On a cold night I headed to Zach & Amy’s to pick them up and head to Denver to see RFTC. On the way there I stopped to get gas and was confronted by an obviously wasted-Broncos-jersey-wearing-sports-bar enthusiast. He told me I would be giving him a ride home and got in my car. Great. He kept trying to hand me money though. I accepted $20 just cause, but when he kept trying to give me more I declined. I’ve been there before. Except I’m normally cheap no matter what, but anyways yeah, got $20 to give a dude a ride for a few blocks.

Zach and Amy kept buying me drinks. It helped get through the first band called Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. They had a great drummer that was entertaining to watch and some of the songs in the middle of the set were decent, but for the most part I was not interested.

The crowd at this show was awesome. Lots of older dudes. Ric, Lindsey, Betcher, etc. Most were complaining about how late the show was. Ha. Rocket played a great set spanning their entire collection. I thought the newer stuff sounded really good live and of course the old stuff did. As usual, Speedo was very happy to be on stage and the whole band seemed to be having fun. Except maybe when Speedo talked for a good 5 minutes about a trip to Colorado many moons ago when half of the band got jumped by some teenagers. Great show though. Saw a setlist here.

My first two day break from skateboarding in a long time. This was due to getting a call for work at 4:30 the morning before and being wrecked last night. I woke up early this morning mostly refreshed, but pretty stiff. Did a pretty typical morning routine for myself then got to Boulder park around 7:45. It was already pretty warm out. I pumped around for awhile amazed at how much the bright sun prevented me from seeing anything when heading east. Which bummed me out a little because I kinda wanted to try some stuff on the east wall. Oh well. I was having fun cruising around and popping little ollies halfway up the transition and over hips and stuff. A couple things early on that started getting me warmed up were a little ollie to fakie on the main bank, front slash the tight qp, front 50 the hubba, boardslide the bump to ledge, etc. A couple kids showed up that looked to be having fun. I kind of settled into a line. Front 50 the hubba, push around the park and go into the roll in on the east side, pump over the mound of wasted cement, little b/s ollie on the nipple hip, carve around, f/s ollie over the little hip, turn around, f/s flip over the little hip. I think I got all of them together, but the f/s flip was bad. I did get a better one though. Then I took a bit to get a b/s flip on it too. The one I got felt so easy and effortless it was a rare neat feeling. I guess I can actually have fun at Boulder park if no one is there and I can go slow and dork around. Can’t believe how sore I am though from carving around. That seems to hurt my knees more then jumping.

This is pretty much the best and proof that skateboarding is the silliest and best thing ever.

A cold and snowy night. Jake was angry about some girl problems and after everyone else bailed on Rampy he talked me into going to skate flatground at the Ihop garage. I was pretty sore from skating so many days in a row again (8). We started out pretty basic and worked our way up. Started with boardslides through a couple skate stoppers, kickflips, 180s, fakie flips and halfcab flips. I forgot how fun this garage is. It’s downhill. I normally walked back up. We kickflipped the curb. Jake normally followed his with more tricks then me, although I eventually got a long one together with quite a few flippers in it like varial flip, fakie bigflip, b/s flip. I don’t remember exactly. At one point I got down to the wall at the end and failed at a wallride because I can’t do them. Jake yelled down that we should do a physical challenge and land a wallride. The funny part was he walked down the garage to the wallride instead of skated down. I’ll cut him some slack though because he was bumming. I never got very close to the wallride, he got a couple though. Had some more fun doing manuals around the corner, ollieing the little median, bailing 360 flips. The thing I was most hyped on was going into the hill fast and actually ollieing the median rather then wussing out. Then we threw snowballs at a circle on the wall.

I had a really long day at work and got home a little before 7. Jake hit me up saying he was having a rough day and would love to skate Rampy. So after some indoor basketball with Ollie Jake showed up and we hit the ramp. Second run it was clear Jake wanted to skate hard and I guess it rubbed off on me. We both went deep into our bags. I got my first fakie pivot fakie in awhile, a good front feeble that grinded, front d to fakie, fakie hurricane, fakie joe hamilton, back smith stalls, front tails, fakie front scratch to fakie, and came close to a windshield wiper. Jake struggled with back blunts and never got one, but he landed nearly everything else. Blunt to back 50, pivot fakie, front feebs, hurricanes both ways, front nosepick, front 5-0 270 out, and some really long runs.

Headed to Denver on a snowy/cold day that was supposed to be in the lower 50s. By the time we got to Denver the sun was coming out and the temperature warming up the sunny areas. We were to meet the Crisis dudes around Tabor Center. We parked pretty far away and had a mostly downhill skate to it. I was still feeling pretty arthritic and stiff. I hit a rock and bailed and Neil went right past my board. Ha. Matt did like three treflips before we even got to a spot. Geez. We met the dudes at Tabor and they were chillin’ on the other side waiting for Chris to get a line. We went over and skated the Connor ledges while we waited. Man they are tall. Not for Matt apparently though. He did front/back 50s, front tail, back noseslide all easy. Neil was motivated briefly. Had some cool pop shoves off a curb and no comply tricks. Fuzz and I god a line of back 50 on a curb, ollie off a curb cut, kickflip, noseslide. I eventually got another line of slappy crooks, back 180 off the curb cut, halfcab flip on flat then a really bad noseslide. Ro popped over a fire hydrant like it was nothing and slappy noeslid the ledge? So crazy.

We moved on to a couple other random spots while the Crisis dudes stayed put. Hit a little manual pad for a bit, got kicked out. Got kicked out of the 2 stair black area. Skated a crappy marble ledge for a bit. Headed back to the car to go to Denver Art Museum area with the crisis dudes. They were all skating the fun bump to wallride that I skated with Nate and Chad recently. I didn’t want to get in on the session. Matt and I played a game of SKATE that I ended up winning. That’s 2-0 against this under 30! We hit the Denver Art Museum for a minute and got the boot in literally a minute. Then we got kicked out of a rock area that Matt gap to manualled and lastly a two stair that I failed to kickflip before getting the boot. Lots of kick outs! I look forward to warmer temps and less arthritis hopefully some day.

After a really frustrating morning waiting forever for the furnace guy to show and then spending a fortune I met up with Neil and Blake on a cold afternoon. My arthritis was in effect. Wind and cold makes it bad. Ugh.  I was there first.  I didn’t think I’d be able to even Ollie at first. I messed around with slappy noseslide variations and that seemed to loosen me up. When Blake and Neil showed I was able to skate somewhat OK.  Neil charged it for awhile. Front lip, switch board slide, back 180 over a little box. He was done quickly. Blake almost heelflipped the box, front nosed the tall ledge and when chad and Daryl showed had the most crazy slam. His foot went under the fence and when trying to pull himself up the heavy bar on the top of the fence came loose and hit him in the head.  Hard. It was sketchy, although quite hilarious looking. I had brief moments of being able to skate OK. Had lots of back 50s which I’ve struggled with for quite some time. Tried some lines. Got one long one.  Front 180 a puddle, switch 180 another one, front 5-0, noseslide the tall ledge, Ollie the corner of a grate, Ollie up onto the ledge and ride off, bs flip on flat.  Whew!  Struggled with fakie bigflips. Got one slow kick back 50, kind of some front smiths, halfcab flips felt good.  Daryl is so fun to watch.  He skates fast and powerful. He boardslid the 5 stair rail, lots of fast grinds on the ledges, a nollie heel noseslide, skated his dog around the parking lot. Chadman has stee  on flippers. He did lines down the little hill most of the time. He also messed around with switch inward heel noseslides.  It looked so rad.  Then  we chilled at crisis for awhile.  Fun fun.

After a very late night at the Old man jam at Launch and then a full day of work I stopped by the “rollerblade” skatepark that’s right by IBM. I was motivated to try flip tricks by Pat’s BATB 7 entry. It was cold and windy and I had new shoes. Another pair of the NB+ Stratfords. It’s nice not changing shoes every pair anymore. There were two young kids there. One was super obnoxious and annoying, the other other was chill and nice. One had a skateboard and one had a scooter. It should be pretty easy to figure out which was which. Anyways it became pretty clear that I was too tired/sore to skate worth a shit right away. But my stubbornness is strong and I kept at it, skated slow, did 10 flip tricks, ollied the flat bar, front 50’d the ledge and called it.

Pat’s entry for the Pros vs Joes. Man it would be awesome if he made it.

First and foremost, the old man nights at Launch are the best. It rules meeting up with people that have put in so many years on their boards. There is so much passion and good vibes in the air. I rolled up with a couple of my favorites Brian and Fuzz and we arrived at a relatively crowded session. We met Nate’s friend Matt. Carleigh was there with crew. Skelly, Mike, Andy and tons of others. The ramp was heated and crowded so I stayed away and started on the new qp and bank. Matt and Andy stayed there for the most part too as well as a few others. The qp was the main attraction initially. I got a front feeble and did my first ever boneless on transition. It felt rad. Gotta work on putting my foot up on the coping though. Andy had hurricane, front rocks (which are apparently new for him). Matt had nice ollies and more tricks then Nate said he would. Front d, back d, front t, back t. Then we put a little ledge on the bank. It was textbook perfect, but somehow hard to skate. Matt did a million tricks on it. I struggled with kickflips into it and only got kickflip axle stall. Also got hurricane and a bunch of front smiths while setting up to try a kickflip on the qp. I eventually got a bad one.

People were going nuts on the ramp. I saw Carleigh get rock to fakie on the over vert. Fuzz do an effortless sugarcane. Brian front rocked the over vert so steezy and had a run that appeared to last forever and contain every crazy trick he does. Andy, Skelly, Matt and I played a game of SKATE. I played horrible, but still lasted longer then young guy Matt. I think Skelly won it on a 360 back no comply. We skated the bank/qp some more. Matt did kickflip fakie, nollie flip fakie, 3 flip fakie. I did halfcab flip sketchy. We skated the parking block for awhile. I managed a little crook stall on the qp followed by a slappy crooks on the parking block. Fun. I was so tired that I wouldn’t bail the slappy crooks and sometimes some funny/weird willy grind/something variations came out of it. Made me laugh.

By now, the ramp session had died down so I finally went up there. Carleigh was ripping. Mike was trying some crazy carve lines. Skelly rules. My second run was probably the best run I’ve had on that ramp. It had a front d, back nosegrind scratcher, front rock and some fun carves in it. Later I would add back scratch grind revert, fakie back smiths, a really fun corner grind and a bunch of failed front smiths. Carleigh slammed to flat on a front d. Matt had some back 50s and a nice frontside ollie. Skelly did a rad fakie boardslide transfer into the ramp thing that was crazy. Mike got his crazy trick of flyout of the corner to rock fakie on the little qp on the deck. So sick. Epic night.