Thursday, October 20, 2005

More skateboard park repars

The sun finally burned away the cloudy remnants left by the thunder and lightening storm on Monday. Early morning mist revealed the evaporation in progress and created a dreamy atmosphere. Mark and I arrive at the Ojai Skateboard Park once again to continue repairs. We begin by screwing in long blue electrical screws into the metal lips which interface the skate sheets with the awsphalt. Soon enough, Mark discovers that there is a hole in the skate sheet on the "Pyramid". Upon further inspection, he determines that the plywood underneath has rotted as well from being water logged. This internal damage is not from the recent rains. It is from the record setting precipitation from last year. Toby arrives, grabs a screw gun and starts tightening up the ramp in the west.

A couple skaters come up. They ask if they can help. Brothers. Names: John and Jeff Freeman. Cool dudes. One has a video camera. They both skate. One of them is a videographer. He one a bunch of awards last year at the Ojai Fim Festival. Something like best editing, best documentary for students. They end up sharing footage on their old digital video camera that shows one of them doing a back flip on his skateboard. Made it look easy.

The repairs contiue. Mark falls thru the ramp at one point. The water damage is quite extensive and we end up having to tear up around 16 feet by 8 feet of The Pyramid ramp. The work takes all day and the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be moving away as we strive to reach it. The repairs needed are extensive. It is good we caught it before anyone got hurt from one of the ramps collapsing.

The Ojai Film Festival has arrived and featured the March of the Penguins last night in Libbey Bowl on a giant projection screen with a 35 thousand dollar projector. Very powerful film. These Emperor Penguins are completely mad. To see what they go thru firsthand has left me immeasurabley impressed by their will to live and their will to love. Afterwards, the director gave a Q and A. My question, that I did not ask is: Why do they do it? Why not breed somewhere more hospitable?