Liz’s birthday!  We had dinner, hung out in the mountains and I skated Rampy while she read to the kids.  Nothing new went down.  I struggled a bit at frontside disasters, but got a few Rampy tricks I haven’t done in awhile.  Fakie front 50 stall to rock ‘n roll, fakie front smith stall fakie, front 50, it was fun.  It’s nice doing a short Rampy night followed by long hours in the streets the next night.

Jason biked to my house on a nice night then I drove down to the manny pad.  We warmed up for a bit as the last few minutes of sunlight dissolved.  For maybe the first time ever we both landed our first manual attempts.  It took me a few tries to get nose manny and Jason came close to that trick too.  I got a heelflip up the curb first try and thought I could back it with a heelflip manny, but ended up not being able to even get the heelflip again.  Love it.  Other then that I got a kickfrip manual, fake bigspin up, and was trying nollie shove manual when we left.  On the way out I took a few tries to get the stupid tiny ollie ollie up the two curbs.  So bummed.We cruised up Walnut like the old days.  We used to warm up at the manny pad a lot then cruise up Walnut.  But now Walnut isn’t so great so we walked here and there.  Jason seemed to be more in the mood for sleeping and backed it up by not really skating anything for another hour or two.  It’s so weird skating with someone who doesn’t seem hyped at all.  Ugh.  I guess some people would probably blame me for enjoying crappy spots too much, but I’m not gonna apologize for enjoying skateboarding.  So anyways, I skated, Jason kind hung out and sat around, bitched, watched, texted, etc.   I had fun at the median spot across from the bus station.  I tried front 180 nose manuals, kickflip manual, kick back tails unsuccessfully.  I had fun in the brick area for a bit trying flip tricks and ollieing onto the narrow ledge around the flowers.  I got a couple front 50s around the knobs on the red ledge, back 50s and even a couple front crooks to fakie using the wall  It’s a lot harder to manual with all the flowers sticking out.  I did a couple mannies and noseslide the tall two stair ledge I skated once over the winter.  I was happy that the ledge didn’t seem nearly as tall.   We hit the alley kicker for a bit.  I got a couple mediocre ollies, back 180, crappy b/s flip, slammed going fakie on a rock.  Jason did a couple ollies.We ended up at the white ledge spot and Jason finally skated.  We both got some back 50s.  He does them way higher up further than me.  Jason got a good noseslide too.  I ended up getting a few crooks which surprised me.  Not sure if I’ve ever tried them there before, but it worked out pretty good.  I grinded a lot further then my typical little jib.  I ollied the yellow curb into the lower sidewalk.  It’s not much of a drop, but it is fun.  Then we both started trying lines.  Jason got ollie, back 50 easy.  Then he did it with a little quick up to front board transfer on the yellow curb.  Tight.  I had a couple crappy ollies followed by crooks and then would bail a 3 flip.  Eventually I tried front shoves and ended up putting down a good run for myself.  Front shove, crooks pop out then 360 flip on flat.  That really hyped me up.We headed out to stop by Carleigh’s new place.  I’m not sure which route Jason went, but I decided to hit a few things on the way.  Front 180 up onto the ledge behind Wells Fargo followed by sw fs 180 off, back 180 up some curbs, back 50 the red knobbed curb, manual a median, manual up the bust station median, etc.  Fun way to end it.

I was super beat from the downtown denver session the night before.  So beat that I fell asleep on the couch three times.  I didn’t think I’d skate at all, but I ended up going out to Rampy for a short session.  Two Daisy Chainsaw songs on the boom box later I was done.  I landed almost everything I tried and got a few tricks first try like fakie pivot fakie, back 50 fakie, front tough guy fakie which was enough for me to feel satisfied.

I had no time to rest after work.  Get home, eat, load up car, pick up others, arrive late at 303, do business and boom  skate.  We started out by going to a ledge Jason wanted to hit.  Kinda tall and not as slick as last time, but we had fun.  Jason and I got back noseslides.  Nate did 50’s and 5-0s.  I got a lucky first try crooks jib and was unable to quite get a front 50.  I also dorked around on some little ollie over a parking block after a downhill handicap ramp which was super dumb.  A few powerslides later the cops came as Nate was getting into kick back tails so we left.We ended up at this weird curved ledge ollie into a tiny bank.  Nate ollied into it first.  Me second.  Carleigh third then Jason first try.  I got another one that was more directly into the bank which felt pretty cool.Next was a long curved ledge that Jason waxed up real good.  Nate killed it with long front 50s then long front 5-0s.  Carleigh almost got some noseslides.  This ledge wasn’t short and it was poorly lit.  Jason got some super long back noseslides.  I got some noseslides, short front 50 and shorter front 5-0.  Came somewhat close to a noseslide to crooks.  I may have even technically landed one as it felt like the truck got up on there, but if you aren’t sure then it don’t count.  Security kicked us out.Next up was hill bombing.  So fun!  I chose to do some powerslides this time instead of just pointing the whole way which was way more fun.  We hiked up to do it again, but a cop parked nearby so Nate, Carleigh and I waited til he left.  Jason wandered off somewhere so we had to wait.  The second hill bomb was even funner.A bit of skating down the street later we ended up at the long and tiny 2 stair.  Carleigh and Nate ollied it first try.  I took about 10 tries.  It was still fun though.After getting kicked out of the 2 stair boardslide ledge before any of us could land it we ended up at a wide two stair that we did tricks up/off or manuals.  Nate got manual and nose manual then ollied a huge gap over a ashtray.  So sick.  Carleigh got back shove down the two.  Jason got manual and the best slam on a back 180 attempt up.  I worked for a switch front 180 up then kickflip off.  I’ve never done a sw 180 up two before.  Yippee.We hit a nearby ledge for a few quick boardslides and sick manuals through the skate stoppers by Nate and Jason before getting the boot and everyone agreed we were too tired to skate anymore.  Three hours of downtown skating will do that.  Such a fun night.

Picked up Jake and met John at Nate’s place around sunset.  Instead of going inside to watch the new Blueprint video we started skating the basketball court.  After some warming up, a dog barking at us and chasing our boards, me accidentally shooting my board at Jake’s ankle (it barely missed) and Nate and I complaining about our hangovers a game of SKATE ensued.  Although my head was hurting, my legs felt better than normal.  Interesting.  The game went on for awhile.  Nate was being nice.  I ended up winning.  My favorite tricks were treflip, a solid f/s halfcab flip and a really good feeling heelflip.  Shortly after the game Nate did like 5 tricks that would have easily taken all of us out.  He landed triple flip, nollie double flip, sw double flip, so much.Next we cruised nearby to this little kicker to downhill then on to a new banked ledge.  It was pretty dark, but we skated it for awhile anyways.  Jake learned front blunts.  John did back blunt, blunt to pivot, his patented back smith.  Nate killed it.  Boardslide to fakie, boardslide regs, front boardslide fakie, blunt fakie.  I had fun there.  Back 50, back 5-0, front slash, boardslide regs, and came close to boardslide fakie and noseslide.  We hit a kicker spot for a tiny bit.  I got a kickflip.  Jake got sw front 180 and Nate cruised around ollie’ing some stuff.  John hung up on a crack and slammed hard, lost his shit and focused his board.  John is the nicest dude until he hits a rock or crack and goes down.On the way back to the car I ollied a little curb to parking lot gap and then 180’d it after boardsliding a parking block.  Nate ollied a taller part of it all steezey.  In front of Taco Bell I got kickflip up the curb, kickflip off.  Fun.  We hit the little bank halfpipe in the middle of 28th st for a bit.  John borrowed Nate’s board and did blunt pivot fakie.  I did a pivot fakie with my patents late revert style.  Fun night.  Then Nate and I watched the blueprint video which is pretty incredible.

Had a busy Saturday going and it was super hot, near 100.  Liz and I were having some friends over for dinner so I had to get my skating in after running some errands and before dinner.  Jason was down so I met him at the ballpark ledges.  We both dorked around for awhile to warm up by going super slow and stalling noseslides as long as we could which was harder than we figured it would be.  Eventually we got to “real” skating which isn’t much faster for me, but it now included bailed grind attempts as well.  Jason got his run a few times.  Back nose the first ledge, front board the second, chinese crack fakie ollie body varial, front noseslide.  Best run!  I mostly tried back noseslides to crooks.  Got pretty close once which is cool because I’ve never landed that trick.  I want to learn that one.  Other then a few landed 360 flips I mostly bailed everything and couldn’t ollie high enough to grind the ledge good.  Doh.

Another hot sunny day in CO.  Brought Ollie and Sam to the park around 6.  We skated for about an hour.  Sam skated kinda hard.  Ollie mostly just followed me around and looked bummed.  Ugh, I guess he’s not into skating so much these days even though it was his idea to go to the park.  I skated somewhat ok with the exception of taking forever to land a kickflip to fakie.  I tried a couple runs that I got most of.  Halfcab flip, back 50 the little ledge, no comply shove to fakie (which I never landed).  360 flip, crooks, roll in.  My legs are shot.

Hot day.  Still hot at night and a crowded park.  John, Nate, Jack, Carleigh, Jason, Neil, Fuzz, Brian and I collected at the park around 7:30.  After some dorking around Fuzz asked what the trick was so we went for ollie up onto the c0nvex ledge and kickflip off.  Half an hour after Fuzz I got it too after boardsliding the rail and we went for nosegrinds.  I got a bonked version shortly after Fuzz’s first try “I haven’t done that in awhile” one.  A few more boardslides of fun later (boardsliding that tiny rail is seriously fun) the next trick for Fuzz and I was kickflip manny on the black ledge.  We got up onto it, but neither of us got a real manual.  Ok, I wasn’t even close at all.  We messed around on the rust ledge for a bit then headed to the six stair where Nate, Fuzz and John all front 50’d the ledge.  Nate back 50d the double set one too.  So sick.  I tried to ollie the six stair after John did it, landed on it, but slammed and Neil had to tell me that he already ollied it and the double set and I shouldn’t have slammed.  I was over it after that.  After that Nate and I dorked out on the little blue ledge for awhile.  He almost got back 180 fakie 5-0 180 out.  I got into front blunt and kick back tail, but neither were close.  At the end of the session Nate and I played a game of SKATE that got cut off at SKAT – SKAT.  So that was my session and since this blog is all about me that’s all that happened.  Ha, oh wait here comes the good stuff.  Everyone else was ripping.  I must say I felt extra burnt out even though I like that park and I just didn’t seem to have much of a desire to really try.  Oh well, good stuff..Brian – first try front board, almost feeble down the rail, lots of tricks on the brick qpipe, slams ..Carleigh – boardslides down the little bar, pop shove down the six and two of the best bails I’ve ever seen.  Slide out before the six stair and boardslide to powerslide the little rail.Jason – Dropped in right at me and yelled at me for being in the park and trusting that a friend of mine probably wouldn’t run into me.  Wrong.  Ripped it though.  Full speed manual the black box.Neil – front tail and back blunt the bump to bar, buzz kill.Jack – ollie transfer at the top of the wallride/hip thing, front lip late shove, back blunt the double set hubba, nollie tre the 6, a lot moreNate – nollie front shove mannies every try, back 5-0 front shove out, back lip, boardslide up the tiny railFuzz – front blunt the little qpipe, everything i wanted to do first try, no ether though.John – Killed it.  bs ollies on the wallride, ollie over the tiny rail into the bank, no comply 270 back tail, so much more he was seriously killing it.Everyone ripped it, if there wasn’t 500 people there I could probably remember more of what my friends did ..

Had a fun night with the kids after not seeing them for a week in Seattle.  We played kickball and my legs felt good after that.  I wasn’t gonna go skate, but used the excuse that I needed to deposit some checks and brought my board.  I tried to not take forever to warm up, but the first few ollies up a curb were wallies so it was scary.  I started over by Southside Cafe and ended up getting a couple decent runs for me.  Kickflip up a curb, nollie a crack (so sick ha), wallie a parking block/speed bump then ollie a pole thing by the cafe tables.  It was kinda scary because the landing was between two tables.  Coming the other way I did 180 over the pole, sw front 180 wallie, heeflip bail.  Coming back again I did a first try pop shove up the curb that surprised me, heelflip that also surprised me, wallie, pole ollie with an accidental bonk.  Sweet.  I ollied the pole one more time then left to the kicker area where I slammed a lot trying ollies.  I tried lots of ollies until I was finally happy that they were actually leaving the ground.  I tried a run with ollie, no comply, turn around b/s 180 into the kicker then fakie heel, but never got the fakie heel.  I tried that run a bunch which was nice to just stick with trying ollies.  Maybe I’ll learn to ollie before I’m 40.  At the very end I did a 360 flip in a narrow brick median by my car and left.  Stoked I got to skate for a little bit and how hard I skated.

Woke up in Seattle, ate a good breakfast, checked out of the hotel then walked/trained/flew/bus’d back home and my legs seemed happy to be back in the nice dry air of Colorado.  I didn’t want to wear the Etnies anymore because they were pretty blown out and my legs needed more support.  Seeing as how I have a stack of shoes at the moment I chose to rock some new eS La Brea shoes and their fake vulc goodness.  I picked up Jason and we met John at Valmont.  The mosquito population quickly discovered our whereabout, but it didn’t seem to really bother John and I too much.  After a minute Jason retreated to the car instead of skating.  He had already done front 50s, front tail, front nose, back nose, halfcab nose and back 50 anyway.  John did his patented sw slappy noseslides, fakie back tails, fakie front 50s and some other moves.  I struggled at front 50s, crooks, slow back 50s using my 90 degree approach, halfcab noseslides, etc.  After awhile John and I skated the low part of the kicker.  He hates doing tricks off drops, but managed front shove and kickflip pretty quick.  I did those as well, a lame halfcab and tried fakie bigspins unsuccessfully.  John put down a good halfcab and fakie ollie so I tried fakie ollie too and did the worst one ever before we left.  Sweet.  Coming home is nice.