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.

Feeling pretty arthritic and only wanting to skate tranny I hit up Darin to see if he was skating his ramp. Darin’s friends Ivan and Ben joined. Darin didn’t skate much as he was hungover. He did grace the ramp with a bunch of his patented rock to willy tricks. I started out pretty slow bailing a lot of basics. But there were a few highlights like a first try f/s beanplant, a few front tails and front smiths. I bailed a lot of front 50s though and couldn’t quite put down the fakie pivot fakie. Ivan and Ben learned acid drops. Ivan kind of destroys it and Darin filmed this.

So yeah that pretty much summarizes Ivan’s skating minus the really long and fast grinds. Fun session although I was still pretty sore. I went to Crisis after and hung with Fuzz and John for quite awhile. It was cool. Then John and I went to Broomfield park for a mellow session. I had some new shoes. Emerica Leo Laced. I had them because my Es Accents are broken in perfect for Portland and I didn’t want to ruin them. These are cupsoles, and not as flexible as the original Laced. Oh well. We did a lot of slappy noseslide back 270 out attempts. Neither getting close, but they seemed possible if we kept working on them. We played a game of SKATE with Will and John killed it. He landed more tricks then he normally does. I was first out and blame the new shoes (ha). I then spent a long time trying treflips and eventually landed one. That was pretty much it. Fun times.

Felt like crap yet again. Had the day off work and had gone for a hike with Liz and taken two naps. Still didn’t feel well though. Dave called after work and was in Boulder and wanted to skate. I stubbornly agreed and went to meet Dave at the Mikes Camera manny pad. Wow the asphalt sucks there now. I was feeling super out of it. Took me like 10 tries to get a manual. I did a nose manual first try though. Remotely close to a switch front 180 mannny. Dave showed up and after a manual agreed we should go check out the rainbow ledge. It was pretty dark, but we went for it anyway. Dave had a really long boardslide pop out. I had a short boardslide pop out. I also had some noseslides and a line with a front board pop out and an ollie down the 4 stair. Oh yeah, I was wearing my glasses which partly explains why I was out of it because I have pink eye. Ugh. I also had a new pair of Es Accents. This pair a half size larger that I’m trying to get broken in for Portland. Gonna get this pair dialed in and if they start to blow out too much wear the smaller pair before the trip. How boring is this to read about?

Then we went to look at the jersey barrier, but it was too dark to skate so we hit these parking blocks for awhile. We did all kinds of stall tricks. Dave did back 180 nosegrind, back 180 nosegrind to forward, back feebles, back feebles almost with back 180 or body varial out, front disaster, maybe front hurricane, probably a bunch more. I tried a bunch of front pivot kickflips out, but never got it. Managed a front 180 front truck pivot, hurricane stall to forward the long way, several feeble stalls which hyped me up since I have never really done feebles. We had a blast and I didn’t seem to make myself feel worse.

New shoe blues. Ok, so they are actually black and blue. Ha. Sorry, it’s early. I went out to Rampy on a rainy night feeling exhausted as I always seem to be lately. My first few runs were so bad I wanted to focus my board and burn down Rampy. So I started hucking. Frontside ollies and whatever the trick is called where you take your front foot off onto the coping, grab the nose with your front hand and then put it down to tail. I had a few frontside ollies that felt ok. A couple of them were probably above coping. One of which was really scary and riding away from that one was a blast. I only got one of those boneless/madonna/sweeper/whatever they are called but it was fun and cheered me up.

Still tired from a 16 hour drive the day before. I needed to get boards to 303 and had some errands to run so I just rolled out around 6pm. I had some new shoes. My first pair of Es shoes in a long time. They seem good. I cruised around doing a lot of crack nollies for a bit looking for this crack ridden alley.

This little metal ledge could be such a great warm up/ old guy spot. Actually, Max killed that spot in Nothing so what am I saying? I skated there for awhile and settled into trying a line. No comply 180, halfcab flip (whichever way seemed would work better) then front 50 back 180 out or front tail shove. The half cab flip was troublesome trying to time it in between cracks and then when I finally started getting the flow of it there were janitors or something standing near the ledge preventing me from going on. Doh.

Then I rolled to this spot and posted up for quite some time. I tried a line of fakie flip on flat (to the right of the 2 stair), switch front 180 up the first stair, to quick ollie up the second, 360 flip on flat then front nose to fakie the tall ass ledge. The 3 flip took for ever and the few I got were horrible. The ledge was too tall for me to get the front noseslides. I was bumming kinda hard, but a couple things came from it that I liked. Mostly that I had some fast fakie flips and was able to push switch comfortably after. Heading back to the start I had a great feeling nollie varial flip and I did a cali grind to manual to cali grind down the two stair which was fun. As bummed as I wanted to be I was happy I pushed myself a little and am not letting my arthritis flare up stop me from skating.

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.

Went to FOCO after work to sell some boards. Met up with Matt and we went to Fossil Creek. It became apparent on my first failed curb high boardslide that I would have a tough night. Matt on the other hand was cruising around doing all kinds of good basics first try. Actually he ended up skating some of the best I’ve seen him skate. Manual the middle box on the manual pad drop down to manual. Back tail’d it too. Ollied the Carrol gap easy, kickflipped it. Halfcab back 50 on the low, halfcab noseslide to fakie on the regular ledge, nollie back noseslide. Lots of good stuff. Including a pretty bad slam on a kick back tail attempt. I had new shoes which I can maybe blame about 5% for my skating. It was all my legs sucking. More New Balance Numeric Quincys. This time in a size that wont kill my feet. When it was finally dark I was kind of skating remotely ok. Had some fun crooks, back 50s on the curb, a 3 flip on flat and slow line of ollie onto the ledge, front 50 the ledge up top and then a crawling kickflip off the ledge. I tried to back 50 the regular ledge and got back 5-0 and back feeble instead. Sounds good unless you actually saw them. Even though I totally sucked it was still fun. Matt ripped hard and laughed at most of funnier bails, it was nice out, the park was pretty empty, etc.

After being on vacation for a week the whole family was grouchy. So I kinda just left with my skateboard and went to Southern Hills. It’s coming up on the end of the month and I haven’t done a new flip trick yet. Flatground went ok. I wasn’t too confident as skating Ventures again felt a little weird. But I really liked the 8″ trucks and how quick the flip was. I got through quite a few of the basics though and added a nollie varial flip. I was struggling with treflips when I noticed I had worn through the sole of my shoe and was skating on the insole. Doh, can’t have that. So I went home to get new shoes and then grab my camera before driving to Longmont to meet Dave.

Got me some Herman G6 Vulcs. They seem good.

It was hot when I got to Rocky Mtn Elem. The ledge didn’t grind because the wax was melted. I goofed around for awhile thinking of a line I wanted to do. Dropin on the narrow brick bank by the entrance of the school, front board popout the ledge, front 180 off the curb, fakie bigflip. When Dave was warming up I asked if he thought it was worth filming and did the line perfect. Great. Of course once we started filming I struggled with the front board, but I did end up getting it and it did feel amazing. I skated lightly after that then filmed Dave get a rad little line too. Then we both felt like we were getting heat stroke. Guess it was over 90 degrees and we were right in the sunlight. Really stoked on getting that line.

Had one of those days were the kids were gonna be gone and Liz had other plans so I had all day to skate. My arthritis was sucking though and it was tough to find the motivation. I had new shoes to break in (this time I put the NB+ insole in them so they wouldn’t be as painful). I skated flat in front of the house for a bit, then went to Crisis to hang/sell boards. Then I headed to campus to wait for Dave. I skated the flagstone bank for awhile. I was feeling so uncoordinated and sore. I did a little line with a back 50 on the curb above it then ollied into the bank. Moved on to the library where I wanted to do a line. I wanted to ollie onto a ledge then ride through the skate stoppers, dork manual (ollie into board stall, lift up and end up in manual) then a flip trick. I didn’t think the dork manual would work though so instead I just ollied up onto the ledge and front 180’d off and followed it with a fakie flip. I did this a few times then it started raining right when Dave showed up. Doh.

So we went to Red Curbs. We warmed up for awhile and I realized I was so sore I couldn’t skate much so I started filming Dave. He stacked a line and 4 clips in like 20 minutes! Back 180 fakie 50s, fakie shove manual, front 5-0 to nose manual, halfcab noseslide. It was insane. He’s so good. I tried a GleNBD for awhile. Ride on to front 50 to no comply finger flip out. I’ve tried that for quite awhile without landing it before. I guess the trick is to be super stiff and sore though because I landed one then we got the camera out and I landed another one. Hyped!

Then we went back to CU since it was dry out and Dave filmed me try my line 41 times. Gotta like matching my age to the number of tries it took to get it. For awhile I was having a blast. I ended up being able to do the dork manual so went with it. Since I was so sore and stiff though the flip tricks after were not working. I eventually landed the line with a varial flip tic tac after. Eh. Still hyped to have gotten that though.

Then we went by this so Dave could try to boardslide it. Someone waxed the crap out of it though. He front 50’d it which was sick, but almost died on the boardslide. We called it a day then. I was so sore at this point I could barely walk to the car. Arthritis is lovely. Still hyped on finally working on our old man parts though. Hopefully we keep it up.

Today was the first day of vacation I’ve used all year at work. We were going to head up to the foothills and stay in a cabin after lunch so I felt like skating early in the morning. Ollie was down to join. We went to Broomfield thinking there wouldn’t be a big skate camp there. Wrong. So then we drove to Westy and basically had the park to ourselves until the last couple minutes. I had new shoes. Those Adidas did not lost long at all which is pretty lame considering you look like a jock in them. Speaking of lame, my new shoes. Emerica Provost’s. They are not good shoes. But it’s what I ended up with this time around. I didn’t skate very good, but did a few things that made it seem alright. Like 50’ing that hubba (it’s so low to get on), front 50 the taller cement ledge at the park and ollie the flat gap. I was gonna boardslide the tiny rail if I landed a threeflip first try, but still wussed out when I did. Doh. Ollie was skating well for him. The boardslide was probably the highest one he’s done. He pushed regs a little, manualled some funny things, had come nice halfcabs and seems natural flowing around the park. Fun kickoff to our family vacation.