Went to meet Rob at Research Ledge and it started sprinkling as I got there. I did couple noseslides and noseslide shoves (kind of) when Rob showed up skeptical of getting his new board wet. He cruised the hill once, I did a crooks and then the rain became too much.

So we went to Red Curbs for a pretty solid session with the exception of me not being able to land treflips and Rob having troubles with nose manuals. I got a couple slow kick back tails, a front lip, front 5-0 180 out, slappy crooks to fakie followed by a varial flip slam that made me laugh. Rob has slappy crooks down so good now. He had a bunch of them. Halfcab board to fakie, lap over lipslides, fast back 50s, bigspin front nose. A couple other dudes came and we skated with them for awhile. They were good. So good that one of them gave me advice on how to ollie higher. Suck up them legs! Ha, as if I didn’t already know I suck at ollies. Everyone left and I stayed there doing front smiths one way and trying hardflips the other. I would love the make hardflip my new flip trick for August. Time is ticking!

New shoe blues. Ok, so they are actually black and blue. Ha. Sorry, it’s early. I went out to Rampy on a rainy night feeling exhausted as I always seem to be lately. My first few runs were so bad I wanted to focus my board and burn down Rampy. So I started hucking. Frontside ollies and whatever the trick is called where you take your front foot off onto the coping, grab the nose with your front hand and then put it down to tail. I had a few frontside ollies that felt ok. A couple of them were probably above coping. One of which was really scary and riding away from that one was a blast. I only got one of those boneless/madonna/sweeper/whatever they are called but it was fun and cheered me up.

Had a lazy Sunday going. Met Rob at this spot in the afternoon. It was hot out. Jack had had told me about this spot awhile ago. It didn’t disappoint. Manuals didn’t come easy initially because it’s so low. We both tried to manual the wide part around the corner and thread the needle into the median. We both got close, but didn’t quite get it. Then we did some lines. Old man challenge manual the wide part then kickflip a curb after it. Also did stuff over the narrow part of the median then 180 manual tricks on the next median. Rob did no comply then back 180 nose manual 180 out. Nuts! I did ollie then front 180 nose manual. I also tried switch 180 manual the first median then front 180 nose manual the second. Got pretty close, but never had enough speed.

Then ‘The Studio’ closed up and a car left from the landing so we skated this part of it. Rob got no comply up the 2 stair. I did a front 180 up the curb (back behind the bike racks), switch front 180 down the 2 stair then ollie the 3 stair. Fun. Then took awhile to get kickflip up the curb, ride off the two stair and ollie over the low ledge into the sidewalk. Super fun! Then we skated these weird wide parking blocks which turned out to not be as good as they look and you kind of just rode along the edge instead of grind them.

Then we went to this fabulous new spot. We took awhile to get going, but we all skated good it seemed. Dave had some fast front 50s, some really long ride on back 50s and crooks. It was cool because the the brick made it feel like a gap, but you didn’t have to clear it. Rob killed it with a big back of tricks. Front tail, nollie front tail, halfcab noseslide, halfcab noseslide fakie, crooks, and more that I can’t remember. I had a few really fun feeling crooks, slow front 50s, front 50 shove, front 5-0 and front 50 front 180 out in a line with a backside flip off this little curb.

I actually had a few lines with flip tricks. Felt great. We skated hard. Then we checked out a new nearby ditch spot that looked better then it was for skating.

On the way back to Rob’s van Dave and I ollied the 3 then 4. Quite fun and a great ender to the day.

Woke up really early after a crappy night of sleep. The family was still sleeping after I had ate and watched a skate video (Blind – Damn) so I left to go skate. Went to Safeway ledges as I needed to get to Crisis later on anyway. I was there shortly after 9am and surprisingly didn’t take too long to get warmed up. Actually I skated some of the best I have in a long time. Coming from the far side I started pretty much every line with a crooks on the fence ledge. Early on I had a crooks, front 5-0 front 180 out, fakie bigflip then pop shove. Put me in such a good mood. I had some of the best back 50s I’ve done in awhile and followed one up with a front 5-0 on the fence ledge. Flatground was doing decent too. Had a couple great feeling treflips. Also one of the best kick back 50s I’ve done in awhile. I set a box out and would ollie it before crooks on the fence ledge. Couldn’t get front 5-0 shove out, but managed a line with ollie, crooks, front crooks jib to fakie, halfcab flip, ollie the grate going down the hill. Couldn’t get kick back 5-0. Couldn’t get rick flip or nollie tre. But came close on nollie f/s flip and hardflip. Pretty much ended trying halfcab flip noseslides for awhile. Got pretty close actually. All of this by 11am. Stoked.

After chilling at Crisis for awhile I went to meet Rob at a manny pad in Boulder. Ended up at this one and wow I was sore. I struggled through it and got to a point where I was trying switch front 180 manual back 180 out. Didn’t get too close before the rain ht.

So met Rob at Red Curbs. There was a couple other dudes there escaping the rain. It was totally dry when I got there, but the heavy rain quickly ran into the garage limiting how you can skate. I wasn’t able to nose manual the main pad last time I was there, but did it first try this time. Rob was doing a bunch of fakie b/s nosegrinds, back 180 50s, patented Rob tricks. We kind of settled into trying some lines between the curbs. Rob got a killer line of lap over lipslide, kickflip the puddle, back 180 fakie 50. I came close to back 50, kickflip the puddle, kick back tail. Man I was sore at this point. Stoked I skated so much though.

Had a long work week and had a brief window of time where I could get out so I did. This park is like 3 miles from IBM so I went there. At first there were these kids there, but even worse were their mom’s standing right at the top of the bank so when I bailed a trick under them I felt extra old and dumb. Luckily they left after awhile. I had done a few lines. Mostly involving ollies over the flat bar and kickflip on the bank or a slow ledge trick. I really hate the one low ledge as it’s narrow with grass on the other side. Later on I settled into a couple things with ollie over the rainbow rail then front 50 up one of the escalator ledges. Coming back at one point I did the best treflip I’ve done in a long time. Last thing was trying to ollie up onto the tall ledge you can see the girl standing on. It’s so tall. I got close over and over again until finally making it once, but it was sketchy and I came off the side quick and didn’t ride away. Oh well. Way funner then work.

After work I met Liz and India at Wahoo’s to celebrate India’s first day of high school. So crazy. I was really tired, but right after I went to Rock Creek to meet up with Rob, Fuzz, Carleigh and Chelsea (I think). My first run made me feel good then it was kinda downhill from there with the exception of some little ollies and front disasters. Carleigh got into a bunch of front 50s and had apparently landed one earlier in the session. Her friend Chelsea seemed rad and was skating good. Rob got into some steez machine back smiths and had a rather lofty backside ollie that he said was nothing. Ha. Fuzz was killing it and also had the worst slam I’ve seen him take in forever. Blunt fakie, halfcab blunt fakie, huge ollie to front disaster, frontside ollies, a lot more. I forget what the slam was on, but it was right after yelling an F-bomb which he tried to take back from disturbing the peace in quaint little Superior. Ha. It got dark. I skated flat while others talked.

On the way back to Boulder it was still wet so I went to Red Curbs. I quickly discovered that my insole experiment of trying the actual Es insoles was not a good idea, but I kept skating anyways. Mostly just did slappy front 50s (well, ride on front 50s), back 50s, front 5-0s and slappy crooks. But had a few other tricks thrown in like back 50 front 180 pivot out, ollie over the two cones stacked sideways on each other, manuals, etc. It was fun.

Was going to meet Dave and Matt at Lafayette park originally, but after several phone calls / texts at the last minute it ended up being Jake and Matt I was meeting at Lafayette. Upon arrival I felt horrible. Like I shouldn’t even skate, just go home and sleep. I stood around as Jake ripped the little bowl and Matt flew out over tall cones. After awhile I started to get a tiny bit of juice. Did some slappy crooks on the slight bank to curb, then tried to line it out with a manual on the black ledge, but I dragged my tail every time. Oh well.

Then we went to Darin’s newly built ramp which is just as amazing as it looks in this photo by Matt. Fuzz, Darin and Brillo were there skating. Matt didn’t skate. Jake rips ramps and did lots of his tricks within a couple runs. Darin would do a few tricks and duck out. Brillo did a million steezy tricks and skated into the dark learning a f/s cab staple gun. Wowsers. I had fun and did several of my basics and think this might be my favorite ramp. Fuzz ripped, laughed and drank. Good times.

Slept in real late on a hot Sunday. Did some cleaning then met Dave an Rob (yes, Rob!!!) on campus. We started at the bank to fence spot which luckily had some shade. Everyone did their thing to get warmed up. Rob was killing it. Such a treat to skate with him. Great style and attitude. Dave too. Man I’ve been skating solo to much, this ruled. We all did a bunch of tricks on the bottom bar like a bank to mini-curb. Tricks on the bank. We ended up filming some. Dave had a line of front 180 a manhole then fakie wallride. I had been playing with an alleyoop halfcab flip which I guess is kind of a cab flip. I eventually got one that was mostly one motion and less then 90 degrees of pivoting. Rob did a nosepick fakie, 270 kickfilp and bigspin front nose. It was hot and we should have left for water, but we kept skating. I was trying front crooks and failed. Ended up getting a line with a kickflip over a manhole, then a kickflip (frontside) on the bank, then cruised down the hill and ollied a manhole and did some powerslides. That be fun! Dave did a bunch of front slashes (cooler then it sounds), Rob did kickflip axle stall. We had fun. Then we moved on and found some water before ending up at the amazing new ledge spot next to the 420 field. It seriously rules. It was super hot though and energy was hard to come by. Dave got into a bunch of crooks, but the pop out wasn’t working. I didn’t really get in to crooks. Dave had some nice front 50s. I tried some too and managed to shove out of one. Also got a really bad back 50 after almost dieing on one.

Later in the evening I switch trucks to some Thunders I had laying around. I have been having trouble with how the PJ trucks turn. I went to the research ledge and I was really tired. It was dumb. I did a few basics before the comforting feeling that I wished I still had the Ventures on hit me. So I went home and put them back on with no desire to switch again. I could see maybe skating Indy as I liked how they skated on the big board. But I’ll probably just stay on Ventures as that’s what I have laying around and, well, they are really good.

Another awesome edit from Fullertron.

Got to NorthGLENn park at 10am to be one of the judges for a contest. I messed around for awhile not doing anything serious. John and I tried treflips for awhile. He got one. But we missed most of them. I didn’t get one. Then the beginners started and luckily I wasn’t judging that so I went to the basketball court and skated flat. Landed most everything for awhile and it felt pretty good. Everything except for the treflip of course. I have to admit ever since my last Ventures worn through and I put the PJ ones on again they have felt horrible. Might be the precursor for another change. Then after 7 hours of sitting and judging in the heat with almost no food John and I went to Broomfield for what we hoped would be a mellow session. It turned out that Colorado’s newest pro Tyler Price was there as well as some other Colorado heavy hitters. We mostly skated the black ledge. Those dudes did good tricks. John and I tried front 50 back 180 out until I landed an absolutely horrible one. Man it was good to see Tyler skate. He has been injured, but was still ripping.