Another dude on the favorite skater/person list. Monico rules.

Setup a new 8.38 and put some shorts on for a brief flatground session. I was still feeling arthritic and only did a couple kickflips. It was more shove its, 180s, bigspins, halfcabs.

Had another super busy day at work and had to text/gchat myself silly trying to coordinate the session. It was stressful. We took the short cut to Fort Collins and were to MRKT by 5:20. Not bad! Then we went to Spring Canyon. The crew was John, Matt, Fuzz, Carleigh, Jack, Dave, Rob and me. When we got to the park it was windy. Rob was cursing. My arthritis was kicking. Matt was dizzy. It was weird.

I skated very badly. Got a rare f/s nosegrind, a small boardslide transfer, a little line with manaul the pad then a kickflilp really low on the qp. My arthritis was kicking though and I was really struggling and frustrated.

Carleigh was off in the pool. I saw a run with a carve over the stairs and a deatbox grind. Wowsers. later on a kickflip and then pole jam.

Fuzz ollied the rail to 50 on the box. Quick up then front 50 the bench then noseslide the ledge. I think?

The wind got to Jack. He didn’t skate much after a slam trying to boardslide over the door.

I haven’t seen John skate in awhile. He had some nice front 50s up the hump, quick up to front 50, some darn good kickflips, pivot fakies, and the highest wallies ever (ha).

Rob had some nice alley oop wallrides, nollie front lips, but pulled a hamstring and had to sit out most of the session.

Matt was ripping. Back nosegrind the whole long ledge, back 5-0 back 180 it too, back lip the little rail, buncha tricks on the bench, nice b/s ollie on the qp.

Fullerton was in effect. Front board to fakie the ledge off the pad, back tail fakie on the tiny qp and the bigger one, sickest line with feeble transfer, blunt transfer then early grab transfer.

Mike had met up with us. He had some super long boardslide transfers, no comply pole jams, switch no comply pole jams, Mike rules.

Then things got silly. It started with Rob going towards the pole jam and just kind of hucking his board and grabbing it and setting it down. We cracked up. Then it became a lap of like 10 of us trying the same thing. It was hilarious.

Then we started going the slappy grind down this. Rob got hurt trying it and john didn’t try it, but everyone else got one or two. It was so fun. Then it just kept getting more carried away. Dave killed it with the coffin grind. He did some better ones too. Fuzz got a tuck knee one. Jack did one to manual. Dave got a 5-0 too. Mike went switch! I tried some weird one for awhile with both feet on the tail and my hands on the nose, but I just kept falling and making everyone laugh. Then the sprinkler turned on and we scrambled to get out of there. The dork session at the end more then made up for the bad skating earlier.

Jack is one of of my favorite skaters and people. He rules. Here is 11 minutes of random Jack footy put together by Jack himself. Note to Jack – start working on landing bolts eh?

Another cold and windy day. So over it. So it my arthritis. I went out to Rampy thinking I would try some more new tricks. But it didn’t go well. I really didn’t land much at all. My front d’s are doing good and fakie pivots to fakie. But I struggled on other stuff I wanted to try. Got an ok f/s flip on flat. Failed at 3 flips yet again. I want warm weather.

Seriously jealous of how coordinated Ollie is. This was the second play of the game and the first play I attempted to film. He can beat me in any race now too and he’s normally laughing while he’s doing it. OH well, he’s an awesome kid. Happy 12th Birthday Ollie!

After a fun morning celebrating with Ollie by shooting nerf guns at each other and playing video games I went out to Rampy while he worked on homework. It was really fun. I was kinda feeling out something new to try and settled with fakie front smith stall to fakie. I landed a few. I had done fakie slash to fakie before, but only with a tiny little truck tap, not fully on like a smith. It hyped me up and the only times I landed it were in a run with a back smith stall. I also did a run with front d, fakie pivot fakie and front feeble. Well, that sounds good, but here’s how it really went. Axle stall, front d, rock fakie, fakie pivot fakie, tail stall, rock fakie, tail stall, front feeble. Oh well, still fun. Did a treflip on flat (with both hands down as that’s the only way I can land them now) to end it and called it a fun little session.

Got up super early to meet up with everyone at Arvada park. I was the last one there and I arrived at 7:15. Geez. The park had quite a few people already. I joined Chad, Fuzz, Carleigh and Jack in the big snake run. I guess the mindset was to skate the scariest thing first to warm up. It ended up being really fun. It’s pretty much impossible to describe in words who carved where, but everyone seemed to go fast and push themselves. Fuzz had a couple gnarly slams. Jack too. Chad could carve into the upper left corner. The new stuff for me was to do a rock ‘n roll on the pool coping qp on the top right then roll ever a big hump. Ha. Carleigh was getting pretty high on the big vert wall.

Then a few of us skated the smaller bowl. I had some fun back 50s down the little escalator, but wussed out of a front d in a corner. Doh. Jack was rolling into it from anywhere and doing back ds on the weird bank extension. Fuzz had nice long front 5-0s. Rob cruised it good.

Then Rob and I ollied up the tall platform and Neil couldn’t??? What is the world coming to? Neil! Fuzz of course did it too.

Then came session on the little weird qp to ledge thing up near the drinking fountains. Neil did a bunch of back disasters. Jack did pivot fakie and then died on a bigspin pivot attempt. Shook it off then did it next try. Gnarly. Fuzz did switch pivot fakie, switch blunt and front noseblunt. Whoa. Rob had some rad crail stalls and front d. Blake had some sick slappy front 50s. I thought what Blake was doing was sick so tried it and got a few slappy back 50s on it, but couldn’t get crooks.

I think we did an uphill boardslide session next on the long concrete double sided ledge. Fuzz did boardslide fakie and halfcab boardslide. Gnarly! Jack did boardslide to feeble, boardslide 270 to primo (ha!), boardslide 270 shove. Rob did boardslide transfer and Neil was doing boardslide to fakie all easy. Blake was trying boardslide shove. I got last place with a boardslide.

Some of went over for flippers on the mellow blue chip which is my favorite thing to skate at Arvada. It started off pretty good for me with kickflips b/s and f/s, a bigflip, but then I got stuck on halfcab flip and even more stuck on treflip to fakie. Rob came up big with a biggee front heel. Wow! Fuzz took the longest to get kickflip to fakie (two whole tries ha), had the record for most non-flip tricks (some good ones in there!) and had a halfcab flip easy. He bailed a f/s halfcab flip though after saying “If I bail this one I owe you a cider”. He bailed. Pay up holmes! Blake had some weird front shove revert thing and back heel. Everyone left and I kept trying 360 flips to fakie, eventually just giving up. Ugh.

After some lunch and hanging at Crisis for awhile we accumulated Fullertron and went to this spot. Pretty sick spot. I was so sore/tired though that just rolling into the banks hurt initially. I struggled through it being the stubborn idiot I am and had a couple fun bonelesses and a bunch of no slide tailslide(s). I wanted to do kickflip to fakie, but didn’t. Blake did his front shove revert trick again. Neil sat. Rob was skating good and locked into some good front tails, had a sick no comply boneless all easy and steezy (sorry), b/s flip, crail stalls. Dave killed it in typical Dave fashion. Mini handplants, crail stall variations, front tailslides, boneless, fakie shove, but couldn’t get the back tailslide to fakie. Fun, long day that was done by 2:30pm.

After work I picked up Matt and we met Jack at the Mikes Camera manny pad. I managed my two manny tricks kinda quick for me. Kickflip manual and nose manual shove. Matt slammed pretty hard on a kickflip up. Ouch. He had a nice halfcab manual going fast, nollie manual and tried treflip manuals. Jack had fakie bigspin manual back 180 out and probably a few more tricks. We went over to the ledge for a bit too. I was intimidated by the 2 sided part of the ledge and barely got a front 50. Ugh. Got crooks and boardslide pop out the other way. Matt had some fast front 50, 5-0, smith, tailslide, back 50, back tail. Wowsers. Jack had swtich crooks, front lip, switch hurricane (so good), back 5-0 and a bunch more. Fun quick session before I went and celebrated 16 years of marriage with The Mighty LZA.

Went to Lafayette park after dinner feeling pretty unmotivated and antisocial, but wanted to cruise around mellow. I arrived to a pretty normal Lafayette scene. A few skaters, bikers, scooters. I had done a few laps around the park when carload after carload of older rollerbladers showed up. Dudes with beards on rollerblades? Yeah, like 20 of them. That pretty much killed any desire I had left. Especially when they posted up on pretty much everything. I skated for about 45 minutes and can’t think of a single highlight.