Ollie and I went to the Arvada park on a hot Saturday afternoon. There was a gathering to remember Dave Tuck. A skater I barely met, but clearly a positive influence on the Colorado skate scene. We were going to meet Neil and Fullertron there. The park was really crowded, but most people were in the bowls. Makes sense. Before we even got into the park I had said hello to about 10 people and it was awesome seeing so many people out. I had watched a few (ok more like 10) PJ clips before leaving so I was thinking I’d get tech and skate the Pier 7 replica. I ended up being extremely lazy though (I blame Liz) and taking a long time to warm up. I made a goal of 10 tricks on the Pier 7 thing and it took me a long time. Ollie managed to ollie up onto it a few times and did front and back 180 off. He was also doing fakie shoves and trying fakie 3 shoves on flat. I ended up getting back board, front 50, front 50 front 180 out, crooks (hyped on that one), manual (finally – never did that there before for some stupid reason – ok, well it’s because you land in the slightest of banks), back 50, slappy noseslide, slappy front tailslide, front 50 front shove out and front 5-0. Then we went over to the blue pad area. Ollie did his ride on to drop down manual first try, ollied the gap off the blue pad several times and front 180’d off a taller part. Mike was there wallie’ing up the ledge like it was nothing. I tried a bunch of times and failed. Like a bunch a bunch. I would do flatground and crooks on the tiny qp. I managed to ollie up the gap second try though. Dave joined and treated us all to “nollie 360 eggplants” off the blue pad. What the heck? Put your foot in nollie position, grab indy, put your left foot on the edge and turn back 360 while dropping. He did it so good. Ollie and I tried them. Watching Ollie try a trick so foreign to his was awesome. He ended up doing mute grabbed back 180 with his right hand on the edge. Not sure what that’s called, but he was hyped. I eventually got the eggplant 360 too. It was clearly an over 40 make, but man it seemed cool. Then the four of us headed out to the nearby foundation spot.

This spot rules. Notice Neil sitting in the background in both? Ha. He skated though. Long enough to do some rad nose mannies, but he was beat quick. Ollie did those rad little gap to wobble manual a bunch of times. He also had 180s off the drops and slammed super hard riding up the plastic launch ramp that has a hole in it. I got a couple lines that made me really happy. Kickflip up, front 5-0 then ollie the taller gray part behind Ollie in the photo above. Then the one that really really hyped me up, pop shove over one of those little 2 foot flat gaps, kickflip off a ledge, boardslide down the metal hubba, ollie the gray thing again (seemed scarier then the photo shows) and landed on a backside flip off the next ledge. Also did a front 180 the little flat gap and a f/s halfcab flip off the ledge. It was so slow and bad, but only a few tries in so I took it. Dave did back board, back board to fakie and front board down the metal hubba. He also had a line of something like back 180 a flat gap, switch front 180 off the ledge then boardslide. Another line that resulted in a switch back 180 off the ledge. Probably a lot more that I’m not remembering right now. Super fun session. I put a hole in the sole of my shoes though so I’m gonna have to skate something else. Doh.

Had a busy day at work, then Rob and I headed up to Fort Collins where we met Chadmang and did some business with the lovely MRKT skateshop. We got some food and when trying to figure out where to go we decided to just roll out from the shop and see what happens. This new spot was the first spot and pretty darn epic. There is also a little manny pad, smooth parking lot and some gap/stair options on the left side. The right side however is super rough and makes the approach from the right pretty hard. Unless you are Chad I guess who lipslid it a few times and did nose manny or manny across the top into the bank. So rad. Rob front boarded it first try, worked for a sick switch boardslide, popped some nice ollies off it and had some steezy 180’s and no complys as setup tricks. I had some boardslides and a crooks. Then tried a few various lines going the other way trying to end with an ollie into this weird 3 stair. I did a few front boards pulled up into the ramp which were fun. But the line I eventually got was just an ollie into the downhill of the ramp, then a manual then an “ollie” down the 3 stair. I say “ollie” because I surely didn’t pop it at all. But it was fun because the stairs are really close to the manny and I had a brief feeling of being quick footed. Chad ollied a pretty sick gap there too.

We decided to head towards the courthouse downtown instead of campus and after some cruising we ended up here. This little loading dock had all kinds of options. Rob did the back 50 and a steezy backside no comply wallride. I ollied up from the kicker (in less tries then it took Chad!). Chad ollied up too and then kickflipped up it first try all easy and tried to go right to wallride. Then some concerned old lady started yelling at us that we shouldn’t be doing that. Geez she was angry. Chad just sat there “It’s ok lady, calm down, we’re all ok”. So funny. We made it to the courthouse and it was a little anti-climatic. I did a little line of fakie bigflip, front shove then ollie a tiny median.

Around the corner we ended up skating here a bit. I did a front 180 down the top 2, then a switch front 180 down the second. Chad did that line up it just to show off. Rob has surprisingly never done fire crackers before, so he learned them down this. But not after a super funny slam on the first attempt. I got another line of kickflip down the first 2 then back 180 (no pop) the second. Took a few tries to get the kickflip. Oh well.

After all this we needed a break and skated a few more blocks to a gas station. Chilled a minute then headed back. I tried pushing switch a lot. I looked dumb. We skated the curbs in the parking lot for awhile. Rob and I each got a frontside slappy. I got a pathetic excuse for a kick back tail. Some drunk dude hung out with us being drunk. I ended with a little line of manual a little pad, front 180 up one, switch front 180 off, kickflip up the median, b/s 180 off. It was a blast. Then we hit the Perkins bump for what was supposed to be one ollie. But it took me a long time to get it. Guess I was tired and well, I suck at ollies. I got a great feeling treflip on flat though. Chad had some huge ollies clearing two cracks. Rob had a nice back 180, nice boneless and ollie. That was it. One fun night. That was some real street skating and we all had a great time. Lets do it again!

After a run to Crisis and some Subway, Ollie decided he’d rather not hang out drinking beer and smoking and decided we should go skating. Ha. We went by Broomfield park, but it was crowded so we went to Lafayette. Which was not crowded at all. I was tired and sore. Do I need to even say that anymore? I’m always tired and sore. It’s one of the perks of getting older. While in the warm up stage Ollie said “I had a dream I did a fakie 360 shove” so he started trying them and got so close. We just kinda cruised the manny pad, mini section for awhile. I felt like trying some tricks up/down the manny pad. Most weren’t even worth mentioning, but the front 180 up switch-no-pop-back 180 down felt rad. I did a bunch of 3 flips on flat to make me not worry about the high trucks as much. Ollie was doing lots of back 180’s off the manny pad and ollieing off the little qp above. He was following me at one point so I said “do the same trick as me!” and front 180’d it. He was saying “I can’t do that” in the air, but landed it way better then me. Later on I wanted a clip for the blog and suggested he do the 180 again, but he couldn’t. Ha. We skated the flow bowl for awhile. I really like how the Ventures turn versus the skittish Thunders. I had some back 50s and took too long to do a rock fakie. Ollie dropped in and did some good carves in between mongo pushes. He rules. At one point later on I rolled by him and he said “Bonjour monsieur”. Totally cracked me up. Near the end I failed to nose manny the manny pad and then ate shit so bad on a front 50. Ugh. Ollie made up for it by doing the rock rock fakie.

After a really long drive down from the mountains I quickly setup a new board since I had broken my Atlas Nulled in Fairplay. As punishment for breaking two boards in a week I decided to setup the weed graphic. Just Say Null. It’s funny at least and it’s funny how few people get it’s jokingly an anti-weed board. Anyway, after being bummed on how those Thunders turned in the Fairplay bowl I decided what the heck, lets go back to Venture, but this time the highs. Seeing as how I’m a complete freak with almost brand new trucks of several brands sitting in my garage this was pretty easy to do. It was about 9:30pm when I got out and I was dead tired from this crazy adventure park in Buena Vista we had gone to early in the morning. I rolled around the Table Mesa shopping center not doing much. Then found they repaved the area in front of Savers so was super hyped to try and skate some flat. They even repainted the curbs too! Unfortunately though they kept shutting off lights and it was so dark. I managed a line of manual, front 5-0, kickflip. Eh. Then I went around and ended up at some parking blocks behind King Soopers and tried my best to boardslide the graphic off the board. Ha ha. I eventually did a few more flatground tricks. Halfcab flip, heelflip and varial flip. All had a better feel to them without the unwanted squirl of Thunders. Rad.

On the way to Buena Vista and Ollie really wanted to hit this park. Awesome! When we got out of the car I immediately felt like crap and stayed that way the whole session. I failed miserably at ollieing onto the first ledge then manualling the second, failed at skating the bowl (honestly hated how the thunder’s turned), bailed kickflips, it was awful. I did manage a few kickflip axle stalls on the brick coping qp though. That was the one redeeming trick the session had. Later on I tried to kickflip off the kicker and snapped my tail. Argh!! That’s two broken boards in a week. I’m going to punish myself and skate a weed board next.

Ollie however was ripping. He was popping ollies and kickflips off the kicker, lots of fakie pop shoves on the bank, fs 180s the hard way over the hip, carved over the stone in the corner, pushing mongo fast, boardslide transfers on the parking block on the hip, smiling and having fun.

This was some of the worst I’ve felt on a skateboard in awhile. I’m not sure if its arthritis or what, but skating isn’t very fun being so stiff and sore.

Ollie and I met Scotty and Riley at the armory building near campus. Riley warmed up with a first try manual then a few try nose manny then skated a gap around the corner. Ollie and I skated around a bit. He was doing lots of his little quick ollies on the flagstone sections. I didn’t do much and was feeling sore. Trying to quit ibuprofen is the worst. Riley and I played a game of skate that started ok for me (fakie bigflip, fakie varial flip..). Riley started unleashing tricks like varial heel, inward heel, etc. but then it started raining and we had to call it quits. Guess that’s one way for Riley to get out of a loss. Ha ha.

After work Ollie and I went over to Creekside for a little bit before my brother was to arrive. We went to the side again with the weird stairs and such. I was achy and tried without ibuprofen again. I was rewarded by hitting a rock right away and slamming into a rail. Lovely. Ollie ripped. Lots of clean ollies up the curb, fakie shove off the curb cut, fs halfcab off, he ollied off the two stair to manny twice which was nuts. I kinda sucked it up, but had two lines that made it worth it. Kickflip into the four stair narrow handicap ramp, front 180 up the two stair then fakie flip on flat. The other line was heelflip on flat, ollie off the two stair, quick turn then ollie up the little loading dock, down that then a treflip on flat. This spot is so hard to skate that landing anything is rewarding. I wish I hadn’t felt so achy and sore though.

This is just silly. I saw Dinosaur Jr for free then attempted to go skating after at one of my favorite spots with some of my favorite people. I showed up first and was feeling kinda weird and in disbelief of what was happening. My ears were ringing and I was totally sober. Weird. I rolled around a little feeling kinda clumsy before Fuzz showed up. We both rolled around getting slightly less clumsy when Dave, Neil and Rob showed up. Shit got heavy quick. Ha. Neil pulled out a trash can to ollie over and was of course hopping over it immediately. We skated for several hours and a lot went down. Neil was hyped on everyone’s skating and was vocally stoked on the crew and how we’re still doing it. It was rad. I will never be able to remember all that went down so I’ll just go with some of the many highlights. Neil had some long lipslides on the waxed curb, one foot mannies, one foot over the trash can, front 180, halfcab, no comply over the trash can. Nose mannies, etc. He also had the highlight of the evening. When going for back 180 over the trash can he hit a rock and dove into it. It was a rubber trash can so no damage was done and he just lied there in fetal position snuggled into the trash can laughing. We all laughed hysterically. So epic. He also had some nice front shoves up curbs and kickflips off. Fuzz was the second over the trash can and front 180 and back 180’d it easy. Lots of crazy curb tricks. Back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, fakie nosegrind 180 out, so much more I cannot remember right now. Rob had a bunch of nose mannies to lipslide, his patented slappy/ollie back 50, wallrides, b/s no comply wallrides, slappy lipslides, kickflipped off curbs like it was nothing. He also managed to get over the trash can. I had just landed a fakie big flip off a curb, saw Rob ollie the trash can and went for the ollie too, but didn’t have it. I was really sore and trying to skate without ibuprofen for the first time in awhile. I still skated decent though. Had a line of kickflip up curb, b/s flip off, halfcab flip on flat then super close to manual front shove out. Ever since I’ve been standing on a balance board at work manuals seem easier. Maybe I’ll actually land something out of a manual for once. Not this time though. I tried to get on some front slappies for awhile and failed. Oh, I was on a new board. An Atlas Nulled 8.1. Neat. Fullertron killed slappy crooks, boardslide 270s, front 5-0 to switch crooks, lipslide (above sorry for the lack of effort on the photo). He was super determined to ollie the trash can and at the end of the night kind of did it. It was more of a ride over it, but whatever, totally an over-45 make. Fun times, rad crew, Dinosaur Jr!

I had originally planned on skipping this show. Mainly because Dinosaur Jr was only the opening act and I did not care for the headliner in any way (Phoenix). Plus tickets were nearly $60. So I manned up and begged for a spot on the guestlist. It didn’t seem like it was gonna work as I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks. But low and behold, one day before the concert I get an email that I’m on the list. Whewoo!!! So I skipped Sebadoh at the Larimer (still regretting that one a little) and then found out that since the forecast had called for rain the concert had been moved to the 1st Bank Event Center in Broomfield. Say what? Turns out it NEVER RAINED too. Oh well. The Broomfield Event center actually ended up being pretty cool and the sound was surprisingly good. This may have something to do with Dinosaur Jr not being able to play as loud as they wanted to. There were more old people in the crowd rockin’ Dinosaur Jr shirts then I would have thought, but the young crowd was definitely mostly there to see Phoenix. Dinosaur opened with one of my favorites, Thumb. At that point I already knew it was worth the price of admission. Ha ha, it was free! Free free free! They went on to play their typical greatest hits set:

Thumb
Budge
Watch The Corners
Rude
Out There
Feel the Pain
The Wagon
Freakscene
Just Like Heaven
a Deep Wound song

As expected the set seemed ridiculously short for them. My favorite song was Watch The Corners. It went off huge. That song hangs with their best. I’m not sure why Murph wasn’t there either, but whoever filled in on drums did a great job. It seemed like for the most part the Phoenix fans were into DJR, but I did hear one “This is the worst band I have ever heard”. Ha. I left immediately after Dinosaur Jr. Well, immediately after buying a new Dinosaur Jr shirt for my collection that is! Then I went skating with old guy friends and had a blast. This was my first sober Dinosaur Jr show since like 1998. Wow.

So tired when I got home from work on a rainy evening so I took a nice little nap. Woke up, helped the kids understand how to put music/files on their new phones then went to campus to skate as it was dry out. Right before leaving I put Suciu’s Sabotage 3 part on which is oh so sick and inspiring. I was feeling like a solo session with headphones. I put the newest Ovlov album on which is totally amazing. When I first parked by the medical center 5 stair I thought it would be cool to line out a flatground trick, the 5 stair then another flatground trick then something into the flagstone bank around the corner. But I got to the bank and it was apparent that although I felt pretty good I would need a lot of warming up time. I ended up at the curved 1-7 stair spot. I got distracted trying to ollie the weird 3 stair after the long steps right near there. If only the crack at the bottom wasn’t so huge. Anyways, back to the 1-7 stair. Tried a line of switch front 180 up the curb, back 180 up the 2, turn around then ollie the 4. I think I got that. Took awhile though. Manualed the downhill part into the curb cut first try. Well, first time I got into the manual. I went over to the student center to get some water then skated around there for a bit. Did a line with ride down the stairs then ollie onto a little ledge and front 180 off where it’s taller. I looked around and decided I’d try a long line for the heck of it.

I started on this thing. Either front board, back noseslide or front 50.

Then manny this and head off down that sidewalk and do either pop shove or varial flip.

Then ollie onto this and front shove off. Don’t let the photo fool you, getting onto it is trickier then it looks, you have to ride through a grate then ollie. It’s not bad though. The end of the ledge is pretty tall by my standards, especially for front shoving. I don’t remember the last time I front shoved something so tall.

Anyways, I went at it for awhile. All of these tricks are pretty basic for me (except the front shove off the drop), but to link them all together was not easy. I got to the front shove a lot. Eventually I just stuck with the basics as I was getting tired. Noseslide, manny, back shove, but they all felt really good. I was trying to skate a little faster and coming out of the manual felt rad as it was a little downhill. The back shoves even felt good. And then I put the whole line down with the front shoves being one of the best feeling ones I’ve ever done. It felt so amazing. Seriously one of the funnest feeling lines I’ve ever done. I tried a treflip after and slammed, falling down in laughter at how stoked I was to do that line. I know it’s all basics, but if your reading this you know me and how hard it is for me to actually land tricks.

I headed up the sidewalk looking for another spot to skate and came upon an area I’ve never really skated much, but looks fun. I settled on trying to do a line of treflip on flat, ollie onto a little round 2 stair and a quick front 180 off then was planning on turning around and kickflipping off a stair. But the treflips ended up killing my already cracked board. Not sure why I’ve been landing in the middle lately, but after a couple of those my board was unskateable. Doh, I wish I could have kept skating, but oh well I was still so happy. Went home and setup a new board, an Atlas Nulled which I haven’t skated yet. This time in 8.1. .1 bigger then normal. Ha ha.