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.

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!