About Me

Here is a little background info on my life:

I was born in South Carolina in 1986 and lived there until I was 7. I moved to Texas after living in Montana and Guatemala briefly and stayed in Texas until I finished High School. Upon graduating I quickly moved to Portland, OR. I spent one year at University of Portland and was not very happy with it. I took a year off and established recidency then started going to PSU to study Graphic Design. Right now I am a Senior in the design program and am very close to being done.

Bozeman skatepark 2002(?)

The first skateboard I ever had was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Skateboard (I think…) that I got in South Carolina when I was too young to know what to do with it. Once I moved to Texas I upgraded to a Nash board and started making small plywood and 2×4 jumps to go off of. Eventually I got my first real skateboard deck from World Boards in Bozeman, MT. It was an Alien Workshop board with flame griptape on it. Pretty badass. I dabbled in street skating and some mini-ramp stuff but never got too good at it. Towards the end of High School I got into BMX then Rock Climbing and skating took the backseat until I moved to Portland.

I had always heard of the Burnside skatepark and wanted to ride my bike there. Everybody has heard rumors of the gnarly/tough locals there so I was a little hesitant. I got down there at 7am one morning planning to ride my bike but people were already skating. Since I had an old skateboard in my car (which was an ambulance at the time) I decided to bust it out. Once I got in the park I realized how gnarly it really was. It was truly inspiring to see a skatepark built with big vert walls and rollers, hips and spines everywhere. After that day I started going back to Burnside once a week in the morning with my skateboard.

Mt. Tabor 2005

Although I didn’t like going to U.P., my time there was not ill-spent. I had my parents ship my old longboard up from Texas and started cruising around on that. During a trip to Montana I bought a Sector 9 dvd called Bomb Hills Not Countries. It was a big mix of skating and it had a short clip with Danny Connor doing some downhill racing in New Mexico. I was very impressed by seeing the downhill stuff and kinda wanted to start doing it (not thinking I’d ever be able to truly bomb a hill). Eventually I got a proper downhill board (and some slide gloves) and began checking out all the lovely hills that Portland has to offer. Which eventually led me to Zoobomb. Once I met up with the Zoo Crew I was hooked. Late night shenanigans, goofy/fun people, high speed bombing on crazy contraptions. How can you not love that?!? Once I started hanging out with the Zoobombers my life started going downhill (in a good way).

Zoobomb Bike Rack Unveiling

Recently, I’ve gotten back into climbing and am stoked to go hit some real cliffs whenever the weather is nice. I’m not quite as strong as I used to be but I enjoy it just the same. Been spending lots of time out at Rocky Butte working on routes that people have climbed almost 40 years ago.

Not sure how to end a post that is background info about me… I guess I will just leave it unfinished so I can come back and edit it once more cool stuff happens. Until then, I will be hanging out doing the Portland thing.