I really feel old lately. After driving down from my Mom’s I played basketball with Ollie for awhile and I felt so slow, uncoordinated and old. I met Neil and Blake at this spot for a weird session. Neil was in a daze for obvious reasons. Blake killed it and Neil filmed him get a rad line of ollie’ing off a ledge into a bank, ollie up the curb then gap to noseslide. Neil skated for awhile though and had several nose manuals, manuals and easy ollies anywhere. Halfcab up the first curb, ollie up the second, back 180 up the third. Sick. I struggled for awhile, but just kept skating. Kind of early on manualled the medium pad into the other curb and had a really rare nose manny the long bottom pad to front 180 out. Hyped on that. I couldn’t ollie up the tall ledge. Early on had a fun first try line of front 180 up the hard way the low curb and fakie bigspin off. Neil mostly chilled. Blake was skating the 3 curb area doing some no comply 360 attempts and halfcab firecrackers (ha). I finally started feeling motivated and tried to kickflip up and off of the tall edge (going from low to high). The kickflip up is really hard because of the weird angle in. I kept missing and tore half of my griptape up. I managed to get up a few and land on kickflips off, but not ride away. Neil kept wanting to leave and I kept saying one more and I would get close enough that he wouldn’t leave. I gave up on the kickflips up and just tried the off and got even closer. But no cigar. They left. Doh. At least the chinese nollies into the curb cut that Blake ollied into were fun. I kept skating for awhile. Tried to do some more lines up/down the lowest curb. Tried pop shove up, back 180 off for awhile and failed. Moved on to back 180 up, halfcab flip off. Got that all slow like. The angle is harder then it looks, dodging the handrails is kinda hard and I was getting on between the narrower ones. I mean I could get on later, but that would mean I wouldn’t have enough setup time for me. Started trying switch front 180 up and 360 flip off. I was sweating and having some fun, getting close and missed a 3 flip and lost my shit.

I really don’t know what happened. I’ve been pretty frustrated with a lot of things lately and I guess I took them all out on my skateboard. I literally threw that thing around for 20 minutes straight. Then after awhile would start throwing one side at the other side. It was kinda fun for awhile, but the fact that I was mad at skateboarding just made me madder and the cycle continued for a long time. I almost left them in the parking lot, but I had new wheels so I knew better. I’m gonna take some time off from skating. For me, that’s probably only a few days, but I need it. My quads hurt just as bad as ever so I don’t think cupsoles are really helping that which I’m sure added to my frustration. Getting old f’ing sucks.

After a busy morning of unloading boards, playing basketball with Ollie and being slightly hungover (for the last time ever I swear I’m so over it) I headed out to skate a nearby spot for a bit before leaving for my Moms. Everyone I knew was at the King Of The Snake contest so I was solo’ing it. It was super nice and warm out. After an initial lucky front nose to fakie and a front nose Helmstetter (270 out kind of) I went to shit and stayed there for the next hour. I waxed the ledge like crazy, but had no luck. I couldn’t noseslide though the little knob. I couldn’t slappy crook the curb. Hell, I couldn’t do anything. I waxed the hell out of the ledge and as you can see by the photo of my board none of it seemed to help. I tried crooks forever. Like 20 minutes straight and came up short. I left wondering why I even bother. At least I had a blast with my kids over the next few days.

Met up with Dave on a super nice and warm Friday afternoon at the “Rollerblade” park in Longmont. I had new shoes. Supra Stacks. They are cupsole. They took a bit to get used to, but once I had one good kickflip they never felt bad again. I’m writing this several days later so it’s hard to remember how it all went down, but at one point I did my first sweeper ever on the big bank (far right background of the front board photo) and Dave got my back with a kickflip to fakie. What the heck? So funny that Dave did a kickflip and I did a sweeper. Total role reversal, but we were both hyped. Dave did a bunch of shove variations on the bank too. Nollie shoves, fakie shoves and the sickest cab bigspin ever. I tried to line out some flip tricks and stuff. Didn’t land much. Had a few decent goes at the ledge with a long crooks pop out and front 50, front 50 shove, front 50 front 180, front 5-0. Posed some kickflip noseslides. Had a great feeling fakie flip on the bank, but couldn’t get a halfcab flip. Dave front boarded the flat bar all steezy like and blasted the sick method above several times so my cell phone photo timing would get the photo. All in all a pretty fun session.

Then I went to the manual pad by Mikes Camera for awhile before the Lame Brainz/Blind premiere. I was really sore, but managed manny (whoa so tech!!!), nose manny, switch front 180 manny (hyped on this one coming easy two days in one week), nose manny shove. Came close to kickflip manual (that trick teases me). Tried sw front 180 manny back 180 out. Got kinda close. Left and had a blast at the premiere. The Blind video is way crazy.