It’s been days and days since I’ve been to Steelyards.  I was really tired as usual and my side/back was acting up a bit.  I had a new deck though and new decks and super good concrete mix rather will.  I had done a couple regular manauls before Nate showed up.  Right off his bike he says “180 nose manual no warmup” and does it.  Sick!  He also went on to land tricks like nollie nose manual 180 out, nose manny shove, nollie front 180 manual, who knows what else.  Dude rips.  I landed a horrible manual front 180 out and that’s about it for tricks other than regular manuals for me.  I setup an ashtray after the manual pad about the time that Nate left and bailed several times trying to ollie it.  I suck at ollies.  I dedicated my last attempt to my kids and nailed it.  It was not a big ollie by any means, but it was tall for me and it put a rather large smile on my face.  Rad.  I took a breather and about blacked out when I got up.  Weird.  Decided to call it after that. 

Super exhausted and sore from the day before, but met up with Riley, Bernie, CJ, Sam, Mikey, Chris, Chad and Matt at St Julien.  The weather was perfect for skating and as I pulled up I got to see Riley stomp a perfect line.  Dude rips so hard.  I kind of dorked around super sore for awhile basically just trying frontside wallrides on a wall there.  Imagine that, wallrides on a wall.  Who would have thought.  Anyways I got a little closer than usual and maybe one day I’ll land one.  Matt and Chad were ollieing the pilars.  Chris almost got a crazy line.  Mikey got a crazy line.  Bernie was working his ass off filming.  After awhile Riley put my shirt on and did a banger down the 9 stair.  Then I put my shirt back on and did a kickflip over the litte curb thing and pretended like I was going for the 9 stair.  Theres gonna be some serious Powell magic in my Off The Couch part.  So hyped.  

Today we celebrate the birth of my younger brother Steve.  Unfortunately he lives hundreds of miles away in Wisconsin so I decided to celebrate by going skateboarding all day.  Ok, so maybe going skateboarding all day doesn’t have anything to do with my brothers birthday, especially since he doesn’t skate anymore, but hey, it sounded good.  And yes I am the king of run on sentences.  Around 10:30 Ollie and I showed up at Rock Creek on a gorgeous September day.  September is seriously the greatest month of the year.  I actually skated pretty hard for the time of day.  It always helps to see you son out there smiling, slamming and learning new stuff.  He’s starting to pump a little further up the tranny and getting more consistent at ollies.  So rad.  I don’t remember what exactly I did that warranted me saying I was skating hard, but I was for me somehow.  After the longest game of SKATE ever with Lloyd while waiting for Fuzz we headed off to a gnarly pole jam spot.  Not a good place to warm up, especially if your Lloyd.  He got smoked.  Twice.  Super gnarly slams.  I came remotely close to committing to a pole jam no comply, but it was too tall and I cant move my leg up that far.  Next was Willville.  I had told Neil I want to no comply finger flip into medium bank so we went there.  Fuzz and Neil killed it immediately and Lloyd destroyed his body even more with the worst slam there ever.  He has no skin on his knees now.  As Brian and Gabe were rolling up to meet us I landed the no comply finger flip into the bank.  Rad.  Lloyd didn’t film it though.  Doh.  I ended up doing a few more although I don’t know if any of them were that great.  I landed on the tail pretty bad on all of them.  Fuzz ollied a monster gap and Brian tried an insane hippy jump before we finally left after hours of skating and being subjected to young college women dressed for a hot day.  I got some amazing footage of Fuzz staring with the biggest grin on his face.  So funny.Lastly we went to the Boulder ditch. Brian got a good trick and I finally got an axle stall on the q-pipe.  Yes I suck there, but at least I finally did a basic trick.  The clouds came out and Jason, aka The Street Vampire, came to life and killed it.  Pivot fakie, back tail on the q-pipe to feeble on the pvc and back tail fakie on the q-pipe.  Jason rules.  37 and killing it.  Super fun day that ended with a BBQ at Rob’s house and the funnest beer infested frisbee toss ever.  Hippies.

Had a pot luck at work so I was totally stuffed and sick feeling from brownies, rootbeer floats, cookies, etc.  Ugh.  Wanted to skate though and Ollie wanted to as well so he headed out to Stonehenge.  It was a super nice night.  70 degrees, sunny.  So amazing.  What was even more amazing though is that I actually landed a few tricks right out of the gates.  That has happened in forever.  On the bank to curb I did about 5 basics in a row.  Seriously folks, it’s been forever since I was able to do tricks quickly.  It felt bloody amazing.  I struggled on kickflip axle stalls for awhile though.  That is until I somehow pulled a perfect kick back smith out of nowhere.  I got a manual on the manny pad which should be really easy, but it isn’t for me these days.  Before leaving Ollie did about the sickest trick he’s done yet.  On the bank to curb he put his front axle up onto the edge of the curb and did rock fakieish grind.  I was stoked so he proceeded to show me how easy it was for him and did like 20 in a row.  Rad.  Oh yeah and he almost did a halfcab up the little curb there.  Fun night.

Red curbs on a really rainy night with Lazer.  The rain was so intense that there was a stream of water running down the middle leaving basically only the manny pad skateable.  It was a pretty uninspired session.  Lazer got some switch manuals and I came close to manny shoves.  

I’m more interested in politics then ever.  It’s gonna be a lot of political updates until the election.  I had respect for McCain until I started doing my homework.    Here’s a couple clips that lay it out pretty well.

First night in a hoodie, although it probably wasn’t necessary.  Met up with Matt at St Julien and started off really slow once again.  We ended up just pushing around not really every skating anything for very long.  We got kicked out of the white ledge.  We skated the little quarterpipe on Pearl St near Wells Fargo for awhile.  I did a blunt to pivot on it.  Hadn’t done that in forever.  Rad.  Matt did a blunt to fakie.  Next we cruised down this brick area ollieing down/up curbs and stairs like 3 times.  It was so fun.  Then this parking garage was open that we have never been in before.  Matt did the sickest bomb and ollied a median.  So insane.  It had this amazing bank to do tricks into but we got kicked out right away.  Next we skated some curb cuts for awhile and played a game of  SKATE that I lost badly and cracked my deck on a heelflip.  Ugh.  Fun night even though I really didn’t even do a trick all night.

Sick!

And yes, I read up on politics so it’s not like John Stewart is the only one I pay attention to, it’s just he is the funniest.