One of my all time favorite things to do on a skateboard is just cruise around a city with a small crew and hit whatever we find (except for stairs and gaps of course).  Luckily Nate is pretty into it too.  We met up with Chris and his crew and started off at a little manual pad parking garage spot.  Rad, it was like driving to Denver and skating red curbs.  I almost got a no comply 270 tailslide out of the gates and almost got a manual to cali grind.  But we got kicked out pretty quickly by security which would turn out to be a pretty frequent occurance all night.  After dorking around on some stuff we ended up at a tall marble ledge.  Nate almost back 50’d it and I almost front boarded it.  3rd boot of the night.  Yes,  a 2nd boot had occurred between the first and 3rd.  After awhile we ended up at some weird planters that were basically 45 degree wallrides about a foot off the ground and only about 2 feet tall.  So you didn’t have much room to work with.  One dude was ripping it.  I think his name was Darin or Dylan or something.  Shit, sorry.  Nate and Chris put down a lot of tricks while I spent forever trying to get a backside wallride.  Ugh.  After finally getting it it took me only two tries to get a front 180 fakie wallride f/s cab out.  We pushed around for awhile and didn’t really skate anything for long before hitting the world trade center area which we skated for awhile.  I didn’t do anything noteworthy.  The other dudes left and Nate and I played a game of SKATE that kind of just fizzled out and we left.Oh but as we were leaving I noticed a hill and we hadn’t skated a hill yet.  It was two blocks of granite downhill.  Not even considered a warm up hill in SF, but it was granite so it was faster than it looked.  First time I just pointed the whole way which was scary and we had to time it so we went through the light when it was green.  It was so fun we hiked it twice more.  Each time getting better and I mixed in some ollies and powerslides.  Best part of the night!  Street skating!!  We didn’t get back to Boulder until midnight so if you can sense some exhaustion in this journal entry, thats where it’s coming from.

Brought India to ballet class at the North Boulder Rec center in the early evening and just skated around there for awhile.  I cruised around for a bit just looking for something fun then settled with a mellow downhill parking lot and bailed tricks for awhile.  I suck at doing tricks downhill and I only got a couple runs down the hill.  One came quick, back pop shove, kickflip, back 180, halfcab flip.  I wasn’t going fast but I never had to push.  One was fakie flip, halfcab flip, kickflip and then bailed a varial flip.  I couldn’t land a frontside halfcab flip to start one line and I just kept trying nollie heelflips going uphill and came remotely close to a few of them.  Gotta keep trying them!  The last run started with a first try sketchy fakie bigflip, kickflip, kickflip, kickflip.  Neat.  Then I skated an alley for a little bit and sucked, but landed a 360 flip to give it some sort of a fun feeling.  Then Jason and I went to the Louisville park really late.  We got there at 9:30 so only had 30 minutes before the lights shut off.  We started off pretty quick and were trying lines were we rolled into the flat bank, ollied the hip then went over the ledge backside.  The Louisville ledge is the only ledge I can crooks good these days.  I got a couple with pop outs, a couple to fakie and almost a crooks shove.  Someone waxed it a lot so it was scary fast.  Other tricks that went down were front 50 back 180 out and front 5-0 front shove out which I haven’t done in awhile.  Used to be a warm up trick for me.  Doh!  Fun quick session though.

After a busy early evening of being Mr Mom doing laundry, dishes, cooking dinner I wasn’t really feeling street skatintg and it was too late for Louisville.  Nate called and suggested Rampy.  It warmed up quick in there and we sweated our asses off in between runs and listening to the Nuggets game on the radio.  Yes, I’m a jock.  Anyways we were both skating OK.  I took too long to relearn front pivots which scare me way more than they should.  I got most of my tricks and at the end actually slid some front lips.  Rad.  Nate learned back blunts.  Sick!

As Brian would say, I’m a jock and jocks like flatground, so I was hyped to to a game of SKATE at the Boulder park with Berrics rules (ie, no no complies).  I was pretty sore from the day before and skated Rampy for a bit with Ollie to get loosened up.  Didn’t even really try any tricks, but it was fun.  Then I went out and did a few tricks in the street before leaving for the Boulder Skatepark.  Got to the park and played a couple chaotic games of SKATE with Little Jack, Nate and Big John.  John killed it!  They were fun games and then came the real game.  Nate and I made the mistake of chilling out while we waited for our games to begin.  It was 4 people and the top 2 advance.  I played the worst game of SKATE ever missing tricks like front shoves 4 times in a row.  Luckily no one else could hardly land a trick and I got to round 2 where I was pink slipped by 4 tricks I’ve never done before and a bailed 360 flip.  Ha.  Oh well.The rest of the day was spent messing around with the curbs, mini quarterpipe and more games of SKATE.  It was a blast.

Mikey and I rolled to CO Springs on a nice, but windy morning in Boulder.  Get to the Springs and it’s windy there too, but cold as well.  I’ve come to realize it’s never nice when I go there.  We played a game of SKATE to get warmed up that went on a long time and put me on my ass a few times.  Ouch.  I still can’t land nollie tres anymore, but got treflip pretty quick.  Skating the park was weird at first.  I was sucking. I even fell rolling into a flat bank at one point.  Ugh.  I almost just wanted to leave there, but we kept going and eventually I had fun.  We skated the weird pyramid thing and Mikey and I started our ‘back to back’ trend for the day.  I learned a bluntslide to fakie transfer and he backed me up with a nollie backside flip over the hip.  Next up I backside flipped on a flat bank and he switch 180’d the stairs (steezey as it gets).  Lastly Mikey nollie shove manualled the downhill manny pad and I manualled it (which was scary to me).  I took a break for awhile then we ended up at the backyard pool bowl and Mikey killed the ollies to fakie up by the light.  I did some lame carves.  Then we played a couple more games of SKATE in the rain/wind and split out as the temperature dropped 20 more degrees.

Nate and I figured we should play some SKATE since we were gonna do the SKATE game on Saturday.  In almost an hours time we only played two games and probably spent 20 minutes trying varial heels.  Both of us got close, neither of us rode away.  The tricks I had a lot more trouble with than I should have were fakie flip, fakie big flip and nollie treflip.  One surprise for me was a fakie treflip second try.  Nate has some bangers like nollie big heel, switch var heel ,etc.  I need to skate flatground more, it’s fun.  Especially now that my feet don’t hurt as bad since I don’t wear tiny vulc shoes anymore.

Really tired and run down, but felt like I should go do some flippers so I don’t get pink slipped in round one of SKATE on Saturday.  If I skate like it did just now I will hopefully be the laughing stock of the entire world.  The only remotely decent thing was landing on 360 flips as I still haven’t really done that trick much since hurting my foot in March.

New shoes.  Can’t deal with having the Herman’s that are too small for me.After one of the funnest days ever going to the Nuggets game with Ollie and my parents I had to go to Longmont to pickup the phone from work.  I went around 8 and picked up Nate on the way.  It was raining/wet/sprinkling all the way to the park which had some puddles, but was mostly dry.  And no one was there!  We started out on the mellow bank as it was the driest and ended up staying there for awhile doing flip tricks.  Nate threw done a lot of tech ones.  I was happy with a few first try tricks like fakie varial flip, halfcab flip and maybe another one.  Tricks that I was hyped on were a fakie treflip and a first time fakie bigspin flip. Now if only I could do these on steep walls.Then we kinda skated some other stuff.  Some ollies over the hips and whatnot.  The main ledge was wet so we didn’t skate that.  At the end we tried to 50 the long C ledge.  Nate got close.  Then we started a game of SKATE that ended early due to the lights shuttig off.  I got a treflip first try.  Sweet!

6th Saturday in a row of crappy weather.  Went to red curbs with Jason, Brian, Neil, Rob and Nate.  Warming up went ok.  Can’t think of anything special that went down.  Then we busted out Rob’s box that he brought.  It’s so funny, it’s basically the height of red curbs with angle iron.  In other words a blast.  Nate killed it with like 20 tricks.  I hadn’t done a nosegrind in a long time, but landed one, then two, .. then Neil and I did double nosegrinds (his was backside).  So fun.  After that my tiny shoes started hurting my feet and I had to sit for awhile.  I ended up trying to play a game of skate with Rob and Nate and man that went bad.  I think I won, but it was brutal.  Can’t wear those shoes again.

After a frustrating night at the homestead and missing out on a Rock Creek old man sessoin I went to campus around 9pm.  I got out of the car, put the mp3 player on the new Thermals and pushed as fast as I could for about 5 minutes and ended up at the bottom of campus in no time.  So bloody fun.  I’m not sure why I’ve been angry lately but Liz had called me out on it earlier.  I think it’s just so frustrating never getting to skate when it’s light out and missing out on so many sessions with friends.  Anyways, all my frustrations were gone quickly after pushing fast enough to get speed wobbles.  The first place I ‘sessioned’ is the newer parking lot southwest of the basketball stadium.  I found a quick up to flat gap that I posed at for quite some time.  It was super fun just ollieing up the curb as fast  as I was.  I never really landed the gap.  It was about a 5 foot flat gap with a curb at the end.  One time I ollied to axle stall on the curb and pulled out of it somehow.  I committed to the whole thing once,  hung up on the curb and somehow just walked out of it.  Rad.  I was also hitting this little manny pad and just doing fast manuals and landing a few flip tricks nice and slow or posing ollies over a bush.  Then I hit this lame long two stair thing for awhile until I ollied up it and down it.  Then I cruised around for awhile again just trying to push fast and ollied a manhole, landed in manny and went like 20 feet to the street.  Nothing special, but it felt really cool because it was just some impromptu trick I didn’t even see coming before it happened.  I ended up at some new loading dock at that is the height of a six stair (you can walk up the six) and I took my sweet time landing a 2″ ollie off it.  I haven’t ollied off anything that tall in awihle and the first few attempts freaked me out.Before leaving I wanted to do some flipper and ended up at this small little area that is lit really well and has super smooth concrete.  I stated doing 2 or 3 of each trick just going down the list until I was happy with how they felt.  Shove its, kickflip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, varial flip and then snapped my board on a second heelflip attempt.  Doh.  Deck was super old though.  Fun night.  Needed to skate.