Street League Vacation Part 1 - Preliminaries!

Incredible. That is the best word I can come up with to describe how the past 5 days of my life have been. It was truly incredible and it is all thanks to Rob Dyrdek. I know there is absolutely no way I will remember every single detail of every event from the past week, but I will do my best.

As you may already know, Rob Dyrdek was kind enough to give me tickets to his Street League Skateboarding event which was held in Ontario, CA on Sept. 11th 2010. He said I could have the tickets as long as I was able to fly out to California for it. Money is super tight, but when I am determined to make something happen, I do it. I decided to bring my little brother along on this trip because he has never been to LA and it has always been a dream of his to see the city. I saved up every penny I had, and we flew out to Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept 9th. The plane ride went by quickly, probably because I had a few episodes of Fantasy Factory on my netbook.
I know you are probably wondering why Lil Rob was in the photo. I had this brilliant idea to take Lil Rob on this vacation and take pictures of him with all the famous landmarks and with every major thing we did. It started off alright, I got Lil Rob on the plane, Lil Rob watching Fantasy Factory. I think I even got Lil Rob with the Hollywood sign. By the time I got to the Street League arena, my mind was not on Lil Rob at all. I totally forgot about the little guy and didn't take any more pics of him. I still think it would have been cool. Oh well.

Once we landed,the trip didn't start out on the best foot. I had some trouble with the rental car I reserved. I had the reservation all set, but the company didn't let me rent it. I thought I'd be stranded in Los Angeles without a car, but luckily another company came through for me and it actually ended up being cheaper than the original quote. It worked out for the best. The rest of Thursday was pretty tame. I drove my brother all over Hollywood and visited the Wild Grinders 711 in North Hollywood. After that, I was pretty exhausted, my brother was exhausted, I had a headache and I knew I had a HUGE two days ahead of me. We decided to go back to the hotel and relax.

Friday morning we woke up, I showed my brother a few Hollywood landmarks, and we headed out to Ontario, CA. A few days prior to leaving for California, I was thinking about how exciting it would be to be able to attend the preliminary event on the Friday night before the actual Street League contest. Preliminaries are where all 24 skaters skate each section, and the six skaters with the highest score go on to the finals the next day. I really wanted a chance to watch everyone skate and while they were all going to skate a little bit on Saturday to see who wins the last chance qualifier, I still thought it would be so much fun to watch everyone on Friday.

It was really really difficult, but I did manage to get in touch with Rob and ask him if it would be okay if I attended. I was a little bit afraid of asking, I mean, he was already doing so much for me and didn't want him to think I was not satisfied by just going on Saturday because that wasn't the case at all. I just thought if I don't try, I will never know if I would be able to. Rob is so generous, and he said it would be no problem for my brother and I to attend the preliminaries. I was SO EXCITED! We got to the arena around 1:30pm and went over to the Guest Check-In area.

Our names were on the list and they gave us our bracelets and pointed us in the right direction. We walked over to one of the entrances to the main floor and it was AMAZING! California Skateparks really did an awesome job building this course. I was totally nervous at this point and I couldn't bring myself to walk down the stairs yet. We kind of watched from the top for a little while and then made our way to the first row behind the barricades, right behind where the judges sit.

We sat down and I saw Talisha, Rob's assistant walk by. I waved to her and then next we saw Geoffrey. I didn't really get a chance to meet Geoffrey at the sk84life party, so it was really nice to meet him this time. He came over and shook my hand and said he was glad I could make it out. He was super nice. Then, Big Cat walked by and he said hi to me as well.

My brother and I watched all the pro's practice for awhile and then I noticed Rob across the arena doing an interview. He made his way over to our side of the arena and he was stopping to say hi and shake hands with everyone that he saw and recognized. So nice of him. I wasn't sure he would be able to pick me out of the crowd. There weren't very many people in the arena at all, but still, I didn't know if he remembered what I looked like. I was wrong, he was able to recognize me and when he saw me he ran over and said hi. He told me he was glad I could make it out and he told my brother about how driven I am and how I could make millions of dollars because of how hard I work for things I want (I wish, haha). I can't remember exactly what he said because things are kind of hazy in my head when Rob Dyrdek is around. Anyways, he had a lot to do and after that he had to run.

It was really surreal seeing all these pro skaters a few feet in front of me after watching them on TV for so long. I've seen Malto, Cole and Pudwill skate before at the sk84life party, but that was kind of just a small taste of what I was in for on this night. Eric Koston was there. ERIC KOSTON! He is a legend! I knew he would be there, but still it was really cool to see him in person, haha. Ryan Sheckler was there. PAUL RODRIGUEZ! I don't know why..I just think P-Rod is awesome. Not only is he a phenomenal skater, he is really good looking. I actually think when I met him, that was the only time I was kind of star-struck on this trip because he is just SO good looking, haha. I'll get back to meeting him later. Steve Berra was floating around...I wanted to get a chance to meet Berra so bad, haha. Everyone was there. I think maybe 3 or 4 out of the 24 pro's didn't show up and one of them injured his ankle while practicing before the prelims.

The actual preliminary event was about to start and Rob was standing about 3 feet in front of my brother and I, talking to someone. I really wanted to get a photo with him on this trip and I knew as soon as the event started he would be swamped. I also promised Natasha aka @TeamDCFantasy on twitter that I would try and ask Rob to say hi to her on video if I got a chance, since she wasn't able to make it out to the event. I would never interrupt anyone, so I waited until Rob was done talking and he kind of caught me looking at him and knew I wanted him to come over. I asked him if I could get a picture with him and he said "Anything for you," haha. He hopped over the barricade and was like "Yeah, I know what you are going to do with this, you are going to go write your blog and be like '...and then Rob hopped over the barricade to take a picture with me,' hahaha. I told him he was probably right, that is exactly what I was going to do. Some other kids said hi to him and he explained to them how hard I worked to get out to this event. He stood with me there for two or three minutes and took pics with my brother and I, and he was nice enough to record the video for Natasha, which you can watch at -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAzV7vzyGd0


Rob was really amazing. He asked us our t-shirt sizes and then he had to run off. The prelims started and it was SO MUCH FUN to watch. The skaters were doing great, Malto was incredible! I took TONS of pictures and a little video, but unfortunately my digital camera doesn't take great action shots. I definitely didn't want to use the flash on my camera because I didn't want to distract the skaters at all. Other people were using it, but still, I thought I shouldn't. Here are a few of the pictures I took that came out alright -

Sean Malto


Chris Cole


Nyjah Huston


Paul Rodriguez

Anyways, watching the pro's skate was so awesome. Between every section there was a small break and I noticed random kids going down to get pics with Rob or the pros, and I saw Rob was standing next to Eric Koston. I really wanted to meet Eric, so my brother and I ran down there and Rob introduced me to Koston as his biggest fan. He told him a little bit about how I came all the way out for this and I got a pic with both Rob and Eric. Then, Ryan Sheckler skated by and I didn't even ask him to do this, but Rob called Sheckler over to meet me and I took a pic with Rob and Sheckler. Everyone was so nice, it was really great.

Rob, Me, Eric Koston


Rob, Me, Ryan Sheckler

I saw Talisha and asked her if it was okay if we just sat down at the bottom instead of going back up and she said it was cool as long as we didn't bother the skaters. I had no intention of bothering them anyways, so we sat down. Talisha came over a little bit later with two DC bags for my brother and I filled with Street League T-Shirts! It was AWESOME! I was going to buy myself a couple shirts anyways and I was actually a little worried I wouldn't have enough money to get the two I wanted. They were $25 each and I already spent a lot to just come out there. It was basically like Rob and Talisha read my mind because the exact two shirts I was planning on buying were in the bag.

We sat down in the front for the rest of the time and Geoffrey walked by. I didn't get a picture with him at the sk84life event, so I asked him if I could get one really quick and he was awesome about it.

Steve Berra was wandering around, but he was busy talking to people the whole time, so I didn't want to bother him and introduce myself. Preliminaries ended and the six that made it to the finals were -

-Chaz Ortiz
-Sean Malto
-Paul Rodriguez
-Chris Cole
-Ryan Sheckler
-Greg Lutzka

I saw Talisha and thanked her again for everything. I went up to Rob and waited until he was done with the conversation he was having. He looked over at me and asked if we were leaving, and I said yeah, and I thanked him again. He asked if I had fun and I said I had the best time. I asked if Berra was still around and Rob said he didn't think so, but he would make sure I got a chance to meet him tomorrow. I asked if I could maybe say hi to Paul Rodriguez and Rob yelled across the arena for Paul to come over. He skated over and really...i was starstruck. I hate to admit it because I usually never get that feeling, but it happened. Rob told P-Rod I was Rob's biggest fan and asked if he would take a picture with me. Paul asked how I was doing and said of course he would. I kinda just mumbled thanks, probably with a stupid grin on my face, and got the picture. P-Rod told me to have a good night and I said you too. Then I thanked Rob again and he said he will see me tomorrow!

That was prelims...it was so incredible and I'm sure there are tons of things I accidentally left out in this post. We are landing shortly, so I am going to cut this blog short right here. I will write another entry as soon as I can about the Street League event itself. If you thought this day was amazing, just wait. Every time I thought it couldn't get any better, it did. To Be Continued...