Every year I come home from The Bitter Cold Showdown with a desire to be productive. I know this seems like a strange outcome after a weekend of binge-drinking and lawlessness, but it’s true. There is something about the escape from the day-to-day into our small world of camaraderie, passion and spontaneity that is like rollerblading Adderall for me. After our first year attending in Elkhart (2001), Eddie Dombrowski and I pulled into our hometown on Sunday night and spent an hour skating a local spot just to hold on to the experience a little bit longer before we had to return to home and school. It would be dishonest if I didn’t acknowledge that the sense of community that Kaz and I were trying to communicate to the outside world in “Jack Be Nimble” was a feeling we had first come to understand watching dozens of rollerbladers turn a small-town Red Roof Inn into the Riot House.

The past few years I have come home with the same desire to write, skate and film. And every year I would spend a day or night planning, a couple of days feeling anxious about whether or not I would follow through, and inevitably I would convince myself I was too busy with work or personal commitments and give up on the idea. The truth is, this has been my approach to rollerblading in general the past few years, and I imagine many others reading this are in the same position: focused on careers and family but still finding yourself wanting to rollerblade. Still looking for spots while driving or thinking of tricks when you should be focusing on TPS reports (no shit, I once had a job that required me to fill out something called TPS reports and in their break room they had a copy of “Office Space” that someone would always be watching without even a hint of irony) or whatever busywork your selected bureaucracy pays you to do. And if you are like me, when you finally do get the blades on they probably don’t feel exactly the way you remember them. Top mistrials involve more stretching than they did five years ago, and that eight-stair you used to have to clear to connect that killer line has suddenly become the main event. And maybe, like me, you have begun to accept these things.

Except this year when I came home from Royal Oak, Eddie and I got to talking again. It just so happens that Matt Strobot, Eddie and Andrew Kazlauskas are planning to work on an online video this year and I want to be involved. So I’m going to film a section. It will be the first time I have done this in seven years.

But why stop there? I will be documenting the experience in this ONE Blade Blog; my attempt to lose weight, my experience walking into work after a good bail, and all the embarrassment that goes along with trying to squeeze back into rollerblading after swelling into a 4′ x 6′ cubicle over a few years. To be clear, I’m not trying to redefine the sport here. I was never one of the best rollerbladers in the world, and I have no dreams of coming out of this year going toe-to-toe with Bailey or Broskow. Who knows, maybe I will get hurt before the section even happens? Or maybe I will end up with something watchable? At the very least I’m hoping my passion for blading will spill over into my personal and professional life. I have a feeling devoting my time to something I have loved for 17 years will be a better way to unwind after a day of work than watching reruns of “The Office.” And just maybe this exercise will inspire some of you to devote a little more time to the blades, too.

Filming started Sunday and I’ve got a long road ahead: