Met John at the Boulder park and Rick was there too.  It was getting dark so we left soon.  We picked up Nate and headed to a random bikepath spot that John had scoped out.  It wasn’t that great, but we made the most of it.  I can’t really describe what this place was like too easily.  Basically it was a sidewalk that ran sideways along the road then went down to a nearby bikepath.  The top of the sidewalk banked up to the road making for a kicker.  The approach wasn’t easy.  Nate took the quick up over a grass gap route.  John and I took the swerve around the grass approach.  Not a whole lot went down.  We all ollied in from the road then over the grass gap.  Later on I ollied in a little later so the grass gap was slightly larger.  Fun.  John got a steezey back 180 out of the kicker.  Nate got some really good ollies out and looked like he could learn front 360s.  I got a kickflip and front pop shove out of the kicker and tried my best to improve upon my horrible ollies a little bit.  It was fun.Then we drove to find another spot, but stumbled upon an unwaxed ledge spot and just kinda dorked around.  There was this little electric box cover that Nate and John skated pretty well.  John got back lip and back tail.  Nate was ollieing a decent sized flat gap to setup for it and followed with some cool tricks.  At one point I was trying to do a switch manual on an inch high manny pad and something weird happened in my groin and I went down.  It hurt really bad.  At that point I stopped skating with any intensity and felt like I might have to take some time off.  Ugh.  That was basically the end of the session.

To celebrate David Letterman, Shannon Doherty and my birthday the family and I wanted to eat at Suki Thai.  Everyone was gonna bike there, but my tires were flat so I skated.  The bikepath there is really fun and fast.  I did a few ollies and even tried to manual the mellow pad at Willville once.  After dinner I did a few jibs then basically pushed switch the whole way home just to do it.  I can’t tell if it’s helping or hurting my left groin pain. Oh well, I’m closing in on 40 ..

Here’s a little montage that basically sums up the whole day.  All spots represented, everyone in the crew represented, my bad ollies represented, some humor in there, my son’s first shove it, much more and some good music too.  This day was the skate part of my birthday.  The other part was a mellow dinner with the family.  Hey, I’m old, I don’t want to party it up anymore.Some things to mention for the journal that aren’t in the clip ..Brian beat me in a game of bank SKATE on the little bank at the rollerblade park.  I did some lame kickflip variations while he did awesome one foot blunt tricks.Matt Warner filmed a wallie melon that was too good to be used in this clip.Shaun/Shawn/Sean also switch back heeled up the 3 stair.Watching Ollie land his first shove it was pretty neat.My camera ate the end of a tape that had a much better crooks on that escalator ledge.  Honestly, it’s true.

What a day.  Woke up early and grouchy and never got out of the funk.  Went to the Llama farm with India for fix-it-up day.  I spent about 5 hours shoveling rocks and painting a barn.  Not fun and not easy on the body.  After a quick nap I picked up Nate and we went to the Safeway ledge.  It wasn’t in the best shape and I could tell Nate was feeling it initially.  I was sucking and totally exhausted.  After awhile we started to feel it though.  We hucked a bunch of tricks and landed some of them.  Nate did a first try nollie heel front nose jib.  I did a lot of tries kick back tail jib.  We put out a container to ollie over and Nate learned nosebonks then nosebonk front 180s.  So sick.  He did at least 20 180 nosebonks in a row.  I got a couple crooks, one back 50 that took forever, a couple front tails, a first try back 180 nosegrind jib and some fun and fast b/s noseslides.  I also tried a kick back 50 and accidently did a kick back 5-0 mongo push.  That was funny.  Nate got back smith, perfect back tail, back 180 nosegrind, and a bunch of fakie back tails.  He also nollie front 180’d the container thing.  So sick.  Both of us were tired and not skating our best, but it was fun.

Another super nice spring day.  Got home from work and hung out with the family and Liz’s parents.  We had some hot Wii golf action then went to Beaujo’s Pizza which took forever.  Great food, but the service was horrendous.  Oh well, they were busy.  Got home and skated Rampy for about 45 minutes.  Landed most of my Rampy tricks.  No new tricks, but I tried a bunch of switch heels on flat and got close.  Also tried a few madonnas I think.  I tried lien to tail and my foot kept coming off so I went with it.  Never got close, but it feels realistic.  One more day and I’ve skated a month solid.  Crazy.

Drove home from work totally exhausted thinking about how badly I wanted a nap, but I would be hanging with the family and Liz’s parents.  When I got home though no one was there.  Nap or skate?  Hmm.  Well, it was about 65 out so I decided I’d skate flat until they got home.  It ended up being about 20 minutes.  Kickflips were hard so I tried switch heels.  Didn’t get very close to switch heels though so I tried random stuff.  Got a couple 360 flips first, second, kind of third try (landed sideways but somehow rode away) and landed on a fourth, but bailed.  Everyone showed up so I did a fakie bigflip and called it a session.

After a night of playing basketball with Ollie, playing Clue with the family and inlaws, eating too much, working on a new null wheel graphic I went out to Rampy well after 10 pm for a short session.  I wasn’t very excited about it, but somehow I skated somewhat hard.  I tried and landed most of my Rampy tricks.  I tried a few front tailslides, landed one, got a fakie hurricane in the same run and went back inside to work on graphics.

I’m definitely starting to feel the effects of skating so many days in a row.  My legs feel totally shot and I am burnt out on making multiple phone calls to skate.  So I already feel bad for not calling Brian or Carleigh to skate with us.  Sorry.  Anyways, Bernie said it wasn’t windy in Longmont so I picked up Nate and then John and we got to the park shortly before 9pm.  A couple kids were there for a bit, but that was it.  We had the whole park to ourselves mostly.  My warming up sucked.  Like I said, my legs are shot.  Bernie, Nate and John were ripping through.  Nate rattled off like 20 tricks on the ledge.  John can so slappy switch noseslides bigspin out.  So sick.  One thing good that came out of the first hour for me was switch heel attempts.  They were super close.  So close that I was committing and getting one foot on a lot of the time.  Man I’d be hyped to land that trick and I can’t even believe it’s flipping after so many years of not getting close at all.  Thanks for the foot placement tips Jack!After awhile John had Bernie film a line of 3 flip, no comply 180, halfcab flip, ollie the hip, b/s flip on the flatbank, but totally shattered his deck on the b/s flip.  Doh!  He still cruised around on Bernies filmer board though.  Bernie and I tried some lines.  I was trying tiny ollie over the hip, b/s flip on the flat bank, crooks the ledge, front 50 shove out the ledge.  Finally got it.  Bernie backed me up with a real ollie, f/s flip on the bank, nose grind, kick back tail to fakie and like 10 flip tricks.  So sick.  Nate got a bunch of back lips, 20 other tricks and a few b/s 5-0s front shove out.  I got a front nosegrind and came close to halfcab crooks.Last part of the session was on the q-pipe without coping.  I got a front tail and rolled in.  Nate got a bunch of front lips and rolled in.  We both also wallied up the ledge.   Bernie did a front tail from the q-pipe onto the ledge then off into the hip.  Sick!  Fun session.  Hope I land a switch heel at some point.

Went to Meta after some basketball with Ollie to sell some Null stuff.  Talked with Sam and Carleigh forever before Sam finally kicked us out and we rolled on campus for a bit.  Since I broke my last board I had a new Game Over deck and some Spitfire Busenitz wheels.  I’m testing those too because I supposedly might be able to get something similar to the F1 Spitfire urethane.  Who knows.  Cruising down the hill into campus felt way faster than normal.  Probably mostly the new wheels, but also not having flat spotted wheels for the first time in a really long time.  We got down the the flat gap area and I tried a cali grind and ate shit pretty hard.  I guess I was going faster than I thought.  Ha.  We moved on to the super mellow bank to mini curb where we ended up having a good time.  Carleigh learned front pivots, front tail and back axle to fakie.  Rad!  I got a few tricks I reserve for spots like this.  Front pivot fakie, back and front nosepicks fakie, back tail and a trick I’ve never done before – front pivot, front 270 out.  Cool.  At one point we got approached by the ol’ “My skateboard is broken can I try yours?” kinda dude.  Normally I don’t even allow it to happen ever, but for some reason I let him.  Wow, he looked awkward on a skateboard.  He couldn’t even stand on my board without wobbling all over the place.  It was funny.   On the way back we hit a little gap off a narrow ledge and it took us each a couple tries, but it was fun.  Warmer weather ist awesome.

After a nice Easter breakfast and morning with the family I picked Jack up at his place on a very nice day.  We went to Meta to meet Neil, but he had already left so we went to his place to pick him up and swooped up Jake on the way.  We ended up at a super mellow bank to curb with some other stuff around it.  Neil ollied a little wall and some buckets super good.  Jack got a front pivot kickflip out on the bank to curb.  Jake got some pivots both ways and tried blunts.  I got a front tail stall back shove out and a front pivot to fakie.  Hyped on both of those.  Jack and Neil went and checked out a nearby loading dock.  I guess Jack did a wallie late shove out of it.  Near the end of the session Jack did a bunch of weird blunt to nosepick variations, slammed super awkward attempting to kickflip a long 4 stair and some other cool tricks on the bank to curb.  Neil tried nosepicks, but couldn’t get them.  I couldn’t get kick back tails or nosepicks either.Lazer showed up and we went over to the nearby metal ledge.  Jake, Neil and I aren’t the best at back 50s, but we all got a few.  Neil and I tried crooks, but didn’t get them.  Lazer did some good back 50s and Jack ripped it.  back 50 big front 180 out, back 5-0 back 180, back 5-0 back bigspin.  Sick.  Then we put a desk after part of the loading dock and Jack put on a mini demo.  Pretty much everything first or second try.  Front lip, front 5-0, back 5-0, back nosegrind, back 5-0 front shove out, kick back 5-0.  So sick.  Neil was ollieing onto it easily.  Lazer put down a few tricks including a nose manual accidental airwalk out.  I was sucking super bad and couldn’t ollie onto the ledge.  Ugh.  So I tried it in a run.  Kickflip off a bump, no comply finger flip on flat, ollied on to the desk and rolled off.  I was terrified of that.  I had to bring Jake to work so I left for a bit with Jack and after dropping off Jake we loaded up on water.  Yum.We then went to a new bank to curb spot that Jason had seen.  It was such a sick looking spot.  The curb was rough though.  We wasted a few candles on it, but it still barely slid.  Somehow I did a few stalls on it.  First try alley oop no comply to back tail, front smith,  front board 270 in.  Jason was killing it.  Back pivot, back smith and some hurricane variation.  Jack kickflipped over the curb into the bank super easy.  Lazer switch ollied in like nothing.  It took Neil and I a few tries to ollie in which we were both kind of embarrassed about.  Jason also front and back 180’d in.  I eventually front 180’d in moving 2 mph.  After awhile Jason and I started trying lines and I ended up getting a ton.  Ollie a water bottle, ollie into the bank.  360 flip, ollie the water jug, front 180 into the bank.  Then we waxed up a weird nearby ledge that landed kind of in a bank near a big pile of snow and crusty dirt and other crap that was plowed in there.  Jack was the first to get a boardslide on it which was harder than it looked.  Jason and I followed.  Then I started trying lines to the boardslide and ended up having the time of my life.  I  got a fakie bigflip, back shove, boardslide pretty quick.  Then halfcab flip, kickflip, boardslide.  At one point Jack got back 50 and back crooks too.  I kept going.  Also got front shove, bad 360 flip (I’m scare of doing that trick on downhill), boardslide.  Fakie flip, halfcab flip, boardslide.  And the last line was kickflip a manhole, solid 360 flip then the best boardslide of the night. That run made me soooo happy.  It felt amazing.   Since my board was cracked, chipped and razor tailed, I called it a day and focused it.  Well, Jack did most of the damage.  Such an insanely fun run to end a fun day.