Carleigh, Jake and I pulled up to Dave “Best style of anyone ever” Fuller’s house about the time the sun was setting and quickly hit the ramp for a bit before dark. Carleigh said she was struggling, but it still looked like she was having fun. Fuller was skating good. He has a huge bag of tricks and with that style it rules to watch. Best fakie pivots ever. Jake wanted to bring a couple tricks and did. Back blunt on the coping and parking block side as well as pivot fakie on the parking block. I skated ok. The smaller setup was definitely a little weird on ramp, but easier for throwing into disaster. I put together several of my basics and almost got a front tail on the parking block side, but it was getting too dark.

Off to the park! We got there and the lights weren’t on. Turns out there is some problem and they don’t turn on until 8:22. Carleigh and I killed a few minutes by pumping over the bumps in the kids playground. Then the lights turned on and our crew got even bigger. Add Bernie, Scotty, Colby, Fuzz and Dean. Awesome. We mostly skated the little qp at the top of the over vert and the ledge. I was pretty hyped by the new PJ Ladd clip I’ll post soon so I was trying more flippers then normal. For awhile it felt like I might skate great. Had a line of halfcab flip, crooks, b/s flip on a mellow bank to turn around, front 50 shove, but didn’t roll away. Tight. Jake had a line of of kickflip, crooks, bluntslide the little qp. Dean almost had front 50 front shove. So much was happening I don’t really remember. Fuzz was ripping way hard. Fuller had awesome ollies on the little qp. The list of tricks I almost landed was decent, but I was getting the shaft bad. Oh well. I gave up on the ledge eventually. Jake almost got lipslide to front 5-0. Fuzz literally landed like 30 tricks. Back 50 front 180 out.

We were kinda thinking of leaving, but Bernie was deep into trying fakie 5-0 fakie treflip out. We stayed an extra hour just watching him get close. While he was skating Dean and I and eventually Fuzz and Jake messed around on the little bank. Dork tricks mostly. Dean had a super good back no comply to back tail. The rest of us did some stuff. Bernie ended up getting his trick without a flip. Everyone was hyped for him and we left.

Was supposed to meet up with Riley, Bernie and crew at Arvada park early, but I just couldn’t muster the strength to do it. I was so exhausted from the day before. So later on after a trip to 303 Fuzz and I hit the Broomfield park for a pretty mellow session. We started off goofing around on the quartapotty putting our boards as close to it as possible and going into axle stall. I got about a foot away, Fuzz put it at the very base of the qp. So sick. Then we kinda started doing whatever on the blue ledge and quartapotty. Fuzz got a front blunt on the qp. I was skating kinda pathetically. Legs were beat or something. There isn’t really anything I took from the session as noteworthy. Fuzz had some moves. We played a game of SKATE at the end where I got pink slipped. I blame the new shoes. Ha, as if.

Up early in the morning at Broomfield park to film a skit/montage of the Null dudes. It was completely epic and one of the funnest things with Null I’ve been a part of. Look for it this week. I briefly skated the park, slammed super hard on a flatground kickflip before filming the Null team skate as good as I’ve ever seen them skate. We went on to film at spots and I had a chance to skate a little near the end of the day failing at nose mannies. Oh I did have a little fun line at Sussex before filming. Ollie a little bump, slide over a speed bump, slappy tailslide to fakie, fakie flip bail. Fun though. So tired.

I had the day off work. It was gorgeous outside. I met Fuzz at Crisis then met up with Sam Pino, Bernie, Dean, Ian at the newish Thornton park. I’ve never been there before and well, it rules. The bowl is a bit mellow, but the street stuff is epic. I had was done with the big board and switch wheels back to the 8.125 setup I had. It felt great cruising around the park. Everyone was killing it. Some highlights were Sam’s ollies popped out of banks, Dean boardsliding a round bar and fakie ollies out of banks, Bernie’s front baords down the little rail, Ian ripping quietly, Fuzz destroying everything. I skated hard and was adjusting to the smaller setup. I did manage a slappy back 50, slow front 50 off the 3 stair, noseslide down a hubba before most everyone left. Dean, Bernie and I skated the little manual pad with the wallrides around it. So fun. Bernie did halfcab manual to wallride to fakie. I might have done manual to wallride. Dean came closeish to learning nose manuals. Dean left and I battled quick up to kickflip wallride. Came super close, but never got one. Bernie did a couple fakie manuals fakie flip out. Almost fakie flip to fakie manual. We ended it on the hip where I managed a bigflip and I think Bernie did b/s flip. Fun times.

Had one of those impulse “I’m gonna go to the skatepark” moments and went to Arvada. If Boulder had a decent park lit at night I would have love to just go there, but they have neither. My friend Steve was there as well as the No Love dudes and Jeff. Rad. I started out dorking around on the little bank/blue ledge. Jeff was ripping. Went to the bowl with Steve and some older people. Had fun in there. Got front d first t. Went to the top of the park with the manny pad and really started to feel like I suck at skateboarding. Couldn’t manual the box. Couldn’t boardslide the long ledge I’ve boardslide a bunch of times, couldn’t really do anything. I was bumming on the big setup big time. We hit the miniramp for a bit. I took way too many tried for front d and was so tired it was insane. We went up to the little qp by the bowl were the No Love dudes were brewing out (broh’ing out with beers) and that was the funnest part of the night. I did a lit of tricks on the qp including front feebs, front d and hurricane (which Andrew filmed). Steve got quite a few tricks as well as a couple others. At least I skated ok the end of the session.

Went to Lville park with Ollie. Hadn’t been there in a really long time. There was just a few people there. A dad wearing hiking shoes and full protective gear, his kid on a bmx bike and a couple other skaters that could do a couple tricks. I’ve waited way too long to update my journal, but basically I wasn’t that stoked, skated like crap and Ollie was kind of so so about it. I took a long time to do front smith stall on the bank to curb and kickflip to fakie on the bank. It was cool cruising around though. Ollie did an ollie to fakie on the bank, dropped in on the hubba, had a cannonball to fakie that hyped the other kids up at the park. Had to get Ollie home quick for bed.

I was super tired, but wanting to skate a little come late evening. I went to Valmont thinking it would be an appropriate spot to finish of the Jam weekend (since we used to skate there a lot). I had been thinking of fakie bigflip manuals. Pretty much anytime I think of a trick I can’t even get close and this was no exception. I couldn’t even manual. I wanted to do a long line of manual, nose manual, kickflip up the curb, back 180 off, switch 180, tailslide the ledge, but I only got past the kickflip once and bailed the sw 180. UGH. I could barely kickflip up the curb. Not sure I’m feeling the bigger board sometimes. Left after slamming on an ollie up a curb knowing I was too close to breaking something. I will now erase the session from my memory.

Totally beautiful day. Started it out pretty proper and was getting ready to head to the Jam Jam when I got called for work. Doh! I was super angry, but luckily finally got there and was able to join the session for a good hour or so. Chris Sessions took the awesome group photo above. You can click on it for high res. Anyways, I rolled around the park for a bit, skated the tiny qp above the big bowl with Travis for awhile then ended up in the parking lot doing slappies with old people. It ruled. Jaimie, Fuzz, Parris, Fuller, Colby, Freddy, CJ, Strickland, Louis and more. We had fun. Jaimie had super proper slappies of all sorts. Some funny slams were had. Some slappies were landed. After awhile I went into the park and skated the mellow blue bank with Max, Jack, Colby, Fuller and quite a few more. It was fun. I did the best bigflip I’ve done, but failed to get the elusive treflip to fakie. Doh! Then tried boardslides on the long ledge until I got it. Lastly I lost to Jack in a game of SKATE because of that elusive treflip trick again. The Jam was a blast. I miss Jeremiah. I’ve said enough over the last few days, this isn’t the place for it. But I had a blast skating/hanging with you Jam, RIP.

Did some bidness at Crisis then skated the park with Carleigh and Steve V. We started in the flow bowl. Having trucks that turn is fun on tranny. Then we did some flatground for awhile up top. Carleigh did the pole jam too and I no comply pole jammed it. Steve can’t do kickflips, but almost did treflips. Pretty awesome. Carleigh came super close to bs flips. I got quite a few flippers, but none of them came easy. I posed a bunch of ollies down the six stair. I haven’t ollied anything like that since last fall before the arthritis hit. But after a treflip hyped me up I ollied it. Considering how fun it felt I should ollie stuff more often. Carleigh left after this. Steve and I skated the blue curb and quartapotty. He had some nice back tails on the qp, back d, and rock ‘n roll. I almost got a line of front 50 back 180 out on bluey, fakie b/s smith to fakie on quartapotty then fakie nosegrind. Never got the fakie ng. I also tried a bunch of kick back 50s and I got one, but it was super slow. It’s kind of funny that the bigger setup is supposed to make me skate faster and more confident and so far it really hasn’t except for ollies and tranny. I got quite a few slow front tails on blue which surprised me. Front feebles on the qp were coming easy too. Back 50s on the blue ledge were not though. Doh. At the end I did a line of boardslide the tiny rail, crooks jib the black ledge, 3 flip to 5 point landing to the parking lot. Fun night. Can’t believe I skated that long without eating dinner beforehand.

Was feeling overly tired for some reason and bailed on making it a two shop night, just did Meta then skated campus after with Carleigh. We started at the slappy curb which had been recently cleaned of wax so it was kind of dull. I did a couple switch slappy crooks, but not really moving. Carleigh had some noseslides. We moved onto some new stuff, kinda played around. I don’t think either of us were ready for the masses of college kids that were walking around. That takes some getting used to every year. We skated this flatground area for awhile. Carleigh did some kickflips and heelflips. I did kickflips until I was happy with one then tried to ollie off this tallish ledge which I eventually did. My legs were feeling pretty arthritic so I didn’t feel like trying other flippers. I did a little front pivot on a banked curb to light post base. That was dumb and fun. We moved into campus a little. Skated a flat gap near Jack’s spot (I’m calling it that even though I haven’t waxed the curb for him yet) a bit, I ollied onto that weird stair drop to bank think. We moved on a little, Carleigh was thirsty or something and not up for much. We kinda just ended up at this thing that I worked up to dropping in on from the top.

It took me awhile. I did a bunch of dropins from halfway up. Riding off the side at the end was a little scary when I finally dropped in from the top. As easy as it probably is, I’m hyped on it.