What a day. My knee hurt really bad all day. I went to work for half a day then took the bus to DIA, flew to St Louis then took a light rail to downtown near where I was staying. The train ride was horrible. Some young punk yelling at white people and dropping the N bomb and pointing at me. Yippee. I got off at my stop and walked up the stairs into a city I know almost nothing about. I walked about 20 feet trying to figure out which way to go then dropped the board down and started pushing. I immediately felt awesome. I didn’t push it as I had a laptop on my back and all, but I quickly felt great. I went to my hotel, checked in, dropped my stuff then hit the city. It’s one of those weird cities where the downtown area vacates at nights. It was pretty weird, but I found spot after spot after spot. Directly across the street from the hotel is a marble ledge off a nine stair if anyone wants to get buck. It’s waxed even! I wanted to take it easy on my knee so I mostly just cruised, doing ollies up, off curbs. So fun. I went by the baseball stadium. There was a ledge there, but I wasn’t ready for it. Some more fun cruising ollie’ing manholes and I ended up at the AT&T building that I’m supposed to help install some software. It’s got a sick marble ledge which caused me to break my streak of 20+ ollies without a bail. I went around the building thinking it was a big bust and came back and just ollied onto it and 180’d off. There are no marks on this ledge. WTF St Louis? It’s perfect. The next building over had lots of marble too. I did a little front nose to fakie, noseslide and crooks all first t. Moved on. I ended up at the 2 up, 3 up, 4 down I wanted to find really bad. So stoked! I didn’t get up the 3 first try and by the time I grabbed my board to turn around security was there to say no more. Doh. Ended up at some other stadium that had a long brick section with a sick low granite ledge. I skated that for a minute and had a blast. Just did some crooks and front 50s, but just cruising and doing some back 180s, sw 180s, kickflips. So fun. I rolled around the area seeing lots of other fun spots, but started to get weirded out in an area that looked sketchy. I managed maybe my best wallride on a jersey barrier ever though. I started to get pretty tired and my knee was finally hurting a little so I decided not to push it. I found the 2 up 3 up 4 down and tried it again real quick but slammed on the 3 up again. Ha. I left to get some food and cruised back to the hotel. Turns out there is a super super sick marble ledge on the one side of my apartment I didn’t look at before. Wow. No marks on it either though. Weird.

Met up with Bernie, Sam, Garret, Max, Jack, Dean, Sean and I think that’s it. We went to some spots where I did some filming. Some not so easy, others really easy like above. Gotta love when there is a chair at a spot nearby. So awesome. The only not awesome part of that spot was watching Lester (Dean’s dog) fall off the loading dock. Ouch! Then we went to Crestview where I kind of skated. Got a boardslide popout, but started to feel some pretty good knee pain so I went to filmer mode again as Max wanted a couple lines. After filming Dean, Jack, Max and I kind of skated for awhile. Jack did some really cool slow tricks on the curb. Back big fakie 5-0. Some other stuff which was fun too. I kickflipped up the little two a couple times, but that was about it. Then we went to get a Gillinghammer for Nullozine. A crook on a flatbar against a wall. I got it, but it was horrible and didn’t feel very good at all. I think my leg/knee was beat and I couldn’t get a good ollie. Pretty fun day. Yet again at the end of the day though I can’t help but wonder if I should get my knee checked out. Sure it didn’t have intense pain this time, but it didn’t feel very good either.

Oh yeah I had some new shoes on. Ipath Derelict. The eS shoes weren’t dead, but I couldn’t wear maroon shirts at work in St Louis and I didn’t want to pack more than one pair of shoes. These shoes are awesome.

Met up with Dean after a long saturday of trying to get stuff done, but failing. We met at Valmont. My knee felt pretty good and I was able to ollie up curbs without pain. I went nuts, just ollieing like crazy, trying manuals, etc. About 10 minutes of that and boom, intense pain in the knee. Ugh. Pushing doesn’t hurt it so i just cruised around while Dean did some manuals. Then he went over to the ledge so I folled. Ollies still hurt (bad) so I just did switch flip attempts over and over and over. Some were close. None hurt. After awhile I noticed that my knee was feeling better so I skated “for real” for a bit. I got a line of crooked jib grind, 360 flip 5 point landing (4 wheels and one hand). I did a few front tails without much slide and a front 5-0 shove out. Dean almost got a sick line of fakie ollie off the early part of the kicker then quick into frontside halfcab to front noseslide. Get that Dean! Happy I was able to skate after an hour of pain, but I’m wondering if I’m doing more damage then good.

My knee felt better the last couple days so I decided to risk it and go skate with everyone on old man skate night. In the first couple minutes I tried to do an impromptu axle stall with Fuzz on the brick qp, but just rolling up it the pain shot into my knee again. Ugh. I thought I was done that quick. I stood around for awhile which is kind of what all of us were doing. Brian’s back has been hurting him too. We’re old. Fuzz was wearing a “fat suit” (hoodie with hood tied tight) to sweat off some pounds. Ha. Half of the Denver Shop dudes showed up which made for some good skating to watch. Josh Murphy killed it. After some standing around the pain in my knee subsided and I tooled around on the smallest stuff at the park, the blue ledge and the quartapotty. I didn’t do anything great for me, but I was skating and I was able to do crooks, manuals and back 50s without much pain. Everyone else was playing a big game of add a trick. I think Conor won it. Dean boardslid the brown ledge. Eventually most of us moved to the other side of the park. Brian and Fuzz were doing some willy grinds to fakie on the brick qp. Dean front 180’d the rail out of the bump. Locals were killing the gnarly concrete bank hip. Neil was being elusive. I was trying noseslide 270 shove out over and over. Got close a lot, but the board kept hitting the ledge. I should wait longer to do the shove, but that would require skill. After some sitting around Fuzz, Dean and I played a game of SKATE that turned more into SKATERBOY or something. Eventually Fuzz and I just tried treflips over and over. He did a ton, I did a couple. We tried to pretend we were busting them in a line down a hill all easy. Kind of helped. But yeah, my knee worked!!! There was some pain for sure, but it kind of felt like it was working itself out. Hope it keeps on improving and doesn’t continue to need an hour to loosen up.

Day 2 of being Mr Mom. India went to a friends and Ollie wanted to skate. We went to Southern Hills. I did one ollie and the pain in my knee grounded me again. Ugh. I watched Ollie for a bit. He did a front 180 down the 2 stair and let me drag him out of there. Ugh.

Later on I was depressed and wanted to see how skating felt on Rampy since Ollie went through the trouble of cleaning it off. He ripped it with runs of backside and front side scratch grinds as well as front and back rock ‘n rolls. He also did lots of fakie ollies, body varials in the flat, manuals, etc. He rules. I sucked at everything, but ended with a first try front feeble. It’s crazy how tight Rampy is. After not skating it for so long it felt like two walls with no flat bottom. My knee had a constant pain, but not the intense pain that stopped me earlier in the day.

Skated in front of the house for a bit. I would try some tricks, wait a bit while the pain settled in the knee and go again. I tried a line of frontside 180, fakie flip, f/s halfcab flip, but never got it. Around the time I tried 3 flips the pain seemed to hurt more so I didn’t want to push it and went back inside and iced it.

Had a horrible day at work. Went home with the intention of meeting at Crisis by 7, but I fell asleep. It was much needed and Jake, Fuzz and Dean showed up at my house around 8 anyway. We went to campus. It was super nice out. Dean was free. We dorked around a little bit before ending up at this kind of long median manual pad that’s downhill. It took us a long time to get one and of course Fuzz was first. I eventually got one and both Jake and Dean had gotten really close. I was noticing that my stance felt really off and I seemed to be completely on my back (right) foot doing everything. We went to the steep bank spot at the bottom of campus. Jake owned this spot. First t rock ‘n roll then first t axle stall. I had done a fun wallride then went for axle stall and a couple tries in something happened in my knee and I had to sit in pain for most of the evening. Ugh. Those dudes had a fun session. Dean got a caveman nosepick. Fuzz did a lot too like pivot, blunt pivot, back pivot to back tail, back smith, etc. It was really the Jake show though. Back hurricane, front feeble, front pivot, nosepick, stalepick, roll in, so much more I can’t remember right now. So sick! We went up under the engineering building. I basically just tried manuals without really ollie’ing and powerslides. Thank god for being able to do powerslides, because they were a blast and kept me from being completely depressed about my knee. Everyone did some cool lines. Dean skated hard. He did a fakie dogpiss into the first “bank” then fakie ollie into the second. No comply 180 into the first, fakie ollie the second. Jake did kickflip then nollie front 180 and more I can’t remember right now. Oh I did a little fakie ollie into the first then a sw front 180 into the second which was probably stupid and hurt my knee more then it was worth. Fuzz did some rad fakie around the world then front 50 the ledge. Slappy noseslide, front 50, then an uphill front 5-0. On the way back to the car I fell trying to push switch. Ugh. Then we went and had a beer and ranted about how lame the skate industry is. Bitter old dudes. But seriously though, get out Nike, you don’t belong here.

Went out to Valmont to meet Dean and try to get a photo of him for Nullozine Jr print edition. He was already setting up the flash and went right to business. I was feeling pretty energetic, but sitting and playing Atiba for an hour kind of drained it. After Dean left I then had a couple long phone calls and then was supposed to go hang out with Carleigh and Jack before she leaves for “an adventure”. I decided I needed to skate a little and ended up skating really hard solo until Jack and Carleigh showed up. I waxed the crap out of the ledge while I was on the phone so it was really good. I really wanted to get a front tailslide. I didn’t get a good one until after they showed up. And it wasn’t good, but it did slide and make the noise. I tried a lot of flip tricks that I didn’t land. Switch frontside flips felt close even though they weren’t. I didn’t do much else geez. I talked with Carleigh once they got there for the most part. Jack ripped it. Oh I have a video clip I should maybe not upload because the quality is horrible.

With my ankle wrapped up for added support and a knee that was still hurting I went out skating with Ollie. That’s all he wants to do these days and I think it is impossible to say no when your kid asks you to go skate (not that I need much convincing but my knee and ankle are not feeling too good). We started at a little bank spot with parking blocks at the bottom that has been a longstanding favorite of his. Right out the gate he was ripping. He ollied into the bank above the sidewalk and back 180’d off the curb (going somewhat fast) within a couple tries. I figured I should try it and it took me more tries and my back 180 wasn’t even as good. He officially is better at back 180s then me now. He also back 180’d into the bank then did a halfcab off the curb. He tried a lot of flyout 180s both ways, but didn’t get too many. He seemed to ollie up the curb almost every try though which is normally tougher for him. Other tricks he did that hyped me up were backside ollie on the bank, back 180 up a curb, front board on parking block and wallie up onto the bank off a parking block and turn around and ride out of it somehow. I was being conservative (old) on my hurting (old) body, but managed a few things that hyped me up. A little line of backside flip on the bank carving into the sidewalk then kickflip off. Also a line of pop shove on flat, backside ollie onto the bank then crappy backside flip off the curb.

Then we went to Valmont and skated the manny pads for awhile. I did a nose manual back shove out first try and started thinking about the nose manual nollie treflip out that’s on my list. I wanted to do nollie front 3 shove out first and got remotely close but it seems like I should just try with the flip while I’m at it. I had tried it in a line of front shove, manny, nose manny huck and flail out. Never got close to the nollie 3 flip out, but it still feels possible. Ollie was cruising around ollieing up curbs better than he ever has and 180’ing off both ways at speed. The ollie onto the manny pad then front 180 off quick was my favorite.

Then we went around to the loading dock area and Ollie said he was gonna try to ollie off the top part for the first time. He did it easy. Then he did it again for the camera. This skate dad needs to document his every step! Ha. It is really cool to watch almost every step of someone progressing at skateboarding though. I tried to 50 the ledge after that, but my knee was really acting up and we decided it was time to go anyways. Fun night.

Jumping the gun on the ankle for sure, but I wont be able to skate til sunday at the earliest so I went to Lafayette to meet up with Dean and Derek with the intention of only skating trannie. Only because I didn’t want to hurt my ankle more (didn’t work). When I got there at 8:30 the lights were just turning on (seriously Lafayette how can the lights still be a problem at the skatepark?). Dean and Derek walked up to show me the new Skate Mag with Derek in it. So rad. Dean also had a very special gift for me as a thank you for getting him involved in shooting photos with Null. What the heck? I should be thanking you dude! Anyways, wow, thanks Dean! And you know what they say ladies, a way to a man’s heart is through Dinosaur Jr. Ha.

Although it looked like rain, it only sprinkled a tiny bit. I started in the medium bowl and took too long to get a solid back 50 and once I did I basically ran into a corner and lost my speed everytime. Dean and I hit the little bowl for awhile avoiding scooter kids. Ugh. Dean got some long back 50s around the corner. I bailed a lot of them, managed one long front 50, one front d and that’s about it. Derek was tearing up everything as usual. Kickflip fakie on the extension ok. We hit the snake run for a bit where I tried ollies on the hip and would miss the tail and just hurt my ankle for no reason. At one point Derek and I skated the big bowl with this dude Brandon that was murdering it. I felt like a total idiot and didn’t do much more then drop in and bail a kickturn well below vert. We did some other cruising around. It was fun. The only new thing I did was roll in next to the bowl by the bank which is easy, but just weird. Oh, I also dropped in on the big qp at the end of the snake run. I wasn’t planning on it, but Derek yelled across the park for me to do it so I tried. It was way taller then I thought, I rolled away, but it was sketchy and scary. Derek was hyped. Ha. Fun night once the kids left. I shouldn’t have skated though, my ankle is hurting.