No batteries for a Camera Obscura and other forgotten messes.

Mica and I made the three hour jaunt over to Nashville to see Camera Obscura and I was excited to go and get some pictures of the band. When we got there, I took out the camera and my batteries were dead. Dead dead. And I forgot my charger. And my AA battery conversion tray. Then I forgot the tickets at Shelly's house on the way to the show, so we had to go back. Which would have been okay except for the part where we were in a taxi. Then we got to the show and were right next to the stage...as in my left arm was resting on it. It was a good show and I have a new appreciation for the band as the keyboard player filled two of my requirements, she was cute and she likely had a Scottish accent. Fuck and yes. Also, she drinks Bud Select, so she is my kind of trashy. Anyways, I snagged the set list for Mica, so I at least had that going for me.

We painted (and by that I mean Mica painted) the rooms, and the living room came out really nice. I really like hanging out in there now.


On Memorial Day, we went to Chip's for a cookout. A fire was started but Brandon Knox (aka the Boy Who Can Fly) dumped some gas on the fire. Literally.


The rain proved too much though, and we retreated to a shed where I took these pics of the varying couples...




Park riding tonight! And hardly any BMX presence, which was a shame because I think I actually had it working tonight from a camera perspective.

Tim...


Nate Holder did this invert and proclaimed that it was the best one he had ever done. I barely got this. I wasn't even looking through the eye piece.


I asked Josh what he had for me in the peanut bowl. He said he had some game, so he tossed out a pretty roasted front side air to prove that while he might be a kid, he is a man-kid.

Poached eggs

So Corey has been sitting on some pics for a bit since the newest issue of Metro Pulse ran a BMX picture feature that he took all the photos for. He didn't want anything out there that might be used in the issue, which is pretty standard fare, really. He's a great photographer (much better than myself) and the article was pretty cool. Anyways, he had these photos, some used/not used, and there were a few of me in there so for lack of better term, I stole them. Straight up. But as I have stated before, there aren't that many pictures of me on my bike out there in the world, so I feel okay about indulging here.




Tonight I am going to take some photos of the new house set up, so be on the look out.

If you want.

Talk to you later.

Happy Memorial Day. This is siiiiiiick.

From Deluxe BMX, it's a Dave King video, which are always some of the best edits out there.

Relentless Energy - Matt Priest from Dave King on Vimeo.

More later.

My big day...

Corey works for the local "alternative" paper, Metropulse and they did a BMX article in this week's issue. With that I got two full color pics of me riding in there. I have never gotten any kind of coverage whatsoever, with the exception of Joe Rich running a letter I wrote to him about the T-1 video on his site and Crandall putting a pic of Bobby and I drinking beer on the FBM site. But nothing with me actually on the bike. So this, while it isn't a riding publication or something, is still pretty neat for me.

Also, while riding the park today, we ran into fellow BMX'er and power forward for the University of Tennessee basketball team Wayne Chism. He was awesome, funny, rode my bike and generally made the day of a few of us there.

Chizz roasting it over the fly box...


Chizz and Andy Cornell. Andy took off for the moon shortly afterwards...


Chizz and I. He rode the T-1 and was stoked on the chrome. Fuck yeah.


Biggs did a fucking gnarly tailwhip into the new sod. It was sick and he took it pretty hard a couple of times. His girlfriend was visibly shaken on one crash, so it was a little nuts. But damn, he nailed it.


TO THE MOON!

Do you ever just wish it would rain?

Been gone. We've been really busy re-doing some house stuff. When it is all done, I will post up some pics. I also had to go to a team building thing for much of the week for work. That is where this pic of the Smoky Mountains is from...


The clouds held off long enough today to let us ride some. Actually, I think it got too cold to rain...maybe. But as soon as the concrete was dry we went for it. Michael Tetro is awfully Chase Hawk-ish over the spine.


Corey went with the nose-bonk over prior to a later day pants-crotch explosion...


It would seem that Billy's curious practice of almost never talking to anyone caused some consternation with a female companion of a park rider...


Corey and Shauna came by tonight to check out the progress on the house and small session with myself, Corey and the kids on my street broke out. This little street in North Knoxville is saturated with BMX. I love it.
James up and over the street spine thing...

Corey hop table in my drive way. He'll have one of his own soon.

Ocean gets better every day he rides his bike.

Shortly after I learned tuck no-handers out of the bowl, I decided that doing them from a hop should be do-able for a 33 year old man. I got it.


Garrett came home tonight and we are trying him out in his toddler bed. So far so good. Because I am typing this at 11:15 pm and he is still asleep. I night-light'd the hall for when he wakes up in the next hour or so. I took some pics of him earlier and he was totally posing like he had been watching Foot Loose or something.