A New Perspective

     Whenever someone asks you what you want for your birthday, its a good idea to pick something you would love but never buy for yourself. For my 31st birthday, I found myself in just this position. My parents asked what I wanted and I responded "a Gopro camera, of course!" I have to admit, without being too much of a marketer, this little gadget has been a lot of fun.
     It takes pictures and video with the beloved and most orthodox lens in skateboarding, "the fish eye." It can also take a hit, so it's fun to put it as near to harms way as possible with a full knowledge that a broken case is probably the worst you can do. Unfortunately, I haven't taken it out with friends yet, but can't wait to get some good video of them soon enough. Who knows, if I'm lucky, I will get one of those cool shots where the camera gets kicked from a flip trick for being to close. So all that being said, here is some of the fun footage I've taken with it so far.

   Since I'm not selling this thing, the cons are real too. First, you look like an idiot when wearing it on your head, but it also gets really neat footage this way. Second, the name implies that you might suffer from the delusion that you are good at what you do. Fortunately for me, I'm used to looking like an dunce and haven't considered professional skateboarding an viable career option since I believed in the tooth fairy.

Tampa Trip 2

It would be a travesty if I neglected to post a review of Fatty and I's Tampa trip back in December.

After picking Fatty up early from the airport, we dropped in for the prelims on Friday night and saw some late night practices.

Here, Fatty was using his skills to put a little ATL in the pipe dust.

Before the comps on Saturday morning, we headed over to the famed (not to mention threatened) Bro Bowl. Although it is really simple and mellow, it is surprisingly fun to ride.

Here's a quick look at the bowl.

Doug committed the ultimate faux pas with this new school trick on sacred old school grounds.

That evening we went to this very nice park outside of Tampa, can't remember the name of it. It had a great pool though.

Sunday was great, we got to see a friend (Eli) compete and make it into the finals. He did really well and skated damn hard.

Here's a pic of Brian Schaefer starting the contest.

And, of course what would Tampa be without the crazy moat race. This turned nasty quick when everyone just started throwing eggs at each other instead of at the contestants. The kid who one looked awful. It's hard to believe it was worth it.

The trip could hardly have gone any better. It was really one of the best trips of my life.

Turkey/Christmas Jams

      It's been a while since the holidays, but I should certainly provide a skeletal recap at a minimum. I was able to organize a Turkey Jam on thanksgiving and Christmas. Both turned out to be pretty incredible.

     On Thanksgiving, I was able to set up and convince three friends to get out and work some of that triptophan out of their bloodstreams. Among these folks were Gary (spoken about in my last post), his brother "lil" Gary, and Josh. It was a nice jam. We were missing a few people, but it was still notable.

Josh "lil blunt blunt" apparently had to go out to his barn (no joke) to find his skateboard. But notwithstanding, he pulled no punches once he arrived from the farm. He showed up with all pistons firing as he planted this ideal backside krook on the round rail.

Even though I hadn't skated with 'lil' Gary (too many "lil"s here) in at least a decade, he seems to have maintained his always impressive talent.The dude might have been too washed up to remember that he left his cigarettes in my car, but he certainly didn't forget how to smoke through a clean and crisp 5-0 with a surf-style 180 out as captured here.

Gary was just as inspiring as the last few times I skated with him. He seemed to be a bit more comfortable on his board than last time and has apparently been able to get 50-50s on the box since our last jam. Nonetheless, when the man is ready to leave, he makes it pretty clear by donning his bookbag and giving you the "let's roll" look, as so clearly captured here.

As life would have it, the Christmas Jam was much less organized but nevertheless turned out to be just as much fun. We had a trifecta (me, Gary, and Fatty) reunion. It was great to skate with both Gary and Fatty at the same time. To make things even better, Fatty brought his family (wife with soon to be child) along as well. Equipped with an super nice camera, Jen (Fatty's wife) captured some of the great moments of the Christmas day jam followed up with a Waffle House trip.

Gary tapped out fast, thanks to a few early falls, including this nasty hipper.

The aftermath and contemplation.

I didn't really do much. I made sure to keep my fear of twigs in check.

I also worked on getting a sequence shot (via Jenn's awesome camera) of a blunt to rock on the mini. Unfortunately, I ate crap instead.

Fatty brought the turkey and ham though with this high beefy kickflip off the funbox.

In retrospect, it was an incredible holiday season. With the reunification of the old trifecta and the awesomeness of digital technology (new fandangled camera), we really captured the fun with this double 50-50.

We had a high kick contest in the Waffle House parking lot. I am clearly the least flexible/fit out of the old trifecta. Couldn't even kick my hand.

It was truly all the dressings that make a happy holiday jam.

An Excellent Reunion

After a full decade of neglect and misfortune, I was able to reunite and skate with one of my two best skate friends from childhood. His name is Gary and he suffered from a traumatic head injury several years back. This injury combined with my exodus from the area (in Idaho) kept us from hanging out or skating for nearly an entire decade. So with all that back story, I can honestly say that the reunion was quite inspiring.

The best part about the entire reunion was not just being able to reconnect with an old friend, but seeing someone who has struggled with a major head injury to take the risky, yet courageous step toward getting back on four wheels and enjoying his beloved hobby. 

I was really taken back by just how impressive Gary was on a board. Given the situation, I didn't realize how much of his balance and agility he was able to rekindle. I made a quick video of some of the tricks he was able to execute in the few hours we skated. 

Even with all the exciting skate trips that I was able to take this year to places like Kona and SPOT, this was undoubtedly the highlight of the year for me. While leaving the park, I felt not only nostalgic for the great experiences that I have had with Gary in the past, but with a sense of inspiration for the resilient human character embodied by my friend.

Slow Progression

      Lately I have found myself wanting to try some new tricks that I used to think too difficult or risky to try. In particular, after seeing how smooth smith grinds look, I decided it is time for me to step it up and learn them. The process has been slow and I still haven't quite got them yet, but I am slowly getting closer. One of my biggest setbacks was the rails situation. I don't like grinding rails very much. I used to 50-50 them, but ever since one really crazy incident (dislocated my traffic finger), just the sound of metal trucks on a metal rail kind of freaks me out. Ironically, I went back and 50-50'ed the rail that I got hurt on the next day wearing my stylish finger splint. Anyhow, what I really wanted was a box to try to learn smith's on, that way the falls are a bit more predictable and controlled. Since Tallahassee doesn't have any low or flat boxes to learn tricks on, I was pleased to skate my hometown skate park which does. It was also while I was there that I realized there were many box tricks that I have never filmed. I took the time to make a short video of these.

To my own surprise, I was able to pull off a few pseudo Smith grinds on the box. They certainly aren't pretty, but I am starting to get the motion and feel for the trick. I was super happy about this. 

Now that I'm back in Tallahassee, I knew I just needed to conquer the fear of rails, so that I can start trying the Smith on the one here. After over a month of looking and rolling up to the rail without popping, I finally committed to 5050'ing it. It seems such a small step, but I am finally starting to get more comfortable with grinds on it. The door is now open, so the next step is obviously the smith. Hopefully, I will have more to report back on this soon. Nevertheless, I am super happy about the progression, even if it is at a snails pace.

Redundancy Rocks

This video is pretty much the same run that I posted a while back but with a couple more tricks. I am pretty happy with this run. It's pretty much impossible to see since I filmed it by setting my camera on a post in the parking lot. But it is just a half cab boardslide on the flatbar (fakie boardslide?, I'm never sure what its called), backside boardslide on the yellow rail, frontside boardslide on the flatbar, and finally a 50-50 on the bench. Four tricks gets me pretty winded, so it was nice that it didn't take me too long to get it done.

I'm back with a vengeance... or not

My ankle is finally starting to become bearable to skate on again. It was a long 38 days to have to wait and I am glad it is finally over. During the last month or so, all I could really think about was how stupid of a fall it was that messed my ankle up to begin with. I blogged about it here already. Well, fortunately, I was able to get back out to the park and start getting back to business. It felt very nice to be able to ride again with not much pain. There are of course some tricks that I have avoided, particularly anything like 50-50s or 5-0s where if I miss my ankle will inevitably overstretch. Other wise though things have been great.
Here is a short compilation that I made. It was really nice to get back into transition. Learning some lip tricks was certainly one of the best investments I've made in skating, since they can be done with relative ease and low risk in times like such.

Even with all this fun to be had though, the stupid rail that messed me up to begin with was what I really wanted to get back to. So finally I dedicated a couple of quiet weekend hours to getting the rail back and taking some vengeance on it for its transgressions. Well, I'm sad to report that it got the best of me. I didn't re-injure anything fortunately, but I soon learned that I need more rail. Then after computing the fun/risk/accomplishment assessment, I decided to hang it up and focus on something else (yet to be determined.) I basically decided that I wasn't going to have the ninja skills necessary to get on and off this rail in the amount of time required. Further, it wasn't fun to skate anymore, I was putting my ankles at risk again since I wasn't pulling back out in time to land, and even if I did land the rail it really isn't impressive at all. So yeah, I didn't get my vengeance, but I'd like to think that I still have my dignity. I'm now on the hunt for another rail. I've got a few in mind, so I will just have to see how things play out.

Really at the end of the day, it is just really nice to be back. Even if I had to admit defeat.