On a gorgeous January day in the mid 60s I met Jack and Carleigh at the rainbow ledge. Jack and I got there first and warmed up with some slappy,cali dorking. Carleigh showed and her anxiety of skating in front of random people was put to the test with all the traffic driving by. She would end up almost getting noseslide 270 shove out though. Jack lipslide as far as he could several time sand would do different tricks out. He also cali grinded the whole thing and did probably 20 more tricks. I am scared of 50’ing that ledge because of the narrowness, but eventually got a few slow ones, back noseslides, boardslide pop outs, but could not crook to save my life.

We went and picked up birthday boy Jack and went to campus. We went to the Engineering area with the two mellow banks in a row to do trick into. I started off strong with kickflips, halfcab flip, 180s in. I thought I was gonna rattle off all my tricks, but I stalled out quick and went through a long streak of not landing anything. I eventually got a couple heelflips into the first one, bailed kickflips into the second one. Did b/s flip (with a good skid to stop) into the first then halfcab flip into the second. My trucks were feeling weird. Jack was content either landing sick tricks or eating shit hard. It was one or the other, no in between. He took soooo many hard slams. He also cracked his tail on a switch heel. Doh. Even on a badly cracked board though he almost did switch heel then switch bigspin. Carleigh’s anxiety was pushed even further at this spot since we were basically outside of her office. IF it wasn’t one of Jake’s favorite spots I probably would have pushed to move on. She did a line with nollie back 180 then f/s halfcab. Also nollie shove then front shove slam hard a couple times. Jake got some sick f/s flips, halfcab flips, nollie 180s. Ted joined us and did some amazing treflips and poppy kickflips.

We headed up to the double downhill manny pads and Jack shut it down with manual, drop to manual, up to manual, around the corner then gap to manual bonk. WTF. I did manage to manual it in the short time we were there. Then we hit the new double curb section by the stadium. Carleigh and I did wallie the first, ollie the second. Ted ollied both and tried to no comply the second too. Jack did wallie then no comply flip before finishing off his board. Jake went for ollie, ollie to manual for a long time. He got so close. Everyone was routing for him, but eventually he gave up after some good slams. Ted and I skated the little manny pad there. He got front 180 nose manny and halfcab manual back 180 out. I managed a kickflip manual and nose manny. Wanted to do nose manny shove, but it was too quick. Oh yeah, it was at this spot that I noticed why my trucks were being so weird. Every single hardware bolt was loose. My trucks were dancing around every crack they hit. Doh. We checked out the newly waxed 3 stair ledge for a bit. Jake mannied it. I ollied onto the second stair. That was about it. Then it was off to dinner and a beer. Happy times. I fell on my shoulder a ton and it didn’t hurt. Yeah! I didn’t skate too good, but this was the kind of session that fueled my fire and makes me want to skate more and harder. Street skating is the best. The grime on your hands, the dust on your shirt, watching for cops. All of that.