Yeah yeah, no one cares, but here’s my picks.

SOTY: Easy. Wes Kremer. Dude kills.

Best video: Transworld Outliers. Brad Cromer!

Best video part: Chris Joslin welcome to Etnies. Sorry, it was the one part that motivated me more then anything else this year.

The line starting at 2:41 is my second favorite line of the year and the mach 20 treflip down the sidewalk after the credits is pure epic.

Best line of the year: Wes Kremer. The f/s flip at the end going mach 20 is the icing on the cake.

Best trick of the year: Chris Joslin bigspin at MACBA

Most disappointing video: Plan B Lies. Not even just because of the lack of PJ, but the editing is horrible, the music sucks and the skating is made boring. How you only show the bigspin at MACBA once is beyond me. And then slow motion TPuds standing there more then the trick? Whack.

Runner up most disappointing video: Enjoi Oververt. An entire video of 2 minute parts? Come on now.

Best creative part: Scott Stevens

This part definitely had me trying some new no complies for a few weeks.

Maybe actually the best part of the year: Auby Taylor

And why the hell isn’t he pro? And why did Krooked blow it so bad?

Best part that makes me want to go to the east coast and skate ledges: Gavin Nolan welcome to the Zoo.

Best shoe: New Balance Numeric Stratford.

It’s embarrassing to the skate shoe industry how much better this shoe is then anything else. And NB still isn’t happy enough with the quality.

Best cover: Ryan Gallant kick back noseblunt Clipper. So sick!

Thing I am most ashamed of skate wise this year: Even more embarrassing then the fact that I love New Balance shoes is the fact that I don’t watch skate DVDs so much anymore. This is mostly due to my kids basically owning the TV, but still, I mostly watch parts on my computer or phone now and that sucks.

Worst trend in skateboarding: The loose trucks speed check is the hipster tic tac.

Still the best transition skater ever: Grant Taylor

"Working" from home today

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Dec 12, 2014 at 1:26pm PST

Worked from home again because it was still cold and snowy and well, we are really normally really slow during the holidays. I filmed this while I was technically still working, but I didn’t really skate, just a couple runs. A little later on I went back out to the ramp and got busy. A new trick I had in mind was front beanplant to disaster. But I didn’t even get close. I guess I almost put it into disaster a couple times, but that’s about it. The rest of the transition tricks didn’t go well either. I forced myself to do a back 50 then hurricane on the next wall without my normal rock fakie/tail stall setup. Tried to do axle stall followed by front tail and almost died a bunch. With the exception of a few tiny (and I mean insanely tiny) ollies to fakie I did nothing else on the ramp that was new or I was stoked on. Luckily flatgroud was better. I went through several of the basics. Then tried a bunch of nollie heels and felt like a few of them resembled nollie heels. Tried a few switch tres and felt like that trick could eventually happen. Technically landed on a bigflip, but it was very tic tacy. It’s nice being able to try whatever flip trick I want and not have to land a new one just for the number. I ended by doing some weak f/s ollies on the ramp and a few treflips on flat.

Bitter cold and snow all day so I worked from home. I didn’t think I would skate at all since my knee was pretty bruised. I setup a new board (8″ this time) and felt better come evening so I went out and skated. I started mostly doing doing trannie stuff and it felt good. I do too many tail stalls and rock fakies as setups, but oh well. I got a couple f/s bean plants which make me happy. When I would bail at the end of a run I would do a flip trick. Kickflip on the slightly smaller board (last board was 8.125) felt great. Rattled off a bunch of my basics in between trying a random dumb one on the ramp – “nollie” front disaster to fakie. Felt neat. I had added heelflip, fakie flip, fakie varial flip, 360 flip (first try!), b/s flip, f/s flip and started hucking fakie double flips. I was desperate to make my year end goal so I wouldn’t have to do it again. I landed one both hands down. Then another one both hands down. Then one bolts, but I stepped off. Then one with one hand down. And finally one with no hands, but a bunch of tic tacs. Counts! Whew. It felt pretty cool to complete the 12 new tricks for the year. I’m also excited to not try double flip tricks any more. I’d rather learn tricks like nollie heels even if it’s less then one new one a month. I also hucked a bunch of bigflips and got remotely close.

Woke up kind of late on a Sunday. The kids were gone at friends, Liz wanted some alone time and I wanted to skate. I looked at Pueblo and Co Springs webcams and saw they were mostly dry so just left without making any phone calls. I’m a loner. I went to the big Memorial park to start. Hardly anyone was there. It had a lot of goose crap and icy spots that made the parts I wanted to skate unskateable. I could tell I was very tired from the day before. I had almost no motivation to skate there. I really don’t like Team Pain skateparks. Seriously one of the biggest parks in Colorado and there isn’t one regular ledge? I like a lot of the unique creative rock piles they put in, but not one ledge? So stupid. So I left pretty quickly and went downtown, ate Chipotle then ended up at this alley. I was skating horribly for a long time. I was trying lines with a trick on the ledge (in the background) and a trick on the hip. I couldn’t crook the ledge. Beveled ledges and crooks don’t agree with me. I managed a couple though and got one with a b/s flip on the hip after. Coming the other way I would ollie off a sidewalk over a little cone, then a trick over a manhole (kickflip), kickflip on the hip then try front 50. But I was scared of shooting my board into the glass so I never got a clean front 50. I did noseslide to fakie then a bad version of of cab on the hip. In a brief period of decent skating I did a noseslide to fakie on the ledge, halfcab flip on the hip, back 180 the manhole and then bailed a halfcab flip on flat.

Then i went on a personal challenge mission of ollie’ing onto this ledge. I was so sore/tried it was almost impossible. I managed to get on it once with a lot of back truck grinding to get up it. Oh well. I’m gonna learn how to ollie darn it. I was probably in this alley for almost two hours. Ha.

Then I drove around for awhile and found this ledge. I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to 50 it with such a crazy setup, but I figured I could at least do one of those slappy switch noseslides. Well the switch run up proved to be way harder then I would have thought. So I started with front board fall out. The hill bomb after was a blast. I did it a couple times. Always with power slides. I’d rather slide and go slower then just bomb. It’s funner to me.

On the way up I noticed the bump above. It looked so fun. So then the goal was to do the switch noseslide thing, cross the street and ollie the bump. This was so much harder then it looked because of the crack about 3 feet before the curb. I managed to get it a few times though and wow it was more fun then I ever thought. I got a couple ollies somewhat over the little pipe sticking out. The first time I wasn’t looking far enough ahead and was flying down the sidewalk and realized there was a huge ice patch so I had to jump over it and run out. So scary. I love street skating.

Then I walked about 1/4 of a block and came upon this granite ledge on top of a narrow sidewalk. I didn’t think I would be able to do anything on it, but a few tries later I rode out of a crook. Hyped. I did a bunch more. Couldn’t do front 50 though. My legs were beat. After that I drove around for awhile, found a gnarly gap/bench spot at Colorado College, but felt too tired to skate it. Then I went to the Garden Of The Gods park. Got out of my car and felt like I shouldn’t be skating. A couple noseslides later on the tiny ledge confirmed it. My back foot came off and the razor tail bit my knee super bad. So bad I could barely walk back to my car. Ugh. Then I drove home. Happy that I street skated, sad that I didn’t skate well and sad about how much pain my knee was in.

On a cold and snowy day I bundled up (long johns and all) and went to this lovely garage. I cruised around pretty cold for awhile before feeling pretty good. Pretty quick I put one of those vent pipes out to ollie over. Had a line that I think was kickflip over a parking block, back 180 one pipe then fakie back tail the tiny curb. Tried my dream run for awhile of slappy crook, no comply 180, then fakie flip front tail. Never got too close to the ffft. Put two pipes out and was pretty hyped to ollie both. Then went with three. Self filmed it for Neil and felt really hyped to land it. It wasn’t easy for me and those pipes seem taller then they look in the photo. After that I went on a flatground rampage for an hour or so. Landed most of my basics. Didn’t struggle all too bad with treflips. Tried a ton of fakie double flips, but never got one. Came close to b/s halfcab heel which I haven’t landed in forever. Close to varial heel. Been feeling heelflip tricks lately.

The breeze died down a bit so I went across the parking lot to this garage. Cruised it for awhile before trying a line over and over of ollie the little median, front 50 the red curb, then ollie up to kickflip fakie on the somewhat banked thing on the left side of the photo. That took awhile. I also tried a ton of fakie double flips and came really close, but nope. Just a few more days to land a 12th new flip trick of the year. Landed a really bad fakie tre, but it’s been awhile.

Then I went to check out Red Curbs, but drove by this one on the way and hit it up. Took awhile to get my first manual, but nose manual came quick. Then tried nose manny shove and manny front shove. Didn’t get close. On the way back I would try a slow trick off the curb. Got pop shove, fakie bigspin, front shove, kickflip, varial flip, b/s flip and stalled out on 360 flip and went home very exhausted. Skating in 20 degree weather is hard to stay energized. But I was really hyped on how hard I skated and for how long in the cold.

Fun little #Rampy session with Ollie today

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Dec 12, 2014 at 6:16pm PST

Ollie's angle of the toboggan is so much better. Turn up the sound!

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Dec 12, 2014 at 2:43pm PST

Headed out to Rampy after some really fun sledding with the kids (see the hilarious clip Ollie filmed above). Ollie hasn’t skated Rampy or at all in awhile, but his first run had almost every one of his regular tricks. His runs are marathons with way more tail stall / rock fakies then me (which is saying a lot). It was a blast though. We skated for close to an hour. I landed a lot of my tricks and was hyped the front feeble came easy. Ollie learned the halfcab kickturn in about 5 tries.

After a busy morning of running Christmas errands and then lots of football at Fairview with Ollie I met Dave at this spot for a quick session. I should skate this spot more, it rules. We went through quite a few basics to start. Slappy nose, tail slides. Board slides. The weather was nice and warm. Dave did a sick boardslide to fakie. I mostly did switch noseslides (no pop) which were fun. Then battled a halfcab boardslide which ended up being really fun. Lined it out with a front 180 up the curb first (didn’t get a nollie tre after). Dave did a really good front lipslide. And Front 5-0, switch boardslide. I got a switch boardslide too, and kind of a switch front noseslide 270. Flatground went decent for me. I really like how Venture lows carve. This was a really fun session.

See much more from Frank Zirbel here, the artist responsible for Psycho Unity.

When I went to work a few hours ago it was cool out, but sunny and no breeze and it felt nice out. So when I skipped out of work to Blue Skies and was met with a very gusty cold wind I got bummed. I still went to the park, but man it was tough to find any motivation. I slammed on a couple ollies over the flat bar, did some super slow front 50s then mostly just skating the banks. I started with a few basics on the main bank. Did a switch ollie to fakie which felt kind of neat. I did some frontside ollies and ollies to fakie on the little qp. I was hyped on the ollies to fakie because I’ve never really done that trick. They weren’t popped at all, but then again nothing I do is. I would do the ollie to fakie then push switch to the main bank and do halfcab or try halfcab flip. That was it. Oh yeah, I started a new pair of Stratfords. Only 4 more pairs left.

After work I went to the Research Center. It was cold and windy still, but not quite as cold somehow. I went through a few warm up basics. Noseslide, switch noseslide (the slappy non ollie kind aka john brandow), etc. Then on to crooks which is really fun there. I only landed a couple though. For how often I skate that spot and try crooks there I should land way more then I do. At least I feel like I’m posting up better then I used to. Got a couple bad back 50s. Tried kick back 50, got kind of close. That ledge would be one of the taller ledge I’ve done that on. Tried to front 50 the tall part of the ledge and struggled so hard. Would fly off my board. In the end I got one and I will blame brand new shoes for the problem (it sounds legit right?). Flatground went ok. Tried a lot of nollie flips, fakie tres. Did a couple b/s flips. Kind of a whatever session, but at least I got out and did some grinding.

#scenesfromwhereifalldown

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Dec 12, 2014 at 7:37pm PST

Feeling a bit better yet on an icy/cold night I went to Red Curbs. I started really slow. I mostly skated the non red curb that’s really waxed. Started with 50s both ways and slappy crooks on the red curb. I did some of the best slappy crooks I’ve done. They were really fun and I posted up good on them for once. Then I started trying fakie front 50s with b/s halfcab out. I got really close, but never quite got it. I was grinding far for me which felt cool, but my body kept wanting to go out f/s. At one point I my 3rd or 4th front heel on flat. Going slow, horrible style, whatever. I tried some front nosegrinds for awhile too, but couldn’t get it. Landed on a few treflips, but never rolled away from that evil trick. Started to feel like I was making my cold worse so I left.