My foot still hurts from Monday, but the weather is looking good and I got some new shoes to make my foot feel more supported (Vox – JT Aultz). Hopefully they haven’t knobbed Clipper yet, because I can’t believe no one has kickflip front crooked it yet. I’m on it. First try no warm ups.

Super warm night.  T-shirt weather.  So awesome!  Jake picked me up around 8pm and we headed downtown.  My first few warm up ollies felt horrible.  Jake just pushed fast down a street and I was trying manauls and kickfips and stuff.  I catch up to him and he’s staring at me like a longboarder stares at you when they pass you.  Ha.  We went up into a parking garage and ollied this weird kicker.  Jake got it quickly, but it took me several tries and I got really frustrated.  Ugh.  We rolled down the garage and that was fun.  I kickflipped at one point going a decent speed and ollied onto a manual pad going too fast and thought I was going to die.  Somehow I survived.  We kinda cruised around a few spots before settling on a lot of parking blocks.  Jake manned up and ollied over two blocks with a gap in the middle.  Pretty sick.  I attempted it, but can’t ollie.  I had a fun boardslide transfer and kickflipped a parking block a couple times.  I used to be able to kickflip parking blocks like they were nothing.  Now it takes more effort/courage.  Ugh. Nate met up with us and added to the stoke.  He ollied the gap too.  Damn 20 year olds.  Ha.  Before leaving the parking blocks I tried a few b/s feebles and hurricanes on a parking block.  I’ve never actually tried feebles before.  It wasn’t remotely close, but it felt cool to try it.  Next up was a game of SKATE on Pearl.  Things were going pretty good until I did a 360 flip first try out of turn and then hurt my foot trying to do another one.  Ugh.  I hit the bone in my foot I think I fractured a bit last year.  Hope it heals up before SF!

After a decently long hike with Liz and Ollie in the morning (India was still at a sleepover) I met at Brian’s and we were off to Ft Fun.  We started at the jersey barrier spot and Brian, Neil, Jason and Lazer killed it.  I got wallrides both ways on the barrier and a b/s flip on a mellow part of the nearby bank.  I used to have that trick on lock.  Ugh.  Next up we skated the O Ledge.  It was funny because for some reason the ledge seemed huge.  None of us got on it right away.  Eventually some boardslides and noseslides were landed and Neil no complied it.  It was not a pretty session.  I ate shit on a front 50, but managed front 50, front 50 front 180, front 50 shove and a front 5-0.  I wanted a front 5-0 shove, but it didn’t happen and that ledge is tall.At this point we split up and Jason and I rolled with Sean to a street spot while the rest of the Factory skated the Northside skatepark.  The spot was so close to being epic, but the main surface was 20 year old rough ass asphalt.  Nothing worthy went down, but it was fun.  

India was had parties to attend all day so Ollie was with me and he seemed hyped on skating with the old dudes.  We went to Southern Hills.  Brian, Neil, Jarad and I played a game of SKATE.  It wasn’t the best game to go down and to prove it I won it.  I didn’t skate for crap and was lacking any sort of drive, but Neil and Jarad were ripping and Ollie was cruising around with a huge smile on his face.  Toward the end Neil, Jarad and Brian took off and it was just Jason, Ollie and me.  Jason and I were working on front noseslide back 270s out.  We both got them, but they weren’t great.  I was also doing a flip trick everytime and managed to get a nollie threeflip and heelflip.  At this point I almost think heelflips are harder.  We left because Ollie was bored and went to the Boulder ditch.  Jason did some rad stuff, Ollie smiled a ton and I went on sucking.  Not the greatest day for me.

After my last temper fit I went and got some fake vulc shoes.  Circa Riots.  I had wore them all day at work and skated Rampy with them and they kinda felt ok.  Josh, Jason and I drove through snow and wind to get there around noon.  It wasn’t warm and warming up wasn’t easy in those moonboots with cupsoles.  I’m as picky as it gets about shoes.  I figured cupsoles would be great on my upcoming trip to SF, but my god, breaking them in is like risking your ankle every second of skating.  I hated it.  Josh was killing everything in sight.  So sick to watch.  After skating around for quite some time and sucking we started skating the weird banked spot that seems straight out of Barcelona.  Josh was doing every 360 flip variation there was.  jason and I were trying some weird grind transfer tricks.  I got a back 5-0 270 transfer thing.  It was pretty dumb, but probably ended up being my favorite trick of the day.  Around now Mikey, Chris and Chad showed up and brought crappy weather with them.  It got way colder and it was snowing off and on.  At one point I was just riding down a flat bank and came off my board and almost died.  It was at that point that I decided it was in my best interest to never skate cupsole shoes again and I went straight to the car and got some Vans I had brought with me incase the cupsoles sucked.  All of a sudden skating started becoming fun again.  Unfortunately this was also about the time the snow really started coming down and sticking.  Ugh.  After a huge bag of Zesty Combos and an hours drive Josh, Jason and I stopped at Parker skatepark and were met with intense cold.  We didn’t even roll around the park twice before leaving.  If nothing else I relearned a valuable lesson, cupsoles suck!

The Harbounator came by for awhile and we skated before I filmed a little ramp footage of him.  He was loving the ramp and ripping it of course with tons of crazy 270 reverts.  I didn’t get much before filming him, but had fun and got a front smith which always feels good.  Later with Ollie I had a really good run, but it’s been like 4 days so I don’t remember what it was.  I know it had a front disaster, fakie 50 fakie, back 50 fakie and a few more tricks.  Fun fun.  I like Rampy.

Met Jason and Nate at St Julien on a super nice evening.  Things started out pretty good for me and I was in a good mood.  After awhile the lack of support from my blown out shoes started to bug me and take away any type of confidence I may have had.  I managed a kick back 50 for the first time in awhile even though it was slow and I barely grinded.  AFter that it was all downhill and various ollie attempts that failed led me to rip off my shoes and throw then in the trash.  As I write this it sounds as if I’m making excuses and certainly I am, but I’m sure half of it was just me due up for a bad day of skating.  Ugh ugh ugh!

Skated Rampy with Ollie for a bit.  I got a couple alley oop grinds and front disasters as far as rare tricks for me and Ollie did his first ever grind in the middle of a run.  So much harder then just off a dropin.  He was ripping.It was at least 50 degrees at 8pm.  Incredible.  I met Nate at Steelyards and warming up was going awesome.  I manualed the long way first try.  Kickflips were feeling good.  I started trying a line with a pop shove at speed followed by a front 180 nose manual.  A couple tries in SNAP I totally broke the tail.  SUCK.  After moping around for a bit I remembered I had an old 8.25 in the trunk and set it up.  It was old and soggy, but better then nothing.  We hit a couple of the little gaps around there.  That spot has so much potential for more awesomeness.  Anyways I kinda of gave up on trying to manual too much on a different board, but had a fun run of a kickflip up the curb, kickflip off.  Nate had to leave quickly so we called it.  Bummed I broke that board.

After filming Fuzz and Rob at red curbs for a bit we went to Honey’s Hole.  I was sore as hell.  Everyone else was already warmed up.  We dug out some dirt and brought in a parking block.  A fun little session was going on the new bank to curb we made when a neighbor raised concerns about our being there and Fuzz had some choice words for the dude.  Bummer.  Honey’s Hole might be dead.  

After another cold Friday with some snow things cleared up and the Factory skated.  While waiting for Fuzz we got some flatground SKATE going in front of my house.  Poor Brian got worked once again right away.  What was it this time?  A shove it I think?  Neil came in mid game then beat me with tricks he knows I can’t do like a backside 360 slide.  Honestly, I can’t do that.  I was pretty on my flip tricks which put me in a good mood.  Our first stop was an angled loading dock with a curb on the edge.  About the only thing I landed on it was a slappy 50 which was actually quite fun.  I did a lot of flatground as well and put down a couple 360 flips that felt really good.  Others were ripping.  Neil and Fuzz especially.  Neil makes the basics look so good.  Fuzz was almost getting some insane tricks.  Unfortunately “almost” was too much and he snapped and focused the crap out of his board.  I had problems just plain ollieing over the curb where the loading dock was a bit taller.  Ugh.  Later on I tried a line with a slappy 50 followed by a noseslide which was super hard because I had to land the 50 and turn back to the ledge immediately.  I never quite got it.Next we went to the steep bank spot where Jason, Rob and Neil destroyed.  It was a sick session to watch and I just kinda posed some tricks and felt dumb.  Nothing new there.  Fun day.