Had one of those days where you get a million phone calls trying to figure out where/when the skating is gonna happen. Nate had been raving about a new ledge he found with me via nerd computer chat all day so I was determined to meet up with him there. In addition the crew was Gabe, Jason, Neil and Rob. The ledge was ok, but sketchy with water on the other side, hornets, etc. I was ok skating, but others weren’t. Little Jack called and so we left to pick him up and skate around downtown. Nate had a soccer game so he was out. Downtown was fun for me, I like skating anything pretty much, but there was so much bitching again. Rob killed it at Wells Fargo. Manny, back 180, wallride, kickflip. Dude rips. We setup a trashcan on it’s side after a little bump and attempted tricks over it. I say ‘attempted’ because the only tricks that were landed were ollies and a no comply by Neil. I’m still having issues with the 8″. It’s way heavier, but more stable to ollie. I’ll get it. Over all, a fun night, kind of a weird vibe though.

The above photo basically explains how I felt.  I woke up at 9am after 3 straight late nights and the first thing I heard was Ollie asking, “Dad, when are we going skateboarding today?”  I had promised to skate with him.  Around 1 pm we finally headed out to a fun little park in Longmont that shouldn’t have anyone there.  It was closed for repairs and fenced off.  Ugh.  Then we went to this other little park, but a thunderstorm prevented that.  Ugh.  Drove all the way back to Boulder and it was raining.  Found a parking garage finally.  Ollie was flying around.  Kid has so much fun skating.  It’s weird though, sometimes when I’m out with him I feel even older than normal.  Today was one of those days.  We went to the banked curb spot that I skated the day before, but this time I ran into a curb at full speed trying to carve around all the blocks and bloodied up my knee.  Over it.

I was running late due to cleaning my garage for hours getting ready for a garage sale and have a  goal to put some type of tiny little ramp in there this winter, but eventually met up with Gabe, Brian, Neil, Fuzz, Lazer, Jason, Rob, Lloyd, Jack and I believe that’s it.  Well, initially Rob, Lloyd and I went to pick up Little Jack since he’s young and can’t drive or any of that.  We found him doing polejam wallies into banks and decided to film it.Rob took the photo, I filmed.  5 minutes into the day and Little Jack does a better trick than I will ever dream of.  Next we went to Boulder ditch where half of us claimed it’s the worse spot ever and the other half skated.  Brian made fun of me filming Neil trying a run because I can’t push switch hardly at all, especially through a ditch.  The top photo is Brian’s attempt at keeping it straight while filming Neil.  Ha, just playing Brian, I was happy to not film and instead lost as quickly as possible in two games of SKATE to Rob and Jack.Next we went to a little bank/curb spot.  Pretty fun really.  I did a couple dork tricks as usual and somehow snapped my tail trying to do a kickflip over a curb onto the bank.  Doh.  My dork trick then changed to an even dorkier trick using a cracked board.  My whole part will be nothing but 2 mile an hour dork tricks that most people wouldn’t even think of as warm up dork tricks.  Sweet.  I swung home with Jack to setup a new board and then meet the crew at Canyon Center.  Jack gripped my board.  Maybe I’ll be blessed with some type of radness now?  The Canyon Center was fun.  Fuzz and Brian killed it.  I lost in a long game of SKATE to Lloyd and Jack.  Day over.  Exhausted, but hyped.  My new Hombres deck has a pink topsheet.  Sweet.  Every single Hombres 8″ deck came with a pink topsheet.  Not sure what’s up with that.

Matt and I tried to do the late night skating thing again. Once again it didn’t work out to well as it was still really hot and I was tired. I’m still having lots of trouble with the big board and how different the timing is on it. I think overall I’m digging it though. Our game of SKATE went forever and we ended up playing until I spelled SKATEORDIE. Matt tried to play it off like he only had S, but later on at the bar I rattled off at least 4 tricks he didn’t remember bailing. One good thing that came out of the night was I tried frontside wallrides on a regular vert wall. I’ve never really committed to it before, but there was even a few I thought I could roll away from.We ended up at the Downer and had a couple too many beers making fun of women who dressed up all nice thinking they were in San Diego.  Seriously though, why do so many ladies dress up now?  This isn’t the OC or San Diego, it’s Boulder.  If this trend keeps up I’m gonna make a blog of photos of ladies dressed up all nice and make fun of them.At the end of the night I owed Matt $6 for a pitcher of PBR and he decided that if he could land a 360 flip in two tries I wouldn’t owe him the $6.  It took him three tries.  Cha ching.

Was supposed to bring the kids skating with Zach and his son, but that didn’t work out. My kids still wanted to go though. As I stated in my last journal entry I was totally over the small board and wanted to try the opposite side of the spectrum. Hey, I’ll be the first to admin I’ve got OCD with my setup. Anyways, I found some old 8″ Indy’s that have been laying around since the Blame The Filmer days and setup an 8″ with some new 51mm wheels.When I first stood on the board I felt like I was riding a tank. After a 7.625 and 8″ feels huge. On top of the board feeling like a monster I had to get used to Indys. I’ve been on the Thunder program for years. Oh well. We had fun. Ollie ollied a 2×4. India did some bunny hops on her scooter. I flopped around. We had fun.Around 10pm Matt picked me up and we went to the shopping center near my house with no real spots in mind, just cruise around and hit whatever. I was feeling super tired and didn’t have the energy or the coordination for the wallride banks so we played a game of SKATE. I figured I’d get pink slipped since I was tired and flip tricks on a monster board didn’t seem that appetizing. Luckily I was surprised to find out that it flips decent. Kickflips felt the best they’ve felt in a long time. I lost, but landed more than I would have thought. We cruised around for awhile and I watched Matt ollie everything. That dude has so much pop. We ended up at a slappy curb for awhile that ended up being way funner that one would think. At one point I got a slappy to manual. Tried slappy to nose manny, but that would actually be good. We split out after another game of SKATE that Matt won, but I put down some tricks I wouldn’t have thought for the first day out on a bigger board.Didn’t really like how the board felt so big, but I did like how it ollied and kickflipped. Hopefully I start to get a better feel for it. Boring ass entry I’m sorry, but like the About page says, don’t read them if you don’t want to.

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.