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dude, it’s been a rockstar few weeks in minnesnowta. the state fair just rolled through, the republicans had their little convention, and rage against the machine played. yeah, rage against the machine.

i usually tell people that minneapolis and saint paul are like big cities nobody has moved into, yet. they look like big cities, but traffic isn’t that bad (i’m looking at you, bay bridge), and it’s mostly just half-rich white kids getting bored and causing trouble. that safe feeling fully eroded after seeing what the police had done to our cities.

credit (required): http://flickr.com/photos/trevino/

since last saturday, 422 people have been arrested in association with the RNC, with like 280 of them happening on monday. some of those rowdy rousers were the anarchist type, and you know how dumb breeds dumb. a mini riot broke out on monday, and that set the tone for the rest of the week.

the rage concert was ok. i wish i could say it was great, but the acoustics sucked. not their fault, but at $72 a ticket, i want my f*cking acoustics. rage played a lot from the first album, a few less from evil empire, and even less from battle of la. i was ok with that. single encore, then a plea from the band to “leave peacefully, but not passively.” zach encouraged everyone to show discipline, to show the police that we can get down in peace while still saying “f*ck you, i won’t do whatchu tell me.” yeah, it’s ironic, but get over it. it’s still possible.

the papers said we were greeted outside the concert by about 50 riot police. unless they meant “per sidewalk,” that number was a bit low. whatever. point is, unless you’re insanely drunk (i wasn’t), there’s no way you can walk past that many armed and armored police and feel like sneezing won’t get you your sheat beat down.

it took about a half hour before any half-assed protest broke out. the loudest kids didn’t like being told they couldn’t sit in the middle of the street (me: let evolution do its thing). the rest of us just didn’t like the idea of being told you can’t stand on this sidewalk by police in riot gear (and now gas masks). the police stopped us about half way down the block.

credit: http://flickr.com/photos/diversey/

after some fat guy yelling through a loudspeaker about as clear as they do at the airport, the police blockade broke down. someone in the group said “walk that way” and everyone did. and we kept walking, probably about a few blocks, in the road, mostly because it was cleared. as soon as the block wasn’t cleared of traffic, these retired american gladiator cops on schwinns started riding people down, shoving them to the sidewalk, and almost getting a couple of the crowd to push back on them. dude, i know there are good cops, but some of the cops out that night had that look like “say what again mother f*cker.”

somewhere between the schwinns and the cops on super horses, 3 little piggies came riding up on one of those atv golf carts (didn’t see any segways) with that short stubby looking thing that usually shoots tear gas. after we heard the pop pop, we looked for the area with the least amount of cops, ran, and gtfo. police said it wasn’t tear gas, but, they were the ones wearing the gas masks.

hey man, there’s usually not shi*t to talk about in minnesota.

read more about the rage show post-party or the fun around the

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matt albiniak is a sellout that traded days in tahoe for doing interwebs stuff for a route 29, a small candy company in minneapolis, mn. (http://www.route29.com)

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March 10, 2008

By: Tyler Ashbee/Stuart Britton

Hi all. It’s been a pretty ballin’ ass season for the PTTR crew. After a season filled with rain and generally crap weather last year, we have been blessed by the snow gods with dump after dump of fresh white gold. Most of Ontario just got a late winter blast over the past weekend dropping 2 feet of fresh in some areas. We have all been taking full advantage of the good conditions and everyone has been getting all kinds of shots to step up their video parts. Bomb drops, hand rails, jumps and some shi*t that you’ll have to wait and see cause it’s so different and original. Besides filming some of the riders have been ripping up local comps and killin it! Tyler Ashbee has been on a comp rampage, and he’s not even a true comp kid. He is a street monster and the local Banger 3000. Ty  recently has got 2^nd place at the Dagmar G’d Up From the Feet Up, 2^nd at the Kirby Rail Jam, 3^rd at the Am Jam Finals at Polsen, 2^nd the week before that at the AM Jam qualifiers and 2^nd place at the Kirby Slope Style event. DAMN!   If you think his comp standings are good, just wait till you see his video part. Gonna be sooo good.

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January 21, 2008

Posted by: Stuart Britton 

This Past Saturday, Snow Valley hosted the first stop of the Smith Grudge Match V. The event went off! Lots of good riders of all ages both male and female were in attendance. The weather was beautiful and the park was solid thanks in part to Trevor Jennings who spent days and nights getting the park just right for the competition. The competition was strong and Jamie took out every sucka that stood in his way on the way to the finals. In the finals the competition was fierce and the final had to go to a 4th and final run to decide the outcome. Jamie fought hard, but was narrowly beat out. Still, Jamie took home another 2nd place finish and automatically advances to the finals of the Smith Grudge Match V on Feb 23rd at Mt. St. Louis. The announcing and the MCing was off the chains with L.S. and his DJ spinning live on the one’s and two’s all day. Defending Smith Grudge Match champion, Kevin Scriver, was ripping up the park all day, and the only thing that prevented a repeat of last year's finals showdown was an attempted hand plant on the top of the wall ride that went bad for Kevin. Kevin went up, planted his hand which then slipped out sending Kevin crashing down onto his head. Good thing helmets are mandatory at the comp! Will Johnson was out ripping and put together a solid second run. Trevor Jennings, not only built the park, he was competing too, Trev made the finals but working on the event and riding in the event was tiring for T.J. and he laid down after an attempted on the wall ride. Give the guy a break, he needed a rest. Tev and Keving also advance to the finals along with the remainder of the top 16 competitors. Congrats to all that came out and had a great day. Let's make the Lakeridge stop even better! See everyone out on Feb 2nd at Lakeridge.  Finally, we want to give a shout out to our girl Janelle Leclair who has impressed a lot out west this year, including the crew over at Diviante snowboard show.  Janelle is now getting hooked up by them on top of a long list of awesome supportive sponsors.

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The winter is upon us once again, and this year it looks like its hitting the east-coast with a purpose. My home mountain (foothill) opened a whole two and a half weeks earlier than usual making me a happy snowboarder. Of course with me, existentialism and snowboarding go hand in hand, I seem to have a lot of thinking time in between my daily activities (on solo chairlift rides for example). Whether this is a good or a bad thing has yet to be determined. In the meantime, however, you all have to suffer from the ideas that originate from my mental meanderings about angels and my place in this world.

Recently someone dear to me has had to deal with the loss of a loved one. This is never an easy thing, however, sometimes it is more difficult than others and this has steered my usual thinking process in different and new directions, namely the metaphysical meaning of loss. Through a long and convoluted process of ideas, models and refinements, I came up with some understanding of life and after-life based on quantum theory. I don't want to get into all the details of what this means (this blog would never end), so a quick explanation using digital images will have to do; this is probably sufficient to understand the principle anyway.

In quantum theory, it is said that the more accurately you try to measure something, the less accurate your measurement becomes. This is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which emerges from the fact that when trying to measure something smaller than the instrument your using, you can never be certain of that measurement. This can be illustrated by using digital photography as an example. These days, almost everyone has a digital camera of some sort (be it DSLR, quick snap or cell phone). I'm sure most people have noticed, especially those using a cell phone, that sometimes details in images become blurred or pixelised when they are really small or far away. This is the same principle, you are trying to represent something smaller than a pixel using a pixel. In the end your digital image becomes a microcosm of the real world. If you existed only in the digital image, you would know that something should be in that pixel, but you would have no idea of the nature of that something.

The same principle applies to our own existence. The real world is made up of fundamental particles such as atoms which are in turn made up of protons, neutrons and electrons and so on. Currently the technology exists to measure things in terms of electrons (very small), however, anything smaller suffers from the same pixel effect described previously. So we know there is something there but we cannot understand the nature of that something because we lack the tools and senses to rationalize it. So our own existence is again a microcosm of something much bigger and more accurate than anything we know and understand; much like the relationship between the digital image and the scene being photographed.

Given that our known universe is a microcosm of a much greater and more complex reality, one must wonder what sort of influence these unknown forces can have on what we see. Or alternatively what kind of beings live outside of this plane. Going back to the example of the digital image, there may be a pixel representation of a snowboarder, for example, but snowboarders do not exist in a digital image. They do exist in the world that was photographed, however, and perhaps this is analogous to the place where our loved ones are when their manifestations in this world cease to exist. Although we cannot even fathom the full nature of their existence, they are there. Similarly, much like a snowboarder is aware that he is pictured in a digital photograph, or any other snowboarders busting out rad tricks or kicking up monster rooster tails for that matter, our loved ones must be also be aware of us and that is something that I find comforting.

There is still the question, however, of what influence these unknown forces can have on our reality. I propose the Tamagotchi model. Much like the digital photo in my previous discussion, the Tamagotchi is a microcosm of our reality. It is not directly aware of our existence in spite of the fact that we can influence its existence. So what if we ourselves are part of a much bigger Tamagotchi? Are the fates pressing buttons that influence our day to day life? When we sleep or more importantly when we shred? The implications of this are profound. Although I refuse to believe that some metaphysical toddler is pressing buttons that mandate how I laugh and more importantly how I love (I'm much too stubborn to allow anyone but myself to tell me that), I don't find it unreasonable to think that the circumstances surrounding those things might be guided by a higher purpose. What the intentions of that higher purpose are, however, are probably quite beyond the realm of our own understanding.

So assuming that our universe is some sort of cosmic Tamagotchi device, it's important to remember a few things:

• Always love. The people around you may some day end-up pressing your buttons and you wanna hope they press the shred button frequently.
• If you do love with a pure heart, take comfort in the fact that those you love are pressing the buttons and, if they aren't looking out for you, they will at least not be dropping the house on you.
• There's a french saying that goes "sans rancune" or without rancor. Ill will and enmity are self perpetuating so don't hold them.

Well I think that's enough deep thinking for me or soon I will be unemployed. It's probably time for me, and maybe other lift-chair philosophers, to shut up and ...

Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!

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This past weekend, October 20, was the Clock Tower Rail Jam in Ottawa. What a great turn out. There was about 70 riders and about 500 spectators for the event. Unreal! Janelle Leclair was kind enough to grace us with her presence and she was well received by the judges as well. Janelle took down 2^nd place in the female division. Good start to the preseason. 

Muff (the facemask company) has just released there preseason press release and it looks like they are into some big things this year. Keep an eye out for all the Muff crew at preseason comps near you. Go talk to them and pick up a Muff. Muff Dive my friends!

I personally would like to give a big congrats to Lucas Ouellette and Ashley Nagy! On October 27, 2007, they will be getting married, or depending on when you read this, got married. We all wish you two the very best.

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