After a long day at the zoo, but a perfect early evening I met good ol’ Dan at the Omaha park. We started getting our groove on. Dan had a rad fakie rock 360 on the deck back to rock. Shortly after Drew Newlin showed up with a large crew of Omaha rippers and the session go really heated. Fun to watch, kind of embarrassing to try and get in the mix with. I bailed some crooks, but almost got kick back 50. Dan and I headed out because we were gonna meet Joe and Matt in a nearby suburb for some pizza then a little session at a metal park.

The park itself was a joke, but it has 3 things that most “awesome” parks around CO don’t have. A good ledge, good flatground and a good flatbar. Joe snapped this photo of me doing a front 50 front shove. It’s kind of funny because now that seems to be called the Joe Hamilton trick. Well before he got so darn good people used to call it the Glen Gillingham trick. Thanks Joe. Some day you will be 40 and it will be hard too! Ha. Joe wasn’t skating because of his rolled ankle, but it was feeling better and he could walk ok at least. Matt is really good at skateboarding. It’s crazy. On the box. Back 50, back 5-0, back nosegrind, back nosegrinnd shove, back tail, nollie back 5-0, front 5-0, nollie front nosegrind, nollie front nosegrind front 180 (I get partial credit on this one!!!), front tail, front tail fakie, and probably a ton more I’m forgetting. It was just as good on the flatbar. Front smith, front feeble, front lip, nollie front lip, front board shove, back crooks, back feeble, back lip, nollie back lip pretty much every trick there is. These dudes are so fun to skate with. They were all cheering and having a blast. No bad vibes at all. I started slow and even though I took 10 tries to get a front 50 it got cheers. I went on to get crooks, front 5-0 and kick back 50 (kind of). Came close to front 50 back 180 out, front 5-0 shove. Geez, I feel so lame compared to Matt. My flatground game was on pretty good though. treflips, b/s flips, nollie tre, halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, etc. At one point Dan dared me to do a crooks. I got it then followed it with a really bad heelflip. Matt followed suit and did the same thing as me with another not great heelflip. Dan was last. Got the crooks and mr heelflip himself bailed the heelflip! Ha ha ha the crowd went wild. Dan killed it though. Front nosegrind super easy, lots of fakie 5-0 attempts, 50 to manual to 50 and a bunch of other unique tricks. I was maybe most impressed with the first try over willy on the flat bar. That thing is tall! The session was over pretty quick as it got dark. But wow it was fun. These dudes never disappoint.

On a humid afternoon in Omaha Ollie and I went out to investigate what the surroundings to Liz’s parents new place had. This was the first find. Too small for me. Ollie kind of did a wallride and my phone took the photo way too late.

Then we went to a nearby school that has a basketball court and I had seen the above staircase and thought it would be rad to ollie over the curb into the bank.

But the cracks killed it. Between the wall, the cracks and the weird approach I didn’t have it.

So I tried to hype myself up by doing a flip trick in middle section here before heading down the sidewalk on the right to hype myself up. As you can see the ground is less than ideal. Either way though I seemed to be landing tricks quicker then normal. Maybe it’s because I stretched more then normal, maybe it’s because there was a new PJ part. It didn’t work though I kept coming up short. I struggled with 360 flip though. Landed a ton of them and fell off. I blame the little rocks everywhere getting in my shoes. I finally landed a 3 flip and ollied in. Probably didn’t even really go over the curb, but I don’t care. It was really weird and hard for me. Ollie was cruising around and skating in between shooting hoops.

When he skated he carried his basketball. He did do a legit ollie up to manny on this tiny pad even though the only photos I have of him he’s scraping his tail.

This photo cracks me up. I manualled it too and down onto the sidewalk into the beautiful parking lot. Skated flat a bit longer too. Did a nollie three shove that was supposed to be a nollie 3 flip. Ha. Then the next try landed the nollie 3 flip. Did a line where I kickflipped into the little curb cut on the far left of the panorama, push through the rough parking lot, front 180 up the curb, then a fakie bigflip on flat. Also pop shoved into the curb cut then kickflipped up the curb which was way hard in the roughness. I got another 3 flip at one point that felt great. Then I gave in to Ollie’s demands and shot hoops for awhile. Horrible spot, but I managed to have fun at least.

Finally got to this park! Granted it took a nearly 7 hour drive to do it which was about 2 hours longer then I thought it would be. Oh well. The Gillinghams pulled in and Eric, Matt, Joe and Richard were there getting their warm up on. I ate some Taco Bell standing up to try and get some blood flow to the legs, but they felt really bad after the drive. Matt was straight killing it already. He is so good. He was skating everything. Back 5-0 across the bank to ledge and across the ledge(s). Joe and Eric were getting busy early too. You can tell Eric skates there a lot. Richard was setting up a board, but still almost managed kickflip nose manny nollie flip out within seconds of skating. He is to Fremont what Shawn is to Cheyenne. I took a few runs around the park. As every park does, it felt different then the photos seem to show. The bank to stairs were way weird. Well, perfect, but weird. The bank to ledge is incredible. The ledge contraption requires starting from the middle of the mini ramp. The mini ramp is pretty good, one side the coping is way higher then the other though. There are pretty big cracks at the bottom of every bank. With all that said though, the park is awesome.

So much skating went down it’s impossible to list it all. We didn’t take any photos. Ollie skated with us. He had some cannonballs over the kicker, back 180 flyouts, boardslide the little ledge first try for a milk shake, body varials, grass rides by the mini, mongo pushes and spoke a few words that were actually audible. Eric next. He took off with Matt and Richard for awhile to film some stuff. He cruised around as he always has without ollies, but he skated faster and took some risks I was hyped to see. It’s probably because he gave up wearing jogging shoes to skate in. Ha. The manuals into the bank to ledge were hot. The cali grinds. The tricks I don’t even know how to describe. Skateboarding is awesome. Poor Joe. He ripped it so hard throughout. Boardslide threw the sideways kink rail. Front smith, front 50 to front board to 270 out, front 50 shove and a sick tailslide on the bank to ledge. I think he even did a fakie front 50 halfcab out on it. Well he did on the little ledge for sure. He also had this new move that was just a powerside into a boardslide. So funny and so cool. We tag teamed a line. Ollie up the little ledge (or if you are me then kickflip up), boardslide the taller ledge off it, backside flip on the upper double bank, then front 180 off the ledge into the bank. I think we did it back to back. In other words he was just being nice and waiting for me to finally land something. I struggled, not insanely bad, but enough to feel really old as everyone gets so much better around me. Got a front smith on the bank to ledge, crook grind on the ledge, barely could front 50 the middle ledge, couldn’t get a kickflip axle stall on the bank to ledge, got a bigflip on the bank, fakie flip, ollie onto the 4th stair, front 180 into the bank, and almost a front 5-0 shove on the bank to ledge. Joe was going for pole jam and I got a great feeling no comply pole jam before he ran over his foot trying a pole jam. Ouch. Session done. Joe’s ankle wrecked. Ugh. Dr said it wasn’t broken at least. I still need to talk about Matt some more though. Wow he was killing it. Front tail, front nosegrind, front 50 back 180, back 5-0 across the top bank to stair. Front 50 the middle ledge up to nose manny the tall one. Ridiculous stuff.

These dudes are so fun to skate with.

Forgot to take photos of this spot. Doh. After a fun day of watching Ollie’s football team win a playoff game then get right back into another game and win the championship I hit Community and then Crisis selling boards. I met Rob at Crisis and after brohing down with Fuzz for awhile we rolled across the street to the somewhat newly paved ledges behind Safeway. The main ledge was better then ever and the ground now is incredible. Once again Rob started off quicker. And he kept going. I swear he came close to his age in tricks. 39. There is no way I’ll remember them all, but here’s a few. Front nose, front nose 270, 180 nosegrind, sw boardslide 270, sw boardslide, back 50s for days, fakie nosegrind, front tail, front smith, a million more. Or rather, 30 more. I started slow, but ended up getting into the groove pretty good. I’m loving these Supra Stacks I have. Front 50, front 50 front 180 out, back 50, halfcab noseslide, slappy tailslide, a few kick back 50s, crooks, switch front 180 to front 50 (slow!). We also skated the smallest of the ledges against the fence and I had a lot of crooks on it that felt so good. That ledge is perfect for it. Flatground was feeling better then it has in awhile. Got a treflip in the Supras finally and a few heelflips which have been a pain lately. Fakie bigflip and halfcab flips. All in all fun. Oh yeah, I had tried a bunch of kickflip noseslides. Got pretty close. Gotta keep trying it.

On a breezy and somewhat cool day I picked Rob up after work and we headed up to Fort Collins. First stop was the MRKT to take care of some bidness. We met up with Mike and rolled into camps. I was bummed to see the nearby slappy curbs pretty wrecked, but we ended up at the spot above quickly and skated there awhile. I was rusty after 3 whole days off. Ha, that’s seriously a long time for me though. I had a new board and it felt really good (Spread The Null). Rob seemed to kick into warmed up mode the quickest. He had boardslide pop over, front board pop over to fakie. Mike had some long boardslides, slappy front noseslides. After awhile I had a couple fun lines starting with slappy the first curb, then front board transfer and front board to fakie transfer and followed up one of the runs with a 180 over a manhole and then a fakie flip. Mike had some no comply 180s over manholes. Both front and back. Backside is crazy. Rob and I were doing fun little chinese nollies over the yellow manhole things then trying kickflips over a manhole. Rob kickflipped a manhole. Well, mostly. Ha. I kickflipped a couple of them and followed one with an ‘both hands down over 40 make’ ollie over the curb and gap in the back of the photo.

Next we trained at the Megaramp for awhile. We all started by taking a few steps, throwing our boards down, doing a kickturn and ollie’ing off. I somehow managed to ollie up the ledge (first try!), do a kickturn and then a front 180 off. Very hyped on actually ollieing onto something kinda tall. That’s been hard lately.

Then we posted up here for awhile. On the far side is a two stair. Mike and I did ollies up the 2 then ollies down the 3. How’s that for tech? I added a front 180 down too. The windows make it a bit sketchy as I’m good at worrying about breaking windows. Luckily all was good though. We ended up skating the 2 stair part for awhile awhile. Tricks up, tricks down. It was fun. Rob killed the no complys and almost got a no comply flip up too. Back 180s up and down. I got a rare back 180 up and a no comply up. Down I got switch front 180, back 180, front 180, front shove and a kickflip that was considered a ‘Baker Maker’. Thanks hammer dudes! Now try to kickflip a 2 stair! Mike struggled with front 180s up for a bit, but had some awesome reverts that I thought ruled. He back 180’d up pretty easy and got a no comply up. Rob and I did a couple tricks on the marble bench there too.

We had told Rob about this “hip” and when we got there the look of disappointment was understandable. Ha. Rob didn’t even try to skate it. The cracks seem way worse then last time I was there. Either way it’s still skateable though and I tallied a few tricks. 180s, sw front 180, front shove, back shove, kickflip, no comply 270, but could not get a backside flip. Started feeling pretty tired. Mike did back 180 quick then did a cab. Tight!

At one point I tried to recreate my line from last time with Carleigh, Jake and Jack. Front 180 the 3 stair, turn around then pop shove, ollie onto this ledge and ollie off. I totally misjudged the height and went splat. Totally made me laugh. Hurt my elbow a bit, but man loving the cupsole suppose because my legs felt fine. We had a couple parking block wallies on the way back, but that was about it.

Until we saw this skating threw an alley across from MRKT. I did a few slappy crooks that felt amazing then a few more that felt even more amazing. I kept trying to do them as good as Fuller does. Mike had never done that trick and after a few tries scraped some out. So sick. Night over. Fun session.

I really feel old lately. After driving down from my Mom’s I played basketball with Ollie for awhile and I felt so slow, uncoordinated and old. I met Neil and Blake at this spot for a weird session. Neil was in a daze for obvious reasons. Blake killed it and Neil filmed him get a rad line of ollie’ing off a ledge into a bank, ollie up the curb then gap to noseslide. Neil skated for awhile though and had several nose manuals, manuals and easy ollies anywhere. Halfcab up the first curb, ollie up the second, back 180 up the third. Sick. I struggled for awhile, but just kept skating. Kind of early on manualled the medium pad into the other curb and had a really rare nose manny the long bottom pad to front 180 out. Hyped on that. I couldn’t ollie up the tall ledge. Early on had a fun first try line of front 180 up the hard way the low curb and fakie bigspin off. Neil mostly chilled. Blake was skating the 3 curb area doing some no comply 360 attempts and halfcab firecrackers (ha). I finally started feeling motivated and tried to kickflip up and off of the tall edge (going from low to high). The kickflip up is really hard because of the weird angle in. I kept missing and tore half of my griptape up. I managed to get up a few and land on kickflips off, but not ride away. Neil kept wanting to leave and I kept saying one more and I would get close enough that he wouldn’t leave. I gave up on the kickflips up and just tried the off and got even closer. But no cigar. They left. Doh. At least the chinese nollies into the curb cut that Blake ollied into were fun. I kept skating for awhile. Tried to do some more lines up/down the lowest curb. Tried pop shove up, back 180 off for awhile and failed. Moved on to back 180 up, halfcab flip off. Got that all slow like. The angle is harder then it looks, dodging the handrails is kinda hard and I was getting on between the narrower ones. I mean I could get on later, but that would mean I wouldn’t have enough setup time for me. Started trying switch front 180 up and 360 flip off. I was sweating and having some fun, getting close and missed a 3 flip and lost my shit.

I really don’t know what happened. I’ve been pretty frustrated with a lot of things lately and I guess I took them all out on my skateboard. I literally threw that thing around for 20 minutes straight. Then after awhile would start throwing one side at the other side. It was kinda fun for awhile, but the fact that I was mad at skateboarding just made me madder and the cycle continued for a long time. I almost left them in the parking lot, but I had new wheels so I knew better. I’m gonna take some time off from skating. For me, that’s probably only a few days, but I need it. My quads hurt just as bad as ever so I don’t think cupsoles are really helping that which I’m sure added to my frustration. Getting old f’ing sucks.

After a busy morning of unloading boards, playing basketball with Ollie and being slightly hungover (for the last time ever I swear I’m so over it) I headed out to skate a nearby spot for a bit before leaving for my Moms. Everyone I knew was at the King Of The Snake contest so I was solo’ing it. It was super nice and warm out. After an initial lucky front nose to fakie and a front nose Helmstetter (270 out kind of) I went to shit and stayed there for the next hour. I waxed the ledge like crazy, but had no luck. I couldn’t noseslide though the little knob. I couldn’t slappy crook the curb. Hell, I couldn’t do anything. I waxed the hell out of the ledge and as you can see by the photo of my board none of it seemed to help. I tried crooks forever. Like 20 minutes straight and came up short. I left wondering why I even bother. At least I had a blast with my kids over the next few days.

Met up with Dave on a super nice and warm Friday afternoon at the “Rollerblade” park in Longmont. I had new shoes. Supra Stacks. They are cupsole. They took a bit to get used to, but once I had one good kickflip they never felt bad again. I’m writing this several days later so it’s hard to remember how it all went down, but at one point I did my first sweeper ever on the big bank (far right background of the front board photo) and Dave got my back with a kickflip to fakie. What the heck? So funny that Dave did a kickflip and I did a sweeper. Total role reversal, but we were both hyped. Dave did a bunch of shove variations on the bank too. Nollie shoves, fakie shoves and the sickest cab bigspin ever. I tried to line out some flip tricks and stuff. Didn’t land much. Had a few decent goes at the ledge with a long crooks pop out and front 50, front 50 shove, front 50 front 180, front 5-0. Posed some kickflip noseslides. Had a great feeling fakie flip on the bank, but couldn’t get a halfcab flip. Dave front boarded the flat bar all steezy like and blasted the sick method above several times so my cell phone photo timing would get the photo. All in all a pretty fun session.

Then I went to the manual pad by Mikes Camera for awhile before the Lame Brainz/Blind premiere. I was really sore, but managed manny (whoa so tech!!!), nose manny, switch front 180 manny (hyped on this one coming easy two days in one week), nose manny shove. Came close to kickflip manual (that trick teases me). Tried sw front 180 manny back 180 out. Got kinda close. Left and had a blast at the premiere. The Blind video is way crazy.

Was feeling physically better then the last couple days and had about an hour after work before family responsibilities. It was mid 70s and perfect outside. I thought of this spot while driving into Boulder and went for it. I had all these visions of ledge tricks in my head. I got there and the ledge looked pretty dry and I have a big candle in my car now so I went Hulslander on it and wow. First boardslide shoot out, second, third, etc. It was about now I realized I would probably shoot more photos of the spot then tricks I landed. Lets see. Four photos. Back board, front board, back nose, back nose fakie, front 50. Should have taken another photo! I SUCKED! Worse then anyone who’s ever rode a skateboard more then once should suck. I slammed repeatedly on front 50s going 1mph. Couldn’t do a back 50 to save my life. This spot really exposes how much angle I use for most tricks. I can’t deal with it. I could not land a heeflip to save my life either. I hate these Fallen shoes with a passion. I had one kinda fun line of kickflip (so tech!), back crooks, ollie to fakie on the bank. I would have wanted to skate the bank more, but as you can see water from all the stupid sprinklers was running everywhere. After yet another slam on a front 50 going 1mph I decided to call it quits early. I put on the new shoes I’ve been breaking in at work (Supra Stacks) and did the best kickflip I did all day. Bye bye stupid Fallen Ramblers with your slippery as hell and stupid-weird-wanna-be-vulc-no-board-feel sole.

After procrastinating and ultimately outsourcing (Thanks Chadman!) work on the new Null Teaser I grabbed Ollie from the basketball court to stop by Meta then meet Rob at Valmont. Rob seemed pretty tired. I sure was. Ollie didn’t though. Oh how fun it would be to have that much energy. I took a lot of tries to get a manaual. Rob got some good long manuals and nose manuals though. Ollie had the sickest cannonball chinese ollie over a metal grate. It was ridiculous. He almost got back 180s off a curb too, but Liz showed up quicker then expected and he had to go home. Summer is coming soon kid! I finally got remotely warmed up. Got a run of manual, ollie onto the sidewalk and kind of kickflip into the downhill of the curb cut. It was weak though. Needed to do it better, but never got it. Rob was popping some mean ollies out of the curb cut then doing 2 mile nose mannies. Then he started trying to ollie out of the curb cut to front tail on the curb. He got one or two, but missed a lot of them. I did a line of front 180 out of the curb cut then a switch 180 manual on the median. Whoa! Don’t know where that came from, but it hyped me up for sure. Also did a few other tricks out of the curb cut. Pop shove, back 180, sw front 180. The back pop shove felt pretty awesome. I tried a line of back 180 out of the curb cut, fakie flip on flat then fakie bigspin to manual. Got kinda close, but can’t seem to ever actually manual that trick. Coming the other way kickflip manuals did not happen. Prior to leaving I tried several kickflips on flat and they were so bad. Ugh. Then tried to ollie up then kickflip off a median for awhile. Ugh that was embarrassing and frustrating until one finally happened then it felt pretty cool. Cupsoles suck. Well, at least gum cupsoles. Slippery as hell. It always sucks having skate shoes you don’t like. It’s nice not having super sore quads though.