Skateboard Overload

I'm not sure what happened but it seemed every skateboard event took place this weekend. The Berrics, Tony Hawk's Vert Alert and SLS. It was a lot!

The Battle at the Berrics had Luan Oliveira vs. Tom Asta which was good. Luan landed full bolts it would seem or you could say with authority. You knew he was landing his stuff. He won and now he'll go up against Kelvin Hoefler in the next round. I like Kelvin and Luan so I'm not sure who to cheer for when the time comes. This is the same conundrum I used to face watching vert competitions with Bucky Lasek and Bob Burnquist going at it. I liked both of them, each of them a favorite but if I'm being honest, Bob had a slight edge over Bucky.  It was hard to root for one over the other they were just so darn good!

SLS returned as well and I'm not liking the new format at all.  I was used to two 45 second runs and 5 trick attempts and the best four scores overall count with all 8 competitors trying to win.  Now it's one 45 second run, four trick attempts, best three scores count and the top four move on for an additional two trick attempts to determine the winner.

I don't know why they changed it, I thought it was working fine. It's supposed to be a skate competition and now you hardly get any skating. At this point, simply call it a best trick contest because that's what it is. I want to see skaters skate, not just their best trick. I don't skate, I'm simply an ally but the new scoring has me baffled. 

Kelvin Hoefler finished 4th, he missed out on hitting the podium and there was one trick that he did that he definitely got robbed on scoring wise. Then again, I'm not a judge so what do I know.

Tony Hawk had his event and that was cool. I really wish that they had recorded the Legend's Demo so people could watch it if they missed the live event. I've seen some videos popping up but it would have been nice to watch the whole thing.  I was busy and couldn't watch when it was happening but from I saw online people were hyped.

I'm glad the event happened, it was nice to see a women's and men's vert competition even if I didn't recognize most of the names. Didn't matter, it was good skating and the crowd was into it.  

Okay, that is my rant for the day.

My idea for NaNoWriMo is coming along. It's starting to form a bit better in my head and I think I have a good idea now on the direction I want to go.  There is still plenty of time to change my mind but for now I think I found my path.

I went digging through the music archive and dug up this Savatage song from 1989. Enjoy!

Rock on!

~Maynard

Planning for NaNoWriMo

For the past month, I've had an idea for what I could work on for NaNoWriMo come November.  In the past, I've usually had the outline of my story and character names in place well by August and a firm idea by September with little tweaks here and there.

For the past few years, the drive to write or even participate has been a chore.  It's been a struggle.  Last year, I had no idea until the day before and on day one of writing I had no clue what I wanted my story to be or where to take my characters. Amazingly, as always, I finished early.  I was done before the 30 days was up.  I run into this every year where I worry I won't make the deadline but I always do. I normally finish by Thanksgiving and in some cases I have finished between day 8 and day 15.  Mind you, that's a lot of writing as the challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I always second guess myself and you'd think after all this time I would stop. I can write, I know how. 

This year, I have a vague idea which is starting to come together but I think the project is bigger than just me writing.  It feels like it needs to be bigger and it maybe that I do that, for myself. I don't want to get into specifics and what I have planned right now can easily change by the time November rolls around, but I am toying with the idea of writing what it's like to live with dysthymia.  I don't think people are aware of it or understand it and I feel the need to give it a voice.  I want to write about the tools I have in my took kit and write about ones I didn't know I had (see the blog posting about Banana Bread & Bob Burnquist).

I haven't decided how to present the story but I find myself thinking of adding illustration or photos which is typically not something that pops up when I start putting story ideas together. I'm open to this idea and maybe it's exactly what I need to do to help others understand dysthymia.

I invite everyone to give NaNoWriMo a shot.  Give yourself a little challenge and it doesn't matter if you hit the 50,000 words. Give yourself permission to immerse yourself into a world of imagination.

Today I leave you with the Within Temptation song 'Sinéad'.  The Unforgiving is definitely one of my favorite Within Temptation albums and this song has been a constant play for the past two days. Enjoy!

Rock on!

~Maynard