Went across the street with Ollie for about an hour. Ended up on the phone for awhile, but had a good time. Ollie was ripping. It’s so weird skating with your own kid. He used to be so scared going down the handicap ramp and now he pushes down it and ollies off the curb. He’s almost getting ollies up curbs pretty good, normally he kinda wallies up. He is six though, so I’ll let it slide, just like the fact that he pushes mongo. I think mongo is allowed until about 10 right? I’ve been trying to get him to push normal though. Anyways, I am starting to get really sick of the little board. I had that amazing first day on it, but its been downhill ever since. I did a couple tricks that kind of made me happy though; no comply 360 up a curb, sw back 180 up a curb, back 180 nosegrind 180 out (stall) and some other stuff.Then went and watched the City video at Petes and went skating on campus with Nate. I was pretty lazy and obsessed with having a bigger board. We skated this total dork mellow bank to ledge spot. It’s pretty fun, but way harder to skate than it should be due to a badly placed crack. Nate got the trick of the session with a rock to nose manual to the wall, then pushed back and switch manualed off. I came close to some front pivots shove out (bigspin maybe because it’s into a bank?). We tried to play a game of skate, but it just exposed how rarely we were landing tricks. A cop drove by and we headed out to the downhill manny pad. We ended up not making it and just kinda cruising to some spots and hitting them only once because Nate had to go. Pretty weird night for skating. I’m totally gonna set up an 8″ board and then shortly after that start obsessing about a smaller board. Ha, I suck.

Rob, Chad, me. Neil in the background checking his cell phone on his bike at a light.Jason up in this piece too. How did Chad make the same exact face twice?After cracking my deck it was time for a new one.’The crew was Lloyd, Brian, Rob, Jason, Neil, Chadman, Gabe, Fuzz and me. We started off at the steep bank/dirt spot. Decent warm up for most, but I was too tired from the night before. Chad got kinda gnarly though.Next we hit this fun foundation/manny pad spot. I would normally have loved it, but the heat was killing me. That and I slammed super hard and somehow avoided breaking my shoulder on a curb. Ugh. Skating sucks sometimes. Neil and Fuzz killed it.On to another bank spot I was still being pretty lazy. Fuzz killed it again.Lastly we went to the Evans & Lapan spot and I filmed a line for my old man part. Halfcab flip, little shove, front shove off the kicker. Yippe filming blows, but you gotta get Off The Couch.

While waiting for Jason, Neil and Rob to show up at my house I rolled around trying some flip tricks. I finally landed some weird new trick I got from Rob. Fakie bigspin flip no comply. Don’t worry, it’s dumber than it sounds.Then we hit the manny pad area for a bit which is always fun. I didn’t skate it all that well, but it was fun. I cracked my board on a 360 flip. Doh.Next up was the rainbow ledge. After landing one 5-0 I decided to try filming a line which pretty much guaranteed the fun would end. And it did. I got the first two tricks – front 5-0 then ollie up the rock gap, but was never able to put down the boneless 180 over the bigger gap. And by ‘bigger gap’ it’s a gap that no one under 30 would ever consider calling a gap. I gave up after awhile using my cracked board as an excuse to not get the ollie up anymore.

Ollie was bummed when I said I was gonna go skating so we hit up Creekside (school across the street from my house) for about 30 minutes. Ollie was doing his name up curbs, wallieing half the time. Pretty rad to watch and it gets me hyped up. I was just kinda messing around trying random tricks like no comply grabs to front tail, 270 front tails and some other tricks I’ve never tried before and didn’t land.Then went out to Valmont with Nate and Rob and tried to break my record for number of falls in a night. Not sure if I made it, but my neck is super sore regardless. Rob is fun to skate with because he has lots of old man tricks and his style is super on point. Nate is always rad to skate with as well. He’ll always pull out some young kid trick that surprises me. I basically didn’t land anything all night, but somehow had fun. I attempted a few no comply pole jam things off the loading dock, never committed though.All three of us played a game of SKATE up a curb. Well, Nate and Rob played, I got schooled. I knew it would go downhill as soon as I bailed the first trick – back 180. Ugh. Lost the game on a no comply up. That should be a staple for a 35 year old. Nope. I think it has to do with how much drinking Josh and I did while he was here. I just can’t handle that much anymore.

Skated solo for awhile totally sucking. Jason showed up after awhile and it got a little better, but I was still sucking. Being tired and old blows. But we skated the curb for quite awhile and that was fun. I got a front tail shove out and tried some weird back 180 nosegrinds that didn’t work out. Party time.

A night hanging beers with JP always guarantees a rough next day and this day would be no different. We started at Rock Creek and it went alright. I got some fakie pop rock creeks on and Josh regained most of his arsenal like back tails and front disasters all steezey.After two huge burritos at Chipotle we set out for Commerce City. This didn’t go so well. Between the two of us we might be able to add the decent tricks on one hand. Ugh, hangovers suck.

Josh Pluger was visiting from the city of angels. The heat was kicking and the crew was large. First spot was red curbs. Josh is a bit shy like me and I felt a little bad about the crew being so deep at 8. But everyone is old and fun so it was cool. About the only tricks I landed worth a shit are crooks on the 2 stair ledge, front 50 back 180 out, front 180 nose manual and got a nollie front shove up a curb although I wanted it to land in manny.Next we went to Boulder ditch. Jason showed me up on a back smith stall and I sat down as did almost everyone.Rock Creek was the final destination and man it was a blast as usual. On top of not sucking on the ramp as bad as normal I managed to beat Fuzz at SKATE for the first time. I got lucky though.

Headed up to Fort Collins with Brian, Jason, Lazer and Gabe to skate a new “bowled in” mini that Skelly invited us to. Got there a bit late but it ended up being a blast. Brian and Lazer killed it. Christopher was there and he and all the young rippers killed at too. I got a few basic tricks, but had fun doing them. It’s nice having finally learned back 50s.Next we went to a bank to ledge that’s been around forever. Took awhile to get warmed up, but Jason, Skelly and I were the only ones that really skated it. Brian and Lazer tried to sleep in the car. Those dudes are really old. Especially Lazer, he’s like 45 years old already. At the end Sean was trying to no comply the ledge, I was trying to kickflip axle stall and Jason was going for back tail revert. The loser was to buy Gatorade for everyone. Sean got his trick and I got his back. Jason didn’t and he didn’t buy us Gatorade. Huh.Late night skating is the best.

Does it even count? Did a few kickflips and front shovs while waiting for a friend to show up. Still digging the little board.

This is about the 4th instance of me doing a skate journal. Maybe this one will last again. It’s mainly for me to look back and remember the fun times I have skating and for my skate buddies to nerd out on as well.Been pretty frustrated with my board feel lately and have been obsessed with the idea of setting up a small board to try and regain some board control. Luckily I have the luxury of walking into my room and picking from a pile of 200 decks. I have been skating 7.875 for over two years straight which isn’t even a big board by todays standards. But hey, I’m extra uncoordinated ok. Anyways, the shape of the 7.625 looked perfect so I went with that.Good ol’ Nate was down for skating as usual and we met up at the little manny pad that I’ve been flailing around on for years. The new board felt pretty much great immediately. Great, now I don’t have any excuses for sucking! The session ended up being a total blast. I landed a bunch of 360 flips and put down a few heelflips which I haven’t landed in forever. I was hucking all kinds of tricks and even landing some. Nate is good and did tricks like nollie back 180 switch manual to swith front 180 out. Damn kids these days. I got a nollie front shove manny (over 35 make) and a nose manny back shove out and came close to a fakie bigspin manual.All in all a great session and I’m digging the new board. I promise to try and make these posts less boring.