Category Archives: Baltimore

Baltimore Trip in phone photos

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Our trip began at 3:30 am. That’s important to note when you see this first photo (waiting for the shuttle in the Pike’s Peak lot at the Denver airport…IMAG5516_edit_resized IMAG5518_edit_resized

Somewhere near Dallas TX…
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The next morning in Hampden…
IMAG5541_edit_resized IMAG5542_edit_resized First breakfast was at the Golden West.

Then off to the Ridge…IMAG5544_edit_resized IMAG5545_edit_resized IMAG5547_edit_resized Joey was there.IMAG5549_edit_resized

We skated a street spot, then off to Frederick for Katie’s wedding…
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Then next day we ended up at the Pirate/Privateer festival…

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We did a little shopping, and I added this next photo because (if I’m correct) my parents ski with Art Blakey’s son…
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Later we checked out the Boston Street rails…IMAG5572_edit_resized IMAG5578_edit_resized

Brewer’s hill..
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And got to skate Tide Point in between security guard rounds…
IMAG5587_edit_resized IMAG5588_edit_resized Jack put in some effort. And broke two boards. Woo!

Next up was Johnny Rad’s with Joey and Christie…

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And finally some more Natty Boh’s…IMAG5596_edit_resized IMAG5597_edit_resized

Back in Hampden…IMAG5598_edit_resized

Then to Style’s neighborhood to meet up with her and Carl to skate the Ridge…
IMAG5599_edit_resized IMAG5600_edit_resized IMAG5601_edit_resized … and a quick stop at Carroll park too.

Then back to the airport for the trip home…

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And around 1am, we arrived to my car…
IMAG5619_edit_resized IMAG5623_edit_resized So much snow. The drive home took forever. And the next morning, Jack got the pleasure of clearing snow of the car yet again…IMAG5625_edit_resized IMAG5629_edit_resized IMAG5630_edit_resized IMAG5633_edit_resized IMAG5634_edit_resized IMAG5639_edit_resized

 

Yay for spring in Colorado!!

RIP ridge.

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Throughout the last week or so, I’ve seen the most depressing videos and photos of the ridge. The ridge was a foundation spot just north of the city in Baltimore, with different levels and so many awesome things that people built there over the years. It was also a cool spot to skate, and everyone always seemed to leave us skaters alone. Sometimes it was empty and other times packed; there were days with demos or contests and even barbeques.

I found some photos I’ve taken there in the past…

…and a super old clip of styles…

…and an old clip of me…

I had some more recent footage… but I blew it on collecting it.

And now, sadly enough, it’s gone. Here are some photos I stole via facebook from Shawn Wixted. (Hopefully he doesn’t mind… I just couldn’t help myself, he takes amazing photos)

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Baltimore Trip

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I completely failed at taking photos, so I’ll try my best to keep the story-telling short and sweet.

On Thursday, I met Gabe at Vu. Both Gary and Chris (owners of the skateshop) were there plus some other familiar faces. Instead of skating, Gabe and I went across the street to Dead Freddies to get some food. Luckily I got my crab fix for the trip by ordering a Chesepeake Burger… a burger with crab dip on top. Yummmmmy. By the time we were finished, Gabe had to leave for Delaware.

I hung around and skated the mini ramp until Joey showed up. Ended up skating until Vu closed for New Years Eve at 5pm. While I was leaving I saw the most amazing blow-up/light-up lawn ornament I have ever seen. Just so everyone knows, Baltimore (especially Baltimore County as opposed to Baltimore City) has got to be the capital of blow-up lawn ornaments. They are SO popular here. I immediately tried to get a photo of this incredible find, but unfortunately I had left my memory card in my laptop. S.O.L. So instead, I found some pictures on the internet using Google Images to illustrate what I’m talking about.



For New Years Eve, I ended up on my friend Luke’s farm in Edgemere. So much fun. Luke cooked up a feast including venison wrapped in bacon, as well as fried and steamed shrimp. I drank pantydroppers (Luke’s wine that he makes each year) all night and even skated the 2-foot mini ramp in the basement as the guys jammed out with all the instruments on the stage next to the ramp. Good times.
New Years Day was a day of recovery, and I ended up at a family party of Katie’s family friends. While eating lots of amazing food, I disappointingly watched Ohio State beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl. After we played Scene-It and even though Lazer and Reed tell me over and over that I’ve never seen any movie ever, I was actually a key player on my team.

Saturday was my last full day in town and it was dedicated to…. skateboarding! I picked up my friend Dan and we first hit up Charm City. It was so packed that skating was an incredible chore. Anytime either of us stood still for one second, we were immediately surrounded by bikers and kids on scooter and had to physically push them out of the way to move anywhere. Yuck.

So we hit the road and stopped at my favorite pizza/pasta place in Baltimore, Pasta Mista. I got my favorite slice, the Mondragone (a deep dish of pizza sauce, slices of fresh mozzarella and tomato, and basil) while Dan opted for one of the chicken pizzas… I think the chicken caesar maybe? I was personally touched that the people working recognized me and commented on how I hadn’t been around. Actually, I used to go there every single day, so if they didn’t recognize me, I would have been hurt.
After leaving Pasta Mista, we picked up Styles and met up with Dakota and Joey and a few others at Vu. We skated the ramp for a bit and hung out with Eller, who was working the shop. We later left to skate a park about an hour north until closing time. Fun times.
I ended up staying out pretty late, chilling, dropping people off, visiting with Styles at her place. It was sad to head home in the wee hours of the morning, because even though we all talked about trying to meet up and skate the next day, I knew it was probably not going to happen. And it didn’t. The next day, I just lounged around the house with Karin until it was time to pack up and head out the airport.

Goodbye to the east coast. Every trip goes by far too fast. I am so happy for everyone I was able to see and still regretful for those I missed. Life is filled with endless decisions and sometimes even the right decisions are hard to live with after the fact, while wrong decisions are no better. But as for me, it’s time to head back to Colorado, and soon I’ll get over the fact that I had to make choices to miss certain people and skip some experiences. There’s never enough time for everything, and sacrifices are inevitable. Regardless, there will always be a next time. So, until next time…

Rhode Island to Baltimore

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As always, my vacation is flying by way too fast.

Leaving Rhode Island was more difficult than I expected. I always feel like I never get to spend enough time at home. My last day went by like a whirl wind.


I ended up running into my friend Justin and his girlfriend Paige in the airport, and they ended up on my flight. They sat with me on the flight and provided the distraction I needed so that I didn’t think too much about how I was already leaving the ocean, the farm, my family, and my home behind so soon.

On the flight, we discovered some treats left in the pockets on the seats. Paige found an unopened pack of pretzels, and I found an opened bag of candy. Even though Justin warned us we were literally “taking candy from a stranger”, Paige and I didn’t hesitate to eat the candy. Classic.
The flight was so quick and before I knew it, I was in Baltimore, getting picked up by my friend Katie and her sister Karin. We hung out at their house in Reisterstown for the night with their adorable dog Toby and took an outing to the Olive Garden.
I woke up Thursday to find Baltimore covered in snow. What a surprise. Katie went out to sweep the snow with a broom in her flipflops. Gotta love when it snows in Baltimore.

And now I’m just anxiously awaiting for some skate sessions to begin. Hoping today to start is easy with a family session on the Vu mini ramp, Joey, Gabe, and me.

Transistion Part II

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Moving is such a funny thing. I was so busy for so long, the time just drifted by… yet all of sudden, over a month later, I find myself experiencing waves of something similar to homesickness. Really I can’t say that I miss one particular home, just moments in a different time of my life. Even as these unpleasant pangs of sadness hit, I am delighted with the new life that I’ve taken on.
I know when school gets back in session I’ll miss my amazing students in Baltimore and having my own classroom, but at the same time, I couldn’t be more excited about my new job. I’m working as an ITL GK-12 teaching fellow for the year. The program is sponsored by a NSF grant, which is based on engineering education. Myself and the other 5 fellows will be going into public school classrooms in a few towns near Boulder to teach engineering classes or projects. I’ve been assigned to middle school along with my coworker Juan. We will be going into 7th and 8th grade science classes and doing one 4-5 week long project each semester with each class. At the moment, we’ve found 4 great projects for the fall that we are currently testing out to make sure we can actually pull them off. So much fun! Here’s a few photos of our projects:
Unclogging an artery with a device constructed of straws, elastics, thin wire, a paper clip, and a pipe cleaner. The plaque must be pulled up and should not be pushed through where it would continue through the blood stream and possibly clog a smaller artery.
Our groundwater system after an industrial toxic spill:

and after it rained:

The next challenge is the cleanup…


Here I am pouring the water I polluted with dirt, organic matter, sand, dishsoap, baking soda, vinegar, lime juice, laundry detergant, food coloring, and more into a filter I built.
The results. A little better, although I wouldn’t recommend drinking. Impressively enough, the pH was changed to slightly more neutral after passing through the filter.


Our water desalination plant. The idea is that the salt water in the bottom is heated by the heat lamp above, evaporates and condenses on the plastic wrap lining the top. The water will fall into a slide and end up in the cup.


Below is our simple salt water circuit. After the going through the water desalination plant, the water will either cause the lightbulb to be dimmer or to not light at all.



Testing the pH of different substances with cabbage juice. Red is more
acidic and blue/green is more basic. The cabbage juice is purple to begin, and this color signals a more neutral pH.


Testing out which temperature water mixed with sugar and yeast will allow the yeast to thrive, and therefore respire, causing the balloon to rise.


Once an optimal temperature was decided, we tested the optimal yeast to sugar ratio. This information is key, because yeast will be used to clean a large-scale “toxic” sugar spill in an aquarium.

In addition to a new exciting and fun job, life has been good here in Colorado. The few things that were stressing me out have finally been settled. I was able to piece together a schedule for my classes, and my brother Chip and I signed a new lease. We are moving to an awesome house with a big yard in Gunbarrel, about 10 minutes outside of Boulder. We will be living with two of Chip’s friends, Rob, who works at the Boulder Country Club with Chip, and Max, who is about to begin his 6th year of undergrad.
I also have been skating so many new parks and spots, which has been so exciting. I have a new fantastic crew to skate with called the Trick Factory who have taken me in and shown so much already. For 4th of July weekend they took me camping out in Winter Park. It was my first real camping trip, complete with skating new parks, eating deep-fried pickles, soaking in sulfer hot springs, cooking on a campfire, and drinking cheap beer and whiskey until 6am. A few key photos:
Our first pit stop on the way out in Arvada. It didn’t take long at all before a motorcycle broke down and had to be left behind.
Our second stop: Berthound Pass.
A view from the pass.


Our campsite.


The sunset in town in Winter Park our first night.


A flower I found Saturday morning.

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Kremling, Colorado.


The whole crew outside in Kremling. We travelled here to have delicious deep-fried pickles and skate a park with the most beautiful view in all directions.


One final shot on the way home before we all split to go our separate ways.

There has been so many other things that have happened since I’ve been in Boulder… far too much to write about. One thing that’s awesome about living here is that I’ve been able to spend some time with my 3 1/2 year old cousin Coco. After driving out to Colorado with me, my mom and I took Coco out for an adventure to Nederland, a town about 30 minutes up in the mountains from Boulder.

Coco and my mom.


The creek running through Nederland.


Coco and I in the playground.


Coco, rock climbing by the spillway.


Coco and I.


In general, the last month has flown by. I have neglected this blog quite a bit, but my own adventures have taken precedence recently. So much so, actually, that I can’t even write about them all, because there has been far too many. Right now I’m happy with how everything is going. I love my new job, although I’m growing more and more nervous to begin my own graduate engineering classes. I’ve gotten back into yoga and have been able to hold my crow position and even hold my big toes together (for those that know what that means…) Although I stress about skating too much, I’ve recently landed
some heelflips up the euro in Nederland, landed a noseslide on a down ledge at the Boulder park, and landed 3 new tricks yesterday: switch 180, front shuvit, and nollie front shuvit.
Despite how happy I am here, I still feel sadness when I think of the beach in Rhode Island that I’m so far away from this summer and the life I left behind in Baltimore. I find it only appropriate to end this post with two photos from Baltimore that I waited until the last few weeks to take:





Transistion. Part I

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So, it has been forever since my last post… my only excuse is that I have been far too busy with my own adventures to take even the slightest break to document it. I’m going to attempt to summarize my last month, but I know I’m way too long-winded for that… but here goes:

The last full weekend I spent in Baltimore began as soon as my final staff meeting at Heritage High School came to a close. I still have not come to grips with the fact that I won’t be coming back in August and I never felt like I had a real sense of closure. After work, we had another teacher meeting – at DuClaw, a restaurant on the inner harbor in Fells Point that brews their own beer. After some rounds of beer and appetizers, I left with my friend Jackie and Iris to pick up a bottle of wine and sat down at Asahi Sushi on Broadway.
Jackie and Iris deep in conversation:
Afterwords Jackie and I stopped by Mr. Yogato’s on the way home and got stamped for a 10% discount… that I’m not sure we actually got, but that’s okay…
us, stamped:
a sign we saw on the way…
We ate our froyo in the back indoor courtyard and entertained ourselves by making spoon people and playing connect 4.
The next night was the Vu’s 1-year anniversary party at Sonar. My friends Katie and Shade (former student) came out for the festivities, along with the usual baltimore skate scenesters. Fun times…
Me and Sean Green, waiting to get in:
Shade and Katie:
Shade and Goat:
Sean Green:
me:
the crew:
Sunday, I picked up Vance who helped me take my bed apart so that I could sell it (after this, I was sleeping on the floor with my sleeping bag) and then I headed down to the farm to do some work in return. Since Luke didn’t want to actually put me to work on the farm, I had the job of shopping and making dinner, which I was actually delighted to take on. I fixed up some burgers on the grill, red bliss potatoes with some onion and spice on the grill, macaroni and cheese, and a garden salad. After the boys finished working we dined and then played horseshoes until the sun began to set and the mosquitos became unbearable.
Monday was my final day skating in Baltimore. I met up with Styles, who had Desmond’s camera, and we set off on a mission to film. We first showed up to the Ridge. Styles set up the camera and I sessioned the newly built euro gap with an ollie up, pop shuvit, front 180, kickflip, and then ollie in. As fast as we rolled up, we rolled out and headed to sawmill. Here Styles laid down nollie bigspin and fakie full cab flip and I filmed a simple pop shuvit and kickflip, all done of the hips.
On Tuesday I headed home to Rhode Island for some time on the beach before my trip out west. My friend Meagan was home a
nd we made an actual attempt to hit up the Mist for ticket Tuesday, but we lost interest while standing in line with some 18-year old URI students. The next day was beautiful (apparently one of the only sunny days all summer in RI) and I made my way down to the beach, and before long I was at the mist with Iain.
After a few rounds of Narragansetts and some games of pool, we met up with Meagan and cruised to the packy and then back down to the beach.
As an amazing cd of oldies seronated the room, we played some drinking games and enjoyed every minute of this beautiful summer day.
On Thursday the weather returned to rain, and I finished my RI trip with 2-4-1 Mexican dinners at the Mist with Meagan and Cortney. After, we spent stopped by Cortney’s, just before I got some sleep and left Rhode Island.
By Friday morning I was back in Baltimore, shipping boxes and spending the majority of the day at the Math Department’s end of school year pool party, just west of the city. We did manage to snap a few photos:
Delicious food, good company, and (of course) line dancing made it hard to leave this party, which I didn’t do until the sun had set and I realized that my friends Katie and Karen were waiting for me in Fells Point. We had a few drinks outside of the Green Turtle, possibly the trashiest spot in Fells, and then I had to say some more goodbyes. Before the night was over, I made my way out to Edgemere to hit up Vance’s bonfire. It was a great scene and never a dull moment, especially when a gorgeous tiki bar made its way into the fire.
Saturday was crunch time in terms of packing, but I took a break to go to breakfast with Jackie at Golden West in Hampden. Feeling out of character, I ordered the Hangover Burger which was topped with avocado and a fried egg. Normally I don’t eat much meat, but with the promise of an organic grass-fed (hopefully “grass-finished”, a term that Michael Pollan has used, reminding his readers that at some point all cows were fed grass), I just couldn’t resist endulging myself. I took another break after a drop-off at Goodwill to get a hair cut at Tenpachi’s in Fells. Occasionally I leave here disappointed, but this time I was delighted with my hair cut – exactly what I wanted. When I got back home, I had run out of time to pack, because I was supposed to be at my friend Matt’s house in Mt. Vernon, so that we could make it to our friend Nick’s wedding. Before the wedding, we had some drinks and took some photos:
In the end, we were extremely late for the wedding and arrived just before Nick stomped a glass and was told he could kiss the bride. Overall the experience was awkward. I hadn’t actually been invited, I just went as Matt’s date, which shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I couldn’t help feeling a little out of place. Then, to top it off, we were seated at the table with the bride and groom, and in addition to the social situation, I was wearing a dress that I don’t think is appropriate for anything along with my practically neon colored hot pink heels. Besides feeling out of place, I did have a fantastic time with Matt and actually appreciated the fact that his knee wasn’t ready to dance on, because I was pleased to sit on the side and drink.
My final morning in Baltimore would have been my final emotional breakdown if Vance didn’t come over and help me pack the remainder of my room and my car. We had some slices of pizza before I said my last goodbye and got in the car and drove straight to Newark, New Jersey to meet my mom.