Thursday, July 09, 2009

The Worst July 4th Skating Video You'll See All Week

July 4th, I met up with the Washington Area Roadskaters for their July 4th skate. As I twittered, we met up at the White House, moved through Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Union Station, and then to the Tidal Basin to watch the fireworks.

I also filmed the most boring skating video ever made as we made our way through the Georgetown Waterfront:

I didn't have any fancy stabilizing rigs, just held the camera at my sternum, pointed mostly straight ahead. Which is why you mostly see butts. (You know what they say: Unless you're the lead dog, the view never changes. Which is fine, if you happen to be an assman.)

Through the first part of the skate, I was sucking wind, mostly because I was feeling the aftereffects of a few of these Porch Day beverages:
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This was the first time in a long time that I wore my helmet while skating. I had a headlamp strapped to it (a River Rock 6V LED, uses 2 CR123 batteries -- got it on sale at Target) -- it's pretty powerful, with good throw and spill. It was useful to highlight road hazards, and also to let people know that I was coming.

It might have been useful for the skater ahead of me who was involved in a collision with a bicyclist as we were making our way through the crowds near the Mall, on our way down to the Tidal Basin. I didn't see what happened, but I don't think anyone was hurt.

We had a good spot on the Tidal Basin. Here's a fireworks photo:

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Afterwards, we headed past the Kennedy Center to Foggy Bottom. At one point, we were on one of the roads that leads onto the 66 on-ramp (I was just following the crowd) -- a cop stopped us (since they were starting to release traffic onto the road), but was nice enough to hold up traffic at one point so we could cross the median and get to the Kennedy Center. (He didn't actually do it, but I could hear the *facepalm* in his voice.)

We ended up hanging out at the outdoor patio of a TGIF for a while for food and drinks (sorely needed, as I'd been starting to cramp up).

That's about it.

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