Met Rob at Crisis. The goal was to do a bit of filming so Rob would have a trick or two in the video, then go to Chad’s to edit. As we were warming up you could see the stress in Rob and he slammed so hard on a front tail. Geez. He brushed it off though and got a few of his patented moves. I’ll save the surprise for the Null vid. After filming I skated for about 20 minutes. I felt pretty good. Did quite a few front 50s that felt fun. Also even a rare back 50 before starting to kickflip in which is slowly becoming easy then ollie’ing in. Got kick back 50 and started hucking kick back smiths. They felt possible. Then it was off to Chads.

Slept in kinda late and headed to Chad’s around noon with the goal of him getting his ender. We went to Denver park to warm up. One of my least favorite parks ever for lots of reasons. Mainly, because I don’t really like any of the stuff there to skate. It’s slippery as hell. And there was about a million little kids there trying to film and parents encouraging this crap while standing there with their bike helmets on. I had no motivation at all. I will blame Liz for this (in a good way). We were there for about an hour and I really didn’t do anything. Seeing Malto, Atiba and Mike Mo in their football jerseys was pretty funny though.

We went to Chad’s spot. The gnarly bank to wall in DTC. Before he started trying I messed around on the bank to curb a bit. Totally not doing anything worthy of mentioning. Chad kept getting close to his trick and everytime he would get really close his board would go in the water. Doh. Tough day. It got cold once the sun went under.

We are approaching the end of filming for the Null video and Jack had the day off work. The day was geared toward him, meaning spots of his choosing and whatnot. We stuck around in Boulder. It was really nice out for the most part early on, with crazy wind gusts every once in awhile. We all met at Wilville. The crew was Blaine, Jack, Carleigh, Rob, Neil, Blake. This session was really fun. I was feeling energetic and my skateboard was behaving alright. We skated the area connecting the cafeteria to the main dorms. Blaine was blasting ollies over a long metal grate, back 180s, soft rocks on the bank by the stairs, and riding down the hubba thing. I tried to line out things, soft rock on the bank, kickflip on flat, nose man into the hubba. Might have gotten that. Rob was trying to comply shove manuals. Jack was setting up a board then manualling the whole thing first try. Carleigh said she was scared to roll into which Jack and I could not believe. Ha, her first roll in attempt was sketchy, but after that no problem. Neil was one footing into the bank no problem. A bank carve session ensued with everyone (I think) getting long carves over three benches. Not all that hard, but kind of scary and incredibly fun.

Then we went to the parking lot for a Jack trick which he did relatively quick.

Then we went to the Table Mesa Park ‘N Ride for some more Jack fun which he handled as well. Some really hard slams this time though. After he landed his trick the rest of us joined in and skated. It was fun. Dave had joined us too. I did a line of ollie up the curb, worst front board ever (the last part of the rail that is just downhill) and a kickflip off the curb. Dave killed boardslides and boardslides to fakie. Neil had some proper front boards. Carleigh noselides. Rob with fast and steezy back 180’s up the curb with halfcab noseslid on the rail. Jack did a bunch of tricks like front smith, front lip, etc. Blake was doing some messed up Chinese Nollie tricks.

Lastly was the above spot. Jack threw down here. Like whoa. About the minute he landed his trick the wind kicked in something fierce. But that didn’t stop people from skating in it. Carleigh learned early grabs. Lots of them were complete cartwheels down the hill with lots of laughter. Dave did his 360 eggplant to grass ride. Blake did a bunch of different early grabs to grass ride. Rob tried to ollie to grass ride and back 180’d the little gap easy. Blaine had some nice bean plants over the gap and grass rides. I had the funny looking kickflip above and ollied up that gap to to early grab grass ride. At the very end Dave and I ollie rock’d up onto the kinked ledge and rode down it. We contemplated ollie’ing onto it, but the wind was too much. Epic day. Good work Jack!

Another fabulous film from Fullertron. That f/s wallie was so painful when I did it. My arthritis was in effect. That was like a year ago.

Headed up to MRKT to sell some boards after work with Dave and Rob. Obviously it was dark by the time we got there. Everyone up there was going to see The Sword so we ended up going to Northside to look at the new stuff that had been poured. We started out lighting up the china bank ledge, but then noticed a really fun looking new volcano thing so we moved my car to point at it. Little did we know it’s deathly slick and Dave went down hard. So hard I thought he might be out for the night just like that. I slipped out too, but knowing it was slippery was able to recover. We didn’t really skate that anymore, but it didn’t stop Dave from having a night full of slams. But he didn’t let it get to him and we had some fun cali grinding over the china pump bump things in lines. Rob was mostly talking to a friend during the first part of the session. My first line was frontside cali grind the bump, b/s flip on the bank then b/s caligrind front 180 out. Then Dave and I started trying switch cali grinds. He was going b/s and I was going f/s. I would do kickflips to fakie on the bank to get setup, he would do nollies to fakie. He got his first. Switch b/s cali grind over the bump! Gnarly. I would eventually get mine too, but with a hand touch. It’s weird grinding “switch”. Rob joined in and initially couldn’t do a regular cali grind, but within a few tries had it down like he had been doing it for years. He also had b/s one foots on the bank, no comply biggee, b/s flip. We had another fun trick of push grind and then get up on both feet halfway through. I added fakie flip and b/s bigflip on the bank as well as frontside cali grind back 180 out. Dave had some cool jersey barrier tricks. Riding up the end to 5-0 on the barrier to rock ‘n roll. Gnarly. Lastly we lit up the pole jam where I did a no comply pole jam in a few tries and then Rob landed his first one ever. So sick. I skated flat for awhile. I struggled. Couldn’t commit to 3 flips for awhile, but eventually got a couple including a hang ten landing. Fun night. As Rob said, even though you aren’t doing much cali grinding over those bumps it’s somehow really rewarding.

I must say something I’m doing is better for my arthritis lately. Its either the gluten-free diet or the fact that I’m sitting more at work. But either way I ordinarily could not have skated well in the cold like this. Especially knowing now that it’s super windy the next day. Normally if it’s going to be super windy my arthritis will flare up before it happens. I’m hyped.

After hanging with Sam at Meta for awhile I rolled over to the fun little alley ledge on a super warm night. I was there about 20 minutes and landed darn near every trick I’ve done there including multiple kick back tails. It rules. Almost got a front smith front shove out which I’ve never done before. Front tail shove out, kick back 50, kick back 5-0, kick back tails where I tried shoves out. Me love my little 8″ board. Then I went home and met Josh to go through his clips and determine what is Null worthy. Ha.

Went back to the fun research center “hill”/ledge. Started oh so slow and could not land anything. Well I when I would hit the ledge it was ok. I had some pop in my legs and front 50s were easy, crooks. I could not land a back 180 to save my life though and it was pissing me off so much. So I decided to scrap that and started a line with pop shove. Felt good, no comply front 180, halfcab flip, heelflip, up the curb, crooks, almost manual the pad around the corner. Stoked on that one and it got the blood flowing. Started trying a way techer line of fakie flip, fakie big flip, varial flip, treflip, but never rode away from the treflip. Doh, the hill isn’t fast, but downhill treflips are still a weird thing for me. That would have been such a good line for me. On the ledge I got into a couple front tails which is really tall for me, switch noseslides, got an ok back 50. Had another line going starting with backside flip, then fakie varial flip, fakie front shove, but slammed really hard on the fakie front shove and decided I should get home and organize Null files.

Brett front 50!

Brett Boneless

45 year old Fullertron crooks!

Picked Neil up around 11:30 and we headed to our favorite spot. This spot is known for having a high kick out percentage and there was a car in the parking lot. We were in the warm up process when the teacher came out, but managed to not say anything to us. Whew. Neil went to killing mode pretty quick. Manual the top main rock, nose manual the one right after it, kickflip, front lip or front tail the next ledge. I was jittery and feeling too excited to skate well. Ha, little kid syndrome. This spot is that good. Dave, Brett and Brian (Brian just said hello). We all got things going. Neil was skated extra good. I guess it’s the same tricks as last time, but they are awesome regardless. I didn’t land a whole lot. I did manage kick back 50, lots of crooks, fakie nosegrind, halfcab noseslide, front 50 shove, switch noseslide. I tried front lips which I’ve never done on anything this tall before. To hype myself up I would try kickflips up the curb, treflip coming down the little hill and then the front lip. I only got the treflip once, but man it was a good one. I got the closes on that lipslide attempt. Dave ripped. Manual the main rock, boardslide to fakie, boardslide to fakie 50 to halfcab out, front 50, front lip, some good slams on kickflips, and dropped to manual on the rock under the stage. Brett was the man of the hour though. He hasn’t skated since hurting his foot months ago. He came out and broke his board right away on a kickflip. Got super mad, chilled, then set up a new board and killed it! Front 50, front tail, front 50 180, noseslide shove, no comply bigspin off the curb, bonelesses, a lot more.

Then we went to a hip spot after picking up Derek where I did a couple kickflips before turning into filmer Glen. My feet were hurting like crazy because my shoes are too small. I can deal with filming much easier if I get some good skating in first. Derek got a couple bangers and Fuller got one too. Sick!

Had a busy morning of going to Crisis, playing football with Ollie and other errands before heading out mid afternoon to pick up Neil. We went on a spot searching mission. We went to a school neither of us had been to in a long time. It sucked. We moved on and ended up finding this spot which was so good. Good enough it’s on the list of spots to hit again in Louisville. The ledge with Neil posing is on the far left of the panorama shot. Neil was beat, unmotivated, drained. He didn’t do much more then not land boardslides and do some no comply 360s. I skated pretty decent. Neither of us boardslid as long as we wanted to on the ledge and popping out at the end was harder then we thought it would be, but it was still a good ledge. I was trying to line stuff out. Boardslide/noseslide/or/crooks the ledge then kickflip, heelflip, ollie the 3 stair. Didn’t get there. Going the other way, starting in the basketball court I did manage a treflip, ollie the 3 (chickened out of a front 180 because i’m a pansy), b/s flip, halfcab flip then bailed a front board pop out. DOH! Ended by waxing the 2nd stair in the middle of the stairs which could be really good. Got a few front 50s on it. Coming back I was committing to nollie bigflips, but not landing on it. They were close though. I probably would have skated a lot longer, but Neil was done and I needed to organize my null hard drive for editing to begin. Fun.

Brought boards to 303 and Emage then went to meet up with Chad and Connor. Had a few minutes to kill so I just parked on a random block that looked fun to skate. Good asphalt, curb cuts and even a ledge. I had new shoes and a new board. I had some Emerica Laced (Romero). I had tried to break these shoes in months ago, they gave me blisters, gave up on them, gave them to my brother, then while visiting my brother in Wisconsin I took them back. So they are broken in. I even skated them for a bit while in Wisconsin. Anyways, I felt ok initially then slammed super hard bailing an ollie out of a curb cut. Ouch. I also couldn’t seem to land a kickflip. Ugh. Chad showed up and cruised around with me. He’s got pop. We both just cruised the block hitting stuff. Chad front boarded a tall flower planter and started feeling out a potential line. I started feeling somewhat ok on my board, but then we got the boot. Then I filmed the rest of the night. It was one of those frustrating nights where we got the boot from every spot before people got tricks. Ugh.