In the midst of my Mr Mom week I took off to Southern Hills for a quick hour on a gorgeous morning. It was 60 degrees. Or so I thought, right after getting there some wind started. For the most part there was only a few strong gusts that messed with me and it was mostly fine. My arthritis was bad. It took me a long time to even be able to ollie. I ended up sticking with it though and eventually did some things I was hype on. Front 50, front 50 shove, front 50 front 180 out, front 5-0 front shove out (over 50 make), lots of back crooks that felt good, halfcab noseslide and the worst back 50 that could be landed. I wish these ledges were a little lower, but man it feels good to land tricks on them.

Then we went to Denver and dropped India off at the Colorado Ballet which is one block from the Denver Art Museum aka one of the best spots in Denver. Before going there Ollie and I cruised around for awhile and checked stuff out. I showed him Civic park. We hit a couple things. Stayed at this spot for awhile. I was still feeing crazy arthritic and was scared to ollie off this thing initially. So bad. Ollie rode off it. I ollied and took forever to front 180 off it. It was embarrassing.

Then we hit the art museum. The wind had picked up some. It was a consistent wind rather then gusts. Ollie did lots of manuals like above. He set his board up on the ledge and would do that. He seemed rather hyped doing it and it was cool seeing him push mongo all fast around the spot. My legs let me skate somewhat. It’s weird to say, but the little drop before that we skated seemed to warm them up better then anything else. I had a couple ollies up onto ledges then gap to manual like Ollie was doing. I ollied over the narrow ledge that can be boardslid. I also did a really dumb line of ollie onto the wide ledge, drop down them immediately boardslide the narrow ledge. Lastly a really fun first try manual around most of that near the end where it gets taller. India had a good audition and we ate Wahoos after. Fun times with the kids!

On a day where the forecasted high was 62 with 40mph winds I went to Southern Hills while it was 39 and not windy. Way to go weatherman. I had been entertaining Ollie all morning and then picked up India then brought Ollie to a friends and got to Southern Hills around 3pm. Carleigh, Neil and Blake would meet up after I arrived. I was feeling very arthritic and sore, but very motivated to skate. It helped that they had swept up the school and there weren’t a ton of little pebbles everywhere. I started ollie’ing off the little narrow ledge at the top for a warm up and it graduated into one of the funnest and longest runs I’ve done. Ollie onto the narrow longer ledge, push (I’m not good enough to ollie onto it fast enough to have speed byt the end), front 180 off, halfcab flip, kickflip into the handicap ramp, crooks a bench. I was sincerely stoked. Carleigh showed up around now. She was cruising around warming up and I tried another line starting at the long narrow ledge. Ollie on, kickflip off, back 180 down the two stair, something else. But I never got the back 180. It was weird kickflipping off the ledge because it’s so narrow. My kickflips felt weird. They felt way more popped then normal, but kind of out of control. I guess I normally use some angle. Anyway I eventually landed bad and cracked the tail to the point where it couldn’t be popped. Doh. Neil and Blake arrived. I lost a lot of motivation having to ride my board backwards. I tried some kickflips into the handicap ramp followed by front noseslides on the bench, but that was about it. Carleigh had a lot of back 180’s into the handicap ramp and came real close to a b/s flip. Neil ripped harder then I’ve seen in awhile once he got warmed up. Long lines. Ollie onto the bench in the far corner, ollie north off, noseslide the ledge, back 180 out of the handicap ramp. Switch front 180, kickflip into the handicap ramp, front 50 one foot out the bench. Blake did such a cool trick. Ollie from the top of the two stair onto the middle stair then front shove off. It reminded me of Suciu and his 3 flip onto the stair in Sabotage 3. Jack was supposed to meet up, but I had to bolt because India was stressing over a ballet audition. It felt good to get out and skate, but man I could have gone without breaking my board.

Liz is in Florida with her family. India has a sleepover at some friends. So my Valentines Day was going skating with Ollie and then shooting nerf guns at each other and watching Dumb and Dumber. In other words, it was epic. Since this is a skate journal I’ll spare the excited for Dumb and Dumber To and talk about how fun Louisville park was. First, we haven’t been there in forever and upon arrival it seemed to have a much better vibe then normal. There were several skaters there. Somewhat older skaters in their 20s and they were super positive and having fun. They reminded me of the Fremont crew and that is a huge complement. I’m not sure why, but I felt really natural and fluid when we first started. I did the best no comply 360 of my life and those dudes asked me to show them how to do that trick. I couldn’t do it again, but whatevs. Ollie and I cruised around. He had some really good frontside carves in the snake run and man, he looks so natural sometimes. He rode under the rainbow rail and then manualled the rough crete to the street. How does he think of lines like that? Ollie constantly stokes me out skating. He also had some lofty front 180’s off the ledge and some boardslides on the curb into grass. I think he was more excited to land in the grass then on concrete. The only complaint I have on the night is how tight my trucks were. It was colder then we thought it would be and with the harder venom bushings I was surprised at how hard it was to turn a few times. I tried a run of boardlside the curb, front 50 the tiny ledge above the bowl, ride off the other ledge, then front 50 the tall ledge, but I can’t seem to ollie that high anymore. Other tricks I did were front d in the snake run, crooks the ledge, kick back sloppy 50-50 the ledge. Ollie and I skated the bank to ledge. He did nose tap to fakie, nose tap 180 and a rock ‘n roll on it. So sick. I took way too long to do back 50, but got front 50 and front smith quick. I would do flatground on the way back. Got a good b/s flip. Posed other tricks. Last trick was a boneless over the hip where I almost died multiple times setting up with a back 50 around the corner. That park was way fun. Maybe I felt extra lucky just to be skating when I’m Mr Mom’ing it.

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Lazer has been hitting me up for awhile wanting to skate Rampy. I had another long day working from home and dealing with furnace crap, but we made it happen around 7 for an hour or so. I had fun. More fun then I thought I would even though we had a really mellow session. Neither of us got new tricks, but we did quite a few out of our bags. Well, I posed a lot of tricks anyway. Makes me want to keep Rampy.

Had a really long and exhausting day dealing with furnace stuff while working from home. Then a long battle of nerf guns with Ollie and hanging with Jason for awhile I went out to Rampy totally tired and not all that motivated. Kickflips felt good. Then kind of hucked for awhile. Mainly fakie varial heels and switch varial flips. Didn’t get either. Went to sleep.

Went out to Rampy late after helping the kids with homework and insane amounts of fun playing Nerf guns with Ollie. I had no desire to actually skate the ramp.  Instead of just skated on the flat. And it ended up being really fun. I started with kickflips and went from there. I didn’t get too crazy. I decided to try back side and front side bigspins and got sloppy versions of both.  Got a 3 flip, failed nollie casual flip. Tried double varial flips and the board landed on my foot hard so I called it a night. Can’t wait for Rampy to be gone so I have more room. 

After a snowy, cold and lazy morning Neil tried to convince me that it wasn’t snowing in Broomfield. Seeing as how there was already a couple inches of new snow in Boulder I didn’t really believe him, but figured I’d try anyway. Neil was right! We went by the park and saw it was dry, but decided to use it as a backup if we couldn’t find something better. Low and behold we found this spot, a spot I used to skate with Jason a lot. The temperature was 19 or 20. Cold. I had long johns on under my jeans. I mostly started warming up on the bank to stairs. Front pivot, front tail, couldn’t stall backside for some reason so just kickflipped in instead (way easier). Neil was popping one foots, no comply to tail. We both took several tries to ollie the two stair into the bank. It’s scary for some reason. Maybe the rough ground and the big metal contraption sticking out. I don’t know, but we dedicated a try to Jason and that got us to both commit. We also raced to kickflip up the two stair. It tooks us forever, but I eventually got a rocket flip to somehow make it up the two stair.

Then we started filming each other with our phones. Neil got another line that was super rad with a pop shove in, boneless, no comply to tail and kickflip to fakie. Whew. He was also messing around with long nose manuals, but kept running into ice/cracks/rocks/etc.

I had fun with the one above. Also got another line with a front 180 off the corner of the two stair and a fakie varial flip as well as 360 flip to fakie.

Then we went to the park and it seemed like it got way colder. My bushing started to freeze up something fierce. We mostly just cruised and then Neil got in the car. I did a few basic tricks on the black ledge and called it a day. Stoked we filmed a little even if it was with phones.

It’s funny how warm 45 degrees feels this winter. Ok, maybe funny isn’t the right word, but it was Saturday, 45 and sunny so we had to get out. Jake, Neil, Blake and I met at Southern Hills. I got there first with a shovel and broom. I was skeptical at first, but started shoveling around the ledges and it seemed like it might be good. Neil and Blake warmed up with a game of SKATE. Blake and I had some lines going. Kickflip into the tiny bank with no speed, trick on the bench (he did noseslide, I did front jib), ollie up the two stair, turn around and ollie down the two over a pile of snow. So fun! I got a crooks on the bench and was starting to feel good when a security guard came and ruined everything. Argh.

Lots of driving and looking later we found this and it ended up being quite fun. I took the panorama at the end while driving so it screwed up, but whatever.

We messed around at another bank at this spot, but a puddle could not be tamed under it so we gave up. We started pretty basic, but some fun lines came of it. Trick into the far left bank, ollie onto or manual the sidewalk, push up the bank then ollie off the loading dock. We all did it with kickflips to start. Blake added a front 180 off the dock since he’s goofy. As you can see the landing of the loading dock wasn’t exactly ideal, lots of water. I tried a line for quite a while. Varial flip into the bank, ollie onto the sidewalk (although in the one I got I actually manualled it), then back 180 off the dock. The back 180 could maybe only qualify as an over 40 Baker Maker. I was hyped on that though.

We lurked around for awhile and found this nearby. Neil skated the manny pad and nose mannied it. Blake and I dropped in on this narrow brick retainer. He landed it first. I was scared at first. Then did one and kickflipped off the curb. Blake front 180’d off the curb. Pretty fun. At the end I took too many tries to manual the manny pad.

After several days with very cold temperatures it’s crazy how warm 29 degrees feels. It felt so warm I wanted to skate outside! Since it was still business hours and there was snow everywhere I went to this abandoned business knowing something would be dry. I was kinda bummed to not have the curb up/down as an option, but I made due. I was still pretty sore/arthritic so for awhile I just pushed and did chinese nollies off the metal grates. It felt good to have the sun in my eyes. Eventually kickflips started coming and then more. Did a line of pop shove, kickflip, varial flip that took me awhile, but got me warmed up. Tried to f/s halfcab over a metal grate and it took me forever. They stick up a little and it totally weirded me out. I did eventually get it and then kickflipped the next one which is longer because you have to pop a couple feet early because of a crack. The concrete is super rough at this spot. I could not land a treflip to save my life. One excuse I’ll make is that my Venom bushings blew out on day one of the new PJ trucks and keep getting worse. It seems to make a little unexpected twist right before I wind up and pop for that trick. Pretty lame excuse right? Well I’m gonna get some new bushings soon hopefully. I tried a bunch of tricks unsuccessfully. Varial heel, front heel, switch flip, nollie varial flip. Tried a line of kickflip or front shove over the grate (front shove took way too long), front 180 the next one then switch varial flip. Never got the sw varial flip. started trying halfcab flip over a grate and got one that felt so good. Once again I skated like crap and probably skate too much for my body, but I liked being outside in the sun.