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.

This is pretty much the best and proof that skateboarding is the silliest and best thing ever.

A cold and snowy night. Jake was angry about some girl problems and after everyone else bailed on Rampy he talked me into going to skate flatground at the Ihop garage. I was pretty sore from skating so many days in a row again (8). We started out pretty basic and worked our way up. Started with boardslides through a couple skate stoppers, kickflips, 180s, fakie flips and halfcab flips. I forgot how fun this garage is. It’s downhill. I normally walked back up. We kickflipped the curb. Jake normally followed his with more tricks then me, although I eventually got a long one together with quite a few flippers in it like varial flip, fakie bigflip, b/s flip. I don’t remember exactly. At one point I got down to the wall at the end and failed at a wallride because I can’t do them. Jake yelled down that we should do a physical challenge and land a wallride. The funny part was he walked down the garage to the wallride instead of skated down. I’ll cut him some slack though because he was bumming. I never got very close to the wallride, he got a couple though. Had some more fun doing manuals around the corner, ollieing the little median, bailing 360 flips. The thing I was most hyped on was going into the hill fast and actually ollieing the median rather then wussing out. Then we threw snowballs at a circle on the wall.

I had a really long day at work and got home a little before 7. Jake hit me up saying he was having a rough day and would love to skate Rampy. So after some indoor basketball with Ollie Jake showed up and we hit the ramp. Second run it was clear Jake wanted to skate hard and I guess it rubbed off on me. We both went deep into our bags. I got my first fakie pivot fakie in awhile, a good front feeble that grinded, front d to fakie, fakie hurricane, fakie joe hamilton, back smith stalls, front tails, fakie front scratch to fakie, and came close to a windshield wiper. Jake struggled with back blunts and never got one, but he landed nearly everything else. Blunt to back 50, pivot fakie, front feebs, hurricanes both ways, front nosepick, front 5-0 270 out, and some really long runs.