Picked up Carleigh then met Dave and eventually Fuzz at the Wells Fargo quarter pipe. Carleigh and Fuzz chatted for awhile while I just kind of rolled around and did some basics to get warmed up. Fuzz showed up shortly after. Everyone was kinda doing their own thing and the vibe was pretty awesome. Carleigh learned back smiths and back tails. Fuzz hasn’t skated much lately and liked to pretend he couldn’t ollie anymore, but he still ollied into noseblunts first try and did lots of other tricks like fakie nose blunt, switch pivot fakie and learned a new trick, front 270 nose pick come out forward (maybe there is a name for this?). Dave did a bunch of old man tricks I was jealous of and don’t know the names of too well. Crailtaps, seran wraps, etc. He also went on to learn back noseblunts! Wow. I was starting most things out by kickflipping up the curb and landed most of them. Slammed hard on a front tail shove and can incredibly close to front smith kickflip out. Landed on it a few times, but would either get wheel bite or hit a crack or just fall off for no reason. So much fun. Oh yeah, Dave got $5 from a drunk dude who thanked him for “putting on a good show” at one point. Shortly after that Dave did a couple really smooth boneless tail taps on a black pillar that also resulted in cheers from a pedestrian, but no money this time. Doh. He tried to teach Fuzz and I to do that trick too and we got it, Fuzz’s was probably even smooth.

We rolled over to the little curb/granite ledge thing in the brick alley. Fuzz wasn’t really feeling it. Carleigh did some front tails. Dave had a crooks to fakie. I got a sloppy kick back 5-0 pivot thing that was intended to be a kick back tail and a front tail shove out that surprised me. We went around the corner to a large rock and tried some wallrides for a bit. It was hard to navigate around a bench to hit it right and the last part of the rock ride was really weird. Unfortunately for Dave he is goofy footed so he had to ride it frontside. Didn’t stop him from getting it first though. Trying to get his back I hung up midway and dove to the ground in pile of hurt. I got up quick though and luckily no damage to the ribs or wrist. Fuzz landed the rockride shortly after and we moved on to the yellow curb parking garage nearby. Fuzz mostly chilled. Carleigh did some long slappy noseslides. Dave had some cool manual combos over the medians like front 180 nose manny 180 out and back 180 nose manny. I did some front 50s, nose mannies and locked into a perfect back tail, bailed, then did a few crappy kick back tails that just barely scraped the tail. Doh. Super fun night though.

Feeling much better today. It was even a bit warmer out. I picked Carleigh up and randomly decided to check out a manny pad at the new CU research center by her house. It ended up being a little weirder then we thought it would be and we had to push an out house out of the landing. Turns out there was a perfect looking ledge right around the corner (above). Jason showed up with Lindy. Carleigh had a little wax and we started making the ledge a little slicker. We got a few basics on it. Carleigh did some noseslides and maybe even a noseslide shove. I tried to line things out. Got kickflip up the curb, crooks the ledge, but not the manual after. Coming the other way got ollie over a manhole, front 50 the ledge, kickflip off a curb. Any spot that has a manhole to do tricks over and curbs to go up/down rules. Jack showed up and had more wax so we waxed it enough to make PRod proud. Mad shit started going down. Mostly by Jack, but it ended up being one of those sessions were everyone was stoked and pushing themselves. Jason and Lindy didn’t stay too long, but they got to see Jack do a lot of tricks like back tail, back tail shove, crooks, ollie onto the bench and wallride so crazy. When Jack was doing that I was working on kickflip back noseslides. I was going hella slow, but did get his back with what technically was a make. I need to keep trying it though because I think it could work. It’s remotely possible I’ve done this trick about as poorly before, but it was years ago and probably worse actually. We kept skating. Jason probably left around now. Carleigh was lining things out with back 180s and frontside halfcabs and trying some of the first front noses I’ve seen her try. Going the other way she was doing front 180 nosegrinds to forward and we have document proof of the make. So sick. I have no idea how many more tricks Jack did. He learned back tail front 270 out, did front tail back 270 out, learned kickflip noseslides and accidently did kickflip front crooks so went ahead and just learned that one too. I haven’t seen Jack smile like that skating in awhile. So good to see. He killed it all day. I had a blast myself. Did front 50 shove, some of the better crooks I’ve done, back 50s, back 50 shove!, crooks to fakie, front nose to bad landing. Tried a bunch of noseslide 270 shoves, but never got very close. Kickflipped a manhole a few times. Pushed switch mongo. Ha, this session was seriously awesome. Carleigh didn’t quite get a front 50 which would have made it a little better though. We ended it on the long manny pad where I got a manny quick and couldn’t quite get a nose manual. Jack almost did kickflip manny up to manny. We basically skated the same spot for four hours and it ruled. Jack and Carleigh you rule. And thanks for hanging out and smiling with us Jason! This session was everything I love about skateboarding. Look for a few photos and Jack and Carleigh’s blog in the distant future.

I guess I’m not built to grind. I had actually got these Thunder trucks from Meta the day before the Indy’s from Crisis. For some reason I thought I would like the Indys more and I’d just return the Thunders. Nope. Friday night I went to sleep super early feeling pretty good and was looking forward to a full day of skating on Saturday. I ended up waking up around 3am and coughing like crazy for a couple hours. Ugh. Guess my cold caught up with me. So after attempting to sleep it off I got up and Nugget helped me set up some trucks I would hopefully like more. Thunders with a Budweiser graphic. I like Budweiser and I like Thunder. Perfect. Got a bunch of calls to go skate and was thinking of piling in with TF to go skate somewhere, but I was still feeling rotten and decided to bail. Instead I sat around and watched some skate videos (5 Boro, Think and the Phili video This Time Tomorrow), took a nap and recruited Ollie to come skate for a bit.

We went to the area around Valmont & Foothills. We didn’t cover a lot of ground, but hit some fun stuff. I was feeling pretty tired and stiff for obvious reasons (I’m sick for those who can’t remember the paragraph right above this). First thing I remember was trying to ollie a little median and I told ollie if he ollied up on the sidewalk and 180’d off I’d do it. I did. Ollie rules. We found a nice two sided curb nearby (not the one in the photo) which I did my first grinds on the new trucks on. Tried a few front lip transfers, but failed. I have been scared of that trick forever and committing to it on a ledge that doesn’t end was the hard part for me. Ollie had a couple little boardslides. Then we went across the street and ended up at the area above that had another double sided curb that was fun to slappy up. Ollie grind it pretty far too. We went back to the previous area and hit a little manny pad for a bit where I couldn’t front 180 nose manual. Ollie was laughing a bunch though. We hit a two stair area, but I started to feel extra tired and wanted to bail. Ollie started skating harder at that point, trying shove it’s and stuff and said he wanted to skate a little more. Maybe tomorrow kid. Ha. Oh, notice no complaining about the trucks? I guess I’m not old or good enough for Indys.

Got off work early and had about an hour before needing to be home. I didn’t know where I would go, but just kind of drove into Boulder and started thinking about all kinds of fun spots. I’ve been so into street skating lately I could pretty much skate anything at this point. I ended up at the ballpark ledges. I haven’t been there in forever. I started by rolling right past the ledges and going behind the nearby buildings to see what they offered. A few wallrides on a jersey barrier later I rolled back and starting hitting the ledges. I was really tired and just kinda skating slow. I was thinking about trying this trick out of noseslides, but never got too close. I started trying to ollie onto the ledge and started getting pissed at the Indy trucks again. Then I tried some flip tricks and got more pissed. I hate the floppiness when you take off with Indys. I kept skating. Got a front 50 barely, a front nose to fakie, not much before I had to go. Those Indys are done son. They don’t work for me.

Still feeling pretty sick, but had to get out. Was in charge of cleaning bathrooms and other fun chores first though. Finally got out of the house around 8. All day I had been thinking about the little granite ledge in the brick alley. I was more tired then I thought I would be and I skated / walked pretty mellow til I got there and was super bummed to see a car parked in front of it with it’s hazards on. Ugh. I cruised around still without energy. Hit the alley bump for a bit, did some 180s, had some fun then noticed the car had left by the granite curb. Rad. Did a couple slappy noseslide variations when another car pulled up and parked there. Seriously? Ugh. I let the lady know I was bummed and she was cool, but didn’t care. So I moved on still a bit uninspired. The new trucks were driving me nuts. They feel so clumsy and dumb compared to Thunders. I would miss my tail ollieing up curbs and stuff. Ugh. I ended up near the yellow curb parking garage. I dorked around for a bit then went into the garage and had some fun. Did a line of ollie up curb, kickflip off, manual a median, back 50 curb, front 50 the corner curb. Coming the other way I tried front 5-0 then b/s flip up the curb. I tried doing the front 5-0s a few pushes deep which was scary for me, but I did quite a few. I never really got the b/s flip. I landed one technically, but I had come to a complete stop. I tried a few kick back tails. Got into a few, but only landed one sorry excuse where the tail jibbed the curb for a brief second.

Next I went over to this bench. Back on my 300th day of skating in 2010 Neil ollied onto it super easy and I’ve been jealous of that ever since. As tired as I was I decided I had to ollie onto it. It took me a long time. Traffic would weird me out on top of it. Half the time I would go to ollie I would miss the tail. Man I hate these Indys. I got on it a few times and slid out before finally ollieing up and riding across it. It’s taller then it looks. I’ve always been scared of ollieing onto narrow things and this one is tall and hollow underneath making it even scarier. I was happy to get it though. Hopefully I keep giving these trucks a try, but it’s not looking good.

Been fighting a cold all week. Mainly due to having to get up earlier than normal for work and having lots of late night stuff going on (Bones Brigade premiere, Afghan Whigs, Halloween, etc). After a nap I decided I should go out and do a few kickflips. I forgot to put my old shoes on (that now have a hole in the bottom) so I guess I’ve moved on to some Mariano’s now. I did the first 5 kickflips, bailed one, then did another few and went inside. Not sure this even really counts as a day of skating, but it felt good to skate a little.

This clip rules.

A few days ago I got an email saying ‘Reply now with your name for chances to win tickets to Afghan Whigs at the Ogden Theater ..” so I did. Turns out I would win a pair. Prior to winning the tickets I had no intention of going to see them even though their first album Up In It is one of my all time favorites. I lost interest in them in the mid 90’s when they changed from a grunge band to a rock band. They had a lot of success and I respect that. I knew going into the show that I probably wouldn’t hear much of the old Afghan Whigs that I loved. And well, free tickets! Can’t beat that.

The first band was The Knew from Denver. They were decent enough, even good at times. Brian and Denise showed up and Brian immediately began talking shit about how this show was going to blow away the Dinosaur Jr show a couple weeks ago. For me I knew that this wasn’t even a possibility, but I did want to at least be impressed and surprised by the Whigs. Well, that didn’t happen. I’ll try to sugar coat how I really felt about the show. The song ‘Gentlemen’ was good. I will give them that, it rocked, they played it well. They played a lot of other songs off of Gentlemen that I recognize from late nights with Liz as she used to put this cd on a lot. That kind of stoked me out. But most songs were super mellow and the grunge of old was not there at all. They had three people playing guitars and half the time you could hear a cello over them. At on point Greg Dulli said “That’s why we have three guitars!” and it made me laugh. Which leads me to some other great Greg Dulli quotes from the night. Upon seeing someone texting in the front he said “Hey no texting up front. That’s why you aren’t getting any pussy!” The last song he ripped off the Beatles for a bit with the “She loves you yeah yeah yeah” and turned it into “Hey ladies if your man doesn’t love you come back stage after the show and I’ll love you.” Ugh, that’s some serious ego rock star crap that I don’t like to hear. But I love a band where the singer never even speaks between songs so who am I to judge.

It seems like the majority of the crowd enjoyed the show. Although Brian (a much bigger fan of them then me) did lean over and say “I eat my words” and Zach wasn’t very hyped either. I can’t say I’m glad I went even though the tickets were free. I did play some Up In It songs this morning though so it couldn’t have been the worst show.

Fuzz got someone to work for him so it was the first Sunday he’s had off and could skate. He was hyped! I picked up Jason in the early afternoon and we rolled to Fuzz’s and picked him up. Jason called the spots and we started with the Safeway ledge. Fuzz hadn’t skated in 5 weeks due to a rolled ankle, but you couldn’t tell by his skating. We rattled off some basics on the ledge starting with slappy noseslides. Some basics took longer then others. We also pulled out a big piece of angle iron for wallies/slappis which ended up being a lot of fun. Jason looked on and even walked along the fence for awhile and stretched in some ways he hasn’t been able to in awhile. Jason suggested we both do nollie front tails. Fuzz did it good and another to fakie. I got one little skidder. We also worked on front 5-0s to fakie until we each got one. Fuzz’s was of course proper. We each got back 50s. Fuzz had a really funny one with a perfect back 50, but when he rolled out he slammed forward for no apparent reason. I also managed a kick back 50 with some tic tacs in the grind and landing. Haven’t landed that in awhile. I would try to line out tricks with the angle iron and ledge. Had a fun front 50 then kickflip the angle iron. Also had some switch front 180 jams over the angle iron, then back 50 or something on the ledge. Carleigh, Connor and Blaine showed up. Connor looked like he cared for about 2 minutes. Blaine reminded me about slappy crooks. I have no idea how I could have forgotten about it, but I shortly did a line of slappy crooks on the angle iron then a kick back 50 on the ledge. Hyped on that! Carleigh had some good noseslides out of the gates then tried front 180 nosegrind shove out, but never got it.

Next we went to this bank spot. Again, Jason’s spot suggestion. He had a blast at this spot with Neil and Fuzz a couple years ago and thought about it so we rolled there. Missing from the photo is Carleigh, Blaine and I. Anyways you can kind of see the spot from the photo. Basically the banks gets taller until typical loading dock height. The left side (pictured) is a bit mellower then the right side, but both are steep. Connor and Fuzz killed it out of the gates with front pivots and tails like they were nothing. Fuzz worked up to a front pivot on the steep side. So crazy. Connor did a rock to feeble on it. Carleigh ollied into the mellower side which is gnarly. Connor got bored. I took forever to get a front tail on the easy side. Fuzz worked on fakie pivot to yank in to fakie while I worked on a line of b/s 180, halfcab flip, ollie the curb and bank where it’s really short. We both got them. Blaine did a nice ollie to fakie while I did a b/s flip on the mellower bank. Took me awhile, but the two I got felt great. As everyone started talking about where to eat I started trying some 1 mph kickflip noseslides (stall). I can get it positioned perfect into noseslide if I don’t commit my back foot, but the second I got for both feet I can’t lock in. Figures. All in all another fun day and it’s great having Jason out with us.

Picked up Jason and the Connor and headed to Ft Collins. The plan was for me to drop off some wheels/hats at MRKT which we did. Always good to see Eric.

Then we went to Launch and checked out Andy’s new facility. The ramp looks amazing and we brought Nullozine and Bored for his skate magazine library. So sick.

Next we went to Northside. Dave Fuller had joined us so the three of us skated an uncrowded Northside for about an hour before it was time to dress up for the Halloween contest. That park rules. I had lots of fun just cruising around and getting used to cruising the new trucks. Lots of wallies, some grinds, etc. Dave almost did a switch wallie over the corner of the barrier. So sick. Connor was ripping as usual. I can’t seem to remember any tricks in particular I was proud of. After awhile people started showing up in costumes as did the rest of Trick Factory. So we got dressed up.

I’m not in this photo, but that’s us. I didn’t skate more then the ledge (poorly) at this point because it got really crowded. Brian was straight killing it with the costume. Mall grabs, falling when trying to skid to a stop, had an old beat up board, etc. So insanely funny. Dave busted out a mountain board for his costume. Man it was insane. I laughed so hard. Ft Collins rules. I had to get home in time for India to have a concert which was also a blast.