http://www.yardbarker.com/college_football/players/nate_adams/5634 Recent articles about Nate Adams en-us Hey guys, it's been awhile!!  I've been meaning to write on here for some time now, but kept getting sidetracked!  Between flying overseas and last minute christmas shopping I was slammed.  I do have a pretty good story though.....So I fly to Tahiti last week to do a demo there alongside Adam Jones, Dustin Miller, Nate Adams and some others. They were going to have BMX and skateboarding as well so I was pretty excited.  So a week before the demo Adam and I were informed that there are no Honda 250's on the island so we would need to ship our bikes.  So last minute me and Adam paid my dad to do a Los Angeles trip to drop off our bikes at the shipping yard, 7 days before the event.  So we fly over there, 1st class I might add!  The promoters really made sure they did it right so that was a good thing.  Anyways we get there, check out the scene, do some snorkling and get sunburned.  It was a cool first couple days.  Well two days before the show me and Adam are informed that our bikes might not make it.  I'm not going to lie, I wasn't all that bummed. I mean it sucks not to be able to put on a show for the fans down there,  but it would be an actual vacation for once!!  Well Friday, the day before the show it is a fact, our bikes will not be there, in fact they never even left LA haha! I guess it was 9,000 bucks one way to get them there and once the promoter found out they probably wouldn't make it he just canceled the shipment.  So me and Adam basically got paid to have beers on a island!!  It was also fun for once to check out the show minus the stress.  I got to watch all my buddies ride and put on a good show and watch some killer BMX and skating!!  Not a bad vacation!I got back from the 85 degree Tahiti weather, right into a crazy snowstorm!!  Talk about shock!  I loved it though, we even got to have a white christmas today which is something I haven't witnessed in years!!  Today was excellent,  I love spending time with my family and friends, it's my best method of relaxing!!  Tomorrow I am going to hit the mountains to do a little snowboarding and hang with my buds.  This is my last weekend up north, Monday I head down to Vegas for a month to get back into the FMX mode and get ready for the New Zealand leg of the Crusty tour!  I want to be on point in New Zealand,  the Crusty guys have always been cool to me and they've put up with me for 2 years now so I really want to be riding at a 100% when I show up, hopefully even bring some new tricks to the show for the NZ fans!!  Well I hope everyone had a merry christmas and got a lot of fun presents!!  I'll keep in touch throughout my Vegas trip and let everyone know how the riding is coming along.  I will also be doing some video blogs for expn.com starting in January, so keep checking in for those,  it could be entertaining!! Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:17:32 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/blog/mikemason/being_a_spectator/434373 http://www.yardbarker.com/blog/mikemason/being_a_spectator/434373 Being a spectator http://www.yardbarker.com/blog/mikemason/being_a_spectator/434373 http://www.yardbarker.com/media/a/8/a809a2ea295181ef8990026d56448156f7227b64/mini/tahiti-22.jpg Creative Way to Raise Money?Money may not grow on trees, but it might grow on the faces of several DC athletes. X Games babe Travis Pastrana, along with Ryan Smith, Lindsey Robertson, Devun Walsh, Dane Reynolds, Nate Adams, Allan Cooke, Chad Kagy, Corey Bohan, Mike Clark and Ken Block have all ... Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:06:19 -0500 http://network.yardbarker.com/college_football/article_external/dc_athletes_growing_facial_hair_for_charity_courtside_celebrities_decorate_staples_center_and_phil_mickelson_gets_lip_service_from_sergio_garcia/365205 http://network.yardbarker.com/college_football/article_external/dc_athletes_growing_facial_hair_for_charity_courtside_celebrities_decorate_staples_center_and_phil_mickelson_gets_lip_service_from_sergio_garcia/365205 DC Athletes Growing Facial Hair for Charity; Courtside Celebrities Decorate Staples Center and Phil Mickelson Gets Lip Service from Sergio Garcia http://www.yardbarker.com/college_football/articles/dc_athletes_growing_facial_hair_for_charity_courtside_celebrities_decorate_staples_center_and_phil_mickelson_gets_lip_service_from_sergio_garcia/365205 http://www.yardbarker.com/images/yb_logo_square_grey.png X games is finally done and I couldn't be more pleased with the week. I had some luck on my side for sure, but I also did put in a lot of hard work leading up to this contest so I'll take it!! It was such a crazy week with riding three events, I had never done that before and surely didn't realize the effort it was going to take. Friday was by far the most grueling day, I had to do Speed and Style eliminations from 11-12, then FMX eliminations were 12:30-2, and then I had to go right from the Home Depot center to Staples center and do Step up practice which was 2-3. I showed up at Staples with just enough time to hit the wall of death twice before they cut me off. Now I hadn't done step up in years so to go into live TV with 2 warm up jumps under my belt was nerve racking!! When all was said and done Friday night though I was proud of myself, I qualified for both Speed and Style and FMX finals, and tied with Tommy Clowers for 3rd in Step up, which was huge for me because Clowers pretty much put Step up on the map by being the king of it for so many years at X. Saturday was Speed and Style and FMX finals so I had another busy day. In Speed and Style I had Travis Pastrana in the first round, killer!! I thought for sure I was just going to get destroyed by him and be done in one round, but luck had my back and Travis crashed himself out so I advanced! Typical Mike Mason form though I managed to crash myself out in the second round which was the round that moved you on to battle for the Gold, I was really upset with myself because I felt Speed and Style was really my only shot for a medal. I still got to compete for the Bronze, I was up against Twitch (Jeremy Stenberg) but he ended up beating me by half a point for the Bronze, I was bummed. FMX comes around and I'm up against Nate Adams in the first round, pretty much the worlds best freestyle guy at the moment so once again I thought it was one round and done for Mike. I went out and just had fun, hyped up the crowd and just rode for myself, and wouldn't ya guess it, Nate messed his run up so I advanced which means I was at worst 4th place!!! I was sooo pumped now, I went out for my second run against Matt Rebeaud with the same exact attitude but this time I got beat, which was totally expected, I was just still happy to be this far! I still had a chance at Bronze if one of the guys in the next bracket had a lower score than me and sure enough Twitch gave up half way through his run which secured me my second X games medal!!! It was like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders, I know for a fact that I didn't have what it took in FMX to get that medal, there was 5 other guys out there who deserved it more than me, but sometimes everything just falls into place. It sucks because I keep reading on the internet people saying I didn't deserve it and my run sucked and that bothers me. I'm the guy who goes out and has fun and whatever happens, happens. It's not like I think I'm the most crazy guy out there and my run is perfect, but I guess that comes with the job, there is always going to be people out there who don't like you. Anyways I have rambled on enough, I am just going to enjoy what happend and know that I did put in 100% effort leading up to this. Now I'm getting back to relaxing so I'm leaving you guys....bye! Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:32:20 -0400 http://www.yardbarker.com/blog/mikemason/finally_done/301346 http://www.yardbarker.com/blog/mikemason/finally_done/301346 Finally done!!! http://www.yardbarker.com/blog/mikemason/finally_done/301346 http://www.yardbarker.com/media/3/a/3a49dd02e4ce2cc35f27abbd4c70598585a67948/mini/_DSC9946.jpg