Headed up to Market with Bernie and Carleigh to sell some boards then skate campus since it was dark when we got there.  I had mentioned a manny pad I wanted to skate and everyone was down.  We acquired some crew at MRKT.  Chad Dad, Chris Jones, Andy Bonner.  Awesome.  We started off down the sidewalk to campus and it was already awesome.  Everyone popping little ollies, mannies, Chad hitting me in the face, it was awesome.  First spot was the ol’ two up two down that I used to skate with JP forever ago.  Seeing as how there were six of us I’m probably gonna blow it on remembering everyone’s tricks so I’m gonna go for a new format.  Two up two down:Bernie: The best kickflip manny I’ve ever seen.  Manual around the corner and down the block like it wasn’t even a trick.  Almost nose manny too.Carleigh:  Pop shove and kickflip down.  Almost a kickflip up.  Oh yeah she claims she’s never ollied up a “set” of stairs before.  I don’t buy it.  Ha.Bonner: Nose manny around the corner to the end of the block.  Ridiculous.Me: Manny.  One in a “line” where I mannied then at the end I rode down the stairs on my front wheels (I’ll never be able to do that again) then ollied a cone that was setup.Chris: Manny around the corner to the street like it was nothing.  Nose mannies.  Almost kickflip up, kickflip on flat, kickflip on flat, kickflip off.Chad: Still got it.  Almost kick nose manny.  Kickflip the cone.  Way more then I can remember right now.Next up was the most messed up spot.  Basically it was a 3 flat 2 flat 2 flat 2 flat 2 flat 2 flat 2 flat 2 then a 4.  We all looked so dumb riding down it, but it was totally awesome.   Here’s a blurry cell phone photo of a Bernie back 180 bail.I know, the worst photo ever, sorry.  But it literally went way up into the dark by that building.  It took everyone several tries to get to the end and multiple attempts to finally land the 4 stair at the end that has no setup time.  Bernie was the first to get the whole thing and it kinda went from there.  I was super hyped when I finally got it.  My ollie down the 4 stair was so bad, but I didn’t feel like trying it again so I quit.  Bonner ended up getting a kickflip down the 4.  Chris Jones had an insanely sick drop down the 3 followed by ollieing a 2 flat 2 as a double set then landing in a two stair basically.  Chad manualled into the 3 and almost got kickflip out.  Carleigh got about as close as you can get but ended up hanging up, diving and hitting her head pretty bad.  She was fine though.  Bernie held down the tech line with a manual drop to manual across the bike path in the middle then a back 180 down the 4.  Ridiculous.Next was the manny pad that Chad does his ender in Null And Void.  We acquired a college student at this session.  Plaid shorts and a Null board.  Awesome!  Bernie almost got halfcab nose manny drop to manny.  I basically did manny drop to manny first try, but touched a little then never got it.  Chad tried some cool stuff, but didn’t get it.  Carleigh came close to manny.  Bonner and Chad Dad took off at this point and we went to the new area with the curb kicker and rocks to skate.  We were pretty beat by then.  Bernie and Chris went for some tall ollies and grabs.  Chris even ollied a weird curb cut gap at full speed next to a wall.  Jude (? the college dude’s name I think) had a huge heelflip and some other moves.  Carleigh put down pop shove and kickflips pretty quick.  I was so beat, but put down a kickflip and a quick front shove before failing at some ollies that were one foot tall.  Ha.Super awesome session.  Totally what skateboarding is to me.  Push around and skate whatever, meet people, skate with homies, skate with people you don’t know so well, do it all, man it was fun.

Got off work after another crappy day, fell asleep on the couch, ate dinner, swam with the kids which cheered me up, then boxed up some boards for Fremont Matt and brought them to Fedex on Baseline.  Skated around for a bit after that.  Just kinda warming up there was a cone after the kicker and I ollied it a couple times before skating the parking blocks by Subway.  Got a few lines.  Sw front 180 over a parking block, ollie the weird kicker under the sign, ollie onto the sidewalk, ride off, ollie onto the sidwalk, ride off, ollie a curb to little drop.  Sw 180 a curb, kickflip another curb, wallie off a curb to manual off the two stair.  I got the wallie mannie first try which hyped me up because I’ve tried that way too many times.  It helps they redid the parking lot.  Then tried another line with sw 180 the curb, halfcab flip, kickflip over the curb then wallie manny.  Didn’t get that again.  I also dorked around on the curbs a bit.  Got front lips, front blunts, back blunts.  Tried back blunt shove, but didn’t get close.  Then I went over to the C ledge on campus to try and get ollie up 180 off without pushing.  It’s kinda tall.  Normally when I ollie onto it I lose my speed, but I was getting some good ollies and the 180 off came easy.  There is a little gap out so it’s extra fun.  Since the 180 was so easy I wanted to try front shove.  The bench has a weird slant to it and it made it way harder than it should have been.  At least that’s the excuse I’m going with.  It took forever.  I went through various waves of exhaustion where I had trouble ollieing up the bench, but eventually put it down and cruised right down the bike path to get out there nearly getting hit by a biker without a light.  Cool.   I ollied a little parking block gap on the way to the car and called it a fun night.

After a run to 303 Jason and I went to the Broomfield park.  We met wannabe Nuller Derek there.  Ha.  Before we even got out of the car I already saw him doing some pretty ridiculous mannies.  Lots of pivot 180s in the middle of mannies, 180s in, out, shoves out.  When Jason and I started it wasn’t very pretty.  Both of us were sore and had troubles ollieing up the downhill blue ledge to setup for the porta potty.  Jason was doing mannies almost every try on the blue ledge though.  Front feebles on the qp were feeling better than ever for me.  We messed around on the top for awhile.  I got a few f/s flips on the bump by the bowl and followed them up with crooks slams on the black ledge.  Jason got a sick back 180 up the euro.  I failed to ollie up it.  Ugh.  Back down the the lower level I got a run with nose manny, front feeb, back 5-0, treflip.  Then tried nosegrinds forever and never got any without a little tail tap on the way out.  Argh.  Jason wrecked himself trying a nose manny and sat out the end of the session.  Derek was doing some crazy front 180 switch 5-0s to fakie on the brick qp.  Some dudes showed up in basketball shorts, shirts and shoes (Nikes are basketball shoes kids).  They had the worst styles ever, but were somehow doing some decent tricks.  One dude could pop over a tall cone easily.  I guess that makes sense, basketball players can jump high.

Super tired from what I don’t know.  Had a mellow day, but it felt like my cold was coming back.  I went to the Table Mesa shopping center for about 30 minutes.  I started at the bank with the long manny pad and the wallrides.  I had a couple manuals that were 3/4 of the way which felt good.  I’d be so hyped to some day do the whole thing.  I came close to some b/s wallrides and got one switch front 180 to wallride.  I didn’t have much drive though and was kinda just passing the motions.  I went over to the library and posed a few attempts down the 3 flat 1.  I’m compiling a list of tricks I want to do in Boulder before I turn 40.  Ollie’ing that is one of them.  I got a couple years, but I should probably figure out that list.  Other tricks on it so far are 50 50 Sussex ledge, manual Willville, ollie a bench gap at Southern Hills, maybe ollie the St Julien 9 stair, etc.  Maybe I’ll make it official some day in the future when I get it narrowed down.

John, Jason, Carleigh, Neil and Brian met at my house.  Fuzz and Lazer would meet shortly.  First spot was the ol’ bird bank in the tech center.  Things got started in typical fashion.  Neil pulling something out to ollie over and amazing everyone with how easy it is for him.  Brian building a wallride.  Carleigh skating hard and falling a lot.  Me feeling like I stepped on a skateboard for the first time in months.  Etc.  It was a good start though, everyone was skating pretty hard and making due with a mediocre spot.  John had a line with something like treflip on flat, ollie the Neil thing, back tail on the bank.  He wanted shove though.  Carleigh was ollieing a little crack gap then trying kickflip then f/s ollie on the bank.  Neil was doing kickflip then ollie his ollie contraption, no complies on the bank.  Brian was trying some crazy rock fakie wallrides.  I did a line that felt good for how early in the session it was.  Kickflip a little crack gap, ollie Neil’s contraption, b/s flip on the bank.  The b/s flip felt good because I didn’t pivot it at all for once.  I’m sure I made up for the lack of a pivot by not popping it.  John, Jason and I got into a fakie flat bank session while others were doing some wallrides on wood leaned against a dumpster.  Fakie ollies were hard then John and I started going for fakie front shove (John) and fakie flip (me) while Jason tried halfcabs and then full cabs.  Jason got all of his first and I eventually got the fakie flip, but it took forever.  I sat down to rest for a minute and thought we were leaving, but instead it was time to film Brian.  For some reason I complained a bunch about this and got in a sour mood over basically nothing.  It lasted the rest of the day though.Brian was trying frontside grinds on this and got one.  It was ridiculous.  Jason did some super sick powerslides on it too.  Fuzz and Brian also did boardslides to fakie, John and Fuzz joined Jason on the powerslides as well.  After this was break time.  Drinks, food, a visit to the Lafeyette park that’s under construction and a general feeling of crankiness and no motivation.We went to a nearby bump/hip spot that is really fun.  Fuzz, Neil, Jason, Lazer had some great ollies quickly.  Carleigh and I seemed to have lots of problems getting used to the spot.  Which is a bummer after how much fun and how well I skated it last time I was there.  Fuzz and Neil did some wallrides on a brick wall that looked really good.  Brian layed down to sleep right away and pretty quickly Lazer, Fuzz and Neil joined him for some beers.  It was just Carleigh, Jason and I skating.  Me sucking and Carleigh seeming very frustrated.  After awhile Jason slammed hard pushing and retired to his car.  Carleigh and I skated awhile longer.  I had finally gotten a couple good ollies landing in the downhill and didn’t feel like bailing kickflips so I started trying slow b/s bigflips which I’ve never done on a hip that I know of, and definitely never done a good one on flat.  It took awhile, but I eventually landed a really bad one rolling away at slightly over 45 degrees.  Sweet.  Carleigh had landed a couple good pop shoves and started trying kickflips.  They were supposed to be hard since she basically had it first try.  But .. it was not Carleighs day.  And after several tries I got out the camera to snap some photos thinking it would come soonArsty bailed kickflip shotSo bummed.Not even a goofy TF squad could cheer Carleigh up.  Especially when Neil pulled the ulimate dick move and said he’d do it first try to show Carleigh how easy it is.  It amazes me how clueless Neil can be sometimes.  I kept messing around with photos and eventually took my new favorite photo with the new camera:After Neil spoke up Carleigh quit for the day.  Some goofing around happend for awhile before we farted and went to dinner at the TF staple – 3 Margaritas.  It was a good meal with the highlight being the wait staff singing happy birthday to Carleigh and slamming whipped cream in her face.  Awesome.

Neil and I went and looked at the new Lafayette park being built.  Wow, it’s crazy looking.  I took some photos which I’ll post soon.  After that we went to Crisis (more photos coming soon) and watched Stay Gold and watched Fuzz and Carleigh hang up some skate photos.  Then it was skate time.  The park was somewhat crowded, but it was warm out and a good vibe.  It’s funny seeing all the kids flock to Fuzz now since he’s the new shop owner and they all want their free stickers and sponsorship.  He handled it well except breaking his brand new Null deck on a flatground kickflip.  So funny.  It was such a bad kickflip, but all the kids were like “Wow, I’m not gonna get a Null, that’s bad”.  Ha.  Fuzz was trying so hard to be like “No, it’s just me, I’m fat and I landed bad”.  It was cracked bad, but he ended up skating it backwards and still ripped.  After some cruising around we ended up at the blue pad area for quite awhile.  Neil and Fuzz worked on and landed bluntslides  after doing front d’s from low to high on the porta potty (little pool coping qp) to hubba.  I was playing around and got a good line for me.  Manual, front feebs, back 5-0.  Then I started working on halfcab crooks.  I got a couple questionable ones before putting a decent (for me) one down where I grinded a couple feet.  So hyped on that.  Then we all tried crooks on the taller brown ledge.  Fuzz succeeded a lot, me once and Neil was close.  Then we cruised around doing whatever.  I posed a few kickflips over the rail, but didn’t have the commit feeling at all.  Not much happened after that.  Super fun night though.

Feeling better and after a long nap and dinner I picked up Jake around sunset and we ended up at Steelyards.  He had suggested Red Curbs, but the purist jerk in me doesn’t allow me to skate an indoor spot on a warm, dry night.  We’ll have more then enough time for Red Curbs this winter.  Anyways, wow, this was the first time in awhile I’ve had fresh legs.  Having only skated about 20 minutes in the last three days my legs felt amazing.  I manualed the long way first try and felt energized and good.  This is probably why my goal next year is going to be to NOT skate 300 days.  Ha.  Seriously though, refreshed legs are awesome.  Jake was skating pretty hard as usual.  He got a few manuals the long way.  Ollie up, kickflip off.  front 180 up, f/s half cab off.  front 180 up almost fakie back big off.  They put in some new bike racks which make it a bit harder to skate.  It messed with my nose manuals, but I eventually got one.  I tried manual front 180 out and didn’t get close.  Tried manual back shove out and came remotely close.  Next up was a game of SKATE where Jake was at SKAT in two tricks.  Kickflip and treflip.  He doubled or nothing’d both and missed.  Doh!  He made it close, but I ended up prevailing with a f/s halfcab flip.  Then I went back to trying kickflip up, treflip off.  Came close, but we got the boot.  Probably a good thing anyways as I was starting to feel sick again.

Feeling slightly better I went to the Table Mesa are for a bit after Liz’s parents left for the night. I cruised around doing basically nothing for awhile before trying to manual the really long pad in front of the bank. I didn’t get remotely close for a while. Eventually I got about halfway, but I was still bummed on that. I can’t manual.

A cool and dreary fall day for once.  Neil came over and we watched the Orchard video to get hyped on street spots.  We headed out, picked up Carleigh and drove around looking for Jason.  After finding him we headed to Longmont, picked up Brian and went to the nearest USA loving gas station.  Next up was Rocky Mountain Elementary which is pretty much my favorite “spot” in Colorado.  Unfortunately I was feeling pretty stiff and old again.  We started out ollieing down the two stairs to warm up.  The worst part was having to get up the curb as a set up.  Ha.Everyone kinda warmed up at their own pace.  Me probably the slowest, although Brian was more into just chilling.  Bernie showed up and added a flat bar into the mix.  Carleigh was trying boardslides on the flat bar, noseslide shoves on the ledge.  Jason was doing front boards on the flat bar, front noseslides on the ledge.  Neil was doing front boards on the rail, front tails or lip attempts on the ledge.  Bernie was doing front lips on the flatbar, back or kick back tails on the ledge.  I messed around into the dirt bank for a bit, got a kcifklip in.  Then I was trying to kickflip over one of the brick sections.  Bernie took a photo of it that I would put up right now had he emailed it to me like he said he would.  Around the time Neil and Brian were ready to head out Bernie loaned his fisheye and filming skills to my new camera and Jason, Neil, Carleigh and I tried some lines.  I got really frustrated with the kickflip, but ended up getting it again and followed it with a quick crooks.  Carleigh got about 20 boardslides followed by noseslide shoves and then bailed pop shoves.  Neil one footed over the bricks then slammed on a crooks and was out for the rest of the day.  After I got my hammers I filmed Jason get a couple lines with front 180 over the bricks, halfcab noseslide the ledge, feeble the rail.  Carleigh got ollie over the bricks, kickflip over a grate then front 50 the ledge.  Bernie got kickflip to fakie over the bricks, halfcab a grate then front tail to switch manny off the curb.  Before leaving Bernie and I tried a few tricks into the dirt path.  Bernie did fakie manual and I did nose manual.  Decent day and we got mad footie son!

Met Bernie at Mike’s Camera to go in and look at camera stuff.  Bernie bought a new bag and lens while I did nothing other than ask Bernie if I can try out his old camera bag.  Awesome.  Then we cruised over to the manny pad for the last few minutes of light.  Skating a manny pad with Bernie is a treat.  He ripped it.  Kickflip manny drop to manny for awhile on accident so kickflip out.  Fakie manual.  He was trying back 180 fakie manual, but didn’t get it.  I was having one of those days where I felt pretty stiff and old.  I didn’t land much, but came close to kickflip manual, nollie shove manny and nose manual back shove out.  I say “close” but that only means I got into manual. It was a nice mellow little friday session.