Had some time before meeting up with the crew for Jack’s 21st birthday. It was raining so I went to the parking garage near my house. For some reason it’s the first time I’ve gone there which is crazy considering it’s like a 3 minute drive. It’s got some manny pad and parking block options so it offers more then just flatground. It has a bit of a slope too it though and it’s not very big. But I’m sure I’ll be back there sometime. Anyways, skating didn’t go all that good. My feet are really hurting in the Lakai Guys. I might try a thicker insole or just move on. I did manage a bad treflip, lots of halfcab flips, fakie bigflips, varial flips and I tried a bunch of nollie f/s flips. Front 50s on the parking block and slappy crooks were fun too. I didn’t skate very good, but it felt good to get out. Oh yeah, I had some new Levis skate jeans that Sam from 303 said would be super comfy once they broke in and the crispness wore off. Well so far they are about as uncomfortable as pants come. That didn’t help.

Met up with Blaine and Derek after work. Went to 303 which took a long time and we got out around the time it turned dark. We went to the “The Only Spot In Denver” and were warming up when a motorcycle cop came by and threatened $200 tickets so we left. Some driving around and we ended up at the 9th & Santa Fe blocks. Initially I could not ollie up the main block. Partly because it’s tall and partly because it was really dark. Derek was getting close to some crazy tricks. Blaine was filming. And for that I was incredibly grateful and skated the whole time. I eventually got a few ollies up the main block. A few with enough speed to front 180 the gap at the end or do a little 180 pivot on the edge of the sidewalk. I was hyped on that. Going the other way I would try a flip trick then a noseslide on taller main block which was kinda fun because you had to gap in. I never got a 360 flip even when Blaine jokingly tried to film me. Chadman and Kit had shown up too. Kit used his pop to do some crazy lines right away. Going up hill ollie the far ledge, ollie the gap to the low block, up, up, manual. Going the other way ollie up, drop to front 50, almost die. Ha. Chadman didn’t really try much, but skated. He should have done the manual kickflip over the gap. Derek never got what he was really trying. Doh. This is why having Blaine around rules. Blaine is down to film. So sick. I had a lot of fun skating something harder then I would normally skate and it was a super nice night.

So sick.

After hitting Market, Blaine and I went to the courthouse where we were supposed to meet Chad. Blaine and I kinda cruised around and were trying the wallie you see above. I did a horrible one off the very corner. Blaine though. Oh Blaine. He ate shit so hard! Blood on the elbows and wrist hard. Chad showed and was landing lots of flippers right away. I wasn’t landing any and figured playing a game of SKATE with him might help. Nope. I almost got pink slipped. I landed a kickflip and a halfcab flip. That’s it. Geez. We moved on and ended up at a nearby city building with a gnarly narrow ledge to bench quick feet gap that Chad eyed up. Before Blaine and I went filmer mode we did some stuff into the double downhill handicap ramp. Blaine did no comply 180 and halfcab. I took awhile to get halfcab flip then kickflip. Chad didn’t get his trick. Doh. He was stressing too. I Felt bad.

Then we went to the slappy contest. It was a lot of fun. Lots of rad people. I only did a couple slappy crooks and front slappies. Other people were doing some crazy ones. Wallies, kickflips over the bump, etc. Rad, fun scene as I’ve come to expect from the fort. We went across the street for a bit to skate the euro thing. I ollied up it barely. Teagan joined and nose mannied it. Chadman tried to film a line with kickflip up, wallride and a back 180 off, but he bailed a perfect back 180. ARgh. Teagan almost switch tre’d the gap. Then we got the boot. Skated the slappy jam some more. Went home tired.

Lazer, John, Neil and I hit this ledge spot in Lafayette after lots of driving around in CU football traffic for Neil’s bike and John’s board. This spot is hard and a tough warm up. Only at the end of the session did Lazer do the 50 to drop, but we normally skated the flat side where there are two ledges in a row. There is a curb to get up onto this area too so it makes it extra fun. I was feeling really uncoordinated and arthritic. Things just feel weird when I try to skate in this condition. I skate even slower then normal which means I basically don’t move. With that said I had some fun. B/s flip off the curb first try felt good. Some switch 180’s off this little kicker thing, kickflips up the curb, crooks on a ledge. Failed at halfcab noseslides, b/s 180’s off the kicker, front 50s actually moving, pushing. Lazer had a fast and dipped front board to get things started and almost added front nosegrind to it. Neil was struggling. Had some good back shoves up the curb, front 50s, boardslides, ollie norths off the kicker. John was trying a line of noseslide to fakie then his patented “switch” front noseslide. Took him awhile, but he did it.

We were gonna go to Brian’s ramp next, but he wasn’t home yet so we went to check out this school instead. Turns out someone took the knobs off the ledges and it’s pretty much the best spot ever. Look at all of the options! We had a blast here. I’ll go in order of who quit first. Lazer. Ha. He killed it though. Long crooks first try, back 50s, a few long back tails, manuals on the rock at the top in the photo, etc. Neil had such a good run. Pop shove up the curb, manual the rock at the top, lipslide the ledge then front nosegrind the second part of the ledge. So good! He skated a lot too, it’s just that line was the cream of the crop. John and I were the last man standing, but I managed about 30 seconds more then him so he’s next. He had some sick halfcabs onto the rock at the top and back 180 off, switch front noseslide to forward and then front 50 the next ledge. Manual the rock, etc. Almost switch back nose to front nose. At the end we were both trying weird lines the other way. Ollie off the stage onto the rock, turn around and hit the ledge backside. I got crooks then kick back 50. I unfortunately forget what John did. It was tech though. Before that I had a few manual on the rock, ollie on back 180 off, but didn’t get much on the f/s ledge other then front 50s. Came close to long front 5-0 shoves, but the ledge was so slick I would shoot out. My favorite trick was ollie onto the rock then kickflip off. I had a few sketchy ones and then one that felt absolutely amazing. I ollied the corner of a little rock to satisfy Neil’s ollie lesson 101 (to learn ollies you have to ollie over something) and tried a bigger one. I failed, but Neil did it easy. I had gotten a few kick back 50s, but couldn’t do a regular back 50. I guess that’s ok? Super fun spot. Really want to skate there again.

Lastly we went to Brian’s pregnant mosquito infested ramp. Ha. He intentionally built a bump into it. I love it. Now if only the coping would be set properly it would be a perfect ramp. Lazer and Brian tried rolling in. Lazer survived, Brian slammed. He wasn’t even supposed to be skating. Brian still managed a bunch of his crazy tricks. front feeb fakie, feeble fakie over the prego, front slash’s over the prego, switch dropin on it too. Lazer did a front slash or crail or something on the extension that was crazy. He did all kinds of good stuff and almost got back tail over the prego. I sucked and got hung up failing the Joe Hamilton. Neil had some good ollies and flow. John did some rad b/s and f/s ollies onto the prego bump and quite a few of his tricks. Fun day. Good dudes.

Went to SOL on the first real cold day of the season so far. I arrived to a “back in 5 minutes sign” so I pushed around a little and ended up in the alley behind 7-11. There was a cool little new plastic ledge east coast spot. The asphalt even sucked, but the plastic felt slick. I tried a few quick ups to front tail, got close, but then sol opened back up and we went in there. Another dude named Jacob I think skated too. I sucked. Straight up sucked. Dave killed it. I suppose I mention that every time I skate with him, but man he really does skate tranny super good. I don’t even know how many millions of tricks he did. Man it’s embarrassing skating with him there. I did a few more of those switch flips while holding onto the ceiling and got a flatground treflip. On the ramp I got to the point where I was trying front smiths, but Dave had to leave for diaper duty so I left too. I should mention that the Jacob dude was nice and fun to skate with.

My legs felt better then the day before. I thought I could maybe skate decent. Got to the park before those dudes and it was quite crowded. Cameron was there doing nollie front foot flips over the hip. I started in the blue bank area and quickly realizes that although my legs were less sore then the day before, they weren’t working. I skated the little bowl for a bit and managed a run with a corner grind and a front slash on a new spot. That felt good and then I slammed the next three tries on the corner grind. Argh. Chad and Kit showed and somehow we ended up skating the little steep bank behind the jersey barriers. It ended up being fun. Chad killed it with front tail, front feebs, manual. I worked up to front feebs. Kit worked up to back blunt, took a few slams and got it. Pretty sick. Then we skated the main street section. I tried to manual the pier 7 thing and ran into it. I was so bummed. Kit and Chad ripped it. I was super depressed about my skating. I managed a boardslide on the long ledge, but other then that I felt old and really old. Luckily the lights shut off and it was time to go. But no, Chad had other ideas. A game of SKATE in the parking lot. I tried a front shove and almost died. Chad listened to me complain about arthritis for awhile then I ended up putting it together. We all had SKAT when the parking lot lights shut off, but I had landed some tricks and felt better about skating. Once again flat ground saved the day. Maybe I should just stick with it. Skating with those guys was fun. I hate arthritis though.

Got home from work feeling exhausted, sore, unmotivated. Took a nap, woke up and still felt blah. Tried to get hyped. I had gotten calls from Skelly, Fulltertron and FUzz and everyone was planning on northGLENn so I went with it too. After sitting in road construction forever I finally got there around the same time as everyone. 8pm. It was super nice out, a little cool, but perfect. I saw Dave slam about 4 times in the warm up phase so it made my pathetic carves and failed manuals not feel so bad. The park started to clear out and it seemed like it might just be our crew. And then before I could even enjoy it the park was mega crowded. The entire night I never got into a groove and felt very arthritic all night. It doesn’t just effect me physically, it makes the desire to try anything hard as well. The first real skating was the ledge area that Fuzz proceeded to slay. He had runs using the rail above then the ledge. Boardslide/noseslide to get warmed up. Boardslide, crooks. boardslide fakie/halfcab noseslide. ollie over the rail/back 50. Geez. and last front 180 the rail/fakie 50 the ledge. Killing it! I got ultra tech with boardslide then failed crooks. The boardslide took me a bit to commit to. I had to do some kickflips on flat to get my bearings a little straight. I think that’s my main problem with this park, there isn’t really an area to do flatground and get warmed up. I got a couple halfcab flips into the bank and posed kick back 50s on the ledge. I should do that. There were way too many people skating to document. Some highlights I saw were Fuzz’s ledge destruction as I mentioned. Fuller boardslide transfer into the bank, tricks on the jersey barrier, so much more. Big Mike is the f’ing man. No comply pole jams so easy, carve grinds so steezy. Seeing Skelly skate was sick. He skated the ledge area too and ollied the rail then front lipped the ledge. So good. The lights shut off early. Doh. A few lights stay on so we skated around. Dave did a crazy pole jam rock transfer after I fell on my butt trying just the pole jam rock. So I went and hid in an area doing flatground and finally feeling like I was skating. Got a few over 40 treflips (hands down) and a fakie bigflip that was my favorite feeling trick of the night. Mike did a rad wallride back 180 out. A few of us tried to ‘walk the dog’. Pretty sure I looked the dumbest. Dave tried to teach me layback boardslides down the hubba, but I said I needed at least a 20 stair hubba to learn it right. Night over. As horrible as I skated I left in a good mood. Probably because I did some flippers finally. I was the only one there that did a flip trick. WTF old farts.

Fremont, Nebraskas finest elementary teacher does 30 tricks for his 30th birthday. Lots of cool combos in there Joe!

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means it doesn’t take long to break in)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

I have now skated roughly 10 pairs of this shoe and consider it an all time favorite. The review below was from the first pair I got, although I updated it a little.

It isn’t a mystery that I’m one of the biggest PJ Ladd nerds out there so when the opportunity came to wear a shoe that he rocks I didn’t hesitate. This contradicts pretty much any anti-corporate shoe policy I’ve had in the past and completely makes me a hypocrite. To my credit I did get them at one of the raddest shops in Colorado history (303) and these shoes are only available in skate shops. I guess the line is getting fuzzy as to who to support anymore. Do you support skater owned brands that are available at Ross? Or mega corporations that don’t really care about skateboarding, but are only available at skateshops? I don’t know anymore, it’s up to you. I can tell you that PJ Ladd has been my favorite skater ever since PJLWHL so supporting a brand that’s supporting him felt ok to me. It’s a little weird though. When I go to the gym at work every old retired man is wearing New Balance. I’m not that old yet. Ha. Okay, back to the review. These shoes are really good. They are very comfortable. Extremely comfortable. The sole probably would have lasted forever although it does go bald somewhat quickly. I gave up on this pair because I got sick of shoe goo’ing the top and it was starting to form a weird bubble. The top wasn’t so durable. Probably about what an average shoe looks like after a few weeks with me. The board feel is decent, the grip a little sub par. They felt great in the streets, but on tranny there was some board feel to be desired. As far as style it’s kind of a weird one. I guess the fact that PJ Ladd wears them trumps the fact that they look like old man retired gym clothes. Maybe? With all that said I would consider wearing the Stratford again in the future, it’s a good shoe. I hope to see an actual PJ pro model soon though!