After a frustrating night at the homestead and missing out on a Rock Creek old man sessoin I went to campus around 9pm.  I got out of the car, put the mp3 player on the new Thermals and pushed as fast as I could for about 5 minutes and ended up at the bottom of campus in no time.  So bloody fun.  I’m not sure why I’ve been angry lately but Liz had called me out on it earlier.  I think it’s just so frustrating never getting to skate when it’s light out and missing out on so many sessions with friends.  Anyways, all my frustrations were gone quickly after pushing fast enough to get speed wobbles.  The first place I ‘sessioned’ is the newer parking lot southwest of the basketball stadium.  I found a quick up to flat gap that I posed at for quite some time.  It was super fun just ollieing up the curb as fast  as I was.  I never really landed the gap.  It was about a 5 foot flat gap with a curb at the end.  One time I ollied to axle stall on the curb and pulled out of it somehow.  I committed to the whole thing once,  hung up on the curb and somehow just walked out of it.  Rad.  I was also hitting this little manny pad and just doing fast manuals and landing a few flip tricks nice and slow or posing ollies over a bush.  Then I hit this lame long two stair thing for awhile until I ollied up it and down it.  Then I cruised around for awhile again just trying to push fast and ollied a manhole, landed in manny and went like 20 feet to the street.  Nothing special, but it felt really cool because it was just some impromptu trick I didn’t even see coming before it happened.  I ended up at some new loading dock at that is the height of a six stair (you can walk up the six) and I took my sweet time landing a 2″ ollie off it.  I haven’t ollied off anything that tall in awihle and the first few attempts freaked me out.Before leaving I wanted to do some flipper and ended up at this small little area that is lit really well and has super smooth concrete.  I stated doing 2 or 3 of each trick just going down the list until I was happy with how they felt.  Shove its, kickflip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, varial flip and then snapped my board on a second heelflip attempt.  Doh.  Deck was super old though.  Fun night.  Needed to skate.

This part is awesome.  Now I just want to go skate the city and push fast.  If only I didn’t have to work for 4 more hours.

Brought some boards up to MRKT after work and Jake rode along.  We rolled into Northside as it was getting dark rolled around for awhile.  jake ripped the tranny.  I ripped nothing.  Really, I don’t think I did anything other then roll over stuff.Before leaving we played a game of SKATE in the poorly lit parking lot.  I won it, but it wasn’t a very good game.  Jake landed on almost every trick, but didn’t ride out of them.  Doh!

The Mighty LZA and I have been married 11 years now.  What better way to celebrate our anniversary then to go out for dinner in Denver then go see the Thermals?  Seriously, the Thermals!  One of our favorite bands and one of the funnest bands to see live.  I accidently called Kathy ‘Karen’ and felt like a total idiot.  Luckily she’s super nice and didn’t beat me up.  There’s a great story behind this photo, but I can’t tell it yet.Chad and Chris’s art school buddies Earl and Kit were there.  Kit got kicked out for smoking at the start of the Thermals set.  Ha ha don’t you know smoking sucks!  Luckily he pulled off being a roadie for the middle band and got back in.Greg Harbour’s twin was there.  I’m talking Greg from a few years ago before he started dieing his hair.You don’t see shades on the back of a head in hipster bingo.The first band was Point Juncture, WA.  They were pretty good.  A bit too mellow at times for me, but the rockin’ stuff was really good.  The next band was Shaky Hands.  They were from Portland too.  They were boring and unoriginal.The Thermals finally played to a very enthusiastic crowd.  People were going nuts and everyone was smiling and having a blast.  It was seriously some of the most hyped on a band I’ve seen a crowd in a long time.  The setlist was a mixture of new and old, heavy on the new.  I wanted to hear the new stuff so this was perfect.They opened with ‘Returning To The Fold’ then went into ‘I Let It Go’.  After that I’m not so sure, but here’s a list of what I think I remember which is NOT in order.Returning To The FoldI Let It GoIt’s TriviaNo Culture IconsA Passing Feeling Back To GreyHow We KnowSappy (Nirvana cover)Here’s Your FuturePillar Of SaltTest PatternSt Rosa & The SwallowsWe Were SickNow We Can SeeI Called Out Your NameWhen I Was AfraidHow We FadeYou Dissolve Encore was:I Hold The SoundEverything Thermals I might be missing one or two or messed it up.  Either way that’s close enough.  All of the new stuff sounded super good.  The crowd completely freaked out to Here’s Your Future.   The ground up front at the Marquis shakes when people get jumping and at times it felt like I was on a trampoline.  Awesome.  I completely loved every song, but my stand out favorites were “How We Fade”, “When I Was Afraid”, “I Called Out Your Name”, “Test Pattern” (never heard it played before), “St Rosa & The Swallows”, “Here’s Your Future”, “Pillar of Salt” (yes pretty much the whole set) and of course “Sappy” was an awesome surprise.  I think they played “I Let It Go” too early in the set because it’s probably my favorite song on the new album and the sound wasn’t dialed in yet.  Oh well though, excellent excellent show.  I like that they don’t have the extra guitarist anymore and I think Hutch gave his best delivery I’ve seen.  Kathy was on point once again driving the bass the way she does.  They are so fun live!  Everything Thermals!

Missed the old man Louisville session due to playing basketball and skating a bit with Ollie.  It’s cool though because doing either of those things with Ollie is pretty much complete awesomeness.  I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be his hero, but for now it rules.  Jason picked me up around 8:30 and we met Nate downtown at a parking block spot which we pretty much ended staying at the whole time.  Everyone did pretty much the same stuff.  Jason was the only one to land boardslide to manny to the street though.  Nate got bluntslide to fakie.  I surpisingly landed a few bluntslides.  They felt like luck though.  I came close to getting manny to boardslide pop oever.  The fun stuff I landed was boardslide pop over to fakie, wallie manual, ollie up the curb then wallie the parking block and kickflipped up a curb into a curb cut.  Then we went to Wells Fargo bank for 5 minutes, but Nate had to go play soccer and Jason was just sitting.  Before leaving I took a few runs through the brick area and ollied the little 3 stair.  Pushing down bricks is fun.

Jack came over around 8:30 and proceeded to roll his ankle on his 3rd or 4rth run while stepping on the edge of the ramp.  Luckily he kept at it and slammed on his hip within a few more minutes.  Easily the worst slam Rampy has seen.  He slammed on a back 5-0 to fakie, but managed to land one a few tries later.  We had a good session other than Jack falling a ton.  Although sometimes I wish I slammed more because I just bail everything.  Ask Brian.  My new trick of the night was frontside pivots.  Yes, that’s a new trick for me.  Pathetic huh?  I guess the trick is to kind of ollie into it.  Fun.

Sick part that makes me want to go skate.  Too bad he spells his name all weird with two ‘n’s.

Aaron Betcher’s band O’er The Ramparts played the first Null premiere back in July of 2004.  Man that seems like forever ago.  Anyways, he’s in another band called Magic Mice and Brian, Jason and I went to check out a show of theirs in Boulder.Should have known Rick would be there, but I didn’t expect those shoes!  The first band was a couple ladies singing with a glass of wine and an acoustic guitar.  It wasn’t bad, not my cup of tea though.  Brian was the only one texting more than me.  Magic Mice came on shortly and played a pretty rockin’ set.  Brian told me the Westword mentioned Dinosaur Jr as one of their influences or something.  That can never be a bad thing and there was definitely some sick guitar solos and distortion.  For the most part though they reminded me of good garage rock and I really enjoyed it.  Check out their myspace page HERE.An old man laughing at at old man!  Ha.  The guy in the background was having a ball and dancing it up.  You can’t really see from the photo, but he was getting jiggy.  Rick approved.  The best part was when he stood next to a pregnant lady and stuck out his belly.  Golden material there.If I ever get serious about concert reviews maybe I’ll actually start getting within 20 feet of the band when taking photos.Up next was a horrible band named Ego Vs Id.  Some Boulder band I guess.  How embarrasing.  They could play their instruments well enough, but it was cocky jam lets get chicks crap.  We left.

I’m not much of a couch jock, but I do love watching playoff basketball.  Zach, Sam, Maile and I went to game 2 against the Hornets.  The Nuggets blew them out.  Word!Zach with a nice guy face, me with a dork face to match being a dork and wearing the Nullets shirt.  “Dude I totally started the 4/20 rallies back in the day”This was during the 11-0 run where the Nuggets pulled away for good.  Smith for 3 and it was good. The crowd was hyped!

Had a super busy day cleaning and whatnot.  I met up with a warmed up  Jason, Fuzz, Neil and Rob at Red Curbs and Neil says “Awesome, Mr Mom made it out of the house”.  Ha ha.  Everyone was in a super good mood and skating well out of the gates.  I was slow to warm up, but it ended up being one of the funnest red curbs sessions to date and that’s saying a lot.  Fuzz pulled out his 1990’s bag and was doing all kinds of crazy tricks I’ve never seen him do like fakie 5-0, noseslide 270 shove, switch front tail, halfcab heel and even learned a new trick – halfcab blunt.  And he did it on the ledge instead of the curb.  Sick!  Neil was killing 40 foot long lipslides.  Rob landed a slappy back 50 no comply shove out as steezy as it can be done.  Jason was ripping everything.  The tricks that surprised me were a fakie nosegrind on the ledge, first try front smith on the taller curb and kickflip back tail on the tiny curb going two miles an hour.  I also came remotely close to fakie nosegrind 180 out.  Before leaving Neil, Fuzz, Rob and I played a game of SKATE.  Neil got out quick after trying a triple or nothing that didn’t work and then it was Rob and I with SKAT and Fuzz with nothing.  Nothing!  Fuzz got Rob on something and then it was Fuzz and I.  I ended up getting him to SKAT, but he one on a fakie heelflip shortly after snapping his nose on a fakie treflip attempt.  I should mention that Fuzz got me to try my first 360 flip since hurting my foot in March.  I landed the second one.  Hyped to be able to try that trick again and having cupsoles is way better for that trick.  Fun fun fun session.