I might be growing a little tired of only skating Rampy. I still love it, but am definitely wanting some variety. Oh well, I’m grateful for it and hyped to be skating a little. With the wind/weather changes going on my arthritis is pretty bad. Not demobilizing like it was, but enough to make me less coordinated then normal. With that said a short Friday session was in order and John, Chad Long and Carleigh showed up. John showed up way quicker then I thought and totally caught me nerding out to a Dinosaur Jr dvd. I was embarrassed, but he admitted I just sealed the deal as a bigger Dinosaur nerd then him. As if I had any doubt. Ha. Chad showed up too and the three of us went out there. John ripped it right away. He has the quickest feet. Rock ‘n roll, flat bottom revert, fakie rock. Crazy! He also did some b/s d’s, some funny slams and a b/s ollie above coping??!! It was Chad’s first visit to Rampy, but he did axle stall on the first wall and survived a few more walls. Chad has super good steez. He has the best f/s slashes without lifting up the front truck. Stoke he came. Carleigh showed up after John had already left and we skated awhile longer. She didn’t have a whole lot of energy, but had some good runs. I didn’t have a whole lot either. Couldn’t get hurricane, front feeb or front d to sugarcane. Posed a couple fakie f/s pivots to 270 out. No where close. Tried a few fakie crooks and posted up some decent ones without grinds. Had some better reg crooks then I’ve had in awhile. After the session I broke some rules and did a flatground kickflip. It got me hyped! Kickflip season is coming! I give it two more weeks max. Can’t wait!

My arthritis has been really bad the last few days. My right ankle was pretty locked up. I was kinda bored and went out and swept/mopped Rampy then decided to hang up some boards I’ve been meaning to hang up. I started with the Lee Bender/Dinosaur Jr boards then grabbed some of my old favorites from the Null pile. During the process I decided I wanted to try skating and Carleigh wanted in. Neither of us exactly ripped it, but there was some highlights for us. Carleigh put down quite a few front slashers which are new for her. Almost got a line of feeble, feeble fakie then fakie feebles. That would have been pretty cool. For some reason she struggled with front d’s though. My highlight would be a first try front d to sugarcane like I’ve had the trick for years. I was unable to land it again though. Doh. I slammed pretty hard on a front feeble attempt and that trick felt foreign the rest of the night too. I put together a little line of back 50, back 50 fakie, tailstall, front smith, rock fakie, fakie hurricane, rock fakie, fakie pivot fakie. At the end I tried front tails for awhile and failed then backsmiths and did one that I wasn’t sure about, but Carleigh said it counted so we wrapped it up. Fun night, thanks for skating Carl.

.. is through J Mascis! Just look at this hand painted Valentines Day card inspired by a J Mascis t-shirt I have. Ahh, so cute. The Mighty LZA really knows the way to my heart! Ha.

The t-shirt:

There are a lot of awesome tricks out there, but the back tail bigspin flip at 2:03 into this clip is BONKERS! BONKERS!

Met Derek, Chad, Chris and Jake at the Denver park. We skated there for awhile. I tried to do a few manuals out of various banks around the park. Had a little line going where I tried a few manuals in a row, but I never got all three. Maybe the key to having fun at Denver park is to not be able to actually skate. Derek did a couple crazy tricks. Front tail to fakie manual 180 out. Five oh to switch crooks to fakie nose manual. Chad did some neat lipslides. Chris almost died trying a quick ollie to front bigspin out of a kicker. Jake shut down the handrails.

Then we went filming around Denver. I just rode my filmer board and continued the non-ollie rehab theme. First spot Derek put down a hammer. Second spot we got kicked out of before Chris could get his line. Third spot we kind of got kicked out of before Chad could try his trick. Fourth spot we got kicked out of before Chad could try his trick. Fifth spot Chad got a banger line. Sixth spot we got kicked out of before Chad could get his second trick. Seventh spot Chad couldn’t do anything cool at. Eighth spot we had hotel employees sweeping away sand and encouraging Chad to get his trick. Which he did and we were super hyped. Soon the spot will be melted away and it’ll just be one of those rare opportunities that can only happen when cruising around the streets.

Had a blast. Fun crew. Hyped that I was able to push around and it seemed to strengthen my knee rather than hurt it. I hope I can ollie soon. At the moment though my arthritis is pretty bad anyway.

Kind of a nice day in the lower 40s. Yeah, you know it’s February when lower 40s seem pretty nice. But the sun was out, the sky was blue and my arthritis was kicking. Ugh. I am supposed to take Humira (arthritis drug) every two weeks and by the end of the two weeks my knees and ankles start to act up again. The arthritis is still going away slowly, but it gets hard to skate when it’s acting up. With that said I met up with Brian, Neil, Blake, Travis and Jake (and about 500 other dudes) at the new Arvada park. It was my first time there since it’s been finished and officially open.

I walked in over the puddles and spotted Brian and Travis skating a little miniramp like section in the front and that is where I would stay for the most part. I had my knee brace on and I still can’t ollie so this was perfect. Brian and Travis were killing it. The only thing I’ve skated in the past five weeks is Rampy so I struggled to land anything. It was fun to skate outside though. Travis did some awesome early grabs and a lot of his tricks. Brian had some long runs loaded with losi grinds, one footed grinds and a lot more.

After awhile I just cruised around the park looking at how much fun it would be if one could ollie. Jake was killing the jersey barrier. He got front 5-0 and back hurricane. Gnarls. Brian ended his session on the jersey barrier. I forget what trick he was trying, but he went down hard. I skated the bank to curb with Blake for awhile. It took me several tries to get a front slash. Other tricks I got were back 50, back feeble, front rock and back rock. Blake and I did some doubles too with the infamous nosestall revert to add insult to injury for Brian.

At the end I noticed the miniramp section had nearly emptied out so I went back over there and struggled some more. I ended up getting a few of my harder tricks that I rarely land outside of Rampy. Fakie back smith stall fakie, front d, front smith and back 50 to fakie. I had fun, but the whole not ollieing/having to wear a knee brace is weighing on me.

Photos from the session on Jack’s blah blah blog here.

Rampy again! Rampy is the best! Rampy! Carleigh and Jack showed up first and we started the session off with a theme of keeping runs really short. We were having troubles getting past the first couple walls although still having fun. Fuzz, Ian and eventually Brian showed up and heated up the session. Brian started off with his first several runs ending in horrendous slams. They were so bad! I don’t know how your get up from those all the time Brian. Since Brian was the first to leave I’ll start with him. Epic blunt to fakie so high up on the tranny that he literally got all four wheels on the coping (obviously not all four at the same time come on now). He was wanting to leave but did some of his rare tough guy bonks and wanted more. It’s a backside front trick bash with a frontside 270 out. He almost got a second bash during the 270 too. Gnarls. Ian was a Rampy virgin. He had some smooth basics and posted up a good blunt that hopefully he’ll put down next time. Fuzz skates Rampy so good. His ollies to front disaster are so high. He did a bunch of steezey fakie pivots, fakie pivot 270 in, tailstalls hopped up to tailstalls (if that sounds silly that’s because it is. I mean might be having a Crisis but he can still have fun sometimes). Carleigh can do front disasters and ollie to front smith kind of things, but was trying to learn a frontside basic, the slash. She got it, but the first few carves to late, late, late slow motion fall down were pretty epic. Jack and I were encouraging her to try and milk the fall for two full walls. She didn’t come through though. She did rip it with tons of feebles to fakie, front disasters and once again teased her dream run. Jack is fun to watch. You never know if he’s gonna pull out a bonkers trick like bigspin back d or fall in ways once thought unimaginable. He pulled a Rampy NBD and did a front 5-0 to flat. It might not sound that cool to do a front 5-0 to flat on a 30″ ramp, but when the landing is about one foot wide and there is a wall it’s pretty neat stuff. He also had lots of cool front 5-0 and front tail rewinds. I had short runs all night, but had a blast. Was above .500 on front feebles, did most of my tricks and even got to the point of trying frontside hurricanes which I never came close to landing, but the photo looks sick Jack! You captured my butt very well. I had one pretty funny run that had a fakie front 50 to rock ‘n roll and a couple other tricks and ended with a fakie stall to fakie where I reverted on the flat. That was funny. I also did the first fakie front “pivot” to fakie I’ve done in awhile. Afterwards Jack and I went through some of the Null footage while Carleigh mumbled something about having to get up for work in a few hours.

Once again, check out the photos on Jack’s blog and thanks to Jack, Carleigh, Ian, Fuzz and Brian for coming over and having fun.

My brother used to live in Jacksonville, FL and the highlight of visiting him was always going to Kona. Everything there is gnarlier than it looks and the concrete is rough. It’s one of the funnest parks I’ve been to and everything in this clip is beyond insane.

After playing SKATE 3 with Ollie for about two hours straight we agreed we should probably actually skate. We went out to Rampy where Ollie did his typical marathon runs of rock fakies, tail stall, body varials and fakie ollies. He did rock ‘n rolls both ways and little slash’s both ways and decided that was enough for him. I worked on a dorky trick for awhile that was in my head to try. Front 50 to front D to back smith (technically it looks like a back smith but it sure doesn’t feel like one so i don’t really know what to call it) to fakie. I got a couple to forward. Had a funny fall where my shoe flew off. Cranked up a Nirvana song. Then got the trick. It felt pretty groovy. I headed back inside after that. My tendonitis knee feels a little weird.

First full on Rampy session this winter. The reason for the delay is obvious if you read this blog. I’ve been unable to skate. But it’s on (for now at least) and a really fun crew assembled on a cold night. I put the photo above just to show the crew. Most of the crew at least. It was one of my favorite Rampy sessions. I felt great out of the gate and skated a long time. Ric was the first one to arrive and it was looking like a little romantic session between the two of us, but Fuzz, Connor and Kyle showed up. Dean, Max, Jack and Carleigh shortly after that. Watching Ric skate is completely awesome. He skates it fast and stays inside like a bowl. Kyle was new to Rampy. He didn’t struggle for long though. His big tricks were front 5-0 to tail revert the hard way and an ollie shoot out that almost killed Dean.

Carleigh rock fakie. She hung up on this once and slammed so hard. Ouch! She had a lot of front d’s and came somewhat close to getting the line she wants to get on Rampy.

Connor killed it. He makes hard tricks look really easy. Back smith grinds back to back, lien to tail (above), sugarcanes, a ton more tricks done first try with ease and was kind enough to not do a first try hurricane in front of me.

Fuzz killed it. The 270 nosepick thing above was ridiculous. I waited to long to write this journal so I don’t remember everything, but I think he got the front noseblunt too. Big ollies to front d. Sugarcanes. Lots of tricks.

Man I had fun. It feels so amazing to be skating without my knees and ankles full of arthritis. I got most of my tricks including the hurricane above which took lots and lots of tries. My favorite trick was the front feeble where I actually grinded even though the landing was less than pretty.

Max killed it too. His blunts to fakie are popped so hard and as an added bonus he normally follows it up with a switch one. He did the silly nosestall to fakie after Dean and Fuzz were talking about some KOTR trick they saw in Thrasher.

Jack and Dean had just hung out and took photos in between going outside to induce cancer into their bodies. After the heavy vert shredding was done and helmets were removed (Ric’s at least) the kids (Connor, Max and Jack) played SKATE and took flip trick requests. Basically Max and Jack just fell over and over and it was good quality entertainment. Super fun night. So hyped on the crew, the attitude, the session, everything. Man it feels good to skate again.