Woke up feeling the best I’ve felt in a while. Worked at home on a hot day. Was planning on rolling to Lafayette park with Jake to meet Rob, Dave and Fuzz. Right before leaving Ollie expressed some interest and after some deliberating finally decided on joining us. We arrived to a pretty crowded park as tuesday nights are old man night. There were a couple others there with kids, but they mostly stuck to the big bowl. I kind of stuck with Ollie initially as his shyness was weirded out by the crowded park. We hit the middle of the park. Shortly a session on the tight qp at the entrance started up. Fullertron and Salmon were going off. Fuller did long front 5-0s, boardslides and front lip. Ridiculous. Jake was banging out tricks too. Front d and front blunt! Rob was steezing out back smiths. I got a back hurricane which I’ve never done there before and way hyped on. Couldn’t get the front feeble though. Ollie was cruising the little section and then doing some frontside ollies on the little curb cut rock thing by all of us. Ollie and I started skating the “street” area a bit as no one else was skating it. I hung up getting into a noseslide down the small hubba and dove to flat. That wasn’t so fun. Ollie was trying lots of fly out pop shoves and back 180’s. He didn’t get the pop shove. I was breaking in the Nikes with flip tricks still, halfcab flips worked, kickflips worked, treflips not so much. Fuzz showed. We skated a steep bank for a bit. He crushed it pretty quick with rock’s both ways and an axle stall. The best part of that park is that there are endless ways to skate it. I got a kickflip to fakie on a bank that felt great. After awhile I saw Dave doing this sick bluntslide out of a little quarter pipe to bank and joined him. He got a couple ridiculous bluntslides. I got a sketchy front tail and an ok front tail. Fuzz worked on front noseblunts. Rob did some rad crail airs. Ric destroyed the middle bowl and lipslid the bank all in one run. He kills it so hard! Jake apparently redid Jason’s noseblunt trick from Off The Couch, but without the Sammy Davis Jr clip after. Rob and I skated the mid sized bowl for awhile. It’s a fun one. I was happy that I got most (if not all) of the back 50s I tried. Need to get some more tricks in there though. The best part of the night for me was that Ollie was skating for real. He wasn’t glued to my side. He was skating all over the park, finding his own lines and loosening up with my friends. At one point Ollie did a back 180 off the manual pad and Rob said “Nice Ollie” so Ollie bowed. It was hilarious. Also if Ollie and I crossed paths through the park he would give me a salute like a soldier. Man it was funny. He did have some really good back 180s and he almost had some ollies up onto the manual pad. He did several ollies up to rock then pull up which is a good start. The rest of the crew was sessioning the smaller narrow white qp while Ollie and I just cruised around doing whatever. Other then a 3 flip with a bit of speed nothing stands out so much for me. I was just cruising and landing a few tricks. Almost noseslide the tall bump to ledge. Failed miserably at a few carves in the vert bowl. Fuller was killing it. Got a doubles line with Ollie where I did a frontside wallride on the bank to rock and he did a b/s wallride on it. Wallies off the corner of the rock into the hip are the funnest thing ever and Ollie did it first try. Geez. Fuzz and Dave did some crazy switch pivots/feebles on the narrow white qp. All in all one of my favorite nights because Ollie skated hard and seemed to be flowing at the park and not needing to be right by my side allowing me to hang with my friends a little more. Thanks dudes for being cool to Ollie. Summer rules. We hung out after the lights shut off for awhile and I kept saying we had to leave to get Ollie to bed. But Fuzz came through with a quote that made me laugh. Fuzz, “Ollie do you have school tomorrow?” Ollie, “No”. Fuzz, “Then tell your dad to chill out”. Ha ha awesome. Oh yeah, I cracked my board really bad on a 3 flip so I’ll be setting up a new one and at the gas station on the way home they were giving away donuts so lucky Ollie took 4 of them. That’s one stoked kid!

Feeling even better which was surprising considering how much I skated the day before. Jake and I went to Broomfield around noon on a warm and sunny day. The park was empty except for the occasional baseball family walking right though the middle of the park to get to the batting cages or beginner scooter/bike kids (what kind of parent things a skatepark is a good place to learn how to bike?). But yeah, Jake started off killing it and killed it all session. He had a front 50 on the sad ledge, front blunt on the quartapotty and then back blunt the blue ledge. Geez. I was happy to try tricks involving ollies again and other then some soreness wasn’t limited too much by arthritis. I manualled the sad ledge. Then we skated the black ledge for quite awhile. I did most tricks I’ve done there before. All took several tries though. We would do tricks on the little flat bank to turn around on. Jake had some rad boneless plant things over the rail and fakie flips. The front tails on the ledge were sick too. I almost had treflip to fakie on the bank. My grip got wax on it somehow and in the sun and dust from the park it made for a really slippery setup. We hit the pool for a bit. Jake dropped in on the deep end and did some good lines with front slash in the deep and back rock in the shallow. I started from inside and managed one carve with tile. Yippee. We each did fronside flips on the little mound then front 50 the pier 7 ledge. Then a game of SKATE that I won, but slammed on front shove and 3 flip super hard. I also sore through the sole of my Vox shoes. We called it a day.

After some lunch and a break I met up with Bernie, Scotty, Garret and Teagan at Wilville. I wasn’t really planning on skating much, but just wanted to hang out and maybe even film if it came to it. Everyone was feeling pretty chill. Oh yeah, I had my new shoes on. Get ready for this. Nike Koston 2s. What started as a dare became reality as I scored them for free. Basically I’ve talked so much shit on Nike that I was dared to try a pair. I agreed if I could get them for free. Well, it became reality thanks to Jaimie their rep and here we are. They were super bright red when I got them, I immediately painted them black though so the swoosh is hardly even visible. They felt decent, but I didn’t really skate much. I did a few kickflips and it seems like I’ll need to wear some of that paint off before they flick right. Bernie manualed it first try. Teagan slammed super hard trying to nose manual it. He basically put the nose into the last kink and dove over the whole bottom section. It was gnarly. He kept skating though after a brief break. Wow. I started playing with early grabs since I was so sore/tired and ended up getting a really fun dork trick. Early grab up the curb and hold on all the way to the end. It was really fun until Bernie asked me to do it again for the camera and I pulled up to get over the curb and something popped in my middle finger. Argh, it hurt so bad. I left after that as I was going to the outdoor ballet with the family.

Happy to say my arthritis felt better. Not street skating better, but better. I think what learned with this most recent flare up is that I am allergic to Penicillin and it causes the numb tingles which are the worst. They are going away, but the normal arthritis pains I had that made me think I need to start taking Penicillin again are still there. But as long as the pain isn’t intense, I’ll take that over the bizarre numb tingles any day. My knees/quads having it the worst. They don’t want to squat then jump.

Oh well, enough about my arthritis. Ollie wanted to go skating again. In the afternoon we went to Lafayette park. Hardly anyone was there and it was fun just cruising around and doing whatever we wanted. I did a lot of little ollies on things like what Ollie is doing the rock ‘n roll on above. I took quite a few runs in the middle sized bowl. Had a few back 50s, felt really odd trying front disasters though. Pumping around felt good. I still felt pretty out of it and not in good skate health. Ollie was skating good and having a blast. He finally is starting to get that he shouldn’t push mongo so there was some regular pushing mixed in there. Stoked! Near the end he said he wanted to do a pop shove flyout before we left and then did it first try. The smile on his face said it all.

Then we went to Crisis for awhile and after dinner at Subway we headed to Westminster park. There was only a couple people there. Mainly because that park pretty much blows unless you want to skate a monster bowl. But we had fun. I started to get some of my confidence back. The only things that stand out for me were boardsliding the long flat bar and some frontside ollies out of the little quarterpipe onto the flatbank. Ollie though, kid was shredding. The manuals across the pyramid at full speed were super good. Especially the ones where he ollied out and flew halfway down the bank. The bank flyout to grassride was epic too. He boardslid the last few inches of the flatbar. And lots of ollies into all of the banks. One run that had a f/s ollie on a bank then a back 180 over the hip. Crazy!

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 10 skate days

On the cupsole tip again these days. These shoes have kind of a weird fit. The collar is a bit puffy for me and I wanted to lace one more eyelet, but it would make the shoe too tight in the collar. The board feel wasn’t great. They skated decent before the sole went flat, but once the tread was gone they skated pretty bad.

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 11 skate days

My first regular cupsoles in a long time. The pain in my quads had me wanting to see if cupsoles would help. They did. These were the only shoes I could find for me. Surprisingly they seemed broke in within a couple days of wearing them to work. The bright yellow sole was a bit annoying, but whatevs. They skated great. The surprising thing to me was how much they skated like vulcs. Excellent board feel, but with a little more support which my aching legs appreciated. The biggest negagive is how quickly the tread wore out. It was only a couple days before the sole was flat. They still gripped, but not quite as well. Overall this shoe was excellent. If only the sole would have lasted longer I would list this as one of my favorite shoes.

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 suck so bad I couldn’t keep skating them

These are some of the worst skate shoes I’ve ever had. They are some type of hybrid fake vulcanized cupsole. The results are some of the worst skate shoes ever. The gum soles slip off the grip. They don’t flick. They are so floppy they should have just been vulcanized shoes. The back of the shoe blew out. Granted I had worn them to work for about a year before skating in them. Still though, horrible shoes.

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 skated these shoes for 11 skate days, but they had more life in them

I had these shoes recently and they blew out way too quick. But Meta Sam told me that Lakai had a new manufacture and the soles were better. Since this shoe has one of the best uppers ever I was willing to give it a try. Much to my surprise the sole was much better this time around. The tread pattern still wore off quick, but was still grippy and showed no signs of a hole. This is one of my favorite vulcanized shoes. Glad to see Lakai getting it together.

Ollie was super hyped for Go Skate Day. He wanted to go skate campus, but I didn’t think I was up for that because of my arthritis. Which wasn’t feeling as bad luckily. I stopped taking penicillin because I think I may have grown allergic to it and it’s causing the joint pain. Seems to be accurate considering how much better I feel not taking it. We went to Arvada park. As one would think on GSD it was very crowded. Ollie and I tried to find some non crowded areas as, he’s about the shyest kid ever in skateparks. We ended up in the far corner skating the little noping qp. I had a few hurricanes on it. Ollie had some rock ‘n rolls. Things opened up a little and we skated the bank to curb too. Ollie did frock ‘n roll on it, rock fakie and eventually a first try front rock. Sick! I did rocks, axle stall, feeble and a front 50 that took a few tries. The wind had kicked in pretty intense and weeded out a few more people so we started to line out the back area. Trick on the noping, pump, trick on the elevated qp, noping. Ollie had a run with some decent carves, mongo pushes and a f/s flash on the noping followed by a front 180 off the bank. Rad. I had one with a back 50 on the noping, pumps, axle stall on the elevated qp, pumps, front lipslide over the hip of the noping. Hyped on that. Ollie was trying a bunch of kickflips on flat too and got really close. Then we went over the the blue angled circle thing pictured above. Ollie had a run with rock ‘n roll on the bank, then front 180 off the blue wedge onto the level below then halfcab off. He also did front 180 from the flat one into the banked one. I was doing front tailslides on the bank then no comply bigspins on the blue bank. Then I did kickflip to fakie. Then b/s flip. Then a first try bigflip on the bank. Hyped. My arthritis hurt, but wasn’t numb. I’ll take pain over numbness any day. Hopefully it keeps getting better as the penicillin leaves my system.

My arthritis has gotten bad again. It makes my whole legs numb. I tried to skate with Ollie on campus, but basically I couldn’t. Ollie was hyped and skating hard. Had a nice front board transfer on a parking block. Showed me up with the tall ledge drop to shorter ledge near the tunnel to the hill. I was going to do it until some kook stopped and watched and said “Oh the little guy did it, you can do it!” I tried to ollie a weird gap for awhile over a tiny ledge while Ollie ollied a 3 stair behind the theater. That was about the extent of the session. I went home and cried. I was really hoping this would never happen again.

Went to the Girl demo at Arvada park. It was incredible. Tons of people. Tons of ripping. Especially from Cory Kennedy. That dude straight slayed everything in the park. It’s funny that the only clip I could find on youtube was this one of Koston. I didn’t even know he landed a trick. Ha. Anyways, it was near the end of the demo and the lights were gonna shut off shortly so I skated he little cement coping qp at the top of the park. Got most of my basics quick except front d which took awhile for some reason. I pumped around the medium bowl for a bit and got stuck in the spin cycle just carving in circles. Dropped into the shallow of the big pool and kickturned in the shallow a little and got a little scratch grind. That waterfall looks like a cliff in that thing.