After a night of camping involving late night beer drinking and then a good breakfast we arrived at the skatepark on a cloudy and nice morning (well, probably afternoon).  We kinda cruised around for awhile everyone figuring out what energy if any they had.  I felt slightly better then the previous day somehow, but still couldn’t ollie up the manny pad very well.  I don’t remember much until everyone started skating the bigger bowl.  Skelly had joined us so found some new lines and got Brian and John hyped on the bowl.  All three of them were skating it good.  Brian almost got 3 f/s grinds in a row.  Sean was rolling in everywhere.  Neil was doing some low ollies when he wasn’t off trying to skate in front of teenage girls.  I managed some b/s grinds in between bailing when Brian called me out and told me to stop being so timid on the coping.  Kinda made me think about it and skate harder.  Thanks Brian (honestly).  The bowl session went on awhile.  Sean did a back 50 on the tallest part which probably isn’t quite vert, but scared the crap out of me when I dropped in on it.  I got a tiny scratch grind on it.  Brian was doing sick FSGs on it (frontside grind).  Sean was also doing crazy lipslide rollins from the deck.  So sick.  John, Reed and I played most of a game of flatground SKATE and I started off with like 7 tricks or something out of the gate that I couldn’t believe including a treflip.  The fun had to come to an end eventually and we headed back down to the front range to spend the holidays with our loved ones.

After a million phone calls, rumors of people bailing and whatnot Neil, Brian, Maria, Reed, Lazer, Mary Kate, Gordon and I headed up to Winter Park.  First stop was setting up the tents followed by a bear sighting then the skatepark.  The skatepark gets littered with kooks.  Kids learning how to bike, skateboard, scooter, stand up.  Parents standing around acting like idiots.  Ugh.  This session wasn’t so great.  Brian and I were struggling and it showed.  Neil did all his tricks and bailed front 50s in the bowl.  Reed has a broken hand and could only skated for awhile.  Early on I got a little crooks jib up the handrail so I thought it would be a good day.  Nope.  I did have fun on our group session of the tiny qpipe.  Neil and I both got front pivots which was not easy for us.  Lazer and Brian did everything.  I eventually got a rock ‘n roll on the tall part.  Skating the flow bowl Brian and Lazer killed it.  So many grinds over hips and lots of tricks on lock.  Around now John showed up and added some positive energy to the session as he started killing it immediately.  Before we left I got a line of manual along the elevated ledge and a rock ‘n roll on the taller steep qpipe.  I struggled at b/s flip on the steep wall for a long time and eventually put it down followed by a blunt to pivot.  John did a gnarly blunt to pivot to fakie on it and we left.

Had the day off work.  The plan was to skate the new Arvada skate spot with Brian, John and Ollie.  We made it there, but a few minutes after arriving we were told by a contractor that the park isn’t open yet and to leave.  Ugh.  This scared Ollie so he didn’t really do anything other than follow me around saying “Dad, let’s go”.  John ripped everything before we left.  Blunt pivot fakie on the 1 foot tall qpipe.  Brian wasn’t into how small everything was, but still managed to not land a frontside grind over the stairs.  Only thing I was hyped on was a front to back 50 transfer over the spine.After stopping at Community to say whaddup we went to the old Arvada park for a few minutes before the lightning scared us out.  Brian and John were ripping right away.  Brian did fsg bf ft on the cement walls (fs grind followed by blunt fakie first try).  John got in on the cement bank action too and did fsg and back disaster as well as blunt to pivot.  Ripping.  Ollie cruised around.  I felt like the lame dude that can’t do fsgs.After some pizza and rain we attempted to do Broomfield, but there was too much traffic and we needed to get back.  A short stop at Louisville was in order.  I got pissed quick bailing back 50s around the corner.  I ended up having an ok time though.  I also got a front smith on the bank to ledge and ended it with a crooks on the flyout ledge that I’ve never skated before.  Ollie got some front boards on the little ledge and cruised around a lot.  Brian was manning the clock and the no comply front blunts.  John did a pivot to fakie on the edge of the bank and some other tailslides and whatnot.After a small dinner the plan was to go skate Broomfield.  This was John’s idea, but he didn’t answer his phone.  Skelly was coming all the way from Fort Collins and I was gonna meet Brian and maybe Fuzz there too.  I ended up skating flatground for awhile because I knew it would be awhile before everyone showed up.  I ended up skating flat pretty hard again.  I guess I must be into it again.  Anyways after some initial messing around I started trying a couple runs.   One way was fakie bigflip, front shove, 360 flip.  I got that run once with a sketchy 3 flip.  The other was was f/s halfcab flip, heelflip nollie treflip.  I came super close to that one.  Landed on, but never rode away from the nollie tre.  When I would bail runs I hucked some random tricks and came super close to nollie flip at one point as well as landing maybe my 3rd or 4th 3 shove.  I guess I skated flat for awhile because I got a call from Sean asking if we were still coming.  Oops.The drive went by quick as I was bumping some Priority Records sampler I found.  Snoop, NWA, EPMD, etc.  Awesome.  I got to the park which was crowded, but not as insane as it can be.  Lots of Boulder heads were there.  Fuzz wanted to play SKATE kind of with a trick on the qpipe then ledge.  I opted out of that quick since I suck and Fuzz is good.  Especially after he did a first try front d on the qpipe then back 5-0 on the black ledge.  I hid out in the flow bowl for awhile posing out and not landing anything.  Then the bowl got crowded so I went to the ledge area.  I can’t remember doing anything worthwhile except an accidental front 50 on the little qpipe.  I think I went back to the bowl around the time Brian showed up.  His first run was so sick.  Seriously, I hang out with that dude sometimes.  I finally got a couple little stalls/grinds.  Doing stuff on the 3 foot tall part on top of the bowl is really fun.  Max was there and he killed huge flyout to front ds.  Toward the end I started skating the ledge area again.  I almost rolled or broke my ankle bailing a front 5-0 on the convex ledge at one point.  That was scary.  I got boardslides almost every try on the tiny downhill rail.  Brian almost did feeble and eventually went on to do a perfect front board as the lights shut off.  He followed it up with a really good run too.  Fuzz struggled a bit at boardsliding the rail but backed it up with first t halfcab board and a feeble grind.  At the end of the session I was doing front 50s down the euroish ledge and trying side rock’s on the manny bank with a kickflip out.  I eventually got one.  Hyped.  I forgot to mention Sean.  He skated the bowl really well and managed to boardslide the little rail with a broken toe.  Wow!  That park is awesome.

One of those days that I really want to take a day off of skating so I go to the park and do nothing but carve around.  No ollies, barely any grind attempts, a few no complies on flat and almost a back smith on the steep qpipe.  That’s it.

After a nap and some nachos for dinner I skated in front of the house for awhile before meeting Jake at Meta at 8pm.  I skated faster and harder doing flatground then I have in awhile.  I did some of the fastest front shoves I’ve done and tried a couple lines.  Halfcab flip, 360 flip, heelflip.  Had too much problems with 3 flips to get it.  Front 180, f/s halfcab flip, nollie tre.  Never got that either.  I feel somewhat clumsy in the shoes I have now.  Not sure why since their vulcs, but either way I’ve struggled with treflips.Then I went up to Meta to meet Jake.  We wanted to go across campus to this other spot.  On the way there things weren’t feeling right on my skateboard and  I bailed a tiny ollie then later on ate shit trying to ollie a little crack gap ate shit.  Scraped up my knee, elbow, ankle and hip and pissed me off to no end.  I wanted to focus my board.  I didn’t though and we went to the tall red manny pad.  I had some more awkward slams trying to ollie up the taller side.  Ugh.  Neither of us quite got the manny from the shorter side.  Jake got an ollie up the taller side to chinese nollie off the shorter side.  I tried ollie up kickflip off, but never committed.  We went over to the long narrow manny pads area.  I ollied off the tall ledge.  Next we went to the double sided ledge.  I got a few boardslides and halfcab boardslide.  Neither of us got front board pop out.  Last up was near the red manny pad again where we did wallie back 50s.  It wasn’t waxed up too good, but we managed a few.  Jake tried to get one with a treflip and I tried to get a wallie nosegrind to fakie.  Jake never got the tre and and I never got the nosegrind, but I did whip around to fakie off the front truck and ride down the curb.  Fun.  Maybe with some wax it would nosegrind.  But my groin really started hurt again and we had had enough.  Not my favorite session, but that’s skateboarding.Lastly, it’s halfway through the year.  My goal of 300 days of skating is still realistic.  I’m at 155 with 184 days left in the year.  Some days it seems awesome, some days it seems daunting.  I missed 26 days in the first six months.  I can miss 39 days in the second half of the year and still get 300.  Yippee.

After a long day at work, a big meal of tacos and a nap I went to Fuzz’s house and met up with him, Neil, Lazer and Brian.  Shortly we rolled to what turned out to be one of the most crowded parks I’ve ever seen.  For the first 20 minutes I kinda just chilled in disbelief that so many people were trying to skate or bike all at the same time.  Fuzz and Neil were able to find lines and rip it.   I know at points I was skating with Lazer on the little qpipe, but mostly it was just craziness.  I did somehow manage a pretty good run for me.  Front 5-0 over the convex ledge, front feeble on the little qpipe the no comply 270 back tail on the blue ledge.  Awesome.  I also boardslid the bump to low flatbar first try and managed a boring slide down it second try.  Eventually I ended up near the bowl where Brian and Neil were skating.  Brian was ripping it and slamming.  Eventually Brian, Fuzz and I skated the back of where the 4 foot tall vert extension thing is.  We all dropped in on it.  Brian then did rock ‘n roll, front front, hurricane, front feeble fakie, front crail, killed it.  Fuzz did back rock then a low to high front d.  I took 30 tries to do a rock ‘n roll before rolling back to the street course to spend my last few minutes slamming on back 50s and bonking front nosegrinds.  A decently fun night despite the crowds and Neil’s altercation with some bikers.

Had about 20 minutes to skate before going to see Toy Story 3 with the family.  I was pretty sore and kickflips weren’t easy.  I tried a fakie bigspin and it went to far so I got the idea to try fakie bigger spin.  About 20 tries later with India standing out watching me I landed one for her.  Awesome.  I had a few more minutes so I tried another one in a line with a fakie flip, but was struggling with fakie flips.  I managed to get another fakie bigger spin though.  So fun.  I tried a fakie bigger flip, but that was no where near as easy.

Met Jason and Nate at the Mikes Camera manny pad.  I was there first and it literally took me 10 tries to land a regular manual.  I wanted to quit, but since those guys were coming I waited.  Took a lot of tries for a nose manual too.  Then out of the blue I got a first try kickflip manual.  I got a manual front 180 out which is a trick for me, came super close to a fakie bigspin manual (tiny tiny scrape) and came somewhat close to a heelflip manual which I’ve never tried before.  I tried it because I felt I had to try something new after what Nate was doing.  He landed on nollie flip nose manual.  WTF!  He was trying sw flip manny one way, nollie flip nose man the other way.  So sick.  Jason did a text book halfcab manual to slam.  A bum came over and was super annoying.  Getting way to close, demanding money, using my work phone, wanting to try our boards, etc.  He sucked so we went to the ledge.  I was pretty tired and slammed more than normal, but didn’t totally suck.  I got back board pop out first try, back noseslide first t, a few back crooks, front 50s and a slow back 50.  Jason killed it with the back 50s and front board pop out.  Nate did Jason and I’s tricks as warmups then tried back bigspin to front board unsuccesfully.  My body can use a rest.

After kind of helping Brian move his motorcycle engine I went to the Longmont park to help out with the contest.  I didn’t have to do much and kinda dorked around for awhile.  Did some no comply 270s on a curb and some front nosestalls on the curved ledge.  Then it started raining.After a huge meal we went out to the school we all love.  Well, most of us love anyways.  John, Jason, Fuzz and I skated.  Brian and Neil did not.  We started out with a session on the bank to brick just kinda doing various stalls.  Fuzz did a ton of good ones easily like front pivot to fakie, front tail fakie, blunt pivot, etc.  John landed his signature move – the front shove front nose.  Jason had a bunch of front tails.  I had a couple tricks like front smith stall to fakie and a front tail back shove out that I struggled with for awhile.  Next we skated the ledge for a long time.  And by a long time it probably felt like forever to Brian who needed to go feed some dogs and Neil who had to get back to his couch.  Lots of tricks went down.  Jason had back 50s and front 50s ever try.  He also got noseslides both ways and was close to back 180 nosegrinds and put down a textbook front smith.  John wasn’t feeling the ledge so much, but skated.  The only trick I had without much work was back crooks.  I kept going over the ledge on frontside grinds and I totally suck now at back 50s.  I ended up getting a back 50 after some work and a front smith-0.  I call it that because it felt like a front smith to me and people called it a smith, but it wasn’t quite dipped enough to be a Carrol smith or anything.  I came close to some other tricks.  Really close to front 5-0 shove.  Fuzz can skate a ledge.  So many tricks.  Front 5-0 180 out, front salad, back 50, front 180 nosegrind forward, fakie front tail, etc, etc.  He has never done a crooks pop out before and landed a few of them.  At the end of the session Fuzz and I were trying back noseslides to fakie followed with f/s halfcab flips off the curb.  We battled til dark when Fuzz gave up and I landed a really bad tic tac’d one.Feeling totally done I brought everyone to their motorcycles at the Longmont park.  John, Fuzz and I ended up skating it.  We said we’d cruise around and see how it felt.  An hour and a half later we left.  Ha.  We had a blast.  Highlights for Fuzz were front 50 the ledge on top of the euro, front blunt fakie on the side of the step up, front d on the 7′ quarter, boardslide the flyout ledge, and a ton more I don’t remember.  I had a front d fakie on the side of the stepup, cali grind manual above the stepup, the funniest and worst noseslide ever on the flyout ledge, cali grind down the stepup, probably nothing else.  John kills that park and started with halfcab front blunt fakies over the hip, front 50 the ledge near the stepup,  ollie into the euro, so much more.  We ended with a game of SKATE amongst kids that were doing tricks like switch inward heel bigspins.  We shut it down.  Ha.  It was not the best game of SKATE.  Fuzz was struggling getting off the ground, I was slower than normal, John hit his shins.  I was the first out.  I don’t know what won it, but we had fun and wow what a long night of skating.

Went up to MRKT to sell some boards and give them some stuff for their Windsor run that I wouldn’t be able to attend.  When I showed up Chad and one other dude was there who left right away.  I was so hyped to skate the park with so few people to laugh at me.  Eric from MRKT showed up after awhile and eventually a couple others, but basically the three of us had the place to ourselves.  So awesome.  Eric was working on front tails on the east wall.  Chad did a sick line of kickflip to fakie then switch polejam.  I was kinda cruising around figuring out what I could do there that would normally be too embarrasing to try.  I settled on a run where I would ollie a bump, back 50 on the jersey barrier, roll in to the halfpipe area, back 50, rock fakie, fakie smith fakie.  Never got the last trick, but was hyped to finally roll in to something taller than a curb.  Chad did another run that was ridiculous.  HUGE ollie over the b/s hip, rock fakie then cab flip over the hip.  So retarded.  I finally tried to ride over this weird wall thing that I normally wallie out of and got it second try.  Cool.  I also did a really, really bad wallie frontside grab.  Never done that before.  Also got a b/s 5-0 on the brick bank over the bench.  Before leaving Chad and I played the longest game of SKATE ever.  Chad won, but it wasn’t easy.  I struggled with treflips and of course missed all the nollie/sw flips/heels.  Super fun night.  Oh, and today is 150 days of skating for the year.  Halfway to my jock goal of 300 days of skating this year which is gonna be really hard.