After meeting Rob at Crisis for the surprise surprise we went to yellow curbs. The crew was Dave, Rob, Fuzz and I. We were all wearing our new Crisis hoodies. We looked good. Ha. It was late when we started. Around 10pm. We arrived and found that most of the lights were turned off. Doh. We still had fun though. I had a couple manuals, slappies, wallies, kickflips before breaking my board on a pop shove. Doh. Last thing I did was a powerslide tailside since I couldnt ollie anymore with a broken tail. Dave did a wallie manual wallie over some parking blocks. It was rad. Rob did ollie over a parking block to manual to transfer over a parking block. Great stuff. He also had his patented slappy/back 50s on lock regardless of what he says. Fuzz was grinning ear to ear. I powerslid his “best wheels ever” Spitfire Fours and flatspotted them. So funny. He had some cool feeble transfers, slappy tails, boneless grinds and a bunch more smiles. Then we got the boot by a security guard that makes Carleigh’s bipolarness seem stable. He was freaking on us one minute then our best friend the next. Crazy.

We started here. It was rougher then it looks. I dropped in a couple times then filmed. Jack got a good one, Max slammed hard and Josh walked away with a few epic accidental tricks.

We went to another ditch. Smoother concrete, but steep. The Nuller’s killed a crazy ledge to drop into the ditch. I did a couple b/s flips and bailed a kickflip to fakie.

Then we ended up at this amazing ditch. Josh front blunted this beast. I kick back tailed the curb under the ledge. Jack did a crazy wallie sex change. Max did a line with a bunch of ollies. Chad filmed a trick for a long time and didn’t get it. Doh, he has had a cold streak lately. We messed around here for awhile. There is another curb below this spot that was really fun too. Then the trip was over. It was a blast. One of my favorite Null trips. It really helped that other filmers were along and I wasn’t 24/7 filmer, but everyone on this trip was awesome and the vibe the whole time was great. 3 weeks til deadline. Crazy.

No matter how much I sleep or how little I drink it seems like the second day of a skate trip is rough. This was no exception. Especially after an insanely fun, but late night of jello shots and late night skating with sleeping bags to another house. We started kinda late and met Monico at UNM. We started in this fun little plaza area that I could probably skate like crazy had I not felt so tired. The Nullers were doing some pretty crazy stuff. Monico’s pole jam was crazy. I did get a little line going with a few basics that I dont’ remember anymore. We moved on. Some filming was done. Last chance I had to skate was this amazing plaza with benches everywhere, 3 stairs, etc. I was so tired, but managed a line of ollie a tiny flat gap, noseslide a bench, ride off a 3 stair (it was an attempt at an ollie), crooks the fountain ledge. Then I filmed Chad try a sick line for awhile, but not get it. Then we went to downtown ABQ. That was a bit much. Two places where I was skating carrying my camera bag and my filming board. I don’t remember doing anything I cared about. Josh and Max got some rad stuff. Then we retired for the night. Exhausted. I was asleep before 11pm.

We got in pretty late to ABQ so we had a late start. After hitting up BZ to sell some boards we went to a nearby DIY ditch spot.

Josh killed this place. There is a few more qp’s there too. But Josh going over the grate to noseblunt is pretty messed up. Then we skated the weird foundation that’s there too. Jack tried to ollie onto this crazy gravel angled piece of concrete mess, but kept sticking in it. I felt somewhat ok and tried a little line which I eventually got. Ollie a little flat gap, kickflip a little gap, front 180 a little weed off a curb.

Then we ended up here. I didn’t feel like shutting down the spot so I just kind of filmed/lurked/smiled. Our tour guide Dave went buck here and got an NBD that was gnarly. With how many pros have been to this spot it’s pretty crazy that the rails are even still an option. Josh, Jack and Max tried some stuff too, but nothing came of it and we moved on.

We ended up at pretty much the best spot ever. Seriously, ever. For about the first 30 minutes my excitement was so high I couldn’t even try tricks I was just cruising around in disbelief of how awesome everything was. Seriously mind blowing spot and major kudos to the people responsible for building it. On top of the spot ruling it, the weather was perfect, the vibe was awesome and there were two other filmers there!!! I didn’t film at all! Watching the Nullers kill it was awesome too. They skated the hip so good. Jack did kickflip late shove, impossibles, everything. Josh did everything. Cameron even killed it with a nollie front foot flip. Max was putting together 20 trick lines. Monico showed!!! And immediately killed it. Pole jam 360. I was trying long lines with manuals on the ledge, front slash on the smaller bank (where Max is going back for his board), front 5-0 on the ledge, ollie up the little step up (behind Cameron), ollie the car chair off the ledge (next to the pole jam). Never got the whole line, but I did land on a few ollies over the chair and smacked down so hard. Geez. I eventually would get it as I was trying to get Josh’s back and he had already done f/s flip and after getting switch flip I had to get his back. Whew. I really didn’t do a whole lot more myself, but I could skate that place forever and that was a really fun session.

Lastly we went to an absolutely insane school. It was straight out of THPS. Gnarly hubba, ledges off stairs, etc. It was bonkers. I didn’t skate. Monico and Jack got some gnarly tricks. Then we went on to have one of the funnest party nights that involved a late night drunken group skate to another house. It was epic. Super fun day.

As Nullers arrived Jack and I dorked around on the street in front of my house. I was super tired and anxious about leaving so I didn’t really try anything. Mostly just powerslides and shoves. Jack had some good slides and some flatground. Max did 10 treflips in a row. F’ing Max. Then we left.

Woke up at 5am for some dumb reason. Went to work early so had some time to kill before halloween festivities with the family. I wanted to go to Broomfield park, but didn’t want to drive that far. Went by Stonehenge and there were cars there. I really wanted something mellow. Drove by the ballpark ledges and new I wouldn’t be able to ollie that high by how I was feeling. Wind and lack of sleep can add to my arthritis and it was in full effect. Ugh. I ended up at this spot because there is kind of a bank there. Warming up never really happened. I was straight sucking the whole time. Back 50s where I felt like I was going to die the whole time. Couldn’t do crooks. Ugh. You can’t really see the leaves blowing by in the photo, but they were. I managed a line of back 50 then kickflip to fakie on the steeper part of the bank. I basically only did back 50s since crooks were not working. And even then I would rarely land them. I did a few front 50s going up it and then a few flippers at the end. One of which was 3 flip and it took a while. Argh.

Went back to the research center because I just couldn’t stop thinking about how fun it was to do tricks down the mellow hill. I’m gonna start referring to it as the Fiercely Fabulous Flatground Fun Facility for a joke about my PJ nerdness. No, it’s not the same, but it gets me hyped in the same way. It was late and cold (35). Even the first couple runs of 180s and ollies were fun. My legs didn’t feel as good as Sunday, but I still ended up having a decent time. After awhile I had a couple techer lines. 360 flip (both hands down it counts since it’s 35, I’m 40 and well, I’m by myself!), front 180 up the upper curb, halfcab flip on flat then crooks. Another one was heelflip then f/s flip (horribly done), halfcab flip, ollie up the curb, crooks. Gotta start doing more then crooks on this ledge! Fakie bigflip, pop shove, try to ollie at speed up the upper curb, back 50. Had several other flippers, but wasn’t feeling as good or consistent as Sunday. Did have an extra fun b/s flip. Tried front and back smiths on the ledge. Got into both. Kinda surprised I was able to get into back smith, but not sure I’d ever actually land it. Tried a bunch of switch varial flips when going up the hill and got kinda close. Wasn’t hyped at how much I struggled with fakie flip or fakie bigflips though. Either way it was fun and I like that the slight hill forces me at times to do a trick faster then I normally would.

On an absolutely gorgeous autumn day Rob and I met up with Neil, Blake and Dave at a new bank spot on Arapahoe. Upon arriving I wasn’t into the fact that it was right off of Arapahoe. I saw Dave do some long powerslides in the new concrete, but other then that I wandered around to see what else was around. This is when it got awesome. Blake and I did a few chinese nollies into a little downhill sidewalk and ollied off a bump. Then eventually everyone joined us and we were mostly skating the “hip” above on this photo of Blake flying 3 feet over his board. There was other stuff we played on too. Blake and I ollied off a narrow loading dock. I slammed trying to ollie a box that Neil one-footed over first try. It hurt my wrist pretty bad. I would eventually get the ollie. Adjusting to the smaller board again weird for ollies. Fuller did a rad back 270 (he’s goofy) over the hip. Neil lofted some one foots. Rob won MVP with kickflips, lofty no comply shoves, pop shove tail grabs and a lofty ollie to slam. Blake never got the heelflip. I took a long time to get a b/s flip and then out of nowhere did a treflip over the hip in a couple tries.

Then we went back to the ol’ research center. We gained Jake and Carleigh late in this session. Dave was ripping. He did the front board above as well as a back board 270 out that was slid so far he pivoted on the stair. That was nuts. Neil had front tails, front lips, crook shoves. Blake had front 50 shove. Rob had some steezy front noseslides and much more. I was feeling the best I’ve felt in a long time and decided to take advantage of that with flip tricks. So I kinda just stayed to myself and tried flip tricks down the mellow hill. It ended up being the funnest I’ve had in so long on my board. It took awhile to get heelflips going, but I eventually got a first run of kickflip, heelflip, treflip, b/s flip. Bailed a fakie flip after that? Argh. Ha. Then I had another one that was something like fakie flip, fakie big flip, pop shove, varial flip, kickflip, heelflip, landed on treflip but fell. I was so stoked. The varial flip felt extra fun. I just kept skating flat and it was a blast. I got a couple more 5+ trick lines with more treflips, fakie varial flips, halfcab flips, etc. Man it was fun. Oh little 8″ board I will never betray you again. I eventually skated the ledge with everyone again. Got some crooks. Couldn’t back 50 so I did a slow kick back 50 instead. Pretty tall ledge for me to try that. The session had cooled down quite a bit by then. Jake was doing crooks, Carleigh noseslides. We left, then had a super fun night hanging out.

Awesome people.

This was one of those days with lots of phone calls to start the saturday. Chad, Blaine, Will, Rob, Neil met at my house. We went by Boulder park where we picked up Lazer and Carleigh. First spot was called out as a school by Jack’s house that’s got some weird line options up/around/over 3 stairs. Everyone was kinda warming up. Lazer was dressed up for halloween as a log lady. He looked pretty funny wearing a skirt doing tricks on the ledge. There is a weird ledge there. Neil and I had warm up runs of boardslide, kickflip on flat, ollie the 3. Lazer back 180’d it all good. Chad ollied up the 3 and ollied the ledge to drop, but didn’t find anything film worthy. He disappeared for awhile. Will was killing front boards. Everyone else got in a wallride session. Rob did some crazy ones. I tried a line for way too long of noseslide to fakie, f/s halfcab flip on flat then ollie the 3. After that we went in search of Blaine and Chad.

We found them around the corner. We watched Chad try this crazy quick up gap to rock a bunch, but he never rode away. Doh. Then we went to the research center ledge. Well, Blaine, Will, Chad and I did. Everyone else went to the Boulder park. I was feeling pretty frustrated at this point. My legs weren’t behaving too well. I wanted to give up on the gluten-free diet as it wasn’t working. Or so I thought. Will got a cool line. Fun dude to skate with. Chad and I tried some downhill flatground lines. I struggled with kickflips. Can’t do much of a line if you can’t land the first trick. Chad almost got a super sick line, but touched on a fakie 5-0. Doh. I managed to get crooks and back 50. That’s about it. Doh.

On a super nice day I snuck out at lunch to hit the little park by IBM with Fullertron. We started out skating like 40+ year olds. Ugh. Oh I was on a new 8″ Little Dude board since I had cracked my tank of an 8.25 last night. I can’t say the 8″ felt amazing and it was actually kind of weird for ollies, but for flippers it was way funner. We mostly skated the bank shown above with some other stuff mixed in. I had to be back at work within an hour so we didn’t have much time. Fuller did switch shoves both ways on the bank, cab, fakie shoves, etc. Almost boardslide shove on the flatbar. I got fakie varial flip on the bank and kickflip to fakie as well as b/s flip. I really struggled ollieing the little flat bar. In fact I landed so bad I probably should have snapped the tail off. My legs were feeling very heavy. I don’t get it. Neither of us skated great, but it was nice to get out in the nice warm sunny weather. Dave ended the session with a fakie flip (above).