Had such a weird morning. Stuff kept coming up. I tried to skate a couple times and just about the time I’d start getting warmed up I would have to stop. It was about 20 degrees, overcast and cold. Finally met up with Nate and we dropped his girlfriend off at the Denver Art Museum and rolled around to this fun spot. Nate did frontside and backside wallrides on it before I got a frontside one. Chadman showed up and did a frontside one pretty quick. I posed some kickflip backside wallrides and got kinda close initially and then Nate started trying it and did one. Pretty sick. We moved on.

They had torn out our favorite mellow brick bank and replaced it with a perfect marble bench. We kind of just walked around it for a minute to see how quick security would come out, but they didn’t. So we skated. Chad and Nate did so many tricks so quick. Chad did front 50 back 180, front smith, front nosegrind, front smith front 180, back 5-0. Nate had front nosegrind, front 50, back 50, almost back nosegrind, probably more. I got front 5-0, front 50 front 180 out, front 50 front shove out and back crooks. The bench was so new/perfect that it didn’t even feel like you were grinding. So amazing. Then we got the boot. Went up to the capital and had some fun there too with some manuals into the little bank. Chad man ollied the sidewalk into the bank hauling ass in the landing down the hill. On our last go I got manual off the 3 stair, manual into the bank and bombed the hill timing it perfect to get through the light. so insanely fun.

Then we skated the Civic fountain area. Chad and Nate spent a lot of time doing 50s on the little metal bars all over the inside of the fountain. I tried to line out flippers with the ledge. The sun had set so it was getting really f’ing cold. Nate kept skating though. I got a couple basic flippers. A couple basic ledge tricks. The switch front nose felt neat. Nate did those proper. Chadman was trying to manual from the 3 stair then ollie into the fountain. He spent so much energy trying. So funny.

Then we went to Launch for the Null premiere. There were quite a few little kids there, but the ramps weren’t crowded. We skated the little one before the showing and it was fun. We all did a couple tricks and had a some funny falls. After the video we skated the big ramp. But it was mostly just cruising and not really doing tricks. Chad did have one run with a kickflip to fakie and a front feeble in it though. Epic day. So fun.

Got home and went to editing a bunch of stuff. Well, converting files and gathering bonus material. Carleigh and Skelly said they were going to Broomfield park, it wasn’t as windy out as they were saying, Ollie said he wanted to skate, so it was on. And it ended up being a blast. My deck was getting more and more cracked on each trick. Carleigh was trying front tails on the brick qp and skating with Andrea. Skelly was tuned in to his own world and ripping. Ollie was pushing mongo behind me where ever I went. He had some nice body varials on the steep bank, rocks all ways on the quarta potty, and ollied onto a couple of the smaller ledges. I was kind of all over the place. Oh yeah, I had some new shoes. Kind of by accident as I forgot to change before skating.

Etnies RCT. But in actuality my Romero shoes were pretty much done anyway. I didn’t really do much other then ollie the six stair first try behind Skelly that I remember, but somehow it was a blast. Carleigh almost got back disasters on the quarta potty. Skelly did a nice f/s flip on the ollie up bank. I got a boneless on it that felt good. Nice way to enjoy the last warm/dry evening in awhile.

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.