Doubles Run!

Whilst cleaning up the hard drive I found a few nuggets worth sharing. Enjoy!

Christmas Session

We met under the mistletoe that is stadium lighting over waves of concrete. Me, Skidzilla and Junior. Junior had a few sips(cans) of liquid courage, and was bustin' rock sliders to fakie from the 6' to the 4'. Very smooth. And 50-50s in the 8' were locked in. No worries, he was wearing his new invisible PBR pads, but he never needed them. This youngster is steppin' it up guys. This was his session. He came to skeet today, and skeet he did.

Skidzilla was ready to roll as well. Standard runs right out of the gate with grinds and pivots in ridiculously LONG runs. And not just a few, but EVERY run. He's a machine. Skidzilla's speed is also consistent through the whole line. Freakin' regular footers... grrrr...

I had some good standard runs as well. Even a few super fast speed runs, but the bowl 50-50 is still a mystery to me. So insanely inconsistent and quite frustrating. I also tried to step up to the slider from the 6' to the 4' with Junior, but it just wasn't meant to be... yet. But no doubt, a super fun session.

In her Christmas letter, my sis-in-law said the blog needed more pics of old geezers doin' tricks and "surviving." Pedestrians... but what can you do, they're family... Well, these are for you Jean. :)
-Me, with a festive rock-n-roll just before sunset.

-Skidzilla the frontside master in the middle of a "standard" marathon run.

-Junior bustin' new moves... rock slider to fakie, 4' to 6'. No sweat.

-The best shot of the night. Damn Hippy. Frontside even.


I hope your Christmas was as much fun as ours. For the rest of you Concretins, pay attention. I believe we should require this New Year's resolution... Skate More. For some of us, that will be difficult, because we skated and skated and skated. For others, that won't be difficult at all. Let's say 50 sessions, and 2 roadtrips? Quantifiable, and reasonable. You can doo eet! We'll even count Ollie's and Frankfort as Roadtrips. I want to skate better, I want YOU to skate better. I want your skating to push MY skating. I'm ready. Are you?

Merry Christmas!

'Nuff said. Indeed.

Ok, a lil' more... I miss Calvin and Hobbes. My apologies to Bill Watterson for not getting his permission to post this. But I promise to only use it to spread goodwill, and vow never to have a Calvin wizzin' on a logo sticker on anything I own, and will forever give the stink eye to all those who do. Though I'm not gonna go as far as my bro and get a Calvin and Hobbes tattoo... sorry.

Quiet Riot

It's such a lovely weekend in the Ohio Valley. 30 degrees or so... freezin' rain, for days on end. Or at least often enough that it never dries out at the park, nor gets above my 40 degree tolerance skate rule. Nevertheless, when I left the house today, I was in shorts... with my old man black socks pulled up, neoprene knee wraps already on, and shirts layered topped with a toboggan and a scarf... I needed to SKATE dammit! The call was out to hit Riot Skatepark with Junior and Skidzilla. Earliest session, with hopes of the pre-teenies not gettin' dropped off by mom and dad until later... no luck. It was PACKED with prepubescent groms all givin' us the WTF look. Turns out they were mostly friendly, even the snakers, but still... OLD people weren't really supposed to be there. It was amusing being the tallest people in the room. Everyone had helmets on, but only us, and maybe 2 other groms including little ripper Micah Wu had full gear.

Think you can skate? Check out Micah's blog loaded with videos and learn the truth. You're old and can't skeet none. http://micahskates.blogspot.com/ He's suprisingly powerful and agile for his small size. He's so much fun to watch. Dad Dave is so cool to bring him all the way from Lex, in this crappy weather, just so the kid can skate. Man, I hope I get to be that dad! (My luck, Indy will wanna play football... that'll be just terrific.)

Anyway... we hit the 3' spined mini ramp as much as we could. But with such a packed house, it was 1 run per 10 to 15 minutes... And I was too figedity for that. Skidz got lil' bs-to-fs grind transfers over the spine, hit his pivots and even a couple 5-0s, though the lip was STICKY. Which was in sharp contrast to the rest of the ramp surface which was skeery slick. But after a few runs, you get used to it. I eventually went for a slide transfer and hit it MUCH easier than I expected. Then felt lame that I had to "nut up" for it. I headed over to join Jr. on the bank and quarter.

This was the least crowded spot. Only one other grom ever joined us, so we were getting plenty of runs, but the bank was just a lil' too steep, so the bottom was bit jarring. But the quarter was good and larger than we're used to skating at 5'+. Josh hit stalls and plenty of bs and fs slides on the bank. Dave got his pivots and a step off version of the fs pivot to tail. I hit several good bs disasters and pivots. I really wanted to throw the 270 stall, but comin' in fakie on the bank just wasn't a good idea. I tried it, once. I didn't die, but there was no way I was gonna try to really pump it.

Skidz had to head out for family duties, and Jr. quit skating and went and chatted with Micah's Dad. I had been watchin' the lil' buggers hit an orange barrier wall set up on the fun box of the street area. I KNOW I can slide it, but whenever I saw them bail from it, my mind said, "Dude, don't do it. That'll hurt." But we were having such a good session, despite the short and large crowd. I'm glad I didn't listen. 3rd try and the barrier slide was locked in, repeatedly. It was funny to see the groms clap in surprise rather than actual props. It was far easier than expected, but still caused a bit o' puckering each time, and required some faith that I wasn't gonna plow over a grom inadvertently crossing my path. It was certainly no krooked grind, lipslide, nosegrind or 5-0 that the kids were throwin' down, but I still think I was having more fun. We definitely have to have a full-on Concretins session here. But it will need to be on a sunny day so the kids are all downtown. I can't wait to watch Mofo destroy that mini-ramp! (http://www.riotsk8park.com/)

On the way home, amidst tons of stupid people on the wet roads not really watching (nor apparently knowing) where they're going, I realized that for the past 2 hours, I hadn't stressed about, nay, even thought about Christmas shopping, bathroom reconstruction, cabinet building, car buying, family visits nor my impending parenthood (well, I do remember hoping my kid skates like Micah)... I was relaxed, and stoked. All because 2 'Cretins dragged me to a hole in the wall, dust filled, babysitter called Riot Skatepark. My friends are so cool. Life is good.

Do it, kid!

I thought I'd post this pic that found its way into my Inbox today. I didn't take it. And it wasn't even attached to a skate-related e-mail. It was part of a montage of "feel good" shots of kids. I pulled it and posted it because I found it oddly appropriate for everything that we as Concretins stand for.

We skate. We rule.

(I was also a bit tired of all of the post-BBQ hype and cold weather lamenting)

Lazy 'Cretin

So I've been lazy, and haven't worked on skate vids/pics from the BBQ, even though the stoke from that is still flowin'. I haven't done that, as what little "project energy" I've spent, has been used on Christmas decorations (I ain't sayin' Holiday punk. It's CHRISTMAS at our house) and bathroom renovation planning. (Not much energy has been spent on the renovation, just the planning. I'm still freakin', but the old tile is out, so there's no turning back now.) I've shrunk into my own head a bit, as I usually do when the weather gets crappy and projects are overwhelming, and I just don't feel like hangin' with peeps, even the cool 'Cretins. Shrinkin' into a shell is very difficult this time of year... which makes me wanna tell the world to piss off that much more... but alas... I can't seem to get the world to quit spinnin'...

Anyway, I have been skating a couple of times and both sessions have been great. Last weeks midweek session was great and actually warm. But suprisingly the park was virtually empty. Tony, Travio, Skidzilla and I hit the 'crete for a good long session. This weekend, Junior and I said we gotta skate even though it has been raining 48 hours straight. I called Mofo and the mini ramp session was on. I had mentioned to Kyle that I don't learn stuff in the winter, it's just too cold and I skate all stiff and crusty, but much to my surprise, I was having a great session. Pivots are one of those tricks that each session is different, I either have 'em or I don't. This morning, I HAD them. Usually a good session when I do. So I thought, a 5-0 grind is just a pivot, moving. I carved in with just a lil' more speed, leaned back just a bit, and tada! Backside 5-0s!!! STOKED! FINALLY. Skidzilla has been doin' 'em all summer, and he just started skating 5 years ago... So after 20, it's time I had them. I also finished my session with some well popped 270 stalls. But they're still inconsistent.

Junior is going a step further to fight off the dizziness that I suffer from doing everything backside. He began the journey to get fs grinds. He had no problem gettin' locked on the coping and grinding across the ramp... but the neste plunge that Dave does with ease, that's just skeery! But he's nuttin' up for 'em, and he's really only 1 good session away from the make. He's got the sliders to fakie and 50-50s consistent too.

Now Mofo, he complained a bit, but was really skating like his usual bad ass self. Though we did witness a struggle, with half-cab-blunt-pivots... but it really makes me nuts that his "struggle" included complete misses of the blunt (rock-n-roll instead), but he didn't bail! He'd go back in and set up and try again. It's impressive when you're able to do this once, stay on your run when missing a trick... but he did it several times in the same run! And then finally, he'd scrunch his brow just right, and spun the fastest half-cab-blunt-pivot I've ever seen... perfection. Then, when he did it again, things weren't quite right to take the pviot back in, so he slapped it to tail and went back in. Jeez. He makes my jaw drop every session... Bloody Mofo!

So Dave was havin' a Christmas party today, and I couldn't wait to tell him about my 5-0s. He smiled and said, "Hey that's great. Frontside?" Bastard. Just had to bust my balls. Should have I expected anything less? No mercy. Whatta Punk...

And with all the chit chat goin' on today, and in the past few weeks, I'm gonna make a Concretins prediction. Within 2 years, we will have a full blown mini-ramp circuit available in the Louisville region, with a minimum of 4 private ramps, if not 5 or 6... Hopefully, a self fulfilling prophecy. Now, excuse me, I need to get back to rewriting the bathroom plan... Hey, I don't suffer from ScorpioticNeurosis, I enjoy every minute of it.

Still thinking about it

OMA BBQ2 Ruled. I'm still trying to process all the stoke. For a time I was concerned that I had "stoked out."

Cocaine fries a user's dopamine uptake receptors by firing them so hard and so much that the brain no longer registers any form of pleasure unless artificially stimulated by the drug. A week of use can lead to up to a month of depression while the user's brain repairs itself.

I can tell you personally a weekend binge of OMA-Style Gnar has similar side effects. Nothing has been fun since I've been home. I've been so uninspired, I've even contemplated giving up the board.

Here's two parks highlights - panorama style.

Tempe





Goodyear