SHREDMONTON 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007:
Adam Greenwood finally arrived at my house at around 7 PM. We hung out and ate some noodles, and I had some kiwi bubble tea. We talked about treeplanting a bunch. Then Andrew came over after his girlfriend's rugby game, and hung out some more. Then we went to Superstore to buy some food for the road trip there and back. I bought muffins, though they were kinda crap -- really greasy and sweet. Then we came back to my house and went for beers at the bowling alley where I used to work, down the street. I talked to an old coworker whom I hadn't seen in a while, and that was nice (I was worried about having to make small talk with coworkers that I didn't like, but it seemed to be mostly new staff.) We went back, Andrew left and Adam went to sleep on my couch for, like, 4 hours before waking up at 3 AM.
Friday, June 22, 2007:
Andrew arrived at 3:30ish to pick up Adam and myself. He'd filmed (wow, that was supposed to come out as "filled", but I've been doing more camcorder research all morning..haha!) his mom's car beforehand, so we were all set to start our journey. I tried to sleep immediately, for the first 4-6 hours, getting up every now and then for bits, since the sleeping attempts proved futile.
We drove through some wicked storm. It was pouring buckets, as it were, and that made it hard for Andrew to drive. There was magnificent lightning, some of which I may have captured on Andrew's camcorder, as well as some nice sunshine that he requested I fim, once we finally passed the storm (which would later be reported as tornados, damaging 150,000(?) cottages in Manitoba later that night!).
The ride was long and gruelling. I drove for about 4-6 hours near the end, to give Andrew a break. I'd only driven once on the highway before, and the very first thing that I did was pull slowly right into the path of a speeding semi. Andrew calmly informed me of what I was doing, and I swerved back into the other lane. That had me on edge for a couple of hours! I convinced them to listen to what I described as my symphonic disco War of the Worlds CD. They seemed to really dig it, but then I realized how repetative it really is and I felt bad that they had to endure the monotony for an hour. It really is epic though.. We also listened to a lot of Andrew's music, including that mix he made for Kevin, which we listened to over the weekend, as well as his much-prized Justice(?) album, which really, really grew on me.
Andrew switched to driving just before Edmonton. We got a little lost, but found our way flukily. We passed the West Edmonton Mall, which spanned what seemed like 5 minutes of driving (HUGE!). I've been there before, but it really is impressive. It turns out that Kevin and Byrin live just across the street from the mall, basically (and Rory down the road somewhere... I never saw his place). We pulled into their backlane and noticed a sign on the back of a garage that read, "No drug deals back here." Adam cracked up every time we passed this house. Then we blared the music and pulled into their little parking spot where the happened to be hanging out in the front yard sort of area. I forget who all was there, but I think that it was everyone. Yeah..I think.
I think I met James Randall first. I had talked to James online for YEARS, quite a bit, before finally meeting. I think he named himself my number one fan a long time ago, so he was excited, as was I. He's a really nice guy. Kevin wanted to show me stuff up in his room and I heard "Mad World" being played on the piano downstairs and I knew it was James
Anyway, then I probably met his friends, whose names were Amanda and Mario, though I don't think I spoke a word to them the entire time. I felt a strange awkward vibe from them for some reason, though they seemed really nice and I liked to be in their presense. Mario was really, really quiet and seemed like we would have got along. Then I met Zeb Jackson, and he was, just like, "Hi, I'm Zeb", and I didn't hear him, so I asked what his name was, and he said, "Zeb" and in my head it took a couple seconds before his last name connected with that, without him saying it. I totally had no idea what he looked like, as with Kyle Hewitt, whom I met next. Then I met Kevin Crowley, whom I was also excited to meet. Then there was a bit of awkwardness as we just stood there.
Kevin Regamey seemed really happy to see me, and that was really cool. He kept wanting to show me stuff. He showed me the video from Missoula (is that the right place?) jam that he is working on. It is going to be siiiiick, let me say. Oh gee, I want to talk about it, but I'm sure Kevin would rather it be kept secret, or a surprise, or something. Ah, it's killing me. One of the best parts is Rory sillyness, though. I kept telling Kevin over and over that he should make a video of Rory Dawson, like..not necessarily even footbagging. He showed me the edited video so far, and the audio tracks that he plans to use, but he also showed me ShrEdmonton session footage that was never released, and stuff. He basically sat me down and went through all of the footage on his computer... Wow! Some ground-shaking Byrin stuff, ridiculous Regamey toe combos and drills, and HILARIOUS Rory "outtakes" (I "quote", because every moment with Rory is like this...he is the number one goofball).
Let's see, so we hung out and they were, like, watching some Robot Chicken on their big TV (their place is so wicked nice -- they both have really, really nice rooms with all of this fancy pants hardware and crap. Kevin has a nice widescreen, flat-panel monitor, and says he's ordered another! And he has his keyboard hooked up and, like, I dunno... I was really impressed. And his BT home-made poster that's gigantic. I only saw Byrin's room during Kevin's tour, and I forget what was in his room, but I remember being really impressed there too. So they were watching that show on DVD, and I wasn't really amused, and that's when Kevin gave me my tour. Then shortly after, Rory came over and Kyle, Zeb, Rory and I went to the YMCA to warm up for shred.
At the Y, which is also right by their place (what a wicked place, in a wicked location, with two wicked footbaggers! Wow!), we met Denton, who had been waiting. I like Denton. They all warmed up, and I kind of just sat and watched for a while. I had SUPER bad shin splints for two weeks leading up and I was near-devastated that I might not be able to play at all! So I was pretty leary about warming up before everyone else was even there. I started some basic kicking after a little bit and warming up on my own. I kept dropping kicks, and it felt so silly. Everyone else started showing up and I started playing. And then I got in a circle with Kevin and Byrin, and man were they busting. Kevin was injured (I forget with what), but he hit frontside atom smasher > smog [repeat], and stuff. There was a drill with pandemonium too, I think. Man, the shred highlights all kind of mix together in my memory, so I will mostly just list everything that I can remember at the end.
Then most people went straight to Red Robin's, which is a restaurant that Kevin works at. I voted to go back to Kevin and Byrin's place first, and Kevin Crowley agreed, because we didn't bring clothes to change into, and it was ultimately gross. So we changed and washed up briefly and then headed out to the place. The restaurant is apparently famous (amongst footbaggers at least) for it "freckled lemonaid", which is lemonaid with strawberries, and is amazing. It was free and bottomless, thanks to Kevin. The food was great too. It was a really fun time. Kevin basically told me his current life's story, and that was neat to talk about non-footbag stuff
Kyle was very lively, and definitively 13-16 years old (how old is he anyway?).. :p I don't think I talked with Zeb much, but he was cool. I didn't get nearly enough freckled lemonaid, and was very excited when I heard later, the next day, that Rory had made an entire cooler, approximately 20 litres full of the stuff, homemade!!
We basically went back and people went out for smokes, and whatnot, and Kevin showed me more video stuff and we talked a lot until about 2 AM. I was totally dead and completely gross feeling and unshowered after a 13-hour car ride and 4 hours of footbag.. I went downstairs and everyone else was sleeping already. I didn't want to disturb anyone with unzipping my sleeping bag and stuff, so I just laid down on the tiled floor and tried to sleep. It was freezing and uncomfortable and around 4-6 in the morning I said screw it and got out my sleeping bag and curled up inside and blacked straight out.
Saturday, June 23, 2007:
I woke up around 11ish. Byrin made us breakfast!! He made scrambled eggs and a bacon and toast and juice, and it was just amazing! Man, it was great -- thank you Byrin!!
He cleaned up after our messy asses too. We started out to the shred location at around 12:30ish. We walked to Andrew's car and saw the USAers standing around their car and went to say hi slash investigate. It turns out that their car was broken into, the driver's window smashed in, with glass everywhere, and I think everyone has valuable stuff stolen. Kevin called the police and it turns out that 7 other cars were broken into, likewise, in the same neighbourhood, the same night! Dang
So Kevin went with them to report to the police at the West Edmonton Mall while we set off for the YMCA.
We arrived and Rory and his crew (Kyle and Zeb) and Denton were there already, as well as others? I think Byrin was there already. We played and then competition was around 2 PM. There was shred 30, and then sick 3, and then sick 1, and then a contest where you kick and blow bubbles with bubble gum, and whomever blows the biggest bubble before dropping wins! I think Zeb got 4 inches, or something? Or someone else? I got big ones, but after I'd already dropped
Then there was a kinda kicking keep-it-up contest, where you try to knock the other person off balance and get them to drop their bag, or something. For Shred 30, I competed, but only for fun, without planning anything, and I did so incredibly terribly that I think I hit, like, 5 tricks. I think Byrin was droppless with 5+ fearless? Andrew had a similar Shred 30, but with a drop, and less fearless. Everyone else did better than I :p Rory also performed 3 routines between contests, for the audience (not too many people...just family and friends, I think). One of the routines was his Pokemon routine. I forget Byrin's sick 3s, other than his beast on first try. Kevin hit Pandemonium for Sick 1 (injured..).. I forget everyone else's. Wait for Zeb's video -- it should be wiiickkkeed.
Then we played hacky! I was in a circle with Andrew and Kevin Crowley, and Adam, and Tony Whitney (whom I didn't actually officially meet..), and..someone else? Then I moved on to a circle with Rory, Adam, and Kyle. Then it was just Kyle and I for a long time, and that was fun. It was reminiscent of my two-person circle with Eric Reile at CSS4... those epic and memorable two-person circles are the best. Kyle hit blurry rev whirl first time, midstring, and whirlygig, and blurry whirl BSOS, and stuff. Then Tony joined, but I had to stop, 'cause my kneepit was all rashed-up from my sweaty knee brace, and hurt! I sat down for a while and changed. And then, without braces or shoes, I had a bit of a session with Rory and Kevin C. Kevin hit 222 osii... Everyone was talking and people kept asking me, "Is he still going??" At 100 he was, like, "100!" Then around 200 Andrew asked how many, and I had recently stopped counting and estimated 170ish, and then a few later he said, "That was just 200!" and kept going. What a rad number! 222! He also hit spinning voodoo after this (not in the same "run"... :p) and fury.
After this we waited around for a long time before everyone was ready to go back to Kevin and Byrin's. Byrin started getting out chips and stuff and juice, and their keg, and alcohol. There was partying, which I wasn't fond of, and didn't really partake in. Kevin made me like 4 or 5 drinks, and a shot, and that was really fun, since I never really drink. I stood in the kitchen with James and Kevin Crowley and just hung out. I actually got kinda drunk, but I was so quiet and laid back that nobody probably noticed. I went and played Boobytrap with Denton and Rory and someone else, and then Kyle and Zeb also played after. Then a bunch of us watched BOTS to a cerain point. Someone said something that appealed to me and so I left. I think that was when Rory brought out 4 glow bags and said he was going outside to try them out. That was fun -- it was mostly juggling by James Randall and Kevin Regamey.
Then people drank a lot of beer and some non-footbaggers came over and I was sitting and absorbing conversation, and then all the smokers went and smoked again and I was bored and felt awkward so I went and slept on the landing below Kevin's room. That was a good sleep. I think I showered somewhere in there...although it may have been the next morning. No, it was that night, yeah.
Sunday, June 24, 2007:
I showed Kevin the video that Sam Colclough made me many moons ago (he asked me how many moons, and I calculated about 80-some), and he woke me up to the song in the morning (well...by morning I mean about 1 PM..ish). It was really cool to wake up to
The plan was to go out for breakfast and then go shred (and most people planned not to shred) at this street festival downtown.
We drove out, leading the way for Byrin, who didn't know how to get there. We tried to go to a couple of places, but they were closed, and settled on a coffee shop that had sandwiches and wraps and stuff. I got a chicken caeser wrap (I'd never had one before), and it turned out that Kevin and Byrin also got the same thing. It left me a little unsatisfied. I was debating whether I should have got the beef or chicken gyro, or whatever. I think that's what Kevin Crowley got -- it just sounded a lot more hearty. Andrew probably got rotti, since that is his favourite. And I think that was all of us?
Then we went to the fountain where we saw the other guys already shredding. I watched for a while and took some photos with my manual Canon camera thingy (the really nice one that I don't know what to call because I don't know stuff). I hope they turn out good, my FAT photos turned out bad because they were either indoor or in the shade.. I used a really fast shutter speed, though, so they should be niiice. Anyway, then I decided I wanted to play, so I took off my pants and put my shorts on (with boxers), and this mother sitting a bit next to us gave me this disgusted look and said something about her daughter and how that was inappropriate. I sympathized a little, but I didn't really see the big deal, so I said "Sorry" and nothing else and they went somewhere else. That was kinda weird.
I kept trying to have a long run session with Kevin Crowley, but one time, Byrin joined our circle, and was awesome, so I tried to be awesome, and Kevin tried to be awesome. And we never really got around to it. Then we decided to have a challenges circle! That was SUPER fun! I think Rory joined just as we started this. The first challenge was eggbeater > assassin, and we all hit it! It was so cool! Then there were other challenges, some of which I hit, and some I didn't. Me and Rory failed miserably at the osis-involved challenges.. One was start with 4 tripless, and I did stepping rev whirl > blurry rev whirl [repeat]. I did one where you had to do butterflies around this monument thing, but we changed it to mirages, 'cause there was a spot where it was really narrow and butterflies would have kicked families in the shins. Then Byrin made one where you had to do as few mirages as possible to this bench, like, 10 metres away. I think I got 5, and Kevin was close to 3, or something! Then I wanted to butterfly race Kevin around this HUUUUGE fountain that must have been, like, 120+ metres around, or something... I dropped really soon. I guess I meant to just go around, and not try to race and just see who can go furthest or something...'cause the racing aspect messed me up
I gave up really soon, for like 5 minutes, and then saw them battling it out, and shoving each other out of the way, and decided to try to catch up with really long-stride mirages. I came close. I caught up to Byrin kinda. It was really fun. Then we also had hard shred.
Then everyone else was just watching and eating poutine, and Kevin C. said something about, "Are those cheese fries?" and we laughed, because the USAers didn't know what poutine was. There was something else they didn't understand either, oh yeah... Timbits they didn't know. So Kevin and I went and got "cheese fries", and then we got icecream, and it was oh so yummy. He got mint chocolate chip, and I said that that was my favourite too, and then I said something about how it's "librarian's choice", because we were both going to go into library science, and we had a conversation about that the night before, I think. That was fun.
Then what.. did we get food? I thought we were going to get food. Well, we ended up finishing off the keg in Kevin and Byrin's front yard, and his neighbour kept giving us really disapproving looks -- Andrew filmed a bit of that for his video, because it was silly. Out of nowhere I hit mirage > legover [repeat] while sitting on an upsidedown bucket, and Kevin flipped out. Then I hit eggbeater while sitting on the bucket, and then Byrin requested atom smasher, and I had it fly off, but Andrew called the :p I think we just went in and I had freckled lemonaid, and Marita called, and I talked for a bit until my phone cut us off from no charging since we left, and everyone started watching this movie that Rory brought. "Me, you, and everyone we know" It was kinda REALLY weird. Adam loved it, and everyone else kept giving Rory the strange eye throughout, 'cause it was messed up. Marita had seen it before -- she had told me about the pooing back and forth forever scene, and I remembered that when it happened. That was a funny scene. Andrew had gummy worms. Kevin Crowley kept farting. Then we hung out a bit and then went to bed. I slept on the landing again, and it was good.
Monday, June 25, 2007:
Woke up, packed everything into the car and said brief goodbyes. We stopped at Tim Hortons for some breakfast. We all got the breakfast sandwiches, which were AWESOME, and I had never had before. They both got 2 each, and I immediately wished I'd got 2 also. Kevin, Kyle, and Zeb also stopped at Tim Hortons, and we had an awkward second goodbye. Then we ate outside while they stood in line, and they came back out before we finished and had a third awkward goodbye.
Then we drove a LOT. I slept for about the first 4 hours, REALLY soundly! Then I told them about the game that Kevin told me about that the Missoula crew plays, which is 20 questions but where you guess footbag moves. We were, like, "How can you need 20 questions??" We found out soon enough. Try the game, even with THE most basic move, and it will take you, like, at least 10 tries, unless you guess wildly and fluke on the answer! I did weaving butterfly just to test, and it took 14 guesses. The hardest were Andrew's nuclear crossbody rake, and Adam's blazing same legover caught on heel! I think both took us to our last question!
We stopped for some lunch, and it was good. I bought Andrew lunch, 'cause he didn't have cash. There was a cute Chinese waitress. Then I took over driving, which was fun. We listened to Russell Peters, and Swollen Members. Oh, it was raining like crazy, so we went pretty slow. Then I got real tired after, like, 5 or 6 hours, and we switched off again and I slept for another 1 or 2 hours. Andrew gave me a yogurt granola bar while I was driving, and it was REALLY yummy!
We played abit more 20 questions before Winnipeg, and then we pretty much split up. Adam went to party before going back to Toronto. Oh, I said in the FAT blog that he will be back Wednesday morning, but he missed his bus, so it will be, like, a day later. Anyway, that's all, and here are some hacky highlights.
Shred highlights:
Byrin Wylie:
-spinning rev swirl > gyro rev swirl [repeat], far rev swirl > rev swirl [BSOS], same run
-11 spinning whirls
-rubberman with whisks
-whisk > bladerunner
-surging alpine bullwhip (maybe symposium, but I don't think so..)
-surge > alpine legbeater
-3 surreals
-5 7s in 5-attempt sick 1 comp: gyro food processor, alpine surreal, backside surreal, montage, and surging torque...
-a whole bunch of beasts. Most frequently hit was probably surreal > whirlwind > spinning blender (he hit this one both sides)
-mobius > mobius > mobius > mo..
-vortex > mobius > vortex > mo.. (a bunch!)
-oh man...he hit a HUGE rubberman variation in Kevin's video...
-cheese processor (Kevin also showed me this on video, and how undeniably clean his surging is...like, wow!)
Kyle Hewitt:
-whirlygig
-blurry whirl [BSOS]
-ps whirl [BSOS]
Kevin Crowley:
-janiwalker > blurriest
-rev whirlygig > rev whirlygig
-mobius > marius, I think
-food processor > spinning blender?..
Me:
-mobius + spinning DLO [both BSOS]
-rev montage midstring
-butterflies all the way around the room for a "run" (around Zeb was was laying on the floor, in my way, and between Andrew's circle and the handles of the bike machine things, one of which I had to push off of to keep from hitting
-rev whirlygig and rev maelstrom in first two tries for sick 1
Andrew:
blurry torque > food processor > whirlygig
Oh yeah, and I was sad that James and his friends left a day earlier than everyone else
We didn't get to hang out enough. And the weather was SPECTACULAR (especially when forcasted for rain!), and I miss everyone a whole bunch!
