Almost 60 on a Saturday!  Awesome.  Brian and Neil arrived at my house first.  Then Nate, Jason, Bernie, Jake.  We picked up Jack and Fuzz on the way and met at a brick bank spot that was a fun warm up spot and fun spot in general.  Jeff met us there too.  My car arrived first though so Neil, Jack, Bernie, Nate and I had the spot to ourselves for about 20 minutes.  Neil was ollieing a bunch, Nate was doing front board slides, Bernie did some manuals (ha ha), Jack had some cool hurricanes and stuff.  I started off pretty crappy.  I was having troubles ollieing into the bank from this crack.  Ugh.   I got a couple 5-0s to fakie with my standard lame late revert.  Things felt better for me when I landed a front board 180 in out of nowhere.  The other car of TFers showed up slightly before Jeff.  Fuzz killed some huge ollies and grabs and a bigflip.  Brian grinded the most bricks.  Jake can’t do 5-0s to fakie unless the spot is gnarlier.  Jason was ripping.  Jeff skated some of the best I’ve seen him skate though.  He was ripping so hard just circling around the bank doing various flippers and grinds like they were nothing.  Toward the end of the session Brian and I were racing to a kickflip on the bank.  After Jeff called out $1 to who gets it first Brian had the option to go first, but decided to talk himself up instead.  So I went and did the kickflip poorly.  Fun spot.Next we skated a crack ridden ledge spot with a 3 stair.  Jake and I bet a beer over ollies up the 3 stair and I miraculously did it first try.  We double or nothing’d for front 180s up and tied.  Cool.  Everyone was kinda looking around at the spot first and it seemed like people weren’t into it.  But we stuck around, waxed some spots of the ledge and the session ended up being fun.  Jack was doing some rad ollies out to a ledge and Fuzz was on it too. Brian was on the phone.  Nate tried a bunch of boardslide popouts to fakie.  Jason did some fast noseslides and some back 50s on the normal ledge and got close to boardslide 270 out on the up ledge.  Jack cracked his board trying to switch heel the 3, then hurt his ankle trying to switch var heel it. Neil had hurt his ankle at the first spot so was chilling.  Fuzz back 50’d the whole up ledge.  Bernie tried a line of front 5-0 the normal ledge, front tail bigspin out on the up ledge.  He got close.  His front 5-0s were so good.  Jeff almost crooks up the whole ledge.  I was sucking.  I got a bad noseslide followed by a 2mph no comply 270 back tail and tried some kick back 50s.  Never got too close.  We left for another spot and on the way to the car I landed one of the better treflips I’ve ever landed.  Rad.Next spot was a 3 up 3 down.  We were all pretty sore by then so the warming up was tough.  Took me a few tries to ollie up the 3, but when I did I got a front 180 down first try.  Yippee.  I also worked up to ollie up kickflip down and got it.  The kickflip was super slow and my hands went down, but that’s the first set of stairs I’ve kickflipped in forever.  The last time I think I kickflipped a 3 was back when Monico got on Null.  It was fun though, I’d like to do get back to where it doesn’t take me 20 tries to commit to it and I can actually go fast off the stairs.  Fuzz was ripping.  Manual.  Front 180 up, fakie flip, fakie ollie down.  Jeff came close to ollie up, 3 flip, back 3 down.  So ridiculous.  He was ollieng up the 3 so easily.  Bernie  nose mannied it and came close to manual 360 flip out.  Jason got ollie up back 180 down.  Jake got ollie up and front 180 down.  Right before leaving I did a few flippers on a sidewalk and ollied a little ledge.  Gotta practice them ollies kids!

wow.

Got off of work and everyone was dealing with female issues.  Made me feel lucky.  Liz you are the greatest.  I went to Google to pick up Nate, but he was hating life on the phone, then back to pick up John on his 35th B-day, then back to Google where Nate was still on the phone.  John and I skate the bank into the parking garage and it was pretty fun.  John got the ol’ 270 no comply back tail into the bank, fakie ollie, front tail on the upper right one (sick) and some other silly tricks.  I started trying halfcab flips and they felt weird.  Stuck with it and eventually got a bad one in.  I followed it up with a fun powerslide, kickflip, no comply and fakie flip in the garage though.  I also got a back pop shove into it second try.  Fun.  Brian showed up and joined the kickflip in race John and I had going.  I landed one, but it was horrible.  John landed a good one.  Brian didn’t get it, but topped it 100 fold with a perfect first try backside no comply 360.  So sick.  Nate’s second line manager was lurking so we headed to Wahoos to eat.  Seeing as how we skated over there we thought it would be appropriate to push mongo there.  Awesome.  After a margarita and food we ended up back at google and skated for a bit longer.  Not being sober allowed me to manual down the bank.  We had some tic tac races up the parking garage.  Brian and his big wheels won.  I slid out once with Nate in hot pursuit and he almost leveled me.  So funny.Next up was an impromptu beer infused totally silly and awesome Rampy session.  Lazer met up with us too.  I think most everyone did their tricks.  Lots of laughter and slams went down.  I don’t know if anyone landed anything new.  Brian, Nate and I laughed too hard trying to slurp our beers the loudest.  At the end Brian lobbed a beer can from the flat up onto the top shelf for the closer.  Epic!

Went over to pick Nate and we watched a new video called Rich Mahogany.  The first parts were awesome and we should have just watched a few and leave.  But we ended up watching the whole video and I think it kinda drained us cause I was really tired.  We started off at the white ledge parking garage, but didn’t skate the ledge.  We did quick ups to front board transfers up the sidewalk on the other side of the ledge.  I was having troubles landing ollies up the curb.  Ugh.  We both got it eventually.  Nate popped out forward, I popped out to fakie the easy way.  I also ollied the curb down into the sidewalk which was surprisingly scary.  Especially considering how badly I was skating.  We ended up getting the boot and rolled to the new planter ledge in front of some new art studio.  We got some boardslide popouts pretty quick.  Nate did them frontside too and they were really sick.  We started trying lines with tricks up the curb then boardslide variations.  I was still feeling pretty weird on a skateboard and it showed.  I could barely kickflip up the curb.  Nate was trying pop shove up and totally slammed right in front of a car.  It looked painful and hilarious at the same time.  The people in the car slowed down to see if he was ok, but then saw me laughing and even Nate laughing so they moved on with confused faces.  I should also mention it was pretty cold out.  Lower 20s for sure.  So we took a break to heal up Nate then headed over near the St Julien for the wood benches.  I continued to suck and was getting really mad.  Ugh.  We went over to a yellow curb to play a game of SKATE, but the concrete was bad so we just played curb SKATE which ended up being way fun anyways.  We had lots of the same kinda tricks you normally do in that, but at the end it was tied up at SKAT and we were trying harder tricks.  I tried kick front 50 and Nate was trying front smith shove out.  I kinda got mine although it was more of a front feeble slop.  After that I got a few slow kick back 5-0s and tried a front shove of the curb and SNAP went the board.  Doh!  We left downtown and stopped at Ideal Market on the way back since there is some super fun looking pyramid launchers now.  They were indeed a blast and we skated there for about 20 minutes.  I had to skate with my board backwards for the most part.  Wallies from the pyramid into the downhill of the driveway were a blast.  That place has endless potential, but the busy street kinda messes with it.  Right before leaving Nate made me try a back hurricane on a mini parking block and I got a couple.  Rad!  Overall I skated pretty bad, but at least there were some highlights.

Thank Sam at Meta for posting this clip.  Balls!

India was required to go to the Stock Show this year for her 4H Llama club.  Liz and I brought her with her Friends Leanne (left) and Ray (middle) and it was a hoot!Liz and I checked out the stockshow while the girls did their chores.  First stop, the Cowboy Bar.  But first, gotta sanitize those hands!  Ha, didn’t seem very Cowboyish to me.Liz was in love with the cowboy in the background.Oh just having a beer with the cows, nothing special.Don’t remember the last time I stood on peanut shells AND a manhole at a bar.This was next to the ducks/chickens/roosters/crazy birds and they meant it.Liz was mesmerized by this pig’s tail.

One of my all time favorite bands.  I never got to see them live though.  A blizzard prevented me from going to a show in Minneapolis where they played with Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr.  If I could go back in time that would be the first thing I’d go see.  That show must have been beyond epic.  Dinosaur Jr was headlining.So hyped on these!  I miss Treepeople!

After a pit stop at 303 Mikey, Nate and I started out above the RTD station on the east side of the 16th St mall. Mikey and I talked some business while Nate started killing right away. We got the boot and went across the street and saw this weird ledge that Jeff or Brian Bourquin manualled a long time ago. It had a taller drop then the video showed, but I eventually was able to just ride off the end. It was scary because it’s really narrow against a wall with a drop at the end larger then Valmont. Guess it’s been awhile since I’ve jumped off anything. Next up we went to a downhill ledge where Mikey tried nollie noseslides and Nate and I tried to get all Busenitz. Nate got some good back 50s then we started trying weird ollie combos up the curb, between poles, powerslides, boardslides on the ledge, etc. We never got a line, but it was super fun. I was getting some pretty long powerslides for me, but was hardly able to ollie up the curb due to feeling old and frail. Next we hit this stairway that had 6 sets of 2 stairs in a row. All pretty close to each other. Mikey was able to ollie up all sets. Sick! Ollieing down each set was pretty fun. Nate got up a few, but never all 6, I got up 2 sets and that was hard enough for me. They were so close. Before Mikey had to leave we bombed a hill which was insanely fun. It’s the same hill Nate and I have done several times, but this time it was even more fun and we all got some ollies off the little drops in granite. So fun. As we were heading to the car I did a no comply 270 back tail for Mikey and out of nowhere Jeff appears parked in his truck. Sick!After Mikey left we met up with Chris, Earl, Daryl and Thomas at the history museum.  Everyone was skating and having fun.  Nate manualled and nose manualed the bank.  Chris, Daryl and Earl boosted some ollies off the kicker.  Thomas and I did some side rock things.  I tried a trick I think Little Jack did there.  Side rock kickflip out.  Never got too close.  We got the boot and rolled over to this wallie thing by the library that was crazy.  Basically it was an elevated heating vent that banked up at the ends.  Basically the height of a loading dock with a perfect wallie out.  Chris Jones killed it.  No comply wallie, wallie one foot, some more rad tricks.  Daryl had some rad wallies too.  I took a few tries, but finally put a regular wallie down.  Such a fun trick.  Ridiculously fun.  I think I get too much sympathy for bad old man skateboarding as the kids seemed hyped on it.  As we left I ollied a little ledge and landed horribly, but it was funny and a great way to end the night.  I thought it was a ledge on both sides, but the side I landed on was only a curb high drop.  Ha.  Fun night.  Street skating is the funnest.

So awesome.