etnies

A good week

Posted by: Taj Mihelich | Thursday, March 1, 2007 | 8 comments

Been having some great days here in Austin lately. We got our new ramp addition at T-1 all done and the weather's been incredible and the trails around town have been fantastic.

We ran out of Skatelite for the new ramp section and even though I think I'm still sponsored by them I can't seem to get ahold of them. In desperation late at night I decided to start a Skatelite conservation technique of roaching the tiniest little bits of Skatelite into an almost mosaic like pattern to use every bit. It took some struggling, but we had just barely enough and were digging out the 5 year old scraps we had buried under the ramp from the initial build.

Ryan Corrigan made the scraps work for a really smooth corner. He's a master!

My band played last night and that was pretty cool. Or, actually it was the most stressful show I've ever played, but still cool in a way. Everyone in the band has been real busy and we haven't had much practice and maybe cause my mom and step dad were in town visiting or something, or maybe cause I got poisoned by my water and was sick but I kept forgetting songs.

The Snake Trap. Photo by Chris Hallman

Austin is so crazy, last night I randomly saw Wiz and Stricker ride down the street. Then Sandy Carson came to our show, and then the Homeless Trash crew came walking down the street. You guys ever seen Trash? Ground breaking! Sheps, Steve-O, Jeff (who is standing in for Ruben Castillo), and the Gute.

Its strange, we've played a lot of the songs hundreds of times, but for whatever reason we'd get to some change, I'd know it was coming and I'd forget what to do... and start stressing. Reminds me a lot of riding though. At least a couple times I had to just close my eyes and move my hand up into the general area I knew I was supposed to play and hope that muscle memory would take over.

Sandy is one of the funniest people you could ever know.

That kind of "diving" into it approach worked mostly... I had a few bad hangups, but it was still fun. Playing music is so humbling!

Riding the ramp has been so a awesome lately, everyone trying to figure out the new parts and what they're capable of. Of course Joe has the biggest lines already, but what's new.

We've been getting a lot of Rollergirls coming by to have fun on the ramp too... here's Venus Envy and Annie Afterparty.

Chris Hallman isn't far behind. You might need to be a little bit old school to be able to place Chris Hallman's name as a pro rider, but he's a rider/ photographer from Pennsylvania who grew up around Joe and all those PA guys. Lately he's been on a mission, killing the cement park, the trails and the ramp. Supposedly Joe is making him enter a vert contest with him this year, so that should be awesome to see.

Speaking of contests I just got an invite to this this crazy thing. Its the Red Bull Empire of Dirt at the Forte' bros house in England. Its been forever since I entered a dirt comp and I don't really think my bag of one footed variations will really hang with all the double flips and double whips, but even so I'm going to try and go. This thing looks sooooo fun doesn't it?

Red Bull Empire of Dirt Course

A few days ago the water at my apartments got turned off 'cause some road crew broke the water main. It was off for like 2 days and then when it came back on I thought everything was back to normal. I took a much needed shower, washed clothes and such. Well, after drinking a few glasses I started to feel sick. The next day there was an urgent email from the apartment complex warning us to not drink any for 10 days! I ended up with a bad fever and feeling shitty for a whole day. To stop boredom I changed the optical drive on a friends iBook.

Yeah, I computer nerded out!

Holy shit! I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had to take out like 60 screws. It was fun taking it all apart I guess and scary that I was going to ruin it, but, so far, so good.

I hear the entire animal team is in town today and I saw Wiz ride by the bar last night, so I'm off to go ride and see who I can bump into.
Take care!
Taj