Jake and I went to the Louisville park on a crisp, but nice night. Bikers were in the snake run and after a few cruises around doing nothing I noticed Jake headed to the deep pool and we ended up skating that for awhile. Jake killed it as usual. Backside grinds around the corner, front rock, back rock (both decked), maybe even a front 5-0 in the shallow. Jake was surprised that I landed a back rock in the shallow and even offered a beer for landing it. Unfortunately I would lose it later on by not landing a front 50. Anyways I had a fun run going with a carve in the deep end followed by a f/s carve in the shallow and managed a scratch grind in the shallow at one point. We moved on to the street area where I had a lot of fun grinding around a corner and then not ollieing. Jake front 50’d the hubba in a few tries then worked on front 5-0 and put it down. So sick. I tried a few ollies here and there and my knee worked, but I can’t describe how bad it hurt. Ugh. Then I started trying front 50s on a qpipe for awhile and took so long to land it that it wasn’t fun.Then we went over to the hockey rink.  Jake did like an eight trick line with a bunch of 180s, fakie flip, kickflip and tried to end it with a treflip.  I cruised around and did a few no complies and they felt ok.  Ollieing still hurt and I settled in to kickflips.  Over and over I wanted to land them again.  It’s funny I’ve only been hurt for like a week but I feel like a bruise shouldn’t hold me back as bad as it has.  Especially after seeing how badly some of my friends fall and don’t complain.  But it hurt like hell and I just wanted to do 5 kickflips in a row.  It took awhile but I finally did.  The knee somewhat loosened up, but ended up stinging in pain the rest of the night.  Ugh.  It feels like I only have a few more days of using the knee as an excuse.  At least I hope so.  I only felt like I was in my 60s today.  That’s way better than the 80s I guess.To all my fans out there (yes I’m joking) I apologize for the depressing updates.  I get bummed out on injuries real quick.  It hurts like hell to ollie, but tranny really doesn’t.  I guess that’s why so many old skaters stop skating street.  Hopefully I’m not there yet.

Ugh. Ollie and I went to Southern Hills on a pretty nice night. I wasn’t expecting much and my left knee was still hurting pretty bad. Little did I know that since I haven’t been stretching like normal or skating like normal my whole body felt like a sack of potatoes. It was horrible. I seriously couldn’t ollie. Not the same for Ollie though. He was ripping. Full speed mongo push ollies down the two stair, nose grab flyouts out of the handicap ramp, silly-start-of-a-run flip the board and jump on it, smiles for days. John showed up for a bit. He kept it pretty mellow too, but the switch slappy noseslides are seriously the hotness. We had to be back before 9 for Ollie’s bedtime. I sat depressed with ice on my knee feeling at least 80 years old.

Almost took a sick day. Had such a nice and relaxing evening with the kids and Liz playing Wii Sports, reading the new Thrasher, eating, etc. But after icing my knee throughout the day it felt quite a bit better and I new I wanted to skate a bit. So I went out to Rampy with the rough idea I would try to land a back disaster seeing as how I’ve done a few at Zuni now. After some sucking it was decided that back d was not an option, but I started trying back tail stalls and quite a few tries later I did one of those back tails where you pivot into the tail. I don’t really like those, but it’s my first one and my knee was starting to hurt so I’ll take it! 49 more days.

Another long and busy day at work.  Followed by a quick happy hour with Liz and Mia then a quick dinner before heading to Crisis to sell some boards and ask Fuzz for stickers.  The goal was to hit Crisis then 303 then skate the Brighton park.  At Crisis Fuzz was into the idea and joined Carleigh, Jake and I.  We spent a bit at 303, but eventually arrived at a nearly vacant Brighton skatepark.  The ride to the park was a blast.  Everyone was in a good mood and we joked about Carleigh roofy’ing dudes.  I don’t think I even spelled Roofy right.  But don’t worry, it was a joke.  At least we think so.Jake started out in the big bowl and Fuzz and I followed.  Fuzz brought the speed hype and Jake brought the trick hype.  Those dudes can skate tranny good.  They both did front 5-0s, back 50s, etc.  Fuzz got a front tailslide all sick and Jake did front rock too.  I was hyped to carve the tile and get an axle stall.  I wanted more, but being dumb ol’ me I bailed a back 50 and the run out hurt my knee.  Doh.  This pretty much took me out for the rest of the night.  I did a few things, but definitely couldn’t ollie.  A few things I was kinda hyped to do though.  Manny from the flyout bank around the hubba, back 50 the quarter pipe into the mellow bank, roll in a bunch, not be too bummed.  Carleigh started out on the bump to bar and did a few noseslides.  She also did pop shove, kickflip and front 180 up the euro and kinda tried ollie grab flyouts.  Jake ripped went for broke on some of the ledges.  Got front 5-0 down the 3 and almost front 50’d the downhill hubba.  Fuzz was ripping.  I’m so stoked for him being so happy with Crisis and being so hyped on skating.  He did a bunch of back pivot to back disasters, a bunch of tricks on the side of the hubba, some sketchy manuals and was the first person in CO to skate in a jacket this year.  Near the end of the session I took a few photos since I had done enough damage to the knee for one day.  250 days of skating down.  50 more to go.  If I was smart I’d take a day off, but I’m seriously freaking about getting this far and not making 300.  I don’t want to have to try for 300 again next year ..Carleigh first try for the camera noseslide.Pretty much the worst photo of an ollie over the ledge into the bank. Sorry Fuzz.Jake didn’t land this, but he put the effort in and put four down getting really close. We gotta go back!

So awesome.  If only it showed seconds too..

‘Twas a gloomy and cool fall day.  Liz and I had a date the night before and slept in real late.  Eventually Sam and Ollie asked to go skate so we risked the scattered showers and after a brief stop at Community we rolled up to a nearly vacant skatepark.  Warming up was fun just cruising around that place is always a blast.  A few other kids showed up, but they couldn’t even drop into the 1 foot qp.  I had a pretty fun session, but still couldn’t really ollie due to knee pain.  It’s getting better, I just don’t want to due any long term damage putting pressure on it.  Skating tranny doesn’t seem to hurt it much.  New stuff I got was a manny out of a tiny qp to tail stall in, roll out/in backside above the pool corner, board stall back revert transfer over the spine backed with a fakie front pivot fakie, front 5-o around a little corner, front slash on the bank which took a few tries last time came first try.  nice.  Ollie was ripping.  He did mostly the same tricks, but I saw a rock ‘n roll on a taller qpipe, rock fakie on the bank, some low on the tranny ollies over hips.  Not much longer and he’ll be way better than me.  Sam got some back 50s on the qp out of the ground and improved his game.It started to sprinkle so we went to a parking garage off Wadsworth that I hadn’t skated in forever.  I couldn’t really ollie and didn’t feel like pushing it.  But I was super hyped to get a drop off a curb to manny, around a corner and into boardslide on a curb.  Got a couple of those and one was super clean.  That really hyped me up.  Sam learned cali back 50s super good.  Ollie was ripping like I hadn’t seen before.  Big ollies off a two stair, full speed ollies up a curb (half the time with a little wallie), a few backside boardslides on curbs and a banger at the end.  Ollie up the curb then front board the brick ledge.  So sick.  Total little kid steez where he came to a halt before popping off, but whatever, it was awesome.

Wow he can skate some street!

Knee was sucking. It’s pretty black and blue. I tried to skate in front of the house, but still couldn’t ollie so I just pushed fast and manualled the curb cut from the neighbors house to mine. Took a few tries and I had some crazy arm steez. That’s a long manny for me.

Jason, Jake and I went to Broomfield park. Fuzz, John, Max, Derek, Davis and tons more were there. Jason and I started on the little qpipe area. For awhile I thought my knee would be ok, but after a few ollies it started to hurt and I had to resort to not ollieing. I took a run in the flow bowl and it ended up being pretty good for me. I grinded around a corner and slashed the pool coping. Fuzz, Max and John were ripping. Made me jealous. Jason had some good mannies and ended up skating pretty well. Jake put down a good line. Treflip on flat, low to high quarta potty front pivot, back 5-0 to fakie on the brick qp. Near the end I made myself do some tricks on the brick qp. Front rock came kinda easy. Front 50 took a long time. That brick qp hates me.

John and I went pretty late on a Sunday night.  I stopped off at an apartment on the way and bought a Beatles Rock Band kit from a craigslist ad.  So hyped for that!  Ha, it’s one of the first times we are way ahead of the schedule on her birthday gift.Anyways, we missed a couple opening bands, but on came local band Pacific Pride.  I had listened to some tunes on myspace and thought they sounded decent.  They had some weird stage props that weren’t really even worth shooting photos of.  It seemed like all of their friends came to the show and they were all the overly hipster dancer types.Neither John or I were very impressed.   A couple song sounded ok to me, and they were clearly having fun, but for the most part it was boring and contrived.  Maybe they didn’t put much effort in because it seemed like John and I were the only ones there not in one of the bands that played.Poison Control Center came out blasting. I took pretty much all of these photos within the first two songs. It was insane. They were doing acrobatics on stage and going crazy. There was so much energy it was almost overkill.Yes, they were seriously doing shoulder stands and not losing a note.I’ll give them some credit they managed to keep it up throughout their set.I was kinda hoping at some point the drummer would play with his feet or something, but nope, he just kept it real.This dude only took breaks from doing the splits, shoulder stands or whatever this is to sing.See, the splits! Ouch!Whoa, they were all just standing there like a normal rock band!John thought this guy was an ultra hipster. I figured he was just a Iowa music dork. After seeing him dance for a whole song I’m pretty sure I was right.Some dudes from Pacific Pride jumped on stage at one point and air guitar’d while PCC did acrobatics. What is the world coming to?To sum it up, wow, what a show. Sure it made for lots of interesting photos and conversation, but did they really need to do acrobatics to sell these songs? No, they sounded pretty good as is. Sure it was exciting, I’ll give it that. And some of it was awesome, but everysong was over kill. I was also bummed on the lack of songs off the new album. Only two songs when your on tour to support a new album is whack. No one manning the merch booth is whack too.I promise to take better photos if I bring my camera again. You have no idea how shy I am when it comes to shooting photos of non skate stuff.