Had a decent day at work. Fell asleep on the couch after dinner, then woke up and tossed a nerf football around with Ollie. My legs felt great. It was nice outside. I went skating around 9. Campus again. This time I decided to push faster down the little hill from where I parked. I started doing some little crack ollies then SLAM. Right on my left elbow and hip. Elbow starts bleeding again. Great, I gotta remember to bandage that up before Liz gets mad at me again for bleeding all over the sheets. Anwyays, it didn’t bum me out that much. I ended up at the little median by the rec center. I felt decent still. It’s only about two feet long so I don’t know if you can actually count what I did as “manuals”, but I did manny, manny front 180, sw 180 manny, fs 180 nose manny, nose manny and a halfcab manny. I moved on, feeling better than last night, but still a weird feeling in my head which I guess is depression. I ended up at the little ledge drop thing behind the Library I tried to ollie a bunch when I was with Fuzz, Bernie, Greg, Jake and Ollie. I almost didn’t try to ollie it, but reminded myself I’m not supposed to back away from ollies I can do anymore. I landed it. I moved on and before long was behind the student center. I decided on trying a line ending at the ledge with the low handrail next to it (as the ledge gets longer the rail gets lower). This is where it went south. I tried to start with kickflip up the curb. I couldn’t do it. When I finally did it I tried to follow it up with a no comply 180, then f/s halfcab, then ollie onto the ledge and who knows what on the handrail. I doubted that I would actually commit to anything, but I thought it would be fun trying. WRONG. I could not ollie up the stupid ledge. It’s got a downhill approach with cracks, but still. I started questioning how the hell I could suck at skateboarding so bad. Instead of leaving my dumb ass kept trying it and getting more and more bummed. I almost left the spot walking and leaving my board behind. Instead I pushed mostly to the car. I went home so depressed. Luckily I am married to an amazing woman though and she did her best to cheer me up. It may have worked, but I don’t plan on skating for a few days. I have no idea how I could possibly have skated 312 days last year. I had entertained thoughts of going for it again as I’ve only missed a few days so far. No. Never again.

Clearly the same artist that did Farm. So sick. Less than two months til the March 15 release date!

Had one of those long, boring and draining days at work which left me wondering what I’m doing wasting my life away.  After a nice dinner with the family I sat on the couch and listened to Green Mind on vinyl.  It sounded great.  It was super nice out so I decided to go skate and campus seemed fun.  When I got there I set the board down and didn’t even go for that extra initial push to have a fun cruise down the hill to get things started.  I knew I was doomed at that point.  I started in the new art building where I did a couple kickflips before going to the nearby 3 stair and did a little line to it.  Fakie ollie, sw 180, ollie the 3.  Feeling a bit more warmed up I ended up at the parking lot west of the 14 which had just been repaved.  Sick!  They got rid of the jersey barrier that ruined the flat gap so I tried to ollie that.  For some reason my flat gap ollies have gone to total shit and I couldn’t do it.  I got so mad.  So mad.  My head wasn’t into skating.  Argh.  I kept at it for awhile.  Coming down the hill I started trying flatground kickflip or pop shove, a speedy manny then ollie the little double curb thing near the main street.  I actually did a couple of those and felt good for a second.  Some of the mannies were fast enough that I was a bit scared to even ollie up the curb.  Cool.  But the stupid flat gap ollie kept eluding me.  After I bailed that I would pick up my board and push at the tall ledge surrounding the parking lot and pose ollies over it.  A couple felt remotely possible which would be huge for me.  Eventually I did the whole line.  Front shove on flat, manny, ollie, turn around, ollie the flat gap.  I wasn’t even stoked.  I just picked up my board and walked to the car.  Ugh.

This is the kind of clip that makes me want to run out and go skateboarding immediately.

People I work with think this will happen to me since I’m the only one here that texts.  Yes, they are all old and probably couldn’t text and walk without falling down.

Wow, the first time I’ve woken up still buzzing in forever. I drank enough water over the course of the evening to not feel hungover, just tired and disoriented. We met up with Bernie and Sam who were skating the new manny pad we found the week before. I had new shoe blues. Literally, some new navy blue es square twos. Stoked. The kids had fun ollieing off the ledges and stuff. Sam nose mannied it easy. Bernie was trying fakie manuals, but didn’t get it. I was getting tech trying manuals. Ugh. It took a long time to land one. After that it took a long time to land nose mannies. Neil had shown up. He got my back with a nose manny too. Rad. I went on to get a kickflip manual pretty quick. There was some toe drag when I landed in manny, but I was too stoked to care. Neil went on to do one foot manny first try and nose mannied it from high to low. Bernie was trying halfcab flip manny 360 flip out. Never got it.We left for a gap in and out manny pad.  When we got there we found a sick kicker gap, but it needs some treebranch trimming.  Maybe next week, it could be super sick.  Anyways the gap in /out got the best of me.  I got so frustrated with just an ollie and I almost freaked out.  It sucked.  I finally landed just a stupid ollie and went right to the car and got out the filming board to get Bernie.  It worked out as Bernie got a super sick line.  Kickflip manny gap out then ollie a big pile of snow.  Neat.  Sam and Neil ollie in/out several times.Bernie and Sam left.  The rest of us went to the two stair area, but got booted quickly.  Next up was the bird bank.  I was tired and didn’t really do much.  The kids had a blast and cruised around the area.  Ollie had a couple cool body varials on the bank.  We left shortly as Sam was uttering “I’m hungry can we go now?” about every 5 seconds.  Not the best day, but considering last nights activities it went pretty well.

It was supposed to be 55 degrees, sunny and warm. It wasn’t. Not until right before the sun went down. TF was going to the Lafayette park, but Liz was busy bringing India to her many social gatherings and I was with Ollie. I actually tried to push Ollie to go there, but he’s heard me complain about how crowded it gets and he’s pretty anti crowded parks like me. And besides, it was a Saturday which i don’t like spending at a skatepark. Later that evening Neil told me it was even too crowded for his taste. Wow. Anyways Ollie was wanting to wait for one of his friends to come over to skate, but I had enough of being inside and talked him into going to Southern Hills while we wait. The main bench area was dry, but totally covered in sand. Definitely one of the worst aspects of street skating in the winter even when the weather is nice. So we ended up skating this weird bank to curb. By weird I mean horrible. The approach was either rocks or cracks. But we had fun. Ollie did rock ‘n rolls on it and would go down the sidewalk a ways and dive into the grass. Kids rule. I tried a line of a manny on a horrible crack ridden manny pad, back 50 the bank to curb, then ollie off a little kicker. I never got all 3 in one line, but we didn’t stay too long. We went to the west side of southern hills and it turns out there is a perfect double sided ledge. I boardslid it into some water. We ollied some snow piles, then took off.We weren’t home, but for a few minutes before Ollie’s buddy Liam showed up.  We left and went to a mellow banked loading dock spot around Araphoe  & 35th.  I was still pretty grumpy, unmotivated and very sore.  I managed a lame line.  Ollie a little flat gap, flat ground kickflip (since I can’t do any other tricks moving faster than 2mph), ollie into one of the banks, front 180 nose manny.  Ollie and Liam were kinda just being silly.  I tried to boardslide a flatbar, but didn’t get to as the kids went back around the corner and I felt like I should keep my eye on them.  They were cruising down the long loading dock.  I ollied onto it, then out of it.  As bad as I was skating I was kinda happy to not have too many problems ollieing the taller part.Then we went to this spot.  Ollie and Liam skated for awhile before just being funny guys and filming each other with Ollie’s camera.  I had done a line of kickflip over a tiny pile of snow, ollie a small snow pile, ollie up the stage then front 180 off the taller part.  I got the line, but the hardest thing was ollieing up onto it since the asphalt is bad and there is a big crack right where I land.  After a bit I started trying to ollie the 2 stair rail.  Turns out Ollie filmed it shaky cam style.  You can click the image for the video.  It’s very embarrassing.  I look so old, fat, slow and unnatural it’s insane.   I get really depressed watching that clip.  I probably shouldn’t have uploaded it, but you can tell I was kinda hyped to ollie the rail. And since my goal this year is to learn to ollie hopefully I can look back and laugh at this one.   Ollie’s angle doesn’t really show it, but I did go over it and yes, it’s only the second time I’ve ollied a rail.  Before leaving I did a few tricks into the narrow downhill sidewalk that flows into the picnic tables.  I ended with an ollie up the curb to real quick kickflip into the downhill.  It was bad, but I was hyped and I followed it with a little front board jib on a picnic table bench.I went home and was so sore it’s insane.  I could barely walk.  I guess I should start skating new shoes as mine are dead.  That night TF went off and we raged to celebrate John and Fuzz’s birthdays.Click the photo for more photos and the run down from Carleigh.  It was an amazingly fun night.  Lots and lots of laughs, beer, good music and friends.  Happy Birthday dudes.

He should have had a part in Off The Couch.

A balmy night in the thirties compared to the frigid nights below zero we’ve experienced recently. Jason and I met Fuzz, Neil and Brian and Crisis. After some conversing and bidness we rolled to yellow curbs.  After some initial laps around the place I played phone directions for Dave to meet us and missed out on some round robin blunts on a parking block.  I kinda just started skating around the whole place and everyone else was having fun in one area. I guess I was being the Forrest Edwards of the group. You can’t get paid doing blunt pivots on a parking block. I still can’t nose manual at that spot for some dumb reason. Dave showed up with a friends old board. It’s funny because on the way to Broomfield Jason and I were talking about his SF trip and how he had to borrow a friends board and he hated it.  Anyways during the warm up phase I was kinda hyped on a couple things.  Little front tailslide on a curb, halfcab flips were working, and everyone seemed to be having a blast.Then it seemed everyone was skating the longer manual pad in the back corner and the slappy curb against the entrance.  It’s soooo good for slappies.  I think everyone did some good ones.  Neil had some sick nose mannies and tried doing pop shove nose manny, but can’t quite commit to leaning forward enough.  Brian was actually trying manuals!  He also did a sick front 180 fakie 50 and came out fakie.  Brian also made fun of me for looking to serious when I skate.  He’s right though.  Even when I’m having a blast (which I was) I don’t show much emotion.  I think it’s because no matter what I do I know it’s not very “good”.  But whatever, I should smile more.  But not in a weird open mouth cock eyed smirk like Aaron Suski.  Ha.  Jason had a lot of great slams.  He was having trouble keeping his feet under him and went down tumbling a lot.  He had some good slappy back tails and manuals.  Dave had some rad curb moves.  I don’t even remember some of the crazier ones.  I was having a great time, enjoying not being as sore as last year forcing myself to skate everyday.  I tried a bunch of kickflip manuals and never got one.  I also tried a bunch of kickflip front 50 and kick back tails of which I also failed.  Although the kick front 50s were close and I would land on it, but on the sidewalk.  Doh.  Actually almost got one in a run I would have been so hyped on.  Kickflip up the curb, back 180 over a puddle, halfcab flip, kickflip miss the front 50 by about an inch.  Doh.  I think my favorite thing at yellow curbs is doing back 50s on the corner.  Anyways, Neil started chilling and it was mostly a trick up, trick off the manny pad in the corner.  Fuzz was going off.  Halfcab manual, front 180 up then switch front shove off, front 180 up, fakie flip off, halfcab flip off, kickflip up over the puddle with 360 flip off, 360 flip over the puddle, etc.  Killing it.  Jason got front 180 up, sw back 180 the puddle, some funny ass halfcab attempts over the puddle, back 180 the puddle.  Dave got front 180 up and sw ollie and sw 180 the puddle.  I had gotten kickflip up, kickflip off over the puddle, nollie front shove up then front shove off.  I was pretty hyped on how often I would actually land the nollie shove up, but not so hyped that the front shove off was actually difficult for some reason.  I had got gotten a couple fakie bigspins up the curb and wanted to pop shove the puddle, but the session got cut short.  Fuzz was almost getting switch front 360s off when security rolled up and gave us the boot.  He yelled “IDs!” at us.  I knew what he meant, but it sounded like “AT EASE!” so I told him I was.  He took our names which sucks because that parking garage is fun.  Oh well it was a super fun night.

One of skateboarding’s finest. And I think ‘Weakness’ is the greatest skate song of all time.