Our first real winter storm.  A few inches had fallen already and the kids were staying at friends so Liz and I went out and imbibed a little at dinner then watched a crazy movie called Moon.

Made another run to Crisis as Fuzz is killing it!  He couldn’t skate after and Skelly had called saying they were going to Lafayette so I went out there.  As I pulled in Scotty P and Dar were there which hyped me up.  Rolling around the park over to the mini bowl and to my surprise Shane Ritter was there!!!  Holy Crap!  We ended up basically skating, laughing and getting our old guy mojo on.  It was a blast.  I sucked it up in the mini bowl and there was one dude there totally murdering it so we moved on to where most old guys go – the hubba/rails dude.  We started with the bump up to ledge.  Shane went back and front 50.  I went front 50 and 5-0, noseslide and tried crooks, but never put it in right.  I got close to my “Zero” line of boardslide down the rail, then noseslide down the hubba, but everytime I would slide the noseslide all the way and then fall on the impact of dropping all two feet or whatever.  Pretty pathetic.  Shane was going for back 5-0 on the bump to ledge and back 180 up the euro.  I started posing some noseslides on the tall bump to ledge and surprisingly around the time the warning buzzer turned on i went for it and after a couple tries I landed one.  Really hyped on that.  I never thought I’d even touch that thing.  Sean, Mike, Shane and Grant killed the marble pole jam thing.  Sean had boardslide to fakie, Grant like 20 tricks, Shane almost front board.  As the street lights had shut off I did some laps trying and failing at nose mannies on the little manny pad followed by a run through the rock section.  I did front rock on the little rock qpipe, front tail on the manhole, other tricks that I felt like I was finally starting to loosen up and dig this park.  Hyped.  Right before the lights shut off Dar and I tried to do front lips on the little marble ledge and we both got close, but the lights shut off right in the middle of Dar trying one.  So sketchy.  Fun session.  Whew, so I guess it was indeed the crowds that bummed me out before, because the park itself is clearly awesome.

After a pretty chill day at work I was productive at home for awhile.  The kids were having fun with friends so I went skating.  It was pretty chilly out, but the forecast calls for snow and frigid temps so it might be the last street skating day for awhile.  I chose campus with no real spots in mind other then to maybe manual off the three stair like I did once before after 50 tries.  After a little parking garage hill bomb I ended up at the three stair and kinda cruised around ollieing on the banked curb, doing kickflips and ollieing up/off curbs.  I started trying the manual, but wasn’t feeling it quite yet.  I wanted to line out to it and found a weird rock to ollie over (which can be seen in the background by the fire hydrant with the board sitting on it of this beautiful Monico 50 50.  The ollie wasn’t easy, especially for me.  The approach was downhill and you had to turn at the last minute to get the right angle.  Excuses excuses, but I did mange to eventually ollie it a few times and it was probably a little taller then a normal ledge so I felt good about it.  I was getting close to the manual drop and almost put it down.  I tried making myself go a little faster each time and a few of the ollies felt good.  But then I went landed pretty far back on probably the biggest ollie and cracked the tail real bad.  I tried to follow it up with the manual, but it barely got up the curb and was bouncing as I was in manual.  DOH.  I tried a few with the board backwards, but wasn’t feeling it.  I went to leave, but bombed the parking garage hill a couple times again trying to get some powerslides, but the concrete was too grippy.  I then went into  nollie/switch flip poses for about 15 minutes.  I did commit to both, but never landed either.  The switch flips were surprisingly close a few times.  I went home and setup a new “In A Jar” deck.

Woke up in Buena Vista still sore from snowboarding the day before with Ollie on his first day riding lifts.  We left Buena Vista pretty early and were back in boulder before noon.  Jake came over and played some SKATE at my house a bit later while we waited for Liz to return from a walk.  It was a decent game.  I ended up winning as we both struggled with treflips and I landed a weird one as Liz got back so Jake went for double or nothing, bailed it and the game ended.We went to the Lafayette park along with every other skater in Colorado.  It seriously sucked.  Let me correct that last sentence.  I seriously sucked.  Notice I took the ‘t’ off so ‘It’ changed to ‘I’?  Neat eh?  Anyways, yeah, I HATE skating crowded places.  Actually I hate crowds in general.  But this was too much.  I didn’t even know where my friends were and when I did they were skating steep obstacles and clearly didn’t want me around to bum out the session.  Every time I started to get excited about skating either a group of kids would get in the way or I’d have to avoid whatever I wanted to skate or have a collision.  Every time I avoided something or everytime I got snaked it would take me down another level.  I debated leaving by myself and finding some place other to skate (After leaving I noticed a waxed curb about a block away.  Next time!).  But I was really hyped on my friends that were there and after I threw a bit of a temper fit saying how much I hate the place Brian calmed me down and reminded me that it’s not the park I hate, it’s the crowds.  After that I finally did have a bit of fun.  Jake had been killing it all day.  Brian committed to blunt fakie on the narrow tall stonerpipe (can we nickname it that?).  The only things I did I was remotely proud of were wallies up the dumb little qpipe and committing to boardslides down the rail, but not landing them.  There was a pro spotting at the park even – Angel Ramirez.  He ripped more then I thought he would.  He is the first person I’ve seen skate the bump to marble flatbar.  He did back noseblunt and front feeble back 180 out on it.  Neat.  He also front boarded it frmt flat into the bank.Sorry to my friends for being such a whiny bitch.  I really hate skating around crowds.  I know it shouldn’t bother me so much, but it does.

Stayed up kinda late watching the lunar ecliplse so I ended up sleeping in real late.  In a hurry I got up, did some pushups then some Christmas shopping.  The plan had been to skate Denver, but once I got going I was hoping it didn’t go down, and it didn’t.  Unfortunately Jack said his ankle was too wrecked, but on a dreary and chilly day Fuzz, Greg, Jake, Bernie, Ollie and I met at Meta and planned on skating campus.  It ended up being a blast.  One of the joke goals for 2011 is to not skate a skatepark for a year.  As awesome as street skating is, I don’t think that would be too fun.  Especially with how meeting at a skatepark is the norm.  Anyways, back to today.  I get hyped on cloudy days.  They remind me of east coast skating and I always get the Mudhoney lyrics “Gray skies feel good today” stuck in my head.  We dorked around the hill ledges for a minute before diving into campus.  The first stop was right away at the Education building.  I saw Greg and Bernie do drop down then manuals to drop.  Jake may have dropped in from the top of the steep handicap ramp.  Fuzz and I wallied up the curb to sidewalk gap.  Fuzz did one followed by a 540 kickturn then maybe an ollie to front pivot on the curb.  I got a run with wallie up the gap, dumb ass nose pivot on the curb, front pivot 180 on the curb.  Jake almost ollied from a far crack into the curb tranny.  Then we watched Greg and Bernie entertain some tall manny drops nearby.  Bernie did a manual drop drop all easy that was pretty ridiculous.Next up was one of the many highlights of the day.  Greg ollied an 8 stair rail then we skated a sidewalk for about half an hour.  Initially the goal was to do as many tricks as possible down this stretch of sidewalk.  Greg probably did the most with a line that had something like fakie flip, halfcab flip, heelfip, kickflip, geez I don’t know.  No one was that on point, but we were having fun.  I had a line of something like kickflip, back 180, halfcab flip, varial flip, front shove, bailed tre.  I landed all the tricks horrible and I was going slow.  So what.  Then it turned to manuals.  Greg, Bernie and Fuzz were initially happy doing about a block, but they kept going farther until Bernie brought tears to all our eyes by manualling most of campus.  He went around a building and if he would have come out the other side still manually I probably would have lost my mind.  I got about half of the first section which I was still kinda hyped on.  Bernie, Greg and Fuzz went up the hill and came manualling down trying to go even further.  It was soooo funny.  They weren’t going all that fast so it just looked like three dudes standing swinging their arms for no apparent reason.  It ruled though.  At this point Ollie finally started to loosen up and started ollie’ing every crack.  I think Jake and I counted about 28 ollies over cracks.  So funny.Next up we ended up behind the library.  I took a bunch of tries to ollie off a dumb drop, Fuzz did a couple of the steeziest boneless combos ever, I landed a 360 flip on flat and then Fuzz ollie the long 7.  Seeing that spot gives me new respect for Max’s line in the Meta video with the ollie down the 7 then front board the back part of a bench.  So sick.  We went and peeped Jack’s dropin ollie from Null and Void then ended up skating the area above it for at least an hour.  It was epic.  Everyone did something.  Greg and Fuzz caveman’d a 4 stair rail.  Jake ollied this cool sideways gap near a three stair.  I boardslid the three stair ledge.  Bernie manualled something I’m sure.  Ollie back 180’d off a lower ledge and ollied the three stair.  We hit the stage area for a bit.  Greg wallied down the tall stage like it was nothing.  Fuzz, Jake and I found any excuse possible to not ollie off it.  Back to the stair area so much went down.  Fuzz ollied a ledge and manualled the 3 stair ledge.  Everyone ollied up the three stair.  Well, except Ollie.  That kid needs to work on his pop.  Ha.  Jake and I took a few tries, while people like Fuzz and Greg did it first try.  Bernie almost kickflipped up it. This is the kinda skating I love though.  Just go street skating and skate whatever you find.  It rules.  We had such a blast.We peeped a big handrail for a minute.  Ollie back 180’d a crack ridden two stair.  I love how kids don’t care about cracks.  We ended up near the stadium for a bit.  Some ollies and whatnot.  Then we peeped game over at the ledge that Fuzz kickflip manualled in Cut Me Loose.  Greg spotted a cool gap above it even and lined out an ollie over it then followed it up with a super nonchalant manual the ledge.  Soooo sick.  Across the street I had fun ollieing up a 3, turning around and ollieing down it.  Bernie did a sick quick up to manual ollie a gap.  We were gonna play a game of SKATE in front of the art building, but there was some dudes skating with a little box so we hit that for awhile instead.  Jake learned back 5-0s and I did maybe my second back 50 front 180 out.  Heading out we went by the UMC and I tried one attempt at my recent line there, but bailed the back 180.  Last thing was the drop down ledge near the hill that I like to drop down to then front 180 off.  Did it, but the 180 was horrible.Such a blast of a day.  Everyone skated good and hard and had a blast.  Thanks everyone for being cool about Ollie being around.  It means a lot to me and it allows me to be able to skate more.  He’s a quite kid, but he said he had a blast too.

After a pretty chill day at work I left, picked up Jack and we headed up to Fort Collins to sell some boards then skate.  Initially the crew was Jack, Chris, AJ and me.  Chad quickly met up though.  After pushing basically all the way down Laurel we hit a rock wallie spot.  I stepped in dog crap right away.  So bummed.  Jack nosebonked a pretty tall rock, AJ ollied one and then we moved on.  Pretty quickly we ended up at a banked ledge spot by the dorm towers.  I’m not sure why they aren’t waxed up more because they are perfect.   Chris and Jack were ripping it pretty quick.  Jack went mostly the non-wallie route with some solid front 50, front 5-o, front tailslides but slammed so hard on a front 5-0 front 180 out.  Jack was wallieing into anything pretty quick.  Wallie bluntslide, wallie back tail shove, wallie back lip almost.  AJ had some good wallies then got close to about 500 wallie 50s but never landed one.  I wasn’t skating too well.  I tried a line of crooks a ledge, wallie, wallie boardslide.  The crooks were my rare weird undercrooks and the wallies were really bad, low and I would land primo sometimes and slam.  Fun.  After awhile Greg, Eric and Jacoby showed up, but a nearby cop lurking weirded us out so we moved on.  Some dorking around and we ended up at the new lot by the gym with the rocks and kicker.  I was skating sooo bad at this point and was so sore and old feeling.  Wah.  Skelly joined up for a minute but was too sore/tired to skate really.  AJ starting throwing some gnarly hardflips over the kicker and put down a good one.  Greg was trying to nosebonk the pole and came close.  I tried a couple slow kickflips and just gave up.  Chad had tied a banner to the pole and was holding it up to do tricks over.  5 tries later I was able to ollie it low.  Not hyped on how hard and scary it was for me, but hyped that I didn’t give up on it.  Jack started trying this really crazy ollie back foot kick out over the pole and I went and played a game of SKATE with Greg that didn’t last long.  I did land a treflip and a heeflip which felt good though.  I also finally manualled down the kickder and to the lot.  Greg was doing the funniest manuals.  He would manual and take his front foot off and pretend like he was falling then go back into manual.  It was really funny.  Jack tried the crazy trick for awhile and ended up kinda wrecking his ankle again.  Doh.  After this we went to Chipotle where there was a soda cup that said “Welcome to the office Glen” on it.  Jack spotted it.  So funny.  They normally don’t even have Glen keychains at gift shops.  Even though I didn’t skate well it was a fun time and a fun crew.

After skating / filming yesterday we had a blast watching some skate videos and ate at Petes.  I’m not sure if it was the Petes or the kids being sick last week, but I got sick.  I didn’t quite puke, but it was close and I felt horrible.  Perfect time to push the filming board for a couple hours in Longmont ditch.  More quality footage was collected.  Stoked.

Woke up still bummed from the night before.  Redid the Null board wall (photos soon) then went outside for some flatground waiting for some Nullers to show.  I ended up skating really good for me.  Way faster than normal which I know isn’t saying much.  Real quick I did a line of front shove, kickflip then nollie tre.  The thing that hyped me up the most was I actually did the kickflip fast enough that I was a bit scared with the speed I still had going into the nollie tre.  No biggee though, I stomped it.  Ask Busenitz.  Greg showed up and we played a decent game of SKATE.  Greg won as usual, I got him with a fakie bigflip and I think that was it.  Doh.  We left for Willville and Nullers were warmed up quick and wanting to film stuff before I was ready to go into film mode.  I posed a few ollies over the six stair and told Derek when he kickflips it I’ll get his back.  A few (ok, several, he struggled) tries later he lands the kickflip and I went for it.  I know it’s only a six stair, but I have never rode away from a bigger set.  I landed it first commit and it felt seriously awesome.  Then I went on to film all kinds of amazing stuff.  I’m getting so excited for the next Null video.Oh yeah, I had a brand new Lung deck and it felt amazing.

Had a good night of sleep or something and felt good all day.  Was good about standing, jumping around, stretching at work and felt great when I left work after a longer than usual day.  The family had already eaten and was occupied doing homework and whatnot so I boxed up a Null order and delivered it to Fedex then stopped by Savers for something silly for my work White Elephant.  Then I drove to campus for some skating.  It was humid as it had rained (yes it’s mid december and it rained instead of snowed) earlier in the day and there was still some puddles on asphalt.  For whatever reason I had been thinking about a line all day.  Ollie up the UMC two stair, back 180 off, sw 180, ollie the 4, front 180 the 3 so I was hoping to warm up to that.  After some fast pushing and cruising I ended up new big Visual Arts building where I did a few slow kickflips to get warmed up.  I played on the weird long bench with all the sections missing to stop skating.  I ollied onto one section then would try to ollie to the next section, etc.  It was way hard and I didn’t feel like trying it much longer so I went up to the UMC ready to battle my line I had been thinking of.  Unfortunately there was a bunch of dudes standing on top of the two stair so I went back to the fountain area.  I tried some fast (for me) pop shoves followed by ollieing onto the 5 stair ledge, off then ollie down the 3.  I was having problems on the pop shove and my board took off toward the two stair so I just left and the cancer stickers were gone.  The ollie up the two is weird because you have to ollie early because of a big crack.  It ended up not being so hard after a few tries.  I would have thought the back 180 would have been really hard, but I guess the ollie up the two set me up perfect for my cheater angle and within a couple I was riding away from those, even going past the crack.  And I gotta say that was probably the highlight for me.  I normally suck at back 180s and I was landing them almost every try.  Now for some stupid reason as I would turn around and head to the 4 stair I would get a weird nervous feeling and stop before the 4 stair.  I’m not sure what that was about so I finally just ollied the 4 on it’s own and finally the butterfly was gone.  A few tries later I landed all but the last front 180 of the line.  Sweet, next couple tries!  Well, maybe not quite as the back 180 was troublesome for a bit, but I ended up getting the whole line.  Ollie up the two, back 180 off two, horrible sw 180, ollie the 4, horrible front 180 the 3.  That set me up going downhill on a bikepath so I tried a halfcab flip and bailed.  I decided I wanted to do the line better and get the halfcab flip too.  Next try.  Ollie up felt good, best back 180 I’ve ever done, sw 180, ollie 4, decent front 180, halfcab flip, kickflip, lots of pushes, powerslide, kickflip a crack, bail a treflip.  I was so hyped.  Not sure I’ve ever done 8 tricks in a row before.  Anyways this set me back up to the weird long bench with the missing sections to ollie over.  Obviously a lot more warmed up, but somewhat sore from so many stairs (ha ha ha) I did the quick up and ollied 3 missing sections and ollied out first try feeling on top of the world.  It was still pretty warm out (seriously, I was sweating) so I decided to skate awhile longer and line out some more stuff.  I wanted to do the quick ollies on the ledge then a treflip.  That took awhile as both of those tricks were so hard for me.  At one point I noticed I had cracked my board really bad at some point that night.  It still had pop, but the crack was 4 layers.  Ah well.  Coming the other way I would try a fast (again it’s me so imagine me going about 1/10 the speed of Busenitz) ollie over some cracks then kickflip a crack gap.  I ended up getting the lines both ways and the temperature had just started to drop quickly so I went home.  Totally spent, but super hyped.  One of the funner days of skating I’ve had this year.  I love skating by myself once or twice a week.  I would say it gives me a chance to land more stuff, but really, it just gives me a chance to land stuff I’m too embarrassed to do around others.

I work til 6 this week which isn’t that bad, but it pretty much ends any chance of skating with most of TF as their bed times are 8pm and I normally check in with the family before I go skate. As soon as I got home Ollie said “Hi ya Pop, want to go play basketball?” Impossible to say no to that. So we went over to the school and shot on a poorly lit low hoop for awhile. It was a blast. My favorite is when he misses and I jump up for the rebound and dunk it. 8 foot rims rule! Anyways, it was super warm so I left after awhile and picked up Jason to meet Lazer, Fuzz, Neil, Brian and Skelly at the newly opened Lafayette park. Apparently it wasn’t crowded by grand opening standards. The park is pretty big so it does get spread out and not so bad. Unfortunately Lazer, Fuzz and Neil had already called it a night. Brian was there skating with the Ft Collins crew in the rock section. They all seemed to be ripping pretty hard. I tooled around for awhile looking at the goods. The park is pretty amazing. As typical of skateparks it seems they went a little over the top with quite a few things, but oh well. Jason and I started out at the manual pad which can really only be hit frontside comfortabely. If there is granite somewhere under all that coating I couldn’t tell yet, it’s like grinding on ice. I got a few front 50, front 5-0 and back 50 having to come up the bank first.  I’ve been skating steet a lot lately and it was weird skating such a smooth spot.  It doesn’t even feel like your skating really.   I know that sounds dumb, but it’s weird not having any cracks or anything with brand new wheels.  Just feels like floating.  A sketchy backside landing lands you in the 12 foot bowl. So lame. I really hate how 99% of skateparks put great ledges in shitty spots. And to know that Team Pain is a bunch of skaters makes it even worse. I basically took the rest of the session to get boardslide down the rail followed by back noseslide down the hubba. That was really fun for sure. The added touch is the lights shut off as I landed the noseslide. Well I guess that isn’t even cool at all considering it was 8:45. WTF? Come on Lafayette you spend that much money on a skatepark and the lights shut off before my 8 year old goes to bed? Jason got the boardslide / noseslide run too and came close to front nose down.   So sick.  Some of the lights stayed on near the parking lot.  I dorked around for a bit on the rock section that I hadn’t even looked at really.  It seems aight, not as fun as CO Springs rock section.  Some young kid told me to look out as he rolled his bike through.  That was funny.