Rufus comes into some luck!!

Awe yes, Friday and my day off after driving back from St Louis last night. I wake up around 8:30 thinking my co-workers are just settling into a second cup of coffee by now where am  I about to make some fresh ground coffee and have a nice bowl of cereal, booyah! I have a leisure morning, unpack from my four day trip, lounge around the house watching some tube and read up on the latest happenings with Liverpool football club, good stuff. Around 12ish I make my way downtown to the Greenlaw Community center to skate their 3ft mini ramp that is indoors. I show up in the parking lot and there is one car there (a Honda S2000 with a Andrea the Giant Obey sticker) and the center's metal gates are down. It is suppose to be open but no dice, it is closed. So I pull up to the Honda that is obviously a skater. Yep, the dude in the car is named Cody, 19 yrs old and a Freshman at southwest college, it is his day off and now we both wait. As we talk I find out that Cody has a mini ramp in his GF's back yard that is 5ft tall and 10ft wide by 30ft long that he has skated twice, it is unfinished. Hmm.... and he has no plans of finishing and the GF's parents are tired of looking at it..... Hmmmm.... so what are you going to do with it?? Well.... how about let me take it?? Ok dude, it is yours for $100!!! That is, it is mine for $100 and I have to take it away.

Ok, so the guy who is running the center shows up around 115 or something close and we finally make it to the ramp. This is a new day for me, I have not skated a ramp in like 7 years. I start skating it and easy pumps up one side and then up the other side, nothing glamorous. I do some front side kick turns and back side turns. Then during one of my pumping and turning sessions I bite it and hit the ramp, everything ok but it did not feel great. I could probably manage the pumping and turning better if I lost 40 lbs, I think the extra weight is throwing my balance a bit. I finally get to where my turns are coping high and I can start  to move my foot positions around a bit, well I get a bit to comfortable and I bite it hard. I smack the ramp and go light headed, my wrist and both elbows are crying out. I have hurt my wrist for sure, i kept skating but as i type this thing is sore. I dont think it is broke for it is not swollen and it does move, just very stiff. My left elbow is bruised as well, but I will keep going back to the ramp in hopes to drop in and grind. Next time i will have a full set of pads and a helmet for sures. It was like skating a ramp for the first time, I  did not expect to pull off rock-n-rolls or hurricanes but maybe a grind or two. I got close to grinding but was chicken, could have, but I need some pads so I have a bit of confidence. I will get there, loose some weight and work on my fat man balance. Also, it takes fitness that I dont have at the moment. all kinds of things to work on. Here, look at my fat ass and cody on the right:

So we get tired of skating and I am like lets go look at the ramp. I meet him out east and look at the ramp. I am satisfied and go home. I line up some trucks to pick it up, that part is done and then secure a electric drill, go to Habor freight hardware supple for some drill bits and back out to the ramp location. check it:

I did not get it totally torn down but i made some major head way:

And here is where I left it, about 2 hrs left and a pick up and haul it to my house:

So there it is, I want to thank Cody very much, he is a very cool guy and a fellow skater, what else is there. I will cart this stuff back to my house and work on a new plan. I am going to build it a bit different than what he was trying to accomplish but 5ft and 10ft wide will be the same. Will even use the same transitions but in four sections instead of just two, it will be awesome. 

I skated today, got started on my mini ramp and made a new friend, a great day all in all. Peace out people!!