While we were up in Ft Collins on Sunday Dean took this photo of Ollie.  I have no idea how he got Ollie to smile on film, but he did it and this is one of my favorite photos ever.

After my last couple horrible performances I decided to go out solo to campus and have fun darn it. I had taken a nice nap and was ready to go.  I was on call for work so had two phones in my pocket and wasn’t up for another Real premiere (the Denver one).  I started out in the area behind the student center that has the really good concrete that I played the game of SKATE with Fuzz and Connor. I can’t believe I had never noticed how smooth it is there before. It’s the best place on campus for flatground which is extra awesome because I like that area a ton already anyway. I had made up my mind that I would like the new shoes and it seemed to work. Warm up tricks were dropping first try until I realized I had landed a bunch first try. Then it was normal Glen, but that’s cool because I moved on to hammers. I wanted to try a long line. Front 50 a metal stair, ollie onto one of the ledges down the 5 stair, ollie off it, 360 flip on flat, ollie up the two, ollie down the two, ollie down the three, ollie up the three. It didn’t start good because the stupid metal curb was somehow ridiculously sticky and the easiest trick in the line took the longest. I did somehow get the whole line though. The 3 flip included a hand in the make and the ollie up the 3 at the end was a front 90 because I was so exhausted. I was hyped though. Then I moved over to the handicap ramp area with the ledges/rails. Last time I was there I freaked out because I couldn’t ollie onto the ledge. This time I could and then decided I should try to manual it. Pretty scary for me and I got really close a couple times. Not only do you have to manual the ledge, but it drops down a level, then drops again and you have to thread the needle through the rails. That would be fun to get sometime. I was happy to finally be skating hard after a few days of lackluster effort.

I started heading toward the hill ledges, but saw a somewhat tall ledge off the bikepath that I wanted to ollie onto. It was quick and after a pretty good slam I managed to do it. Pretty hyped on that. Next was the hill ledges for awhile. I did quite a few backside noseslides where I was trying to dropin a little further up the hill each time to go faster. I had a few bad front 50s on the top ledge. A few ok 50s on the curved ledge at the bottom. I started trying front tails on the top ledge. I got a couple that didn’t slide. Eh. I backed one up with a front 5-0 on the curved ledge. Neat.

On to the nearby parking lot where I had tried a line before and never got. No comply 180, fakie ollie up a curb, fakie flip, sw front 180 off the curb. I slammed on the fakie flip over and over because it was downhill and there was a crack that I kept landing in. A couple times I started the line off by ollieing off the nearby ledge with the death drop on one side. So scary. Anyways I finally landed the stupid fakie flip and went back to the student center for some more flippers. I got a few treflips, heelflips, f/s halfcab flips and did a f/s halfcab heel that would have only counted on defense in an over 50 game of SKATE, but it’s been awhile for that trick anyway so whatevs. I hucked a few Rick flips for good measure too. At the end I tried to do a little line of kickflip over a crack then nollie tre. I was going pretty fast for me and never got the nollie tre. Doh. I had fun though. I was so tired I didn’t even ollie the 4 stair on the way out. Had a blast.

A deep crew to Ft Collins on a windy and kinda cold sunday. We met at SOL. In my car were the kids; Jack, Max and Ollie. Bernie, Carleigh, Derek and Aaron were in another car and Neil was solo so he could bail out early. We hit up MRKT to sell some Null and because it’s a mandatory stop when you’re up there anyway. Next stop was the other mandatory stop – Northside. Ollie was with us so I stuck with him. He was pretty chill, but we had fun dorking around in the corner behind the handball court. He had some decent ollies to fakie on the bank and some body varials. I really didn’t do much of anything other then no comply pole jam. Max was shredding all over the place. Jack did pole jam late shove and pole jam body varial. Neil was sitting down. Carleigh did front 180 nosegrind to fakie on the ledge. Bernie and Derek were doing crazy manuals on the mj ledge. Fort Collins heads were murdering the park as they normally do.

The first spot was a 12 stair rail that Max ollied. He came close to kickflip too. It was nuts. I filmed his line like crap though. Such a bad feeling. Next we went to the kicker spot on campus so Jack could do the birth control, but it was too windy for that. I didn’t really skate there and Bernie started almost doing manual b/s flip so I filmed. I saw Ollie do a few fakie shoves on flat which I’ve never seen before. So stoked to see him skate everytime. Derek and Max ended up getting a couple awesome manual tricks. FYI I still hate these new shoes.

Saturday! And it’s nice out! Bernie, Sam and Sam’s son Evan showed up. Derek and his friend Nate met us. Carleigh met up with us. First spot was the long bench featured in Max’s retard clip. It’s been a few days since the session so it’s hard to remember it all. Carleigh was hungover and didn’t skate there. Derek almost did a back nosegrind across the entire thing. Bernie messed around then filmed Derek. Evan is a funny kid. Sam was kind of on dad patrol. Nate skated everything pretty good. The front 5-0 180 on the composite bench was sick. Bernie had done an effortless kickflip manual on a little manny pad nearby. So steezey. I was struggling to say the least. Couldn’t manual to save my life. Came close to boardsliding the whole ledge, but didn’t quite get it. Skated the two stair for a bit and did kickflip and front shove off. Yippee.

We moved on to the 3 flat 2. I posed a couple ollies, but didn’t get close. Nate ollied and front 180’d it. Derek landed on a few 360 shove its, but never rode away. Doh.

Next we went to the manny pad in the Louisville tech center where I struggled once again. I tried to do a line of manual then ollie a bench. Never got the ollie and credit carded myself with razor tail. Wonderful. Later on we had put a trashcan lid out instead of the bench. I got a line of manual, ollie the lid then out of nowhere pulled an ok frontside flip which apparently hyped up Bernie. Ha. I also ollied up the tall side and kickflipped off the curb. Nate kickflip and b/s flipped over the bench. Derek was struggling and sore and bailed after a few bad switch nose manny slams. Carleigh started skating and was hurting, but had a few manual attempts that could have gone the distance. Sam did his patented nose manny. Bernie took awhile to get going, but had some good stuff at the end. Kickflip manual the tall way. Kickflip up, kickflip off, kickflip over the trash can lid.

We left after this. Fuzz and Connor had wanted to skate so they were gonna head into Boulder after closing hours and skate. Fuzz had just setup new wheels and a board so I had to too. But I one upped him with the addition of some new shoes:

Some Vox Duece. They feel pretty cheap, but Vox is one of the few skater owned shoe companies left so I’m hyped to support them. Anyways, Fuzz and Carleigh grabbed some food while Connor and I skated the hill ledges. Well, Connor skated them, I flailed around like a 12 year old just learning to skate. Connor had some some sick moves like front lip to tail on the first ledge then front 5-0 on the curved one at the bottom. We moved into the slappy area as Fuzz and Carleigh joined us. We didn’t stay there too long and Carreigh left.

We went to the student center area. I was so tired. Fuzz manualled the 5 stair ledge first try and ollied onto another ledge pretty easily. And manualled around the two stair area. Connor firecrackered the two stair not knowing there was a three stair right after it. Pretty funny. Then we played a game of SKATE which might be the only time I felt decent about skating. I was not hyped on the new shoes. But the game was fun. Seeing as how Fuzz and I are seasoned vets of skating for over 20 years obviously we took out Connor pretty quick. He didn’t even land heelflip and the textbook varial heel was just luck. It was a super fun game though. I landed way more than I thought I would. Heeflip, fakie heelflip, treflip, fakie bigflip, f/s halfcab flip, most of my tricks. Fuzz got me in the end with a cab. How boring is that? A vert trick on flat. The board doesn’t even flip.

Next up we skated the ledge coming out of the parking garage for a bit. Fuzz and Conner back 50’d it all good. Connor may have even back 5-0d it. I just noseslid it. I think after that we pretty much just peeped the 14 knowing it would show up in the Real video (Chima switch front board). Fun night. I was beat and with the exception of the game of SKATE I skated like total crap. Not hyped on the new shoes.