Thank you

Almost one year in America and I have been adjusting/intergrating pretty good, eating burgers, dunkin donuts and driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee around the country.

I also learned some typical American customs and one in particular, thanking.
Thank you notes, thank you for coming, thank you for having us, thank you and thanx bro.
Love this habbit, it seems like a game sometimes, who says the last thanks and till now I always lose.

Me: "Thank you for inviting us"
They: "Thank you for coming"
Me: ...

Me: "Thank you for coming"
They: "Thank you for inviting us"
Me: ...

Me: "Thank you so much for the gifts"
They: "Thank you for inviting us"
Me: ...

Me and Jesse have been thanking allot and are thank full for even more.
We have been invited to Sharice and Justin's wedding which was beautiful and classic.

Bijna een jaar in Amerika en ik heb me aardig aangepast al zeg ik hetzelf, ik eet hamburgers, Dunk Donuts en rij rond in een Jeep Grand Cherokee. Ik leer ook enkele typische Amerikaanse gewoontes zoals het bedanken. Dankbriefjes, bedankt voor uw komst, bedankt voor de uitnodiging, dank u en thanx bro. Ik vind het een mooie gewoonte, soms is het net een spelletje, wie het laatste "dank u" zegt. Tot nu toe verlies ik altijd.

Ik: "Bedankt voor de uitnodiging"
Zij: "Bedankt dat jullie hier zijn"
Ik: ...

Ik: "Bedankt dat jullie hier zijn"
Zij: "dank u voor de uitnodiging"
Ik: ...

Ik: "Bedankt voor jullie kadootjes"
Zij: "dank u voor de uitnodiging"
Ik: ...

Jesse en ik hebben heel veel bedankt en zijn dankbaar voor veel meer.
We zijn uitgenodigd op de bruiloft van Sharice en Justin en dit was klassiek!

Always nice seeing women jump, no catfight unfortunately

 We have been at the inauguration of Rosanne Somerson, the new president of RISD it was also bring your dog day.

 

Not we but I've been at the the birthday party of Eliott (Jesse is still at the Dutch Design Week).
And it was awesome!!!

 

Hangover day, especially Murth needed the coffee.

I was invited at Jack's 3rd birthday and was stuffed with cupcakes and left Haloween gifts! Aawesome!

Barca...2015

The last 4/5 years we've been to Barcelona to eat tappas and do a little blading.
The main characters of this yearly event are:

Ivo HDP, he organizes the whole trip, the flight, the apartment and he's our personal piggy bank during the trip, our wallets are to small and math has never been our thing...

How much money do we have left in the pot?

RhoeLLL, he does the actual blading and he is always the positive and uplifting spirit in the group by hating on almost everything especially us, the apartment, blading, the pavement, you name it he hates it, gotta love him.

Ik haat vliegen

Me, I don't do nothing.... I don't do anything and I do nothing at the same time, what can I say, I'm good at it or nothing actually. I like food so I make breakfast once a while and of course I try blading, love bading.



The last two years Ralf Resuk a.k.a. Kleine Ralf joint us, the second hater in the group, loves blading though and for some reason he liked the Barca trip in 2014 and we liked him so he was welcome to join the Barca2015 trip.

Tell me why?! Ain't nothing but a heart ache...Tell me...

Oh and Ruudje, totally forgot about Ruud, he eats chocolate.

He also loves paella, this wasn't good,
one thumb up by RhoeLLL

We found ourself a couple of hipsters to upgrade the swag in our group

As I said I was fucking lazy, although I shot a couple clips of some blading or actually I pointed the camera towards the spot, pressed record sometimes and that's it.
So here I have for you a four minute too long of a edit of three spots...enjoy

the worst and the most beautiful...

Back home in the Netherlands two things happened, OK allot of things happened!
Two things in particular happened the first thing blew my mind, Edwin died. The worst thing.
I've seen the Blading community showing their respects which was the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time

THE WORST
Edwin Wieringh died on Tuesday the 22nd of september 2015, 32 years old...it still blows my mind.

Edwin was a good friend of us, I say us because Edwin was friends with the whole Dutch Blading community and all the Bladers he met outside The Netherlands, Belgium, The UK, Germany, The States, the old, the young and more. Anybody who met Edwin will remember his positivity, his "fun head" (in dutch it's "pret hoofd") and his drive to blade! I think Edwin was never angry or upset,
at least I've never seen the guy being frustrated or mad. Even at contests when it didn't work out, Edwin could explain why with a smile.
Sometimes I wish I could be positive like that, no worries, no screaming/yelling, no swearing
(I swear a fucking lot and loud sometimes...), no throwing my blades. Then again if I could roll on my blades like Edwin did, I would probably scream all the time with joy and laughter!
Blading was his passion and Eddy was gooood, he was a pro, he traveled the world but being a pro-blader means you need a full time job as well. No problem for Edwin.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Once the news that Edwin was really dead, friends organized a get together the next day in Amsterdam and at least 80/100 bladers showed up. We had some beers, checked out some blading videos of Edwin on the wall with a beamer. The videos showed us again what a magnificent blader he was and we cheered and applaud!!! We also cried and realized this is it....

At the funeral I think 300 people showed up and 200 of them were bladers some from Belgium a couple blokes from the UK and allot of dutchies from allover the country. We all gathered at the parking lot. Inside the ceremony hall we made it fit with the 70 chairs, no one didn't mind to stand.
All the bladers brought their blades, lined up on both sides of the road and raised them in the air when the hearse passed us and we followed the hearse to it's final destination. This caused the longest parade/cortege I've ever seen. Seeing all these people coming together was impressive and the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time.

We all wanted to pay our respects to Edwin and show his parents, his family and each other we will miss him.

Edwin was a nerd, a blading nerd because all he talked about was blading and showing you the latest clips he shot of the tricks he did, the best category of nerds there is, bladers. Just like everybody he needed oxygen to breath but blading was like breathing for Edwin and he needed it he bladed 5-6 days a week next to his full time job just because he loved it!
I had the honour to know Edwin for over 16 years, one of the nicest and positive guys I've known.
Shit man...still can't believe it.
Roll In Peace.