Upside Down Bros

As you know the Bros are always trying something new with flips and adventure. Well recently, Cameron introduced the idea of just doing handstands on your free time. I thought it would be a great idea if all the bros learned to do handstands, it would make us that much cooler. So recently Josh, Billy and I (Sanam), have been trying to handstand when ever we are bored. Josh ran into a couple difficulties by injuring his shoulder, but nothing will slow him down. Billy and I are getting better day by day, by practicing every time we get the chance. We all learn very quickly so expect more awesome pictures as soon as our next adventure.

Cameron in Alaska

-Sanam

Beach Side BBQ? Fire Pit? Sycamore Canyon

 Sycamore Canyon

Ever wonder where you could BBQ on the beach in Southern California without getting ticketed? Drive 10minutes north of Zuma Beach on the PCH and you'll find yourself at Sycamore Canyon. As the name implies, it's a beach covered with sycamore trees, you can't miss it. Once you find it, you can either park inside for a small fee until sunset or park along the PCH and walk a little into the lot. Find yourself a table and fire pit and set up for the day. Remember to bring your own wood and charcoal! Improvising with beach wood is a sure fire way to smoke out the park and meet a few park rangers.
This beach, like all others in LA county and Ventura County, "closes" at sunset. Meaning the park rangers can tell you to leave once the sun has set. Although I don't advise you to gamble with your night, we've never been told to leave before 10pm. Also, remember how you parked your car along the PCH? Did you notice the parking sign? NO PARKING 10PM-5AM. Two parking tickets ($68) later, they mean serious business. Unfortunately, there's really no way around this.
I'm not a big fan of all the regulation of our coast but that's for another entry...
Well, I hope you're curious and check out Sycamore Canyon sometime. Beautiful sunsets, great bbq, and a roaring fire will keep this as one of our local spots!
See yah there!
-JoshW

Bros' Guide to Food Truckin' Chow

Sometimes, trying new things doesn't always have to be painful. Sometimes, it's rather enjoyable, especially when it comes to great food. Within the past year, catering trucks have become the new craze. Long gone are the days when food trucks would come to serve early morning breakfasts to construction sites and the such. Fortunately, Granada Hills has been blessed with a multitude of catering trucks.
Every Wednesday and Friday afternoon and night, trucks line up to serve customers along nearly a mile of Chatsworth street between Zelzah and White Oak.

Having to choose between french cooking, native american flatbread, and numerous other fusion cuisines can be a chore in itself. However, after sampling and cruising our way back and forth through Chatsworth, we found ourself coming back to the "New York Galbi". Aside from the free samples, we were intrigued by the unique blend of mexican and korean bbq cuisine. As frequents of both styles, it was nearly impossible to skip on this fusion dish.

Our dish of choice was the spicy pork burrito. A grilled flour tortilla stuffed with korean bbq style pork, kimchi, scrambled egg, and a unique spicy sauce, this was something special. Along with the great food, was a great host. John our server and possible owner of the truck, was very welcoming and very interested in his customers. He was never shying away from potential guests, complementing passers by, offering them a taste of bbq beef and kimchi/crab quesodilla.  

BillyC about to dig into his Spicy Beef Burrito

The New York Galbi food truck with John workin'

 Well, that's a quick little update about Friday nights on Chatsworth. Hope you all can make it out once and give one of these trucks your business. It's a great place to meet locals in your neighborhood and make acquaintances with local shop owners.

See Ya'll Out There!

JoshW

Summer Longboard Build-off!

Well, as some of you may or may of not heard, Summer is just about here. With a new season should come new goals. I want to keep up this idea of challenging one another to try something new, learn a skill.
This month-or even week- my own personal goal is to build an entire long board out of scratch. Well aside from building the trucks, it will be entirely handcrafted. It should also be noted that I do not know entirely how to skateboard, longboard, surf. So this is all new to me!
I started the build on Tuesday, May 24th. It's going to be 43 inches long with it being 8 inches wide. Usually a board is made out of a harder wood-maple,oak,birch- or bamboo. I chose the poplar, a type of birch wood, due to #1 cost and #2 it's thickness.


















This is what I'm aiming for, a classic longboard.
Funny thing with this board is that it is $189
I'm going to provide everyone with a list of material and rough cost:

• 4ftx1ftx3/4in piece of Poplar Wood- $20.
• Just a note about this piece of wood, it is recommended to use 2 or 3 sheets of 1/4'' wood and glue them together. This will allow the wood to camber(bend) and provide overall durability.
• Polyurethane lacquer- $7 (clear)
• Sandpaper (used left over scraps)
• I still need trucks which I estimate ~$40

I don't see this board costing me even 1/2 of the $189. I'm hoping this thing holds up!

Here's a nice preview:

Above: Poplar wood after being cambered, cut, and sanded

DAY 2:
Picked out the paint and prepared it for a few coats of lacquer!

Above:Left:Top of board lacquered. Right: Bottom of board

 It's not quite perfect, but I'm dang proud of it so far! I'll update this post when I'm finished with it.

UPDATE!!!

One month later it's all come together. I'll skip the explanation and just show you the darn pic!

Finished!

It's your turn!

~JoshW

Challenge Response!

So we were challenged by Cam to start doin' some backflips.
Challenge accepted, man.

What better place to practice than at Zuma Beach?

Here is our vid!



(Created by JoshW)

Taking it to the next level

Alright, I have an idea. An idea that will keep us motivated to separate us from the everyone else. Hey, it will even give us something to do on the days when were just sitting in a parking lot wondering what to do.  I noticed the bro's have been trying to defy gravity lately with the backflips and gainers. I like it. So my challenge for all of us is to pull a flip of some sort off of a cliff, house, tree, car, boat, bench, ground etc. Get creative. But we should all post what we came up with by the following Monday. Then next Monday someone else will step it up and come up with a new challenge for us. After all, the name of this blog is "The Bros Guide To Stoke." We have to live up to that name. So get out there and have fun.

Challenge of the week: Flip.

Video/pictures due: May 2, by 10:00 PM

Love the Bros

I've felt the need to pay homage to the Bros all week.

Last weekend, Mitchel, JoshW and I were sitting in my backyard, like old times, discussing how we're gonna buy a house. We talked about how much we were gonna trick it out, how much fun were gonna have, and most importantly (unfortunately) how much we'll have to put up to make the Bropad become reality.

After over ten years of knowing half of you, I'm thankful that I can share this next part of our lives with all of you. This week has been sucking, and all I'm looking forward to is hanging with the Bros doing whatever. I don't care if we're just driving up a random mountain just to find ourselves stuck in hailstorm to sleeping in Mitchel's den and coming to the conclusion that we're invincible.

As long as I'm with the Bros, I'm perfectly content.

This post is nothing more than a reminder of how thankful I am for you all. Hopefully, we'll get that house and turn it from this: 

to this:

We'll get it done, Bros...

3/26/11 -- Shots Fired, Always Remember, Never Forget

-The sketchest Bro