My Arms, Skateboarding, Birthday Presents, and GTA:VC
10/23/2

My arms are starting to feel better. I think I�ll try to do my workout today. It�s back day. Heck, it should have been back day on Sunday but I hurt myself. I tell ya, after not having any real physical activity besides sedentary office work, I�m about bouncing off the walls.

One of the things that I do in my job is these reports each year which are like a personality test in a women�s magazine, but rather than being questions about you, they are about what happened this year, environmental wise, at the plants. The only plant I was worried about has a score of zero. I know that one will have a 26 just because of how old it is.

Seventy is the first bad number to hit. But 121 is the �Did we mention we were stupid?� number. We�ve hit this number only once on a real plant, due to not having enough operators, and twice on a plant that a subdivision in the country built and we had to take over and pour money into it to keep from poisoning everything. Stinkin� losers.

Man, I can�t wait until my pads come in. With my wrists protected, I�m going to branch out and try all kinds of things.

First, and I think I mentioned this before, I want to go down the front hill at my parking lot I skateboard at, coast over to the back one, go halfway up and do a frontside 180 kickturn. Then, I want to do the same thing, but rather than do the kickturn, I�ll ride back some fakie and then do a blindside.

Also, work on my manual (which is non-existant).

I�ll also try doing ollies. Ollies are the thing these days. If you look at a list of tricks (http://members.tripod.com/~masturskater/tricktips.htm ), you realize that � of them are based on ollies. If you looked at that page, all flip tricks require ollies, all grind tricks require ollies (to get up to what you�re going to grind) and obviously all air tricks require an ollie.

I have thought about how ollies work, now that I know how they are done. For some reason, I was under the assumption that the tail didn�t� hit the ground. It does. That�s why people trash their boards so bad.

Heck, I remember the old days when you had stuff attached to the board to keep that from happening. I guess that�s uncool now.

But I have until Monday to make the � of a year, yearly report summaries. I�ve done the calc on the plant I was worried about, and also found out how long it takes to do one. Now to do four more and then make some format for a summary sheet and then just plug the numbers in.

The worst part is that I�ll have to be in a meeting with the Director, who should really get some nickname that indicates that he�s a slow talker�actually, he�s not a slow talker�he�s a vacuous talker. Sound and words come out, but it means nothing.

I have been conditioned to not roll my eyes or snore during this kind of thing. I was in a meeting with him recently with two people from ITS and they didn�t realize he was like that. About 20 minutes into it they came to the realization that he will keep talking about stuff that doesn�t matter and will go into gorey detail, not accurate detail either, about things which don�t matter at all. One ITS person could handle that. The other looked like she had given up all hope.

Oh, and here�s the stuff I got for my birthday. Black hoodie (I look like I�m about to steal your car stereo), a t-shirt I wanted, gift certificates, cash (actually my parents always give me a check), and stainless steel door sills for the Miata. They are sharp looking, but in a factory way.

I know I got more, but can�t remember.

I spent my Amazon gift certificate on a book on sports medicine for the young athlete, SSX (not Tricky, the original), and an autobiography of Tony Hawk. I spent my parent�s money on what I mentioned yesterday, pads, wheels, bearings, bushings, and a skate tool.

The wheels and bushings are clear. My next deck will be plain wood with no sticker and I�ll get clear grip tape. I might paint something under the grip tape before I put it on though.

Oh, and I know I was pining for GTA:VC (do you know what I�m talking about?) coming out the 22nd. Well, mine will be shipped the 28th. It officially comes out the 29th. But most stores who will stock it won�t be able to put it out until the 1st. There is a rumor that EB won�t carry it except for pre-orders due to the �controversial nature� of it.

I�m really looking forward to being able to kick people off their motorcycles and steal them. That and shoot people in their cars, while driving, with the sniper rifle. Oh, and stealing helicopters.

I�m just giddy with anticipation.