Jeff has been trying to get me to the No Love warehouse for quite some time. I guess it took another night of -10F to make it happen. After work I took a quick nap and piled in the TF bus with Neil, Brian, Carleigh, John and Fuzz (oh and it’s possible a kid named Kyle joined us). Can you believe it, TF out on a week night? Awesome. We arrived all frozen from the lack of working heat in the bus to a somewhat crowded session. Warming up for me never really happened. At times I felt ok, but for the most part I felt awkward and disconnected from my board the entire night. Fuzz on the other hand killed it out of the gates. Stalefish from the flat bank to the wall qp, sugarcanes on the smaller qp, front tail on the electric box above the flat bank and front tail front 180 out which was ridiculous. Neil had his moves down quick. Carleigh skated about as good as I’ve ever seen her. She got a sick line of wallride, back 50 on the qp then back noseslide shove on the ledge. People were hyped and the ladies drinking on the sidelines were so hyped they were throwing peoples boards. Brian had some monster frontside alley oop wallrides, sick qp skills and an insane one footed frontside wallride. John ripped it. The no comply 270 back tail is a crowd pleaser everytime. Jeff was there destroying. He can do everything. Mikey went for two tricks over 4 hours and eventually got them. They were gnarly at least. Nollie b/s bigpsin and frontside flip from the flat bank into the wallride qp. There were some other dudes there ripping too. Like I said I felt awkward, but I still had a blast. I’m pretty happy that my fear of crowds doesn’t prevent me from at least trying to skate anymore. I got a b/s flip on the flat bank that took way longer than it should have, but in all honesty the narrowness of the flat bank made it pretty hard. I also got some kickturns on the wall, a little backside grind to fakie on the qp and almost a front feeble grind on the qp.Once again, Carleigh took a bunch of photos so go here and check them out.I was also very excited to finally meet Andrew from No Love. We had a good time chatting about running companies and how we respect what each other is doing and how awesome skateboarding is. What a fun night and I can’t believe the TF was out past midnight.

Before dinner I put the space heater out on Rampy to battle the freezing cold (-10 F).  I think the space heater was fighting a losing battle, but it probably helped it from being below freezing in there.  After dinner Ollie and I went out there for a bit.  I sucked it up again really bad.  I even slammed super hard on a front 50 that hung up and had the board hit me in the head after.  Awesome.  To add insult to injury Ollie beat me to rock ‘n rolls both ways and got another frontside scratch grind.  He also felt more like skating the flat bottom (or lack there of) and did pop shoves and fakie pop shoves.  Sometimes he would end up on the tranny a bit so then he started intentionally trying pop shoves to fakie.  He got one.  He wasn’t up the tranny very much, but then again he is related to me and you will see a photo of a Glen ollie in about two paragraphs.Ollie and I went in and still no one else had shown.  I put the space heater on again and almost fell asleep reading the new Transworld magazine.  Eventually Lazer showed up and we hung out reading magazines while Ollie played Nirvana songs on Itunes.  Fun.  Eventually Chad and Carleigh arrived and it was time to get our shred on.  Lazer killed it out of the gates once again.  This was Chad’s first time skating Rampy and it showed.  He had a lot of trouble getting used to it, but would eventually lay down some sick stuff.  Carleigh had another night of skating good.  She did her main bag of tricks quickly, laid down another kickflip rock fakie and came close to fakie shove disasters.  Wow.  I was skating decent finally.  It only took two hours of warming up I guess.  I did most of my tricks like front feeble, hurricane, fakie hurricane, fakie pivot fakie, front lip and more boring tricks.  Near the end Carleigh took some photos.Chad was doing huge ollies to fakie by the end of the night.I’ve been working on my ollies and clearly it shows. Just look at the height on this one! I mean clearly, Carleigh blew it taking the photo. Had she taken it at the peak I’m sure it would have looked more like:Yeah, watch out Fuzz.Anyways.  The end of the session was Chad trying frontside flips until he got a good one and me failing kickflip pivots until Chad landed his trick and we could call it a night.Go to Carleigh’s blog for many more photos of striped sweaters.

Liz and I went to the Denver Art Museum last week and were both touched by the exhibit of photos by Robert Benjamin.  Not only were the photos amazing, but his comments on them were so positive.  It was cool to see an artist  focus on the beauty of life and avoid angst.  So cool.

Such a good style.

Worked at home all day to avoid driving in the snow. Was gonna have Nullers over for more filming on the Rampy montage, but Liz ended up being busy so I needed to play dad. Right after I got off work I put the space heater out in the garage and Carleigh showed up for a short session. Carleigh almost did all her tricks on her first run. I on the other hand, was sucking. Bad. I guess I can blame it on my neck, but it wasn’t really hurting too bad. It was still depressing. I basically took the whole session to land a front tail. Which, although I had tried it 100 times it was first try on camera (I jokingly asked Carleigh to film it so she stood there pretending to hold a camera so it was first T once it started counting. Oh and to make it even funnier she was using both hands like she was holding a bowling ball or something. Geez). Anyways, Carleigh ripped it. She even did her patented kickflip rock fakie.

Sometimes I still get the same stoke I had when I first started Null and I would see someone I didn’t know skating a Null board. I know Adam, but wasn’t expecting this sequence when I browsed Pat’s site to see his latest photos. So stoked.

I attempted to skate, but the neck was still wrecked and I mostly just filmed.  The only things I did were cali grind at this manny pad spot, back and front rocks at the jersey barrier spot.  Click the photo to go to Carleigh’s blog and see lots of neat photos.

Wow this is part is nothing but hype! Fast skating, sick style, sick editing and Sonic Youth. Too bad my neck is still jacked and I can’t really skate

Had Thursday off work.  The original plan was to go to the Denver Art Musuem with Liz after the kids went to school, but India stayed home sick and that was delayed for Friday.  So instead Jake, Derek, John and I headed to Fort Collins for some nice weather skating.  We stopped at Spring Creek first.  After some warming up we all started trying 4 trick lines.  Whatever we wanted.  I think Jake got his first.  I totally forget what it was, but I know it involved a manual and possibly a feeble to fakie on the tight wavy qpipe.  John was next with a tailslide on the ledge, feeble grind on the pool coping near the coffin and maybe a treflip.  Derek was kinda doing his own thing and ripping.  Back 3s out of the potato chip were so sick.  I took a long time to get my first line.  Front board to nose manual, ollie below noping, nose manual and then a failed nollie treflip.  The nose manny took too long.  Jake had already done another line that had something to a front feeble on the tight qp in the wave.  I think John got another one too.  Something with a rock ‘n roll in the tight qp.  My second line came quicker.  Front 50 down the ledge, backside tough guy on the pool coping, front rock on the tight qp then I was gonna stop, but everyone started yelling “4th trick!!” so I went for a flatground heelflip and got it.  Cool.  Chris had met up with us and was doing super sick wallie manuals up the potato chip.  I tried just wallieing up it and after a few slams got a couple.  My last line was a long and tiring one.  Backside wallride the back of the tight qp, f/s below noping ollie (which still felt pretty good), b/s scratch grind on the pool coping, ollie onto the wave (this is a trick at this point because I was already tired), axle stall the tight qp, then kickflip out of the wave.  The kickflip was soooooo hard because I was so tired at that point.  I eventually got one and went straight to sitting down.  Whew.We hit MRKT for awhile which is always fun before moving on to North Side which surprisingly wasn’t super crowded.  At this point it was probably 60 degrees out.  So amazing.  Lots of the Fort Collins heads were there and we skated with Andy and Mike too.  John, Mike and I started out carving around the little pool section in the back.  So good for warming up the legs.  John ripped it with some feeble grinds.  Mike’s got all kinds of layback tricks.  I did my tiny little slasher and a rock ‘n roll on the rock coping.  So fun.  We skated the “mini ramp” section for a tiny bit.  Chris and Derek were skating the ledge near the front.  I started posing kickflip wallrides on the bank to steeper bank near the back.  I’ve wanted to do that trick there since that park was built.  For some reason I’ve never really tried it.  John was nearby and I hyped it up as a dream trick that I didn’t want to spend much time on, just land it.  5 tries later I landed one where I kinda just skidded off the bank.  Super hyped, but wanting a cleaner one I kept at it and a few tries later I got one that put me on top of the world.  It felt perfect.  Kickflip up, landed bolts and without lifting the front wheels up slide the front around and rolled down the bank with no tic tacs.  I have been so depressed about my skating lately, but that felt like one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done and had me so hyped.  John and I went over to skate the ledge with the kids.  Chris was trying 500mpg front smith shoves out.  Derek was trying front 5-0 kickflips out.  John and I did front 50 180 out first try, I got front 50 shove out, and Jake joined with us in a front 5-0 race.  I think Jake and I got them around the same time.  It was cool because it looked like Derek was just trying front 5-0 with us.  Ha.  I wanted front 5-0 shove out too, but it took too long and I gave up.  Jake got a front tail first T.  Chris slammed a lot.  After a bit of cruising around John, Andy and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot.  John pulled the nollie flip and Andy got a textbook b/s flip to give me SK, but other then that I somehow landed all the other tricks John layed down including 360 flip, fakie front shove, halfcab flip, etc.  I was happy got get fakie bigflip and heelflip too.  After that I just watched Derek go for front lip to front board up/down the mj ledge and tried nollie treflips until I eventually got one.  I tried to skate a bit more after that, but my legs were done.  John added a blunt to pivot fakie on the bank to his stellar day.Such a fun day.  We went to La Luz and ate after.   Fort Collins rules.  Best skatescene in CO.  Unfortunately the next day I would wake up with intense upper back/neck pains that prevented me from being able to do anything.  Ugh.  I guess that’s the reward for good skate days when you get old.