I saw this board on Format, today. So sick. It has all of the essentials, like sprayed on grip tape (old school Nash-style) and a built in bottle opener. Here is the Format description:

Santa Cruz introduces the ‘Land Shark’ Cruzer, which will surely revolutionize the age-old beer run tradition; full-equipped with a bottle opener on the bottom of the board, the Land Shark is just the kind of ride you’ll want for trips to the corner store before grabbing brews with their buddies this summer. The first board from this new range is the Rasta and it measures 8.8×27.5-inches and features 65mm Santa Cruz Road Rider wheels and spray-on, clear grip on the deck. The Santa Cruz Land Shark Cruzer is currently available for purchase here…

Man, I am so ready for warm weather.

It was bitter-sweet, to leave Brazil yesterday. We really had a great time there. We were initially planning on just having a casual Sunday and gearing up for the flight home, while lounging around the hotel, or something. Instead, we ended up having an action packed last day. We initially set out to photograph some of the more historical parts of the center of Rio. But when we arrived there, it was pretty apparent that it was a sketchy time to be out. Even thought it was daylight, it was Sunday morning, and there weren’t a lot of people around, except for the really seedy ones. So we got back in the cab, and decided to checkout Sugarloaf, instead. It was very cool. I’m glad that we did it. Even the the second peak was totally covered by a cloud, when we were up there, the tram ride had some superb views.

^— Descending from the highest point.

^— Looking up, from the lower peak (timer shot).

^— Reagan, on the way up to the first peak. PS, I love this shot.

After Sugarloaf, we headed back over to the Lagoa, to kill some time. We did another bike ride, rode the paddle boats, and even did a little bit of skating. Hahahah. We were watching these kids skate this bowl, at the lagoa. I decided to ask them, if they minded if I borrowed a board and took a turn. The kid was totally cool about it. Reagan snapped a couple of pics. It was a lot of fun.

^— Me, in a 5.0 grind at RJ.

Follow this link for a few more shots from our last day in Rio.

Yesterday was the final weekend of 2009 Summer Streets. It just happened to coincide with the weekend that my dad and youngest brother were in town for the tour-de-revo-war ‘09. It wasn’t the best of weather, in fact Hurricane Bill threw a pretty nasty burst at us the previous night, taking out 500 trees, in the City’s parks. In the photo above (taken by my brother Pete) part of a cordoned off downed tree can actually be seen in the back ground, as we rode/skated through Riverside Park.

Skating through Grand Central Station from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

We were not deterred by the rain though. It had actually stopped raining, for the most part, by the time that we left for Park Ave. My dad and brother were on bikes. My friend Col, decided to tackle the 20+ mile route with me, on a longboard. It was a really good ride, even though my bearings have since, completely seized up.

After we went all of the way down Park Ave. (and Lafayette) to the Brooklyn Bridge, and back to CP. We met up with Reagan and Col’s family at Bro. Jimmy’s for some barbecue. It was delicious.

Here for the rest of the photos.

Here for another short vid.

Once again this comes by way of Wooster, from Traseone. Mini shadow skater stencils. Sick.

The Truscott’s new pad in RI is located on a seriously awesome longboarding hill. There isn’t much traffic, and it is a nice steep grade. The only problem is, that there isn’t really any run-off room, unless you want to do some dirt riding, which is what I ended up doing. Tadd was riding behind me on a bike, filming. It is a little shaky at first, but then stabilizes.

Longboarding in RI from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

Here is one more. This was a shorter run, because of traffic behind us.

Longboarding on the 4th of July from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

I opted out of the the 5k, this morning, so that I would have plenty of energy for the longboard race, in Central Park. Dude-ahhh, it was bananas. Around 100 people showed. It was super chaotic and fun. We started in the south west corner of the park and did one loop on Central Park Drive (6 miles). It took about 25 minutes. The beginning was the craziest part. A guy hit a rickshaw cab, right in front of me and went down. So I hurried and stopped, as not to hit him. Then people were plowing into my back. I picked up my board and ran past the pile up, so that I still was able to get into the front pack. I was one of the first 15, or so, finishers. Col Carter came down for the race too. It was cool to have a friend there with me. Because, I’ll be honest, I felt a little bit out of place at moments (with not tattoos, not smoking cigarettes, etc.). Anyway, after the race, we decided to roll down and check out the new Times Square, traffic-less Broadway. This is another one of Bloomberg’s ideas. It was pretty cool, save the lawn chairs. I felt like they should have set up some makeshift trailer homes on the side walk, or something to go with them. Or maybe some pink lawn flamingos. But the kicker was, that I have NEVER seen it so crowded down there. Col said that he hasn’t either. I took this crappy pic with my phone, which doesn’t really even do it justice.

After venturing into Times Square, we headed back up town, ate lunch and headed home. I showered and sped off to visit my little pumpkin. She was as cute as ever. But I could tell that she missed her mom. I’m not going to lie, I loved hogging her all to myself. She was a little bit cranky when I was bathing her, but once I got her all dried off and brushed her hair, she just wanted to play play play. She even cracked a couple of smiles for the camera (again, crappy blackberry cam. Sorry). I wish that I could have held my hand steady for this one.

When I got her all dressed and was cleaning up the bath stuff, I set her in her crib. There she just sat up and watched everything that I did. It was so freaking cute.

We have been talking a lot lately about how much Piper loves to stand up. It is true. If you lift her up, her legs go out straight and she wants to dance around. Well, I was goofing off with her, getting ready to leave and here is a video of her in her crib, showing off. Once again, I apologize for the extremely poor resolution of this crap that I took with my phone.

Piper Standing in her Crib from Piper Breinholt on Vimeo.

We got Piper all moved in back at Blythedale and everything, today. I’m feeling pretty good about the way this week is coming to an end. Reagan had a girls night tonight, with one of our friends who is moving away. It gave me a chance to get out and skate a bit. It was really nice to just unwind. This time I thought ahead and wore 2 pairs of socks on my pushing foot, to avoid blisters. I didn’t take any pictures of skating, but there was a pretty dramatic sunset while I was skating down Riverside, to get to CP. These shots are on the early side, but you can image how it just got better and better.

I also ran into this little guy. I see raccoons all of the time when we are down skating in the park, but generally they are just hustling across the road and I can’t get the camera out in time. This guy, however, was up for a full on photo shoot. Standing up on the hind legs and everything.

Other kind of awesome stuff about this week/weekend:

1. The Beastie Boys (minus MCA) were on 30 Rock, last night.
2. Reagan and I are running a 10k in the morning for Kidney something or other. We will see our friend Cuomo there, for the first time since he moved back to CT.
3. Stake Conference this weekend which means that church is later and shorter than normal.
4. If I had to make an estimate, I would say that Piper is feeling probably close to 90% herself again.
5. My brother Pete’s birthday is today.
6. My first post for my new paid blogger gig was published this week.

Last night was about as perfect as it can get, when it comes to skating weather. It was high 70’s, breezy and not very much humidity. I skated down Riverside Drive to 96th Street and met up with my friend Bryan Swiss. We rode Central Park Drive from there up around the north end and back for a couple of hours. It was a pretty good time. Here is a vid of one of our runs:

Jake Longboarding in Central Park from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

I probably shouldn’t have set out on 10 mile trek, after no skating in 6 months. I got this nasty blister on my pushing foot, as a reminder. It should add some fun to the marathon, this coming weekend. Blah.

It was such a nice day outside yesterday, that I had to take a little stroll for lunch. I headed over to the Brooklyn Banks to watch some kids skate. Sadly, there weren’t very many people skating over there, when I arrived. There are a lot of new installations, since the last time I skated over there.

I saw a new fun box, as well as a volcano spine. I feel like I should get down there soon and skate. It was a beautiful walk though, and I’m glad that I went over.

I came across this by way of Animal. Is the idea pool really that shallow these days? What happened to the good old days, when the good ideas flowed like wine? Since the entire functionality of a freestyle deck requires it to be rigid and lightweight, the skateboard above has in effect been rendered useless. Chris Jackson, is clearly no Danny Way. Maybe he should design a fold-in-half rollerblade instead. Seems more up his alley. No hard feelings, Chris.