After a pretty nice day it was way colder than I would have thought. Took awhile to get warming up, but I was sweating by the end of the session. I arrived after Nate and he was already nose manual 180’ing the long way. He went on to do some pretty ridiculous manuals the long way: nollie nose man shove, nose man front bigspin out, manual 180 early to fakie nose man. Retarded! He also rattled off a bunch of mannies in a row the short way: switch manual, nollie front 180 fakie nose man, pop shove nose man, who knows what else. On the way to the spot I had thought of trying to get 10 tricks up the curb. I figured there was probably 6 or 7 I could do easily, but didn’t know how I’d get to 10. I ended up getting it though. Ollie, front 180, back 180, sw front 180, halfcab, fakie bigspin, pop shove, kickflip, fakie ollie (bad!), switch ollie (so bad!) and lastly a front shove. It was cool because when I got the front shove up I followed it with a backside flip off first try. Nate got a pretty ridiculous run of nollie f/s flip up and switch front shove off. This was after taking at least 10 tries to get a kickflip off after a kickflip up. Hee hee. Oh yeah pretty early on I got a manual to rock bash thing off. Fun. Toward the end I tried a bunch of manual the long way to back shove out. Came really close. Landed on it a few times, but there was some bad scrapes or something wrong. Pretty fun night.

Totally wanted to take the day off skating for the first time in a long time. I was having back spasms and I was pretty tired. But Josh came over to film a little montage (look for it on the null site soon) so I skated with him while he warmed up. I actually skated pretty well. I didn’t try to line it out too much but I got my 2nd hurricane and a few of my other harder tricks like lipslide and fakie pivot fakie. Josh didn’t take long to get used to Rampy. He did a lot of Rampy NBDs. I’ll save the surprise for the clip, but man, he rips.

After a busy morning of visiting Chad Dad, birthday shopping for my dad, selling boards at Market and being hungover Ollie and I went to Spring Canyon for almost an hour. There was a lot of snow there so you couldn’t skate the manny pads from some angles. The pool was full of ice so that wasn’t an option either. Not that I would want Ollie to anyway. We ended up having a fun time. Ollie had lots of fun ollieing out of the kickers and kinda just cruising around behind me. I was having fun trying a run of ollie over a pile of snow, ollie onto the dragon thing, axle stall on the tight qpipe, then kickflip out of the kicker. Never even committed to the kickflip. I got a couple slow, but fun manny tricks on the potato wedge. Manual to side rock to manual and front board to nose manual. Skating with Ollie is so fun. He got a couple ollies up onto the low parts of the potato chip and a couple ollies up into board stall where it was taller. His ollies aint so good yet, but man he looks pretty natural on a board and he has a lot of fun. Awesome.

I’m writing this one a couple days late and feeling like crap. So basically I’m pretty sure this entry wont do the day any justice. It was way fun.Brian got to my house first. We started skating flat in front of the house since it was taking so long for others to show up. We played a game of SKATE where we started with some of our harder tricks right out of the gate and didn’t come close to landing any of them. It got really tech when we moved on to tricks like kickflip and fakie flip. Although it was enough to bring Brian to SKA off a failed attempt at double or nothing on kickflip. He got me with a 360 one foot kickturn. Pretty awesome. Not sure what else went down, but I think I won.Others showed up and we were off to Longmont. We all met up at the fun bank school. The crew was Neil, Brian, Jason, Jam, Dave, Fuzz, Carleigh, me and Bernie which arrived late. Since I’m totally blowing it on making this entry remotely interesting here’s what I remember.Neil was skating good right out of the car. Front tails, front lip on the ledge. Manuals and nose manuals on the weird round flagpole manny pad.Fuzz started slow but ended up skating so good everyone missed Brian do a “perfect impossible” when Fuzz was in the middle of a line. His line was something like front 180 (Nobody has a better front 180 than Fuzz), halfcab 5-0, backside flip attempt over the bricks on the bank.Brian was looking forward to Dave’s ramp and trying to drop into a rock on top of a ledge and not die.Dave had lots of cool pivots in weird places on the banks. He’s got really good boardslides to fakie on ledges, but was getting pissed trying to front lip the ledge. Mad enough to ask Neil to focus his board.Jason skated the ledge decent for him.Carleigh slammed super hard trying to ollie one of the medians on the bank. She didn’t complain and got up and did it even though here palm was nice and bloody. Rad.Bernie seemed pretty out of it and was skating really slow/bad for him. He couldn’t even land his staple halfcab flips. Seemed like he finally got it together right when we left and he did a front tail 270 out and a kick back tail on the ledge.I was skating kinda mediocre, but a few tricks were making it really fun. Kickflips up the curb and crooks felt really good. I couldn’t do 360 flips at all though. I struggled to manual the flagpole ledge and had all kinds of problems with front 5-0 shoves. I was still having a blast though. That spot rules. I tried a weird line over a gap onto the ledge and got it a few times. At the end of the session I finally got the ollie up the curb then kickflip to fakie. Followed it a couple tries later with backside flip. You can tell when you make a trick look really bad because no one cheers.After this we went to Dave’s ramp and Lazer, Jake and Nate joined us for another fun session. Jake killed it. Fuzz, Brian, Dave and Lazer killed it too, but Jake man, that guy is on the come up. Tons of new tricks in only a couple tries. Brian was almost getting front blunts on the curb side which would have been ridiculous. Jason slammed really hard on a tail stall and went outside to sit in his car with the heat on full blast. I got nothing. Carleigh had troubles with front Ds. Nate skated well and got front tails on the curb side. Neil can’t chop wood. Bernie continued his mellowness. The only times Lazer didn’t land something he seemed to go down hard. Dave has the best style in the world. Fuzz got noseblunts. Fun day and I didn’t even skate that well.

After a fun day off of work with the Mighty LZA at the Denver Art Museum I picked up Jake on a nice afternoon. We went to the Brian-Ball-Bush-Ollie building since it’s an empty building. We were getting warmed up and having a fun time trying lines to/from a kinda long and crack ridden manual. Unfortunately some stupid security guy came by and gave us the boot. Doh.Next we went to an old Boulder classic spot. Stonehenge. The snow hadn’t melted on the bank to curb so that wasn’t an option. It worked out though and we had a blast on the little loading dock. Jake went to work right away on nollies and got some good ones. Then we setup this weird pipe thing and tried to ollie it. Jake took a few tries and got it. It was about a foot taller than the loading dock. Neither of us are good at ollieing tall off of drops so it was scary. I bailed early on and kinda scared myself with a close call to the ankle. After a little bit longer I told Jake I’d get the ollie if he landed a good nollie. I bailed. Double or nothing and I got it. Pretty hyped because I was scared for sure. Jake got some good half cabs after that and I took a long time to get pop shove up the curb then kickflip off. Felt really good though and I did two in a row. I wanted to get a front shove off and it was taking awhile. Jake got a manny after cracking his tail on a halfcab. I finally got the sfront shove and followed it with a manual first try. I also got an ollie up the taller part and a kickflip off the lower part first try. We played 360 flip for awhile on top of the loading dock. Jake broke the record for getting as close as you can without landing it. I got 4 or 5, but should have done more. I really didn’t commit to many of them. Wish I would have committed to more of them. Either way it was an incredibly fun session.

Got off work tired, but was driving home looking at dry asphalt and totally wanting to skate for a bit. Turned into the neighborhood street and it was wet. Doh. I kept thinking it would get dry in the two more blocks to my house. Nope. I ended up not caring. It wasn’t too too wet and my setup is old. I did a few wet griptape kickflips, but ended up starting switch no complys until I landed a couple bad ones. Then I did a regular one backed with a switch one and called it a fun little session.

Tonight’s guests.  Brian, Lazer, Jake, Jeff Hulslander, and a late arriving Carleigh.  Jeff and Jake skated hard and killed.  Everyone else including me didn’t seem overly hyped and the session seemed a bit uninspired.  I blame myself.  I didn’t do much other than finally land a hurricane and slam finally committing to a back disaster.  Jeff had lots of crazy stuff.  Front salad, front feebs, front blunt, lots of almost tricks that he somehow rode out of.  Once Lazer lands a trick it seems like he never bails it again.  Although he slammed dropping in and catching on the edge I guess.  Doh!  Jake took longer than normal to get the stalepick, but when he did it was butters.  Carleigh got a front d quick like.  Toward the end Brian and I had a worst run competition.  I’m pretty sure he won, but we laughed it up for awhile.  Tricks like rock fakies 1 inch over the coping, switch willies, back 50s stalled forever, flatground failed kickflips, etc.

Another chilly, but skateable night in the lower 20s.  Nate, Jason and I rolled out with a little over an hour to skate before Nate’s indoor soccer game.  We started rolling around and ended up at the white ledge parking garage, but skated the sticky ledge in the back and cellar door thing.  Nate to a rock transfer which was pretty scary looking.  Jason did some fast front noseslides.  Then we cruised around a bit on our way to the parking block spot.  Ollies felt pretty good on the way.  I went the long way and went through the alley by the ice rink that’s normally an instant bust then ended up at the bank with a tall(er) flat bar.  I got a noseslide on it in a few tries which hyped me up because I’ve never even worked up the courage to try it before.  We skated the parking block area for a bit.  Nate and I got some bluntslides.  Then we ended back up at the flatbar.  Nate worked hard and got a sick front 50.  I got another noseslide or two and somehow did a tiny crooks.  Rad!  Then Nate and I attempted to get all east coast on a quick up to ollie over a little pipe to front tail.  Nate was trying his in a sick line of cali grind, nollie flip then the front tail.  He almost got it.  He had nollie flips almost every try though. Jason kinda just stood around for some reason.  I was trying cali grind, kickflip, front tail.  I came close too, but couldn’t quite get it.  We skated the ledge for awhile then moved over to the curved two stair.  Nate ollied a huge planter and I kinda manualed the 2 stair.  I also ollied onto a narrow ledge and rode around it which I’ve wanted to do forever.  Normally I go too slow and scrape the edge and bail.  This time I did it first try like it was nothing.  Jason stood around again.  Nate’s ollie was ridiculous because the landing was about 3 feet long before he had to roll off the curb.  With only a few minutes left before Nate had to take off we rolled to the boardslide ledge.  On the way Nate and I rode up some ice piles onto curbs.  So sketchy but really fun.  I got a front board popout on the ledge pretty quick.  Still slow and crappy like how I do them, but it’s a start.  Coming the other way I was trying easily the fastest boardslides I’ve tried there.  I was going fast enough that I was scared when I ollied up the curb for setup.  Rad.  Jason skated this spot and got into some long front boards.  Nate was skating it too, but I guess I missed what he did there.  We had to leave quickly anyway.  Really fun night other than feeling weird about Jason just standing around at spots instead of skating.

Totally jocked out and made a list of 10 tricks to do on Rampy and went out there after reading the kids to sleep.  Mostly tricks I’ve done, but a few tricks I’ve done very rarely.  5 frontside tricks: 50, smith, disaster, tail, 5-0.  The tail took the longest.  The 5-0 was scary.  backside tricks: 5-0, blunt to pivot, boardslide fakie, boardslide, 5-0 fakie.  The blunt pivot was scary since I never do blunts.  The one I landed was horrible.  I got all the tricks in about 20 minutes then tried hurricanes for a bit before going inside to play the Wii.  Nerd.

Had a skate date arranged for early in the morning from the night before with John at some new “scooter park” in Boulder. Sounded cool. After waking up early on a Sunday for a change and getting the grocery shopping done early I took Ollie and his friend Cooper and we met John at this new park. Took us awhile to find it and when we did we didn’t think it could even be considered any type of scooter or skate park. It was cold and windy and I almost didn’t get out of the car. But we started skating it. It’s basically a little cement pond with 1 foot tall banks that are super mellow. There are a couple spots you can slide, but definitely nothing you can grind. It started off pretty weak, but ended up being one of the funnest sessions ever even though at times it was frigid. Ollie and his buddy Cooper were having a good time. John and I were landing new tricks an finding different ways to make the tiny slab of concrete more fun. John was somehow doing blunts to fakie so he had to fakie manual basically 3 feet since he likes long boards. I did a coupe bad back tail stalls and back tail front 180 and back tail shove. Cooper was doing front tail slides. So sick. Hadn’t even really ever see him do a trick before. Ollie was doing weird manual reverts and some little ollies. So I of course had to say “Nice ollie Ollie”. Oh the fun of naming your kid Ollie. It started to get a bit nicer out after awhile. Another kid showed up and he had a Null deck. Rad. I got some long front tail slides and got a shove out of one. Hyped on that. John and I battled frontside flips for awhile trying to get them all the way around on the bank. We got ’em. Did we get them good? Of course man. Ha. Then we tried to ollie into the bank. John did it every try. Me, I suck at ollies. Took me awhile and when I did it was a sketchy no pop ollie. Ugh. After awhile the kids resorted to grass rides and John and I tried to line in out by ollieing over the little gap into the bank, somehow make the turn, then do a trick over the tiniest hip in a park ever. Ended up being a complete blast. I got a run with the ollie in and then a kickflip over the f/s “hip”. John got ollie in, powerslide/lipslide, b/s flip over the hip. So sick! Super fun session.Later on I went to go skate campus with Nate, but Ollie decided he wanted to skate more so we met Nate at some weird banked manny pads over near Red Curbs. Nothing too eventful was going on. Ollie almost landed a back 180 out of one of the little kicker things. I ollied up into the loading dock which was hard. I ollied out a few times too which still scares me for some embarrassing reason. Nate did a front board to fakie transfer then switch front 180 the other side. Then Nate and I played a game of SKATE while Ollie jumped off the loading dock while landing on his board and pulling his shirt over his knees. He loves doing this. He calls it ‘midgit mode’. I have to admit that I’m not digging the Herman 2s so much for flippers. They have a good flick and feel, but they hurt sometimes. Anways, the game of SKATE was OK. I think I won, but it was because Nate was being nice. Although he did get a nollie big heel, but I’ll take a letter on that any day.Next we went to Boulder ditch per Nates suggestion. It started off sucky which it always does at that place. It’s so hard to skate. Nate and I played on the little q-pipe for awhile and got a few tricks. Front tail was my hardest probably. Nate got a front slasher to fakie. After this Ollie was busy carving over a snow pile and doing rock fakies on rocks and I was trying a line of axle stall on the taller q-pipe followed with boardslide on the narrow ledge. I ended up getting it, but it took awhile. Nate got some good front and back boardslides before almost getting back board 270 out. Fun times.