Deck

COSTA MESA — It’s called the front-pop shove-it late flip, and its steps are only slightly more complicated than its name. But to Carlos Lastra, the skateboard trick means something very simple: a world championship title. Lastra, who has been skateboarding for seven years, won the amateur finals Saturday in the éS Game of SKATE competition at the OC Fair and Event Center. The contest, one of several in the Maloof Money Cup weekend skate tournament, invites participants to perform difficult stunts on their boards and challenge their competitors to duplicate them.

LINCOLN, Neb. — Call it double-decker dominance. The UC Irvine baseball team continued to show it could deliver its best performances in the biggest venues, such as 8,500-seat Hawks Field at Haymarket Park, where the Anteaters (41-16) blanked Oral Roberts, 8-0, Sunday to win the NCAA Lincoln, Neb. Regional at the double-decker stadium that the Nebraska Cornhuskers call home. Sophomore right-hander Bryce Stowell produced the best performance of his collegiate career to clinch a visit to LSU for the Super Regional, which will start either Friday or Saturday in Baton Rouge.

The Newport Boat Show has always been the place where yacht sellers from across the region come to show off their biggest, best and shiniest boats. Some show-goers come prepared to make a deal while others just want to indulge in an expensive daydream or two. Show organizers expect an all-time record of about 350 vessels at this season’s show, which kicks off today at Lido Marina Village. “Some people are looking to buy, others are looking to kill time,” said Bill Barrette, president of Altair Yacht Sales in Newport Beach, who has exhibited at the show for the about the past three years.

The first time Frank Davern got an order for a girl’s skateboard, he didn’t have one quite ready to ship. In fact, he had never made a skateboard in his life. The Balboa Island resident, who founded the Cool Girl Decks skateboard company four years ago, stumbled upon his enterprise through a happy accident. In the late 1990s, Davern launched the website Coolgrrrls.com to spotlight female musicians around the world. One day, a German magazine devoted to youth culture ran an article about the site — and since the magazine covered sports as well as music, a number of readers assumed Davern made both as well.

Next week the Southern California Marine Assn. hosts the 16th Annual Orange County Boat Show at the Anaheim Convention Center. I am making plans to cruise to the show, which will have more than 500 new boats on display. The Orange County Boat Show is packed with more than five acres of family runabouts, ski boats, fishing boats, pontoons, high-performance sportboats, cruisers and personal watercrafts that are all under one roof. In addition, SCMA will be hosting a special “Discover Boating” area where experienced boaters and novices alike can visit to receive valuable information on how to get more out of the recreational boating experience.

Final tallies of campaign fundraising for 2007 show U.S. Rep. John Campbell is raking in the dough while Democratic challenger Steve Young is running his campaign on a shoestring budget, according to Federal Election Commission documents. Young raised $26,670 last year, all from individual donors. Campbell amassed more than $570,614, including $186,000 from political action committees representing everything from the banking industry to beer wholesalers. Young spent $27,685 last year, much of it on political ads, polling and those charming robotic phone calls everyone loves so much.

Gondola Company of Newport owner Georgia Mahoney has seen a steady stream of newly engaged couples deboard her gondolas in the past few weeks. Suitors can opt to write out their marriage proposals, which are put into a bottle. A gondolier discreetly drops the bottle into the water for women to discover. “We are having a record number of proposals the week before Christmas this year,” Mahoney said. “We see a lot of diamonds, let me tell you.” Twinkling Christmas lights and fireworks make the holidays the ideal time for a romantic moonlit cruise on Newport Bay and beyond.

It’s purely coincidental, but very appropriate, that the acronym for Ron Salisbury’s restaurant conglomerate, Restaurant Business, Inc. is RBI. That’s a baseball term, as is the Hot Stove League, a series of dinners Salisbury hosts at several of his restaurants during baseball’s offseason. Salisbury is a huge baseball fan, and in a recent radio interview on KLAC-AM, explained what the term refers to and how it ties in to the dinner circuit. “It started as a thought going back to the old Hot Stove League days when there was nothing else to do during the winter.