Most people might not like the responsibility that comes with being the big brother, but I love it. Part of the reason I decided to stay home a while longer is to make sure my brothers are good with the divorce. It was hard hearing from mom that I might need to rethink moving out, but ultimately, I knew it was the right decision when I get to hang with them pretty much anytime I get the chance. Lately, I’ve been trying to make sure that time happens a lot…

Kane is freaking hilarious. He blew me away with that whole “razoring is a sport” argument. Me and Shane kept saying it wasn’t, he kept saying it was. Finally, Kane doesn’t know what to say and blurts out, “skateboarding isn’t a sport.” I knew he was just mad that he wasn’t winning the argument. Looking back, it’s still one of the funnier things he’s said and my little brother says some funny stuff.

Kane makes the sickest bets for Shane and somehow, I always end up losing. It’s okay though because sometimes it takes something stupid like a bet to really make you see something you didn’t before. I’ve known forever that Shane is a great skater. We used to skate amateur contests together all the time and lately, watching him in the backyard skate park proves he’s good. And seeing him land pressure flip after pressure flip – a trick I can barely do – really got my mind going about his abilities and his potential. Once I found out he was down to do a couple of contests like back in the day, I was pumped. I knew that I had to enter him into Damn Am’s skating competition. This event is HUGE. Hundreds of amateur skaters from all over come here to compete. Telling Shane about it was another thing. The contest was only days away and maybe it was a good thing not giving Shane time to freak out about it, but he totally just got to work. He was skating all day every day because he wanted to do good and hold up the Sheckler name.

Meanwhile, you guys know how I’ve just been looking for that cool girl to hang with. I used to joke all the time that I wanted to find a clone of Taylor’s but she had to be blond. I think I might have found her and the funny thing is, she’s best friend’s with Taylor. This girl is just sick. She’s gorgeous, is a model, lives close by and is already friends with all of my friends. I’ve known about her for a while, but she was always in a relationship, so it just never happened. Now she’s free and…well, I’ll just say that I was glad that she was at the Surfer Poll awards and I could kind of hang out with her there. Those awards were crazy, I did the red carpet, did a bunch of interviews and saw a bunch of famous surfers, like Andy and Bruce Irons. Kayla teased me about my speech that I had to make up on the spot (because there wasn’t a script or anything), but I didn’t take her too seriously. I think I did pretty good up there. It’s crazy having to stand up in a room in front of that many people and just talk without reading a teleprompter or anything.

With Kayla I’m going to try to be around as much as possible to see what might happen. I am not going to get too excited though because Casey, Tony and Taylor tell me I get way too excited about girls and then get bummed when it doesn’t work out. This time it’s all about going S – L – O – W.

But back to Shane: when I told my friends about what I did Mitch asked me if I was sure this was something Shane really wanted to do. It was definitely something to think about.

I guess those competitions that we used to skate together in when we were little really got to him and me signing him up for another competition was just bringing all that back up. I really wanted Shane just to see how good he was and thought the best way to do that was to put him up against other good skaters. What I didn’t count on is all the pressure he’d feel just being at the event that day. I was really, really worried for Shane. He was stressing out and I was stressing out that he was stressing out. All of my family and friends were just so anxious and nervous for him that all any of us could say was he should try to have fun. When that wasn’t working, I told him we could bail on the whole contest. He didn’t have to do it. It actually hurt to watch Shane skate and not land any tricks.

Everybody knows I go into contest mode when I’m at these things, but to see Shane going through it was a whole other thing. As frustrated as he was with his warm-ups, I was so proud of Shane for sticking it out and staying to skate his run. Turns out, Shane KILLED it. He skated so good and fast, and kept his style and landed trick after trick.

After all of that Shane has said over and over that he doesn’t want my life. He doesn’t handle the stress of competitions and just wants to skate for fun. If that’s what makes him happy, then I’m behind Shane all the way.

Late