After a long day of working on my garage ramp (sorry no photos yet because my kids broke my digital camera) Jason forced us to go skating for awhile.  We ended up at Southern Hills.  At first I wasn’t into it and just wanted to finish my ramp, but it ended up being super fun.  It was t-shirt weather in the 60s.  Brian ate shit pretty much immediately.  I got a couple krooked grinds on the ledge and was genuinely having fun until I cracked my board on a 360 flip to middle of the board.  That bummed me out and I was totally wanting to focus the board because the crack was really bad, but I ended up just going slow and trying fakie hardflips over and over.  Believe it or not I even landed one.  Rad!  I’m hyped on that trick and would love to start getting it with some speed and pop.  Right before we left Jason and I were dorking on the 2 stair.  Nosestall the top one to back pivot the lower one.  Jason was trying to go to back tail.  It was a fun little session until I did the splits really bad.  Fun.We finished my ramp a couple hours later.  The initial session was Jason, Brian, Lazer, Neil, me.  Brian and Jason ripped it up.  Lazer straight destroyed it.  Everything.  First try.  I was completely blown away. Later on I skated the ramp by myself for about 30 minutes.  Just donig the basics were so tough for me.  It’s such a quick/tight ramp that my tall ass can’t do anything.  I managed to get some of the basics down though.  Feeble stall, halfcab rock, back 50s, front rock, etc.  I could barely even sleep that night I was so excited about the ramp.

Felt like skating, it was cold and snowing.  So I pulled out the old tape player, an Afghan Whigs tape, a couple beers and skated some flatground in the garage.  I’m sick of trying tricks I can do in my garage because it’s too small and I skate super hella Busenitz fast so I need more room (joke).  I mostly tried switch flips, heelflips and fakie hardflips.  My heelflips have really been sucking lately.  I got a couple and came really close to some fakie hardflips.  Never really tried those before.  Gotta get on it, it’s right there.  Had a blast even if I was spending as much time sipping beer and listenig to grunge.

Went to Commerce City with Nate, Neil and Lazer.  The park was actually kind of crowded, but with a bunch of people that were actually skating.  It was cool.  Chris and Chadman showed up.  I struggled on a bunch of stuff.  Couldn’t get a kickflip to fakie on the quick flat bank, couldn’t do a kickflip 50, couldn’t land a treflip, couldn’t land a back tail on the bank, etc.  Played a game of SKATE with Chad and got him to SKAT though.  Toward the end of the session I put down a great feeling 360 flip on flat and it really cheered me up.  That park is awesome.

Got to the park about 9.  It was a bit windy, but no so bad.  No one was there and it took awhile for the lights to come on, but it was worth it.  We had a good time.  Jason did a good front smith grind on the ledge then went to follow it up with a feeble on the flatbar and killed his back after a primo landing.  Ugh!  Neil of course shredded everything.  My highlights were maybe getting a front smith grind.  It may have been a 5-0 though.  My lowlights were not landing front 5-0 shove, 360 flip fakie, back nosegrind on the little ledge, and the list goes on ……..

On a cloudy day in the mid 30s with some flurries going on Ollie decided he wanted to go skateboarding.  Go figure.  We ended up at a very not crowded Boulder skatepark and actually had a blast.  We mostly skated the bowls and Ollie probably went the highest up a wall he’s ever gone.  It was pretty cool.  Then we skated the little bump area above the spine where it’s a really long, mellow table top.  He ollied into it pretty good once.  Rad.  I didn’t really skate too hard, but had fun doing grinds out of the bowl roll in area.  Ollie is so fun to skate with.Later on a few people ended up at Circuit City since it was kinda cold out.  I had a new board and was unable to land any flip tricks and it was making me mad.  I played a game of SKATE with Jake and lost after missing so many tricks.  Ugh.  Right after that I played a game of ledge SKATE with Nate and Jason and that was actually fun.  I landed back 50, back 5-0, front 5-0 first try.  Then the cops came and we had to leave.  So lame.

On a dreary and snowy day I picked up Neil around 1pm.  It had snowed overnight and wasn’t exactly warm (lower 40s), but we were told Longmont was “half dry” by Allan from SOL and Bernie.  Well we got about half way to Longmont near where I work and there was way more snow.  Pulling into Longmont and theres snow on the streets in spots.  Ugh.  Rather then turn around we check out a couple spots and see a manny pad spot that is mostly dry.  Hyped to get some footage with snow surrounding us we jumped a fence and did it.  Warming up wasn’t too hard for some reason and we both came away with some footage.  Neil’s lines were of course sickness.  Mine, well I got a line.  Not horrible, not good.  Although it did have a trick in it I’ve never done before – manual to cali grind off a curb.  I also pulled off two nose manuals to backside nosegrind.  Didn’t grind long, but it was fun.  Didn’t reach my treflip quota but it was cold and I did manage a couple – one of which was one of the better ones I’ve done in awhile.

Feeling fat and lazy from Thanksgiving we went to Commerce City on a crisp evening.  Greg showed up and it was super rad to see him skate again.  He killed it.  I didn’t.  It took me forever to kickflip up the stepup.  Ugh.  I was able to ollie into one of the steeper banks first try though which took me several tries last time I was there.  I had contemplated focusing my board at several points in the session due to sucking so bad and the fact that it’s already pretty cracked.  But I didn’t.  Good.  Right before we left I finally got in a decent zone and had a good run for me: backside flip on a flatbank, powerslide down a little bank, back 50 ledge, back tail stall on a flat bank, then front 50 on the 3 stair ledge.  I wanted to get a front 5-0 shove at the end of the line but I bailed.  I ended up landing that eventually then left after ollieing off of the new drop from the top to the  upper ledge area.  It’s just a drop but I havne’t done anything like that in awhile.  All in all I skated like crap, but I made up for it a bit at the end and was happy to not have focused my deck.  Laters.

I went to Northside skatepark in Ft Collins to meet up with PJ and others.  There was a mad carve over the stairs in the shallow session going on so I joined in and got served.  I had come really close a few times, but hit the first stair and slammed into the coping.  Ouch.  I skated some other stuff and basically sucked bigtime.  After awhile I tried a line with Chad who was doing a much better line.  I got an ollie on a qpipe followed by a boardslide on a ledge.  Tech?  Man I suck.

Jake picked me up and we decided on Campus.  We parked at the bottom of 13th St and bombed it all the way into campus.  So fun.  I haven’t bombed a hill in awhile and it felt great.  It wasn’t a big one by any means, but fast enough to be a bit scary.  We started off at the slappy curbs and I was skating good for myself.  Really good.  It was weird.  I haven’t felt that good in awhile.  Tricks were coming first try and I even attempted a never been tried trick before and got it first try – slappy front 50 push a couple times while grinding then land it.  WTF?  So fun.  Next up we hit a wallride spot and we both got backside wallrides.  I got closer then ever to frontside wallrides, but couldn’t put it down.  Doh.  By now I was getting tired and not feeling as great, still having a blast though.  We went to the rocky banked manual pad spot and after some funness Jake broke his board so we rolled out.  I did get a front tail back 180 thing though.  Then Jason picked me up at Meta and we hit Rainbow ledge for a couple minutes before it got dark.  I didn’t want to skate there at all initially, but after a boardslide popout when down quickly I tried some more stuff.  Didn’t really get anything, but it was fun.  If only I never had to work.

Had the day off work and finally got around to setting up a new board and wheels.  Couldn’t think of anywhere I really wanted to skate so I just took off down the bikepath from my house and ended up at Willville.  The bikepath was so fun.  I pushed fast and was borderline speed wobbles at points.  Rad.  I dorked around on the bank manny pad thing for awhile and even landed a run I probably would use for Off The Couch.  Halfcab flip, boneless polejam bash thing, manny.  Maybe I’ll go back sometime.  I then tried it with a 360 flip and couldn’t land one to save my life.  I’m going to blame it on the new setup.  After awhile Jason showed up and we went to the Iris and 30th ledge.  Neither of us skated all that good, but I had fun and came within one of my 360 flip quota.  Oh I forgot to mention, it was super calm and nice out all day until I went skating and it got super windy.  I hate you wind!