March has come and gone. Pope John Paul and Terry Schiavo have passed on, the Final Four is over, and I have worked my last day at Atlanta Xtreme Jayhawks.

I have the week off (spring break), and NCA College Cheerleading Nationals take place at the end of this week, but I don’t think I will be able to make it 🙁 . None of the people I usually drive down with are going this year and everyone else I have asked about already has plans. No fun in the sun for me I guess :-(. I dont’ have anyone to stay with down there (and don’t feel like footing the bill for a room alone for myself) so it would take a small miracle for me to end up going. I hope one happens, but I think its already a lost cause.

I visited a skate park yesterday. Iffy told me about a concrete skate facility at Pinckneyville Park, which is about 20 minutes away from where I live and about 10 minutes from where I work. I was really surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before and so I went down to check it out and skate, despite not having been on my skates in over a year. I invited Iffy, but he had injured himself at the park the day before and so he didn’t join me (serves him right for going without me in the first place)…. he also mentioned something about him not knowing how to drop in on a bowl. The skate park was a 2-section concrete ‘dry pool’ with a shallow large ‘mini-ramp’ section (with a concrete platform/ramp in the middle), and a much deeper circular bowl section. There were 3 galvanized steel rails sunk into some of the edges for grinding.

As I said, i’ve been off my skates for over a year, so I was rather conservative with what I tried (no front flips over funboxes, as I’ve done before). Wisely [sarcasm], I chose the hardest narrowest section of the pool to drop in on. The trip down was fine, but I almost fell over on the very steep, very sudden upgrade. I find that concrete is a very unforgiving surface to fall on and slide across, so not only did I wear all my pads (helmet, knee-pads, elbow pads, gloves), but I also kept my speed down and concentrated on trying to grind (which I’ve never been very good at). I spent about an hour at the skate facility and plan to return again soon, now that spring is blooming.

I have more news to report like talking on the phone with a No Doubt cover band, recent myspace.com messages, the situation with the new gym and Davis Flip Center, and cousins who are graduating this summer (Marlon from FAU and Jessica from Rutgers), but that stuff will have to wait for subsequent blog entries.