Thinking my groin would let me skate I got all my stuff done in the morning and waited for people to show up.  2 hours and 20 phone calls later we left a very nice and sunny Boulder.  Brian, Nate, Fuzz, Jam and I met up with Jason and Carleigh in Longmont and we drove to Ft Collins since I needed to sell some Null good at MRKT.  Fuzz piled in with Jason too and got to experience the 90 degree heat of Jason’s car going well under the speed limit.  Ha it’s gonna be awhile before people are willing to pile into Jason’s car again.  Anyways, our ride up was smooth and after a short stop at Ernie Novembers in Cheyenne we arrived to a windy, cloudy and cold skatepark.The session was a weird one.  Fuzz focused his band new board immediately due to frustration with the wind/cold/park.  My groin was hurting and preventing me from doing more than pose out.  Nate was ripping.  Carleigh was slamming trying front 50s down a little hubba.  Jason was skating the little mini q-pipe.  Brian was cruising around warming up and landing tricks that make everyone smile.  There was a bunch of Ft Collins and Cheyenne heads there too.Nate did a really sick back board up the lower rail.  Carleigh got her front 50.  Brian did a bunch of tricks on the banked ledge.  Matt was killing the banked ledge too.  Jason did some front boards.  I had some fun finally carving around the mellower bowl with Nate.  We both found some good lines, but couldn’t link them with any above the coping tricks.  Oh well.  At the end Brian did a skier front rock on the bank that was so ridiculous and Matt almost got blunt kickflip out.

We left and went to a bank spot that turned into a weird wallride on an inverted picnic table spot.  Brian got a good front wallride.  Fuzz used my board and in between squirming out with my loose trucks managed a good fakie wallride and almost a wallride body varial.  Matt did some really easy looking wallride basics before giving up on a wallride shove out.  This other dude Eric tried wallride nollies out and eventually tail dropped from the table.  Sick.Me dropping in. Photo by Carleigh.Next we went to the Pier 1 spot.  After a quick Mikes Margeritta my groin loosened up and I was able to skate without much pain.  I dropped in a couple placed and tried to manual the top part.  Jason and Nate got some really good frontside ollies.  Eric ate shit so hard trying to frontside carve over the bike tunnel.  It was a brutal slam up there with some of the gnarlier slams I’ve ever seen. Ouch.  Eventually I also got a couple weak b/s kickflips on the bank and did some powerslides for no real reason other than they are fun.  We left and eventually ate dinner in Ft Collins and had a blast drinking some beers together.  Many laughs were had and we didn’t get back home until 2am.  Awesome.

When I saw the title for this I thought it was gonna be about me.  Whew.

Was at the Mob Factory in Evergreen with John slinging some product and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to skate their miniramp.  I took it real ease and conservative.  That ramp has some kinds and is really different than Rampy so I had some issues.  I managed a few back 50 reverts and fakie smiths to fakie before almost popping my groin again.  I somehow manuevered out of it and it’s ok.  It wanted to pop and be painful again though.  Ugh.John was ripping though.  Back smiths, backside ollies, fakie front shoves, front tails, blunt to pivot, frontside slasher 270, much more and closed it off with a couple backside blunts on the pool coping part.  Radical.

I went to the Spring Fling Boulder park contest last weekend. I didn’t really feel too compelled to write about it since I was unable to skate. But Brian made fun of me for only writing about myself so I decided post this image of myself I found and the the best trick video that Sam put together.I ended up judging the advanced and best trick contests.  In the ‘advanced’ contest I was judging based on ‘Fun’.  So people like Francis get rated pretty high for beaming the judges while attempting tricks or missing treflips in the flat.  And on the flipside people get docked when their dad yells at them which tricks they should do.  Fun day.

My groin felt really wrong after that last ‘session’ pushing with Ollie to/from Abo’s so I decided to try and sit it out again and let it heal longer.  So far it feels about the same.  Ugh.  Not sure how much longer I can last not skating.

My groin injury was preventing me from skating so what better time to go to some concerts and enjoy a few cold ones?  The first show was High On Fire on 4/20.  Yeap.  On the hill in Boulder on 4/20.  Zach thought the metal music would keep the hippies away.  Nope.We may have missed the opening band, but the band that was on was bad enough we went to drink tall cans in the alley. Dave, Zach, Jason and PJ.Everyone went to this show.  Jason and Gordon.  I didn’t listen to much of Priestess.  What I heard reminded me of why I didn’t make an effort to hear them.High On Fire.  I’m not going to claim I was much of a fan before this show.  I thought after how much I enjoyed Tauntaun it would be worth it to see another metal band.  To say I was let down is an understatement.  I tried to enjoy them and I think during the encore I finally saw what people like about this band, but it wasn’t what I like in metal.  Not enough chords.  Not enough sludge/grunge.  A boring ass drummer.  Seriously, how can you have a boring drummer in a metal band?  Not enough big powerful riffs, etc.  Oh well, my friends that like them said the show was good so there you go.The next night Liz and I went back to the Fox to see White Rabbits.  We arrived early enough to see the opening act Here We Go Magic.  They were decent.  At times great.  They have the potential to be a really good indie rock band, but it’s not there yet.  Good opener though.White Rabbits came on and established immediately that they were gonna put on a fantastic show.  It’s funny how the drumming in a pop/indie rock band like White Rabbits could blow away the drumming from metal heads High On Fire.  It completely did though.  At times there would be 3 Rabbits beating the hell out of the drums.  It was amazing.  I’ve only mentioned the drums, but everything was on point.  The singing was perfection as well.During the encore most of Here We go Magic joined the Rabbits on stage.  Everyone was having a blast and the music was still kicking.  Yes, that is Beaver from Leave It To Beaver on the guitar.Look at all the dudes beating up the drums!  Show of the year so far!  Not only was the show so great, but it quickly established White Rabbits as a new favorite and a band I will never pass on seeing live again.A few nights later Liz, Carleigh, John and I went to see my friend Zach’s first ever show with his new band Straighten The Crooked.  I had heard some mp3s beforehand so I knew the show would be decent, but it ended up surpassing all expectations quickly.  The music is kinda like Kyuss or something.  Grungy metal or whatever you call it.  I was impressed with the bass and how it didn’t just play along with the guitar.  The whole show was more creative and impressive then I thought it would be and I went in with somewhat high expectation.  And yes I thought they were way better than High On Fire.   Kudos Zach!Liz and Carleigh thinking about the two hot dudes moshing by themselves and running into Zach’s parents.  Or maybe they were thinking about throwing their drinks at the barricade in front of the drums.Proof that Liz actually thought I was funny that night.  Unheard of.

Ollies Birthday!  He’s 8.  Wow!  For his birthday he wanted pizza at Abo’s and to play a few video games.  On top of that he wanted to skate there.  Awesome.  We started off to the bikepath and I felt a weird pain in my groin.  Oh no.  It ended up not coming up again and we had fun.  Ollie stopped and hit a couple little things on the way.  We hit a bump near Abo’s and I got a kickflip and Ollie did, well, an ollie.  Ollie ollie.  After dinner we went the same way, but it’s mostly downhill.  Ollie almost did a wallride to fakie on the banked wall at 1st Bank.  It’s crazy because it’s steep and you have to wallie in.  The ride home was fun.  Ollie was having a blast and doing 10 – 15′ manuals like nothing at speed.  So sick!  I fakie ollied a bunch of cracks.  Not a long session, but I needed a bread from a long night anyway.  Happy birthday Ollie!

After a long day at work, dinner and a nap I picked up Jake and Nate and we cruised to Longmont to meet John.  He was at the checkerboard manny pad so we me him there.  John was doing nose manny 180s into the bank when we arrived.  Nate quickly manny and nose mannied it as well as manual front 180 out to straight leg landing.  Ha.  Jake went to work on some lines.  Front 180 up, frontside halfcab off.  Front 180 up, sw front 180 off.  Ollie up, nollie off. John tried nose manny slappy tail back to nose manny and got kinda close.  I never got a clean manny or nose manny.  The only thing I did I was hyped on was getting close to a front bluntslide on the parking block.  We left after some dude at a nearby apartment went on a rampage swearing at us asking us if we could read the no skateboarding signs.  Oh well.We went to the park which was more crowded than I thought it would be considering it was pretty chilly.  The four of us started off with a game of SKATE.  I haven’t skated flatground in awhile, but luckily it didn’t show as bad as I would have thought.  The elders (John and I) made quick work of the young ones (Ha).  The tricks were decent.  3 flip, fakie flip, heelflip, sw flip, b/s flip, halfcab flip, fakie bigflip and more.  John beat me in the end with the b/s flip.For awhile everyone was kinda doing their own thing.  I wasn’t skating well, but was at least skating harder than I’ve been able to lately.  I noseslid the bank to tall ledge, b/s flip on the flat bank, kickflip fakie on the bank.  After awhile a ledge session ensued.  John has such a cool bag of old guy meets young guy tricks.  Slappy sw noseslides shoves out.  Stuff like that which is awesome.  Jake did a bunch of back 50s and put down some crooks and front 5-0 front 180 out.  I got some slasher grinds (smith attempts not dipped enough), back 50s, back 5-0, halfcab noseslide, crooks and a lot of tries on front 5-0 shove out.  Nate was trying to back lip the whole darn ledge.  So sick.  he almost got it.Next up a hip ollie session went down.  John won that one.  Nate came in second and I clearly took last.  I love how I’ve been skating 20 years or something and can’t ollie over a hip and get more than a foot of air.  Oh well.  At the end of the session Nate and John ollied up and down the step up, I ollied the step up and I did 3/4 360flips before the light shut off.  I landed the last one as the lights shut off.  Felt cool and a fun way to end a fun session.

After a late night and long morning celebrating 12 years of marriage to the greatest woman ever I met up with Brian, Neil, Fuzz and eventually Jake downtown.  We started near Canyon center and kinda cruised around everyone having troubles warming up and doing some pretty funny ollies and whatnot.  After awhile Brian and I eyed up a frontside wallride and Brian put it down second try.  So sick.  I kept trying them and Brian and I were goofing off in between talking about how we should call the next old man video “Off The Couch 2 With a Vengeance” or something.  I was totally dorking out lining up all fast then dragging my foot to a halt and doing a stationary kickflip then trying the frontside wallride.  I never got the wallride, but came really close and for the first time ever put two feet down and feel like I could land it there sometime.  It helped being able to grab the top of the wall.  Ha.Then we went into the Canyon Center area where Brian and Fuzz did some insanely sick wallies before Jake joined us and we skated the shorter banks trying tricks.  I had gone back to sucking, but Fuzz and Brian put down some cool tricks.  Fuzz had switch pivot fakie.  Brian did feeble lunchbreak to fakie.  Then we rolled down the alley just kinda skating whatever.  We hit a little manny pad for a minute.  Fuzz put down front 180 nose man and did it switch too.  Jake tried manny front 180 out.  I sucked.  Brian almost nose mannied it.  We ended up at Wells Fargo.  Jake almost got a back shove out of the little qpipe.  I sucked.  Neil sat.  Brian did a blunt to fakie.  Fuzz tail dropped from afar into the qpipe.  A cop came and we left.  On the way out I tried a few half assed attempts at nosesliding the brick ledge out of the top part of the Canyon Center.  Felt good to try it even though I didn’t get close.

Went to Southern Hills with Ollie and 5 of his buddies.  Most of which were cool, but there was a loud one in the group that was kinda driving me nuts.  Oh well.  Ollie was having fun and so were his friends.  Lots of ollies down the two stair and off the benches, manuals down the handicap ramp and some funny, intentional falls.  I was completely sucking.  Sucking sucking sucking.  The only things I felt decent about were my noseslides.  Everything else sucked.  Ollies, kickflips, basically anything requiring coordination.  It was so embarrassing.  I could barely olllie up the two stair and it took me like 8 tries to ollie down it (from the crack).  Ugh.  I’m glad Ollie had fun at his party, but man I sucked and it was depressing.