I really feel old lately. After driving down from my Mom’s I played basketball with Ollie for awhile and I felt so slow, uncoordinated and old. I met Neil and Blake at this spot for a weird session. Neil was in a daze for obvious reasons. Blake killed it and Neil filmed him get a rad line of ollie’ing off a ledge into a bank, ollie up the curb then gap to noseslide. Neil skated for awhile though and had several nose manuals, manuals and easy ollies anywhere. Halfcab up the first curb, ollie up the second, back 180 up the third. Sick. I struggled for awhile, but just kept skating. Kind of early on manualled the medium pad into the other curb and had a really rare nose manny the long bottom pad to front 180 out. Hyped on that. I couldn’t ollie up the tall ledge. Early on had a fun first try line of front 180 up the hard way the low curb and fakie bigspin off. Neil mostly chilled. Blake was skating the 3 curb area doing some no comply 360 attempts and halfcab firecrackers (ha). I finally started feeling motivated and tried to kickflip up and off of the tall edge (going from low to high). The kickflip up is really hard because of the weird angle in. I kept missing and tore half of my griptape up. I managed to get up a few and land on kickflips off, but not ride away. Neil kept wanting to leave and I kept saying one more and I would get close enough that he wouldn’t leave. I gave up on the kickflips up and just tried the off and got even closer. But no cigar. They left. Doh. At least the chinese nollies into the curb cut that Blake ollied into were fun. I kept skating for awhile. Tried to do some more lines up/down the lowest curb. Tried pop shove up, back 180 off for awhile and failed. Moved on to back 180 up, halfcab flip off. Got that all slow like. The angle is harder then it looks, dodging the handrails is kinda hard and I was getting on between the narrower ones. I mean I could get on later, but that would mean I wouldn’t have enough setup time for me. Started trying switch front 180 up and 360 flip off. I was sweating and having some fun, getting close and missed a 3 flip and lost my shit.

I really don’t know what happened. I’ve been pretty frustrated with a lot of things lately and I guess I took them all out on my skateboard. I literally threw that thing around for 20 minutes straight. Then after awhile would start throwing one side at the other side. It was kinda fun for awhile, but the fact that I was mad at skateboarding just made me madder and the cycle continued for a long time. I almost left them in the parking lot, but I had new wheels so I knew better. I’m gonna take some time off from skating. For me, that’s probably only a few days, but I need it. My quads hurt just as bad as ever so I don’t think cupsoles are really helping that which I’m sure added to my frustration. Getting old f’ing sucks.

After a busy morning of unloading boards, playing basketball with Ollie and being slightly hungover (for the last time ever I swear I’m so over it) I headed out to skate a nearby spot for a bit before leaving for my Moms. Everyone I knew was at the King Of The Snake contest so I was solo’ing it. It was super nice and warm out. After an initial lucky front nose to fakie and a front nose Helmstetter (270 out kind of) I went to shit and stayed there for the next hour. I waxed the ledge like crazy, but had no luck. I couldn’t noseslide though the little knob. I couldn’t slappy crook the curb. Hell, I couldn’t do anything. I waxed the hell out of the ledge and as you can see by the photo of my board none of it seemed to help. I tried crooks forever. Like 20 minutes straight and came up short. I left wondering why I even bother. At least I had a blast with my kids over the next few days.

Met up with Dave on a super nice and warm Friday afternoon at the “Rollerblade” park in Longmont. I had new shoes. Supra Stacks. They are cupsole. They took a bit to get used to, but once I had one good kickflip they never felt bad again. I’m writing this several days later so it’s hard to remember how it all went down, but at one point I did my first sweeper ever on the big bank (far right background of the front board photo) and Dave got my back with a kickflip to fakie. What the heck? So funny that Dave did a kickflip and I did a sweeper. Total role reversal, but we were both hyped. Dave did a bunch of shove variations on the bank too. Nollie shoves, fakie shoves and the sickest cab bigspin ever. I tried to line out some flip tricks and stuff. Didn’t land much. Had a few decent goes at the ledge with a long crooks pop out and front 50, front 50 shove, front 50 front 180, front 5-0. Posed some kickflip noseslides. Had a great feeling fakie flip on the bank, but couldn’t get a halfcab flip. Dave front boarded the flat bar all steezy like and blasted the sick method above several times so my cell phone photo timing would get the photo. All in all a pretty fun session.

Then I went to the manual pad by Mikes Camera for awhile before the Lame Brainz/Blind premiere. I was really sore, but managed manny (whoa so tech!!!), nose manny, switch front 180 manny (hyped on this one coming easy two days in one week), nose manny shove. Came close to kickflip manual (that trick teases me). Tried sw front 180 manny back 180 out. Got kinda close. Left and had a blast at the premiere. The Blind video is way crazy.

Was feeling physically better then the last couple days and had about an hour after work before family responsibilities. It was mid 70s and perfect outside. I thought of this spot while driving into Boulder and went for it. I had all these visions of ledge tricks in my head. I got there and the ledge looked pretty dry and I have a big candle in my car now so I went Hulslander on it and wow. First boardslide shoot out, second, third, etc. It was about now I realized I would probably shoot more photos of the spot then tricks I landed. Lets see. Four photos. Back board, front board, back nose, back nose fakie, front 50. Should have taken another photo! I SUCKED! Worse then anyone who’s ever rode a skateboard more then once should suck. I slammed repeatedly on front 50s going 1mph. Couldn’t do a back 50 to save my life. This spot really exposes how much angle I use for most tricks. I can’t deal with it. I could not land a heeflip to save my life either. I hate these Fallen shoes with a passion. I had one kinda fun line of kickflip (so tech!), back crooks, ollie to fakie on the bank. I would have wanted to skate the bank more, but as you can see water from all the stupid sprinklers was running everywhere. After yet another slam on a front 50 going 1mph I decided to call it quits early. I put on the new shoes I’ve been breaking in at work (Supra Stacks) and did the best kickflip I did all day. Bye bye stupid Fallen Ramblers with your slippery as hell and stupid-weird-wanna-be-vulc-no-board-feel sole.

After procrastinating and ultimately outsourcing (Thanks Chadman!) work on the new Null Teaser I grabbed Ollie from the basketball court to stop by Meta then meet Rob at Valmont. Rob seemed pretty tired. I sure was. Ollie didn’t though. Oh how fun it would be to have that much energy. I took a lot of tries to get a manaual. Rob got some good long manuals and nose manuals though. Ollie had the sickest cannonball chinese ollie over a metal grate. It was ridiculous. He almost got back 180s off a curb too, but Liz showed up quicker then expected and he had to go home. Summer is coming soon kid! I finally got remotely warmed up. Got a run of manual, ollie onto the sidewalk and kind of kickflip into the downhill of the curb cut. It was weak though. Needed to do it better, but never got it. Rob was popping some mean ollies out of the curb cut then doing 2 mile nose mannies. Then he started trying to ollie out of the curb cut to front tail on the curb. He got one or two, but missed a lot of them. I did a line of front 180 out of the curb cut then a switch 180 manual on the median. Whoa! Don’t know where that came from, but it hyped me up for sure. Also did a few other tricks out of the curb cut. Pop shove, back 180, sw front 180. The back pop shove felt pretty awesome. I tried a line of back 180 out of the curb cut, fakie flip on flat then fakie bigspin to manual. Got kinda close, but can’t seem to ever actually manual that trick. Coming the other way kickflip manuals did not happen. Prior to leaving I tried several kickflips on flat and they were so bad. Ugh. Then tried to ollie up then kickflip off a median for awhile. Ugh that was embarrassing and frustrating until one finally happened then it felt pretty cool. Cupsoles suck. Well, at least gum cupsoles. Slippery as hell. It always sucks having skate shoes you don’t like. It’s nice not having super sore quads though.

Ha, I normally refuse to skate Red Curbs on dry evenings, but since it had rained earlier in the day Rob said it was legit. I was feeling pretty sore and uncoordinated throughout the session. Rob was killing some back 50s early, boardslides to fakie, slappy tailslides, and getting into some other tricks like fakie back nosegrind. I managed some boardslides to fakie going slow, but I really don’t think I’ve landed that trick before when you come out before the end. I slammed hard on a feeble grind attempt. Did a bunch of kick back fails. Dave showed up and was immediately crushing at full speed. Boardslides, boardslide to fakie, boardslide 270. Manuals and falls. The ollie onto the curb then back 180 the hard way out of the curb cut was hot. At the end Dave and I skated the narrow part of one of the medians (super slick) and tried some nosegrinds over it. I got a couple frontside ones with little bonks at the end and Dave came kinda close to backside. I tried the rock wallie a couple times, slammed and got too tired. My flat ground skills were not on point, but I managed my first heelflip since skating the crappy Fallen Ramblers. Did a tiny fakie nosegrind. Left when Dave was trying nose manny back 180s. Guess he never got it. Oh yeah, I had a new board. SPREAD THE NULL! Love it.

Another fun morning that started watching Ollie’s flag football game. I had some minor food poisoning the night before so was feeling pretty exhausted and drained. Showed up late for Skateshop appreciation day, but managed to still have fun. I basically just skated the tiny qp at the top of the park with Derek, Jack and Carleigh for awhile, then “judged” people jump down the rail/stairs (Yeah Jack!) and on the 13 foot qp.

Then we went to this awesome spot. There are five levels each with the same size ledge/drop between them.

Some had stuff down them, some didn’t.

We stayed here a really long time. The crew was pretty big. Fuzz, Jack, Carleigh, Blaine, Justin, James, Rho, Neil and Chase. Carleigh took quite a few awesome photos here. I’ll mostly just talk about the older crew because listing everything is already an impossible task. Justin filmed a rad line. James rips, slams hard and did a front tail 270 shove down the metal shelf ledge. Jack slammed hard several times right out of the gate so made the wise choice to show some restraint and just chill. I should mention that Jack and I were twins for the day as we both had JAM shirts on and Null 10 year decks. We’re cute like that. Neil skated way longer then his normal 20 minute max. 50s down the metal box, crooks shove on the ledge, halfcab up like it was nothing, lipslides. John went to work on a line pretty quickly and spent most of his time working on it. Front 180 up, fakie flip on flat then front shove front noseslide to fakie. So sick! Fuzz ripped it. Front 180 up, sw 180 a little hole, nollie front tail. Back 180 up, back 50 up the metal ledge, back 50 front 180 out up the metal ledge, fakie nosegrind 180, fakie 50 halfcab out on the ledge. Yeah, killed it. Carleigh skated a long time. I saw some kickflips and front 50s early on then she tried back hurricanes for a long time. I’m not sure how many total she got, but I saw at least one make. So sick. That is not a trick I’ve seen done on regular ledges too many times. Or ever. Rho is Crisis’ newest team prospect and the kid rips! Back 180 nosegrind down the metal shelf, front noseslide up, back crooks up and down, back smith up. Full on shralping. I felt like I was struggling initially, but after getting a kickflip up one of the levels I started to have the time of my life. First line I got was kickflip up, front 5-0 shove then front shove off. Another was kickflip up front 50 front 180 out, halfcab flip on flat then kickflip off. Front 180 up, halfcab flip on flat, front 50 back 180 out (so bad) then a slow and not popped fakie bigpin down. Tried some more lines, but didn’t really combine them til later. Did a few crooks, back 50s, front 50 to front board, some bad kickflip back 50s (almost locked into 5-0 on a few). Near the end I went up top then kickflipped down all 4 in a row. This was probably the highlight for me. No the kickflips weren’t gnarly at all, but to do 4 kickflips down something in a row first try felt amazing. At one point I ollied a little shopping cart on it’s side as I couldn’t get the courage to try ollieing over the couch. Last thing I did was a line of front 5-0 , boardslide down the metal shelf ledge and finally kickflip the next drop. I had cracked my tail previously on a kickflip down (and somehow everyone else but me knew that? ha) and that kickflipped finished off the tail. I gave my board to Jack to have him take out his frustrations with the spot and he put it out of it’s misery. What a fun spot. Not sure it could every be as fun again, but man for this session it was amazing. I guess I like the cupsoles and I wasn’t very sore after all that. After we had a nice dinner at the Dark Horse then did some beer drinking at the Outback to celebrate Jason’s girfriend Lindy turning 30. Happy Birthday!

The Thermals are a special band. A band that realizes their niche and keeps at it. John and I both love the new album and headed down the Bluebird on a nice Saturday night. Things were off to a good start when I found a parking spot directly across the street. We missed the first band. The Builders And The Butchers were the first band we saw. At first I thought they might be pretty good and it seemed like they had quite a few people there to see them. Instead after a few songs John and I were both over it. I don’t even know what you would call their style of music. Some type of loud folk music that had us looking at our phones to see how much longer they would play. I’ll give them credit for entertaining drummers though. Yes, plural.

The Thermals came out and went right into two great fuzzy lofi songs off the new album quickly making us forget about that previous band. They went on to play several songs from their latest album, a lot from Blood Body and a good mix of the rest. The songs were all played loud and fast. The band was as tight as I’ve ever seen. This is the first time I’ve seen the current drummer and well, he’s hilarious. At one point he stage dived into the crowd. I’m sure some hipsters frowned on him showing his excitement, but for me it’s part of the nerdy attraction of The Thermals. They are good people, play simple music well and have fun on stage. It’s awesome and so was their set.

Met Dave at Sol prior to getting picked up in the Square State Skate bus. Rather then just wait we skated this little dork spot behind 7-11. Basically put a couple plastic soda crates and did slappy tailslides. They were fun though. Then we skated the Sol ramp for while. Flatground initially. I had most of my flippers except for heelflips which appear to be totally gone. Dave started “skating the vert” (Sol ramp inside joke due to kids that only skate flat calling the ramp a vert ramp) and did some sick fakie ollies and nollies. I tried a few too and did some weak ones. Everyone showed and we were off in the bus with an awesome crew. Dave, Rob, Ric, Brian, Wade, John and myself. After a stop at MRKT and a burrito we showed up at Launch. It was pretty crowded for me. I tried to skate, but couldn’t do a damn thing. Everyone else was ripping. I saw Rob and John skating flat and joined them where we skated for quite awhile. I got most of my flippers, John too. We also skated the wallride for awhile. I haven’t seen Rob miss a kickflip since he’s been back.

Finally went back up onto the ramp and things went much better for me. Got some runs with a few tricks in them. Front disasters, scratch grind reverts, a first try front 50 (the trick I was most hyped on) a little grind around the corner and tried front feebs. Ric was ripping the way he always does. Super inside slashers and crazy lines. Brian can do one million tricks and he did them all. Loved the front 5-0s into the corner, the front pivots fakie, the halfcab rock reverts and all of it. And he finally rock creeked a blunt to fakie and kind of hung up! rob was flying around the corners with his narrow feet stance. Solid front slashes and got a few long back 50s. Wade carves around that thing so awesome. John has amazing backside ollies and a ton of revert tricks. Loved the blunt to back smith attempts where he was just stuck on the coping in a weird position. Some great runs though. Fullertron was in full effect. He did some “aerials” as shown in the mute above (photos by Brian) and straight up killed the ramp. So many tricks it’s impossible to list. Andy was there and skates the ramp like he owns it. He does. Ha. Kickflip pivot? Yeap. Some other dudes where there ripping and the whole vibe was awesome. As Brian pointed out I don’t think we even made the top 5 in the oldest category. They need to change it to over 40 night!

Last, but not least a curb session ended the night. Lots of no comply variations and tricks over. Andy had front shove (above) first try. I got a backside flip which might be my first one over anything. John had no comply 180. Brian had a sick impossible on flat. I don’t even know, it was just awesome. People were doing tricks over it and it would get the same amount of cheers as just running into the curb. Such a fun vibe, session and experience.

Met up with Jake and Dave at Dave’s ramp after work on a nice afternoon that was threatening rain. Jake and Dave had already skated for awhile so that’s my excuse for how quickly they were ripping. It was crazy though. Jake did pivot fakie on the parking block side first try, back blunt maybe first try too. Dave did a lot of back tails and other tricks that aren’t supposed to be easy. Jake wanted to do his tallest front blunt to date and he did. Twice. Nuts. I skated ok. Did a few of my basics and almost got hurricane on the parking block side before the ramp became to slippery with rain.

We chilled for awhile then Jake and I left for Boulder, but decided to stop at the “rollerblade park” on the way. We ended up having a total blast. I struggled initially as I’m still adjusting to cupsoles, but man the quad pain is almost gone. Crazy. Guess I’ll be stuck on cupsoles for awhile. We mostly lined stuff out starting at a flat bar, a ledge trick, a bank trick, back, etc. Jake had some good ones quick. Front lip, front 50. Front board, front 50. I struggled with halfcab boardslide, but eventually got some bad ones and followed with front 50 then back crooks coming the other way. If I messed up I would try other tricks. Did one of the best fakie flips I’ve ever done on a bank. Posted up on crooks rather then just the little jib. Jake got a sick line of tailblock the crappy qp between the flatbars, hippy jump a flat bar, front tailslide. I went for ollie over a flat bar then 360 flip on flat then front 5-0. Never got a treflip. Jake did ollie onto the tall ledge then chinese nollie off. I managed to get up there with some accidental wallie action. Ended with a front 5-0 on the ledge. That park is fun.