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Story number one.

I convinced my best man Joe that he needed to drive down to Missouri with me and experience the awesomeness. As we were heading into Iowa I got a call from Seth saying that he would like to grab lunch with us at Dave’s house when we passed through Des Moines. Joe never really met Dave or Seth but he knew who Dazzling Dave was and naturally assumed that he was the Dave that we would be seeing. We rolled up to Dave’s house and Dave’s Mom was in the driveway and I greeted her and introduced her to Joe as Dave’s Mom. She told use that Dave and Seth were in the basement. Joe later explained to me how confused he was about all of this because he couldn’t figure out why Dazzling Dave’s Mom was so young and why he would be hanging out in the basement with the young and spry Seth Peterson. After I introduced him to Seth and Dave his confusion was quickly resolved, but for that short period he was really confused.

Story number two.

The City Museum has a skateless skate park where kids can run up and down the vert-ramps bang their heads on large cement bowls until they are sick and tired. The skateless skate park was the location of the Sport Ladder division that I was judging with the uncompromisingly heroic Pat Cuartero. The sport ladder is typically the red-headed stepchild of modern yo-yo contests; it’s a throwback to the contests of our parents’ generation. The sport ladder proves skill with a yo-yo but it fails to showoff the older brother of skill, which is talent. What I am getting at is that nobody really cares about the sport ladder… but on July 14^th in the skateless skate park of the City Museum people cared.

Pat started the event off by demonstrating all of the tricks on the ladder; if he had been competing he would have won. When Pat started the demonstration there was a small group of the ladder enthusiasts watching and the MoYo cheerleaders surrounding the performance area. As we got further down the trick ladder the crowd grew larger and larger and Pat and I had to shout louder and louder in order for everyone to hear the trick and the description. By the time that we started the judging process the whole room was packed with people watching and cheering the competitors on. The last competitor of the ladder was Nate Weddle and he was amp’d, he brought a real energy up on stage (the same energy that permeates from his Luchadore yo-yo) with a fantastic finish to the best ladder I have ever judged. I want to thank Pat and everyone who participated in the ladder that day. I couldn’t have asked for a better event to be my final judging experience.

-Josh

Posted on July 22nd, 2007 by schalicto
Filed under: Josh Rants