Life Extention.

Life Extention was started in the fall of 2011 with the products hitting the streets in early 2012. Nick Trapasso and Pat "Sinner" Pasquale were the ones in charge of most things. The misspelling of the name was intentional. The boards were distributed by Blitz, the home of Birdhouse and Flip. They managed to get Jay Strickland to handle the creative duties. Jay knew Nick from the Bootleg days. The team included Jake Duncombe, Beau Reid, Jamie Tancowny, and Tony Tave. As near as I can tell, they ran all of three ads. I was surprised they went with Blitz and thought they partnered with somebody else.

Thrasher - March 2012 Volume 32 Number 3

Nick Trapasso #2.

HO-TEL!

Nick was the talented am from Phoenix with the very relaxed style. He relocated to California during the days of Bootleg in the early 2000s. Nick turned pro for Toy Machine and got in on the ground floor at Converse's rebooted skate program. He had previously ridden for Vans. Converse was quick to give him a pro shoe, too. He had a great part of big stair tech in Thrasher's Prevent This Tragedy video from 2010. He would leave Toy Machine to start Life Extention in 2012. As of 2023, he was working at a motorscycle dealership.

The photographic gnarlitude is by Seu Trinh.

Thrasher - November 2008 Volume 28 Number 11

Blake Carpenter.

Vinyl me, please.

Blake is from Daytona Beach, Florida. He rode for Toy Machine up until 2022 and then floated around without a board sponsor for a couple years. There were rumors of a spot on Nyjah Huston's Disorder, but that never happened. He also moved back to Florida from California. His other sponsors are Nike and Spitfire. He recently started his own company called Vinyl. The team includes Art Cordova and Thomas Dritsas. Blake had a really smooth part for Spitfire in 2024. He has a solid grasp on quality technical skateboarding with a few big handrails thrown in the mix.

Skateboarding has been a chore lately and not fun. I’m trying to work through it with minimal progress. I'll get a couple tricks fine and then struggle with others that I normally can do easily. I hadn't done any switch pop shove-its in a while and then rattled off a bunch of decent ones no problem the last two nights. I'll follow that up with not being able do a boardslide or a 50-50 on a ledge. I guess that's how it goes. This happens to me every few years. I think it might be more of a mental thing, although it has been weird gear issues in the past. I don't exactly know. I'm going to keep on trying and hope things get better.

Jonathan Mehring took the photos.

Thrasher - July 2013 Volume 34 Number 7

Diego Bucchieri #8.

Chopping up the lumber yard.

Diego is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He had a very successful run for Think and Toy Machine before starting up Cleaver Skateboards. There's kind of a Geoff Rowley air to this photo.

The picture is by Ignacio Morresi.

Thrasher - October 2011 Volume 31 Number 10

Leo Romero #16.

"Man, I don't want to get into that, dude. I mean, I'll say it, but there's so many. My push is jacked, too! But Leo Romero's got a pretty hectic one. I know he was your guy's SOTY, but especially his switch push is very hectic. Antwuan Dixon told me this back in the day, it's like, 'Dude you can take ten little pushes or three or four big, good ones.' I'm more on that side of the fence. I'd rather just take like, three. Sorry, Leo, but to each his own, you know? I'm probably gonna get hated on for that one, but whatever. I get hated on for skating slow, too." - Pat "Sinner" Pasquale

I don't know why I remembered this quote from Sinner. I'm a fan of Leo, but I thought this was funny, too.

The guitar slinger photo is by Kevin Barnett and the noseblunt slinger photo is by Michael Burnett.

For the quote: Thrasher - July 2014 Volume 35 Number 7

Thrasher - August 2011 Volume 31 Number 8

Dan Lutheran #2.

Sun blasted daydream.

Dan is one of Albuquerque's finest hubba and handrail skaters. He's been on Toy Machine and Vans for a long time now. I dig the noseslide photo and how the whole spot is shown. The trick was in Dan's part in Propeller, the Vans video from 2015. He studied art education for a couple years in college before the pro skateboard career took off.

The photographs are by Joe Hammeke and Jonathan Mehring.

Pop shove-it 50-50: Thrasher - September 2011 Volume 31 Number 9

Nose: Thrasher - March 2013 Volume 33 Number 3

Jordan Taylor #2.

"He was a little bit of a slow starter, and he had some injuries, and he's not as gregarious of a personality like Daniel Lutheran. He's a lot quieter. We saw something we liked, he had a lot of different moves. Some companies make the mistake of putting the same rider on over and over again. He has a different bag of tricks. It would be easy to put a rail chomper on. Kevin Barnett, our filmer, was showing me a lot of stuff he was doing, and I liked what I saw." - Ed Templeton

Jordan got on Toy Machine in 2007 and left for WKND in 2016. He turned pro in 2017. He's still involved at WKND, but injuries have taken their toll on his skateboard tricks so he works behind the scenes. Jordan also does a belt and clothing company called Loosey.

I like how the Toy Machine ads were looking in 2012. This would've been in the time after their Brainwash video from 2010. Ed was using bigger photos and not as much additional art. The graphic designer in me hates the small text and copy in the trim zones.

The photo is by Eric "Rodent" Cheslak.

For the quote: Transworld - July 2012 Volume 30 Number 7

Thrasher - February 2012 Volume 32 Number 2