Woke up tired, feeling old and grouchy. Went to work and it just made it worse. Was super busy and annoyed all day. Ugh. Since I was halfway to Longmont I met Dave at his house. I beat him there and sat in my car listening to the comedy channel and Dave Chappelle came on was so funny I started laughing hysterically. That got me in a better mood. We went to Sol where we were to meet the rest of the crew. Dave skated and I played Allan in foosball. Those guys took awhile to show so I eventually got on the ramp and tried to play fakie ollies with Dave. He kills that trick. I was feeling very arthritic and not confident. Ugh. Then we left for Fort Collins. Along the way we got some yummy mexican tacos, had some car problems and still got there around 8pm.

The ramp wasn’t too crowded. After saying hello’s to lots of people we got on the ramp. Oh actually Fuzz and I skated the new little ramp in the back room for a bit. Lots of flat with tighter tranny then Rampy. Still fun though. At this point I felt ok on a skateboard. Then we went out to the big ramp. I had 4 runs with bailed axle stall on the first wall. I almost lost my shit. I left for a minute and just sat by myself looking at my skateboard wondering why I even bother. I eventually went back in and did a few crappy kickflips to try and get some board feel going. This seemed to help. I got back up on the ramp and had better runs. Nothing great, but being surrounded by a bunch of friends is awesome. People were killing it. Remembering who all did what is impossible, but I’ll try a few highlights. John had runs of all kind of ollies. Backside, frontside, fakie, etc. So rad. Fullertron of course killed it and was the last man standing come the end of the night. And the oldest. What gives? He did a switch backside ollie! Repeat, switch backside ollie! That seems like pretty much the hardest trick ever. He had all kinds of tricks. Old and new. Fuzz skated ramp as good as I’ve ever seen him. And that says a lot. Ric kills it and was more trick oriented then I’ve seen in the past. The frontside grab to disaster was so rad. I guess he also did a manual on the deck for the first time. Old guys doing new tricks! I finally met Kevin Marks and he had some good lines too. Back d revert, pivot fakie, back tail. Rob battled a feeble grind on the abrasive pool coping and won. Mike was there killing it in ways that only he can. Loud carve grinds around the corners backside, frontside and even switch! Geez! Andy, John and I played a game of SKATE that I would eventually win on a pop shove rewind. Ha, we were getting so desperate at the end to land tricks. A full on street session didn’t really happen, but the three of us skated flat and the little ledge for awhile. John learned front big to backside noseslide. So sick. I got back on the ramp after this. When it was all said and done I had landed quite a few of my tricks. Front d, front smith (kind of), fakie back smith fakie, back scratch grind to fakie, and a few grinds around the corner. It made me feel better. But man my legs feel so arthritic. Argh. All in all though a really fun night as these always are.

Had a bad day at work. Wanted to be alone. Or so I thought. Went to the old Mike’s Camera manny pad, but it seems like the rains from the floods pretty much destroyed that parking lot. Went to a campus, but couldn’t deal with all the students so I left. Ended up at the research center ledge. I waxed it up then tried to skate. That spot is lit really well. It would be fun to do a couple tricks down the hill then pop up the curb, do a ledge trick then go around to the manny pad. I was sucking though. No motivation. No coordination. My arthritis has been sucking lately. It takes a lot of confidence out of me. It’s funny because I had a couple lines that might sound ok on paper (or in html), but I was skating so slow and disengaged. Got fakie bigflip, pop shove, kickflip up the curb, crooks. Also the slowest treflip ever followed by the worst back 50. I left. Argh.

See.

Got called for work at 5:50 am. Ugh. That felt ridiculously early and all day I was tired. I got out early on a really warm afternoon were the sun was finally out and instead of going skating right away I went to sleep and woke up still feeling tired. Jake and Rob hit me up and a few minutes later we were rolling to Safeway ledges to meet Neil and the Square State kids. I was very unmotivated. The only things that I felt remotely good about were crooks on the low fence ledge and a hurricane (no grind though) on the main ledge. Neil was having troubles with his knee, but still had no problems ollieing over two cinder blocks a million times and doing speedy lipsslides. Rob did a cab noseslide! He had another banger at the end that I’m not remembering right now. Doh. Jake had hops over the cinder blocks too and had a line with front 180 the blocks and fakie front tail. Wowsers. Blake, Brendan and Alec all ripped. Brendan and Alec could ollie the cinder block like it was a crack. Darn kids. Near the end D5 and a crew showed up. So weird seeing them there.

Then we all went to Broomfield park when Fullertron showed up. The park was super crowded with bikers, skaters and mud from the floods. Luckily it thinned out a bit shortly. That park gets mad busy because no one really stops and it’s always just craziness. So I really didn’t see a whole lot of what else was happening. I tried a lot of John Brandows. Aka slappy switch front noseslides. I hadn’t really gone back to switch before which was way fun. The locals there rip. There was a million amazing tricks going down on the brick qp and the ledges at full speed. I saw Fullertron do a sick b/s boneless on the brick qp. Jake and I boardslid the tiny rail first try. Blake, Alec and Brendan all boardslid the flat and down of the rail. A couple front 50s when down to. I settled into blue ledge/quartapotty with Rob. I would land a bonked front nosegrind, be bummed that I didn’t pop out enough, do a trick on the qp, then a trick on the blue ledge. I got a few back 5-0s, almost with shove out. I had tried a bunch of front nosegrinds when Rob started trying them. He landed one about 5 tries later and it bummed me out big time. Not that he did it, just how bad I am at skateboarding. I almost called it quits for the night, but kept at it and a few tries later finally managed to land one without bonking. Whew. It felt great though and my spirits soared back to being happy and for the next few minutes I skated about as good as I can. First try front 50 kickflip out. Treflips. Almost fakie treflip. Lots of tricks on the quartapotty like fakie front 50, front d 180, back 50 fakie, fakie joe hamilton, etc. Unfortunately Jake was hungry so we had to leave. Doh. Glad I finally warmed up after 3 hours of skating though.

We finally got some relief and the rain had slowed down enough for Boulder to be drivable. But of course it was still raining a little so Red Curbs was called and luckily almost totally dry. I think they must have pumped it out and cleaned it, but everyone else thinks it just drained naturally. Either way it was skateable. Ollie and I got there first. We were both pretty tired and it showed. On top of that I felt insanely rusty.

Ollie was really tired and seemed less interested then he has in awhile. Some other kids showed up for awhile and during that period he sat down. Right at the end the kids left and he skated hard for a bit. Some good manuals, front 180s, fakie shoves and a pop shove. Oh and some clean ollies up curbs.

I went through a period were it took me about 15 tries to land a fakie flip. That pretty much sums up how rusty I was. I did manage to get a couple fun lines. Ollie a box, crooks the ledge, front 5-0 the edge of the median, kickflip a little puddle. Fakie flip, sw front 180 a puddle, nose manual. Took me about 30 tries at the end of the session to land a 360 flip. It felt great when I finally did, but UGH. Nothing else really stands out for me.

Neil skated as Neil does. Super clean, fast and fun to watch. He did most of his tricks. No comply over the box, lipslide, etc. He had a rad line of halfcab onto the sidewalk by the doorway then kickflip out of the curb cut.

Rob seemed like he was skating extra good to me. Had a couple really long lines. I of course don’t remember them right now, but some of the tricks I remember are poppy ollies out of the curb cut, slappy lipslides, boardslide fakie, so much more.

At the end the 3 of us played a game of SAKTE. I got to start and rattled off about 8 tricks eliminating Neil and getting Rob to SKAT. Then I didn’t land another trick and ended up losing. Ha. Rob had some rad tricks like back 360, cab and back 180 one foot so I don’t mind losing to tricks like that. I probably got close to the back 180 one foot then I ever have before.

Ollie and I went to this parking garage on a very rainy night that would mark the start of the rainiest period in Boulder history. We drove by Red Curbs which was more like Red Lakes. This stretch was also some of the least I have skated lately. I felt rusty. But my legs weren’t sore which was kinda nice. I had an ok session. Highlights were a great feeling heelflip, lots of front 5-0s on the curb, kickflip to fakie on the bank (not the steep side because that would involve only being about 3 feet tall), b/s flip on the little hip, slappy crooks. Lowlights were not landing any back 50s, taking too long to do the kickflip to fakie, not landing a treflip. Ollie was ripping though. Lots of fast manuals across the hip thing, ollie onto the bank with a f/s halfcab off (so good!), ollie onto the bank turn around then f/s 180 off, lots of 180s, ollied onto the little median and kinda manualled it. Driving home was sketchy. The next couple days worth of floods good really sketchy.

My first almost 3 day break in a really long time. I felt good on a skateboard and I was hella excited to be skating. Jake picked me up and we headed to Valmont around 7pm. We started at the manny pads. I got into the groove pretty early on. I hadn’t been able to do a manual on the short section, but I managed to manual the long section. Weird. Had some fun nollies out of the curb cut and was getting into a groove with nose manuals and then just kind of fizzled out for a bit. Jake was bumming on his new shoes as well so we moved over to the ledge. I actually had some wax this time so that helped. We moth did some tricks. I got a back 50 first try which surprised us both. We both had troubles front 50’ing that ledge. The second section seems so tall to me know when it’s not. Ugh. We both ollied off the dock. I landed kind of weird and hot pocketd my back foot all weird. Still hurts, but I was able to skate through it. Jake worked on bluntslide pop outs while I tried b/s hurricanes. We both got them! Never of us really grinded/slid, but when your 40 and doing new tricks who cares. Oh wait, Jake is only twenty-something, not even 30. Better slide it Jake! Ha. I came super close to my first proper kickflip noseslide (meaning I was posted up on it instead of just falling off) and had some front tails that slid at least an inch. Per Neil’s instructions on how to ollie higher I remembered to look in the recycling for a box for a few mandatory ollies. Found the Coke box above which was small, but fun. Jake and I did lines with back wallrides on this metal sheet he setup, ollie the box, front tail. He slid though. I also tried coming the other way with crooks (was doing them on the second level, popping out and they felt good), ollie the box and then frontside wallride. Got close. My flat ground game wasn’t all that but I had a slow fakie heelflip that felt rad. Eventually we just set the box on it’s side and tried some tricks over it. I kickflipped it first two tries then took a few tries to b/s flip and front shove over it. Rad. Jake slammed on a nollie halfcab and sat down. I put the box back up and took a few tries to kickflip it. Pretty hyped on that! Ok, really hyped. Finished the night with an over 40 make on a flatground treflip.

Ollie and I went across the street to the school. On the way there I did a couple good feeling kickflips which surprised me because I had considered not skating due to my legs feeling like crap. We went to the normal area in the back. Stupid little pebbles from the playground were now everywhere. Ollie ripped it though. Good ollies up the curb, front 180s off. Ollie over a bit of a cone off a curb. I was in serious slack mode initially until a little switch back 180 (and I mean LITTLE) hyped me up a little. I also ollie a cone on it’s side out of a curb cut first try. Pretty much nothing, but it was awkward enough for me to be hyped. When we left we looked at the 5 stair for a bit, I posed an ollie then did an acid drop from the 4th stair. Then we watched the Broncos. Jocks.

Went to the ATM on the way to pick up Carleigh and kept putting in my regular credit card instead of my ATM card and could not figure out why it would not work. Ha. We got to Arvada shortly before 9pm. We started in the smaller bowl in the back corner. I was feeling weird about my setup and could not stand up on the pool coping which was my goal. We both seemed to cruise around it pretty good though. Carleigh had some rad slashes on the pool coping part. Then we went up to the Pier 7 granite ledge thing. Well I did, Carleigh was up in the bowl area for awhile. Monico’s little brother Matt was there trying to front feeble the rail. Crazy. It cracked me up because he has the same laugh as Monico. I got boardslide, front 50, manual and crooks on the ledge before taking a long time to boardslide the long concrete ledge which pretty much ended the night. My flatground game was crap. Doh.