Garage Surfing

So last night I had the chance to long board with a fellow O.G. from high school named Theo. We decided to go to the parking garage that was at the Pavilion because there aren't cars there on days that there isn't a concert.

We get there, and I've only been riding a long board for roughly a week, and Theo's been riding for many years. He was cruising around on the top when I got there and not gonna lie, I felt a little intimidated. Theo was riding a Sector 9 carving series board which is roughly 48" long, while I ride a 38" Sector 9 Bamboo A-Frame. I was mainly interested in his board since it was longer, and handles a lot better than my short one, but it was too early to start second guessing my abilities.

"Lets roll!" says Theo and were off for my first trip down. The garage is set up with long flat straightaways with 180 degree turns at the bottoms, and turns that are also halfway down the straightaway. Theo surprised me and took one of the half turns and I didn't know if I could do it so I just kept going straight and met him up at the bottom. When I got to the bottom he wasn't there but I saw a cop walking around so I thought I would just act cool and everything would go smoothly, and boy was I right. The female officer just told us not to ride on the bottom floor until 10 because there were new horses and she didn't want us to spook them, which I saw legit, because she said we could keep riding there.

When we got to the bottom we would take the elevator back up, so theres no actual pushing of the board to get somewhere, which makes it a lot more fun. So we get up for the second ride and now I know how to ride it correctly so I follow Theo down for about 3 more runs before I start going crazy, which seemed to work, and I was keeping up with him fine from the beginning. So then I get the confidence to lead him and at the end of that run he says I've got really good skills since I was leaning into the turns like a surfer leaning into a wave.

Thats when it hit me that my short board was riding better in there than his super long one, which is made for downhill speed. Whenever we would take the turns he would have to stretch out just to keep his back end from sliding out since the trucks were so far apart, while I could just keep my position and flow fluidly through the tight curves.

About half way through our time there, three other kids showed up out of the blue. There names were Collin, Luke, and Andrew and we rolled with them for a while. At 10 we took it all the way to the first floor, which I think was the fastest park of the ride, and we were going through a turn and all three of them fell off. We didn't really think much of it because the whole time they were rolling with us they were riding like idiots just trying to power slide around turns and cause trouble with each other. When they got up they didn't hurt anything so they were ok, and after their incident we didn't see them the rest of the night.

All night we kept taking different routes down and mixing up the half sections, and I was still having as much fun as when we started, all the way until we left.

After we were there for about an hour and a half a guy from the Mariot Hotel came over and told us we should leave before something happens, so we hit the road and got something to drink.

And that was the incredible night of garage surfing.

As I sit here in the Goodson Honda dealership getting a new seat belt put in my car I thought it would be a good time to gather my thoughts because it’s been a while since I have posted up on here. It’s mainly because I have been extremely busy with getting ready to leave for college, which is going to happen Saturday, and getting everything done so I can head off to UTSA.

A few weeks ago I attended orientation, and I wasn’t expecting much because a couple friends that are also going there told me it was really boring. I asked them why they thought it was boring and one girl told me that the first day was hell for her since she didn’t go out to meet new people. Well from knowing this I was going to have to start this whole process out a fun way by meeting a bunch of cool new people. Most of the people I met were nice but there were a few of those weird kids that believe in communism and stuff, and like to argue about their points, but I guess college is a big pot of different views mixed together.

While I was in San Antonio the weather was dry and hot. The only day I could go out and ride, out of the 4 days that I was there, happened on Monday. On Monday I had to go to San Antonio to take a math test, and orientation started Tuesday, so I had a bunch of time to go ride and run around that side of San Antonio. The riding up there is really nice, mainly because there were a few hills and the weather was a lot dryer.

When I got home it was still raining everyday so I wasn’t really motivated to ride in the humidity so I was just riding for a couple of hours here and there. Leading up to last week the rain finally stopped and the weather got extremely hot and a little dryer here in Houston.

Another big thing that happened over the past couple weeks was the Projekt Revolution Tour, which was a full day of concerts with a variety of good bands. Some of the bigger bands that were there were Saosin, HIM, Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance, and Linkin Park. Throughout the day the bands progressively got better and better, and I didn’t think a band could get better than My Chemical Romance. Linkin Park took the stage at the very end, since every band was opening for them, and that show was truly amazing. The band Saosin played on a smaller side stage, and I actually thought this was very good because we got about 15 feet from the stage, for the other bands that played later, we had to sit in the lawn, which was probably a couple thousand feet back.