Worked late and had such a frustrating day I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.  Watched a couple episodes of Leave It To Beaver with the family then felt like skating a manual pad.  On the way to Valmont I had all these one – two tricks in my head to do on the back to back manny pads.  When I got there I landed every warm up manny and I thought it was on.  Then a truck came and parked in front of one of the pads.  Doh.  I still tried a bunch of lines and pretty much never landed anything other then a manny and nose manny.  I tried a run to a nose manual 180 out.  Couldn’t even get that.  I tried a line to 180 nose manny.  Couldn’t get that either.  Ugh.  The saving grace was all the tricks I got up the various curbs there.  180s, sw front 180, kickflip, pop shove, fakie bigspin, heelflip and a very rare frontside halfcab.  I tried a few 3 flips up, but never got close.  I left bummed although I was happy with how hard I skated.  I just wish I would actually land tricks sometimes.

Didn’t have much time as I wanted to get to Fuzz’s kinda soon to work on his website before the premiere.  So I just skated flat for about 30 min.  Nothing special went down.  It took several tries to get a slow treflip.  The new trucks are still a bit stiff.  I tried a line for awhile of halfcab flip, heelflip, treflip and never came close.  I skated pretty hard at least and it was fun.

Later on Fuzz, John and I went to the Stay Gold premiere.  We got there kinda late so we missed the Meta teaser.  Doh.  After a bunch of good teasers Stay Gold started.  Without ruining it too much I’ll just say that the video starts off super good with Westgate and Herman before going into a bunch of handrails for awhile, Suski, more handrails then ends with epic parts from Leo and Reynolds.  At one point during Leo’s part Fuzz said to me “Are we watching Misled Youth?”  Pretty much nailed it right there.  Reynolds part is completely epic though.  He makes hammers look good and he’s 30 something?  Not sure I’m gonna buy this video, but I really liked the 5 parts I mentioned so I probably will.

Was gonna go for a quick Valmont session, but Foothills Pkwy was closed so I just pulled in near Viking liquor, parked and tried to find something to skate.  It was creepy as hell since there was no one around and these bunnies kept running in front of me.  After some pushing / walking around I found an area with a dim manual pad and little gap.  After landing the manny pad I went up to the gap which was a parking lot to parking lot gap over a curb.  It normally would be even easy for me, but the light sucked and after shooting my brand new setup into water I finally landed the biggest part of it.  I wasn’t happy it took 10 tries, but oh well.  I moved on and ended up at Viking for a few rounds at the dropped down driveway.  I ollied over the curb then up the curb and came back and dropped down then 180′d over.  Last part of the night was spent doing some flatground in a poorly lit rough parking lot.  Still fun though.  I’d highly recommend not skating this area at night as there really isn’t much to skate and half of it is too dark at night.

Woke up in a good mood, early on a Sunday.  This not drinking beers thing rules.  After getting stuff organized Bernie, Jack and I headed to Broomfield where we met up with Brian, Neil, Fuzz, Matt, Jam, Rich, Jim.  I was kinda mellow for some reason.  I didn’t skate all that good, but I’ll blame it on all the hoopla that was about to happen and a new setup I’m not used to yet.  The only good things I did were a 360 flip on flat and front feebs on the little qpipe.  Jack killed as usual.  Front 5-0 back shove out, ollie the wallride hip, lots of stuff I missed.  Bernie came close to manualling up the weird pad to b/s flip out.  Matt slayed everthing.  Brian did first try alley oop back d from low to high on the qpipe to hubba.  Neil put down his moves.

After some grocery shopping for hot dogs/buns we arrived to a very crowded Arvada park.  Everyone was there.  There is no way I can come remotely close to documenting what went down so I’ll just go the sentimental route.  I was totally blown away that so many people came to the bbq/demo.  It was such a fun time with such a great vibe.  I’d really like to thank all the Nullers for everything they do and TF for being such good friends and so supportive.  I feel like the luckiest guy on earth.  Even the wife and kids showed up.  Seriously everyone, thank you for everything, you all rule.

Above is a little clip put together by Rich at John Doe.  Pretty awesome.  He even put Dinosaur Jr to it.  Ha.

Another hot day, kinda getting sick of the heat.  Since everyone was kinda slacking on getting to a ramp jam in Denver I decided to take the kids to Southern Hills while I waited.  It ended up being so fun that we just kept skating.  I was still pretty sore and unmotivated at the start, but was able to ollie up stuff pretty easily for a change.  I came remotely close to ollieing the gap between benches which I’ve still never done.  It’s on my list of tricks I need to do before I die.  Ha.  That and manual at Willville.  Two boulder staple tricks that I have still yet to do.  Anyways, Ollie was ripping.  Fast ollies off the two stair, manuals down the handicap ramp, cali grinds, and still a mean mongo push.  Sam is getting better too.  After awhile I started trying the ol’ John Brandow Challenge at Southern Hills.  Trick on bench, trick on bench, ollie up two stair, ollie onto narrow ledge, ollie 4 stair, trick on bench.  I was trying manual the first bench (never got it, but just an ollie up is enough for this so I’d take it), noseslide the second bench, ollie, ollie, the 4 stair is really weird dude to the crack and the fact that there is a wall 8 feet after you land, and then a front board on the last ledge.  The hardest part for me was once again, ollieing onto the narrow ledge.  Once I got that there was no way I was gonna bail the 4 stair which ended up being easier than I thought and a sketchy front board to end made me really happy.  I skated around a bit more, but somewhere in that mess I cracked my tail really bad.  The kids new it was broke so they wanted to try focusing it.  Silly kids they would land on the bolts expecting it to break.  Ollie eventually made it crack more, but it was funny.  So back home to setup a new board.

Well actually, back home to setup a new complete.  And what’s a new complete without new shoes?  The I-Paths were sick, but starting to get holes in the bottom.  So yeap, I’m poser #1 with new everything.  My new setup consists of: The brand new ‘Nothing Beats A Null’ deck, Bones Reds bearings, Thunder Titanium Lights, Super Nullethane 52mms and some new eS First Blood shoes.

After setting up the board I wanted to skate a ledge bad.  I like watching the graphics get scratched off a new deck.  We went out to Valmont where apparently all of a sudden I could no longer ollie and took like 8 tries to get a front 50. Oh yeah, I can blame the new complete!  Ha.  Ollie ollied (ugh) off the escalator part of the loading dock from almost the top and did a really cool hippy walk over a couple chairs.  Then we hit the nearby buildings.  I did mostly ollies everywhere trying to get used to my new setup.  Had a run with ollie the little grass gap, ollie the little median, ollie out of the bank over the curb, run into a wall and get laughed at by Ollie and Sam.  Ha.  Ollie was ripping way more then he ever has.  He was doing these ollies out of a little kicker and skating really fast.  Sam started riding off curbs for the first time so he was hyped.  Around the corner to the next area where there is a two stair followed by a curb.  Ollie and I both tried to drop down into manual and the little guy beat me.  Oh boy.  We had fun in that area for awhile.  I tried a run of sw fs 180 manny (never got it  without scraping), ollie a median, then manny drop manny on the weird curbs under the two stair.  On the second go of it I slammed on the manny manny and kinda rolled my ankle.  It turned out to not be so bad and we kept skating.  On to the next building where there is a two stair that’s waxed up.  I tried a few grinds, but it wouldn’t go and then ollie started trying boardslides on it.  It was so sick because you had to ollie over the first stair to get on the second.  He totally did it too.  Not a long boarslide, but wow.  We finally headed back to the original spot where Sam and Ollie did lots ollieing off curbs and manual attemps.  I did a chinese nollie manual at one point so Ollie tried it and learned it just like that doing the next few like it was nothing.  To end it I made myself do 5 kickflips in a row which was harder than expected, but I and blame tired legs and a new complete on that.  Awesome day.  I can’t describe how amazing it is to really skate with your son.  It’s insane.

Had the morning off work and didn’t have to go to work until 2pm.  Mostly hung out with Liz, but figured I should skate for a bit incase I didn’t skate later on.  I’ve been feeling the need for a sick day lately.  I haven’t been that motivated lately for some reason.  This session wasn’t much.  After some warming up I tried to do a line of halfcab flip, double flip, treflip.  The halfcab flip was troublesome and I never got a double flip.  Neat.  Time for work.

The video clip is finally done.  Sorry I slacked for so long and sorry it’s not as funny as I promised with all the “cha ching” and score totals.  Oh well.

New video and today’s song of the day.  Such a funny video.

Needed to bring some Null goods to 303 and I got off work early so I brought Ollie and his buddy Sam to the Zuni park knowing there is a “kids” section and it would be fun for them.  It was really hot out, but no one was there really so we cruised around.  I was skating like total crap since I hadn’t got my old man nap after work and was really groggy.  Ollie took to ripping pretty quickly.  He did an accidental back 5-o on the little qpipe and then started trying them on purpose and landed everyone of them I saw him try.  If only he would stop pushing mongo.  Sam learned how to drop in and do rock fakies.  Those two had so much fun cruising around that park.  They would ride down the double 2 stairs, push, ride through the little bowl and then ollie into the grass and tumble down the hill.  Being a kid must rule.  Being old kinda sucks, I was stuck in a rut of trying a long line in which I would probably not even land on a good day: Ollie a little ledge, kickflip on flat, treflip on flat, ollie up the euro 5 stair, roll in to the 4 foot section.  Technically I did all the tricks, but definitely not in one line.  Ollieing up the 5 stair felt awesome and the roll in made me laugh for being afraid of it earlier on.  At the end of the session I tried back disasters for awhile on the tiny qpipe and landed a couple.  Rad, I’ve never done that trick before.  I followed it with a front feeble and we left.

Met Carleigh at Meta with the intention of skating campus after doing some business.  But instead Lazer and Jake showed up and suggested Red Curbs.  A covered parking garage on a perfect night?  So be it.  It ended up being fun of course, because when is Red Curbs not fun?  Lazer looked good with a shaved head and skated fast as usual and landed most tricks he tried.  Lipslides, tailslides, switch mannies.  Jake had lipslides too and was working on bluntslides and front 180 nose manuals.  Carleigh looked really tired again and although I thought she was landing most of her kickflips she said at the end of the session that she didn’t.  She may have got some mannies too.  I skated ok.  Was enjoying slappy front tails and trying front lips, but that trick hates me.  I tried back 5-o’s for awhile, but never got one.  Front 180 nose mannies were hard for me too, I got 1 out of 15.  At the end I finally got a manny to grind and then right as I got in my car I remembered I hadn’t landed a double flip yet so I tried one and landed what may have been my best double flip yet.  Sweet.