Another day, another ripper. So many good skaters out there these days it’s ridiculous.

Met Jason and Nate at St Julien on a super nice evening.  Things started out pretty good for me and I was in a good mood.  After awhile the lack of support from my blown out shoes started to bug me and take away any type of confidence I may have had.  I managed a kick back 50 for the first time in awhile even though it was slow and I barely grinded.  AFter that it was all downhill and various ollie attempts that failed led me to rip off my shoes and throw then in the trash.  As I write this it sounds as if I’m making excuses and certainly I am, but I’m sure half of it was just me due up for a bad day of skating.  Ugh ugh ugh!

Interview about the new albumNew song oh my god!A Dinosaur Jr classic – Tarpit

Skated Rampy with Ollie for a bit.  I got a couple alley oop grinds and front disasters as far as rare tricks for me and Ollie did his first ever grind in the middle of a run.  So much harder then just off a dropin.  He was ripping.It was at least 50 degrees at 8pm.  Incredible.  I met Nate at Steelyards and warming up was going awesome.  I manualed the long way first try.  Kickflips were feeling good.  I started trying a line with a pop shove at speed followed by a front 180 nose manual.  A couple tries in SNAP I totally broke the tail.  SUCK.  After moping around for a bit I remembered I had an old 8.25 in the trunk and set it up.  It was old and soggy, but better then nothing.  We hit a couple of the little gaps around there.  That spot has so much potential for more awesomeness.  Anyways I kinda of gave up on trying to manual too much on a different board, but had a fun run of a kickflip up the curb, kickflip off.  Nate had to leave quickly so we called it.  Bummed I broke that board.

After filming Fuzz and Rob at red curbs for a bit we went to Honey’s Hole.  I was sore as hell.  Everyone else was already warmed up.  We dug out some dirt and brought in a parking block.  A fun little session was going on the new bank to curb we made when a neighbor raised concerns about our being there and Fuzz had some choice words for the dude.  Bummer.  Honey’s Hole might be dead.  

After another cold Friday with some snow things cleared up and the Factory skated.  While waiting for Fuzz we got some flatground SKATE going in front of my house.  Poor Brian got worked once again right away.  What was it this time?  A shove it I think?  Neil came in mid game then beat me with tricks he knows I can’t do like a backside 360 slide.  Honestly, I can’t do that.  I was pretty on my flip tricks which put me in a good mood.  Our first stop was an angled loading dock with a curb on the edge.  About the only thing I landed on it was a slappy 50 which was actually quite fun.  I did a lot of flatground as well and put down a couple 360 flips that felt really good.  Others were ripping.  Neil and Fuzz especially.  Neil makes the basics look so good.  Fuzz was almost getting some insane tricks.  Unfortunately “almost” was too much and he snapped and focused the crap out of his board.  I had problems just plain ollieing over the curb where the loading dock was a bit taller.  Ugh.  Later on I tried a line with a slappy 50 followed by a noseslide which was super hard because I had to land the 50 and turn back to the ledge immediately.  I never quite got it.Next we went to the steep bank spot where Jason, Rob and Neil destroyed.  It was a sick session to watch and I just kinda posed some tricks and felt dumb.  Nothing new there.  Fun day.

Wow.

Song Of The Day. Getting hyped to see Conor play on my birthday. His live solo shows kill it.

Had a late night skate date with Nate for almost a week and we made it happen even though it was cold outside. We decided on going to the Ideal Market area as neither of us have skated there much and we felt like exploring. It took us about 30 seconds to find a sick plastic bench that I wasn’t warmed up enough to skate. But we kept at it. It’s a tall ledge in a narrow walkway with a handrail behind it so it’s not the easiest thing to skate at all. I did a couple weak backside noseslides and boardslides before trying a crooks and somehow locking in perfect and grinding really far with a pop out. Wow. I ended up getting a few more crooks that weren’t as good and some front 50s. Neither of us could get 5-0s at all. Doh. Sometimes those plastic benches stick a bit too much. Nate got some really good back 50s though.Then we skated this angled sidewalk that could be insanely good for grinding/sliding with a little bondo over a crack and some wax at the top. But we still had fun and ended up hitting it in a line. I was getting frustrated as hell, but ended up linking a bunch of bad tricks: kickflip on flat, barely ollie a tiny gap over a curb, front slash on the angled sidewalk, ollie up the tiny gap, 180 another one like it then a fakie flip. I should be fakie flipping over the gap. I suck at gaps! Nate and I then played a game of SKATE that started very slow, but toward the end got pretty good. I landed a decent b/s flip, 360 flip, heelflip, fakie bigflip near the end of the game. Unfortunately the lights shut off and we had to move the game when it was T to T. I think I won it with a varial flip at that point. Lame.We headed up into a parking garage and cruised down it, checked some stuff out. Found a nice ledge you can cali grind down a six stair. I tried it a few times in the dark, but it was too sketchy. At the end we skated a ledge that should be skated more and Nate did some really good front board slides on it. I was wanting to quit for the night, but ended up giving a few a try and landed some horrible ones. We ended the night after I slammed trying to kickflip a crack on the downhill approach to the ledge. Fun night. Skating new spots is the best.

This is getting me even more excited to skate SF in TWO WEEKS! Whehoo!