After a day of laying around and going to see Mission Impossible to avoid the heat I made myself get out shortly before sunset. I went to campus. I wore some new 272s instead of 440s and my body was not happy about that. Especially after a failed kickflip where the tail took out my arch. Argh. I made myself do 5 flip tricks near the tunnel to get warmed up. But it didn’t go well at all. Breaking in new shoes is tough. I would get slow kickflip, fakie flip, b/s flip, halfcab flip and f/s halfcab flip. Also had a pretty good slam on a stop rock and somehow again it didn’t bother me, but instead happily reminded me I wasn’t at a skatepark. I went to the yellow lurb but they messed it up even more now. Doh I was hoping to trick kf crooks there. I went to the hallway, but it was dark so I ended up at the tall engineering ledge of all places. I had thought I could try a line of halfcab flip, noseslide, treflip. Except that the noseslide was basically impossible to me. Argh. Then I went to the rec center to hit another tallish ledge. They had added a portapotty and it smelled terrible. I did one line of tail drop off a tallish ledge then noseslide before I left due to the terrible smell of the portapotty. Then I just kept on going and went home.

(setup 4/10 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal 144 hollow kingpin, 53mm bones v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 teal size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 5/10)

After a slow morning I had a little over an hour to skate on Liz’s bday so I bolted to the flagstone ledge spot on campus. I was wearing 440s in hopes of less knee pain. It may have helped. I skated slow, cautious, but also challenged myself a little. Like maybe a kickflip at 3.5mph instead of 3mph. Came close to f/s halfcab heels, somewhat close to switch varial flip, couldn’t get treflip or heelflip. Had the normal stuff backside. I ollied onto the ledge once with a little trick jib. I couldn’t get a front 50 but I did get both trucks kind of on there at the end. I had worn some slippery socks I normally try to avoid skating in. I think that added to some frustration. Anyway, I skated for a bit and it was in the streets so it felt kinda cool.

(setup 5/10 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal 144 hollow kingpin, 53mm bones v1 pj, new balance numeric 440 white size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

This is one of those days I should get docked or red flagged or something because I had two setup changes. I had pulled out my 8.25/5.6v-hollow but put on 53mm wheels. I wasn’t planning on skating early, but I woke up really early so I went to Boulder park. I very much disliked my setup. I didn’t skate well. Took a while to get a warm up run of olllie into a bank, noseslide down part of the hubba, rock fakie a qp, fakie bigspin the hump. I had the park to myself for the first 30 minutes or so until a couple of characters showed up. First guy was short shorts stoney dude with funny sunglasses almost getting me high with the second hand smoke. He ended up being really good of course. Other guy probably orders everything from Zumies, had a good ollie and some scary grinds down the hubba. I didn’t go on to do much, but did make myself get some front disasters which took longer than they should have. Oh and I had slowly and sketchily ollied onto the bench a few times.

After work I picked up the van then met Rob and then Dave at dog park. It was weird because only a couple blocks away it was hailing, but dog park would remain dry. My setup change was less drastic this session, just different trucks (Royals instead of ventures). A casual 180 up the manny pad to get started made me like it. In trying to made dog park more interesting to me I tried to skate it differently. I was trying a line of ollie the kinked rail then boardslide the taller rail. But I would never land the first ollie, although did land on it once at least. Some 303 dudes showed up and I got kind of self conscious about not being able to ollie a little flatbar so I moved back to the normal routine. Only other thing I remember was finally getting a lame little nose manual with a love tap at the end. Rob had done noseslide and frontr board I think on the tall bench, fakie nosegrind revert on the curb, casual mannies, back 50s. Dave did some front blunts on a parking block, a bunch of grinds over the rounded arc ledge, front board fakie a flatbar and 5-0 shove on the curb.

(setup #1 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 v-hollow royal bushings, 53mm bones v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 blue size 12 half insoles)
setup #2 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal 144 hollow kingpin, 53mm bones v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 blue size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 4/10)