More wind. Ugh. Wanted to skate flat a bit before going out to dinner with Liz and then seeing Black Dots, but it was really windy. Ended up attempting to skate Rampy, but man it felt tight and I was struggling. The new trucks weren’t turning too well for me. It never fails, as soon as I talk trash it haunts me. I make fun of Indys and comment on how Thunders are the best so of course my new Thunders treated me like crap. I did a few basics though (the magic formula for the next 5 tricks is to subtract the kickflip): Kickflip front 50, kickflip front smith, kickflip back 50 fakie, fakie kickflip pivot fakie, kickflip front rock. I gave up after all those flippers and started trying switch flips in flat. You don’t have to subtract the kickflips on this though since I didn’t land any. I did get super close multiple times though and quite a few felt like I knew what I was doing (don’t worry I still don’t).

It’s been a rough couple of weeks since SF. I hurt my foot then I got sick. Ugh. I also had to deal with rebuilding several websites and the in laws were here (which was a great). So I haven’t skated much and I’ve been feeling really run down and not my normally chipper self. I hate feeling run down and I haven’t got much done lately. Ugh, cry me a river. Anyways, it wasn’t cold out, but it wasn’t very warm either. We started out pretty mellow and ended up near the parking block spot. Snow removal messed up the funnest one, but we made due and ended up linking the manual pad down the block into it too. Oh yeah, I had almost new everything. Another pair of bright red Lakai Manchesters, a new Lung deck and the worst of all, new trucks. They are purple Thunder Titaniums though. Purple! They look great on the Dinosaur Jr colored deck! Yes, I am a poser. I did recruit my old bushings though. I’ve never done that before. The trucks still felt tight, but not so bad and they are Thunders so you know they are the best (that sentence is solely for Fuzz’s entertainment and maybe even Jacks. He’s on a Indy kick too. And I suppose even the Fremont dudes might take note since they have Indy tattoo’s and claim “Indy For Life!” and all that. Who gets a logo of a truck company tattoo’d on them anyways? Especially a heavy truck that squirms all over the place). Wow, back to the skating. Carleigh showed me she learned fakie body varials. So rad. I got a line of ollie a parking block (hammer!), boardslide a parking block (hammer!), nose manual a curb high manny pad (hammer!) and finally a noseslide on a tall ledge at the end of the block (boring). Going the other way I tried sw 180 manuals (put my front wheels down everytime) and then front blunts on a parking block. Did a couple where I actually slid. Neat.

We moved on. We hit the downhill brick area a couple times. I was pretty hyped to get manual, back 180 up the curb, sw 180 on flat, ollie the 3 stair, ollie up the 2, front 180 off the two. All basics, but fun. I wanted to go back and spice it up a little, but security was lurking. They didn’t seem to care, but we left after Carleigh made fun of her rocket ollie down the 3 stair.

We went by the manual pad at Wells Fargo. Carleigh tried slappy nose manuals while I pretended to skate like Busenitz with a manual, ollie up a curb, ollie up the ledge in the alley then kickflip off. I had to go super fast (for me, but probably slower than Busentiz (who rides Thunders) has ever gone) on the manual and before the ollie up the curb as I didn’t want to push before the ledge. Even then I still almost ran out of speed when I got the kickflip.

Lastly we went to the white ledge as I was really itching to break in the new trucks. Carleigh looked like she was gonna bail out of trying to grind it, but ended up going for it and getting a front 50 a few tries in. Sick! She also had a pretty bad slam on one attempt. I did lots of bad back 50 dances and would come to a halt and a couple where I actually landed still moving. At the end I got a couple crooks that felt great. Why don’t we skate this ledge more? On the way to the car I was pushing somewhat fast and hit a nasty crack and slammed on my wrist. Ouch. Other then that I had a blast and felt happy skating again.

Woke up in a bad mood. Wasn’t sure why at the time, but it turns out I was in the process of getting sick so it makes sense now. Anyways around 11 I took off with Ollie and his friend Gabriel to bring boards to Community and Crisis. We stopped at the old metal park on the way. It was an ok session. Ollie did a front 180 which I’ve never really seen him do before. He thinks back 180s are easier. Gabriel tried to do ollies. I haven’t skated tranny much at all lately and it showed. I felt weird even dropping in on the cement bank to start the day. Doh. I ended up having some fun though. Started trying a line where I would manual the fun box after riding up the kicker, axle stall the cement bank, then nose manual the box coming back. That felt pretty good. Also did a long flip trick run with lots of horribly landed tricks.

After the shops, lunch and a nap Mikey showed up and we went out to do some filming. We warmed up at St Julien. I had fun there and did a line I was kinda hyped on. Ollie a milk crate, crooks, turn around, front 5-0, 360 flip on flat. Neat. The wind was pretty intense so we didn’t get to filming there. We drove around and checked a lot of spots where I didn’t really skate and was definitely feeling weird. We ended up at the double set rail in Boulder that Jack did the boardslide to hurricane. Mikey wasn’t feeling that spot either. I wanted to ollie the flat gaps in the parking lot, but had some type of mental breakdown and it took a ton of tries. I got super upset. Ugh. In hindsight I probably should have realized I was starting to feel sick.

Pretty tired and Liz wanted to hang out after work. While she cooked dinner I skated flat in front of the house. It actually went pretty good. Treflips were pretty consistent, but I didn’t get a treflip, nollie treflip combo that I wanted to get. At the very end I landed primo on a heelflip and it hurt worse then it should. I guess my foot isn’t 100% yet.

Carleigh, Fuzz and I were supposed to go see John’s band after going to 303 and then skating downtown a bit. But Carleigh was blowing it big time so we missed 303 and skating. I had stepped out on my street and done a couple kickflips while waiting for Carleigh to be late. The foot felt like it was up for skating. Stoked. Now if only Fuzz hadn’t stole my board (He is jealous of my Thunder trucks (the poor guy rides Indys)).

Not only did I fall asleep filming, but I got a DGK sticker put on my back:

Apparently it was there for quite awhile:

Thanks Jack. At least you made up for it by posting all these wonderful video clips. Oh yeah, so this is supposed to be a “skate journal” entry. Fact is I only pushed a lot filming lines and did a couple little ollies on the filmer board. The foot is jacked (no pun intended) but should only be a few days.

Brian, Neil, Carleigh and Jason showed up in the kind of late afternoon on a pretty SF feeling day (upper 50s). For whatever reason we started trying ollie grabs in the street in front of my house. It was a pretty comical display I’m sure. I don’t think anyone got a legit grab, but we did get some little snatches. Brian got a melon, Neil melon and frontside grab, Jason mute, Carleigh kickflip (wrong trick Carleigh), I got a couple frontside grab scrapes, couldn’t get the tail on a one foot tail grab and scraped a cannonball. After all the street grab action we decided we should go to a launch ramp. The Basemar kicker was agreed upon and Brian bailed. Neil was the only one that stuck with the street grab theme and lofted some good melons. I had troubles with ollies, but put down kickflip first try. After awhile Neil and I tried some lines. He was trying either melon or pop shove off the kicker, ollie into the bank, kickflip out. He never got the kickflip out. Jason had some poppy ollies and put down a back 180. Carleigh had some good ollies, pop shove first try, then got really upset about kickflips not being easy. I had a fun run of manual coming the other way, ollie into the sidewalk bank then front 180 out. Off the kicker I was trying treflips and put down an amazing feeling one. Maybe my best treflip ever. It felt so good. I went back to kickflips and was struggling and at one point landed really weird and stretched my back foot out pretty weird. I tried to walk it off, but no luck. I skated through it knowing I probably will have to take a few days off. It took awhile, but I got a kickflip off the kicker, ollie into the bank then front shove out. It was a super fun session until the foot part. It’s gonna be a few days ..

Today was the last day in SF. Boooo! The morning started kinda slow. I spent a lot of time freaking out how I was not going to ruin another pair of good socks since I only brought good socks on the trip and had worn a whole in my shoe. Luckily, some duct tape and cheap dollar store socks were acquired and things were good. Fuzz, Nate and I started at the 3 up 3 down around the corner to get things rolling. We all started slow, but eventually some things happened. Carleigh had joined us, but sat and shot photos. Eric and Neil rolled in late and we moved on. But first, some photos.

Fuzz killed it. Manual. Maybe even manual front 180 out? Front 180 up fakie ollie off (first try). Front 180 up, f/s halfcab flip off.

Nate manualled it and nose mannied it. He got into some back 50s too, but we were leaving around then.

Oh yeah, the way we started warming up was pretty bad. Fuzz and Nate decided to try what I tried. I think half the time I would bail so early on they couldn’t even tell what I was trying. A couple time Fuzz just kicked his board toward the stairs as a joke. The warmup back 50s felt good though and I got a little scraper front blunt on the button step. Then we decided to get gnarly on the stairs. Ha. I was really struggling to ollie up it, but after awhile it started coming and I posed kickflips for awhile before finally putting one down. Don’t let the photo fool you, as soon as my back foot connected it went down and it was a hella rocketed kickflip.

We moved on to see what the city had to offer. We hit some fun mellow hills, kickers, flat gaps, etc. A highlight for me was kickflipping into a driveway bank, but I was going really slow. Eventually we ended up at a tall ledge that Nate, Eric and Fuzz skated really good.

Eric did a real front board. Mine were slow and lame.

Although, once again, my shirt is way cooler. See photos of Fuzz and Nates 50s and 5-0 at Carleigh’s blog. As if you didn’t already know to check her blog all the time though. We got kicked out of the ledge spot pretty quick and ended real close at a sick looking flatground spot. A game of SKATE was gonna go down, but some weird lady started walking on the maze painted in the circle and she got lost in it.

We got some mediocre food, hit a couple more hills, stopped at DLXSF and called it a trip. My favorite SF trip yet. I had a blast with everyone. TF, you guys rule.

I will say that the Cruz Rollerskate party was one of the craziest party nights of my life.  I’m not gonna pretend that I’m gnarly and have seem the craziest nights or anything, but that was a crazy night.  After such a fun night I woke up to the sound of a dog lapping up something about 6″ from my head.  I was on the floor and I turned around to see Cole eating dog puke (mostly dog food) right by my face.  Not a good way to start the day.  Especially an eating contest day.  Anyways,  people work up, we got things rolling and some of us decided to go street skating.  The crew was Nate, Fuzz, Carleigh, Neil, Eric Fauvre and I.

The first spot was this wallride and ledge spot nearby that we saw when out walking in the rain the day before. I was hurting big time at this spot. I even sat down for awhile. Eric was killing it. Lots of flippers just rolling down the street. Not the basics either. Nollie tre, nollie flip (even harder then nollie tre), sw back heel I think. Fuzz was ripping as usual too. I think he was the first to put a grind down on the ledge. nate was in there too. neil had a front 50. Carleigh may have gotten a noseslide and was trying a run with pretty much every trick I’ve seen her do on flat in it. I was so out of it I would either run into the ledge or miss it completely. I had a blast doing slappies on a round curb though.

We moved on, hit some mannies in an alley for a bit after picking up a longboarder bro. Neil, Nate, Fuzz and Eric all did long manuals. I kind of did one. It’s funny though because I was still hurting pretty bad and when I got into it Fuzz said I made a horrible face like I was super bummed because I had to do the manual. We moved on again and cruised down tons of mellow hills toward EMB. It was SOOOO fun. We were just cruising having a blast.

Then we made it to EMB! Carleigh didn’t even know what this spot meant. WTF???? Ha. I thought it would be good time for an epic game of SKATE, but instead Carleigh went gnarly and ollied, then pop shoved the six stair. Not only was it a pop shove, but it was PERFECT. Seriously an epic pop shove.

Fuzz also had a cool ollie over the handrail sideways. I was thinking of ollie’ing the 6 stair, but instead went with the hangover cure of trying to make it over all the skate stoppers

This isn’t the make, Fuzz’s phone died after one take. But both Fuzz and I did it. It was seriously fun. That nipped the hangover pretty good. It was super funny though, Neil gets tired kinda quick. He had been ripping, but started crashing and could not even get up onto the ledge to the first stopper. He got pretty bummed, but that stuff happens at our age. We skated a nearby ledge for a bit too. Nate killed it with non-basic ledge tricks first T. I tried a run of ollie over the ledge, noseslide, bluntslide off the curb, but never got the bluntslide. Nearby Fuzz and Eric were trying to boardslide what looked like a really tall ledge:

Little did they know, you didn’t have to boardslide the top of it, you could just boardslide the side:

Eric went on to get a sick noseslide before we headed over to Pier 7. Fuzz killed it. Kickflip manual 2nd try. Eric got nose manny pretty quick. Nate too. Nate tried nollie shove manny and came super close, but we got the boot. I could not manual to save my life, but got close to nose manny. I’m gonna put my picture, solely because of my magical shirt.

After that we pretty much headed to the eating contest. It rained a bit, we walked a lot and we were all tired. Perfect for eating! I went on to win. 7 chili dogs, 6 beers for a score of 13. My fatness applauds me.

Oh, did you notice Tommy Guerrero watching us eat? Yeah, he’s starting Real Eatboards. I’m the first pro.

Go to Carleigh’s blog from the day and see tons more photos.

Woke up to rain and the forecast called for rain all day. Doh! Carleigh, Fuzz, Neil, Nate and I went walking trying to find a parking garage, but came up short. Gordon made fun of us saying “I haven’t looked for a parking garage rain spot in 15 years.” Poser. Ha. At 3 we went to the Log Shop. Most skated the bowl. It looked really fun, but it was super crowded so Nate and I just skated the little street setup the whole time. Mostly we skated the ledge which was a blast. Nate had back smiths, nollie front tails, back nosegrinds, etc. He kills ledges. I was hyped on landing lots of back crooks, front 50 shove, front 5-0 shove and almost getting front 50 back 180 out. We also messed around with some other stuff like wallrides and a flat bank where I hit my head on a pipe. Turns out Gordon had hit his head too. Doh. That night was the crazy Roller skate party night. Wow, what a raging party.Go to Carleigh’s blog for lots of dudes without shirts.