Hopped in the Meta van in hopes of shooting photos second angles for the upcoming Meta video.  The first spot seemed really fun.  Max was trying a back 180 the hard way over a rail into a bank that was super gnarly.  He didn’t get it.  Next up was a steep bank spot where I posed a tail stall, Brian did some frontside grinds, a cool 360 carve and made fun of Jack for waxing it.  Neil and Lazer had some good ollies too and Neil through in a sick no comply.  Then I filmed Jack try his ass off for a front tail back 180 out.  Next up was my favorite metal ledge in Denver.  After some food and watching I grabbed the skateboard and was super excited to find that I was able to somewhat comfortably ollie.  It’s on!  Ha.  I did a few basics on the ledge like front 50, front 5-0, front 50 180 while Max tried tricks like front lip to switch crooks 3 shove out.  Ridiculous.  Neil killed it with some back crooks shove and front lip shove.  Carleigh had some good front 50s.  Brian was saving his energy for a manny pad.  Jack was was listening to Rocky Mtn High in a smokey van.  After awhile of this I got in Carleigh’s car with TF and we went to kook infested skatepark.  I don’t know the name of this park, but it has the lamest people.  Lots of scooters, fly out kids, bikes, thugs, etc.  Anyways to say I was hyped as hell just to be able to skate was an understatement.  I boardslide the little rail, tried to copy Brian’s awesome tailslide transfer, did a couple little grinds and basically worked myself up so quickly that I was out of breath and felt like I was gonna pass out.  Guess I’m out of shape.  After all the shredding we did the TF staple and ate at Tres Margaritas.  Don’t get their fish salad.  It’s not good.

Knee was buggin.  Met up with Derek and Mikey to film them.  Before we met Mikey, Derek and I skated a jersey barrier spot for awhile.  I did a few warm up tricks like back slash, back rock, front rock, rock fakie.  Might be fun to go back and do more some time.  We went to a couple other ledge spots where I filmed lines and had to squat and push a lot which seemed to be good for the knee.

Jake and I went to the Louisville park on a crisp, but nice night. Bikers were in the snake run and after a few cruises around doing nothing I noticed Jake headed to the deep pool and we ended up skating that for awhile. Jake killed it as usual. Backside grinds around the corner, front rock, back rock (both decked), maybe even a front 5-0 in the shallow. Jake was surprised that I landed a back rock in the shallow and even offered a beer for landing it. Unfortunately I would lose it later on by not landing a front 50. Anyways I had a fun run going with a carve in the deep end followed by a f/s carve in the shallow and managed a scratch grind in the shallow at one point. We moved on to the street area where I had a lot of fun grinding around a corner and then not ollieing. Jake front 50’d the hubba in a few tries then worked on front 5-0 and put it down. So sick. I tried a few ollies here and there and my knee worked, but I can’t describe how bad it hurt. Ugh. Then I started trying front 50s on a qpipe for awhile and took so long to land it that it wasn’t fun.Then we went over to the hockey rink.  Jake did like an eight trick line with a bunch of 180s, fakie flip, kickflip and tried to end it with a treflip.  I cruised around and did a few no complies and they felt ok.  Ollieing still hurt and I settled in to kickflips.  Over and over I wanted to land them again.  It’s funny I’ve only been hurt for like a week but I feel like a bruise shouldn’t hold me back as bad as it has.  Especially after seeing how badly some of my friends fall and don’t complain.  But it hurt like hell and I just wanted to do 5 kickflips in a row.  It took awhile but I finally did.  The knee somewhat loosened up, but ended up stinging in pain the rest of the night.  Ugh.  It feels like I only have a few more days of using the knee as an excuse.  At least I hope so.  I only felt like I was in my 60s today.  That’s way better than the 80s I guess.To all my fans out there (yes I’m joking) I apologize for the depressing updates.  I get bummed out on injuries real quick.  It hurts like hell to ollie, but tranny really doesn’t.  I guess that’s why so many old skaters stop skating street.  Hopefully I’m not there yet.

Ugh. Ollie and I went to Southern Hills on a pretty nice night. I wasn’t expecting much and my left knee was still hurting pretty bad. Little did I know that since I haven’t been stretching like normal or skating like normal my whole body felt like a sack of potatoes. It was horrible. I seriously couldn’t ollie. Not the same for Ollie though. He was ripping. Full speed mongo push ollies down the two stair, nose grab flyouts out of the handicap ramp, silly-start-of-a-run flip the board and jump on it, smiles for days. John showed up for a bit. He kept it pretty mellow too, but the switch slappy noseslides are seriously the hotness. We had to be back before 9 for Ollie’s bedtime. I sat depressed with ice on my knee feeling at least 80 years old.

Almost took a sick day. Had such a nice and relaxing evening with the kids and Liz playing Wii Sports, reading the new Thrasher, eating, etc. But after icing my knee throughout the day it felt quite a bit better and I new I wanted to skate a bit. So I went out to Rampy with the rough idea I would try to land a back disaster seeing as how I’ve done a few at Zuni now. After some sucking it was decided that back d was not an option, but I started trying back tail stalls and quite a few tries later I did one of those back tails where you pivot into the tail. I don’t really like those, but it’s my first one and my knee was starting to hurt so I’ll take it! 49 more days.

Another long and busy day at work.  Followed by a quick happy hour with Liz and Mia then a quick dinner before heading to Crisis to sell some boards and ask Fuzz for stickers.  The goal was to hit Crisis then 303 then skate the Brighton park.  At Crisis Fuzz was into the idea and joined Carleigh, Jake and I.  We spent a bit at 303, but eventually arrived at a nearly vacant Brighton skatepark.  The ride to the park was a blast.  Everyone was in a good mood and we joked about Carleigh roofy’ing dudes.  I don’t think I even spelled Roofy right.  But don’t worry, it was a joke.  At least we think so.Jake started out in the big bowl and Fuzz and I followed.  Fuzz brought the speed hype and Jake brought the trick hype.  Those dudes can skate tranny good.  They both did front 5-0s, back 50s, etc.  Fuzz got a front tailslide all sick and Jake did front rock too.  I was hyped to carve the tile and get an axle stall.  I wanted more, but being dumb ol’ me I bailed a back 50 and the run out hurt my knee.  Doh.  This pretty much took me out for the rest of the night.  I did a few things, but definitely couldn’t ollie.  A few things I was kinda hyped to do though.  Manny from the flyout bank around the hubba, back 50 the quarter pipe into the mellow bank, roll in a bunch, not be too bummed.  Carleigh started out on the bump to bar and did a few noseslides.  She also did pop shove, kickflip and front 180 up the euro and kinda tried ollie grab flyouts.  Jake ripped went for broke on some of the ledges.  Got front 5-0 down the 3 and almost front 50’d the downhill hubba.  Fuzz was ripping.  I’m so stoked for him being so happy with Crisis and being so hyped on skating.  He did a bunch of back pivot to back disasters, a bunch of tricks on the side of the hubba, some sketchy manuals and was the first person in CO to skate in a jacket this year.  Near the end of the session I took a few photos since I had done enough damage to the knee for one day.  250 days of skating down.  50 more to go.  If I was smart I’d take a day off, but I’m seriously freaking about getting this far and not making 300.  I don’t want to have to try for 300 again next year ..Carleigh first try for the camera noseslide.Pretty much the worst photo of an ollie over the ledge into the bank. Sorry Fuzz.Jake didn’t land this, but he put the effort in and put four down getting really close. We gotta go back!

So awesome.  If only it showed seconds too..

‘Twas a gloomy and cool fall day.  Liz and I had a date the night before and slept in real late.  Eventually Sam and Ollie asked to go skate so we risked the scattered showers and after a brief stop at Community we rolled up to a nearly vacant skatepark.  Warming up was fun just cruising around that place is always a blast.  A few other kids showed up, but they couldn’t even drop into the 1 foot qp.  I had a pretty fun session, but still couldn’t really ollie due to knee pain.  It’s getting better, I just don’t want to due any long term damage putting pressure on it.  Skating tranny doesn’t seem to hurt it much.  New stuff I got was a manny out of a tiny qp to tail stall in, roll out/in backside above the pool corner, board stall back revert transfer over the spine backed with a fakie front pivot fakie, front 5-o around a little corner, front slash on the bank which took a few tries last time came first try.  nice.  Ollie was ripping.  He did mostly the same tricks, but I saw a rock ‘n roll on a taller qpipe, rock fakie on the bank, some low on the tranny ollies over hips.  Not much longer and he’ll be way better than me.  Sam got some back 50s on the qp out of the ground and improved his game.It started to sprinkle so we went to a parking garage off Wadsworth that I hadn’t skated in forever.  I couldn’t really ollie and didn’t feel like pushing it.  But I was super hyped to get a drop off a curb to manny, around a corner and into boardslide on a curb.  Got a couple of those and one was super clean.  That really hyped me up.  Sam learned cali back 50s super good.  Ollie was ripping like I hadn’t seen before.  Big ollies off a two stair, full speed ollies up a curb (half the time with a little wallie), a few backside boardslides on curbs and a banger at the end.  Ollie up the curb then front board the brick ledge.  So sick.  Total little kid steez where he came to a halt before popping off, but whatever, it was awesome.

Wow he can skate some street!

Knee was sucking. It’s pretty black and blue. I tried to skate in front of the house, but still couldn’t ollie so I just pushed fast and manualled the curb cut from the neighbors house to mine. Took a few tries and I had some crazy arm steez. That’s a long manny for me.