Elissa and BA. The next day Jamie T. was there. And Ed. Almost all of the Welcome to Hell roster.

I missed all of the free schwag that was being thrown up into the stands, and I missed every time my opportunity to stab a hole in the floating ball that kept pinging off peoples' heads. A few companies went with the blow up plastic sticks that are simply used to bang together and make the most annoyingly loud clapping sound. After every day literally everyone suddenly realizes to themselves, "what the hell are these useful for now?' and throws them on the ground and steps on them, creating a battlefield of gunshot sounds as they pop all around the arena. Hey Landfill, open your puckered lips and accept just a little more one-time use plastic into your earthly belly.

Also from the stands I happened to be sitting behind (both days I might add, and different girls too, leaving me no choice but to surmise that the stands were comprised of one third industry people, one third general skateboarding fans, and one third specifically Ryan Sheckler fans.) a group of girls who had their digital cameras set to full zoom and whose arms swayed back and forth following Sheckler around the course. They squealed when he made a good trick, and creamed themselves when he took his shirt off confirming what we already knew that he is in fact Sheckler by way of SHECKLER tattooed in 6-inch-tall lettering across his shoulders. The girls all did a collective "Awwwwwww" when Shecklers' dad gave his son a cheek to cheek pep-talk before his session, or was it a prayer? Of all the things going on in this world would God be so benevolent as to make Ryan win a skateboard contest and hence $100,000 dollars? (And lets assume further, for fun, that the $100,000 prize money may just be to buy a Lamborghini to add to his quiver of cars.) I only mention a Lamborghini because one of the funnier answers to the question "What would you do with the $100,000?" was from Terry Kennedy who quickly and shortly replied, "Lamborghini.") (When the winner of the contest, Chris Cole was asked the same question he replied in a much more practical way saying, "Saving it in the bank." Smart kid.)

Yesterday I was sitting in the stands and a kid walks into the bench in front of me with his dad. He is wearing and Etnies shirt and a RedBull hat. He was busy eating a giant corn-dog. Just to test a theory I shouted out, "Whoa is that Sheckler?" And he almost jumped out of his seat, his head choppily scanning side to side like a birds might hoping to get a bearing on the Sheckler. It was fun. Ryan skated real good and took a manly slam trying to BS flip from the roof gap into the bank.