After such a good day of skateboarding the night before I figured I was doomed.  I was in charge of Ollie and his friend Sam and they wanted to go skating.  Perfect!  The weather was awesome too.  The first 60 degree day in forever.  My parents said we actually broke a record for the longest time ever between 60 degree days.  Some 100+ days.  Ridiculous.   I figured I’d take them to the bank/curb spot near Mikes Camera.  Ollie ended up inviting more of his friends so I ended up bringing 4 mongo pushing kids to the spot.  Ha.  I ended up not sucking like I expected and skated hard while making sure none of the kids were hurt or anything.  After messing around for awhile I settled in trying manuals into stall tricks on the sidewalk section of it.  This ended up being super hard, but really fun for me.  I came really close to manual to front tail, but then started going to b/s tricks as it was just easier that way.  I got manuals into axle stall, pivot and nose pick.  It’s too mellow to manual back easily so I would try a slow trick like a no comply boneless or whatever it is that Neil does so good.  Ollie was ripping.  Frontside and backside carves around the parking blocks like it was nothing, ollieing into the bank and trying body varials out of the bank.  At the end he almost got frontside grinds while carving over a block, but asphalt doesn’t grind to good.  That would have been so sick.   Cooper ollied the two stair pretty easily and eventually did some good carves too.  Quin and Sam were cruising around and having fun too.  After awhile I tried a run of ollie the angled manny pad then try to ollie up the awkward two stair.  I was struggling with that so moved on to trying front 180 nose manuals then the ollie up the two.  Never got that either, but eventually got the ollie up the two and was hyped I landed so many 180 nose manuals.  Fun session to start the day.  Had to get Quin and Cooper back home for baseball practice so we bolted.Later on I met up with Jake and we went to skate campus.  We started up near Meta and agreed on skating the wallride spot which is halfway across campus.  Jake took off b-lining it for the wallride spot.  I took my time cracking ollies over sidewalk sections, doing some kickflips, manuals, etc just trying to get warmed up.  At the wallride spot Jake landed like the first 5 wallrides he tried.  Sick!  The normal Glen was back.  Aka the one that doesn’t land anything.  Ugh.  The wallride took several tries and I couldn’t get any flippers to line it out.  I did manage a good manual along the sidewalk though and ollied over the really low manny pad.  Hyped on that because it was terrifying to me.We agreed on the banked manny pad next.  On the way I ollied the 4 stair and posed a couple flippers over some sidewalk cracks, but bailed.  Oh well.  The manny pad was pretty dirty as it must have had snow on it for the last few weeks or even months the way this winter has been.  I was pretty grouchy at this point of the session for some reason.  I guess just being tired and not landing tricks like the day before.  Oh well.  Jake laid down the best tre I’ve seen him do in the parking lot there.  I kind of ollied a trash bag of shredded paper, almost mannied down the manny pad, posed some hardflips and took several tries to land a sw front 180 into the manny pad.We started heading back toward the car since Jake didn’t have long and stopped at the student center.  I ollied down the 4 first try then watched Jake try to ollie up the 4.  So sick.  He came really close, but never rolled away.  Next we hit up the building with the new tiny banked curbs and other stuff.  Jake made fun of me for not knowing what building it was.  The Economics building!  Ok I got it.  It was never a skate spot before so how would I know?  ha.  I’ve wanted to do the drop down then ollie back up then big drop that I saw Jack do in his sleep a year ago.  It took me several tries and Jake telling me I owed him gummy bears if I didn’t do it to finally get it.  As ugly as I did it I was hyped to finally do it.  It was really scary for me to ollie onto a narrow ledge that has a 5 foot drop on one side and 3 foot on the other.  On the way out I ollied the  gap into the banked curb and then the ol bench to bikepath gap.  Decent session.  Sorry if I was grouchy Jake.

Brought boards up to MRKT after work and invited a crew to skate campus after since it was so nice out.  Carleigh and Jake signed up for the session.  After selling boards we rolled into campus and were quickly exposed to this.  Pretty creepy.  After that we headed out to the Clark building area.  The first spot we sessioned was the hip there.  It was dark and crack ridden, but we skated it for awhile anyway.  I was feeling pretty good for once and had energy.  With the exception of front shoves, tricks came surprisingly easy.  Kickflip, b/s flip a first ever halfcab flip over a hip, sw front 180.  The b/s flip felt great.  It was slow and small, but I landed without my normal tic tacs and it came quickly.  The front shove took the longest.  I even took a few tries to huck big flips without getting remotely close.  Carleigh got pop shove the hard way first try, front 180 to crack slam, and started her unsuccessful night of kickflips.  Jake came close to front 270s and got a kickflip or two.I posed a couple ollies down the 5 stair into the bank and told Carleigh if she did it first try I would do it too.  She went for it, but slammed pretty hard.  Luckily the light shut off and none of us had to huck down it anymore.  Then we went to the 3 stair area where Sean and Mike met up with us.  We tried various lines up and down the stairs.  I got an ollie up 3, front 180 off.  I made a couple week attempts at ollie up 3 then quickly ollie up the next 3.  Nope.  I also failed at ollie’ing off the ledge over a trash can.  Oh well.  We all ollied down the 3 to quick ollie down the next 3 which was scary because of how close they are to each other.  Carlie and Jake then added front 180s to that.  Sean had some sick fakie ollies down the 3 and Mike back 180’d up.  After a quick ollie to wallride fakie on this weird metal art we ended up at a short white ledge.  Sean and I got no complies over it.  Carleigh came close to kickflipping over it.  Mike back 180’d it.  I also did a fun little cali grind slasher thing on it.Next up we went to the manny pad that Chadman does the ender for the Flow section in Null and Void.  I couldn’t seem to land a manual to save my life so I went for nose manny and did it first try.  Rad.  I eventually got a regular manual then tried a bunch of manny drop to manny.  Came super close to that, but had some minor tail scrapes.  I tried to be cool and hit it the other way too, but my feet aren’t quick and I could only do ollie up ollie up.  Carleigh got a manual and Sean came close to front 180 nose manual.Nearby is the ol’ bridge kicker so we hit that up.  It’s lit super good at night.  I was feeling really good with lots of energy still and went for kickflip right out of the gate.  I was going faster than my normal comfort zone, but still went for it first try and landed it.  Felt amazing.  Three tries later I rolled away from 360 flip.  First try pop shove.  A few tries for a bad backside flip and I’m already content with the spot.  What a rare feeling for me.  I almost never land tricks quickly.  I tried some fakie tricks, but suck at pushing switch/fakie mongo so couldn’t get the speed.  Front shoves took awhile again, but I eventually got a bad one.  Mike put down a few nice front shoves and a mean fakie f/s bigspin.  Sean was rattling off tricks too.  One foot, no comply, half cab and more that I can’t remember.  Jake got kickflip and tried quite a bit more.  I don’t remember what all he got, but fakie flips wrecked him and he called it quits.  Carleigh was in a battle with kickflips.  She took a quick break for an easy pop shove, but was eating shit on almost every kickflip attempt.  Ouch.  Sean shut down the session with a b/s 360 no comply.  Rad.  Super fun session.  Some of the best I’ve felt on a skateboard.

Fell asleep on the couch after dinner and was awoken by Ollie asking if I wanted to skate Rampy with him.  Yes!  I had easily the best first run I’ve ever had on Rampy.  I don’t remember the exact tricks, but it was a good run for me period.  Ollie was skating pretty good.  He looks so natural on a board now.  He was doing his typical willy grinds, scratch grinds, rock fakies, tail stalls, fakie ollies, body varials and having fun.  I had some more good runs for me.  Front 50s and front tails were fun as were fakie pivot fakies.  I managed to land a hurricane for the first time in awhile.

Last day in SF.  Flight was leaving at 3pm and we were all pretty worked after the night before.  While the others went to Lowcard to shop for panties, Nate, Jason and I went to a nearby ledge that looked super fun.  It was another super nice and sunny day.  I started off slow, but we all seemed to get on our tricks shortly after Nate got some wax and made things happen.  Jason got lots of back 50s, back 5-0, front 50, front 5-0, front smith and the banger of the session – back feeble.  Nate was doing 10 feet long back 50s so easy, 10 feet long back 5-0s, back 180 fakie 50s, front 5-0s, and landed a back 180 fakie 5-0 180 out for the first time.  My tricks were crooks, back 50, front 5o front 5-0 and I landed my first ever real front crooks.  A few of them.  Enough to even get the front crook grind mark.  Rad.  The regular crooks were my favorite though.  The ledge was granite and against a wall.  It grinded so good and made so much noise.  Every trick felt amazing on it and it was all of our favorite session of the trip.  Goodbye SF, I love you.

After the first night of not raging we woke up to rain.  Figures.  It was just showers though.  I skated some flat in front of Gordon’s house after it dried up.  I did like 20 kickflips just trying to get them to feel right.  They kinda started to finally.  Neil was landing pretty much everything he tried.  I managed an ok backside flip and a couple other flippers that gave me hope of being able to skate that day.  Next we went to the skatepark which was pretty crowded.  Nate, Jason and I stuck to the bottom corner and messed around on the jersey barrier.  Brian too.  I got my first ever rock ‘n roll on a jersey barrier.  I guess it’s a skatepark so it’s not legit, but it seemed pretty rad.  Brian got a good front rock on it.  Jason, Nate and I tried to do runs with wallrides on the barrier followed by manuals on the nearby ledge.  Nate was able to do all that with a nose manual.  Damn kids.  Jason and I could hardly ollie up the ledge.  It was soooo frustrating.  I threw a bit of a fit, but maintained myself.  Jason came up with a good list of reasons why we couldn’t do this.  1. The ledge was slippery.  2. There was  a crack.  3. We’re old.  4. Dennis Busenitz was skating the park.  5. Brian Anderson was skating the park.  6. We suck.  Ha.  After awhile I did a wallie front tail on the little bank hip that was there too and then resorted to just fanning out on the 100 pros that showed up for the Omar Salazar party.  Brian Anderson was the most impressive.  He was so rad that he would start lines outside the park doing slappys and end up inside the main area doing front lips on the huge bank.  Dude was ruling it so hard.  Such a casual style.  Such a rad dude.Next up Fuzz, Jason, Nate, Neil and I took the BART downtown to hopefully skate EMB area.  First we sessioned the wallride bank at the BART for awhile.  When we got off at Civic it was raining though.  DOH.  We walked and walked and walked and ended up at Hubba/EMB and it was still wet.  Ugh.  We finally just went to eat dinner then we went back to the shop.  I skated flat in the shop for a bit.  Basically just did kickflips until they felt right which they finally did.After that we went to the Nike party and party partied.  Photos from that soon.

Another beautiful day in SF.  Sunny skies, a bit breezy.  We met up at Gordon’s house.  While people were gathering Jason and I rolled around a few blocks looking for something fun.  We didn’t find much other than a red curb that we didn’t stay at for very long.  I tried kickflips for awhile in front of Gordon’s house, but could not get them to feel right.  Argh.We departed for the pool and wow was it a rad spot.  We all took awhile to warm up in this thing because it was so tight.  I didn’t skate it great, but managed to carve around a bit and get some scratcher grinds and almost a front rock.  It was about 5 feet deep and went to vert.Brian, Gordon, Lazer and Fuzz killed this thing.  Brian especially blew me away.  He had so many tricks and was flowing around so good.  The one footed front tails were my favorite.  Or I guess they are called madollies.  Gordon had the lines for sure.  Fuzz may be bummed he resorted to front tails again, but man he does them as good as they can be done.  Nate got some good front slashers, Neil was hauling ass and tons of others were there.  It was fun.  Near the end of the session I was trying a line with a back scratch grind followed by a front rock.  Couldn’t quite do it even when Brian told me to “earn my flannel”.  Ha ha.Nate, Carleigh, Jason and I went to skate some street around the house since the session got so crowded.  It started for me by getting super frustrated trying to ollie a bucket off a curb.  I did it somehow, but I don’t know how my little ollie cleared it.  Next we walked out to the ocean and got sand in our eyes then hiked up some mellow hills for a bit.  We didn’t find much, a couple little hips and what not.  It was fun going down though.  At one point I committed to ollie’ing a median without looking first and did the sketchiest wallie/ollie at speed and somehow made it.  At the very end of the day I tried a few treflips and could not get close.  I got super pissed.  I wanted to break my board.  I was soooo mad.  I just hated that I was in SF and too sore to do hardly anything.  Ugh, I landed one finally then went on in to the pizza contest and failed at that too.

So insanely sore from the previous day/night in SF.  Gordon had organized a contest at 3rd & Army so we went there pretty early on.  Others had gone with Gordon in his truck, but Nate, Carleigh, Lazer, Neil and I skated there.  On the way there we were cruising down the three block mellow downhill section and I went to just manual an intersection.  It kept going though.  And going and going and next thing I know I went over a block.  SO HYPED.  I’ve never manualled a block in my life.  This would be pretty much the only decent thing I did all day, but hot damn I was hyped.We got to 3rd & Army and it was pretty crowded already.  I felt too sore and awkward.  After a bad attempt at warming up I went to the store with Brian, Lazer, Carleigh and maybe Nate.  Some funny stuff happened there.  First, us dudes were sitting at a table and Carleigh was standing next to us so this broke looking dude ends up getting up and bringing a chair over for Carleigh.  Funny.  Then I decided to go for the green apple quick step to loosen up my insides and it worked.  Rad.Back to 3rd & Army I played a game of SKATE with Brian.  Right out of the gate he landed an impossible and gave me an S.  He said he felt great.  Unfortunately he didn’t get another trick and I beat him with some ok tricks along with some bad tricks.  One of the few good ones I remember was a no comply back shove which felt great.Later on tragedy struck as Nate rolled his ankle trying to do front 50 front 180 to fakie nose man.  He stepped on the edge of the box.  Doh.  He ended up being kinda ok the rest of the trip, but bummer.Most of us sat and watched the gap contest.  Some dude with the name Glenn landed a perfect nollie b/s bigspin.  So good.  A few minutes later Carleigh comes out to try and ollie the gap and almost dies on the narrow approach.  Sketchy!  She got closer the next few tries and then put a couple down and rode away far enough for me to count it.  She slammed hard a couple times.  She ruled it.  Trick of the trip in my opinion.Next up the Cruz video premiere.  So fun.  Such a late night.

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.