Cool night, but still nice out. I met Matt at a mostly empty Lafayette park. On my first lap through the park this dude was trying a huge flyout and I thought I cut him off from a gnarly transfer. Nope, he just ended up trying flyouts all night and never landed one that I saw. Warming up was ok. Lafayette rules when it’s not crowded. So many lines and weird options that don’t require ollies. Matt had took less tries to treflip up the euro then he did to kickflip up it. We did some roll ins in the bird bath, a few runs in the big bowl, some ledges, etc. It’s hard to document. I will say that I felt some of the best I have in awhile. I was actually trying to do tricks. We hit the big bowl for awhile again later on. I finally managed to carve tile in the deep end. Matt got his first grind in the shallow. That thing is so much work. We were both breathing like crazy. Some flatground went down. I was 1.5/2 on treflips, Matt landed on a nollie big heel. I got a back d on the noping near the entrance of the park which was new for me. I also did some type of rocket ollie flyout that may or may not have been over a cone. It was scary for me. Matt and I played on the tiny coping qp in the middle of the park. Matt got back blunt and I got a few front feebles to fakie and a blunt to back d. The lights shut off right as the only other person left at the park did a textbook nollie over the cone.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 91a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Tired and hungover from the late birthday celebration I just went into the garage for the ol’ manual pad minimum. It was fun.

Day 100 in a row! Morning warmup with Ollie. Such a fun start to the day.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 9, 2016 at 9:59am PDT

I woke up early on a Saturday where I was supposed to skate with a bunch of people. It was hard to not go skating right away. After awhile I went out with Ollie. We did some dorking around. It was fun. 100 days in a row!

Rob, Fuzz and eventually Jack showed up and we did some manuals and powerslides in the street. It was warm and sunny and awesome.

Rain delay. Best crew.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 9, 2016 at 3:15pm PDT

Then we headed to Evergreen. When we got there Bernie, Garret, Donnie and Riley were already shredding. Nolan showed up right after that and Matt showed up when the rain hit. Some blame him for the rain. Totally valid. The session started fast. It was kind of overwhelming. I did a lot of watching and not a lot of ripping. Everyone there seemed to be skating so good. Rob was busting long lines, Fuzz beat me to backside flip, Nolan had lines covering the entire park that were so insanely good, Garret is getting good, Bernie rules and did a front 180 fakie manual bigspin first try, Jack was chilling with a broken wrist doing perfect kickflips over the hip and huge gaps to tailslide, Donnie can shred everything, Riley did every flip trick there is over the hip with amazing style, I did not skate well at all. I had fun though, I was so stoked to be around so many great people.

Riley won the big game of SKATE. The brackets were: Jack Matt Riley Nolan Fuzz Rob Glen Bernie Garrett Donnie So fun.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 9, 2016 at 7:30pm PDT

It rained. We got food. We came back and had a big game of SKATE. Everyone was sore and full. I played Bernie. We both struggled hard, but it would get me warmed up and I skated the park a little better after that. Riley won the game of SKATE. Everyone kept at it. Matt added one of his textbook treflips over the hip to the long list of tricks done over the hip. It got dark quickly. The session ended with a dork session on the tiny curb high kicker. Nolan tried 360 flip to fakie. A few people did them. Lots of other “dork” tricks went down. I managed the elusive no comply bigger spin as probably the only “good” trick I did all day. River dances, boneless noseblunts, so many more tricks. It was a fun ender. Thanks to everyone who skated, you all rule, I love you all.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 91a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Mi amor.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 8, 2016 at 4:46pm PDT

After work I stopped by my new favorite flatground spot and slowly warmed up. I had done a few tricks like heelflip, halfcab flip, etc before asking Matt, Josh and Nate for a 10×10 list. Matt responded first with the following
Fakie flip
halfcab flip
fakie bigflip
b/s flip
f/s flip
360 flip
nollie treflip
switch flip
switch heel
nollie heel
Other then 360 flip and b/s flip I got the first 7 relatively easy. I was not close on the other three at all. Although I did try a few nollie heels while holding on to a support beam and landed one. So that was cool. I tried a few more tricks. Hardflip, fakie hardflip, halfcab heel, varial heel. Got close to them all. Then headed home for family night. I was going to post my 10×10, but I accidentally deleted the nollie tre. And since that was the best trick I landed and all the others are the same ones I always do I just deleted them. Fun day though. Flatground rules. 99 days in a row!

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 91a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Went into the garage for a brief manny pad session. Didn’t even have my current skate shoes on and just skated the tiny 42mm setup. Just did a few of the 360 spin “manuals”. Slammed once. Then went and played football with Ollie.

After work and a little down time I met up with Rob and Dave at the Dog Park. Dave found this right by the dog park and this is the first time we’ve all skated it. It’s quite incredible concrete. Perfect flatground. I felt very awkward and stiff when I began. Rob was already killing it. Dave and I speculated he was secretly training in Ireland. Ha. He had some good lines with cabs, kickflips, halfcabs, 180s, etc. I think Dave was on a front shove, kickflip, nollie halfcab program. Then we played a game of SKATE. Rob missed a couple double or nothings so he ended up out first. At that point I appeared to stop landing tricks. Dave got me with a new one, pop shove body varial. I ended up winning with a sex change.

Then we all went over to the manny pads. Rob continued to shred with long manuals and one with a body varial out all perfect. Dave went to work with switch ollies up one pad then switch nose manny attempts on the next. I couldn’t find the nose manual balance, but got a switch front 180 manual and close to kickflip manual. Rob took off. Dave continued to huck and ended up getting a perfect switch nose manual 180 out. It was bonkers rad. Then he left too.

So I went to the ledge which ended up being fun even though I struggled with noseslides and crooks initially. My two easiest staples. Actually, I struggled with everything. I got front 50s on the low part fine, but not the higher part. I couldn’t land 360 flips. I mostly hucked nollie inward heels though and had a couple really close ones. Front tails, back 50 both sucked. So I started hucking and it was fun. Got a b/s hurricane! It felt really cool. Got close to front and switch crooks. Started hucking switch front nose shoves (after failing to do 270 shove out) and ended up kind of landing one. So even though I really didn’t land much of anything I had fun. I guess trying new stuff is fun for me.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 91a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Took and ‘off’ day. I’ve been liking the bigger setup so much I committed to it with a new deck. While I was at it I put some new wheels on that weren’t worn down under 50mm. The 360 manuals with ollieing really are fun.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 91a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Don’t get me wrong, Trent McClung is rad too, but man, Diego is changing the game!

It’s been awhile since I’ve skated this spot. Mostly because it’s not really skateable during the winter as the bricks retain moisture. But it was good on this day and way more fun then I remembered. I warmed up slowly on the tiny banked curbs, started going noseslides and before long got into it. Pretty quickly I had a fun line of crooks over one brick section then noseslide to fakie over the next. It felt really cool. I tried to get better crooks, but never really did. I randomly hucked a kickflip nose stall and pretty much did it first try. I got close and technically landed one, but still never posted up like I want. It’s weird how the bigger board felt better for it though. Took too long to do front 50 over a gap, couldn’t get shove out. Did some switch noseslides. Only a few flippers here and there. That old board is pretty shot, flippers would benefit from a new one. Couldn’t get halfcab noseslide over a gap or back 50s. Started hucking front crooks (not over a gap) and got into a bunch of them. It felt pretty awesome. Never landed one, but got really close and it brightened my day.

(setup 8.38 null ollie deck, venture wides, bones stf 51mm v2, venom 91a bushings, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Had a lazy Sunday going after such an action packed day the day before. I headed to research ledge late in the afternoon. I brought some wax and it was kind of melted from the warm weather so it caked the ledge. Maybe too much. I started with noseslide and noseslide to fakie, then crooks, boardslide popout, back 50, halfcab noseslide. Some of these were done really badly, but I didn’t want to focus on them. Then went crooks to fakie which took awhile and finally I tried back 50 shove out for awhile and forgot how to back 50. Ugh. I got a little mad at that point. Doing flatground going back up to the starting point went better then expected. I got a lot of my basics. The heelflip first try kind of surprised me, that is one of the tricks I’m supposed to lose with the bigger setup. I ended trying crooks shove out the hard way. I didn’t get close at all, but it seems possible. That’s kind of a dream trick.

(setup 8.38 null ollie deck, venture wides, bones stf 51mm v2, venom 91a bushings, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)