I attempted to skate, but the neck was still wrecked and I mostly just filmed.  The only things I did were cali grind at this manny pad spot, back and front rocks at the jersey barrier spot.  Click the photo to go to Carleigh’s blog and see lots of neat photos.

Wow this is part is nothing but hype! Fast skating, sick style, sick editing and Sonic Youth. Too bad my neck is still jacked and I can’t really skate

Had Thursday off work.  The original plan was to go to the Denver Art Musuem with Liz after the kids went to school, but India stayed home sick and that was delayed for Friday.  So instead Jake, Derek, John and I headed to Fort Collins for some nice weather skating.  We stopped at Spring Creek first.  After some warming up we all started trying 4 trick lines.  Whatever we wanted.  I think Jake got his first.  I totally forget what it was, but I know it involved a manual and possibly a feeble to fakie on the tight wavy qpipe.  John was next with a tailslide on the ledge, feeble grind on the pool coping near the coffin and maybe a treflip.  Derek was kinda doing his own thing and ripping.  Back 3s out of the potato chip were so sick.  I took a long time to get my first line.  Front board to nose manual, ollie below noping, nose manual and then a failed nollie treflip.  The nose manny took too long.  Jake had already done another line that had something to a front feeble on the tight qp in the wave.  I think John got another one too.  Something with a rock ‘n roll in the tight qp.  My second line came quicker.  Front 50 down the ledge, backside tough guy on the pool coping, front rock on the tight qp then I was gonna stop, but everyone started yelling “4th trick!!” so I went for a flatground heelflip and got it.  Cool.  Chris had met up with us and was doing super sick wallie manuals up the potato chip.  I tried just wallieing up it and after a few slams got a couple.  My last line was a long and tiring one.  Backside wallride the back of the tight qp, f/s below noping ollie (which still felt pretty good), b/s scratch grind on the pool coping, ollie onto the wave (this is a trick at this point because I was already tired), axle stall the tight qp, then kickflip out of the wave.  The kickflip was soooooo hard because I was so tired at that point.  I eventually got one and went straight to sitting down.  Whew.We hit MRKT for awhile which is always fun before moving on to North Side which surprisingly wasn’t super crowded.  At this point it was probably 60 degrees out.  So amazing.  Lots of the Fort Collins heads were there and we skated with Andy and Mike too.  John, Mike and I started out carving around the little pool section in the back.  So good for warming up the legs.  John ripped it with some feeble grinds.  Mike’s got all kinds of layback tricks.  I did my tiny little slasher and a rock ‘n roll on the rock coping.  So fun.  We skated the “mini ramp” section for a tiny bit.  Chris and Derek were skating the ledge near the front.  I started posing kickflip wallrides on the bank to steeper bank near the back.  I’ve wanted to do that trick there since that park was built.  For some reason I’ve never really tried it.  John was nearby and I hyped it up as a dream trick that I didn’t want to spend much time on, just land it.  5 tries later I landed one where I kinda just skidded off the bank.  Super hyped, but wanting a cleaner one I kept at it and a few tries later I got one that put me on top of the world.  It felt perfect.  Kickflip up, landed bolts and without lifting the front wheels up slide the front around and rolled down the bank with no tic tacs.  I have been so depressed about my skating lately, but that felt like one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done and had me so hyped.  John and I went over to skate the ledge with the kids.  Chris was trying 500mpg front smith shoves out.  Derek was trying front 5-0 kickflips out.  John and I did front 50 180 out first try, I got front 50 shove out, and Jake joined with us in a front 5-0 race.  I think Jake and I got them around the same time.  It was cool because it looked like Derek was just trying front 5-0 with us.  Ha.  I wanted front 5-0 shove out too, but it took too long and I gave up.  Jake got a front tail first T.  Chris slammed a lot.  After a bit of cruising around John, Andy and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot.  John pulled the nollie flip and Andy got a textbook b/s flip to give me SK, but other then that I somehow landed all the other tricks John layed down including 360 flip, fakie front shove, halfcab flip, etc.  I was happy got get fakie bigflip and heelflip too.  After that I just watched Derek go for front lip to front board up/down the mj ledge and tried nollie treflips until I eventually got one.  I tried to skate a bit more after that, but my legs were done.  John added a blunt to pivot fakie on the bank to his stellar day.Such a fun day.  We went to La Luz and ate after.   Fort Collins rules.  Best skatescene in CO.  Unfortunately the next day I would wake up with intense upper back/neck pains that prevented me from being able to do anything.  Ugh.  I guess that’s the reward for good skate days when you get old.

Another chilly night, slightly warmer then the last. Jake called me and suggested Broomfield which we haven’t been to in awhile. Sounded good to me so we rolled there. Fuzz was sick we heard so it was just Jake and I. When we arrived at the park there was only 3 other dudes there. All in flannels and beanies of course. It’s the mandatory uniform you know. Jake and I were hip of course except we didn’t realize Nikes were mandatory. All them kids had the Janoski shoe. Ugh, don’t you kids realize that Nike sucks! Later on two more dudes would show up. One decided to go against the norm with a hoodie, but of course made up for it with Nikes. So lame.Anyways, time for the shredding.  Jake and I started with a game of SKATE on the quartapotty.  Jake pink slipped me, but we both landed quite a bit of tricks.  After that we played flatground SKATE.  I took this one.  I think Jake was spelling  SKATER though because  I got him with b/s flip, varial flip, 360 flip, heelflip, fakie bigflip and f/s halfcab flip.  After that we did cruised around for awhile doing our own thing.  I saw Jake ollie the six stair a few times.  I was feeling a bit to cold for that.  I settled in to trying a line which took a long time.  f/s flip on the hump above the corner in the bowl, back 50 on the black ledge, then front 50 shove on the black ledge.  I struggled with the f/s flip for awhile.  I started sinking into that depression mode again, but stuck with it and eventually started landing them most tries.  The back 50s were almost every try, some would go into back 5-0 and I’d stick with it.  The front 50 shove took longer than it should.  But when I did get the line it felt great.  Solid f/s flip, locked into a perfect back 5-0, then front 50 shove.  Stoked.  Jake was working on a run of f/s flip on the bump too, manual the black ledge, fakie front 50 on the black ledge.  Not sure if he got the whole thing, but he did get the fakie 50 and came out fakie which he’s never done before.  Rad.  At the end I went through the typical take 100 tries just to ollie the little rail into the bank.  I don’t know why that’s so damn scary to me.  Anyways I got it, but still ended up riding into the grass.  At the very end it started snowing, but I wanted to do halfcab crooks on the little blue ledge.  I got super frustrated as the snow started making the concrete and my grip too slick.  Ugh.  Kind of a bummer to end it like that, but it was a fun session overall.

Talk about inspiring.

I love the extra pushes, the crappy skatepark footage, everything. And I can’t believe Supra has him on the flow program while Antwuan has a pro shoe. Ridiculous.

A pretty chilly January night. Probably in the mid 20s when we started, lower 20s or less when we finished. Ugh. I didn’t bother with the multiple layers and went right for a jacket. Warming up was not fun and surprisingly the park wasn’t totally empty. Collin and Sean were there ripping. Derek was already ripping too. Carleigh went to work on noseslides pretty quick on the bump to ledge and landed most of the ones I saw. I didn’t see a first try noseslide shove however. She tried them in a line with a manual on the little manny pad up top too. Derek was skating the vert bowl so we joined him. He did kickflip to fakie, but well under coping. I finally dropped in the shallow section and survived a carve. It ended up being pretty fun and I’d like to skate it more. Carleigh skated it for a bit too.  And by a bit I mean one run and one kickturn.  Ha.  Derek also did full cab, halfcab and ollie to fakie (while yelling) below vert.  Still sick though.  I kinda went into a frustration period for awhile.  There are so many things I wish I could do at that park first try just flowing around.  I never land anything though.  Other than a faster than normal noseslide down the hubba the only things I was hyped on was things I hadn’t done there before.  Horrible ollie over the perfect rounded hip in the collision course, kinda close to manualling the way to tall pier 7 replica, and at the end finally nose manualling the little manny pad.  I really am bad at skateboarding and this place really brings it out.  Derek on the other hand is really good at skateboarding and it shows at this park.  Endless lines.  Fakie flip on the gnarly stone bank, treflip fakie on the extension in the little bowl, nosegrind down the hubba, kinda close to front board b/s flip out on the flatbar, etc.  He is hilarious too. All in all I skated like crap, but left the park in a decent mood and I wasn’t too sore.

Just kidding of course. Only posting this as a reference to this entry as I was hyped to get kickflip manual and nose manual at this spot.

I was pretty tired after such a late night the evening before skating Fuzz’s red curb to the wee hours of the night.  Ollie and I stopped by Borders to pick up a Looney Tunes DVD he wanted to buy with his allowance then drove off with no place to skate in mind.  We ended up near Foothills and Valmont in the industrial park.  We saw a fun looking speed bump and that was enough to get us out of the car.  It had been warmer out earlier, but now it was getting colder and windy.  Not cool.  We did have fun though.  We cruised around a few buildings never skating anything too long and having fun the whole time.  Ollie had some front boardslide transfers on parking blocks.  He slid them for a bit then would stop and dance on the board for awhile before transferring over.  So sick.  He tried a few back boards and slid out laughing.  I had some ollies and kickflips over the speed bump, some poses at kickflip front board on a parking block, front lips that stuck, a really bad hurricane.  We skated this long 3 stair where Ollie rode down by manualling the top stair.  So crazy.  It was spaced just perfect so that the front wheels would barely land before going off the next stair.  I wanted to ollie to the last stair, but it was too scary for the time being and I resorted to an ollie to pivot the turned in.  We skated this hill for a little bit into slippery new asphalt that was really fun to powerslide.  Ollie hung out in this medium between curbs and was rotating on his back wheels to nose stall back and forth from one side to the other.  It was so rad.  At the end of the session Ollie did a back 180 down a 2 stair (captured by the awesome camera in my work cell phone) and I ollied from the little kicker by the rocks in the photo over the two stair.  It was harder than it looks.  Fun, mellow session.  Went home after that and watched football and napped.  Go Packers!