Entries this day: skate_pulled_by_truck

skate pulled by truck

30 May 1994

(I am guessing at the date above. I know it was 1994; I know it was warm; there were fireworks. I'm guessing it was Memorial Day.)

I went skating last night all over downtown Houston. It was pretty darn fun. I played on Party on the Plaza and practiced skating up and down the steps there. One time last night I was able to jump entirely up about 9 steps. Some guy said, "good job," right as I did it. I was impressed with that.

I kinda joined into a group of skaters that had also been playing on the steps and we skated about two blocks, but they were really being slow and indecisive about where they wanted to go. Then two guys skated by at high speed, so I caught up with them. We skated into the garage we call "Luther's" (because the building into which the garage is built has Luther's BBQ at the bottom) and up one ramp to the elevator. We went up to the 10th floor and then skated down down down down down to the 5th. Interestingly enough, the garage seemed like really tame to me compared to the first time I skated it several months ago. We hopped back onto the elevator and went back up to the 10th floor. This time we formed a chain by grabbing the person's beltloop and skated down that way. I was in the back, and found it somewhat difficult to not be slung way outside of their turning radius. Two times I slipped off the chain, two times I was slung outward but held on, and the other 4 times I cut the corner inside where they skated, so I stayed right in close. Very cool. Then on about level 2, we encountered two janitorial type people. The two guys with whom I was skating turned right and went to the elevator again. I skated straight down the ramp and out of the garage, absolutely whizzing past the guard booth (there was a guard in it). I zipped through about a 2 foot space between his booth and the parking garage arm thing. <ffwsshheeeeeeewwwww!!> Heh heh. I rocketed out into the street and cruised back to Party on the Plaza.

I found Carrie and Beth (who I met at 4th of July last year) skating around the area. I hung out with them at the Plaza just goofing around listening to the live band and just being crazy. There was a security guard patrolling the sidewalk area of a particular building, trying to catch us to tell us that we couldn't skate there. Whenever he would come our way, we would skate the other direction around the entire building until we caught up with him back where we had just been. It was kinda silly but funny. When the band ended, there were bunches of fireworks, and we were like "Cool!! Just like when we met the first time!" We watched them and then cruised to the Brewery Tap to get a drink. (I drink water) On the way there, a small blue pickup truck drove somewhat slowly past us and the passenger guy yelled, "hey wassup?" or something like that. They were right next to me, so I latched onto the passenger side of the bed and they pulled me about 2.5 blocks. That was cool (and very illeagal). While being pulled, I worked my way along the back of the bed and then pulled myself forward toward the driver's side so that I was actually moving faster than the truck when I let go and turned left to meet my friends back at the Tap. One experiences an interesting thing when one is pulled on skates by a vehicle. Normal skating speed is probably about 10 miles per hour. Top speed for me is about 15. So the truck pulled me at, let's say, 20 miles per hour. Do the physics really quickly and determine that at 20mph, I have 4 times the amount of kinetic energy as at 10mph. Therefore it takes a much longer time to stop. Very cool. Several pedestrians saw me as I let go, couldn't make the turning radius to stay in the street, zipped up onto the sidewalk instead, back down into the street between two parked cars and then into the next block through a bank drive-through area. Only by that time had I reached normal skating speed again. Whew. I made it. The drive-through was dark. Just as I was about to step up about a 1.5 foot step out of the bank area and into a parking lot, <wham> I hit a (something solid) that I didn't see at all. I slid on my kneepads and then jumped myself back onto my skates (somehow) and then continued. Just as I was tripping over the thing, a guy shouted, "watch your step!" heh. I recovered and shouted, "woof! no problem." ("woof" is like "whew" but it's easier to say it louder so people can hear you as you skate past.) I met up with Carrie and Beth at the Tap, and I remet the two guys with whom I had skated Luther's. I got some water and then we went next door to a bar called Power Tools.

Now, Power Tools does not sound like the kind of place that I would normally frequent. It was all totally crowded inside so I just followed them to the back of the bar and actually outside to what can be best described (after my brief glance) as Power Tools' fenced-in concrete backyard. We walked down the outdoor steps and then under the building again into a much less crowded concrete floored area with realatively plenty of room to skate and dance around. There were blacklights everywhere, giving clothing that glow-in-the-dark look. There were wild weird light shows playing against the walls and loud super low bass (mostly rap) music that vibrates everything in the room. We hung out down there for a while and watched people and danced around and checked out a *big* python or boa (for some reason, "reticulated python" comes to mind) in a big cage built into the wall down there. I wonder how he gets along with everything vibrating like that. After sufficiently resting, we skated out to Fuzzy's, another bar. This was rather mundane compared to Power Tools. It was about midnight and my group started splitting up, so I cruised, skating really fast about 12 blocks to get back to my car. I couldn't find it at first, but then I did, and here I am.