It’s been awhile since I’ve posted one of these and this one is as epic as it gets. Let me know if you make it through the whole part.

Sure it’s Gino, but really? Who in their right mind wants a skate shoe that looks like John McEnroe’s tennis shoe. Please, go away Nike. Don’t support this crap.

Jake came over to my house at 7:30 and we skated in front of the house for a bit. My legs felt better than expected. We were clearly just in the warm up stages, but we did some tricks. I was most hyped on a fakie bigflip and an ollie that felt like it landed really hard and jolted the arthritis out of my legs. Sounds silly, but it really did feel like that.

Anyways, the plan was to meet Fuzz and Ian at Crisis at 8 then go to the northGLENn park. But it was all wet so we went to yellow curbs instead which ended up being totally awesome. We skated for almost three hours so there is no way I can remember everything. There was a lot of laughing going on and lots of funny falls. Everyone of us had a few good ones. I was rolling off a curb once and straight slammed onto my knee. That takes talent. Jake had a brilliant slam onto a curb. The best part being I couldn’t even tell what he was trying. A crooks? Back 50? Epic. Fuzz was trying a kickflip off a curb and hit eject at the last second resulting in him dive past his board. Ian’s may have not been as funny, but the heelflip manual attempt that rotated to far and slammed him onto the ground was crazy painful looking.

Onto the skating which it seemed everyone was skating at least decent for themselves. Some of the highlights were Ian heelflip manual, heelflip off a curb, straight ripping. Fuzz did fakie flip off a curb first try, a textbook f/s halfcab heel off a curb, manual front shove out and switch front tails. Jake had some mean slappies, manuals, kickflip off a curb and I think some wallrides too. I struggled with kickflips up a curb, but other then that had a lot of fun with slappy crooks, switch slappy front nose, f/s halfcab flip off a curb, kind of a b/s flip off a curb, nose manuals (almost with shove out) and posed lots of kick back tails and manual front shoves out. I was pretty beat and seemed more hesitant than normal to do flip tricks. Maybe it’s the big board setups fault, but probably just exhaustion.

Still super tired from the all day filming marathon and recovering from arthritis/illness. Went to Valmont for a short solo session. I skated slow, but it was the kind of session I needed to get my skate feet back. I couldn’t do a crooked grind to save my life, but other then that things went ok. Got quite a few front tails that slid a bit, front 5-0, back 50, fakie bigflip, treflip, heelflips, etc. All slow. At times I was so tired I had to just sit. I also had a bit of that arthritis hot pocket feeling, but it wasn’t intense enough to not try stuff. Anyways the session felt a little productive and hopefully I can start skating better again.

Headed to Denver with Jack, Carleigh and (shhh) new guy Connor. We met up with Chad and a friend of his named Cody that could probably get sued for looking exactly like Tom Asta. We started out at a ledge spot, but were kicked out before I could snap an ollie. Oh yeah, I had new trucks. Yes I am pathetic, but the wheel bite thing was driving me nuts and I wanted to change that right away. I got some Ace trucks at Crisis. They seem pretty awesome so far and I can actually turn without coming to a halt. We went to a bank spot under a bike path where we lasted for several hours. By the time we left Connor had a rad line, Chad had a rad line, Jack cheated death, I did a no comply to tail and jumped in some bushes, Carleigh took a bunch of awesome photos, Asta popped some good ollies. Next spot we went to (above) looked pretty fun. I went right to filming as Jack was about to put down a varial heel which he did several times. Carleigh almost got the ollie. Chadman came through slightly before dark with a banger of a line. Dude rips so hard. We had a nice fattening burrito and met up with Fuzz and others at Broomfield park 20 minutes before the lights shut off. I was so insanely tired and sore from filming that I lowered my Broomfield park standard by a lot. Which I don’t get because everyone else was like “you seemed fine to me”. Really? Does bailing a back 50 on the blue curb really seem like I’m doing fine? Ha. Then we went and hung at Fuzz’s and I pulled a Neil because I was so tired. It was fun though.

Had a tough week, my arthritis came back. Not debilitating like last fall, but bad enough to prevent me from skating or having much of any energy. It seems like this is a response to being sick awhile ago. So that’s probably how my life will be for awhile. Anytime I get sick I can expect an arthritis flare up a few days after. Ugh, but, could be a lot worse.

Anyways, I met Jack and Bernie at Casey Middle School and we dorked around on these rocks for awhile. All I did was an axle stall. Bernie is just starting to skate again after recovering from a knee injury so he’s keeping it mellow and having fun. After a bit we went on to film Jack work on hot pocketing his back foot. He succeeded. Ouch.

We went to this gem of a spot next. I spent about an hour trying nose manual front 180 out on the curb. I came close, but did not succeed. I’m gonna partly blame the excessive wheel bite bumming me out. Bernie did some neat manual tricks and giggled a bunch and ruled it. Carleigh showed up and also had to keep it mellow due to her back. Man, we are geezers. Ha, Jack isn’t though and he put together a rad little line which I pointed the camera at without even shaking it too much.

Today’s Dinosaur Jr hype is this epic photo of J and his daughter. Nice Gonz shirt!

In anticipation of the new Dinosaur Jr album in 33 days (digital download in 19 days) I’m gonna start hyping it with a link or two a day. Up first is this classic performance on the Letterman show from 1991. It’s so funny when the Letterman band guitarist gets completely owned by J. Best band ever.

This hyped me up so much! I need to skate more like the dork I am.

I was still tired from the long family vacation, but got some stuff done and the kids were playing with friends. John got off work at Meta and picked me up to head to Broomfield. The park had a bunch of lurkers, but not many people actually skating. John said he was tired too, but he was ripping. We mostly skated the black ledge after a few minutes of cruising around to warm up. He’s got a lot of rad switch noseslide tricks. He had a super sick run of ollie over the rail, front 50 the smile ledge then “nollie back tail” the black ledge. He almost did some front 50 back 180s out the proper way too. I got my first front 5-0 shove out in awhile, boardslid the little rail a bunch, got a few really slow back 50s, and comitted to front nosegrinds on the black ledge which would be the first time I’ve ever tried it on something of normal ledge height. Decent, quick session. Oh yeah, I had a new ‘Bottom of the Well” 8.38 deck and new 52 mm supers. Felt good!