Good one Matt.

Could have been day #300, but I wanted to chill a day and give my legs a break.  Ended up bringing India and a friend of hers to the CU Women’s Basketball game.  It was a blast.  I would have liked to see CSU make it a closer game though.

You would think that on day 299 I would be more hyped.  The fact is I felt super burnt out, sore, and not motivated to skate.  I was however, very happy to finally get to skate with John after weeks of conflicting schedules.  We met at Meta then rolled down into campus.  First stop was the angled curb parking lot.  Not as fun the 4th time.  We both tried the narrow ledge drop to ollie back up and failed.  The death factor was a little high for me that early on in the session.  Some more rolling around, a John kickflip slam and we ended up at the two stair in front of the crowded UMC.  There was a lot of stressed out students finishing up finals.  I don’t miss that part of college at all.  We tried to manual the two stair for awhile and both came close (John was way closer) before a group of students came out and smoked cigarettes on the stairs.  Smoking sucks.  We were supposed to ollie the four stair on the way out like it was nothing, but I failed.  Three times.  I was really feeling the motivation issues.  Ugh.  I finally got it and we hit the well lit area nearby for a game of SKATE.  The last time we played SKATE it lasted for about three hours.  This time, not so bad.  John got me with front shove (ugh), fakie flip (ugh ugh), treflip (ugh), nollie flip (ok with that one) and switch flip (considering I’ve only landed it once i don’t mind losing on that one).  Next up was the banked manny pad.  Or in our case, a bank.  John looked at it and all it’s cracks in disapproval, but after I layed down a couple Gillinghammers first try he accepted the spot for what it was.  I did front rock, front tail and a front tail backside revert.  Maybe even a manual to rock ‘n roll manual out with a few tilts.  John did front tail, almost a rad sal flip and then we both ollied and took off to the round stairs.  John ollied it huge first try and I layed into a long powerslide which turned my cheap wheels into rectangles.  Ugh.  John did some good back 180s off the 3, I did some bad ones off the two and that was it.  Day 299 done.  So hyped on not having to skate every day anymore.  Gonna take a day off before the big 300 so I’m more motivated and enjoy it more.

Jake and I spread some Null at Crisis before meeting Fuzz at the Broomfield park.  It was surprisingly more crowded than it’s been.  It wasn’t super warm or anything.  Jake slammed hard right away trying a rock fakie on the little vert qpipe in the back of the park and had to walk off a hipper.  I had settled for trying a line of boardslide the tiny rail, back 50 the black ledge, then front nosegrind the blue ledge.  Fuzz tried to and beat me to the punch by about an hour.  He’s gonna argue that he bonked on the nosegrind, but he made up for it by adding a front d on the brick qp after the 50.  Actually wait, I never did get the line.  I came close, but I had to avoid the nosegrind a lot due to the crowds.  It kinda bummed me out.  I really don’t like skating crowded spots at all, but I was hyped to back 50 the black ledge so many times as I think I had only done it once before.  Jake and Fuzz looked like they were having a good time.  I saw Jake ollie a min jersey barrier that someone brought.  Fuzz bluntslide the tall rusty ledge.  I really don’t remember what else I did until the very end when Jake and I played a game of SKATE that got cut short by the lights shutting off.  He was up SKA to SK.  Two more days til 300.

Had a super fun day with the family taking some funny photos for our Christmas cards.  Around 7 I headed to downtown Boulder with one line that’s been in my head forever.  Just a dumb line that should be easy of ollie’ing a little rock, front 180 up onto a ledge, switch front 180 off in and alley off Broadway.  I parked a couple blocks away and dorked around for a bit in some other alleys ollieing up some curbs.  Then I went to the main attraction and was reminded at how weird the rock ollie was.  It didn’t take long though and I got the line in a couple tries.  It was fun though.  I’m not sure why I had thought about it so much.  I tried it a few times and tried another line coming back with a somewhat high speed manual, a couple good pushes, ollie up a curb then ollie onto the ledge.  I wanted to kickflip off, but right when I was feeling the line a car parked right in the way.  Lazy jerk parking in an alley.  I move on to the fun brick area that Josh Steele kills in Lumber Jockeys.  I played around for a bit before settling with a line I was kinda hyped on.  Manual around the corner at the top of the hill, kickflip up the curb, a few downhill pushes followed by a powerslide, the worst one foot attempt that skateboarding has ever seen then ollied on the little narrow curved ledge.  Pretty fun.  I slammed pretty hard on one of the manual attempts where I came out and landed in a crack.  Other then that it was a pretty awesome night and now I’m three days away from 300 days of skating.

Had a pretty constructive morning doing some cleaning and updating the Null site.  Neil and Brian showed up around 11 then we went to Meta to meet Max.  Him and Davis piled in and we went to the Google area for a gap to manual Max had dreamt about.  The flat gap is about 5 feet and then it’s about 20 feet to a drop off a curb.  Sam and Bernie met up with us.  None of the old people with the exception of Neil ollied it.  It was just too early.  We messed around nearby too.  The little weird ditch thing entertained for awhile.  Davis had a cool ollie in, back 180 out.  I dropped in and kinda wallie front 180’d out.  Back to the main attraction Sam slammed really hard trying to ollie it.  I filmed with my new tripod while Max went for front 180 to fakie nose manual.  He got it.  Hotness.  Bernie backed him up in a few tries with a kickflip manual.  I filmed Neil get a line then we headed out with no spot in mind.So I drove to the ballparks as I wanted to boardslide around the bikerack on the ledge I waxed up the other day.  It was awesome.  We waxed it some more and Brian, Jason, Neil, Lazer and I broke in the boardslides.  We would get a little further each try.  Jason was taking some huge slams though.  Some of the worst falls I’ve seen him take.  I guess he earned it though and was the first to get the boardslide.  I was second with the same style pop out at the kink.  Brian and Lazer were next with boardslides across and down.  So sick.  They tried it holding hands while most skated the main ledge in the back.  Apparently they slammed super hard.  Bernie was kinda chilling doing nothing.  Sam was doing some noseslides.  Davis was keeping it kinda mellow.  Max was trying some funny front board bigspin to manual things.  Neil was just chilling.  Jason and I ended up skating that ledge really good for us.  For me, maybe the best I’ve ever skated that ledge.  I did a bunch of back crooks.  Front 50s were coming really easy.  I was trying a few runs.  Back halfcab flip, crooks, attempted to go around the corner and get the boardslide.  Couldn’t get the angle with speed on that one though.  I also did front 50, chinese nollie, first try treflip.  My favorite line was a fast (for me) pop shove, back noseslide then treflip.  Other tricks I got on the ledge were front 5-0, the best back 50 I’ve ever done there, front 50 back 180 out and front 50 to front board.  I had never done the last two tricks there before.  It was seriously a blast.  At one point I even landed on front 50 bigspin out.  Flatground tricks were on point too.  Heelflip first t, lots of treflips, a couple slow double flips, the best f/s halfcab flip I’ve ever done.  Jason was killing it to with his textbook front noseslides, trying to crooks the shorter ledge and front boards.  Fun day.  I guess it’s proof that it’s good to take a day off skating once in awhile.

Wow.

I’ve been fighting a cold all week and having to work earlies.  I felt pretty run down and Liz and I were to go on a date so I didn’t have a whole lot of time.  I probably would have skated if the wind wouldn’t have prevented outside from being an option.  Instead I sat home, watched a movie and setup my filming board since my kids gave away my old one on accident.  I’m super hyped to skate it.  It’s more of a cruiser than a “filmer” board though.  The wheels are some OJ III softies.  60mm and like 72 durometer.  Slap some old Indys and it’s gold.

Pretty epic.