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.

Almost took a day off of skating for the first time this year.  But of course I’m not that smart.  Decided it would be ok to do a short Rampy session and Nate was on it.  Nate skated pretty well, he’s getting his new trick front 5-0 fakie down pretty consistent.  We both did the majority of our standard tricks.  I tried a few boardslides.  Kinda got a few.  Pulling out forward seemed more fun.  At the end of the session Nate and I raced to new tricks.  He was trying front tail back revert.  I was trying fakie front 50 to rock ‘n roll.  We got them back to back.  That’s how we roll.  I think my trick is patented by Joe Hamilton so I better give recognition where it’s due.

Awesome.

Pretty hyped on this clip.

Pushing 50 for the first time in awhile I met Neil out at one of the few dry spots we could find (The blue flatbar that Tyler does the smith kickflip out of here).  Before skating it we shoveled out another spot so it would dry while we skated the blue bar.  Smart eh?I was pretty cranky and tired for some reason.  I didn’t have much drive to skate, but I did.  Neil was on his game pretty quick.  He hopped over a tall box and lipslide the bar quick like.  I couldn’t front board it to save my life.  I did actually try some front smiths on it though.  Didn’t land it, but I don’t think I’ve ever comitted to trying one on a flatbar before.  After a bit I started trying a run where I ollied a box, 3 flip on flat, then front 5-0 or front smith.  After a few tries I got the 5-0 version, but it was only the last few inches.  Oh well, I’m terrified of flat bars.  Lazer and Brian came and Lazer did all the tricks we thought would be rad within minutes.  I added a nollie front lip at the end which felt really fun even though it was only the last foot of the bar.Next we went to the bank to ledge that Neil and I shoveled out.  Damn thing is tall!  After all the work we put into it we couldn’t really skate it.  It was too tall.  I felt as if I was finally getting the timing down to front 50 it when Skelly called lost somewhere in the tech center.  10 minutes on the phone and still no Skelly I left to meet him, but not before being a jerk and speeding off.  We all met at Rock Creek for a pretty fun session.  Brian skated really good.  Lazer skated really good.  Carleigh and Sean skated really good too.  I didn’t.  It bums me out many tricks I can only do on Rampy.  Ugh.Next we did Red Curbs.  I was beat, but Skelly and Jason drove all the way from Ft Collins so you can’t bail out early.  Ended up being a pretty fun session.  I didn’t skate very good, but dorked around and did a slappy front 50 to manual to tail.  Rad.  Before leaving it took about 20 tries to nose manny the manny pad.  Argh.  Not sure why I was so tired, but it happens right.

Saturday morning.  Normally this means play with the kids for a bit and then skate all day.  But today was the Nation Western Stock Show with India and a couple of the other girls in her 4H club.  So I went out and hit Rampy for 15 minutes before we left and while the coffee jitters were still in effect.  Warmup tricks went down pretty quick and I did a few flatground kickflips and frontside flips.  For some reason I started posing what I think are called sugarcanes.  Fronside ollie past disaster into a fakie back smith.  I didn’t get close, but it felt possible someday.  Then I settled on trying front tails and almost died on a set up pivot and had to get going.  Hoot!

I had the day off work and spent it getting a lot of things done and went on a hike with Liz in the snow.  Fun.  Then when Ollie got off school I took him to the sledding hill to go snowboarding.  We hiked the hill 10 – 15 times and hit some tiny little jumps and it was super fun.  My favorite tricks were a run with a stalefish and then a back 180 melon.  Oh wait, this is a skate journal.  Ha.  So after waking up early, doing chores, hiking, hiking and snowboarding instead of taking a nap I hit Circuit City with Nate and Jason for about an hour.  It became apparent pretty quickly that I was exhausted and starving.  Being the dumbass that I am I still skated.  I came really close to getting the fakie flip, fakie nosegrind, fakie treflip run.  Had a lot of problems with halfcab flips.  Landed a 2mph treflip.  Nate was skating ok, but it turned out he was as hungry as me and he had to quit early too.  Jason showed up and talked on the phone for a long time.  Right when Nate and I decided we were over it he started skating.  Ha.  I watched him rattle off everyone of his tricks in about 5 minutes.  Rad.  Front 50, front 5-0, front smith, front nose, back nose, halfcab back nose, back 50, back crooks, back 5-0 and close to back tail.  Rad Jason.