The forecast was for upper 70s so I took the day off work. I started it off by listening to Green Mind while cleaning for awhile then watched Shape Duece while setting up a new board. A new board already? Yes, Derek broke his filming so I gave him mine at the end of the night. Since everyone skates big boards now my 8″ pile is just sitting there so I decided to trim down a little and skate one of those. The plan was to meet Neil, Brett and Dave at the new new Thornton park (above). Everyone had said it’s a “Glen park” meaning it’s full of dumb, mellow stuff. Ha. I got there first and indeed it is a neat park. I’m not gonna call it my favorite or anything though. Brett showed second and brought his boombox hooked up to a Pandora station playing a few good rap songs mixed in with mostly really bad rap songs. Neil showed shortly after that and it was just the three of us for quite a while with one other dude. It was fun. Neil had lots of ollies everywhere, wallies, krooks shove first try on the ledge, boardslides and a nosegrind or two. Brett had some cool nose stall body varials on the little bank to curb (in the back ground behind the hubba/bank), but then broke his board on a kickflip fakie. He got so mad. I struggle to skate in the morning and although this morning went better than normal I still struggled with some basics like a back 50 on a little rainbow ledge and ollies into the bank. But I did do some stuff I was hyped on like a few kickflip pivots on the bank to curb, front 50 the bank to curb, fakie bigflip over a mellow hip. Dave showed up and did a lot of cool stuff. His friend Simon showed too and ripped the place. It started getting really crowded though with bmxers, scooter kids, skaters, parents letting their toddlers walk around in the skatepark, etc. We left after Dave got a couple feeble grinds on the bank to curb and I got a line with a front 50 on the bank to curb, a nose manual on the tiny manual pad and a backside kickflip on the bank above the bench then frontside 180 off the bench. Fun.

We went to a nearby light pole with a bit of transition up to it next. Neil had gone to work. We skated this awkward thing for a good hour or so. I should have taken a photo, but not having a data plan anymore and not being able to Instagram makes me forget about shooting photos. It took a bit before we got some pivots and axle stalls on it. Simon killed it with wallie, wallie melon and wallie indy to the street. He also did a front pivot and a pivot fakie. So ridiculous. Brett got a couple nose stalls and rock ‘n rolls. I did a axle stall and eventually a few frontside wallies which I was really hyped on. Dave did some smooth pivots, wallies and a awesome street plant to fakie.

Then we went to Northglenn park and met up with Bernie. Brett had left. My Vox shoes had totally died at the last spot so I was rolling in some new shoes. Emerica Liverpools. They seemed good although a bit bulky. I mostly just skated flatground with Bernie as I was really sore. Nollie tres came pretty quick. I also had a run with boardslide the ledge, treflip on flat then a bigflip on a flat bank (although I landed at 90 degrees and stalled for a second). After a bit I joined Dave and Simon skating this little qp at the top. Simon was doing switch frontside 5-0s. Dave was working on back tails. I scraped a little backside slash to fakie and threw in some flip tricks after. What a fun day. After that I went home and grabbed the family and we went to the Nuggets game which ended up being a crazy game where the Nuggets somehow won. Awesome.

After a pretty late night of partying for the Meta grand re-opening party I grabbed Ollie and we went to Southern Hills for a short session. I experimented with the panorama app on my camera and as you can see I must shake the camera a lot. Oh well. I had some new shoes, some Vox Class X. They seem good. As you can see there was a lot of snow and puddles around. Ollie didn’t really skate much. He just kind of pushed and didn’t really do any tricks. He was having fun though. I had more swagger in my step then I thought I would and was skating kinda fast. I had a line with an ollie off the ledge by the handicap ramp, turned around and kickflipped into the handicap ramp then ollied a pile of snow. I had another line with a noseslide the tall ledge on the far left, kickflip into the handicap ramp then ollie a bigger pile of snow (in the background behind the square of benches). I added a bad flatground treflip, front 50 and crooks on the main bench and we called it a day.

On a snowy night I was sitting around with the kids when Fuzz asked about Rampy. Yes, lets do it! Brett and John were supposed to join too, but they were no shows. I warmed up Rampy solo and it seemed like Rampy was eager for a good session. I was landing lots of tricks and putting together longer runs for me. I also took care of my 3 flip requirement early on which reminds me I had new shoes:

Lakai Carlo. My 3rd or 4th pair. Love these shoes. And I finally remembered to only get size 10.

Fuzz showed up and we immediately went to work laughing, skating and being hyped. It was such a rad session. We just kept going, doing tricks, trying new ones, falling for a long time. Fuzz worked on fakie front 50 body varial to disaster. Or whatever you would call it. It was silly and he had some good slams in the process. He also struggled with front feeble stalls for a bit until I offered him a beer for a make and of course he got it that try. Fuzz did a million more tricks. This is one of those sessions where tricks didn’t stand out as much as the fun that was being had. I was happy to get a few fakie pivot fakies, a front feeble with a grind, close to a frontside Joe Hamilton and happy that I had so much fun on Rampy.

On another nice February day in the 50s Ollie and I picked up Jason then headed out to Lafayette to meet Brian, Jake, Neil, SSK (Square State Kids), Fullertron and probably some more I’m forgetting. I didn’t feel like filming anymore and Brian totally understood. Ollie was in his typical shy stay in a corner mode or would just follow me around. We kind of messed around for awhile. Jake, Brian, Blake, Brandon, Alec and I did a six man front rock on the mini bank to curb. I punched Brian in the stomach on accident in the process. Ha. Blake was a good sport and filmed Brian for the most part rattle off another 10 or so front rocks. He was killing it again and took some super hard slams at the end trying to do a double front rock with Jake. Kudos Brian. Looks for the birthday montage soon. As far as skating goes I skated kind of ok, but was feeling very clumsy and arthritic. I dropped into the shallow end of the vert bowl a couple times. If only it wasn’t so slippery I would try to get tile on the vert. As it is though I just suck up all my speed and barely make it out of the waterfall. We sessioned the manny pad thing up top for awhile. Neil killed some front lips and front lips to fakie. I got a few tricks. Front 50 back 180, front 5-0 shove, manual. It sucks you can only skate it frontside. Grinding granite is really fun though. On the way back I got a couple treflps. Then I skated the double down section in the street course. Ollied the 3 then noseslide the hubba. Also got halfcab flip into the first bank, then noseslide the hubba. There was ice in the path of the frontside way so I couldn’t really hit that. I tried to get on in the flat, but didn’t have the pop to do it. Argh. It kind of bummed me out. At one point I tried to do a manual out of the little qp then boardslide the granite ledge, but I basically just ran into it and cracked my board really bad. Had to leave. Pretty fun session. Jason seemed to have fun watching. Trick Factory in effect. Oh yeah, I had new shoes. Lakai Brae. Neat. The Supras were some of the best shoes I’ve ever had, but had finally worn flat on the sole.

I was home with Ollie as Liz and India were out doing stuff. We had already played basketball for awhile and I wanted to skate. Rather then wait for the girls to get home to watch Ollie I talked him into going skating. We drove around for a bit trying to find something, but lots of spots were snowy. We found this near Ball Aerospace and it ended up being fun enough for the next hour or so. Ollie and I played around before Carleigh showed. There was a little two stairish drop behind where I took that photo and I would ollie off it to start some runs. Ollie did a couple body varials on the bank and almost a 360 body varial. That was about it for him. Other then that he just kinda followed me around or finger painted with the dirt on the car. Carleigh showed up, super hyped on the spot (not) and went to work on pop shoves to fakie, then front shove fakie, then kickflip fakie. I got a really bad one of those side rock kickflips, kickflip fakie, fakie flip. Carleigh then tried a bunch of varial flips and landed a couple. I tried a line of front 180 the little drop (weirder then it should have been due to puddles in the landing), fakie flip on flat then fakie treflip on the bank. Never got close to the fakie tre. Tried another line with ollie the drop, treflip on flat and then it doesn’t matter because I never got the treflip until later when I tried it on it’s own. Last up for me was a few ollies off the drop over a patch of snow. Not big at all. So my arthritis wasn’t too bad. I originally thought it was acting up due to the wind, but it never really got windy. Hmm.

Oh yeah, I had new shoes. Fuzz gave me permission to not skate those Hufs anymore as he agreed they felt like the worst shoes ever. These Supra Amigo’s don’t seem like the best shoes ever, but they are certainly leagues above those piece of crap Hufs.