Olympus Update - We can not be stopped...

I am posting this sitting on my couch in Atlanta Georgia minus one Olympus E-PL1. On the last day of filming in NYC I woke up at 5am to get some b-roll, segues and finish up filming with Franco Cammayo. We skated hard all day long and Franco finished up his segment with 4 incredible stunts. When we went back to Union Square to pack the car up so I could get out of town the Camera (along with all 8gb of footage from the day) was stolen out of the car with Franco standing right there. All of our hard work is now in the hands of some lucky New Yorker who will most likely hock the camera for peanuts. I was absolutely devastated and started screaming in the middle of the street. How could this be happening? Everything was going so perfectly and now the project was at risk of being incomplete. Franco Cammayo, Montre Livingston and Robert Guerrero had all put their lives on the line for this project. I was out of money and could not stay in NYC any longer. I could not afford to put my son in child care back home in Atlanta anymore and my wife was going into finals week at school. I paced in the streets and came to the conclusion that I would not let this city beat me. I decided that I would do whatever it takes to finish this project by August 2nd. I was fifty dollars under budget (no more money to buy another camera) and my financial situation at home has put lots of pressure on my family. I stopped by the District 9 police department to file my stolen items claim and headed back to Atlanta going over every option possible in my head. Too many people had put their faith in this project and there is no way that I could let it fail.

2 hours had passed since I was harshly checked by the big apple. I hopped on the Brooklyn Bridge convincing myself that everything would work out. I was giving Franco Cammayo a ride home to Staten Island and as I gazed into the high wires of the wonderful structure that dumps millions into and out of NYC daily Franco received a phone call from a friend of ours who skates named Neil Diskin. Neil heard about the camera getting stolen via Facebook and wanted to find out from the source if it was true. Franco notified him that indeed the camera was stolen, explained to him that we were trying to come with ideas to finish the project and hung up the phone. As we continued our drive we chatted about family life, skating and tried to come up with ideas on how to fund the rest of the mission. As we spoke about these things my phone rang, I picked it up to hear the voice of Neil Diskin again who asked me for my address. I gave him my address and when I asked him why he needed it he told me that him and his friend Bobby had just purchased a new E-PL1 for me and it would be at my house in 2 days! GAME ON! 2 hard working guys putting their money on the line for blading in a rough economy, this is the kind of thing that makes our culture incredible!

The skating community is amazing. 2 hours after the camera was stolen and the blading community had already stepped up to the plate to show its support and belief in the project. I am working in South Carolina this weekend, shooting a family reunion of a friend of mine that I met via skating. I will hopefully receive the camera tomorrow and head back up to NYC this Monday. By luck, Robert Guerrero will be back in NYC (he left to attend a family function last week) next week. I also spoke with Montre Livingston who is currently in California skating at Woodward West as a visiting pro. He injured his knee when he got there but informed me that if he is healthy that he will be home on Sunday and I can pick him up to head ba k up north with me. Franco is on the mission to stay healthy this week and is anxious to finish up when I get back next week.

Nothing is ever easy but I believe with hard work and dedication that anything is possibly. I am proud to be part of this culture and will work as hard as I can to get blading shown to the thousands of people, sponsors and media agencies that attend the US Open. There is too much love, strength, talent and heart for us to not get another opportunity to show the world how incredible our sport has become.

ALL IN,

Kevin Dowling

PS - if you would like to contribute some money for a rental car, child care, gasoline, food for our professionals than please paypal some loot to brielr27@yahoo.com. Anything helps, we can do this.