Jason and I both drove across the country earlier in the day.  Jason from Utah.  Me from Omaha.  We were both tired but wanted to skate so we met Nate at the Circuit City garage and brought my poorly built ledge.  Warming up was slow as usual for Jason and I.  Nate warmed up by slamming super hard on a back nosegrind attempt.  Ouch.  Jason ended up skating really well.  He rattled off a few basics for him like front and back 50s, front smith, front noseslide, back noseslide, halfcab noseslide before moving on to new tricks of back and front willy grinds.  Awesome!  He also did slappy front tails, crooks and halfcab back willy.  Pretty awesome.  Nate killed it as usual.  His basic warm up tricks aren’t fair.  He worked up to back smith, front smith front 180 out, switch front 5-0, probably more and came close to some crazy tricks like nollie front 180 to fakie bs nosegrind, fakie bigspin noseslide, fakie shove fakie nosegrind and who knows what else.  I got into a groove of trying a few runs.  Tried halfcab flip, back 5-0, nollie tre, but never go the nollie tre.  Got fakie flip, fakie nosegrind, but couldn’t end it with fakie tre.  Treid a bunch of front smiths, but couldn’t ride out, front nose grind, but the only ones I rode away from I bonked the back wheels on, kick back tails weren’t close.  It was fun though.

After spending a small fortune on new snow tires I figured it would be awesome to also spend money on something which I normally do for free, skateboard.  Joe, Zak and Dan picked me up and we went to the only indoor park around.  Opening the door we were greeted by loud corporate crap x-games music before a nice lady helped us get checked in.  They had a new 1031 video and Joe bought it up in a jiffy.  Turns out Greg and the rest of the 1031 dudes are hero’s there.  Cool.They got rid of the bowl which I thought was pretty fun and packed in some ok and some really bad street stuff.  Dan had hurt his ankle and it appeared to be worse than he thought.  We dorked around a bit, but it wasn’t long before he had to sit out the session.  To add insult to injury he had to sit and listen to that horrible manufactured X-games screamo crap music the whole time.  Sorry Dan, but thanks for letting us skate.Almost my entire session was spent dorking around.  I seriously can’t deal with skating in that type of environment.  Shitty loud music, tons of kids, bad skatepark.  Joe and Zak were ripping though.  They both skated the pyramid and hubba for awhile.  I saw Joe get a 5-0 and front smith down it.  Zak had the best ollie over the pyramid ever that he should have never committed to, but since he’s one of those naturally gifted dudes he rode out fine.  Dude rips.  My trick of the day would probably the the backside flip on the flat bank to slide down sideways and go to fakie at the very end.  Pretty funny.  I spent a long time skating this cool wedge spine kicker thing.  I tried a bunch of no comply to tail then transfer over, but never got one.  I got a kickflip blunt transfer and a blunt shove transfer, but couldn’t combine the too.  Then I tried a run for awhile where I would ollie the wedge, come back do a front 5-0 stall and try to 270 shove transfer, never got that either.Then I got bummed for awhile and sat next to Dan for awhile before heading out to do some flip tricks in a corner avoiding kids.  After awhile I skated the tiny mini ramp that’s pretty fun.  Joe and Zak joined for awhile and we all skated pretty well.  I got a couple of my harder tricks: fakie pivot fakie, front d, front 50 stall front d back smith.  We closed things out with a game of SKATE where Zak killed us.  He ended it with a double flip.  Argh!  Better then not skating, but seriously, that place could be a lot better with a few mellow obstacles and some better music.

Mr Joe HamiltonIn Omaha for Christmas Joe and his friend Zak picked me up.  We drove around for awhile trying to find a dry parking lot which we eventually did.  We started off hitting up a kind of longer speed bump for awhile and it was fun.  Joe got things started with a run which I’m totally forgetting right now.  Something like halfcab flip, front 180 over the bump,  fakie bigspin.  We all did them.  We were all having a ball trying tricks in a run.  I think at one point I got halfcab flip, 180 of the bump, fakie flip, fakie varial flip.  Fun!  Zak was killing the fakie/nollie shove combos.  We both eventually got kickflips from the bump to flat, which was much harder than it should have been.  I blame it on the cold.New Fremont recruit – ZakWe pulled Joe’s flatbar contraption out after awhile .  Joe and Zak killed that thing.  Both did front 50s, front boards, front smiths and front 5-os like it as nothing.  I managed a crook quickly, but other then that totally sucked on it.  Then we started lining out to it.  I tried a run of kickflip off the bump, heelflip on flat and crooks the ledge.  Don’t think I got that one.  Joe and Zak got a couple sick ones.  Zak did something like 180 the bump, halfcab heel, nosegrind.  Joe got front shove, 180, halfcab flip, front smith.  Zak also got a line to front smith and Joe did a long line to front lip that involved a swith front shove and a fakie big on the way.  Sick!  I eventually kind of got a line with 180, no comply 180, halfcab flip, croseslide (crook noseslide combo).Before freezing, I mean leaving, we played a game of SKATE.  I ended up getting a lot of my tricks and won it.  I think I got halfcab flips both way, fakie bigflip, varial flip, fakie flip, treflip and won it with a heelflip.We left after Joe attempted to boardslide a rail into the snow and did a funny dive into the snow.  Ha.  Another super fun session involving the Fremont crew where the attitude was always positive and everyone skated hard.  Awesome.

Jason and I felt like getting an early start.  I felt pretty crappy as usual lately.  I think I’m getting a sinus infection.  I skated in front of my house for awhile waiting for Jason and then Brian.  Ended up doing a faster than normal kickflip followed by a frontside flip.  Then we went to the ballpark ledges, aka Jason’s spot.  Because he kills it.  Without warming up he was doing 10 feet long front noseslides.  That’s his trick.  Fuzz, Brian, Neil, Jake and Nate eventually showed up.  Rad.  I was able to front 50 it pretty easily , but never able to get the front 50 shove.  Got a couple front 5-0’s but they were supposed to be front 50s so I wasn’t pleased.  After awhile I tried a run of noseslide coming up, then ollie onto the ledge and kickflip off.  Ollieing up the ledge was hard and took me way to many tries.  Then I finally got up it and around the stupid corner and had no where near enough speed to kickflip off.  Oh well.Next we went to the Lville skatepark where a ledge had been brought to the hockey rink.  Everyone I’ve ever skated with was there it seemed.  Louis, Darren, Travis, Jam, Max, Brian, etc.  The concrete is so perfect there it seemed hard to skate after the rough ballpark ledges and cracks.  I didn’t land anything for a long time actually and almost died on a back 50.  My back foot hung up on the way up the ledge and my front foot stayed on the board which went and grinded the ledge.  So I did the splits over the ledge.  UGH!  I sat for awhile and cooled off while everyone else seemed to kill it.  Fuzz learned a new trick – fakie 5-0 halfcab out.  Jason almost did back tails.  Nate did a ton of back lips.  Eventually I got a front smith then a front 50.  After awhile I played a game of SKATE with young Max.  He beat me, but we had a good game.  He was mostly trying 540 flips and I posed a couple.  Impossible.  Before leaving Louis, Brian S and I got in a nollie treflip rut.  Louis and I landed them then moved on to trying nollie front bigflips.  We were both really close and eventually I pulled one off.  Rad!  I think I kind of landed one in LA a long time ago with Nullers and JP around, but this one was legit.  I would have liked to skate longer, but I had to get on some Christmas family stuff.  Fun day.

Monico is in town, Rad!  We planned on filming an entire video part in one hour on campus, but it didn’t work out.  Monico brought his little brother Matthew and we picked up Jack.  Off to campus where we skated under the engineering building for awhile.  Warming up was Monico letting us down on the flatbar, Matt beating me and Monico at SKATE and Jack setting up a new board.  Eventually I tried a few runs and failed.  I was sucking and felt really flat.  I tried to up the motivation, but I guess I was too tired.  The one thing I did that made me happy was pop shove into the first bank, kickflip into the second.  It’s not like you get going that fast down the first one, but I’ve never gotten the kickflip into the second before.  Guess all that high speed Busenitz action is paying off.  Joking.  Monico didn’t even have to put in any effort to front 3 into the first one, then 3flip into the second.  Matt was trying tricks down the three stair like he was a kid skating a 3 stair.  Ha.  So sick though.  It must be nice to have all that energy.  After Jack setup his board we proceeded to beat Matt in SKATE then do some thread the needle mannies against the wall.  Pretty rad.We eventually left the Engineering building and ended up at the two downhill manny pads.  I actually manualled the first one 2nd try.  Fun.  Jack probably mannied the whole thing before doing a super rad ollie into tranny on this little triangle thing at the top of the stairs.  It wasn’t really possible, but he did it.  After a rock walk competition down the 5 stair that I won Matt proceeded to act his age and back 180 off the tall ledge.  Last up we hit the the red ledge area and all did wallie back 50s before little Jack did something Monico and I are still confused by.  Wallie wallride ollie out over the crack.  Once again, not really possible, but Jack did it.  It’s the little things like that that stoke me out .  Fun night.  Pretty chill and I skated like crap and it was cold, but whatevs, fun crew good times.Of course a quick Rampy session was in order before the Candelaria’s left town.Kid’s will be kids.  Matt rock fakie pose out.Another pose.  At least Matt’s was a make.  Poser of the month.

Yeah my neck is better!  Yeah it’s warm out!  Unfortunately there is still a lot of snow out.  That didn’t stop us from rolling around downtown and having a blast though.  We all met up near Lazer’s Mom’s house then rolled to St Julien.  We went past a perfectly good ledge, but the sidewalk was fun.  I had new wheels and they felt so much faster than my old flat spotted wheels.  St Julien had lots of snow so we moved on.  The sidewalk east of there is so fun now.  We cruised down it hauling ass.  Lazer noseslid one of the new wood benches.  I boardslid one.  I also found out all my hardware was loose.  Seriously every one of them.  Guess I haven’t been street skating lately.  Ha.Next we ended up in the alley between Broadway and Wells Fargo.  Normally we would just pass it by, but there is snow in a lot of spots so everything seemed fun.  Lazer killed it there too by hauling ass and ollieing onto a ledge, ollieing a gap in the ledge then popping off.  I had a crappy run where I ollied a tiny ledge, 180’d onto another and switch f/s 180’d off.  Next up was the Wells Fargo QP area and we found that during construction one of the benches had been unbolted.  Awesome!!!  It was hilarious actually.  Lazer walked up to it to give it a nudge and see if it would move at all and it slid away.  Everyone wallied out over the flat bar.  Lazer got grabs out, landed in 50 on the bar, huge back 180 and some other cool stuff.  Carleigh got a front 180 over the bar.  Nate and Jason got back 180s.  I wallied to a short 5-0, backside early grabbed over the bar, tried to back tail transfer but failed and tried ollie grabs but failed.  It was fun though.  The cops rolled up and I thought we were getting a ticket.  But then it became apparent that the cop wasn’t moving fast.  He had pulled up right next to us and opened his door.  I was right there ready to kiss up, but he just sat there.  Jake and Lazer were walking off so the rest of us joined.  Then we skated off and everyone went in different directions for awhile.  We were all close at one point and then Jason and Nate disappeared.Lazer, Carleigh, Jake and I walked for awhile and ended at this church with a big crack before the stairs a rail down the middle, and two tiny hubbas going down the sides.  We all slappy noseslid/tailslid them.  Lazer manned up and back 50’d one the real way and cave man’d the rail.Next up was the white ledge.  You couldn’t do the bump before it, but the ledge was decent.  I got some sloppy back 50s, bad back nose, bad crooks, boardslide and got a kickflip off the curb at the end for a nice topper on a couple tricks.  We were hoping Jason and Nate would meet up with us at some point, but we never found them again.  We were near the cars, but no site of them.  We skated a painted curb for awhile which was pretty fun.  Finally we saw Nate and Jason, but they were in Nate’s car and just drove by.  Ha.  We gave in and called Jason and called it a night.  Turned out they had totally stopped skating and were hanging out in bars.

Finally warm out, but still tons of snow everywhere.  Jason, Nate ad I attempted to skate at the covered manny pad.  It was pretty nice out, but my neck was killing me.  For a bit I thought it would loosen up and I’d be able to skate.  Nope.  I got a nose manual and a manual rock ‘n roll out.  Then I just resorted to taking photos with my new camera.Nate back lip.  He got a lot of these.  Stoked that my new camera takes the photo the instant you push the button.Jason is learning back tails at 38.  Totally awesome.  Obviously should have used the flash on this one.Here’s the delay with the flash on.  Oops.  Ended up being a photo of a steezy Jason rollout.  This is not his standard 10 stair landing, but still awesome.Before leaving we realized Jason’s tire was really low.Nate used this as his opportunity to showoff his tire pump that hooks up to your car lighter.Pretty cool for emergencies.  But when we could just drive two blocks and fill it up in 5 seconds ..

Ollie and I rolled on Rampy a bit early in the day.  He almost got a rock ‘n roll then lost interest as it appeared to be kind of hard.  I had some decent runs considering how early in the day it was.After hanging out and feeling like crap over at Lazer’s I went home and instead of going to sleep decided to mess around on Rampy “for a few minutes”.  I ended up being out there for over an hour and walked away with a new trick.  Front axle stall to front D to back smith stall.  My first curb dancing on a ramp.  I tried a ton of regular front D’s to back smith (or maybe it’s sugarcane?), but couldn’t quite get it to work.  I did maybe my best run on Rampy yet at some point.  Back 50, back 5-0, rock fakie (gotta have a few of these), fakie pivot fakie, tail stall, front d revert, tail stall, back nosegrind, rock fakie, fakie back smith fakie, bail a front 50 to front d back smith thing.  After awhile I got pretty tired and stopped skating with a really good feeling.  Happy to skate and wanting to skate really hard the next day.  Unfortunately I woke up in the middle of the night with intense neck pain which would take me out .  Ugh.  Sucks getting old.

Jake, Travis and I got things started for awhile just the three of us.  It started of pretty awesome too.  Jake was killing as usual.  Travis was new to Rampy, but his warmup period wasn’t long.  He was doing cool wall bonk grab things quickly.  I warmed up quicker than usual and had some decent runs for me.  Although I couldn’t do the Travis trick (front 50 yank in).After awhile Lazer and Brian showed up too.  It took less than 30 seconds for Brian to stink the place up and start off a wave of farts.  Wonderful.  Brian brought his new trick to Rampy.  F/s halfcab rock to front rock.  So sick.  He also did a million blunts, bonks, tricks, slams and oh yeah, he farted a lot.  Lazer killed it as usual.  Prolly did all the same tricks as last time and then some.  Dude blows me away everytime.  Jake learned front hurricanes kind of and did another nosepick stale grab out.  I went through a long dry period where I didn’t try to really land anything which sucked.  Towards the end I got a couple fakie pivot’s to fakie and a new trick – front disaster 180 out.  Cool.  Fun session.  Good crew.  Screw the cold.

On a super cold night (about -9f) I met Nate with my box in the Steelyards parking garage. I thought that garage used to be warmer, but it was freezing. I guess there was water puddles instead of ice, but it couldn’t have been much more than 35f in there. Warming up was really rough and it didn’t help wearing a big coat and gloves. Eventually Nate and I both shed our jackets and ended up having a blast.Nate was did some crazy ledge tricks.  Back 180 nosegrind, back smith, nosegrinds like their nothing, 5-0s of course, switch front board and about a million front smiths.  I’m sure he did more, but it’s been a couple days and I forget.I ended up prolly getting more tricks on Ledgey then ever.  50s, 5-0s, noseslides, nollie front tail (“nollie” is a bit of a stretch here – more like slappy, but whatevs yo), crappy front tail, halfcab noseslide, back crooks, back crooks fakie and fakie front nosegrind.  The funnest was doing some of these in runs though.  Got a first try run of front 180 a puddle, halfcab noseslide Ledgey, varial flip.  Another run was kickflip the puddle, crooks, bad backside flip.  Almost got another one with pop shove the puddle, back 5-o, but missed a treflip.  Tried to do fakie ollie a puddle, fakie nosegrind, fakie treflip.  Not sure I ever got the fakie NG in a run, but I know I didn’t get the fakie tre.We were both pretty tired, but before leaving we put the ledge down the curb.  Nate back 50’d it like it was nothing.  I got back board and back nose, but chickened out on the back crooks.  It was fun having to get to it because you had to ollie a puddle, ollie up the curb and get ready quick.  Nate got all Leo on it too and front 50, 5-0 and smithed up it.  Sick.  I bailed the front 50 up.  I was bummed at the time, but in retrospect I really shouldn’t be too bummed at not being able to grind up a ledge that tired.  We switched sides and both boardslid up it.  I even did one to manual.  Then I slammed hard trying it again.  Nate back 50’d up it like he was riding off a curb.  Sick.  At the very end we put the ledge out past the curb and ollied onto it.  Took me a few tries to get front 50 and that was the night. Fun.  Tiring.  Cold.