Had a long day of driving down from the mountains then playing tennis with Liz before getting out to enjoy the 70 weather on my skateboard. I had some new Stratfords on that I think I’m going to save for tennis shoes (ha) once I score something else. But since I’ve had so many pairs they skated fine right out of the gate. I also had some bigger wheels. Bones STF 51s. “Bigger”! ha. My “warm up” spot was above. Ollie onto the narrow curb on the far side and then ollie onto the ledge. It took me a long time. I rarely made it to the point of ollieing up the ledge as my balance was off. I would have to push once on the narrow curb which was so hard. I did manage to get it twice. Then I went to the gray butter bench and had done a noseslide and gotten into front 50 when my brother called. So I talked to him for awhile and my legs locked up so I walked around to find something else that didn’t involve ollieing so high. I ended up at the front of the student center and tried a line forever. F/s halfcab flip on flat, curve down the handicap ramp to noseslide the unwaxed sandstone ledge (to make it slide they could not be posted up so they were ugly as hell), 360 flip on flat, front board a ledge. I never got all 4. And the one 3 flip I landed I cracked my board really bad. Argh. It still skated though. Most of my f/s halfcab flips were crap, but there were a few I felt really good about. I hope my knees start feeling better again, it’s been rough and I’m too stubborn to not skate.

Met Fuzz at the puddle ridden Safeway ledges. We didn’t feel like ollieing at first so we just did various slappy nose/tail variations. Then we started doing front and back 50s. We were both bummed on how are back 50s tic tac and were trying to make them better when Matt showed and did a perfect one first try. Cool dude. Ha. My legs were still feeling very heavy and stiff. Flip tricks after ledge tricks were not working. I got a very sloppy kick back 50. The worst front smith ever done. Matt added a few more tricks like front tails and front 5-0 fakie. Fuzz struggled with front tails and decided to call it a night.

After a meal at Subway Matt, Neil and I went to the Broomfield park. It wasn’t too crowded and more importantly there weren’t too many bikers. I played on the quartapotty mostly for awhile and ollies didn’t really seem possible. Ugh. They eventually would, but it was tough the rest of the night. My heel was blistered and bleeding. I got a few back 5-0s on the blue ledge, no comply 270 to back tail on the blue ledge, boardslide down the tiny rail, crooks the black ledge. Matt was killing the ledges with back nosegrind, front smith, and skating the taller one (above) where he ended up betting back tail shove, back smith and maybe front crooks? Neil was raging. High speed front lips up the happy ledge, no comply boneless on the bump up top, one foots over the rail. The crew at the park was fun and it kept getting funner with people like Darin and his crew showing up. I skated the bump up top for awhile too, got f/s flips pretty quick and then struggled, but got a couple halfcab flips on it. Played a game of SKATE with Cameron and Matt that I completed sucked it up in and was the first one out. Argh. Then skated the quartapotty with Darin for awhile and he got me to try rock to feebles and I got them! Hyped, got a bunch of them. Then later on tried them on the brick qp and struggled before finally getting a very “over 40” make. Darin killed the qp with back smith, back d to sugarcane, so many tricks. What a night. Lots of skating.

Went to the hill to sell my old Iphone charger through craigslist. I hadn’t put my contacts in and I went to cruise campus and realized how blind I am at night in my glasses. It sucked. I did a couple slappy crooks near the tunnel, pushed around. Ended up at the downhill ledge/curved ledge plaza. Ollied onto the ledge. Noseslid, front boarded the corner of the downhill ledge. Did a kickflip or two. Walked back to the car. Neat. Oh yeah. I ate pizza at Crisis the night before which was the first time in almost 5 months I intentionally ate gluten and holy smokes I felt horrible all day. My legs, especially my knees, felt pains they hadn’t in a long time. Arghh, so bummed, but I guess that confirms it. Gluten Free I be.

Had the day off work and it was nice out in the low 50s. Had a nice morning with Liz then Jake and I rolled to the Thornton park. I was sore and took a long time to get going. I didn’t ollie for awhile. Jake didn’t hesitate though and was doing hammers out of the gate. I finally got it going with a line of kickflip over a b/s hip, feeble stall on the tight qp, push hard then b/s flip over the same hip. Jake had some good runs going with f/s halfcab the hip then front blunt the tight qp. Geez. He also did a bunch of tricks on the bump to ledge like front 5-0, front tail, front lip. Most before I had even ollied. Must be nice being so young. John showed up and slammed hard on a front shove into the bank. Ouch. But then felt good and ripped it. Some other dudes showed as well which were fun to skate with. John and I were skating the ledge on the outside of the park which is pretty tall for us. I managed front 50 and crooks and was content. John got front 50 and his patented switch front nose. Then a treflip party began with everyone there while Jake tried to get front tails in the biggest part of the bowl. He got it. Gnarly. But he didn’t land a treflip like the rest of us did. Ha! Just kidding obviously I would be hyped to front tail such a gnarly transition. That would mean I’d have to try though. My feet were killing me. Not only are these NBs giving me a blister in the heel, but they seem smaller then all previous pairs. I guess they aren’t perfect. Doh. Jack and Carleigh showed and cruised around getting warmed up. Jack lipslid the round bar all easy. Carleigh did a front 50 up the little ledge to front 50 down the bank. So rad. I got a couple more lines I was hyped on. Wallie, back 50 the bank to banked ledge, no comply bigspin the bank. Ollie the three stair, front 180 on flat, horrible fakie bigflip the hip. Jack looked like he was getting in the groove and then rolled his ankle trying to noseblunt the bump to ledge. Argh. Carleigh noseslid it, maybe noseslid shoved it and almost front 180 nosegrinded it. Jake learned front tail shove on it. End of session.

Well, except for the reverse coffin session in the parking lot on John’s cruiser board. Then we went and hung out at Crisis. It was a fun day hanging and skating with friends.

Been way too busy at work and skating a lot outside of work so this journal is way after the fact and I’m sure I will forget a lot. Jake, Matt and I got to Arvada around 6:30 on a somewhat cool evening. The park wasn’t all that crowded. I remember seeing Matt do some good ollies right away. We were all kind of all over for awhile. We hit the pole jam area for a bit. Jake and Matt did regular pole jams, I failed at no comply ones. Then the bump to marble flat bar. Matt front lipped it easy and I think back lipped it too. Jake and I boardslide it. Tech. Then we mostly hit the blue chip, bank, flat bar area. Matt boardslid the jersey barrier. Geez. I got a b/s flip on the little bank, Jake noseblunt, Matt blunt, I got a bigflip on the blue bank. Off to the Pier 7 area. Dudes were lining up for hammers so it was weird lining up next to a street league vibe. One dude stood out and did the biggest cab on the qp hip ever. There was a dude with dreads skating with us that was super nice and fun to skate with. Matt did a bunch of tricks on the manny pad. Nollie manual, halfcab manual, maybe kickflip manual. I guess that isn’t a “bunch”. I tried kick back 50s forever and didn’t get that close. Jake tried crooks and got a fakie front 50 f/s halfcab out.

Fullertron killing it again.

It’s a sunday so that must mean the weather is crap. 18 degrees. Yeap. I hibernated most of the day away then before dinner forced myself to go out on Rampy. Ollie and his friends had kinda trashed the ramp playing around in there so I was putting stuff away and came upon India’s old board. The original Null board from 2003 (only available in 7.5), Thunder lows and some kinda big wheels. I started playing around on it on flat. Kickflips were so easy. I skated the ramp awhile on my board. Then I settled into a routing of skating India’s board on flat then my board on the ramp where I basically just setup for a frontside ollie. I had a few that felt decent for me. On flat I started posing switch tres and they felt doable. Never got one, but landed with one foot on a couple times.

Went in for dinner, then came out again a little later after playing nerf guns with Ollie. Did a few more tricks on Rampy. Tried more switch tres on Indias board and felt close. Landed a front heel kind of. I probably shouldn’t have skated that little board because I really liked it. I did take a couple runs on the ramp with it. It didn’t feel so good on ramp.

Snow and a high in the teens. That should set the tone. I lounged around late, napped, slacked, etc. I met up with Dave and Bernie at Sol. Scotty, Nolan and another were there when Dave and I showed and they were skating flatground. My arthritis was so bad, but I tried to join them. My first few kickflips felt so bad. Then they wanted to play SKATE. Great. That Nolan had landed every flatground trick I saw him try. Guess he can skate more then just transition. I was the first one out. But it wasn’t such a bad game for me.

Then we skated the ramp for awhile. Dave was having an off day. He had some scary slams. Bernie got frontside ollies back. Nolan slays that ramp so hard he gives Riley a run for the money. He learned pop shove front crooks while we were there. I could not do a front disaster. So lame. I took forever to land much of any tricks, but near the end I pulled a few out. Front d, fakie back smith fakie, b/s scratch revert, front rock, back smith stall, fakie axle stall. Man, that’s pathetic. Dave had some rad manuals across the deck, a fakie early grab melon, and so many more patented Dave tricks. Scotty skated the ramp for a bit. Threw up some lofts FSAs, back lips. As much as I sucked at the end it was fun. Too bad I was so sore I could hardly walk when I got home. F’ing arthritis. I blame the weather.

On a cold night I headed to Zach & Amy’s to pick them up and head to Denver to see RFTC. On the way there I stopped to get gas and was confronted by an obviously wasted-Broncos-jersey-wearing-sports-bar enthusiast. He told me I would be giving him a ride home and got in my car. Great. He kept trying to hand me money though. I accepted $20 just cause, but when he kept trying to give me more I declined. I’ve been there before. Except I’m normally cheap no matter what, but anyways yeah, got $20 to give a dude a ride for a few blocks.

Zach and Amy kept buying me drinks. It helped get through the first band called Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. They had a great drummer that was entertaining to watch and some of the songs in the middle of the set were decent, but for the most part I was not interested.

The crowd at this show was awesome. Lots of older dudes. Ric, Lindsey, Betcher, etc. Most were complaining about how late the show was. Ha. Rocket played a great set spanning their entire collection. I thought the newer stuff sounded really good live and of course the old stuff did. As usual, Speedo was very happy to be on stage and the whole band seemed to be having fun. Except maybe when Speedo talked for a good 5 minutes about a trip to Colorado many moons ago when half of the band got jumped by some teenagers. Great show though. Saw a setlist here.

My first two day break from skateboarding in a long time. This was due to getting a call for work at 4:30 the morning before and being wrecked last night. I woke up early this morning mostly refreshed, but pretty stiff. Did a pretty typical morning routine for myself then got to Boulder park around 7:45. It was already pretty warm out. I pumped around for awhile amazed at how much the bright sun prevented me from seeing anything when heading east. Which bummed me out a little because I kinda wanted to try some stuff on the east wall. Oh well. I was having fun cruising around and popping little ollies halfway up the transition and over hips and stuff. A couple things early on that started getting me warmed up were a little ollie to fakie on the main bank, front slash the tight qp, front 50 the hubba, boardslide the bump to ledge, etc. A couple kids showed up that looked to be having fun. I kind of settled into a line. Front 50 the hubba, push around the park and go into the roll in on the east side, pump over the mound of wasted cement, little b/s ollie on the nipple hip, carve around, f/s ollie over the little hip, turn around, f/s flip over the little hip. I think I got all of them together, but the f/s flip was bad. I did get a better one though. Then I took a bit to get a b/s flip on it too. The one I got felt so easy and effortless it was a rare neat feeling. I guess I can actually have fun at Boulder park if no one is there and I can go slow and dork around. Can’t believe how sore I am though from carving around. That seems to hurt my knees more then jumping.