Super exhausted and sore from the day before, but met up with Riley, Bernie, CJ, Sam, Mikey, Chris, Chad and Matt at St Julien.  The weather was perfect for skating and as I pulled up I got to see Riley stomp a perfect line.  Dude rips so hard.  I kind of dorked around super sore for awhile basically just trying frontside wallrides on a wall there.  Imagine that, wallrides on a wall.  Who would have thought.  Anyways I got a little closer than usual and maybe one day I’ll land one.  Matt and Chad were ollieing the pilars.  Chris almost got a crazy line.  Mikey got a crazy line.  Bernie was working his ass off filming.  After awhile Riley put my shirt on and did a banger down the 9 stair.  Then I put my shirt back on and did a kickflip over the litte curb thing and pretended like I was going for the 9 stair.  Theres gonna be some serious Powell magic in my Off The Couch part.  So hyped.  

Today we celebrate the birth of my younger brother Steve.  Unfortunately he lives hundreds of miles away in Wisconsin so I decided to celebrate by going skateboarding all day.  Ok, so maybe going skateboarding all day doesn’t have anything to do with my brothers birthday, especially since he doesn’t skate anymore, but hey, it sounded good.  And yes I am the king of run on sentences.  Around 10:30 Ollie and I showed up at Rock Creek on a gorgeous September day.  September is seriously the greatest month of the year.  I actually skated pretty hard for the time of day.  It always helps to see you son out there smiling, slamming and learning new stuff.  He’s starting to pump a little further up the tranny and getting more consistent at ollies.  So rad.  I don’t remember what exactly I did that warranted me saying I was skating hard, but I was for me somehow.  After the longest game of SKATE ever with Lloyd while waiting for Fuzz we headed off to a gnarly pole jam spot.  Not a good place to warm up, especially if your Lloyd.  He got smoked.  Twice.  Super gnarly slams.  I came remotely close to committing to a pole jam no comply, but it was too tall and I cant move my leg up that far.  Next was Willville.  I had told Neil I want to no comply finger flip into medium bank so we went there.  Fuzz and Neil killed it immediately and Lloyd destroyed his body even more with the worst slam there ever.  He has no skin on his knees now.  As Brian and Gabe were rolling up to meet us I landed the no comply finger flip into the bank.  Rad.  Lloyd didn’t film it though.  Doh.  I ended up doing a few more although I don’t know if any of them were that great.  I landed on the tail pretty bad on all of them.  Fuzz ollied a monster gap and Brian tried an insane hippy jump before we finally left after hours of skating and being subjected to young college women dressed for a hot day.  I got some amazing footage of Fuzz staring with the biggest grin on his face.  So funny.Lastly we went to the Boulder ditch. Brian got a good trick and I finally got an axle stall on the q-pipe.  Yes I suck there, but at least I finally did a basic trick.  The clouds came out and Jason, aka The Street Vampire, came to life and killed it.  Pivot fakie, back tail on the q-pipe to feeble on the pvc and back tail fakie on the q-pipe.  Jason rules.  37 and killing it.  Super fun day that ended with a BBQ at Rob’s house and the funnest beer infested frisbee toss ever.  Hippies.

Had a pot luck at work so I was totally stuffed and sick feeling from brownies, rootbeer floats, cookies, etc.  Ugh.  Wanted to skate though and Ollie wanted to as well so he headed out to Stonehenge.  It was a super nice night.  70 degrees, sunny.  So amazing.  What was even more amazing though is that I actually landed a few tricks right out of the gates.  That has happened in forever.  On the bank to curb I did about 5 basics in a row.  Seriously folks, it’s been forever since I was able to do tricks quickly.  It felt bloody amazing.  I struggled on kickflip axle stalls for awhile though.  That is until I somehow pulled a perfect kick back smith out of nowhere.  I got a manual on the manny pad which should be really easy, but it isn’t for me these days.  Before leaving Ollie did about the sickest trick he’s done yet.  On the bank to curb he put his front axle up onto the edge of the curb and did rock fakieish grind.  I was stoked so he proceeded to show me how easy it was for him and did like 20 in a row.  Rad.  Oh yeah and he almost did a halfcab up the little curb there.  Fun night.

Red curbs on a really rainy night with Lazer.  The rain was so intense that there was a stream of water running down the middle leaving basically only the manny pad skateable.  It was a pretty uninspired session.  Lazer got some switch manuals and I came close to manny shoves.  

First night in a hoodie, although it probably wasn’t necessary.  Met up with Matt at St Julien and started off really slow once again.  We ended up just pushing around not really every skating anything for very long.  We got kicked out of the white ledge.  We skated the little quarterpipe on Pearl St near Wells Fargo for awhile.  I did a blunt to pivot on it.  Hadn’t done that in forever.  Rad.  Matt did a blunt to fakie.  Next we cruised down this brick area ollieing down/up curbs and stairs like 3 times.  It was so fun.  Then this parking garage was open that we have never been in before.  Matt did the sickest bomb and ollied a median.  So insane.  It had this amazing bank to do tricks into but we got kicked out right away.  Next we skated some curb cuts for awhile and played a game of  SKATE that I lost badly and cracked my deck on a heelflip.  Ugh.  Fun night even though I really didn’t even do a trick all night.

Luckily I only did a couple of these.  Click the photo for a whole lot of PJ and Lazer beer bong photos.  Sorry for the lack of captions, but all you really need to know is PJ kept yelling “If it aint documented, it didn’t happen!” 

Ollie had been watching some of the Off The Couch footage and asked if the ramp in the Rock Creek clips was close.  I said yes, he wanted to go.  We got there around 11am and it was sunny and in the 70s.  September in CO rules.  It ended up being a super fun session.  I love how there is absolutely no pressure on me to skate when I’m with him.  At one point I was going 2 miles an hour trying front 180 nosegrinds on the ledge.  Didn’t get close, but no one was there to laugh at me.  I suppose someone reading this can laugh at me for skating so slow.  I’m used to it though, I always skate slow.  It’s not by choice, it’s just called being very uncoordinated and lacking any sort of confidence on a skateboard these days.  Or maybe it’s called being old.  Either way we had a blast.  There was some other kids there that couldn’t really ollie at all and I think for the first time Ollie felt like he wasn’t the only beginner at the skatepark and he loosened up a little.  I think that’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him while skating.  And that’s saying a lot because he seems to sincerely love skateboarding already.  He smiled the entire time and shredded like I’ve never seen him.  He ollied up on to the flatbottom of the ramp (the height of a curb) at least 20 times and probably fell at least 50 times trying it.  We got to the point where I even skate coached a little and gave him some pointers.  He’s been ollieing into board stalls on ledges for awhile so I told him to take a little angle and try it at the end of the ledge.  A few tries later he did a back boardslide.  It was a jib, but wow.  Then all on his own he started trying it frontside onto the end of the flatbar and landed it pretty quick.  Imagine how rad it is to see your best skate buddy of all time landing a new trick, that’s about what it feels like to see your kid land a new trick, except maybe times 20 or something.  It seriously is so fun skating with Ollie.  He claps on the rare occasion I land tricks, he doesn’t talk much, he skates hard, he smiles, he bails, he gets frustrated, he never complains, he never wants to film and wow I’m really rambling on and on tonight.  Oh well.  Skateboarding is incredibly fun. And skating with your own kid is also incredibly fun.  I came remotely close to doing a nose manual shove manual on the flatbottom of the ramp.  Would have been cool, never done that before.  Later on we went to the school for an evening session and it sucked.  Well, I sucked to be specific.  Ugh. 

Started the day off skating with Ollie at the school for a while.  We mostly skated the yellow curb above the four stair.  It’s pretty fun trying to do every stall I can do.  I got nosepick disaster smith 180.  Ha.  Ollie started trying halfcabs off the curb and it blew me away.  He was actually popping them pretty high.  He never rode out of one, but it still blew me away.  I started trying no comply finger flips off the curb and eventually got a few.  I’ve never tried that trick down a curb.  It felt slightly different, but it was fun and put a smile on my face.After going to the CU game with India and then a nap I met up with the Trick Factory about the time sun was setting.  They all wanted food and stopped at Wendys.  Travis and I rolled over to the Grease Monkey because there is a rock on top of a manny pad there that could be moved around.  We pushed it off the curb and started wallieing up it onto the manny pad.  I eventually got a couple wallie manuals.  So hyped.  Off to Valmont.  Skating there sometimes really bums me out.  I skate there a lot and not landing tricks bums me out there more than normal.  Anyways I tried a run for awhile.  Knowing the camera was in the car and that trying it on film would fail seemed to bum me out too.  After awhile Fuzz, Brian and I played a never ending game of SKATE.  It ended up being a blast.  Seeing Brian attempt flip tricks rules.  He landed a front foot impossible.  First time I’ve ever seen him land it.  I landed a nollie treflip.  Best feeling trick ever.  Well, maybe not, but I don’t believe I’ve ever had a bad session that involves a nollie 360 flip.  Up next was a game of SKATE on a metal crate propped up against a wall with Brian and Gabe.  Once again this game never really ended, but it was easily one of the funnest sessions I’ve had in awhile.  We did rock ‘n rolls on the sides, wallies off the sides, rock ‘n rolls, Gabe and Brian did rock fakies, and we got to the point of doing axle stalls on the top which was pretty hard actually.  I somehow pulled off a back smith stall then was gonna try back smith to fakie, but kinda hurt my foot.  I called it at that, but Gabe, Brian and Fuzz started joking around only doing tricks that they could get speed for by tic tac’ing.  It was hilarious.  

The first day of skating in a long sleeve is typically one of my favorite days of skating each year. Not this year. Jason, Gabe and I went to the rainbow ledge area. I could not do anything. This might be partially due to me having a new deck, but it was pathetic. I was sucking so bad on the ledge that I chose to just film Jason who was killing it. He did every trick I’ve seen him do there. Jason is 37. He rules.  

Was gonna meet Nate and Longmont park, but he called saying it was raining there.  So Valmont it was.  The session started off real slow for me.  Luckily when Nate got there we started messing around with switch frontside noseslides.  I hadn’t really tried that trick in years and ended up getting a couple very weak ones.  Then we did some wallride stuff and dropped in on some sheets of wood against a crate.  Fun.  After that we hit the manny pad for the most part and Nate killed it.  front 180 nose manual, first try nollie front 180 nose manny, switch manny, nollie shove manny, probably more.  I wanted to try kickflip manuals but I had cracked my board pretty bad on a heelflip so I basically just tried front 180 nose manuals over and over and came closer than I ever have at Valmont.  Cool.  We ended it on a curb trick session.  Nate is hella fun to skate with.