This is just silly. I saw Dinosaur Jr for free then attempted to go skating after at one of my favorite spots with some of my favorite people. I showed up first and was feeling kinda weird and in disbelief of what was happening. My ears were ringing and I was totally sober. Weird. I rolled around a little feeling kinda clumsy before Fuzz showed up. We both rolled around getting slightly less clumsy when Dave, Neil and Rob showed up. Shit got heavy quick. Ha. Neil pulled out a trash can to ollie over and was of course hopping over it immediately. We skated for several hours and a lot went down. Neil was hyped on everyone’s skating and was vocally stoked on the crew and how we’re still doing it. It was rad. I will never be able to remember all that went down so I’ll just go with some of the many highlights. Neil had some long lipslides on the waxed curb, one foot mannies, one foot over the trash can, front 180, halfcab, no comply over the trash can. Nose mannies, etc. He also had the highlight of the evening. When going for back 180 over the trash can he hit a rock and dove into it. It was a rubber trash can so no damage was done and he just lied there in fetal position snuggled into the trash can laughing. We all laughed hysterically. So epic. He also had some nice front shoves up curbs and kickflips off. Fuzz was the second over the trash can and front 180 and back 180’d it easy. Lots of crazy curb tricks. Back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, fakie nosegrind 180 out, so much more I cannot remember right now. Rob had a bunch of nose mannies to lipslide, his patented slappy/ollie back 50, wallrides, b/s no comply wallrides, slappy lipslides, kickflipped off curbs like it was nothing. He also managed to get over the trash can. I had just landed a fakie big flip off a curb, saw Rob ollie the trash can and went for the ollie too, but didn’t have it. I was really sore and trying to skate without ibuprofen for the first time in awhile. I still skated decent though. Had a line of kickflip up curb, b/s flip off, halfcab flip on flat then super close to manual front shove out. Ever since I’ve been standing on a balance board at work manuals seem easier. Maybe I’ll actually land something out of a manual for once. Not this time though. I tried to get on some front slappies for awhile and failed. Oh, I was on a new board. An Atlas Nulled 8.1. Neat. Fullertron killed slappy crooks, boardslide 270s, front 5-0 to switch crooks, lipslide (above sorry for the lack of effort on the photo). He was super determined to ollie the trash can and at the end of the night kind of did it. It was more of a ride over it, but whatever, totally an over-45 make. Fun times, rad crew, Dinosaur Jr!

I had originally planned on skipping this show. Mainly because Dinosaur Jr was only the opening act and I did not care for the headliner in any way (Phoenix). Plus tickets were nearly $60. So I manned up and begged for a spot on the guestlist. It didn’t seem like it was gonna work as I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks. But low and behold, one day before the concert I get an email that I’m on the list. Whewoo!!! So I skipped Sebadoh at the Larimer (still regretting that one a little) and then found out that since the forecast had called for rain the concert had been moved to the 1st Bank Event Center in Broomfield. Say what? Turns out it NEVER RAINED too. Oh well. The Broomfield Event center actually ended up being pretty cool and the sound was surprisingly good. This may have something to do with Dinosaur Jr not being able to play as loud as they wanted to. There were more old people in the crowd rockin’ Dinosaur Jr shirts then I would have thought, but the young crowd was definitely mostly there to see Phoenix. Dinosaur opened with one of my favorites, Thumb. At that point I already knew it was worth the price of admission. Ha ha, it was free! Free free free! They went on to play their typical greatest hits set:

Thumb
Budge
Watch The Corners
Rude
Out There
Feel the Pain
The Wagon
Freakscene
Just Like Heaven
a Deep Wound song

As expected the set seemed ridiculously short for them. My favorite song was Watch The Corners. It went off huge. That song hangs with their best. I’m not sure why Murph wasn’t there either, but whoever filled in on drums did a great job. It seemed like for the most part the Phoenix fans were into DJR, but I did hear one “This is the worst band I have ever heard”. Ha. I left immediately after Dinosaur Jr. Well, immediately after buying a new Dinosaur Jr shirt for my collection that is! Then I went skating with old guy friends and had a blast. This was my first sober Dinosaur Jr show since like 1998. Wow.

So tired when I got home from work on a rainy evening so I took a nice little nap. Woke up, helped the kids understand how to put music/files on their new phones then went to campus to skate as it was dry out. Right before leaving I put Suciu’s Sabotage 3 part on which is oh so sick and inspiring. I was feeling like a solo session with headphones. I put the newest Ovlov album on which is totally amazing. When I first parked by the medical center 5 stair I thought it would be cool to line out a flatground trick, the 5 stair then another flatground trick then something into the flagstone bank around the corner. But I got to the bank and it was apparent that although I felt pretty good I would need a lot of warming up time. I ended up at the curved 1-7 stair spot. I got distracted trying to ollie the weird 3 stair after the long steps right near there. If only the crack at the bottom wasn’t so huge. Anyways, back to the 1-7 stair. Tried a line of switch front 180 up the curb, back 180 up the 2, turn around then ollie the 4. I think I got that. Took awhile though. Manualed the downhill part into the curb cut first try. Well, first time I got into the manual. I went over to the student center to get some water then skated around there for a bit. Did a line with ride down the stairs then ollie onto a little ledge and front 180 off where it’s taller. I looked around and decided I’d try a long line for the heck of it.

I started on this thing. Either front board, back noseslide or front 50.

Then manny this and head off down that sidewalk and do either pop shove or varial flip.

Then ollie onto this and front shove off. Don’t let the photo fool you, getting onto it is trickier then it looks, you have to ride through a grate then ollie. It’s not bad though. The end of the ledge is pretty tall by my standards, especially for front shoving. I don’t remember the last time I front shoved something so tall.

Anyways, I went at it for awhile. All of these tricks are pretty basic for me (except the front shove off the drop), but to link them all together was not easy. I got to the front shove a lot. Eventually I just stuck with the basics as I was getting tired. Noseslide, manny, back shove, but they all felt really good. I was trying to skate a little faster and coming out of the manual felt rad as it was a little downhill. The back shoves even felt good. And then I put the whole line down with the front shoves being one of the best feeling ones I’ve ever done. It felt so amazing. Seriously one of the funnest feeling lines I’ve ever done. I tried a treflip after and slammed, falling down in laughter at how stoked I was to do that line. I know it’s all basics, but if your reading this you know me and how hard it is for me to actually land tricks.

I headed up the sidewalk looking for another spot to skate and came upon an area I’ve never really skated much, but looks fun. I settled on trying to do a line of treflip on flat, ollie onto a little round 2 stair and a quick front 180 off then was planning on turning around and kickflipping off a stair. But the treflips ended up killing my already cracked board. Not sure why I’ve been landing in the middle lately, but after a couple of those my board was unskateable. Doh, I wish I could have kept skating, but oh well I was still so happy. Went home and setup a new board, an Atlas Nulled which I haven’t skated yet. This time in 8.1. .1 bigger then normal. Ha ha.

Ollie and I went to Arvada on a warm afternoon. The park was mobbed with scooter kids. Seriously like 30 of them. It made for some really annoying times, but for the most part we were fine. After a couple warm cruises around we decided to skate the little kicker above. I called out that I needed to do 10 tricks, Ollie said he would do 5. I thought he was a little ambitious, but he ended up beating me! He did back 180 (early photo above), front 180, halfcab (first try), f/s halfcab and then fakie shove! The fakie shove took a long time, but either way he was hyped. Mine were ollie (yes I was so tired and weird feeling I decided to count ollie), front 180, back 180, nollie, switch front 180, kickflip, back shove, front shove, f/s halfcab (took me the longest) and backside flip. I was so tired after that. We hit some other stuff like the back of the snake run where Ollie had a nice line in the pump bumps to front slash on the noping qp then lofty front 180 off the kicker.

After heading to 303 then back home for a quick bite Rob picked me up then we grabbed Neil and headed to the Safeway ledge. Brett was there and Fuzz joined shortly. I felt so sore initially, but ended up feeling good. Everyone seemed to skate good. Brett had some patented noseslides either to forward, fakie or shove out. Also some good flippers and no patented Brett slams that I saw. Neil is back! And he was ripping! Front lip, front tail, front tail shove, back crooks shove the tall ledge, back lip, ollied the 5 stair, so much more. Rob rules this spot. Bigspin front nose, cab front nose, front tail, back 180 fakie 50, and a ton more that I’m forgetting. Fuzz did some crazy ones like halfcab front 5-0, fakie back tail, back tail, back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, fakie 50 f/s halfcab out. He avoids flatground now altogether. Wuss! Ha. I forced myself to do at least one regular back 50 before trying kick back 50s and was rewarded with a first try kick back 5-0 (was trying 50, but I’ll take it!). So stoked! It felt so good. One of my recent skate highlights for sure. Although I tried to do it again and try a shove out, but barely got a kick back 50. I was finally feeling good on my skateboard though, doing lots of flip tricks, trying lines and smiling. Eventually everyone except me stopped and I was just skating trying lines having a blast. Kind of did fakie flip, switch noseslide 270, treflip (cracked my board). Came close to back 50, heelflip, nollie tre. I’m not sure why, but I was landing almost every heelflip. Then I stretched and joined the crew at Crisis feeling stoked.

The big day! Only made about 500 calls in the morning and everyone seemed to be running a little late, but Jack, Carleigh, Cameron, Blaine, Chad, Dan and I met up at Arapahoe Ridge. I was feeling the effects of being sick all week. Although standing on a balance board really does seem to make manuals easier. Rad. I didn’t do much of anything. Jack tried to get a rad trick. Chad was feeling out a line, but then we got the boot and ended up at Valmont (photo above). Pretty much everyone else met us here. Jack killed a manny trick then killed his ankle. Noooooo! Rob, Dan, Careleigh and I skated the ledge. Rob had a sick boardslide shove. Carleigh had numerous noseslides and maybe numerous with shoves out too. Everyone else was skating around and getting warmed up and having fun and smiling and all that goodness. We went to a couple more spots, but the rain put a damper on it so we had the team meeting. Twas very fun. I feel so lucky to be friends with all of these wonderful people.

Met Carleigh and Rob in Niwot then headed into Longmont to grab Dave and skate Longmont HS again. We made a nearby stop so I could grab some food and Dave ended up getting gnarly no complying a parking block to sidewalk gap. Rob also took his new found front slappies to a parking block with ease. Longmont HS started good for me. I was feeling pretty loose and poppy so I went for the ollie onto one of the blocks and smacked my knee super hard. Doh. Dave manualled one though. Carleigh was rusty and having some back pain, but got a bunch of kickflips and noseslides before doing the bad front 50 slide out slam. Ouch. Rob was ripping everything. Front tailslide right away, switch boardslide pop out, noseslide 270s, no comply 360s, boardslide fakie on the block, etc. This might be one of the first times I’ve seen Dave struggle a little. I guess he is human after all. He still had some nice front 5-0s, boardslide 270s (photo), slappy noseslides, almost 180 nosegrind on a block. Between hitting my knee on the block and the end of the session I may have landed 2 or 3 tricks. My first 3 flip on the new setup, some slow front 50s and some kickflips over the little colored flat gaps. I did get a little boost of stoke at the end when I did a quick slappy front tail right into a front nose to fakie on the ledge. Then I got called to work and felt sick again. Getting old rules.

After two days of sickness, a long nap, working from home, going to Community, some crazy thunderstorms I ended up at Crisis where Rob, Fuzz, Tim and I hung for awhile. They was drinking beer, but with my cold I wasn’t interested. But really, I probably wouldn’t have been anyway. We eventually decided to skate for a bit and ended up at the church behind Crisis. Fuzz was drunk. Rob was buzzing. I was coughing. It was a nice temperature. There were some puddles around still. Immediately I was surprised at how fast my board felt in the asphalt. Wow, 52mms and superthane is intense. We were all just getting in our grooves. Fuzz made me bring some wax so I waxed up the curbs. I did a f/s slappy and that started a f/s slappy fest. Neither Rob or Fuzz had ever landed one before. Rob started getting close and declared it should be on his ‘by 40’ list. Fuzz was not so close and getting kinda bummed. He wanted to blame the alcohol, but said he couldn’t. Ha. I had some dream lines envisioned, but never got any of the tricks really. I did get some good front slappies that were up on top of the curb, not just the side. OH, and this was a square curb! None of that rounded easiness. I got a few slappy crooks on there too. Felt so good. A front tail shove or two. Posed kick back tails. Posed nose manuals. In the end Rob got closer and closer until he straight up did a great front slappy. So stoked for him.

The weather was rainy and in the low 60s. What an unusual day for late July. I was feeling really run down and sick with a cold. Doh. I had gone to Meta earlier and picked up some new Thunders that hopefully wouldn’t have axle slip like my old ones. While I was at it I got new bearings and fruity colored hardware. So there you go, a new complete!!! I went with Null 52mms. Maybe I’ll be a normal skateboarder again.

On top of that I had new shoes! Lakai Guys. I’ve been waiting and waiting for the Nikes to die so I could wear these. They seemed good out of the box and they don’t have a stupid swoosh on them!

We went around to the side of the school we don’t normally skate. There are tons of pebbles everywhere, but we ended up having a blast and skated it in totally new ways. My shoes felt amazing. My complete felt like a new complete. I did keep my old bushings going so it wasn’t completely night and day. The bigger wheels really cruise over cracks easier, but they also gave me wheel bite as I’ve gotten used to tiny little wheels. Ollie was killing it. He did a fakie back shove out of the curb cut back onto the sidealk, front 180 off the stairs (above) and halfcab off the curb, back 180 and f/s halfcab out of the curb cut into the parking lot. The f/s halfcab was new for him and he did it really good. For how sick I was and mellow I was feeling I skated pretty good. From right to left in the panorama I worked up to a run of kickflip up the curb, front 180 off the 2 stair then fakie bigspin off the curb. From left to right I did ollie up the curb, front 180 onto the loading dock then halfcab flip on flat. Fun, brief session. Stoked to have a somewhat normal setup that makes cruising around a little easier.

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

These shoes lasted 20 skate days

Alright alright, anyone who knows me knows that I have talked a lot of trash on Nike skate shoes. I try to stick to skater owned companies and Nike represents the enemy. I have been dared over and over to actually try a pair and I finally gave in on the condition they were free. So huge thanks to Jaimie for hooking me with a pair. I’ll start with the style. They were bright red and they look like golf shoes. They aren’t D3 ugly, but pretty close. I painted the upper part black though and they ended up looking alright. They also game with a super thick “Lunarlon” insole. They were way too thick for me so I swapped them out for some Lakai insoles I had. The board feel was ok. Although if I would have been forced to skate those lunar insoles I can’t imagine how bad the feel would be. In my book insoles are meant to be swapped out though. This made them kind of a loose fitting shoe, but that’s my bad and the shoe is clearly designed for a thicker insole. The impressive part of the shoes is the durability. I normally blow through shoes faster then this. It’s not however, night and day longer then other shoes. I normally blow out the sole on the front foot setting up for flip tricks. This is the first time I’ve ever blown out the heel of my back foot. Still though, they lasted a long time and I wore them for a week straight all over Montreal, hiking, etc. I will give them credit on durability. Overall I am happy to say that I gave these shoes an honest try and will not be tempted to get them ever again. Nor should you. Support some skater owned brands and lets get rid of this crap.

Blaine rolled to Boulder then we picked up Jack at Meta. Warm up was at Southern Hills. Blaine cruised around. Jack tried some gnarly tricks on the bench to bench gap. I did a warm up line of kickflip, front noseslide to fakie, halfcab flip, front board. Was trying a line of ollie the two stair, front 50 a ledge and something else, but styruggled too much with the front 50. Then we went to a 6 stair spot nearby for Jack to do a wallride. He did it quick. He also did another trick. I tried to ollie the six. Well, I posed it out and it ended up really hurting. We had a rain delay and some yummy chai thanks to Jack before ending up at the old folks bank. It’s been years since I’ve been there. Rho had joined us. We had a fun session. I tried a couple kickflip pivots and Blaine showed up with the camera. Apparently Jack had told him to film me and as Jack predicted I said it wasn’t worth it. Ha. It took me a long time and I never got the pivot, but I did it with axle stall and no lunch break so I was pretty hyped. That place is a lot of work. Jack was doing all kinds of tricks. Warllride pop out, wallride to tail bash, Front pivot to fakie, backside boneless wallride to board shoot out into Blaine’s head, and more. We ended the day by me suggesting Jack try two hard tricks combined into one. Initially he even thought it was a good idea! Ha. Sorry it didn’t work out Jack. I guess I know why I was so sore as I’m pretty sick now while writing this. Ugh.