Ollie and I went to Arvada on a warm afternoon. The park was mobbed with scooter kids. Seriously like 30 of them. It made for some really annoying times, but for the most part we were fine. After a couple warm cruises around we decided to skate the little kicker above. I called out that I needed to do 10 tricks, Ollie said he would do 5. I thought he was a little ambitious, but he ended up beating me! He did back 180 (early photo above), front 180, halfcab (first try), f/s halfcab and then fakie shove! The fakie shove took a long time, but either way he was hyped. Mine were ollie (yes I was so tired and weird feeling I decided to count ollie), front 180, back 180, nollie, switch front 180, kickflip, back shove, front shove, f/s halfcab (took me the longest) and backside flip. I was so tired after that. We hit some other stuff like the back of the snake run where Ollie had a nice line in the pump bumps to front slash on the noping qp then lofty front 180 off the kicker.

After heading to 303 then back home for a quick bite Rob picked me up then we grabbed Neil and headed to the Safeway ledge. Brett was there and Fuzz joined shortly. I felt so sore initially, but ended up feeling good. Everyone seemed to skate good. Brett had some patented noseslides either to forward, fakie or shove out. Also some good flippers and no patented Brett slams that I saw. Neil is back! And he was ripping! Front lip, front tail, front tail shove, back crooks shove the tall ledge, back lip, ollied the 5 stair, so much more. Rob rules this spot. Bigspin front nose, cab front nose, front tail, back 180 fakie 50, and a ton more that I’m forgetting. Fuzz did some crazy ones like halfcab front 5-0, fakie back tail, back tail, back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, fakie 50 f/s halfcab out. He avoids flatground now altogether. Wuss! Ha. I forced myself to do at least one regular back 50 before trying kick back 50s and was rewarded with a first try kick back 5-0 (was trying 50, but I’ll take it!). So stoked! It felt so good. One of my recent skate highlights for sure. Although I tried to do it again and try a shove out, but barely got a kick back 50. I was finally feeling good on my skateboard though, doing lots of flip tricks, trying lines and smiling. Eventually everyone except me stopped and I was just skating trying lines having a blast. Kind of did fakie flip, switch noseslide 270, treflip (cracked my board). Came close to back 50, heelflip, nollie tre. I’m not sure why, but I was landing almost every heelflip. Then I stretched and joined the crew at Crisis feeling stoked.

The weather was rainy and in the low 60s. What an unusual day for late July. I was feeling really run down and sick with a cold. Doh. I had gone to Meta earlier and picked up some new Thunders that hopefully wouldn’t have axle slip like my old ones. While I was at it I got new bearings and fruity colored hardware. So there you go, a new complete!!! I went with Null 52mms. Maybe I’ll be a normal skateboarder again.

On top of that I had new shoes! Lakai Guys. I’ve been waiting and waiting for the Nikes to die so I could wear these. They seemed good out of the box and they don’t have a stupid swoosh on them!

We went around to the side of the school we don’t normally skate. There are tons of pebbles everywhere, but we ended up having a blast and skated it in totally new ways. My shoes felt amazing. My complete felt like a new complete. I did keep my old bushings going so it wasn’t completely night and day. The bigger wheels really cruise over cracks easier, but they also gave me wheel bite as I’ve gotten used to tiny little wheels. Ollie was killing it. He did a fakie back shove out of the curb cut back onto the sidealk, front 180 off the stairs (above) and halfcab off the curb, back 180 and f/s halfcab out of the curb cut into the parking lot. The f/s halfcab was new for him and he did it really good. For how sick I was and mellow I was feeling I skated pretty good. From right to left in the panorama I worked up to a run of kickflip up the curb, front 180 off the 2 stair then fakie bigspin off the curb. From left to right I did ollie up the curb, front 180 onto the loading dock then halfcab flip on flat. Fun, brief session. Stoked to have a somewhat normal setup that makes cruising around a little easier.

I feel like I’ve been doing alright at life lately. Been spending lots of time with the family, keeping null going, not having many beers and getting to skate a lot. The one thing I’ve been blowing it at though is hanging with my friends. Luckily Andy at Launch has “Over 30 night” once a month and I was invited to roll with an awesome crew of people I need to hang out with more. I got off work a couple hours before the Square State Bus was supposed to head out and Dave could get out early too so we went to Longmont High. I felt better then normal, a little numb in the legs, but good. We skated for about an hour. Dave ollied up onto the blocks easy and started trying front 180 nose manuals. He got really close. He struggled with kickflips, but had some nice back 50s on the long ledge. I could not ollie onto the block. I blame going back to high trucks! Ha, I think I have a couple more days of adjustment that I can list as an excuse. I had better front 50s then last time on the long ledge, switch noseslides both ways, ollied some flowers, didn’t land many flip tricks. Then we were off.

Then Dave and I got picked up at SOL in the Square State bus. It was a fun ride. Lots of old dudes watching old OJ skate videos. We got to Launch around 8pm. No dinner stops. I ate gummi bears and a cliff bar from 7-11. The ramp wasn’t crowded so I got on it right away to get my initial bails on axle stalls out of the way. It got crowded quick though and I retreated to the little ledge and skated it with Mike and Skelly (Skelly is back!!!). Mike was killing back 180 nosegrinds and fakie nosegrinds both ways. Skelly did a front nosegrind 180 that I swear he never touched anything, but the kingpin. It was rad. He had lots of 5-0s and stuff too. I did a few basics. Had some kick back 50s, one bad kick back tail, switch noseslide shove, a few back hurricanes that I was hyped on. There was a lot of yelling going on the ramp. I normally missed what the tricks were, but it seemed like everyone was ripping and having a good time. I would skate the ramp when the deck cleared out a little. I didn’t get anything new, but didn’t bail my basics too many times. I saw Brian do a rock to fakie on an extension and ride fakie through the lower level. Unreal. Fuzz did sugarcane easy. Orlando destroys. Fuller looked good on a new Null board! Oh, and he ripped too. Mike has a rad line with a switch carve through the corner to Hewitt grind to forward. Man there is too much to list. I wish I had skated the ramp more, but I just didn’t feel like waiting and I suck in snake sessions. When it got crowded again I joined Rob, Dave and Andy and skated flatground. Dave got a couple over 45 makes on switch front 3 and a steezy f/s fakie bigspin. Andy rattled off tricks that looked really good and were gnarly. 3 flip, varial heel, hardflip. Geez. Squeeks would join us too, but he’s only 20 something so we’ll ignore what he did. Rob did some rad no comply and fastplant variations. Skating flatground is the best! I had fun even though tricks took longer then normal. My favs were treflip (took a long time), nollie treflip and f/s halfcab heel. At the end I did b/s flip and kickflip to fakie on the little roll-in in the street course. The kickflip fakie was super hard because of how the roll in is rounded. But that was really fun and my favorite trick of the night.

We eventually stopped skating. Everyone had grins on their face. Ric even gave out some prizes and just made the night more special by being so into it. Seriously fun night. The kind of night that we keep doing this for. Awesome.

Ollie and I got to Arvada park around 8pm on another nice, warm night. The park was super crowded so we hid in the bank to curb corner. It was fun though. I had a new board. It’s the Hair Club For Null deck. Stoked on that older one I traded out at 303 for a newer one recently. Hurricanes happened first try on the noping section. Cool. Ollie did a front slash and front rock quick too. We went to the blue bank area for a bit, long enough for me to get my first two 3 flips on the new board. Guess a new board helps for that trick. Back to the bank to curb/noping area where I kept almost running into the same people standing in my way over and over. I managed to not get too angry and land a new trick I’ve never done in a few tries. F/s allie oop fakie front 50. Stoked! We played on the pier 7 thing a minute. It was crowded. I tried to boardslide the long curb, but the wax killed me. Trent was there skating it uphill so only waxed a bit of it so it went from death scary fast to regular and it kept throwing me off. Back to bank to curb land for awhile. More weaving through people, trying to avoid getting angry, bikers, scooters, lurkers. I was doing runs starting with either hurricane or allie-oop fakie front 50 and almost hitting people every time. It was kind of fun. I ended up getting a bunch and got a front d on the upper quarterpipe in the snakerun above the small bowl. Stoked me out. Ollie was doing fun little lines of rock to fakie then halfcab off the kicker or grinding the edge. Then we mostly skated the “beginner section”. I boardslid the granite round bar, front 50’d the rainbow ledge. Ollie almost b/s 180’d the A frame kicker. At the end of the night I front 50’d the mini hubba. Man that thing is scary to me. First couple attempts were sooo slow. Felt good to do it though. Skating with Ollie is always a blast.

Headed up to Launch in the afternoon with Dave and Jake and met up with birthday boy Neil. We skated Launch for awhile. Well, Neil didn’t really, he was conserving his energy. He is 40 now after all. As usual Dave killed the ramp. There was a couple tricks in there I hadn’t really seen before. No “aerials” though. Ha ha. Jake too. Those guys are too good. I look so lame skating with them. Chadman showed up eventually. He skates that thing pretty well even though he makes fun of himself the whole time. My best was a run that had a back scratch grind revert, front d and fakie back smith to fakie in it. Mike was there killing it in his own unique way. The layback hurricane was sick. Wannabe old guy Justin was there ripping and putting in more energy on every trick then I would in multiple runs. I think he had 3 walls in a row involving 540s. So sick. Mullen photo was there too. Super nice dude. Super good at skateboarding. Go figure, it’s Fort Collins for you.

Then we went to Northside where Jason and Lindy met us. Sooo stoked! Chad and I chatted with Jason for awhile then headed into the park. Chadman seemed to stay at the ledge the whole time. He was trying to learn fakie backside nosegrinds, but couldn’t get it. He did post up the sick front crooks in the photo though. The rest of us were kinda all over the place. I saw birthday boy lipslide the ledge and get a boardslide on the jersey barrier. Jake had some nice manuals across the ledge. I was able to get on the ledge for awhile before I got tired and it became too high. Got a front 50 and 5-0 , front nose to fakie, front nose back 270 out (it’s really just a dumb pivot – just imagine me looking really old and slow and you’ll get the picture). Then I kinda just skated the main area for awhile and didn’t really see what others were doing. Oh, Jake did a front blunt on the weird big bank. That was crazy. I had a line of wallie the corner of the jersey barrier, front tail stall on the china bank, axle stall on the bank to ledge, back 5-0 on the china bank, slappy 50 the hump. Fun. Got a kickflip on the weird big bank which felt really good. Wallied over the low part of the barrier, front 50 on the bank to ledge. I did a lot of crooks on the ledge too. They were really fun. That ledge leaves a mark every time. Chad and I played a game of SKATE. He made me look bad with nollie flip, sw flip and sw heel quick. But my dumb tricks like fakie varial flip started adding up and I got him to SKAT. I tried treflip for awhile and just couldn’t get it. I had enough tries, but he eventually took me out with switch front heel and nollie f/s flip. Dave and Jake played on the big qp wall for awhile. I guess they did pivot to fakie followed by fakie flips. sick. Jake and I played another game of SKATE. Again I got him to SKAT, but couldn’t land a treflip for a long time even when Jason towed me in. Luckily Jake was missing tricks so I eventually got it and won the game. Then we had a good dinner at La Luz and some laughs. Good times.

I met up with Blaine, Bernie, Scotty, Dean, Trent and a dude named Josh at the Sugar Mill spot. Trent, Scotty and Josh were trying stuff on the bank and Blaine and I were just kinda looking at stuff when the cops came. Luckily we didn’t get any trespassing tickets, but it took awhile to go through all our IDs. Next we went to the spot above. In the foreground of the photo above is Blaine filming. Blaine rules. Bernie got a good trick. Trent got a couple good tricks. I was kind of able to ollie and happy about that. I manualed the small pads, took forever to nose manny it, slammed trying to ollie up a curb and managed a horrible over 40 ollie over the gap. It’s harder then it looks only because there isn’t much setup and not much landing. I didn’t skate well, but I was happy that ollies were somewhat doable.

After some lunch/dinner we went to one of my favorite spots in all of Colorado. Rocky Mountain Elementary. Bernie waxed the ledge all crazy and it was on immediately. I got a lot of my ledge tricks quickly. Boardslide popouts both ways, front nose to fakie, back noseslide, front 50, front 5-0, front 50 front 180, front nose back 270 out, back crooks, kickflip back 50 (couldn’t do reg back 50). It was awesome! I seriously love that place. Some of the tricks were in lines. Backside I did a few lines with dropin on the kinked brick bank, kickflip up the curb, crooks, then not land a 360 flip. Frontside I had a couple slow lines with manual a curb, ollie onto the ledge, ollie the 2″ gap, drop off, heelflip on flat, front 50 to front board. Bernie was destroying it and almost got an ender line. Blaine filmed it soooo good too. If only Bernie would have got the last trick. He was close, he’ll get it. Blaine had a blast rolling into the dirt section. Metal Matt, Shaun and another dude showed up. It was great to see them. Shaun was of course ripping. Bluntslide pop to fakie on the ledge, kickflip out of the bank over the curb. Matt was chillin’ for the most part. Then darkness hit. I had tried a few kickflip noseslides and didn’t get very close. And never got a treflip, but it was still a fun session. Love that spot, need to skate it more.

Fullertron, Fuzz, Rob, Blaine and I headed to Denver on another nice night. We intended to start at the bank to curb behind the church and ended up at the Greyhound parking garage hill bomb. Rob had never been there and did the whole thing proper first try. No warm up, no speed checks. So sick. He had some speed wobbles at the bottom, but he pulled it off fine. We were all pretty amazed. The rest of the older dudes speed checked in some form or another. Fuzz carved, I powerslid, Dave foot dragged a little. Blaine went in hard with filmer wheels filming it. So sick. It was a great way to start the session. Powerslides and flying through traffic. We didn’t go far after as there was a great slappy curb in the main depot area that we got quite a bit of time on. It was this rad little angled yellow curb. Everyone got their slappies on it. There was also some little medians that got some love too. I saw Rob nosebonk and no comply one. I tried to lipslide one, but never quite got it. My legs were feeling pretty bad. Fuzz had some rad slappies that her turned around the corner on. Dave killed slappy tails. Blaine is young, but the age of the crew he was with must have rubbed off and he got some slappies too.

We pushed over to the Chase bank yellow curb garage that is oh so fun. It had gotten waxed up in a few sections. We were all doing our own thing. Fuzz and I went betweeen a couple and did front and back 50s. He had 4 in a row I think. Next was Tabor for awhile. It’s the marble hip/bank area in the photo above. We all skated this thing for awhile. Fuzz did a bunch of transfer tricks over the corner like front tail to fakie, front board, etc. Dave rode over the handrail which is so gnarly. Feeling the Ron Allen inspiration I learned boneless to wallride. Although the bank isn’t much of a “wallride” it still felt amazing and maybe my favorite new trick in awhile. I tried to line it out with a flatground kickflip and a front 180 down the 3, but we got booted about the time Blaine went to film Fuzz.

Not sure where we went after this. We did chinese nollie manuals, Dave fire crackered a long 4 stair. I failed at 3 flips. We got some liquid. We were exhausted after. Everyone looked beat. We ended up at the metal grate inside manny pad. Fuzz almost got smoked trying to manual it. I tried bonks into it then front board transfers out. Got close. Dave did no complies and almost switch no complies. Rob and Blaine chilled. After we got the boot I went across the street to a granite section and skated by myself for a bit. Tried a line with ollie onto the bench then ollie the little hole to manual, no comply 180, fakie bigflip into a slight bank. Kinda got it. Met up with the rest of the crew at some fun red curbs and a white ledge into a garage that Fuzz did some sick front 50s on.

We kinda chilled at the end of the 16th St mall for awhile. Rob and Dave were doing some boneless stall/slids on the granite blocks. I tried 360 flips over and over and crooks on the granite blocks (got a few of each). Then Rob called out a rad bump to bump from the fountain to a curb cut. Fuzz ollied it all sick. Blaine hauled ass and basically cleared it without much of an ollie. So scary! I couldn’t get out that far. Dave put his board after the bump and I ended up having a super fun run of ollie out of the fountain over Dave’s board and pushed across the street, front 180 up the two, sw 180 on flat, ollie the 4 stair as security was chasing me. Landing the four stair hurt. My legs were done at that point. Ugh. Fuzz got a sick line ollie’ing the fountain to the curb cut then a 900mph manual through some scaffolding across the street. What a fun, late night.

Woke up feeling the best I’ve felt in a while. Worked at home on a hot day. Was planning on rolling to Lafayette park with Jake to meet Rob, Dave and Fuzz. Right before leaving Ollie expressed some interest and after some deliberating finally decided on joining us. We arrived to a pretty crowded park as tuesday nights are old man night. There were a couple others there with kids, but they mostly stuck to the big bowl. I kind of stuck with Ollie initially as his shyness was weirded out by the crowded park. We hit the middle of the park. Shortly a session on the tight qp at the entrance started up. Fullertron and Salmon were going off. Fuller did long front 5-0s, boardslides and front lip. Ridiculous. Jake was banging out tricks too. Front d and front blunt! Rob was steezing out back smiths. I got a back hurricane which I’ve never done there before and way hyped on. Couldn’t get the front feeble though. Ollie was cruising the little section and then doing some frontside ollies on the little curb cut rock thing by all of us. Ollie and I started skating the “street” area a bit as no one else was skating it. I hung up getting into a noseslide down the small hubba and dove to flat. That wasn’t so fun. Ollie was trying lots of fly out pop shoves and back 180’s. He didn’t get the pop shove. I was breaking in the Nikes with flip tricks still, halfcab flips worked, kickflips worked, treflips not so much. Fuzz showed. We skated a steep bank for a bit. He crushed it pretty quick with rock’s both ways and an axle stall. The best part of that park is that there are endless ways to skate it. I got a kickflip to fakie on a bank that felt great. After awhile I saw Dave doing this sick bluntslide out of a little quarter pipe to bank and joined him. He got a couple ridiculous bluntslides. I got a sketchy front tail and an ok front tail. Fuzz worked on front noseblunts. Rob did some rad crail airs. Ric destroyed the middle bowl and lipslid the bank all in one run. He kills it so hard! Jake apparently redid Jason’s noseblunt trick from Off The Couch, but without the Sammy Davis Jr clip after. Rob and I skated the mid sized bowl for awhile. It’s a fun one. I was happy that I got most (if not all) of the back 50s I tried. Need to get some more tricks in there though. The best part of the night for me was that Ollie was skating for real. He wasn’t glued to my side. He was skating all over the park, finding his own lines and loosening up with my friends. At one point Ollie did a back 180 off the manual pad and Rob said “Nice Ollie” so Ollie bowed. It was hilarious. Also if Ollie and I crossed paths through the park he would give me a salute like a soldier. Man it was funny. He did have some really good back 180s and he almost had some ollies up onto the manual pad. He did several ollies up to rock then pull up which is a good start. The rest of the crew was sessioning the smaller narrow white qp while Ollie and I just cruised around doing whatever. Other then a 3 flip with a bit of speed nothing stands out so much for me. I was just cruising and landing a few tricks. Almost noseslide the tall bump to ledge. Failed miserably at a few carves in the vert bowl. Fuller was killing it. Got a doubles line with Ollie where I did a frontside wallride on the bank to rock and he did a b/s wallride on it. Wallies off the corner of the rock into the hip are the funnest thing ever and Ollie did it first try. Geez. Fuzz and Dave did some crazy switch pivots/feebles on the narrow white qp. All in all one of my favorite nights because Ollie skated hard and seemed to be flowing at the park and not needing to be right by my side allowing me to hang with my friends a little more. Thanks dudes for being cool to Ollie. Summer rules. We hung out after the lights shut off for awhile and I kept saying we had to leave to get Ollie to bed. But Fuzz came through with a quote that made me laugh. Fuzz, “Ollie do you have school tomorrow?” Ollie, “No”. Fuzz, “Then tell your dad to chill out”. Ha ha awesome. Oh yeah, I cracked my board really bad on a 3 flip so I’ll be setting up a new one and at the gas station on the way home they were giving away donuts so lucky Ollie took 4 of them. That’s one stoked kid!

First time with new shoes in awhile. The Supras put up a good fight and showed me that cup soles are better for repeatedly hucking flip tricks which is my favorite thing to do. So I got another pair of cupsoles. This time Vox – Lockdown Cups. They are a bit bulky for my taste, but we’ll see ..

It was a gorgeous evening. It had gotten to 99, but since we’re in a desert it cooled around 7 when we met up. We watched Suciu’s part in Sabotage 3 which inspired all of us then drove up to campus. We started off in this parking lot. Everyone seemed hyped and on their game pretty quick. Rob had a sick no comply shove up the curb and a push down the 3. Ha it was awesome. He also no complied up the 3 and did a bunch of long manuals around banked curb. Jake and I failed at manualling the curb – 3 section. Jake did have a nice ollie up, front 180 down, f/s halfcab off though. I was breaking in the new shoes and having fun. If I didn’t get the manual I would do a 180 off the curb after the 3 then a fakie flip trick. I was surprised at how good the new shoes felt. I managed a switch front 180 up, front 180 down the 3, sw front 180 off the curb.

Then we ended up at the new area where the old brick plaza was. Rob had some good boardslides, front nose to fakie, some creative slams as well as some rad no comply variations. Jake kickflipped the little brick section. I had a couple great feeling treflips followed by crook attempts turned into noseslides.

Next up was the fun little manny pad area. Jake went for halfcab manny and some wallrides on this fun barrier that was on the end of the sidewalk. So you could ollie onto the sidewalk then wallride the barrier down the 3″ to the parking lot. Ha. Rob came close to 180 nose mannies both ways. Had a sick nose manual drop down to nosemanual then turn front 180. I was feeling really good and skated non-stop. Got kickflip manny and nose manny shove. Maybe sw front 180 manual too. Had a really fun line of ollie up the curb then wallride down into the parking lot then lipslide a parking block. Also frontside wallride up onto the sidewalk, then ollie onto the tall orange ledge and front 180 off.

Last spot of the day was the double mellow banks. Jake was looking pretty tired and even kicked his board a couple times. Unheard of for him! He did manage some good lines though. Kickflip into the first, nollie 180 the second (I think?). Fakie bigspin then pop shove. Quite a few more I can’t remember right now. Rob did no comply shove then back 180 and maybe called it after that. I had pretty much the best flip trick showing I’ve ever had there. Pop shove the first, kickflip the second. Halfcab flip the first, back 180 the second. Fakie bigflip the first, front pop shove the second. Anytime I landed the second trick going forward I would loop around and try to ollie up the 3. I bailed most times. B/s flip the first, halfcab flip the second. Treflip the first, kickflip the second. Fakie flip the first, sw front 180 the second. And the ender, F/s halfcab flip the first, kickflip the second and finally got a clean ollie up the 3. Hurray for cupsoles making flip tricks even more fun!

On a hot and lazy afternoon Ollie and I set out to go skate. I was so lazy I even wore shorts. We ended up at this spot and I figure since it’s a ledge spot Ollie would be over it pretty quick and we’d move on. We were just kinda goofing around for awhile then Ollie pretty much did the first line in the video. I figured it would be cool to film it with my phone so we did. I love how he has no idea about what is cool in skateboarding. He’s wearing basketball shorts, he’s pushing mongo and he swings his arms around on purpose. But watching him is the best. He is only doing it for fun and he smiled the entire time. I had a couple runs starting with the tre stair too that were fun. Ollie, ollie up the curb, manual around a pillar, front nose to fakie on a ledge. Ollie the three, front 180 up the curb, sw front 180 up the smallest ledge, front shove off a taller ledge, 3 flip on flat. Ollie the three, kickfilp up the curb (hard because it’s so quick). I’ve wanted to do that ollie up the ledge then ride off ever since Jack manualled it in the snow forever ago. It took me awhile. I kept thinking my big butt would hit the rail as I ollied on. Hyped on getting that though. Ollie was doing lots of front and back 180s off various ledges. The best though was after awhile he was ollieing off the 3 stair then ollieing up the curb after. He was so hyped to be ollie’ing up a curb with speed. The look he gave me after the first couple was mind blowing to me. That is the most hyped I’ve ever seen him on a skateboard. I had a few other things I did that I was pretty hyped on. First try kick back 50 on the low ledge, a couple frontside flips. The crooks then treflip was extra great feeling because I just said if I land the crooks then I would try a flip trick and it worked first try. Ollie was doing a bunch of the quick ollies on different flagstone sections. It was so sick. I was finally able to do it as we rolled to the car. What a fun session. Sharing an amazing skate session with your kid is an amazing feeling. I put this up there with lots of other incredibly fun sessions I’ve had and am so grateful for all of them.

(Sorry for how lame facebook videos are to embed)