It was super nice out. I had a half day as I was leaving for my Mom’s house after work and didn’t want to drive later on when it’s supposed to be snowing in the mountains. I went to St Julien where I was supposed to meet Carleigh. I wasn’t feeling that spot, but I kept “skating” it since I was waiting for Carleigh. People kept standing near the ledge on their phones on work breaks so I felt weird skating by them. I tried a bunch of kick back tails and never got close uphill, manuals downhill and never did that either. Carleigh showed up, but wasn’t able to skate as she had some stuff to deal with. When she took off so did I. I was feeling burnt and tired. I rolled through a couple alleys and saw nothing. I was walking back to the car and saw a sick curb cut to downhill parking lot bomb and had to do it. It wasn’t too fast, but by the end I had to cut left to avoid a parked car making it fun. I was struggling with kickflips, but managed a couple into it that made the skate day worth it for me.

A pretty cool night. I got to the park and started out with just a long sleeve, but had to add the hoodie as the wind was really cold. No beanie of course. I’m doing my best to not wear one this year as they remind me of cold. Maybe I should rock one in the summer like Jack and Fuzz then it would remind me of summer. If only it were that simple. Anyways, some dude was posted up in dropin on the quartapotty for a good solid 15 minutes. A big dude with big DC shoes on just trying to get up the courage to dropin on that huge two foot quarter pipe. He eventually just gave up. Matt and Shaun were beat from a whole day of skating, but they still shredded. Back to back back 180s down the back to back 3 sets. Matt had a nice back smith on the unhappy ledge. I skated ok. Flip tricks were coming easy. 3 flip, frontside halfcab flip. Front feeble on the quartapotty is one of my favs. I could not nose manual the blue ledge. I tried a bunch of kick back tails and failed. Carleigh arrived and was super tired, but in a good mood. She ended up staying til the end even though she didn’t want to. Matt, Shaun and Rich left a little early and most of the park cleared out. I tried to ollie up onto the happy ledge and bs flip off, but my ollie’s haven’t been on point since my knee pain and I struggled at it. Had a good time.

Oh man. Such as amazing day. I was so sore the next day that even my upper body was sore. Wowsers. And that was before helping Carleigh move. Anyways, back to Monday, epic skate day. It started early for me as I had to drive to work, drop off my work phone, bring orders to Fed Ex and make a trip to the post office before meeting at Crisis at 9am. No one was there at 9. We left around 10:30. Not so bad. We were all piled in the Square State bus and made the trek to Roxborough skatepark. We stopped at a gas station nearby and I got some coffee. Yeah coffee! I had taken a few sips when we got to the skatepark. I cruised down the sidewalk to the park thinking to myself this was kind of fast for first thing in the morning, but it was fun. I was just cruising taking little carves when all of a sudden SLAM. Threw my coffee, slammed my knee into the ground, ate shit, ruined some new pants. Turns out there was a new section of concrete that had some weird layer of ice on it. Sweet. I hadn’t even made it into the park before slamming. It really didn’t bum me out though.

Everyone cruised around getting warmed up. Eventually people settled into some tricks and areas of the park. Jack and I skated the ledge for awhile and had a blast. Fuzz and Brian rolled in on the crazy extension thing. Gordon was skating. Actually skating. Hyped to see it. The ledge session that Jack and I had going was pretty amazing. He did nollie heel noseslide, crooks 3 shove, wallie 50, wallie blunt, front tail shove, so much more. I had a few crooks, front 5-0s, front 5-0 shove and some bad back 50s. It was really fun. We would try lining things out with the little qp. Well, we tried before Neil joined and disrupted the flow by always going. Ha. I think I managed front 5-0, front d, crooks. Also had a couple 3 flips on flat in there too.

While Jack and I were finishing up destroying the ledge people had started skating the pool at the back of the park. I joined. I sucked it up, but dropped into the shallow which hyped me up. I guess I got tile on one carve, but that was it. Fuzz, Chad, Brian, Gordon were killing it. Neil couldn’t drop in, but would still manage some good runs. Dean was in the mix too. Gordon skated hard and it was epic to watch. Front 5-0 the qp above the pool, roll in (so gnarly!) and follow it up with a run going over the stairs frontside and backside. Tranny killer. Brian was going for hurricane over the stairs and almost put it down. Fuzz struggled for front tail? Unheard of. Toward the end of this session I filmed Jack do a kicky back tail:

Then played around on the tranny solo for awhile. It was fun, but depressing. I tried a bunch of frontside ollies on this little hump. Maybe a few of them left the ground. I bailed a lot more axle stalls then I wanted to. But I had fun and managed a couple tricks that made me feel remotely ok.

Next we drove to the new Arvada skatepark that isn’t open yet. Neil had said we had an invite to skate it, but it sure didn’t seem like it when we got there. It was a weird vibe. Some skated, others sat in the bus. Jack and Brian dropped in on the monster 13 foot wall of death. Some Team Pain dude later rolled in on as his first thing on the board for the day. So gnarly. Brian grinded over the door first try. So sick. Jack did a sick late shove transfer. Neil was able to drop in into the mini bowl. Skelly joined us for a bit. Ripping. The park looks fun, I’ll wait til it’s done to go back though.

Last spot of the day was Rock Creek. Rock Creek! Gordon played a game of SKATE! He ripped it too. It was Jack, Gordon, some kid named Zeb I think and me. I was out quick. Gordon was out second, but ripped it with tricks I’ve never seen him do (not saying much though because I’ve never seen him skate flat before). Zeb had tricks like double dolphin flips so him and Jack were fun to watch do crazy tricks. I skated the ramp with others for awhile. Didn’t do much, but had fun. Gordon ripped the ramp. Every combo ever. So good. Fuzz was ripping. Brian slammed pretty hard, but still ripped it. My highlights were actually landing flatground tricks after the ramp session. Lots of treflips, a couple nollie tres, etc. It was really fun.

The day as a whole though, wow, so insanely fun. Days like this are hard to top and I was so sore I could hardly walk the next day.

Jake came over and we played Add-A-Trick in my street for awhile before leaving for Lafayette. It was a blast even though there was too much traffic from a CU game. The first line got pretty long. Something like powerslide, sweeper, no comply 180, fakie flip, sw 180, nollie back 180. I don’t even remember, Jake was the only one to get it. We had another shorter one then tried a few 3 flips before heading out. I managed to get 3 out of 10 or something like that. Not so bad for me as of late. Lafayette was pretty dead. Jake and I got there way before anyone else and skated the flow bowl for awhile. Jake killed it. I didn’t try many tricks, just tried to skate faster and get a little scratch grind on the pool coping. Others started showing up in waves. The total crew in order of arrival was Neil, Bernie, Brian, Gordon, Sandy, Dean, Crisis crew, Jack and Carleigh. Bernie and I played on the manual pad a bit. He did halfcab flip manual so easy. I never manualled it. For some reason I hate that slab of marble. Gordon, Brian, Kyle skated the pro bowl. I dropped in on it once, made one kick turn then slipped out. After that it was pretty much non stop playing on the little tight qp at the entrance of the park. Lots of stuff went down. Brian and Jake did a million tricks. I had troubles with axle stalls initially, but ended up getting quite a few tricks. Back feeble, front rock, front axle stall, back smith, front feebs. I still owe Jake a tall can of Modelo for a race we had going. He was trying pivot fakie and I was trying back smith. We both got him, obviously he was first if I owe him a beer. Bernie did a front tailslide on it which was ridiculous. Carleigh did a Heavy rock to fakie, Heavy axle stall and a Heavy feeble to fakie. Jack did lots of neat stuff too. Back D first T. Jack was doing tricks down the drop like back foot flip, nollie flip etc and started trying nollie tres. I went for kickflip asking what he’d do if I did it first try. He offered a Vitamin Water so I went for it. It was so close that some kid asked if I was trying a Lazer Flip. Totally dude. Jack ended up extending the offer for three tries and after he put down a perfect nollie tre I put down a totally hideous kickflip. Last thing I did was an ollie up the curb, axle stall on the qp, then kickflip off the curb. Pretty sketchy, but fun. Then we went to Crisis to setup for the art show and Jack had a Vitamin Water there waiting for me. Amazing! It ended up being an incredibly fun night. Congrats Fuzz! Crisis is the bomb!

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).