Snowy, but not too cold (35) I brought Ollie and his buddy Cooper to Red Curbs.  I was pretty sore and tired, but really want to get the new trucks broke in and there’s no better way to do that then to skate.  I skated ok.  Definitely mellow like I do a lot when I’m with Ollie.  My highlights were some good back 50s, almost getting a manny back shove out, ollieing the rock, ollieing a somewhat tall piece of styrofoam, some ok front tails and getting close to some kicky back tails.  Cooper is starting to finally get ollies good enough to get up curbs most the time.  Sick.  He even got a couple manuals.  But he would slam really hard sometimes.  Ollie skated well.  He can’t ollie as well yet, but he looks really natural and does some stuff that floors me sometimes.  Tricks like slappy front 50s, halfcabs off a curb and little pull up manuals.  He did his first back 180.  Rad.  We skated about an hour and it was really fun.

As I mentioned in my last entry I broke my board.  Time for a new board and since it was gonna be the new mall grab I figured I’d go the whole 9 yards and setup the new trucks I’ve had laying around for awhile and some new wheels.  Basically a new complete!  I post the trucks so that I can search and see how long they lasted when I move on.  The last ones lasted almost 7 months.  The new ones are more Thunders, this time Malto lights high.  Maybe I’ll be able to skate like him now.  Ha.  Anyways, I didn’t have very high expectations for the day since I had a new complete except for the same bearings I’ve had for two years (ceramics rule!)Jason and Neil met and my house and we picked up Nate and Jack on the way out of town to Longmont.  We met up with Fuzz, Brian and Carleigh at SOL where I sold some boards and we all waited around for Fuzz to set the record for amount of time to pick out a board.  Seriously took him like 2 hours.We wanted to check out this flatbar/kicker spot we saw from the road, but ended up trying to skate a big tree stump on the way.  The stump wasn’t really happening, but there ended up being a ton of stuff nearby.  Jack gapped out to crooks on the post office rail.  Nate front board popped out the downhill ledge to hill bomb.  Fuzz ollied a gap to hill bomb.  Neil almost got a quick up to wallride.  Fuzz quick upped then ollied a tall pole.  Jason back 180’d some sidewalk sections.  Carleigh took some photos.  Birthday boy tried the quick up wallride too.  Jack and Nate had some weird manuals on the median.  We eventually left due to some concerned citizens calling the cops.Next up we hit a new parking lot in the industrial area.  It had a good double sided ledge and a unique loading dock with some cool ollie in/out options.  It really stoked me out to watch everyone arrive at a new spot, check it out and start trying their own stuff.  Jack basically put on a demo.  Some of the best I’ve ever seen him skate.  Bluntslides on the ledge, gap out to loading dock ride, gap to manual to kickflip over a curb to drop and this was just the warm up.  Jason was doing some really long boardslides with a popout.  Neil was doing some good lines and hyped me up to finally ollie the stupid curb to drop.  Carleigh started slow, but started pounding out the ollie up the curb, ollie over the curb to drop combo. Nate dedicated a front hurricane on the ledge to me and landed it perfect.  Had he dedicated it to anyone else I’m sure he would have bailed.  Yeah right.   Birthday Boy was doing boardslides and setup a wood crate to give the place some tranny.  Fuzz was murdering too.  Fakie ollie the loading dock where the drop was large, ollie a trash can, nosebonk the trash can, and trying to show me up by kickflip manualling where I could only kickflip up.  I was having a good time and the trucks were breaking in.  Highlights for me where the crooks on the ledge first try, kickflip up the curb, ollie the curb to drop, ollie the gap then front 180 the drop, front board first try and just ollieing the gap over the curb thing.  Gotta work on those ollie kid!  Ha.After awhile Brian, Neil, me and eventually Jason decided to do 38 tricks over some super mellow concrete hip in honor of Brian’s birthday.  I was going to try and list all 38 tricks, but that’s just not possible.  It was a blast though.  While we were in the middle of trying them Fuzz was basically telling Jack to do different tricks and Jack would do them much to all of our amazement.  We started to near 38 tricks and held out at 37 until Brian got an impossible which only took about 38 tries.  I guess that’s perfect right?  I had been trying nollie tres too, but never landed and rode away.After that the session was mostly done, but Jason, Carleigh, Nate and Jack were still skating the ledge and had pulled the pallet for some weird combos.  Nate got quick up to front 50.  Jack got back 50 ollie in, back 50 front 180 in, back 50 front 180 nose man into the pallet, blunstslide popin to the pallet (ridiculous).  Nate ended the night with a manny up the pallet to front 5-0 on the ledge.  Pretty ridiculous.  really fun day.  Still completely hyped on how everyone went to the same spot and skated it completely different while all having fun.

After a tough night with the wife I met up with Nate to skate campus for a bit.  It was pretty cold again and we met at the brick plaza with the weird short benches.  We both got some basics down right away.  Nate even beat me to a backside noseslide which is funny because he normally can’t do that trick.  There was a pile of snow about 20 feet from the backside approach and we would ollie it on the way to the ledge.  Nate put a couple sick runs down.  Front 180 then halfcab noseslide.  Back 180 then switch front board.  I got an ollie and then a crooks and then was trying tons of front 180 nosegrinds, but never quite got one.  Argh.  Frontside Nate had a few really good front tails.  I tried front tails, but never really even got into it.  We moved on after awhile to some new flat gaps which were about 6 feet long.  On the way I took too long to land a tiny gap off a ledge with about a two foot gap.  Yeah that’s it and yeah I suck at gaps.  We got to the flat gaps and Nate ollied two in a row and I just went with ollie to axle stall.  Fun though.  Next up we were gonna skate the mini bank to ledge but a cop rolled up before much of anything went down.  I wanted to try a front pivot back shove out.  The cops rolled by so we played dumb then headed up to the hill to watch the end of the Nuggets game after I cracked my board over doing a front lip attempt on a curb.  Decent night.  Nuggets killed the Lakers too.

Initially I was a little bummed on everyone wanting to skate Rampy on a nice night.  It was over 40.  First time in awhile.   I wanted to go outside and enjoy the streets after being couped up indoors all day.   Luckily I enjoy the company of my friends so I got over it pretty quick.  Especially after Brian showed up early and amused the family.  Brian rules.  And I’m not just saying that because you read this Brian.  Well, maybe just a little.  “HAAA”!  But seriously, a good crew showed up.   The first few were Brian, Lazer, Squeeks, Jason, Jake.  And then more people and then more and more.  Jabo, Jari, Dan, Carleigh, Rick.  11 people in all to skate an 8 foot wide ramp with standing room on only one deck.  Wow.  I don’t really remember how the session started.  I know it was really fun and then it got crowded and then Squeeks hurt his knee so I was helping him ice it for awhile.  Then when I got back out to Rampy Brian said everyone was skating really good.  Shortly after that Jason, Squeeks, Jari, Jabo and Dan took off.  Here’s some of what I remember from everyone.Jason – Still makes Rampy look 20 feet wide by grinding edge to edge.  He was killing it.Lazer – Every trick he’s done on Rampy and more.  The 5-0 to front board to fakie was one I hadn’t seen before.  His ollies are getting more and more above the coping.Squeeks – Watched the clip of Josh skating Rampy and thought it was super easy to skate.  After a bit he was doing some tech tricks though.  Unfortunately he hyper extended (or something) his knee trying a back smith to back nosegrind and left early.Jake – Skates Rampy hard everytime.  Was rattling off tricks.  Can’t wait for the session he gets the stale pick every try.Jabo – Didn’t see him much since I was inside but I saw a proper front smith, a front 50 and a blunt fakie.  Cool.Dan – Tried some backside blunts.Brian – Maybe skated Rampy the best I’ve seen him.  Had some trouble rock creek’n blunts to fakie but landed some tricks I’ve never seen him do before.  Blunt back shove rock fakie.  Ton’s of tricks and fakie smith grinds for days.Rick – Fully padded once again and slashing it up.  I hope I can skate remotely that good in 7 years.Carleigh – 5 front D’s in a row!Me – Got a few hurricanes.  Came close to skating well for me, but not quite.  Got the rare front 50 to front D to back smith.In the end it was just Carleigh and I and we tried back disasters forever.  Neither of us have done one before.  We both had a couple we should have landed.  I ended up getting one that started in back smith then just kinda flopped over into a not-decked-at-all back d.  Oh well, it’s a new trick.Super fun night.

This clip is ridiculously amazing.  Everything about it.  The skating, the spots and especially the filming and editing.  I’m gonna ditch work and go skate the one little brick area on campus now.

After a pretty nice day it was way colder than I would have thought. Took awhile to get warming up, but I was sweating by the end of the session. I arrived after Nate and he was already nose manual 180’ing the long way. He went on to do some pretty ridiculous manuals the long way: nollie nose man shove, nose man front bigspin out, manual 180 early to fakie nose man. Retarded! He also rattled off a bunch of mannies in a row the short way: switch manual, nollie front 180 fakie nose man, pop shove nose man, who knows what else. On the way to the spot I had thought of trying to get 10 tricks up the curb. I figured there was probably 6 or 7 I could do easily, but didn’t know how I’d get to 10. I ended up getting it though. Ollie, front 180, back 180, sw front 180, halfcab, fakie bigspin, pop shove, kickflip, fakie ollie (bad!), switch ollie (so bad!) and lastly a front shove. It was cool because when I got the front shove up I followed it with a backside flip off first try. Nate got a pretty ridiculous run of nollie f/s flip up and switch front shove off. This was after taking at least 10 tries to get a kickflip off after a kickflip up. Hee hee. Oh yeah pretty early on I got a manual to rock bash thing off. Fun. Toward the end I tried a bunch of manual the long way to back shove out. Came really close. Landed on it a few times, but there was some bad scrapes or something wrong. Pretty fun night.

Totally wanted to take the day off skating for the first time in a long time. I was having back spasms and I was pretty tired. But Josh came over to film a little montage (look for it on the null site soon) so I skated with him while he warmed up. I actually skated pretty well. I didn’t try to line it out too much but I got my 2nd hurricane and a few of my other harder tricks like lipslide and fakie pivot fakie. Josh didn’t take long to get used to Rampy. He did a lot of Rampy NBDs. I’ll save the surprise for the clip, but man, he rips.

After a busy morning of visiting Chad Dad, birthday shopping for my dad, selling boards at Market and being hungover Ollie and I went to Spring Canyon for almost an hour. There was a lot of snow there so you couldn’t skate the manny pads from some angles. The pool was full of ice so that wasn’t an option either. Not that I would want Ollie to anyway. We ended up having a fun time. Ollie had lots of fun ollieing out of the kickers and kinda just cruising around behind me. I was having fun trying a run of ollie over a pile of snow, ollie onto the dragon thing, axle stall on the tight qpipe, then kickflip out of the kicker. Never even committed to the kickflip. I got a couple slow, but fun manny tricks on the potato wedge. Manual to side rock to manual and front board to nose manual. Skating with Ollie is so fun. He got a couple ollies up onto the low parts of the potato chip and a couple ollies up into board stall where it was taller. His ollies aint so good yet, but man he looks pretty natural on a board and he has a lot of fun. Awesome.

I’m writing this one a couple days late and feeling like crap. So basically I’m pretty sure this entry wont do the day any justice. It was way fun.Brian got to my house first. We started skating flat in front of the house since it was taking so long for others to show up. We played a game of SKATE where we started with some of our harder tricks right out of the gate and didn’t come close to landing any of them. It got really tech when we moved on to tricks like kickflip and fakie flip. Although it was enough to bring Brian to SKA off a failed attempt at double or nothing on kickflip. He got me with a 360 one foot kickturn. Pretty awesome. Not sure what else went down, but I think I won.Others showed up and we were off to Longmont. We all met up at the fun bank school. The crew was Neil, Brian, Jason, Jam, Dave, Fuzz, Carleigh, me and Bernie which arrived late. Since I’m totally blowing it on making this entry remotely interesting here’s what I remember.Neil was skating good right out of the car. Front tails, front lip on the ledge. Manuals and nose manuals on the weird round flagpole manny pad.Fuzz started slow but ended up skating so good everyone missed Brian do a “perfect impossible” when Fuzz was in the middle of a line. His line was something like front 180 (Nobody has a better front 180 than Fuzz), halfcab 5-0, backside flip attempt over the bricks on the bank.Brian was looking forward to Dave’s ramp and trying to drop into a rock on top of a ledge and not die.Dave had lots of cool pivots in weird places on the banks. He’s got really good boardslides to fakie on ledges, but was getting pissed trying to front lip the ledge. Mad enough to ask Neil to focus his board.Jason skated the ledge decent for him.Carleigh slammed super hard trying to ollie one of the medians on the bank. She didn’t complain and got up and did it even though here palm was nice and bloody. Rad.Bernie seemed pretty out of it and was skating really slow/bad for him. He couldn’t even land his staple halfcab flips. Seemed like he finally got it together right when we left and he did a front tail 270 out and a kick back tail on the ledge.I was skating kinda mediocre, but a few tricks were making it really fun. Kickflips up the curb and crooks felt really good. I couldn’t do 360 flips at all though. I struggled to manual the flagpole ledge and had all kinds of problems with front 5-0 shoves. I was still having a blast though. That spot rules. I tried a weird line over a gap onto the ledge and got it a few times. At the end of the session I finally got the ollie up the curb then kickflip to fakie. Followed it a couple tries later with backside flip. You can tell when you make a trick look really bad because no one cheers.After this we went to Dave’s ramp and Lazer, Jake and Nate joined us for another fun session. Jake killed it. Fuzz, Brian, Dave and Lazer killed it too, but Jake man, that guy is on the come up. Tons of new tricks in only a couple tries. Brian was almost getting front blunts on the curb side which would have been ridiculous. Jason slammed really hard on a tail stall and went outside to sit in his car with the heat on full blast. I got nothing. Carleigh had troubles with front Ds. Nate skated well and got front tails on the curb side. Neil can’t chop wood. Bernie continued his mellowness. The only times Lazer didn’t land something he seemed to go down hard. Dave has the best style in the world. Fuzz got noseblunts. Fun day and I didn’t even skate that well.

After a fun day off of work with the Mighty LZA at the Denver Art Museum I picked up Jake on a nice afternoon. We went to the Brian-Ball-Bush-Ollie building since it’s an empty building. We were getting warmed up and having a fun time trying lines to/from a kinda long and crack ridden manual. Unfortunately some stupid security guy came by and gave us the boot. Doh.Next we went to an old Boulder classic spot. Stonehenge. The snow hadn’t melted on the bank to curb so that wasn’t an option. It worked out though and we had a blast on the little loading dock. Jake went to work right away on nollies and got some good ones. Then we setup this weird pipe thing and tried to ollie it. Jake took a few tries and got it. It was about a foot taller than the loading dock. Neither of us are good at ollieing tall off of drops so it was scary. I bailed early on and kinda scared myself with a close call to the ankle. After a little bit longer I told Jake I’d get the ollie if he landed a good nollie. I bailed. Double or nothing and I got it. Pretty hyped because I was scared for sure. Jake got some good half cabs after that and I took a long time to get pop shove up the curb then kickflip off. Felt really good though and I did two in a row. I wanted to get a front shove off and it was taking awhile. Jake got a manny after cracking his tail on a halfcab. I finally got the sfront shove and followed it with a manual first try. I also got an ollie up the taller part and a kickflip off the lower part first try. We played 360 flip for awhile on top of the loading dock. Jake broke the record for getting as close as you can without landing it. I got 4 or 5, but should have done more. I really didn’t commit to many of them. Wish I would have committed to more of them. Either way it was an incredibly fun session.