I'll be missing you

     So lately I've been trying to get back in to street skating and it has not been an easy task. After spending most of my time at parks over the last several years, I have forgotten a lot of the pros and cons. These came back to my memory pretty quickly though. The cons came first. To begin with, I forgot how paranoid you have to be when you are starting to feel a spot out. The first time you skate somewhere you have no clue how vigilantly it will be patrolled or enforced, so its really hard not to feel like somebody is watching you. The place I went to had a lot of no trespassing signs and so it felt like the message was clear, if you get caught here it is better to run away. Then comes the calm of when you realize that either no one cares or there is simply no one around to notice. Once that settles in, you loose a bit of the adrenaline though. The second negative I had forgotten about was how much real  concrete hurts. Sure, I am used to falling at parks, but regular concrete just cheese shreds your skin. I've apparently gotten soft, because I'm used to getting more of a carpet burn than road rash these days. So finally, I decided to just try to ollie this little four stair. Well, that didn't turn out to well, but I did eventually get a small little ollie off of it. 

After finally getting eaten up on a stupid ollie, I tried to hit the little rail but that didn't work out either. 

Nice and Juicy

So yeah, after bonking the rail like a million times it became pretty clear that I need to work on my flatland ollie. It's rough, I can barely ollie up on a bench now. It made me miss the days when I could get up on picnic tables without too much trouble. So yeah, I really miss me ole ollie (as shown below.)

So that is my new goal for the year, to be able to get my ollie to at least a respectable height again.

Been a while, a recap (Part 3)

In March:
I was able to get down to the Skatepark of Tampa. This is the first time I have been there since the late 1990s. They celebrated 20 years this year, so it was cool to see all the changes and expansions since last time over ten years ago.

This is new since my last visit. It's in an adjacent warehouse and is for beginners. I think it was added around 2000.

Got to sport my new board and shirt.

The Masonite here is super smooth.

Classic guitar-board pose.

Jamie always takes good pics.

The park set up for the upcoming Tampa Pro a couple of weeks later.

A nice throwback to the Souls of Mischief song/album. Apparently, Lance Mountain painted some of these "doughboys."

Picked up a doughboy shirt/hat. Happy 20 Spot!

The infamous moat, used for moat races and wrecked cars.

Had to make the trip complete by visiting the bar/grill run by the Spot. The food was amazing.

The Tampa Pro was just a week or two after my visit.

Been a while, a recap (Part 2)

In February:
     I turned 30 and wanted to hit a handrail since it was a goal of mine for a while. Here is the proof if you don't believe me. I mentioned it in my first post for the blog. So I went to Hazard in Atlanta and hit my favorite rail (RIP, it was just replaced with a Hubba), but not before warming up in Griffin on twigs. It was an awesome birthday. I bought a new board and one of the Real Skateboards local shirts. It was pretty cool because the video has some of GSU in it.

My homie Doug getting into a nice 5-0 on the new coping.

This is definitely the best picture of the day. Again, props to Jamie for this one.

Fresh grip.

Happy 30th!

Virgin board.

Awesome presents. New shirt and board.

Been a while, a recap (Part 1)

Ok, so it's been a while again. This blatant neglect of my blog made much more sense when I lived in GA because there was a season for skating. Since moving to FL though, I have been able to skate all year basically, not to mention having an awesome park here in Tallyho. So here is my way of making amends, here a massive update. 

In January:

I went to Kona in Jacksonville, the oldest running skatepark in the US.

The pool was very nice. Peanut shaped, nice blue tile, and much smaller than the one in Atlanta I learned on. 

Jamie was awesome and not only came to Kona with me, but took this awesome picture.

Talking to the young bloods is always nice. I gave this kid props for trying the a-frame rail, I wouldn't do it.

This is the spot used for the ender in the new Girl video (Pretty Sweet) trailer.

Again, Jamie was a trooper.

This is definitely my favorite picture. I'm still not sure how Jamie got my head perfectly inside the A like that.

Bert sliding the Kona was almost as fun as the snake run.

The famous snake run. This was my first time skating a snake run and the 2 and a half hour trip would have been worth it even if this were the only thing there. 

Kona sign.

The older part of the park. This concrete is pretty rough and nasty. 

1979! This is definitely the only park I have skated that is older than me.