After a very long drive down from the mountains involving somehow avoiding a muliple car pile up due to ice and then carving pumpkins I escaped for a bit to get some skate on.  Went to Southern Hills as it’s close and such a good spot.  The weather was super nice.  Neil said he’d meet me after awhile.  I haven’t had a couple days off skating in awhile and my legs were still sore so I was real rusty.  I like trying lines there and this time I tried to include more than just the ledges.  After a couple basic ones I had a decent one for me.  Front board, ollie up the 2, kickflip into the bank, noseslide fakie.  Back crooks the picnic bench, noseslide to fakie the bench, halfcab noseslide (horrible) another bench.  Front 50, front 180 up the 2, f/s halfcab into the bank, ollie onto a bench, ollie off.  Neat.  Neil showed up and cruised around too.  Like me he didn’t seem overly motivated.  For awhile I tried another run of fakie bigspin into the bank, fakie flip on flat, then fakie nosegrind a ledge.  Never got close to the fakie nosegrind.  At the end I started trying the hardest trick for me.  Ollies.  I wanted to ollie up and then ollie a gap, but I never did.  I could barely ollie up a bench with speed and survive.  Ugh.  Not my favorite session.  I left, stopped at a gas station and saw someone skate by with a “All You Need Is Null” t-shirt.  Awesome.  Then it was trick ‘or treat time with the kids.  Fun!

After a nap and dinner I went out and skated in the street while I waited for Carleigh to show up.  Basically just 180s.  I think it was all 180s though, including the tail scraping switch back 180.  Carleigh arrived and it was off to Crisis to spend more money then skate the Broomfield park for a bit.  A bit turned into quite awhile because it was so fun.  Initially though I was sucking and it was crowded so I just resorted to the blue ledge and tried slow switch front boards for awhile.  I got one.  People were hogging the quarta potty so I couldn’t line it out.  Oh yeah, the crew was pretty big.  Carleigh, Fuzz, Neil, Brian, Derek, Darin and more that added to the good vibes.  Neil was killing it quick as usual.  I ollied the six stair first try and it felt pretty easy and fun.  I hucked the double set a couple times.  It’s pathetic, but that would be the biggest thing I’ve ever ollied.  The best part is it felt pretty doable.  But rather then just land it and get it done with, I’d rather make it a big deal and blow it off for a later session when “I’m feeling on”.  Brian and Fuzz were working on backside sugar canes.  I saw Fuzz land a few and Brian slam a lot of them, but got so close.  At some point I saw Brian ripping the flow bowl so I joined for a bit.  A couple runs in I set my record for most coping touches in one run.  Hyped.  All kinds of goodness was going on in the park.  Carleigh got a pop shove down the double set.  Derek did nose manual into the steep bank.  I ended up getting a smith grind on the black ledge.  So fun.  We left and went to the thermals who held it down as they always do.

Temperature wise it was colder out then yesterday, but without the wind it didn’t feel too bad.  I pulled out the ol’ Null thermal for the first time and was layered up good for the cold.  I cruised around for a bit and ended up at one of the new buildings that John and I sometimes play SKATE at.  Maybe I should start paying attention to building names.  To get my feet warmed up I did a few flatground tricks.  180s, shoves, kickflips, nothing much, just enough to get the blood flowing.  On the way out I noticed a 3 stair I hadn’t seen before.  I did a little line up to it with fakie ollie a crack, switch 180 a crack, front 180 down the stairs.  Wowsers.  On top of the 3 stair is a ledge with another ledge to ollie over which I attempted to pose an ollie over, but was not even capable of posing the ollie over.All day I had been thinking of this new spot with a narrow path to ollie a little ledge.  I headed there.  On the way I saw quite possibly the shortest skirt I have ever seen on a totally smoking college girl.  That was distracting.  A hill bomb later I ended up at the spot.  It wasn’t as great as I’d remembered, but whatever.  I took like 30 tries trying to get a pop shove on this narrow path to setup for a kickflip, but it didn’t happen.  The path is surrounded by bricks so you can go off the path and your ok, but I’m a perfectionist (clearly, just look at my style).  I gave up on the shove, started ollie’ing a little two stair first instead then doing a kickflip on the path.  When I didn’t land perfect in the path I would turn around.  So this means every try until the last try so I finally go to ollie the gap and it’s weirder then it looks.  Narrow, downhill, sideways approach.  I clipped the ledge and bailed.  But I felt good and wanted it next try, I go to grab my board and it’s folded in a V.  Shit!  I guess that’s what I get for skating a totally cracked board when I have tons of new boards at my house.  Did I mention I saw the shortest skirt I’ve ever seen?  Wow.  Calm down Fuzz.

Easily the coldest day of the season so far and the wind was howling.  Not an ideal day for skating at all.  But Bernie and I rolled out from Boulder and met up with Derek, Aaron, Fuzz and some of the new Crisisish kids.  After some business the first spot was the gnarly bank spot basically right across the street.  Fuzz kicked it off with an ollie over two rebar beams, some thread the needle carving went down, Derek did a crazy ollie to fakie over the beams and Bernie did a crazy manual to thread the needle.  I didn’t land a single thing.Next up was a spot Fuzz and I will refer to as Yellow Curbs from here on out.  Such a sick parking garage spot protected from the wind.  Unfortunately business was still in session and we didn’t last real long.  Everyone, but me, did some rad manuals though and I managed to do several frontside slappies even though I’ve only done that trick a couple times before that.Last spot was the old Broomfield Ledges spot and the wind was in full effect as the sun set making it ridiculously cold.  No one had their winter mentallity in effect yet, but we all skated.  Most everyone there can easily get into manuals or nose manuals.  I was having troubles just ollie’ing up the stupid ledge.  I tried to wallie up it and kept hanging up.  Fuzz manualed it pretty quick.  Derek , Bernie and one of the kids nose mannied it.  Derek almost got nose manny nollie heel out and nose manual b/s pivot to switch manual.  Bernie almost got manny treflip out.  Aaron kickflipped up it.  I came somewhat close to a line of ollie up, no comply 180, sw f/s 180 off.  Near the end we were kinda dorking around.  Fuzz did ollie over the corner and stopper to noseslide.  We both got rock transfer around the corner.  Then we were dorking with stalls for awhile.  I got a rock shove out, b/s rock, front smith bail to hit my bad knee, and tried f/s smith stalls with kickflips out (never got close).  We had a way better time than we should have considering the weather.

Solo Rampy session.  Nothing that great.  I was super tired from tossing and turning all night for no reason then having to work at 7:00am.  I treid a bunch of fakie front smiths and only landed one lame one.  Then I slammed and called it a night.  New shoes feel good on Rampy.  I did a couple kickflips on flat and they felt great.After I got back inside I took my shoes off and realized I had both sets of my custom insoles in my shoes.  So two in each shoe.  Pretty funny.

Another perfect late fall day.  Chilly, but in the lower 50s.  Liz was out on a hike and Jake wanted to skate so we skated flatground in front of the house for awhile.  We started out doing our own things for awhile.  Jake had some 4 of 5 trick lines.  I struggled, but was having fun.  After awhile we played a game of SKATE.  He got me on treflip and frontside flip.  I got him with halfcab flips, fakie varial flip, heelflip and ended it with a first time in a game double flip.  Hyped.  Before Jake left we had a quick race to 3 360flips for a root beer.  I put the first two down, but took awhile to get the third.  Jake got two as well so it was close.Next I went to Southern Hills again, but with Neil, Derek, Matt and his friend Ian.  My legs were so ridiculously sore initially.  I kinda warmed up, did a few things I’ve done there a lot of times and then retired to being filmer guy.  Go Null.

Super exhausted from a late night of shows and getting home to a very sick Ollie making weird noises, crying and holding his throat. That went on for awhile keeping me up until 4am or so. Ugh. After chilling with Ollie for awhile, trying to repair my laptop and watching the Habitat video twice I went to Southern Hills solo as the rest of TF had gone to Fort Collins. I brought a bunch of wax, waxed up the ledges real good and felt like going right to work trying lines and I ended up only trying lines the whole time. The first one was backside noseslide, slappy front tail on the curb, back boardslide, kickflip. That didn’t take long. I chose to alternate between b/s on the benches and f/s on the benches. So the next line was frontside. Really bad front board, really bad slappy back tail on the curb, front 50. Backside crooks, no comply 180, horrible halfcab noseslide. It’s crazy how tight this spot feels when your trying lines like this. Next one took a awhile. Front 50 front 180 out, f/s halfcab flip, no slide front nose to fakie. Backside noseslide to fakie, b/s halfcab flip, back 50. The back 50 took several tries and was seriously horrible. It was one of those 90 degree in, grind less then a foot and desperately try to land on the board. But landing the back 50 was probably my favorite trick of the day because of how few times I’ve landed that on benches. Last line took forever and I was so tired. Frontside noseslide, treflip, front 50 front shove out. The front noses were horrid. I cannot do that trick to forward so I was jibbing the last bit of the bench. My standards were low for the day as it was just a solo session, but even with the bar so low I turned around and started over sometimes. I’m so jealous of Jason’s. Anyways I tried this run for awhile and when I did make it to the front 50 part I could never get on the bench so I switched ledge tricks. A few tries later I did it. Front 50 shove, 360 flip, bad bad front noseslide. I was hyped though. I sat for awhile feeling so so tired. I noticed that I cracked my board at some point and there was a hole in the bottom of my front shoe. Sweet.

Before heading to see Zach’s band then Henry Clay People I skated Rampy for abit. For whatever reason I thought of trying back 50s to rock fakie. I never would commit to fakie. Carleigh showed up with a few minutes before we had to go. I got a back 50 to rock ‘n roll, but not to fakie. In the same run I got a fakie pivot fakie so I called it. Carleigh got quite a few of her basics too.

Kid duty for me as Liz was going to a movie with a friend later. I had one of those days at work where I didn’t stretch for some lame reason, but I gabbed my board pretty much right away and went to it. Seeing as how it was rush hour there was a lot of people driving by the house which messed up my tempo a bit, but kinda let me rest too. Kickflips took a few tries. That’s not cool. After a good 20 minutes of sucking things started working out and I tried some tricks I hadn’t since the knee bruise. Treflip, double flip, nollie treflip, b/s flip, halfcab flips. I did most of them, but not in lines like I was trying. I tried one line one way of halfcab flip, treflip then heelflip. I had the most trouble with the heelflip. Ugh. The other way I was trying front shove, double flip, nollie treflip, but never got the double flip until Bernie showed up to drop off some footage and I snapped one in front of him to remind him who’s boss. Blah, I’m joking of course, but he was hyped. That’s the first double flip I’ve landed not wearing the IPath Stash shoe.

Had such a fun time after dinner playing Beatles Rock Band, then was supposed to have a chill little cello performance from India that went south. She freaked out and two hours later, lots of crying, me putting on a comedy act and lots of patience I was free for a few minutes. I was pretty beat and opted out for a quick Rampy session. I had watched a few more parts from the new Habitat video (Silas slays!) and was more motivated than I thought. For a few minutes anyways. I had wanted to try blunt to pivot and after some decent runs I started trying it. I never got a decent one. All were to 50 50 and I touched the wall on all of them. Oh well.