skate journal: solo campus with shoes that i can’t complain about! (May 8, 2011)
Had a really fun Mothers day with my parents and my family. After a little afternoon snack I went to go skate. I put the Adidas on before going skating and the little toes yelled “NO!” So I went with the shoes I was breaking in that I had gotten from Fuzz. The Kenny Reed Lows with some fancy “waxed suede”. I’ve had the non-fancy version of the shoes before and they were awesome. These didn’t dissappoint. A few minutes info campus and I was trying a line. Halfcab flip on flat, ollie a metal grate, ollie onto the tall ledge at the engineering building. That didn’t take too long. I did some noseslides on that ledge too. It’s really tall. I cruised around for a bit and ended up near the gym at the tiny manny pad and kicker spot. Surprisingly it took me a long time to get a kickflip out of that stupid kicker. Ugh. Then I manualled the long manny pad near the theater before going up to the theater itself. I scoped out that 5 stair ledge and was determined to 50 it. But right after a couple ‘JT to Laters’ a couple squirrels pinned me in a corner and seemed determined to deter me from skating there. Not wanting to start a fight with rodents I left. I think I might put that on my ‘by 40’ trick list though. Maybe 50 shove or 50 180 out. Before long I ended up at the newly repaved parking below the 14. I had done a little nose manny and was looking at the ledge. I want to ollie over one of those. I don’t have an ollie like that on my list either. I want to add that too. Ollie one of the ledges near the spot that Bernie did the fakie manual fakie flip out in the previous null teaser. Anyways, there was a bmx’er cruising around so I wasn’t really feeling it and then a cop drove by so I definitely wasn’t feeling it. I played dumb and cruised on down the sidewalk. I ended up near the two downhill-narrow-skatestopped manny pads and 5 stair. I tried to huck the long 5. It’s not tall at all, but long. I almost committed to it before feeling over it. Before leaving I ollied off the ledge above it though. I didn’t have to clear anything, but it was a lot taller. I went faster than normal and landed it really good. It felt great. It’s one of the taller things I’ve ollied off of and I’ve done it several time over the years. Although, never that fast. I cruised off down the bikepath and actually tried a bunch of flip tricks. I was happy to have shoes that I couldn’t complain about. I did fakie big, heelflip, tried nollie tre, etc then saw a gap I’ve never seen before. Off a narrow ledge about 4 feet to a sidewalk. Nothing big, but it was fun. I started heading home I thought then saw this manny pad that was 1 up with a long 2 down. I remember trying to manual it years ago and failing. I setup a line to it. Dropin on this little 4 stair thing, kickflip then try the manny. The kickflips got the best of me though. It was on a downhill slope which always freaks me out and as much as I loved the new shoes I didn’t feel all that confident trying kickflips at speed. I did the kickflips quite a few times, but when I did I never matched it with the manny. Doh. Then it was time to go back to Mother’s Day chilling with the Mighty LZA. I was happy to have finally skated hard and couldn’t use my shoes as excuses.