Had the day off work and oh man was it nice out. Met Rob, Jake, Brett and Dave at the Street League park. We were there to lower the scoring curve. Warming up there isn’t easy, everything is tall. Maybe unless you are a 20 something year old like Jake. He was scoring some points right away. 50’ing ledges right away, etc. He had a nice front 50 to front board and front 5-0 on the bump to ledge. I finally got a front 50 on it. Brett was ripping too and landed his first ever switch heel off the little bumb. Jake tried to mess with the scoring by standing in Dave’s way which caused a board to the head when Dave fell on a nosestall to fakie on the bank to ledge. I would have DQ’d Jake, but Dyrdek is more generous. I got a front D on the qp. Jake did back blunt on it. Dave had some rad boneless (I think) variations where he would just throw the board away. I could not land a kickflip to fakie from the higher kicker to the lower kicker. Oh yeah, I had a new board:

Super hyped on this graphic and the fact that Null is 10 now. In fact I think it’s crazy. But, back to the training. It’s hard to remember all that went down. Jake ollied the rock gap. I wussed out. I had a treflip on flat early on that got a lot of love. That’s only because it’s a dream trick of Rob’s right now and Jake hasn’t landed them lately. I let Jake take a couple tries on my board and he was amazed at how awesome it flipped around. He looked jealous. But I told him I’m more jealous of someone that can skate high trucks and not complain. Dave worked on nollie cabs and landed a couple fitting in the over 40 category. He will soon be in the over 45 category and will have a whole new lower bar that will still be sicker then Johny 19 Year Old kickflipping a 10. I got an ollie up the euro on the mellow side to front 180 up the tall 2. Felt good. Near the end we skated the long ledge for awhile. Brett got noseslide shove and some long front 50s. Jake did halfcab noseslide, back 50, front 50 and probably more. I got a few back crooks, front 50s, front 5-0s, a front 50 shove (over 40 make), and a sketchy back 50 for my highest back 50 in a few years. neat session. Sorry this journal entry is totaly incoherent, but I don’t remember it much and I’ve had a couple glasses of wine.

Skated across the street on the curbs at the school for a bit. Did some 50s. That was about it. Felt like dook on a skateboard.

Finally, a spring feeling night in the 50s with some light rain. Went to red curbs to meet Rob. I arrived first and did a few laps around to warm up and could tell it would be a tough night for skating. Rob showed though and things got better. We mostly skated the non-red curb that’s waxed up all good now (above). Rob had some good nollie lips and was going for nollie lip to front 50. Came close. I had a few front lips and wanted to learn boardslides to fakie. I got a couple, but they weren’t popped out right. Hucked some kick back lips and got somewhat close. Definitely want to keep trying that one. Rob was also trying nollie 50s and nollie 5-0s and killing some long back 50s. I wanted to do a line of fakie flip, switch ollie onto the little sidewalk by the door to the building, switch 180 off the curb, lipslide, but I couldn’t get the switch ollie up the curb. I haven’t even tried a switch ollie in so long. No idea why I was trying it, but I was. I didn’t land much for flip tricks either. I ended after a pretty good slam on a slappy front tail. Red curbs ist rad.

After some early morning basketball with Ollie I went over to Jason’s where I met Fuzz and Neil. We got Jason in his electric wheelchair and loaded it up into his van, picked up Jake and hit this spot again. It’s name has become Retal Curbs! Like Red Curbs, but metal. We met Dave, Brian, Carleigh and Denise here too. It was rad seeing Jason with some freedom cruising around the spot on his own and he even pulled me in for a boardslide. Ha. Lots of boardslides went down initially. Fuzz and Neil quickly added a bunch more like lipslides, nollie lips, etc. Jake had quite a few tricks too. A random Boulder skater showed for awhile and took some sketchy looking falls. Dave killed it as usual. This time he got the front 50 back 180 out. Also front 50 to front board. Feeble transfers, everything. Fuzz had a sick fakie front 50. Brian had a sick front board. Denise had a cute drink. Jake stacked up quite a few tricks too, but I’m failing to remember them now.

I had gotten kinda bored with the spot and started looking around and ended up putting down a really fun line. Ollie the little red flag on the far left, manual the median, curve right and do a treflip on flat then a boardslide on the flat bar followed by a front 180 over a couple cracks. Not all that cool, but man it was fun. Carleigh showed pretty late in the session and I saw her get into a hurricane on the bar. Gnarly.

Then we went to Crest View Elementary where we skated hard forever. The long aluminum bench is kinda intimidating initially. At least to us old people. Jason was cruising around in his chair again. It was awesome to see his smile. Neil had some good boardslides on the first bench. Coming the other way had some good front 50s. Jake was on the same tip. Tried to get front shove out, but didn’t quite. Fuzz killed it. Boardslide the long bench. Ollie the bench, back 50 the tall side, boardslide transfer to tail crack and a lot more. Carleigh was going for a line of kickflip then front 50, but slid out when she got into 50. Dave took a super gnarly slam. It didn’t stop him though. He almost got a line with front 50 then front board transfer. But that’s what he slammed hard on. He got boardslide transfer too. I couldn’t boardslide the long bench, but probably did 50 kickflips up the curb going the other way to set up for front 50s (which I normally bailed). Got one with a shove out near the end. Took forever. But anytime there is a curb to kickflip up I’m gonna be having fun. Dave and I also got boardslides to manual. I had a little line of boardslide then crook grind fall off then sit on the bench. I tried to hang with Fuzz doing ollie up then ollie up again to manual, but couldn’t. Fuzz did it so sick with manual drop to manual drop to manual. He’s good. Dave did a super sick hippy jump too. Fuzz and I messed around with this little downhill line to curb cut. I had a fun run of kickflip into the handicap ramp, ollie a crack halfway down then ollied into the downhill curb cut. Fuzz switch 180’d in then ollied out of the curb cut over a crack. Pretty darn awesome. Super fun day. Then we went to 3 Margs and Jason’s where we watched the documentary on Skatopia which is quite horrible (because of the content). But all in all a totally awesome day.

After a busy family morning watching Ollie play two flag football games back to back (scoring 5 or 6 touchdowns!) Rob came over and we went to this ledge/hip spot. It was immediately fun. It’s so awesome that Rob is around again. He had a backside boneless over the hip pretty early on that hyped me up big time. Neither of us were killing the ledge, the downhill/uphill parts of it are weird. But we were starting to get some basics down when Neil showed and ripped it up. He would skate the ledge uphill, land a trick then go back down the bike path to a trick on the hip, then back up to the ledge. He did some really good ollies over the hip and one foots. Rob tried to get pretty tech on the ledge with 180 nosegrinds and back 180 fakie 50s. We also did some back 180’s off the first part of the ledge like a kicker or started with flatground tricks at the top (I went with heelflip). Near the end I tried a bunch of 3 flips over the hip, but couldn’t quite get them so I went for kickflip to fakie on the steeper part of the bank. So fun. Neil did one too. Rob had a steezy tail block. I added a fakie flip and kind of a fakie flip over the hip thing and we moved on to an old classic Boulder spot.

This is the spot! Great flat ground and a manny pad. Perfect! They have added the bike racks since the last time I was there so it’s not quite as easy to skate, but still awesome. Neil manny and nose mannied the long way quick. Then did a line with a nollie front 180, halfcab manual then nose manual the long way. Rob had nose manny and manny quick too. Also tried a line of manual a corner then front 180 nose manual the other corner. Didn’t quite get it. Also had some good flatground lines with no complys, shoves, etc that were sick. I went more the trick up trick down route. Kickflip up/down was real quick. Started going kickflip up, treflip off and after a few sketchy ones put one down that felt amazing. Few tries later added b/s flip off. Finally did the manny and nose manny the long way. Then added a weird halfcab flip off and a line with front 180 up, a horrible sw mongo push and then a fakie bigflip off. So stoked! Ended by doing another treflip off and called it a day. What a blast! We grabbed some grub then went to the art show at Installation which was really fun too.

It took two days to heal from my 40 trick day. But I was feeling good and extra motivated for multiple reasons. First, listening to that PJ Ladd song (the first song in his part was too short so we went with the after credits song which I almost like even more) reminded me of the PJ part. So I watched it. A bunch. When PJLWHL came out I was probably at my most motivated point in skating. So I kind of had that vibe going. And my 40 trick clip had me motivated to be a better skater and skate faster. I still feel like I should have cared about the tricks I was doing a little more for that clip, but oh well, it was a blast. Okay, longest intro ever for an hour long parking garage session. I had to break my ‘not wearing a beanie anymore because it’s supposed to be warm” pledge. I started out cold and pushing around the place fast. Ollies over the parking blocks were hard initially. After a bit I felt warm and started trying some lines. First one was was ollie onto the far left sidewalk, head to the right then front tail to fakie on the parking block, halfcab flip then kick back lip on another curb. Didn’t get the last trick. Started trying a different line starting with back tail instead, then treflip then kick front 50. Came super close and was hyped on how fast I was going on the treflips. The back tail were barely even skidders though. I ollied the newspaper rack a few times again, once even in a line after manualling the above sidewalk which didn’t leave me much setup space. Another line I tried was ollieing a crack to crack gap, slappy back tailslide, front lip a parking block. Didn’t get all 3. Was able to kickflip over the parking block really easy. Got a front shove first real try. Almost got backside flip over it. Got a fakie bigspin. Did a lot of tricks cruising around faster then I thought I could. Ended by front lipping a parking block then trying to ollie the newspaper stand again and landing right on it. Ha. Super fun session though. Wish I always had that much energy and motivation.

Today was a big day. Went to Broomfield park a little after 10 am on a super nice day. The goal was to film 40 tricks in a fun way that makes fun of me and highlights how lucky I am to know so many amazing people and skaters. It went better then expected and was a total blast to do. There is gonna be a video of it so I don’t need to list the tricks I did and ruin the surprise. I’ll just say I did 40 tricks and it took me almost 8 hours to do them. I obviously got really tired and could not be picky with how I landed tricks. There were a few where I was so tired and could hardly do them, but whatevs, it was a blast. Big thanks to Chad and Jack for not giving up on a few of the harder ones. And of course, thanks to everyone that came and showed me up! Dinner and videos at Crisis after was a blast too. What a good day. So many awesome people.

Ollie turned 11 years old on this day! So the day was full with different activities for his birthday. I watched the PJ vs Moose game of SKATE and got super hyped to skate some flatground. PJ is my favorite and seeing him land tricks that I’ve never seen him do in all my nerdness was inspiring. It’s not just the tricks though, it’s how he does them. The Rick flip and nollie cab flip were amazing. It was super nice outside, actually so warm that the street had softened up in places making it slow. I didn’t really have the option of going anywhere so I just dealt with it. I did some of the basics, tried a line of fakie bigfliip, halfcab flip, treflip, but couldn’t get the treflip with that. Had some good fakie bigflips though. Tried quite a few rare tricks like nollie big flip (landed on one and almost rode away), fakie bigger flip and some more. I was fading near the end and used my skate dice app to come up with trick ideas. Kinda fun hucking tricks I’ve never landed. Got close to front heel. Then it was time for Ollie’s Bday party to start so I had to go in.

Finally a kind of warm day in the 50s. After work I went to Target to get Liz an anniversary card (15 years of awesome tomorrow!) and saw a cheap candle begging to be used on ledges instead of burned slowly. And since I was right there I went to this ledge. John was thinking of meeting up and I figured he could grab Jake. So I skated for awhile and it was fun. Waxing it was a good call, wow it was slick. Had some fun front 50s, front 50 shove. Lots of noseslides and a few crooks. Followed them with attempts over the hip (from steep to mellow). Got a couple b/s flips over it and maybe a kickflip over the f/s hip. John bailed so I needed to go get Jake. That fool should get a car. Ha. Before I left though I did a fun run of switch front 180 off the very start of the ledge, ollie a corner of curb along the bike path, b/s flip on the hip then fakie flip on flat. Neat.

Then I drove to Jake’s and we came back. I almost got the crooks then f/s flip line again. Kept stepping off the flipper. Tried noseslide then front bigspin, came close. Jake killed the ledge with back 50s, crooks, crooks fakie, noseslide, front 50, front tailslide. The light wasn’t turning on so it got tough to see the ledge after awhile. I got a couple bad back 50s and one front tail that slid. We did some bonelesses over the hip. I got a no comply bigspin. I tried a few 3 flips over the hip before we left for the next spot.

Jake suggested a manny pad spot so this seemed like the perfect fit. I was on the phone with my mom for awhile while Jake rolled around working on some stuff. He got a line with manual, ollie onto the sidewalk, kickflip off. I couldn’t manual one of the pads initially so instead I just manualled the long one first try. Ha. Tried to nose manny it too to relive my Blame The Filmer part, but couldn’t quite get it. We put a little plastic bucket out to do tricks over. Jake worked on a line of front 180 over it then halfcab manual. He had never done hc manual before, but he got a couple. Sick! I tried a few things then settled into a line attempt of kickflip manual, ollie onto the sidewalk and then 360 flip off. Never quite got the manual part or the 3 flips. Switched it up to nose manny instead and got closer, but still never rode away from the tre. Doh. At one point the funniest thing happened. Jake nollie front 180’d the little bucket and I tried to get his back with a kickflip and I landed right on it and it shattered. Disgusting wet cigarette butts and old banana peels went flying. Ha. We laughed for awhile. Even though I didn’t land much it was a really fun session.

Another snowy and cold night in late April. Will it ever end? Seriously though I have seen plenty of snow in April before, but it’s not normally accompanied with temperatures in the low 20s. Ridiculous. Luckily though I have a ramp in my garage. Jake hit me up and we made it happen. I skated a few runs before he showed. I have a couple gnarly blisters from my new basketball shoes and new skate shoes I was trying to break in. Ouch. I didn’t do anything special before Jake got there and ended up tossing some darts around for awhile. When Jake showed it was on though. We both skated hard knowing we didn’t have a lot of time and pounded out tricks quick. Jake has pivot fakie every try now. Didn’t have backside blunt this time though. I didn’t have any new tricks, but stacked up most of the ones I have. I guess I got a fakie front smith which is very rare for me. Such an awkward trick. And a few front tails. Fun night.