I could lie and say I just felt like skating flatground, but no, after watching this a few times I wanted to skate flatground. Both these dudes kill it, but as you all know PJ is one of my favorites. Ok ok, my favorite. This game hyped me up a lot. This might only be the second time I’ve skated flat for real since the whole tendonitis experience and rehab. It started slow, but went decent. I had my ear phones in which totally helps solo sessions. I started with the basics, tried to skate a little faster than normal which led to a great feeling heelflip, but lost steam when I got stuck on treflips. Took a long time, but I ended up getting a good one. Fakie bigflips are still super fun. Then started battling nollie treflip as the only trick I normally kind of have that I haven’t done since the arthritis kicked in in October. I got one! Was super hyped on it. Then went inside and watched Harry Potter with the kids, ate a lot of popcorn and stayed up too late waiting on word from Dean that Four was uploaded to proofread.

Carleigh, Fuzz and I went to the 303 warehouse on a beautiful night that would eventually turn to rain as we skated and skated. We met up with Darren, CJ and a guy who’s name I forget. When we first got there the miniramp was all that was skateable. Those dudes were killing it. The were working on tricks like back tailslides, back smiths and other tricks I can’t touch. I felt really disoriented and dizzy. It was weird. It went away though. I got a few of my basics on the ramp. And by a few I lterally mean like 3 tricks total. Fuzz ripped. Carleigh what seemed like a good warm up run and few runs, but then she disappeared into the corner and stayed quiet the rest of the night. After awhile we moved to the limited options on the street course. Basically roll down the bank, kickturn then a trick on the bank, bank to curb or ledge. Darren was getting roudy. He was getting into back noseblunts across the lower one. He was sliding them. He kind of even landed one with one foot. It was amazing. He’s killing it. Fuzz and I more skated the bank to ledge for stalls. It’s way harder to skate than it looks. I tried a bunch of kickflip 50s which are normally easy on stuff like this. I gave up and went for some easier tricks like front 50 stall, front smith, front tail, back fitty before eventually getting a kickflip 50. Felt good. Fuzz had some cool around the world staple gun combos on the bank, front pivot 270 out. Near the end we tried some kickflips at speed which was fun, then Darren and Fuzz started the kickflip, heelflip, treflip game. Darren was first with an extra revert on the treflip. Ha. I never got them all, but I did manage a couple good treflips for me and some other flippers. It felt great to land those treflips. Funny how we can skate an entire park and my favorite thing is the flatground. Maybe that isn’t funny, maybe it’s a problem. But it is what it is. Overall a fun night except for Carleigh not having a good one.

Jason showed up at my house to get some DVDs to review for Four magazine. He heard that Carleigh and I were interested in skating Valmont for a bit and he wanted to come. AWESOME! President Obama was giving a speech at CU and after picking up Carleigh we somehow managed to be the last car on the road before the Obamacade. It was pretty epic. Jason drives pretty slow and we were laughing that we were gonna get run over. We ended up getting almost to Valmont loading dock before finally having to pull over. We watched him roll by. Pretty sure he saw us waving.

Going to Valmont with Jason was a trip down memory lane. This was one of our favorite spots with so many great sessions. My arthritis was kicking a bit, but there was no way I was going to complain. Jason chilled out, shot some phone photos and used the loading dock to stretch in ways that he hasn’t been able to in months. It was inspiring to be there with him. I warmed up with some noseslides and front board attempts, but never got one (poser photo #1). You can see Carleigh in the background. She warmed up the hard way trying to ollie all the sets of cracks coming down the ramp.

After that Carleigh started skating flat like I’ve never seen her before trying tricks I’ve never seen her do. She landed on both b/s flip and halfcab flip, but didn’t quite ride away. I was hyped to see her trying new stuff (although I guess she has landed a halfcab flip once).

I love doing my little crook jibs here. I tried a bunch where I’d push up to the curb to the right of the fence (see Carleigh’s photo above) and try front smith stall kickflip out. I got really close. I had a few bad halfcab noseslides in there too and some back 50s where I come in at 90 angle. Jason told me I should stand up more on my crooks so I tried. Kinda hard, may have gotten one.

Apparently I’m too old to ollie up onto the taller part of the ledge now and land a trick (poser photo #2). Oh well. I setup a little pallet to ollie over and Carleigh and I tried some lines. She ollied it then did noseslide shove real quick. I tried ollie then front 50 shove and never quite got it. Carleigh got close to some kickflips over the pallet, but kind of lost her mind at the end. Doh. That was the end of the evening anyway. Seeing Jason for so long was awesome.

Carleigh and I headed out around 4 and skated the weird bank spot near Crisis while we waited for Fuzz to close up shop. It was pretty fun and I was surprised my legs were feeling good after 3 days straight of street skating already. Carleigh had some good kickflips and some good slams over a little metal grate, good ollies down the two into the bank and ollies up the two. I had some tiny ollies into the bank, kickflip to fakie, no comply bigspin, no comply 270 to tail and at the end finally wallied up the two.

Then we went to this spot. Wow it looks epic eh? It is. But rougher and harder to skate than it looks. We got out of the car and I could tell immediately that my arthritis was gonna act up and limit my skateboarding. Doh. Fuzz was carving around and hit his stomach on a pole. It was hilarious. So he drank a beer. Carleigh swept the runway for the upper waxed part. I rolled around and took several tries to do rock ‘n rolls. Fuzz started pounding out a line of front 180 over the curb (aka FLYOUT) then switch board transfer. Man he did it good and Carleigh filmed it. Is this the start of Off The Couch 2 With a Vengeance? Who knows. I had dreamed of doing kick back tail shove at this spot, but of course kick back tails weren’t even happening. I blame my arthritis. It’s a great excuse that I hope to not have the luxury of using much longer. I filmed Carleigh do a tailslide all steezey. John showed up and killed it immediately. I went down to where it was mellow and tried to ollie the curb into the bank. The worst part is I knew mentally I would be unable to do it as soon as I tried the first one. But being the stubborn moron I am I kept trying it and bumming myself out more. I finally gave up, laughed at my griptape and walked back to my friends that were having fun. They were laughing because apparently John was rolling backwards and ran into a metal grate and slammed. Fuzz destroyed some nose stalls on a pillar, John did his patented front shove front nose to fakie and I did a boardslide. Glad I had a little fun at the end. Go old guys (and girl).

Had a long Saturday. Woke up at 5AM for some reason. Worked on Four for a long time. Waited in line to buy The Electronic Anthology Project Of Dinosaur Jr on purple vinyl (well worth the wait). Ran boards to Community. Brought Ollie to flag football practice (he couldn’t do anything though because of his stitches). Then took a nap and set up a new board while watching the new Transworld video. Busenitz part is bonkers! My new griptape (above) is inspired by one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the internet:

Yes, I am easily entertained.

I also setup some new wheels. Although I kept my old ceramics much to Fuzz’s disapproval. Around the time it got dark Fuzz, Carleigh and I rolled to campus. We parked by the 14 to get warmed up on the little ledge/curb thing in the parking lot. Ha. It ended up being a rad spot to warm up. Carleigh started ollieing off it and put down an ollie over the manhole at one point. Still can’t believe Fuzz did this years ago. Fuzz and I mostly dorked around doing stalls on the top trying to drop to stalls on the lower part. He did blunt dropped down to pivot on the curb. It was amazing. I got a nosestall down to crooks to fakie. That felt good too. I did some wallies up. So fun. Want to do it to manny sometime. Carleigh got ollies up and followed it up with front 180 down. Fuzz started doing chinese nollies off the crack and got me to do it after I bailed it a bunch of times. Being in the air seems to be the thing I’ve lost more than anything. Carleigh went on to do ollie up and steezy kickflip off. I tried to get her back with a kickflip up, but didn’t get close. Next up we went around a corner and found this new spot.

We did some silly stuff for a bit. Fuzz did a boneless thing over the rail and I tried to learn it with no luck. Carleigh bolted a heelflip which hyped up Fuzz to front board the rail, but he bailed it. We just had to tell him he had to buy beers if he missed it to encourage him to miss it again. Ha, he did get it though. Breaking his tail and rolling away with a grin on his face. So sick. I tried a couple, but didn’t do much more that scrape the rail with my board as I flung it toward the rail. Fuzz was done, but we went around the corner to see the other new spot.

Carleigh and I rolled in on this a few times. It’s just fun. I managed a manual between a couple cracks which was fun. Those two were pretty much done after that. We looked at my dream Jack spot and they thought he could do it (hint Jack hint). Then I kind of just skated around for awhile. Got a line of slowly ollieing onto a ledge and off, fastish cali grind, b/s flip. The funny part was pulling all the bark from the ground with me. That was the session. Super fun and maybe the first time I felt somewhat comfortable street skating the whole time. There was no point where I thought my body would give out. Awesome. We hung out after which was really fun too. Leslie and Liz joined. Lucy entertained. Electronic Dinosaur Jr is excellent. Good times.

Met up with Bernie after work at our favorite spot in Longmont. It’s been too long since I’ve seen him. He rules. We chatted and warmed up slowly. I was struggling pretty hard. My arthritis was not so good. Especially in the ankles. But no more complaining, this spot is rad. I did a few noseslides which were fun. Did a front board pop out. Bernie was being mellow, but it’s still rad to watch. The manual ollie to nose manny was my favorite. I started trying crooks and got a few quick ones. Skating the bricks on the bank was harder than I remembered. I only managed to manny them. Dropping in on them is still as fun as ever. Sam Pino joined us after awhile (shop closes at 7, but he was in Longmont by 7 what what?) and kinda skated around and made some funny jokes. I started skating the ledge a little better. Got some front 50s. Almost got front 5-0 and front 50 to front board pop out (old man’s sorry excuse for a combo trick). Came close to back 50, not close to kick back 50. Bernie landed his first front tail 180 to switch back tail. Can’t wait to see it down el toro. Then it got dark and we called it a night. Fun.

I don’t like going Four days without skating. During the day at work my legs were feeling some of the best they had in awhile. I had taken my bi-weekly humira shot in the morning. But by the end of the day I wasn’t feeling as well. Figures. I ate dinner after work then fell asleep on the couch. Rather than Neil it I decided to go skate and I was feeling a solo headphones session. I went to campus after watching the Busenitz/Real part in the new Transworld video where Busenitz completely KILLS it! I started by just cruising a little and ended up at the super mellow bank to tiny curb. I did a couple ultra basics then started trying back 180 stall thing, but then some CU truck with a bunch of gates parked and ruined it. They were setting up stuff to try and stop the 4/20 gathering. So I moved on. I went to ollie up a curb and had nothing. Ugh. So I picked up my board and walked up the 5″ curb in front of a huge pack of college kids. I rolled by the double downhill manny pads and manualed the first one a couple times before moving down under the Engineering building. I’ve been thinking about that spot since watching the opening Busenitz line with the tricks down the school. So sick. Anyways I wanted to hit the two downhill kinks. First pass through I did front 180 then switch front 180. Aight, good start. Then was an easy sw front 180 the first then ollie the second. Next I tried halfcab the first then back 180 the second. It took me a few tries and I even slammed hard once. Kickflips into the first one took way too long. But I got that then back 180 the second. The line I had been thinking about all week was no comply 180 into the first then f/s halfcab flip the second. Well, I’m not that good, so I settled for the non flip version and I curved around after and tried to ollie up the three stair. I haven’t ollied up a 3 in forever and I remember even in healthier times struggling with that set. I got close at least. Next line was front shove into the first, kickflip into the second then ollie up the three. Hyped! In between lines I would normally try a flipper or two. Nollie f/s flips or sw f/s flips. Neither were remotely close. The last line was a bad b/s flip into the first and a fakie ollie into the second. I moved on still groggy and without as much energy as I wanted. I ended up at a new area that used to have a brick courtyard with a couple ledges. Now it’s even better for skating. I dropped in on the long hubba thing a few times, ollied up into rock and yanked in and followed it with a boardslide on the ledge. Then I noticed they repaved the whole back of the building and investigated. I saw a gnarly stair to quick slappy grind that is screaming Jack’s name (prease prease prease Jack!) and this weird set of stairs down a little hill into a building. It’s hard to describe. Basically a few two stairs that run into a building with a slope next to them. There was also a flat gap nearby so I tried to line it out. I guess it’s not a flat gap, a curb over a sidewalk (close enough). I ollied that a bunch of times (sometimes lowering the bar on horrible ollies) then ollied up onto the sidewalk and rode off the two stair into the hill. It was such a dorky, weird and awesome spot. I did it again, but manualling the first bit of the two stair thing. Fun. I tried a few more lines in the area, but nothing really happened. I was hyped on a halfcab flip on flat and ollieing onto the ledge. Then I went home.

Keep Nike in the gym folks.

It was a way nicer day out then they had said however it was sprinkling a little when we rolled out so we went to Red Curbs. It’s Ollie’s favorite spot anyways. I was really sore and realized I had forgotten to take a bunch of ibuprofen. Doh. I mostly did slappy tailslides. Tried a line of slappy front 50 back 180 out then switch noseslide on the next one. Kind of did it. Ollie was killing it. Did a line of front 180 off the curb cut, boardslide to fakie then fakie pop shove. He rules. And he loves pushing mongo. Ha. He also did his first manual that he ollied into, tons of back 180s and maybe even a nollie shove. He doesn’t skate a whole lot these days, but when he does it’s so fun to watch. I managed a slow hurricane on the curb which hyped me up. My legs were sore though and I pretty much gave up on the session. Oh, I had some new shoes I was breaking in too:

Lakai – Carlo. Seems like it might be a rad shoe once it gets a little more broken in.

If you haven’t watched this yet you are blowing it.