failure is fun

Since I'm an unemployed bum, I spent my day watching russians hope freights across the US on youtube, painting skateboards on my roof while storms gushed and swooped across the taipei basin, and planning out my next session. Rumour was that some people would be skating at 石牌
 statoin later, but I was ansty so I cruised north for about an hour, to kill time. I practiced *******s on some rickety tile, because if you can't do a trick on rickety tiles, then you can't do the trick. As a reward, I got my first face full of Taipei since I got back. It wasn't really that bad, but it was a reminder of how you can knock the shit out of yourself rolling at walking pace, so, why not skate faster? Then it rained, so no one showed up and I took the train towards home. I realized it was dry out of hte window, so I got off at the old house and cruised through the still bustling city to get back home. There wasnt really much a session today, but i ended up not minding at all

deep into autumn

there are no leaves to change color, and I'm assuming that since it's the tropics, they wouldn't really do that anyway, but the temperature plummeted below 30 today, so I'm calling it the first session of autumn. The weather report said 100% chance of rain, so I went to the bridge again. It didn't rain, but that's ok, because I skated well (for me) and for almost three hours. The first few were alone, but I got some pop in my snap from finding out I have an interview at a dream job here in taipei. Skating was a celebration today, and I was in a silly mood, so I tried a **-***** to *************** on the little manny pad. Shockingly, I had it down in about 30 minutes; even getting several in a row, and about a dozen on the day. I also did an easy flip, all of once.

Halfway through, a banciao homie showed up, and we complained about the heat. I beered up, despite my best intentions, but it was a good day and I'm already a belt size down on when I left america. Diet and exercize are amazing, especially when you are fat and cut out etoh. But today I cheated, and watched one of the best skaters I've seen at the bridge as he warmed up. his style is atheletic, but smooth, and pretty playfully tech.

on the skate home, the sidewalk was blocked by thousands of people waiting in line to buy moon cakes. The line was three blocks long, so I skated through the scooters and taxis. I hope we get some more days under 30 degrees soon.

slowly reintegrating

It was 36 at the bridge, but I managed to get in a couple of hours. Jf came by, and the guy with the little kid, I can't remember either one's names. The kid was buttboarding last time I saw him, and now he's pushing around. Other people have improved as well, in fact, it seems like I've been gone for more than I have been, judging from everyone's progress.
I had an ambitious plan today, to learn a flatground trick I've done a few times before, but it didn't happen. Neither did the ***** on the box, which was a 99% trick before I left. For now,  I can blame the heat and the beer gut and the unreasonably sticky wheels. I unintenionally got a lot better at ********s, so that day didnt feel like a waste. Actually, it wouldn't have anyway, because I skated. Maybe now I'll get a call back about work..... but hopefully not tomorrow, because wednesday is surf day.

hot hot fenced in session

The heat is still too much. I went to hte bridge and suffered through an hour of my favorite activity. Some skills are coming back, but pop is lagging behind. I saw some friends who remembered me, and met a kid from bristol, but he is just passing through. The session got more and more crowded, maybe because of the fence they put up to keep us out after 10pm and people tried to get a sessoin in. I was too much of a pussy so I went home and ate natto and passionfruit.

spoke too soon

I'm not sure what all those construction guys were doing at the bridge the other day when I went by, but it wasn't destroying or remodling the brdige. I went early in the afternoon to skate, and it was open for business, albeit with a green wire fence all around the outside and big signs saying that we cant' skate after 2200, because only poseurs would skate in a skatepark once taipei's traffic has died down. They've also installed a metal hubba stage, which is brilliant, since anythign that isnt metal tends to rot in a few months. There's also a new tiny manny pad, but its already getting chipped on the ends because they left it bare cement. I saw a few familiar faces adn tried to get back into actually landing tricks, which went better than expected. Although I can't ******** this weird deck very well, ********s are actually much easier, so I'm just going to be a ********er now. The geometry of the deck is shite because the hardware holes were drilled too close to the middle of the deck, so unless I can figure out a solutoin, I'm just going to go without 30% of the normal pop. Maybe not as bad, I got 58mm wheels, which glide over the tiles like a dream, but change everything about manuals in particular. Even so, I **d the manny pad and didn't suffer as much as expected. I even got 2.5 hours out of the session. Days later, my knees hurt. There is still work to be done, and shape to be gotten into. Also, it's 37 degrees, and you can feel the heat reflect up off the ground to about knee height. Winter cant come soon enough

Heat stroke puke up

Jetlag is still pretty severe, so I got to the spot early. It's the second most important spot in Taipei, at an MRT marble plaza, with a long low and goodly pink ledge. I made it about two hours before I vomited from the heat and air pollution. I'm slowly getting better at tricks again though, so I wasn't too discouraged. I'm still only at about 25% of what I could do before I left, and as mentioned above, can only skate for 120 minutes, but after that session, I'm optimistic I'll recover quickly. It sounds like there's a lot of fragmented street sessions going down tonight, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to stay awake that late. Instead, I'm gonna go see if I can get into the bridge and go for 121 minutes.

The Bridge is Dead, Long Live the Bridge!

I got back home after the best transpacific flight of my life. I slept throuhg almost the entire thingn. THanks, korean air. I woke up at 0400, because thats what jetlag does, and then I was responsible and did some chores beforeI went ot skate, like get a new bankcard, which I lost in America and caused me no end of difficulties there. All I wanted to do was skate the bridge with the my own deck, shitty, overly steep tail not withstanding.

I got there around 1400 and the whole place was fenced off. A construction crew was busy destroying the ground, apparently to make it better and completely resurface it. That's not the end of the world, but I'll be pissed if it takes a year or two, like the park in nangang did.

I rode up to yuanshan and skated the big three. Well, I skated the flatground and lower ledge, not the big three. My feet still feel like I did though, because I havent skated much in about three months, and also because I'm wearing the second to last pair of vans that  I'll ever own. They would be the last, but I brought another pair back from america. My feet feel like I spent the day jumping down 10 ft drops.

I spent the first half of the session tryign to relearn freestyle tricks, then the rest skating the ledges. I ** **d down the slanted ledge for the first time, I'm not sure why I never tried that before, but it only took a few tries, and I'm not anywhere near peak condition. I also started learning ** ***** *********s, which I sort of shittily rode away from. Most of all, I was just good to be back in Taipei, even if the air pollution smelled like burning tires and it was hot as two rats fucking in a thick wool sock.

I can't wait til the bridge is resurrected.

second day in a row

after several months, I skated two days in a row for the first time. I figured i would suck again, and i did, so i focused on ***** ** ******, which i alwasys sucked at anyway. I found a basketball court that no one would bother even skating flatground on in taiwan, since it was extremely rough grit, and full of three finger wide cracks, but i made the best of it. it was  chilly. blue sky. white clouds. going home soon. weird feeling.

Being is desire/desire is suffering

I desired to skate but my shit was all lost. Today it arrived. I'm no longer in detroit, but in a suburb called livonia. it was a beautiful blue sky day, and there was no humidity. unlike taiwan, when you skate here and get sweaty, you dry out as soon as you stop. Other than that, there are no discernable  advantages to skating in livonia. The surface is rough, cracked, uneven, and punctuated by 1-2 cm wide gaps, at 2 meter intervals. They don't have the budget for road repairs here, but if they did, they would have to keep those, because the winter cold makes the roads contract and crack. Instead of a sidewalk, you are left with a series of miniature short manny pads, because the temperature makes the dirt under each section lift and shift. It is almost impossible to push down the sidewalks at any speed. That being said, I only found one spot anyway. Livonia is a 1950s residential grid suburb, like a roman fort for general motors. On the main road, I clack clacked up to a gas station with crumbling, unskateable asphalt. I bought some water and as I left, noticed wax. The front sign of the gas station has a heavily waxed cement ledge, but only a few feet from the very busy four lane. somehow, they had grinded a long section of the unskateble asphalt. Maybe it was bicyclers, I'm not sure. If it was, they did a great job on the waxing, because I tried a ** **** on it and it was so slick that my board shot out into the road. I retrieved it, and kept going. I found nothing else, so I skated flat on the roughest ground I've skated flat on. It was the smoothest thing I found in two hours of cruising. Then I ***** a crack in the road as young people shouted at me on the way home. It's going to take me months to get back to being able to skate again.

the last time i skated was ages ago

This happened a long time ago but I haven't skated since, as I went to detroit and my bags got stuck in atlanta. I've been living without a change of clothes for a week now. Before that, I puked all over the airplane on the way up and stayed sick with a stomach bug. American food sucks. Before that, I went skating in downtown on a bluesky day. It was a difficult session. I started at a new government complex that wasn't yet opened. It had a freshly poured asphalt parking lot on a long hill. I tried doing flat ground lines, but just didn't have the magic. I grueled through it but wasn't very satisfied. Then I went nextdoor for a downward sloping cement tile manny pad, where I also refused to do anything I tried. But I tried a lot of tricks, and had fun on a beautiful day and didn't get hassled by security even though I was skating a courthouse extension building. Then I pushed home, took off my trucks, packed my decks and things into two big suitcases, and haven't seen my shit since then. Downtown detroit looks decent for skating, but definitely requires huge wheels. It really helps me appreciate how smooth every surface in Taipei is. I can't wait to go home.