‘Twas a gloomy and cool fall day.  Liz and I had a date the night before and slept in real late.  Eventually Sam and Ollie asked to go skate so we risked the scattered showers and after a brief stop at Community we rolled up to a nearly vacant skatepark.  Warming up was fun just cruising around that place is always a blast.  A few other kids showed up, but they couldn’t even drop into the 1 foot qp.  I had a pretty fun session, but still couldn’t really ollie due to knee pain.  It’s getting better, I just don’t want to due any long term damage putting pressure on it.  Skating tranny doesn’t seem to hurt it much.  New stuff I got was a manny out of a tiny qp to tail stall in, roll out/in backside above the pool corner, board stall back revert transfer over the spine backed with a fakie front pivot fakie, front 5-o around a little corner, front slash on the bank which took a few tries last time came first try.  nice.  Ollie was ripping.  He did mostly the same tricks, but I saw a rock ‘n roll on a taller qpipe, rock fakie on the bank, some low on the tranny ollies over hips.  Not much longer and he’ll be way better than me.  Sam got some back 50s on the qp out of the ground and improved his game.It started to sprinkle so we went to a parking garage off Wadsworth that I hadn’t skated in forever.  I couldn’t really ollie and didn’t feel like pushing it.  But I was super hyped to get a drop off a curb to manny, around a corner and into boardslide on a curb.  Got a couple of those and one was super clean.  That really hyped me up.  Sam learned cali back 50s super good.  Ollie was ripping like I hadn’t seen before.  Big ollies off a two stair, full speed ollies up a curb (half the time with a little wallie), a few backside boardslides on curbs and a banger at the end.  Ollie up the curb then front board the brick ledge.  So sick.  Total little kid steez where he came to a halt before popping off, but whatever, it was awesome.

Knee was sucking. It’s pretty black and blue. I tried to skate in front of the house, but still couldn’t ollie so I just pushed fast and manualled the curb cut from the neighbors house to mine. Took a few tries and I had some crazy arm steez. That’s a long manny for me.

Jason, Jake and I went to Broomfield park. Fuzz, John, Max, Derek, Davis and tons more were there. Jason and I started on the little qpipe area. For awhile I thought my knee would be ok, but after a few ollies it started to hurt and I had to resort to not ollieing. I took a run in the flow bowl and it ended up being pretty good for me. I grinded around a corner and slashed the pool coping. Fuzz, Max and John were ripping. Made me jealous. Jason had some good mannies and ended up skating pretty well. Jake put down a good line. Treflip on flat, low to high quarta potty front pivot, back 5-0 to fakie on the brick qp. Near the end I made myself do some tricks on the brick qp. Front rock came kinda easy. Front 50 took a long time. That brick qp hates me.

I was looking to see how long it’s been since those Ipath Stash’s were new so that’s why the last entry was so late.  Can’t believe I forgot to hit ‘Publish’.  Oh well.  So yeah, the stash’s felt like crap the last time I had them.  Very thin and flat.  They didn’t last as long as the time before that, but I’ve been doing more flippers lately.  My knee still hurt, but not as bad as I would have thought.  The knee cap looks pretty gross.  Maybe in a couple days when the bruise spreads it’s black and blue all over I’ll take a photo.  Anyways I setup a new board as I cracked my board pretty bad the night before.  Perfect time for new shoes!After a run to Community to sell boards, eating a bunch of cookies and reading to the kids I went out for some light skating under the street light.  I bent down for the first ollie and it hurt way worse then I had thought.  Doh.  Kickflips somehow didn’t hurt so I went for them.  I had a couple 10+ streaks.  The most being 16.  Pretty weak night, hopefully my knee gets better.

** this was supposed to be posted a long time ago, but I just saw it in my drafts.  oops ***New board time.  This one is an ode to my favorite skater, Ryan Sheckler and his amazing Oakley ad about bucking expectations and rising to the top.  Or maybe it’s about how that is the worst ad in history and Brian called Oakley on the way to Ft Collins one day resulting in the funniest conversation ever.  Either way, I now had a board with that griptape art on it.  Great.A new deck isn’t complete without new shoes to go along with it.  Round 2 on I Path Stash’s.  This time in a bright color.  Neat.I thought it was gonna be a mellow day when I woke up.  Turns out that Tyler and a crew of Denver Shop dudes were coming to Boulder and wanted to meet up.  We met at Sussex ledge where it became clear that I would be the poser of the day with my new setup.  This round of Null decks came with really small noses for some reason too.  Ugh.  That was throwing me off.  Neil and I played half a game of SKATE before I started filming Tyler try front tail 180 heelflip out.  Two hours later I couldn’t handle sitting anymore and my camera was overheating so I tried to play a game of SKATE with John who had shows up with Meta dudes Jack, Max, Davis.  But that got interrupted by Tyler actually landing his trick.  Prolly should have just stuck to filming as I didn’t land anything anyways.   Ha.Next we went to a plastic ledge spot where Shardy and Max did some neat stuff.  The rest of us either sat around or tried to do this weird wallride that only Jack landed.  Next we went to Southern Hills.  Some sat around, some skated, some filmed and some got in peoples way (me).  It was fun though.  Jack and Max both got neat tricks.  Whitney almost got a neat line, but went the dramatic route and focused his board.  Justin almost got a quick up to 360 flip noseslide the gap which would have been completely ridiculous.  I had fun trying boardslides, noseslides and crooks on the good ledge, backing a couple with 360 flips and then getting in someones way.  It was fun though.  Here’s a couple photos from the day.It doesn’t count unless you film it.Footie review!Nullers at work!High five means a make!

Another gorgeous fall evening.  Worked late, everyone else skated Broomfield early, had a nap and watched Leave It To Beaver with India.  Such an awesome show.  Ha.  Was driving to downtown, but saw campus on the way and went for it.  I skated around for awhile with Titus Andronicus on the mp3 player and found a new parking lot with all kinds of awesomeness.  I quickly picked a couple lines and tricks I wanted to do.  First one was kickflip up a curb, front180 down a narrow 3 then sw front 180 off the curb.  That came pretty quick.  Next up was an ollie off a narrow ledge over a sidewalk then ollie up the 3.  That one took awhile.  Getting the courage to push fast enough on the narrow ledge and actually go for the ollie was hard for me.  I was definitely a bit tired.  I eventually got it, followed it by a quick up the curb, ollie up the 3 then front 180 off the curb.  All pretty fun.  The last trick was to ollie onto a different narrow ledge and ollie a little gap.  The gap is basically only a three stair, but the narrow ledge setup was soooo hard for me.  I eventually took my headphones off because they kept falling off anyways.  But I couldn’t get the narrow ollie so I started trying it in a line.  Ollie over a curb to manual a sidwalk (not just up a curb, but over a curb that dropped down to a sidwalk), heelflip, narrow ledge ollie.  I eventually added halfcab flip to the start of the line and managed to get the whole line.  It came with the price of a cracked board on the narrow ollie.  After landing it I wanted to try it again and get a treflip after.  Halfcab flip sketchy, manny good, heelflip on point, ollie onto the ledge, hang up and who knows what happened but my kneecap started swelling up real quick.  I guess I hit it on the corner of the ledge or curb after the gap.  Ugh.  The highlight was lying there in pain and the goth lesbian couple asking if I was ok.  I tried to walk it off back to the car, but as I write this the pain is pretty intense.  Ice, Ibuprofen and a bit of whiskey might help.  We’ll see.

Sore from the long day of skating before, but it was a really nice Sunday.  Ollie wanted to go to the Arvada park, but we didn’t have the time so we decided on the scooter park.  When we got there it was crowded with 10 kids going in circles non stop.  So dumb.  Ha.  We just got in their way a lot and they eventually left.  I tried a bunch of kickflip back and front tails.  Came close the the back ones, but no where close on the front.  Other then that I mostly just did some mannies around the way.  Tried some full cab flips, but didn’t get close, tried an alley oop fakie front bigspin and got it.  I guess it was probably more like a fakie front shove with a tiny angle, but whatever, it was new.  Ollie and Sam mostly pushed down the hill fast and flew off into the grass.  Ollie did a few high speed carves that were pretty cool.

Another one of those saturdays that has nothing short of 20 phone calls just to go skate.  A large crew assembled at my house while Jake and I played a couple games of SKATE.  I won the first one and was feeling decent.  The second game kind of dissolved as it was time to move on.  The crew was Bernie, Sam, Rob, Brian, Lazer, Jake, Dean, Carleigh, Jason, Neil and me.  Whew.  Three cars.  The first stop was the OG Louisville tech spot.  Double sided curb and lots of wood pallets to pile stuff up.  Lazer and Brian got some crazy ollies over a wood hip.  Bernie was manualling a pallet (two pallets tall and for some reason very awkward) then trying front tail 270 out.  Jason was doing 200 foot long boardslides.  Sam was skating as well as I’ve ever seen him skate.  Rob and Dean were doing their thing.  Carleigh was setting up a board.  I wasn’t skating too well, but kept at it and ended up getting a line full of poorly landed tricks that still made me happy.  Ollie up a curb, kickflip off, heelflip on flat, front 50 the ledge, nollie treflip no speed landing.  After awhile Lazer got crazy and tried to back 180 the wood pallet hip.  He paid a bunch, but eventually got it.  So sick.  Neil was doing some ollies off the pallet, manualling the two tall pallet and trying crooks shoves.  I tried front shoves out of the pallet for awhile, but didn’t get it or even commit.We were gonna leave, but Bernie was trying some crazy wallride on the top of a pallet.  I brought my camera over and he did it in like two tries.  So sick.  Carleigh, Sam and I skated the ollie into the bank then the little gap for a bit.  We all got the easy route, Sam got front 180 quick and I eventually followed.  Some more skating around the area went down.  Jake was trying to ollie two cones, but never got it that I could see.  Rob was doing some cool b/s shifties off the little kicker.We eventually left for the mellow bank to tall ledge/wallride spot.  Some sat around.  Dean rolled his ankle on a no comply.  Neil worked up to manny to the bank, no comply tail.  Jason did sone rad alley oop front noseslides. Bernie made us all feel old with a first try kickflip pivot.  I got a couple front 50 stalls quicker than I would have thought.  Tried back 50, but didn’t get close.  Rob was trying too and didn’t get it.  Jake took awhile to get a front 50, but when he got it it was gold.  Sam was ripping nose mannies.  Brian tried alley oop front wallrides for a long time.  Lazer got front smith stall.  Carleigh was popping some nice ollies and almost got a back nosestall on the ledge.  After awhile I tried wallrides and came remotely close.  I committed, but can’t figure out how to not land primo.  People were ready to leave, but no one could come up with a plan so I just skated flat for awhile.  Treflip, heelflips, halfcab flips were on.  I think overall I was 50% on treflips for the day which is really good for me.We eventually left and went to Broomfield park.  I was sore and did nothing but dork around for the first 30 min.  The park was super crowded so I really didn’t see much of what anyone else did.  Lazer and I had a crappy game of SKATE on the quarta potty that was mostly just interrupted by kids standing in the way.  He did get me to finally do f/s pivots on it though.  I did some slappy mannies on the blue ledge and put one into 5-0 and got the shove out.  Rad.  Did one slappy manny into back lip and tried to shove out.  It was goofy times.  Derek, Chris Jones and Daryl were there too as well as other buddies.  I eventually started actually trying to skate and did a few things I was hyped on.  Back 5-0 shove out, double flips, front feebs on the qp.All in all one of my better days of skating.  Dean took these photos with my camera.  He’s a way better photographer than me.

The man, the myth, the legend Rob Helmstetter was in town to help celebrate the grand opening of Fuzz’s new shop Crisis.  After we hung at the shop for a long time we made it over to the Broomfield park.It was really hot and we basically had the park to ourselves.  We had a pretty mellow session going.  Rob had some nice manual and nose manuals around the blue slant.  I don’t remember anything really standing out for me.  I guess I tried to wallie into the bank and landed it with a deck check and was happy to get a grind around a corner in the bowl.  After awhile new guy Derek showed up and we all played a game of SKATE after Rob and I finished up one (I honestly can’t remember who won but I think i lost on a b/s flip).  The game of SKATE was hijacked by one of Derek’s friend that landed a bunch of tricks in a row.  After awhile I just started filming a Derek park montage and snapped the above photo of Rob back smithing the brick qp.  Nice new Crisis shirt!After that we hit Community and sold some boards then hit the little Arvada park.  It was mad crowded with young kids and teenagers.  Most of which weren’t really skating.  We were able to cruise around the masses without too much inconvenience. Rob got a sick manual coming out of a qp and going a long time before rolling back in.  We both got front slashers on the steep bank (new for me).  Other new tricks for me were back feeble on the steep bank and fakie 50 transfer the spine.  We didn’t stay too long, but it was fun.

On the way to 303 Ollie and I hit Zuni park for awhile.  It was pretty crowded.  I kind of treated it as a day off of skating and didn’t ollie once, just skated the 3 foot qp the whole time.  I got quite a few tricks.  Front 50, front smith, back 50, back smith, back disaster (3rd one ever!), front lip (took way too long), front feeble (took too long as well), and the one that put the biggest smile on my face alley oop fakie back 5-0 to fakie.  Fun.  Ollie didn’t rip as hard as last time, but it was crowded and I think he was intimidated.  He got some back scratch grinds and almost ollied over the little kid table top.  But he smiled the whole time and wasn’t afraid to fly out into the grass, ride down the hill aways and jump and roll in the grass.  Being a kid must rule.