Jack is one of of my favorite skaters and people. He rules. Here is 11 minutes of random Jack footy put together by Jack himself. Note to Jack – start working on landing bolts eh?

Another cold and windy day. So over it. So it my arthritis. I went out to Rampy thinking I would try some more new tricks. But it didn’t go well. I really didn’t land much at all. My front d’s are doing good and fakie pivots to fakie. But I struggled on other stuff I wanted to try. Got an ok f/s flip on flat. Failed at 3 flips yet again. I want warm weather.

Seriously jealous of how coordinated Ollie is. This was the second play of the game and the first play I attempted to film. He can beat me in any race now too and he’s normally laughing while he’s doing it. OH well, he’s an awesome kid. Happy 12th Birthday Ollie!

After a fun morning celebrating with Ollie by shooting nerf guns at each other and playing video games I went out to Rampy while he worked on homework. It was really fun. I was kinda feeling out something new to try and settled with fakie front smith stall to fakie. I landed a few. I had done fakie slash to fakie before, but only with a tiny little truck tap, not fully on like a smith. It hyped me up and the only times I landed it were in a run with a back smith stall. I also did a run with front d, fakie pivot fakie and front feeble. Well, that sounds good, but here’s how it really went. Axle stall, front d, rock fakie, fakie pivot fakie, tail stall, rock fakie, tail stall, front feeble. Oh well, still fun. Did a treflip on flat (with both hands down as that’s the only way I can land them now) to end it and called it a fun little session.

Got up super early to meet up with everyone at Arvada park. I was the last one there and I arrived at 7:15. Geez. The park had quite a few people already. I joined Chad, Fuzz, Carleigh and Jack in the big snake run. I guess the mindset was to skate the scariest thing first to warm up. It ended up being really fun. It’s pretty much impossible to describe in words who carved where, but everyone seemed to go fast and push themselves. Fuzz had a couple gnarly slams. Jack too. Chad could carve into the upper left corner. The new stuff for me was to do a rock ‘n roll on the pool coping qp on the top right then roll ever a big hump. Ha. Carleigh was getting pretty high on the big vert wall.

Then a few of us skated the smaller bowl. I had some fun back 50s down the little escalator, but wussed out of a front d in a corner. Doh. Jack was rolling into it from anywhere and doing back ds on the weird bank extension. Fuzz had nice long front 5-0s. Rob cruised it good.

Then Rob and I ollied up the tall platform and Neil couldn’t??? What is the world coming to? Neil! Fuzz of course did it too.

Then came session on the little weird qp to ledge thing up near the drinking fountains. Neil did a bunch of back disasters. Jack did pivot fakie and then died on a bigspin pivot attempt. Shook it off then did it next try. Gnarly. Fuzz did switch pivot fakie, switch blunt and front noseblunt. Whoa. Rob had some rad crail stalls and front d. Blake had some sick slappy front 50s. I thought what Blake was doing was sick so tried it and got a few slappy back 50s on it, but couldn’t get crooks.

I think we did an uphill boardslide session next on the long concrete double sided ledge. Fuzz did boardslide fakie and halfcab boardslide. Gnarly! Jack did boardslide to feeble, boardslide 270 to primo (ha!), boardslide 270 shove. Rob did boardslide transfer and Neil was doing boardslide to fakie all easy. Blake was trying boardslide shove. I got last place with a boardslide.

Some of went over for flippers on the mellow blue chip which is my favorite thing to skate at Arvada. It started off pretty good for me with kickflips b/s and f/s, a bigflip, but then I got stuck on halfcab flip and even more stuck on treflip to fakie. Rob came up big with a biggee front heel. Wow! Fuzz took the longest to get kickflip to fakie (two whole tries ha), had the record for most non-flip tricks (some good ones in there!) and had a halfcab flip easy. He bailed a f/s halfcab flip though after saying “If I bail this one I owe you a cider”. He bailed. Pay up holmes! Blake had some weird front shove revert thing and back heel. Everyone left and I kept trying 360 flips to fakie, eventually just giving up. Ugh.

After some lunch and hanging at Crisis for awhile we accumulated Fullertron and went to this spot. Pretty sick spot. I was so sore/tired though that just rolling into the banks hurt initially. I struggled through it being the stubborn idiot I am and had a couple fun bonelesses and a bunch of no slide tailslide(s). I wanted to do kickflip to fakie, but didn’t. Blake did his front shove revert trick again. Neil sat. Rob was skating good and locked into some good front tails, had a sick no comply boneless all easy and steezy (sorry), b/s flip, crail stalls. Dave killed it in typical Dave fashion. Mini handplants, crail stall variations, front tailslides, boneless, fakie shove, but couldn’t get the back tailslide to fakie. Fun, long day that was done by 2:30pm.

After work I picked up Matt and we met Jack at the Mikes Camera manny pad. I managed my two manny tricks kinda quick for me. Kickflip manual and nose manual shove. Matt slammed pretty hard on a kickflip up. Ouch. He had a nice halfcab manual going fast, nollie manual and tried treflip manuals. Jack had fakie bigspin manual back 180 out and probably a few more tricks. We went over to the ledge for a bit too. I was intimidated by the 2 sided part of the ledge and barely got a front 50. Ugh. Got crooks and boardslide pop out the other way. Matt had some fast front 50, 5-0, smith, tailslide, back 50, back tail. Wowsers. Jack had swtich crooks, front lip, switch hurricane (so good), back 5-0 and a bunch more. Fun quick session before I went and celebrated 16 years of marriage with The Mighty LZA.

Went to Lafayette park after dinner feeling pretty unmotivated and antisocial, but wanted to cruise around mellow. I arrived to a pretty normal Lafayette scene. A few skaters, bikers, scooters. I had done a few laps around the park when carload after carload of older rollerbladers showed up. Dudes with beards on rollerblades? Yeah, like 20 of them. That pretty much killed any desire I had left. Especially when they posted up on pretty much everything. I skated for about 45 minutes and can’t think of a single highlight.

After a busy day at work and then busy day with kids Matt picked me up and we met up with everyone at Broomfield park. And I literally mean everyone. Eric, Blake, Neil, Rob, Fuzz, Carleigh, Jack, Darin and more. The park was crowded with youngin’s too. I was about to go into ‘stand around and watch at a busy skatepark’ mode, but ended up skating. Matt was doing good stuff on the ledges already. I went up up and ran into the steep bank a few times to get warmed up. Fuzz too. It’s really hard to know what all everyone else was doing because there was so much going on. Rob did a rock ‘n roll on the steep bank which I’ve never even see him try before. Fuzz did some steezy decked rocks and front rocks. I had dropped in on a taller part of the pool coping in the flow bowl hoping that I would get over the fear of dropping into the pool. I then said if I land a front rock on the steep bank I’d drop in. Landed the front rock. Doh. But ended up dropping in fine into the shallow end. That was enough tranny skating for me! Ha. Then a black ledge session went down. I didn’t really skate it. But I saw a lot go down. Matt back tail, fakie 5-0. Fuzz lipslide, front nosegrind and bluntslide to scorpion. Rob and Neil crooks. Neil front nosegrind. Darin lots. I took a long time to nose manual the blue box, but did it. Blake was trying noseslide transfers onto the brown ledge. I got a super rare front nosegrind. Stoked! Then played with Darin for awhile on Kickflip, heelflip, treflip all together. Felt good on the kickflips and heelflips, but treflips were elusive. I landed a few with hands down, but that’s an over 50 make and I’m not 50 quite yet. Matt did that quick. And fakie too I think. I ollied the six stair in a couple tries. Felt great. Really fun. I should ollie more stairs and should have tried the double set. Jack was all over the park killing it the way he does. He is not a stock skater and it rules. He hyped me up for the six stair. Matt and I posed a couple kickflips down it, but never got close to committing. Carleigh got a couple back d’s on the brick qp as time was winding down. Fun night. My flatground game was off, but dropping into the pool, ollie’ing the six and getting a front nosegrind made the night fun for me.

Skated flat in front of the house for awhile trying to break in some new shoes Liz got me for my birthday. They are a little small, but seem like great shoes. I started off slow and doing lots of the basics. The goal was to land a new flip trick since I hadn’t gotten a new trick for April yet. It started to rain so I had to chill for awhile. Went back out about 15 minutes later since it’s CO and it was dry. Pretty much settled into only trying tricks I’ve never done. Nollie f/s flip one way and fakie double flip the other. Didn’t get either. Not even close on the nollie f/s flip. Very close on the fakie dubs though. Argh. I randomly thought about a trick I’ve wanted to do before. I don’t think I’ve done it, but if I did it was only once or something. Fakie varial flip revert. Got it like 3rd try. Was hyped. Did it a few more times and called it a success. I had done a few varial flip reverts first to get the feeling down and had never really done those either.

Had a slow start to the day after a great night/morning date with Liz. Ollie and I met up with Matt, Rob, Blake and Neil at the research center ledge. Not Ollie’s fav spot. Those guys skated it and Ollie and I went to the other side of the building and skated the long set of 1 stairs. Ollie had fun. Rode down all the stairs and manualed the last one. I did the same, with a switch front 180 down the two stair above to start. I was feeling pretty coordinated and not sore. Weird. Then we went back to the ledge. Saw Neil do front lip and crooks shove then had a horrendous slam hitting a rock right before popping a halfcab. Saw Blake slam on a front 50, then do crooks shove. Rob nose manualled the hill, almost got crooks, did front 50, manualled everything too. Matt didn’t stay long, but landed a lot of tricks all solid like he normally does. Back tail, back smith, switch tre, tres, etc. My flip trick game was not on point. I blame Liz for making me lazy. I did have some fun crooks, a front board pop out that felt great, back 50 that took forever.

Then we went to Red Curbs as the rain started. Man that place rules. Ollie didn’t skate too long, but he had lots of manuals, front 180s and a couple front boards too. Rob owns Red Curbs. Back 180 fakie 50, fakie back nosegrind!!!!, fakie nosegrind 180, I’m not remembering them all, but he killed it. Blake had some front 50s to manual, front 50 front 180 on the curb to median. Ride on back 50s with some variation out I can’t remember right now. I took a long time to get a back 5-0, a bunch of slappy crooks, did a kick back tail that was worse then the one in my Off The Couch part, but at least I followed it up with a very bad nollie varial flip. I was pretty sore, but at the end went into a ride on front 50 rage with a bunch of tricks out; no comply shove, boneless and boneless 180. Fun. Rob and Blake ended the session with some rad ride on back 50s and pushed while grinding.