Today is Happy Dinosaur Jr Day! I’m on about my 6th listen to Farm and I think it’s excellent. An amazing album that’s more consistent than Beyond, their longest album to date, no songs to skip and chalk full of Dinosaur Jr awesomeness. It gets both thumbs up and I can’t wait to digest it more and more and get a real review up here sometime.

Liz and I set off to Denver to sell some stuff at 303 and then go to the AA Bondy show at the Hi Dive. AA Bondy is one of Liz’s current favorites. We got to 303 slightly before they close and Liz was helping me get some stuff out of the trunk, but accidentally shut the keys in the trunk when the car was locked. Crap.8:00 pm – Call a locksmith who shows up in 10 minutes.8:15 – They get the front door open. The alarm goes off and the trunk button doesn’t work. Oh boy.8:30 – They try hot wiring the trunk button. No worky.9:00 – The button to release the back seats is in the trunk, we’re trying to pull the keys out using some wires through a hole between the seats. No love. We’re trying to hit the seat release. No love.10:00 – Hyundai roadside assistance can’t provide the key code to get a new key made easily. Keep trying to somehow miraculously pull the keys out using wires.10:30 – Send Liz off in a cab to the Hi Dive to see AA Bondy.11:00 – New locksmith arrives to try and make a key to open the trunk.11:40 – Liz calls. Says the show was awesome and that she slammed 4 drinks and she’s chatting with Scott Bondy (aka AA Bondy).12:00 – SUCCESS! The trunk is open and I have the keys.I go to the Hi Dive. A full 12 hours after my last meal I walk in to drunken karaoke. I was a complete mess. Starving, annoyed with everyone, etc. Liz wants to chat with Scott more, but he’s apparently gone so we bail. She raves about the show and how rad of a dude he is. I’m thinking about food and only food. Get home around 1:00 and eat dinner finally. What a night. Glad Liz got to see the show. Bummed I missed it.

Fathers Day and Go Skate Day all in one. After fun filled family activities like basketball, napping and lunch at Wahoos I picked up Jack and we rolled toward Ft Collins with the end goal being their video premiere at Northside. In my last update I mentioned I couldn’t stand the ACE trucks anymore. The bushings had blown out so bad that they squiggled all over the place. And you can’t just setup new trucks. I had a new board, new trucks and new shoes. Basically I was guaranteed to suck.Yeah, so I have mall shoes. But isn’t DC more legit than Vans? I mean their both owned by huge corporations. At least DC was started by skaters though. And DC has PJ Ladd.New trucks = rough.We started off at the Egg and I spot. I was struggling big time, but ended up getting a bit used to it. Jack was killing it. Lots of weird tricks, lots of good tricks, etc. He did stuff like ollie and put the back foot on the 3 stair ledge, kickflip over it, front shove pivot fakie, kickflip, fullcab, b/s flip into the bank. I forget what trick he did but it hyped me up enough to get a kick back tail on the bank. I also got a b/s kickflip on the bank where i didn’t do the back wheel shuffle on the bank.After some filming we ended up at the newest of the new Ft Collins parks where we skated the new sculpture stuff for a long time. So fun. Ollieing up one the whoopty doo thing and doing tricks on the q-pipe is fun. Not easy, but fun. I only got front rock and axle stall on it, but that was fun. Jack did boring tricks like blunt fakie, front pivot and rolled into it. I almost did a complete circle in a manual on the potato wedge thing. It was fun. I can’t really remember any other tricks I did, but it was fun trying anything. Jack got a manual front shove and a bunch of other stuff that looked fun. Fun day. Hope I get used to the new stuff soon.

Ollie and I went to meet up with Brian and Neil for their Saturday morning skate lessons. We were late, but didn’t want to harsh their barge anyways and it ended up being just Ollie and I skating for a long time. So fun. He was ripping. He rolled in on one of the hubbas like it was nothing, was carving the little bowl pretty good and doing some ollies and stuff. I didn’t expect much that early in the morning, but had fun watching Ollie and cruising around. I got a run with an ollie onto the ledge, ollie into the bank, axle stall, ollie the hip. Then tried to do the same run with a b/s flip at the end, but stopped trying when Brian showed up with donuts. Brian is a wonderfully nice dude. Next up we chilled at Rock Creek for a bit since it was too crowded for Ollie to skate.After some lunch we went to Southern Hills which is under construction. Seems like the school will be slightly better to skate for the most part once they get rid of all the rocks and debri. We found a new little fly out spot on the road behind the school. We setup a couple thing to ollie over and I was hating life. Could barely ollie over a little 1 foot tall flower pot. Ugh. We went back to the main area where I struggled to ollie up the 2 stair. Ugh. Ollie started ollieing down it like it was nothing though. Rad! Before leaving I ollied some pipes and made myself do 5 flipppers as the rain started. It took awhile but I ended up getting frontside halfcab flip, b/s halfcab flip, fakie varial flip, varial flip and 360 flip. Gonna setup new shows and trucks because the ACE trucks bushings are totally shot, wobbly and the axles slip. Going back to Thunder. Wish me luck. Skating with Ollie is pure awesomeness.

Worked at home and was completely surprised in the early afternoon that the new Dinosaur Jr album showed up 4 days before release date! So after an insanely loud first listen of that Chief showed up to go skate. He was a showing the effects of a long vacation and not feeling so good. We picked up Jason and headed toward campus. We started out at the Naropa hip, but the grass roll out was too thick to consider skating down. I guess all the rain we’ve been having is having an effect. We skated some weird wood contraption on the stairs, but no one really landed anything and the session was kinda uninspired. Next up we hit the plastic pool cover ledge spot. I got a front 50 front board popout really quick and a front 5-0 shove out, but spent an hour trying back 50s. Ugh. Hate that trick. Nate showed up and killed it pretty quick. Back 50 first try, back 5-0, back nosegrind, probably a bunch more. We headed into campus next and I messed around on this ledge drop to drop thing. Rolling off the upper ledge onto the lower one scared me. I finally got it and added a 2 mile an hour front 180 off the second one for bad measure. Next Nate and I tried ollieing up a 3 stair for while. Nate got it clean, I got it with both hands down. Chief wasn’t really skating at this point, too tired. Lastly we hit the long plastic bench where Nate nailed a long back board 270 out and almost got back board biggee out. Sick. I landed a noseslide. Yippee. I’ll miss skating with you Chief. Thanks for driving toward Boulder so much.

Words cannot describe my excitement that the preorder of Farm showed up 4 days before release date. Every other preorder I have done has resulted in pain and frustration. I should know better with Dinosaur Jr though. FARM IS HERE! I am currently on my first listen with the biggest, goofiest grin on my face ever.

After a chill day of working from home I skated flat in front of the house.  It took quite awihle to get going, but it ended up being a pretty good little session.  I got another casper flip in about 5 tries.  Whoa!  Thanks Dan!  I tried a run for awhile of halfcab flip, 360 flip, heelflip.  Never got it.  Only got to the heelflip twice and bailed them.  Doh.  After awhile I slowed down and worked on f/s nollie bigflips (never got close), switch varial flips (never committed) and b/s halfcab heels which I landed for the first time in months, maybe even years.Ollie rolled out with is board after that and we hit the school.  He was ripping.  Ollied up the curb a bunch of times, manuals and his patented front nose the lower part of the rail.  I messed around on the curb trying differnt stalls and whatever.  I got a b/s hurricane fakie front shove out and tried a few front 5-0 kickflips out.  Never came close to that one.After dinner it was raining so Ollie and I couldn’t play ball so we skated Rampy.  I sucked bad, was too tired.  Got a front lipslide which was about the only decent trick.  Ollie was ripping.  Lots of scratch grinds and fakie ollies.  Radness!

So insanely beat from the last few days.  Went to Parker skatepark with the Fremont crew.  It was sunny and warm and I was sucking.  Dan, Joe and I had a little ‘first to 10 tricks on the ledge’ thing going.  I somehow was first, but all my tricks were horrid.  Joe and Matt killed the bank to ledge.  I couldn’t seem to even get into front 50s when I was trying a front 50 back 180 out.  Ugh.  We were there for quite awhile, but I don’t remember much else going on until the end when we did a quintuple run.  Dan halfcab stable gun, me back 50, matt front 50, joe back 50, eric rock fakie.  So at least I had some fun.We chilled out for a minute waiting for Jeff to get off work and headed to a bank spot.  Chief had joined us too.  The bank spot was sick, but it started raining.  Chief and I tried to keep skating it, but the rain won.  Next up we went to Evans & Lipan ledge where Matt, Joe and Dan went nuts.  They were so hyped to skate it.  Highlights were Joe front 50 to front tail, front 5-0, front 50 shove, front smith, Matt crooks, back smith, Jeff every flip trick ever into the bank, Dan’s willy grind, Chief varial flip and shove it into the bank.  I got a 50 up to disaster to manual down.  I really could not skate at all, but was just dorking around and that was kinda fun.Next we hit the Tejon ledge.  While Joe worked on his ender ender Chief and I got busy pretending like a parking block was a spine.  I landed a new trick.  Back nosepick transfer over to fakie.  It was fun.  After more screwing around Joe put down the ender ender.  50 to front board.  Stoked for Joe!Last up we hit a little bank to curb spot that Jeff destroyed in 5 minutes.  I wallied it.  That was fun.  Then we bombed a hill and the session was over.  The trip was over.  Time for sleep!  What an epic trip.  Thanks for coming out Dan, Joe, Eric and Matt.  Your welcome out anytime.  Sorry I was tired and sore half the time, but I’ve got a decade on you guys!

Another day with the Fremont crew, another day of all day shredding in the forecast.  Dan, Matt, Joe, Eric, Nate, Brian and I set off to Windsor around noon.  Chief met us at the park.  This went the same way as the “warm up” session at rock creek and we ended up skating for a couple hours and had an epic session.  Pretty early on we pulled out five front rocks in a row on the bank to ledge.  It definitely got things heated up quick.  Nate and I worked on popping our kickflips over the hip and landing them.  It’s tough doing both of those.  Brian amazed everyone with his unique tricks everywere.  Joe was ripping the hubbas and pounding out lines.  Chief’s back 360s over the hip were the dopeness.  Eric did rock fakies everywhere, even the slanted side q-pipe.  Sick!  Later on Brian and I did some doubles where he did his weird over to fakie to front rock while I grinded over him on the flat bank.  Rad.  Later on I was trying a run with a b/s flip over the hip, but instead Brian came and did an impossible over the hip.  WTF!!!!  Super fun session.  We got rained and kicked out of the high school so that didn’t go down.  Off to Ft Collins.After waiting out some rain and watching the amazing new Powell video at MRKT we went to Northside.  I didn’t think the Fremont heads would like it, but there was no one else there really and we started off “ripping” right out of the gates.  Brian and I played a game of SKATE on the edge of the jersey barrier in which he pink slipped me.  Within the new few minutes I was trying and doing stuff I had never don there before.  I ended up getting a line with a back tail on the lower flat bank, wallie the edge of the barrier and then boardslide the lower part of the jersey barrier.  The only trick I had done before was the little wallie.  Later on I endedup wallieing over the low part of the barrier straight on which I’ve wanted to do for awhile.  I joined up on a manny session at the MJ ledge that went nuts.  Dan did a front 50 the whole thing to front board then 270 out at the last minute.  It was retarded.  Nate nose mannied up it then turned it to switch manual down.  Sick!  Joe busted a bunch of tricks too, but somehow didn’t get the front 50 the whole thing.  After about a million tries I manualed it and after about even a million more tries I came super close to nose manual up, manual down.  I would have been hyped beyond belief.  People were ripping the whole time.  Brian was flying all over the park.  Eric was rock fakieing everything.  Matt was popping nollie heels out of this world.  Nate was doing boardslide popovers.  It was an epic session.  We tried to leave several times, but it never happened.  At the end we played a couple games of flatground skate.  I didn’t land much, but right after I landed a CASPER FLIP!  Dan busts those out on the regs and it clicked in my head how to do it.  So stoked on the Casper flip and one of the best skate days I’ve had in years.  Epic, epic day.

Fremont and I showed up at Rock Creek around 11 am and Rob was already there.  Shortly after Neil and Lazer showed up as well.  We were supposed to skate there for half an hour or so and get our legs warmed up.  We ended up being there or at least two hours and it was a blast.  Lazer, Neil and Rob killed the Ramp.  Eric let loose and got his skate on.  We had manny sessions, ledge sessions, ramp session, games of SKATE, etc.  It was awesome.  I even landed a new ledge trick thanks to Joe.  Front 50 to front board popout.  Fun!With rain looming we headed to the 1st & Sheridan ledge with Fremont, Neil and I.  We skated off and on until the rain picked up too much and we could see a funnel cloud.  Before the rain hit Dan was almost getting manuals to front board.  The rain hit hard.  Dan didn’t stop.  Neither did Eric filming it.  He got it in the rain.  Ridiculous.After the rain break we met up with the Meta dudes at a double bank spot.  I got intimidated and didn’t really skate.  I even tried to play a game of SKATE with Matt, but he slammed super hard trying to make his back shove look as bad as mine and ripped up his hand.  After awhile I started not caring that so many people were there and finally ollied over the curb into the bank.  The same curb that Jeff had nollie flipped into the bank over.  Ha.  Joe and I had some a few stall tricks.  I missed a lot that went down.  Then the rain hit again.  Hard.After another break we rolled to downtown denver with the crew now being Me, Dan, Matt, Eric, Joe, Chief, Jeff and Kit.  We started of at the mellow brick bank, but got the boot quickly.  Next up ended at the Denver Art Museum manny pad gap spot.  Jeff anihalated it.  Even got a trick for the upcoming Null promo.  I ollied it first try and got one with a front 180 off.  I came close to manualling it.  Matt went nuts and straight nollie varial heeled it all buttery. Kit ollied the trash can and manualled the pad the hard way.   We ended up getting the boot.We rolled real close by to a new area that was super fun.  I was having fun trying to link some ollies together, but we got the boot quick.  Kit had almost ollied up the tall 5 stair at that point and while we got the boot Jeff did a kickflip nose manual that probably made the security guard wish he hadn’t kicked us out.Next Jeff brought us to the Broadway ledge where I struggled at noseslides for ever, Jeff destroyed it, Matt threw down and Kit somehow didn’t die landing primo.Lastly we ended at a weird bank spot that Uriel ollied off over a parking meter back in the Ghetto Blaster days.  We ended up staying there forever.  Jeff and Joe threw down some rad stuff, but the session was owned by Chief who went to work quick and pounded out trick after trick until there was no more light.  Joe did fakie front shove.  Jeff did 360 flip fakie, nollie b/s flip and a million screw around tricks that would stoke out anyone, I didn’t do anything.  Epic ass day.  totally exhausted.   We skated 9 hours!