Absolutely ridiculous.

Our first real winter storm.  A few inches had fallen already and the kids were staying at friends so Liz and I went out and imbibed a little at dinner then watched a crazy movie called Moon.

Made another run to Crisis as Fuzz is killing it!  He couldn’t skate after and Skelly had called saying they were going to Lafayette so I went out there.  As I pulled in Scotty P and Dar were there which hyped me up.  Rolling around the park over to the mini bowl and to my surprise Shane Ritter was there!!!  Holy Crap!  We ended up basically skating, laughing and getting our old guy mojo on.  It was a blast.  I sucked it up in the mini bowl and there was one dude there totally murdering it so we moved on to where most old guys go – the hubba/rails dude.  We started with the bump up to ledge.  Shane went back and front 50.  I went front 50 and 5-0, noseslide and tried crooks, but never put it in right.  I got close to my “Zero” line of boardslide down the rail, then noseslide down the hubba, but everytime I would slide the noseslide all the way and then fall on the impact of dropping all two feet or whatever.  Pretty pathetic.  Shane was going for back 5-0 on the bump to ledge and back 180 up the euro.  I started posing some noseslides on the tall bump to ledge and surprisingly around the time the warning buzzer turned on i went for it and after a couple tries I landed one.  Really hyped on that.  I never thought I’d even touch that thing.  Sean, Mike, Shane and Grant killed the marble pole jam thing.  Sean had boardslide to fakie, Grant like 20 tricks, Shane almost front board.  As the street lights had shut off I did some laps trying and failing at nose mannies on the little manny pad followed by a run through the rock section.  I did front rock on the little rock qpipe, front tail on the manhole, other tricks that I felt like I was finally starting to loosen up and dig this park.  Hyped.  Right before the lights shut off Dar and I tried to do front lips on the little marble ledge and we both got close, but the lights shut off right in the middle of Dar trying one.  So sketchy.  Fun session.  Whew, so I guess it was indeed the crowds that bummed me out before, because the park itself is clearly awesome.

Top 10 albums of the year:[table id=1 /]Honorable mention:Wavves – King Of The Beach,  Black Keys – BrothersBest concert of the year:Titus Andronicus at the Bluebird.  Completely epic.  ‘Four Score and Seven’ rocked so insanely hard it’s in the top 10 songs I’ve heard live.Other notable concerts:White Rabbits at the Fox.  Surprisingly rocking and some of the best percussing / drum pounding ever witnessed.The Henry Clay People at the Larimer Lounge.   So FUN!  Fun fun fun.  Lots of covers, smiles, beer and rock ‘n roll.The Thermals at the Bluebird.  Such a great live act.Poison Control Center at the Larimer.  Not exactly the best show I’ve seen, but easily the weirdest.  Between the weirdo dancing and the song long shoulder stands that show left me confused.Pavement at the Ogden.  They play better live now then they did in the 90s. Straighten the Crooked several times.  Hyped Zach is making it happen.Looking forward to in 2011:New Bright Eyes Feb 15 (already preordered it!)New J Mascis March 15!  All acoustic J Mascis studio album.  Might be epic.  Very high hopes on this one, kinda scared.More from my friends bands  Straighten The Crooked and Gangcharger.  Also looking forward to John’s new band.

I had some time on a Saturday morning recently and had been waiting for the Dinoseries to show up before changing the board wall.  Step one, taking down the old one.The pile of old boards that weren’t on the wall.Some other old ones and the ones that were taken down.Rough draft of the new wall.  Gotta keep the original deck on the far left.Mandatory music for hanging up the next set of boards..HYPED HYPED HYPED!!!  From the left, In A Jar, Start Choppin, The Lung.  I cannot describe how stoked I am on these and it’s so fun writing these song names down on invoice slips.The completed project.

After a pretty chill day at work I was productive at home for awhile.  The kids were having fun with friends so I went skating.  It was pretty chilly out, but the forecast calls for snow and frigid temps so it might be the last street skating day for awhile.  I chose campus with no real spots in mind other then to maybe manual off the three stair like I did once before after 50 tries.  After a little parking garage hill bomb I ended up at the three stair and kinda cruised around ollieing on the banked curb, doing kickflips and ollieing up/off curbs.  I started trying the manual, but wasn’t feeling it quite yet.  I wanted to line out to it and found a weird rock to ollie over (which can be seen in the background by the fire hydrant with the board sitting on it of this beautiful Monico 50 50.  The ollie wasn’t easy, especially for me.  The approach was downhill and you had to turn at the last minute to get the right angle.  Excuses excuses, but I did mange to eventually ollie it a few times and it was probably a little taller then a normal ledge so I felt good about it.  I was getting close to the manual drop and almost put it down.  I tried making myself go a little faster each time and a few of the ollies felt good.  But then I went landed pretty far back on probably the biggest ollie and cracked the tail real bad.  I tried to follow it up with the manual, but it barely got up the curb and was bouncing as I was in manual.  DOH.  I tried a few with the board backwards, but wasn’t feeling it.  I went to leave, but bombed the parking garage hill a couple times again trying to get some powerslides, but the concrete was too grippy.  I then went into  nollie/switch flip poses for about 15 minutes.  I did commit to both, but never landed either.  The switch flips were surprisingly close a few times.  I went home and setup a new “In A Jar” deck.

No comply 180 fakie 50 fronstide cab out.  This part ist awesome.

Woke up in Buena Vista still sore from snowboarding the day before with Ollie on his first day riding lifts.  We left Buena Vista pretty early and were back in boulder before noon.  Jake came over and played some SKATE at my house a bit later while we waited for Liz to return from a walk.  It was a decent game.  I ended up winning as we both struggled with treflips and I landed a weird one as Liz got back so Jake went for double or nothing, bailed it and the game ended.We went to the Lafayette park along with every other skater in Colorado.  It seriously sucked.  Let me correct that last sentence.  I seriously sucked.  Notice I took the ‘t’ off so ‘It’ changed to ‘I’?  Neat eh?  Anyways, yeah, I HATE skating crowded places.  Actually I hate crowds in general.  But this was too much.  I didn’t even know where my friends were and when I did they were skating steep obstacles and clearly didn’t want me around to bum out the session.  Every time I started to get excited about skating either a group of kids would get in the way or I’d have to avoid whatever I wanted to skate or have a collision.  Every time I avoided something or everytime I got snaked it would take me down another level.  I debated leaving by myself and finding some place other to skate (After leaving I noticed a waxed curb about a block away.  Next time!).  But I was really hyped on my friends that were there and after I threw a bit of a temper fit saying how much I hate the place Brian calmed me down and reminded me that it’s not the park I hate, it’s the crowds.  After that I finally did have a bit of fun.  Jake had been killing it all day.  Brian committed to blunt fakie on the narrow tall stonerpipe (can we nickname it that?).  The only things I did I was remotely proud of were wallies up the dumb little qpipe and committing to boardslides down the rail, but not landing them.  There was a pro spotting at the park even – Angel Ramirez.  He ripped more then I thought he would.  He is the first person I’ve seen skate the bump to marble flatbar.  He did back noseblunt and front feeble back 180 out on it.  Neat.  He also front boarded it frmt flat into the bank.Sorry to my friends for being such a whiny bitch.  I really hate skating around crowds.  I know it shouldn’t bother me so much, but it does.

Christmas time at the parents in Buena Vista.  Couldn’t fit Ollie and I’s skateboards in the car with all the Christmas stuff.  Well, actually, it wasn’t the Christmas gifts to blame so much, but the snowboards.  Ollie had been wanting to go snowboarding for awhile so we did that the day after Christmas.  The holiday was nice and chill.  Snowboarding with Ollie was a battle.  I’ve never carved so much trying to go slow to ride with him.  My feet were sooooo sore.  We had a blast though and Ollie did good on his first real day of snowboarding.

Stayed up kinda late watching the lunar ecliplse so I ended up sleeping in real late.  In a hurry I got up, did some pushups then some Christmas shopping.  The plan had been to skate Denver, but once I got going I was hoping it didn’t go down, and it didn’t.  Unfortunately Jack said his ankle was too wrecked, but on a dreary and chilly day Fuzz, Greg, Jake, Bernie, Ollie and I met at Meta and planned on skating campus.  It ended up being a blast.  One of the joke goals for 2011 is to not skate a skatepark for a year.  As awesome as street skating is, I don’t think that would be too fun.  Especially with how meeting at a skatepark is the norm.  Anyways, back to today.  I get hyped on cloudy days.  They remind me of east coast skating and I always get the Mudhoney lyrics “Gray skies feel good today” stuck in my head.  We dorked around the hill ledges for a minute before diving into campus.  The first stop was right away at the Education building.  I saw Greg and Bernie do drop down then manuals to drop.  Jake may have dropped in from the top of the steep handicap ramp.  Fuzz and I wallied up the curb to sidewalk gap.  Fuzz did one followed by a 540 kickturn then maybe an ollie to front pivot on the curb.  I got a run with wallie up the gap, dumb ass nose pivot on the curb, front pivot 180 on the curb.  Jake almost ollied from a far crack into the curb tranny.  Then we watched Greg and Bernie entertain some tall manny drops nearby.  Bernie did a manual drop drop all easy that was pretty ridiculous.Next up was one of the many highlights of the day.  Greg ollied an 8 stair rail then we skated a sidewalk for about half an hour.  Initially the goal was to do as many tricks as possible down this stretch of sidewalk.  Greg probably did the most with a line that had something like fakie flip, halfcab flip, heelfip, kickflip, geez I don’t know.  No one was that on point, but we were having fun.  I had a line of something like kickflip, back 180, halfcab flip, varial flip, front shove, bailed tre.  I landed all the tricks horrible and I was going slow.  So what.  Then it turned to manuals.  Greg, Bernie and Fuzz were initially happy doing about a block, but they kept going farther until Bernie brought tears to all our eyes by manualling most of campus.  He went around a building and if he would have come out the other side still manually I probably would have lost my mind.  I got about half of the first section which I was still kinda hyped on.  Bernie, Greg and Fuzz went up the hill and came manualling down trying to go even further.  It was soooo funny.  They weren’t going all that fast so it just looked like three dudes standing swinging their arms for no apparent reason.  It ruled though.  At this point Ollie finally started to loosen up and started ollie’ing every crack.  I think Jake and I counted about 28 ollies over cracks.  So funny.Next up we ended up behind the library.  I took a bunch of tries to ollie off a dumb drop, Fuzz did a couple of the steeziest boneless combos ever, I landed a 360 flip on flat and then Fuzz ollie the long 7.  Seeing that spot gives me new respect for Max’s line in the Meta video with the ollie down the 7 then front board the back part of a bench.  So sick.  We went and peeped Jack’s dropin ollie from Null and Void then ended up skating the area above it for at least an hour.  It was epic.  Everyone did something.  Greg and Fuzz caveman’d a 4 stair rail.  Jake ollied this cool sideways gap near a three stair.  I boardslid the three stair ledge.  Bernie manualled something I’m sure.  Ollie back 180’d off a lower ledge and ollied the three stair.  We hit the stage area for a bit.  Greg wallied down the tall stage like it was nothing.  Fuzz, Jake and I found any excuse possible to not ollie off it.  Back to the stair area so much went down.  Fuzz ollied a ledge and manualled the 3 stair ledge.  Everyone ollied up the three stair.  Well, except Ollie.  That kid needs to work on his pop.  Ha.  Jake and I took a few tries, while people like Fuzz and Greg did it first try.  Bernie almost kickflipped up it. This is the kinda skating I love though.  Just go street skating and skate whatever you find.  It rules.  We had such a blast.We peeped a big handrail for a minute.  Ollie back 180’d a crack ridden two stair.  I love how kids don’t care about cracks.  We ended up near the stadium for a bit.  Some ollies and whatnot.  Then we peeped game over at the ledge that Fuzz kickflip manualled in Cut Me Loose.  Greg spotted a cool gap above it even and lined out an ollie over it then followed it up with a super nonchalant manual the ledge.  Soooo sick.  Across the street I had fun ollieing up a 3, turning around and ollieing down it.  Bernie did a sick quick up to manual ollie a gap.  We were gonna play a game of SKATE in front of the art building, but there was some dudes skating with a little box so we hit that for awhile instead.  Jake learned back 5-0s and I did maybe my second back 50 front 180 out.  Heading out we went by the UMC and I tried one attempt at my recent line there, but bailed the back 180.  Last thing was the drop down ledge near the hill that I like to drop down to then front 180 off.  Did it, but the 180 was horrible.Such a blast of a day.  Everyone skated good and hard and had a blast.  Thanks everyone for being cool about Ollie being around.  It means a lot to me and it allows me to be able to skate more.  He’s a quite kid, but he said he had a blast too.