MikeB's blog

Frustrated with the very high cost of prescription sunglasses I opted to check out www.zennioptical.com and found some really good deals, especially on performance shades.  My dilemma is fuzzy sight at distances over six feet.  Close up reading distance is fine.  Is that far-sighted or near-sighted?  I don't know,,,,can never keep it straight.  I just know that further = fuzzy.

With a nasty weather system slowly pushing across Texas days earlier, and finally making it's way to the western part of NC on the eve of the event, this year's RRR seemed 'iffy' at 6am.  I made the 'go call' at about 7 and arrived at the venue by 7.45.  Unfortunately any other skaters made a 'no-go call' making this a solo skating effort.

Here it is.......New Year's Eve 2008, and time to plan for 2009 skating events.

A quick check shows: 

• Great EsSkate in Miami FLA on the weekend starting Friday 2/6/09; 
• Tdk in Denton NC on Saturday 6/20/09; 
• A2A in Athens GA on Sunday 10/11/09; 
• T2T as TBA;  (plus training skrides)
• Carolina Century as TBA

As the premier online inline group :-)  could we get more indepth confirmation on the above and add to the list with any and all events?

The wheels on the skates wear down and down,

down and down,

down and down,

The wheels on the skates wear down and down, all through the day.

Okay, so my wheels are showing visible signs of wear and have seen numerous rotations.  It's getting close to 'bite the bullet' time and get some replacements.  Plus thanks to the nice people at roadskater.net, I was able to completely save a set of bearings that seemed lost to an unplanned rain skate.

This USA Hockey tournament took place at The Factory in Wake Forest, NC.  and turned into a 5 game affair.  I played on my buddy Dave's team (Neighbor Boy) and we only had one hiccup all tournament long.  Too bad it happened in the last period of the championship game.  ARG!

The first game was late Friday night versus the Back Nine guys.  It couldn't have gone better.  We had instant chemistry and played a rock solid game, winning 5 - 0.

You'll be amazed at how smooth skateboarding on the Autobahn at 60+mph can be!

check it out for yourself  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piIpz1tewEg  , one pebble, one twig, and this ride would have ended much differently.

I can't imagine how fast an inline skate stuntperson could go.  Faster perhaps?

Woooo-Weeeee,  the multitude of colors in Blake's Tour de Kale Speed Map reminds me how steep some climbs were and on a few of the descents as well.  Why is it the ascents were twice as frequent as the descents - I still don't get that.

After reading his quick paragraph I had to chime in:

Ya right, you couldn't keep up with me.....likely story.  I fell for your evil plan - hook, line and sinker:   "oh, MikeB, you've trained with some fast No.Raleigh skaters.....we're probably holding you up, I'm sure your fast, don't let us keep you."