Entries this day: Skate_with_Roberta

Skate with Roberta

Friday 13 January 1995

Wow. Tonight was my latest wild cool skating adventure. I skated to Kirsten & Scott's apartment and Roberta and Mike were there and we all skated to downtown (about 2 miles). We skated the Blueprint Garage first. I think it should be called 777, because that address is more prominent than the name of "Blueprint," a store-type thing at the bottom. The garage is 12 stories tall. At the top, the perimeter has 3 cables to act as a fence- nothing too sturdy whatsoever, so I skate carefully when I'm by the edge.
We spit off the building a couple of times (I'm glad no one had to pee), then we skated down. We stopped at level 2; the guard was in the booth at the bottom, so we hopped on the elevator to go back up. The elevator door opened, and a guy was in there... whenever we're waiting for an elevator, and someone is in it when the doors open, there is always that split-second when we go, "eeep" wondering if we're busted. We weren't. Instead, he asked incredulously, "are you going to skate all the way down?" Mike joked, "no, we're going to walk, he's going to skate," pointing to me. Scott said, "it's like skiing for free." "This is the lift," I said as the doors opened, "and there's the hill."

He got off on floor 10; we went up to 12. We zipped by him on level 10; he hadn't even gotten into his car yet. On the way down, Scott said, "if the guard is awake, we can use the elevator to get out of the building. If he's sleepin', we can just cruise on by." The guard was awake, but we zoomed past his booth right in front of his face. I crouched down under the parking garage arm thing at probably 15 miles per hour. That is so fun.

We cruised to Party on the Plaza, where the trees still had white Christmas lights all wrapped around them. It made the top of the Plaza look like a frozen lake turned skating rink. Beautiful. We played disc up there; I skinned my right forearm and shin. We met Rodney and Doug. It was Doug's first night and I crashed into him twice. I guess I shouldn't have come skating toward him at a 90 degree angle so fast.

We cruised to Brewery Tap for a pitcher of water. The guy kinda complained about us never paying for anything, so Roberta gave him three bucks tip. Then we went next door to Power Tools, where skaters get in free every night! I love it. There was no one dancing. Instead they had a weird action-oriented home video looking thing playing on the big-screen TV. We watched it a bit while we rested and then we left.

We watched some skateboard dudes at the Plaza. They were jumping over a sideways trashcan. I've never quite figured out how they do that. I mean, the board isn't attached to their feet!! Crazy.

We went to Allen Center and played disc up there for a good 30 minutes. I looked out over the edge of the building at the cars scurrying along I-45, and I began to imagine what my life will be like in 10 years from now.......will I still be skating, or will I just have to remember this view forever?
We skated and skated and skated all over the top of the garage and then went down the thing. No sweat smooth all the way down (I need to find a biggertallerscarier garage) and then -shit- at the very bottom where there's like a half-pipe shaped thing there was water at the bottom. Crap. So I jumped over the water and landed on the 45 degree slant of the pipe and kinda wrecked almost not too bad of a wreck at the top. I stopped for a second and then skated down and jumped off the slant across like 4 or 5 feet of water.

Kirsten, Scott and Mike were tired, and went home. Roberta and I skated to Cafe' Brazil, which is probably 5 miles from Brewery Tap, and she told me her version of my skating accident (four months less two days ago). I am so glad to be back on skates.

See ya
- Rob