On a day where the forecasted high was 62 with 40mph winds I went to Southern Hills while it was 39 and not windy. Way to go weatherman. I had been entertaining Ollie all morning and then picked up India then brought Ollie to a friends and got to Southern Hills around 3pm. Carleigh, Neil and Blake would meet up after I arrived. I was feeling very arthritic and sore, but very motivated to skate. It helped that they had swept up the school and there weren’t a ton of little pebbles everywhere. I started ollie’ing off the little narrow ledge at the top for a warm up and it graduated into one of the funnest and longest runs I’ve done. Ollie onto the narrow longer ledge, push (I’m not good enough to ollie onto it fast enough to have speed byt the end), front 180 off, halfcab flip, kickflip into the handicap ramp, crooks a bench. I was sincerely stoked. Carleigh showed up around now. She was cruising around warming up and I tried another line starting at the long narrow ledge. Ollie on, kickflip off, back 180 down the two stair, something else. But I never got the back 180. It was weird kickflipping off the ledge because it’s so narrow. My kickflips felt weird. They felt way more popped then normal, but kind of out of control. I guess I normally use some angle. Anyway I eventually landed bad and cracked the tail to the point where it couldn’t be popped. Doh. Neil and Blake arrived. I lost a lot of motivation having to ride my board backwards. I tried some kickflips into the handicap ramp followed by front noseslides on the bench, but that was about it. Carleigh had a lot of back 180’s into the handicap ramp and came real close to a b/s flip. Neil ripped harder then I’ve seen in awhile once he got warmed up. Long lines. Ollie onto the bench in the far corner, ollie north off, noseslide the ledge, back 180 out of the handicap ramp. Switch front 180, kickflip into the handicap ramp, front 50 one foot out the bench. Blake did such a cool trick. Ollie from the top of the two stair onto the middle stair then front shove off. It reminded me of Suciu and his 3 flip onto the stair in Sabotage 3. Jack was supposed to meet up, but I had to bolt because India was stressing over a ballet audition. It felt good to get out and skate, but man I could have gone without breaking my board.

Liz is in Florida with her family. India has a sleepover at some friends. So my Valentines Day was going skating with Ollie and then shooting nerf guns at each other and watching Dumb and Dumber. In other words, it was epic. Since this is a skate journal I’ll spare the excited for Dumb and Dumber To and talk about how fun Louisville park was. First, we haven’t been there in forever and upon arrival it seemed to have a much better vibe then normal. There were several skaters there. Somewhat older skaters in their 20s and they were super positive and having fun. They reminded me of the Fremont crew and that is a huge complement. I’m not sure why, but I felt really natural and fluid when we first started. I did the best no comply 360 of my life and those dudes asked me to show them how to do that trick. I couldn’t do it again, but whatevs. Ollie and I cruised around. He had some really good frontside carves in the snake run and man, he looks so natural sometimes. He rode under the rainbow rail and then manualled the rough crete to the street. How does he think of lines like that? Ollie constantly stokes me out skating. He also had some lofty front 180’s off the ledge and some boardslides on the curb into grass. I think he was more excited to land in the grass then on concrete. The only complaint I have on the night is how tight my trucks were. It was colder then we thought it would be and with the harder venom bushings I was surprised at how hard it was to turn a few times. I tried a run of boardlside the curb, front 50 the tiny ledge above the bowl, ride off the other ledge, then front 50 the tall ledge, but I can’t seem to ollie that high anymore. Other tricks I did were front d in the snake run, crooks the ledge, kick back sloppy 50-50 the ledge. Ollie and I skated the bank to ledge. He did nose tap to fakie, nose tap 180 and a rock ‘n roll on it. So sick. I took way too long to do back 50, but got front 50 and front smith quick. I would do flatground on the way back. Got a good b/s flip. Posed other tricks. Last trick was a boneless over the hip where I almost died multiple times setting up with a back 50 around the corner. That park was way fun. Maybe I felt extra lucky just to be skating when I’m Mr Mom’ing it.