Thats because theres no engine to weigh it down. RIP teggy.

If I thank them for the free meal does that mean I get one?

4290

This is so good

4291

I never realized how legit grape soda was.

this is funnys.

4292

I have this disposition where as long as I am physically capable of riding, no matter how much pain I’m in, I will go riding. It never fails. Even if my back is too hurt to bunny hop or manual, which takes out essentially every trick in street riding, I’ll go out and just do nose manuals and foot jams.

I’m headed to the beach for a few days without the bmx. I know that in four days I’m going to have not done my homework, be out of shape from drinking and have much more important things to do. But I also know that, because of my disposition, I am going to go riding instead of being productive. It’s inevitable that in a week I will be in pain and have a ‘to-do’ list up to here! from riding my bike instead of going to the gym to strengthen my back like I should have. I’m not worried about it, I just know it will be there and I’m going to have to deal with it.

Creepy window display

And the reason I will knowingly make the ‘poor’ choice of going riding is because of this (click). This is how thinking about these philosophies pays its dividends. Next week I can be in a completely shit state of health and life and won’t be depressed, thinking poorly of myself, or freaking out about school. Everything is supposed to be messed up in a week, I’m already over it.

(Apartment complex in Montreal)

And besides, it will be Friday by that point, which means drinking will solve all of my problems.

4293

Whoever made this has ADD. Theres a huge over double peg at :40.

been going through physical therapy for my back, working a ton and taking online courses and riding as much as I can.

4294

I was out until it was light out last night getting and then being drunk (yea liver!) and consequently woke up in a pissy mood. On my way home for my causeines birthday I found something to get mad about for each and every car that was in front of me. While cruising home with the windows down and some sun roasting my arms I conversely recollected the previous nights and weeks and ended up thinking about how amazing my life is. I finally got enough solid positives to make this post.

With college coming to an end, life ahead has been getting a lot of thought. What’s life going to be like and what’s my income going to be when I graduate remains a mystery. Living in my apartment this summer has made me realize how easy it is to get a dialed ass life and be happy as shit for close to no moneys. So this is a list of a few things that make me happy that you don’t need a big fat salary to have.

Food; Stay stocked on lots of yummies.
Keep stuff working; Save money by fixing shit yourself. Car, bike, keep everything running solid and less headaches ensue.
Happy at work; Work somewhere you can get free food at, those are the best jobs.
Clothing; Get a wardrobe that makes you like what you see on a daily basis. Whatchulooklike matters. People judge whether you think its right or not.
Music; Take time and illegally download some music that you like. Don’t stress it, everyone just does things to make themselves happy from being nice to others to stealing shit. Its all gravy.
Friends; My friends kick ass. You know who you are.
Integrity; Your word/name is what you make it. Stay legit, everything in life works better.
Keep stuff organized; Less stress. I foldered everything up on my computer, got rid of shit, backed it up, don’t keep a single icon on my desktop. I may have OCD too.
Keep place clean; It’s free, it makes you feel like you’re living in a nice place instead of temporary housing constructed for WWII veterans.
Health; do it

As long as you don’t make stupid decisions and fuck up in a big way it’s easy to maintain all these things and be happy as tits.

4295

Check out Rubin and Hawk killing it in Spain. Both of these riders are on top of their style game and the filming and editing do a nice job of showing it.

http://www.foxhead.com/us/videos/?id=16954

4296

This made me throw up; enjoy.

Also I have a rant to post on my blog because I'm cool. I could structure this like a philosophy but the point gets across either way. It seems like so few people have a concept of how much now matters, how much today is worth. High school wasnt a time to put life aside and focus on school, college isn't a time to do that either. If you did, thats a solid 16 years of your motor-skilled life you really aren't living for shit. And based on this same principal, your job after college doesn't just have to suck and give you a lot of money again, for your future. Work and commute takes up 40% of your life minus sleep. If you become something shitty like an engineer and work around machines all day just to get a slightly higher salary, you end up spending 40% of life unhappy. Thats a lot of life to waste being unhappy for a few extra G's a year. To me...its not all about preparing for college, then preparing for real world, then working to get a bigger pay check. It's about NOT throwing away your entire life by forgetting how much today matters.

4297

No one likes to carry around a lock when you go riding, so Chad Degroot hooked it up with an article(click) about how to lock your bike up without using a lock.

Here's one idea;
"Little kids are usually the fuckers that steal bikes, and midgets. So if you can hang your bike high enough so they can’t reach it, BLAM, bike hang is a sweet lock."

4298

This is a real BMXer's apartment.

4299

Riding does a good job of settling my mind sometimes. I needed it tonight, so I went out around 12. I got into it with one of the summer orientation workers on campus. He felt the need to tell me not to ride the one particular ledge I was riding for some reason or another. He even politely mentioned that the police might get involved if I didn't leave. I explained to him that he should just call the police because I really do hate for him to have to deal with me and would much rather have an officer roll up and awkwardly ask me what I'm doing when I'm clearly just riding my bike, which is always my answer, which always results in a perplexed sort of look. And then they let me be. But I didn't want this fine young chap to have to deal with my nonsense. Unfortunately, he ended up being one of those people that has an ego. When I mentioned I would rather him just call the police he said that he wasn't going to, a stressed tone to his voice, and explained that he was simply asking me to do him a favour. Well played on his part, then I look like an ass for not doing it, though I don't know many people who make police threats when asking others to do them a favour - and with this I declined. Long story short, I got sick of him giving me a hard time for no reason and just politely explained that since I knew it didn't matter much to his well being I was going to keep riding the spot. I mean, I'm out riding my bike alone at midnight. That is, I clearly have issues. I feel like my emotional content is much more important than his, a well plump student walking around with two lovely female co-workers. Both of them were nice, though I don't doubt they were speaking poorley of me once they'd left.

I grinded the ledge a couple of times. First I accidentally double pegged it. Then I feebled it like I had been trying to my first go. And finally rode down it, which was a first for me. It's tough to get back in the riding state of mind once you've been forced to argue with someone, but I managed to tonight.

On my way home I picked up a hitch hiker. How old she was I couldnt tell you - her face looked like she was 80 but she didn't have a single gray hair. I figured her for a meth head at first, but later learned she only smoked weed and was homeless. I asked her where she was headed and she said she was going to Route 63. I asked where route 63 was and she told me. My apartment complex was only a minute down the road, so I said I wasn't going that far. She was perfectly content on my only giving her a ride to the intersection just past my complex, and on that note I offered her a ride to her destination which she told me was six or seven miles down the road. Fuck if it matters to me, I was in no rush.

She was suprised I was willing to go that far and thanked me. I figured she was nice to have been happy with just getting a ride any distance. She was good company too. I went home and thought about how a jobless, homeless woman could be so much more pleasant, curteous and have better values than the 20 year old prick on campus. The places riding bikes brings me...