Nostalgic

     If you've been reading this blog, you have probably noticed that I have nostalgic tendencies. Well, unfortunately, I've been unable to skate for the last several weeks so I've got nothing to blog about. Nonetheless, I've been thinking quite a bit about the past lately, especially the last ten years. This is largely due to the recent 10 year anniversary of the September 11th attacks. This year also marks 10 years since I graduated from high school. Hence I've been doing a lot of reflecting on skateboarding, politics, and my life over the last ten years. I've lost or become disconnected with many of my freinds since 2001. One of those freinds was a skateboarder who was really pretty influential in mine and many of my friends lives. His name was Jacob and he was one of the least hesitant skateboarders I've ever met, always willing to push the boundaries and the sport.
     I'd like to take two experiences which I had with Jacob and reflect on them. They both occured 10 years ago. The first was when he showed me how much fun it was to "bomb" a hill. We were visiting an old friend of his in a suburban neighborhood and he wanted to "bomb" this hill. I believe it was just he, his brother, and I (and maybe Doug?). This hill was MASSIVE! Well, if you've already peeked at the photo, then you know where this is going. While Jacob and his brother were able to conquer the hill, I was somewhere between half and two-thirds down it reaching maximum velocity when I notice a manhole. It was covered, but it was enough to throw my balance off and then came the speed wobbles. Anyone who skates knows that once the speed wobbles start its do or die. I decided to hang with it, but soon found myself suspended in the air and preparing for one of the worst falls of my life. I seemingly slid forever. I lost a lot of skin from my hands, knees, elbows, and hip. I had so much speed that the sliding literally ripped my boxers off one of my legs. A few days ago when I was getting ready for work and noticed this:

I remembered this experience and realized it had been ten years. As odd as it may sound, I'm glad I still have this scar because while Jacob has since gone, I will continue to have this scar to remind me of his liberating outlook on life, even when it was met with sometimes uncomfortable consequences.

     Jacob taught me more than just the joys of balls to the wall skating, he taught me the thrills (and skills) of stressing out "the man." Just a few months after 9-11, I went on a snowboarding trip with Jacob and his brother. This was at a time when airport security (for obvious reasons) was ramped up like never before in this country. The National Guard was in the airports with assault weapons (atleast in DFW, although if I remember correctly, they only had handguns in Atlanta) and security checks were beginning to intensify. Jacob somehow made it through security after breaking in line and being completely annebriated (this did cause quite a stir). After a bit of an ordeal and being on a first name basis with a few of the guards, we eventually made it through to our gate. We were flying standby, so we had to wait for flights and try to catch seats. After a long day of this, I was lying on the floor taking a nap. Meanwhile, Jacob was napping in one of the golf cart things. Suddenly, I heard the distinct beeping noise which those carts make when turned on and saw the mounted orange light flashing. Knowing Jacob, I immediately jumped up and avoided being run over by him. He then proceeded (still a bit drunk I'm sure) into a doorway, wedging the cart into the frame and crashing it into a wall. It was ridiculous. Soon enough security was interogating us and a gaurd was taking us directly to his supervisor. For the first time in my life I knew why there were random doors down the concourses, they were security offices. Fortunately for me Jacob was in charge. We certainly knew (especially given the timing) were going to be in trouble. Walking down a long hall we took a hard  right turn as the gaurd led the way. Immediately after the turn, Jacob pulled an about face and sprinted back to the concourse. We spent the next 10 minutes running through the airport away from the gaurd. By some miracle (and with people asking us questions like "what's wrong?" and "what happened?!") we were able to get out without getting caught. In retrospect, I realize that this whole incident was ridiculous, juvenile, and immature. Even with all that being quite apparant, I still cherish the humor of this memory and the others which skating provided me with before 2001. Since 2001, my life has changed significantly. I would never even consider doing something like this now, nonetheless when I see that scar on my hip, I can't help but smile and laugh a little.

Stepping it up

     Yes, I realize that the title of this post is lame. However, I simply couldn't resist. For some time now I've been focusing quite a bit of attention on my near obsession with boardsliding small handrails. For more details on why I'm obsessed and how this happened you can refer to this post. Well, last week I was able to "step up" my handrail hitlist by adding a new and exciting rail. Up to this point, I have never hit a handrail that had more than 4 or 5 stairs underneath it. In all honesty, the amount of stairs underneath a rail is sort of a lousy unit of measurement as some 4 stair rails could be more difficult than 5 stair rails depending on their hieght and length. Nonetheless, I can finally say that I've hit a 6 stair handrail. It's located at Hazard County Skatepark and is actually much easier to commit to than the rail at Brook Run (a 4 stair, which further demonstrates my earlier piont).


The rail is actually really low in height making it relatively easy.
The only intimidating factors are it's length and more so it's significant
drop if you were to fall towards the outside of the rail. This would not be as
intimidating if you were to attempt the other rail next to the pyramid (I'm talking to you Batman!).

      After a few attempts and despite it's terrifying lack of stairs or ramp on the outside of the rail, I was able to land the rail several times. I recognize that this post is really just me tooting my own horn, but honestly that's mainly the point of this entire blog.

Someone at the park caught me taking pictures of the rail for

the blog and asked me if I wanted to be filmed with my camera

 phone. The quality is horrible which is compounded

even more by the lack of good lighting at the park.

Thanks L.L.!

Here is the culprit. Although it looks small, it's actually pretty long making it difficult to commit to.

      Music, it can make or break a skate jam. Recently I've been experimenting with all types of different music when I skate. I find myself listening to Woody Guthrie in the bowl, Janes Addiction on the mini, and Otis Redding when I skate street. None of these things are typical I suppose. Most kids listen to either hardcore (or whatever it's called now) or rap when they skate. That's cool, whatever feels right you know. Well, what does this all have to do with skating? It all goes back to handrails of course. It had been a month to the day when I last hit the handrail at my local park. You may even recall the terrible bruise that I recieved last time after doing the rail. That bruise and not doing the rail for a while really made it difficult for me to try the rail again. Enter L.L. Cool J. So I was considering trying this rail again after a very unpleasant experience and some time away. Suddenly, L.L. Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" started playing on my mp3 player. Here are the songs first lyrics:

Don't call it a comeback
I been here for years
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear
Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon
Listen to the bass go BOOM
Explosion, overpowerin
Over the competition, I'm towerin

     So being a washed up skateboarder, these lyrics hit hard and I decided to try the rail again. Thank goodness, I was able to do it again. Not unscathed though. Not nearly as painful as last time, I hit my knee in attempting the rail and recieved a nice bump. Nonetheless, I wanted to thank L.L. for convincing me to get back on the Brook Run rail again and not overthinking it. Now that that's out of the way, it's time to get back to Otis and Woody.

You can see the bump on my knee here. It's like having two knee caps.
It didn't actually hurt at all though, just a wierd impact I suppose.



Christmas came early!

     After skating pop-lite blanks for the past few years, I finally decided to spend some money and get an Element again. Also, since I've started skating pools and flow bowls more, I wanted a board with some width on it. Christmas came early this year and I ended up buying two new completes. Throughout my entire skateboarding years, I think I've only had two new completes in my life, one of which was stolen within a month. So, this was a huge deal for me.



Here's my new Element board. I forgot how much pop these have. Feels so nice!

       I built each of them custom to what I wanted. The first is my street board (which oddly enough I only skate at parks... using my old board for actual street). I bought an Element deck because I miss the pop. I'm mostly confortable with an 7.88 width, so that's what I did. Then I put some Destructo Trucks (mid) 7.75s on it, making a nice fit. China Bones (always!) for bearings and the Powell STF wheels. The deck rides excellent and has a nice pop to it. I have really been enjoying it!



I always eyed this board growing up, but never wanted to skate an 8.5 inch board. Well, the time has come!

       Next, I set up a pool/vert deck. I have always loved the Toy Machine fist deck, but never understood who would skate a deck so wide. It's 8.5 which is exactly what I was looking for in the width so I finally got the fist deck after all these years of admiration for its art. I slapped Independent stage 11 trucks (red hangers) on it. This was bizare because I think Indy was on stage 6 or 7 when I started. Kinda crazy. As risers were free I went ahead and put some 1/8ths on there. China Bones as always and 60mm Powell bombers for wheels. I think I messed up and went too soft on the wheels, but other than that this deck is amazing! It's so ridiculously smooth. The width feels wonderful in both the pool and flow bowl. It's very confortable and easier to carve than my street board.



You can really tell how wide this board is here. My foot barely hangs off the deck.

       After these two purchases I now have too many skateboards. So I've used taken a new approach for using each board. I've done what Marx called the "division of labor" I suppose. I now have a board for cruising, a board for longboarding, a board for street, a board for the street section of a skatepark, and a board for pools, bowls, and vert. I am in hopes that this process will prolong the life of each board.



Here is everything together including my new shoes.

      I was also in need of some new shoes. I sold out and bought some Nike's for the first time. I remember when I started Nike's were hated by skateboarders and were having a very difficult time getting into the market. They've since become the most popular skate shoe. I really didn't want to get a pair, but after hearing how much better the souls were on them and having lived with heel bruises for a while now decided to try out a pair. Fortunately I was able to find my size at Marshall's and get a pair for 40 bucks. They are very nice shoes, I'm still wierded out by how light they are though. They feel like skating in running shoes a little bit because of the wieght. So in the end Christmas came early and it's been great to have such nice equipment to ride, especially after being used to no-grip Circas and Pop-lites. Thanks Santa (you know  who you are)!


Here's the family portrait after the two new additions.



Hungry for street



It's steep, but it's a shame it has a kink. I wish I wasn't scared of kinks.

      As I explained in the past, I grew up living well outside the area of anything to skate other than my parents driveway. This then meant that I had to drive into town to skate street. Because of this upbringing, I've always wanted to live in an area with a nice skateable infrastructure. Now that I finally live in a area surrounded by stairs, ledges, and rails, I've found it difficult to go out and do the recon necessary to find it. Finally, I decided to skate around my neighborhood and see what I could find. There were quite a few nice spots. I first went down to the post office where I have been eyeing an 8 stair with rail for quite some time. Unfortunately the rail has a kink at the bottom. Also, I'm not quite ready for an eight stair rail. It's a nice stair set though, however the runoff isn't ideal.

The little five I ollied.

     Then I found a wonderful 5 stair set located within a couple of miles of my place. I couldn't resist and did a quick ollie down it just to see if I still had it in me. The same medical center has a double five which could be fun. I'm not much of a stair person, but this place would be wonderful if you are. It is well lit at night as well. Always a plus! 

The double set at the medical center.


     Finally, I've been really wanting to skate a nice small handrail close by, but have been unable to locate one. I did find a nice 3 stair rail, but unfortunately it also has a kink on it. It also has a camera on it, but I skated it for about half an hour with no problems. The police even drove by as I was attempting the rail and didn't see me. It's pretty secluded. It's a shame I don't know how to hit a rail with a kink in it. I never slid the rail, the kink just creeps me out really bad.

Tiny 3 stair with kink. Maybe I should just try to "kiss" the kink?

     Anyways, It was a nice street session even though I ended up not skating anything really fun. One thing that did happen though was I destroyed my cheap Airwalks. It was a shame, but nothing that Shoe Goo can't repair. So I went out and purchased some shoo goo. The repairs are still underway, as it looks like the souls might need a second coat. Gotta love the goo though. After a nice night of recon, the most enjoyable part was the adventure. I hope that soon I can find some more spots that are better and closer by as well.


So, It's come to this?




The souls have been repaired and should last atleast a little longer.



A Late Night Street Reunion

     There's nothing quite like an Old Man Skate Jam. Friday (July 1st, 2011), I met up with my bros Doug and Josh and we threw down a nice jam at the Griffin skatepark. After downing the most incredible pizza I've had in a long time (thanks Doug),Doug and I headed to the park. Unfortunately the Griffin skatepark becomes Michigan ("the land of ten thousand lakes") after a good rain. Being dedicated as we are though, I purchased a squeegee/broom combo (truly the ultimate skate tool) and squeegeed the mini ramp and street sections of the park. After the place dried up, it was on. Soon thereafter we met up with family man Josh and cranked out a nice skate jam. Twigs (see Handrail Hitlist!) was assassinated on the first try while Josh tore up the mini ramp with a 270 feeble stall. Meanwhile Doug was putting his boardslides back on lockdown and popping massive ollies up the four stair. The park was awesome because it turned out to be only the three of us with the exception of one local kid (who is really awesome).
     We literally shut the park down, sticking it out until the lights went off at 11pm. After shutting the place down, Josh had to head back home. Doug and I were heading home when I realized that street was still open. Why not? Years of skating street taught me an important lesson. Skating street after 10pm is striking the hammer while the iron is hot. Temperatures are optimal (in the summer of course) and police are scarce and easy to spot. So Doug and I detoured and skated some street. We first headed over to the best warm up spot, a manual pad at the BB&C bank. Always a favorite, this place is excellent for simply trying to manual the entire pad. Doug landed it several times. I was unable to land a clean one, but did quite a few with tail scrapes. 

The BB&C manual pad. It's perfect because it slopes
slightly downward allowing you to keep you speed.

     Afterwards, we headed over to the DMV stairs only to find clean stairs (they were black with wax when we used to skate them) which desperately needed some wax. Then we walked up on a tree that Doug used to ollie over, but there is no way he could do it now. It's grown a lot!

It's probably impossible to believe now, but Doug used
to ollie over this tree with ease. Of course it was a
little smaller back then.

 From there we skated over to the Post office to check out the five stair with handrails. I really wanted to try the rails, but had forgotten that they had a kink in them. From the PO we headed over to the First Baptist Church. There are a few nice stair sets there. Then we headed to the other First, the First National Bank. This place has long been dedicated to keeping skateboarders out. They still have plenty of signs reminding you just in case you forget. We revisited the two ledges and handrail there.

The FNB handrail. This bush is in desperate need of a trim so that
the rail can be managed (unless you grind it of course).

This handrail was my second ever and the only one that I ever did a frontside boardslide on. Unfortunately, the bushes have grown up quite a bit on it. Apparantly kids today don't use hedge clippers (skateboards work too) anymore.We used to come at night and scalp the bush every now and then.

The Taylor Street 7 complete with the sign. The sign was added
after a year or two of kicking us out every weekend. It did nothing
to slow us down.

     I was starting to lose hope in the street scene in Griffin. This all changed very quickly after heading over to Taylor Street Middle School however. Aside from the Griffin Park always being the meeting place for us when I grew up, TSMS was a mecca for Griffin skaters. It was here that there was always something to skate. Eventually, they built a new auditorium with a seven stair and ten stair on each side. This of course attracted the most attention. As Doug and I approached the stairs my discontent with the state of street skating immediately changed.

The end of the Taylor 10 hand rail. They did an excellent job
hacking it off actually, you almost can't tell. Power tools?

     While the kids in Griffin might not have been dedicated enough to clip the bushes by the FNB rails, they certainly weren't afraid to brandish a hack saw. No joke, apparantly someone cut the kink right off of the 10 stair rail. They began to work on the seven stair, but who knows what happened. They only got half the job done apparantly (which is a shame becuase it would be a nice step up from the rails I've been doing lately). So cudos to the kid with the hack saw! Well done! After a nice day at the park, skating some street was quite refreshing. And I felt a special sense of gratitude to the kids who hacked off the rails at Taylor Street for buoying my hope in the future of street skating.

(My apologies for the low quality of these pictures.

They were taken after midnight

so light was not on my side)

Here you can see where the 7 stair was hacked off as well. They didn't
hack the bottom however.

 

The Taylor 10. A shoutout to my boy Doug for landing this back in 2003.



Here is a smaller gap across from the Taylor 7 that we used to ollie down.
Except for Doug, he would ollie up it. Always the exception.

Here is the First Baptist Church 5 stair. Always a nice warmup set. This
place was fun to skate except for when zealots would try to steal your
board for skating here (it happened).



The First Baptist Church 7 stair. After a warmup on the 5, these were the next step.
Unfortunately, I never cleared these.



The KFC handrail. Doug almost finished this thing off, but never quite
put it in the bag. Maybe it's not too late?

Earlybird Skating

     It's so unorthodox, but I love skating before noon. Now 10 years ago, you couldn't pay me to go skate before midday (mostly because I was still sleeping), but now I consider this to be the prime time for enjoying a nice session at the skatepark. Here are just a few of the benefits of skating in the morning: weather, space, and good company. The first is pretty obvious, or atleast it should be. Georgia in the summer can seem pretty unbearable, especially when you are around lots of highly conductive metal. So skating before noon offers the best weather that you're going to get all day with the possible exception of skating after dusk. Which brings me to my next point, space. If you go to the skatepark between 4 p.m. and closing time, the place is likely to be packed. However, there is a wonderful period between 9 (ante-meridian) and noon in which the park is either deadly quiet (which can be nice) or occupied by only a handful of others. Generally speaking, the denizens of the park during this time are older, more relaxed, and less obnoxious. It's sort of like an "adult swim" I suppose. This is of course the "good company" I mentioned earlier.
     Recently, I was able to enjoy each of the above mentioned qualities of an early morning session. I arrived at the skatepark around 9a.m. to find it utterly barren. This was wonderful except that the flow bowl and pool still had several puddles from the previous night's thunderstorm. Fortunately, I brought a towel and an assiduous work ethic with me. Even though I felt like a juvenile delinquent serving community service, pushing the water into the drains with my towel turned out to be quite an investment. Soon I was skating the flow bowl in peace. The day turned out to be quite enjoyable even though some kid asked me how I could be at the skatepark on a Monday (his assumption being that I was too old to not be working on Mondays, of course maybe he was right). In conclusion, I highly recomend early morning skate sessions for anyone who is more of a hermetic skateboarder.

Peer Pressure

     In the words of one of my best friends growing up "peer pressure is a b*#@$." Not to be vulgar, but I always thought that it was a funny quote. Honestly, I would like to think of myself as being inpenetrable from such forces, but I now have bruises to demonstrate otherwise. No kidding, peer pressure is an interesting thing in the skateboarding world. Although many would claim that what I am talking about now is simply competition, I feel otherwise. Competition would be manifest by one skater saying to another, "If you do the handrail, then I will too." That's competion right? But peer pressure happens more like this, "Can you do the handrail?" or "You should try the handrail."
     To get to the point, I was skating last Saturday night (June 28th, 2011) to "relax" after a bitterly long four day work week. The park was pretty packed and no doubt with some of the best skateboarders in the area. I have been eyeing the four stair handrail there for years now, and have seriously considered attempting it for months (It's the one I call "lengthy" and can be found on my Handrail Hitlist! page). The funny thing is, like many handrails at skateparks, that people rarely try it. So as I am sitting on the ledge talking to a couple of people, this guy attempts it and falls. But he didn't fall on his face or rack himself or anything dramatic, so it sort of eased my fears about the rail. When he skated back I told him that I'd been thinking about trying it for some time. He told me that I should just go for it and then he landed it with ease. So then the atmosphere got to me. I knew I could do this rail. However, I told myself that I would try it on a quiet morning when no one would see me fall on it. But after watching him land it so artlessly, I wanted to do it right now. So I made a few run ups and then just did it. I landed it on the first attempt that I commited to. Several people popped thier boards for me and gave me props. My landing felt a bit sketchy, so I wanted to land a smoother one. I tried again and landed it much cleaner. Then, because I have this obsession with doing things in threes, I tried it again and the cataclysm ensued. I "bonked" the rail with my front truck and landed on the rail with my thigh. I sort of just slid down the handrail on my thigh until finally coming to a stop several feet later.
     So the moral of the story, I suppose, is that peer pressure can be great. I probably wouldn't have tried the rail otherwise. On the other hand, and even though I think it was worth it, I probably wouldn't have been as embarrased after falling had I done this on a Monday morning when the place was vacant. Although the bruise appears horrendous, it really doesn't feel all that bad. I guess this is the blessing of being cursed with "thunder thighs."

My apologies to anyone sensitive to "man thigh" (namely my wife). For some
reason I bruise worse over time, so this may actually look worse
now than when these pictures were taken.

Go Skate Day 2011

Go Skateboarding Day Atlanta 2011

     Finally! After missing the first seven years of Go Skateboard Day, I was finally able to go. To be honest, I highly doubt that I've actually missed all of them since they began in 2004. I probably skated on June 21st at some point in the last few years, but never have I been where the action is. Of course Atlanta's Go Skate Day turned out to be less than I expected, but it was still fun. Apparantly there was a much larger turnout last year. Nonetheless, it was a good day. I started out the day by eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast and watching skate videos. Then, in the spirit of skateboarding I headed out around two o'clock. My first spot was the 'black boxes' on the Piedmont overpass. 

"Black Boxes" with the shadow from the canopy above. This is
Piedmont on the right.

     I have to admit, these were much higher than I expected. I was able to boardslide one, but that was it. I considered doing a 50-50, but I don't like grinding things that aren't longer than 3 or 4 feet... it doesn't yeild enough enjoyment for me. When I arrived at the Black Boxes there were only about 10 kids skating. Soon afterwards there were well over 40. However, within an hour there were only 2 people there... me included.







The location for the Black Boxes is pretty nice. It's directly
over the Interstate on an overpass.

      So the other fellow showed me around some of the spots in Atlanta. We proceeded to the Georgia State Banks, GP Ledges, and the Underground Atlanta Stairs. These were all a bit of a disappointment because there were no skateboarders to be found anywhere. So, although I was hoping to avoid it, I ended up at the Old Fourth Ward Skatepark. It was pretty crowded there. Go Skateboarding Day is different for everyone. For me it is about skating in places where people generally don't allow you to. Strength in numbers. Skate the bailed out bank rails and stairs (we own them now right?), schools, churches, and whatever else you generally get kicked off of. I mean this is the main advantage of having 100+ skateboarders together at one time. Take a page from critical mass. Of course, this is how it's done in many cities and towns across the World. The skatepark was fun though. One thing that I found to be ironic is that fewer kids actually get to skate on Go Skate Day. The best skateboarders tend to rise to the top and show off thier skills while everyone else sits back and enjoy the show. It's truly enjoyable though. I have to say that although the street competition was pretty amazing to watch (especially the kid who landed a blunt to fakie on the wall), the highlight of my day was to see the older skateboarders show up and rip in the pool and flow bowl. This was incredible! One guy had to be at least 55 (probably older) and he was absolutely destroying the pool and the flow bowl. That was certainly one of the coolest things I've ever seen. 

The older guy ripping up the pool like it was his day job.

     In the end, I only landed two tricks after over 8 hours of "skating," a boardslide at the black boxes and a boardslide down "the racker." That, however had very little effect on my day. It truly was an enjoyable experience and the amount of energy that surfaced at the skatepark was phenomenal. No doubt about it, Go Skateboard Day will become a standard holiday for me from now on!





This guy was really nice too. He's doing a 50-50 in the deep end here. Insane!



This kid had a really awesome style. Here he is doing a manual across the
island and dropping back in.



This kid placed in the top 3 of the street competition. Looks like he's doing
a feeble here. He was very consistent.



The older guy again just destroying the flow bowl. He's my new hero.



Another one. He was grinding all the way around the curve each time.


Below are some videos from throughout the day

The Black Boxes when people began to show up

and before everyone left.

Old Fourth Ward Park... where everyone migrated to from downtown.

Flow bowl footage.

The worst bail I saw all day, but this is the same kid who

blunt to fakied the wall. The craziest thing was that he

got up after this and kept skating.

A huge lipslide. I believe he won the contest too.

I could be wrong about that though.

Massive backside bluntslide (or over tail?). Absolutetly amazing!

Hat Trick!!!

The "street" course at Old Fourth Ward

Here is the other part of the "street" course. This is the part
that is impossible to approach without starting at the flow bowl.

     I just got back from an incredible Old Man Skate Jam with my bro Doug. I took him over to the Old Fourth Ward Skatepark that just went up a couple of weeks ago. This place is strange. I hate to complain about "Atlanta's first skatepark" but they got really sloppy on the street section. This is a real downer for the kids who skate street (which is the majority of kids under 25 or 30). As one kid said to me last time I was there "It looks like they spent all the money on the bowls and pool... then just didn't care about the street course." Unfortunately, I think he was right.

     Everything is super tight and difficult to approach. In order to get a decent run at the street course, you actually have to skate around the edge of the beginner bowl and then skate up a large bank, it's pretty weird. I have a theory on this. Old skaters from the 1980s are building skateparks... therefore they are focusing on ramp and bowl skating even though these seem to be less popular for the younger generation. It's all good though because I have personally learned to love bowl skating... and besides, what is better for street skating than actual street right? As my friend Doug pointed out today , it seems weird that the city (who wants to keep kids from skating on its streets and infrastructure) would build a park with an awkward street section. I guess they don't really care in Atlanta since they've long since welded skate stoppers on every ledge and handrail that was enjoyed a generation ago. I always thought skate stoppers were funny. Growing up I was always told, "We're worried about "liability" that's why we can't let you skate here... sorry guys." So the logical step then is to put screws and weld knobs onto handrails and ledges? OK, so now if I do try the rail it's going to kill me... or better yet some goofy kid (or adult) goes to "buttslide" a rail and ends up... well you get the picture. It's truly laughable. Liability.

Here is "The Racker" complete with a faux ski sign explaining the park's
skill levels.

  
     Enough ranting though, the good news is that I love bowl skating so this new park is incredible for me. And better yet, this place built in the most realistic handrail I've ever seen at a skatepark. It looks so legit that you can't even tell if it's meant to be skated. It's amazing. It has a sidewalk approach (complete with spaced cracks), A crack in front of it, and even has the height of a real handrail. I mean this handrail is the kind that you would find in front of your local bank, school, or police station (no joke), etc. Because of this I added this rail to my Handrail Hitlist page on the site. The good news of course (for me) is that I landed a nice backside boardslide on it today (yeah yeah, its the only trick I can do on a handrail so what). This is also why I cleverly (or not so much) named this post "hat trick" as well. Since skating handrails again these last few months, I have now hit three different handrails. Twigs in Griffin, Twigs the Second in Kennasaw, and The Racker in Atlanta. I call it The Racker of course because I saw a kid actually rack himself (landing your testicals on the rail) just last week. Like I mentioned in my handrail post earlier, handrails are mostly mental. And seriously, if you want to get psyched out about a rail, just watch someone hit their junk on one. That makes everything scarrier (or funnier if your watching Americas Funniest Home Videos).

The "Blue Square" flow bowl. This is the highlight of the park for me.
The transition is fairly mellow and very smooth, not to mention the half
 pool closest to the viewer complete with the beloved tile.

     Now on to the jewel of the park, and no doubt where all the funding landed, the bowls. There are three bowl areas: beginner, medium, and expert. And just to make this place a little cheezier, they use ski symbols to let you know where you are skating. Not to be too much of a hater, but it's a good thing they put these in Atlanta because if they had ski symbols in Griffin I'm sure no one would get it (although the tell-tale sign that you are still the South is that the easy level is marked by an orange circle instead of a green one). I mean this is just cruel to do to people in the middle of June. Thanks for reminding me of pleasantly snowboarding while its 90 degrees with 85% humidity and no breeze, not to mention the fact that the bathroom and waterfountain exist but do not actually function.

Here is the "Black Diamond" pool It's really fun, but very steep.

     
     Anyways, It's a bit creepy at times becuase I'm still not used to the amount of vert in some places, particularly the pool. It has the same dimensions as the pool at Brook Run, but no doubt things changed in construction somewhere. Somebody is lying because this pool has much more vert than Brook Run. Anyways, this pretty much sums up my day. It was awesome, I got to skate with another Old Man from the good old days, and we tore it up... or something like that.

Getting a a little bit of tile in the shallow end of the pool.

My buddy Doug getting up into the cradle and enjoying some flow bowl.

Another picture of the Pool. Deep end on the far
side and shallow on the left and right.

Doug earning himself some 'street cred' at MARTA.

There is also some excellent graffiti underneath the Freedom Parkway
Bridge that I walk under to get to the park.

More beautiful artwork.

One more. I just can't help myself. Also, if you're lucky, when you take
photos of this, there is a homeless guy under the bridge who will scream
"Hey mom, I'm homeless!" and laugh hysterically.