Awesome.

Rippers everywhere these days.

After hitting Meta and 303 I met up with Chris Jones and his buddy Cody at the new art museum with all the fun benches with gaps.  Chris was ripping out of the gates.  I was just about getting warmed up when security came and kicked us out.  We rolled around to a few spots and I was tired and sucking.  Chris was able to wallie the weird slanted bank/ledges good and almost ollie a fire hydrant.  We ended up at the weird elevated narrow bank spot where I continued to suck and had no energy.  Chris did a run with a nosebonk on one then a front 180 wallride frontside halfcab out.  Cool.  We headed out, but decided to play a game of SKATE on the way.  We ended up playing a few.  The first one Chris won easy with tricks like nollie heel, varial heel and other cool stuff.  The second game he had S and I had SKAT.  He had me with tricks like switch flip, nollie flip, nollie varial heel and something else.  But out of the blue I landed a bunch of tricks.  Fakie varial flip, frontside halfcab flip, treflip, nollie treflip, varial flip and fakie bigflip which took him out.  My best game of SKATE in awhile.  Awesome.  We had a tie breaker game of no complies that we kinda ended up just giving up on, but Chris prolly won it.  It’s alway nice losing a game of no comply skate to someone 15 years younger then you.

The funniest Rick Roll I’ve seen.  It’s done so well.  Kurt is probably rolling in his grave though.

Got up early and drove all the way from Omaha to Boulder.  The last two hours of the drive were full of the kids yelling while playing in the back of the car.  It was rough.  Then I hit the grocery store and was reminded of how crowded Boulder gets when the students come back.  Finally, I went skating.  I met John at St Julien and we dorked around on a wooden crate that had been set down the ledge for a long time.  I was sucking.  John was ripping.  It took me at least 10 tries to ollie into it.  Ugh.  I blame my travel feet.  But we had fun.  John got a run with a manny up and manny down.  I got the same, but with just an ollie in.  We also rode along the ledge then ollied into the bank.  I got a manual up to rock to fakie.  Nothing special, but a good warm up.We cruised around to various spots.  We hit the brick bank at the bottom of the parking garage.  That thing pretty much sucks.  We both dropped in and I got a front 50 stall then turned into the bank.  We skated the white ledge for awhile and not much went down.  John got close to a bunch of backside noseslides and I got close to back 50s.  I managed one accidental back 5-0 where I came to a complete halt before landing.  Sweet.  We messed around at Wells Fargo banks for a minute.  I got a back 5-0 late revert.  We messed around on some other stuff before ending back up on Canyon and doing tricks into the parking garage bank.  We were pretty beat, but ended up doing a bunch.  I got kickflip, shoves, varial flip, fakie bigflip and a backside flip.  John got front shove revert, no comply shifty, halfcab flip, fakie flip and probably more that I forget.  We closed on a game of SKATE where John schooled me once again.  He did nollie flip and switch flip.  I’ll never land those again.  Doh.  I only got him an S on a heelflip that I should have snapped the tail of my board on.  Oh well, it was a blast.

After a round of the worst golf imaginable by me with my father in law, Ollie and I headed out to the Omaha skatepark in some 95 degree heat to meet Joe and Fuzzy.  In the past Ollie has been super shy around Joe or anyone when skateboarding.  This time he loosened up a bit and skated the whole time.  He had fun cruising around and did some little roll-outs and roll-ins.  The best thing he did though was ride down this bank and navigate the narrow curb onto the bench.  So rad.  He of course backed it up by ollie’ing off the bench.  I didn’t skate too hard at the park.  Mostly just cruised around and made sure Ollie wasn’t going to be nailed by a biker or flyout kids.  Joe and Fuzzy were skating hard and ripping.  I saw Joe do a textbook back 50 front 180 out on the ledge.  Oh, crap, I should mention that Joe pink slipped me on a game of SKATE on the little quarterpipe in the snakerun.  I gotta learn to skate other tranny then Rampy.After awhile we left to bring Ollie home for dinner.  Joe, Fuzzy and I headed out to Chipotle and got our Burrito on before going to the infamous Dollar Store bank to ledge.  I only filmed at it before when Riley, Bernie and Greg rattled off trick after trick.  It was insanely hard to skate.  I tried back 50s for awhile, but gave up and went front 50.  Fuzzy had landed front 50 and front 5-0 already.  Joe was trying to relive the dream and do another front rock.  Fuzzy was trying front tails, I was still working on front 50 and Joe was working on front rock when we decided to bet some beer.  First one to land their trick didn’t have to buy beer.  The last person to land their trick had to buy the first pitcher, the second person the 2nd pitcher.  Fuzzy got the front tail real quick like.  I got the front 50 second leaving Joe to get his front rock which he eventually did.  And it was a good one too.  Landing the front 50 was probably one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done on a skateboard.  That was a tall loading dock to be coming into that tranny for me.  Took a few tries to commit, but when I did it was so insanely fun.  I worked on back 50s for awhile, but never got too close.  We were all covered in sweat.  Our shirts were so wet that they were dripping.  It was dark by the time we left, but we stopped at this weird ledge into bank spot and checked it out.  We got out of the car and Joe puked.  Guess that’s how hot it was and we skated hard.  It wasn’t the gnarliest setup but the darkness made it seem gnarly.  Fuzzy killed it again.  Front 50 into the gnar.  Manual.  And a heelflip.  Sick.  I did a slow and lame front tail into it and also manualed the mellower part.  Joe skated it too even though he had just puked like crazy.Lastly we played a bad game of SKATE.  I think I won, but it wasn’t one of those bragging rights games.  It went on too long and no one landed much.  Fun day though.  The bank spots were fun.  It’s crazy how you can actually have fun just trying tricks.  I really didn’t think I would ever get that front 50 on the bank to ledge.  I was pretty happy just getting onto that thing.  Landing it was seriously mind blowing to me.  One of my favorite tricks of all time.  I can’t believe that Bernie got kickflip 5-0 on it second try (1:18).  That is ridiculous.

Had to run some boards down to Continuum in Parker, CO so I hit the Aurora park for a bit before having to stop at 303 next.  The park is awesome, but always has a weird crowd.  I was feeling the effects of working all day then driving for well over an hour.  I took forever to land a boardslide across the flat bar.  I eventually settled in on trying a run.  Boardslide across the flatbar, no comply finger flip on flat, manual between the bowl/street course into the bank then no comply 270 over the hip.  Never got it.  Tried some other stuff, but overall it was a pretty lame session.After 303 I went to meet up with Chad and Chris at Commerce City park, but when I went by there the lights weren’t on and there was 500 families there picnicking.  No thanks.Met Jason at Louisville on the way back and raced the rain and lightning for awhile before we got rained out.  It was a really fun session with crazy lightning going on in the background.  I got some crooks pretty quickly and came close to backside nosegrinds on the little ledge pretty quickly.  I don’t remember trying much else, but I know I was all over the park having fun.  Damn rain.

Man this is awesome.

After my JDZ interview, then some hoops with Ollie I kinda felt like skating. Since I was lazy I decided to just hit Rampy. I found an old 90s mix tape and cranked it up for what became a totally tubular session. I was feeling pretty bummed at my lack of tricks and decided to try a bunch of new ones. The first one I wanted was a fakie back smith grind. I stall those babies all day long, but wanted to grind them. It ended up being really easy. Now I know why Brian hates on them. I got them to forward and to fakie. I also got a bunch of back 5-0s to fakie which I’ve never done on Rampy before. I didn’t do them Riley or Jason good, but this is me we’re talking about. My last new trick was front tailslides. I’ve never slid them intentionally before. I got a weak one and a not as weak one. Hyped though. Also hyped I got a lot of my other harder tricks right off the bat like back nosegrind, front smith, front lip. Couldn’t do the fakie pivot fakie though. I had a blast.