Matt Hensley single handedly blew up the street skating scene. I remember when I first saw his part in H-Street "Shackle Me Not" video I knew street skating had changed forever. He was the first person I heard use the term flatground and then I watched him just ride down a sidewalk and shred everything in sight. I spent the next month trying to learn that stuff and turning my shins into shredded meat chunks.
Matt is still doing cool stuff, playing accordion for the great Irish band Flogging Molly.
My skate bud Rob picked up one of these at Ohana recently and I thought it looked interesting. As usual he is pretty mellow about his gear but I rode his board for a second and thought I just had to get one. I picked up the 7.75 team deck and man is this board sick! Insane amounts of pop and it holds up to having an old fat guy like me doing lipsides on curbs with it. I broke 2 previous boards doing that trick. Do yourself a favor and grab yourself a Beer Run board, you will not regret it!
Being a parent usually does not leave a lot of free time to get out and ride very often. You can maybe carve out one weekend morning but face it, at our age we need to skate a lot just to keep in shape. I have been skating at least 4 days a week for the past 3 weeks for at least 30 minutes. The result, I dropped 10 pounds and my stamina is way up. Here are the 5 things I do to make it happen:
Have your board with you at all times. I keep my board in my car all the time, that way you always know where it is and never forget it at home. You can't skate without your skate.
Find some skate buddies at work. This can be tough but there is usually at least one other person that either skates now or has skated before that you can convince to skate again. The more people you get involved the better so you always have someone to go skate with.
Scope out spots close to your office. Street is the easiest thing to skate during the lunch skate but of course parks will do just fine if they are close. I don't want to spend my half my lunch hour in the car, I want to ride! One benefit to this economy is that a lot of office buildings are sitting empty so they are totally skateable during the day. Also the spots don't have to be epic, a nice red curb is a lot of fun for a mellow lunch session.
Bring a change of cloths. No matter how cold it is you are hopefully going to work up a sweat skating. Either change into skate clothes before you go skate or have something to change into once you get back. Socks are key, you don't want to walk around for the rest of the day in wet socks. That is how you get things like athletes foot.
Get creative with scheduling. I block as much time off around lunch as possible, you want to avoid having to go straight from skating into a meeting, your are going to be hot a sweaty and people are going to look at you funny. No meetings before 2PM is my rule and no meetings start after 11. Depending on your work you can be flexible here but just try to avoid the right after skate meeting.