I skated in my first contest when I was 13, which, come to think of it, was a good long while ago even though I remember the day clearly. In the free-for-all session that followed, I broke my arm - an ominous sign worthy of the number of my years. I was never destined for pro skater stardom, but I like to think that my 13-year-old self would be stoked on some of the things I’ve gotten myself into anyway. I’ve occasionally even made some career path choices by asking myself: “What would your 13-year-old self think of this?” As a direct result of some of those choices, I’m now following the AST Dew Tour (in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I write most of the skate content that ends up on the official AST Dew Tour website) and other contests in my various capacities as a freelance writer, skate blogger, and full-time action sports fan. The other day, each of those roles converged nicely in a way I have to think my 13-year-old self would approve of. As the Dew Tour website’s skate content guy and the illustrious skate blogger for your favorite action sports website – which just so happens to be the exclusive video partner for the Free Flow events – I was asked to be a judge for the Free Flow Amateur Skate Park contest in Cleveland, held on the same sick course where Ryan Sheckler put some more big bucks in his account the day before for winning the Finals at the Right Guard Open. If you’re a 13-year-old skater reading this, and people keep asking you what you want to be when you grow up, let me tell you: A guy could get used to gigs like this. The skate groms in the contest were awesome, the other judges were awesome, the Park course was awesome, and I had a ton of fun watching the contest, making notes, and making the big decisions that would ultimately help send 13-year-old Morgan Burgess from Lebanon, Ohio on to the Free Flow Finals in Orlando, Florida. If you haven’t been to a good amateur contest lately, get out there and get to it: Kids these days are busting out the damnedest tricks, and I was duly impressed. Afterwards, I got to briefly interview Burgess (the kid in the middle, wearing the shades, in the pic above), just moments after he’d ollied up a massive step-up gap originally built with BMX riders in mind. In other words, 5boro pro and Dew Tour course-design guru Charlie Wilkins probably never figured on some little skate grom soaring up and over that gap, but there was this little dude, sure enough floating right up it. Not only do these groms have big bags full of hammers and bangers to drop all over the place, they also have some serious media savvy: I stuck a mic in front of this kid after the contest, and all of a sudden it was like he was a celebrity on NBC. The Dew Tour site is already running my interview, so I’ll just say that I was stoked by how much he used the word stoked: Stoked enough that the whole thing reminded me of when I was 13. Watch out for this kid Morgan Burgess: Great skater, great attitude, and on his way out to skate the Oregon Trifecta concrete park contests next month. Life works out pretty well some of the time after all.

It's raining like the sound of trains here in Cleveland today, so while I wait for the postponed end to the Skate Park Prelims and the totally postponed Vert Prelims to go down, here's a link to part one of the latest Epicly Later'd show, featuring  5boro founder Steve Rodriguez. 5boro might be my very favorite skateboard company of all time. I got turned on to them from the very beginning because Peri Morgan -- the team's token chick at the time and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet -- lived in my neighborhood when I was in college and had a sick narrow little spine ramp in her back yard that we skated all the time. Epicly Later'd is worth watching every single episode of, no matter who is being featured, and almost everything on vbs.tv -- the new site from Vice Magazine and creative director Spike Jonez -- is equally cool. But Steve Rodriguez is something extra special, and here's a pull quote from the episode to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about when I say that: "I wanted to make a company that represents what we're about. It's just a totally different structure of a company. Like, I'd say 25 percent of 5boro's job is working with the City of New York to make sure skateboarding is represented well in New York City, dealing with Parks and stuff like that. So it's more than just a company that makes boards." In other words, if you've ever made the pilgrimage to NYC to skate Brooklyn Banks and were stoked it wasn't a bust -- or all jacked up with skate stoppers, or completely gone altogether -- like many of the other greatest spots in the U.S., you have Rodriguez and his skate lobbying efforts to thank for it.

It turns out moving across the country is hard. I haven't skated in a week, or written about skateboarding in a week, or really even thought about skateboarding for a week -- just packing boxes. Sorry about that. It's back on my mind now, though: The Dew Tour is on again, and I arrived in Cleveland last night. The athletes and I are all booked in a hotel that goes way overboard on the theme of its proximity to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which I'm going to go check out today, so before all the action gets underway, here's a Rock Hall meditation for you to ponder on: Is there anything in skateboarding more pure than a frontside rock and roll? So simple, so perfect, such a sensation. Tech comes and goes, trends ebb and flow, but the rock and roll is forever. Remember when you got your first guitar and some guy taught you how to play the riff from Freebird? Next time you're at the skatepark, pull some grom aside and -- after staging a mongo intervention if necessary -- show him what's what on the rock and roll. Make sure he learns it frontside so he'll never forget it and go on skating forever.

Convergence: I'm still working on that long-promised bit about ASEC , and I'm also coming into my final week of goodbyes as I prepare to leave Washington, DC and head for the Rocky Mountains. One thing I'm going to miss most in the Green Skate Laboratory. I'm going to miss the amazing community of East Coast Roundwall skaters who made it happen and skate it all the time , and all the cool local kids who never skated before it was built in their backyard in NE Washington and now get in there all the time. Here's a link to some old interviews in Juice Magazine  about the GSL project. In the next few days before I leave, I'm going to try to get somebody to get a decent shot of myself skating GSL to replace the BNQT portrait I've been using. I will also be updating a bit with my own photos from around town and some news about other new projects underway in the DC area from the same folks responsible for GSL. I'm on photo safari around DC all week, so will finally bring you some new original pics. And then... Cleveland. Hang on!

Words by Colin Bane 
First: Simple pleasures. Last night -- for the first time in kind of a while, unfortunately -- I went skateboarding solely for the sake of getting from one place to another very quickly. How did I lose track of how fun that is? Hauling ass through the hilliest part of Washington, DC and hitting a few great spots near the Zoo and Woodley Park before crossing the bridge into Adams Morgan, two thoughts occurred to me: 1) The childhood rush and simplicity of riding a skateboard is still there, and always will be, and that is extremely reassuring. 2) What with all the DC King of New York and DC King of LA stuff going down, clearly somebody is missing out on the awesome symmetry of possibilities in a DC King of DC contest. Memo to the folks at DCshoeCo: Get on that! Just head over to The Forgotten City to meet the people and places necessary to put that together for you properly, or even put your own man Darren Harper on it. Harper is as DC as DC gets. Related: I've been linking to some great skate websites lately, but also getting increasingly psyched on being involved in this one. So today's link is onsite: Click here to see Banquet's chronicle of each stop on the DC King of LA contest tour , which hit great spots like Lockwood, Bancroft, Barker Hangar, and Los Angeles Community College before crowning its king.