Every year Scott Byerly has his annual Halloween party. The first few years I had gone it was at his house, but as the party got more and more popular and more people were showing up, it’s graduated at SKY 60, a roof top bar downtown Orlando. Probably a better idea than having your house getting beat up.

Jon and Kate Plus 8

Is Kilgus a bumblebee or a clown? How about a Bumbleclown.

People really go all out for Halloween; there were some elaborated costumes that people had put a lot of time into! Scott’s party was on Fri the 30, so after we parked our car and walked through downtown, only half the people were dressed up, and the other half were waiting till the real night, so we got some weird looks walking through downtown as a lumber jack (Russ), and Cop, (Lindsy), Jon and Kate plus 8(me and Kate), and a guy in a white suit with a mask? (Jimmy)

Rusty is a scary looking lumberjack.

Photographer Jason Lee as "Where's Waldo?"

The quarterback always gets the hot cheerleader.

There is always a best costume contest and Grubbs roommate Spencer Williams ALWAYS wins.  However most years he always does have the best outfit.  This year when I first saw him I wasn’t sure what he was and thought maybe he slacked off a bit this year on the consume, I walked over to him and asked what he was dressed up as, and he instantly started yelling at me in the Billy Mays infomercial voice and selling me some OXY Clean, Ha he looked just like him! I gave him my vote for best outfit again; it was a perfect Billy Mays!

Long live Billy Mays

Hope everyone had a good Halloween, I’m headed to Mexico this weekend for a little fun event, should be good!

So the NHL season just started a couple of weeks ago, Yan and myself being Montreal Canadiens fans, we were thinking hockey even though we just had gotten to Florida. Being based out of The Projects we don't really have to go anywhere since we already have it all; boat lakes, incredible rail park, friends etc... On one certain night out, we ran into Chad who we told we had brought our hockey gear down because we knew he played and wanted to get on the ice as well! A couple of days later we met up at the RDV Sportsplex in Maitland were we played some drop in hockey for an hour and a half. After sweating so much in the coldest place in all of Florida, Chad invited us to go ride.

After a quick lunch, we got into his loaded boat and saw Watson and Chris O' ridding on their most recent toy, a 50 foot A-frame built over a dock. After watching Chris O kill it, we got to jump into the water. Since no one really wanted to go first, I slapped my board on and went for it. Chad's wake is always so nice and bootyl, I was stoked. Yan followed and stomped a couple smooth spins before falling flat on his face on a T/S 7!!! Laughed it off and wrapped up his set. Chad went for a quick set on his new 2010 Viva set up and showed us that even in the off season he had more than one trick up his sleeves! I was filming him and trying not to mess up anything, and Yan was stressing about driving the right lines but it all turned out good and had an awesome time.

Yannick Thibault. Oliver Derome, Chad Sharpe from Chad Sharpe on Vimeo.

Last week I started out on a mission to head over to China to ride in the IWWF World Cup. I was pretty excited to be invited to participate in the event; the payout is really good, it’s cool to go see new places, and a bunch of the other boys were going so I was looking forward to it.

Rusty [Malinoski], Trevor [Hansen] and myself all booked our tickets together so we didn't have to travel alone. The longest leg of the trip was a 13.5 hour flight from ATL to Tokyo, SO FAR!

When we finally made it to the hotel, me and Russ checked into our room and it was awesome, we were so worried it was going to be dumpy. After traveling that far and being in a different country all you really want is a nice normal clean hotel room and we got so lucky with one!  When we went and checked out the other guys rooms, they were exactly what we were afraid of getting: old, smelly, crappy, dumpy rooms. I felt bad for the guys in those rooms and was glad I dodged that bullet!

Rusty's new ride. Rattray photo

We arrived on a Wednesday and practice was Thursday. We headed to the site Thurs morning to check it out and try and get a ride in. We saw the site and it looked great, pretty calm, good for watching, then they drove the first person of practice.  Both sides of the river had 10-foot cement sea walls. So after the boat went up and down once, the river was a huge soup bowl of water bouncing back and forth off the walls, and it was like that the rest of the time. I was kind of bummed to travel that far for an event that has good money in and not even be able to hardly ride because there were so many rollers. If anyone ever went to Kelowna for the old Pro Tour stop, it was that bad! So I rode horrible in the first round and got dead last in my heat: I was stoked! The rest of the time we spent watching the event, watching the jumpers try and jump in the rough water, ate a lot of MacDonald's, and tried out different Chinese beers!

Kiling time in China. Rattray photo

Now the season is over, no more events for a while now. I'm going to Guelph for Thanksgiving, then coming back to FL and gonna spend some time learning a few new tricks. I've made a bit of a list to work on this winter.

Peace for now!

Rattray

Man, a lot has happened since the last time I blogged!  Since the last time I wrote in Wakestock has happened, Surf Expo happened, and the WWA Worlds went on in Orlando. I sort of got overwhelmed near the end of the summer and it all felt like it blurred into one big busy week!

Wakestock was fun this year.  I’m from just outside Toronto so going to Wakestock means I get to see my family during the weekend, and Katie came up with me to hang out.  This year was the new site; it was cool to be in Blue Mountain village at night, the site though was pretty rough water.  Hopefully next year the wind gods takes a break for us, the water conditions ended my weekend pretty fast this year at Wakestock, sucks, oh well.

Next was Expo.  Expo is fun because you get to show the industry your new product, see what everyone else has come up with, go to the Wake Awards, and this year the Parks Doc came out. That movie was insane. It’s so cool everyone should see it. They did such a good job of it; you don’t even have to be a huge fan of wakeboarding to really enjoy the film.

Right after expo was WWA Worlds in Orlando. This weekend was fun. Being in Orlando always feel like a little less pressure. Maybe it is because you’re not hoping to win some money to pay back your plane ticket.  The sun was blaring, the water was calm and they had the wake really dialed.  Everyone rode really well that weekend. I made it through 2 rounds and ended up out in the semis.

Lately I’ve been finally spending some time at home.  Expo has passed so I now have my 2010 product from Gator.  I’ve been testing out my new stuff making sure it’s all dialed in before they go into full-blown production. I’ve been shooting a little bit, but mainly trying to learn some new ticks.  Everyone is getting so good these days and I feel like I need a few new spins in my arsenal.  So I’ve been riding a lot trying to figure some new things out.  I’m actually in the ATL airport right now flying home from a clinic I did this weekend for a student who is a regular at The Boarding School. Tomorrow morning I’m getting back on a plane and heading to China for the IWWF World Cup. I’m flying with Trevor and Rusty so I wont be alone on those long flights. Hopefully I can sleep on the plane or something.

I’ll check back in After China, I wont let near as much time pass in between these from now on, promise!

For those of you who didn't know, Surf Expo was a month early this year and not many Canadian dealers came down to Orlando to see the new 2010 product. Since it was High Output's 25th year anniversary, they put together an awesome dealer week in Kelowna to present Ronix's new line.

It all started Monday morning at 6.30am where I met up with the Quebec rep and most of the Quebec dealers. After catching up over breakfast, we almost missed our flight to Vancouver. As we flew in to the Van-city, you could already tell some were out of place when having to whip out their sweet Quebec-er accent while ordering some lunch. Flying into Kelowna is always incredible, with the mountains being white at the top and landing right over the Okanagan.

Cramming 3 adults and a kid size adult (yours truly!) in a Camry loaded with suitcases and my board bag was the first step to a good time. After checking in, we headed over to the restaurant to watch some hockey and meet up with the rest of the crew: Murray and Paul Frasier, Paul O'Brien, Ryan “Ry Guy” Patey, and the rest staff as well as all the dealers. When the Canucks beat Calgary in shootout the whole place jumped to their feet!!! That's when I decided to hit the sack as the jet lag was slapping me in the face.

The new 2010 Ronix line

We all woke up to eat some Denny's and headed right over to the Ronix PK. The room was filled with all the new Ronix line and packed with over 80 Canadian dealers. It felt like school again, we all listened carefully as Paul O'Brien talked about the past, present and future of the company. There were guest appearances from Danny [Harf] and Chad [Sharpe] to present their own pro models, and as surprised as I was, Paul got me up front to talk about the new Bill board that I’ve been shredding for a month.

Paul O'Brien, Murray Fraser and Paul Fraser getting things under way.

Danny Harf talking about his new board

Chad Sharpe showcasing his new graphic

Later in the afternoon, we all headed over to the El Dorado right by the river, a couple of kilometers from where the Wakefest use to go down. That’s where Danny, Chad and myself put on demo for the dealers and some locals who happened to show up. Things went great, Danny and Chad both boosted a few double ups and I went back and forth trying to mix it up.

Hitting some evening double-ups

One more double-up

After dinner, which was amazing and buffet style, we were fortunate enough that Paul brought a copy of the Parks Documentary for all of us to watch. Even if it was my second time, I was still blown away and can’t believe how amazing his story is. We even got to watch a couple of bonus features before heading out to the clubs.

The next day I flew back home, where I still have a couple of riding days left before heading back down to Orlando.