Needed to make a run to MRKT and Jake, Carleigh and Jack had expressed interest in it. Jake had his girl friends car and offered to drive. I cannot even remember a trip to Fort Collins that I didn’t drive. Ever. Sick! We picked up Jack after work (thanks for the burrito!) and made good time up to Fort Collins. After stopping at MRKT we rolled right into campus and ended up at an old epic spot that I skated with Jason and Josh a long time ago. It’s two ledges going down a banked sidewalk that has been knobbed for a long time. Forever ago Josh, Jason and I did quite a few things on it. I know I got front 50. Josh probably did lipslide pop out (he’s goofy) and I’m sure Jason did boardslide popout. Next to it is a weird 2 flat 2 flat 1 flat 1. Jack ollied the 2 flat 2. Carleigh rode down all the stairs. I took a long time, but rolled down them all too. Jake started doing tricks into the bank and that ended up being the spot for quite a while. Jack did like 100 tricks into it like 3 flip, nollie heel, impossible, a bunch more. Oh yeah, I had to setup a new board after cracking it the day before. So I had a new board and decided to put my old Thunders on instead of the Ventures. I also had some new wheels. Bones STF 51s. I’ve wanted to try them for awhile to compare to Superthanes (they flat spotted right away so clearly not as good). So flip tricks to start the day were a little weird. I did get kickflip and front shove pretty quick. We were all having fun. The rain was holding off. I did a front 180 off a nearby 2 stair and got a first try halfcab flip into it. Jack backed me up with an impossible to accidental manual (so sick!). Then Jake got his back with a kickflip. Then to complete the 4-4 Carleigh came in hot with a nollie shove. Everyone was hyped. Rather then take off we stuck around. Carleigh got some kickflips. Jake and I failed at fakie flips. Jack added more tricks like switch front heel. I should have gotten the fakie flip. Oh well, ollieing up the 3 felt pretty good.

Sean, Mike, Taylor and Jason showed up and we went over to the Clark building area. Us older dudes skated the hip mostly for awhile. I managed kickflip in a couple and front shove first try. Carleigh and Jack ollied the stairs all easy. I failed getting Carleigh’s back. But after Jack ollied the rail then boardslid it I had to get his back and scratched a little 12 year old no pop ollie and landed. Felt great. Jack went off for awhile. Boardslide, feeble and bluntslide the 5 stair rail. I have video of it, but the youtube editor wont work now. Look later. I got a few more tricks on the hip. A really bad frontside flip and a halfcab flip where I popped after the hip. Ha. Jake got a solid kickflip and Mike did a few front shoves, a full cab and more. Sean was skating it like a bank to curb. Carleigh starting going for kickflip. Jake got a buttery fakie bigspin over the hip. I started messing around with a line starting with a front 180 off the top 3 and ended up doing one of my favorite lines ever. Front 180 down the 3, curve around then pop shove, ollie onto the little ledge near the 5 stair (on the left of the photo), scrape the tiniest no pop ollie off the drop (tall for me!) then did one of the best frontside flips of my life over the hip (that’s not saying much though). Seriously, one of my favorite lines I’ve ever done. The frontside flip wasn’t even in my plan, I guess I was just surprised to land the drop and kept going. Carleigh kept attacking the kickflip, but we ended up getting the boot. Off to Northside it was.

Northside was pretty packed with the Fort Collins heavy hitters and of course they were ripping. Xavier and Dana are insanely good. I didn’t really seen any of our crew skating as there were so many people. I had a couple lines around the place that felt good. Some little wallies and grind on the brick qp. Then Jack and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot that lasted a really long time. I landed pretty much all of my tricks except for nollie tre and was up SK to SKAT, but couldn’t land anything else to win it. The treflip felt great. I liked having the Thunders. Maybe I’ll stick to them. But wow, what a fun day of skating. Thanks for diving Jake and Jack and Carleigh for being such awesome friends and being down to skate anything.

Had kind of a long annoying first part of the day with the family. Both the kids were super grouchy and Liz wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine either. Jake and I headed out and skated for awhile before Jack and Carleigh showed. Someone was there getting filmed by his girlfriend do front 50 kickflip out. So Jake and I gave him some space and played a game of SKATE that started really slow, but I ended up winning with some decent tricks for me. We were starting to hit the ledges. Skateboarding was not easy. It was frustrating and annoying like my family. Ha. It took us a bit to get front 50s. I had a few noseslides and crooks that felt really good. Jack and Carliegh showed. Around then I had a pretty good line for me. Ollie onto a ledge and ride off, noseslide to fakie a ledge, fakie bigflip then almost halfcab noseslide. I might have even landed it I’m not sure. Had another line shortly after that with front 50 a ledge, 360 flip on flat then almost a front board pop out. Maybe these aren’t good lines at all then. Jake got a few front 50s too. Jake went to work pretty quick and killed it with noseslide bigspin, noseslide nollie heel, noseslide shove back to noseslide, noseslide 270, etc. Some nice 3 flips off the 2 stair. Carleigh did a bunch of kickflips into the handicap ramp and followed at least one of them with a noseslide shove. I gave Jake a ride to the bus stop then came back. Everyone kind of struggled for awhile. Jack was slamming when he didn’t need to and was understandably annoyed by it. At one point I tried shooting my board out like him which did make me feel good for a bit, until I had to walk to go get it. Ha. Jack landed a 3 flip on the tail and broke the tail off. Doh. Cheap null boards. We kind of just chilled for awhile after that, did some powerslides and messed around with flat ground. My wheels were so tiny and even more so after 20 powerslides. I got across the whole four square thing once I think. I hucked some cab flips and Jack gave me some pointers. For awhile I seemed close, then it was gone. Carleigh has never gotten close to fakie bigspins before, but landed on like 10 of them. So rad. Then I was off for a date night with Liz that was super fun.

Such a nice day. Was still pretty sore even though I had an off day. Got home from work and the new Mudhoney and Thermals LPs were waiting for me. So rather then meeting Jack and Carleigh right away I had a couple listens, a brief nap and dinner. Then I met them a this bikepath jump ramp spot. I’m not as big of fan of this spot as those two, but it is pretty fun. The downhill into the kicker is pretty fast, but sets you up perfect. When I got there Carleigh was in her pouty-struggling-with-a-kickflip mood. That changed soon though as Carleigh got a kickflip and then an even better kickflip. Maybe the best kickflip I’ve seen her do. So sick. Jack did treflip, impossible, hardflip, backside flip, only threw his board once and eventually a switch front heel. Dang. I sucked it up and didn’t land anything, but a couple tiny ollies. A little scraper b/s 180 into the kicker was my favorite trick.

Then I went back to this ledge spot solo. I started off sucking for awhile and couldn’t kickflip to fakie on the little bank. Ugh. I kept at it though and eventually was feeling pretty good. Got a line with a long b/s noseslide then a kickflip to fakie on the steeper part of that little bank. I was skating the ledge uphill too and did one of the taller front 50s I’ve done in awhile. It’s kind of unrewarding to do tricks up it because you land without speed, but it beats just walking back up I guess. I had quite a few treflips and a first try nollie treflip (yeah low trucks!). Got a good crooks, tried some longer ones, but failed. Couldn’t do halfcab noseslide because of the downhill scaring me. Got a couple switch b/s noseslides and sw front 180 to 50 and a front tail or two. At the end I had a fun line just ollieing off the ledge, a kickflip over the frontside hip and then a horrible treflip on flat that had me laughing and thinking that I’m almost 40 and still having a blast skating.

I went to Red Curbs again. It was colder and wetter and I was really sore. But I had my little trucks on! Whew whew! John was supposed to meet me, but he was running late. I just dorked around mostly on the little wedge near the top of the garage. I did some side rock 270s out. It was amazingly dumb, dorky and what I needed to get going. I had a couple lipslides before John showed. So fun. For all the haters out there it’s amazing how much more manueverable boards with low trucks and small wheels are. John showed as a lady walked out of the building to kick us out. Doh.

So we went to another garage (above) and skated the tiniest curb we could. It doesn’t grind or slide really so we skated it slow (as if that changes anything HA). A lot of tricks went down. John had some crazy ones. It’s hard to remember it all now. I got a lucky first try halfcab to front 50 stall. John tried to, but got several to 5-0 which is way sicker. I couldn’t get another to 50. John did front 180 fakie 5-0 shove out to walk away instead of ride away. Ha, he got really close. I went the boring flip in route as usual. Took a bit to do kickflips that low (joke), but did a couple kick back 50s, one with a shove out, tried kick back tails and got suskis instead. Started trying kick back disasters/lipslides and after 20 tries I got one. It stalled and doesn’t count for much, but it’s new to me and it felt doable on something else that might slide. Hurricane stalls were had. John did a first try back 270 front tail first try. Neither of us could land treflips. We were both beat though. At the end I kickflipped then front shoved a parking block. Then John gave me some tips on popping my kickflips better. Look out Lizard King here I come!

Got off work on a cool spring day with rain looming. I’ve been thinking about this spot lately. It’s really good. Unfortunately I didn’t have any wax and the ledge was pretty dry. I warmed up with some slappy noseslides on the littlest part of the top ledge and some ollies over the hip on the photo below. Then just kinda started going faster and doing taller/longer noseslides. I tried some kickflips on the bank/hip and failed. I blame the high trucks. I started feeling quite a bit better. I had my headphones on Dinosaur Jr shuffle. The best. I worked up to a slow crooks on a tallerish part of the ledge which hyped me up quite a bit. Got a little line with slappy switch front nose (the john brandow) to forward and a noseslide on the tallest part of the ledge. Started trying some flip tricks down the bikepath with some speed and then the rain started. Went home, played basketball in the rain for awhile with Ollie, ate dinner then went Red Curbs.

To say I have been possessed by skateboarding lately is an understatement. I went to Red Curbs around 8 feeling like I had to land every trick I’ve done. The fact that I will be turning a decade older in less then two weeks must be messing with me. I was sore when I started and it took a bit to get going and well, I never really got going. I did get a long line of switch front 180 to front 50, kickflip up a curb, ollie up a curb to quick back 180 out, halfcab flip. That was the highlight for me. I couldn’t do manuals and even did an accidental wallie instead of ollie up a curb. Ugh. Got a few back 50s, front 5-0s. Tried a line of back 180 into the little wedge at the far side then f/s halfcab on flat, another flipper then a front lip on the curb. I only landed like 1/20 f/s halfcab flips though and it was really, really, really pissing me off. I got a front lip at least. After about an hour I was over it. I went home and put the venture low trucks back on. I’m over the highs. I’m an obsessive freak. I moved to highs because I had one bad day skating on some new tiny wheels. That was a mistake. I did some of my best skating on the lows. .Gonna stay on the lows and try not obsess over trucks for awhile. Red curbs rules though.

Ollie, Carleigh and I met up with John for an early session at Broomfield park. Yes, I said Ollie! So stoked he wanted to skate a little. We warmed up with some wallrides on top of the big bank. Then I skated the quartapotty with John and Carleigh. We tried to deck rock ‘n rolls and front rocks. John got pivot to fakie. I had some new shoes that had me feeling really weird. They are a little too small for me, but I gotta learn my lesson and skate them. They are some DC Wes Kremer shoes. Yeah yeah, DC’s I know. Not my first choice, but I wanted to get some shoes from one of my favorite shops out there, Motive, and this is what they had for me. Anyways, they were kind of slippery and feeling weird. While we skated the quartapotty Ollie was doing body varials on the steep bank. John laughed because he knew we would never do that. We played a game of SKATE. I recently remembered starting games of HORSE in basketball by shooting free throws until someone misses. First one to miss goes last, last one to miss goes first. So we started with kickflips. John missed after one and I out lasted Carleigh and we played a really long game of SKATE where tricks were rarely landed. One high point for me would be getting John a letter on a treflip. Ha! That never happens. I ended up winning it with f/s halfcab flip. I was struggling though. Struggled with front 50s on the ledge after that. It made me miss low trucks. Ugh. One of these days I’ll be happy with my setup again.

Had a friday off work! Bernie came over around 11:30 on a nice day and we headed to little Arvada for a Square State BBQ / skate jam. After a brat and hotdog I met up with Bernie who was showing off for the kids skating the ledge pretty good. I was kinda feeling things out for awhile. Lazer and Jake showed. Brett showed. Jake, Bernie and I were skating the ledge. Bernie did a front smith kickflip out all steezy. Kick back tail. Jake leaned back 50s. I did a few crooks and some slow front 50s (I don’t get why this trick is so much harder with higher trucks). I went over the little spine thing and was coming back over it via smith transfer when disaster struck. I’m not really sure what happened, but I remember thinking “This is going to hurt really bad” and thinking my head was ok then BOOM. Hit the ground really hard. I thought it was just my right knee that was dead, but apparently I was out or something for a bit because everyone was standing around me in the park. I think what happened was the bill of my hat hit the ground luckily saving my face, but still resulting in a lot of pain and possibly a little concussion. Ouch. I sat out for a while and never really felt good at all after that. Jake and Lazer killed the tranny. Brian, Jake and Lazer did frontside slashes over the love seat. Jake then front 50’d over it. I got an ollie onto the manual pad and kickflip off. We played a game of SKATE that Jake won. Brett skated some of the best I’ve seen him skate.

Then Brett, Bernie and I met Carleigh and Jack here. It looks perfect in this screen grab, and well, it really is. It’s harder then a skatepark hip that’s for sure, but it’s still pretty much perfect. Bernie did ollie and back 180 lickety split. Jack went for 360 flip out of the gates. Carleigh did ollie then pop shove. Brett was trying front biggee and accidentally did it to wallride. I had a couple of kickflips that were so small they didn’t clear the hip. Then it was filming time. And it kept being filming time forever. I mostly just filmed dudes losing their minds, throwing temper tantrums, not having any fun and not landing tricks. Carleigh however, got some kickflips. She’s goofy (footed) so whether she will admit it or not, the term frontside kickflip is involved. Near the end I skated a bit. I got a better kickflip, no comply front shove, no comply 270 and boneless 270. All of which had lots of tic tacs and no air. Carleigh darn near learned backside flips. That spot is cool. There is a lot of stuff there. Oh, and the photo above of Bernie is a self portrait after he wiped blood on his face and started talking about riding a buffalo into battle. Like I said, “losing their minds”.

A super nice evening. Got home from work, crashed for a few minutes and then skated in front of the house until Ollie was ready to play basketball. I was pretty tired, but I always am anymore. I didn’t get too far in the trick list, but managed a treflip right as Ollie came out.

Left work a little early. Met Dave at Boulder ditch for a very brief session. The corner was dry. I almost got my front frock then bs flip line. Dave did a cool bs tailblock. He did a little front board and I did a little back board. That was about it. His wife was scheduled to have labor induced the next day. So crazy. Hope it goes well.

Then I bolted for Arvada to sell boards at Community then skate for a little bit. I started on the little qp at the top, then the mini ramp, then the bank to curb area. I didn’t do anything new really. I skated decent. The Pig wheels were slippery compared to superthanes, but it was fine. Highlight was a run with ollie behind the barrier into the bank, back 5-0 on the noping qp, pump around, axle stall the qp, pump around then front 5-0 over the hip and almost a kickflip to fakie on the bank. Did a couple front 50s on the pier 7 ledge. Ollied the marble flat bar. Twas fun.

Then I met Carleigh and Fuzz at Crisis and we hit the Broomfield park. I started off sucking and for the most part stayed there. Carleigh was ripping though. Back smiths the quartapotty, front tails the blue ledge, boardslides on the black ledge. So close to b/s flips on flat and noseslide back 270 shove out. Fuzz was slamming hard on flatground, but destroying the brick qp. Switch pivot favie first t, back blunt, blunt fakie, etc. Connor was there ripping. The fast plant over the brown ledge was sick as was the backside 43 shifty. I was not landing much and I think the main reason was still needing to get used to the taller trucks. It was really annoying though and made me wish I was still on the lows. I got a few 3 flips. A horrible kick back 50. Could barely ollie up the angled blue ledge. Couldn’t not land a nollie tre to save my life. Tried to get a line of front 50 front 180 out on the black ledge, fakie flip the bank then crooks the black ledge. Took me so long to get the 180 out. Ugh. Shove out is much easier. I had fun though. It was good to see Carleigh skating so well.

Had one of those days I woke up grouchy and stayed there all day. I probably had a beer too many for Deano’s birthday gathering the night before. After dinner I went out to Rampy. It was cold out. There is still lots of snow around. The first 30 minutes I was just passing the motions. Grind this, stall that, fall down, bail, flatground kickflip. I managed one b/s hurricane that was a struggle. I had Pissed Jeans on shuffle and was digging it. Next up was front tails then hopefully front tail 180. I got a few front tails, but couldn’t get the 180 out. I had started hucking some flip tricks between runs. Got a 360 flip or two, a heelflip. Then went for nollie tre, but there wasn’t enough room so I just ran into the wall and pushed back off it and hucked a switch 360 flip. To my amazement it was ridiculously close. I did this a few more times, get setup for nollie tre then push backwards. I got so close it was ridiculous. Never got both feet on it, but man, talk about exciting. I never thought that trick would be in my range, but maybe, just maybe, it is.