Please go to this fundraiser and support this great non-profit organization that is doing it’s part to better skateboarding. This friday night, August 5th!

People are so good these days.

Well it’s official, I’m on the big board bandwagon. New 149 Thunder “Light” Trucks and an 8.25″ board. I guess Fuzz gets the most credit for the upgrade because I don’t want people to think he has a bigger deck than me (oh man such a bad joke). But at least mine is lighter (still a bad joke) because I got light trucks instead of the regular ones. I mean why even get the regular trucks when you can get the same truck, but lighter? Now when he can’t ollie something as high as me (which will never happen because Fuzz could ollie way higher than me even if he was skating a shopping cart) I will make sure to point out that his trucks are too heavy.

Ok, time to talk about skating. Oh wait, first, it was almost 100 degrees and I was lazy and starving. We went to a covered manny pad to start things. Nothing special went down. We went to a nearby building where Jack beat himself up to get a rather unique and cool trick that I didn’t film very well. After some driving around we ended up at Valmont which ended up benig a blast. Jack started out with a manual up the escalator ledge balanced to a stop then went fakie and did a fakie flip out. Ridiculous. The kid in him couldn’t resist the loading dock, but the old man in him couldn’t do a little kid trick. He did a few no comply 180s down it while I jibbed some front tails on the sticky ledge. I did a few crooks and back 50s and flipped the board around a bit to try and get used to it. It was going ok. Jack did an early grab off the loading dock so I tried too. Three tries later I got it and it was fun. Jack added early grab one foot and almost early grab late shove wtf? Then he did a boneless pole jam bonk thing that I had to try too and somehow came away first try. After that we played a long game of SKATE without too many kickflip variations because Jack’s ankle is still sore. Overall the big board/trucks felt good and maybe I’ll end up liking it.

As if I wasn’t already super hyped for the new Think video. This teaser is the definition of good editing, filming, skating, music, etc. Wow!

Max, Carleigh, Bernie and I met Monico and his brother Matt at Community skate shop on a hot saturday morning to do their weekly game of SKATE. We skated some flat for awhile, but realized the game wouldn’t be for quite a while so we bolted. We went to Arvada High School where Max and Monico got some good lines, I filmed, and Carleigh slammed hard on the big 4. I tried a couple smaller ollies before/after filming, but wasn’t really feeling it as I was in filmer mode and starving. Next we went to Westminster High and met up with the Meta dudes. There was a new long ledge over a gap that was waxed to oblivion, but too hot to grind it as the wax would come right off. It was about 100 degrees. Sean got a sick lipslide, but other then that not much went down. Bernie said he felt sick, but denied it being his black outfit in the 100 degree weather. Max rubbed the melted wax onto the back of his shirt. I failed to get remotely close at boardsliding the ledge. Monico almost boardslid it. Neil bailed an ollie over a flat gap and got mad. Carleigh snapped some photos.

Next we went to Niver Creek where I was mostly Filmer Glen as Monico and Jack killed it. I managed a lame little manual. Bernie almost got a cool kickflip to manual to lipslide all quick, but didn’t get it. Then we left to sell some boards at Crisis and get to Meta so I could buy some new wide trucks and be like every other skater jumping on the big truck bandwagon.

It’s been a couple years since I’ve done the three day fruit/veggie only fast/cleanse. I’ve been wanting to lose some weight and this is one way I did it in the past plus it cleans you out. So three days of fruits and veggies only. No soy, no dairy, no meat, no nuts, beans, popcorn, beer, etc. The first day was pretty easy. A big bowl of fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch and a few bananas throughout the day to keep me full. The above photo was dinner and it was great. Onions, potatoes, zuchini, tomatoes, parsley and I enjoyed it. It could have used some hot sauce, but that’s against the rules.

Day 2 was not as easy. It was a saturday and I went out skating all day in almost 100 degree weather. Breakfast was fruit again and I was already hungry before leaving for skating. I brought some baked potatoes and sweet potatoes in olive oil, cherries and one avocado. Lets just say I was starving beyond believe when I got home to make the above dinner. Kale and potatoes. That wasn’t enough it turns out as I would toss and turn all night because I was so hungry. Ugh.

Day three. Breakfast was fruit again and I was getting kind of over it. I wanted milk, yogurt, eggs, something with more fat. Being hungry and it being nearly 100 again made me so lazy.

Lunch on day three. It was decent. Kale, Zuchini, Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes, Green Onions. It didn’t satisfy my hunger, but I guess that’s the point of the three day diet, to starve a bit eh?

Day 3 dinner was a tough one. We were at a birthday party for India’s friend and we’re friends with her parents so we were there. I had to turn down sushi, chicken, cupcakes, beer and other goodies. Our friends knew I was on this diet though and they hooked it up. Veggie only rolls which were yummy (the dark red is beets, not raw fish). I also had a ton of potatoes and ate til I couldn’t eat anymore hoping to be able to sleep better. It kinda worked. So there we go, I survived. I weighed myself the day after this was done and was down about three pounds. Wahoo! Now, the hard part, to keep it off ..

Kind of a late start and lots of driving around to pick everyone up, but Rob, Carleigh, Jake and I met up with Fuzz at Niwot High around the time the sun was setting. We all did our own thing cruising around warming up for awhile. I did some back noseslides, kickflips, short crooks, back back 50s, a bad treflip and some other randomness. Fuzz killed some back 50s regardless of how many times he shook his head after. He was trying some to back boardslide and I think he got a couple. Jake keeps getting better. Back 50s, front lips, back noseslides, front 50s, front 50 to front board. Carleigh was recovering from happy hour party mode and ripped her hand open again. Ugh, that blows. Rob was ripping, but having troubles with one of his staples, front tailslides. I forget what trick he did, but Fuzz and I were super hyped. Oh yeah the funniest thing that happened was when we were all lined up by the door at the bottom and Carleigh goes to push off and got about one push before hitting a rock and going down. So funny. It got kinda dark so we skated one of the taller ledges that was lit well. Rob did a bunch of front board pop outs he wasn’t happy with, but were still sick. Fuzz tried ollie up front 360 off, got close, but almost tweeked his knee so sat down. Jake and I went for ollie up kickflip off. It took us a bit. I landed on a bunch of them, but only rode away from two initially and they were both super bad. Jake got a good one. I added a couple poorly landed front shoves. It would seem that every trick I land now is landed with both hands down. Ugh. At the end I redeemed myself in my head though. I got ollie up, kickflip on top of the ledge (so scary!), then kickflip off (this one was landed clean). Super hyped on that. Then I ended up playing a game of SKATE with Rob and Jake. I rode Fuzz’s board since he’s on the 8.25 program now too and I might want to join that club. Oh, did you hear Fuzz is riding Thunder’s now? Yeah. Totally broh. And he’s digging them. So yeah, I had a good excuse with the big board. It was a pretty long game with some good tricks and we had fun. In the end Jake took it with a fakie front bigspin. “Totally lame trick!” Ha. Fun night even though i couldn’t seem to ollie up to frontside grind at all.

Was super tired after my first day back at work then some tough conversations with my mom. Ugh. I feel so bad for her. I did manage to go skating for a bit though and Carleigh joined. We played a warm up game of SKATE where I started off really bad then came back and made sure a girl didn’t beat me. Ha, just kidding of course. Carleigh, you gotta get those fakie bigspins or your gonna get a letter every game! I landed a few crooks on the ledge and some back 50s. Backed up a couple with treflips. Tried front tails for a long time and got a super lame one. Carleigh mostly skated flat for awhile. We tried lines of ollie a crack gap then trick on the ledge. She got noseslide. I didn’t get front 50. Doh. I put some 2x4s on the cracks to make the crack gap feel bigger. It felt a lot bigger. We both ended up getting it though. I was so tired on the drive home I almost fell asleep. Doh.

After two nights of camping with thunderstorms and a daughter that is terrified of lightning, a 22 mile kayak ride down the Niobrara River a six hour drive home and Carhenge I went for a quick skate before picking up some things at the grocery store. I was literally so tired I could not speak a complete sentence to Liz before I left. It had rained a bunch and everyone else was at yellow curbs. But I only had a few minutes (and I was tired!) so I left thinking I would probably go to red curbs, but it ended up being dry a few blocks away (typical colorado) so I went to the hardest place to skate around, campus. And I skated some really dumb stuff that was way harder than it should be. First place was that perfect parking lot with the 1 up 3 down manny pad. I did a super dumb line of manual, ollie up onto the somewhat narrow sidewalk, olllie a tiny gap then kickflip off the curb. All the cracks and my exhuastion made it so much harder than it should have been, but I did it. Then I cruised down the hill and did some fun powerslides on the way to the curved two stair area that I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that has ever skated it. I took a long time to get ollie up one, ollie up the next, front 180 both. The quick up was hard. I tried just ollieing up both in one ollie, but I’m not gifted in the ollie department. Especially when I’m tired. Last thing was 10 flip tricks before I could go to the car. Kickflip, fakie flip, varial flip, heelflip, 360 flip, halfcab flip, f/s halfcab flip (took forever), b/s flip, fakie varial flip and fakie bigflip. Time for sleep!

After a long day of heat playing mini golf and other family filled fun I met Matt, Joe, Dan and the rest of Fremont at Dan’s place. We went to a bank spot to start it.

This place was pretty cool. The bank gets taller further down. On top of a fun session that was going Drew met up with us! So stoked to see that dude again. He’s still the same genuinely nice ripper he has always been. We had a fun session. I almost got a wallride, but am not Neil. Drew got a floaty jibby one on the front wheels. Joe and I got back to back tricks on the bank (joe front shove, me kickflip) and some other neatness went down. No one quite got an axle stall on a narrow edge of the cinder block.

We went to a double bank spot after that. It was pretty sick too, but kind of awkward to skate. I don’t remember much going down, but that spot has lots of potential for sure. Next up we went yet another bank spot. This one Drew knew about. This spot is sick! There was a truck on one of the banks which took away from it, but we still had a blast. I may have flatspotted some supers for the first time ever doing a back 50 to fakie, but I slid down the rough concrete sideways the whole way down. It’s not enough to notice in the streets though. Drew ripped it. Front 50, alley oop front 50 and maybe front 5-0 on the yellow bar. Whoa. Man I can’t remember much more here. I know pretty much everyone did back smiths. Joe and I had fun ollieing into the mellow bank to start our “runs”. Matt almost got noseslide on the yellow bar. Dan and Cory manualled between the banks. At the very end Joe made us ollie the middle part of the bank. He did it easy. I didn’t because I’m a pansy on gaps. We were rushed out of there by rain drops and some gnarly spinning clouds that didn’t amount to anything. Good skating though.

Oh yeah, I had new shoes in effect:

Another pair of es edgar’s. This time in gray.