state of the union
Now Playing: TSOL World War III

Life for me is kind of back to normal, although it seems like shit never slows down for a second. The good news is that I have been able to spend more time with my family and more time on my bike! I love riding. No lie.
Last November, Chris Hatfield, Dan Closser and I took a trip through the midwest, camping every night and riding a bunch of parks. It was totally awesome. Totally. We filmed a bunch of good stuff for the forth-coming Deliverance video project and there is a two-page spread in the new FBM zine that looks like this:

That trip was amazing and I know with two little boys in our lives (boy number 2 is scheduled for delivery in May!) that riding-only trips are going to become rare. Dan is on a big trip right now and Chris is going to San Francisco in a couple weeks. Travel is good for the soul. There's also an ad for the video in the FBM zine. Thanks to Crandall for being a huge Deliverance supporter and having faith in this rambling project. Deliverance has been taking a back seat to my real-world responsibilities of late but there is new stuff in the works. This graphic I've been working on isn't really Deliverance specific but it is a related project that I've been feeling the need to rejuvenate:

Cobras live!
I have been getting a few sessions at TRP and Modern but I've been too busy riding to take any photos. Here's another angle of a Davey 'boggin from that Kentucky trip a few weeks ago.

I always talk about the band Lungfish and there is an amazing interview with singer Daniel Higgs on the Dischord site. Just scroll down and you'll see it. Lungfish isn't for everyone, but it is for me...
Also, get well soon to Hanaan from Veteran. She broke her wrist recently and I hope it heals up quick.

apples for apples
Now Playing: My Morning Jacket The Way That He Sings

Hi. Not much to report, save for more complaining about being gone more and being gone again this coming week. I'll save it for my own kleenex. SF Foster, Chris Hatchetfield

and myself did set forth upon a Cobras mission at one TRP Ramp Park in Dearborn, Michigan, this mid-day. The place was over-run with rats, which is great for business, but bad for three lonesome bikers attempting to get down with their bad selves. The new structures at TRP are really fun. Get there early.

I can honestly say that at one point in time, during a cold winter in the mid-70s, I was every bit as into jumping sleds as I was into Evel Knievel or the Fonz. Here's Noah getting busy in the backyard. He's real into jumping off the furniture now. I guess I have to stop watching that Stunt show on the Discovery Channel. In that recent episode, where Alister Whitton does the insane upside down rail slide thing, Nate Wessel is shown building the ramp, wearing a "Live Life" Ken Schneider shirt. Someone sent me a link to a Cleveland TV report about Ken and his progress since the horrible incident last year, but I can't get it to play. You can try here. Let me know what it says. The last I heard, Ken is doing well. I plan to visit him in a few weeks.

Super Bowl...
Now Playing: bob marley three little birds
...of Motocross. That's what they called Supercross when it first started in the early 70s.

It was held at the LA Coliseum and the riders would haul ass up and out of the stadium, hit a turn and come flying back in. It was very dramatic and watching it on TV as a kid was the coolest thing. I think the Superbowl football thing is going on right now but I am watching Supercross from Anaheim on TV instead. It's kind of weird with Ricky semi-retiring while still kicking ass. Bubba Stewart is going to need some competition. I sound like a jock, huh...
Last week was another big work trip but this one included some quality bike riding. Davey HK works with me and we got our BMX on at Ollie's, Louisville and a crazy new cement park in Dry Ridge, Kentucky.

We met Zachary "Catfish" Yankush at DK, got tacos, then got busy at Ollies. I requested a trick involving a decade and he quickly obliged with this decade fly-out:

Catfish is one of my very favorite people. He's funny/crazy, but beyond that he is just a rad dude.
Davey had never ridden Ollies before, but he adapted quickly and made jaws drop with his altitudinal assault:

Davey was born the year that I graduated from high school. He's good at math.

I'm not upset that I can do better tables as an adult than when I was seventeen:

We got to Louisville late and had to get up early for a 9AM meeting, but we made the most of our visit to Slugger City by toughing it out in sub-freezing temps. I think we both thought it was going to be a ten minute "we have to ride Louisville because we are here but it is just too freaking cold" but we held on for most of an hour. Davey was shredding:

All while wearing OJ gloves. This one is straight out of my 17 year old style manual:

I make a crummy co-pilot and took us the long way back to Cinci. The up-side of our wrong turn was getting to check out the new public park in Dry Ridge. We were running behind schedule, so I alotted fifteen minutes for our session.

The park was well-built and super fun but we couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous/weird/retarded the whole thing was. That bowl is like six feet deep, has a love-seat and is super tight.

The snake run, camoflaged pump-bumps, bridge and drop-off decks didn't even rank on the danger meter in contrast to the mammoth ledges. Here, Davey tap-dances to safety.

I'm 180ing up into the snake run here, giggling the whole way.

20 minutes later we were back on the road and still in disbelief. Dry Ridge may be my new favorite park.
Kelly Baker sent this shirt for Noah when he was first born. I remember looking at it and having a hard time imagining him being big enough to wear it.

A year and a half later it is just his size. Next to the The Wiggles, Slayer is Noah's favorite band. I can't believe how fast time goes by. It honestly freaks me out. Our baby is a little boy and I'm about to turn another year older. Don't let it pass you by....

my life my way
Now Playing: howard stern on sirius
I know a lot of people that have really hard jobs and for me to complain about having to fly around the country for work seems pretty ridiculous compared to working on powerlines a hundred feet above the ground or welding fuel tanks for eight hours straight for endless days and weekends in a row or working on plumbing in a building like this.

But I'm going to anyway. I just returned from a week and a half in Utah, Las Vegas and San Diego. All stops were for work but I have to admit I felt a bit guilty in Utah, snowboarding all day, chilling out, watching TV and even going to see a movie at the Sundance Film Festival. It was called "In the Shadow of the Moon" and it was an amazing documentary about the space race of the 1960's, compete with current interviews with the astronauts and footage never seen by the public. That was a highlight, along with the view from the mountains (and hauling ass down them on a snowboard).

It got worse from there. Las Vegas is a cesspool of inhumanity. It was brutal. The flight from Utah to Vegas was short but plagued with turbulence, followed by an in-flight medical emergency (it turned out a woman had a seizure)followed by more insane turbulence on the way down. Then there's the fact that you can never go outside while you're there. The hotels are connected by casinos to hotels to more casinos to the convention center to...hell. There was a period of over a day and half when the only time I was outside was for about ten minutes while my friend smoked a cig. That was my fresh air. I hate vegas so much. This was a typical meal there that cost $10 and took an hour to acquire.

San Diego was next and at least the weather was nice. I was so homesick and "over it" that I couldn't really enjoy it. The last night there, however, was super fun. I went out to dinner and shinanigans with Ernesto and AJ from Dan's Comp, along with Brian Osborn and the legendary Mike McHue from Duffs. It's non-stop laughter with McHue around. The dude doesn't stop and lives life on his own terms. The best part about him to me is that he is 100% no bullshit. Some of his stories seem impossible but I've witnessed a couple of them first hand and he plays them down, if anything. He recently got this tattoo on the front of his neck.

Not fucking around! BMX people are the best and hanging with these guys was a welcomed and genuine good time. I missed my family and my dogs and my house and my bed and good food and normal people and of course my bicycle. I went up to Modern tonight and skated the mini and rode the park. Here's a crappy photo of Hatfield.

You learn to never take things for granted when you are thousands of miles from home and know you're going to be gone for a long time. One thing I truly regret missing is the TRP session that saw the return of Cobras Local 77 legend Chris Yankee.

I stole this photo from Veteran BMX. Thanks to Matt and Hanaan for the unauthorized use of this pic. Seeing it made my return home even better....

thanks
Now Playing: Archer's of Loaf Chumming the Ocean

Thank you to everyone who came out, contributed and rode their bikes in Glenn's honor. Check here. And here. And maybe later, here.

Thanks...
I dont know if scott will be able to get on a computer before he leaves for some random trip he has to do, so ill go ahead and thank everyone for coming out tonight. There were a lot of people there, and it was a very great time. This is how BMX should be. So again, thank all of you for coming out, and i hope ya'll had a good time. If im wrong, scott will probably update the site tomorrow at some point. But yeah, thanks, and i hope everyone made it home safe through that ice storm...


-dane.

raffle daffle.
Yo, dane wild here, just a quick update on some happenings on whats going on tomorrow with the raffle. i havent discussed prices for tickets, or any of that jazz, BUT! My mom will be in attendance and selling raffle tickets, with chances of winning stuff from(i am not 100% on all of these, so dont kick me for it) Deliverance Clothing, Albe's, Division Tattoo, Animal Bikes, and many some others, so, buy a raffle ticket, and support the cause. Hope to see ya'll there, and look out for my mom, she'll be selling the tickets! DRIVE SAFE.

Vacation pix
Now Playing: 80s new wave
FOD Jason Burton sent over this pic from his family vacation. I felt a little creepy posting a pic of his perfect family on the intraweb, so I did the old "conceal the identity" trick.

Representing with big Mick!
Also, I want to give a shout-out to Bill Sympson in Minnesota for sending me some more Moon Eyes stickers. Now I don't have to make fake ones...

stay gold
We got the stickers today. Sometimes I write "we" on here to make Deliverance appear to be more than one dude, sitting in a basement by himself. Today, "we" was Davey HK, who drove the Deliverance team van to Ypsi to pick up the Glenn stickers to make sure we had them for the Saturday event. Just to clarify, they are gold on clear. The image I posted before would make one assume they were gold on black. I chose gold for a reason:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost
Ponyboy reads that poem to Johnny in the movie, The Outsiders. It's one to remember. Hope to see you in Kzoo on Saturday night....

stand up and be counted
Now Playing: The Evens Minding Ones Business

Jason Burton is the first one to contribute to the Glenn fund and for that I say thank you. The stickers should be done for the Kzoo event. I was trying to think of other ways to raise some money, but Dane came up with the simple and awesome plan to get raffle tickets for people to purchase. We have a lot of prizes already (Animal sent stuff two times!), so I think the raffle will be good. It sounds like a lot of people are planning to make the trip.
This past Sunday we had most of a Cobras Local 77 reunion with Solan, Phil Rase, Sean Rakos and Chris Hatfield. The glaring ommissions from our one-time weekly Sunday morning session was Davey HK Coop and Chris Yankee, who was rumored to possibly show. Davey had a good excuse as he was in Flint and also had a bruise like no other on his shin. He redeemed himself at Modern tonight by landing harder than I've seen anyone land in a long time. Yeah Davey. It was a fun session, though a bit hectic with people flying all around the park. The friendly folks at Veteran BMX had some new die-cut stickers that were so awesome I put one on my bike right on the spot (I don't even have a new Deliverance sticker on the bike I'm riding right now).
Out New York way, Kelly Baker is single-handedly building a skatepark in the town where he lives. I'm not making this up... Kelly's blog I talked to him last night and on his blog he is down-playing how much work he is doing, almost all by himself. Beyond that, he is paying for concrete and materials himself. Every new thing I learn about Kelly, I am even more amazed than before. The dude is dedicated! In the new Ride UK there is a great interview with Ian Schwartz. He mentions BMX people having "Unorthodox priorities", which is the most right on description for the way a lot of us think. I've known Ian for quite a while and he's the real deal. I'm glad to see him on the move.