Feeling slightly better in the warmer weather I set off for the Boulder Skatepark for the game of SKATE Meta/YMCA was having. No one was really there yet when I got there so I skated the curb solo for awhile. It was fun. Just did some basics and avoided flip tricks. Then after awhile John and Dean showed and joined. I still didn’t land much. Almost a kick back tail and almost a back 50 on the low curb to crooks on the 2nd curb. John had some nice 360s to tail. Then the game of SKATE started. I had hardly even skated flat at all. Doh. I think since I was the oldest person to enter I got matched up with a guy that couldn’t do much more then kickflip. He was super nice and it was fun, but yeah, I got to the 2nd round where I got more nervous because people were watching and bailed 2 varial flips giving the dude I was playing every chance to do 3 shove variations and pressure/casper flips. I got pink slipped and bounced immediately to get Ollie to his football game.

Neil, Blake and I headed to Greeley for the grand opening of The Lookout. After checking out the shop there was a game of SKATE in front on the narrow sidewalk. I tried to warm up a little in the alley and man I was struggling. Then the ‘over 40’ game of SKATE started and it was Neil, Eric and I. I bailed pop shoves twice, rolled my ankle a little on an ollie north, didn’t get close to a front shove, but managed to land most no comply / boneless tricks I can do. It was fun. I don’t even know if we really kept track of letters, but Eric one and deserved it.

Then Neil, Blake and I headed to campus. The first spot we hit was the bench spot in the photo above. Neil and I struggled. Getting old is tough sometimes. That spot is setup so that you can do a ledge trick, flatground trick then another ledge trick. I technically landed a line of noseslide to fakie, halfcab flip then crooks (tiniest crook bonk to date). It took me all I had to front 50 the ledge Neil is 50’ing above. Neil was shooting for some lines too, but couldn’t get crooks. Blake front 50’d it no problem and also got noseslides and a sick front 180 nosegrind.

Next we went to that little gap in gap out sidewalk thing. It was somewhat banked up to it on both sides. Not much went down on it. You could skate it like a hip too. Then we moved on near the stadium where I wussed out ollie’ing down a 4 stair and a 5 stair. Blake did them. Blake and I also ollied onto a sidewalk and rolled down a narrow gutter which was pretty fun. Then ollied off a little ledge and slappied a curb.

We found this mini steep bank to curb next that Blake and I skated. I got back axle stall, crooks stall to fakie and front pivot. Blake got axle stall, back pivot, rock fakie (ha).

Then we went to another area that looked incredible for skating, but both Neil and I’s legs were not working. My shoes are partially to blame, the are too small and hurting my feet/legs. Blake had a cool run of manual a ledge, ollie a little wall then ollie a two stair. He also front 180’d the wall then halfcabbed the two stair. That was it on the skating. It felt great being out skating street as I’ve skated too many parks lately, but man my legs were not working. I ate two flour tortillas earlier in the week thinking maybe in the warmer weather I didn’t need to be so concerned about eating gluten free. Nope. Lesson learned.

Setup a new 8.38 and put some shorts on for a brief flatground session. I was still feeling arthritic and only did a couple kickflips. It was more shove its, 180s, bigspins, halfcabs.

Had another super busy day at work and had to text/gchat myself silly trying to coordinate the session. It was stressful. We took the short cut to Fort Collins and were to MRKT by 5:20. Not bad! Then we went to Spring Canyon. The crew was John, Matt, Fuzz, Carleigh, Jack, Dave, Rob and me. When we got to the park it was windy. Rob was cursing. My arthritis was kicking. Matt was dizzy. It was weird.

I skated very badly. Got a rare f/s nosegrind, a small boardslide transfer, a little line with manaul the pad then a kickflilp really low on the qp. My arthritis was kicking though and I was really struggling and frustrated.

Carleigh was off in the pool. I saw a run with a carve over the stairs and a deatbox grind. Wowsers. later on a kickflip and then pole jam.

Fuzz ollied the rail to 50 on the box. Quick up then front 50 the bench then noseslide the ledge. I think?

The wind got to Jack. He didn’t skate much after a slam trying to boardslide over the door.

I haven’t seen John skate in awhile. He had some nice front 50s up the hump, quick up to front 50, some darn good kickflips, pivot fakies, and the highest wallies ever (ha).

Rob had some nice alley oop wallrides, nollie front lips, but pulled a hamstring and had to sit out most of the session.

Matt was ripping. Back nosegrind the whole long ledge, back 5-0 back 180 it too, back lip the little rail, buncha tricks on the bench, nice b/s ollie on the qp.

Fullerton was in effect. Front board to fakie the ledge off the pad, back tail fakie on the tiny qp and the bigger one, sickest line with feeble transfer, blunt transfer then early grab transfer.

Mike had met up with us. He had some super long boardslide transfers, no comply pole jams, switch no comply pole jams, Mike rules.

Then things got silly. It started with Rob going towards the pole jam and just kind of hucking his board and grabbing it and setting it down. We cracked up. Then it became a lap of like 10 of us trying the same thing. It was hilarious.

Then we started going the slappy grind down this. Rob got hurt trying it and john didn’t try it, but everyone else got one or two. It was so fun. Then it just kept getting more carried away. Dave killed it with the coffin grind. He did some better ones too. Fuzz got a tuck knee one. Jack did one to manual. Dave got a 5-0 too. Mike went switch! I tried some weird one for awhile with both feet on the tail and my hands on the nose, but I just kept falling and making everyone laugh. Then the sprinkler turned on and we scrambled to get out of there. The dork session at the end more then made up for the bad skating earlier.

Another cold and windy day. So over it. So it my arthritis. I went out to Rampy thinking I would try some more new tricks. But it didn’t go well. I really didn’t land much at all. My front d’s are doing good and fakie pivots to fakie. But I struggled on other stuff I wanted to try. Got an ok f/s flip on flat. Failed at 3 flips yet again. I want warm weather.

After a fun morning celebrating with Ollie by shooting nerf guns at each other and playing video games I went out to Rampy while he worked on homework. It was really fun. I was kinda feeling out something new to try and settled with fakie front smith stall to fakie. I landed a few. I had done fakie slash to fakie before, but only with a tiny little truck tap, not fully on like a smith. It hyped me up and the only times I landed it were in a run with a back smith stall. I also did a run with front d, fakie pivot fakie and front feeble. Well, that sounds good, but here’s how it really went. Axle stall, front d, rock fakie, fakie pivot fakie, tail stall, rock fakie, tail stall, front feeble. Oh well, still fun. Did a treflip on flat (with both hands down as that’s the only way I can land them now) to end it and called it a fun little session.

Got up super early to meet up with everyone at Arvada park. I was the last one there and I arrived at 7:15. Geez. The park had quite a few people already. I joined Chad, Fuzz, Carleigh and Jack in the big snake run. I guess the mindset was to skate the scariest thing first to warm up. It ended up being really fun. It’s pretty much impossible to describe in words who carved where, but everyone seemed to go fast and push themselves. Fuzz had a couple gnarly slams. Jack too. Chad could carve into the upper left corner. The new stuff for me was to do a rock ‘n roll on the pool coping qp on the top right then roll ever a big hump. Ha. Carleigh was getting pretty high on the big vert wall.

Then a few of us skated the smaller bowl. I had some fun back 50s down the little escalator, but wussed out of a front d in a corner. Doh. Jack was rolling into it from anywhere and doing back ds on the weird bank extension. Fuzz had nice long front 5-0s. Rob cruised it good.

Then Rob and I ollied up the tall platform and Neil couldn’t??? What is the world coming to? Neil! Fuzz of course did it too.

Then came session on the little weird qp to ledge thing up near the drinking fountains. Neil did a bunch of back disasters. Jack did pivot fakie and then died on a bigspin pivot attempt. Shook it off then did it next try. Gnarly. Fuzz did switch pivot fakie, switch blunt and front noseblunt. Whoa. Rob had some rad crail stalls and front d. Blake had some sick slappy front 50s. I thought what Blake was doing was sick so tried it and got a few slappy back 50s on it, but couldn’t get crooks.

I think we did an uphill boardslide session next on the long concrete double sided ledge. Fuzz did boardslide fakie and halfcab boardslide. Gnarly! Jack did boardslide to feeble, boardslide 270 to primo (ha!), boardslide 270 shove. Rob did boardslide transfer and Neil was doing boardslide to fakie all easy. Blake was trying boardslide shove. I got last place with a boardslide.

Some of went over for flippers on the mellow blue chip which is my favorite thing to skate at Arvada. It started off pretty good for me with kickflips b/s and f/s, a bigflip, but then I got stuck on halfcab flip and even more stuck on treflip to fakie. Rob came up big with a biggee front heel. Wow! Fuzz took the longest to get kickflip to fakie (two whole tries ha), had the record for most non-flip tricks (some good ones in there!) and had a halfcab flip easy. He bailed a f/s halfcab flip though after saying “If I bail this one I owe you a cider”. He bailed. Pay up holmes! Blake had some weird front shove revert thing and back heel. Everyone left and I kept trying 360 flips to fakie, eventually just giving up. Ugh.

After some lunch and hanging at Crisis for awhile we accumulated Fullertron and went to this spot. Pretty sick spot. I was so sore/tired though that just rolling into the banks hurt initially. I struggled through it being the stubborn idiot I am and had a couple fun bonelesses and a bunch of no slide tailslide(s). I wanted to do kickflip to fakie, but didn’t. Blake did his front shove revert trick again. Neil sat. Rob was skating good and locked into some good front tails, had a sick no comply boneless all easy and steezy (sorry), b/s flip, crail stalls. Dave killed it in typical Dave fashion. Mini handplants, crail stall variations, front tailslides, boneless, fakie shove, but couldn’t get the back tailslide to fakie. Fun, long day that was done by 2:30pm.

After work I picked up Matt and we met Jack at the Mikes Camera manny pad. I managed my two manny tricks kinda quick for me. Kickflip manual and nose manual shove. Matt slammed pretty hard on a kickflip up. Ouch. He had a nice halfcab manual going fast, nollie manual and tried treflip manuals. Jack had fakie bigspin manual back 180 out and probably a few more tricks. We went over to the ledge for a bit too. I was intimidated by the 2 sided part of the ledge and barely got a front 50. Ugh. Got crooks and boardslide pop out the other way. Matt had some fast front 50, 5-0, smith, tailslide, back 50, back tail. Wowsers. Jack had swtich crooks, front lip, switch hurricane (so good), back 5-0 and a bunch more. Fun quick session before I went and celebrated 16 years of marriage with The Mighty LZA.

Went to Lafayette park after dinner feeling pretty unmotivated and antisocial, but wanted to cruise around mellow. I arrived to a pretty normal Lafayette scene. A few skaters, bikers, scooters. I had done a few laps around the park when carload after carload of older rollerbladers showed up. Dudes with beards on rollerblades? Yeah, like 20 of them. That pretty much killed any desire I had left. Especially when they posted up on pretty much everything. I skated for about 45 minutes and can’t think of a single highlight.

After a busy day at work and then busy day with kids Matt picked me up and we met up with everyone at Broomfield park. And I literally mean everyone. Eric, Blake, Neil, Rob, Fuzz, Carleigh, Jack, Darin and more. The park was crowded with youngin’s too. I was about to go into ‘stand around and watch at a busy skatepark’ mode, but ended up skating. Matt was doing good stuff on the ledges already. I went up up and ran into the steep bank a few times to get warmed up. Fuzz too. It’s really hard to know what all everyone else was doing because there was so much going on. Rob did a rock ‘n roll on the steep bank which I’ve never even see him try before. Fuzz did some steezy decked rocks and front rocks. I had dropped in on a taller part of the pool coping in the flow bowl hoping that I would get over the fear of dropping into the pool. I then said if I land a front rock on the steep bank I’d drop in. Landed the front rock. Doh. But ended up dropping in fine into the shallow end. That was enough tranny skating for me! Ha. Then a black ledge session went down. I didn’t really skate it. But I saw a lot go down. Matt back tail, fakie 5-0. Fuzz lipslide, front nosegrind and bluntslide to scorpion. Rob and Neil crooks. Neil front nosegrind. Darin lots. I took a long time to nose manual the blue box, but did it. Blake was trying noseslide transfers onto the brown ledge. I got a super rare front nosegrind. Stoked! Then played with Darin for awhile on Kickflip, heelflip, treflip all together. Felt good on the kickflips and heelflips, but treflips were elusive. I landed a few with hands down, but that’s an over 50 make and I’m not 50 quite yet. Matt did that quick. And fakie too I think. I ollied the six stair in a couple tries. Felt great. Really fun. I should ollie more stairs and should have tried the double set. Jack was all over the park killing it the way he does. He is not a stock skater and it rules. He hyped me up for the six stair. Matt and I posed a couple kickflips down it, but never got close to committing. Carleigh got a couple back d’s on the brick qp as time was winding down. Fun night. My flatground game was off, but dropping into the pool, ollie’ing the six and getting a front nosegrind made the night fun for me.