This contest rules and Sheckler is gnarly!

Cameron posted this rad edit yesterday with a few Nullers and a bunch of awesome people I’ve been stoked to meet over the years.

After destroying my grip trying kick boardslides yesterday I decided it was time for a new board anyway. And I was sooo sick of those grey wheels that I put some new superthanes on. Lastly, since those Lakai’s were killing my feet I went with some new shoes too. Emerica Provosts. My first vulcs I’m excited about in awhile. They have Strobel construction at least though. After trying to get Ollie to go skating all day he finally agreed to it when Liz and India got home and I could have just gone skating solo or with friends anyway. Ha. We went to campus. Right out of the car Ollie sets his board down, does a fakie shove and then a f/s halfcab. Whoa! We rolled around the new dorms on the south side which were torture because there are so many new amazing ledges, but they all have that crappy flagstone finish with cracks between them. We did find a way to skate them a little though. We kept pushing, ollie’ing up curbs, off curbs, etc. Did the hill down from the basketball center which was fun. My new wheels are really really fast! Ollie foot drags with his front foot. Ha, darn mongo pushers. We ended up at the weird ledge thing that Carleigh and I kickflipped the monstrous flat gap a long time ago. This time I took a bit to get used to new wheels and did a gap to manual. It was pretty fun, I normally chicken out of manuals with drops that tall. Ollie was having fun ollie’ing down the 2 stair by it and riding through the grass. We moved on some more. I manualled one of the long downhill pads first try. Sweet. We dorked around that area for awhile. Then dorked around on that one stair ledge that you can’t get any speed for. I did a front tail off it which was still not the easiest thing for me. Oh, so my new deck was an 8.25 and I wasn’t really noticing a problem with it. Cool. The new shoes fit a little loose, but I was liking them too. We hit the art building area and I did some flatground while Ollie hid in the bushes so that people wouldn’t see him. I got a few heelflips which surprised me. I was 3-0. I forgot how awesome vulcs are for heelflips. Halfcab flips felt a little harder with the bigger board. After that we basically headed home.

Went to the ol’ Research Center ledge with Jake and Neil and a really nice afternoon. This spot rules. It’s got curbs, good flat ground, a manny pad (or two) and a really good ledge. Warming up was easier for Neil and Jake then it was for me. This is to be expected from Neil who is always ready to go and Jake who is only 20 something. Lines were the norm for everyone and some good ones for us went down. It’s hard to remember them all now. Heading uphill Jake kickflipped the longer manhole then front tailed the ledge. Neil was getting tech! Pop shove off the curb, heelflip on flat, ollie up the curb, crooks shove on the ledge. So good. Jake did some nollies and f/s halfcabs off the curbs to start runs with crooks to fakie and back 50s as the ledge tricks. I had a couple of my sloppy crooks early on in lines with kickflips up curbs. Had a line with switch front 180 off a curb, front 180 back up it and halfcab noseslide. I really struggled with flip tricks. My arthritis was kinda kicking, but my feet were hurting bad. I’m not sure what’s up with the Lakai Guys this time, but they feel like they have no padding at all. It took me forever to commit to a kickflip off the curb. Geez. A lot of other tricks went down. I got front 50 shove. Neil got front tail to fakie. We were all skating pretty hard and it was awesome. We went around the back to look at other stuff. All 3 of us ollied the 4 stair first try and we moved on to Retal Curbs.

I was so sore when we first arrived here. I didn’t even think I’d be able to skate. I had some coconut water though and did a few boardslides and before long I was skating ok. Jake had some scary halfcab boardslides and some other quick ones like front lip. Neil did some long boardslides, halfcab boardslide, switch boardslide. I had halfcab boardslide and then started hucking kickflip back boardslides. My board was pretty old so I was willing to take the risk of it breaking. About 20 tries in I put both feet on it bailed off. Then it was on and I would get my feet on a couple here or there. About 100 tries later I skidded a little kickflip boardslide and to say the least I was extremely hyped. Thanks Jake and Neil for sitting there for an hour while I tried it over and over.