Damage Report

Wow, there's been a whole load of inactivity around here...

In part this has been due to my laptop breaking. Between myself and Ciara, we managed to drop it; now it's dead. I really need to claim on my house insurance to get some money for it, but first I'm going to get the data off. That's what I've been saying for over a month now.

As well as the obvious obstacle of not having a computer, I've also been really busy at both work and home. Work has been work, but at home I've got a good amount of d.i.y renovation style things to be getting on with. It's time sapping.

And finally there's been a rather strange close of the season for me. Normally I ride sometime early in the season, perhaps January say, and then again later on, perhaps March-time. This year my riding was all done by the beginning of February. It was strange. With friends enjoying real snow holidays during March and April, it just didn't seem time to start thinking about my own summer riding...

The net effect has been that I've been quite removed from snowboarding over the last 6 weeks or so - hence the quietness around here. It's worth pointing out that Mal's comment on my previous post about Call of Duty is way off the mark; honestly, I've hardly played the game! :)

What's more, over the summer I plan to blog a little less frequently. For sure I've got a stack of work to do on the house, but I think what I enjoy most about blogging is writing and posting things that I've actually done with snowboarding. So I'll be looking to document my summer snowboarding trips to Castleford and Halifax (and perhaps other places too).

With that in mind, I have a first draft of a trick list I'd like to tick things off from this summer. I don't know how it's going to pan out, but here it is:

• any switch backside rotation, even a one, and the small kicker is allowed
• cab 3 or better and the small kicker is allowed
• nose grab and the small kicker is allowed
• barrel roll clean and the small kicker is allowed
• Shifty, shifty
• backside 180 melon or stale, stomped
• frontside 3, stomped
• frontside 3 melon, stomped
• backside 3, stomped
• backside 3, with any grab, stomped
• any five, no grab needed

To tick a trick off the list it needs to be on film. "Stopmed" is clearly a subjective phrase - it's more there for motivation than anything else - but I won't be classing anything sketchy as a make :) Also, unless stated, the trick has to be done on a reasonably sized kicker; at Halifax for example, that's the main kicker.

I have a few things I'd like to do on a skateboard also, but I'll leave that for another time. It's enough to say for the moment that I've skated 8 times already this year, which is more than double of the entire last year put together. That's cool.

One more thing before I sign off. I've sold my Burton Wheelie Locker after much internal debate, and have opted for the case + boardbag approach. I've already hooked up a boardbag (in the sale, nice one) and I'm looking around for a case to go along with it. I'll post some pics when I've got the new bags sorted.

Here's hoping to getting back on my board asap...