Man, I’m not even going to pretend I will be able to remember everything that happened almost a week ago. But the family was in Omaha to visit Liz’s parents and it worked out that Matt, Joe, Dan (aka three of the best dudes on the planet) were having a grand opening party for their new skate shop Motive. I brought along Ollie who is still pretty into skating again and he knew he could score a shirt or something.

Lucky kid scored a shirt and hat. After mingling for awhile and eating some free Zesto’s (yum!) we went to Fremont’s most famous spot, Linden. The 30 foot long angle iron ledge that is about 8″ tall. You might remember this from my Busenitz line in Off The Couch. Since it was a Grand Opening party everyone in Fremont joined. Dan was there doing about one million manual tricks including original tricks like manual to front 180 into disaster on the end of the manual pad. Ridiculous! A bunch of other dudes in DGK shirts and basketball shirts were there too skating the little gap off the ledge. Some neat flippers went down. Ollie was shy with the big crowd so just cruised around on the outskirts doing 180s (all 4 non-switch or nollie variations), shove its and ollies. He rules. I basically just tried front 5-0 kickflips out the whole time and didn’t get very close at all. Doh, if any ledge was perfect for that trick, Linden is it.

Next we went to the Fremont park. A miniramp session started it. Everyone seemed to skate it pretty good. One dude did back tail kickflip out, switch blunt nollie flip out and some other tech tricks. I slammed pretty good trying a fakie pivot and my foot came off and I tried to put it back and pull it off. Nope. Ollie was cruising around the park doing back 180s out of the flat bank. Dan and I went on to play the longest game of SKATE ever in which I believe he won with a nollie bigspin late heelflip. Seriously. Ollie did a body varial out of the side of a flat bank that was so insanely sick that Dan and I were in disbelief for awhile. He was just messing around and did it first try. Lucky kid.

Had about 5 skate minutes to skate so ran to the top of Liz’s parents hill and pointed it.  I’ve done this hill before but wow I almost went down.  Two things have changed since the last time I did it.  First, the concrete was redone on half of it.  Second the super nullethanes are way faster than the old null wheels.  Man it was scary.  I ended up foot dragging once.  So when I got to the buttom i ran back up wanting to do it without a foot drag.  This time no  foot drag.  I almost went down way worse and the speed wobbles tried to get me.  So fun.  Whew.

Another phone entry trying to remember what happened in co when I’m in a different state (nullbraska) on a family vacation.  Bernie and I started at southern hills and played a warmup game of SKATE that went on a while and I evenly won.  It rained so we moved on.  Bernie skated a gnar ledge then we went to checkout another ledge but just skated over a cone.  Bernie bs flipped it first try.  It was a small cone.  I took a long time to back 180 it.  So lame.  Carleigh showed up and proceeded to slam nonstop.  I eventually rocket flipped over the cone.  Then we went to the new bikepath ledge where I crashed and couldn’t do anything.  Fuzz showed up as did julien.  Fuzz, julien and bernie ripped it.

I met John at Meta on a cloudy night .  Somehow the rain had avoided boulder .  Oh yeah this is my first update from my phone where i  talk and let my phone convert to text. Fun times .  We started at the smooth parking lot with the little curved bank.  I felt like actually had energy which was nice.  We did a few basics before setting into a gnar line with a stall trick on a ledge that ollie down a four stair.  John got his real quick .  But I took a long time .  When I finally got it I slammed on a tree branch after.  Oh well it was still fun.  We skated that gray bench for a little while but didn’t land anything . Next we ended up at the banked manual pad which ended up being fun .  John almost got pop shove nose pick.  I did a few tricks I’ve done before.  We went by the double set board slide and I failed again.  Then we went to the new area of campus and I rode off the loading dock surprised at how tall it was and can’t believe that people do tricks off taller drops.  We did a couple of 50s on the Low metal bar before we saw some cops and moved on . Not much went down after that but we both did the long downhill manual pad much to our surprise .  I think we both got it third try .  Hyped .  I broke my board on the way to the car on a board stall on a curb .  This may have been intentional because my tail was cracked .  Oh well we had a great session.  Maybe it’s not the best idea to talk into my phone for these updates but it is pretty easy to do.

After a long drive down from Buena Vista in the morning, a nap in the afternoon heat and a few phone calls I met Jack at Meta, picked up Rob, then met Brian at Crisis. We went to the jersey barrier spot where we would stay for most of the day. Brian got to falling right away. Jack was ripping right away. Rob brought his east coast steez to the spot. We all got in a groove and did some stuff. Brian skated the “adult barrier” for the most part and did tricks like front feeble fakie and hurricane while the rest of us “played” on the easier barrier. Jack did back big d. I started trying fakie pivot fakie which is a trick I’ve wanted to do there forever. Rob was trying tailblocks and we were both taking some time so we raced to it. Loser had to buy the other a margarita. Although the term “race” is a bit of a stretch. Especially for me. You should have seen my switch mongo pushing. It was in effect and horrible. Later on that evening Jack got on my case about it pretty hard. So no more switch mongo for me. Instead of bad style pushing it will be horrible beginner looking pushing from here on out. According to Jack this is more acceptable. So blame him when you see it. Back to the skating. I did a fakie back smith to fakie. Not a pivot. Brian wanted to count that and I said it didn’t count. He told me I just wasn’t used to winning. But he said it in such a great way that made me feel like I never land anything. So funny. I did get the pivot version next try to end any controversy I had in my head though. Shortly after Rob got his tailblock perfect and I even filmed it for him with his little digital camera. Brian was going for blunt fakie on the adult barrier and was slamming so hard over and over. I don’t know how he does it.

Around now Fuzz, Carleigh and the Crisis kids arrived. Lots went on for awhile. Jack was doing lots of late shoves/late 3 shove/late bigspins/board breaking/ankle rolling out of the barrier. I was trying a line of kickflip off the curb cut (way harder than it should be), ollie up the curb (starting to get worn out after two tricks) then front 50 on the ledge which I never got. I went back to skating the barrier for awhile. Jack was filming Carleigh do feeble fakie. I guess she had already landed it, but was slamming pretty hard when I was there. I somehow managed another fakie pivot fakie and Jack filmed it with his fancy camera and pronounced the start of a new G Nut part. Great. Fuzz joined and started putting down trick after trick. Fakie noseblunt (or switch blunt? looks more fakie then switch), switch pivot fakie and almost front noseblunt. Brian finally manned up to skate the kiddie barrier (ha) and was putting down front blunts, but not riding away for various reasons like wheelbite or his board was not under his feet. He got so close.

I went and played a game of SKATE with Conor which ended up being a blast mainly because he was nice and didn’t do all nollie and switch tricks. He won it of course, but I got a couple letters on him and the last trick he got me with was fakie bigger flip. I wasn’t close on the first one, but the second one was super close. So I tried a lot more and eventually landed a bad one. Hyped though, new trick! Jack almost wallrode over some gas lines before we got the boot and moved along. We went a few blocks to a marble ledge and most of the younger crowd rolled right by it, but Fuzz, Brian, Rob and I skated it for awhile. Tech tricks like boardslide and manual went down. Rob went nuts though and combined the two. So sick. We moved on again and ended at a two stair area with some benches and I sat down exhausted while others skated. Fuzz, Conor and Jack did some rad bonk/grind/slide to manny combos. Then it was time for dinner and my free marg at Illegal Petes. Yum!

When we arrived back near the car Rob, Fuzz, Jack, Brian and I sessioned the banked ledge for awhile. Rock fakie, front rock, stuff like that. Jack shut it down with manual to rock fakie, back d fakie, pivot to fakie, etc. I was happy to get a front slash on it. Fun night. I wish I had more energy then I did, but it was a blast for sure and the crew was awesome. I’m gonna hit “Publish” now without any proofreading ..

On the way up to my moms for the weekend and we stopped in fairplay to skate for awhile.  There was a few snow brohs there, but they were nice.   We cruised around for awhile warming up.  The outside of that park is fun, but probably just because its really bad.  I ended up having a little stretch of ok skating.  Kickflip off the wedge.   Ollie up one block and front 180 to the next.  Almost got a line of axle stall on the top qp, kickflip on flat, ollie the hip, front tail the brick qp then kick back t the bank to curb.  Couldn’t get the kick back tail though even though I got into it most tries.  I posed some other stuff too.  Ollie was cruising and all smiles.  He did front and back 180s BOTH WAYS over the hip.  So crazy.  The back 180 the hard way was even popped.  Back rock on the back to curb, front one off the kicker.  Kid rips.  This is another update from my phone.

I’m updating this from my phone while up in the mountains.  Hi tech yo.  Wednesday night ruled.  Fuzz, Dean, Brett, Jake met at my house and we left to meet Carleigh at St Julien.  Fuzz, Jake and I started with some basic lines and got slightly less basic.  First line was kickflip then fs 180 over the glorified curb.  Second was halfcab flip then back 180.  I don’t think I’m remembering this right.  We did front shove, no comply 180 then halfcab.  My halfcab was horrible.  Heelflip then something.  We kickflipped it too.  Fuzz and I struggled at fakie bigflips and couldn’t follow them with shoves.  Everyone was having fun.  Dean was ripping.  Brett had some side pain and still skated.  Carleigh was quiet and seemed on a different mission then us.  Jake and Brett had cracked their boards before we moved on to the nearby boardslide ledge.  It was pretty crowded with pedestrians but we did it.  Carleigh got noseslide.  Brett got boardslide.  Dean and me too.  I also got a great run for me.  Kickflip up the curb, short crooks on the ledge, back 180 off, fakie bigflip on flat, front shove, then almost manual a section of sidewalk.  Fuzz did a sick boardslide to fakie and started going for front lip but broke his board clean in half.  It was hilarious.   We left after this.  Then we saw a biker showing off and endo into a rock.  It put fuzz and I on the ground in laughter.  Most of us went for a couple drinks after and that was a blast too.  Good times, good dudes.  Let’s do it again.

Man I love watching east coast skating.

Another evening with threatening thunderstorms. The forecast said “heavy rain” so of course this would be the first day the storms held out for awhile. Ollie wanted to skate and invited his neighbor buddy Cooper to join us. We picked up Carleigh and went to Crest View, but there was tons of moms with little kids so we moved on and went to Valmont loading dock spot. Ollie and Cooper cruised all around the place the whole time. Not doing tricks so much, but ripping and having fun. Lots of coffin’s down the escalator, ollies off the low part, riding through the sprinkler, etc. It was warmer out than we thought. Carleigh started with flatground and landed quite a bit. I kind of just messed around initially. Got a lot of crooks on the ledge until I announced that I had landed every one I tried. Then I couldn’t land it again. Typical. I moved a little pallet on top so it could be a manny pad and got a run of kickflip up the curb, nose manual on the pallet, then front 180 off the loading dock. That thing is tall! Then I put a chair on it and tried to ollie it in a line for awhile. Kickflip up the curb, manual, ollie off the dock over the chair. It took me awhile and Carleigh was kind enough to not ollie it first try. Although it did end up taking her 3 tries to ollie it, so clearly it wasn’t the normal super small Glen gap. I got the line with a really sketchy ollie at the end. Carleigh got a few kickflips up the curb and backed one up with the same line is me. Although she decided to make the manual the sketchy part of her line. Ha. I tried to treflip up the curb for awhile and failed. I tried to resort to heelflips up, but those failed too and then the rain started so we left. Fun night.

Awesome.