THUNDER! THUNDER! THUNDER!

Are you kidding me? What a day! I don't know that I can convey the stoke of the best Thunder experience ever (so far), but I'll try.
7:00am, we arrive. Gear included 2 fully loaded ThunderWagons, rolling cooler, and rolling duffel. This is the first year that we didn't have 40 pound backpacks too. Hunkered down and ready to enjoy the day, I head out to find Reed Yaden, a local tv personality, to do a on-air Anniversary Shout-Out. Success! (cheesy, but necessary as I got engaged at Thunder 3 years ago and Reed flew over the house in his helicopter for footage of the fiance. My on air stuff never goes as cool and smooth as I imagine. I'm a dork. I'm a much better cameraman.)

Soon after, Werkin' Kyle rolled in and we were hittin' the skatepark. I was padless (but always cover your lead elbow) and Kyle was a really bad influence and kept pressuring me into padless 6' 50-50s and a BS Air. Pulled 'em without injury and only a bit of sketch. (Gotta chill as I have 3 parks to hit in Tucson next week.) He was rippin' the capsule as usual, lookin' stylish in his shades the whole time. A fun, though short, session was had. I convinced him to join us for a short while, including a visit to a neighboring camp housing Tom - a friend and Corydon skateshop owner. We talked, we drank,('cept for "my body is a temple" Kyle), we b-s'd the time away. Eventually the 2nd crew rolled in that included all the other Hoosiers for our group. My super cool brother hooked me up with a BRIDGE PASS! (For the 2nd Street bridge-a very limited access area. They wouldn't let me ALL the way on the bridge, more to a lack of my creative prowess in explaining my connection to the National Guard and their equipment than to a limited pass. But I understand the security for such an area. Maybe next year. I got some FANTASTIC Lil' Tony photos and footage. Which of course led to me telling the LT story - always fun to me. The bridge guards were super cool and gracious, and even encouraged the patent and marketing on the street grip. (Workin' on it.) Thank you so much volunteers! (Hopefully we have new Concretin fans now, as I explained that too.) I do wish I had known the cannons were shooting so soon, as soon as we walked off the bridge, they fired. Damn, that would have been some cool footage. Oh well. Maybe next year.

We were able to convince Kyle to stick around long enough to witness the Blue Angels air show, SO COOL. The rest of the air show didn't seem as impressive as years past, but it IS hard to top the Angels. (Oh, and a big Piss Off to those protesting the military aircraft in the show. You have right to voice your opinion and I have the same right. You suck. The air show is patriotic, and an appropriate salute to all of our troops, past and present, those lost and those still fighting.) I hope to have some decent footage, but it's VERY difficult to capture planes flying at 400+ mph on film. At the very least I got some great audio of that awesome sound of a fighter jet screaming through the sky.

We passed the rest of the day with chillin' and games. About an hour before Thunder we circled the wagons(tents) a bit tighter to prevent the lame ass people who show up and try to get a good spot to watch the fireworks about 12 hours too late from stumbling through our camp. You people SUCK. Losers. We only had one group cop a squat on our collapsed tent(so people behind could see the bridge better), my bro kinda gave them the ok, but YOU PEOPLE SUCK! But, I've calmed down a bit about those people (who SUCK) over the years, and I try to focus on the event and the kerayzee good day we've had. I'll never set up with ANY space between the tents again. A fully enclosed circle will be our compound next year.

Despite the country music theme (luckily, you could rarely hear the tunes over the blast of thousands of pounds of fireworks going off), the show was insane! It always is. It NEVER dissappoints. It's always worth the "hassle" of campin' and dealing with people who suck. I shot some footage, but you can't get the full effect on film, but hopefully the BOOM of Thunder transfers well. A great close to an already killer day. If you watched it on tv, you didn't see it.

Now, for the exit... the people who didn't suck during the day, now mix with the people who do suck, and they all suck even more. And yes, I absolutely CAN say everyone else sucks, because were responsible and courteous spectators all day and our camp was trash free when we left it, just like we found it. It seems everyone else just dropped their trash where they stood. We packed up the ThunderWagons relatively quickly and easily and headed to the car with the "gear trailer", in the $25 "not-far" lot. That lot was ideal for the load in, but a nightmare for the exit. It took that vehicle 2 hours to get home. (1.5 of that was going only about 5 miles - because the cops stopped the street traffic to unload several entire lots ahead of them at several points along River Road. A truly asinine and non-productive traffic idea. Ya gotta stagger the traffic bright boys!) Also idiotic was the closing of I-65 to anyone except city buses, for a meer 15,000 bus riders, out of 800,000 attendees. DUH! So all of the people who would have been on the highway and rollin' out sans intersection after intersection, were left to navigate intersection after intersection. (Keep the northbound side closed and put the buses there - northbound traffic was already being diverted on the south side of the city all evening and this wouldn't add any ill effects!)

But more than half our crew walked out after loading up the gear trailer to a waiting van about 15-18 blocks away. Why that far? Because it's not really that far (especially without gear) and the commute out is shorter. Though due to the above "dumbassity" it took 45 minutes to get home a short 5 miles away - compared to 12 minutes when I-65 was open 3 years ago. (Last year was easy because the bad weather kept everyone home to begin with. Wusses.) But the intersection cops along our route were adequate and properly staggered the flow. (Well done Coppers.) Anyway, we were zombies once we made it home, and we waited for the gear trailer to arrive. They made it an hour later. We got everything unloaded, said our good byes and thank yous all around. Sans the city screwing up the better traffic plan of years past, this was hands down the BEST Thunder ever. Next year, it will be difficult to top this. I hope to keep this stoke rolling through the next week during our anniversary trip to Tucson, Arizona.

Thanks to everyone of our camp and crew. Bro Brian and the girls, Brianna, Ashley, Emily*, Auburn, Mom, Bro Denis, Adam's family, and all the Hoosiers, Kirk, Lucy, Jenny*, Luke*, and Taylor*. (*Thunder virgins) Let's do it again next year! And special thanks to my favorite Hoosier of all time, Alice. Happy Anniversary and thanks for putting up with my "other" obsession. (I'm not obsessed, just creatively appreciative.)