My third in show in little over a week. Also the third show in a row I didn’t have even a single beer. Weird. Anyways, Liz and I rolled in shortly before the opening band Free Energy. I had heard nothing about them before listening to some songs of theirs on myspace early that day. After what I heard I should have known better, but we don’t like just seeing only one band.This band was bad. Really really bad. Somehow they had a large following.Lots of them wore headbands.Or they were parents.Even some Ultimate Fighters in the house. It was seriously the weirdest crowd.Killing some time during the sucking we rolled back to the merch booth and noticed their name was wrong on their own 7 inch. That’s funny! The scary part was that the members of Titus Andronicus came out to play the Springsteen cover with Free Engery and it was also really bad. Liz and I were definitely a bit worried for Titus at that point.Titus Andronicus eventually arrived on stage. It started about as epic as one can imagine. A drunken fan recited the opening speech from The Monitor and stage dived into the crowd as the band exploded into “A More Perfect Union”. I haven’t witnessed a band get on stage and blow me away that quickly in a long time. The giant turd left in the air by Free Engery was defeated immediately. Thank god. Titus Andronicus went on to play one of the best shows I have ever seen. Tons of energy throughout, great setlist, great stage presence, it was loud, the sound was good, the crowd was very into it, everything you need for a great show. They came off more punk rock then I would have thought with lots of fist pumping anthems being yelled by the crowd. The ender “Four Score And Seven” was so intense and powerful that I actually hoped the show was done. No encore. That song burned the house down. Totally epic set.Lastly, sorry once again for the crappy cell phone photos. But if I brought my nice camera I’d feel obligated to spend my time trying to get the perfect photo instead of just enjoying the show.

Skated Rampy for a few minutes and sucked. Ollie filmed a fakie pivot fakie for an HD test. Looks like I gotta turn up the sharpness and stuff. But hey, it was the first clip.

Just a quick session before going to see one of the best shows I’ve ever seen – Titus Andronicus. I went out right after eating a ton of food so I felt extra fat and uncoordinated. It didn’t last long though and I started actually feeling pretty good. I didn’t do anything special and did a few flippers going pretty slow. The only noteworthy thing to me was manually from the neighbors curb cut all the way to ours. Pretty long for me. Yippee.

Carleigh and I rolled up around 8 on a really nice night. The park wasn’t too crowded, but everyone that was there was skating. Or I guess biking. I really don’t understand why people would bike at a skate plaza with low ledges anyways, but whatever. I wanted to warm up in the bowl with a grind on the little qp on the top, then a grind around the corner after. This took a long time and pissed me off. Then I continued sucking in the street course. Carleigh seemed to be skating decent. 50s, boardslides on the black ledge all easy. Almost front shoves out of the bank. I started trying the step up for the first time and it’s really awkward. It took about 7 tries for me to finally land it. It was funny because somebody gave me a sympathy “yeah” and Carleigh said I looked so bummed so she laughed. Ha. After that things got better for me though. I got a run with boardslide down the ledge, back 50 the black ledge (haven’t landed that before there) followed by front 50 front shove out on the black ledge. I made myself ollie over the tiny rail into the bank again. It took a bunch of tries and I still can’t land in the bank with enough angle to not run into the grass. I came close to getting front smith on the black ledge too. Carleigh was working on kickflips into the bank and came close to a bunch of them. I started skating the lower area after making myself ollie the six stair. It took a couple bails this time before I put it down. Carleigh ollied the double set like it was nothing then went on to pop shove. I got a line on the lower part that hyped me up. Manual down the angled blue ledge (never done that before), front feeble the qp, back 5-0 the blue ledge then nollie treflip shuffle (counts!). Carleigh put down the pop shove all sick. I started trying kickflips over the tiny rail, but the high school kids took over and started lighting the rail up with deodorant and being generally annoying. I might have actually committed to that, but who knows. At the very end I finally ollied over the tall part of the rust ledge and into the bank. I’ve wanted to do that for awhile. All in all it ended up being really fun, I just wish I could warm up faster sometimes.

I figured it would be fun to start a new category to document my “progress” as a budding photographer.  So we’ll start with Day 3 with the camera.  Going for the artsy leaf shot with a street light in the background.  Looks pretty neat to me now, but I’m sure soon enough I’ll learn that it isn’t.  Ha.

Oh and yes, he’s an 8 year old kid.  Show boat nosegrab.  Makes me laugh so hard.Ollie wants to learn about the camera too.  I guess he doesn’t know about the “make old people look younger” filter yet.

Had a totally awesome morning.  Watched PJ Ladd own it in SKATE, spent some quality time with India and even snuck in a nap.  In the late afternoon Carleigh showed up, we picked up Neil in Broomfield then hit downtown Denver.  Traffic was horrible and we ended up kinda on the far side of downtown on the outskirts of where we’ve skated before.  We tried to hit a manny pad initially, but an upset tenant wasn’t feeling it.  We dorked around at this narrow manny pad and two stair.  Well, Neil actually skated it, I posed at it (too narrow for me) and Carleigh tried some flippers on the sidewalk.  I was feeling rusty as I haven’t skated for real in awhile.  Next up we ended up at chain to ollie.  My first few chain ollies were horrible.  They felt so out of control and bad.  We all ollied it and then started working on more.  Carleigh and I tried kickflips, Neil pop shoves.  It took a bit, but the men got their moves.  Neil backed his up with a 100 foot long manny.  Sick.  Carleigh came real close to the kickflip.  I did it a couple times, but the first one was super slow and sketchy.  Second one felt great, but I didn’t have anything on that manny pad.  My new trucks felt weird.  Neil put down some sick no complies over it too while I got some weak 180s both ways.  We left to the weird round brick plaza area.  At first Neil and I ollied in the f/s one which I haven’t done before.  It’s a little ledge drop into a little bank.  Then we turned around and ollied onto the ledge.  I got one with ollie up then ollie into the b/s bank.  That felt awesome.  Carleigh ollied in both b/s and f/s.  Neil was trying to ollie out of the bank over the tall ledge.  I started trying to ollie over the f/s ledge into the bank.  Neil saw it and got it first try and eventually backed it up with a four wheel bonk over the tall ledge which was so sick.  I also got the ollie over the ledge into the bank.  Hyped on that.A quick kick out of the Wells Fargo C ledge we ended up at a parking garage with crappy gritty concrete that somehow ended up being a blast.  I got a couple lines that I was very hyped on.  Ollie a curb cut, kickflip up a curb, nose slide a brick planter off a stair.  Which was hard because it was sooooo sticky.  Also got a kickflip over a curb, 360 flip on flat, manual then front 180 down the 2 stair that came up real quick.  So fun!  Carleigh put down a bunch of kickflips and tried to manual the long pad.  Neil did some good nose manuals and got a good run of pop shove over a curb, 360 no comply (backside), nose manual, one foot off the two stair.  We checked out this kinda bank to ledge and rail spot, but Carleigh and Neil left to get some drink while I tried to ollie a little retainer wall.  When I finally got it I almost backed it up with a front nose to fakie on the bank to ledge.  On the way to meet Neil and Carleigh at Wahoos I hit this little manny pad then ollie over a curb to drop onto a super mellow bank.  That took more tries then it should.Those guys ate and we all stocked up on water for the last few minutes of daylight.  We hit this weird mellow hip that was soooo hard to skate.  It was almost too small to skate it as a hip, but it was good for it.  Neil sat it out.  Carleigh did some good f/s ollies then spent a long time on kickflips.  She eventually landed a good one with a rad surfy ride out.  I had given up on ollieing big out of the hip and was trying flippers over it.  I came close to b/s flips, but never got a good one.  I hucked f/s flips for awhile and never came close.  Then I tried a f/s halfcab flip over the hip and was surprised to get it in three tries.  After that I started trying 3 flips and after Carleigh put down a pop shove I got her back with the tre bomb.  Ha.  It felt great though.  That was basically the end of the day.  Such a great session.I shot the photo above after we were done and got back to the car.  Gotta at least try and shoot a photo everyday or I’m never gonna learn this stuff.

My side spasms were subsiding a little, but still painful.  Neil, Brian, Cooper, Ollie and I met up with Bernie and Sam at the mellow bank to way too tall ledge because Bernie wanted to do a manny trick in a line (fakie manual fakie flip out).  I skated for awhile before chilling out and getting out the new camera.  I didn’t skate hard, but took it easy to not make the side worse.  I got nose stall to fakie and crook stall.  It was cool that Ollie and Cooper came along.  They were having fun.Sam, Bernie and Ollie.  My favorite photo of the day.  Ollie and Cooper had a lot of fun watching Bernie try his line.  F/s flip on flat, fakie manual fakie flip out.Brian had the funniest quote regarding Neil’s outfit.  “So what are you going to wear to church tomorrow now that you wore your church outfit today?”  So funny.Neil church clothes nose manny.Brian dark side wallride.As I said before.  I gotta lot of learning to do on this photography thing.  Cooper no tail ollie taken way to early.  But to my credit I’m not sure his tail got any higher then that.Before you complain about this photo being too early too let the truth be told.  He missed the grab.  Ha.More funny faced antics from my kid.  When is he gonna grow up and take everything seriously like me?I promise I’ll get better at taking photos.  That was day one and I seriously don’t understand Fstop, ISO, etc.  It’s totally new to me.

Finally got paid for the VX on Ebay so I rushed off to Mike’s Camera and immediately got the t2i.  Stoked.  Charged it up and this is the first photo:I really know NOTHING about photography.  F Stop?  ISO?  Depth of view?  I got a lot of learning to do, but I can say that at least I’m starting by putting it in manual mode and learning before I ever use auto.We are gonna sign a permission slip to let Ollie make a funny face for his school picture.Clearly he loves making faces right?Then off to the neighbor’s back yard for the first action shots.I got a lotta learning to do.