After a somewhat late night of partying I woke up early (8am) at the shop.  The forecast was rain for the day, but it was dry.  Skate!  Nate and Neil woke up too and we were out by 8:30 to Eagle Donuts then hit the streets by 9.  We cruised down the mellow hills and ended up near the Potrero skatepark so we just continued on and went there. Those hills near the shop are SO fun.  I was still hurting when I pushed though and it was bumming me out.  There were a few people at the skatepark, but not many.  Neil was ripping pretty quickly.  He had some cool lines going with lots of little ollies and good speed.  It’s hard to remember this as it’s 5 days later and we partied every night.  I know Nate did a rad lipslide across the box on the mellow bank.  I did a couple first try tricks on the super mellow q-pipe.  Front D and b/s nose grind kinda.  At some point I started trying wallies out of the bank to ledge to manual to the little q-pipe.  Never quite got it.  But it was cool to see it took Brian Anderson a couple tries to do the same trick a couple days later. Then I started trying Neil’s line of carve on the huge bank, b/s 50 on the q-pipe, ollie on the twinkie, tailslide on the bank.  I never really got an ollie.  Partly because I suck at ollies, partly because there seemed to be someone coming everytime I was near the twinkie.  It took both Nate and I a long time to do our first kickflips.  I got an undercrook on the ledge.  Ha, it’s my patented 2″ jib crook.  Neil started doing tricks up the euro.  Kickflip, one foot, b/s 180, no comply.  Ripping.  Nate and I tried tricks on the tight brick q-pipe.  Nate got a rock ‘n roll and a scratch grind.  As I went for an axle stall I said to Nate, “If I land this one it wont rain the entire trip”.  Landed it.  Hyped.  Unfortunately it didn’t quite hold true.  After a few hours we got a call from Lazer saying they were ready to skate.  Back to Eagle Donuts for breakfast #2 and meet up with the crew.After the best bagel sandwiches in the world and new Trick Factory calendars from Brian we hit the streets.  We started around the corner by the shop.  Everyone was kinda messing around.  I still felt awkward on my skateboard and pushing hurt.  Ugh.  I managed a couple runs I wanted to do since last time.  Kickflip up the curb, cruise down.  Front 180 up the curb, sw 180 off the little drop.  We worked our way up the hill a bit and bombed into the corner.  Nate, Fuzz and Neil were hauling ass.  Then we rolled toward the flower shop by way of lots of hiking up hills, skating down them, hiking up other, skating down.  SO FUN.  I was foot dragging alot instead of power sliding, but at least going pretty fast for me.  We fanned out at the Omar Salazar noseblunt ledge.  We ended up on top of the hill by the flower shop and Gordon offered me $10 to bomb the hill with no foot drag.  I went for it.  I was going quite a bit faster than I thought because at the end I did a foot drag to stop but it wasn’t enough and I ran into a fence.  It was maybe my favorite moment of the trip though.  Even though I didn’t slide out at the end it still felt awesome to bomb an entire hill and only foot drag at the end.  The rest of the crew came flying down and everyone was hauling ass.  So awesome.  People were flying. I didn’t get the $10 because of the foot drag at the end, but whatever I had fun.The Flowershop was locked so we skated the ledge area for awhile.  I was hurting.  So sore and tired.  Ugh.  We skated the gap area.  I did a little run with an ollie over a flat gap then a super slow ollie over the gap where I landed not moving at all.  Fuzz and I laughed a good minute over that.  Carleigh ollied it first try then landed on pop shove first try.  She beat herself up for awhile and never quite landed it.  Lazer ripped it with an ollie over the last flat gap to manual pop over the gap.  Sick.  Fuzz did some cool ollies up the ledge then front 180 the flat gap then switch ollie the gap.  Nate had a good clean ollie over it too.  Next we skated the actual ledges.  Fuzz did a sick line with all the basics.  Front 50, front 5-0, front tail and the worst halfcab flip ever done.  Brian got his tallest front 50.  Nate did some nollie front tails and some basics.  I was bumming out and sad that my body was so sore already and unable to ollie well.  I got a couple front 50s, but that was about it.Next we skated the Flowershop tranny spot.  I sat out the first part of the session just trying to catch my breath and get some energy.  Everyone was ripping.  A couple other dudes were there ripping too.  Gordon did some crazy stuff.  He skates that park so well.  He got a new trick for himself there on top of all his sickness – it was either a fakie D on the big wall or a frontside grind.  I’m not sure.  Fuzz was cruizing around fast, Neil was flying around and ollie’ing into tranny the way only he could, Brian almost got front rocks on the extension, Lazer skates tranny good, Nate was having fun too and landed a grind on one of the vert walls as we were leaving.  Fun session.  After all that skating we hiked more hills/skated down them, etc back to the shop.  Party time.

After four days of being stuck in a class and not doing my normal stretching routines at work I got out early hyped to be leaving for SF shortly.  It was gorgeous outside and Ollie was skating with his friend Cooper in the driveway.  I set my board down to push and this weird pain shot through my left hip/groin.  Ugh.  Great way to start a trip.  I kept skating a bit though.  Kickflips felt ok.  I ended up skating the ledge with them which is right by the house so I have to skate super slow (nothing new there eh?).  Ollie was doing slappy front 5-0s.  I was trying kick front boards and got one.  It was horrible, but landed.  First one ever.  Sweet.After a bus ride, plane ride and then a train ride I skated with Nate, Neil and Lazer from the BART station to Cruz Skateshop where we were staying.  We sessioned the curb for a minute, but nothing too serious went down.  Hyped to be in the greatest skate city.

Got home from work and it was nice out.  Ollie and his friend were skating in front of the house so I joined them.  They push up the driveway, ride up a sheet of wood and try grinds across Ledgey.  I rolled around in the street for awhile and landed most my tricks and felt good.  Kickflips, shoves, no complys.  Then I posed a few kickflip front board attempts on the ledge and Cooper had to leave.  After that Ollie tried showing off and dropped in off the deck of the ramp onto the driveway (the garage door was open).  He said he had dropped that far before, but he basically went straight to his stomach.  It was really bad.  He fully ate shit.  Skinned up his elbow real bad, but didn’t cry at all and didn’t scrape his face.  Whew.  He did call it a day though.  So I went in too.

First day of March was another winter day where the snow had to melt off and it got cold at night.  So Jake and I went to Circuit City to skate flatground in the somewhat heated parking garage.  Things started out slow for me, but I’ve become accustomed to this when I skate so much.  My new board was feeling good and after a few warm up laps of 180s, kickflips and whatnot we settled in on a 360 flip battle.  First one to land one gets a beer.  Jake won!  Stoked on this actually.  First time Jake beat me to a 3 flip challenge.  After this we each worked on lines for awhile.  I was trying halfcab flip then 360 flip then nollie 360 flip.  Didn’t get the nollie 3 flip in this line, but the halfcab flip and treflips were feeling great.  Jake ended up getting a banger of a line.  No comply 180, halfcab flip, f/s flip, fakie flip.  So sick.  Shortly after that I put down my best flatground line ever.  Fakie bigflip, front shove, nollie treflip, treflip.  Finally got treflip and nollie treflip in the same line!  I don’t think the tre was too clean, but whatevs, the rest of the tricks were ok and the nollie tre and fakie big flip felt super good.  Another challenge went down.  Gummy bears for the first frontside halfcab flip.  It took a bit, but I got it.  Then I tried a run of heelflip, varial flip, frontside halfcab flip.  Never got the fs halfcab flip.  Had a blast though.  Near the end I had slammed on some trick and was laying on the ground laughing with Jake.  I love skateboarding.  I love when you have as much energy as I did tonight and I love being a grown ass man that laughs when he falls down in a dirty parking garage on a cold night.

I took a few runs on Rampy while waiting around to see what was developing for the day.  Luckily it hadn’t start snowing yet.  I didn’t do anything too great, but I was having fun.  After meeting Jack and Carleigh at Meta we went to Willville.  We messed around on the bank with the grate.  Well, but mess around I mean Jack did all kinds of ollies into it and Caleigh and I just dropped in on it.  While Jack was warming up on the six stair ledge I a run of front 50 on the ledge, kickflip on flat then ollie onto the ledge and roll into the bank.  I kept being totally lame on the roll in into the bank, but eventually got it when we got the boot.Next up we went to a big gap where Jack not only broke his board trying to back 3 the gap, but broke mine too.  I was kinda hyped though because I wanted to setup a new board before SF and I didn’t have to make up no silly excuses.  The board was broke!  After a board setup party Jack, Carleigh and I skated Rampy.  It was a fun session for awhile, but then it seemed everyone got tired at the same time.  Carleigh was getting front D’s everytime, Jack was doing 5-0’s to fake fakie revert, I landed the majority of my tricks except front feeble and hurricane.  The session ended when Jack did a front 5-0 shove out.  Sick.  It’s snowing again.  SUCK!

Tired from a fun show the night before and being a dad of a girl in 4H club I met up with Nate and Carleigh at the Mikes Camera manny pad.  I started off pretty good with some mannys and nose mannys first try.  But I wasn’t feeling too on my game and I was solo for awhile.  I did a few ollies over snow and whatnot and started feeling better.  Nate showed up right as I gapped over some snow to manny.  I looked cool for a second.  Ha.  It was rad, Nate was hungover.  He said he drank a ton of beers the night before.  That a boy Nate!  Carleigh showed up after awhile too.  Nate quickly proved that he is younger and did some neat tricks.  Front 180 nose manual.  Nollie front 180 nose manny.  He’s good.  Carleigh hasn’t spent much time trying mannys before.  She never quite got one, but she definitely seemed to get the hang of how to manual by the end of the session.  She was also landing kickflips pretty much every try.  Good ones too.  We skated for about an hour total.  Nate did some pretty crazy stuff like fakie manual, half cab nose manual, and quite a bit more that I can’t remember right now.  He came close to fakie manual fakie 3 shove out.  Ridiculous.  He also got most of his flippers back on the bigger board.  I saw perfect tres and nollie b/s heels go down.  Sick.  I didn’t really skate all that hot, but I did a few things I was proud of.  Kickflip manny which took a ton of tries and my first ever fakie bigspin manual.  I’d be more hyped, but I did it so bad.  I landed at 90 and lost all my speed, but somehow managed to manny all the way to the end.  Argh.  I also did a 360 flip up the curb (easier then varial flip up) and a line with a fast nose manual followed by a nollie treflip on flat.  All in all a pretty fun session.

Had a horrible week at work and Friday was the worst day yet.  Got home from work early feeling very cranky, tired and sore.  I took a short nap and woke up feeling slightly better.  I put on PJ Ladd’s part in WHL (best part ever) then ran out of my house with my board, pushed as fast as I could to the bikepath down the street.  When I got there I pushed as fast as I could down it.  It’s not steep or anything, but if you push fast enough the last couple corners before it ends can be scary.  The feeling of flying down a hill rules.  I need to do it more.  My flatspotted wheels were making so much noise, my trucks were wobbling, I was scared and man, it was fun.  After the first one I felt sooooo much better about life.  I skated back slow doing a couple kickflips/shove its and talking on the phone.  I got back to the top and did the same thing again, except even faster.  I walked back and did it a final time somehow going even faster.  Fast enough that I barely made the corner under Moorhead.  I came so close to jumping into the creek.  That would have been so cold!  To finish the run I did a kickflip going kinda fast and laughed for awhile about how fun something as simple as pushing down a hill can be.  Yeah skateboarding!

My second time reaching 20 days of skating in a row this year. I really wanted to just sit on the couch with the family and watch the Lindbergh movie they were watching, but my legs felt decent and it was kinda warm out (35f). When I left my house I felt better than I have in awhile though and I ran the 5 feet to the car. I guess I had more hip in my hop or something.I pulled into Red Curbs at the same time Nate biked in.  It was mostly wet again.  All we could really skate is the manny pad, the ledge and a curb.  Wow, sounds awesome!  I had some motivational issues early on, but put them to rest and tried to skate hard.  I ended up skating harder than I have in awhile.  I would try manual tricks with a flipper after.  I think my best little run was probably a manual disaster then a 270 flip tic tac.  Ha.  Nate was getting his ledge tricks on and basic mannies back since he’s still getting used to the man sized setup.  I had the most fun trying trick up, trick off the manny pad.  I got kickflip up kickflip off, pop shove up kickflip off and a new one for me, pop shove up varial flip off.  I don’t think I’ve done varial flip off.  Maybe?  Oh well.  I tried to do it up the curb for awhile, but failed.  I also got backside 90 flip and fakie bigspin up the curb.  Pretty fun night.

Ok, there’s been too many amazing Rampy sessions to say one is the best, but this one was one of my favorites for sure.  The crew was Brian, Kurt, Dave and I initially.  After awhile Lazer and Carleigh showed up and after awhile longer Nate showed up.  Jake also stopped by briefly to say hi.  Good seeing him.  Jason was also in attendance for awhile, but just to watch.I was pretty tired/sore so it took me awhile to get going.  Dave and Brian were killing it pretty much out of the gates.  It was Dave’s first Rampy session and he seemed to take an interest in the short deck side.  Trying to fakie rock fully decked, manuals, etc.  Anyways, this session is going to be pretty much impossible to fully document.  Everyone was ripping.Lazer and Carliegh get their own little section since they left before the camera came out.  Carleigh and I played tag with front Ds.  We can’t seem to both land them, only one of us has them at a time.  Carleigh also put down feebs to fakies easy and came real close to her patented kickflip rock fakie.  Lazer was Lazer killing everything.  I don’t remember any new tricks.  But when you have a bag that deep it doesn’t matter.  Front tail block, f/s airs, back lips, millions of rad tricks.Gonna start with Kurt.  He is in town from Austin, TX visiting his girlfiend.  He started out ripping quickly and finding new and dangerous ways to fall and scare everyone on the deck.  Don’t get me wrong, the dude is rad and rips hard, but as I’m sure he’ll say he’s got kind of a reckless style and goes for broke.  Dude gave Jason a run for the money on longest grinds on Rampy and took away Nate’s title of scariest shoot out potential at the same time.    Nate takes better photos than me – Kurt front lip.Kurt Front Rock – photo by NateBrian got so tech we had to put the camera in movie mode.  Brian helped make this session as amazing as it was.  Lots of laughter, tons of great skating and non stop fart jokes.  He even landed a front blunt.  Ok, well he landed it well enough to make it into an older Zero video.  Tons of one foot combos.  One foot tough guy, one foot cross over front rock, one foot tail on his first run, I don’t even know how many more.Dave Fuller is a legend in my book.  Over 40 years old and amazing style.  He did so many tricks I didn’t even know the name of.  Backside no comply 5-0, backside chink chinks, the best back disasters ever,   layback nosepicks, indy nosepick, 5-0s to fakie, back tail reverts, backside & frontside sweepers, bonelesses, so many rad tricks.  On top of all that he showed us you can be over 40 and learn new tricks.  So sick.  This photo is a layback grind to tail or something.  Who knows.Dave front bonelessNate Front Tail.  Nate was killing it.  His sketchiness has gone away a bit and he’s got the basics down better.  His new tricks were fakie front pivot to rock fakie and lien to tails.  But my favorite was when he got up onto the deck right in between Brian and I who were clearly having a fart off.  Who gets up onto the deck between two grown men aiming their asses at each other?  Ha, Nate took it in stride.  My other favorite trick of his was the fakie pivot to shifty out.  He’ll never do that again.  Other than that he did most of his tricks pretty quick.Saving the best for last.  Ha ha yeah right!  Here’s Brian giving me the thumbs down for bailing a front feeble.  Like I said, I started off super slow because I was tired from skating so much lately, but we ended up skating over three hours and it was a total blast.  I landed close to every trick I’ve landed on Rampy.  Fakie pivots to fakie were coming easy for a change, but front disasters were lost to Carleigh for most of the session.  My new trick for the day was front tail revert landed with enough speed to almost get to the tranny all the way on the other side of the ramp.  Other tricks I was hyped on were front feebles, the front tough guy to front rock combo, back 50s to fakie and backside crooks.Me fakie pivot fakie.  Photo by the man formerly known as the sketchiest skater on Rampy.My favorite new trick – front feeble.  Love this photo.  I actually like how the trick looks, Brian has some awesome BGPs and Nate Dog took it.  It’s good all around.

I work the early shift this week which means I have to be at work by 7:00am.  That’s wayyyy too early for me.  The one advantage is I get out early, but half the time I act old and go home and take a nap.  This time I picked John up and we went over near the bikepath bank.  We were skating the parking lot for awhile.  John was ripping out of the gates.  I was sucking.  BAD.  John ollied the parking block gap all easy and then we skated this huge snow gap.  Ok, so it was tiny.  John back 180’d it and followed it up with a sick run that included ollieing the parking block gap and a treflip.  I kickflipped the snow gap.  But it wasn’t no ordinary kickflip.  I took off too late so the nose hit the snow and it went flying.  Somehow I still landed the kickflip and it may go down as one of my favorites ever.  As John said, it was like a kickflip with fireworks.  We ended up getting kicked out so we moved over to the bank where Nate met us shortly.This is where I got real pissed.  The most pissed I’ve been at skating since the days of the kick back fail.  I don’t know what happened, but I could not even do ollies at all.  I was tripping.  Wanting to focus my board.  Being a drama queen.  It sucked.  Nate and John were ripping.  I eventually kinda got over it and just skated mellow, but man, I was bumming.  I think it was one of those I’ve-been-skating-too-much-and-I-am-burnt-out moments.  John did a bunch of 270 no complies onto the bank, frontside 270 ollies onto it, back 180 onto it, f/s ollies, f/s crailslide, amazing backside ollies and a nollie shove he stole from Nate.  Rad.  Nate did some ollies then moved on to pop shove fakie, nollie shove, nollie 270s, f/s ollie over some snow then ollie back onto the bikepath etc.  My finest moment was a 2mph pop shove onto the bank only because I’ve never done it before and I did it pretty good.  I did have fun carving over some snow too.  My other tricks that took way too long were ollie up over some snow to f/s ollie back to the bikepath, f/s 180 onto the bank and ride in to fakie, kickflip over some snow onto the bank and b/s and f/s ollies.  Man, somedays I really suck on a skateboard.