Lunch with Jonathan

This guy has Chicago's best costumes.

I would say thats a pretty bold statement.

If you get lunch with me there is a pretty good chance I'm going to take your photo over and over.

Chili's has all you can eat chips for like 3 dollars. . . .

Poor mans lunch

 

Yes I mean you Mr. Vela.

I have my first out of two midterms tomorrow.

Good thing I got that goose brew to help me study.

Enjoy,

Brock

Dad and Uncle Doug came to Chicago

The first thing they wanted to do when they got here was eat.  So we went to Gino's East Pizza for some deep dish.  Doug was tickled pink that this was the cite of the original Gino's.  

After some deep dish I took them to Millennium Park to see the bean and some other goodies in that area.

I always love coming to this area of the park.  They're is always so many different people enjoying themselves in the water.  

I made my Dad and Doug wait for the faces to spit out water.  They seemed glad we waited.

I sure love this city.

When we got home we saw that Akira had destroyed a whole bag of trail mix.  A little while after we got home she did this:

Oh and yeah those are solid cashews and peanuts she puked up.  Whole ones, not even chewed.  

They think that Chicago is very, um gangsta?

So they decided to make up fake gang signs for a picture.

We hit up Navy Pier too.

There was  an air show going on in Chicago as well.  The planes and jets were flying very low.  It was extremely loud but very cool to see.

They wanted to visit Wrigley Field too so we made the trip up there to see it.  Doug wanted to get inside, but it seemed closed.  We started walking around to the front and sure enough the field was open.  The only problem was it cost 25 dollars for a tour of the place.  

Not cool.

On the news the night before they talked about a Chicago Olympian who was going for gold in diving.  They also mentioned her parents bar near the stadium and sure enough we stumbled acrossed it.  

After a full day in the city we decided to come back and grill out a little.  The flowers in the backyard are looking good.

I had to make sure it was a full bbq experience for my visitors.  So I made sure we got some 312 Chicago brewed beer.  Good stuff.

We all ate our food and some of my family got to meet my new friends.  

Overall it was great seeing my Dad and Uncle Doug.  It's always nice having a visit from my family.  Love them to death.  Plus a re-stock in groceries and some free meals are nice too.

Tornado Warning. . .

Yesterday was a pretty fun little day.

It started off with a breezy walk to the grocery store, but by the time we left it was so damn hot and humid out. But we did get a great deal of groceries. It's nice to have food again.


After we unpacked all our goodies from the store Nikki and I enjoyed a little sushi lunch.

Gotta love that cheap grocery store sushi.

During the meal though Akira was being a spaz and we decided that she needed to be walked. Every time we go out it seems like a little adventure with the little mut dog. She always gets wrapped up around someone. This time it was Nikki.





When you try to get unwrapped she thinks your playing a game with her so she likes to bite ya. . .






The walk was pretty nice. Saw some cool things like. . .




. . . An old Chimney






. . . An old yellow car







. . . A neon shop that had penguins








. . . The Chicago Cubs







. . . And Flamingos








Usually I only see cars with knocked out windows. Seeing a back window slashed open was a first for me.








I wish I had a fire escape. It sure would be fun thing to hang out on.








The garden downstairs is starting to look pretty good.








While we were on our like walk around Buck Town it started to get darker and darker out. By the time we got home and were getting ready to go to Dairy Queen it started to rain really hard. So hard that it started to look like there was a funnel cloud above us. Sure enough when I checked weather.com it said a tornado has been sighted in our area.






So we checked the television to make sure thats what was going on and sure enough it was.






Emergency Alert System sued a xxx tornado warning? Things must be getting ready to get really serious.







So instead of taking shelter, we made pasta and some cookies. Not to mention played some pretty intense Othello.









Enjoy,






Brock

Baker has a Deathwish.

Today was the Baker/Deathwish skateboard demo.

It was sick.  A bunch of the industries top dogs were at the Wilson Skatepark in Chicago throwing down.

Antwuan Dixon was in the house.  He skated a bit.  Dixon landed a nollie heel-flip down the set with some careless style.  He was rocking some crazy zig-zags in his hair.  A straight G for sure.

Neck Face was on the microphone throughout the demo.  He started out kinda tipsy.  Later he was pretty drunk.  Throughout the demo he was calling out everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Kanye West.  He was stumbling around asking the crowd where they were at.  

For those who don't know who Neck Face is just google him.  He has been doing graphics for many companies such as Vans, Thrasher Magazine, Baker Skateboards.  He has had a couple shows in California and has various graffiti pieces around the world.  Neck has some serious street credit for sure.

Andrew "Boss Man" Reynolds was the first one in the park.  He destroyed it.  Reynolds can literally frontside flip anything.  He was charging everything.  The bowl's, rails, pyramids.  I know why he gets the nick name boss man.  I was fanning out the entire time.  This is one the most important men in skateboarding.  

Boss Man.

Kevin "Spanky" Long was also there shredding.  Apparently he just flew in right before the demo and man was he destroying everything in sight.  This is another guy my friends and I would watch videos of before going out and skating.  It was awesome.  It made me feel like a little kid again.

Reynolds.  I know I got a lot of photos of him.  But I mean come on he is a living legend.

Brian "Slash" Hansen is one of the new Deathwish Am's.  After watching him skating in person I'm pretty excited to see his part in the new Fallen Footwear video.

The teams started skating the stair set in the middle of the demo.  The kids crowded around for a show.  This is Reynolds with a nollie 360 down the set.  

Jeff Lenoce was at the demo too.  I believe this is a nollie varial heel-flip down the set.  

Theotis Beasley was another one who was ripping the entire demo.  He landed this backside flip within a couple of tries.  

  

Lizard King is the skater I fanned out the most to though.  He destroyed everything in the park.  He was a super chill dude too.

After taking this photo he kind of waved me over to him.  We talked for a little while.  He is working on getting sober, but one beer here and there can't hurt he said.  King is trying to get his business man on.  No more getting wasted, he is ready to be a skateboarder he said.  So props to him on that.  We also talked about Shad Lamberts web site.  King said that Shad is one of his favorite person to shoot photos with, and that he is just an all around chill dude.  

I also noticed that he wasn't sporting any Circa sneakers.  King said that they just were not paying him enough money.  That they kind of acted like he was a nobody.  Which is understandable.  "I've always liked Vans ya know?" said Lizard.  

Lizard King has one hell of a career ahead of him.  So that was a smart business decision on his behalf.  If you haven't already checked out his part in the new Baker has a Deathwish video.  You should probably get on that.  

Yeah those are face tattoo's on Antwuan's face. 

 When the demo was dying down I found Dixon chilling with Neen Williams and some other Chi town locals smoking some sticky icky.  Straight G for sure.

At this point of the demo Neck Face was trashed.  He was hollaring and making a scene in the parking lot.  Neck know's his sports though.  He was shouting out Chicago basketball and baseball team statistics and players.  

Some other skaters at the demo were Jim Greco, and Bryan Herman.  Greco stayed in the van a majority of the time.  He seemed upset or stressed out or something.  Herman was out and about, signing autographs for all the kids.  

Overall the demo was awesome.  It was a real treat to see all the guys, friends and I looked up to when we were kids, skating in real life.  They all seemed like pretty nice dudes too.  They didn't freak out on any kids or anything which was cool.  

Da beach. . .

Yesterday Rob, Lenny, and I decided to go to the beach.  

Lenny had an extra bike so we all cruised over to the north avenue beach?  

This was my first Chicago beach experience and I'm still working on all of the different names and what not.

After that bike ride I realized how much I wanted a bike.  It was so much fun riding through traffic and just riding with friends.  Thats one of my missions for the up coming weeks.

Find a bike, and a job.

Rob, Lenny, and I had some real talk for a little while.  Talked about road trips and Euro trips.  Girls.  Future living situations.  Rob agrees that San Francisco would be a nice place to end up.  Nikki mentioned it too.  Maybe those are two future roommates?  Of course others should join as well.  

It was a beautiful day and this week its only supposed to get better.

More trips to the beach?  

Yeah probably.

This picture doesn't not justify how beautiful the city looked from where we were.  More and more I'm falling in love with this city, ha.

Enjoy,

Brock