Final Exam Jam - 2007
Go Forth and Die
"No college hotties and no letting the other boys talk you into doing something you're not ready for." Those were my only two commandments as I loaded up the mighty K2 in the back of the fake truck and headed off to Athens. A CD of Dethklok, Skrew, Fishbone, Living Colour, Wrathchild America and (in a concession to me going to a flatland comp) Public Enemy blasted at as close to earbleed causing levels as The Mrs.' car's stereo could actually muster.
You're bored with this already.
Funny thing about Athens and Yahoo maps. 78/10 runs every conceivable direction in Athens. Yahoo maps doesn't really make a distinction, basically this meant that I spent my first 20 minutes in Athens more or less lost. Steve "St. Nick of the Box Jump" Nowak had told me that some guys were going to SPOA and we could meet up and shoot some pictures then drive to the parking lot. I finally did find my way there, but it was Athens and whether it's getting my car towed or buying a new car or not getting a job, something always goes a little funky in Athens.
I finally got to the SPOA just after a bunch of guys left. Oh well, Steve and Kyle were still riding along with Steve's friend from Colorado. I think Steve's friend's name is "Kent" but, honestly, unless you have a nice rack I probably won't remember your name. Sorry. He was a nice cat, a filmer who looked kind of like the guys who made fun of me in high school. I'm not bitter, most of those guys are losers. Anyway, I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.
Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that the last picture's I'd taken were of
my stationary dogs in low light, resulting in blurry masterpieces like this
double peg...
This is not so much communicating "speed" as it's communicating
"George sucks." The good thing about shooting digital is you figure
out your screwups pretty fast so my next pictures were much better.
Who said old men can't boost? I did. But still, at full size this is a pretty
cool picture. Oh at some point after shooting these pictures I lost my blue
sunglasses. I loved my blue sunglasses. I'd had those sunglasses for like
five years. Stupid Athens, it always costs me money. There was also the
12 year old skater kid who gave us attitude when Steve told him that smoking
would stunt his growth. He pulled out his license to show us that he was
indeed 16, and thust old enough to smoke. I didn't have it in me to explain
the concept of irony to him, so I just let him walk away.
Anyway
The star of the day, however, was Kyle who was getting egged on by everyone to knock out a tailwhip nosepick
We tried to talk him into a double, but he wasn't feeling it, but he had fire in his eyes (and a full face on his head) so he was gently nudged into going for a tailwhip fuf. He didn't really want to so much, because he hadn't done them on a quarter and definitely not a crazy rounded concrete quarter, but there's nothing like a group of guys standing around subtly questioning your manhood to make someone do something they didn't want to. Remember kids, always give into peer pressure, it can never lead you astray.
Notice anything about this? Like how hard it sucks? Ok, it didn't really suck, but Kyle didn't think it was the best representation of his talents. Something about falling down into the tranny instead of getting good pop. But, really, it was his first one on a quarter. What can I say, kid's a perfectionist.