Love Rye Airfield..

So Wednesday night Rollin' Randy Richard, Jaw Dropping Jared Brooks and myself went to Rye Airfield for Old Guys night. $10 for a 2:45 session is quite good. Especially at this place. Rye is amazing. I can't wait to go again. If you have never been I suggest it strongly. It has something for every level of skater. My personal favorite is the micro area. That little spot is enough to make me want to go back. If that is all it had I would still go back. But that is just a small portion of this amazing skate park. There are 3 bowls, a nice street area, a nice ramp area where most of the bikers are and a HUGE vert ramp. Thing is intimidating to look at. Maybe one day I will drop in on that, but probably not. I don't think I could ever get up the nerve for that. That thing is crazy. But what a great park. I will definitely be going over there as much as possible.

I really loved that micro area. I actually dropped in on the quarter pipes and used the half pipe in there. I almost was able to do a rock and roll fakie. Took a few hard spills trying it, but it was fun. Again, my knee took the worst of it. I gotta let that thing heal. I could feel blood dripping down my leg half way through the night. Anyway, almost got the fakie down. I am excited about that. I am going back sometime this week to work on that. Hopefully I can figure it out and be able to do it regularly. I also was grinding the rail on the little box in the micro area. I actually made it all the way across a few times and stayed on my board. I am happy about that too. It was such a great night. Skating with some of my best buds, not much better than that. I really look forward to skating there again. It is such and awesome place. Join us every other Wedenesday night. Next time we will be there is January 5th. Let's skate! http://www.ryeairfield.com/

These are precious times...

Precious times these are. Yes it's cold, but now is the time to get out and skate before that white fluffy stuff starts falling from the sky. Yes, you could go and shovel out the park, like Rollin' Randy, but I don't think I am up for that just yet. I used to, but just the thought of shoveling my driveway is enough to make me want to stay inside for the entire winter while the snow is on the ground. The thought of shoveling my driveway, cleaning off my car, and then goin and shoveling the skate park is just too much for me right now. I know, I sound like a fairweather skater. I sound pretty weak, but I am. I just can't do that right now. I will take going to Rye a couple times a month until the snow is gone.

I have been skating again now for about a month. I have been out about 4 or 5 times. I know not much in a month, but that's all I can do. I do feel like I am making great progress though. I feel like I have ollying while moving down pat. It feels good. I am getting much more confident. I can feel my confidence grow every time I go out and do something just a little bit better than I did before. I went out tonight around 8:45 and got home around 10:00. It was a great night tonight. I was ollying really well while I was skating along. It realy made me feel good. Only problem is that it makes me want to do a lot more. It makes me want to start doing some crazy stuff. Stuff I am just not ready for. I need to keep myself in check with what I should be trying. I am not 18 anymore. I am 31, almost 32, with the body of a 50 year old, at least. But just getting out and skating is making me feel a litle better. I am sore, but I love it. It is very much worth it. I really hope that within a year I will be doing some grinding and flip tricks. I know, those are tricks that aren't easy, but I don't settle for not getting better. I will work until I have those things down perfect. I don't mind sitting there doing the same thing for a few hours while I try to make progress working on a trick. So I am definitely making good progress. I am getting a really good feel for this, and I hope to be skating for a long time. But for now, these are precious times. Time to take advantage of the fact that there is no snow on the ground yet. Time to get out and do what you love to do. Time to get out and skate.

Maybe i was wrong........

Okay, so i might have been wrong with the preferring to skate in winter thing......man it is COLD out there!

I would rather skate in winter......

I know it sounds crazy, but I would rather skate in winter than in summer for multiple reasons. It's 24 degrees out right now. I just got home from a 1 1/2 hour skate session at the Nashua skate park. And I loved every minute of it. The main reason I love to skate in winter is because I don't get as worn out as quick. During the summer I just can not do vigorous activity for any length of time. I get overheated very quickly, get dizzy and nauseous. It just isn't fun. So during the summer I might be able to skate for about half hour before I am done. But in the winter, I can skate for hours. Seriously, once you get moving and keep moving you keep very warm. Again, tonight it is 24 degrees and I skated for 1 1/2 hours and worked up a real good sweat. I actually would have stayed longer but I didn't bring anything to drink and my water bottle in the car was ice, not water. So I had to go. But my stamina in the cold is so much better than in the heat. I will still skate in the summer. Probably late at night or early in the morning for the most part. But winter skating is for me!

I also have to talk about how I did tonight. This is really only my third time skating in about 14-15 years, so take that into consideration with what I am about to say. Hey, I am proud of myself and that's all that matters, right? I really love the Nashua skate park. There are all sorts of good lines to take. But tonight, I felt like I made huge leaps in my return to skating. I landed most of my ollies while moving. So I feel like I am getting that down really well. I think a couple times I ollied about 9" - 12" while I was moving. I am quite proud of myself for that. I even managed to land 2 heel flips for which I threw both arms in the air and jumped up and down like I just threw the winning pass in the Super Bowl. Yes, I get a little over excited about things. If you know me you are not surprised by my actions tonight. If you don't, yes I am a total dork. Anyway, so I have conquered! I have become a MAN! I can ollie while moving now. And it wasn't just barely rolling. I was going at a good clip. I am very excited. I think my favorite line I hit tonight was going down the ramp on the left of the park, over the little bump, or whatever you call it, and all the way into the 3-sided bowl at the end of the park. I was working on just going up the quarter pipe and back down. I almost got all the way to the top and came back down without falling. Again, very proud of myself. I really am a dork. But I really feel that I am progressing well since I only have been skating for real 3 times this year. Hopefully my progress continues and I will be able to really do some cool stuff soon. That's it for now. Hope I didn't make you sick with my love fest with myself, but if I did, oh well. Deal with it.

Sometimes, you just shouldn't skate...........

Wow, I can’t believe November 27 was the last time I blogged. That also means it was the last time I went skating……not gooooooood at all! I did go out skating yesterday though, even though it was about 15 degrees or less with wind chill. I do have some insulation (some call it blubber) on this body, so it wasn’t too bad. I took off from work for my lunch break and headed over to the Nashua skate park, which is only about 10 minutes from my work. It was a blast. Ollied a couple times while I was moving, moving slowly, but moving. I made it around the park a couple times so that was good. But it really wasn’t a great idea to go skating on my lunch break. Why you may ask? Well, I will tell you. I was just getting in one or two last runs before I headed back to work. Turned out, didn’t get two in, only the one. I decided that run was my last as I lay on the ground with a ripped pair of jeans covered in blood. Yep, took a hard spill and paid for it. Like I said, I ripped my pants open, tore the skin right down on my knee. It was bleeding pretty good. So, I decided I better get back to work. As I am driving back I am trying to decide how in the world I am going to hide this from my boss and how am I going to bandage this up. I remembered that I work at a very dangerous place and there is quite and extensive first aid kit available. So when I got back to the office, I went down to the production plant and opened the first aid kit. Can’t tell you how excited I was to see bandages. I don’t think I have ever been that excited about bandages before, and probably won’t be ever again. The only reason I was upset by the first aid kit is because there were no Hello Kitty bandades in there. Oh, well. Anyway, I took some bandages and some cleaning wipes and went back up to my cube. The cleaning wipes hurt a thousand times more than the actual impact of my body crashing down to the cold concrete surface. So I wiped off all the blood, put on some bandages and went back to work. My boss didn’t notice, but one of the other engineers I work with did. We were discussing a project and he saw my ripped jeans and saw they were a little red. Then we had a discussion about how those pants might be worth more now because they are ripped. I don’t understand the buying of ripped jeans, I really don’t, but that has nothing to do with this. Anyway, He decided to use scotch tape to fix the rip. It actually worked for quite a while. I was surprised. So thankfully, all turned out okay. My boss didn’t find out and I got to get out and skate for a bit. All in all it was a good day. I am definitely looking forward to my next skating adventure and will keep all of my devoted followers (which are probably none) up to date with my skating progress. "I gotta say, today was a good day!"