I do not twitter my every movements for my make believe masses. But I do post a status update every day on facebook, and perhaps elaborate too much about my doings on my blog. So I’m not that far off from the persons today that make their realities out of their online personas. I was going to simply try to write more topical things for my blog, to have concrete ideas, and basically write content that is more solid. However today was a unique skating day, so I’m going to go back to my routine of recapping a good day. People may not care what I do from rising in the morning to bed time, but I think writing anything is good practice.
My alarm went off at 10:00 and I turned it off. When I awoke around 12:30 I saw the sun shinning out of my window and I knew it would not rain. From the way it looked the 20 percent chance of rain would not happen. I saw empty coffee containers, and searched for a few minutes among the clutter to find that we didn’t have coffee. I checked the weather online at it said mid 50’s. That is downright balmy from the freezing winter we had.
So I went out the door, at Dunkin I got a large coffee and some awful egg mcmuffin rip off. Soon I was at Forest Park. It felt great to roll around. Someone left two small cement bricks and a kid stacked them up horizontally. Perhaps it was only 7 inches or so high but it had a little depth to it. My ollies over it felt smooth. I rolled around did some kickflips, went down the roll in to the ramp section, but soon returned to the cement bricks. I tried a switch 180 over it. After a few tries of not making the full rotation I decided to try it faster. It felt like I got better pop but right when I landed I snapped the tail off. Within ten minutes of skating I broke my board. The local kids got a kick out of this and one kid in fun put the deck into two pieces with his knee. He tried to focus (stomp with his feet to break the board) the nose part of the deck. After he failed at this, I stomped the nose off the board. It was too easy to do. Another kid saw this and said ‘Why? It was a brand new board.’ And I told him that I broke on a trick. Some board companies’ make their deck oversees these days and maybe I should try to find the ‘made in America’ stamp. Channel 7 recently ran a clip on Shut skateboards and how they pride themselves on their quality boards from Maine. It was the intro to interviewing Diane Sawyer on her made in America series. I think researching the board companies does make sense because the quality seems to vary so much. This was the second day of skating this deck. So after that happened I finished my large coffee and watched the other skaters. I was bummed that I couldn’t skate that day because getting a new deck would be a hassle. I wondered if I went to certain shops maybe I’d be able to skate another park before closing.
I waited for the bus for a little bit, and on the bus ride I had a brilliant idea. When I got home I’d simply set up my old board. I never got around to throwing it away. It has a few cracks in it but I thought it would be better than skating nothing for the rest of the day. I went home, set up my old board, talked with my roommate for a little bit, and then went back to the park.
This is where it gets weird and can show how obstacles can become the enemy. Those bricks were still there, and I decided to set it up higher. So one brick was flat horizontally on the ground and the second one I set up vertically on top of the first one. My guess would be that it was a foot high or a little taller. My ollies felt fine over it even though I’m turning more than I should. I did a switch 180 okay at first. Kickflips weren’t happening over it for me, but I saw someone else do one. I tried regular switch ollies over it, and did not get that trick. After awhile I started to try switch 180’s with speed, and soon I got a shocker. My board hit the brick and as some cruel joke went straight in the air and I landed with the board right in between my legs, I must have looked like I took a pogo stick to the crotch. I think I’ll have a bruise that no one will see, but I don’t think it’ll cause me to be infertile. I did get the wind knocked out of me a little bit, and it got my attention. I sat down, wrote a status update on facebook from my cell phone, and decided to get water.
After my break I had a fun session. The mini at Forest is so small that you can try things on it. I do the same run over and over, but I can tell I’m getting better. I feel on larger mini’s I simply do kickturns, but this one I can try things. I’m happy that on the mellow bank I still got kickflips to fakie on lock. I got a real sloppy nollie big spin and a fakie kickflip on the bank as well. As for those bricks I made piece with them. Over just one brick I did an ollie to a super long manual that felt great.
The park was crowded but I was not annoyed by that. I was happy to be skating after the hibernation from the weather. I think the other skaters there were hyped on being able to skate.
A near future blog entry: why 2011 will be the best skating season ever.
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