A decent Thanksgiving Day minus the wind. Ollie and I rolled up to Southern Hills and the wind seemed to kick into high gear. I had some new wheels (null 53mm regular urethane (hey, I have to skate the crappy stuff since people want to buy the superthane)) to break in. I dorked around for awhile before trying to do 15 flip tricks in the smooth section. That ended up not being so hard. Ollie was trying back 180s and shove it’s everywhere. I wasn’t really watching too close then watched him push up the handicap ramp and throw down a perfect pop shove out of the bank. It was so sick! So sick! I’ve never seen him land a clean one before and this one would make Carleigh jealous (ha, just joking Carleigh). I was definitely hyped to see that. I tried some ollies up, off, benches, but mostly wasn’t feeling it because of the wind. Ollie rules.

The coldest day of the season in the 20s, but it wasn’t snowing like they said. Carleigh and I rolled out and parked on the North side of campus for a change of scenery. We started out at the long red curved banked thing. We skated it kinda weird though where we ollied onto this curb nearby and tried to survive the cracks then ollie onto the bank. I got rock ‘n roll and rock fakie in lines of slow kickflips and sw 180s. Next up we hit a building I’ve never really noticed before. I got a front 180 over a little gap. Next up was a parking lot near the rec center where we stayed a long time. Whenever we thought it was warming up it would get colder and when the snow looked to take over it would let up. Cool. Carleigh 180’d this weird curb and then we worked on lining it out. I got a kickflip over the curb, then ollied a little flat gap. Then we went even further back. Carleigh almost got ollie a median, pop shove, front 180 the curb. I got front 180 the median, f/s halfcab flip (took awhile to land this), kickflip over the curb, ollie the little flat gap. The kickflips over the curb where scary because I was actually going faster for once. After that Carleigh worked on switching up varial flip for pop shove, but never got the varial flip. I was doing nosebonks over the little median. It’s possible I’ve done something like that before, but those felt like the best nosebonks (maybe the only ones?) I’ve ever done. Stoked. I tried to change up my line for no comply over the median then ollie a bigger flat gap (7 foot). I kept going to slow and did the stupid reach for it thing where you almost wreck your ankle. I sure wish I could ollie. A few ollies later we were back in the heat of my car.Later on Nate came over for a Rampy session. I was pretty sore and tired and not feeling it initially, but Nate kicked it into gear pretty quick. Hurricanes eluded me again, but I managed fakie hurricane, fakie pivot fakie, front lips and a couple fakie frontside tough guys (maybe they are fs chink chinks? but I’m not fakie ollie’ing at all). Nate rules Rampy. The best out of control trick hucker ever. He can’t do a back 50, but he can to a fakie smith 270 out. He did quite a few new tricks, but I don’t remember anymore. He skated good and we had a blast. After we went to Community then played some poker at Brian’s.

Went to Louisville park early and met up with almost all the Null kids and they put on sort of a mini demo for Brian and Neil’s skate camp kids. I was pretty sore from the day before and felt like taking it easy. After a “warm up” game of SKATE on the bank to curb where I only landed rock ‘n roll, front rock and front 50 and where Jack landed a lot, but slammed on his ass so bad he could hardly skate, I basically just hung out and filmed a little. Got some good clips. I’ll probably update the Null site tonight with photos, video, etc. Peep Carleigh and Jack’s blogs for photos. After this we skated Casey Middle school where I filmed Derek do a line and Chad NotDad do a speedy varial heel. Next up was campus where Monico did a bangin’ line and Greg and Jack got some tricks. Man, this sounds more like a filming log that a skate journal eh? My knee was really sore though. When it got dark we headed back to my house and skated Rampy. Carleigh, Jack, Chris, Derek and me. Man it was fun. One of my favorite Rampy sessions. Derek killed it. Bigspin back pivot and bigspin back tail. Blunt pop shove to fakie. Ridiculous stuff. Carleigh and I seem to have ended the tradition of only one of us being able to land front disasters. Jack had some good front 5-0s to fakie and Chris had some mean chink chinks. I landed most of my Rampy tricks including a hurricane which normally eludes me. Fun times.

Nate is in town!  To celebrate we randomly chose this spot to skate:We had gone to the 3 up 3 down on rumor that there was a smaller 3 there now, but it wasn’t what we thought it would be. So we seriously skated this curb cut forever. Tricks on the rocks, fly outs, tricks into the curb, etc. It was a blast. Carleigh has all the photos, so check her blog, but I snaked a few of them.Jason front pivot.Nate was popping head high ollies.Kickflipping in was super fun. We all skated pretty hard. Carleigh fell down a lot, but kept on smiling and laughing. Jason did about a million super good front tails where you’d ride over the bank into front tail. Nate got tech and did quite a few tricks in. Nollie flip, nollie front 180 and worked awhile for nollie cab flip. Ridiculous! I felt decent for the first time in awhile. Got kickflip into the bank and followed it with a kickflip in the tranny of the curb. Ha. I got a couple tailslides like jason, but nowhere near as good. Got lucky with a fakie tailslide. I was definitely having a blast. Such a fun crew. I screwed around with a dork trick for awhile. Oh wait, I guess every trick here is probably considered a dork trick by most. I was ollieing out to tail stall on a rock and trying to figure out a way to get out.Carleigh took a sequence of it! And look, I smiled when I landed something! Maybe I should do that more often. That trick was really fun.Carleigh put down a few pop shoves.Nate got the nollie full cab flip and we rolled out front for the handrail since we were warmed up.Nate done did this noseslide pretty quick.This manual took me a long time.Jason got into a noseslide, but didn’t land it. I guess this photo was for the BGPs though. Ha.After this we went to Broomfield. Monico, his brother, and some Crisis kids were there. I didn’t really see much go down. Nate did some good ledge tricks. Carleigh almost landed front 50 front shove out. I got 10 basic tricks on the blue ledge and pink slipped in a game of no comply SKATE with Conner. I did beat Nate in SKATE though! Fun night, cold! Check Carleigh’s blog for more.

An early mission had been planned to the Springs for a couple days.  Leave at 10, hit up Proper to sling some Null, then go skate street/film, then skate the park at dark.  We left a bit later then expected, but Greg made up for it by making us all laugh.  He bought a Null board.  The ‘Nothing Beats A Null’ deck.  He started laughing like crazy saying it was funny.  We were all so confused.  He’s telling us to say it out loud and laughing so hard.  Nothing beats a null.  Nothing beats anal.  Oh man.  We couldn’t believe no one thought of that before.  Too bad we’re almost out of that graphic.  After a fun filled car ride to the Springs we stopped by Proper, met up with Bernie and Sam and went to the school with the bank with stairs coming out of it.  Such an epic spot and a great way to start the day.  Oh yeah, the crew in my car was Derek, Jack, Max, Greg and of course, me.   Sam and I were feeling pretty old.  maybe it’s the cold weather, but we really couldn’t get it going.  I took a long time to get back 50 and front 50 across the mellow stair.  Sam was getting front lip everytime.  Jack front noseblunted the steeper one, Max ollied the whole set of stairs, Jack slammed on front 180 switch crooks, Bernie bailed front tail flip outs, Greg almost did some crazy boneless plant variations off the fence, Derek did some funny kickflip back 50s and almost got back noseblunt.  I also got back 5-o over the stair and then tried front lip forever.  The angle kinda sucked and Max tried it, bailed, and said it sucked too so at least I felt better.  I eventually landed it and everyone cheered.  You know, cheers for the old guy that took forever to land a warm up trick.  Ha.  As we left Bernie did a first try kickflip front lip across the mellow stair.  So sick!We left and went downtown.  Filmed Jack do a sick gap out to 50 before going to this insanely fun fountain spot.  Although it was kinda torture for me as my legs were killing me and I couldn’t even really ollie.  I got a little wallie then went into film mode.  Bernie almost got a crazy halfcab manual pivot 180 to fakie 5-0.  Others were trying some stuff.  Jack eventually did some weird gap to back disaster.  Greg joined him with a weird gap to front disaster then Jack topped it off with a gap to front pivot bearing breaker.  So sick.  It started getting real cold and windy so perfect time for Bernie to try landing another trick as it gets dark.  He didn’t get it though.  It was a cool manny up a ledge kickflip back to manny.  He almost did it.We cruised up to the park, but the lights were out and apparently don’t turn on until 7.  That is the most ridiculous garbage ever.  So we bailed out for some grub then hit the Castle Rock park on the way home.  Of all the sickness I’ve seen the Nullers put down this one ranks up there.  Those guys seriously destroyed the park in no time.  I cannot believe they associate with me.  Derek did a back pivot to fakie on the qp to flat bank, back tail and back lip too.  Max ollied and kickflipped over everything.  Greg did 100 tranny tricks first try.  Jack and I had a close call collision that ended up being amazing.  We had almost run into each other and had turned up this hip to avoid colliding.  As we went over the hip Jack came off his board as I was kinda pushing him a little and he landed back on his board.  Epic.  Jack went on to do every trick possible on a rail.  He would do one trick from the bank to flat bar, then come back and do another one down the rail.  Tricks included hurricanes, feebles, smith, lips, tailslides, everything.  Eventually I joined in and did the bank to flat bar boardslide pretty easy.  I couldn’t commit to the downhill rail though.  It wasn’t very tall, but it was pretty steep.  Jack was hyping me up though, and was close to back tails.  We made a deal where I’d get his back with a boardslide if he got back tail.  A few tries later he got it and I finally committed to boardsliding it.  Luckily I got it first try.  Around this time period Max decided it would be a good time to slam repeatedly around the park.  He slammed hard on a silly board throw down, nose manuals, ollies, everything.  Over and over, like 10 in a row.  We were laughing so hard.  Derek did some of his front 180 fakie 5-0 tricks, back 180 the huge euro and some fast nose mannies.  I went on to boardslide the quite a few times while Jack went on to land everything.  Front smith shove, front lip big, first ever front tail big and shut down the night with back tail shove.  Ridiculous.  Such an incredibly fun day.  I can’t believe how positive and awesome the Nullers are.  You guys seriously rule.Count update.  285/300.

Went to the CU football game with the kids for free through their school.  The game was pretty fun, but it was cold so cold just sitting there.  We got home and Ollie wanted to go skateboarding.  I just wanted to take a nap and warm up.  Ha.  I couldn’t say no though and we headed out.  I had me some new Ipath Fred Gall Derelicts kicking.  I was thinking the Valmont loading dock spot, but saw the old parking garages near foothills and we hit those instead.  The first one has some red curbs, parking blocks, little kicker, etc.  Ollie was ripping so hard straight out of the gates.  Mongo pushing super fast.  Wallie/ollies up curbs, close back 180 attempts off, boardslides front and back, oh man, those were sick.  He did boardslides to fakie, boardslides 270 out, he would come to a halt sometimes, but it’s still ridiculous.  The most amazing thing though is his smile.  He seriously looks like he’s having the most fun humanly possible.  It floors me.  I skated better than the last couple days.  Had a line with back 50 on the curb, ollie most of the table top kicker, kickflip, ollie the median, front 50 on the red curb.  Pretty fun.Then we went across the lot to the original valmont garage from the Blame The Filmer era.  There is some low hanging pipes now which totally blow.  I didn’t do much in here other than kickflip a parking block and to a silly little quick up to front tail on a parking block.  Sam was cruising around as usual.  Ollie continued his awesomeness.  His face was red he was skating so hard.  He was doing wallies over the parking blocks, trying shove its (pretty close),  powerslides.  I need to go skating with him more.

Met up with Chris Jones at MRKT then went up to Northside.  There was a guy there with pink griptape and hair that looked like Greg Harbour’s.  Oh wait, it was Greg!  Sick sick sick!  Talked to Greg for awhile and tried to skate.  Everyone there is so good.  I dorked around with my normal wallie line, but couldn’t even do an axle stall on the jersey barrier.  After awhile Chris, Greg and others were sticking to the pole jam doing crazy variations.  I was trying boardslides on the mustache and could not come off the end.  I ended up eventually just sliding and coming back in which felt funner anyway.  We left and Greg had to bail.  Chris, Bonner, CJ and I went to the weird banked alley with the tall ledges.  I dorked around with frontside wallrides for awhile.  Bonner did a cool front 50 stall bigspin out.  Then I went to filming Chris.  He did a front pivot bigspin out and worked for a line of front pivot, manual a tall ass ledge, kickflip a manhole into a weird gutter.  It’s a sick real street skating line, but I messed up the filming pretty bad on the manual so he had to do it again.  Next time I didn’t mess up the filming as bad, but it’s definitely not good.  We left and played a couple game of SKATE as it was getting cold.  I still felt foreign on my board.  Nothing felt good at all.  Not even kickflips.  He beat me in both games.  I think the only tricks I did that I was in any way hyped on were halfcab flip and treflip.  I hate when I feel so old.  Chris won the second game with front late shove.  Man that trick is cool.  I wish I could understand that one.

I don’t even know what to say about this one other than I almost couldn’t make it past the first clip, but I ended up cheering like crazy for the little guy and his late flip madness.

I worked pretty hard on this.

Jason, Carleigh and I rolled out to Crisis to meet Neil.  None of us got much sleep and all of us were hungover.  We picked up Neil and Conner and rolled to a bank spot.  It’s one of those banks next to a handicap ramp kinda deal.  Neil was skating good.  Conner was of course.  I haven’t really skated with him before.  At one point he made something look really easy and Jason rolled his eyes just laughing at how ridiculous that was.  I settled in to trying a line of chinese crack nollie, front tail on one of the banks, curb around then b/s flip on the next.  I did land it, but the b/s flip was horrible.  I felt so foreign on my board.  My first three days in a row off in a long time, then to combine it with a pretty good hangover.  Not fun.  I took a bunch of tries just to ollie a 4 stair that was there too.  Ugh.  That spot is fun for sure though.Then we hit the park for awhile.  We were still hurting.  Carleigh ended up sitting in the car.  Jason and I skated mostly the blue pad, quarta potty for awhile.  I did the first b/s 50 b/s 180 out I’ve done in forever.  The funnest part was later on at the top of the park we would do a little wallride on the front of the bank, front tail revert on the lip of the oververt, then a trick into the bank.  Jason did wallride to back side rock, front tail front 180 out, halfcab into the bank.  I got wallride, front tail back 180 out, sw front 180 into the bank.  The sw front 180 was hard because my didn’t like being turned that way.  At least that was fun, but overall the skating was pretty horrible.