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.

After a late night and a huge lunch Jason, Neil and I headed to Longmont.  We went to Skyline HS which has a sick ledge in the back of it.  It was kinda shady which was good, but the heat was still intense.  Neil was trying a sick line, Jason was trying a tall front nose and I was trying some random stuff, but we never pieced it all together.  We left to look at the Longmont contest and chill for a minute.Next we went to the ‘chocolate chip’ bank spot.  I remember skating this about 20 years ago before I could ollie.  Ha. Jason killed the front boardslide and Brian had the one foot front kickturns.  I was sucking, but had a fun switch b/s kickturn and tried to manual out of a regular kickturn.  Came close, but never got it.  I got a back rock after a lot of tries.  It was easy when I finally committed, but scary up til that point.  It shouldn’t be that hard.  Oh well, blame it on the heat?  Oh, and the fact that I suck at skateboarding.

Took a tiny nap after work and Nate showed up.  My legs were dead so we skated Rampy for a bit and had a sweaty blast and got the legs warmed up good.  We both skated Rampy pretty well and I got a few fakie pivot fakies and a couple front tail stalls which used to be very hard for me on Rampy.  Nate was trying back 5-os to fakie when his board got stuck all crazy on the tranny.  We laughed like crazy for awhile so I went in to get a my phone and saw 3 missed calls from Neil.We rolled over to Neils place as did Jason to skate the little bank to curb spot. I’m not sure why I haven’t skated it before, but it’s an incredible spot.  Good flatground, mellow bank, waxed curb, other random stuff.  Sick!  Nate had to leave soon after that but we had all done some stuff so here’s the quick run down.  Neil front lip the two stair, back board the curb; Nate front 5-0, front lip the two stair, boardslides to fakie on the curb, probably 20 more tricks I can’t remember anymore; Jason back 50s on both, front lip the two stair, prolly a bunch more.  I got a boardslide, slappy noseslides, bad front tails and slappy front lip on the curb.  Jason and Nate had to leave and Neil was feeling my front lips so he filmed me try it in a run.  Ollie up the curb, slappy front lip, 360 flip.  Took quite awhile and I got it twice, both look weird.  I’m not very good at skateboarding.  Felt good to skate that hard though.

First day with the kids and wife gone on vacation and it rains.  Figures.  But before it rained Lazer and Neil headed to my house where I was skating some flatground.  Was trying a run of fakie bigflip, front shove, 360 flip.  Came close, but never got it.  We split out to the Mikes Camera ledge where Lazer slammed immediately over shooting a front 50.  It was pretty funny.  He still ripped it of course.  Sometimes I can skate that ledge well and sometimes it treats me horribly.  This was one of the latter.  I got a boardslide pop out pretty quick and bailed a bunch of front 50s.  Ugh.  Tried a few front 50 to front boards, but never got it.  Was also trying back boardslides shove it out, but never came very close.  I guess I’m not Nate.  Lazer brought us over to ollie the six stair where he did it peice of cake, but Neil and I weren’t feeling it.  We started messing around on the metal grate bank but the rain settled in.  Argh.Later on Jason and I hit red curbs.  I was pretty beat from the earlier session, but figured I should skate a lot while the family is gone.  It wasn’t an easy session for me.  Pretty early on I was trying a front 5-0 and ate shit in such a weird way that I hit my head on the curb.  Not bad enough to leave a bump even, but kinda scary.  Nothing like hitting your head while skating a curb.  I was also pretty bummed on how my crooks are just little jibs and the fact that it took me 50 tries to get a 360 flip.  All in all not a great session, but we skated hard and had a good time.

Headed over across the street for a few minutes with ollie. Still getting used to my new stuff. Messed around on the curb for a bit then hit the rock infested sidewalk. Ollie was ollieing over the little 2 foot long flat gap like it was nothing. I was trying some flip tricks and he started trying fakie shove its. He can do half cabs so he started trying fakie shoves. He ended up getting a couple stationary ones. He claims he’s done it before, but I’ve never seen it. Sick! I got a few flippers including a first try wind up 3 flip as we left. Liz and the kids are leaving for two weeks so I’ll be skating a bunch hopefully ..

Fathers Day and Go Skate Day all in one. After fun filled family activities like basketball, napping and lunch at Wahoos I picked up Jack and we rolled toward Ft Collins with the end goal being their video premiere at Northside. In my last update I mentioned I couldn’t stand the ACE trucks anymore. The bushings had blown out so bad that they squiggled all over the place. And you can’t just setup new trucks. I had a new board, new trucks and new shoes. Basically I was guaranteed to suck.Yeah, so I have mall shoes. But isn’t DC more legit than Vans? I mean their both owned by huge corporations. At least DC was started by skaters though. And DC has PJ Ladd.New trucks = rough.We started off at the Egg and I spot. I was struggling big time, but ended up getting a bit used to it. Jack was killing it. Lots of weird tricks, lots of good tricks, etc. He did stuff like ollie and put the back foot on the 3 stair ledge, kickflip over it, front shove pivot fakie, kickflip, fullcab, b/s flip into the bank. I forget what trick he did but it hyped me up enough to get a kick back tail on the bank. I also got a b/s kickflip on the bank where i didn’t do the back wheel shuffle on the bank.After some filming we ended up at the newest of the new Ft Collins parks where we skated the new sculpture stuff for a long time. So fun. Ollieing up one the whoopty doo thing and doing tricks on the q-pipe is fun. Not easy, but fun. I only got front rock and axle stall on it, but that was fun. Jack did boring tricks like blunt fakie, front pivot and rolled into it. I almost did a complete circle in a manual on the potato wedge thing. It was fun. I can’t really remember any other tricks I did, but it was fun trying anything. Jack got a manual front shove and a bunch of other stuff that looked fun. Fun day. Hope I get used to the new stuff soon.

Ollie and I went to meet up with Brian and Neil for their Saturday morning skate lessons. We were late, but didn’t want to harsh their barge anyways and it ended up being just Ollie and I skating for a long time. So fun. He was ripping. He rolled in on one of the hubbas like it was nothing, was carving the little bowl pretty good and doing some ollies and stuff. I didn’t expect much that early in the morning, but had fun watching Ollie and cruising around. I got a run with an ollie onto the ledge, ollie into the bank, axle stall, ollie the hip. Then tried to do the same run with a b/s flip at the end, but stopped trying when Brian showed up with donuts. Brian is a wonderfully nice dude. Next up we chilled at Rock Creek for a bit since it was too crowded for Ollie to skate.After some lunch we went to Southern Hills which is under construction. Seems like the school will be slightly better to skate for the most part once they get rid of all the rocks and debri. We found a new little fly out spot on the road behind the school. We setup a couple thing to ollie over and I was hating life. Could barely ollie over a little 1 foot tall flower pot. Ugh. We went back to the main area where I struggled to ollie up the 2 stair. Ugh. Ollie started ollieing down it like it was nothing though. Rad! Before leaving I ollied some pipes and made myself do 5 flipppers as the rain started. It took awhile but I ended up getting frontside halfcab flip, b/s halfcab flip, fakie varial flip, varial flip and 360 flip. Gonna setup new shows and trucks because the ACE trucks bushings are totally shot, wobbly and the axles slip. Going back to Thunder. Wish me luck. Skating with Ollie is pure awesomeness.

Worked at home and was completely surprised in the early afternoon that the new Dinosaur Jr album showed up 4 days before release date! So after an insanely loud first listen of that Chief showed up to go skate. He was a showing the effects of a long vacation and not feeling so good. We picked up Jason and headed toward campus. We started out at the Naropa hip, but the grass roll out was too thick to consider skating down. I guess all the rain we’ve been having is having an effect. We skated some weird wood contraption on the stairs, but no one really landed anything and the session was kinda uninspired. Next up we hit the plastic pool cover ledge spot. I got a front 50 front board popout really quick and a front 5-0 shove out, but spent an hour trying back 50s. Ugh. Hate that trick. Nate showed up and killed it pretty quick. Back 50 first try, back 5-0, back nosegrind, probably a bunch more. We headed into campus next and I messed around on this ledge drop to drop thing. Rolling off the upper ledge onto the lower one scared me. I finally got it and added a 2 mile an hour front 180 off the second one for bad measure. Next Nate and I tried ollieing up a 3 stair for while. Nate got it clean, I got it with both hands down. Chief wasn’t really skating at this point, too tired. Lastly we hit the long plastic bench where Nate nailed a long back board 270 out and almost got back board biggee out. Sick. I landed a noseslide. Yippee. I’ll miss skating with you Chief. Thanks for driving toward Boulder so much.

After a chill day of working from home I skated flat in front of the house.  It took quite awihle to get going, but it ended up being a pretty good little session.  I got another casper flip in about 5 tries.  Whoa!  Thanks Dan!  I tried a run for awhile of halfcab flip, 360 flip, heelflip.  Never got it.  Only got to the heelflip twice and bailed them.  Doh.  After awhile I slowed down and worked on f/s nollie bigflips (never got close), switch varial flips (never committed) and b/s halfcab heels which I landed for the first time in months, maybe even years.Ollie rolled out with is board after that and we hit the school.  He was ripping.  Ollied up the curb a bunch of times, manuals and his patented front nose the lower part of the rail.  I messed around on the curb trying differnt stalls and whatever.  I got a b/s hurricane fakie front shove out and tried a few front 5-0 kickflips out.  Never came close to that one.After dinner it was raining so Ollie and I couldn’t play ball so we skated Rampy.  I sucked bad, was too tired.  Got a front lipslide which was about the only decent trick.  Ollie was ripping.  Lots of scratch grinds and fakie ollies.  Radness!