6.22.02 - 6.23.02
I went to Louisville this weekend. I was supposed to leave on Friday but I drove through a flooded out road on Tuesday night and ruined the engine of my seven-month-old car so I needed to stay home and take care of some things. Initially I cancelled the trip entirely because I was so bummed out but my insurance hooked me up with a rental car and I decided to go anyway.
Since everyone else already left I did the drive solo. I took a different route this time so the new scenery kept me entertained and made the eight and a half hour drive a little easier.
I arrived at the park about 9:30 and all the lights were off and there were a few police cars around. I had no idea what was going on. I thought maybe something happened at the park and they were shutting it down. I went in the park and found Rob and Dirty and the told me the lights had been out for awhile but they were getting them back on. Salba was there as well an informed me that they were just talking about me a few seconds ago. I took a few runs in the dark but thought the better of it and stopped. The lights came back on about 30 minutes later and the session was on.
A lot of the big boys were out tonight. Salba, Dan Drehobl, Jake Phelps, Brewce Martin, Larry Lesher, Richie Wireman, some guy named Walter, Andy from Dayton, and a bunch of other rippers I do not know by name were out and killing the park. I was extra stoked on meeting and skating with Salba. He skates so effortlessly. He rolled into the 11-foot section almost every time, and his airs looked so simple and fluid. He definitely displayed his mastery of the full pipe right away going higher then anyone else. It was really an amazing sight seeing how easy he got into the oververt. Larry Lesher was doing the biggest airs and Brewce was skating the fastest as usual. Brewce beat the crap out of someone for ripping him off and was kicked out of the park for two days. He came back to park anyway and pulled a frontside invert on a banana board. Drehobl was ripping also. He was doing some huge padless airs and just flowing around the big bowls. I did not have the greatest session. I slammed on my knee pretty bad in the full pipe. I kept skating though and got about a foot higher into the oververt. Before the session was over I jacked my other knee as well.
Rob and Dirty got a sick hook up for a place to stay. They basically got loaded with some guy the night before and he gave them a key to his apartment. We crashed there for the night, or morning, to catch some sleep.
We got up around 11 and got some food and went back to the park. My one knee was so messed up when I woke that I could barely walk. I almost could not get down the stairs at the apartment. It was really hot out at the park. I check the thermostat in the car and it read 93 degrees. Rob and I took a few runs before we decided it was just too damn hot. Rob and Dirty decided to hit the road. This left me in a situation. I did not want to leave because there was supposed to be another insane session tonight but I also did not want to sit around in the heat by myself. I decided to get something to drink and then sit in the air-conditioned car for a while and wait and see if anyone would show up. After about an hour no one showed and the temperature was continuing to rise so I decided just to take off. If my knees were not so beaten up I would have stuck out and skated but It was not worth it today.
All in all it was an all right trip. Skating with Salba definitely made it worth it though. Had I left the day before or planned a little better the trip would have really been good. I do not regret it though. It was a lot better then sitting at home sulking.
If you want to check out some bad pictures of the trip, go here

6.15.02 - 6.16.02
I ventured up to Philadelphia today to meet Scott Greene and skate FDR. I got caught in over an hours worth of traffic and just made it to the park in time to skate for about an hour before the rain came. Nothing serious really went down. When it started raining we went over to the vert ramp and decided to take some slams. Once we got that out of the way we sessioned the miniramp for awhile. Once it stopped raining we worked on drying out the park enough so that it would be dry for tomorrows session. After that I headed over to Scott's apartment to crash for the night.
We got up early today so that we could get to asbury early enough to beat any trouble that might occur during the midday. The day before we heard rumors that you really could not skate there anymore because its filled with water and is under surveillance. Its hard to tell what is truth and what is diversion tactics though. We got there around 10am and rushed in so no one would see us. We had no idea how long we would have so I pushed myself to get some grinds right away. After about 20 minutes without the boot we realized we were home free. I have always heard how amazing this pool is but I never really understood. Its by far one of the easiest things I have ever skated. Even the lowend is perfect enough for frontside carves. After a little while longer two young locals showed up and kind of had me bugged out. They had no regard to getting kicked out. They freely walked around the deck without any care of being seen. The one kid took a slight fall in the deepend and proceeded to lay there for five minutes. This really agitated me because I did not want to get kicked out before I really got a good session in. The good thing about these kids was they really loosened you up. I mean since they were walking around in sight of any passer bys why should we bother to keep sneaking around? It did not matter in the end anyway since we did not get kicked out. I was able to skate the pool so well I developed several lines right away and even managed a few frontside grinds. Scott displayed his mastery of the pool with slash grinds everywhere imaginable and lines out the wazoo. Two and a half hours into the session and we decided to take off. I really need to get back to this place as soon as possible.
After a stop back at Scott's for lunch we headed back to FDR for another session. I was pretty beat from Asbury so I did not do anything special. I did come less then a foot from backside grinding the oververt dome. Next time I am going to get that bitch. Scott was ripping like the typical local and Bryan Lathrop was there showing me the the goofy foot lines before he took a brutal slam.
All in all it was another sick trip and I want to do it again as soon as I have some more free time.

6.5.02 - 6.9.02
Josh and I headed out to the midwest to go to the bowl bash at skatopia and skate the Louisville park again.
We left about noon or so after I rented a badass 4x4 Chevy Silverado. The weather started out nice but got pretty severe by the time we reached Kentucky. I was pretty bummed out that we drove all this way and not we were not going to be able to skate. The rain was acctually a blessing becuase it stopped about 15 minutes before we got to the park and the lone kid there informed us that it dried up really fast. After walking around the park I could already see some dry spots. We decided to go get some gas and some drinks and let it dry out some more. When we got back it was a lot dryer but the fullpipe still had a decent amount of water in it. Luckily there was a random bath towel laying around, a nice one at that, I should have taken it, and I used that to dry up the water. Once that was done we had the park practically to our selves. Last month there were over 200 kids at this hour, 11pm, now there were about ten.
I was still pretty beat up from last weekend but I was still able to get some decent height in the fullpipe. I think I managed a few frontside kickturns in the oververt this time. My big accomplishment was doing axle stalls on the 11ft walls.
We were just going to sleep in the truck at the park but some kid kinda sketched me out about it the area so we decided to check out this closed down kmart and sleep behind that. Well that did not seem much better and we passed a motel 6 that was less then 40 bucks so we stayed there instead. It rained pretty hard all night and when we woke up the park was wet so we just decided to head out to skatopia.
We got to skatopia around 6 and went right to work throwing some gravel over the mud. I would really like to come back sometime and do some real work there. I was kinda suprised to see Ben and Psycho there but I was stoked to see familiar faces. I skated the bowl a little bit since there were not that many people there. It was a lot less intimidating this time but I still could not find a good way to get down the waterfall frontside. Later in the night after, I got slightly intoxicated, I saw Dave Ruel skating the unfinished fullpipe so I decided to join him. It was not very easy to skate this thing impaired but I ended up getting my highest all weekend. After that I watched a small session in the bowl and retired to the truck for some sleep.
The next day I woke up to the sound of quarter sticks at 8am. Since it was real wet yesterday I kept the truck parked down by the barn and I decided to move it up to camp ECRW buy the purple bus. Getting the truck up there was an amazing task. I almost flipped it while sliding sideways down a hill. The truck ended up in a rut with 2 wheels almost off the ground. I thought I was done but I started spinning the wheels and I was out. After some fishtailing up the hill I made it to camp. Shortly after that, around 10am, we had the first derby car fire. It was a beautiful sight. This was only a preview of what was in store for the rest of the weekend. The fullpipe was finished today and I skated it some more. Tim and AC showed up and I skated with them for awhile in the fullpipe and dong ramp. I am really glad they came, skating with them makes me feel good and Tim pushes me to skate more. I never got in the bowl today. The session was a little stronger. Science showed up today and was ripping as usual. At one point the lights went out and he did a boneless aided only by flash lights. Rune Glifburg made a rare sighting and skated the fullpipe for a little while with Remy Stratton and Ruel. As I went back up the hill to camp Tim yelled out to me and he gave me some old pictures of the falcon. I was really stoked because I have never seen that place before it was destroyed. As soon as my scanner comes I will put them up. I eventually went up to camp and talked to a very wasted Rob. Nothing was going on so I went to bed.
I am pretty sure I woke up to gunfire today. Tim from camp keystone was shooting skeet with sloppy sam. It was pretty hot today so I decided not to skate until night. I stayed up at camp most of the day watching some derbying and truck tug of wars. I talked to some of our campmates from the band El Destructo and found out that they were going to trash there badass bronco tonight. This put me in a tough spot because he was going to try and jump some cars with it and I did not want to miss that but there were stories of sick skating going on at the barn. Once the derby action calmed down I went down to skate the fullpipe a little bit. It was still pretty hot so I did not last long. Jonny showed up so I told him where are camp was and I went back up. There were two more cars on fire when I got there and I started taking pictures. After a few rally rides with Devin I remembered I left my ECRW pool service shirt down by the fullpipe. I really did not want to lose it so I ran down to get it. When I got there Brewce started eyeing up the transfer from the dong to the fullpipe so I stayed for awhile and watched. Once it looked like he was backing off I went back up to the hill. When I got there I was sad to see that the el destructo bronco was now smashed into the pile of cars and he was about to light it up. It was a sad ending to it but atleast I got to ride in it a few crazy times. Once everything calmed down again I headed back to the barn to take some pictures and skate the bowl. The session was still pretty laxed but I was able to get some nice photos of Dave Ruel and Science. I wanted to get some pictures of Brewce but he just skates so fast that its really hard. I have never seen anyone skate anywhere near as fast as he goes. Once Ruels band, the skatanic rednecks, made it on stage I decided to skate some more. The band rocked and pumped me up to get some nice backside carvegrinds in the deep. Once everything died down around 4am I headed back to camp to relax. Everyone was crashed out so I talked to one of the guys from el destructo again and then went to sleep.
I woke up damn early again today. Even though I did not have any alcohol yesterday I felt the worst of all three days. I walked around to see the aftermath and watched some locals doing keg stands of old style at 8am. Once we got everything cleaned we took off around noon.
I had an amazing time at the bowl bash. I met some rad guys and made some good connection for future sessions. I can not wait til the fall to do it again.
You can see some pictures here for now.

6.2.02
Last weekend I went down to Wanchese and I met Mark from the Portsmouth Pool Service. I told him about a pool I had been riding and he quickly made plans to come up and check it out. Mark brough Rick and John with and we had a nice little five hour session at the Ivybowl.
I was still pretty beat up from the last two days so I took pictures most of the time. Bulldog showed up and decided to school us on the lines. I do not know how he does it but he powers right through the kinks and shoots back up into the lowend pockets with tons of speed. After pulling a few backside grinds in the lowend John took off. It took Mark a few hours but he figured out how to get sick speed back into the lowend aswell. He killed the love seat with frontside grinds and even pulled a few airs on it. He came damn close to airing over the entire love seat and landing on the flatwall but it was just not in the cards today.
Rick. Holy Shit! 37 years old and I believe he is the first person to grind the deepend. I am not talking about a regular old backside grind. I am talking about a gnarly frontside crail grind in the pocket right of the love seat. I really do not even know what else to say about. It blow everyone away.
John was no scrub either. He was getting grinds both frontside and backside on the love seat and came inches from slash grinding the same pocket Rick killed.
I had the best trick of all. I snapped the tail of my deck going over the light backside. Black Label decks suck!

5.31.02 - 6.1.02
Josh and I went up to Rhode Island for two days to hit up Skater Island. I was really amped for this trip because we were going to strictly skate the park. Most of the time we go to other parks and party a little bit and run out of time. Since Skater Island has my favorite bowl I did not want to fuck around anywhere else.
I got worked in the bowl real bad right away. It bothered me the rest of the trip but I was not going to let it ruin anything. I really wish I did not get hurt because I was really feeling the bowl this trip. I was getting some crazy speed and was getting long carvegrinds both back side and front side. I stuck some alright airs and even pulled a few axle stalls in the deepend. Man, I love that bowl.
The second day I managed to pull myself away from the bowl and skate the vert ramp a little bit. After getting comfortable I managed to get a backside grind on the 13 foot section with pool coping. The 3 feet of vert really made it feel wierd, almost like I was weightless. After getting the grind out of the way I took some shots at the channel. On the way to the park I was convinced it would be easy to get a front side air over it. Getting there and seeing that it is 4 feet wide opened my eyes a little bit. It took we a few trys to get used to the speed but I ended up sticking a few about a foot under the coping. I wish the bowl was not so much fun so I would skate this ramp more. Maybe next time we will get there earlier and I will not get hurt so fast.

3.16.02
The home brew bowl club is getting bigger these days. A couple of guys and I raided a construction site for scrap rebar and brought it down to a future site of concrete paradise.
I checked out a pretty sick mini ramp at the drop off spot. It was about 4 or 5 feet tall with a 1 foot extention, a wall ride, and a 3 foot channel. Since the owner was not around, I did not get to ride it. It was pretty rad just to see. We took off from there to investigate new rumors of a fullpipe.
The rumor was true! After a little searching we found 2 fifteen foot steel cylinders. Each tube only had 1 two foot opening so it was pretty damn dark inside. After a little cleaning we were skating them pretty hard. They were both heavily coated in rust so the dust made it hard to breathe. After a few minutes we were all spitting up some nasty mud. The one pipe is a lot nicer then the other one. These is almost no seems or rivets in it and the crossbars at the capsule end were removed allowing room to carve around it. There are also a couple ancient skate stickers inside making us think that these things have been skated since the 80's. This pipe had a lot more dust in it so we spent most of the time in the other.
It took me a little while but, after I got the hang of it, I managed to get into the oververt pretty easily. Everyone else managed to get into the oververt too, some even going frontside. After about an hour are lungs told us it was time to quit. We named them the black lungs as we left. Next time I am bring a dusk mask with me.
I finished off the day with a stop at Jaime's to take some pictures and skate the pond a little while.
All in all it was a pretty sick day. This was the third fullpipe I have skated in a year and it looks like I may have 2 more before its over.

3.15.02
I helped work on the pond today for the first time in a couple months. So much work has been done since the last time I was there. It is crazy how amazing it is going to be.
After the work was done we sessioned the pond for a while and then went to check out this new pool. The pool was nuts. It looks like it is being torn down but I guess it is being refurbished. It has no coping or any platform around it and a good part of the deep end is ripped out. It is totally a ghetto spot. We only got to skate it for a bout 5 minutes before the cops kicked us out.
We went back and skated the pond for a little bit and made plans for tomorrow. Looks like a little full pipe action might be going down.

3.13.02
Knee pads suck when skating street. I wore them at Vans this morning for the first time in months. Everything on the street course was so much harder to do today so I spent the majority of the session on the 6ft with Josh. Nothing really special went down today. Josh learned lien to tails and I landed a few sweepers. It was an alright session.

3.9.02
Josh and I headed up to Newburyport, Massachusetts to check out a new park that was finished at the end of last summer.
This is a sick park. It consists of three bowl type things of various sizes. I had a hard time figuring out lines and a raging session was going on so I took pictures most of the time. You can check out some of the better ones here if you would like. I figure the next time I skate this place I will have a better feel for it.

3.8.02
I drove up to Rhode Island today with Josh to skate Skater Island.
On our way up we stopped and skated these ditches I used to skate a lot in the past. There are about six or so ditches in the area but only two of the ones we checked were dry. Since we did not want to get caught in traffic we only skated for a few minutes and then split
Skater Island is definitely one of the best parks I have ever been to. The bowl is amazing and the snake run is like nothing else I have ever skated. The street course is pretty sick aswell mixing in a little bit of everything.
A crew of eight guys from philly came up and we skated the snake run with them a little while but the majority of time was spent in the big bowl. I used to always have trouble in the bowl. The waterfall is a lot steeper in this bowl then in anything else I have ever skated. The past three times I had skated it I could never figure out how to skate it front side. After a few runs today something just clicked and I was having no problem with frontside lines. I got a couple sick frontside carve grinds in the deepend and the tight corner in the lowend. I had this one line where I did double backside grinds in the lowend and then almost did stand up grinds in the deep. I even pulled a few frontside airs In the deepend. I need to come back here as soon as possible.

3.6.02
Josh and I went to Vans again this morning. It was another typical day. I did land some nice ollies over the pyramid in the back and Josh came super close before a near death experience. I worked on nose slides and board slides in the cement area and landed a couple nice ones. I am slowly getting better at the whole street skating thing.

3.5.02
It was super cold inside Vans today. It took me a lot longer to warm up so, I thought I was going to have a bad session. It ended up being ok. I did a couple tail slides and I grinded the big movable box twice. Nothing special. I wish I could go skate now. I am really feeling good.

3.3.02
I went to Vans again tonight for the 9pm session. I was still pretty beat up from fridays session so I planned on taking it easy tonight.
I worked on tail slides for the majority of session but I did skate the bowl and both mini ramps. Tail slides really got the best of me tonight. For about a hour that was all I did. I got super frustrated because I could not ride away regular so I took a break and skated the 4ft for a while. At the of the session I did pull a couple tail slides but they were not very long. All I can think about it going somewhere and trying some more.

3.1.02
I had a six hour session at Vans today. The kind of session where you get so beat up you can barely get out of the car when you go home.
I worked on tail slides a lot today and I am really starting to get the hang of them. I am able to slide them farther and come out regular a lot more often. My backside 180s were really clicking too. I was landing them nearly everytime over the small euro gap and a few times over the bigger gap.
Vans heavily cleaned the big bowl the other day so I took a break from the street course and skated it for a little while. It was a lot grippier now and I was able to get frontside carve grinds in the lowend easy. After a couple double backside carve grinds in the deep end, I moved over to the 4ft mini ramp for a while.
I had a great time on the mini. A couple guys, at about my level, were skating it well and it really motivated me. I was staying on the coping easier and pulled some really long grinds. I also pulled a 8ft frontside boardslide. I landed a few frontside and backside disasters and worked on some frontside ollies. Satisfied with the mini ramp session, I went back to the street course to do some more tail slides and finish off the session.
After landing a few tail slides and 5-0 grinds, I tried to ollie up on the movable box. Since it had been a long time, and I never really got on the box all that easily, I was suprised that I got up on it on my first attempt. For some reason I was able to get on top of it nearly everytime. I was able to get on it so easily that I decided to try some grinds. Again, I was prety suprised how easy I was getting on the coping. After a few trys I was getting on the coping comfortably but the coping was real sticky so we turned the box around. It was a lot easier to grind this side but I was not getting the right balance. I hung up going real fast on one of my next attempts and flew over the box and landed on my head. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder but I really wanted to land a grind before I left so I tried a few more times. A few more trys and I landed one. Another few trys and I landed a perfect one.
I was ready to leave after that grind but this guy brought in some dj equipment and started playing some metal and hardcore. I stayed a little while longer and skated around to some bad brains, agent orange, and maiden. Frank, the dj, said he was going to try and do this every friday so I did not feel bad leaving early into his set.

2.28.02
I went to Vans again this morning. Nothing special today, just the same nonsense as usual. I worked on tail slides some more and got more comfortable with them. I even land a nice one comming off regular instead of fakie. I finally tried and landed a backside 180 over the bigger euro gap today. I did it so perfect that I was in shock while rolling away.
I got a package in the mail today from Illenium. I can not wait to go home and open it.

2.27.02
I said I was not going to skate for atleast a week but here it is two days later and I am skating again.
Josh and I left for Vans at 10am today. On the way down I ran out of gas. This is the second time in 2 months. I hate new cars. I figured the day was wrecked for sure now but about 5 minutes after I pulled over a highway safety truck pulled up behind us and hooked me up with some gas. After stopping at a gas station we took off to Vans with plenty of time left skate.
We got to the park at 10:40. I made up for lost time by warming up quickly. I skated with Josh a lot more today than I have been at the park lately. We hit up the 6ft first and then moved over to the street course behind it. I still do not have the courage to ollie over the pyramid everytime but I did get close a few times today. I strung together a small two trick line while trying to get over the pyramid. First I would ollie the pyramid and then swing around and 5050 the long ledge. Josh was getting more comfortable ollieing the hips and decided he wanted to try them on the bigger hips, so we both moved over to the street course in the front.
Josh landed some ollies over the hips and popped a few nice one over the euro gaps after a few trys. I threw down the usual tricks with a few heelflips and pop shuvits mixed in for freshness before I tried something new.
The last few days I was think about trying tail slides. I have never been able to keep my weight on my back foot long enough to even stall on anything so I have always backed off from trying them. Last night for some reason I kept thinking about them and I told myself I would just commit and pull one. The first few I tried were not even close. I did not think I even had a chance but I kept trying them anyway. I began getting a little closer each time and eventually I rode away from one. It felt pretty fluky becuase at the time I did not feel like I was that close to landing one and I rode away fakie unintentionally. I kept trying them and I managed to pull a few more. I was not sliding real far but I was not comming off real fast either. I only managed to ride away fakie but that felt like a good start. Hopefully, I will get a better feel for them and be able to slide them farther and control wich way I come off.

2.25.02
I got to Vans this morning around a quarter to 11 and there was no one in the park. I only skated for about twenty minutes because my toe has been bothering me. I am going to try and sit out a week or two and see if it gets better.

2.24.02
I had a ok session at Vans tonight.
It was pretty empty for a sunday night. Wolfpack was representing with atleast six riders, and the rest of the kids there were not too shaby either. I was deffinitly on the bottem of the scale on talent level tonight but, being in that situation does not intimidate me like is used to.
I landed one new trick tonight, 5050 grinds to 180 out on the ledges above the euro gaps. Other than that I did not do anything special. I worked on ollies over the pyramid in the back but I did not have enough time to get one down.
Maybe I was tired or I am still getting used to my new deck but I just was not all there today. Hopefully I will skate tomorrow and have a better time.

2.23.02
Going to Vans on saturdays is always a bad idea. There are so many kids there that it is almost impossible to skate. Since I really do not know anywhere else to skate in the area I headed there for the 7pm session anyway.
I hooked up my new Girl deck today and it took me a little while to get used to it. I did not think there were be much of a difference since this deck is less than a quarter inch bigger but, it did take me a little while to get the feel of it. It might not of been the new deck though. Like I said before there are so many people its hard to skate let alone warm up, so maybe thats why I was off.
It took me a while but I did get all my normal grinds down and even 5050ed the box next to the mini ramp pretty easily. I was able to land a few decent heelflips and backside 180s too. I ended the session with a nice 5050 on the long ledge.

2.22.02
I woke up ready to skate today. I called Josh to make plans and we decided to hit Vans with Tim. I put in EST2 and waited for them to come over.
I think I had the best time today. Josh was sticking primarily to bowl and Tim was skating a little bit of everything. I really enjoy grinding all the boxes the most so thats what I did the majority of the time. I had to wax up the box on the pyramid next to the mini ramp today. I hate waxing ledges because I get so nervous over the possibility of sliding out on my back. The ledge was sticking so much today that I had no other choice but to wax it if I wanted to skate it. I must have put just the right amount on today because I was grinding it easy today. After doing a few I went over to the bowl and convinced Josh and Tim to come skate the street course in the back.
I did some nice 5050s on the long ledge while Tim and Josh worked on ollies on the bigger pyramid. When I got tired of the ledge I moved over to the pyramid with them and tried to ollie transition to transition. It took me a few trys and whole bunch of mental fighting but I landed a few smooth ollies over the pyramid. I am so stoked that I finally did it. I have been trying to do them for months but I always wuss out in the end and stomp my ollies down on the flat on top of the pyramid. After Tim took a nasty fall we moved over to the 6ft mini to finish of the session.
Josh and Tim were going to stop at Zion on the way home so I tagged along. I love Zion but everytime I go there I end up buying something. Today I got the Rick McCrank 7.88" girl deck. I made sure I drove seperatly today so I could ensure I could skate aslong as I wanted. I parted ways with Josh and Tim and headed back to Vans to finish off the next session.
There was 45 minutes left in the session when I got back so I got right in to it and landed some 5050s on the long ledge. Someone brought a construction cone back to the area so I tried launching off the bank over it a few times. I think I made it over one time but I am not sure. It was fun none the less.
Before the session was over I went over to smaller street course to grind the box a few times. It took me so few trys to do it that I had time to try some other stuff. I worked on backside 180s and heelflips with the remaining time. I cracked the nose of my deck pretty bad landing a heelflip so I stopped trying them. My deck was pretty much busted but I landed a sweet backside 180 over the euro gap before I left.
The best part of the day was a little kid telling me he was honestly scared of the long sleeve zero skeleton shirt I was wearing. Classic.

2.21.02
I did not skate today but I am bored and I am thinking about skating so I will write something anyway.
I woke up tired today as usual and decided to sleep in. I knew I was going to regret it like I always do. Now I have to sit at work for eleven hours and just think about skating. The last two weeks I have skated more than I have in years. My typical day goes like this. I wake up between 9:30 and 10 and head down to Vans for the morning session, skate for two hours or so and then head to wawa to get some lunch. I get to work at 1 and stay there until midnight. I get home about fifteen minutes past 12, put in a skate video and then go to bed by 2. It is a simple existance, some people might think its downright pathetic, but I like it.
It is 2:30 as I write this and I am faced with the sad realization that I can not skate until tomorrow. I really wish I would of went this morning.

2.20.02
Josh and I had a short session at Vans today. Some nasty traffic caused Josh to get to my house pretty late so we did not get to Vans until 10:45.
I started the session trying backside 180s over the small euro gap and heelflips up the bank. I did not have much success with either so I went to skate the street course in the back with Josh.
I worked on ollieing the hips frontside and backside after watching Josh try some. The more he did them the better he got. By the end of the session he was landing a lot of nice ones both frontside and backside. After I ollied the hips a few times I moved over to the long ledge and landed a nice grind. I then decided to step it up a notch and try to grind the ledge on the pyramid with the hubba. I was really nervous over trying this because the landing was pretty steep and I can not even ollie the pyramid. The ledge is also higher then anything I have grinded before so I was worried about wrecking just trying to get on the coping.
After a few trys I was able to get on the coping but I was not getting enough speed to ride off. The ledge is pretty short so when I got on it with speed I did not have time to reset my feet. After a lot of near slams I contemplated saving it for another day but I would always try one more time and get closer to doing it. I almost landed one right as they announced the session was over so I hurried up and tried a few more. Right as one of the park nazis came over to kick us out I landed one easily. I could not believe how easy it was to land once I got my balance on the ledge. I left the session flying high.

2.19.02
I went to Vans again this morning. Nothing special today.
My main objective was to take some picture of the terrain and add it to the skatespots page. It took me about a half hour to get the pictures taken so that left me with about hour to skate.
I was a little off today and found myself just standing around a lot staring at this annoying posse of roller bladers. When I was acctually skating I was not doing anything special. I was just kind of in a daze or something. Near the end of the session I worked on backside 180s and even landed a few over the small euro gap. Tomorrow I want to try them over the bigger gap.

2.18.02
I had a strange skate day today. I skated Vans as usual, but earlier in the day I trekked up to Maryland to skate the riverdale ditch.
I did not have the best time at the ditch today. I do not know what it was that bugged me so much but I was in a awful mood up there. When I got there Tim, Josh and Matt were already there. There was also two other guys I did not know. The thing that stood out most in this session was the improvment of Tim. He seems to be so much more confident in his skating these days. He really powers through his grinds and his frontside slashers are thrown down with authority. I love watching him skate when he is really feeling it.
Since I had not skated the ditch in a couple months it took me a little bit to get the hang of it. Once I got the feel back I was able to pull all my old tricks and even a few new ones. The new trick I was happy with the most was backside lip slides. I pulled a few backside smiths aswell but they were pretty much accidental.
The ditch frustrates me because it has a lot of potential to be a really sick spot but everyone is too lazy to work on it. My friend Don worked on it the most and he recently moved away. Now that he is gone I doubt anything major will be done to it. Atleast by anyone I know.
Vans was the same as it has been the last few days. I still do the same old grinds and ollies. I can really tell that I have gotten better by skating there so much more. My grinds are so much easier now. I can do them right away without building up to them. Even grinding the box on the pyramid is a lot easier.
A few guys were pulling some serious tricks tonight on the movable box. They were busting noseblunt slides while I was strugling to ollie on to it. My best trick was making everyone think I was going to die on some severe slams on that box. Three times I slipped out when landing on the box and I fell straight on my back right on the edge of the box. It must of looked a lot worse then it felt though because I did not get hurt. I pulled some muscle between my leg and hip though. Hopefully it will not bother me when I wake up tomorrow.
Considering I was off from work today, and I did not skate the previous two days, it was a dissapointing skate day. I really need to take advantage of these days when I have nothing else to do.

2.15.02
I went to Vans twice today. Both were pretty good sessions for different reasons, but the first one was better.
Tim, Matt, and Josh came over to my apartment at 1 and we headed down to Vans to skate the rest of the 12:15 to 2:15 session and some of the 2:30 to 4:30 session. I skated a little bit of everything with everybody today.
I skated street with Tim first. I did most of the usual tricks and landed a nice long 5050 on the long ledge on the small pyramid in the back section. It gave me a great feeling to land that grind. The ledge was waist high and I had never even tried to grind off something that high before. Now I need to work my way up to the big hubba ledge back there. Tim landed a couple nice ollies over the big euro gap in the area aswell. Matt joined us and did some crazy backside 180 bonelesses to fakie 5050 to half cab out. Pretty sick!
I skated the 6 foot and bowl with Josh. Josh did some nice frontside early grabs on the mini while I tried to land some ollies to 5050 over the hip. Over at the bowl I tried some stand up grinds and Josh worked on axle stalls. It took me a while but I did pull off one nice grind.
We all left feeling pretty good about the session.
After taking Jen out to dinner I returned to Vans for the 9pm session to get a little more skating out of my system.
I was pretty tired so I did not skate real hard. I did bust a few high frontside ollies over the smaller hip and land a couple half decent heelflips. Over at the bowl these two guys were ripping it up so, I took a break and watched them for a while.
Thier names were Tim and Benji and they were in town doing some demo at the washington convention center. Tim was killing the coping and pulled off some ridiculous airs. He did a couple indys that were close to five feet out of the bowl and even pulled out the old cannonball. I do not think I have ever seen anyone do one of those in person. He also rolled into the deepend a few times for good measure. Benji was blowing my mind. He was rolling in switch! He pulled so many tricks that I can not remember them all. Tricks I do remember him doing are frontside board slide to rock n roll, stand up grinds over the hip, and airs over the hip from the deepend to backside lipslides in the lowend. I think I am still in shock since I can not remember the other hundred tricks these guys did.
Even though I did not skate that much, just watching Benji and Tim skate made the whole session worth it.

2.14.02
I woke up today at 9:45 and I checked to see if I received any packages. When I saw that I did not I decided to sleep in. Five minutes later the UPS guy knocks on my door and he gives me my package containing my new wheels.
I have been hearing a lot about these new Autobahn wheels, so I was excited to try them out. I got the M-Series 54mm 99a wheels. I jumped in the shower, put on the new wheels, and headed down to Vans at 10:30.
I arrived at a quarter to 11 and saw no one at the gate or counter so I waited for a few minutes. No one came over so I just skated into the park. Since there was only one other person in the park I was sure someone would come over and tell me I need to pay but no one ever did. Heck, I even got to skate 30 minutes extra!
The first thing I noticed about the wheels is how fast they are. I thought, since they are fairly smaller then what I have been riding the last few years, that they would be slower then what I used to. I do not know if it was the wheels or not but, everything felt so solid today. My ollies were snapping hard, high, and far, my grinds were fast and smooth, and I was locking on and grinding the minis' coping easily. I had a great time taking advantage of the wheels hardness by power sliding everywhere. The guy that puts out these wheels told me it is near impossible to flatspot them.
I took a burly fall onto my back trying to grind the box on the pyramid. I landed on top of the box instead of the coping and my board slid out sending me down to the concrete on my tailbone. I bruised it a little bit but not enough to keep me from skating more. I landed a couple of those grinds without wrecking myself and I called it a day.
A fiasco at work gave me about an hour to kill so I returned to Vans. Since I was not going to be there more than 45 minutes I took a chance and walked in again without paying.
My tailbone was bothering me a little so I took it easy and worked on some new tricks. I landed a couple backside noseslides on this small ledge in the cement area and headed over to the banks and euro gaps. I landed a decent amount of pop shuvits and ended the session with a few grinds.
Before I left I found out that Dave Duncan and crew are going to be redoing some of the street course. It looks like the most effected area is going to be the course behind the 6 foot ramp because it is skated the least. I put in my two cents and suggested putting in some bowled corners to give the small area some flow. We can only wait and see what happens.

2.13.02
As Tim, Josh, and I headed down to Vans this morning for our weekly session, we hit some brutal traffic that made us about a half hour late. To make up for the lost time I charged into the park and warmed up fast. I was already doing my normal grinds by the time Josh and Tim got padded up and entered the park.
After warming up a little more I went over to the 6 foot to skate with Josh. I just worked on speeding up my grinds around the small bend and popping off the hip, on the other side, to grinds. Josh was not really feeling it today so we both left the ramp.
Skating the street course with Tim is fun because I get to see him progress. Last week he was having a hard time getting his ollies down but this week was another story. We went over to the biggest street course and he landed a couple high ollies on the pyramid. This must have really raised his confidence level because later he was pulling all kinds of ollies on the bank ramps and hips over at the smaller course. After ollieing the euro gap things, easily, he started pulling some backside ollies over the mellow hip. One was so nice it shocked both me and Tim.
I ollied up onto the big movable box some more today and it really made other tricks a lot easier. After using all my effort to get up on top of it, doing grinds on top of the big ledge on the pyramid took little effort at all. I even landed a few heelflips today. I finished off the session by doing a few axle stalls, with Josh, over at the big bowl.
I am hoping the order I placed for Autobahn wheels come to my house early enough tomorrow that I can set them up for another session at Vans.

2.12.02
I met an interesting guy this morning at Vans. His name is James and he is 28. It is very cool getting to skate with older guys every now and then, especially on the street course. He used to skate all the time in the 80's and just started again after a 4 year layoff. He was telling me he started skating a lot more now so he will be better when his son starts skating in a few years. For someone that had not skated for atleast 4 years he sure had caught on to the new tricks pretty fast. He was already doing tricks like shuvit frontside 5050s, 5050 to lip slide, 5-0 to tailslide, nollies on the hips, and 5050s on the big movable box. He was a pretty rad guy and got me motivated to try some bigger ollies.
After starting off doing the usual grinds and ollies, James and I pushed the big box up the bank ramp to its normal position about a foot from the transition. I began trying to get on the box by just disastering it and trying to ride out. I felt like I was holding back so I started pushing a little harder and popping my ollie harder. I could tell I was close to landing on top because I could feel my wheels hit the edge of the box. The next few trys I concentrated on floating my ollies a little more and I started landing on top of the box and kicking out. A few more trys and I was ollieing up and riding off the box. Once I get more comfortable ollieing on to it I will start trying to grind it.
It ended up being another good session and I even landed a heelflip and a few big frontside and backside ollies over the hip.

2.11.02
Another good session today. Going to Vans solo in the morning kind of sucks but it does make it a lot easier. I usually get to work a lot earlier and I can get to the session late and leave early if I want.
I am making an effort to skate more often. I don't care if I have to get up at 9am, skating once or twice a week does not cut it for me.
I had another mellow session today. Just cruising around, ollieing the gaps and grinding the ledges. I worked on backside 180s a little more and landed them a little more often today. I also landed a nice 5050 on the big box on top of the small pyramid after a lot of attempts. I probably would have landed one a lot sooner if some of the Vans employees were a little smarter and only cleaned parts of the park that were not being skated. The medium sized bank ledge was super sticky today and I could not land a 5-0 on it to save my life. Kind of frustrating, but I did pull some on the smaller ledge. Near the end of the session I did some rad power slides on the bank ramp behind the mini ramp.
I can not wait to go back tomorrow.

2.10.02
This is exactly what I needed after last night's crappy session. A nice, mellow, progressive session where I did not skate exceptionally hard but I learned a few new tricks.
I am starting to be a regular during the sunday night 9pm to 11pm session. It is one of my favorite times to go because it is right after a bmx session and most of the little kids leave it at 7. This clears the park out for some of the better skaters, which I am starting to know. This one guy was pulling some impossible tail grabs over the big hip.
I had a pretty good time just charging some of the bank ledges with 5-0s and 5050s. Speed makes it so much easier, but scarier, to grind. After awhile I decided to try some new stuff so I started messing around with backside 180s. To me, backside 180s are one of the most beautiful tricks. It is such a basic trick but just looks so good when done solid. It took me a little while but I started landing some every now and then. I was not doing them very high or far but I was getting the feel down. Since I did not feel like doing 180s going back and forth between bank ramps I got a little tech and tried some fakie big spins.
I have always heard how easy they were but I did not think they would be this easy. I almost landed my first attempt and ended up landing a couple before the night was done. I alternated between bigspins and 180s most of the night. I would really like to do bigspins more so I can get some height and try to catch them before my body fully rotates. The last trick I learned was not as fun as I thought it would be. It acctually felt pretty bad. Early grabs over the step up / euro gaps. I do not know what it was but they just felt nasty. They were hard to get any height off and just felt ugly. I doubt I will try those very often. They seem like a good way to get hurt.
All in all it was a good session.

2.9.02
I had a bad session at Vans today, the kind that makes you feel all down on the way home. Jen wanted to go to some hardcore flea market and show that was at this new record store. The store was supposed to be right across the street from the skatepark so the plan was to drop her off at the show and she would come get me when she was done. Well, the record store is not right across from the park and it would be a pretty long and sketchy walk to do at night in the cold. Since she was not sure how long she would be at the show and had no way of contacting me, she decided just to walk around the mall instead. She was pretty disappointed and it brought me down to see her like that.
Taking that feeling into the 7pm session did not help my chances for fun. I met John Shitbags today but unfortunatly my sour mood stopped me from being very friendly. Next time I will actually hang out. On my first run I immediatly bailed an ollie and my deck smacked me in the knee. I then struggled through some ollies up the euro/step up gaps and landed a few 5050 and 5-0 grinds. The 5-0 grinds felt real nice. I was doing them fast and felt like I had some decent control so I figured I should be able to pull some smith grinds. I came so close on my first attempt that I was sure I would land some easy. After more then a hour and probably over 100 attempts I never landed any. I also banged my other knee on a bail. By this time the session was ending and I wanted to leave on a good note by doing a frontside 5-0 on the ledges above the gaps. After a few falls, including one in front of Jen, I decided to just leave in defeat.

2.8.02
Well, we did make some sick time down to Exodus. I think it only took Josh and me a little over 2 hours to make the trip. Sometimes it can take almost 3.
The session definitly did not start out the way I was hoping. For the first hour or so I was really off. I set up a new street deck the night before and it was hard as anything to ride in the bowl. The trucks are so tight that I could barely carve. When I did manage to carve I would come out at a totally different angle then I am used to. I even broke out my pool deck in hopes of having a better time but that did not help either. I have gotten so used to the tighter trucks on the new deck that my old loose ones feel dangerous on the coping. I kept alternating between decks hoping something would feel right. I was so off, I could not even do axle stalls in the bowl. I got so frustrated that I decided to give the bowl a break and skate the spine and street course for awhile.
Usually, whenever I am having a bad day skating, I can count on some consistency on the miniramp. Today was no exception. Just doing basic stand up grinds on the spine and landing some smooth transfers really boosted my confidence. I really like the ramp they have and the rumors of tearing it down and rebuilding it make me nervous. I guess they are going to get rid of the spine, turn the ramp 90 degrees, and make it a lot longer with varying heights. I guess I will have to wait and see what they end up doing before I make any judgements.
Since I started skating street again I have been looking forward to skating Exodus's street course. One thing I realized is that I take the Vans course for granted. I used to think the course at Exodus looked so much better, but after skating it, I realized Vans is superior. Exodus does have some things that are better than Vans, like the handrails, but the overall height of the ramps are a lot smaller. I had fun no less and even landed some grinds and ollies over the samll pyramid that really made me feel like I was acctually progressing for once. I landed lots of frontside 50-50s on the baby hubba and one on the straight ledge next to it. This was the first time I have ever been able to grind down something. I did not ollie on to the incline though. I ollied on to the ledge on top of the pyramid and then continued to grind down it. A few times I felt like I almost ollied the whole flat and landed on the ledge on the other side. Maybe next time I will make sure I do it. That is if I can get the balls to try it. It took me longer to land the grind on the straight ledge. It had been years since I dealt with and kind of drop and I have never ever tried a drop off a grind. Even though it was not that high I still had trouble committing to the drop. After a super video worthy pro style fall, I landed it.
With my new found confidence I decided to go back to the bowl. What a difference! I decided to stick with the street deck and just power through everything. I figured out I can basically have the same control with the tighter trucks as long as I go super fast. Once I got the hang of it, I started busting some nice early grabs. I even got a few that I think were atleast a foot over the coping. I also got my balance back on the coping and was able to get some decent grinds. By the end of the night I was able to grind one of the square corners a few times and even got a sick grind in the pocket.
The good thing about driving all the way down to Exodus is that you feel obligated to stay for a long time. This way if your session starts out bad you have plenty of time to make up for it. My session was awful during the first hour or two. At the end of the night I left all pumped at the way the session turned out. I even got a new video by Revolver Skateboards to extend the session back at home.

2.7.02
Tim and I went to Vans this morning. It was a OK session nothing too special. We got there about 30 minutes late but ended up being able to skate 25 minutes extra at the end. Skating the first session of the day on weekdays has its pros and cons. The good being, kids are in school and you pretty much have the park to yourself. The bad being, I am always pretty tired and it takes me awhile to warm up and staying that way is a task all to its self. Today there was never more than 3 skaters in the park at anytime. Half the time it was just Tim and I. The session kind of started shitty because all my long sleeved shirts were dirty and i decided to wear one elbow pad. Well it turns out today the regional manager is there and they want me to wear both pads. Since my new tattoo isn't healed yet I can't put a pad over it. Luckily they let me wear it on my forearm instead.
I was hoping I would warm up fast today so I could work on some new grinds on the ledges over the euro gap things but that did not happen. I pretty much just worked on 50-50 and 5-0 grinds. Hopefully those will be warm up tricks soon. I've also been working on 50-50 grinds on this one box next to the small miniramp. The box is a little higher than I am used to and its on top of a pyramid. I still get pretty nervous trying to pop off onto the transition but I did land few today wich always gets me stoked. Hopefully I will get those to be automatic one day.
Tim was pretty frustrated today. The street stuff he was trying was just not happening the way he wanted to. He did start to get some ollies over the euro gaps though. Its always a great feeling when you first start doing those. Tim on the miniramp was a whole nother story though. He learned axle stalls today and really got the hang of them. He even got some stand up grinds. Combined with the rock to fakies he recently learned, backside rock n rolls, and accidental smiths he occasionally pulls he was able to put together some sick runs. Hes got a sick frontside slash that makes me jealous everytime. It is so burly!
The ride back to work rocked. These 3 hooked up cars were racing each other so I was able to follow them with no fear of getting pulled over. We made sick time back to work. Josh and I are going to Exodus tomorrow. Hopefully we will make good time there and not get pulled over this time.