Ollie’s allergies were driving him nuts so getting him out skating wasn’t looking good. He kept resisting. So I went out and skated flatground in front of the house. After a few minutes of warming up Jake joined. I was skating decent by then, actually really good for me. That might be because my new warm up routing of foam roller, yoga and jump rope is working. Jake got a treflip second or third try and we were both just doing our thing. I was landing halfcab flips consistently which felt great since I’ve struggled with that one lately. Kinda got a tre or two, fakie varial flip, heelflip, fakie bigflip, landed on nollie tre, hucked a few more. Jake got halfcab flip quick too.

I went in to get water for us and Ollie announced to me that he wanted to go skating too. So off to campus we went. First thing we hit was a drop in front of the student center. It’s about six inches above handrail height. Jake got it pretty quickly. I took a few, but was happy to land it too.

We moved on to the old 4 stair gap. Jake ollie’d it quick. I took a few tries and managed to not even touch the tail when I got it. Jake and I both got front 180’s down it too. Jake tried halfcabs for a bit (photo) and I tried front shoves. they weren’t close. Especially after I hit an old screw sticking up from the bus stop and slammed super hard.

Then we ended up here. There is a little skate stopper in there that you have to pop over making it way tougher then it looks. I’ve wanted to ollie the grass gap since seeing Cameron’s footage of his 3 shove over it. Ollie and I lined out the gap by starting at the ledge up the hill a bit, dropping into the lower ledge, then ollieing off. So fun. Took a bunch of tries, but I got the line with the ollie over the little grass gap. I’m sure the ollie was really low, but I was really hyped on doing a line with so many drops. Ollie just dropped into the grass instead of ollie’ing the grass gap. It was funny because after I bailed once Ollie said to me “you don’t have to clear it, you can just ride though it.” Awesome. Jake didn’t do the first ledge part, but tried the grass gap. He landed on it, but never quite got it. And he owes me a cider!

Then we headed towards the pink ledges area. Jake bolted to it. Ollie and I skated stuff on the way there. I tried to ollie onto some tallish ledges on the way. Did some 180’s and ollies along the path over cracks. Ollie ollied off the tall engineering ledge. At the pink ledge/pad area I had a blast. Got a line pretty quickly of ollie onto a ledge, kickflip off, slappy back 50 the ledge, bail a b/s fip. I met Jake and Ollie doing tricks off the main pink pad. Jake did a bunch of kickflips. Ollie did front 180’s and b/s halfcabs off it. I got a first try front shove then tried a bunch of b/s flips. Got close, but never rode away. Super fun night.

On a warm evening I got out pretty early. Went to the research center and went up to the long stairs to ride down as a warm up. I ended up being there awhile. Did a line with a noseslide on an untouched ledge, boardslide pop out on a curb, then ollie up the two stair. Then I got stuck trying back 180 down the two stair and switch ride down the long stairs for quite some time. The back 180s weren’t easy initially and the switch rides were even harder. I got down one, then two, then three, then was stuck around three for awhile before almost doing the whole thing a few times then finally getting it. Whew! After finally landing the switch ride I did a f/s halfcab flip that felt great, a horrible kickflip, then pushed to the hill toward the ledge, did a few 180s and went to hit the ledge, but there was someone sitting on it. Ha. Turns out it was someone skating and they were just taking a break. The dude was cool and had the good taste of wearing NB+ shoes. I skated the hill for awhile trying flip tricks. It went ok. Then Matt showed up. He missed 3 treflips in a row. Dude is losing it! Ha. He had a sick line of nollie heel, treflip, nollie flip. I don’t think either of us landed a ledge trick when we got there. I had a few treflips treflips. It was funny, the first one I put both hands down, didn’t really count. Second one was one hand down I can take it. Third one was bolts!

Then we went around the back and skated the stairs for awhile. Well, basically I took forever to “ollie” it and Matt put together the sick little run above which is much harder then it looks.

Had one of those days were the kids were gonna be gone and Liz had other plans so I had all day to skate. My arthritis was sucking though and it was tough to find the motivation. I had new shoes to break in (this time I put the NB+ insole in them so they wouldn’t be as painful). I skated flat in front of the house for a bit, then went to Crisis to hang/sell boards. Then I headed to campus to wait for Dave. I skated the flagstone bank for awhile. I was feeling so uncoordinated and sore. I did a little line with a back 50 on the curb above it then ollied into the bank. Moved on to the library where I wanted to do a line. I wanted to ollie onto a ledge then ride through the skate stoppers, dork manual (ollie into board stall, lift up and end up in manual) then a flip trick. I didn’t think the dork manual would work though so instead I just ollied up onto the ledge and front 180’d off and followed it with a fakie flip. I did this a few times then it started raining right when Dave showed up. Doh.

So we went to Red Curbs. We warmed up for awhile and I realized I was so sore I couldn’t skate much so I started filming Dave. He stacked a line and 4 clips in like 20 minutes! Back 180 fakie 50s, fakie shove manual, front 5-0 to nose manual, halfcab noseslide. It was insane. He’s so good. I tried a GleNBD for awhile. Ride on to front 50 to no comply finger flip out. I’ve tried that for quite awhile without landing it before. I guess the trick is to be super stiff and sore though because I landed one then we got the camera out and I landed another one. Hyped!

Then we went back to CU since it was dry out and Dave filmed me try my line 41 times. Gotta like matching my age to the number of tries it took to get it. For awhile I was having a blast. I ended up being able to do the dork manual so went with it. Since I was so sore and stiff though the flip tricks after were not working. I eventually landed the line with a varial flip tic tac after. Eh. Still hyped to have gotten that though.

Then we went by this so Dave could try to boardslide it. Someone waxed the crap out of it though. He front 50’d it which was sick, but almost died on the boardslide. We called it a day then. I was so sore at this point I could barely walk to the car. Arthritis is lovely. Still hyped on finally working on our old man parts though. Hopefully we keep it up.

Got out of that customer conference in Longmont around lunch time and had a bit of time to kill before going back to work. I went to meet Dave at the covered pavilian and skate flat, but there was a bunch of people there. So naturally we skated this huge hubba across the street instead. It was kinda funny. Two 40+ year old dudes trying to slide a totally dry curb in front of a church. We ended up waxing them and almost got it, but got the boot instead. You had to drop off the first stair then slide down the rest. Then I went back to work.

After work I stopped at the research center ledge which was nice and shady. I ended up starting in back area with all the electrical boxes trying some dumb quick feet stuff. Ollie off a little drop, manual a curb then immediately roll off a two stair. Then I tried to ollie onto a narrow curb high slab and ollie down to another one. But ultimately I just went to disaster instead because I was too scared to land in such a narrow space. Then I did a couple crooks and moved up to the hill to do flatground. And wow I really sucked. I could not do a halfcab flip or fakie big flip easily. Those use to be staples of mine. Argh. I did not feel confident at all and I was super sore. Yeah arthritis. My stubborn ass stuck with it though. Eventually got a few treflips and had some lines with 3 or 4 flippers down the hill. Also got a swtich varial flip going really slow up the hill. Ended with a back 50, called it a day then went home and watched BATB7 with Ollie which was insanely fun to watch.

Right after work I met up with Matt at Southern Hills. I didn’t have much time to skate. It was super nice out, but I was pretty stiff and sore from skating so much lately. Apparently Matt was pretty sore/tired too because we were both super mellow. We started with a game of SKATE where I finally went easy on Matt and let him win. Hay, yeah ok, maybe I just didn’t land a trick because I couldn’t. Some other dudes showed up with a ipod boombox thing and posted up on the best bench there. Weird. We skated. I can’t remember doing much of anything other then a few noseslides, boardslides and crooks. Matt did a sick line of a fast 360 flip then a back tail on a bench. He also ollied over some of those benches all easy. Then some other skaters showed up with a bucket of water and one quickcrete bag. They were mixing it as we watched them fumble around. It was quite funny. We left before they did anything with it, so who knows how much they screwed up the spot. Hopefully they keep doing crete, just not in the middle of a school plaza.

Around the time it was getting dark out I went to the research center ledge. No lights were on and so I went right to the ledge since I thought they wouldn’t come on and I just wanted to get one crook at least. I managed a few warm up boardslides, noseslides and was able to get a crooks or two before the lights turned on. Sweet! I didn’t try much of the frustration lines down the hill until the end of the night. I tried back 50s for awhile. Technically I did a back 5-0 on my first back 50 attempt, so maybe I should have left it, but no, instead I struggled with back 50s for a long time. I realized I needed to ollie sooner then I was and ended up getting into quite a few and getting a couple. I had a line going the other way of front shove, front 180 the manhole, halfcab front noseslide attempt. Got kinda close. Felt good hucking. Did a few more crooks trying to go faster/longer and am finally getting a crooks groove on the front truck so it was getting easier. Tried a few lines down the hill that ended with a front 180 up the curb, fakie ollie on flat then halfcab noseslide. Never quite got the hc noseslide. I blame the lack of wax leftover from Fremonsters visit. I was timid on the flippers down the hill which bummed me out a little. Oh well. Pretty awesome night. I left when a cop drove by figuring it was a sign.

After sitting in the cold rain watching Ollie’s football game I cleared off Rampy and Jake & Lazer came over. We skated for almost a couple hours and for the first 3/4 of it I was even motivated to try stuff. I didn’t skate it very well. No new tricks to report, got remotely close to bonelesses, but yeah, I ended up losing motivation towards the end and just being bummed I was on the ramp in June. Lazer skated well. Lots of smiths both ways, front feebs, lien to tail, boneless, bean plant, blunt fakie, pivot fakie. Jake did his front blunts quick, pivot fakies, front 5-0 270 in, one of them bean plant variations, boneless, a bunch more.

Slept in kinda late after the Fort Collins session. I was less sore then I thought I would be. I can probably attribute that to stretching and doing a foam roller when I got home. It was the first Saturday where Neil was gone. I was sad. I played some nerf guns with Ollie, went to Meta to sell boards and did some cleaning around the house. I got out skating around 2pm on a cloudy and cool June day. I love cloudy days. I started slow, then eventually got into the whole ‘try a line forever until you get it’ mode. The first line was to ollie onto the bench in the top photo band back 180 off, then halfcab noseslide the ledge. I eventually got this. The ollie onto the first bench was hard for me, I was getting on at the crack. Next line, and I still can’t believe I did this one, was Front 50 the ledge in the bottom photo, front 180 up the 2 stair, halfcab flip into the handicap ramp then front board pop out the bench in the third video. That one took me awhile. Then I kinda messed around with flatground and ledge tricks for awhile. Did a bunch of crooks, a bad front nose, a backside axle stall (no grind, I’m terrified of back 50s on these benches for some reason), almost nollie var flip, sw var flip. Then I went to battle with the bench to picnic table combo in the second photo. It’s so hard for me. I was getting so sore and tired. I got onto the table a few times, but would barely make it and kind of roll the back trucks over the edge of the table. I wanted a clean one, but alas, I ended up going with one where I don’t even really know what happened. It wasn’t clean at all, but I got onto the table and I made it off. Good enough for me. Kind of a bummer I couldn’t land a treflip, but I was hyped that I skated as hard as I did. This spot is awesome.

Headed up to the wonderful city of Fort Collins on a friday night. The plan was to drop off boards, skate for awhile, then check out Taylor Dehart’s photo exhibit. After MRKT we parked a couple blocks away and found some random curb cut to dork around on. Jack did a cool slappy thing. I tried to copy and ATE SHIT. I guess I ran into part of the opposite curb cut and just slammed right into the uphill one. It hurt really bad.

Then we went to the mini slappy curb spot. The paint had chipped away quite a bit making it not quite as fun as when Chad and I discovered it a few weeks prior. Everyone was kinda doing their own thing. I had a run with a bad crooks and some slappies that ended up past the three stair area and down below. So fun, but I was still hurting pretty bad and wasn’t able to put my all into skating. Andy joined us! So stoked. Him and Rob were getting into some rad tricks on the ledge. Rob did back 50 then back smith and was looking like he was in the groove when disaster struck on a front 180 nosegrind and he slid out to his back and wrist. It was a brutal slam. Carleigh was doing slappies and skating flatground. Jack was doing long lines of flatground that were pretty amazing and Andy and I enjoyed the heck out of watching it. Back bigspin off the curb, halfcab flip, treflip, kickflip, cruising. We kinda skated the boardslide curb on the other side of the tracks. Jack did some cool 180 crooks, kickflips, bluntslides. Then we went back across the tracks and skated flat for quite some time. Jack, Rob and I played a game of SKATE that Jack won. We did a lot of 180 variations, I did my best 43 shifty ever, Jack and I got 3 flips, all 3 of us got b/s flips, Jack eventually won in the end with fakie tre. Rob and Andy chilled. Carleigh was doing kickflips followed by varial flips and put down a heelflip or two. Jack did a swtich tre, a fakie bigger flip, fakie cab bigspin and probably a million other tricks. I finally somewhat wore off the pain from the earlier slam. I fell a lot and some of them hurt way more then they should, but it was fun. I got a line of fakie flip, halfcab flip, b/s flip. Also managed fakie bigflip, f/s h/c flip, some more and finished with a treflip. Could have gone without the harsh slam in the first minute of skating, but other then that it was fun.

On the way back from our family vacation in Allenspark we went through Nederland and stopped at the skatepark. Ollie and I cruised around for awhile before the stoney baloneys came and bummed out Ollie. He was cruising around pretty good then did the 50-manny-50 and I felt like dad cam’ing it. So there it is above, for your viewing pleasure. Ha, the thing I’m actually the most stoked on is the backside carve after. I’ve never really seen him pump a corner like that. I was feeling pretty out of it and tired for some reason. I guess a few hikes and the higher altitude was messing with me. Plus, that park kinda blows. I managed some lines with front slashes since I’m trying to listen to Grosso and learn frontside grinds. I had a few front 50s on the ledge there and was trying to put together a line, but king stoner sitting on the ledge was bumming me out. I did a few back 50s on the mellow 7′ part of the deep bowl of poorly poured concrete. So anyways, yeah, not the finest session.

After unpacking, a nap, dinner, chilling I went out to Street League park and met up with Fuller, Dave and Matt. I didn’t skate well. Well I guess I actually kinda started ok with some front 50s and crooks on the ledge, but then after that ollie’ing was super hard. The only other thing I did I was remotely hyped on was kickflip to fakie on the wedge kicker thing. John cruises that park pretty well. Did front shove fake on the wedge, front 50s on multiple ledges, ollied into the euro and was extra chatty. Ha. Dave put down some textbook front smiths on the one qp, got a ollie up to fakie back 50 on the wedge and I can’t think of much more, but he was skating well. Matt back 50’d the entire main ledge 2nd try then tried to say it was hard. He front 50’d the one on the other side later, had a lot of solid tricks throughout the park and back 50’d the big hubba. Gnar! We ended with a game of SKATE that didn’t go so well for me, but was fun and John ended up taking it with an impossible.