Liz and India were gone for the evening so I was watching Ollie. It was really tough. We went skating, then watched the Simpsons and ate popcorn. Pretty much completely awesome. We mostly skated the buildings across the street from the loading dock spot. We started out in the far west lot. I wanted to ollie the little median with some speed and it took a few tries. Ollie was cruising around and doing lots of front 180s. My knee wasn’t feeling as good as it has over the last few days, but it wasn’t bad. We dorked around there for awhile and then went to the other side of the building which has the six stair, some flat to a one stair and the mellow loading dock bank. We were lining out some “stuff” as Ollie would say. We started jumping off the stairs onto our boards, front 180 off the curb then a trick on the bank. I thought jumping off the third stair would be enough, but Ollie upped it to the fourth stair so I had to as well. Took me a couple poses to do it though. Doh. Ollie got a line of jump onto his board, front 180 off, turn around and do a pop shove to fakie on the bank. Sick. I did jump onto my board, 180, halfcab flip on the bank, then tried kick back tail on the curb. Never got the kick back t but it was close. Next up we went to the 2 long flat 1. Ollie beat me to ollie down the 2, back 180 off the 1. Ollie also did front 180 down the 2, b/s halfcab off the 1. Back 180 off the 2, b/s halfcab off the 1. I got front 180 off the 2, f/s halfcab slop off the 1. Almost got switch front 180 off the 2, but couldn’t get enough speed. I wanted to do kickflip off the 2, b/s flip off the 1, but the kickflip came too hard and I didn’t feel like doing it again once I got it. After this we took off. Ollie pushing mongo, leaves blowing around. Super fun sesssion. On the way back to the car I manualled the long manny pad and we both did chinese nollies to manual at the end of the sidewalk. So fun. I did mine after kickflipping up the curb with a bit more speed than normal. Once again, super fun night.

Get this shit, so I’ve been tired all week and not really understanding why. The night before with Jack I was way more tired than I should be. Turns out Liz had wanted to stop drinking caffeine and didn’t bother to tell me the coffee she’s been making is decaffeinated. WTF! No wonder I haven’t had as much energy as normal. Damn woman. Anyways, I went to Meta to sell some goods then went on a solo mission. I’ve been feeling the solo missions ever since St Louis. I think it’s mainly because my knee had been hurting and I was embarrased about my level of skating. Not that it’s really noticable that I haven’t been skating good lately, it all looks the same, slow and boring. Ha ha. Now I feel like I just want to feel comfy on my board again and skating solo is so good for that. I setup a new board and started some new shoes:

Some Lakai Judo shoes. The IPath shoes were pretty dead. I need to get bulkier shoes, but I just keep buying smaller and smaller ones that don’t last long. These seem like they wont last long and they fit a little big so my toes move around. Oh well, they seem good.

So I just rolled down the hill from Meta. Cruised around for awhile getting vibed by longboards, bailed some slappies, ended up at the art building with the good flatground. Eventually started trying a line from the top of the place with crack nollie, no comply 180, fakie flip, switch front 180 then 360 flip off the little curb cut thing. I got it, but the 3 flip was horrible. Coming the other way I was just trying to ollie up onto the bench and ride over the stoppers. The only time I did it Max rolls by and yells. Ha he was on his way to Sean’s and seem stoked that I was just out skating solo. Some other weirdness was going on. There was a girl skating in short jogging shorts and a tank top showing her sports brah wearing pink jogging shoes. She was trying ollies and came up to me asking how high she was ollie’ing. It was like six inches and when I said it might be easier in skate shoes she said she didn’t want to come off as a poser. Ha, so awesome. I tried some lines with backside flips at the start, but never got one. Mainly because I was going fast than 2mph for once (maybe 3). I’ve been trying to skate a little faster, but it sure isn’t easy for me. I ended up back at the hill ledges. I did a few front 50s on the top ledge then tried to swerve and do a b/s noseslide on the next ledge which comes up quick. I got a couple bad noseslides. Next I wanted front tail on the top ledge then front 50 on the rounded ledge below. Both tricks were sketchy, but enough to hype me up. Then I left because I was tired. It was only 9:30 of course. Thanks Liz. The best part of the night is that my knee never hurt. At times it felt 100%. Other times a little weird still, but yeah, at times I totally forgot about it. SO STOKED!

I picked up Jack around 8 and was greeted with some guacamole that Jack made. Jack makes guac? Yes, and it’s super good! Ladies take note. Anyways, we drove for a bit eating chips and guac with no place on our minds and ended up at a new school that has some three stairs, a somewhat tall pyramid ledge and a lot more. I was feeling really rusty. After boardsliding the side of the ledge, Jack and I started playing some weird transfer front board games over the ledge. Jack got front board to hurricane transfer. Ok, front board is a stretch since we were stalling. I eventually got front board pop over to fakie and Jack got my back with a front board to hurricane to shove transfer. We high fived and moved on. Some more chips and guac and we ended up at the ledge spot off 30th & Pearl. There Jack did about 5 million long back 5-0s to back 180 out that were all amazing regardless of what he says. I struggled at back 50s like I always do when there is a downhill approach. I got a couple noseslides one was followed with a little kickflip to fakie on the bank below. And a couple crooks. One was followed by a b/s flip on the bank. Fun. Jack tried a bunch of back 5-0 bigspins, but ended up approaching Max’s fall down record. I wish I would have had more energy then I did. Oh well, it was fun and we played a mediocre game of SKATE before eating the rest of the chips and guac. Yum.

Finished up Nullozine issue one the night before and got home around 2:30. So I was eat at work and after getting home I took not one, but two naps. I went for a quick skate nearby. On the way I cranked the crap out of Mudhoney – If I Think to get me hyped. It worked. I got out and pushed around and there were cars or people at all the warm up spots I normally start with so I went to the brick wallride area and long manny pad. All day I had thought of b/s flips up a curb all steezy like Janoski does them. I got one up a curb, but it was nothing like how Janoski does them. I was actually going fast enough into it, but when I landed I skidded to a halt. That didn’t stop me though as I wanted to line it out and did a sw front 180 to wallride then pushed for a kickflip off the curb. Neat. Going the other ways I was trying manuals the whole thing. I got pretty close, but never did the whole thing. OH yeah, there are some benches around the corner now that have potential for someone that can ollie. I got a boardslide pop past the curb (kind of). Someone good could do manual pop past a bigger gap. Hint hint null kids. All in all a fun night since I wasn’t in pain! I wish I wasn’t so tired though.

After working on Nullozine print for a few hours we took a break and went to the nearby skatepark. They had just locked it up for the evening. Ridiculous. We waited in the parking lot for awhile for the parks guy to leave. We just messed around on parking blocks. Then we climbed the fence and skated the black ramp in the dark for awhile. Not a whole lot went down. There were a couple other guys skating that were fun to skate with. That ramp is hard to get used to. It’s super mellow with huge coping. We skated til it got too dark then went back to work.

Took a couple days off skating because I was in Denver for my friend Zach’s wedding. Walked around a lot and felt pretty good. Picked up Max and Jack and headed to Northglenn for their skatepark grand opening party. It was mad chaos and the skatepark was basically unskateable. Brian and I skated in the basketball court for awhile. Neither of us doing too good. Derek and Jack joined us and we played a game of old people trick skate. Well, we started to at least until Brian went 0-3 on no comply 180 and left. Ha. We went on to play regular skate. Jack won the first game and Derek had to leave for work so Jack and I were playing another one before I totally won it (because he snapped his tail on a hardflip and couldn’t continue ha). My knee was not feeling good. It wasn’t in a lot of pain, but it was feeling weird. I took one run in the bowl with Dean. It was a fun bowl. Mellower than most, but too crowded for me to really skate it. That park looks fun. If it weren’t crazy crowded I’d like to skate it. We went back to Crisis so Jack could set up a board and leave my grip tape there. While he was doing that Dean, Max, Will and I went over to the Safeway ledge across the street. It was doing pretty good and I was having fun. I got front 5-0 shove real quick. Dean almost learned from 50 front shove in a few tries. Max did halfcab back 50 back 180 out, back 180 fakie 50 full cab out. Will made the basics look easy and got some fakie front tails. I had done a couple front crook jibs when my knee flared up. I was just squatting down, setting up for a frontside trick and the intense pain kicked in again. UGH UGH UGH UGH. After this we went to Hobby Lobby and for once no truck was there. It’s such a fun spot. All I did was push around on my filmer board for awhile while everyone else was having a blast. Dean got front 180 up, fakie ollie over the two. Jack did a nose manual! And some other rad stuff. Max was killing it and I ended up filming him for awhile. He got some good lines. Switch heel then fakie tre. Back 180 fakie manual halfcab out, hardflip. Looked fun. After that we went to the Black Dots show and had a blast playing foosball. Fun ender for a bummer of a day for me (because of my knee).

Carleigh and Sketch arrived at my house and we rolled to Crisis to pick up Fuzz. It started raining hard. Really hard. We talked to Bernie in Denver and he said it was dry. We met up with Chad, Chris, Derek, Bernie, Jack, Max, Dean, Spencer and probably some other people I’m forgetting right now. It was indeed dry when we pulled into Denver, but by the time we said our hello’s it started raining. Doh. I had a couple fun downhill powerslides and Max skated through the rain anyways. After some food and chilling we ended up cruising around some spots. I was feeling like I had never rode on a skateboard before and it was really annoying. Everyone else seemed to be killing it. Jack had some crazy back 50s on a weird banked flat bar. Spencer was ollie’ing fire hydrants. Fuzz had a tall boardslide. There was a lot going on. We ended up at Tabor center. Fuzz, Sketch and I were dorking around on the bank. Well, they were skating it, I was being a dork on it. Eventually I just went to line out something to 180 on the stairs. I got a backside flip, halfcab flip, front 180 the stairs and then switch ride down the next set of three. Not sure where that came from but it hyped me up. Spencer and Max jumped over a rail. Jack almost died trying to manual wet marble. I think we eventually ended up back near where we parked. Spencer, Bernie and Derek did some funny manuals to a wall and pushed off to go back in manual. Jack, Carleigh and I played a game of SKATE. It didn’t go so good for me. Jack did a gnarly wallie and I started trying to line out some flatground tricks after ollie’ing up the curb. About the only trick I landed was a kickflip. Yippee. I landed on a nollie tre, but got wheel bite and fell. Weird night. Wish I could have skated more.

Took a couple days off after St Louis and did lots of icing the knee. Went for a short hike with Liz in the morning and my knee was still feeling weird. Not painful, but numb and weird. Max and I met up with Bernie and Crew, Dean and the Crisis crew at a new spot in Longmont. There was a sick looking gap that I didn’t touch at all. There was a mini bank to ledge and Fuzz and I played a game of SKATE on it. In the end I think he won it, but it was a fun filled game of basics, slams and a few tricks we can be hyped on. At one point I did the funniest slam I’ve done in awhile which is saying a lot. Ha. I tried a kickflip pivot, but went a little over, shot out, kind of rolled my ankle, landed on my side on the ledge and was stuck there for awhile looking like an idiot before I could recover. Whew. The last trick that got me was a fakie pivot. Kudos Fuzz.

We rolled to Loveland. We skated a ledge spot. My knee was feeling pretty good. Maybe from icing it, maybe from the hike or maybe from starting with a mellow bank to ledge session. Anyways I pretty much did a line of noseslide on a tall ledge, 3 flip on flat, boardslide a 3 stair hubba. Max was hyped on it somehow and insisted he film me. Poor guy didn’t know it would be an hour before I could do it again and I had given up on 3 flips and settled for heelflips. Filming freaks me out, even though Max put no pressure on me whatsoever my legs were shaking. I managed the noseslide, heelflip, boardslide decent. Typical Glen speed and the heelflip was not popped. Oh well, decent line for me. Thanks Max. Other people were killing it. Fuzz had a sick long boardslide into the kink. Conor did a varial heel then back 50 into the kink. Chad was doing kickflip noseslides and nosebonks (until I went to film him later). Max did a rad boardslide popout transfer thing. I was filming Chad at this point and everyone else went over to look at a big six stair. I guess Max tried hardflipping it for awhile and when we got there he looked really tired and sore. We all dorked around on the playground for awhile. Justin did a rad kickflip into the downhill then boardslide to fakie on the slide. I dropped in on the frog.

Then we went to the skatepark and it was 20 minutes of everyone skating the whole time. It was awesome. I mostly skated the ramp as did Fuzz and Dean. Mellow ramps with small coping like that are weird. Fuzz had a gnarly slam on a front 5-0. Dean had the longest run I’ve seen him do with some moves like fakie pop to disaster. I didn’t do much, but was hyped on a front d. Max and Chad were killing everything. Chad skated the ramp super good. Huge kickflip to fakie was bangin. At the very end I attempted to do nose manuals and setup for nollie treflip out. Yeah right. Fun day, hyped I could skate without knee pain even if it feels really weird still.

Had another long day of work couped up in the basement of a building installing software. Followed with a late dinner and desert and I got back to my hotel around 9pm. I did a few stretches and hit the streets again. The knee wasn’t feeling so good and the first attempt at an ollie up a curb hurt super bad. Ugh. I rolled around aimlessly for awhile thinking I should probably not be skating because of my knee. But it was my last night in St Louis and I had been thinking about a spot all day.

Oh yeah, this thing was across from my hotel. Pretty gnarly, not a lot of run up, but pretty much perfect. Too big for me.

I ended up here for a boardslide which hurt really bad. Ugh, I thought I would stop skating, but pushing didn’t hurt so I just rolled around into sketchy areas that I probably shouldn’t have been.

This is one of those handrails that my friends would probably say “Hey Glen I bet you could boardslide that rail” and I totally wouldn’t be able to.

After quite a bit more pushing and not seeing anything fun I ended up at a good window sill ledge. I reminded me of the famous PJ Boston spot, but it didn’t grind so I moved on. Seriously St Louis skaters must either be lazy or there are so many other ledges that they just don’t care. Next I ended up at the little curb cut kicker above. My knee wasn’t hurting too bad at this point. Ollie’ing it was harder than I thought it would be because of cracks. I lined it out with some Oyola feeling lines with some faster than normal (for me) kickflips up the curb then ollie from cut to cut then got one with a bad back 180 off another curb cut. It was fun though. Next I ended up at the AT&T place again which is where I was working so I didn’t stay long. It was vacant and creepy. I tried a line of ollie up a curb to quick ollie down 3 then then crooks the perfect marble ledge, but it stuck. Argh St Louis, a 200 foot marble ledge that is perfect, not a bust, and no one skates it? Some old man with not very many teeth asked me if I was a professional after I ollied the three stair, so maybe there just aren’t any skaters in St Louis? I mean clearly I don’t resemble a pro skater ever.

This spot was crazy too. Lots of good ledges, no recent marks on them. Maybe I was just having the luck of the century and not getting booted? I manualled this thing which took longer than it should.

As I was walking/rolling to the next area I snapped this photo. There were three ladies nearby taking photos too and one of asked if it was the state capitol. I said “No, it’s the old courthouse”. One of them said “Oh, we don’t live here” I said “Me either I’m just staying near it” and then one of them said “We’ll clearly your a better person then us”. Ha ha wtf?

I wish this spot wasn’t a quick bust and I wish the homeless lady wasn’t sleeping at the other end of it. I didn’t get to skate this spot really at all.

This is the spot I was thinking of all day. It starts here, but behind where the photo was taken. Ollie up the curb, ollie up the two, lots of good flatground then the following set of stairs.

A totally epic spot. All day at work I had thought about my dream lines there and was saying to myself that I’d skate until 4am if I had to to get every line I thought of. Well, maybe I should have taken into account my knee acting up again. That and I did the first line first try and it felt so good I almost didn’t want to touch it. Ollie up 1, ollie up two, fast kickflip on flat, ollie the 4, front 180 off the curb. Sure they are all basics, but it felt really cool to do a line that spanned a block. Once again someone asked if I was a professional. So weird. I really wanted to go with ollie up curb, kickflip up two, no comply 180, fakie flip, front shove down the 4, but I didn’t. I gave up and called it a night. Part of it was the bum sleeping near the 4 stair, part of it was doing that line first try, part of it was too much solo skating, being tired, etc, but most of it was my knee and me wondering if I was damaging it. It had swelled up pretty crazy. Ugh. I’m super stoked I had the motivation to skate in St Louis though. Skating the city was a blast. I can’t believe I didn’t see one other skater though and I can’t believe how many spots there are that no one appears to skate. Weird town.

Had a super long day of work stuck inside a small conference room with no windows. Ugh. After work I walked about a mile with my coworker past the Cardinals stadium (I don’t even know the name and I walked by it) and had some banging catfish enchiladas and jumbalaya for dinner.

The food and bread pudding for dessert was amazing.

After that I walked around and saw the arch. It’s weird looking east at the “Gateway to the west”. Looking to the west is the old courthouse:

It’s pretty cool that the horses and stage coach are still there waiting for someone. After all this I went up to my room, dropped off the laptop, grabbed the skateboard and went right to hitting the streets. I went the other way from the hotel this time. I didn’t have the same energy as last night though and my knee was hurting a bit making the ollies up curbs not as fun as the night before. I found the ledge I had really wanted to skate. One boardslide, one bailed front board and one crooks later security came out. Bye. I ended up at another plaza that had tons and tons of stuff. So many granite ledges and none of them were waxed. I don’t get it. Made me think it was a high bust factor so I didn’t stay too long. I didn’t do anything worth a crap anyways. I really wasn’t able to skate well. My knee felt really swollen, I was exhausted and it’s weird skating solo in a city you don’t know much about. Check out this hubba thats in the plaza though.

I wanted to try nosesliding it, but having a bum knee is a great excuse to not try stuff. The kink at the end would have messed me up I’m sure. It wasn’t tall to get on. And if you wanted you could actually grind the flat after the kink all the way out past the next set of stairs.

I ended up at this ledge spot. The ledge is kinda sticky, but low and the brick area is super fun to bail flip tricks. Tonight there was actually a few people around so it wasn’t as creepy. I skated it for awhile. I thought it would be a bust, but security came out and one point, waved, checked something and went back in. Awesome! I skated here for awhile. Once again, I was really feeling out of my element, but I managed some things for me. Got a run of back 50, back 180 on flat, fakie flip on flat, halfcab flip on flat. It’s cool because that way is downhill and you don’t have to push at all. I also got a line of back 50, kickflip on flat, 360 flip on flat (with another 5 point landing). I struggled at fakie bigflips again. Got a run of f/s halfcab flip then front tail (horrible). Other tricks I got on the ledge were back noseslide, back crooks, halfcab noseslide, front 50 and a rare (and horribly done) kickflip back 50. Hyped on finding a spot I can skate without too much trouble other then the occasional rapper trying to sell me a cd or weed.

This spot again. The two times I tried it before I didn’t get up the 3 stair and security would be out by the time I got my board. Since my knee has been hurting ollies have been hard. This time though, I won. First t ollie up ollie up ollie off to quick powerslide before rolling off the curb because a big SUV was driving by. I know it’s three basic ollies but it made my night. I cruised and looked at a few other spots, but didn’t really skate anymore. Saw a sick marble ledge from the other night I wanted to skate a bit, but the prostitutes hanging out at it were a bit much for me. Ended up being a fun night. Skating a city is the bomb. You get to really see the city.