It was supposed to snow in the afternoon so everyone was moving quicker than normal. Neil, Brian and Bernie met at my house and after watching the Habitat video we went to meet John at Google. His goal was to do a 270 no comply to tail into the bank. Before I turned into filmbot everyone was warming up. It felt weird to be skating street again. It’s funny how ollie’ing up a curb isn’t a guarantee after a few days off. Or maybe it’s not funny. Anyways I filmed John try to get the last minute trick for the Meta video, but it didn’t work out. He lost his mind and his board. Being filmed sucks. Me and John share the same hatred for it. It’s rarily an enjoyable experience. Next up Bernie, Brian, Neil, Lazer and I drove around looking for spots. We ended up at Ball Aerospace for a bit before getting kicked out. Then on to an old wallie spot that turned out to be more fun than anticipated. Especially because the top was waxed up. Lazer and Brian skated for a bit, landed some tricks then sat it out. Neil was off and on dude to hip pains. Bernie and I skated a lot. Bernie was ripping. That spot is way funner than I remembered. Bernie did so many amazing tricks. Kickflip over the curb to manual, front 180 nose manual over the curb, almost ollie a 10 foot flat gap, a long manual popped up to front 50 transfer, an 8 flip trick run, front lip 270 transfer, front board transfer, etc. Neil had some good one foots, wallies and ollies. I skated decent for me. Got some boardslide transfers, kickflips up curbs, halfcab boardslide transfer, worked up to a halfcab boardslide 270 out transfer, and a line of quick up to a tiny gap, treflip, boardslide transfer, front 180 off the curb, fakie fip. Pretty fun and pretty cold.

Feeling good enough to go to work, but exhausted from not napping during the day I fell asleep after dinner instead of meeting up with Fuzz/Neil/Carleigh and others for Yellow Curbs. So I did my 4th Rampy session in 4 days. Not fun. I was over it pretty quick so I just started doing flatground. A few kickflips then I went for switch flips. Some were surprisingly close. One was almost a make. So close. But instead I shot the board into my knee. Ouch. After some not so close switch flip attempts I went for the double flip and shot the board into both knees. Ugh. I went inside kinda bummed.

Feeling sick enough that I called in sick for work I sat around most of the day. Did a lot of editing for the Null teaser, watched the movie Outsourced, napped and played some Rock Band with Liz. Pretty fun day really. I started to feel better late in the afternoon and after dinner I was too ansy to not skate. Ollie was down again and we went out to the garage for another Rampy session on a cold cold night. For whatever reason after a couple runs I decided to try fakie front axle and turn it around on the coping to back axle. A few scary slams later I landed it. New trick! Ollie had fun. He put down his longest run to date which was probably 5 minutes consisting of 99% rock fakie/tail stall combos. But he threw in some frontside kickturns, halfcab kickturns, body varials and fakie ollies too. Toward the end he started making a bunch of funny faces during his rock fakies so I took some photos.

On October 28th, Carleigh, Fuzz and I met up with John and Rebecca at the Bluebird for some Thermals fun. Carleigh, Fuzz and I missed the opening bands due to an extremely fun session at the Broomfield park. That band has never disappointed. Every show has been completely awesome and this one was no exception. Apparently Fuzz and I even chest pumped to show our appreciation:Or maybe Fuzz just wanted to be closer to his shop’s shirt. Either way we all had a blast, the new stuff sounded great, they even played When We Were Alive and I went over my 7 beer weekly limit for the first time in 3 months. Yippee!

Feeling really sick now, but stressing over this 300 day thing. When Ollie said he’d skate Rampy on a snowy night I couldn’t resist.  He ripped it.  Rock ‘n rolls, body varials, fakie ollies, funny faces.  I got a couple things I don’t even remember.

Feeling sick even after a nap I couldn’t resist Rampy with Jake since he called.  I said it should be a quick session, but it ended up being pretty long and of course, fun.  We both started out ok and did most of our tricks.  Jake had trouble with his staple of front nosepick, but came through with a bunch of feeble grinds which he surprisingly hasn’t done before.  I did a bunch of front tail stalls, front feeble and possibly my first ever backside chink chink.  Well, I’m not sure it’s a chink chink if it doesn’t make much noise.  But I went in fakie, touched the front truck and went back in to fakie.  Cool.

I can’t figure out who Thrasher will give it to this year. To me there isn’t one person that is leagues above everyone else. Here’s what I think should be looked at:1. Video part(s). This one is mandatory. You gotta have at least one bangin’ part.2. Magazine/internet coverage.3. ContestsAnd you gotta be progressing skateboarding. Not just upping the stair count by a couple. With that in mine here’s a few I think could take it:1. Leo Romero. Two parts! I haven’t seen the Brainwash video yet. Progressing skateboarding with the up rail stuff, but is it enough? A bit too much of a hammer kid for me to get overly hyped on.2. Brandon Westgate. Best part in the Emerica video. Probably part of the year for me. Totally pushing ollies over stuff to a new level.3. Grant Taylor. Gnarly coverage, but no video part.4. Cory Kennedy. Another top part of the year (Sasquatch), KOTR MVP (you know Phelps is hyped on this), tons and tons of internet and magazine coverage, pushing tech/gnar to a new level, smiles for days. I could see him getting it next year.5. Shane O’Neil. Sick part, Street League stuff, etc. I need to get over the Berrics association.6. P Rod. He’s done it all this year and has a video part coming in a week that will probably be insane. The PR shirts ruin it for me even though he’s lost a bit of the roboticness.7. Malto. Sick coverage, contest stuff, but no video part.8. Reynolds. Leading the stair count race and he’s in his 30s. I really don’t like when they give it to someone that has already won SOTY though.9. Tory Pudwill. Lots of NBD’s in his Transworld part, but man, clean up those arms kid.*EDIT* I forgot Dylan Rieder.  Lots of people are on his stick after the Burton part.  I’m not.  It’s got some amazing stuff, but those one footed treflips ruin the part more than a no speed tic tac for me.There’s probably someone I’m forgetting. I seriously don’t think I can say who I think deserves it. I just know that Cory Kennedy has probably hyped me up more than anyone else on that list.

After feeling sick enough at work that I almost went home early, dinner, a nap and some Leave It To Beaver I met up with Carleigh for a quick skate session. We started out at the 3 stair spot where we almost lasted the whole time. Other than some ollies on the rounded curb I tried to manual off the 3 stair forever. I don’t think I’ve ever manualled to a drop down stairs. Yes I know it’s only a 3, but it was weird for me. I kept putting my wheels down right before. Carleigh was trying to ollie up the curb then kickflip the 3. The truck parked right next to the 3 stair with the lights on and the couple making out was a little weird. After Carleigh said ‘last try’ about 10 times I finally landed it. We left, went by the 5 stair where Carleigh ollied it a few times, and I bailed. Argh. I committed to it twice, but the brick to concrete runway messed me up. That’s my excuse at least.275/300 days down. 25 more to go. 53 days left in the year. It’s possible.

Warmed up a tiny bit at the jersey barrier spot before turning into filmbot for the day. I was still feeling pretty sick and run down and didn’t have much motivation to skate myself. I did a few rock ‘n rolls and scratch grinds on the jersey barrier, some no comply 360s and some failed nollie tres. Then I filmed, filmed, filmed. One of the most productive days of filming I’ve had, but totally exhausting. I even slammed really hard at one point trying to use the Meta filming board and pushed off one of the wheels that sticks out. Ugh! Got a good swellbow from that.filmingmore filmingfilmed for daysBut still managed to drop some awesome BGPs when possible.Go to Carleigh’s blog for more ..

Feeling run down and sore in a fighting a cold kinda way, I met up with Jason early to skate the manny pad before filming Mikey. Carleigh joined us after awhile as it took Mikey a long time to arrive. Jason and I took a long time to land tricks. Jason rarily gets nose mannies, but he put down a bunch of them. It was cool. He also did a really smooth halfcab manny back 180 out. So good. I took forever to get nose manny shove out, but when I did it felt great. I also got a couple kickflip mannies, failed at nollie shove mannies for awhile, got front shove, fakie big up the curb. Ended it with a first every fakie bigflip up the curb. Carleigh put down a few mannies too. Mikey showed up and after a bit of playing around we went out filming.Mikey beat himself up for the most part. But we had fun.