Was going to meet Dave and Matt at Lafayette park originally, but after several phone calls / texts at the last minute it ended up being Jake and Matt I was meeting at Lafayette. Upon arrival I felt horrible. Like I shouldn’t even skate, just go home and sleep. I stood around as Jake ripped the little bowl and Matt flew out over tall cones. After awhile I started to get a tiny bit of juice. Did some slappy crooks on the slight bank to curb, then tried to line it out with a manual on the black ledge, but I dragged my tail every time. Oh well.

Then we went to Darin’s newly built ramp which is just as amazing as it looks in this photo by Matt. Fuzz, Darin and Brillo were there skating. Matt didn’t skate. Jake rips ramps and did lots of his tricks within a couple runs. Darin would do a few tricks and duck out. Brillo did a million steezy tricks and skated into the dark learning a f/s cab staple gun. Wowsers. I had fun and did several of my basics and think this might be my favorite ramp. Fuzz ripped, laughed and drank. Good times.

Slept in real late on a hot Sunday. Did some cleaning then met Dave an Rob (yes, Rob!!!) on campus. We started at the bank to fence spot which luckily had some shade. Everyone did their thing to get warmed up. Rob was killing it. Such a treat to skate with him. Great style and attitude. Dave too. Man I’ve been skating solo to much, this ruled. We all did a bunch of tricks on the bottom bar like a bank to mini-curb. Tricks on the bank. We ended up filming some. Dave had a line of front 180 a manhole then fakie wallride. I had been playing with an alleyoop halfcab flip which I guess is kind of a cab flip. I eventually got one that was mostly one motion and less then 90 degrees of pivoting. Rob did a nosepick fakie, 270 kickfilp and bigspin front nose. It was hot and we should have left for water, but we kept skating. I was trying front crooks and failed. Ended up getting a line with a kickflip over a manhole, then a kickflip (frontside) on the bank, then cruised down the hill and ollied a manhole and did some powerslides. That be fun! Dave did a bunch of front slashes (cooler then it sounds), Rob did kickflip axle stall. We had fun. Then we moved on and found some water before ending up at the amazing new ledge spot next to the 420 field. It seriously rules. It was super hot though and energy was hard to come by. Dave got into a bunch of crooks, but the pop out wasn’t working. I didn’t really get in to crooks. Dave had some nice front 50s. I tried some too and managed to shove out of one. Also got a really bad back 50 after almost dieing on one.

Later in the evening I switch trucks to some Thunders I had laying around. I have been having trouble with how the PJ trucks turn. I went to the research ledge and I was really tired. It was dumb. I did a few basics before the comforting feeling that I wished I still had the Ventures on hit me. So I went home and put them back on with no desire to switch again. I could see maybe skating Indy as I liked how they skated on the big board. But I’ll probably just stay on Ventures as that’s what I have laying around and, well, they are really good.

Got to NorthGLENn park at 10am to be one of the judges for a contest. I messed around for awhile not doing anything serious. John and I tried treflips for awhile. He got one. But we missed most of them. I didn’t get one. Then the beginners started and luckily I wasn’t judging that so I went to the basketball court and skated flat. Landed most everything for awhile and it felt pretty good. Everything except for the treflip of course. I have to admit ever since my last Ventures worn through and I put the PJ ones on again they have felt horrible. Might be the precursor for another change. Then after 7 hours of sitting and judging in the heat with almost no food John and I went to Broomfield for what we hoped would be a mellow session. It turned out that Colorado’s newest pro Tyler Price was there as well as some other Colorado heavy hitters. We mostly skated the black ledge. Those dudes did good tricks. John and I tried front 50 back 180 out until I landed an absolutely horrible one. Man it was good to see Tyler skate. He has been injured, but was still ripping.

Brief flatground in front of the house. Still felt slow and arthritic, but that’s life. Did most of the basics and finally a treflip.

Feeling slightly better I went to Valmont later in the evening. It was still warm. I haven’t been there in awhile. As you can see the ledge isn’t doing so good anymore. I messed around for awhile doing slappy noseslide stuff, trying to get the legs going. They kind of did. The ledge was really sticky though. I waxed it a bunch. It would slide, but grinds were hard. I got one front 50 on the middle section and that was so hard for me. Had a good hc noseslide, some crooks, couple back 50s, weak front tails. A few flip tricks, but never a good treflip. Put a chair after the loading dock and ollied over it (in a line after kickflipping up the curb) which was pretty fun. The dock is taller then the chair and it wasn’t far out, but it was still fun. I skated pretty hard, but was tired and forcing things. Me stubborn, me should not skate so much. Oh well.

Went to the research center after work on a pretty hot evening. My first attempt to ollie up the curb resulted in me running into it and almost slamming. Great. I’m not even sure anymore if it’s actually ‘arthritis’ I have anymore, but basically my whole body feels weird and I have zero confidence. Rather then go home and rest or something any normal person would do I stubbornly kept attempting to skate. I got a couple noseslides to get things going and even manualled the curb around the corner. Got some crooks, front 50, even a back 50 or two, some really short front noseslides. Flip tricks weren’t so good. The treflip eluded me again. Couldn’t do hc noseslide either. There were these two longboards going down the ‘hill’ trying to powerslide. They were such dorks. Made me feel better about myself.

Still tired from a 16 hour drive the day before. I needed to get boards to 303 and had some errands to run so I just rolled out around 6pm. I had some new shoes. My first pair of Es shoes in a long time. They seem good. I cruised around doing a lot of crack nollies for a bit looking for this crack ridden alley.

This little metal ledge could be such a great warm up/ old guy spot. Actually, Max killed that spot in Nothing so what am I saying? I skated there for awhile and settled into trying a line. No comply 180, halfcab flip (whichever way seemed would work better) then front 50 back 180 out or front tail shove. The half cab flip was troublesome trying to time it in between cracks and then when I finally started getting the flow of it there were janitors or something standing near the ledge preventing me from going on. Doh.

Then I rolled to this spot and posted up for quite some time. I tried a line of fakie flip on flat (to the right of the 2 stair), switch front 180 up the first stair, to quick ollie up the second, 360 flip on flat then front nose to fakie the tall ass ledge. The 3 flip took for ever and the few I got were horrible. The ledge was too tall for me to get the front noseslides. I was bumming kinda hard, but a couple things came from it that I liked. Mostly that I had some fast fakie flips and was able to push switch comfortably after. Heading back to the start I had a great feeling nollie varial flip and I did a cali grind to manual to cali grind down the two stair which was fun. As bummed as I wanted to be I was happy I pushed myself a little and am not letting my arthritis flare up stop me from skating.

Escaped for a bit with Ollie to the school about 30 feet from my brother’s house. This is there and as fun as it looks. An uphill approach makes it hard to have speed, but it’s good. Ollie did fakie shove and shove over the hip. Then spent a lot of time filming me trying to do a back 270 kickflip which I would eventually land. But it’s an over 40 make with a lot of slow pivot action. Oh well, I’m hyped to have done that trick. I also did a boneless and we called it a session.

After a long drive down from Door County to my brothers house in Waunakee I hit the park solo. There was actually a few people there when I arrived. A few old dudes! I was hyped, there were three dudes who all looked at least 30, one might have even been pushing 50. I warmed up on the ramp which is one of the best ramps around. A tiny bit mellow, but man, so fun. I did quite a few tricks and had fun. Then went onto the flatground and missed a couple kickflips in a row. UGH.

Oh yeah, my shoe was dieing.

I should have stuck to the ramp, but I’m stubborn. All the old dudes left and a younger dude arrived. I kept struggling and my toe coming through my shoe was bumming me out. I had a good feeling kickflip to fakie on the bank and a halfcab noseslide on the ledge. Other then that nothing felt so great. The slight downhill of the park messed with my front 50s. Oh well, glad I got out there a little.

Woke up at 6 am. India is sick so she wasn’t getting up any time soon and I had time to go skate if I wanted to. So I went to check out this nearby little park. It was what one would expect, but the concrete is kinda rough. I felt like skating the ledge and flatground, but since it was 7am it wasn’t easy. The first few front 50 attempts were sketchy. There were a couple other boxes people had brought too. Tried b/s nosegrind across a really small one, but failed. Got a few ledge tricks. Noseslide, noseslide fakie, halfcab noseslide, crooks, back 50 (worst one ever done), front 50, front 50 front 180 out, front 50 shove, front 5-0, front 50 to front board, almost front 50 kickflip out. Tried to ollie a middle sized ledge that was there and failed. Got an ollie onto the ledge and noseslide the taller ledge off. Manualled the main ledge with a tiny tilt. Flatground went ok. Got a treflip or two. Halfcab flip, etc. Not liking my setup currently. Mostly I just hate how large my wheels feel which is pretty pathetic considering they are only 52s.