Had about half an hour to skate and it wasn’t so hot that the street was melted. I started super slow as usual but ended up getting a few flippers. I tried the line I’ve wanted to do for awhile. Fakie bigflip, front shove, 3 flip. I had lots of trouble with the bigflip for some reason, but kept trying and actually landed all 3. Stoked. Also tried a little line of fakie flip then switch flip. The switch flips weren’t even close this time around. Doh. Glad I skated a bit.

After a nice lunch and nap at the parents house Liz dropped me off at the Loveland park where I met up with Neil, Lazer and Carley. Before I could even ollie onto the ledge Carley had pop shoved the 3 stair. Neil was pretty frustrated cruising around. Lazer was murdering everything with a rolled ankle. I was sucking. I laned a no comply shove over the hip, but it sucked. Sean Kelly showed up with Adam Yee and Justin. Those dudes were all ripping. That might even be the best I’ve seen Sean skate. Justin had 20 trick combos on tranny. He’s fun to watch and Adam’s style is textbook radness. I got stuck in a rut of failing to land wallrides on the q-pipe to wall. I got very angry and close to focusing my board. Luckily I landed a horrible one and we headed out to a nearby high school.The high school had this weird bank spot. You could ollie over the six stair rail into the bank, ollie into the bank from a concrete platform, manual up it, do tricks on the middle bar of a gate, the possibilities were endless. I took a bunch of tries to get a backside flip off the platform into the bank. I didn’t do it where there is much of a drop. It was super fun though. Neil got a no comply to tail on the middle bar of the gate. Carley slammed trying to do a double ollie run. Sean got a bunch of noseslide tricks on the middle bar, kickflipped into the bank and did a sick tailslide out of the bank onto the platform. Justin did a bunch of cool tricks that can’t be described by words. Adam almost nose manualed down the bank. At the end I tried to ollie into the bank and manual down it from the platform and followed each attempt with a 360 flip. I managed 3 3flips in a row and managed to crack my board too. Ha. Wanted to skate it longer, but we had to get going ..

Jason and I headed to Longmont since I had to sell some boards to SOL. After chilling at SOL for a bit we went to the little concrete park were Jason milked his hangover and I skated in the heat. Since I didn’t skate much all week my legs felt good, but they didn’t seem to remember what to do. I dorked around for the most part (nothing new there). Tried to get my Leo on and front 50 up the little hubba, but didn’t get it. Got a krooks on one of the bank to ledges and almost front 180 nose grind. Boardslid around the C ledge and front 5-0d it. I was trying front 50s though. Typical. I only land good tricks when I’m not trying them. After awhile I settled on trying a run where I ollied up the tall ledge, ollied into the bank and noseslid down the curved hubba. I never landed the noseslide.Next we went behind Skyline HS to the red ledges. I wanted to film a wallie up no comply finger flip off the last time I was there, but couldn’t ever put them together. This time around I started trying no comply shoves instead and eventually got it shortly after Jason started filming. Rad! Then the wind kicked up super hard and I filmed Jason navigate blowing trash for a front noseslide on the tall ledge. Awesome.

Had a busy and fun night with the kids. Was feeling really lazy, but figured I should skate so I went out to Rampy. It was one of my least favorite sessions on Rampy ever. I had troubles with everything. The only new stuff I tried was switch back 50. Came pretty close. Then the heat became too much and I started to feel like crap so I stopped. I felt horrible the entire night.

I hate when I go a few days without skating, but it happens.  Anyways, I was especially mellow after a wonderful dinner date with Liz went better then expected and didn’t have much energy or drive to skate.  We started off at a tall curb/ledge thing where I SUCKED it up for quite some time.  I got one back 50, a couple bad front tails, a really bad fakie nosegrind and tried a few front blunts.  Nate on the other hand landed a million tricks and was having fun.  Nosegrinds both ways, 5-0s both ways, etc.  He was ripping.Next up we ended up under the engineering building where the two sets of three stairs have been turned into two banks leaving some new options.  I tried a run of pop shove into the first one, kickflip the second, but never comitted to the kickflip because the bank got me moving too fast.  Well, that and I had no real desire to put any effort into skating.  I guess that’s what happens if you skate immediately after getting some loving.  Nate found a cool little quick up to two benches, gap to another one.  I managed to ollie on and over the gap, but Nate threw down nose and reg manuals too.  That was fun.  Then it was bed time.

Drove up to Winter Park to meet the Factory with Farm cranked the whole way. Showed up at the scooter/tourist infested skatepark and dorked around for a bit until TF showed up. I wasn’t skating too well at all, but kept at it. It took me forever to do this little ollie into boardslide transfer, but after that things started clicking. I got a manual on the step up manny pad pretty quickly, then went for nose manny which took awhile, but just ollieing up the first ledge at speed every time was fun enough to keep trying. Brian, Neil, Fuzz, Carly and Lazer were playing add a trick in the bowl or something. It started sprinkling lightly and before leaving I got a nollie treflip on flat first try and a b/s kickflip on the big wall not first try. Pretty fun session.Later in the evening after the rain we ended up at Kremmling skatepark where one of my favorite sessions ever went down.  There was some puddles around so we could really only skate the shallow (but still vert) bowl and the street area.  I started off pretty slow, but finally nailed a kickflip axle stall on the bank to curb to get me going.  Brian was ollieing all over the place.  It was awesome to see him cruising around cracking ollies.  He even ollied up the three stair.  He also rock fakied the crazy jersey barrier thing before anyone else had even set their board down.  Lazer, Neil and Fuzz were killing everything.  Lazer did a blunt to fakie on the bank to curb and a front feeble to fakie like it was nothing.  Carly kickflipped up the step up gap.  I ended up getting a wallie up the 3 stair and then we started skating the little bowl again for awhile.  It took me awhile, but I got a rock ‘n roll in it and a silly layback front rock thing which I’ve never done before.Next we played a game of flatground SKATE that ended up going on forever and was a total blast.  Pretty much everyone was doing ‘double or nothings’ on every trick.  It was hilarious.  I got two letters on a double or nothing front shove.  Lame!  I did a heelflip for Brian and managed to do his b/s 360 no comply when it came up.  The whole game was hilarious.  Somehow Fuzz was one of the first ones out as he couldn’t get a 43 shifty.  So whenever it would have been his turn he kept trying it.  Brian pulled out the best 360 flip ever landed on the back wheels at less than 270 and slid for awhile before riding away.  Epic.  Brian won the game on a front foot impossible. Yeap, I repeat, Brian won the game of SKATE.  He said it’s his first win ever.  Rad.At this point we were all beaming having a ball.  Brian, Fuzz and I were working on tricks instead of leaving.  Brian dropped into the jersey barrier then dropped in fakie from and axle stall.  It was the most retarded thing I’ve seen him do I think.  Lazer dropped in switch.  It was ridiculous.  Fuzz was working on front disaster in the taller area of the shallow bowl and got it.  Brian grinded over the stairs.  Lazer boardslid over the stairs.  I managed an axle stall which was pretty scary to me and one of the best feeling tricks I’ve done in awhile.  Coming in off the pool coping the board was airborn for a bit.  Right before leaving Fuzz and I tried a few 3 flips until we landed them since we hadn’t yet.  Then we left.  One of my favorite sessions ever.

Jason and I met up with Mikey and Jack for some skating and Null filming. We started near Silver Mine subs and just kinda rolled around for awhile looking at stuff. We skated for a bit at the old folks home bank. I haven’t been there in years. Jack god some wallrides on the fence. Jason did a crail I think. I got a bad b/s flip. We messed around on flat ground for awhile and I came very close to the elusive switch kickflip.We moved into campus and checked out spot after spot, but nothing really went down until we got all the way up near Meta were Jack filmed a nice little gap back 5-0. After we skated a new spot for awhile just kinda screwing around. Jack had some cool mannys and wallies. It looked like a gnarly storm was coming and rain drops started falling so we started skating down to the car. It started to get worse so we ducked under the enginnering building area and the gnarliest storm I’ve ever seen unleashed itself. High powered winds and the hardest rain/hail I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t even see but 10 feet. It lasted for about 10 minutes and then the sun came out. CO is crazy.Later on Nate and I met up at the bank to curb spot by Neil’s house. I was pretty beat from being out all day already, but ended up skating really hard. It took Nate awhile to show up at the spot and I just started trying a really long line. Kickflip a manhole cover, ollie up the curb to manny, slappy lip the bank to ledge. Got that one. Then started trying pop shove over the manhole over, manny, kickflip the metal grate, slappy lip. Didn’t get that one. Going the other way I tried front 180 up the curb, halfcab flip, boardslide. Think I got that one too. After awhile the heat and exhaustion set in and I was more into just trying tricks on the curb with Nate. The only new trick I got was slappy front lip to fakie. I came close to crooks pop out as well. Also came really close to switch kickflips again. Argh. So hard.

Worked my ass off all day working from home and cleaning the house up trying to get it looking really nice for the kids and wife to return to. Nate said he wanted to skate, but never called. I was so rusty at first, but kinda got it going. I went back to trying the fakie bigflip, front shove, 360 flip line and never got it again. I did come very close though. I missed a lot of front shoves for some reason. Going the other way I was trying back 180, fakie flip, switch flip lines. Yeah, I know I’ve only landed one switch flip in my life but I hucked one and it felt like I should do it. I ended up credit carding my balls pretty bad though and had to chill for awhile. After that I just tried switch flips. I never got one, but I committed several times and put both feet on a couple. One of them was super close to a make. Sick!

So it’s finally summer in CO.  Hot dry days and warm nights.  After work Little Jack and I rolled to Denver and met up with Jeff.  We drove around for awhile trying to find a rail, but ended at a fun alley bump spot.  We didn’t stay long.  I got a couple ollies and was thinking it would be fun to kickflip, but we split to the rail we were trying to find earlier.  I filmed Jack do a back 50 and then we got booted.  Next we ended at a fun wallride spot that Jeff almost landed a front wallride on before we got booted by some dude.  Last we ended up at a crazy wallie spot that Jack wallied and Jeff got his back with a wallride.  Rad.Jack and I hit Commerce City on the way back.  We messed around on the planter for awhile then skated around.  There were lots of dudes trying flyouts so skating the ledges kinda sucked.  I settled into trying a run near the entrance of a no comply to tail, manual, cali grind.  I got it once with a scrape on the manual and the no comply to tail was kinda whack too.  Oh well.  Jack and I went to play flatground SKATE, but there was some dude bumming us out so bad.  He was swearing at the top of his lungs, throwing his board, demanding everyone’s attention and letting us all know he wasn’t having a great day.  Ahhh.  Then the lights shut off.  They were filming too.  At that point the dude said to the filmer, “You better erase every one of my tricks or I’ll break that tape.”  Classic.

After a nap and a huge dinner I picked up Jason and we went up to the hill to meet Nate. We were down by the tunnel ledge waiting for Nate and I just kinda set my board up on the ledge and attempted to roll around the whole ledge and ended up hitting the top ledge and diving to the ground right in front of Nate. Rad. I was laughing before I even hit the ground and somehow it didn’t hurt.We ended up staying there and trying to skate that weird ledge. Jason got some really good front noseslides. Nate did some really good front 50s and nollie front tails. I did a couple mediocre front 50s and rode into a cali grind on the last part. This took us all about an hour. That ledge is hard to skate. Oh yeah, my tail was already cracked really bad and spongy. At the end we were messing around trying tail stall shoves and stuff and I cracked it way more.Next up Jason and I went down into campus to the plastic ledge. It took Jason awhile to get a boardslide and I never got one. Ugh. Jason landed the best crooked grind I’ve ever seen him do and some good noseslides too. I was going slow trying to man up to crooks on that ledge when the cops came and we left with a warning.We haven’t been to Lville park at night in a long time. It was really crowded. I mostly just skated the ledges. Got a few crooks and a quick back 50. Couldn’t get the front 50 back 180 out. Argh. Then I settled in on trying back nosegrinds on the low ledge. I haven’t done that trick in forever, since the Vans park was around. It took awhile, but I got into a few and rode out of a couple that probably had little back truck scrapes. I couldn’t just land it perfect you know, because it’s me and lately I suck on a skateboard. We left when the park closed.