My Weekend at Woodward West!

              My English teacher says I should use my alliterations, so I made my title one. Anywho, As my 14th birthday present, My parents paid for a weekend at Woodward West, so my dad took me this weekend. I've been to several skateparks in the last couple weeks but since I just went to Woodward, I felt it was worth blogging 1st. We got there on saturday at 1:00 pm and they open at 2:00 pm so the 1 hour wait was killing me. Finally we went to Hangar 18, and met up with Katie, our extremely peppy, Woodward weekend guide. I rode around and checked the park out, then headed to the foam pit. I pretty much stayed there most of the day. i did some 360's and heelflip indys, and airwalks. It was fun. Occasionally I would venture to the big street are or the small street, art park, or mini-ramp. Plus a couple times I went to the vert ramp and stood on top of the resi psyching myself out. I learned a really basic trick a backside 50-50 stall which I never had done before on a mini-ramp. I also manualled across the big manny pad in the small street area. I finished the first day on top of the vert ramp and saying I would do it the next day. That will be my next post. It was a really fun first day, with double backflipping bikers, and zack sheckler, and lots of hard work getting out of the foam. The next day was awesome too.

Poway x 2!

          I went to the Poway skatepark twice in the last 2 weeks. It was really fun. I hadn't really been there for awhile. So going back was a good change. That park is pretty much where I learned to skate "park". The first time in the last couple weeks I went it was with my friends Casey and Nathan. Nathan recently went to woodward and talked about all the grabs he could to out of a quarterpipe. I'll be honest I didn't believe him. But at poway he proved me wrong. We went to a 14 and under supervised session on Friday nights. Nathan was going huge oput of the quarter. Roast Beef, Melon, Indy, Tail, Method, you name it he was doing it. I had some fun too. Doing 360 Burnt Slides on the bank. It was a good time. Then we went back on Sunday just me and Nathan and he taught me how to air out. (Which doesn't come easy for me) I know we'll be back.

Vans Skatepark

     Now I have another good story from the vans skatepark. I went there again and it was fun. This time I spent pretty much the whole time in the mini-ramps, street area and combi-bowl. I learned a new trick on the mini-ramp a fakie-to-fakie-50-50. That took me a while to learn but it was fun. The combi bowl was the  fastest bowl I've ever ridden. Also, it was a little slippery, but not too bad. This time I tried the street section again, but it wasn't fun. I think to enjoy that area you have to be better than I am. Next was the bigger mini-ramp and I had fun just doing some small airs and gaytwists (fakie backside 360). Overall it was another fun visit and I plan to go back there a lot more.

Burton Store

       On August 13th I went to the Burton LA Store for the release of there 2012 product line. It was a day I had been waiting for for a long time. it finally came and i was so excited. My dad drove me up and when they opened up I immediately  bought the board that I knew I was gonna get (TWC Smalls 132), because the 1st 13 people to buy gear got gift bags. I bought the board to get the gift bag. My gift bag had, Snowboarder Mag, Anon Goggles, a limited edition T-shirt, and a little notepad. That was worth it. Then my dad and I spent about 30 minutes asking Diana (our helper) to get different sized boots. I ended up getting some Cartel bindings and my dad completed his gear for this year with some TWC boots. There was free food and catalogs and it was fun. After that we decided to go to the vans skatepark. But that story is for another time.

Long Time No Skate

         Well I finally decided to forgive the Clairemont skatepark and go back. For those of you who don't know, About a year ago, I tried to drop in on the love seat, which is a quarterpipe on the X Games vert ramp they have, that is about a foot below the full size vert ramp. I dropped in and faceplanted on the flat bottom. That was not fun. I haven't been to clairemont since, but last Friday I had an itch to try it again. So my dad and I went to the park, and man has is changed. I knew that the street course had changed and that was fun. They have a manual pad, hubbas, flat ledges, down rails, flat rails, a 6 stair and various kickers, quarterpipes and banks. That was a lot of fun skating. Then there was the mini ramp. That is what I now believe to be the second best park of the skatepark. It is about 4 ft. It is a halfipipe with a spine in the middle on one side, 2 small rollers in the middle of the middle and 1 big roller on the other side. I thought that was awesome and way better than it used to be. Then I headed over to the wooden bowls. Normally I love them, but these were kind of a disappointment. They were all bump and old. There were big wholes blocked off in them and it just wasn't that fun. I really hope they fix it. And finally the thing I came to do... The vert ramp. I started pump just to kind of warm up on it and the first run I did I slipped out. So I've gotten used to the vert ramp at encinitas and this ramp is way more slippery and the transition is different so I wasn't comfortable on the ramp and didn't try it. Next time. I think if they redid the bowls and vert ramp the park would really be perfect.
             Oh and one more thing. On the mini-ramp with the encouragement and support of all the nice guys there, I landed a footplant over the spine. That was a lot of work paid off!!

Encinitas Skatepark

I went to Encinitas twice in the last 2 days. I think all I needed was a little time off the ramp to really push myself once I got back on. All I wanted to do was pump higher than I'd pumped before. Since the last time I tried to drop in on a vert ramp was extremely unsuccessful. I don't want to drop in on something that high yet. So pumping to the coping is my goal. Yesterday, I got on the ramp and pumped up to the vert but that's as far as I got. Same thing today! I just need a couple more hours on the ramp to get up to the coping. I hope to do that over the next couple of weeks. Then today, I went during the middle of the day. Thanks to my sister for taking me. Anyways, There was some guy on the ramp going X Games height. I saw a lot of kids recently who were like 12 &13 years old dropping in on the vert ramp. I don't know how they do it.
That'll be me in a couple months. It's been fun. By the way, I have too much to say about the X Games, so I'm just going to say that I saw it all and it was amazing!!!!!!! That's all!!

Snowboarding Video

Here is the video I made from my first season snowboarding. Oh by the way, you should all check out http://www.virusintl.com/ .