Been sick and snowboarding so it’s been awhile.  Went to SOL after work in hopes of skating with Brian, Nate, John, Bernie and others.  Nate left the lights on so he couldn’t get out of Boulder.  Brian expanded on his excuse book.  Bernie worked late.  John was hurt.  Awesome.  I basically just hung out with John and skated flatground which ended up being pretty awesome in itself.  Got a treflip in a couple tries and rattled off most of my tricks.  I did skate the ramp a little bit, but man it’s hard.  When John was busy with customer’s I would take a run on the ramp then skate flat until I landed something.  My runs on the ramp were bad.  Basically axle stall, rock fakie, front slash, rock fakie, back 50 hang up because the coping is sticky.  I worked on Rick flips for awhile.  Got remotely close on a couple.  Did a couple fakie no comply finger flips (new trick!) and ended the session with 5 treflips in 6 tries.  Cool!

Winter Wednesday Night Rampy Session! Lazer and Carleigh arrived first and we did a few runs before Jake showed up. I offered Carleigh a new board if she could land a kickflip rock fakie on her first run. She didn’t. Lazer started off quick as usual and wanted to introduce Sweepers to Rampy. It took at least a whole 5 minutes before he landed a couple. Must be nice to be able to just rattle off tricks like that. I thought Carleigh and I were going to have a blog battle over all the tricks that Lazer did, but apparently she just opted out with this. Ha. Anyways, here’s my attempt at listing Lazer’s tricks minus the setup tricks which he never does anyway. Fully decked front rock (wheels past the deck), frontside sweeper, blunt to fakie, blunt indie yank in, front pivot indie yank in, front pivot indie yank in to fakie, frontside ollie, front tail, front lip, back lip, back tail, front smith, back smith, front 50 fakie, beanplant fakie, front boneless, front feeble, fakie pop rock, full cab rock, feeble 270, boardslide 270, halfcab rock rewind, and probably 50 more tricks I can’t remember right now. Lazer rips. Carleigh and I are the best at getting into a trick and bailing. At least she normally falls instead of just walking out like me. Anyways, she tried a ton of front disasters and got really close, but no cigar. She made up for it with an out of the blue textbook kickflip rock fakie. Jake was ripping as usual. He hypes the session because he tries a lot of hard stuff and lands it. Tricks you wouldn’t think Jake could put down so quick. He pretty much did all the tricks I’ve seen him do on Rampy and added 5-0’s to fakie. I started off skating horribly, but had a good session. I got a front crail slash thing. Not sure I went to tail, but it’s a start. Toward the end of the session Jake and I raced to new tricks. He was doing nosepick stalefish yank in and i was trying front 50 yank in. Wow, my trick sounds so lame compared to Jake’s. We both got our tricks though and celebrated by having a couple drink while watching Turd Merchants Of Death at Lazer’s. Awesome.

I had way too much energy after a frustrating night of fatherhood.  Would have liked to have skated outside, but it was cold and snowing.  Went out to Rampy and started off having the worst time, super angry and bummed.  Not sure why, but it sucked.  I had put Pissed Jeans on the boombox and I don’t think it helped.  After awhile I gave up skating Rampy and just kinda tried switch flips hardly moving for awhile.  I landed on one that would have counted on defense in an over 50 game of SKATE, but since I have such a high standard for myself (total joke duh) I didn’t count it.  I got back into the mix of the ramp and after putting on Farm things got better.  I’ve never really intentionally tried to do from smith stalls before, but apparently they are easy as I did almost everyone of them.  I tried a few runs where I don’t setup as much as normal.  Axle stall, front disaster, rock fakie, Joe Hamilton.  The Joe Hamilton on ledges is front 50 to front board.  But on ramps it’s fakie front axle stall to rock to fakie.  I have never committed to rotating that way before.  I got close, but never rode away.  Another silly trick/run I did was back 50 to fakie followed by fakie rock revert.  Or maybe it’s a switch rock ‘n roll.  But I’m pretty sure I do it bad enough that it doesn’t look switch at all.  To end the session I did a few 360 flips on flat not moving.   None of them were landed well and I don’t think I’ve ever landed a stationary one before.  Which is kinda funny considering how slow I can skate.

I kinda wonder why I live in Boulder sometimes when I drive to Longmont both days of the weekend.  Ollie wanted to skate and he seems to only really like parks.  We can’t go to the Boulder park because it’s too fast of a park and I don’t want to worry about him getting nailed by some biker.  So we went ot the “Rollerblade” park.  I was rocking some new shoes.  Seeing as how the last pair was the best pair of shoes I’ve maybe ever had I got another pair.  DC Crew S in pretty burgundy.  They have that good cupsole support with decent board feel.Anyways I was really tired, not too into skating hard, but Ollie was ripping.  He did a rock ‘n roll on one of the dumb concrete qpipes 4th try.  He’s never turned out of a rock before.  Rad.  I started showing him tricks on the flat bank and he got all of these first try.  Body varial, ollie to fakie, fakie ollie, backside kickturn, frontside kickturn, backside ollie.  Took him a few tries to get a f/s ollie but he did it.  Besides, if you’ve seen me skate the term ‘ollie’ is a stretch anyways.  Ha.  At the end I did a run where I ollied up the tall ledge, ollied off, did a kickflip to fakie on the flatbank then ollied a flatbar.  Not so bad considering how many days I’ve skated and how sore my legs were.Next we went to the little concrete hip park.  I was so sore at this point and basically just did tailslides over the hip and had a blast doing it.  I even got a couple b/s tailslides.  I manualled the deck near the hip once and Ollie did the same.  He did it like it was nothing.  Then he started trying to manual longer from bank to bank.  So sick.  What blew me away though is once he manualed the deck then kept it in manual down the bank to the flat.  He had the biggest smile and didn’t stop skating until I made him as it was totally dark out.  Such a fun time.  Again, skating with your kid is crazy.

Neil, Jake and I met Brian and Lazer at Brian’s in Longmont.  We went to one of the schools with the banks and stuff to ollie onto and over.  Warming up took a bit as usual until I found maybe the funnest line of my life.  Dropin on a bank, manual a sidewalk into a downhill dirtride, across a bridge, pop a little ollie off a kicker, kickflip into a downhill bikepath.  So fun!  Fun enough that even Lazer did it a couple times.  Jake was feeling it too.  After a bit we started dorking around on this weird obstacle that was pretty fun.  Neil and I were feeling it.  Neil was ripping it.  He got an ollie up onto the box, front popshove turn around then manual off.  I almost got ollie up, backside kickflip, manual.  It’s a cool, weird place to skate.  Unless your Lazer, then it’s just plain a stupid place to skate.  Jake, Neil and I were trying tricks into the long bikepath bank when Lazer came up and said “Can we go somewhere fun now?”  So lame.  I had gotten a fakie flip in 2nd or 3rd try that hyped me up.  Unfortuantely 360 flips were not being that nice.  I think it had a bit to do with my toes coming out of my shoes.  Anways after that everyone but me proceeded to ollie over a gate to the hockey rink before leaving.  Jake and I got a couple last minute tricks into the bikepath.  Jake got kickflip and I did a rollover scraping b/s flip.  Oh well.Next we went to Dave Fuller’s ramp which is pretty much the best ramp of all time.  It’s about 3.5 feet tall, 12 feet wide.  One side is parking blocks for coping. Dave is 41 and has one of the best styles on a skateboard ever.  He was ripping.  As was everyone.  Doing any tricks on the parking block side was a blast.  Back 50s were so fun.  Brian and Neil did every trick I’ve seen them do.  Which is like 100 tricks for Brian.  I got a lot of my tricks and even quite a few on the parking block side.  Highlights were a first try front d on the coping side, every single back 50 on the parking blocks, front smiths on the coping (at least i think they were smiths) and back 50 to fakie on the coping.  Toward the end I was trying front d’s on the parking block and wasn’t close.  As I dropped in once Brian says “Do it this run and I’ll learn nollie tres”.  I landed it.  How’s the nollie tre coming Brian?  Funnest ramp ever.

Black Friday so I went shopping starting at 4:00 am until 11am.  Joking.  Got back from my parents around 11 and met up with Neil, Brian, wasted Carleigh and Lazer at my house.  Some dorking around in the street went down before going to Boulder ditch where I started off sucking as usual.  That place is hard to skate.  Brian and I played a game of tranny SKATE on the little kid bank to curb.  As expected Brian pink slipped me pretty easily, but it was still a fun game and it lasted awhile.  Brian did 4 blunt combos to get me to T and a front 5-0 to fakie to end it.  In the middle somewhere I got a disaster on it and a front crail thing which I’m pretty sure was the first time I have ever done that trick.   Probably the funnest time I’ve had at the really hard to skate Boulder ditch.  Lazer did like 50 tricks before getting a headache.  At the end I noseslid to fakie the new ledge there and Carleigh got a drunken boardslide on it.Next we went to a new area behind all the car dealers on Pearl/Foothills and explored a bit.  There was a decent low ledge, but no one else was into it.  There was some narrow ride on ledges with drops.  Kinda dumb, but I had fun attempting to ollie up from shitty asphalt then ride along a ledge, drop down a level and ollie off.  I managed to hang up a lot landing in the crappy asphalt and skinned my knee up even more.  Awesome.Brian, Lazer and I made a quick Ash ramp run at the end of the day.  Those dudes ripped it.  I didn’t at all.  Big mellow ramps are so foreign to me now.

An amazing 60 degree day.  Up at my parents with the family in Loveland and Liz, India, Ollie and I took off to a nearby park to mess around.  We had brought a basketball, soccer ball and skateboards for Ollie and I.  Luckily Ollie is a smart kid and wanted to skate.  We messed around in the pavilion for awhile before moving into the park.  The park is crap, but fun once a year I suppose.  It’s a new prefab park, not the good Loveland park.  There was one late 20ish skater there having fun and the three of us all seemed to have a good time.  Ollie dropped in on the ramp and did a rock fakie first try.  He also slammed later on and hung up all the way to flat.  He didn’t complain at all.  So awesome.  He pushed around that park having a blast.  I had a decent time too.  I kept making myself ollie onto/over as much as possible.  Had a little run with a ollie over the flatbar, front rock on the qpipe then ollie onto a taller ledge.  Did a axle to fakie on the q-pipe, fakie smith fakie, bad crooks on the weird ledge with coping, nose mannied the flatbottom of the ramp, noseslid down the pyrmaid.  I didn’t do anything special, but it was a fun session and the weather was awesome.  When we left a shirtless teenager showed up with a huge weed leaf tattoo on his back.  Ha ha, he’s gonna be regretting that one later in life.

Got out of a frustrating day of work early for the Holiday and felt like skating the plastic benches at Bear Creek before leaving for my parents.  It was colder than I thought out, but warming up didn’t take too incredibly long.  Nate took a long time to meet up and I had already gotten front 50s and crooks and remembered why I didn’t like those benches so much.  They are so weird.  I’m not sure how to describe it other than they are weird.  They aren’t tall, just weird.  I managed one fun of front 50 180 out, halfcab flip, front 180 a crack gap then fakie ollie into a mellow mellow bank.   Shortly after this I slammed insanely hard manualling down the bank when my wheel caught in a crack.  Ouch.   Thus the start of my knee not having much skin.Right after that I got a call for work and had to split.  I decided a quick game of SKATE was in order.  It ended up not only being a long game, but an insanely awesome game that had both of us landing tricks like fakie 360 flip, 360 flip, heelflip, fakie bigflip, f/s halfcab flip, etc.  Nate got some goodies like nollie 360 flip, switch flip, switch heelflip, something and a nollie varial flip to win it.  He had SKAT too though off tricks like fakie heelflip, b/s flip and a couple more I can’t remember.  Good game.  Work sucks.

My first griptape art in awhile. Inspired by Dinosaur Jr of course. Thanks for the shirt Tyler!Skated Rampy solo and was having an ok time. Liz came out with the camera and shot a little clip. I’d like to say it was first try, but it wasn’t. This is basically my normal tricks on Rampy though:The last trick was supposed to be a smith grind. Oh well. After Liz left I started busting the really sick tricks like kick back tail, nosegrind nollie tre out, etc. Ha. I did want to do some front tails and was pleasantly surprised to do them almost every try. At the end I tried backtails non-stop and everytime I bailed (everytime) I tried either a nollie heel or switch flip on flat. Never got close to the nollie heel, but I did land on a switch flip but bailed. Cool. Then I went in to go to sleep and ended up getting called for work and working until 5AM. SUCK!

On a nice Novemenber day Brian, Travis and I started messing around in the street before others showed up.  Nothing great went down.  We were just chilling, but it was fun.After Fuzz, Jake and Neil showed up too we went to Southern Hills.  We ended up staying there a long time.  Fuzz and Neil were trying crooks on the picnic table bench then noseslides on the ledge then something.  Brian was bumming on the spot for awhile before doing one of the best wallrides I’ve ever seen followed up by a sick backside no comply 360.   Jake was doing fakie bigspins into the handicap ramp everytime and following it up with either a tailslide on the ledge, or a slam.  Carleigh and Nate showed up too.  I was kinda all over the place.  Somehow managed to quickly get a caligrind to manual on in two tries, kickflipped into the handicap ramp pretty easily and got a front noseslide to fakie on the ledge.  I also front 50’d it first try and got a few crooks.  I’m scared of those ledges.  I got a treflip on flat first try that felt really good.  Good enough it made me not feel bad taking so long to land it the other night.  Jake and I played a game of SKATE.  I got Jake with fakie bigflip, treflip, halfcab flip, front shove and maybe the best nollie treflip I’ve ever done to win it.  Then Carleigh and I raced for lines and she got hers first.  Kickflip into the handicap bank and a long noseslide on the ledge.  Sick Carleigh!  After that Fuzz and I raced for a tallcan over fakie treflips and I came out the winner of 24oz Coors Original.  yum.  Thanks Fuzz!  Perhaps the first time I’ve ever won a bet against Fuzz and maybe one of the best fakie tres I’ve ever done.  Fun.We left and went the four loading dock/banked manny pad spot.  I started off sucking.  It took at least 15 tries before I manual the curb high pad.  ugh!  fuzz was killing as usual, Neil was killing nose mannies as usual, Nate was getting tech, Carleigh got a manual.  Since I couldn’t manual the stupid curb high pad I decided to try a run.  Ollie up the tall part of the dock and ride down it, 360 flip on flat, then kickflip off the uphill pad.  Believe it or not I did it second try.  Unheard of.  If the camera would have been out I never would have landed that treflip.  Ha.  We all started dorking out at the end and I intentionally cracked my board while Fuzz accidentally cracked his then focused it.  Then the cops rolled up and had plenty of opportunity to bust us, but instead were super cool and we were out for the day.  Fun session.  Landing the treflip in the line second try made me feel really good.