Neil, Max and I headed up to Fort Collins to do business at MRKT and then skate at Northside. We met up with Chad, Jess and most of the normal Ft Collins heads were at the park. I warmed up real slow as usual. I dont even remember much of what happened for awhile except the dudes that skate that park everyday destroy it. Taylor front 5-0’ing up the jersey barrier is nuts. Xavier doing back lip followed by back tail over the shallow stairs was nuts too. Max ripped it all day and him and Jess did some back to back 360s over the hip and played big pop all afternoon. Neil skated, rested, skated, rested, skated. During the skating parts he ripped it. Boardslide the jersey barriers. Chad skates that park different than most locals. Not as much gnar, but some big pop and crazy tricks. So rad. I had a good time and landed most of my basics there. So like 3 tricks. I managed to manual the mj ledge with a tiny scrape that I think sits fine in the “over 35” category. Not enough of a scrape to be in the “over 40” category. I also spent a lot of time trying to b/s flip over the mj hip which I finally did with a nice wall hold to stabilize myself. Mike got a nice no comply shove over it and Neil got a really poppy no comply over it. Chad did nollie heel (almost to manny) and Max did treflip (not to nose manual like he wanted). We had a good time and the warm weather felt great. I tried a bunch of ollies over the little mound up top with the goal of some day hitting my chest with my knees. I probably didn’t get close but it was fun trying to suck them up so high. Lastly for me was wallieing the littlest part of the jersey barrier. I took a few slams before finally getting it. Neat. That park rules and so does the Ft Collins scene.

Had a long drive down from Buena Vista stopping at DIA on the way to drop off my brother. Got home in the afternoon, chilled for awhile, then Jason, Carleigh and Jake showed up and we picked up Lazer and headed to Broomfield. We chilled at Crisis for awhile then went across the street to the ledge where we ended up staying almost the whole time. Unfortunately Carleigh couldn’t skate due to a board hitting her ankle while shooting a photo earlier in the day. Lazer actually skated the ledge a long time. Neither of us go front smiths.

But at least Lazer’s looked like a smith grind as opposed to my mutant smith/5-0/wtf.

Jake was ripping and man it was good to see him again. He also got a front 180 nosegrind at the end and some nice ollies over some safeway debris.

Bernie met us at Crisis and managed to still rip even though he had rolled his ankle the day before. Bernie and I had a race to kick back tail. He won obviously. He also landed kick front tail and fakie varial flip back tail. Wow.

As tech as Bernie got it was nothing compared to this 2mph kick back 50 wall push out. First try of course. Ha, I was hyped to do that though. I also ended up getting a few front crooks to fakie. They were slow as well, but man, that is a fun one.

Fuzz showed up after work and busted the basics before we rolled to the church behind his shop. It was a blast. Some kids joined in and we had a good session. Jake did a front blunt transfer into the bank. Fuzz did front lip to fakie (gnar). Lazer did front lip transfer. I got a weak front blunt transfer and a front board front 180 transfer that felt really fun until my straight legged ride away came to a halt. I also got manual to back lip. Bernie did manual to boardslide and eventually nose manny to lipslide that shut down the session. Other stuff that went down before that were Fuzz struggling to ollie three curbs after Chase did it second try, me taking way way way too long to do a slappy lipslide, Lazer spilling his beer twice, a little kid doing a front 50 transfer into the bank, and lots of laughs. Awesome.

Had about one hour of free time so I bolted solo to the skatepark. It was warm and sunny, but super windy. My legs didn’t feel all that great. I cruised around feeling a few things out when all the teenagers in town showed up. I was thinking it would be cool to see some local dudes actually skate. Nope. Most just sat in cars. The bmx’ers actually biked around a bit, but mostly just annoyed me. I tried to ollie over the 3 stair rail again, but was over it when one dude sat on it two times in a row. I could not land a single flatground trick. The only cool thing I did was a backside flip on the 4 foot quarter pipe. Yes, well below coping.

Definitely having a tough day. Had a couple hours before Liz and the kids would arrive so I went to the park. I had to clear some tumbleweeds out from under the ledge to be able to skate it. My body felt sore, but mostly I could not get the sound of my mom crying out of my head. I started out doing laps from the qp and flyout. I’d start by ollie’ing the flat bar, axle stall the tall qp, try to do sucked up ollies out of the flyout, frontside smith on the small qp, then manual the ledge. Didn’t get them all. After awhile I tried just manual followed by nose manual on the ledge. It took me awhile just to get manual and I hung up on a few nose manny attempts. Ugh. I was feeling really old. Not just old physically, but old. I kept at it though. Finally got back 50 on the little ledge. I tried to ollie the 3 stair handrail for awhile. There is a big crack right before it so it’s kind of weird. I got some ollies over it, but kicked it away. I would like to do that sometime, but my head definitely wasn’t in it. Eventually the family showed up and Ollie rolled around with me for awhile. It cheered me up, but we had to go.

Steve with the wind up

And he’s still got it!

After a rough few days my brother Steve and I had a couple hours to get out of my parent’s house. We went for a little hike and then I told my brother I needed to go to the skatepark for at least a little bit. After a few days of not even thinking about skating it hit me and I really really wanted to skate. So we stopped by the Buena Vista skatepark. It’s about what you would expect for a tiny little mountain town. I actually love this park. Anyways, I took a few runs around the park before Steve jumped on my board and skated for the first time since the last time I saw him. He still has his basics. Boardslides, rock ‘n rolls, early grab flyouts. It was great to seem him skating.

Headless rock ‘n roll

Steve even almost got back feebs!

Here’s just an overview of part of the park. I skated really well. I worked up to a decent line of axle stall on the tall qp, flyout melon, front slash the little qp, front 50 the ledge, kickflip, crooks the ledge bail. The highlight might be ollie’ing up onto the funbox above and doing no pop back 180 off. Followed by a nose manual up and around the little bank. I also had 360 flip and fakie flip on flat to show off in front of my brother.

So yeah my brother and I attempted to shoot skate photos with my smart phone. It has a crappy delay sometimes so it missed my huge flyouts and captured the first little one (will any of you believe that?).

This ledge is aight.

It was a great session. It was great seeing my brother skate and then skating while he watched and got bored. It did feel different though since my dad has died. Like their is more pressure to be good at life. Better at being a son, father, husband, friend, work, null and skateboarding. It’s weird. I’ll probably be skating this park a lot now since I’ll be visiting my Mom up here a lot. It’s actually a pretty fun park at least.

Once again, a lot has happened so this one so I’ll miss a lot of what happened. Carleigh, Fuzz, Dean and I went to No Love around 9 pm. It was a small crowd and we all skated. Well Dean took photos. Fuzz and Carleigh ripped out of the gates. Jeff was ripping too. Fuzz did about 100 tricks on the qp. Carleigh did huge wallrides. I had troubles on the wallride, but skated the qp ok. Got front lip, axle stall to fakie, fakie pivot fakie first try. Later on got a crooks on the ledge. Did a little nose manny on a little door to curb high manny pad. Finished off by played a game of SKATE with Mikey that he won. Had a lot of fun, but really felt old and stiff. Oh well. Got home late and was planning on starting a 4 day skate trip starting Friday but those plans would be changed.

I don’t like missing skate journal entries, but a lot has happened since this one. Dean came to my house then Carleigh and we met Fuzz at Broomfield park. I was rusty as all get out after a week of sickness followed by a few days of back spasms. After a few runs around the bowl Fuzz took advantage and challenged me to a game of ledge SKATE on the black ledge. We both missed lots of basic tricks, but he finished me off easily with a bluntslide. At one point I saw Fuzz noseblunt the bump to bar first try. Carleigh boardslid the little rail and came close to front 50 shove out. Dean looked like he was having fun. Derek met us there too and was ripping as usual. I don’t remember much of the session other than the above and the end when I tried to ollie the six stair. It took me awhile so Derek hyped me up by doing a switch front 3 and I had to get his back. Landing those stairs felt great. Carleigh ollied the double set easy. I was excited to skate again.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. It had stopped raining, but it was super windy. I didn’t feel sick, but my side pain acted up for the first time in months. Ugh. Dean and Derek had hit me up pretty early on wanting to make some things happen. I was in a horrible mood and in hindsight probably shouldn’t have gone skating. But I went. I met Derek at the Broomfield park as well as Brian, Neil and their skate camp kids. The park was insanely crowded. I tried to get a little warm up going on the quartapotty, but three runs in a board shot out and hit my ankle and then I ran into someone. So I left to the car. Luckily everyone else was over it too. We went to go film a line of Derek’s at a nearby spot, but there was cars in the landing. We went to another nearby spot and cars there too. We ended up at kind of a dorky spot. It’s a loading dock with banks on both sides and a two stair going into one of the banks. Going up the stair way the wind helped you. Going the other way sucked. Dean skated harder than I’ve seen him skate before. He was doing some cool old man no complies and boneless variations and ollied up the two stair (harder than it sounds). I was kind of kind of able to skate. The side pain was intense, but not as insane as it’s been before. But it still sucks. Like what’s the point in skating if you can’t really squat to ollie. Or not being able to take risks because if you fall you know your done. I hate it. I was so bummed out. Soooo bummed. I have been sick and now this. I managed a front 50 stall on the two stair back into the bank and a wallie up it. That was about it. Derek wasn’t exactly cheery either. The wind was getting him down. Understandable. He did do some cool manuals though and a sick front shove off the 2 into the bank. We ended it with back to back fakie bigflips into the bank. But as we were getting into our cars we spotted a crazy drainage ditch spot. Over a curb into a narrow drainage chute then up on to a grate. Derek wanted to try kickflip in, manual the grate. Sick. He got close, but ended up bumming super hard since it was taking awhile. It sucked to watch. Because clearly Derek is good enough to do it, but for whatever reason it wasn’t happening. He wont blame anything, but the traffic and wind did not help. Neil had shown up and did a sick no comply boneless into it. But Derek ended up getting over it. We left for Crisis/Burger King. It’s always good to see fuzz and there was like 10 kids posted up in there. Awesome. Next up we went to a nearby ledge spot. I didn’t even try to skate it because my side was sucking. Derek almost did a ridiculous line like 3rd try. So we tried to film it and then the filming curse that Derek currently has reared it’s ugly head again. It’s weird being in my position. I know Derek wanted to do it for himself, but it’s weird sitting there with a camera pointed at someone when they are that frustrated. It happens Derek. Don’t hate on yourself. I went home super bummed out on my side and my own skating. Ugh.

Been fighting a sinus infection all week. I didn’t even go into work one day. Although i got some antibiotics on Wednesday and I was starting to feel human by Friday. After “working” from home (that is a huge stretch of the term working), a crazy hail storm, a nap and then dinner Carleigh picked me up and we were off to skate. Oh wait, I had skated flat for a little bit first. It was bad. I was so stiff from laying around all week it was ridiculous. I posed around doing some little ollies and stuff for awhile then for whatever reason started posing nollie heelflips. I got to the point where some felt really good, but I never got ever close. Carleigh showed up and announced we had a special guest for the night. I couldn’t come up with who it was until we turned towards Lazers house. Street Lazer! Sick!

We went to campus which was wetter then we thought it would be. There was still hail melting and wet leaves everywhere on the concrete from the destruction. We started out at the angled ledge which had water only on the ledge part of it. So we did some rock tricks on the little tranny to ledge. Lazer and I did front rock, rock fakie and fakie rock. Carleigh was having troubles but getting into rocks so was just doing 3flip crooks instead. We moved on and ended up at the little ledge section. For some reason I don’t like that spot very much. Carleigh was busting some front 50 shoves out (minus the shoves) and ripping to no end. Lazer took a minute to get back 50, but had a good one. He also got a proper back tail. I didn’t get anything other than a 1/4″ crooked grind and posed some front blunts. Next we were at the downhill manny pad spot and none of us could manual it. Carleigh got close to nollie treflip nose manual nollie heel out, but slipped out on a wet leaf. Lame! Lazer got Razor tail by doing manuals with the tail on the ground. I came remotely close to nose manual. Then we played rock walk down the 5 stair. Carleigh used the beginners rail to hold on to. We sure were dorking around a lot. That was pretty much it until the end when we skated some flat for awhile. I was soooo rusty, but it felt good to get a few flippers. I got a lot of my tricks, but most were slow and bad. Oh well, it felt good to be skating again.

ps – I may have embellished Carleigh’s tricks a little. This was her request after seeing how many hits this blog gets. But yeah, she should be pro.

Hung around and slept most of the day after a late night feeling like crap. And no, it wasn’t a hangover. But yes, the Black Dots show was a blast. I will have photos up sometime. Anyways, the weather dried up, but it was still cold. I went to the Lafayette park to meet Brian, Carleigh and John. I got there first and Max’s little brother was there with crew again. They skate so much it rules. I was definitely not feeling good. I had no desire to ollie and everything made me feel achy. Carleigh eventually showed up, then Brian with Jam and then John. When Jam shoes up you can’t make excuses. So I tried the rail and failed. Brian almost did it while beaming me which would have been epic. Brian, John and I eventually did get boardslides down it. John also front 50d the hubba super easy. Carleigh did some pop shoves into the bank mixed in with some gnarly slams into the bank. Ouch. Then she pop shoved the 3 stair bolts then followed that up with a really bad slam which she hurt her foot. Oucher. John slammed on a front shove into the bank then followed it with a make. I did a slow and crappy fakie bigflip into the bank. I didn’t have the mindset for the rail/ledge section so just started carving around the snakerun. It was fun. John and Brian joined. I got a kickflip wallride second or third try which hyped me up. Brian did lots of crazy lines. John had some poppy ollies and good lines. I tried to do some ollies at the end, but they were pathetic. Brian was getting more air then me without even hitting his tail. Had a good time, but not sure it was worth getting as sick as I did afterwards…