After some yoga went to dog park later than I should have, but it was right when the clouds rolled in and it was oh so nice and cool out. There was a cool crew. I didn’t feel good on my skateboard at all, quickly switched back to my ventures but didn’t like it either. Had one incredibly embarrassing crook attempt. Ended up taking out the game changers out and lots of my lower leg pain went away. After a while I was filming Sean and Noè and did a few flip tricks in between. Like really slow barely moving but did get varial flip, fakie flip, halfcab flip and b/s filp in one line. Everyone else there was killing it. Sean and Noè got some cool stuff. Then we went to research wood manny pad area. I did a switch front nose and noseslide while they warmed up which didn’t take Noè long as he banged out 3 clips for the next vid. Sean got close to a banger. After a nap and some chilling I ended up at Douglass again for my final vetting process of seeing if Thunder worked. I was totally determined and excited to try them, but wow they are the worst. Had more problems ollieing up the curb, kickflips were okay, still couldn’t crook. I was pretty quickly over it and went home defeated.

(setups 8.25s ace lows venture lows and stuff, nb# 288 sportz)
(pain level 7/10 with game changers 4/10 without)

On a nice cool afternoon I went to Douglass after bring Ollie to the airport. I was not expecting much. I brought three setups. All 8.25 with different trucks. It was funny set them all down so I could only see the top and did an initial ollie on the setup I thought had the Royals and had no pop whatsoever. Turned out it was the one with Venture lows. Doh! Of the 3 the Ace lows had the best feeling ollie so I went with it for most of the session. I really struggled. My knee was hurting bad at times so I put some gamechangers in some new 288s and my knee started hurting less. I did a couple basic lines like ollie up the curb, kickflip, noseslide. Couldn’t get crooks and my boardslides were really weak as I would hit the front wheels on the way up. I tried front 50s for a bit and maybe about 10% close. Got a couple other flippers, but then left after an hour hoping my knee wouldn’t react negatively to a little skating again.

(setup 4/10 8.25 null, jessup ultragrip, ace lows 44 hard bushing, 53mm spitfire f4 classic 99, new balance numeric 288 sport white/grey size 12 stock / footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 6/10 left knee at times was quite bad)