Ollie got some new wheels for his birthday and he asked me to set them up in the morning. Right after that we went over to the school for a bit and broke in the new long two stair. Ollie was doing drop down manuals all steezey. I got a few too and was trying to follow it up with a quick ollie over the black plastic that was up for landscaping efforts. It took awhile and it was a horrible ollie. We went around the rest of the school. Nothing special went down. Ollie manualled across the US painting all easy. We ollied off the tall 3 stair into grass a few times and rolled around. Pretty fun. I also got a kickflip up a curb and tried to noseslide the lower level of a handrail.

After that was Ollie’s birthday party which was a lot of swimming and giving kids “surfboard” rides as I swam along the bottom of the pool with one standing on my back. Pretty fun, but tiring. Later on I could have gone skating, but was hungry, tired and sick of it being cold outside. Luckily I have an indoor ramp that people like to skate so Carleigh, Derek, Nate and Dean rolled over and we shredded for a couple hours. It was fun. Everyone was in good spirits. Carleigh maybe higher than the rest. Ha. She had her best first line ever that went all the way to a kickflip rock attempt. Nate got used to Rampy pretty quick and did lots of good tricks like front feeble, back tail, back d, back d to sugarcane and more. Derek of course killed it. He was keeping it kinda mellow, but managed a bigspin back tail in there. Ridiculous. Dean is taller than me and doesn’t skate ramp a whole lot. So he had some troubles earlier but worked it out and got the basics. I actually had a pretty good session. I got most of tricks. Actually pretty much all of them except hurricane. Even a front 50 yank out and a back rock decked on the short side of the deck. Thanks for coming over guys, it really cheered me up.

Not sure if this day would count if I were going for 300 again, but it was cold and snowing and we were hanging out at Crisis and the banana board came out.  Fuzz did some steezey basics like shove and no comply shove.  I flailed around like an old buffoon for an hour before landing two kickflips in a row.  I couldn’t even hardly stand comfortably on it.  Ugh.  CJ ended up getting a nollie flip.  We watched the old Meta video Recess.  It was rad.  Jam and Fuzz have parts in it.  It sure is nice having a dvd of the video.  Where you at with Lumber Jockeys Sam?????????

Got home from work and had less time to skate than I had thought.  Liz and were going to dinner, then the Always Sunny premiere, then J Mascis!  So I skated flat for about 30 min.  I was horrible.  I’m not sure why all of a sudden everything feels so awkward.  I was trying a run of no comply 180, fakie flip then f/s halfcab flip.  I think I got to the f/s halfcab flip twice.  Ugh.  I would land half of the no complys completely straight legged and borderline shooting out.  Fakie flips were 1/20.  So bummed.  Going the other way I managed a halfcab flip, heelflip, treflip run.  All tricks being horrible.  I had some fakie bigflips going 2mph.  I attempted quite a few nollie tres and didn’t get them.  I did get a few treflips.  All landed with Jason’s patented 20 stair landing steez.  Another line was heelflip then b/s flip landed in a way that would only count on defense in a game of over 50 SKATE.  I started hucking tricks I can’t do just to feel better about not landing tricks anyway.  Rick flips were surprisingly close.  I landed on one, but had stopped.  Still happy I skated though

Had one crazy evening. Got home to a completely messy house and a daughter that was screaming out of control about not being able to finish her homework in time for the talent show. Then I sat through two hours of elementary school “performances”. Two Justin Bieber songs, one Green Day song, blah blah. A couple kids could sing pretty good, but for the most part it was pretty rough. India was of course awesome for me to see and the ender was her whole 5th grade class doing the dance for Thriller. That was pretty amazing actually.

Oh wait, this is a skate journal huh? So yeah, after all that and then doing dishes and eating I went out to roll up the street to the strip mall by my house, but it was raining now. Ugh! Instead of baling on the whole thing I decided to hit Red Curbs. I pulled in and noticed a bunch of people skating. Whoa. Turns out that Satellite and Public Eye dudes had decided to skate there too. It was like a crowded skatepark. Ha, ok, so not crowded. Since I spent all of Monday sleeping off back pain my body was really out of it. I felt way more uncoordinated than normal and it showed. I struggled at everything from ollies to kickflips and in between (as if there is something in between ollies and kickflips). After awhile everyone else left. I don’t remember having actually landed anything by that point anyways. I started trying a line of halfcab flip, nose manual, kickflip back tail. I got all three, but not in a line. The kick back t was a good one for me and it slid about a foot. The weirdest thing happened though I heard someone yell really loud mid slide and it scared the death out of me. I never did figure out where it came from. Pretty weird. I tried a few nose manual nollie tres and did not get close. I tried a few front 5-0 kickflips out and did not get close. Maybe that list is a little unrealistic, but I guess I have two years to get them. Ok, enough babble about a curb session.

As I headed over to skate a new manual pad Neil said him and Brian were skating Lafayette.  I skated the manny pad for awhile since Carleigh was gonna meet up and was feeling pretty weird.  I had woken up with back spasms and did my best to sleep them off.  I was super tired and out of it, but it felt good to be on a real board again (a Null of course!).  I kinda wanted to go to Lafayette to meet up with them, but was so lazy.  I did try starting trying nose manual nollie treflip out.  I have gotten nowhere near close to that trick, but it still feels possible and I’m starting to be able to setup my back foot for the flick better.  I don’t know if I’ll ever land it, but hucking it is fun either way.  Carleigh showed up kinda bumming because of school.  We had a mellow session.  Nothing special went down and it started sprinkling after awhile.

Seriously, it was snowing in the morning.  April 23rd, and it’s snowing.  Ugh, Colorado can be so lame sometimes.  It killed filming plans.  I spent the time trying to make a new Null teaser which was for the most part very productive.  But sitting down for so long killed my legs.  I attempted to go skate at Southern Hills.  I had told Carleigh and Neil to come meet me and they both sounded interested.  I warmed up ok.  But had a couple weird falls that I blame on that Creature board.  I seriously hate that board.  It felt wider than it was long.  The tail was so short I would miss ollies non stop.  Anyways the one thing I did I was happy with was a kickflip over the little crack thing followed by a crooks on the bench.  I’ve wanted to try that for awhile and it came quick.  After that I started thinking about trying the bench to bench gap.  I figured a good warm up would be to ollie off the two stair with speed.  I ended up falling super awkward and in my head just could not deal with that board anymore.  I got up and focused the shit out of that board.  One stomp.  One pissed off stomp that went through that board so easy I hurt my heel on the concrete.  Session over.  Board done.  Good riddance.

Carleigh and I rolled to CO Springs to meet up with Bernie, Sam, Mikey and Derek.  After hitting Proper we went and met up with the dudes at a somewhat famous rail.  Derek was the only one to get on it even with a boardslide.  Pretty gnarly spot.  The rest of us just kinda skated around.  I did a dumb run of front smith stall on a wood ledge, followed by a nosestall on a ledge, then ollie a 4 stair then back 180 right away over a crack in the sidewalk.  After some driving around we decided to just skate around downtown Springs.  Not a whole lot went down for awhile.  We ended up at the City Hall or something which had a nice ledge down a 5 stair.  Mikey was able to nose manual it, Derek back 50’d it.  I tried to noseslide it.  But it felt like it was time to move on.  We ended up at a downtown park with this bank:

Bernie and I skated while others investigated the nearby spots.  I beat Bernie to a back smith, front rock, but he did ollie up to front 50 like it was nothing to prove he is better.  Ha.  We had fun though.  The front slash above was super fun.  Sometimes doing a basic trick first try feels the best.  I didn’t go much beyond this.  Mikey kinda killed it.  Blunt to pivot, nosepick.  Derek did front blunt easy, back disaster, almost pivot fakie.  Then we took a long skate back to the car.  On the way the funnest thing I did was a wallride on a jersey barrier.

Next we went to a school we had peeped earlier.  It was basically a long three stair where each step was about 3 feet long and about 40 feet long and curved.  It looked insanely fun and we (at least I) had a blast.  Bernie and Derek kinda messed around and did some sick manual tricks from one stair up to the next and back down etc.  Bernie did manual kickflip up to the next level and almost fakie manual up to fakie nose manual which would have been of the chains.  There were gaps off the second and third levels.  Carleigh did a front 180 off the second one into the parking lot.  Mike almost nollie nose mannied the lower level and slammed a lot trying flippers off the second level.  I kinda somehow found the drive and skated about as well as I could.  After I got kickflip up the first then manual the second in only a couple tries I had a lot to work with.  Coming the other way I wallied up to the second level, kickflipped on flat then back 180’d the gap to the parking lot.  Coming the other way I got kickflip up the first level, ollie up on, ollie up one, front 180 off the 3rd level.  And the line I worked up to which made me so happy was wallie up the two, kickflip up onto the third then ollie to axle stall the curb into the parking lot.  It was one of the best feeling lines I’ve ever done.  Not only was every trick good for me, but I did them good and I seemed to have a fluid motion throughout.  The wallie up felt super good.  Popped above the ledge and floaty feeling.  Seriously felt awesome. One of my favorite lines I’ve ever done.  Next we went to the dream spot bank school where I failed at back 50s and Bernie failed at kickflip front 50s.  Derek had fun playing Bball skate.  Mikey had a nice front blunt.  After filming we played a loose game of flat bank SKATE that deteriorated into a game of HORSE with a flat basketball that Bernie won.  Then was dinner.  Fun day.  Had a blast at that 3 stair spot.  Still hate that board though.  On the way home Mikey joined a very tired Carleigh and a slightly intoxicated me for a Pissed Jeans music fest on the way home.  I obviously loved it.  That band is the best.

Met up with Max, Connor, Derek, Nate, Aaron, Carleigh, Matt, Justin and eventually Fuzz in Broomfield after work.  We started at the Safeway ledges.  No filming went down yet.  Max had the best switch back tails that spanned at least 2 mm of distance.  I had nothing either.  Connor was the only one that skated worth a crap there.  It was a good warm up though.  I really hate this Creature board.  Then we went and looked at the nearby bank spot.  Derek contemplated a gnarly ollie in, but didn’t want to pull the trigger.  Max got in the zone and started trying block long downhill lines and I started filming and he got two banger lines.  Derek almost got a sick line too, but had to go and slammed super hard trying to fakie flip into the bank in the photo above.  Next up we went to the Hobby Lobby manny pad spot.  A truck kind of messed with it, but it was still fun to skate.  I did some filming, but skated after.  I could not get that board to nose manual nor could I ollie up a curb comfortably.  Ugh.  I did manage to manual the two stair part, but that was about it.  Fuzz showed up, but not much more went down other than Matt, Max, Fuzz and I trying to nose manny out of a tailstall to the car.  Max went around the block with it while the rest of us struggled to get to the first line.  Matt did to it fakie though.  Decent day.  Hate this board.  More photos on Carleigh’s blog here.

I met Carleigh at Meta. I had just picked up some new shoes to start breaking in and to show what a hypocrite I can be.  You’ll see.  We had originally thought of skating Red Curbs if it was raining, but it wasn’t.  But then when we left Meta it was kind of sprinkling.  While trying to figure it out it started raining harder so the decision was made.  Red Curbs.  We started off doing our own things just skating around and warming up.  I was having a tough time with the Creature tank of a board.  With the exception of a test Sans board years ago (yes, you know how that went) I have only skated Generator wood for six years now (Null was originally on Systems then  Syndrome wood) and it sure felt awkward.  It took like 10 tries to get a kickflip where the tail touched.  Carleigh was mostly trying flatground lines.  I saw lots of kickflips, nollie shoves, etc.  I failed at nose mannys miserably.  I failed at almost everything actually.  Carleigh did some mannies on the short manny pad.  I got a couple front 180 nose mannies on the short one which is about the extent of that trick for me.  Carleigh was working on heelflips and slamming hard.  I was jealous because I was my typical lame self just walking away from bails instead of committing.  I’ll blame the wide ass board I’m skating.  I took a long time to get a front lipslide.  I took forever to get a fakie bigflip.  For some reason I started trying halfcab nose manuals.  Some felt like I could do it.  Most felt like I was just learning how to skateboard (wait, it always feels like that).  I had a couple back lip attempts that were mostly just ollie over the corner to 90 degree wheel pivot.  At the very end I was trying front tailslides (got a couple little ones) and we were both trying flatground tricks over and over.  I saw Carleigh stomp a heelflip then in less than 20 tries land a first ever fakie varial flip.  Sick!  I tried nollie f/s flips and had one that was so close I can’t believe I didn’t get both feet on it.  It took lots of tries to flip that big board around for treflips.  Never got a nollie tre.  Heelflip took awhile too.  We had fun.  We skated hard.  Awesome.

After a long and draining day at work I went home and fell asleep for awhile. After some dinner then an hour of basketball with Ollie we skated Rampy for a little bit. I had my new board that I won in the eating contest in SF. Thanks Cruz! This board is 8.25 which felt good on Rampy. I haven’t had a pro board since I started Null eight years ago. Crazy! I had one of the better first runs I’ve had. I didn’t do a whole lot though as I was mostly just goofing around with Ollie trying to make sure he had fun and would want to skate again soon. I suppose I should have been making Ollie do all of this tricks at least 10 times, but we skated for about 30 minutes before doing some butt dropins and races. He did manage to get front rocks again, even though it took a few tries. He also did a flatground shove and fakie shove. Radical.