I had some time on a Saturday morning recently and had been waiting for the Dinoseries to show up before changing the board wall.  Step one, taking down the old one.The pile of old boards that weren’t on the wall.Some other old ones and the ones that were taken down.Rough draft of the new wall.  Gotta keep the original deck on the far left.Mandatory music for hanging up the next set of boards..HYPED HYPED HYPED!!!  From the left, In A Jar, Start Choppin, The Lung.  I cannot describe how stoked I am on these and it’s so fun writing these song names down on invoice slips.The completed project.

After a pretty chill day at work I was productive at home for awhile.  The kids were having fun with friends so I went skating.  It was pretty chilly out, but the forecast calls for snow and frigid temps so it might be the last street skating day for awhile.  I chose campus with no real spots in mind other then to maybe manual off the three stair like I did once before after 50 tries.  After a little parking garage hill bomb I ended up at the three stair and kinda cruised around ollieing on the banked curb, doing kickflips and ollieing up/off curbs.  I started trying the manual, but wasn’t feeling it quite yet.  I wanted to line out to it and found a weird rock to ollie over (which can be seen in the background by the fire hydrant with the board sitting on it of this beautiful Monico 50 50.  The ollie wasn’t easy, especially for me.  The approach was downhill and you had to turn at the last minute to get the right angle.  Excuses excuses, but I did mange to eventually ollie it a few times and it was probably a little taller then a normal ledge so I felt good about it.  I was getting close to the manual drop and almost put it down.  I tried making myself go a little faster each time and a few of the ollies felt good.  But then I went landed pretty far back on probably the biggest ollie and cracked the tail real bad.  I tried to follow it up with the manual, but it barely got up the curb and was bouncing as I was in manual.  DOH.  I tried a few with the board backwards, but wasn’t feeling it.  I went to leave, but bombed the parking garage hill a couple times again trying to get some powerslides, but the concrete was too grippy.  I then went into  nollie/switch flip poses for about 15 minutes.  I did commit to both, but never landed either.  The switch flips were surprisingly close a few times.  I went home and setup a new “In A Jar” deck.

No comply 180 fakie 50 fronstide cab out.  This part ist awesome.

Woke up in Buena Vista still sore from snowboarding the day before with Ollie on his first day riding lifts.  We left Buena Vista pretty early and were back in boulder before noon.  Jake came over and played some SKATE at my house a bit later while we waited for Liz to return from a walk.  It was a decent game.  I ended up winning as we both struggled with treflips and I landed a weird one as Liz got back so Jake went for double or nothing, bailed it and the game ended.We went to the Lafayette park along with every other skater in Colorado.  It seriously sucked.  Let me correct that last sentence.  I seriously sucked.  Notice I took the ‘t’ off so ‘It’ changed to ‘I’?  Neat eh?  Anyways, yeah, I HATE skating crowded places.  Actually I hate crowds in general.  But this was too much.  I didn’t even know where my friends were and when I did they were skating steep obstacles and clearly didn’t want me around to bum out the session.  Every time I started to get excited about skating either a group of kids would get in the way or I’d have to avoid whatever I wanted to skate or have a collision.  Every time I avoided something or everytime I got snaked it would take me down another level.  I debated leaving by myself and finding some place other to skate (After leaving I noticed a waxed curb about a block away.  Next time!).  But I was really hyped on my friends that were there and after I threw a bit of a temper fit saying how much I hate the place Brian calmed me down and reminded me that it’s not the park I hate, it’s the crowds.  After that I finally did have a bit of fun.  Jake had been killing it all day.  Brian committed to blunt fakie on the narrow tall stonerpipe (can we nickname it that?).  The only things I did I was remotely proud of were wallies up the dumb little qpipe and committing to boardslides down the rail, but not landing them.  There was a pro spotting at the park even – Angel Ramirez.  He ripped more then I thought he would.  He is the first person I’ve seen skate the bump to marble flatbar.  He did back noseblunt and front feeble back 180 out on it.  Neat.  He also front boarded it frmt flat into the bank.Sorry to my friends for being such a whiny bitch.  I really hate skating around crowds.  I know it shouldn’t bother me so much, but it does.

Christmas time at the parents in Buena Vista.  Couldn’t fit Ollie and I’s skateboards in the car with all the Christmas stuff.  Well, actually, it wasn’t the Christmas gifts to blame so much, but the snowboards.  Ollie had been wanting to go snowboarding for awhile so we did that the day after Christmas.  The holiday was nice and chill.  Snowboarding with Ollie was a battle.  I’ve never carved so much trying to go slow to ride with him.  My feet were sooooo sore.  We had a blast though and Ollie did good on his first real day of snowboarding.

Stayed up kinda late watching the lunar ecliplse so I ended up sleeping in real late.  In a hurry I got up, did some pushups then some Christmas shopping.  The plan had been to skate Denver, but once I got going I was hoping it didn’t go down, and it didn’t.  Unfortunately Jack said his ankle was too wrecked, but on a dreary and chilly day Fuzz, Greg, Jake, Bernie, Ollie and I met at Meta and planned on skating campus.  It ended up being a blast.  One of the joke goals for 2011 is to not skate a skatepark for a year.  As awesome as street skating is, I don’t think that would be too fun.  Especially with how meeting at a skatepark is the norm.  Anyways, back to today.  I get hyped on cloudy days.  They remind me of east coast skating and I always get the Mudhoney lyrics “Gray skies feel good today” stuck in my head.  We dorked around the hill ledges for a minute before diving into campus.  The first stop was right away at the Education building.  I saw Greg and Bernie do drop down then manuals to drop.  Jake may have dropped in from the top of the steep handicap ramp.  Fuzz and I wallied up the curb to sidewalk gap.  Fuzz did one followed by a 540 kickturn then maybe an ollie to front pivot on the curb.  I got a run with wallie up the gap, dumb ass nose pivot on the curb, front pivot 180 on the curb.  Jake almost ollied from a far crack into the curb tranny.  Then we watched Greg and Bernie entertain some tall manny drops nearby.  Bernie did a manual drop drop all easy that was pretty ridiculous.Next up was one of the many highlights of the day.  Greg ollied an 8 stair rail then we skated a sidewalk for about half an hour.  Initially the goal was to do as many tricks as possible down this stretch of sidewalk.  Greg probably did the most with a line that had something like fakie flip, halfcab flip, heelfip, kickflip, geez I don’t know.  No one was that on point, but we were having fun.  I had a line of something like kickflip, back 180, halfcab flip, varial flip, front shove, bailed tre.  I landed all the tricks horrible and I was going slow.  So what.  Then it turned to manuals.  Greg, Bernie and Fuzz were initially happy doing about a block, but they kept going farther until Bernie brought tears to all our eyes by manualling most of campus.  He went around a building and if he would have come out the other side still manually I probably would have lost my mind.  I got about half of the first section which I was still kinda hyped on.  Bernie, Greg and Fuzz went up the hill and came manualling down trying to go even further.  It was soooo funny.  They weren’t going all that fast so it just looked like three dudes standing swinging their arms for no apparent reason.  It ruled though.  At this point Ollie finally started to loosen up and started ollie’ing every crack.  I think Jake and I counted about 28 ollies over cracks.  So funny.Next up we ended up behind the library.  I took a bunch of tries to ollie off a dumb drop, Fuzz did a couple of the steeziest boneless combos ever, I landed a 360 flip on flat and then Fuzz ollie the long 7.  Seeing that spot gives me new respect for Max’s line in the Meta video with the ollie down the 7 then front board the back part of a bench.  So sick.  We went and peeped Jack’s dropin ollie from Null and Void then ended up skating the area above it for at least an hour.  It was epic.  Everyone did something.  Greg and Fuzz caveman’d a 4 stair rail.  Jake ollied this cool sideways gap near a three stair.  I boardslid the three stair ledge.  Bernie manualled something I’m sure.  Ollie back 180’d off a lower ledge and ollied the three stair.  We hit the stage area for a bit.  Greg wallied down the tall stage like it was nothing.  Fuzz, Jake and I found any excuse possible to not ollie off it.  Back to the stair area so much went down.  Fuzz ollied a ledge and manualled the 3 stair ledge.  Everyone ollied up the three stair.  Well, except Ollie.  That kid needs to work on his pop.  Ha.  Jake and I took a few tries, while people like Fuzz and Greg did it first try.  Bernie almost kickflipped up it. This is the kinda skating I love though.  Just go street skating and skate whatever you find.  It rules.  We had such a blast.We peeped a big handrail for a minute.  Ollie back 180’d a crack ridden two stair.  I love how kids don’t care about cracks.  We ended up near the stadium for a bit.  Some ollies and whatnot.  Then we peeped game over at the ledge that Fuzz kickflip manualled in Cut Me Loose.  Greg spotted a cool gap above it even and lined out an ollie over it then followed it up with a super nonchalant manual the ledge.  Soooo sick.  Across the street I had fun ollieing up a 3, turning around and ollieing down it.  Bernie did a sick quick up to manual ollie a gap.  We were gonna play a game of SKATE in front of the art building, but there was some dudes skating with a little box so we hit that for awhile instead.  Jake learned back 5-0s and I did maybe my second back 50 front 180 out.  Heading out we went by the UMC and I tried one attempt at my recent line there, but bailed the back 180.  Last thing was the drop down ledge near the hill that I like to drop down to then front 180 off.  Did it, but the 180 was horrible.Such a blast of a day.  Everyone skated good and hard and had a blast.  Thanks everyone for being cool about Ollie being around.  It means a lot to me and it allows me to be able to skate more.  He’s a quite kid, but he said he had a blast too.

After a pretty chill day at work I left, picked up Jack and we headed up to Fort Collins to sell some boards then skate.  Initially the crew was Jack, Chris, AJ and me.  Chad quickly met up though.  After pushing basically all the way down Laurel we hit a rock wallie spot.  I stepped in dog crap right away.  So bummed.  Jack nosebonked a pretty tall rock, AJ ollied one and then we moved on.  Pretty quickly we ended up at a banked ledge spot by the dorm towers.  I’m not sure why they aren’t waxed up more because they are perfect.   Chris and Jack were ripping it pretty quick.  Jack went mostly the non-wallie route with some solid front 50, front 5-o, front tailslides but slammed so hard on a front 5-0 front 180 out.  Jack was wallieing into anything pretty quick.  Wallie bluntslide, wallie back tail shove, wallie back lip almost.  AJ had some good wallies then got close to about 500 wallie 50s but never landed one.  I wasn’t skating too well.  I tried a line of crooks a ledge, wallie, wallie boardslide.  The crooks were my rare weird undercrooks and the wallies were really bad, low and I would land primo sometimes and slam.  Fun.  After awhile Greg, Eric and Jacoby showed up, but a nearby cop lurking weirded us out so we moved on.  Some dorking around and we ended up at the new lot by the gym with the rocks and kicker.  I was skating sooo bad at this point and was so sore and old feeling.  Wah.  Skelly joined up for a minute but was too sore/tired to skate really.  AJ starting throwing some gnarly hardflips over the kicker and put down a good one.  Greg was trying to nosebonk the pole and came close.  I tried a couple slow kickflips and just gave up.  Chad had tied a banner to the pole and was holding it up to do tricks over.  5 tries later I was able to ollie it low.  Not hyped on how hard and scary it was for me, but hyped that I didn’t give up on it.  Jack started trying this really crazy ollie back foot kick out over the pole and I went and played a game of SKATE with Greg that didn’t last long.  I did land a treflip and a heeflip which felt good though.  I also finally manualled down the kickder and to the lot.  Greg was doing the funniest manuals.  He would manual and take his front foot off and pretend like he was falling then go back into manual.  It was really funny.  Jack tried the crazy trick for awhile and ended up kinda wrecking his ankle again.  Doh.  After this we went to Chipotle where there was a soda cup that said “Welcome to the office Glen” on it.  Jack spotted it.  So funny.  They normally don’t even have Glen keychains at gift shops.  Even though I didn’t skate well it was a fun time and a fun crew.

I loved Boondoggle, hopefully this one is as good ..

After skating / filming yesterday we had a blast watching some skate videos and ate at Petes.  I’m not sure if it was the Petes or the kids being sick last week, but I got sick.  I didn’t quite puke, but it was close and I felt horrible.  Perfect time to push the filming board for a couple hours in Longmont ditch.  More quality footage was collected.  Stoked.

Woke up still bummed from the night before.  Redid the Null board wall (photos soon) then went outside for some flatground waiting for some Nullers to show.  I ended up skating really good for me.  Way faster than normal which I know isn’t saying much.  Real quick I did a line of front shove, kickflip then nollie tre.  The thing that hyped me up the most was I actually did the kickflip fast enough that I was a bit scared with the speed I still had going into the nollie tre.  No biggee though, I stomped it.  Ask Busenitz.  Greg showed up and we played a decent game of SKATE.  Greg won as usual, I got him with a fakie bigflip and I think that was it.  Doh.  We left for Willville and Nullers were warmed up quick and wanting to film stuff before I was ready to go into film mode.  I posed a few ollies over the six stair and told Derek when he kickflips it I’ll get his back.  A few (ok, several, he struggled) tries later he lands the kickflip and I went for it.  I know it’s only a six stair, but I have never rode away from a bigger set.  I landed it first commit and it felt seriously awesome.  Then I went on to film all kinds of amazing stuff.  I’m getting so excited for the next Null video.Oh yeah, I had a brand new Lung deck and it felt amazing.