It was super nice and warm in Boulder and Neil and I headed up to Cheyenne for the annual St Flattys Day contest. For some reason or another I’ve missed all of Rich’s contests due to work or something, but I had no excuse this time.  Of course it was windy up there.  Ugh.  Anyways, dudes were ripping.  Bernie and crew showed up as well as some Ft Collins crew.  Neil was skating good.  I’m basically skating in dork mode until my foot heals up and am lot allowing myself to do flip tricks at all.  Such a bummer.  Especially because they had a game of SKATE that I would have loved to enter.  I doubt I would have gone far, but whatever, I definitely wished I could have entered.  At one point I had a little line going basically copying what Neil did, but not as good.  Ollie into the flat bank, ollie the hip, no comply tail on the stepup bank, then a ledge trick.  But I never got a ledge trick.  figures.  Dorking around some more on the green pyramid I did a manual up, nose manual the flat, manual down.  Dorky, but fun.  Neil and I skated the bowl for awhile too.  We had fun just cruising around and it warmed us up.  Damn that wind!  Before turning into a judge Neil and I skated the tiny little quarterpipe that goes up to the kinked ledge.  I had tried a couple nosestalls and some kid decided he had to show me he was better and did it.  Pretty funny.  After that I tried Front 5-0s to fakie and ended up getting a couple where I even grinded.  Stoked.  Now I need to do it on Rampy.  Fun day.  But screw that wind.

Went swimming at the Longmont Rec Center with India and Ollie and it’s right next to a little skatepark in Longmont.  Ollie saw it while in line for the diving board and from that moment on wanted to skate that park.  After some lunch and icecream we drove all the way back to Boulder where we left India to a friends house and drove back to Longmont to that park.  The bummer was the city removed a couple obstacles for some dumb reason.  Ollie was ripping.  Dropped in on the little quarterpipe and also got a rock fakie on it.  It’s funny because I had gotten him a new flannel and he looked so stylee in his gear.  Cracked me up.  Anyways, my foot was not doing well and I was SUCKING.  Between not being able to ollie and not being able to do axle stalls to fakie on the little quarterpipe I got really pissed off.  Not cool when your just out skating for fun with your kid.  After awhile we left because Ollie was bummed they took out his favorite obstacle (the pyramid/funbox thing).  We went to the ledge trick (called the “rollerblade” park by some) and Ollie amazed me by pushing pretty fast into the rollin.  He was HAULING ASS and rode out of it.  The father part of me was scared, but the skater part of me was hyped.  I continued to suck it up.  It took me like 10 tries to ollie over the low flat bar.  Ugh.  I can’t wait for my foot to get better.

My foot is still messed up.  Ollie and I went across the street to the school and cruised around for awhile.  I was really hurting at first and just hit the little yellow curb.  I did a front smith stall front 180 out.  Never done that before.  Does a new stall trick on a curb count?  Is it pathetic that I actually know I’ve never done that before.  I tried a few crook stalls to back 5-0, but ended in back d everytime and bailed.  Then we went to the side of the school and Ollie ollied up a curb.  Sick!  I was trying manuals to wall and push back doing a fakie manual.  If it wasn’t 10 feet long I may have gotten it.  Next we went behind the school and I just tried fast ollies and tried to actually lift up my legs.  Maybe two of them were better then my normal ollies.  They also repainted the USA map on the concrete and it was really good for power slides.  Fun fun.  Felt good to skate, but I’ve imposed a temporary no flip trick rule and that makes skating not as fun for me.

Another sunny day in SF, another day started at 3rd & Army.  But this time we raided the Lowcard warehouse first.  All jazzed up with fresh gear and no hangovers led to some decent skating quickly.  Neil was killing it out of the gates.  No surprise there, he never needs a warmup.  I had my favorite line of the trip and I hardly even left the ground.  Back 50 up the ledge down the 2 stair, super lame backside ollie on the quarterpipe, ollie/wallie up the tall ledge, ollie to painful landing off, jump off the board onto the 2nd stair, ollie the tiniest gap, manual the the next stair and a kickflip on flat.  After how bad I’d been skating on this trip it was seriously fun to land a couple tricks.  After that I backside 50’d down the little ledge on the 2 stair as well.  I think that might be my first time ever back 50’ing down anything.  After that the session pretty much went downhill for me.  Others were ripping, but I hurt my foot on a halfcab flip in a game of SKATE against Jake.  DOH.  After awhile we went back to a jersey barrier spot that I didn’t skate before, but got kicked out right away.  Next up was the Flower Shop again.  My foot was dead so instead of skating the gnarly tranny I just hiked a little hill and bombed it about 20 times.  It was really fun.  Then Gabe, Neil, Fuzz and Gordon did it like it was nothing.  Oh well, at least I got mine in the Pizza Eating contest that followed.  Pictures soon.  After stuffing 23 peices of pizza in my face we hit the Lowcard ramp where guess what, I sucked!  It took me like 20 tries to land an axle stall.  I wish I could blame it on the pizza, but the fact is the pool coping, tight tranny and my numb foot were to blame.  I had one run with a couple tricks in it, but never got to the ones I wanted to try.  Fuzz, Lazer and Gordon killed it.

Another day in sunny SF.  Some people were really hung over after the shop party.  Mainly Brian and Gordon.  The rest of us were getting ansy to skate and skating some random little hill stuff around the corner from the shop.  My foot was HURTING.  Everytime I tried to ollie up the curb I thought I was just going to run into it.  Fuzz, Lazer, Jake and Neil were ripping the corner.  After awhile we decided to skate and left the hangover crew to recover.  We skated to 3rd and Army, but stopped at some ledge on the way just long enough to piss off some bums and land a few basics.  Fuzz and Jason were ripping.   We also met up with our old Boulder buddy Pat Wang and his roommate. (the first spot is the ledges outside the flower shop).  This other friend of theirs was there too named Larry.  He did some amazing stuff, but amazed us all with a 9 foot tall pop shove it off a bench.  It was seriously phenomenal.  After while we peaced out as Gordon, Gabe and Brian had showed up with a Uhaul Van for us to ride in.  Sick!  We peeped some gnarly SF hills, skated Wallenburg for a bit, then hit Ft Miley.  Nick met up with us at Ft Miley and it was one of the funner sessions of the trip for me which is odd because I really didn’t do anything noteworthy.  Fuzz and Nick killed it.  As we left I got a little hill ride down the bikepath to the van.  Not too fast, but it was fun.   

I had stayed at Nick’s house Friday night with Jason and Kathy.  So Friday morning after doing Nick’s dishes (ha) Nick, Jason and I went to 3rd and Army to meet up with everyone.  Of course we got there first right?  We met up with a couple of Nick’s buddies and Randy was ripping.  My foot was still sucking and warming up was impossible.  Austyn Gillette was there ripping, being nice and ripping.  He was filming a line, but never quite got it before it got crowded.  Too bad because I’m sure we had some BGPs up in there.  We skated the quarterpipe tranny for awhile and Jason was landing the best ollies I’ve ever seen him do.  After a burrito at the taco stand we met up with the rest of TF and stayed at 3rd & Army for a long time.  Jake, Fuzz and I played the longest game of SKATE ever.  I won it only because I was able to land 5 tricks somehow.  I think we stayed at 3rd & Army the whole day, but my memory is messing with me and I think I’m forgetting a spot.  That night was the shop party and a good time was had.  Oh yeah, there was this dude Julian at 3rd and Army who might be the best ledge skater I’ve ever seen in person.  He did switch front crooks like it was rolling off a curb.  He would grind them super far and pop out so high he was above the ledge.  He would switch kickflip over the flat bar sooooo good.  Dude was super fun to watch and made me want to skate ledges better.  Oh wait, my foot, and I’m old, and I suck at skateboarding.

Alright, so remember last time I skated I hurt my foot.  I rested it hoping it would be ok in time for SF.  After a night of sleeping on freezing cold concrete floor due to my air mattress being eaten by Gordon’s dog (It was really funny) we all skated to the new SF park.  I had set up some new ACE trucks at Gordon’s shop which is also where we were staying.  Stepping on my board to see how the trucks turned hurt.  UGH!  Trying to do some warm up ollies over manholes hurt even more.  UGH!  It was rad though, we all cruised down some streets and Fuzz and Neil were ripping.  Lots of fun/clean ollies off everything in site.  Oh, so the crew at this point was Fuzz, Neil, Brian, Gabe, Gordon, Jake, Lazer and me.  As we waited in line for breakfast Jake and I did some flippers.  Kickflips started to feel kind of ok.  Oh, I should mention that I got some bulkier shoes just for the trip so my foot would feel protected.  They are some Vox – Jt Aultz.  I think these shoes helped make it possible for me to attempt to skate.  Anyways, kickflips started to not hurt, but at the same time I couldn’t feel a catch or land really.  UGH.  After a short wait we got some super good food (good call Gordon and Sandy!) then headed to the park.  Showing up at the park the SF legend Danger was there as well as new Antihero ripper Peabody.  You know your in SF when those are the locals.  Anyways, I felt pretty intimidated by the ripping and my hurt foot.  I started to enjoy the bowl that Jake was ripping, but Nick showed up without his board and we went to get his board.Everyone else had left the park by the time we got back into the area so we (Nick, Gabe and I) went to 3rd & Army while we figured out where to meet them.  That place rules.  The 10 minutes we skated there was awesome.  Then we went to the Flower Shop which is this crazy kind of indoor gnarly tranny spot.  I couldn’t really skate as Danger and Drehoble were there watching.  It just spooked me since I was sucking too bad.  That didn’t stop Gordon, Neil, Lazer and Fuzz from ripping though.  Brian’s knee was really hurting him at this point, but it didn’t stop him from ripping too and slamming like a sack of potatoes.  In all the time we were there I did one crappy carve around a pocket about 5 feet under everyone else.  I suck.In front of the flower shop is some famous ledges.  Right before leaving Fuzz, Nick and I skated them.  I was struggling, but managed a front 50 on a ledge that Ethan Fowler ended some amazing line on in Art Bars.  It’s pretty fun skating famous spots.  Too bad my foot sucks so bad.  The first day was fun for me even tough I skated like a turd.  

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.