History.

In 2003, Ben edited together a three-minute video of our friends to share online. It was simply titled The Dailygrind Crew, referring to the website he was running at the time. First there was the popup-riddled dailygrind.freeservers.com, and, later, once he had filled up his allotment of free web-hosting space, there was the no-less-irritating dailygrind.8m.com domain. The sites remain today as shaky internet relics--a low-tech, unnavigable template; dated fashion and bike parts; youthful faces; and tricks we probably wouldn't bother archiving today. Ben could have taken the sites down, but he chose instead to leave them up as tributes to the happy years documented within.

All nostalgia aside, we were riding our hardest, truly, and I think it shows, on some level. No, that's not Adobe Aftereffects--that's authentic third-generation analog videotape shot with a VHS-C camcorder. To fully appreciate, download in high-res, ~57 mb.

... Or here's the YouTube, where it will just look like normal crap YouTube:


Locations/Riders: Everett, Washington: Phil Lastname, John Lastname, Andrew Longstreet, Shay Shefflebein; St Louis, Missouri: Ryan Johnson, John Haase; Portland, Oregon: Darus Albon and Dustin Anderson; and Ben and myself, jetsetting worldwide, riding and filming. Most of these guys are featured in the new video.

Here's another video Ben and I made in 'o4 or 'o5. Different concept. Call it "street riding." At 7mb, I really think you should just download the .wmv file, but here's the YouTube, in case.


After the session, Ben and I barely managed to load the block into the back of my Oldsmobile station wagon. As it was far heavier than I could lift on my own, it remained in my car for an entire year, ruining my mileage, before I finally dumped the thing in the alley behind our house. I can't imagine someone putting in the energy that removing it would require. It's probably sitting exactly where I left it three years ago. If anyone in STL is interested, I'd be happy to provide directions. And I would hope you'd post footage of whatever ensued.

Last Chance to Contribute

I'm done filming. I'm done capturing. Editing is 90% complete, and I could finish that, too, but I am under the hopeful impression that some people still want to contribute footage. I know where that footage will go, if I receive it, but I can't hold up production waiting for just one more clip. No more delays.

Working on credits now. Final Cut makes things like scrolling text idiot-proof, so it's not hard to get what's in my head onto the screen; but there's a part of me that's self-conscious of the lack of custom motion graphics. Production levels on bmx videos are way way up, all across the board, and our video will definitely be in the class of "local scene video." That's fine with me. Some of my favorite videos are scene videos...

I edited a sort of "trailer" calling for people to submit their clips.
The full res 12 mb .mov file is available to download here, or you can watch it via YouTube, which is easier, but not nearly as pretty. I also wish I could undo the automatically selected video still, but, ah, well... so it goes. I'm glad we're here.

To everyone that produced--huge thanks.

MMP

My daughter arrived at 6 am, Tuesday, the 10th of July. She is perfect.

Seven pounds. Apgar score: 9, 9. The nurse, before she measured length, had me guess how long, and I knew without hesitation that she was exactly twenty inches.

(BMX!)

We put up a public flickr slideshow here. As of this morning, her first growth spurt has yet to hit, so she is still balls up to the approximate size of a beautiful, beautiful football.

Markie is her name, after my dad Mark.

Markie Maze Piff.