Sick!

…no, not watches… T shirts… I just wanted to use this Photoshopped pic.

Congratulations to Tim Buechele of Loranger & Wayne Gauthreaux of Hammond , the Winners of the final “Big Mike Raffle.” The two bought a total of 4 tickets, but as good friends they opted to double their chances by adding both names to all 4 tickets!

Tim is a skater from waaaay back, his first deck a GT model some 20-plus years ago! He parked his deck a long time ago, though, due to a left ankle blow-out and an addiction to Harley-Davidson motorcycles and building bikes. Tim is a regular at Dreamland Skatepark in the summer, supporting his 11 yr/old son’s passion for skating and has recently started trying to skate again with the help of an ankle brace.

Wayne has dabbled with skating on and off and also frequents Dreamland with his son Tyler, age 8. Wayne too has been caught “boosting” his son’s deck, but now he’ll roll with class!
Tim & Wayne both work at Hammond Harley Davidson.

Huge props go out to Tim and Wayne from Hammond Harley Davidson, who contributed to our money raising efforts, and lucked out by winning a huge stack of goods!

I should have some pics soon!

Look out for the June 2008 issue of Slap… the cover looks lke this:

…turn to page 22, and notice the “GrimCity” part:

…that’s me, your friendly neighborhood Small Time Skates webgeek. The photo was take by Small Times’ very own Gregory Tracy (you may know of him as Dead Gregory). Anyway, I’m not putting a readable version of the article up yet because the magazine is currently on sale and we want you to go out and support the mag. They should be sold at anywhere where there’s tons of magazines.

The official deadline to win this stuff is May 28. Come in, plunk down five bucks, and win the whole stash.

This is the very last Big Mike Raffle… come give it one last shot while there’s still time! Enter as may times as you can for better odds!

Before I leave you with that, here’s an edit I made off of some slightly older footage that has a good portion of Big Mike’s backyard ramp in it. We had shown up late, so we don’t have footy of him skating in this clip, but he had been ripping it the entire day before we showed up.

Anyway, please give this final raffle a shot. All of the funds will go directly to the Big Mike Trust, which will in turn go directly to Mike’s wife Darlene and son Erik (who also happens to be another skater to the bone).

Thanks.

(Click for a bigger pic)

Tasty new colors… green, red, teal stain, and natural with a gold logo. American made, sick pop as always, and they’re better for you than vitamins!

We’re extremely stoked to have been one of a number of real skate shops that received a co-branded poster featuring the one and only John Cardiel, a cat that bleeds skateboarding. Check it:

(Click the pic for a larger version)

If you aren’t familiar with John’s legacy in skateboarding, either check out his 16-part interview/biography on Epicly Later’d, or come by the shop and watch the whole thing on DVD, over and over again until you realize how inspiring Cards is.

On top of that, you’ll notice that the ad is for the new Spitfire F1 Streetburners and Parkburners… me and Kerry can both attest that these may be the best wheels that Spitfire has put out yet. You won’t be dissapointed… they’re just sick as hell.

First of all, we want to thank EVERYONE for entering the 2nd Big Mike Raffle… as you already know, all the money collected went directly into the Big Mike Trust set up by the shop, and the winner of the contest got more skate gear than anyone would know what to do with… just tons of stuff. For a reminder of what the winning prize-stash contained, click here.

Well, March 1st (after the shop closed) was the deadline and the prize-winning drawing… I meant to put all this up before going to bed last night, but I’m a bum, so I apologize to anyone who stayed up waiting for me to post this.

Here’s a full-on photo essay of how it went down:

Mr. Gregory Tracey, winner of the first raffle, was given the magical raffle box and asked to pull out a random winner… here we can see that Gregory took great joy in shakin’ that thang like a salt shaker:

…but shaking the box isn’t good enough. To ensure complete randomness, the raffle box had to be drop-kicked (like we did during the first raffle). No raffle entries were harmed during the kicking of the box:

(Interesting note: Chuck Norris based his fighting technique on Gregory’s martial arts skills. Wait, I’m telling a lie. Sorry.)

…Gregory looked up to the sky (which was blocked by the shop’s ceiling) and rummaged through the raffle box the same way I rummage through the dryer trying to find matching socks.

\\\{{{(((::: WINNER :::)))}}}///

Stoked! Long time friend of the shop, Mr. Zach Anthony, was smiled upon by fate, and officially became the winner of the biggest raffle we’ve had yet! I blurred out his phone number so nobody would try to call him and try to bum any fresh gear from him. I have the number though, so maybe I’ll do it instead. (KIDDING).

As you can tell in this photo, it caused Gregory a great deal of physical pain and anguish to tell someone that they’d just won hundreds of dollars worth of gear. It’s not that he wanted the stuff for himself, he just wanted to wallow in it for a little while, hugging and caressing the decks, DVDs, hats, wheels, and shirts. Greg’s funny like that.

Seriously though, Greg called up Zach, and a few minutes later Zach and his crew came over to enjoy the bounty:

There is a LOT of stuff in that box… I’d be shocked too!

A good photo of Zach, this round’s big winner.

Something really interesting that I want to share with everyone about Zach’s win… Zach entered a few times (like many others did), but while at the shop yesterday, he entered one more time just for the hell of it… it turns out that the entry he put in yesterday was the winning ticket! How insane is that?

Anyway, CONGRATS ZACH!!! Enjoy all the new gear, and thanks for helping out with the cause! As we all know, the prizes are awesome, but it’s the reason we’re having these raffles that’s the most important thing.

Thanks to everyone that contributed, we were able to collect $355.00!

The next raffle begins in ONE WEEK! BE READY!

If you’ve been in the shop in the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen the photo below… I hadn’t seen it as I was getting married, honeymooning, and subsequentially being attacked by a case of bronchitis. Anyway, Kerry had told me about this pic, and yesterday I went to the shop and saw it for myself… all I can say is that I was overwhelmed with how BAD ASS this is!
A crew of fellas that are down for the shop took it upon themselves to stencil out “Small Times Army” and put it on their boards and shirts… making it a part of their kit. I was so stoked on it that I got Kerry to let me bring the pic home, scan it, and put it here for everyone:

(Click the pic for a larger version)

For me, this picture encapsulates part of what Small Time Skates is all about… support. The crew in this photo support us, and we in turn support them. If you’re reading this, and you have an insatiable appetite for skateboarding, we got your back too. That’s really what it is… skaters being down with skaters. If you want to be part of the STS Army, you already are. Just skate hard and remember that all of us on board are family. Get out there, watch each other’s backs, and have FUN.