humanity's most ideal person

Judy Anderson - 6/3/1936 - 13/11/2013

Almost 2 weeks ago, while in Yosemite, I'd caught wind of food poisoning striking one of the ladies who i've worked/loved for the last 9 years, if you've ever been into Goodtime you'll know who I am talking about, she's the glowing ball of love and happiness that sat behind the counter.  Naturally I thought nothing of it, even though Judy was 77.  My ignorance to the seriousness of the situation was due to the her unusually impervious nature, it seemed no illness could beat her.  Earlier in the year her heart stopped for a while and she laughed it off.   Exactly a week ago I was lurking on big Dave's floor, getting excited for a day of exploring and skating around San Francisco, checking in on the Goodtime Facebook .  Upon loading I was presented this photo that i took almost 3 years ago, out the back of the shop, and I immediately realised the tragedy.  Never before have I felt such extreme emotional change, instant tears and pain and all things yucky, I'd lost one of my all-time most favourite person.  Judy is in no small part, probably the majority part, responsible for who I am today.  We've been friends since i was 14 and not once did I see her present  negativity, her compassion and acceptance of all people was eternally shocking in this world of jerks and ill-content.  Her ability to recall peoples names who came into the shop a decade ago was but a tiny aspect of her mental clarity.  Her insight into youth made her the grandma I wish we could've all had, not once being concerned about my perpetual lateness, post-party inefficiency or the coincidental illness that struck me whenever the waves were good, a level of tact that is yet to be rivalled.   I would've loved to have been by her side in that last week but I know she was stoked as my awayness is a dream that she helped me find and grow into. Her funeral was yesterday and it was ideal, a packed cathedral of adoring friends who had been shocked by her outstanding human qualities from past and present.  A fittingly expansive send-off for a lady who was a minimalist in everything besides her heart and kindness.  Thankyou Jude, you've set me up for an eternity of stoke and contentedness and no poorly scripted rant will ever do you any justice.  

reality checking

challenge are great.   i'm pretty lazy and am generally unqualmed by things but lately I've realised that I get strange pleasure out of comfortably dealing with things that should probably make me anxious, i'm not devoid of anxious emotions but the challenge of being casj amongst said tears is what i'm talking about specifically..  I'm going overseas tomorrow and i'm ill prepared as usual, except this time there are more spanners in my generally clunky works as yesterday my car took its final drive, i've lost my visa card, can't buy a visa or my connecting flights from LA-VAN...   I get back from this trip and will be moving house in the proceeding days, for which i've not packed/rallied my possessions apart from clothing, also my broken car's boot is full of skate equipment that i have to deal with before my car gets towed. shiet.    Right now i should be starting to pack or clean my room or do anything mildly productive but procrastination transcends all facets of life.

Canada/USA will be sweet though, classic case of sending myself away in order to bring myself back, and when I get back i'll just buy a motorbike and be sorted until the next trip whereby i lose and forget other important things.   The biggest problem is that I have to pack for Vancouver and LA, with respective temps of 5-10º and 22-29º and i'm bad at packing at the best of the time, usually because i refuse to pack anything and end up wearing the same shirt and shorts for 3 weeks. 

unfortunately my heels still hurt, i went for a wheelyboard yesterday and it's tricky, but this trip is for catalogue production so i'll happily busy myself with photos.

i must stop doing useless shit and pack/organise an emergency visa/get my car towed/move house

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once i learnt something valuable, and it's that trying to forget requires recollection which reinforces the need to remember aka no forgetting.. so if i apply this idea to important things like my passport then i will never lose it!  (although trying to forget my passport seems pretty reckless)

unlike me, this dude (mark linkous) had real problems and shot himself in the heart at 47

crux of casj

developments of lamb:-

i can almost skate again.  epic!

informed yesterday that i'll be in canada in 4 days.  woo!

other things have happened but those things aren't of note as they're not directly relating to stoke.  I'm awaiting the return of being content and exhausted from a physical activity, something i enjoy very muchly.  I recall down time being much more difficult in the past but i think its strictly attributable to general levels.  

i'm currently pushing charcoal levels of toast but it's not too bad as i'm wearing my towel dress/tears immunity cloak.  Except really it needs to provide me immunity from time and it's commodity based existence..  i guess it makes sense that the easiest things to spend are the hardest to save.   

epicly i get to have halloween up there and i might even get to get some snowtime whislt in BC woooo!   thankyou feelings associated with knowing certain end to mundanity is nigh and i'll get to skateboard again.  phew... as i'm definitely in the general loss of shit zone.

here are a bunch of photos i took on the day we had in Spokane Washington midway through our northern voyage, it's about 30 minutes from the Idaho border and is a skate paradise!!  Bulk parks, some big mountains and plenty of sanfranesque urban terrain.   plus the people are chilled except theres a big drug problem (perhaps unrelated to the full legality of weed) there, for instance, we went to a park with a 12 foot quarter pipe straight into a 9' concrete wall/death.   The government should initiate some sort of board based rehab scenario as they probably just need some stoke to break up the drabness of the place, it's got drab in spades.

1st night in Spokane, having just had a of driving from Boise Idaho through Lewiston.   It was an allll day drive but we got to swim in some lakes, bomb a handful of big mountain roads and had the greatest time skating an epicly windy pass with no trees/maximum view on sunset.  when we dropped in i could see corner, when we finished i could no longer see corners, it was wildly ideal.

fingerbang smanging a run the locals showed us, another epicly long windy mountain road.. there was a few instances of carnage but everyone was fine.

sorry pat.

kyle chowing the lurks burger deluxe

riding a bike

we smashed our own window

fingerbang switch frontside

Spokane is old, 230 years old and it's built around a beautiful cascading waterfall.. the whole place is extremely pleasing to look at in the sense of bricks and old industry, the steamplant is pretty sweet.

bed in Sprague, a proper ghost town.





But then we woke up, supposed to be heading for Yakima/Wenatchee but they were on fire and we couldn't do that so we lurked back in spokane, skated some sweet estate roads and that night drove to Liar's Cove, the next day we'd be in Canada.











steveaughn sharing lines with a local grombat

there's this thing in america called Cabellas,  which to sum up is the walmart of outdoor stuff, from the biggest gun selection imaginable to live fish and Goretex everything.  to be rude, it's Redneck heaven.




















guff's stoked












and on and on








this is a very lovely song