I tried @neilsoffire but this was all I came up with before I gave up on filming. I have a new respect for how hard it is to make a #neilsdailyvid. Either way ditching out of work to skate for awhile rules.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Nov 11, 2014 at 2:17pm PST

Shortly after lunch and a meeting I bailed to the nearby park. It was sunny and warmer, but still cool with a crispness in the air. I felt stiff, but I suppose it gets old reading that every time. Anyways warming up went somewhat ok. Had some better then usual front 50s on the little ledge and ollied the flat bar way quicker then normal. Ollies were rough though and the tall stuff there wasn’t working. I couldn’t get on the tall ledge. I tried filming like Neil does for a minute and above is seriously all I got. I didn’t feel like dealing with the angles and hitting record so I stopped. I couldn’t ollie the little part of the angled ledge. I tried getting over it at a taller point though. Got one flatground treflip. Came remotely close to some really slow bigflips. Had some front boards on the flat bar that may have slid over a foot. Believe it or not I’m hyped on that. I really like skating this park by myself. I skate different then I would around others. It’s fun. Maybe I’ll get better at taller stuff, maybe not. But it’s way funner then just going to the gym at work.

It was so nice out. I normally go to the gym around 10am at work for about 45 minutes, but it was just too nice out. I went to the nearby “rollerblade park” and skated for about 45 minutes. It was hot out. I had a new board after my idiocy last night. 8.1 this time. Felt good. I kept it pretty mellow. Mostly just skated slow trying flip tricks and the occasional ledge trick. At one point I had a halfcab flip, 360 flip (over 40 make) and then a nollie 360 flip (over 80 make). Ha. Was hyped. Was really missing vulc shoes though. They are just so much better for skating. Gotta do this instead of the gym more often, it was quite fun.

After work, a nap, laundry, I went to Crisis to meet up with our old guy crew for Denver Tuesdays. I was first so Fuzz and I sat and watched a video while disagreeing over everything except how rad Ty Bealls part is in the A-Street video. Ha. Dave and Rob showed and we drove to Cherry Creek to a parking garage called “Cherry Curbs”. Money. And it exceeded all expectations. We mostly skated this crazy manny pad with all kinds of weird angles that you can go into/out of grinds. I was the last on the manual to front 50 train. Actually, I’m not sure if I even did it without tilting. Rob did it with no comply and one foot as well. Fuzz got tech with heelflips up, switch back 180s, noseslides pop ups. Dave did front 5-0 to nose manual and manual body varial. Rob had such a steezy nose manual front 180 out. I was trying a quick foot combo of manual then nose manual to grind. Unfortunately we got the boot. At least we got awhile on it.

@corpoglenny

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Oct 10, 2014 at 9:41pm PDT

After some spot lurking we ended up here for a fun brief session under Fuzz’s headlights. Well, Fuzz’s truck’s headlights. Fuzz and Dave did some soft rocks/pivots. I did the standard kickflip to fakie and fakie flip. Then we all did early grabs off it and Fuzz and I did bonelesses.

Epic skate night. Old dudes skating past last call. Work is gonna suck in a few hours. @crisis_skateboards @43shifty @fullertrron

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Oct 10, 2014 at 1:42am PDT

Then we ended up at this gem of a spot. It had this little slappy ledge, then a short long ledge after, then down the street a little another ledge with a gnar option. Dave did some ultra smooth switch slappies. Rob had slappy then nollie lipslide. I had slappy, bad crooks, then almost boardslide on the further ledge. Fuzz almost got to the gnar option with a front 50, but we got kicked out. Doh.

We ended up at the newish college spot downtown with the long marble manny pads. Everyone got manuals except me (nothing new there). It seemed like really fun place to skate. As I was just getting warmed up again it started raining.

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Oct 10, 2014 at 12:09am PDT

So we went to the RTD garage. Fuzz and I didn’t think we would skate at all, but I guess Rob and Dave were shredding hard enough to get us off our tired butts. Rob was seriously ripping. Manuals at high speed, nose mannies, lots of energy hopping up/off the ledges. Back 50 around the corner to shove out. Whoa! Fuzz was on the high speed tip too with a long manual that opened a little emergency phone case. Pretty funny. He also had good fakie 50s with and without halfcabs out. I just did crooks. But I did a lot of them. Some long ones on the main ledge and a few through the corner which felt really neat. As usual Dave was the last man standing. He did all kinds of moves. Front 5-0 through the corner, boardslide to fakie then switch front noseslide. Front board to fakie. Crooks and ended it with a really good switch crooks.

Got home around 2:30 am stoked and feeling very alive. Thanks for the good time dudes.

Rob came over around 3 after I had spent some time working in the morning. It was super nice out. We started at the little manny pad by Mikes camera. The asphalt aint so great anymore, but that didn’t stop us. I had a new board (8.25) and wheels (bones stf 51mm thin ones). Rob got the first try manual challenge. I didn’t. Or second or third, etc. Clearly I was going to suck. We tried quite a few tricks and came close on some rare ones. Rob almost got halfcab manual back 180 out. He got a bunch of no comply manuals. Almost nose manual turned to fakie nose manual. I almost got kickflip manual, nose manual shove, nollie shove manual. Tried manual no comply shove out, didn’t get remotely close to that one. My board was feeling awkward.

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Good times and great commentary with @43shifty today. How the heck do you pop up that so easy @maxgarson @stumblin_steele ? #old

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Then we drove around striking out on spots due to cars for awhile and ended up here. I told Rob I had a line on my list there. Several tries later I rolled away from it. Ollie up, boneless wallride, kickflip off. Later on watching the footage made me laugh so hard because of Rob’s commentary so I had to make a little post. I was seriously crying laughing at the stuff Rob said. All in all a pretty fun day. I kind of skated like crap and still managed to get a line I really wanted so that’s cool.

Stuck working on a Friday night. Ugh. Managed to see most of Ollie’s football games. Then went for a brief skate to the research center. I started near the Max rail and it ruled. I had new shoes (Etnies RCT) and a new 8.25 deck with my old Venture wides. Yeah, so in Portland there were several times where I felt like my board was too small. So I figured it’s time to try the bigger setup again. This time only 8.25 and Ventures instead of Indy. It felt decent. I started with a line of noseslide coming up the handicap ramp, boardslide a curb, then front 180 up the two stair. It’s a dorky spot, but really fun because you have to curve around all crazy. Then I had a super fun line. Firecracker the two stair, ride down the mess of long stairs, kickflip on flat, no comply 180, start doing down the hill, switch front 180, back 180 (felt really good with the bigger setup), turn around, ollie up the curb, crooks the ledge, then manual the long pad. But I ended up falling on the landing of the manual. I laughed then looked up and saw this awesome view.

I skated the ledge for awhile. Locked into some crooks, didn’t land many of them. Did one back 50. Went to try some flippers, but my achilles is still hurting so bad that I stopped.

Got the early shift this week. So after a nap, a smoothie dinner (motivated my Reynolds and PJ) and a visit to Crisis I met Darin and John and Broomfield park. They were warming up on the quartapotty so I joined. It was fun. John gots pivot fakies perfect now. Darin can front blunt every time. I got most of my tricks. We tried to manual the blue pad too and I ran into. It wasn’t looking good for ollies. We ended up getting some stuff. Nothing special for me until John got me to ollie into the brown slanted ledge. That was cool! I’ve wanted to do that for awhile. Then we played a game of SKATE that lasted pretty long doing tricks we don’t always do. John got me with impossible and varial flip. I got him with halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, something, nollie tre (first try!) and a fakie varial flip. We hucked a bit more after that, but left as I was getting really tired.

After work I met Liz and India at Wahoo’s to celebrate India’s first day of high school. So crazy. I was really tired, but right after I went to Rock Creek to meet up with Rob, Fuzz, Carleigh and Chelsea (I think). My first run made me feel good then it was kinda downhill from there with the exception of some little ollies and front disasters. Carleigh got into a bunch of front 50s and had apparently landed one earlier in the session. Her friend Chelsea seemed rad and was skating good. Rob got into some steez machine back smiths and had a rather lofty backside ollie that he said was nothing. Ha. Fuzz was killing it and also had the worst slam I’ve seen him take in forever. Blunt fakie, halfcab blunt fakie, huge ollie to front disaster, frontside ollies, a lot more. I forget what the slam was on, but it was right after yelling an F-bomb which he tried to take back from disturbing the peace in quaint little Superior. Ha. It got dark. I skated flat while others talked.

On the way back to Boulder it was still wet so I went to Red Curbs. I quickly discovered that my insole experiment of trying the actual Es insoles was not a good idea, but I kept skating anyways. Mostly just did slappy front 50s (well, ride on front 50s), back 50s, front 5-0s and slappy crooks. But had a few other tricks thrown in like back 50 front 180 pivot out, ollie over the two cones stacked sideways on each other, manuals, etc. It was fun.

On a rainy night I gave India a ride to ballet with Jake then stopped by Meta, dropped off some goods, picked up Matt and we headed to Red Curbs. Matt had never been there before. I had a lot of new stuff. Those shoes are way brighter then they look too. They are ridiculous. Herman G6 Vulc. Also put some new 52mm Nulls on because my last set had worn down into the mid/upper 40s. They felt and looked huge! Ha. Oh and some old PJ trucks because I had worn my previous set of Ventures to the axle (unheard of for me). Anyways I set the tone for myself on my very first push around the spot by slamming onto my elbow on the edge of the curb on a slappy crooks. Matt quickly front 180’d the median and ollied some tall cones. Had some sick fakie nosegrinds, front 5-0 180, switch back 50, probably much more. Slammed prety hard without his wrist guard a few times. Doh. Jake gets better every time he skates. Front tails, front 180 over two sideways cones piled up, halfcab over that too, almost a kickflip manual, got into fakie back lips, his new trick the fakie bigger flip, fakie front tail, a treflip and more. I slammed and struggled all night. Managed to ollie the sideways cones, a couple 3 flips, slappy crooks, ride on front 50s and a few other basic flippers.

I set up a lovely 8″ board. Jake showed up in the early evening and we went out to skate flatground. The joy of skating an 8″ board again was so incredible. I landed so many tricks first try and everything felt good. There was a kickflip that could have made my night all by itself, but it was joined with multiple treflips and many more flippers. Jake was skating well too. We started a game of SKATE as we waited for Matt. We both landed tricks that can often get us letters. I got Jake and S on a treflip and he got me an S on a fakie treflip (first one I’ve seen Jake do. Nice!) then Matt showed up and we left for Denver.

We went to this spot first. It was covered in debris from the tree so we didn’t skate around too much, mostly just hit this ledge. Matt tried to be a rebel and skate the whole spot at one point and slammed so hard pushing. It was brutal. He still skated good. Manualled the bottom block, back tail, manualled a bit of the top block after a quick up. I landed quite a few back 50s, chinese nollie to front tail, front 5-0s, crooks. Jake had back 50s, fakie front 50 halfcab out. Jake and Matt ollied onto the low block, then the upper block, and did tricks off. Jake did front 180 and tried nollie. I took about 30 minutes longer to get onto the top deck. Got front 180 and landed on back 180, but bailed.

Then we went to the Denver Art Museum. I saw Jake do some manuals across some ledges, ollie a narrow part of a ledge and front board a narrow part. I was having troubles seeing the poorly lit ledges. Jason always used to say I had horrible night vision. I probably don’t see any worse then others, I just am not very good at skateboarding and night vision sounds like a legit excuse. Anyways, geez. I skated kind of slow and slammed on a front board, couldn’t manual a whole ledge. But I did have a fun line of 360 flip, ollie up a ledge, over a little gap to manual the next part. Matt skated the best I’ve seen him skate. It was crazy. He was flying all over the place ollieing ledges, manualling them, nose manualling some. He was skating so hard he even broke his board. It was a Null board so you know he was skating hard because those things never break. Then we went to Black Dots/Cheap Girls which was a blast. I got home at 3:30am. Monday at work sucked extra bad.

Put my old 8″ Ventures on a 8.25″ board. The board looked so small. I skated in front of the house for a bit before Ollie was ready to leave for a short Louisville session. I was able to ollie while hitting the tail again (ha), kickflips felt easier, halfcab flip felt great. I did end up liking how Indy’s turned, but for now I’m just gonna skate the Ventures and not think of getting 8″ Indys unless I actually end up disliking the Ventures (unlikely). We went to Lville. We skated the skate run thing first. It was fun. The Ventures carve differently then Indys, but the grind felt better and I actually landed tricks I got into instead of just stopping. Ollie pumped better then he has in awhile and followed some lines I showed him to keep his speed more. I got a front d, but bailed out of roll ins. Thanks JP. Ever since making that roll in bet I’ve been completely unable to commit to a roll in. Goofed around on the street section for awhile. Didn’t do anything special and definitely noticed that crooks are harder to get into with a smaller truck. But it was cool. Ollie had some nice front 180’s off the ledge. We were both so tired from vacation and driving that we called really quick.

After getting out of work early on a hot Friday I went to Crisis to sell boards and hang out with one of my favorite dudes. I ended up being there for quite a while. Then I went to the Broomfield park for what turned into a pretty depressing session. I skated the black ledge for awhile. Managed to back 50 it a few times which is tall for me. Especially considering how bad I was skating. Got a line of front 5-0, kickflip to fakie on the mellow bank then halfcab noseslide on the black ledge. Then I went up to the bowl area. Had fun pumping around it. Did some back 50s in the corner I hadn’t before. Tried to roll in and totally failed (thanks JP). Then took a really long time to do a axle stall on the pool coping section. As bad as I skated I still felt somewhat stoked when I left. Maybe I was happy because I realized I haven’t been skating parks lately? Cool.