Ollie had some friends sleep over the night before and they wanted to go swimming. In my head I was thinking I would go skate Lafayette park while they went swimming at the louisville rec center. But Neil had some plans going on with a fun crew in Louisville and things worked out perfectly. I dropped the boys off at the pool then met up with Jake, Neil, Lazer and Blake at the little mini park by Neil’s house. Street Lazer was in effect when I showed. Kickflip, back 180 and nollie back 180 the gap. So sick! Blake surprised me with nollie front 180 down it. Jake was trying halfcab front 50, but almost landing halfcab front 5-0s. It was mostly a warm up session there. I was just starting to get into the groove when it was called out that we should move on to a new spot. I ollied the low part of the flat bar on the way out. Lazer and Neil ollied the tall part.

Somehow carless Neil saw a new spot in the Louisville Tech Center. He didn’t even know there was a perfect angle iron ledge sitting there propped up against a fence. Seriously? What’s the purpose of that thing other then to skate? We put it out of the bump to skate like a bump to ledge. It was great frontside. Well, it took me awhile to even get it a front 50 and I was a little drama bitch about it for a few minutes, but it worked out and I got into it. Street Lazer was killing it. Front 50 first try, front tail, a lot of tries for a front nosegrind and even ollied the whole thing the long way. Jake got front 50, front 5-0, front tail and front 50 to front board. Blake is goofy footed which is a problem in itself, and it was hard for him to hit the ledge. Ha, but it didn’t stop him from doing back nosegrind, back crooks front 50s and more. Neil struggled with front tails for awhile and let it be known that he was frustrated. He did front 50s easy and more. After a slow start I ended up having a great session. Front 50 in a line where I went behind the ledge, kickflipped up a curb and ollied a tiny, but really weird gap and then came back for crooks into the bank which I landed, but not in the line. Also got front 5-0, front 50 shove and front 5-0 shove.

Then we turned the ledge so the long size was parallel with the bank and skated it like a bank to ledge. Street Lazer did front 50 first try and front 5-0 super good. Blake did a bunch of willy grinds and crooks or two. Neil found a good line to front 50 stalls and had the sickest half-assed no comply to tail ever. Followed by a legit one. The half-assed one was seriously so awesome in an old guy skater kind of way. He put his foot back on as he was riding down the bank all steezy. Jake was the second to last man standing with front 50, almost back blunt and a sick front nosepick. I slammed on a front 50 stall, got a front 50 stall, front rock, back crook grind, noseslide, front smith stall. I started trying kick back 50 stalls and after accidentally getting into kick back smith I got the back 50. It was sloppy and I went for another and instead got kick back smith. Tight! It must have not been very good though because no one seemed to care. I probably Bachinsky’d the lunch break or something, but either way I was really hyped. Then I had to go pick up the kids. What an awesome session considering I was just supposed to be giving the kids a ride to the pool and back.

Null day! First in awhile. Carleigh, Jack, Max, Blaine and I met Chad at this new manny pad spot in Denver. It’s still under construction and will soon have a handrail around it we’re certain. But on this day the only obstacle was human crap on the far side right where you’d want to land/ollie. It sucked. Jack found a car floor mat we put over most of it to at least by us some comfort. Jack and Max were pulling some moves quick. Carleigh and I were doing accidental wallies up. Chad was struggling for reasons unknown to him. I was trying nose mannies at one point, slammed and looked up to see if Jack was laughing at me, but he was nowhere to be found. Turned out he had rolled his ankle yet again wallieing off an orange cone. He’s been on a bad streak lately and it’s tough to see. He went Tommy Gunz though and kept skating. It was crazy. Unfortunately he got pretty bummed and ended up tweaking it again. Argh mang. I never ended up getting a nose manual, but got a few manuals. One of which was right after Jack got up from rolling his ankle and casually manualed it like it was nothing. I also got kickflip up back 180 off, kickflip up no comply 180 off, front 180 up f/s halfcab off, a few things that kept me from being too bummed. Carleigh was hucking nollie back 3s off (aka helipops aka Romars) and getting pretty close in my book. Blaine killed it filming. Max got a sick line and a funny clip where his board shot out into traffic and got run over. That spot gave off all kinds of weird vibes. Between the hipsters and homeless people walking by it was non-stop weirdness. The homeless guy ranting about the rebar being dangerous got old the after the fifth time he walked by.

Then we ended up at the Church of Scientology. There was a fun downhill alley with a few little bumps and a tall backside ledge for regular footers. Blaine was doing some rad lines with tricks into the hills. Halfcabs, back 180s, no comply 180’s etc. Carleigh too. Chad was trying front 180 nosegrind and got close. I was doing some nollies that felt taller then my normal nose scrapes then noseslides, but a car parked in the way. I ended up getting a couple fun feeling lines. Kickflip into a mini bump, noseslide the ledge, back 180 off a curb cut. Pop shove the little bump, noseslide to fakie, switch front 180 off the curb cut. I was hyped. At that point some obnoxious car pulled up and said we were on private property and asked us to leave. I didn’t actually hear it, but it sounded really annoying and I’m sure I would have been a smart ass. Pretty weird day. My legs felt pretty numb and arthritic.

We hung at Crisis again drinking some beers and watching skate videos. John showed up and after awhile called out the Broomfield park so we did it. It was only open for 30 more minutes. John, Fuzz and I played a game of O-L-D on the quartapotty. John is super good at tranny, but somehow was the first out. He can’t do front disasters? So funny. He can do pivots to fakie, but not a front D. Crazy! Fuzz did a sex change disaster which I’ve maybe done on a qp once like 10 years ago. Maybe longer. First one was close. We were playing loose rules and I was able to get it a few tries later. Pretty hyped actually. Then the lights shut off. There was a little light in the corner and John and I tried some switch noseslide variations. The John Brandow patent tricks. They are basically slappies, but man they are fun. Fun session. I haven’t skated with a few beers in me in a long long time and it was honestly pretty fun. Felt great to see my friends so much this weekend.

My NB+ shoes were in need of repairs and when I took the ol’ glue gun there was some weird reaction to the tech layer and it kinda mutated into some weird bubble that I didn’t want to skate. So I showed up at SOL on a rainy friday afternoon in my new Lakai Guys. I’ve had these shoes before and loved them. After today I think I’m sold on Lakai XLKs from here on out. When I got to SOL there was a few people playing foosball and I joined in for a bit then we skated. My new shoes felt much better on tranny right out of the gate. Much better board feel. I didn’t rip by any means, but I didn’t skate as bad as I normally do there. Lots of Longmont locals came in and out of there. Chad, Uriel, a few younger kids that were ripping, a dude that just moved to Longmont that was destroying it. Dude was seriously slaying it. Front 180 fakie 5-0 to fakie, back smith over the extension, back 5-0 to fakie over it, hurricanes to fakie, etc. All fast and powerful. I got to the point where I would land more then one trick besides axle stalls in a run so I was happy. Had one with front rock, front d and fakie back smith to fakie in it. I left feeling really happy and went to Crisis for the Fallen premiere.

After the Fallen premiere we were hanging out and Blaine starts messing around with some slappies. Before long it turned into a full on session. The crew was Fuzz, Blaine, Carleigh (in a skirt!), Jack and I and we skated for a pretty long time. I was skating Fuzz’s board. Jack was doing lots of fast grinds which aren’t easy on that waxless curb. As you can see from the videos there were a lot of boneless style tricks, slappies and a front pivot kickflip out. I had tried that on Fuzz’s board a few times and he said I should land it. So I did. Whoa. Not even that many tries. It kicked off an hour long frenzy for Fuzz to get one too. Which he did perfect. Not the funny one above, he got one bolts. Carleigh was getting into legit backside slappies which is pretty hard on that square curb. If it was waxed I’d be willing to bet some would have been landed. Blaine was kinda all over too trying a bunch of random tricks. Jack had a pretty epic slam sliding out and shooting his board breaking a table leg, but somehow not breaking the window. Whew. He had another one with the board getting caught in his feet and he almost hit his head on the Lowcard toilet. Ha ha. There were a lot of silly boneless tricks and powerslide noseslides. So fun. A couple of my favorites were the f/s 270 slide to tail and boneless 270 to tail. What a fun night. I drove home late feeling some of the best physically and mentally I’ve felt in awhile. The rain had stopped and driving down the hill into Boulder I could see patches of fog hovering over the city. It was beautiful. Pissed Jeans was cranked on the stereo. Awesome.

Alright so I’ve been good at stretching and moving around and all the things that normally have me feeling pretty good physically. But the last couple days I have felt so bad. Dizzy, tired, lack of motivation, sore as hell. I tried to play football with Ollie and running was so hard. Just finding the will to take the first steps sometimes is hard enough. So it hit me, shit, my arthritis is raging. Guess it’s crept up slowly or it’s due to the weather/season change or something. Ugh. It’s really hard to describe how it effects me, but basically it makes everything harder then it is normally. It’s not all that painful, it’s more just feeling very stiff, sore having no confidence. So perfect time to go skate and prove how dumb and stubborn I am. I had been thinking about Arvada park all day and went with it. No one else was able to make it, but that park is fun enough anyway and there is always someone there I know (Cameron was there this time). The park was pretty crowded when I got there around 8pm. Lots of bikers, quite a few lurkers, dudes with shirts off and Monster tattoos, etc. I started out at the top tiny qp and took several tries to do basics. Moved down the blue banks area where I bummed out people by trying tricks on the bank rather then standing on it. Got sick of that so went over to the bank to curb, struggled for a hurricane grind. Skated the little bowl for awhile doing only axle stalls and carves bumming out the flyout kings. The snake run was empty so I hit that for awhile. Carving that big ass wall is fun and scary. I got no where near the top, but I could have touched the coping with my hand if I wanted to. I took a long time to do an axle stall on the qp by the doorway coming out of the snakerun, but I did and bugged out of that area to the Pier 7 marble pad. Over there I bailed back 50s and flip tricks. I never really landed anything there, but it was kinda fun because when I did I would go down to the step up and manual that and do a kickflip to fakie on the blue bank. I skated the miniramp for awhile. Started slow, but ended up having some ok runs for me that included front ds, fakie back smith fakies and front rocks in them. Then I went above and was trying a flip trick, a tiny qp trick then front 50 the marble ledge into the bank. Which is scary. I had a few ok lines going in, but it took me awhile to commit to landing the front 50 in the bank. Last area I skated was the little area by the smaller pole jam. I got a run of crooks on the tiny qp, no comply pole jam, ollie into the wide hubba then bail ollieing up the 3 stair. There was no way my legs could do that in my condition. Argh. Frustrating day, but realizing that it hasn’t been just in my head and that my arthritis is messing with me made me relax and enjoy that I can at least somewhat skate (unlike two years ago when I couldn’t get out of bed).

On a very nice afternoon I met up with Dave at the rollerblade park. He was skating the hockey rink when I arrived and we warmed up trying to manual from one side to the other. We eventually did so. I had new wheels so that kinda helped although kinda threw me off too. My old wheels had gotten down well under 50mm so it was time for some new ones. Since I had cracked my board trying to ollie over a small cone I setup a new board too. This one was 8.125. An entire 1/8 of an inch larger. It didn’t feel much different, but the new wheels did. In the skatepark things were mellow. Dave did a rad layback boardslide down the hubba. I didn’t see the start of it so I asked a kid that was there “Did he ollie into it?” and he replied with “Yeah I can do it” then went up and ollied into the bank. Ha that was pretty funny. I was feeling tired and run down yet again and my legs were sore as ever. I’m so sick of that. As far as other tricks I don’t remember much. Dave did boardslide and boardslide fakie on the wavy rail. I struggled with ollies over the little flat bar. Pathetic. Dave left and I tried a few more things. Got a line of front 5-0 on the ledge, kickflip to fakie on the bank, halfcab noseslide on the ledge. As impressive as that sounds slow it down and imagine me doing it. I flailed at some flip tricks for awhile after that. I thought having a wider board would make the trucks feel looser, but everything felt tighter. Weird. Maybe it was having new wheels that felt bigger.

After a long and frustrating day with the family I went out skating with Ollie around 4pm. He wanted to go to campus which stoked me out because that’s where I wanted to go as well. As soon as we got there we felt a few rain drops. But we pushed on, ollied a 3 stair, dropped in on the curved long hubba, rode down the 4 stairs and kinda settled in on a rock ollie. I was trying to line it out rolling off a drop, kickflip, ollie the rock. Never got the ollie because it started pouring. Ollie had gotten close to ollieing onto it and riding over it. What the heck CO why you rain so much?

Then we went to the parking garage above. We had tried to go to the one next to it, but it was closed off due to flood damaage and the lights weren’t working. Ollie was pretty bored with this one. He did manage to wallie over a parking block though and do a bunch of fakie shoves and 180’s off the little curb. He almost did a gap to front board too. It was funny. I tried a couple lines. First was kickflip over a parking block (which was hard for some reason), b/s flip (which I only landed once), fakie ollie up a curb, sw front 180 off, no comply 180 then f/s halfcab flip to front board. Believe it or not the one time I got the b/s flip I got insanely close to the whole line. I put the fshcffb down and slid it a little and everything. I gave up on that eventually and went with manual, 360 flip, kick back lip on the little curb, then ollie the cone. Never got the kick back lip obviously (although it was close). Only ollied the cone once or twice and on one of them I landed on the tail and cracked the crap out of my board. Oh well, that one was kinda dieing anyway. Ollie was bored so taking photos. He never got one with me over the cone, but this failed attempt is a way better photo anyway. I love how the cone is knocked down so clearly I wasn’t even close.

Had the day off work and after sleeping in late after old man night at Launch Jake showed up at my house ready to go skate. We went to little arvada on a super nice and sunny day, not very hot. I thought I would be more sore then I was, but I came out ok. Jake was hitting the ledge, but I kind of avoided it for awhile as I was still pretty stiff. He was on front 50s quick and added back 50, crooks, front 50 to front board and noseslide shove which I’ve never seen him do before. We were all over the place though. Jake had some good lines with back blunt on the qp, front tail on the steep bank, front blunts on the top qp, ollies over the twinkie hip. I had a few crooks and front 50s on the ledge, but mostly just had fun skating the tranny stuff. Did some stuff I haven’t done there before like front slash the really tight opposite corner, back 50 on the tall qp that went down the escalator and around the corner. Actually yeah, that was one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done. I tried it again and slammed so hard with my hip landing on the coping. Ouch. Had a fun line of front tail on the top qp, tiny ollie on the twinkie hip, crooks the ledge. I also got a backside kickflip on the quarter pipe near the spine. That hyped me up too. That was pretty much it. Fun time. I finally had a session that was fun the whole time through.

Woke up tired, feeling old and grouchy. Went to work and it just made it worse. Was super busy and annoyed all day. Ugh. Since I was halfway to Longmont I met Dave at his house. I beat him there and sat in my car listening to the comedy channel and Dave Chappelle came on was so funny I started laughing hysterically. That got me in a better mood. We went to Sol where we were to meet the rest of the crew. Dave skated and I played Allan in foosball. Those guys took awhile to show so I eventually got on the ramp and tried to play fakie ollies with Dave. He kills that trick. I was feeling very arthritic and not confident. Ugh. Then we left for Fort Collins. Along the way we got some yummy mexican tacos, had some car problems and still got there around 8pm.

The ramp wasn’t too crowded. After saying hello’s to lots of people we got on the ramp. Oh actually Fuzz and I skated the new little ramp in the back room for a bit. Lots of flat with tighter tranny then Rampy. Still fun though. At this point I felt ok on a skateboard. Then we went out to the big ramp. I had 4 runs with bailed axle stall on the first wall. I almost lost my shit. I left for a minute and just sat by myself looking at my skateboard wondering why I even bother. I eventually went back in and did a few crappy kickflips to try and get some board feel going. This seemed to help. I got back up on the ramp and had better runs. Nothing great, but being surrounded by a bunch of friends is awesome. People were killing it. Remembering who all did what is impossible, but I’ll try a few highlights. John had runs of all kind of ollies. Backside, frontside, fakie, etc. So rad. Fullertron of course killed it and was the last man standing come the end of the night. And the oldest. What gives? He did a switch backside ollie! Repeat, switch backside ollie! That seems like pretty much the hardest trick ever. He had all kinds of tricks. Old and new. Fuzz skated ramp as good as I’ve ever seen him. And that says a lot. Ric kills it and was more trick oriented then I’ve seen in the past. The frontside grab to disaster was so rad. I guess he also did a manual on the deck for the first time. Old guys doing new tricks! I finally met Kevin Marks and he had some good lines too. Back d revert, pivot fakie, back tail. Rob battled a feeble grind on the abrasive pool coping and won. Mike was there killing it in ways that only he can. Loud carve grinds around the corners backside, frontside and even switch! Geez! Andy, John and I played a game of SKATE that I would eventually win on a pop shove rewind. Ha, we were getting so desperate at the end to land tricks. A full on street session didn’t really happen, but the three of us skated flat and the little ledge for awhile. John learned front big to backside noseslide. So sick. I got back on the ramp after this. When it was all said and done I had landed quite a few of my tricks. Front d, front smith (kind of), fakie back smith fakie, back scratch grind to fakie, and a few grinds around the corner. It made me feel better. But man my legs feel so arthritic. Argh. All in all though a really fun night as these always are.

Had a bad day at work. Wanted to be alone. Or so I thought. Went to the old Mike’s Camera manny pad, but it seems like the rains from the floods pretty much destroyed that parking lot. Went to a campus, but couldn’t deal with all the students so I left. Ended up at the research center ledge. I waxed it up then tried to skate. That spot is lit really well. It would be fun to do a couple tricks down the hill then pop up the curb, do a ledge trick then go around to the manny pad. I was sucking though. No motivation. No coordination. My arthritis has been sucking lately. It takes a lot of confidence out of me. It’s funny because I had a couple lines that might sound ok on paper (or in html), but I was skating so slow and disengaged. Got fakie bigflip, pop shove, kickflip up the curb, crooks. Also the slowest treflip ever followed by the worst back 50. I left. Argh.

Got called for work at 5:50 am. Ugh. That felt ridiculously early and all day I was tired. I got out early on a really warm afternoon were the sun was finally out and instead of going skating right away I went to sleep and woke up still feeling tired. Jake and Rob hit me up and a few minutes later we were rolling to Safeway ledges to meet Neil and the Square State kids. I was very unmotivated. The only things that I felt remotely good about were crooks on the low fence ledge and a hurricane (no grind though) on the main ledge. Neil was having troubles with his knee, but still had no problems ollieing over two cinder blocks a million times and doing speedy lipsslides. Rob did a cab noseslide! He had another banger at the end that I’m not remembering right now. Doh. Jake had hops over the cinder blocks too and had a line with front 180 the blocks and fakie front tail. Wowsers. Blake, Brendan and Alec all ripped. Brendan and Alec could ollie the cinder block like it was a crack. Darn kids. Near the end D5 and a crew showed up. So weird seeing them there.

Then we all went to Broomfield park when Fullertron showed up. The park was super crowded with bikers, skaters and mud from the floods. Luckily it thinned out a bit shortly. That park gets mad busy because no one really stops and it’s always just craziness. So I really didn’t see a whole lot of what else was happening. I tried a lot of John Brandows. Aka slappy switch front noseslides. I hadn’t really gone back to switch before which was way fun. The locals there rip. There was a million amazing tricks going down on the brick qp and the ledges at full speed. I saw Fullertron do a sick b/s boneless on the brick qp. Jake and I boardslid the tiny rail first try. Blake, Alec and Brendan all boardslid the flat and down of the rail. A couple front 50s when down to. I settled into blue ledge/quartapotty with Rob. I would land a bonked front nosegrind, be bummed that I didn’t pop out enough, do a trick on the qp, then a trick on the blue ledge. I got a few back 5-0s, almost with shove out. I had tried a bunch of front nosegrinds when Rob started trying them. He landed one about 5 tries later and it bummed me out big time. Not that he did it, just how bad I am at skateboarding. I almost called it quits for the night, but kept at it and a few tries later finally managed to land one without bonking. Whew. It felt great though and my spirits soared back to being happy and for the next few minutes I skated about as good as I can. First try front 50 kickflip out. Treflips. Almost fakie treflip. Lots of tricks on the quartapotty like fakie front 50, front d 180, back 50 fakie, fakie joe hamilton, etc. Unfortunately Jake was hungry so we had to leave. Doh. Glad I finally warmed up after 3 hours of skating though.