Amazing. Completely amazing.

Woke up wanting to skate. It was nice out too. Watched a couple videos, texted people and listened to the new Dinosaur Jr. It started looking like rain and plans hadn’t formed so I went and skated flat in front of the house for awhile. I was just getting kind of warmed up before the rain settled in. Doh. Chilled for a few hours then it cleared up. Headed to campus and it was still pretty wet so I skated under the engineering building. The fun double downhill bank spot was blocked off because of construction. Doh. I found a bench that was decent and started trying to skate it. Things started out real slow, but at one point I felt like I was skating great. One way I was doing kickflips over a little crack gap then trying boardslides to fakie. I’ve never been able to do that trick on ledges and once again it stumped me. Coming the other way I would try front noseslide then b/s flip over the crack gap. Never did a good f/s noseslide and never got the b/s flip. Neil called and was gonna come meet up. I moved to the top of the engineering building as it had dried up and hit the double downhill manny pad section. I mostly dorked around, rock walked down the stairs, posed some ollies down the 5 stair, bailed flip tricks and didn’t get the manual. Neil showed up. Rad. We would do a trick then hit the manny pad. Neil ended up getting ollie over a cone on it’s side, manual then nose manual. He did it a couple times. So good. I took awhile to get the manual, but did get it. Then got a line with kickflip the little part of the cone on it’s side, front 180 onto the first pad, sw front 180 off, kickflip up the next one, kickflip off. Pretty hyped on that. Then we moved slightly west were Neil ollied a little gap first try and I would take several tries. I lined it out with a manual. Yippee. Then we kind of headed up campus looking at new stuff until Neil had to leave and I just did soft rock kickflip out on the drama building escalator loading dock. I did quite a few of them. Cool. I was super sore for some reason. It kinda sucked, but I skated hard and had fun. The downhill ride to my car at the end was really fun with lots of little ollies.

He’s got a mean back 180 and it looks like a private amazing ramp??? Those varial flips look a lot like mine. Ha.

Had a friday off work and couldn’t deal without work so decided to work all day as Filmer Glen. Ha. We started at this spot above. Crew was media heads Blain, Cameron, Dean and me. Nullers were Chad, Derek, Connor and Josh. Nullers crushed it immediately. Connor did gap to lip all quick. Josh did quite a few things. Derek almost did back lip on the inside. I messed around for awhile before filming and did an ollie onto the tall one (which was really hard for me) and then a front 180 off the little one. Then it was film mode. Josh slammed really hard. Connor got close to a good trick, but then we got kicked out by a furious building owner. Dude sucked.

Then after some driving we ended up at this building being tore down. That’s me in the hole. I filmed the whole time. Nullers went off and landed tons of tricks. I have like 250+ clips to go through. Yikes.

The night cap was some fun with this hill. I probably hit it 15 times. It wasn’t very steep but it was fast enough that by the end I would have to run out. Not derek though, that dude would just hang a right into traffic. Him and Daryl did some sick ollies over a curb cut kicker at full speed. Daryl added switch 180 and Derek did back 180. Everyone else was cruising downhill too. I had fun doing some with powerslides, some with manuals, etc. Got a really long manual for me then pointed the hill to run out before traffic. So fun. Great way to end the day.

After many a texts and gchats the evening finally got organized. Carleigh and Jack would run to Crisis to bring some new Null stuff. I was at home with Ollie til about 7. Carleigh and Jack ended up also saying they were cool with going to pick up some pool coping that will hopefully work as a fun old man upgrade to Rampy. So kind of them! They ended up bringing injured Fuzz with them for morale and scratching up my cruiser/filmer board. Jake and I rolled out a little after 7 and decided we’d wait for them at one of the funnest spots in Denver, 18th & Welton.

Jake and I did some rock ‘n rolls on the easy ‘creted barrier then we moved on to lining out some other stuff. Wallride on a barrier (without crete), over a little curb then trick on the banked ledge. Jake got his line first as the others were showing up. Back wallride, ollie, wallie bluntslide. So sick. I started with wallride too then would try to kickflip the curb and kind of tweaked my knee. This was party because I had new shoes and it’s rough getting used to new shoes:

Neat huh? Lakai Brea’s. Fuzz made me eat a couple Doritos crumbs that dried up my throat and almost killed me. Jack warmed up by falling down a lot which apparently works because he slayed it. We ended up staying in the area the whole night which was fine with all of us. Fuzz couldn’t ollie yet because of a rolled ankle but killed it on my filmer board anyways. Lots of fun dorking around popping the board up and running along the ledge, boneless tricks, etc. Even some new ones for him that I don’t know the name of. Jake got a lot of tricks on the banked ledge. Tons of bluntslides, slappy back 50 and hurricane. Whoa. Jack had a solid back 270 to front tail, wallies out of the barrier all easy, blunt to fakie the ledge, rock to fakie, whatever he wanted except pivot to fakie. Ha. He also tried a bunch of dark slides and would slide them, but he couldn’t get out of them. This destroyed his griptape which didn’t bother him, but Fuzz was cringng every time. So funny. Carleigh was smiling and having a good time. She’d never done a boardslide pop out before, but worked on it until she surfed one out all awesome. Kudos Carreigh. I had given up flippers for awhile due to my knee, but it seemed to work itself out and be ok. I tried a ton of tricks, few of which I came close to landing. Slappy back 50, back feeble were landed. Had fun starting at the opposite corner of the street and doing ollies or switch 180s off the curb cut, then doing alley oop (kind of) front 180s up the curb and trying switch boardslides. Got kinda close a couple times. After awhile I could flip my board again and started trying (posing) back feeble kickflip out. Never got close. I would do some flippers on the way back like fakie flip, halfcab flip, fakie var flip which were fun because of all the cracks I had to avoid. Tried a few front lips and somehow didn’t crack a board or get close. At the end I tried a few kickflip front boards and got into a few of them, didn’t pop out though. That would be neato. All in all the night was super fun. Street skating in downtown Denver is the best of the best. Thanks again Carleigh and Jack for running my errands and you can come skate Rampy anytime. But not you Fuzz.

Woke up to sunshine and a forcasted high in the 50s. Awesome! Then got called for work and was stuck with that for a couple hours. Had been hit up by Bernie, Dean and Neil so we met up and went to the school out on Arapahoe to get things started. At first it was just Dean, Neil and I. The first few attempts at manuals were pretty bad. Warming up when your older is no fun. But we did it and Bernie and Garret showed up. I had a switch front 180 up a curb to no comply 180 off that hyped me up. Neil can ollie more times per minute then anyone and was ripping. Dean slammed going up the long 3 and almost hipped himself on the top one. Sketchy! Bernie can manual off of something before he can ollie off it. Garret is young, but still fun to skate with and smiles a lot while making relatively hard tricks look easy. Neil put a trash can on it’s side after a curb and everyone except me did tricks over it. My ollie has turned to crap. People lost interest and went to the back area.

In the back I tried to ollie this a few times, but failed until Bernie tried it and didn’t get it first try. Then I got it. Only because I had to show up Bernie. Ha, it was just cool that it was tall enough for him to actually take more then one try to ollie it. Which him and Garret both did after that and blasted huge ollies unlike mine where as you can see I somehow popped it under the takeoff? I didn’t think that was possible.

Then we found this surprisingly good bank to wall. I say surprisingly good, but it was actually really bad, but somehow better then we thought it would be. Neil wasted no time wallriding it. Dean got close. Bernie did a cool wallride to fakie before getting super close to f/s wallrides (above). I can’t do a regular wallride to save my life. I did manage a couple wallrides to fakie which I’ve never really tried before. I tried kickflip wallrides for a bit and just kicked the wall a few times. Tried f/s wallrides where you have to ollie up the curb first. Obviously didn’t get too close to that. On the way to our cars I tried to ollie the trash can still while everyone looked on. I’m sure they were like “come on already land it” and I eventually did after slamming up the curb the time before to get me pissed enough.

Neil and I picked up Jason and brought him to the next spot above. Well, he chilled in the car, but I’ve never been to this 3 up 3 down before. It’s got lots of runway for b/s, but almost none for f/s. When we got there Bernie was trying manual varial flip out and got really close. Then he tried manual 3 shove out and got closer. Also kind of close to manual b/s bigspin out and lastly almost a manual double flip out. So yeah, that means we were there for awhile and lots of skating went down. It’s narrower on the top then I would have thought. Neil and I both took a few tries before we could ollie up it. And if Neil has troubles with it, you know it’s weird. Ha. He got quite a bit. ollies or no complies up. One foots or “Neil comply boneless” down. Couldn’t quite commit to nose manuals or back 50s on the second step. Deano skated the middle stair with me a lot. Got front 50 to front tail on the lower one. Almost front 50 shove and front 50 bigspin. Garret spent a lot of time pointing the camera at Bernie, but got in some good manuals when he wasn’t. I skated about as hard as I could and had a blast. Got some silly tricks like front 50 on the middle ledge to front tail the low one, almost got front 50 to front tail to shove out. Back 50s on the middle stair. Ollie up kickflip off took forever and was hideous when I finally landed it. Funnest trick was a front 50 on the middle one to nose pick (Bernie called it front crooks but that’s just silly) to fakie on the lower one. Got front 50s on the top some with ride out, some with front 180 over the stairs. I think everyone there but Neil could have skated there all day. Instead we moved on.

Bird bank! When we first got there Bernie busted huge b/s, f/s and ollie to fakie. They were so sick. Him and Garret then raced for tricks. Garret won kickflip fakie but couldn’t get close to f/s flip which Bernie ended up not getting either. Garret got a sick treflip fakie. I took a long time to get a b/s flip. Dean and I did some stall tricks too. Dean almost got back tail, did a sick no comply to tail. Neil did a bunch of ollies, no complies, etc. After awhile Jake showed up and joined in on some fun. We were all winding down, but he got us skating. We tried some manuals across the lower parts. I went through a slam real hard phase. Dropping in or landing manuals, didn’t matter, I’d slam. Jake and I were to wallie manual the pad, then ollie a couple railroad ties around the corner. Not sure he got the manual, but I guess he got the ollie. I finally got them too. Bernie did a crazy wallie to fakie manual turn around to manual down. So sick! Jake and I did some f/s ollies on the bank before a game of SKATE that took awhile, but I ended up winning on a treflip. Day over. Totally awesome. Not a razor scooter in site all day.

Totally cold and dreary day. I had intended to hit a couple shops, but got called for work then became rather lazy. I was able to talk Ollie into skating Rampy for a bit before dinner. He rarely shreds the gnar anymore, but he still had a blast. He did most of his tricks. B/s & f/s scratch grinds, rock ‘n roll, body varials, fakie ollies, coffins, cannonballs and a new one, fakie cannonball. I was pretty tired from skating so much recently and the weather, but was hyped to be out there with Ollie. I skated ok, but the only trick that stands out was a first try hurricane. Sweet.

Ran some boards to 303 in Denver and it started to rain. Chadman was down to skate so we went to a parking garage that the fine dudes at 303 recommended. Chadman got a nice kickflip manual to hill bomb before I could even ollie then we got the boot. Doh, the garage looked epic. We walked to one we saw nearby that wasn’t so epic, but it had concrete and slick parking blocks so what more do you need? Chadman did his best to shoot is board into the wall after ever boardslide attempt. Pretty bad Chad. Ha. It was only 34 degrees outside according to my phone, so pretty darn cold. But we skated and had fun. Chad did some crazy lines ollieing parking blocks into a narrow space between the blocks and the wall then do a trick on them. Fakie ollie one to f/s halfcab boardslide was tight. Also the wallride into the sketchy wet downhill was gnarly. I didn’t have much for tricks. Managed a couple halfcab boardslides to fakie, bluntslides, kickflips over a manhole and b/s 90 flips off a little bump. We ended with a couple games of SKATE. Chadman killed me on the first one with impossible tricks like switch heel and hardflip. No repeats on the second one which I beat him with sketchy tricks like treflip to skier landing, etc. We had fun.

Congrats Fuzz! Crisis has been straight killing it for two years now. Wow, Connor rips!

Coldest night of the season so far and the grey skies all day made me dream of east coast / europe street skating. It was 41 degrees so I bundled up, drove downtown and started with a warm up at Canyon Center with some wallrides. Went pretty good and got over the chills quick. Had some fun wallrides to fakie and tried doing some front tails on the side of a low one which didn’t really work. I decided to go without earphones and I think it works better for me. I’m not coordinated enough to be able to listen to music and skate at the same time. After Canyon Center I rolled down a couple alleys and ended up in a brick alley with a mini ledge that is almost a bank to ledge behind a big parking garage. It’s pretty good and waxed now which surprised me. I did a bunch of basics on it. Lots of stalls initially that were really fun. It’s kind of downhill backside, uphill frontside. After I did backside tricks I would try f/s no comply 360 and I landed almost all of them. So I tried a line of back 50, no comply 360 and kickflip a manhole. Well of course at that point I couldn’t land the no comply 3 anymore. Doh. I did eventually get it and somehow pulled out the sketchiest kickflip ever right next to a taxi. I felt cool for a second. I tried a bunch of front tail shoves and came close, but never got it. Posed some kick back tails and front 5-0 kickflips out. I should land those tricks sometime. I moved to the white ledge in the front of the parking garage. I haven’t skated it in forever and all I could think was how many awesome sessions I had there with Jason. So anytime I was pansy footing things I would just say to myself “Jason” like the intro to his part and skate harder. Back 50s came pretty quick. Crooks though, wow, it was like I forgot how to do them completely. I finally got a few, but I was definitely frustrated. One particularly sketchy one was followed with a speedy treflip on the bricks after and then a front board on that tall/dark bench. This line really hyped me up. The treflip going fast (for me) on bricks felt so amazing. Seeing as how I hadn’t gotten kicked out somehow yet I went for the real Jason effect and tried a line including the curb cut in front of the garage. Actually I went back even further and started by ollieing the weird 3 stair (only weird because to get speed for it you have to run, drop your board, roll off a 2 stair then curve around for the 3) then would do a pathetic ollie off the kicker and back 50 the ledge. Slammed on a 3 flip after, but felt really good doing that line and just cruising that far doing tricks. Half the time when I landed the 3 stair there was traffic so I’d have to turn quick and hug the parked cars. It kinda ruled. I started heading towards the car and went through a brief total loss of coordination and bailed up a few different curbs right in front of people. Ha. I stopped at the Canyon Center to try a few flatground tricks, but wasn’t expecting much after how many curbs I couldn’t ollie up. I ended up rattling off over 10 tricks real quick. Several of which were first try like heelflip, fakie big flip, f/s halfcab flip, b/s halfcab flip. I got a good treflip. Started trying fakie tres and almost had that first try too. Was real close the next several tries and started getting further away so just went home stoked instead. It was really funny too, because when I took my jacket off (Crisis coaches jacket ballin!!!) my shirts had completely soaked through with sweat. Guess those type of jackets don’t breath too well. Ha, that’s probably the most I’ve sweat all year and it was only 40 degrees.