Progress with lessons!

Lessons:

1) You will fall.  If there are people around, your chance to fall grows exponentially.  This may be mitigated by practice.  I'm not sure, yet.

2)  If you attempt to show a loved one/significant other/cute person on the street a trick, you will not land it the first try.  By the 10th try, they will roll their eyes and go inside.  You will then immediately land it.

3)  The older you are, the harder you fall, and the more it hurts.

4)  Skateboarding is fucking fun... even if you are terrible at it.

5)  Confidence does not mean you'll land your trick, but it can help.

In about two or three weeks, I can see noticeable improvement.  I have just been skating around to get my balance.  I may spend the last few minutes trying to land small tricks, and on occasion I'll make a day of it, but for the most part I am just enjoying cruising around my neighborhood.
I spend most of my "trick" time practicing tic-tacs (starts easy and gets progressively harder), manuals (hard), kickturns (easyish), and a running start (easy).

My railstand (both toeside and heelside) is coming along nicely.  I can spend far too much time just standing in the middle of the street practicing that.

Anyway, I'm off
Spencer