Had the day off work. Chilled with Liz in the morning then went to Broomfield park around noon. I didn’t really hit anyone up because I wasn’t sure I could push regular there long enough to call it a session. It felt decent though and Rob would come meet up. It was really fun skating an almost vacant park. For awhile I was the only one skating. I took it kind of easy though and didn’t really do any tricks that required much speed/pushing. Tried front noseslides on the black box, kind of got one. Got front 50, front 5-0, noseslide, noseslide fakie, crooks. Almost got a fun line starting at the top of the park with a kickturn on the steep bank, fs ollie on the little hump by the bowl, nollie into the bank, crooks the black ledge then a b/s flip on flat. Never got the b/s flip. Rob showed and warmed up by doing boardslides and manuals on basically everything in the park. The manual up the longer escalator ledge followed by nose manual the blue box was hot. I couldn’t do the darn nose manual on the blue box. Came close to kick back 50 and fakie nosegrind on the blue box. Then we played SKATE. It was a fun one with lots of no complies and flippers. Rob got me with cab, back 360 and something else, but his back of tricks that almost always getsme letters (back 180 one foot, back 180 no comply, 43 shifty, etc) was eluding him so I eventually won with a fakie bigflip. Then we mostly skated the blue bank. Rob worked on no comply manual up and around it and would eventually get it. I tried to manual up it, fs slash the top then manual down. Came pretty close, got lots of manuals, but never with the grind. Still fun though. I also gave kickflip onto the bank, then kickflip to fakie a few whirls, but never did that. Then we headed to Crisis and chilled awhile. Twas fun.

After helping the kids with homework and all that I went to skate some flat again at Valmont. For the most part I skated switch or pushed mongo to nollie tricks. did push regular a few times to test out achilles and do a couple kickflips. It felt decent, but I wanted to give it another day or two. Since I was so close with nollie fs flips the last time I started with them. I don’t think I ever got as close as the previous night. Doh. I tried switch b/s flips too. That trick seems remotely possible. Came super close to a switch flip or two then started trying a couple random ones. Big front heel and fakie hardflip. Big front heel wasn’t close, fakie hard seemed very possible. I have landed that trick once back in 2008 so it’ll still count as new in my book. I didn’t skate for nearly as long as I was pretty tired.

Okay so I didn’t last too long not skating. Two whole days off. But I made a deal with myself that I would not push with my right foot or do any flip tricks where I popped with it. My achilles is doing better, but I’m still limping some. So yeah, switch/nollie tricks do not hurt my achilles in any way. So I went to a remote parking lot (Valmont) where no one would see me skating switch and therefore not landing anything (at all). I tried switch front shoves for awhile and they sucked! I may have gotten one that would have counted on defense in an over 80 game of SKATE. Then I went for switch flips. I’ve only landed one in my whole life, in my garage before rampy existed. I should have just landed the first one because it was right there. Instead I would struggle for an hour on it and never get both feet on. Some were close. I also tried switch heels or switch f/s flips. Not close on either of those. Then started trying switch varial flip rewind which was kinda close. I tried this for like an hour straight. Ugh. In the end I started pushing mongo to try nollie f/s flips and got so insanely close. So close I don’t really know how I didn’t land it. Ugh. So this is the first month this year I didn’t land a new flip trick in which was my goal for the year. Luckily this is skateboarding so I’ll just shoot for two new ones in October. All in all I would say the night pretty much sucked though. Not landing anything at all is depressing. Hopefully my achilles will allow me to push again soon. I can tell that cupsoles are helping it a bit too.

Around noon Rob and I headed to our staple, the research center ledge. We started near the Max Rail goofing around. I love that area. Oh yeah, I was wearing some old Lakais I had lieing around as I wanted some cupsoles. The Marianos. They felt pretty good. We headed down the the ledge. I was really ignoring my achilles pain. Rob skates that ledge uphill mostly and I skate it downhill. He had some nice boardslide pop outs, halfcab boardslide, noseslide, crooks. Carleigh would show too and quickly did noseslide and kickflips. I guess since I had skated so much flat the day before I didn’t put much into flippers. I tried crooks forever. Some felt amazing, but I wouldn’t get out. Carleigh tried heelflips for awhile and got into front 50s. rob added crooks and manuals down the whole hill. Once I had gotten the crooks I started trying lines again. Front 180 up the curb, halfcab flip, crooks. I think I got that, maybe it was a noseslide though. Then I tried a line of front 180 up the curb, fakie flip, halfcab noseslide. But I couldn’t get the fakie flip. It sucked. I seriously spent like an hour trying it. Even switched to slow and pathetic fakie ollies up the curb and still couldn’t get the fakie flip after. I ended up just giving up on it. We skated there for quite awhile and our trick total was probably like 5 tricks. Ha. We went and hung with Jack at work for awhile.

Jack thought of this spot so Rob and I went there. I was hoping it was shady, but it wasn’t. It was quite hot. I couldn’t even ollie up the little curb initially I was sore and my achilles was killing me. We pulled through though. First was some ride down manuals which were fun. Then ollieing up the curbs, etc. Rob and I did the main manual starting near the stairs and coming towards the camera. Neither of us got all that we wanted. I worked on kickflips up the glorified curb and eventually got one. I wanted to follow it with a kickflip off, but was going too slow and just bonelessed instead. Rob had a rad line up the stairs of ollie, manual and ollied out of the manual onto the top level. Super clean too. So sick. I ended by doing the quick up then ollie the little gap past the curb. That spot reminds me of Neil and I wish he would have been there to skate with us. :`(

Lots of skating so that was cool, but I got home and my achilles was really swollen. I did some research and that is not good at all. So I might not be skating for awhile. Knowing me it’ll only be a couple days because I’m stubborn like that, but who knows. Not being able to even push comfortably is no fun.

Somehow my achilles felt better. I wanted to skate flat and went to the hockey rink by the rollerblade park near IBM. It was really hot out. My board felt rather large. Guess I’m still not used to the big setup. I skated pretty hard, but my achilles was definitely still effecting me. Got a few clean treflips which is good for me these days. Took a long time on fakie big flips. Other tricks went alright. Wanted to start a line with nollie tre, but never quite got one. I should do this more often. Although when I got back to work I was super sore. Turns out those Etnies RCTs are pushing my big toe in all weird. Ugh. Skate shoes. Ugh.

After work and then some Chipotle I met up with Riley, Scotty, Nolan, Dave and Josh at the Longmont park. At the start I bailed 3 axle stalls on the QP that Josh destroys above. I knew it would be bad after that. Really bad. My pushing leg achilles was hurting so bad. Every push hurt. I should have left, but I didn’t. Dave and I skated the mellow bank in the bank. I actually skated that part alright. Did a lot of no comply tricks initially. No comply bigspin, no comply front shove fakie, no comply finger flip fakie, no comply back shove fakie (never done that one before), no comply back 270 shove (I thought I was doing it like Cory Kennedy, but it turns out I wasn’t at all), fakie flip, b/s flip and a halfcab flip. Dave got a rare fakie flip, nollie bigspin, and more that I can’t remember right now. We were having fun and making fun of some of our ‘over 40’ makes. That was pretty much my skating. After that I filmed Josh for awhile, Riley for awhile and watched Riley, Nolan, Dave and Josh kill the QP. Dave and Josh learned the Scott Stevens trick (fakie body varial backside boneless). Josh also did some crazy tricks as you can see. Nolan and Riley played SKATE and it had some crazy tricks in it. Those dudes rip. I gotta figure out whats wrong with my achilles, it’s not good.

Psycho Unity is the work of my uncle, Frank Zirbel. Check out the man more wonderful things he has created here.

Seriously I haven’t laughed this hard in awhile. Make sure the sound is on. Oh my stomach hurts.

Went to Broomfield park after work/Crisis with Matt, Riley, Scotty, Bernie and Nolan and Darin were there. I started in the flow bowl area and watched Nolan destroy it. I did remotely ok for me and ended with an axle stall on the pool coping. Nolan had some insanely rad lines going in and out of the bowl onto the 3 foot section. Looked fun. Then we went to the street area. I played treflip with Matt and Darin for awhile. Well, Matt did a bunch of tricks, but Darin and I took a long time to get treflips. Riley was straight murdering the park. Lines around the whole park. Above is just a tiny fraction of what he was doing. Darin, Matt and I trained it on pole jams over a rock that had been put after the little bank. So fun. There was some dude there skating so sketchy trying it. It was scary to watch. Then I mostly skated the blue bank you have to ollie onto with Bernie while filming Riley do 20 tricks down the double set. Bernie did kickflip manual up to fakie manual down, halfcab nosemanual around to 180 out, manual to front rock and probably more. I tried ollie up kickflip to manual down, but that was a stretch. Got close once. Tried riding up to rock fakie flip out, but the lights shut off. Not before Riley did a ton of tricks though and not before Matt got pissed at not landing front 50 back 180’s out and put his foot through the middle of his board. Fun night.

Had a pretty fun night with Ollie playing soccer then darts. It was late, but I wanted to skate a little so I went out to Rampy and wow it sucked. I was wearing my glasses and it was the first time on a ramp with a bigger setup again, but man there is no excuse for how long it took me to land a back 50. I almost quit after the 3rd bail, but figured I’d go for a record of suck. I would eventually land a few tricks. The only one standing out is a first try front tail. I tried back tails for awhile. Got remotely close, but man that trick is weird.