Day 4 of bachelor life. After work, a nap and dinner Fuzz, Conner, Max, Jake and eventually non-skating Carleigh showed up with beer. It was the first time Fuzz, Max or Conner had skated Rampy. Max was really excited to skate Rampy.Left to right – Fuzz, Conner, dork, Jake.  Since Carleigh did a good job of avoiding skate photos of Jake I”ll start with him.  He ripped it as usual.  Nosepick, stalepick, front disaster revert, back 5-0 to fakie, fully decked front rocks on the narrow side, and much more.Max had to leave first, but introduced Rampy to a couple  new tricks first.  Switch front blunt and switch blunt heel out.  Well, he never quite rode away clean enough for our high standards.  He did switch blunt followed up on the next wall with blunt fakie.  He ripped it way more then I thought he would.Fuzz raised the bar on the highest ollie Rampy has seen.  He also introduced Rampy to front noseblunts, front noseblunt 180 out, front 270 nosepick, and ripped it.  He skates fast and it was funny to see how quickly he would get to the next wall as sometimes he would be out of control and still pull off a gnarly trick.  Or just grab the coping and hold on to recover.Conner got mad steez.  He started slow and just kept skating better and better.  Lots of steezy disasters, smiths, 5-0’s, etc.  Near the end of the session he was working on front smith to front rock.  We joked about him visualizing it with his tech deck so he pulled it out and finger boarded the trick.  I said I’d never make fun of tech decks again if he landed it next try.  He did.  Pretty funny.Since it’s my ramp I ripped it the hardest as usual.  Tricks like dropping in, axle stalls and rock fakies almost every try.  Ha.  I struggled at times, but had a good time and did lots of the tricks that make me happy.  Fakie pivot fakie, hurricane, front d, a rare blunt to 50 (above photo), fakie hurricane, brian’s front tough guy to front rock, and a 900 or two.Thanks for the photos Carleigh.  Hope your foot gets better soon so you can top the tail stall / rock fakie record.  More photos on Carleigh’s blog.

Day 2 of bachelor life.  Woke up remotely early, ate breakfast while watching the Blueprint video, ran some errands then met Neil at Lafayette which was supposedly skateable.  The mini and medium bowls were dry.  The manny pad was dry, but with a narrow runway/roll out and the steeper rock was dry.   We started in the mini bowl.  My first runs were so pathetic.  It didn’t help that the sun was blinding when going southwest.  Eventually I didn’t look like I just stepped on a skateboard for the first time ever.  Neil had some good runs.  Front slash on both extensions, back 50s on the lower extension and some good ollies over the pump boob in the middle.  Chris Jones met up in awhile and skated it pretty good too.  Boneless tail on the rock first try was sick.After awhile we moved on to the bank to rock.  Neil was struggling with a back rock ‘n roll on it which he’s done before.  At one point he said “I wont ever get laid again if I don’t land it this try.”  He landed it.  We laughed.  I tried some front rocks, but ended up landing a horrible layback front rock.  Chris was doing rock fakie and saying they were so fun.  He eventually did a back feeble on it.  I worked up to a back rock and like Neil said, it was fun.Next up we went over to the marble manny pad/ledge with the goal of each of us doing 10 tricks.  Normally this would be pretty easy, but the narrow runway and landing due to snow made it tough.  At one point a kid lost his board into the deep bowl and was stuck in it for 20 minutes before escaping the icy walls of death.  Most of the tricks were pretty basic.  A couple I was really hyped on.  Front 50 to manual to the bank and manual drop to manual to the bank.  Those two really hyped me up.  The 10 tricks I got were back board, front 50, manual, crooks, back 50, front 5-0, front 50 manny to bank, manny drop to manny to the bank, front 50 front 180 out and struggled to get a number 10 until I just wimped out and did a 2″ front board.Chad, Daryl and crew showed up too.  I skated the little bowl with them for a minute.  Chad’s warm up run was pretty funny.  He did an ollie to fakie on the extension to “get a feel” for the tranny. Must be nice.  Chris and I played the worst game of SKATE ever.  Well, maybe not from his point of view, but I’m pretty sure I raised the bar on the worst heelflip that’s ever been done in the history of skateboarding.  I got smoked.  Before leaving I skated the medium sized bowl finally, got a few back 50s and called it a day.

Day one of Liz and the kids being gone for a week and me being a bachelor.  Naturally I saw them off then hit the booze immediately.  Or maybe after they left I watched John Cardiels epcily latered then skated the entire day.  Yeah, yeah that’s it.  Rampy was a blast.  I ended up just trying a run of back 50, back 5-0 to fakie (don’t worry I still do them really bad), tail stall, frontside ollie, rock fakie, fakie hurricane.  I got all, but the fakie hurricane quite a few times.  After awhile I was even kinda stoked on some of the frontside ollies.  In between runs I would try a 1mph manual pop shove out.  Got a few of them.  Then I would try a nollie flip.  Got none, but a few were close.  Sometimes I would also do kickflips until I bailed one.  I eventually did the whole line, felt stoked and went inside to grab some lunch as Carleigh and Chad were supposed to be over soon.So I ate, then I watched Bernies video and then I watched the Kenny Hoyle video.  And then I waited a bit.  I went outside and waited.  There was a tiny patch of dry concrete in the driveway so I did about 100 stationary kickflips.  Literally.  I kept thinking C & C would arrive, but they never did.  I noticed that the sidewalk was remotely dry and started pushing down it and ollieing sections of sidewalk.  It was scary because it was narrow and if I shot the board out or landed bad I or my board would go in the snow.  After about 20 of these a big 4 wheel drive truck drove threw the slush and covered the sidewalk.  I flipped him off.  He laughed.  Back to stationary kickflips.  Eventually Carleigh and Chad showed.  Yeah.Yellow curbs near Crisis was next.  Neil met us there.  Some of the Crisis kids were there for about 5 minutes then they moved on.  Things started and stayed pretty lame for me.  Chad had some good moves.  Neil has the basics so good.  Carleigh shouldn’t have been skating, her foot is jacked.  She learned powerslides though and worked on pushing switch.  Everyone was doing there own thing.  Eventually Chad pulled out a trashcan on it’s side to ollie over.  Chad and Neil ollied over it like it was nothing.  Chad also front 180d it, back 180, kickflip, switch ollie and even switch heel.  Ridiculous.  Neil no complied over it.  I took my sweet time just to ollie over it.  It took a lot of effort.  I had done a kickflip manual on one of the long manual pads and it really hyped me up.  I’ve never done that trick longer then 8 feet.  I tried to do it again, but never quite got it again.  I really wanted to ollie the trashcan in a line.  Kick manual, back 50 the a fun yellow curb curve then ollie the trash can.  But seeing as how I knew I would never get that kick manny again I kept losing motivation for the ollie.  Eventually I just did it solo.  Carleigh was snapping photos.   At the end Chad and I played SKATE.  I got Chad to SKA each time, but that was it.  He’s got all the nollie, switch and regular heelflip variations and they took me out.  Super fun day.  Hyped to ollie the trash can even though it was easy for Chad and Neil.Neil complyChad switch heelMe ollie captured a bit late. Although I’m sure I’d look just as awkward (if not more) if the photo was captured at the “peak” of the ollie.A lot more photos at Gnarly Carleigh dot com. Thanks Carleigh!

One of the mellowist New Years I’ve had and that’s saying quite a bit.  Around 7 or so Ollie and I went out to Rampy.  I don’t remember anything too special that I did.  I was happy about doing front tail and front d first try.  Fakie pivot fakies are always fun.  Ollie was kinda ripping.  He did most of his tricks.  Some of the fakie ollies were well above coping.  He was doing way more frontside kickturns than normal and I suggested he try doing an ollie.  Most were just little Glen ollies, but one of them was legit.  Not above coping, but damn, he’s 8.  It made me try a few frontside ollies too and one of them felt kinda good.So the year is done.  I skated 312 days.  Not as far over the 300 mark as I would have thought, but above 300.  I have to admit I am proud to have made 300.  It was not easy and although part of me wants to try for it again, I think skating around 250 and learning to ollie higher then a curb sounds better.  Happy Null Years everyone!  And good luck to Rob and Neil who say they are going for 300 in 2011.

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.