Thursday 29 August 2013

peep down, vandem to go


Bopeep was most excellent and wonderful. So many runs happened on the first day that I didn't mind (and felt myself quite lucky) that I decided to duck the torrential rain on the second day, since it meant there was no skating anyway.

The first run, I was fairly out of it. I like to take a bit of time to get into a skate, but that hill gives you little chance. Still, after 3 runs and some rather questionable slides I felt that I could go from the top to the main corner airbraking alone. I'd managed this last year but my slides into the corner had been awful. This year I felt much better and after some time was able to nail a decent slide each run.

For me, nailing the right hander after the main corner had felt quite a way off. I took some runs to "scout" it out as it were, feeling how fast I would be going and how confident I felt, and then went for it. It's very much how I like to skate, building to things in the most progressive way I can. I'm not one to just charge into things, I don't take much from "just going for it", taking too big a step and having a crash.

So by the end of the day it was a few pushes, tuck into the first corner, get out of that, sort my feet for the main corner and this meant using a different tuck for some of the straight. Start airbraking rather early, cruise through the kink and nail a slide where and how it felt right. Coming out of the last corner into a tuck felt quite good since the timing strips were there for a while, and it felt cool tucking over the line and feeling the little bump. The shutdown zone was like playing minesweeper. Nobody ate it too badly however.

I find so much happiness and confidence in skating down hills. It really makes me a better person to be and be around. The first run I properly tanked I couldn't stop laughing even as I was shutting down. It set me up so well for the day. When you're happy you feel like talking more, everything gets nicer and it's the zone I love to skate in, being so, so happy and relaxed. I need to work on getting that in wider circumstances than having a really epic skate.

My new wheels were just as I had hoped. If I don't relax enough and slide with really poor technique then they don't feel great, but for everything relaxed or with at least a trace of textbook they are really, really cool. In particular I like the transition from grip to slide. The feedback during a railed corner is superb. Balancing how hard you are cornering with the grip available becomes much easier when a wheel "speaks" to you in such a manner.

On that note, all wheels, even slide-a's, have degrees of grip that make up the characteristics of the wheel. But it feels like hurtlers have so many degrees. It goes without saying that as you spend more time skating down hills you are able to perceive more degrees of grip where before you were unable to do so, however these seem to give even one such as I much more feeling than other wheels I've skated.

The feeling of railing a corner on them is one of "if we crash, I told you all I could", in that you're unlikely to feel aggrieved at catching an edge, and If you run out of road they gave you all the opportunity possible to put in a quick drift, and not doing so would be down to you and your ability. This setup (sequel, sabre GC 45 190's, hurtlers) is fantastic in that it gives you every chance so it is very much down to you. There's nothing worse, and I've been there before, when the setup is off, and you simply cannot enjoy your skate. Such an example would be coming back for the last day of peep last year, and simply being unable to skate and get into any kind of a run.

Looking forward, I would like to get a touch more centre into the setup, as I have wanted to do for a little while. I'd like to be able to pop up and footbrake cleaner and at higher speeds, footbraking being an area of weakness for me. This obviously comes with experience as does the greater perception of degrees of grip available I explain above,  but like in the purchasing of some "friendlier" "race" wheels, getting hold of some "friendlier" baseplates could help give a step.

So next up should be the vandem freeride if we can find somebody to look after the cat. I don't have to camp in a horribly small uncomfortable tent that I don't fit in as well! The skate has been incorporated into a family break of sorts, so I'll be rocking up each day to skate. This suits me fine, I'm not a party person and I'm fine with that.

I'll just have to be damn careful rocking up early to the campsite.

Hangover ridden skateboarders are best approached with caution, trepidation and a considered escape route.

You all rock, I can't wait to get some runs in.

See you soon

Will

Friday 16 August 2013

next up




We got our A Level results, I came out with an A* in my english lang/lit to go with the two A's for my Art Btec. I managed to 100% one of the units in english which is something cool.

And now it's on to the next thing, and that for me is a foundation degree in Graphic Design down at Northbrook, Worthing. A foundation degree is a two year course. You can leave at the end of the two years with the foundation degree, or stay a third year and make it a degree, or I believe hit up a top up course somewhere else. I don't see much point in not having the degree.

I had a bit of a wobble on it and having a think on why it's because I want to be sure I'm making some kind of step. As in, I'm hitting up a uni course run by a college. In terms of caring for opinion I try to do my own thing whilst paying attention to the thoughts of the right people. And to that end, I don't know how closely the thought is to that, but "people" (that way you express the thoughts you perceive in the vaguest possible way, I know), "people" have the idea you're not really "going" to University. And immune as I think I am to most negative thoughts that come my way (and most of the time all too caught up by the unhelpful thoughts of my own to pay any attention), the idea gets to me.

It gets to me because I want to be moving on to better things, because much of the time, particularly evenings such as this I don't feel so happy with myself, and I don't feel all that like a person of the world who does things and is part of much, even when I get something done I often struggle to recognise it and get the happiness from it. And if you are struggling to get the sense of achievement even when genuinely earned it's difficult to have a set of things you can look at and say "I do this so it's ok to not be cheerful now, because there are good things that I do and am". It's like perhaps why some people keep epic paintings on the wall, a comfort in that however they feel now, look at that! Look how good that is! That makes this ok.

It's funny in that I try to be independently minded with regards to so much but in terms of (vague term) "feeling like a real person", I can't help but look at what "everybody else" is doing and compare it to myself, and the comparison isn't favourable. The list of things that I've got usually ends up skating, riding my bike, and making art stuff. The art, drawings to photos and photoshop work is most often due to it being quite a nice escape from thought and place, not that I'm located anywhere particularly disagreeable to me, the disagreement coming from that being here reminds me that I am me, here, as now. I've been doing a lot of art lately, since I've needed a lot of escape and sense of productivity being on holiday. I'd rather have been at college instead, which says a lot for how I like the sense of being somewhere and doing something. I liked the sense of place, and I got to see people, and not being there certainly takes from that, not in itself, naturally, a good deal is down to me.

At college, I spent so many hours doing work to make myself feel better. When it came to looking at uni courses, I was predicted to come out with a B-C for art. My english was going to come out at a B unless I retook something. I spent a lot of time on my work, due to an absence of other things. Late on I spent a lot of time in the library instead of being on holiday, perhaps work and a sense of productivity in that way serves as company. Anyway, in art particularly I've sat for years and seen how good "everybody else" (yeah that vague term again) has been. I can appreciate so much what I see but my result almost doesn't quite feel real because I have this notion that I didn't really do anything but put the time in, and I put more time in than other people because I knew I wasn't out there doing the real person thing as they were, so I buried myself in work to try to give me something and forget how I was. I've spent so much time mostly as a distraction.

Anyway, whats next then? In a few weeks I'll be into my college at Northbrook. I'll hopefully be able to spend a lot of time on macs and in the place making stuff. I'll hopefully be learning things and moving on. I'd like to be taking the train to Brighton some evenings without planning it and sitting around on the beach before going home. I'd like to feel like going places and visiting people and going somewhere just to see something nice and have something to eat.  I'm going to learn everything I can about image manipulation and photography, graphic design, illustration, skateboarding, the world, people, places. A lot of my time is spent reading about things that I don't need to know but have a vague interest in and I'll keep doing that. I'd like to find more music and books, and I think it would be cool to make it out into the world a bit. A lot of the time I don't feel all that like a real person in the world and that's where perhaps a lot of the weirdness comes from. If anyone is here and is at this point I should say I appreciate anyone that sticks around and is cool.



Happy fridays.
will


Saturday 3 August 2013

the diary of I, 030813


Recently I've spent my time:

drawing things
painting things
making stuff on photoshop
balancing cutlery on my little finger
drinking tea
eating cake
skateboarding
riding my bicycle
listening to music in combination with most of the above.

I done a massive film night! (2 people came hahaha)

I got a job! And I left it. But I made £32.50 so that was nice. So that was this years objective really, I didn't think I could get a job. Most of my efforts are spent on trying to be a better person, most of my time is spent being weird. The job thing was about having something more than just making things and skating and stuff. I'm trying to fill my time with good stuff, be better, do better and that, be nice, keep trying.




I painted those, and there's half of our cat in shot. Butterflies fully rock, like flying paintings. Things that fly that aren't so good are the ones that try and eat me such as mosquitoes. I'm not going to kill anything just for doing it's thing but much time is spent catching them in my room at night and showing them the window. I seem to get eaten by everything. Mosquitoes are also bloody loud.

Have an excellent evening.






See you sometime


will