Visit from Mike
Posted on
Tagged brad, skateboarding : Brad Vist from Mike Vallely
(shortcut: if you're looking for the galleries of pictures that I cropped and resized for the web, click here to view the gallery. If you need the full-size JPGs for print or for newspaper articles, I've "uploaded those here":FullsizePics. Note to Lorae and whoever else gets the full-size pics - these are huge files that will take a while to download.)
I'm way behind on posting here. Matter of fact, Brad and I went to California on the free trip from PacSun and Etnies, and I never posted a single thing about it. Life is moving faster than I can write about.
I had to recreate the intro to this post . Most of the below verbiage is original, but the photos were added because my old gallery is long gone.
Anyway, Brad was supposed to meet and hang out with Mike Vallely while he was out in California. However, no one told Mike this, so it never happened. When Mike heard later about the screwup, he agreed to fly to Jackson today and meet with Brad (thanks, Lorae!) at Doc36 Skatepark (a local skatepark that's long gone.. We didn't tell Brad a thing about it and the skatepark was nice enough not to advertise it either, although they could have made it a big deal and gotten a lot of free publicity!.
We happened to drive up in the parking lot behind Mike, so I hopped out and introduced him to Brad. Brad had the weirdest reaction, like Mike hung out in Jackson all the time. I think he was just kinda shocked. I could tell he had no clue that Mike was coming.
Mike hung out about 4 hours before heading home to California. He was a very nice guy, signing autograph after autograph without seeming to mind. Etnies and PacSun had sent another box of stuff to Brad (trucker hat, Vallely shoes, blue jeans, hoodie, t-shirts, etc.) and Mike signed all of those except the blue jeans and t-shirt. He signed the original pair that Brad designed that led to this whole deal. All in all, Mike seemed like a really great guy.
I'm disappointed in the photos, but I've learned a lesson...always use the flash indoors and never try to take an action shot with a cheap digital camera.
