On a dreary and snowy day I picked up Neil around 1pm.  It had snowed overnight and wasn’t exactly warm (lower 40s), but we were told Longmont was “half dry” by Allan from SOL and Bernie.  Well we got about half way to Longmont near where I work and there was way more snow.  Pulling into Longmont and theres snow on the streets in spots.  Ugh.  Rather then turn around we check out a couple spots and see a manny pad spot that is mostly dry.  Hyped to get some footage with snow surrounding us we jumped a fence and did it.  Warming up wasn’t too hard for some reason and we both came away with some footage.  Neil’s lines were of course sickness.  Mine, well I got a line.  Not horrible, not good.  Although it did have a trick in it I’ve never done before – manual to cali grind off a curb.  I also pulled off two nose manuals to backside nosegrind.  Didn’t grind long, but it was fun.  Didn’t reach my treflip quota but it was cold and I did manage a couple – one of which was one of the better ones I’ve done in awhile.

THE MIGHTY JESUS LIZARD IS GOING TO TOUR IN 2009!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feeling fat and lazy from Thanksgiving we went to Commerce City on a crisp evening.  Greg showed up and it was super rad to see him skate again.  He killed it.  I didn’t.  It took me forever to kickflip up the stepup.  Ugh.  I was able to ollie into one of the steeper banks first try though which took me several tries last time I was there.  I had contemplated focusing my board at several points in the session due to sucking so bad and the fact that it’s already pretty cracked.  But I didn’t.  Good.  Right before we left I finally got in a decent zone and had a good run for me: backside flip on a flatbank, powerslide down a little bank, back 50 ledge, back tail stall on a flat bank, then front 50 on the 3 stair ledge.  I wanted to get a front 5-0 shove at the end of the line but I bailed.  I ended up landing that eventually then left after ollieing off of the new drop from the top to the  upper ledge area.  It’s just a drop but I havne’t done anything like that in awhile.  All in all I skated like crap, but I made up for it a bit at the end and was happy to not have focused my deck.  Laters.

I went to Northside skatepark in Ft Collins to meet up with PJ and others.  There was a mad carve over the stairs in the shallow session going on so I joined in and got served.  I had come really close a few times, but hit the first stair and slammed into the coping.  Ouch.  I skated some other stuff and basically sucked bigtime.  After awhile I tried a line with Chad who was doing a much better line.  I got an ollie on a qpipe followed by a boardslide on a ledge.  Tech?  Man I suck.

Jake picked me up and we decided on Campus.  We parked at the bottom of 13th St and bombed it all the way into campus.  So fun.  I haven’t bombed a hill in awhile and it felt great.  It wasn’t a big one by any means, but fast enough to be a bit scary.  We started off at the slappy curbs and I was skating good for myself.  Really good.  It was weird.  I haven’t felt that good in awhile.  Tricks were coming first try and I even attempted a never been tried trick before and got it first try – slappy front 50 push a couple times while grinding then land it.  WTF?  So fun.  Next up we hit a wallride spot and we both got backside wallrides.  I got closer then ever to frontside wallrides, but couldn’t put it down.  Doh.  By now I was getting tired and not feeling as great, still having a blast though.  We went to the rocky banked manual pad spot and after some funness Jake broke his board so we rolled out.  I did get a front tail back 180 thing though.  Then Jason picked me up at Meta and we hit Rainbow ledge for a couple minutes before it got dark.  I didn’t want to skate there at all initially, but after a boardslide popout when down quickly I tried some more stuff.  Didn’t really get anything, but it was fun.  If only I never had to work.

Had the day off work and finally got around to setting up a new board and wheels.  Couldn’t think of anywhere I really wanted to skate so I just took off down the bikepath from my house and ended up at Willville.  The bikepath was so fun.  I pushed fast and was borderline speed wobbles at points.  Rad.  I dorked around on the bank manny pad thing for awhile and even landed a run I probably would use for Off The Couch.  Halfcab flip, boneless polejam bash thing, manny.  Maybe I’ll go back sometime.  I then tried it with a 360 flip and couldn’t land one to save my life.  I’m going to blame it on the new setup.  After awhile Jason showed up and we went to the Iris and 30th ledge.  Neither of us skated all that good, but I had fun and came within one of my 360 flip quota.  Oh I forgot to mention, it was super calm and nice out all day until I went skating and it got super windy.  I hate you wind!

Pretty tired from staying up late working on a new Off The Couch teaser with Neil we went skating.  We started at Stonehenge where we were supposed to meet Sean, Mike and Taylor from Ft Collins then we were going to head to Denver.  After an hour of Stonehenge we decided to move on and ended up at a ledge off Arapahoe.  I skated it like crap, but Fuzz killed it.  He skated so fast.  It ruled.  Still no heads from Ft Collins so we went to this bikepath bank spot I’ve never been to before.  It ended up being really sick.  I still skated like crap.  Imagine that I was tired.  I always skate like crap when I’m tired.  I ended up filming Fuzz do a polejam gap nearby.  Pretty rad.  We ended the day at Naropa where not much went down, but it was super fun.  I did a little gap to manny then rode down the grass.  Riding down the grass ride there the first time is so scary.  All in all a fun day.

Met Nate at his apartment in North Boulder after getting out of work early around 3.  We skated the bikepath ledge between 28th & Folsom on Iris.  It’s not the best one, but we had fun.  We were trying lots of flatground tricks too so it made it even funner.  I made my 5 360 flips quota and maybe landed two tricks on the ledge.  Oh well it was fun.  Then it got dark and we went behind Safeway and made a little ledge/manny pad out of plastic crates that was super fun.  Nate killed the backside grinds through the crack.  I manualled it. Yippee.  Then Nate got me trying frontside lipslides and I committed to a few.  I totally want to learn that trick and that was the tallest thing I’ve tried them on.  We finished with a game of SKATE that took awhile, but was fun.

I used to hear this song on the “Alternative” radio station from Minneapolis back when I lived in Rochester.  I never know who it was at the time, but totally loved the song.  It came on my launch station and I’m hyped.

Well deserved.  Next year – Busenitz!