The kids have the week off of school and I randomly asked Ollie if he wanted to skate and he said yes. Cool! So we went to Arvada around 7pm and a pretty chilly night. We warmed up in the typical area in the corner on the bank to curb stuff. Ollie beat me to front rock. He also seemed to have lost nothing by not skating for a couple months and did his little front slash grinds on the noping, front 180s off the kicker, rocks both ways on the bank to curb, etc. I struggled for a bit, but ended up getting some decent lines for me. Hurricane the noping, front rock the elevated qp, front lip the noping, kickflip to fakie on the bank. Front 180 fakie 50-50 to forward, front d the elevated qp, front tail the noping, kickflip fakie the pyramid bank, then tried to noseslide the 3 stair hubba, but over shot it.

Then we played on the blue bank area for awhile. My favorite thing there. Unfortunately people kept standing on it, so I just skated it anyway and bummed them out by almost hitting them over and over. I started with a series of tricks all first try that surprised me. B/s flip, kickflip fakie, fakie shove, bigflip. Ollie did a lot of his front 180 off the bank to the manny pad with halfcabs off. Or ride up the bank to manny the manny pad. I ended up getting a lot of flip tricks on that bank. I started hucking cab flips and got one! It was sloppy, but I was still hyped. I tried to get a better one and may have gotten another one, but I think I slid it around too much. I also got halfcab flips both ways, f/s flip, better bigflip. So fun.

We skated the Pier 7 area for a bit. Nothing notable went down there. We left after I ollied the marble flat bar thing as my ‘ollie something everytime you skate” regimen Neil has me on. Fun night. Hyped to skate with Ollie again.

We are approaching the end of filming for the Null video and Jack had the day off work. The day was geared toward him, meaning spots of his choosing and whatnot. We stuck around in Boulder. It was really nice out for the most part early on, with crazy wind gusts every once in awhile. We all met at Wilville. The crew was Blaine, Jack, Carleigh, Rob, Neil, Blake. This session was really fun. I was feeling energetic and my skateboard was behaving alright. We skated the area connecting the cafeteria to the main dorms. Blaine was blasting ollies over a long metal grate, back 180s, soft rocks on the bank by the stairs, and riding down the hubba thing. I tried to line out things, soft rock on the bank, kickflip on flat, nose man into the hubba. Might have gotten that. Rob was trying to comply shove manuals. Jack was setting up a board then manualling the whole thing first try. Carleigh said she was scared to roll into which Jack and I could not believe. Ha, her first roll in attempt was sketchy, but after that no problem. Neil was one footing into the bank no problem. A bank carve session ensued with everyone (I think) getting long carves over three benches. Not all that hard, but kind of scary and incredibly fun.

Then we went to the parking lot for a Jack trick which he did relatively quick.

Then we went to the Table Mesa Park ‘N Ride for some more Jack fun which he handled as well. Some really hard slams this time though. After he landed his trick the rest of us joined in and skated. It was fun. Dave had joined us too. I did a line of ollie up the curb, worst front board ever (the last part of the rail that is just downhill) and a kickflip off the curb. Dave killed boardslides and boardslides to fakie. Neil had some proper front boards. Carleigh noselides. Rob with fast and steezy back 180’s up the curb with halfcab noseslid on the rail. Jack did a bunch of tricks like front smith, front lip, etc. Blake was doing some messed up Chinese Nollie tricks.

Lastly was the above spot. Jack threw down here. Like whoa. About the minute he landed his trick the wind kicked in something fierce. But that didn’t stop people from skating in it. Carleigh learned early grabs. Lots of them were complete cartwheels down the hill with lots of laughter. Dave did his 360 eggplant to grass ride. Blake did a bunch of different early grabs to grass ride. Rob tried to ollie to grass ride and back 180’d the little gap easy. Blaine had some nice bean plants over the gap and grass rides. I had the funny looking kickflip above and ollied up that gap to to early grab grass ride. At the very end Dave and I ollie rock’d up onto the kinked ledge and rode down it. We contemplated ollie’ing onto it, but the wind was too much. Epic day. Good work Jack!

Headed up to MRKT to sell some boards after work with Dave and Rob. Obviously it was dark by the time we got there. Everyone up there was going to see The Sword so we ended up going to Northside to look at the new stuff that had been poured. We started out lighting up the china bank ledge, but then noticed a really fun looking new volcano thing so we moved my car to point at it. Little did we know it’s deathly slick and Dave went down hard. So hard I thought he might be out for the night just like that. I slipped out too, but knowing it was slippery was able to recover. We didn’t really skate that anymore, but it didn’t stop Dave from having a night full of slams. But he didn’t let it get to him and we had some fun cali grinding over the china pump bump things in lines. Rob was mostly talking to a friend during the first part of the session. My first line was frontside cali grind the bump, b/s flip on the bank then b/s caligrind front 180 out. Then Dave and I started trying switch cali grinds. He was going b/s and I was going f/s. I would do kickflips to fakie on the bank to get setup, he would do nollies to fakie. He got his first. Switch b/s cali grind over the bump! Gnarly. I would eventually get mine too, but with a hand touch. It’s weird grinding “switch”. Rob joined in and initially couldn’t do a regular cali grind, but within a few tries had it down like he had been doing it for years. He also had b/s one foots on the bank, no comply biggee, b/s flip. We had another fun trick of push grind and then get up on both feet halfway through. I added fakie flip and b/s bigflip on the bank as well as frontside cali grind back 180 out. Dave had some cool jersey barrier tricks. Riding up the end to 5-0 on the barrier to rock ‘n roll. Gnarly. Lastly we lit up the pole jam where I did a no comply pole jam in a few tries and then Rob landed his first one ever. So sick. I skated flat for awhile. I struggled. Couldn’t commit to 3 flips for awhile, but eventually got a couple including a hang ten landing. Fun night. As Rob said, even though you aren’t doing much cali grinding over those bumps it’s somehow really rewarding.

I must say something I’m doing is better for my arthritis lately. Its either the gluten-free diet or the fact that I’m sitting more at work. But either way I ordinarily could not have skated well in the cold like this. Especially knowing now that it’s super windy the next day. Normally if it’s going to be super windy my arthritis will flare up before it happens. I’m hyped.

On an absolutely gorgeous autumn day Rob and I met up with Neil, Blake and Dave at a new bank spot on Arapahoe. Upon arriving I wasn’t into the fact that it was right off of Arapahoe. I saw Dave do some long powerslides in the new concrete, but other then that I wandered around to see what else was around. This is when it got awesome. Blake and I did a few chinese nollies into a little downhill sidewalk and ollied off a bump. Then eventually everyone joined us and we were mostly skating the “hip” above on this photo of Blake flying 3 feet over his board. There was other stuff we played on too. Blake and I ollied off a narrow loading dock. I slammed trying to ollie a box that Neil one-footed over first try. It hurt my wrist pretty bad. I would eventually get the ollie. Adjusting to the smaller board again weird for ollies. Fuller did a rad back 270 (he’s goofy) over the hip. Neil lofted some one foots. Rob won MVP with kickflips, lofty no comply shoves, pop shove tail grabs and a lofty ollie to slam. Blake never got the heelflip. I took a long time to get a b/s flip and then out of nowhere did a treflip over the hip in a couple tries.

Then we went back to the ol’ research center. We gained Jake and Carleigh late in this session. Dave was ripping. He did the front board above as well as a back board 270 out that was slid so far he pivoted on the stair. That was nuts. Neil had front tails, front lips, crook shoves. Blake had front 50 shove. Rob had some steezy front noseslides and much more. I was feeling the best I’ve felt in a long time and decided to take advantage of that with flip tricks. So I kinda just stayed to myself and tried flip tricks down the mellow hill. It ended up being the funnest I’ve had in so long on my board. It took awhile to get heelflips going, but I eventually got a first run of kickflip, heelflip, treflip, b/s flip. Bailed a fakie flip after that? Argh. Ha. Then I had another one that was something like fakie flip, fakie big flip, pop shove, varial flip, kickflip, heelflip, landed on treflip but fell. I was so stoked. The varial flip felt extra fun. I just kept skating flat and it was a blast. I got a couple more 5+ trick lines with more treflips, fakie varial flips, halfcab flips, etc. Man it was fun. Oh little 8″ board I will never betray you again. I eventually skated the ledge with everyone again. Got some crooks. Couldn’t back 50 so I did a slow kick back 50 instead. Pretty tall ledge for me to try that. The session had cooled down quite a bit by then. Jake was doing crooks, Carleigh noseslides. We left, then had a super fun night hanging out.

Awesome people.

My NB+ shoes were in need of repairs and when I took the ol’ glue gun there was some weird reaction to the tech layer and it kinda mutated into some weird bubble that I didn’t want to skate. So I showed up at SOL on a rainy friday afternoon in my new Lakai Guys. I’ve had these shoes before and loved them. After today I think I’m sold on Lakai XLKs from here on out. When I got to SOL there was a few people playing foosball and I joined in for a bit then we skated. My new shoes felt much better on tranny right out of the gate. Much better board feel. I didn’t rip by any means, but I didn’t skate as bad as I normally do there. Lots of Longmont locals came in and out of there. Chad, Uriel, a few younger kids that were ripping, a dude that just moved to Longmont that was destroying it. Dude was seriously slaying it. Front 180 fakie 5-0 to fakie, back smith over the extension, back 5-0 to fakie over it, hurricanes to fakie, etc. All fast and powerful. I got to the point where I would land more then one trick besides axle stalls in a run so I was happy. Had one with front rock, front d and fakie back smith to fakie in it. I left feeling really happy and went to Crisis for the Fallen premiere.

After the Fallen premiere we were hanging out and Blaine starts messing around with some slappies. Before long it turned into a full on session. The crew was Fuzz, Blaine, Carleigh (in a skirt!), Jack and I and we skated for a pretty long time. I was skating Fuzz’s board. Jack was doing lots of fast grinds which aren’t easy on that waxless curb. As you can see from the videos there were a lot of boneless style tricks, slappies and a front pivot kickflip out. I had tried that on Fuzz’s board a few times and he said I should land it. So I did. Whoa. Not even that many tries. It kicked off an hour long frenzy for Fuzz to get one too. Which he did perfect. Not the funny one above, he got one bolts. Carleigh was getting into legit backside slappies which is pretty hard on that square curb. If it was waxed I’d be willing to bet some would have been landed. Blaine was kinda all over too trying a bunch of random tricks. Jack had a pretty epic slam sliding out and shooting his board breaking a table leg, but somehow not breaking the window. Whew. He had another one with the board getting caught in his feet and he almost hit his head on the Lowcard toilet. Ha ha. There were a lot of silly boneless tricks and powerslide noseslides. So fun. A couple of my favorites were the f/s 270 slide to tail and boneless 270 to tail. What a fun night. I drove home late feeling some of the best physically and mentally I’ve felt in awhile. The rain had stopped and driving down the hill into Boulder I could see patches of fog hovering over the city. It was beautiful. Pissed Jeans was cranked on the stereo. Awesome.

Had the day off work and after sleeping in late after old man night at Launch Jake showed up at my house ready to go skate. We went to little arvada on a super nice and sunny day, not very hot. I thought I would be more sore then I was, but I came out ok. Jake was hitting the ledge, but I kind of avoided it for awhile as I was still pretty stiff. He was on front 50s quick and added back 50, crooks, front 50 to front board and noseslide shove which I’ve never seen him do before. We were all over the place though. Jake had some good lines with back blunt on the qp, front tail on the steep bank, front blunts on the top qp, ollies over the twinkie hip. I had a few crooks and front 50s on the ledge, but mostly just had fun skating the tranny stuff. Did some stuff I haven’t done there before like front slash the really tight opposite corner, back 50 on the tall qp that went down the escalator and around the corner. Actually yeah, that was one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done. I tried it again and slammed so hard with my hip landing on the coping. Ouch. Had a fun line of front tail on the top qp, tiny ollie on the twinkie hip, crooks the ledge. I also got a backside kickflip on the quarter pipe near the spine. That hyped me up too. That was pretty much it. Fun time. I finally had a session that was fun the whole time through.

Had a nice morning with a hike and lunch date with Liz then Jake, Rob and Neil showed up at my house wanting to go hit Safeway ledge. Awesome! It was quite hot out and all of us struggled initially. I was thinking “oh great, here we go again”. I had taken the insoles out of the Mikey Taylors hoping I would get some board feel at least. It seemed to help a little. I voiced my frustrations to Rob and he said to just huck something I shouldn’t land. I went kickflip back 50 and landed it. Ha. So that definitely made me feel better and made up a little for the horrible ollie attempts over a small box. Neil and Jake tried to put the box upright and ollie it. Jake looked like he was gonna get it first, but ended up slamming pretty hard and gave up. Neil got it once and the box was promptly put back down. Rob was killing it. Front 180’s over the box for days and lots of no comply shoves and a million ledge tricks. Back 270 front tail, front tail, slappy lip, bigspin front nose, the list goes on for days. Neil had some good lipslides, sw boardslides, back 50s, halfcabs over the box, crooks to fakies. Slaying. I took a lot of tries to get over the little box, but once I did I put down a line that really hyped me up. Ollie, treflip on flat, front 50 shove. Also got several kick back 50s, a kick back 5-0 and almost kick back 50 shove. John had arrived and amazed us yet again how graceful he is. Tailslide, almost front tail to fakie, front shove front nose, bigspin front nose, I don’t even know, so much more.

We moved on to the foundation spot in the photo above. Unfortunately they had taken away the extra toys, but we still had fun. I was sore as hell initially, but after riding down a couple ledges started to loosen up. Rob, Neil and John mostly played manuals. Rob tried and tried to get nose manual shove to manual. I think he got an over 40 make, but he’s not 40 yet. Neil was beat, but still came kinda close to the same trick. John wasn’t too close, but he did get close to switch noseslide to frontside noseslide (whoa!). Fakie back tails and more. Jake and I did more of the start at the top of the spot and end at the bottom stuff. I got an ollie over a small flat gap to manual, kickflip off the next one. Front shove a drop, kickflip the next drop, almost b/s flip the next drop. Front 50 to front board pop out, back 50s, that’s about it. Oh yeah, I should have broken my board about 10 times, but it didn’t even crack. Guess it’s that extra hemp layer (ha). Jake did a bunch of kickflips off the top ledge which was rad because I haven’t seen him kickflip off much of anything. He did it in a line with back 50 and no comply off the next ledge as well. Sick. At the end we helped some neighbors move a big piece of playground equipment. They offered a case of beer, instead we just thanked them for tolerating us skating close to their house and not calling the cops on us.

Last we stopped at a new Arvada skate spot. Basiclly two quarterpipes and a bowled in corner. It was pretty fun. I did a front disaster. John called out a line and did it first try. Jake had a crazy line going to front pivot on the tall qp, but didn’t put it down. Fun day.

Ollie and I went to the Arvada park on a hot Saturday afternoon. There was a gathering to remember Dave Tuck. A skater I barely met, but clearly a positive influence on the Colorado skate scene. We were going to meet Neil and Fullertron there. The park was really crowded, but most people were in the bowls. Makes sense. Before we even got into the park I had said hello to about 10 people and it was awesome seeing so many people out. I had watched a few (ok more like 10) PJ clips before leaving so I was thinking I’d get tech and skate the Pier 7 replica. I ended up being extremely lazy though (I blame Liz) and taking a long time to warm up. I made a goal of 10 tricks on the Pier 7 thing and it took me a long time. Ollie managed to ollie up onto it a few times and did front and back 180 off. He was also doing fakie shoves and trying fakie 3 shoves on flat. I ended up getting back board, front 50, front 50 front 180 out, crooks (hyped on that one), manual (finally – never did that there before for some stupid reason – ok, well it’s because you land in the slightest of banks), back 50, slappy noseslide, slappy front tailslide, front 50 front shove out and front 5-0. Then we went over to the blue pad area. Ollie did his ride on to drop down manual first try, ollied the gap off the blue pad several times and front 180’d off a taller part. Mike was there wallie’ing up the ledge like it was nothing. I tried a bunch of times and failed. Like a bunch a bunch. I would do flatground and crooks on the tiny qp. I managed to ollie up the gap second try though. Dave joined and treated us all to “nollie 360 eggplants” off the blue pad. What the heck? Put your foot in nollie position, grab indy, put your left foot on the edge and turn back 360 while dropping. He did it so good. Ollie and I tried them. Watching Ollie try a trick so foreign to his was awesome. He ended up doing mute grabbed back 180 with his right hand on the edge. Not sure what that’s called, but he was hyped. I eventually got the eggplant 360 too. It was clearly an over 40 make, but man it seemed cool. Then the four of us headed out to the nearby foundation spot.

This spot rules. Notice Neil sitting in the background in both? Ha. He skated though. Long enough to do some rad nose mannies, but he was beat quick. Ollie did those rad little gap to wobble manual a bunch of times. He also had 180s off the drops and slammed super hard riding up the plastic launch ramp that has a hole in it. I got a couple lines that made me really happy. Kickflip up, front 5-0 then ollie the taller gray part behind Ollie in the photo above. Then the one that really really hyped me up, pop shove over one of those little 2 foot flat gaps, kickflip off a ledge, boardslide down the metal hubba, ollie the gray thing again (seemed scarier then the photo shows) and landed on a backside flip off the next ledge. Also did a front 180 the little flat gap and a f/s halfcab flip off the ledge. It was so slow and bad, but only a few tries in so I took it. Dave did back board, back board to fakie and front board down the metal hubba. He also had a line of something like back 180 a flat gap, switch front 180 off the ledge then boardslide. Another line that resulted in a switch back 180 off the ledge. Probably a lot more that I’m not remembering right now. Super fun session. I put a hole in the sole of my shoes though so I’m gonna have to skate something else. Doh.

Had a busy day at work, then Rob and I headed up to Fort Collins where we met Chadmang and did some business with the lovely MRKT skateshop. We got some food and when trying to figure out where to go we decided to just roll out from the shop and see what happens. This new spot was the first spot and pretty darn epic. There is also a little manny pad, smooth parking lot and some gap/stair options on the left side. The right side however is super rough and makes the approach from the right pretty hard. Unless you are Chad I guess who lipslid it a few times and did nose manny or manny across the top into the bank. So rad. Rob front boarded it first try, worked for a sick switch boardslide, popped some nice ollies off it and had some steezy 180’s and no complys as setup tricks. I had some boardslides and a crooks. Then tried a few various lines going the other way trying to end with an ollie into this weird 3 stair. I did a few front boards pulled up into the ramp which were fun. But the line I eventually got was just an ollie into the downhill of the ramp, then a manual then an “ollie” down the 3 stair. I say “ollie” because I surely didn’t pop it at all. But it was fun because the stairs are really close to the manny and I had a brief feeling of being quick footed. Chad ollied a pretty sick gap there too.

We decided to head towards the courthouse downtown instead of campus and after some cruising we ended up here. This little loading dock had all kinds of options. Rob did the back 50 and a steezy backside no comply wallride. I ollied up from the kicker (in less tries then it took Chad!). Chad ollied up too and then kickflipped up it first try all easy and tried to go right to wallride. Then some concerned old lady started yelling at us that we shouldn’t be doing that. Geez she was angry. Chad just sat there “It’s ok lady, calm down, we’re all ok”. So funny. We made it to the courthouse and it was a little anti-climatic. I did a little line of fakie bigflip, front shove then ollie a tiny median.

Around the corner we ended up skating here a bit. I did a front 180 down the top 2, then a switch front 180 down the second. Chad did that line up it just to show off. Rob has surprisingly never done fire crackers before, so he learned them down this. But not after a super funny slam on the first attempt. I got another line of kickflip down the first 2 then back 180 (no pop) the second. Took a few tries to get the kickflip. Oh well.

After all this we needed a break and skated a few more blocks to a gas station. Chilled a minute then headed back. I tried pushing switch a lot. I looked dumb. We skated the curbs in the parking lot for awhile. Rob and I each got a frontside slappy. I got a pathetic excuse for a kick back tail. Some drunk dude hung out with us being drunk. I ended with a little line of manual a little pad, front 180 up one, switch front 180 off, kickflip up the median, b/s 180 off. It was a blast. Then we hit the Perkins bump for what was supposed to be one ollie. But it took me a long time to get it. Guess I was tired and well, I suck at ollies. I got a great feeling treflip on flat though. Chad had some huge ollies clearing two cracks. Rob had a nice back 180, nice boneless and ollie. That was it. One fun night. That was some real street skating and we all had a great time. Lets do it again!

So tired when I got home from work on a rainy evening so I took a nice little nap. Woke up, helped the kids understand how to put music/files on their new phones then went to campus to skate as it was dry out. Right before leaving I put Suciu’s Sabotage 3 part on which is oh so sick and inspiring. I was feeling like a solo session with headphones. I put the newest Ovlov album on which is totally amazing. When I first parked by the medical center 5 stair I thought it would be cool to line out a flatground trick, the 5 stair then another flatground trick then something into the flagstone bank around the corner. But I got to the bank and it was apparent that although I felt pretty good I would need a lot of warming up time. I ended up at the curved 1-7 stair spot. I got distracted trying to ollie the weird 3 stair after the long steps right near there. If only the crack at the bottom wasn’t so huge. Anyways, back to the 1-7 stair. Tried a line of switch front 180 up the curb, back 180 up the 2, turn around then ollie the 4. I think I got that. Took awhile though. Manualed the downhill part into the curb cut first try. Well, first time I got into the manual. I went over to the student center to get some water then skated around there for a bit. Did a line with ride down the stairs then ollie onto a little ledge and front 180 off where it’s taller. I looked around and decided I’d try a long line for the heck of it.

I started on this thing. Either front board, back noseslide or front 50.

Then manny this and head off down that sidewalk and do either pop shove or varial flip.

Then ollie onto this and front shove off. Don’t let the photo fool you, getting onto it is trickier then it looks, you have to ride through a grate then ollie. It’s not bad though. The end of the ledge is pretty tall by my standards, especially for front shoving. I don’t remember the last time I front shoved something so tall.

Anyways, I went at it for awhile. All of these tricks are pretty basic for me (except the front shove off the drop), but to link them all together was not easy. I got to the front shove a lot. Eventually I just stuck with the basics as I was getting tired. Noseslide, manny, back shove, but they all felt really good. I was trying to skate a little faster and coming out of the manual felt rad as it was a little downhill. The back shoves even felt good. And then I put the whole line down with the front shoves being one of the best feeling ones I’ve ever done. It felt so amazing. Seriously one of the funnest feeling lines I’ve ever done. I tried a treflip after and slammed, falling down in laughter at how stoked I was to do that line. I know it’s all basics, but if your reading this you know me and how hard it is for me to actually land tricks.

I headed up the sidewalk looking for another spot to skate and came upon an area I’ve never really skated much, but looks fun. I settled on trying to do a line of treflip on flat, ollie onto a little round 2 stair and a quick front 180 off then was planning on turning around and kickflipping off a stair. But the treflips ended up killing my already cracked board. Not sure why I’ve been landing in the middle lately, but after a couple of those my board was unskateable. Doh, I wish I could have kept skating, but oh well I was still so happy. Went home and setup a new board, an Atlas Nulled which I haven’t skated yet. This time in 8.1. .1 bigger then normal. Ha ha.