A good friend of mine – one of the best people I know – recently had a very expensive medical procedure due to cancer. Stem cells, bone marrow transplant, etc. The bill was astronomical. He’s lucky to have insurance, though his insurance company did give him some shit over an anti-rejection drug.But that’s another story. The total bill would have blown right through most people’s old “maximum lifetime payout” or whatever they called it. Thank you, President Obama, for getting rid of that lifetime cap so my friend still has meaningful coverage.
Stuff I’m Doing
Besides the skate video filming and usual practicing, and the usual aikido practice (which I have scaled down a bit because I want to have a life outside the dojo), I’ve been working on my Traveller RPG stuff a lot. Trying to spend 30 minutes during my lunch hour at work just expanding the setting with details, adding nonplayer characters of interest, and getting ready for game sessions (like the one this Sunday). Then the first full weekend in September my friend Jeff and I are going to the Lone Star Game Expo, in Grapevine, where I’m running a Traveller session based loosely on the last 3 games I’ve run for my normal group. THEN — my friend Jeremy and I are working on a Traveller “module” based on all this — an adventure that will be available for a fairly low price on DriveThruRPG.com .
The gaming stuff is fun. It allows me get some creativity out there in a different way.
Honestly, I’m kind of looking forward to winter. It’s a good excuse to stay inside and read.
Collecting video clips
I’ve been trying to collect video clips for my part in the upcoming NeverWas 3 video. I feel like my sections in video 1 and video 2 nearly exhausted my selection of tricks. It’s been hard to come up with new tricks for this one. Still, I’ve managed to get some stuff. I still have a couple of weeks or maybe three to get more. We’ll see. It’s crazy hot outside these days. 100 degrees F now at 4:30pm, so it’s going to be hot tonight. That’s Texas skating. If we do a 4th video, I may have to start skating vert (which isn’t really happening). I enjoy working on these video parts. Between them, and getting ready for Paderborn every year, I think it keeps me focused on learning some new stuff, even if that stuff is stuff that is only interesting to a handful of people. Truth is my feet and ankles kind of hurt, and doing moves that involve a lot of jumping makes me afraid my achilles tendon might just snap (I think my lead foot has bit of tendonitis in that spot, so I don’t really think it will snap, but it gets sore).
Still, heat, aches, and pains aside, I just love to skate.
A lot of blogging
I started this blog in October, 2006. This post is my 740th post.
Other than skateboarding, this is probably the longest running activity in my life. That’s nuts.
To celebrate, here’s a picture of the worst Haribo candy I had in Germany. It was the only such candy that was bad, but it was indeed ghastly. It was so bad I had trouble finishing the entire bag.
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Paderborn, Run 2, 2019
It seems that Youtube stripped out the music from my runs posted by Alex Foster at Late Tricks. So he sent me the footage, and I’m posting run 2 here.
It is not the best I can do, but when does one every skate the best they can during a contest? At least for me it is rare. BUT – I really enjoyed this run a lot. I think you can see me smiling. I went to this contest with the intention of doing a run that would be unlike any of the others, and I think I accomplished that, so I’m happy. (edit: Actually, looking at this video later, right now, in December, I think it’s my favorite contest run I’ve done. I’m glad I did my own thing.) Will go back next year with more flow and a couple of new tricks.