Had one of those long, boring and draining days at work which left me wondering what I’m doing wasting my life away.  After a nice dinner with the family I sat on the couch and listened to Green Mind on vinyl.  It sounded great.  It was super nice out so I decided to go skate and campus seemed fun.  When I got there I set the board down and didn’t even go for that extra initial push to have a fun cruise down the hill to get things started.  I knew I was doomed at that point.  I started in the new art building where I did a couple kickflips before going to the nearby 3 stair and did a little line to it.  Fakie ollie, sw 180, ollie the 3.  Feeling a bit more warmed up I ended up at the parking lot west of the 14 which had just been repaved.  Sick!  They got rid of the jersey barrier that ruined the flat gap so I tried to ollie that.  For some reason my flat gap ollies have gone to total shit and I couldn’t do it.  I got so mad.  So mad.  My head wasn’t into skating.  Argh.  I kept at it for awhile.  Coming down the hill I started trying flatground kickflip or pop shove, a speedy manny then ollie the little double curb thing near the main street.  I actually did a couple of those and felt good for a second.  Some of the mannies were fast enough that I was a bit scared to even ollie up the curb.  Cool.  But the stupid flat gap ollie kept eluding me.  After I bailed that I would pick up my board and push at the tall ledge surrounding the parking lot and pose ollies over it.  A couple felt remotely possible which would be huge for me.  Eventually I did the whole line.  Front shove on flat, manny, ollie, turn around, ollie the flat gap.  I wasn’t even stoked.  I just picked up my board and walked to the car.  Ugh.

Wow, the first time I’ve woken up still buzzing in forever. I drank enough water over the course of the evening to not feel hungover, just tired and disoriented. We met up with Bernie and Sam who were skating the new manny pad we found the week before. I had new shoe blues. Literally, some new navy blue es square twos. Stoked. The kids had fun ollieing off the ledges and stuff. Sam nose mannied it easy. Bernie was trying fakie manuals, but didn’t get it. I was getting tech trying manuals. Ugh. It took a long time to land one. After that it took a long time to land nose mannies. Neil had shown up. He got my back with a nose manny too. Rad. I went on to get a kickflip manual pretty quick. There was some toe drag when I landed in manny, but I was too stoked to care. Neil went on to do one foot manny first try and nose mannied it from high to low. Bernie was trying halfcab flip manny 360 flip out. Never got it.We left for a gap in and out manny pad.  When we got there we found a sick kicker gap, but it needs some treebranch trimming.  Maybe next week, it could be super sick.  Anyways the gap in /out got the best of me.  I got so frustrated with just an ollie and I almost freaked out.  It sucked.  I finally landed just a stupid ollie and went right to the car and got out the filming board to get Bernie.  It worked out as Bernie got a super sick line.  Kickflip manny gap out then ollie a big pile of snow.  Neat.  Sam and Neil ollie in/out several times.Bernie and Sam left.  The rest of us went to the two stair area, but got booted quickly.  Next up was the bird bank.  I was tired and didn’t really do much.  The kids had a blast and cruised around the area.  Ollie had a couple cool body varials on the bank.  We left shortly as Sam was uttering “I’m hungry can we go now?” about every 5 seconds.  Not the best day, but considering last nights activities it went pretty well.

It was supposed to be 55 degrees, sunny and warm. It wasn’t. Not until right before the sun went down. TF was going to the Lafayette park, but Liz was busy bringing India to her many social gatherings and I was with Ollie. I actually tried to push Ollie to go there, but he’s heard me complain about how crowded it gets and he’s pretty anti crowded parks like me. And besides, it was a Saturday which i don’t like spending at a skatepark. Later that evening Neil told me it was even too crowded for his taste. Wow. Anyways Ollie was wanting to wait for one of his friends to come over to skate, but I had enough of being inside and talked him into going to Southern Hills while we wait. The main bench area was dry, but totally covered in sand. Definitely one of the worst aspects of street skating in the winter even when the weather is nice. So we ended up skating this weird bank to curb. By weird I mean horrible. The approach was either rocks or cracks. But we had fun. Ollie did rock ‘n rolls on it and would go down the sidewalk a ways and dive into the grass. Kids rule. I tried a line of a manny on a horrible crack ridden manny pad, back 50 the bank to curb, then ollie off a little kicker. I never got all 3 in one line, but we didn’t stay too long. We went to the west side of southern hills and it turns out there is a perfect double sided ledge. I boardslid it into some water. We ollied some snow piles, then took off.We weren’t home, but for a few minutes before Ollie’s buddy Liam showed up.  We left and went to a mellow banked loading dock spot around Araphoe  & 35th.  I was still pretty grumpy, unmotivated and very sore.  I managed a lame line.  Ollie a little flat gap, flat ground kickflip (since I can’t do any other tricks moving faster than 2mph), ollie into one of the banks, front 180 nose manny.  Ollie and Liam were kinda just being silly.  I tried to boardslide a flatbar, but didn’t get to as the kids went back around the corner and I felt like I should keep my eye on them.  They were cruising down the long loading dock.  I ollied onto it, then out of it.  As bad as I was skating I was kinda happy to not have too many problems ollieing the taller part.Then we went to this spot.  Ollie and Liam skated for awhile before just being funny guys and filming each other with Ollie’s camera.  I had done a line of kickflip over a tiny pile of snow, ollie a small snow pile, ollie up the stage then front 180 off the taller part.  I got the line, but the hardest thing was ollieing up onto it since the asphalt is bad and there is a big crack right where I land.  After a bit I started trying to ollie the 2 stair rail.  Turns out Ollie filmed it shaky cam style.  You can click the image for the video.  It’s very embarrassing.  I look so old, fat, slow and unnatural it’s insane.   I get really depressed watching that clip.  I probably shouldn’t have uploaded it, but you can tell I was kinda hyped to ollie the rail. And since my goal this year is to learn to ollie hopefully I can look back and laugh at this one.   Ollie’s angle doesn’t really show it, but I did go over it and yes, it’s only the second time I’ve ollied a rail.  Before leaving I did a few tricks into the narrow downhill sidewalk that flows into the picnic tables.  I ended with an ollie up the curb to real quick kickflip into the downhill.  It was bad, but I was hyped and I followed it with a little front board jib on a picnic table bench.I went home and was so sore it’s insane.  I could barely walk.  I guess I should start skating new shoes as mine are dead.  That night TF went off and we raged to celebrate John and Fuzz’s birthdays.Click the photo for more photos and the run down from Carleigh.  It was an amazingly fun night.  Lots and lots of laughs, beer, good music and friends.  Happy Birthday dudes.

A balmy night in the thirties compared to the frigid nights below zero we’ve experienced recently. Jason and I met Fuzz, Neil and Brian and Crisis. After some conversing and bidness we rolled to yellow curbs.  After some initial laps around the place I played phone directions for Dave to meet us and missed out on some round robin blunts on a parking block.  I kinda just started skating around the whole place and everyone else was having fun in one area. I guess I was being the Forrest Edwards of the group. You can’t get paid doing blunt pivots on a parking block. I still can’t nose manual at that spot for some dumb reason. Dave showed up with a friends old board. It’s funny because on the way to Broomfield Jason and I were talking about his SF trip and how he had to borrow a friends board and he hated it.  Anyways during the warm up phase I was kinda hyped on a couple things.  Little front tailslide on a curb, halfcab flips were working, and everyone seemed to be having a blast.Then it seemed everyone was skating the longer manual pad in the back corner and the slappy curb against the entrance.  It’s soooo good for slappies.  I think everyone did some good ones.  Neil had some sick nose mannies and tried doing pop shove nose manny, but can’t quite commit to leaning forward enough.  Brian was actually trying manuals!  He also did a sick front 180 fakie 50 and came out fakie.  Brian also made fun of me for looking to serious when I skate.  He’s right though.  Even when I’m having a blast (which I was) I don’t show much emotion.  I think it’s because no matter what I do I know it’s not very “good”.  But whatever, I should smile more.  But not in a weird open mouth cock eyed smirk like Aaron Suski.  Ha.  Jason had a lot of great slams.  He was having trouble keeping his feet under him and went down tumbling a lot.  He had some good slappy back tails and manuals.  Dave had some rad curb moves.  I don’t even remember some of the crazier ones.  I was having a great time, enjoying not being as sore as last year forcing myself to skate everyday.  I tried a bunch of kickflip manuals and never got one.  I also tried a bunch of kickflip front 50 and kick back tails of which I also failed.  Although the kick front 50s were close and I would land on it, but on the sidewalk.  Doh.  Actually almost got one in a run I would have been so hyped on.  Kickflip up the curb, back 180 over a puddle, halfcab flip, kickflip miss the front 50 by about an inch.  Doh.  I think my favorite thing at yellow curbs is doing back 50s on the corner.  Anyways, Neil started chilling and it was mostly a trick up, trick off the manny pad in the corner.  Fuzz was going off.  Halfcab manual, front 180 up then switch front shove off, front 180 up, fakie flip off, halfcab flip off, kickflip up over the puddle with 360 flip off, 360 flip over the puddle, etc.  Killing it.  Jason got front 180 up, sw back 180 the puddle, some funny ass halfcab attempts over the puddle, back 180 the puddle.  Dave got front 180 up and sw ollie and sw 180 the puddle.  I had gotten kickflip up, kickflip off over the puddle, nollie front shove up then front shove off.  I was pretty hyped on how often I would actually land the nollie shove up, but not so hyped that the front shove off was actually difficult for some reason.  I had got gotten a couple fakie bigspins up the curb and wanted to pop shove the puddle, but the session got cut short.  Fuzz was almost getting switch front 360s off when security rolled up and gave us the boot.  He yelled “IDs!” at us.  I knew what he meant, but it sounded like “AT EASE!” so I told him I was.  He took our names which sucks because that parking garage is fun.  Oh well it was a super fun night.

Day two of filming Nullers on Rampy. Probably gonna do another one or two and make what is hopefully a pretty banging montage. It was really cold outside, below zero. Derek drove from Northglenn in a car without heat. Now that’s dedication. Although it wore on him as it took him way longer than normal to get warmed up. Greg was ripping out of the gates. I skated ok, but quickly lost interest as I have skated Rampy so much lately. I took a few tries to get a hurricane and did a few of the other tricks I have before resorting to the beers that Greg brought to make filming more entertaining. Sick! Filming went good. Greg got so many lines it’s ridiculous. He skated the short side like no one else has and did about 10 fully decked (with the wheels lapped over the deck) rock ‘n roll tricks. Front rock, rock fakie, rock front shove out, front rock truck bash, fakie rock, fakie rock to back smith, etc, etc, etc. Derek got hung up on front nosegrinds pop out (never got it) for awhile, but managed other tricks like front blunt, blunt shove out, alley oop fakie back nosegrind and more like they were warm up tricks. Fun night. Those dudes are awesome.

Ollie and I went out to Rampy after dinner on a really cold evening. Cold enough that the garage was even pretty cold. For some reason I was really hyped to skate Rampy again. I had thought about trying more kickflip pivots and wanting to try backside blunts all day. Did I land either of them? No. Did I even try them? No. I got stuck in a fakie hurricane rut, did more front smiths than normal (of course they still look like crap as documented in the clip above although I’m pretty sure some of them looked better), struggled at front ds again, had some horrible attempts at ollies, argh. I was thinking it would be funny to take a photo of one of my ollies and put it next to the photo of Fuzz’s ollie and say that it’s my goal by the end of the year. I wouldn’t write a love letter about it like Chad though. That’s just plain weird. Ha. Ollie on the other hand was doing backside scratch grinds which I haven’t seen in awhile then started trying frontside kickturns faster and faster and started getting close to little frontside slashes. He eventually got a few. So sick. Then at one point he did a front rock. He’s never done it before, just did it first try like it was nothing. So sick. After awhile we started getting tired and since I want Ollie to get sponsored by Mountain Dew soon I knew we should documents his new tricks. We filmed/shot photos for a bit more and laughed a bunch. Ollie rules.Front slash captured a tad too late.Front rock.Ollie has a knack for taking photos of me at awkward moments of tricks. Maybe he’s trying to show his style is already better than mine or I perhaps maybe I just look that awkward on a skateboard. Nah, that can’t be it.

The winter storm had hit.  I had a busy morning of shovelling, hanging with the family, walking to the grocery store to get some much needed coffee and sledding with the kids.  A few people were interested, but only Dave showed up to skate.  We had a good session.  Mellow at times, kinda heated at others.  Dave has such a good style and has a pretty large bag of tricks.  It’s hard to blog them all.  One of my favorites what the coping grab nose pick 270.  The tricks he worked on the hardest were back tail 180 out, fakie pop shove rock, never quite got fakie crooks to fakie.  I had a fun time even though I struggled with front disasters for some reason.  I did a lot of frontside “ollies” (I put it in quotes because I’m not quite sure what I’m doing qualifies as an ollie), a front feeble, fakie pivot fakie, Hewitt grinds (sorry Brian) and a first time on Rampy fakie rock to fakie smith.  I tried a few kickflip axle stalls too, but never got close.  I think it’s possible, just super hard to get set up.  Seeing as how it’s snowing like crazy out right now I’ll probably have some time to work on it.

A decent day.  Last morning of bachelorhood in which I totally got crazy and went to the grocery store so the family would come home to a well stocked fridge.  Ahhhh.  Greg showed up hungover which is rare for him.  We watched some Go Big Shred then went and picked up Max at Meta where I inquired about PJ’s new shoe sponsor since John was at Agenda.  No one knows.  Max was ready so we moved on as we know how long it takes Carleigh and Chad to get ready.  We drove around showing Greg the spots as he’s never seen the area before.  He was blown away by all the spots he’s never seen before.  Almost all spots were dry.  We started out the normal starting spot, the up blue rail where Chad, Carleigh and Jack me us.  I was feeling really sore from skating so long in the cold weather the night before.  Everyone was doing their own thing.  Jack was falling.  Greg was doing long front 50s up the blue bar.  Max was ollie’ing dumpsters.  Chad was doing flatground ollies.  Carleigh was going against doctors orders, skating, and even landed a kickflip.  I started trying a line.  Boardslide down the blue bar, no comply 180, halfcab flip, ollie the little cement ledge thing in the weird fenced in area.  I thought the ollie was gonna be the hardest part for me, but apparently my recent practice is paying off and that ended up being easy.  I eventually got the line, but the no comply 180 was horrible.  I was attempting to skate a little faster than normal.  I doubt it showed though.We moved on to a fun manual pad we saw.  It was a mini two stair up and then a drop about the height of three stair off.  I was the first to manny it with a first try manual.  I felt pretty cool until I couldn’t do it again for like 10 more tries.  Ugh.  Max wanted to film a switch flip manual and ended up landing before I busted out the camera.  Crap.  I started trying kickflip manual and got kinda close.  I kinda wish I would have tried it a bit longer.  I would have been really hyped.  Instead, it was filmbot.  Filming manuals is the worst.  Seriously.  No one lands anything.  Well, not for several tries at least.  Max did get the switch flip manny again and it came out good.  Jack got a sick manual wallie manual.  Greg almost got a nose manual, shove it, manual, no comply 180 out.  Actually, he did get it, it was just one where he said “don’t film this”.  Doh.  Chad almost got switch heel manual, but bitched out with about an inch to go.  Carleigh came somewhat close to the manual.Next up we went to the steep banks.  For some reason I thought I could drop in and ride through the snow.  Carleigh and Jack took some photos.But the snow stopped me:I went down pretty hard.  I laughed, but it hurt.Jack took some good photos too, but for some reason his blog wont let me get anything wider than 320 pixes which is not wide enough for this high class blog.  That was pretty much the end of my skating.  Not because I was too hurt, but it was time to film.  Chad did a sick kickflip and Greg played around with a front crail judo.We peeped a 16 stair on the way out for me to nollie tre, but the crack on the approach had me weirded out.  Greg says a back 180 or tuck knee would stoke him out.   Amateur.  I went home and cooked dinner as the family was pulling into town.  So good to see them again.  I had never looked at my elbow after the drop in slam and I didn’t really pay attention to it before getting into bed.  Liz was pissed the next morning as there was blood everywhere.  Turned out it was all from my elbow.  Oops.Please go to Carleigh and Jack’s blogs about the day.  We had a blast.

After a boring day at work, a good mail day (new Thrasher, Transworld and Omaha video Go Big Shred), nap and small dinner (nachos) I headed out to a pretty crowded Lafayette park on a pretty cold night.  Lazer pulled up the same time as me.  Neil would arrive soon.  Max, Davis and other dudes were there.  Carleigh, Chad showed soon and Fuzz followed after awhile.  The park was almost completely dry.  Just the big useless bowl at the end of the ditch run had snow in it.  Ft Collins Mike showed up eventually too.We started mostly in the little bowl.  My runs continue to be completely lame.  Then it was just cruise around and kinda hit whatever.  It’s fun doing that in that park, but I really didn’t see what anyone else was doing until the end.  I saw Carleigh carving around and I would remind her to not ollie.  She didn’t listen.  Chad back 50d across and down the hubba.  Neil front lipped the bump to marble.  Lazer got tranny skills.  I was having fun.  Did the front 50 to manual pretty easy.  Struggled at bump to ledge.  Mike got me to do a fun wallie into the ditch run.  In fact I don’t think I had even been in there before.  I also got some backside flips on the mellow rock flat bank and almost followed it up with a no comply bigspin.  I got the fun “Zero line” of boardslide down the rail then noseslide down the hubba.  Within a few minutes of being there I saw Fuzz do halfcab boardslide the rail, back 5-0 the hubba.  Wow.  Chad did a mach 500 kickflip up the 3 stair.  Lazer left.  After awhile Carleigh, I, Mike and Fuzz skated the medium sized bowl.  That ended quickly as a biker kept getting in everyones way.  Then we mostly hit the rock area.  Fuzz and Chad did some monster ollies.  Fuzz did switch blunt on the lower of the rock narrow qpipes.  I one upped him with a non-decked weak front rock.  Fuzz went for front noseblunt on it and shinned himself pretty bad.  Ouch.  Chad did some crazy manual and nose manuals over the round pad into the bank.  Carleigh noseslid the bump to ledge and may have got shove out on it too.The street lights shut off, but the others remained for quite some time.  We dorked on the tiny qp for a bit then moved on to the main rock.  Mike was making wallies over the hip look so fun.  Fuzz and I got them second try.  I really didn’t think I would ever commit to that so quickly and it ended up being a really fun trick we did a few times.  Stalls on the rock were fun too.  Mike got fakie rocks super easy.  Chad was doing nollie norths into the setup bank then rock fakie or front pivot on the rock.  Fuzz did fakie rock, axle stall, back pivot and worked hard for fakie noseblunt and would lose his board into the bowl of snow.  Crappy.  For some reason the lights stayed on longer than they were supposed to.  It was freezing out, but we kept skating.  I got a back rock, horrible front rock and worked up to a fakie rock which was really fun to land.  I eventually got a wallie boardslide off the other side too.  It was kind of a sloppy mess and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but it was fun.The cops came and booted us.  The lights shut off shortly anyways.  It was freezing outside.  I stretched and we all went on our separate ways.  Went home and enjoyed my last night of bachelorhood by eating oatmeal and watching a Samuel L Jackson move (Unthinkable).  No drinks required.

Skated Rampy with Josh, Max and Davis as they warmed up for an upcoming Null Rampy montage.  I didn’t do a whole lot.  Struggled at hurricanes this time, but not front tails.  The kids killed it.