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.

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.