Went to an acupuncturist this week about the sharp pain above my left knee cap. It was happening before the arthritis and it’s back. She said it was tendonitis and to not skate/jump/squat for two months so it can heal. Arghghghg! After some research it looks like most people suggest a rest period of 4-6 weeks. So maybe it wont be two months, but wow, I’m bummed. Hopefully this will give me time to get rid of the arthritis at least and so when I can finally skate I am 100%. The acupuncturist thinks the arthritis is still around because I’ve been pushing it too hard. Interesting.

I ordered this little stationary bike awhile ago and just brought it into work today. It’s funny. I can’t use it too much yet because of the tendonitis, but it’s pretty fun to use it when I sit at work. And yes, for those keeping track I still have a stand up desk and I still stand quite a bit, just not as much as I did before the arthritis episode.

This part makes me want to go skate! Seriously epic part.

Went up to Ft Collins after work to sell some boards at MRKT then maybe do some skating. Bernie bailed and Dean slept through my calls so I went solo. It worked out though because Ft Collins has a one of the friendliest skate scenes around and this dude Jake I’ve skated with a couple times through Chad was at MRKT and wanted to skate campus too. We went across the way to CSU, one of my favorite places to skate. I had been feeling sore/weird all day and on my first push I knew I was gonna have a tough time. If I was solo I would have probably turned around right then and not skated. I keep hearing that with my arthritis I will hurt the day before a big weather change. Guess that explains it. I had no coordination, my feet felt like bricks and my knees weren’t good either. Ugh. We had fun though. We started with the ultra dork spot above. Jake killed it. Back D, back blunt, beanplant to fakie, side blunt to 50 (photo) and more. I really didn’t to anything. Some pivots, front tail stalls, one bad crail stall, got close to front tail on the wood to disaster on the curb to shove out but not really that close. We had fun though and we got dirt and mud all over our wheels, shoes and grip. Next we found an angled ledge coming out of a tunnel. I tossed some horrible attempts at front noses down it. Jake got a noseslide and a crooks to fakie which apparently he just learned earlier in the day. Some cruising around we ended up at the Clark building with all the two and three stairs. Man I was feeling my arthritis at this point. It took at least 15 tries to ollie down the three stair and it took Jake ollieing up it after the two to get my hyped enough to do it. We posed some more tricks and Jake probably landed a bunch more. It was fun times. We hit a few other things briefly, but mostly just walked along and stuff. I wish my arthritis would go away.

I’ll start by saying Mudhoney is one of my all time favorite bands. It’s been several years since I’ve seen them play and my excitement level was very high. Especially since I’ve never heard anything off of The Lucky Ones live and it’s become my favorite album of theirs.

The first band was Purple Fluid. They were young and the twin brothers in the band are the son of Rick Kulwicki, the member of the Fluid that died a few years ago. The show was a benefit for the them. With the exception of the glam kid that didn’t seem to fit into the band at all I thought they were great. Later on Mark Arm would thank them for opening and said how proud their dad would have been. Awesome.

This show had the most gray hair I’ve ever seen at one show. At one point the singer for The Fluid announced that he wrote a song for his daughter when she was born. Then said that she was at the show and she was now 25. I guess that explains the gray hair everywhere! The Fluid played a long set. I wasn’t that impressed. Zach was though and he’s in a band so we’ll say that The Fluid was great. Ha.

Mudhoney came out and completely ruled it. The start of the set was mostly early stuff. Superfuzz Bigmuff and the s/t album with some other classics mixed in. I was kinda worried they wouldn’t play anything off The Lucky Ones. Luckily near the end of the set Mark Arm put away the pedals and set down the guitar and they went into several off of the Lucky Ones. Stoked! They have such a great stage presence. At one point a water bottle was thrown onstage and Mark Arm held it down in field goal position for bassist Guy Maddison to kick it back into the crowd. Mudhoney completely killed it. It’s gonna be hard to top this show in 2012.

Picked up Carleigh around noon and we looked for a dry spot to skate. Sure we could have skated Red Curbs or Rampy, but the sun was nice and warm and we wanted to skate outside. We ended up at the Mikes Camera manny pad where we skated for almost a couple hours and didn’t land much of anything. When I first started ollieing up the curb seemed hard. It took me at least 10 tries to get a manual. A tries less to get a nose manual. Carleigh got about 100 manual scrapes, but no clean ones. She got a front 180 up. I think I did a nose manny front 180 out. Tried a few nose manny big spins out, but never got close. Did a line with sw front 180 up the curb, kickflip on flat then ollie a tiny gap. I’m trying to lift my feet up when I ollie. It’s not going so well. I tried a bunch of sw 180 mannies, but never got one. I did a slow front shove off the curb and a few flip tricks. Even though it was a mellow session and not much was landed we had fun trying tricks again and being out in the sun.

After a late night of grunge destruction (Mudhoney ruled it!) I was a bit tired, but wanting to skate before the snow settled in. We didn’t feel like driving 20-30 minutes to a skatepark so we went to campus. The parking block above was the first thing we skated. I was feeling insanely stiff and awkward. Ollie could boardslide the parking block, but my grown up body would bend the block enough that boardslides would stop in the grass making my wheels yellow “Well then stop riding through grass!” I managed a front 5-0 fall off over it. We cruised around some more. Neither of us overly hyped on much it seemed. We ended up at the super mellow bank to tiny curb. I tried to do a front 270 to switch crook stall, but never got it. I did have one awesome slam onto my hip though after I overshot the curb. Ouch. I started hucking a couple flip tricks and kickflips were feeling decent. I got a varial flip and a b/s flip. At the end managed a back pivot to fakie with a fakie bigflip after. Everything was landed horribly, but I felt like I got a little something back. My ankle and knee was feeling weird, but not painful. Ollie did a front 50 on the curb. Pretty rad. After that I ollied a little gap off a ledge which felt pretty awesome. We hit this weird long two stair area. I managed to ollie onto one from downhill manual it then drop to the next one and ride away. Seems dumb and it is, but it felt great. Ollie did a few early grab cannon balls off the curb. Next was the stone bank/manny pad thing. Ollie wasn’t feeling it. I got a front rock on it and we moved on then kinda just kept moving on back to the car as it started snowing. Mellow, but fun. Hyped to try a few flip tricks. Hyped on the smaller board.

I don’t know man, Grant Taylor is amazing and all, but Busenitz is the best.

I guess winter and skateparks go together pretty well because we ended up at northGLENn once again. This time it was Carleigh, Jake and I and we met Brian and Lazer for a bit. For how warm it was supposed to be it felt surprisingly cool outside and warming up took a bit. Carleigh, Brian, Lazer and I skated the little bank to get warmed up. I had new shoes and they felt a little stiff even though I’ve worn them around for awhile. I love the Manchesters though. Brian said his knee was hurting and that it was all swollen. I felt and oh my it was huge. Ice that knee Brian. Take a break from skating! Carleigh thought back rock would be hard, but did it first try. She also got a front rock kind of. Jake was ollieing the mellow rail every try and working on front noseblunts on the bank. No luck this time. I felt kinda good for a bit. It was the first time in months my left knee didn’t hurt at all. Hopefully that continues. This allowed me to finally try some other tricks and I noseslid the medium hubba in a couple tries. It felt awesome. I also crooked the flat ledge (although I popped out early which I didn’t want to do) and got a couple front 50s on it. The first front 50 attempt was so bad. I have no idea what happened, but luckily I walked out of it without injury. Carleigh was trying flatground kickflips and I tried a couple too. I didn’t even get close and ended up hurting my back foot abit. Ugh. Not in an injury way, but in an arthritis way. That pretty much ended the ollie part of the day for me. I had a few more slow front 50s, but yeah, my pop was gone. I started skating the bowl. The combo of new shoes and a relatively new smaller board/trucks setup was weirding me out. It took a lot of tries before I landed an axle stall. I had some fun carves in the tile in the deepend. I love how carving tile is considered a trick other than carving. It’s like grinding without having to do anything. I love it! I did have one carve up there that felt extra awesome. Jake and Carleigh joined in. Carleigh drops in the deepend and can do all her tricks first t. No fair. Jake rips tranny. Lots of grinds both ways. I got a few grinds in the shallow, but ran out of a bailed axle stall really weird and kinda hurt my foot even more. Actually both feet were hurting in ways I hadn’t experienced before. It kinda sucked. Because of my arthritis I can’t sprint fast enough to get out of bails in that bowl gracefully. I slammed pretty hard once so I sat for a bit. My feet were pretty jacked after that. The park was pretty empty at this point and we were all kinda working on our own stuff. Carleigh wanted to do front tail over the hip to switch crooks. Apparently she got it, but here is how she described it, “GLEN! I DID THAT THING! THAT TRICK I WANTED TO DO I DID IT. YOU KNOW THAT TAILSLIDE THING!” Ha ha so awesome. So Carleigh, it’s called front tail to switch crooks. Jake kept getting close to noseblunts. I was trying front lips over the little hip in the middle of the park, but never got to close to landing on it. All in all a fun day. Wish my feet hadn’t started hurting. And I gotta admit I was kinda missing the bigger setup.

The four eyed dude in all black in this clip is Joey. This clip really made me want to skate. Hope to see you in SF in March Joey!

Ever since this arthritis thing started I’ve had troubles sleeping. Last night was no exception. I was up at 6am for no reason whatsoever. I got a few things done, went grocery shopping early enough that 99% of the people at the store were wearing northface goretex vests and shopping in the organic section (Ok fine I was shopping there too. But no vest!). I was really grouchy from not getting enough sleep and the arthritis pain wasn’t helping much. It seemed a little worse. I’m overdue on a shot of Humira, but I’m holding out for awhile as the long term side effects scare me so much. Anyways around noon Bernie, Dean and Carleigh showed up. We went to Willville. We started on the remodeled bank in the middle. There was construction going on at the top so you couldn’t do tricks into it like normal. We warmed up by dropping in then doing some dorking around. I did a little front board pose pulled up onto the ledge to fakie then a little halfcab pivot off that felt really fun. I haven’t been able to skate much so little things like that make my day. Dean manualled it sideways which looked fun. Carleigh risked some foot pain for ollies onto the ledge. Bernie ripped it with manual up to fakie manual down through the kink. Dean and I got no complys on it. Bernie did front 180 up, f/s halfcab flip on the bank. I got a kickflip to fakie which took awhile and kinda started bumming me out that kickflips are that hard for me right now. Then we went to the front area. Carleigh did all of her flatground tricks. Dean filmed Bernie attempt a tech ender ender and I straight sucked it up. I did have a fun run where I ollied kinda high for me into the bank then ollied a little snowpile at full speed on the roll away. Then I tried a treflip (yes, stoked that I tried it, but ..) and somehow got away without breaking my ankle. I landed so bad. It took me down and reminded me that I have no idea how long it’ll be before I can skate 100%. Then I went for what I thought should be really easy. Front 180 up then fakie bigspin into the bank. 200 tries later I landed the worst 180 and fakie bigspin imaginable. I should just be stoked to be outside skating in nice weather, but I was bummed. Really bummed.

Then we went to this bank spot which none of us except Dean have been to before. It’s steeper and scarier than it looks. Actually, I was feeling more sketched than normal as the walk down through the rocks kinda scared me. I guess that’s a sign that the arthritis is still alive and kicking. Ugh. Dean nailed a good f/s ollie early on then took all of these awesome photos.

Bernie did some ridiculously smooth front tails. Some people can make the “basics” look amazing. Carleigh stepped it up too. She got a couple of front tails too sliding them for a minute. It was tight. We’re saving the photo for nullozine.

Me, I survived. There was a couple bails I really could have died on. My reaction time is so slow these days and I could barely run/push fast enough to get to the top of this bank. Ugh. I gave up on grind tricks and did a few stall tricks. Back feeble, back pivot, blunt to axle, front slash. Thanks for the photos Dean. You’re the man.

I went home and hit the Pabst. Not sure why I’m so bummed about my skating. I should be more patient considering I could barely walk a month ago. But I can’t help it. Not being able to kickflip on command really bums me out. Sorry the last couple entries have been so negative.