In Seattle on a family vacation and Josh had just moved to Seattle.  We met up, hugged a bit, then got our skate on.  We went to the Gas Works city park and went to a ledge overlooking Lake Union and downtown Seattle.  It was seriously an amazing view and we didn’t hesitate to annoy the locals that were enjoying the same view.  Luckily there were some people lighting off fireworks which is way louder then skateboarding so we didn’t feel too bad.  Not that we should.  Anyways the ledge was gritty to say the least.  It’s seen better days, but it was still good and when grinded it made a really loud raw grind noise.  We pounded out a few of the basics like boardslides and noseslides and Josh manualled it all easy and eventually nose manny front 180’d it.  Six years into the session I was able to finally manual it.  You can also quick up to another level and Josh mannied that too.   I was locking into some crooked grinds, but having troubles popping out.  I got one eventually and a quick up to slow front 50 on the next level then land on the lower level and front 180 off.  It was slow, but fun.  Josh was killing the front 5-0 180s, back 50s, front tail,  back tail, back tail shove maybe back tail to fakie too?  At the end of the session was working on back tail bigspins and landed on one that could probably make an early 90s video.  I started trying kick back 50s and basically should have landed the first one I committed to.  Instead I chose to let it get much darker by way of missing the trick over and over until finally landing it on the last try of our count down.  Cool.After scoping out all the famous skate spots at Gas Works we headed out and found some little bank to skate near Josh’s house.  It looked so good from the road, but man, them Seattle spots is rough!  Josh went down hard hanging up on a rock that would take out most bikers.  I definitely lowered my expectations of the spot quickly, but we still had fun.  Josh lofted some ollies over the hip and we made a little wood crate wallride in the smooth area to help things out.  I got a little run with a backside wallride then a bad kickflip on the bank.  Josh had a bunch of front wallrides and we each added the wallride to fakie and fakie wallride before calling it a fun sweaty night.

John and I headed to campus for some street skating.  We started dorking out on the tiny new little quarter pipe curb thing.  John was killing the smith grinds both ways and did a line with both and a 3 flip, nollie flip and maybe even a front shove.  Rad.  I wasn’t really warmed up and was struggling.  I managed to wallie the little curb to sidewalk gap and do a few grinds too.  Next we headed to the gray bench where I continued to not land a boardslide and chicken out on crooks.  John got a nice noseslide shove and I got a noseslide fakie.  For some reason the bench was really sticky.  Then we went to the student center area and did little lines where we would ride off the big drop thing.  Basically a six stair drop.  John did front shove, ollie, drop, ollie the 3 stair.  Rad.  I started with kickflip and halfcab flip but never managed enough speed to ollie the 3 stair as well.  Lastly we dorked on some tiny manny pads that I couldn’t skate and then a wallride spot where I continued to ride, but not land frontside wallrides.  After awhile I started trying fakie wallrides and got a decent one.  Rad.  John did a good no comply f/s wallride and then we played a game of SKATE that John won right asthe rain started to come down.  I wasnt bummed though, it was a fun game.  I got letters on a couple really easy ones though. front shove and halfcab flip.  Getting a 3 flip first try helped me forget those though.  Fun night.  Gotta street skate with John more.ps – I’m in Seattle now.

My new shoes.  Emerica Herman 2s.  Those DCs didn’t last long at all.Neil, Jason and I went to go meet Carleigh, Brian and Fuzz for some street skating in Longmont.  We met up with Carleigh at the little under cover manny pad near Playa Azul.  Jason and I both got first try mannies.  I guess it helps to have new shoes, wheels and a deck.  Wow that’s a lot.  The mannies went well.  Neil and I both got the long way nose manual and manual.  I tried to throw in a 180 at the end, but never got it.  I almost got a kickflip manual the short way.  I say the short way, but it really was still like 20 feet which was about 2 feet two long for me.  Doh.Carleigh had to bail so we went on to Longmont, picked up Brian and met Fuzz at the OG Off The Couch spot.  Some Longmont heads were there and built a gnarly wood contraption that Jason and Fuzz rolled over.  That was enough it was sketchy.  I was sucking, but luckily Brian was ripping trying the craziest curb transfer trick.  Back 180 pivot bigspin.  Or something.  I attempted to film it for awhile, but the cops came and Brian got denied.  Doh.Next we went to the Longmont ditch where I was having the worst session ever for the first 30 minutes.  I was being a baby I suppose.  Fuzz, Lazer, Jason and Brian were ripping.  Oh yeah, so Lazer had joined us.  Fuzz was trying a ridiculous line of front 5-0 then back noseblunt on the other side.  Jason was locking into his pattented best back tails ever.  Lazer did a front smith grind which really isn’t possible on that thing.  I was  bailing back 50s.  Ugh.  I finally got a couple and a back 5-0.  Tried a few back 50 reverts, but didn’t get them around and just gave my wheels little flat spots instead.  At the end I got a little back nosegrind in only a few tries to make it not the worst session for me.

Nate and I headed to the Springs as I had the day off work and well, he’s unemployed and needs to skate more.  We stopped for a good and surprisingly cheap meal at Fazollis (SP?) then hit up Proper to sell some boards.  The sun was out and very bright and we didn’t feel like dealing with crowds so we hit the old park where there was only a few other people skating.  Everyone was in a sun daze.  It was super hot and no one was really talking or going all out.  Nate and I mostly skated the little ledge/manny pad.  We were trying little runs where we would do a kickflip on the bank then a trick on the ledge.  I got a few kickflips followed by back 50s.  I wanted to do more, I just never landed more.  I wanted to try back 5-o front shove out.  yeah right.  i wanted to do back 50 no comply out but never got that either.  Nate did a front 180 nose manual first try and then did a nollie front 180 nose man.  Ridiculous.  The other dudes there had the worst setups.  One dudes wheels were so small he looked like he was skating on carpet.  They were fun though.  I can’t remember what else went down.  We skated for awhile and had fun, but the sun was so hot that nothing too memorable went down.Next we hit up good ol’ Harrison High.  They put a fence up around the banks and knobbed them in the waxed spots, but we still had fun.   I skated mostly in lines for the first hour.  Ollied up the two stair, backside ollie the hip back 5-0 to fakie.  Then tried front 180 up the two stair, frontside halfcab flip, backside ollie, back 5-0 to fakie.  Don’t think I quite got that one all together.  Then coming the other way this one took awhile because I was scare of the kickflip.  Frontside ollie on the bank, alley up fakie 50, kickflip the two stair.  Hyped on that one.  Nate was doing proper back 5-0s to fakie as opposed to my late reverts.  Oh well.  Then I just kinda worked on new tricks and got a few.  Alley oop fakie 50 to fakie.  Alley oop fakie nose grind.  Then started trying fakie alley oop back 5-0 to fakie.  Then kept trying it.  Tried it so many times, but couldn’t lock in.  Doh.  Would have been really hyped on that one.  Fun day.

After a quick Null stop at 303 and Jeff’s place Nate and I showed up in the downtown area parked near the art museum.  We started off trying wallrides in some totally crappy parking lot and an even rougher wall.  It was kind of a good warm up even though it took us each forever to land a wallride.  Nate got his first of course and it became a theme that he would land everything before me.  Next up we went to the art history museum (i think) and tried to manual the gray bank around the long mellow handrail.  Nate got it.  I didn’t.  It was really dark though so that’s my excuse.  I did come kinda close a couple times though (at least in my head).  Then we went to the library area and skated the metal sculpture for a bit.  I took a long time to do a lame ollie up to wallride fakie where as Nate did it first try.  Nate did some other front board to fakie nose man to grind thing that he’ll never be able to reproduce ever.  Ha.  Up next was some new building with tons of gray benches that are super smooth on top.  We skated a couple that had gaps in there and trying various ollie and manual combos.  Nate beat me to ollie up gap manual and he also did man gap man.  sick!  He also managed to slam pretty much as hard as I’ve ever seen him slam.  It was like he was trying to swat a fly on the ledge with his chest.  Ouch.  At the end I got an ollie up gap noseman.  But the gap was so small I only had to lift over it and lean forward.  I was still hyped.  We ollied up a tall ledge before moving on to a different area where we ollied up one bench and front 180’d to another one.  Fun times.  We were pretty eat and went to leave but found a sick bump to weird frontside wallride.  Nate got i.  Some bikers fighting had me burnt on the spot, but we stuck around long enough for me to get it too.  It was really fun because the bump was about 3 feet back from the wall and it had this little bank about 2 feet up.  So we stalled on it then came back into the bank.  Really damn fun.  Gotta bring Jeff there and film.  He could destroy it.  or be over it.  Ha.

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.