On a nice Novemenber day Brian, Travis and I started messing around in the street before others showed up.  Nothing great went down.  We were just chilling, but it was fun.After Fuzz, Jake and Neil showed up too we went to Southern Hills.  We ended up staying there a long time.  Fuzz and Neil were trying crooks on the picnic table bench then noseslides on the ledge then something.  Brian was bumming on the spot for awhile before doing one of the best wallrides I’ve ever seen followed up by a sick backside no comply 360.   Jake was doing fakie bigspins into the handicap ramp everytime and following it up with either a tailslide on the ledge, or a slam.  Carleigh and Nate showed up too.  I was kinda all over the place.  Somehow managed to quickly get a caligrind to manual on in two tries, kickflipped into the handicap ramp pretty easily and got a front noseslide to fakie on the ledge.  I also front 50’d it first try and got a few crooks.  I’m scared of those ledges.  I got a treflip on flat first try that felt really good.  Good enough it made me not feel bad taking so long to land it the other night.  Jake and I played a game of SKATE.  I got Jake with fakie bigflip, treflip, halfcab flip, front shove and maybe the best nollie treflip I’ve ever done to win it.  Then Carleigh and I raced for lines and she got hers first.  Kickflip into the handicap bank and a long noseslide on the ledge.  Sick Carleigh!  After that Fuzz and I raced for a tallcan over fakie treflips and I came out the winner of 24oz Coors Original.  yum.  Thanks Fuzz!  Perhaps the first time I’ve ever won a bet against Fuzz and maybe one of the best fakie tres I’ve ever done.  Fun.We left and went the four loading dock/banked manny pad spot.  I started off sucking.  It took at least 15 tries before I manual the curb high pad.  ugh!  fuzz was killing as usual, Neil was killing nose mannies as usual, Nate was getting tech, Carleigh got a manual.  Since I couldn’t manual the stupid curb high pad I decided to try a run.  Ollie up the tall part of the dock and ride down it, 360 flip on flat, then kickflip off the uphill pad.  Believe it or not I did it second try.  Unheard of.  If the camera would have been out I never would have landed that treflip.  Ha.  We all started dorking out at the end and I intentionally cracked my board while Fuzz accidentally cracked his then focused it.  Then the cops rolled up and had plenty of opportunity to bust us, but instead were super cool and we were out for the day.  Fun session.  Landing the treflip in the line second try made me feel really good.

Met Nate around sunset after work (which is like 5pm these days) at Meta.  We rolled down under the bridge after Nate quickly 50d the ledge like it’s nothing.  I don’t get doing downhill ledge tricks as warmups.  Oh well.  We ended up about 5 feet past the bridge and skated that area for awhile.  We ollied the small bench gap then Nate started trying to ride into backlips on the bench.   We both tried it awhile and got it.  Neither of us have done backlips on a ledge before so even though we didn’t ollie in, it still felt cool.  Then we ollied the big two that’s there (Nate first and mine was horrible) before doing a few slappy grinds on the slanted curb.  Fun.  We moved into campus and were surprised that most of it was dry.We cruised by a few other spots that either had cops or snow on them and ended up at the brick courtyard with benches.  I got a few basics quick while Nate bailed the gap into the street.  Normally he has that everytime.  I kinda got  a crooks and some front noseslides.  Nate ollied a pile of now in a couple tries and I kinda ollied it in several tries.  Next we ollied a weird 3 stair then moved up to the 1 – 7 curves stairs.  Nate ollied down the 4 easy and I took a few.  We also both manualled the downhill sidewalk and had some ollies up the smaller sections of the stairs.  Before moving on I did a gap down to back 5-0 a stair down.  I thought it was dumb, but Nate seemed to think it was cool.Next up we went to the Business building where Nate could not for the life of him do a side rock like Little Jack on the banked ledge.  I got it kinda quick, but Nate seriously almost died like 30 times.  He kept putting his board in the mud and everything.  So funny.  Maybe the first time ever that I’ve seen Nate have to struggle on a trick that I thought was easy.  Nate rips though and after having enough he ollied and 180’d up the long 2 like it was nothing.  I got an ollie up it.  We tried some manuals at the two long downhill pads for a bit.  Not that great then went up to the engineering building and found that somewhat had waxed up the ledge near the banked area.  Impossible to describe but it was relatively easy for Nate and I to do wallie back 50s on.  So fun.  That was basically the night.

Headed out in the cold solo style around 9pm after dinner and hanging out with the inlaws and family. Pretty fun, I even got a little nap. I was pretty sore, but rusty for sure. I had these visions of finding a fun line ollie’ing over piles of snow when I drove to find some area that was dry enough to skate. I ended up over near Circuit City area. I had a few cruises around looking for a line to try and I wasn’t even cold. I settled on a line where I back 180’d a manhole, did a switch front 180, wallied from a parking block to the sidewalk, rode off the sidewalk, pushed and tried to do a quick up to gap over a long pile of snow. I got this over a smaller section of the snow then went back and tried to start with a kickflip over the manhole. Both the kickflip and back 180 took too long.THE SLAM. Anyways, so I got to the point where I was to ollie the long gap, but at the last moment decided to turn so I also ollied up over a small section of snow and then ollied the snow gap. Not good. I did my patented shitty ollie and landed in kind of a manual dragging my back toes. Since I as actually moving more than 2mph for once I was hurdled toward the pile of snow I was trying to clear. I stuck out my hand to discover a hidden parking block under the snow that damn near broke my wrist. In trying to save my wrist I had to stop putting any weight on my left hand and my left shoulder and face took it to the concerete. I got up quick covered in snow in disbelief of what just happened. I debated just leaving my board behind and quitting skateboarding forever. Seriously, I’m 36 and I still can’t ollie. Unfortunately I like skateboarding too much and I got up and tried again. The kickflip over the manhole felt better than normal, the rest of the line worked out and I ollied the stupid pile of snow. The best part was landing in the debris from the slam which caused me to slide a bit in the ice that had formed.I skated a bit more and jumped over some other snow piles before moving on to a really well lit area in front of Office Depot to lay down some flip tricks. It started off good as I had 6 tricks down in 7 tries (shoves both way, kickflip, fakie flip, varial flip ,fakie varial flip), but then it went downhill. 360 flips took forever, heelflips took forever and I slowed down more with each bailed attempt. I landed most of my basics and called it a night. The DC’s I have are lasting forever. At times I feel the difference in cupsoles not having as good as board feel, but for the most part I am digging how my legs/feet don’t hurt as much.

Gangsta

The Onion still rules

One of skateboarding’s finest!

Awesome!

I missed out on a SOL ramp session due to snowboarding/sledding with the kids (which was a total blast), but luckily Nate and Jason wanted to skate so we hit up Rampy.  Nate and I started slow, but when Jason showed up it seemed to go off.  Nate and I were landing new tricks and Jason was grinding so far his nose would hit the walls.  So sick.  I got a couple fakie boardslides.  They weren’t good, but they were a start.  I tried some with a backside revert, but never got close.  I also got some lame, but new for me willy stalls to fakie.  I wanted to learn the rock to willy to fakie thing, but just can’t comprehend it.  Jason had some legit back tail slides that blew us away.  Nate learned hurricanes.  At the end I did several fakie nosepick things.  I don’t no, it’s like a halfcab rock, but just put the front truck on.  I’ve done it before, but not intentionally.  I also got my first fakie pivot fakie in awhile.  Fun times.  So hyped on having Rampy this time of year.

Was busy running errands and watching Ollie while others got together and skated red curbs on a snowy afternoon.  I met up with Carleigh, Jason, Neil, Reed, Josh Steele and others and they were all warmed up.  Josh brought a bench and was killing it.  Noseblunts on it?  Yeap.  kickflip crooks?  Yeap.   He destroys.  Neil seemed pretty mellow and already done when I got there, Jason was skating the new bench really well, Carleigh seemed bummed, Reed looked rusty, but still killed it.  I started off slow and kinda just stayed that way.  It was pretty cold and it showed.  Reed and I tried doing mannies to rock no comply bonk.  He got it first and that ended that.  I tried some crooks on the bench, but never really got one.  I was trying to skate a bit faster and I’m sure it didn’t show.  I was doing fakie ollies then halfcab flips or faster then normal back 180s.  Felt good.  It’s hard to flip the board when the bushing are frozen.  We ended up getting kicked out right after I got a crappy front board to fakie on the bench thing and failed to get a 360 flip.