Getaway day at the X Games Global Championship, a point-and-shoot scrapbook:

Every day in San Antonio began here at Blanco (would that everyday of my life began here), where the good folks serve up a delicious little breakfast -- something called chilaquiles. Divinely fresh flour tortilla tacos, filled with eggs, onions, tomatoes, peppers that could peel paint, grilled tortilla chips and untold generations of secret sauce and love. If I wrote a song about the chilaquiles it would be called "Scrumptiliocious," and I would get Snoop Dogg to sing it. If I wrote a poem about them, it would be a little e.e. cummings thing like this:

my belly (my heart)
is so (much more than so) happy

Good to see Kobe didn't turn tail and run after last Thursday's Spurs beat-down. He lives and breathes in the defiant spirit of skateboard park rider Eric Koston, who tied for first Sunday afternoon. The crowd loved his relaxed style and combination composure, but they gave him a truckload of grief for sporting Lakers colors in the Lone Star lion's den. Did it faze him? Not a lick: "I knew they'd boo me. I wanted them to boo me. I loved it. It was great."

The dominant vibe of X is collaborative and good-willin' -- folks are looking to push each other to new heights, folks root for each other and feed off the crowd's love. But Koston lets you know there's a little bit of tweak and noogie energy in the thing, too. Makes sense: you couldn't expect to turn the laws of gravity and common sense inside out without a bit of that.

All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.

At the X Games Global Championship, you are what your credential says you are. At every doorway and gate, the badge around your neck marks you for safe passage or pegs you for a no-can-do. The most coveted badge of all? An athlete's lounge pass, of course. There's pinball in there. Plus, it's where all the cool kids hang out.

I got close on Friday: Skateboarder Bucky Lasek tried to get me in the lounge as a guest so we could do an interview. The nice lady at the door took one look at my badge and sent me packing. She was right: No chance I'm cool enough to kick it with the pinball wizards.

(EXPN.com editor Dave Finger is, though. Check out his behind-the-velvet-rope piece on the lounge here.

Every move every athlete makes is camera captured. Half by photographers and camera people scrambling, crouching and reaching for angles and opps; the other half by the athletes themselves. (Pictured here: inline skater Fabiola da Silva) A trick or a move is an ephemeral thing. Everybody wants a record of what they've done and what they've seen. The athletes keep their own history. More than that, they keep an ever-growing textbook on what the sports look like and where they're headed.

This is Ed Calderon. Ed is an usher at the Alamo Dome. He's 77 years old and has lived all his life in San Antonio. He used to run his own insurance agency, played trombone in big bands and symphonies for years, and has been working every day he can since he recovered from a heart attack about 10 years back. Ed says he's a workaholic. "I'm not here for the f---in' money," Ed says. "I'm here because I love to be around people -- can't stand to sit at home and rot."

Ed loves the X Games Global Championship. He loves it because "it's not about us, my generation, it's about the youth. I watch and I learn what is important to my grandkids." He likes to watch the events on the television monitors in the Alamo Dome concourse and kibitz: "I could do that," he says. "He learned that one from me," he says. And between events, he likes to watch the pretty women walk by his post. "Mira, mira, mira!" Ed says to his compadres when a young woman strolls past. Ed's got a good gig. And he helped make my gig this weekend particularly fun. Thanks, Ed.

Hey, Ed: Mira, Mira, Mira! It's the Silver Dancers!

There was much X this weekend, but there was hoops, too. Can't expect a guy to go cold turkey ...

Bobby King's dad designed the skateboard park course. That got Bobby access to the athletes all weekend, so naturally he cleaned up on the signatures. "Bob Burnquist and Eric Koston are my favorites," he said. Check Bobby's laid-back smirk and Shaun White-shaggy do. Bob and Eric better take a peek in their rearview mirrors, because it won't be long before folks come trolling for his autograph on a deck.

Meet Kaylia, the four-month-old X Games enduro champeen. She was on the scene all four days, soaking up the vibe and memorizing the tricks. Check the confident gaze and the Bobby King-shaggy do. Bobby best enjoy his moment in the sun, because it won't be long before she comes barreling down on him atop a Kaylia signature board.

The X Games Global Competition was taking place in Whistler, British Columbia, too. Here's what it looked like from the floor of the Alamo Dome.

And here's what the floor of the Alamo Dome looked like (this was the set-up for the skate park competition). You watch on television, and you get lots of close-ups and the events feel kind of intimate. But live, this stuff is happening on a grand scale. Competitors are covering a lot of ground and expending all kinds of energy doing it. Their unis say rumpled and relaxed, but the athletes have to bust it to do what they do.

All the riders sport a little something special in the way of style. For some, it's stickers from their sponsors on the helmet, their shades, or the way their pants hang just low enough to let you know they wear Calvins. For Andy Macdonald, it's a splash of yellow every time out. But hands-down, the finest accessory I saw all games was this pink Barbie elbow pad number on Shuji Ueyama. Shuji didn't score too well on the half-pipe, but he was killin' on the catwalk.

At one point, the buzz was that event winners were going home with 15K and flowers. I loved the idea of it. Money, yeah, yeah, whatever, same old same old. But flowers, that's got a classy feel about it -- something that says the other side of "extreme" is "beautiful." Turns out, though, there were no flowers to be found and no one seemed to know where the fragrant rumor had started. I searched high and low, made calls, tracked down scents at every turn. No flora. I did find this van of Amelia's in the Alamo Dome parking lot. That's as close as I got. Didn't smell as nice as flowers would have. Didn't provide the same feel. Said something more like ... the other side of "extreme" is "Econoline." Oh well.

This isn't a good picture, but I like it because it captures some of the whiplash quickness of the Games. There's a sound that goes with this picture: It's the silver-tongued whizzle of wheel bearings spinning. It's a sweet sound. One of those sounds that works like Proust's madeleines, sends you reeling back into memoryland, heart bursting with the warm blood of childhood bliss.

This is the best action shot I took.

If you want to see some seriously good action shots, some eye candy that's so sweet your eyes will cry uncle, check out these tasty photo archives shot by the pros the last few days.

The shot I missed is the one that will stay with me the longest, I think. At the end of the first round of the bike stunt vert competition, Jamie Bestwick of England pulled off a downside tailwhip flair, which was spectacular, even to a pair of rookie eyes like mine, and which had never been done in competition before. (Check it out.) Afterwards, Kevin Robinson of the U.S. (Bestwick's riding partner and friend, but someone he was competing against on Sunday) went ape, jumping and hugging on Jamie like mad.

Two days before, skateboarder Bucky Lasek had told me, "It's all cameraderie, we're all friends. We all want to see each other blow the doors off. We want to see the best thing ever. We want to see the other person do the sickest and illest thing he could possibly do."

Here was proof of that.

Eric Neel is a regular columnist for Page 2.