Another frigid winter night.  About 8 degrees.  UGH.  Nate and I wanted to do something different so we drove downtown and parked next to the side entrance to the St Julien parking garage.  We went down the side stairs unnoticed and found a mostly dry cooling parking garage with tons of parking blocks for us to shralp.  I say “cooling parking garage” because it seemed to get colder by the minute.  It started off pretty warm, but by the time we left we could see our breath.  The parking garage was also covered in at least a quarter of an inch of dust.  Yuck.We ended up at a group of oddly arranged blue parking blocks.  You couldn’t really grind or slide them too easily because the ends either ran into puddles or pillars.  But they were fun to try stuff over in lines which we did for awhile.  I can’t remember all that went down at that point, we were mostly just kinda dorking around.  At one point I tried to sw front 180 a puddle then kickflip a parking block that was right after it (by “right after it” I mean 20 feet which isn’t much setup when your old and slow like me) and I got it.  I even pushed switch before the 180.  I think Nate did a nollie shove over one followed by a no comply on another.  He’s got good no complys.  He said it’s the old man 8″ board that allows him to do old man tricks so well.  We settled in on trying stuff over a parking block for awhile.  Nate put down a ton of tricks of course.  Nollie, nollie shove, nollie 180s, 180s, halfcabs both ways and a banger at the end – nollie flip.  I struggled with kickflips, but got some as well as 180s, a sketchy pop shove, sw front 180 and a horrible backside flip.  But it’s definitely the first backside flip I’ve done over something and after the sketchy one I was getting close to doing a good one.  Nate started doing the little dump truck tricks where you ride into a curb and put the nose on then transfer to the other side.  After a couple regular ones he ended up doing all kinds of variations.  180s both ways, shoves both ways and attempts at nollie b/s flip out and more.  It was rad.  I couldn’t do the regular transfer, but after tons of tries I got a nollie back shove transfer.  Felt really fun.  We left the frigid garage after ollieing onto a very narrow sidewalk going down the hill of one of the exit ramps.  SUPER fun and sketchy.  It’s about a foot wide with a wall next so it feels like your going to hang up at any second and go flying.  By the end your going fast.  We both did it first try though and it was a great ender on a fun evening.

Ollie had been skating Rampy basically all Saturday and Sunday with his friends. After dinner I decided I should get a little session in and he joined me to show off his new moves. He did lots of halfcab rock fakies, willy grind, fakie ollies, body varial (at the top of the tranny now), fakie b/s pivots, backside slasher grind and started trying back 50s. He never got one, but he was close to back feebles. I was hurting from a rager of a night with the Might LZA and didn’t expect much from myself. I managed a couple front feebles and front tails amongst some other tricks I should be able to do better.

Cold and snowy on a Saturday. UGH! So sick of winter. Anyways I got up kinda early feeling better than the last few days. Ollie had been bugging me for a new deck and showing me his totally chipped deck. I told him he had to land a new trick on Rampy before I’d give him a board. We went out there and he was ripping. He’s done rock ‘n rolls elsewhere, but not Rampy. He did a few of those, learned willy grinds and did a bunch of half cab rocks. Guess he earned the new board. I wasn’t skating too well, but had fun. Got a front feeble or too and came close to hurricanes.Later on we hit Red Curbs. As soon as we got there it seemed much colder than we thought. Not only that, but the snow was blowing in and half the parking lot was wet. Ugh. The crew was Neil, Brian, Cheyenne Matt and the Daggers. Aka a mixture of Satellite/Meta dudes that happened to show up at the same time as us. Jason came and drank coffee, but said it was too cold to skate.Much to Brian’s delight the manny pad was one of the few dry obstacles. I don’t think anyone skated that great. Neil was in a t-shirt and yelling at his skateboard alot. Brian was standing around complaining about the cold. I would have liked to see him land that impossible lipslide. Matt was taking it easy and laying down some casual manuals. The Daggers were ripping. I was getting warmed up about the time we left. I’ve never quite got kickflip manuals across the whole pad. Still no. Winter sucks.

More crappy snow.  So sick of it.  What is it, winter or something?  Anyways, I worked at home because India had been throwing up that night and I didn’t feel great.  I didn’t want to get other sick.  By the end of the work day and a nap I felt ok.  I went to pick up Jake and go to Meta then Circuit City, but Jake wasn’t at his house.  After some phone tag it turned out he thought I’d be later.  Luckily Nate works about 20 feet from Circuit City and he was able to skate.  Although he was having some troubles getting used to a wider and longer board as well as changing from Indys to Thunders.  We started out doing some basic tricks over puddles.  Unfortunately it didn’t take Nate long to totally slam on a kickflip and kind of roll his ankle.  He was out quit.  Before he left I told him ‘this one is for you Nate’ and I put down the illest front shove ever backed with a treflip over a puddle to size of a ballin’ Hummer SUV.  Ah ok, you all know I’m joking.  I did a 2 mph front shove, some tic tacs then a slow 360 flip over a foot foot long puddle.  It was fun though.  I left after that too.  But before the last run some of the other stuff I had done was varial flip over a puddle, fakie bigspin and a run of pop shove, nollie front shove, front shove.  My legs actually felt pretty good.  So sick of the snow.   Adios.

Tired and sore from yesterday’s marathon session. Nate showed up on a snowy night and we went to it. I was understandably lacking in the energy department and it showed. Nate was getting used to his new board and really hyped. Pretty early on he took the best spill on Rampy yet. Fakie tail stall to dive backwards over the short deck and into my wall. He cut up his hand a bit, but other than that he was fine. Whew. Right after that Nate got a front disaster revert which he had never done before. It was one of his patented “I’m not quite on this trick perfect so I’ll throw in a revert” moments and it was awesome. I did most of my tricks, but I was tired and they took more tries than normal. I got a couple more front feebles which felt awesome. Nate got a couple more tricks he’s never done before we called it quits. Front tail front revert and fakie front pivot to rock ‘n roll. Rad. Nate seems to be doing fine on the new 8″ board. I should probably take a day off from skating, but oh well.

Was planning on going into work early then leaving for Colorado Springs with John and Bernie around 11, but I felt all sick the night before and hardly slept at all.  So instead I just got up late, ate breakfast and rolled out when John and Bernie showed up.  First stop was the CO Springs park which was mostly clear of snow.  Bernie had never been there before.  Bernie and I started out in the backyard pool and did a few carves before we all skated the flat bank for awhile.  John was killing it quickly.  Back smith, back smith fakie, blunt pivot, back blunt, blunt back tail, etc.  It was ridiculous.  We moved over to the somewhat crowded street area for awhile.  John was ripping there too.  He got me to roll in on the steep area up top which was fun.  I was skating so bad that after awhile I just went up to the little one foot tall spine by myself and ended up having some fun there.  I got a line with like front D on the little q-pipe then front feeble to backsmith revert transfer over the spine.  John and Bernie ended up joining me and once again John killed it.  Fun powerslides over the pump bumbs, blunt back ts on the flat bank, rock ‘n roll on the little extension, etc.   Next we all tried some lines on some hips.  I was trying manual down the downhill manny pad then kickflip back tail over the hip.  Bernie was doing kickflip manual then double backside flip.  John was doing 180 into the downhill pad then switch b/s flip over the hip.  I don’t think anyone got their line perfect, but Bernie got close and I got a really bad kick back tail over the hip.  I was still kinda hyped though because I’ve never done it over a hip like that.  Before leaving we all ollied the longer 3 stair and it took John 1 try, Bernie 3 tries and me 4 tries.  Imagine that, me sucking.After hitting a few shops, selling some things, eating some food and more driving we ended up at Parker shortly after 7 pm.  It was supposed to be a quick session.  This dude Mike was there that John knew filming some really crazy stuff.  Nollie back big front board fakie.  None of us had even seen that trick attempted before.  He also switch front big heeled the big gap.  So sick.  Bernie and I skated the tall Pier 7 replica.  I wanted to manny it, but never got it.  That didn’t stop me from dropping off it a bunch and making me really sore.  Bernie did a switch nose manny first try and followed it with a halfcab nose manual next try.  Wow.  John got one of his patented moves, front shove front nose on the bank to ledge.  We cruised around a bit too and played a game of SKATE that was to end the session.  I was the first one out.  Landing a 3 flip in the cold somewhat negated getting a letter on a front shove, but I was still bummed.I went over the ledge and skated it while Bernie and John finished the game.  I ended up having a blast on the ledge.  I got tricks like front 5-0, front 50 back 180 out, back 50, back crooks and more first try.  I went on to get quite a few of my ledge tricks.  Front smith, front 50 to front board (aka the Joe Hamilton), back 50 back shove out, back crooks to fakie, halfcab boardslide.  I also got a back 50 to front 180 out.  But I use so much angle to get into back 50s that Bernie coined it the “90 in 90 out”.  Pretty funny.  Bernie and John ended up joining in on the ledge session that went on for at least an hour.  John relearned front 5-0s and did all kinds of cool slappy noseslide variations.  Bernie tried front 5-0 kickflip out and fakie 5-0 kickflip out, but never landed them.  He also tried front smith kickflip out for awhile.  I struggled with an old staple of mine – the front 5-0 shove it for quite a while before landing a really bad one.  It was getting really cold though.  We left around 9:30.  Wow.  Lots of skating.  The ledge session at the end was my favorite.  Does it really take me all day to warm up now?

I got home from work and the females left for India’s ballet practice leaving Ollie and I to do whatever awesome dude things we want to do.  We chose the best possible options – playing skateboarding on the Wii.  Ha, no, we went skating over at the school across the street.  It was still kinda light out at first and Ollie was cruising around all over the back of the school with the biggest grin ever.  Ollieing over little piles of snow, the state of Florida (on the big painted map), body varials over cracks, ollieing into grass, totally being a kid.  I was taking it kinda mellow other than ollieing one of the sections of a four square game.  It measures out to a little over a six foot flat gap which aint easy for me.  Although i guess nothing but paint to clear makes it pretty easy.  I messed around with some wallrides at one point and Ollie started trying them too.  A couple tries later he rides away from one.  Then pretty much everytime he does them.  They aren’t full on legit wallrides.  He turns on the wall with his front wheels and pops it out somehow.  But he does them high enough that his back wheels are off the ground too.  He was so stoked on those.  So was I.  Before leaving I wanted to do 5 flippers real quick.  It wasn’t super quick , but I got kickflip, fakie flip, b/s flip and f/s and b/s halfcab flips and we rolled out.

Hurting from an awesome Valentines night with the Mighty LZA and a long day at work I didn’t feel much like skating.  Luckily Nate did.  It was pretty cold (upper teens) so we opted for Rampy.  Somehow both of us started pretty good and we moved into our harder tricks pretty quickly.  I got lots of tricks that aren’t normally first try tricks first try.  Yippee.  Front D, back hurricane, fakie front axle to rock ‘n roll.  Nate was doing front 5-0 fakie, fakie smith 270 out, fakie smith fakie, front D.  We were ripping for us.  I moved onto front feebles pretty quick and was trying them in a not so easy run for me.  Back 50, boardslide fakie, front smith, fakie front axle to rock ‘n roll, fakie pivot fakie then front feeble.  Never got them all and never managed to not throw in a few rock fakie/tail stall additions into that line.  But I did get the front feeble.  A couple of them.  And I was really hyped.  After that I tried blunt to pivots, but never got a good one.  I got tired pretty quick.  Nate was still ripping and worked his way up to feebles to fakie.  It took him a bit to put one down, but once he did I think he did like 5 in a row.  Fun session.  I’ll give some credit in my confidence to the DC’s.  I hate to admit it, but they are some of the best shoes ever.

It snowed a couple inches overnight, but it melted off and the street in front of my house was dry.  Jake came over and we got a little session going.  When we started it was cloudy and cold and neither of us started off too well.  I was feeling very old and stiff.  I was somehow landing some tricks, but they were really bad.  We eventually got things going pretty good and the sun had come out.  Other than almost getting hit by some lady who made a point to drive within inches of me it turned into an awesome session.  We each got a couple treflips which were harder than normal.  I blame the frozen bushings.  Not the lack of skating flatground lately.  I spent some time trying a line of 3 flip, heelflip, nollie 3 flip.  Never got the nollie 3 flip, but came kinda close.  Another line I tried for a long time was 180 no comply, fakie flip, fakie treflip.  The first few fakie flips were sooooo bad for some reason.  After awhile they were flowing ok though and I was committing to the fakie tres, but not landing them.  Jake battled the frontside flip for awhile and came up victorious.  We did quite a bit more than it sounds here.  It was fun.  Toward the end Jake was trying nollie fs bigspins and I was posing hardflips.  I say posing because I never truly committed although the board did flip right a few times.  Fun session.  Let’s do it again soon Jake.

I guess skating so much yesterday took it’s toll.  That and my new shoes seem to fit smaller than the last pair and I’m getting blisters on my pinky toes.  Yeah, I said pinky toes.  We started out at Southern Hills and it was super nice out.  Maybe close to 50 degrees and sunny.  That changed quickly and the clouds came in.  Ollie seemed really excited to skate.  He’s been way more into ever since we got that SKATE game for the Wii.  He ollied the 2 stair like nothing and tried a bunch of pop shove its.  He came surprisingly close.  I was sucking and sore.  The insane amount of rocks they put down in the last snow didn’t help my motivation either.  While ollie tried shove it’s I the back area with the bench up to picnic table.  I was skating so slow it was pathetic.  I managed an ollie up the ledge to front tail stall on the bench of the picnic table.  It was horrible.  I also managed a really basic line of front 180 off a ledge over some snow, back shove, kickflip into the wheelchair ramp, back board a ledge, varial flip and then halfcab flip.  All were horrible.We left for the Louisville park because Ollie wanted to go there.  After a quick lame session in the hockey rink we went to the bowl where Ollie didn’t want to skate after all when he saw another little kid there skating good.  It’s weird though.  This kid could do 10 minute runs of axle stall, roll in, axle stall, roll in, etc.  It looked robotic.  It’s funny that there are bowl robots too.Next we went to the little manny pad behind Mikes Camera.  I was so sore by then.  I wanted to try some more manual shoves out.  I was skating 2 mph tops and came close to a few.  It was cold and I wanted to stop skating, but Ollie started ripping like I’ve never seen before.  He normally can’t ollie up a curb, but he was and he was trying front 180s off.  I’ve never even seen him try front 180s before and he landed on his first one off a curb.  He also manualed a long section all easy.  It was so rad seeing him skate so good.  He was blasting ollies off the curbs like it was nothing (well I guess it’s not for an old fart, but damn, he’s 7) and smiling non stop.  He is is fun to skate with.  If it wasn’t for a first try kickflip manual there I would probably have left super bummed on my skating.  But I didn’t and the fact that Ollie skated so well made me think of nothing but amazing sessions for the future.  Skating with your kid is crazy.