Tony Hawk's Got Nothing On Him (Except Talent)

After church we went and bought Quinn a skateboard today. We did it for a couple reasons. One was I really don't feel like I'm getting my money out of my current health care plan and I figure this will help with that. The real reason though is the night before he really stepped up and ate a whole plate full of pasta. Now this was something new for him, and he did it without complaining or anything. Now I did bribe him by saying he could get a skateboard or Rollerblades if he ate the whole plate full, so that obviously influenced his decision some. Still he did fantastic so I figure he earned it.


Just so Catherine doesn't feel left out the plan is to get her a pair of Rollerblades, but nowhere we went had ones she wanted in her size so we'll be going out again for those or we'll end up ordering her a pair online.


Once we had purchased the skateboard Ginger had to leave to go attend some meeting related to the school. Because of that she ended up being gone for several hours and I made Quinn wait to use the board till she got back since I figured she would want to see his first ride on it. I think the wait just about drove him completely mad. After two and half hours he decided to suit up in his helmet, knee and elbow pads and wrist guards and just hung out at the door until Ginger got home.


The skateboard is part of a starter kit from Toys 'R Us and it's pretty much crap. I tried it a couple times and it just doesn't move very fast at all (I suppose it's possible the board is calibrated for a lower weight and my higher weight is causing too much friction). The good news is since it is pretty slow I guess it is pretty much perfect for Quinn at this point since he's just starting out and can use the fact that it's slow to get a handle on what he's suppose to be doing. He only had one case where he actually fell down, and that was just before we were ready to head inside. Overall I have to admit I was really impressed he did as well as he did first for this being his time. I mean he was able to do some in place turning and he even tried jumping while riding a couple times. After we filmed the video (see below) he even got some cones out and was able to navigate around them. Like I said, I was impressed. If he shows a lot of improvement I might have to consider getting him real board at some point. How sad is it going to be that he's going to be so much better at this than I ever was when I was growing up.


Since the board moves so slow, the video is pretty long. So family members and anyone else that cares can watch the one above. I don't expect John to watch the whole thing, so I made the following one for him and anyone else that just wants the highlights. So think before you click, long movie above, short movie below. Enjoy.