On a nice breezy day before the big storm was to hit I went to the BV park. To my surprise it wasn’t full of strider bike kids. Instead there was a couple actual skaters. One was a very talkative dude that needed to tell me over and over he was getting old and his ankle hurt. He looked around 25. Yeah. STFU with your ‘getting old’ bullshit. I was wearing some new shoes I have had on ice for awhile. NB# 212s. Aka the best skate shoe there is and they delivered once once with no toe pinching pain. I had b/s flip and kickflip to fakie on the bank right away. “Old guy” had some nice nollie 180s out of the bank. I came close to a first try treflip to fakie on the bank. I didn’t skate the transition well at all, had a few okay flippers on flat, couldn’t front 50 the angled ledge, front 50’d the wood ledge into the bank. Then I had the park to myself and did a couple things with the phone pointed at me for the sake of the journal. The front rock was scarier than it used to be, I also did some axle stalls on it. The front 90 flip took longer than it should. The wallie manual was really fun. Then I ran out of desire to skate that park and called it a day. That park really is terrible.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 v-hollow, bones medium bushings, spitfire f4 50mm classic shape 99a, new balance numeric 212 white/navy size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Went to Golden after a stressful half day of work.  I was meeting Jake and doing some skating then heading to BV.  He was in the manny pad/ledge area and we ended up just skating it the whole time.  We often had it all to ourselves.  Jake had been there first and was already doing 50s and tailslides, but was struggling with crooks.  I did some no pop noseslides.  Got crooks then crooks to fakie, noseslide to fakie then switch front noseslide.  I took forever to get a front 50.  But after that I got a “Glen 50” aka 5-0, front 50 shove.  I couldn’t quite get nose manual.  Jake did first try manual.  He also lined out rock ‘n rolls in the BIg O with front tail fakie.  I posed a few halfcab heel noseslides that felt very doable.  We started trying ollie up the ledge above the benches then trick down.  Jake would ollie up every try.  I got up it twice, but I must say I was happy to at all.  I almost got the kickflip off first try.  Second try I bailed as my feet were starting to hurt and the pointy toed Accels were hurting my feet.  Jake would get nollie and no comply 180 off.  The no comply 180 off was super solid.  Then we played SKATE.  Jake was at SKA on kickflip, heelflip and f/s halfcab flip then he got me with a few like switch back 180, f/s flip and something else.  I put down a treflip in 3 tries!  Jake went double or nothing and didn’t quite get it.  That was it, time to drive up to BV.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 v-hollow, bones medium bushings, spitfire f4 50mm classic shape 99a, es accel slim grey size 12, footprint 3.5 kingfoam insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

I arrived shortly after 7pm on a cool night at the Erie Street League park.  There were a few others there and Dave.  I wore my Accel slims with some new thin Footprint insoles and loved them.  I randomly started noseslides on tall side of wedge to ledges. Took a bit to get bs flip on the bank.  Dave did bigspin on the bank.  Then I did kickflips to fakie and Dave did like 10 backside flips.  Then we tried varial flips for Neil since he requested them.  I was trying them to fakie and Dave was going backside for a bigflip.  It took awhile.  I got varial flip to fakie.  It was incredibly fun and rewarding.  Unfortunately my phone died right before I did it.  Just another lesson to land tricks quicker.  Dave would shortly get the bigflip on the bank.  It was so rad, that’s his first one ever.  52 and learning new tricks is epic.  I tried some lines to crook the ledge, had a couple flippers, but got stuck on treflip.  Took me like 50 tries.  Argh.  I couldn’t front 50 the regular ledge either.  Argh.  Dave lined out fakie flips on the bank.  I did a few kickflips to fakie on the high to low wedge but couldn’t get a halfcab flip on the bank after.  Dave got a front 50 on the bank to ledge.  He bounced and I made myself do a noseslide on the upper level of the tiny ledge then back 180 off.  It didn’t come easy.  

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 v-hollow, bones medium bushings, spitfire f4 50mm classic shape 99a, es accel slim grey size 12, footprint 3.5 kingfoam insoles)
(pain level 3/10)