Dave Nelson | SecretPenguin Blog

It’s been too busy lately, but super fun and exciting. Here’s a quick recap of everything…

A Day With Steve

I finally made it back down to Lincoln to skateboard with my good friend Steve Andel. Most people know him as Venom. We skated ditches, curbs, wallrides and just cruised around. Definitely one of my favorite guys to skateboard with. He always has fun and enjoys skating everything.

Go Skateboarding Day

National Go Skateboarding Day was June 21. I helped plan with BBB LTD and we teamed up with Red Bull and had 5 best trick contests throughout the city at actual skatespots. We got kicked out by a lot of security guards and police. It was super fun skating through the streets with over 80 people. You can see more at BBB-LTD.com and at Dave Giesbrecht’s gallery.

New Omaha Skatepark Design

We decided on a skatepark company to go with this past week. As I mentioned before, I was asked to be on the Metro Skatepark Committee to help plan and design the new Omaha skatepark. A couple weeks back we interviewed 3 companies. The best one in my opinion was Pillar. These are the guys that helped design the very first Skate Plaza with Rob Dyrdek. Brad, the owner of Pillar is a super cool guy, and seems really passionate about making this park great. I’m happy to say we’ll be going with him and his company for the new Omaha Skatepark!

I don’t think I can show the full design yet, but up above is a little preview. It’s going to be gooooood.

Omaha TweetUp

This past Saturday, we had the first Omaha TweetUp. It was a fun event at Aroma’s Coffee. You can read a full review of it on Joe Schmidt’s blog. It was good to put a face to a tweet.

Storm Damage

The storm hit us pretty hard. Fortunately, it missed our house and nobody was hurt. I hope the same for everyone else. Our new fence, deck, skateboard ramp and landscaping all got destroyed. Huge thanks to everyone that came out and helped us!
You can see all the damage and progress on our Flickr account.

It’s been a fun and interesting week…

The other day, we were buying domain names and I told Cody he should buy CodyPeterson.com before someone else does.

But he didn’t. So I bought it without him knowing, and set up a website with a live webcam pointed at him. After 3 hours of live feed, he ended up finding out after a bunch of people kept messaging Cody saying they’re watching him!

CodyPeterson.com

Omaha native skateboarder Joe Hammeke - staff photographer at Thrasher Magazine and skateboarder Robbie Brockel were on their way to the Damn Am Contest up in Minnesota at 3rd Lair, and stopped by the SecretPenguin studio.

Joe Hammeke may be able to take great skateboard photos for one of the best magazines around…

And Robbie Brockel may be able to win Best Trick contests and get a trick named after him(video from 411VM)…

But are these guys capable of beating Cody and I at Paddle Ball?
Check out PaddleBattle.com next Wednesday to find out!

I posted a while back about the meeting for a new skatepark in the La Vista area.

I’m happy to say I was asked to be on the Metro Skatepark Committee. We met this past week and went over some designs and proposals sent in by a few companies. The top 2 were from Pillar and Site Design.

I was very impressed with Pillar’s designs. These are the guys that worked with Rob Dyrdek on his Skate Plaza in Kettering, OH.

Red Bull flew my friend Jeff Chase and me up for the opening a few years back.

We’re meeting with the 2 companies on June 10th and will interview each one. I know I need to keep an open mind, but after seeing the submitted designs from Pillar and skating their past work, it’s hard not to be biased.

When we opened our studio in our new location, we made a decision to try and support artists in everything we did. We decided this because we value design, and wanted our studio to represent that. We wanted to attract clients that valued design as well.

There’s not really one set way on how to support designers, but one way we decided to do this was to hire an artist to build custom furniture and/or buy authentic. We got Eames molded plastic rocking chairs for the front. And then hired dKISER design.construct to work with us on the desks, shelves and coffee table. And next we plan on bringing back the SecretPenguin label and collaborate with other artists on different products and clothing (hopefully by Fall time).

Doug from dKISER, just finished our custom runners for our Eames Rockers so they match the rest of the wood in our studio. And he also added lights to the bottom of our coffee table. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I’ve been with Doug’s service and work.

There’s so many things that make this world beautiful, and design plays a big part in the aesthetics. So please keep supporting good design and the arts!

Sara and I went to the driving range, and Tyler Paulson and I skated my mini-ramp over the past weekend. It feels good to be able to spend time outside again.

I like this photo cause the ball is still on the tee! Sara actually did way better than I did.

I fell skateboarding, and I must have slid in something tasty.

Hung out with my beautiful wife and our goofy dogs this weekend.
Riley howled at the tornado sirens, and James played paddle ball with me.

One of the things we focus on at SecretPenguin is making legit stuff for “youth culture”. I feel stupid even categorizing my friends and I like that. But there are too many Ad Execs that take skateboarding and our “lifestyle” and completely misrepresent it.

Even some of the larger companies that you think would do just a bit of research could get it right. But Cisco completely missed it, Target completely missed it, even Mountain Dew missed it, and just about every other company missed it.

If you’re not a skateboarder and you’re looking at the links above and don’t get why they are horrible representations of skateboarding, then it’s important to research it and hire a place that knows skateboarding and it’s culture before using it in advertising.

When I was a Freshman in high school, they used to let all the skateboarders out 5 minutes early to avoid fights, I’ve gotten jumped by a car full of guys because I was skateboarding, I’ve been handcuffed and thrown up against a building for skateboarding down the street heading somewhere, and I’ve had guns pulled on me because some guys didn’t like skateboarders. You have to understand, this is a tight group of people that were rejected for so long and recently over the past few years are being noticed.

And now that it is popular, people want to use it to promote their brand. And I’m fine with that, but at least have the decency and respect of doing a little research and getting it right.

A while back I agreed to do a skateboard photoshoot for some friends at Bozell for Alegent Health. The only reason I agreed to it was because I knew the people and I knew they would do it right… and most importantly, wanted to do it right.

I was able to choose what I wore, not wear full pads, and approve the photo.

I think they did a good job, and I’m really thankful that they were open and respectful to skateboarding.

This morning Sara and I brought our dog James over to Adam’s house for a photoshoot for Malone and Co. with Andrew shooting. It was a lot of fun!

We played in the yard, then James jumped in for a few shots, and then he relaxed in the back.

EDIT: Andrew just emailed a few photos!