AJ

As promised yesterday, today I will talk about AJ's part. First off, the pictures up top are AJ locked into a solid 5-0 that is so well-grounded on the rail that you would have thought that he simply ollied onto the rail. And that's where you'd be wrong. He kickflipped into that 5-0, and he did it 3 times (I think in a row?) just to entertain you. In the other picture he's wiping what appears to be poop off his arm. We're still investigating as to why the poop was there in the first place and who left if for AJ to play in. Details to follow as they develop.

Andrew James Neuenswander. Or is it John? Can't remember. So maybe that's not his name. But I remembered miraculously 2 weeks ago when I checked out a projector under his name at school. Then we didn't even need it. Anyway, he goes by AJ. AJ's part is the perfect part to start off the video. After that blood-raging board smash that he performed on one of our first filming missions, I knew I wanted him to start off the video. He had last part in the last video, so I wanted to change it up for this video, even though he easily could have had last part. But I started filming with the intention of having AJ first. And I think it worked out really well that way.

In my opinion, this part was harder for AJ to film than Bolts of Thunder 3 in that he had more challenges and obstacles struggling for his time and attention. He had to battle a dislocated collar bone (he received a Purple Heart for this act of heroism. He saved my camera and took one for the team. Sorry and thank you, AJ) followed closely by a rolled ankle, the GRE, Gary (on multiple occasions Gary the cat has ran out of AJ's front yard, resulting in a manhunt for the cat by AJ and Hailey. This requires time away from his skateboard in order to catch Gary and keep him safe from the outside world), and my first born son in order to film for this part. I had a lot going on, so there were some stretches of time that I couldn't film which meant that nobody filmed AJ (I think there are 3 tricks in his part that AJ filmed when I wasn't there: the back lip down the rail and bigspin and bigflip over that flat gap. Every other trick I was there for and I likely filmed it as well). So that was a bit different than our last video where both Matt and I were around to film, so we pretty much had at least one person on filming duty any given day of the week. So AJ had to plan a lot more the tricks he wanted to get and when we would get them. He made a google doc of tricks, and we went through the list and good a good handful of them filmed.

Another difference from this part compared to last part is that I think AJ pushed himself more to get harder tricks. There were quite a few tricks that AJ got that I've never seen him do before, like the fakie kickflip tailslide bigspin out, the 360 heelflip (I don't have the term 'laser flip' in my vocabulary. That and 'tre flip' both don't exist. They're dead to me. Dead.) down the stairs, and the cab back tail bigspin out. I'm sure there are others, but those just came to mind. And the other tricks he got he did them on bigger or harder terrain that was harder to skate. Not that the last video didn't have new or hard tricks, but it had quite a few tricks that are his go-to tricks while this part I don't see that as much. I could be wrong, call me crazy, but that's how I see things.

The front blunt on the long ledge at the end of his part is my favorite trick of his for sure. I never thought I'd see the day that someone would front blunt that ledge. Honestly, I didn't think it would ever be done. It's one of a few tricks that I've ever seen that I really had ruled out as a possibility but then lived to see it. I'm trying to think of some others but I can't. When I kickflipped the bloomington elementary 6 stair way back when I had the same kind of feeling, I didn't think I'd ever do that. Anyway, that front blunt is crazy. AJ tried getting a varial heelflip down a gap and some stairs, but broke 2 different boards trying it, and jumped down these stairs so much that he couldn't walk for a couple days after. Other than that, he got every trick that he went for, which is a really good track record, especially considering the kinds of tricks he was going for.

To finish this post, I'll tell you more about AJ the person. The video would not have happened if it wasn't for his constant enthusiasm for it. This video was quite a bit different for me to work on than the past 3 videos because Matt wasn't here working on it. So me working on a video by myself with everything else I have going on isn't the funnest thing to do sometimes. But AJ always has the best attitude about things and always kept people pumped up to go out and skate. If he hadn't, I honestly can't imagine having been able to go out and film as much as I did because I would have ran out of steam back in February, a couple weeks after starting the project. So everyone should thank him for keeping the video alive when it wasn't so easy at times. AJ is the highest quality of person and friend, and it's a shame there aren't more of him out in the world. I'm super proud of him for getting back up every time he slammed and giving so much effort to filming and making this video. So you should watch his part another time and pay close attention to every trick he does because you will soon realize that he can do the hardest, craziest tricks and make them look like everyone's supposed to be able to do them so easily. Good job on your part, AJ!!!!