Long day at work followed by dinner with my parents and family in Longmont.  Got  home around 8:30 and picked up Carleigh for a short session.  She had to be back around 9:30 so I just went to the closest spot – Boulder high.  I ended up having fun.  We skated the back mostly and I mainly just wanted to ollie onto one of the benches, drop off then quickly ollie onto the next.  I got close, but had a few close calls where I would almost slam into the second one.  I basically kept making a line further and further out until I ran out of space.  By the end I was trying ollie a short 3 stair (super hard approach), front board (jib) a light pole pillar, kickflip a crack gap then hit the benches.  One time I nailed my shoulder so hard on the wall.  Ouch.  Carleigh mostly just tried varial heels and got pretty close.  So sick.  We went towards the car and hit the 4 stair then flat gap.  I ollied both first t, then went back and did a better ollie down the 4 and a front 180 on the gap.  Carleigh did both first t too.  Short session, but fun.

Used the old excuse of having to go to a shop in the Springs as an excuse to go there and film all day (and hopefully skate some).  We went to the bank to stairs spot to start, but it was windy and super cold.  After an almost back 50 across the steeper bank Derek was close to back noseblunts so I went to filmer mode.  He got it and Jack got front sugarcane.  Radical.  We did some driving and came upon the spot above and below.  I had a couple ollie attempts, but I was still shaking cold from sitting in the wind and filming.  Max got a super sick feel good line.Dean Barnes had come with us and takes amazing photos.  We had hit a couple other spots where Max slammed and Jack did a dropin then went to the ditch where Jack did the crazy dropin and Max spun a ridiculous switch 360.  Last up was the incredibly fun spot Harrison High.  Luckily it was too dark to film, or maybe not, because everyone ripped, except me.  Well, Jack slammed a lot, Max did nose manny drop to nose manny, Derek took it “easy” on his ankle.  I had fun.  Got a couple tiny b/s ollies over the hip, b/s flip on the bank.  Got hyped on a little frontside ollie on the bank, noseslide the ledge then kickflip the 2 stair first t.  I don’t remember much more from that session other then Jack slamming so hard I thought he broke his wrist and Derek falling on sand while skating to the car.  That was funny.  5 hotdogs for $1!!!!

Family day.  We had some fun having a little picnic and hanging by a creek.  We got home and I had a little over an hour to get some skating in so I bolted over to campus.  I wasn’t super hyped up, but I ended up having a blast.  I started out at the steep bank spot and did a few rock ‘n rolls and axle stalls before moving on.  I ended up at the 5 stair with the sideways gap I broke a board on awhile ago.  I didn’t feel like going straight for the gap and started investigating the top a little better.  I found what looked like a fun manual.  It starts off about curb high and drops off ledge high.  Unfortunately there is a light pole where you get on making it super narrow and there are tables bolted in on the other side.  It took me basically forever to get the manual.  I had a few close ones and a few close calls where I would hang up on the edge of the light pole and almost dive into the tables.  Ugh.  Sometimes if I just rode off it I would try the gap.  I put a couple down but slammed.  I started trying back 180s off the ledge instead, but it was just dumb.  I wanted to manny it!  After like 50 tries I finally manualled it clean then went for the gap and landed it clean.  I was so hyped.  I sat for awhile and debated going home right away, but I knew I should skate more.  I cruised around a bit, did some spot searching, ollied a narrow tall 4 stair first try, posed some front blunts on a waxed curb then pretty much ended it with an ollie up a long two stair and an ollie up the side of the two then front 180 the long two gap.  Fun session.  It started raining as I left.  Hopefully it doesn’t turn to snow.

Had the early shift for work and even managed to get to bed early enough for 8 hours of sleep. Unheard of for me. I had a really busy day at work and didn’t get many chances to stretch, but right after work I drove to Rocky Mtn Elementary to meet Bernie. The goal was to film him do a 500 trick line, but there was still lots of teachers there so we dorked around down below for awhile. Warming on on the weird manual pad below is not easy. Not even for Bernie. We eventually each got what we were going for though. Bernie did ollie up the curb, kickflip to fakie on the bank then switch nose manny. Way harder then it sounds. I got ollie up the curb, b/s flip, manual (there may have been a slight scrape, but who cares).Next we went into the hockey rink so I could maybe ollie the little entrance gate that I failed at last time I tried.  Bernie called out flip trick, ollie the gate, flip trick into the long downhill bikepath.  Naturally after that neither of us could land a flip trick.  Bernie eventually started getting nollie varial flips then got over the barrier then 360 flip into the downhill.  I struggled at nollie tres, heelflips and 360 flips before a family showed up to play soccer and I wanted to get out of there so I resorted to halfcab flips.  A couple in and I somehow managed to land the ollie over the barrier then followed it with a kickflip into the downhill.  Hyped.We went up to the school since most cars had left and did the marathon run from the two stairs at the top all the way to the downhill bikepath.  Bernie did some real tricks, but stepped off a couple times.  I did lame tricks, but managed to stay on the whole way.  For me it was something like ollie 2 stair, ollie 2 stair, front board pop out (horrible), manual with lots of touches into the dirt downhill, little ollie the bump, front 180 into the downhill.  So fun.  We went back up and skated the ledge mostly.  Bernie was doing kick back tails almost every try and working on tricks over the brick part of the bank to maybe someday do in a line.  I did a few back crooks and front boards before settling in on front 50 front shove out and trying to land in manual off the curb.  I was remotely close.  That would be a good one for me.  Fun way to start off the weekend.

More on this clip later (who said moron?). I took the day off work as it was supposed to be 60 degrees and I was tired from being up late seeing SEBADOH. I woke up late and headed to the Lafayette park around 11 where Carleigh would join me in a bit. Almost no one was there initially and I tried to take advantage by actually carving around and skating the snake run a bit. I was skating ok. Real tricks weren’t going to well, but cruising around was. At one point I tried to front smith the little ledge and slid out and almost hit the back of my head on the corner of the ledge. That could have been soooo bad. That would be the first slam of the day. Carleigh wasn’t in the best of moods and it showed. She had some good noseslides, but more slams then normal. I posed some attempts at front 50 down the Hubba, but for some reason that terrifies me. I’ve never been good at the downhill. Actually other then finally ollie the 3 stair and try to noseslide the ledge over the 3 stair I didn’t really skate all that well. It was fun cruising around though.After slinging some boards I found myself at Cheeseman park in Denver with Jack, Chad and Daryl. That place is awesome. We were all kind of doing our own thing and warming up again was not easy for me. Derek showed up after awhile and put down a crazy good line pretty quick. Front 180 up 4, fakie bigspin, b/s flip down 4, halfcab down 4. Daryl switch ollied up 4. Chad yelled a lot and almost got kickflip up the 4. I settled in to trying a run of ollie up 3, heelflip, weird sideways gap to boardslide. I got about as close to getting the run as possible before the man showed up and I walked off unscathed to my car.After this we ended up at some wallride spot by Daryl’s house. Yes, you guessed it, the one in the clip above. I had done a couple basic wallrides before settling in to a long kickflip wallride attempt marathon. Daryl had some awesome wallrides to fakie that he either landed or stuck and dove into mud. Jack had some crazy tail drops. Chad was catching up with homies then decided to film me with his phone before he left which resulted in the funny fall clip above. It was funny because Jeff had just pulled up randomly and was walking over to say hi. Derek starting trying the kickflip wallrides with me too and we would pose switch flips on the way back to the starting gate. Jack eventually came over and did it in a couple tries trying to show how easy it was so we could leave and get food. No luck, it still took awhile. I ended up getting Derek’s back (I think?) with a really bad one.After a burrito and a trip to Crisis to buy plane tickets to SF (YES!!!) we hit the Broomfield park. I was sore and saw Neil do a little wallride at the top of the bank by the six stair and thought it looked fun. So I started doing that then Brian joined and started doing cool tricks. Then Fuzz joined. They started trying wallrides where you take your back foot off the board and push on the wall then back on the board and land it. I was in on that game too. Well after they had moved on to other tricks. I did eventually land a couple though and tried to back it with a noseslide down the double set hubba. I failed poorly all three times. The last being apparently the most amusing and painful as I landed on the last stair and shot out. I was hyped to finally try it and if it wasn’t almost closing time I would have tried some more, but I wanted to skate the ledges a bit. Although I didn’t really land anything on the ledges until my very last line before lights shut down. Ollie onto the U ledge, front 180 off, back crooks the black ledge, horrible b/s flip on flat. At the end Brian and Fuzz were almost doing b/s sugarcanes on the brick qp and Carleigh was getting really close to varial heels on flat. Skateboarding all day is fun.

One night after seeing a show filled with under 20 year old hipsters I found myself going to see Sebadoh – a 90s indie rock icon.  The crew was Ric, Brian, Maria, John, Zach and I and the place was filled with other aging indie rock nerds.  Quasi opened and they were awesome.  I enjoyed them more when the singer would play guitar, but they were good when he was on piano too.  Well, what’s left of the piano after he kicked it a bunch on the last song.Sebadoh was spectacular.  Click the photo above to go to Reverb magazine for more cool photos and big words describing how radical the show was.  On top of playing great musically they also proved that they are still socially awkward when interacting with the crowd.  Especially Jason.  That guy is crazy.  I love it!  Anyways it looks like they’re basically playing the same setlist every night and I found this one from Seattle’s show:

• 1 Intro
• 2 On Fire
• 3 Dreams
• 4 Too Pure
• 5 Soul and Fire
• 6 Sister
• 7 Shit Soup
• 8 Mind Reader
• 9 Got It
• 10 I Love To Fight
• 11 Drag Down
• 12 Magnets Coil
• 13 Ocean
• 14 Skull
• 15 Rebound
• 16 License to Confuse
• 17 Drama Mine
• 18 Nothing Like You
• 19 Crystal Gypsy
• 20 Careful
• 21 Beauty of the Ride
• 22 Not a Friend
• 23 Together or Alone
• 24 Forced Love
• 25 Sixteen
• 26 Give Up
• 27 Junk Bonds
• 28 New Worship
• 29 Brand New Love
• 30 Worst Thing
• 31 Not Too Amused
• 32 Willing to Wait

John gets the nerd award having successfully guessed the first song and was able to name the most tunes after hearing only the first note of the song.  Brian and Maria left early.  Ric almost puked in my car.  Zach used to make fun of me for liking indie rock instead of just punk rock.  They were charging $20 for a one color t-shirt and Lou was proud of it.  Some dork got called out for the first Dinosaur Jr request of the tour (and no it wasn’t me come on I know they wouldn’t be able to play it good anyways ha). All in all a fun night and they must have played good because I’ve been listening to Sebadoh ever since.Looks like there is lots of youtube clips of the show.

Super tired from the Wavves show / Valentines Day date with Liz I met up with some people that are good at skating transitions and embarrassed myself for awhile.  Dave, Brian and Al ripped it.  I don’t even comprehend how they can do stuff so easily.  They all learned frontside halfcab disasters (with ollies).  I didn’t learn anything.  I did a front smith at one point and Dave said “that was a good smith” so maybe my smiths finally looks like smith grinds instead of slashes.  And I did a back 5-0 to fakie that Brian was hyped on so maybe I am making some baby steps on tranny.  Seriously though, those three ripped so hard.  I went home, took a nap then went to see SEBADOH!

I’m on the new new program going up gaps.    Watch out Leo, Westgate.  Ollie accidental benihana captured a bit early by Julian Bleecker.

Thanks to The Mighty LZA Valentines Day has been one of my favorite holidays over the years.  This one was no exception.  Liz likes Wavves quite a bit.  I do to some degree.  We both really like seeing live music so going to the Fox was an easy date for us.  We started things off with a good wholesome family dinner (pot roast) then Liz and I headed out and had a couple beers before the show at Abos.After walking in to the Fox I saw the ultra trendy Wavves shirt with an upside down cross.  Really?  After I asked the merch booth if Wavves was satanic (they knew it was a joke) we went in to check out the first band.The first band was called No Love.  They obviously love My Bloody Valentine.  They were good, loud and played hard.  Probably actually the best band of the night.Wavves came out with face makeup on.  I’m not sure if they were going for a Kiss or clown look, but it was sweated off pretty quickly.  Not that you can see it from the crappy cell phone picture anyway.I’m not going to lie and say I was overly impressed with Wavves.  They weren’t able to reproduce the same quality noise that’s on their albums, they messed up songs, and every song was played faster then the recorded versions (this isn’t always bad).  They did bring a lot of energy though.  I think they are the NOFX of indie noise rock.  You know, it’s a good entry level band, but once you figure out they don’t have all that much talent you move on.  But who am I to say?  I’m just old and this show made me feel old.  Good thing I’m going to Sebadoh tonight, there will be lots of old people!  Oh, and does anyone else think the chord progression in Wavves song “Idiot” is a complete rip off of Dinosaur Jr’s “Freakscene”?Last up was Best Coast.  I didn’t know much about them, but a few songs in were all I needed.  They are decent, but it’s not something I’ll ever get into.  I listened to enough Letters To Cleo back in the 90s.All in all a fun night.  Liz is the best.

What a weird day.  It started off hungover at Scotty Goodale’s memorial service.  What an incredibly sad event that left me in a funk for the rest of the day.  I didn’t know him very well, but I still felt inspired by his positivity and at the same time destroyed by the situation his family is left with.  Argh.  Life is trife.Late in the incredibly warm afternoon I skated flatground in front of the house.  I skated ok and after some warming up I started trying two lines going back and forth.  One way was halfcab flip, nollie treflip, b/s flip.  Never got the nollie treflip.  Other was was frontside halfcab, heelflip, treflip.  Never got the treflip.  When I would mess up the line I would try some other trick which was normally switch flip.  A few were close.  I think it’s time to curb the beer again.