I guess winter and skateparks go together pretty well because we ended up at northGLENn once again. This time it was Carleigh, Jake and I and we met Brian and Lazer for a bit. For how warm it was supposed to be it felt surprisingly cool outside and warming up took a bit. Carleigh, Brian, Lazer and I skated the little bank to get warmed up. I had new shoes and they felt a little stiff even though I’ve worn them around for awhile. I love the Manchesters though. Brian said his knee was hurting and that it was all swollen. I felt and oh my it was huge. Ice that knee Brian. Take a break from skating! Carleigh thought back rock would be hard, but did it first try. She also got a front rock kind of. Jake was ollieing the mellow rail every try and working on front noseblunts on the bank. No luck this time. I felt kinda good for a bit. It was the first time in months my left knee didn’t hurt at all. Hopefully that continues. This allowed me to finally try some other tricks and I noseslid the medium hubba in a couple tries. It felt awesome. I also crooked the flat ledge (although I popped out early which I didn’t want to do) and got a couple front 50s on it. The first front 50 attempt was so bad. I have no idea what happened, but luckily I walked out of it without injury. Carleigh was trying flatground kickflips and I tried a couple too. I didn’t even get close and ended up hurting my back foot abit. Ugh. Not in an injury way, but in an arthritis way. That pretty much ended the ollie part of the day for me. I had a few more slow front 50s, but yeah, my pop was gone. I started skating the bowl. The combo of new shoes and a relatively new smaller board/trucks setup was weirding me out. It took a lot of tries before I landed an axle stall. I had some fun carves in the tile in the deepend. I love how carving tile is considered a trick other than carving. It’s like grinding without having to do anything. I love it! I did have one carve up there that felt extra awesome. Jake and Carleigh joined in. Carleigh drops in the deepend and can do all her tricks first t. No fair. Jake rips tranny. Lots of grinds both ways. I got a few grinds in the shallow, but ran out of a bailed axle stall really weird and kinda hurt my foot even more. Actually both feet were hurting in ways I hadn’t experienced before. It kinda sucked. Because of my arthritis I can’t sprint fast enough to get out of bails in that bowl gracefully. I slammed pretty hard once so I sat for a bit. My feet were pretty jacked after that. The park was pretty empty at this point and we were all kinda working on our own stuff. Carleigh wanted to do front tail over the hip to switch crooks. Apparently she got it, but here is how she described it, “GLEN! I DID THAT THING! THAT TRICK I WANTED TO DO I DID IT. YOU KNOW THAT TAILSLIDE THING!” Ha ha so awesome. So Carleigh, it’s called front tail to switch crooks. Jake kept getting close to noseblunts. I was trying front lips over the little hip in the middle of the park, but never got to close to landing on it. All in all a fun day. Wish my feet hadn’t started hurting. And I gotta admit I was kinda missing the bigger setup.

The four eyed dude in all black in this clip is Joey. This clip really made me want to skate. Hope to see you in SF in March Joey!

Ever since this arthritis thing started I’ve had troubles sleeping. Last night was no exception. I was up at 6am for no reason whatsoever. I got a few things done, went grocery shopping early enough that 99% of the people at the store were wearing northface goretex vests and shopping in the organic section (Ok fine I was shopping there too. But no vest!). I was really grouchy from not getting enough sleep and the arthritis pain wasn’t helping much. It seemed a little worse. I’m overdue on a shot of Humira, but I’m holding out for awhile as the long term side effects scare me so much. Anyways around noon Bernie, Dean and Carleigh showed up. We went to Willville. We started on the remodeled bank in the middle. There was construction going on at the top so you couldn’t do tricks into it like normal. We warmed up by dropping in then doing some dorking around. I did a little front board pose pulled up onto the ledge to fakie then a little halfcab pivot off that felt really fun. I haven’t been able to skate much so little things like that make my day. Dean manualled it sideways which looked fun. Carleigh risked some foot pain for ollies onto the ledge. Bernie ripped it with manual up to fakie manual down through the kink. Dean and I got no complys on it. Bernie did front 180 up, f/s halfcab flip on the bank. I got a kickflip to fakie which took awhile and kinda started bumming me out that kickflips are that hard for me right now. Then we went to the front area. Carleigh did all of her flatground tricks. Dean filmed Bernie attempt a tech ender ender and I straight sucked it up. I did have a fun run where I ollied kinda high for me into the bank then ollied a little snowpile at full speed on the roll away. Then I tried a treflip (yes, stoked that I tried it, but ..) and somehow got away without breaking my ankle. I landed so bad. It took me down and reminded me that I have no idea how long it’ll be before I can skate 100%. Then I went for what I thought should be really easy. Front 180 up then fakie bigspin into the bank. 200 tries later I landed the worst 180 and fakie bigspin imaginable. I should just be stoked to be outside skating in nice weather, but I was bummed. Really bummed.

Then we went to this bank spot which none of us except Dean have been to before. It’s steeper and scarier than it looks. Actually, I was feeling more sketched than normal as the walk down through the rocks kinda scared me. I guess that’s a sign that the arthritis is still alive and kicking. Ugh. Dean nailed a good f/s ollie early on then took all of these awesome photos.

Bernie did some ridiculously smooth front tails. Some people can make the “basics” look amazing. Carleigh stepped it up too. She got a couple of front tails too sliding them for a minute. It was tight. We’re saving the photo for nullozine.

Me, I survived. There was a couple bails I really could have died on. My reaction time is so slow these days and I could barely run/push fast enough to get to the top of this bank. Ugh. I gave up on grind tricks and did a few stall tricks. Back feeble, back pivot, blunt to axle, front slash. Thanks for the photos Dean. You’re the man.

I went home and hit the Pabst. Not sure why I’m so bummed about my skating. I should be more patient considering I could barely walk a month ago. But I can’t help it. Not being able to kickflip on command really bums me out. Sorry the last couple entries have been so negative.

Had an hour to spare and my legs were sore so I went out to skate Rampy. The first half of the session was so bad I couldn’t land anything. There was lots going against me. New setup, arthritis was pretty achy, still sore from the long day of skating two days prior. But it was bad. Eventually I did a couple things I felt better about. A line of back 50, back feeble, axle stall front smith. Oh man that’s it? I suck. I did a few front disasters to and tried to turn them into sugarcanes or whatever. But yeah, I suck at skateboarding.