On the coldest day of the season so far I had a busy morning, played some basketball with Ollie, ate some nachos, watched some football then got out for a quick session before some Christmas Tree shopping. It was in the middle 20s. And when the wind kicked in it was really cold. I haven’t been to this school for a long time. I wasn’t expecting a day that epic and I surely didn’t get it. I did have fun though. My favorite thing about that spot is doing tricks up/down the curbs after a ledge trick. I got close to back 180 up, halfcab noseslide then no comply 180 off. The other way I almost got kickflip up then front 50. That ledge is scary to 50 because each section between the stoppers is only like 3 feet long. The cracks mess with me too. On top of that I seem to have less pop then ever. Ugh. Other tricks ledge tricks I got were front noseslide (horrible), front board, crooks, noseslide, boardslide, noseslide fakie. Posed halfcab noseslide to fakie, front tail. After about 20 minutes the bushings had froze up and stopped turning. Ugh. That’s one of the worst parts of winter. I didn’t really land much, but I did actually try a few things that scared me and made me feel like I was pushing myself. I should go to this spot more, it’s fun. Maybe when it’s warmer and the wax actually sticks to the ledge.

Picked up Jason, then met Dean, Derek, Blaine, Connor and John at Crisis and went to Valdez in Denver. Super fun spot. Lots of ledges. A really long ledge. Max, Jeff, JJ and Sam met up with us. Max is the only one I saw land anything on the long ledge with a lipslide. All the other young kids came close. John and I had some fun lines going. John had noseslide shove, no comply 180 then switch noseslide 270. I never saw him get too close on the last one. I was kinda dorking, trying halfcab noseslides and then coming the other way a boardslide firecracker down the side of the 3 stair. Pretty fun. Derek did a sick switch front tail 270 out. Connor almost got bluntslide across the gap. Crazy. Then we got the boot.

We went to the nearby curb cut hill spot so Derek could do his b/s flip which he did rather quickly. I skated the hill a little after too and had one of my favorite runs in awhile. I did nothing cool, but did a bunch of powerslides that were super fun. Powerslide, ollie the curb cut to the street (barely popped it), a bunch of powerslides, barely ollie a manhole, powerslides. I wasn’t going all that fast, but normally I lose control after awhile and just bomb until I run out of it rather then control it the whole way. Super fun. Jeff popped over the big gap too and had some fun hill lines. Next up we went to a little curb cut over a bench that the kids weren’t feeling so much. They moved on and I tried to ollie it a few more times, but couldn’t quite pull the trigger. Doh. It had a weird backside carve into it. Last spot is what you see in the photo. I filmed Connor get a rad line, then played a game of SKATEBOARDBEYINDTHEREALSPOT with Connor and John that was uninspired, clumsy and kind of fun. After that it was a night at the movies and we went to see the Danny Way documentary. Pretty gnarly.

A cold front was moving in and it felt way colder then it’s been in awhile. The kids were having sleepovers at friends so Liz and I were gonna have a date night. That gave me a little over an hour to do some skating. So I stopped and hit campus. First spot I found was this. Carleigh and I had seen it a long time ago, it’s a little off campus. But somehow I remembered and after some pushing around I went at the ledges. Frontside there is a weird crack right before you ollie, but they are still really good. I was skating pretty bad, but I think it’s the first time the bushing had frozen up in awhile and I wasn’t used to it. I did a few front tails on the lowest one and was trying halfcab flip noseslide coming the other way. I actually got into one and was thinking today would be my day. Instead some lady that claims to have raised 10 million dollars for the building decided I shouldn’t be destroying the concrete. I think she was a little weirded out when I peacefully asked her what other purpose the ledges served. Ha. I left though. Ended up near the rec center area and took a bit to get a fun line of back 180 up a sidewalk, switch front 180 off, wallride a jersey barrier then pole jam this little midget pole jam that was on the edge of a sidewalk. Next I ended up at the parking lot below the 13 where I posed some ollies over one of the red barrier things. I almost got to the point where I could pull the trigger, but not quite. I went for some flat ground by the art building and since I was sucking I told myself I had to do 20 tricks before I left. It took a long time. There were a few 180s, no complys, etc in there, but lots of flippers too and I eventually got 20 tricks and bolted home. My flippers are not on point lately. I couldn’t even get remotely close to a treflip. Glad I skated though.

Unloaded a bunch of boards, set up a new one then did a few kickflips in the living room. Not sure this should count as a skate journal entry, but it’s more then some sponsor me tapes I’ve gotten.