A busy saturday lined up. After a fun friday night I slept in a little and managed to get in a little flatground before India’s ballet. It was pretty windy and I was trying to break in some new softer bushings which felt good from the gates. I didn’t get much, but I did come super close to nollie f/s flip. Later on after the recital, dinner with my parents and a nap I met Carleigh and Jack at the Mikes Camera manny pad. I felt pretty out of it, but it marks the first session where I started going for nose manual nollie treflips out. I didn’t get remotely close, but it somehow does feel possible. I wanted to try kickflip nose manuals too, but those crappy Vox shoes had no tread left on the front foot and I couldn’t even consistently kickflip. I came somewhat close to nollie front shove manny which I’ve never done before. Carreigh didn’t get any manuals, but I saw some good kickflips and other trick attempts. Jack had some moves. Nollie nose man. Nollie heel man. I’m not sure what all else. We had fun though.

After this session I retired these shoes. One week. That’s all I got out of them. I couldn’t stand wearing them any more. The sole felt like paper. I like Vox as a company a ton, but they gotta do better than this.

Last night we watched this gem of a skate video thanks to Jack.

Then this morning I see a link to this video from Scotty P. It’s like the hip hop Beez with about 99% less weirdness.

Eagles are gnarly.

Carleigh picked me up after work and we stopped by Crisis before Fuzz did some paperwork.  We went to Subway and I got a meatball sub that was somehow only $2!!!  Wow.  We started off at the nearby Safeway ledge where we skated with Connor and Neil joined after awhile.  That ledge is super good, but the daylight was diminishing and there isn’t a light above the ledge.  Caleigh got noseslide shove quick.  Connor steezed out 5-0s, lipslides, tailslides.  I had a few front 50s and some sorry excuses for back crooks and 50s.

Connor left and Fuzz arrived.  We heard that John Brandow was at the Broomfield park so we went there to “grab him”.  Fuzz wanted to skate a street spot, but we ended up getting snuggled into the park and I think everyone was fine with it.  It was good to see John, but my initial vibe was kinda bummed we had resorted to the park.  But Fuzz started up a mixed ledge/flatground game of SKATE that John and Neil joined in on and it ended up being a blast.  Mostly basics went down.  The halfcab manual Fuzz did on the blue ledge was pretty awesome.  We mostly just made fun of each others tricks in good spirits.  What a fun crew.  I had a halfcab boardslide that generated lots of laughter.  John jibbed the end of a ledge in a frontside “5-0”.  Fuzz won it at the end with 360 flip and I could not land one at all.  Argh.  We all skated around for awhile doing our own thing.  The nice thing about skating street so much is when it comes to skating a park everything seemed lower than it used to.  I managed a crooks on the taller brown ledge as well as a front 50 transfer into it.  I couldn’t do a nose manual on the blue ledge.  I got a back 50 front 180 out on the blue ledge.  Posed a couple kick back tails.  After awhile John, Fuzz and I played a flatground game of SKATE.  I was the first one out so I’m not sure who claimed victory on that one.  When I left Fuzz had SKAT and John had SK so probably John.  I failed at tres and nollie tres, almost got a f/s halfcab heel, failed at fakie bigflips.  Oh well.  Carleigh was having a bummer, but skating flat and did a heelflip.  Then we all did tricks on the blue bank.  John, Fuzz and I started with quick up to front shove fakie.  John’s was easy as cake.  Fuzz’s was bolts.  Mine was butt out, arms out horrid.  We went on to do b/s flips, kickflip fakie.  Fuzz and John added fakie flips.  Fuzz did front 180 in as the setup, John switch ollie (scary!).  I took a few tries to get frontside flip.  Fuzz and John added a bunch of other fun tricks.  It was a blast with the exception of Carleigh being down.  But she didn’t throw a fit and we all know it happens.

Rain/snow.  Seriously.  I hate April sometimes.  Anyways, I went out to Rampy unmotivated and grouchy to be skating inside.  I didn’t skate Rampy well at all.  I struggled at everything.  Things got better when I started adding some flatground to the mix.  I almost landed a nollie flip and I started trying stationary kickflips and trying to land in a nose manual.  Actually did a couple.  On Rampy the only things that felt good were front disasters, fakie pivot fakie and a couple of my better frontside ollies.

I made a list of tricks to do by 40.  It’s a page instead of a post so it’s easier for me to go back and look at.  See, there is a link for it under Pages up and to the right of this sentence.  Or just click HERE.

Saturday’s adventures.

Sunday’s adventures.

While we were up in Ft Collins on Sunday Dean took this photo of Ollie.  I have no idea how he got Ollie to smile on film, but he did it and this is one of my favorite photos ever.

After my last couple horrible performances I decided to go out solo to campus and have fun darn it. I had taken a nice nap and was ready to go.  I was on call for work so had two phones in my pocket and wasn’t up for another Real premiere (the Denver one).  I started out in the area behind the student center that has the really good concrete that I played the game of SKATE with Fuzz and Connor. I can’t believe I had never noticed how smooth it is there before. It’s the best place on campus for flatground which is extra awesome because I like that area a ton already anyway. I had made up my mind that I would like the new shoes and it seemed to work. Warm up tricks were dropping first try until I realized I had landed a bunch first try. Then it was normal Glen, but that’s cool because I moved on to hammers. I wanted to try a long line. Front 50 a metal stair, ollie onto one of the ledges down the 5 stair, ollie off it, 360 flip on flat, ollie up the two, ollie down the two, ollie down the three, ollie up the three. It didn’t start good because the stupid metal curb was somehow ridiculously sticky and the easiest trick in the line took the longest. I did somehow get the whole line though. The 3 flip included a hand in the make and the ollie up the 3 at the end was a front 90 because I was so exhausted. I was hyped though. Then I moved over to the handicap ramp area with the ledges/rails. Last time I was there I freaked out because I couldn’t ollie onto the ledge. This time I could and then decided I should try to manual it. Pretty scary for me and I got really close a couple times. Not only do you have to manual the ledge, but it drops down a level, then drops again and you have to thread the needle through the rails. That would be fun to get sometime. I was happy to finally be skating hard after a few days of lackluster effort.

I started heading toward the hill ledges, but saw a somewhat tall ledge off the bikepath that I wanted to ollie onto. It was quick and after a pretty good slam I managed to do it. Pretty hyped on that. Next was the hill ledges for awhile. I did quite a few backside noseslides where I was trying to dropin a little further up the hill each time to go faster. I had a few bad front 50s on the top ledge. A few ok 50s on the curved ledge at the bottom. I started trying front tails on the top ledge. I got a couple that didn’t slide. Eh. I backed one up with a front 5-0 on the curved ledge. Neat.

On to the nearby parking lot where I had tried a line before and never got. No comply 180, fakie ollie up a curb, fakie flip, sw front 180 off the curb. I slammed on the fakie flip over and over because it was downhill and there was a crack that I kept landing in. A couple times I started the line off by ollieing off the nearby ledge with the death drop on one side. So scary. Anyways I finally landed the stupid fakie flip and went back to the student center for some more flippers. I got a few treflips, heelflips, f/s halfcab flips and did a f/s halfcab heel that would have only counted on defense in an over 50 game of SKATE, but it’s been awhile for that trick anyway so whatevs. I hucked a few Rick flips for good measure too. At the end I tried to do a little line of kickflip over a crack then nollie tre. I was going pretty fast for me and never got the nollie tre. Doh. I had fun though. I was so tired I didn’t even ollie the 4 stair on the way out. Had a blast.

A deep crew to Ft Collins on a windy and kinda cold sunday. We met at SOL. In my car were the kids; Jack, Max and Ollie. Bernie, Carleigh, Derek and Aaron were in another car and Neil was solo so he could bail out early. We hit up MRKT to sell some Null and because it’s a mandatory stop when you’re up there anyway. Next stop was the other mandatory stop – Northside. Ollie was with us so I stuck with him. He was pretty chill, but we had fun dorking around in the corner behind the handball court. He had some decent ollies to fakie on the bank and some body varials. I really didn’t do much of anything other then no comply pole jam. Max was shredding all over the place. Jack did pole jam late shove and pole jam body varial. Neil was sitting down. Carleigh did front 180 nosegrind to fakie on the ledge. Bernie and Derek were doing crazy manuals on the mj ledge. Fort Collins heads were murdering the park as they normally do.

The first spot was a 12 stair rail that Max ollied. He came close to kickflip too. It was nuts. I filmed his line like crap though. Such a bad feeling. Next we went to the kicker spot on campus so Jack could do the birth control, but it was too windy for that. I didn’t really skate there and Bernie started almost doing manual b/s flip so I filmed. I saw Ollie do a few fakie shoves on flat which I’ve never seen before. So stoked to see him skate everytime. Derek and Max ended up getting a couple awesome manual tricks. FYI I still hate these new shoes.