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.

Jake came over to my house at 7:30 and we skated in front of the house for a bit. My legs felt better than expected. We were clearly just in the warm up stages, but we did some tricks. I was most hyped on a fakie bigflip and an ollie that felt like it landed really hard and jolted the arthritis out of my legs. Sounds silly, but it really did feel like that.

Anyways, the plan was to meet Fuzz and Ian at Crisis at 8 then go to the northGLENn park. But it was all wet so we went to yellow curbs instead which ended up being totally awesome. We skated for almost three hours so there is no way I can remember everything. There was a lot of laughing going on and lots of funny falls. Everyone of us had a few good ones. I was rolling off a curb once and straight slammed onto my knee. That takes talent. Jake had a brilliant slam onto a curb. The best part being I couldn’t even tell what he was trying. A crooks? Back 50? Epic. Fuzz was trying a kickflip off a curb and hit eject at the last second resulting in him dive past his board. Ian’s may have not been as funny, but the heelflip manual attempt that rotated to far and slammed him onto the ground was crazy painful looking.

Onto the skating which it seemed everyone was skating at least decent for themselves. Some of the highlights were Ian heelflip manual, heelflip off a curb, straight ripping. Fuzz did fakie flip off a curb first try, a textbook f/s halfcab heel off a curb, manual front shove out and switch front tails. Jake had some mean slappies, manuals, kickflip off a curb and I think some wallrides too. I struggled with kickflips up a curb, but other then that had a lot of fun with slappy crooks, switch slappy front nose, f/s halfcab flip off a curb, kind of a b/s flip off a curb, nose manuals (almost with shove out) and posed lots of kick back tails and manual front shoves out. I was pretty beat and seemed more hesitant than normal to do flip tricks. Maybe it’s the big board setups fault, but probably just exhaustion.

Still super tired from the all day filming marathon and recovering from arthritis/illness. Went to Valmont for a short solo session. I skated slow, but it was the kind of session I needed to get my skate feet back. I couldn’t do a crooked grind to save my life, but other then that things went ok. Got quite a few front tails that slid a bit, front 5-0, back 50, fakie bigflip, treflip, heelflips, etc. All slow. At times I was so tired I had to just sit. I also had a bit of that arthritis hot pocket feeling, but it wasn’t intense enough to not try stuff. Anyways the session felt a little productive and hopefully I can start skating better again.

Headed to Denver with Jack, Carleigh and (shhh) new guy Connor. We met up with Chad and a friend of his named Cody that could probably get sued for looking exactly like Tom Asta. We started out at a ledge spot, but were kicked out before I could snap an ollie. Oh yeah, I had new trucks. Yes I am pathetic, but the wheel bite thing was driving me nuts and I wanted to change that right away. I got some Ace trucks at Crisis. They seem pretty awesome so far and I can actually turn without coming to a halt. We went to a bank spot under a bike path where we lasted for several hours. By the time we left Connor had a rad line, Chad had a rad line, Jack cheated death, I did a no comply to tail and jumped in some bushes, Carleigh took a bunch of awesome photos, Asta popped some good ollies. Next spot we went to (above) looked pretty fun. I went right to filming as Jack was about to put down a varial heel which he did several times. Carleigh almost got the ollie. Chadman came through slightly before dark with a banger of a line. Dude rips so hard. We had a nice fattening burrito and met up with Fuzz and others at Broomfield park 20 minutes before the lights shut off. I was so insanely tired and sore from filming that I lowered my Broomfield park standard by a lot. Which I don’t get because everyone else was like “you seemed fine to me”. Really? Does bailing a back 50 on the blue curb really seem like I’m doing fine? Ha. Then we went and hung at Fuzz’s and I pulled a Neil because I was so tired. It was fun though.

Had a tough week, my arthritis came back. Not debilitating like last fall, but bad enough to prevent me from skating or having much of any energy. It seems like this is a response to being sick awhile ago. So that’s probably how my life will be for awhile. Anytime I get sick I can expect an arthritis flare up a few days after. Ugh, but, could be a lot worse.

Anyways, I met Jack and Bernie at Casey Middle School and we dorked around on these rocks for awhile. All I did was an axle stall. Bernie is just starting to skate again after recovering from a knee injury so he’s keeping it mellow and having fun. After a bit we went on to film Jack work on hot pocketing his back foot. He succeeded. Ouch.

We went to this gem of a spot next. I spent about an hour trying nose manual front 180 out on the curb. I came close, but did not succeed. I’m gonna partly blame the excessive wheel bite bumming me out. Bernie did some neat manual tricks and giggled a bunch and ruled it. Carleigh showed up and also had to keep it mellow due to her back. Man, we are geezers. Ha, Jack isn’t though and he put together a rad little line which I pointed the camera at without even shaking it too much.

This hyped me up so much! I need to skate more like the dork I am.

I was still tired from the long family vacation, but got some stuff done and the kids were playing with friends. John got off work at Meta and picked me up to head to Broomfield. The park had a bunch of lurkers, but not many people actually skating. John said he was tired too, but he was ripping. We mostly skated the black ledge after a few minutes of cruising around to warm up. He’s got a lot of rad switch noseslide tricks. He had a super sick run of ollie over the rail, front 50 the smile ledge then “nollie back tail” the black ledge. He almost did some front 50 back 180s out the proper way too. I got my first front 5-0 shove out in awhile, boardslid the little rail a bunch, got a few really slow back 50s, and comitted to front nosegrinds on the black ledge which would be the first time I’ve ever tried it on something of normal ledge height. Decent, quick session. Oh yeah, I had a new ‘Bottom of the Well” 8.38 deck and new 52 mm supers. Felt good!