After a fun morning of climbing around on the roof and cleaning the gutters Jake came over, whooped me in a game of SKATE then we left for Lafayette. Ollie is super into skating again all of a sudden so he wanted to come. It was weird skating that park with him, because I felt I had to keep an eye out on him at all times. He was fine though and mostly just ollied down the tight qp near the entrance and flew out of the curb cuts. He did manage a nice b/s ollie on a flat bank as well. We had met Lazer, Brett, Brian, Carleigh and Dean so we had a crew. I kind of sucked it everywhere and don’t remember a single thing worth mentioning that I did. Jake had a nice front pivot on the wallride to rock. Lazer had a nice feeble to fakie on it. Brian got gnar and did blunt to fakie. Then it started to rain so after some hanging around Ollie and I went to Red Curbs. When we first got there, it was fine, but ..

.. then all hell broke loose. Pretty much everything got wet and a huge puddle formed. You could skate both sections of red curb, but without much setup. For whatever reason I told Ollie I’d give him a new deck if he ollied up the tall curb and did a pop shove off it. He did the ollie up pretty quick, but the regular pop shove down took many, many tries. He wanted it! Lucky kid. Jack and his friend Daniel had showed up and Jack ripped it cruising around on a cruiser board. Kickflip front nose jibs, almost back 180 kickflip nosegrind. I myself was skating like crap once again. I tried a million front 5-0 kickflips out and didn’t get close at all. I tried some kick back tails as well and didn’t get them either. The only thing I landed was a front tail shove to back shove out. But I didn’t even slide it. Yippee. Seeing Jack was rad.

Liz had made plans for a late evening movie with a friend so I was allowed to skate right after work at 6:00 before watching the kids. But India ended up having a sleepover and Ollie said he was into skating again and that he would want to come again. Rad. We chowed some nachos quick, then went to one of Boulders best schools. I was feeling really tired from standing all week at work again. We cruised around the school for awhile before settling in on trying some lines up top. Ollie was trying to ollie a crack then do a front 180 all quick off the curb. He would get it. He also got back 180. I tried a line of pop shove, front 180 off the curb, halfcab flip, manual. The halfcab flips did not come easy. I might have gotten the line, but I think I touched on the manual. I tried again and slammed super hard on the manual as I didn’t even make it up the curb. Ugh. Then we went back to the main area. Ollie did a sick front board to fakie into the a slight downhill on the stair by the long aluminum bench. Then he did a super awesome line to it. Walk up the 12 stair, ride down the handicap ramp, wave at your shadow, push downhill going fast, ride sideways off the curb, then front board to fakie. I wish I was 9 years old again. He has the most fun. I did a boardslide to manual on the shorter bench which was the only thing new and remotely good I did. I got a front 50 on the bench too which was hard as I didn’t have much drive. Ollie killed it though. That kid rules to skate with. So much energy, smiles, etc. He back and front 180’d the two stair. Oh yeah his baller line was the jump off a playground equipment landing fakie, halfcab off the first curb, then front 180 off the second all quick.

First night I could skate in a few and it’s dumping outside. Doh. It ended up working out though as Ollie, Carleigh and I went to Red Curbs. Red curbs gets puddles when it rains because of the drainage, but it was really bad with the heavy rains. We managed though. I felt really uncoordinated initially. Way more so than normal. Ugh. Standing all day at work is tough on the legs, but once I get going it feels like I can skate forever. Ollie ripped it. Front 180, back 180s off curbs. Halfcab off, front and back boardslides. Some of the frontside boardslides he pulled to fakie or 270’d around. So sick. He was going slow, but still. Carleigh cruised around for awhile before settling in on trying the powerslide across the median. She got it quite a few times in the end. After some cruising around warming up, front, back 50s I told myself I had to do 4 manual tricks over the short manny pad. I ended up getting five. Manny, nose manny, front 180 nose manny, kickflip manny and switch front 180 manny. Rad. Then I tried the powerslide too. It took awhile and going the other way I would try a line of ollie a yellow bar, ollie a puddle, ollie up the curb, kickflip off. Got that a couple times. Ollie had started trying fakie pop shoves off a curb and landed it. Whoa! I got his back with the powerslide finally. I had told Ollie there was no way Carleigh and I could do that trick, but we tried it anyway. Carleigh ended up getting it in about 3 tries. It took me about 20. Ha. It had only taken Ollie about 10 tries. Last part of the session for me was trick up, off the longer manny pad. I got front 180 up then fakie bigflip off. Rad, never done that off anything before. Not even a huge curb. I wanted to do kickflip up then treflip off, but it was too late and I needed to get Ollie home. Fun night.

We went up to the NCAR hill above Boulder to watch the fireworks. It’s so awesome you can see the displays from several different cities in the distance and have a great view of Boulder’s. Such a great time.

Boulder surrounded by balck.

Getting artsy with the phone camera.

It was 98 degrees when I left the house. Since I hadn’t skated the day before and all my friends were gone I was hyped for a solo session and brought 32 ounces of cold water to keep me alive. It turns out the sun went under a cloud right around then. Awesome! Although I could have brought Ollie. Oh well, I was in the mood for a solo session and it felt right. I had watched the new Transworld video two or three times throughout the day. I love that video. The soundtrack is so good too (except Beasley’s part for me). Anyways, I was hyped to skate and it wasn’t as hot as I had thought it would be. I started off horrible though. Great. I couldn’t even do a kickflip. I wanted to do a bunch of runs with a trick up the curb, then a trick on the bench. I managed an ollie up, front board jib first. Cool. Next was switch front 180 up, boardslide pop out. After that was halfcab up, front 50 which was good for me since I’ve haven’t 50’d a narrow bench like this in a long time. I tried b/s pop shove up followed by boardslide transfer for awhile, but could not get the transfer. Ugh. On the way there I thought the best I could do was treflip up the curb, then crooks on the ledge. I’ve only tre’d up a curb once before, but surprisingly it came relatively quick. I did that line once badly, then another time much better (not saying much). I ended up getting 4 treflips up the curb. Hyped on that. Even if they were slow. Coming the other way I wanted to do front shove up then front 5-0. The front shoves were going really well, but I couldn’t get the 5-0. I settled with another front 50. The other line I really wanted to do on the drive there was kickflip up, front board to fakie transfer. I came sooo close, but ended up giving up on that one. In between tries coming back I would try b/s flip up then fakie bigflip off the curb (almost) or manuals. I was getting pretty beat, but wanted to ollie something. I found a rock in the corner that had a weird approach. Perfect. I thought of a line to it and went to work. Fakie flip, horrible switch pushing, sw front 180 off the 2 stair, ollie the rock. It took a few tries and my switch pushing was so bad. I got the line with a sketchy ollie then had some speed going towards a curb and I posed kickflip front board and slid it, but fell. Awesome. I called it on that. Sometimes solo skating is the best. We went on to have a great family 4th of July dinner and fireworks.

Nate showed up at 11am and after some chatting we headed out to Boulder ditch to get warmed up. I was feeling better, but still not 100%. It was hot and muggy, the muggy part being rare for Colorado. Anyways, it was just Nate and I for awhile and since that spot is so hard to skate it took us awhile to land much of anything. We started mostly just doing the tiny qp and not landing a whole lot. Nate did get front pivot to fakie. We eventually ended up skating the ledge in the photo above. Nate did a bunch of tricks on it. The back 50 was gnarly, but then he even stepped it up to back smith! Bernie and Sam had joined us. Bernie did some really good front tails and front tail to fakie. I managed a boardslide and a little crooked grind which hyped me up.

Then we went to Crest View which is one of my favorite spots in Boulder now. I need to skate it more this summer while we can. Chad and Bonner met us. Nate was hyped on the spot and skated hard. He did like 100 boardslide transfers. One was even in a run followed by a nosegrind. Wow. Chad and Bonner were ripping. Bonner ollied one of the benches. Bernie and Sam played basketball for awhile. I started off having fun, but started to get worn out. I was still kinda sick ya know. I tired a little line for awhile with a kickflip up the curb then front board to fakie transfer, but never got it. Nate killed it. I’ll miss you dude, have fun back in Portland.

Oh yeah, around 8:30 Ollie and I went out skating. He’s been into it a bit again. We went out to a little nearby strip mall (behind Safeway) where there are some curbs and curb cuts and a metal grate loading dock. We had a blast. Ollie ripped it. He got a back 180 off of everything we skated. First it was this weird kicker. Then it was a curb cut. Then it was off a curb. He also did one of the sickest coffin rides I’ve ever seen. The metal grate spot was weird because you couldn’t just ride right up the bank, you had to ollie because there was a crack at the bottom. Ollie handled it though and did a first try rock fakie and worked up to rock ‘n roll. He also kinda wallied up it then did a back 180 off a curb. Trying to get his back I tried switch front 180 up the grate then b/s flip off, but didn’t get it. We goofed around for quite a while and it was a blast. We did some little grinds on a mini curb kicker. Ollie did front slash after a few tries then showed me up with a really long backside one. So awesome. He rules.

Felt like crap all day. Worked from home instead of going into the office. After work and a couple naps Nate and Derek met up as we were gonna go to Chris’ art show in the Fort. We decided to stop at Niwot High as it’s one of the best bench spots around now and Nate loves them benches. I basically skated like total crap and gave up after awhile and sat down. Derek ripped it. Fast back tails, nosegrinds, etc. Ripping. Nate had some warming up issue, but eventually started ripping like he normally does. Lots of long back 50s, front lip, nollie front tails, some good flippers, etc. So stoked Nate is in town, but wish I would have felt better.

Feeling really tired once again. Liz and the kids are gone and I guess I stay up to late and can’t sleep as good when Liz isn’t there. Awww. Anyways I skated flat in front of my house for awhile waiting for John. It was really pathetic. I was skating really slow and had no hip in my hop. I resorted to trying nollie f/s flips since they were close and it’s on my trick list. Then I went for the reverse line and started with halfcab flip followed by a nollie f/s flip bail. Ugh. John arrived and we went to Southern Hills. The main ledge was a bit dry and we both struggled. John was ripping more than he. I think he got noseslide, noseslide shove, nollie back tail, front tail, front 50. I got boardslides both ways, back noseslide, back crooks, some bad front 50s and close to front 5-0 and the Joe Hamilton (aka front 50 to front board). I posed a few flip tricks around too. I wanted to crooks the whole bench and lined it out with an ollie over the two stair, but I couldn’t commit to much of it. Then we played a game of SKATE that went pretty good. Both of us landed quite a bit. It started to rain at the end and get really windy and John wrapped it up with a nollie flip. Trick sucks. Ha. Decent night for how tired I was.

New shoes (eS Edgar) and a new board (World Industries Flame Boy ha ha ha) and after a day off after Boston I felt ok. We all met around the same time (7ish) and it was still well into the 90s so it was really hot. Warming up seemed pretty slow for everyone. Bernie had some new shoes too and was having troubles. That didn’t stop him from doing his halfcab flips which are so good. Sam’s got nollie heels. He should know better since he’s pushing 40 as well. OH well, Neil busted his moves and was done before the rest. I skated pretty hard, but struggled. I had a couple back 50s. Got close to a couple kickflip back 50s. Tried a switch boardslide and went down sooo hard and almost hit my face, but the bill of my hat saved me. So sketchy. I’m not sure how hard my face out have hit if I didn’t have a hat on. I actually have a bruise on my forehead from the bill. Ha. I kept on skating and struggling. I tried a run of a 2mph backside flip over a crack, halfcab flip on flat then kickflip front board. I’ve done the kick front board once in my life, but it was horrible. I never got too close and I ruined my fresh griptape, but it was fun. I had a couple good feeling treflips. I’m a little bummed on how stiff the Worrest shoes are, but oh well.

Oh man we were beat. We were all sooo tired and sore from the day before. We took awhile, gave Rob a ride to the bus station, did some tourist shopping, then went to the horrible, horrible Waltham skatepark.

This place was worse than it looked on youtube. We made the most of it though. We did 10 tricks each on the little qp and 10 tricks on the flat bank. I don’t remember them all obviously. I know I was mad at one point during the flatbank part of it, but we did it and then went for dinner at some really good Indian food restaurant.

While Pat did some shopping we skated this yellow curb. We were going for 20 tricks total when we got kicked out. After all the spots we skated we got kicked out of this? Seriously? It was after 6:00pm so the liquor store at Black Ice was closed and we could skate there. So we did. The last session took awhile to motivate, but we did it and we had a blast.

I warmed up doing a few tricks on the bank to curb section. I finally got some axle stalls, feeble, back smith, pivot and Rob’s front slashes. I eventually got a front tail on it too. I tried a couple lines for awhile. Back pivot on the curb, frontside ollie on the bank, blunstlide over the grate. But I never got a real bluntslide. The other way I would try front tailslide, backside ollie then roll up onto the deck and kickflip into the bigger bank. I got it, but the kickflip was kind of just a silly kickflip without much speed then roll into the bank. Whatevs. it was fun. Matt killed it with kickflip up the curb, front 180 down. Wallie the curb to manny. Joe ended his night with the line of all lines. Ollie up to frontside wallride to front 180 out, front shove wallride then up on deck for the kickflip in like me. So rad. Charlie was killing it too and slamming a lot on sw heels. I tried a few treflips and ended with a couple tiny back tails on the bank. Such a fun trip. Matt focused my board since it was cracked and I wouldn’t have to carry it on the plane.

Thanks for the great trip dudes.