This part really hypes me up to skate.

Got off work after another crappy day, fell asleep on the couch, ate dinner, swam with the kids which cheered me up, then boxed up some boards for Fremont Matt and brought them to Fedex on Baseline.  Skated around for a bit after that.  Just kinda warming up there was a cone after the kicker and I ollied it a couple times before skating the parking blocks by Subway.  Got a few lines.  Sw front 180 over a parking block, ollie the weird kicker under the sign, ollie onto the sidewalk, ride off, ollie onto the sidwalk, ride off, ollie a curb to little drop.  Sw 180 a curb, kickflip another curb, wallie off a curb to manual off the two stair.  I got the wallie mannie first try which hyped me up because I’ve tried that way too many times.  It helps they redid the parking lot.  Then tried another line with sw 180 the curb, halfcab flip, kickflip over the curb then wallie manny.  Didn’t get that again.  I also dorked around on the curbs a bit.  Got front lips, front blunts, back blunts.  Tried back blunt shove, but didn’t get close.  Then I went over to the C ledge on campus to try and get ollie up 180 off without pushing.  It’s kinda tall.  Normally when I ollie onto it I lose my speed, but I was getting some good ollies and the 180 off came easy.  There is a little gap out so it’s extra fun.  Since the 180 was so easy I wanted to try front shove.  The bench has a weird slant to it and it made it way harder than it should have been.  At least that’s the excuse I’m going with.  It took forever.  I went through various waves of exhaustion where I had trouble ollieing up the bench, but eventually put it down and cruised right down the bike path to get out there nearly getting hit by a biker without a light.  Cool.   I ollied a little parking block gap on the way to the car and called it a fun night.

After a run to 303 Jason and I went to the Broomfield park.  We met wannabe Nuller Derek there.  Ha.  Before we even got out of the car I already saw him doing some pretty ridiculous mannies.  Lots of pivot 180s in the middle of mannies, 180s in, out, shoves out.  When Jason and I started it wasn’t very pretty.  Both of us were sore and had troubles ollieing up the downhill blue ledge to setup for the porta potty.  Jason was doing mannies almost every try on the blue ledge though.  Front feebles on the qp were feeling better than ever for me.  We messed around on the top for awhile.  I got a few f/s flips on the bump by the bowl and followed them up with crooks slams on the black ledge.  Jason got a sick back 180 up the euro.  I failed to ollie up it.  Ugh.  Back down the the lower level I got a run with nose manny, front feeb, back 5-0, treflip.  Then tried nosegrinds forever and never got any without a little tail tap on the way out.  Argh.  Jason wrecked himself trying a nose manny and sat out the end of the session.  Derek was doing some crazy front 180 switch 5-0s to fakie on the brick qp.  Some dudes showed up in basketball shorts, shirts and shoes (Nikes are basketball shoes kids).  They had the worst styles ever, but were somehow doing some decent tricks.  One dude could pop over a tall cone easily.  I guess that makes sense, basketball players can jump high.

Super tired from what I don’t know.  Had a mellow day, but it felt like my cold was coming back.  I went to the Table Mesa shopping center for about 30 minutes.  I started at the bank with the long manny pad and the wallrides.  I had a couple manuals that were 3/4 of the way which felt good.  I’d be so hyped to some day do the whole thing.  I came close to some b/s wallrides and got one switch front 180 to wallride.  I didn’t have much drive though and was kinda just passing the motions.  I went over to the library and posed a few attempts down the 3 flat 1.  I’m compiling a list of tricks I want to do in Boulder before I turn 40.  Ollie’ing that is one of them.  I got a couple years, but I should probably figure out that list.  Other tricks on it so far are 50 50 Sussex ledge, manual Willville, ollie a bench gap at Southern Hills, maybe ollie the St Julien 9 stair, etc.  Maybe I’ll make it official some day in the future when I get it narrowed down.

John, Jason, Carleigh, Neil and Brian met at my house.  Fuzz and Lazer would meet shortly.  First spot was the ol’ bird bank in the tech center.  Things got started in typical fashion.  Neil pulling something out to ollie over and amazing everyone with how easy it is for him.  Brian building a wallride.  Carleigh skating hard and falling a lot.  Me feeling like I stepped on a skateboard for the first time in months.  Etc.  It was a good start though, everyone was skating pretty hard and making due with a mediocre spot.  John had a line with something like treflip on flat, ollie the Neil thing, back tail on the bank.  He wanted shove though.  Carleigh was ollieing a little crack gap then trying kickflip then f/s ollie on the bank.  Neil was doing kickflip then ollie his ollie contraption, no complies on the bank.  Brian was trying some crazy rock fakie wallrides.  I did a line that felt good for how early in the session it was.  Kickflip a little crack gap, ollie Neil’s contraption, b/s flip on the bank.  The b/s flip felt good because I didn’t pivot it at all for once.  I’m sure I made up for the lack of a pivot by not popping it.  John, Jason and I got into a fakie flat bank session while others were doing some wallrides on wood leaned against a dumpster.  Fakie ollies were hard then John and I started going for fakie front shove (John) and fakie flip (me) while Jason tried halfcabs and then full cabs.  Jason got all of his first and I eventually got the fakie flip, but it took forever.  I sat down to rest for a minute and thought we were leaving, but instead it was time to film Brian.  For some reason I complained a bunch about this and got in a sour mood over basically nothing.  It lasted the rest of the day though.Brian was trying frontside grinds on this and got one.  It was ridiculous.  Jason did some super sick powerslides on it too.  Fuzz and Brian also did boardslides to fakie, John and Fuzz joined Jason on the powerslides as well.  After this was break time.  Drinks, food, a visit to the Lafeyette park that’s under construction and a general feeling of crankiness and no motivation.We went to a nearby bump/hip spot that is really fun.  Fuzz, Neil, Jason, Lazer had some great ollies quickly.  Carleigh and I seemed to have lots of problems getting used to the spot.  Which is a bummer after how much fun and how well I skated it last time I was there.  Fuzz and Neil did some wallrides on a brick wall that looked really good.  Brian layed down to sleep right away and pretty quickly Lazer, Fuzz and Neil joined him for some beers.  It was just Carleigh, Jason and I skating.  Me sucking and Carleigh seeming very frustrated.  After awhile Jason slammed hard pushing and retired to his car.  Carleigh and I skated awhile longer.  I had finally gotten a couple good ollies landing in the downhill and didn’t feel like bailing kickflips so I started trying slow b/s bigflips which I’ve never done on a hip that I know of, and definitely never done a good one on flat.  It took awhile, but I eventually landed a really bad one rolling away at slightly over 45 degrees.  Sweet.  Carleigh had landed a couple good pop shoves and started trying kickflips.  They were supposed to be hard since she basically had it first try.  But .. it was not Carleighs day.  And after several tries I got out the camera to snap some photos thinking it would come soonArsty bailed kickflip shotSo bummed.Not even a goofy TF squad could cheer Carleigh up.  Especially when Neil pulled the ulimate dick move and said he’d do it first try to show Carleigh how easy it is.  It amazes me how clueless Neil can be sometimes.  I kept messing around with photos and eventually took my new favorite photo with the new camera:After Neil spoke up Carleigh quit for the day.  Some goofing around happend for awhile before we farted and went to dinner at the TF staple – 3 Margaritas.  It was a good meal with the highlight being the wait staff singing happy birthday to Carleigh and slamming whipped cream in her face.  Awesome.

Fuzz’s dream will soon be reality.  Please go and support Crisis and be there for the grand opening party!

Neil and I went and looked at the new Lafayette park being built.  Wow, it’s crazy looking.  I took some photos which I’ll post soon.  After that we went to Crisis (more photos coming soon) and watched Stay Gold and watched Fuzz and Carleigh hang up some skate photos.  Then it was skate time.  The park was somewhat crowded, but it was warm out and a good vibe.  It’s funny seeing all the kids flock to Fuzz now since he’s the new shop owner and they all want their free stickers and sponsorship.  He handled it well except breaking his brand new Null deck on a flatground kickflip.  So funny.  It was such a bad kickflip, but all the kids were like “Wow, I’m not gonna get a Null, that’s bad”.  Ha.  Fuzz was trying so hard to be like “No, it’s just me, I’m fat and I landed bad”.  It was cracked bad, but he ended up skating it backwards and still ripped.  After some cruising around we ended up at the blue pad area for quite awhile.  Neil and Fuzz worked on and landed bluntslides  after doing front d’s from low to high on the porta potty (little pool coping qp) to hubba.  I was playing around and got a good line for me.  Manual, front feebs, back 5-0.  Then I started working on halfcab crooks.  I got a couple questionable ones before putting a decent (for me) one down where I grinded a couple feet.  So hyped on that.  Then we all tried crooks on the taller brown ledge.  Fuzz succeeded a lot, me once and Neil was close.  Then we cruised around doing whatever.  I posed a few kickflips over the rail, but didn’t have the commit feeling at all.  Not much happened after that.  Super fun night though.

Feeling better and after a long nap and dinner I picked up Jake around sunset and we ended up at Steelyards.  He had suggested Red Curbs, but the purist jerk in me doesn’t allow me to skate an indoor spot on a warm, dry night.  We’ll have more then enough time for Red Curbs this winter.  Anyways, wow, this was the first time in awhile I’ve had fresh legs.  Having only skated about 20 minutes in the last three days my legs felt amazing.  I manualed the long way first try and felt energized and good.  This is probably why my goal next year is going to be to NOT skate 300 days.  Ha.  Seriously though, refreshed legs are awesome.  Jake was skating pretty hard as usual.  He got a few manuals the long way.  Ollie up, kickflip off.  front 180 up, f/s half cab off.  front 180 up almost fakie back big off.  They put in some new bike racks which make it a bit harder to skate.  It messed with my nose manuals, but I eventually got one.  I tried manual front 180 out and didn’t get close.  Tried manual back shove out and came remotely close.  Next up was a game of SKATE where Jake was at SKAT in two tricks.  Kickflip and treflip.  He doubled or nothing’d both and missed.  Doh!  He made it close, but I ended up prevailing with a f/s halfcab flip.  Then I went back to trying kickflip up, treflip off.  Came close, but we got the boot.  Probably a good thing anyways as I was starting to feel sick again.

Still actually sick.  Thought I was getting better, but a short hike with the family and inlaws and I was worked.  Coughing like crazy and felt horrible.  Ugh.  I’ve used over half of my sick days now.

Still one of my favorite dudes I’ve met through Null.