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Red curbs on a cold and snowy Saturday afternoon. It was barely 30. Neil and Blake picked me up. Neil put in about 20 minutes before getting on a marathon call with his lady. Blake did a sick quick Ollie on this weird loading dock that somehow didn’t have snow on it. He also put a sign in front of the rock to wallie it and got a cool line to it. I didn’t skate great. I had new shoes and a new board. Went 8.1 this time for whatever reason. I got a smith grind at one point on the taller curb that hyped me up. I’ve done what I thought were smiths before, but this one felt legit. Other then that I had a couple front lips, struggled with kickflips, had a bunch of ride on grinds like above then started bucking some new ones. Did ride on front 50 no comply shove out. Stoked! New one. Then started hucking no comply finger flip out. Got really close, but didn’t get it. Gonna put that one on my list. Dave ripped it. Boardslide 270 out, front 180 nose manual, almost front 5-0 to nose manual, wallie the rock with help from the sign, a lot more. Decent session even though it was so cold.

Brought boards to 303 and Emage then went to meet up with Chad and Connor. Had a few minutes to kill so I just parked on a random block that looked fun to skate. Good asphalt, curb cuts and even a ledge. I had new shoes and a new board. I had some Emerica Laced (Romero). I had tried to break these shoes in months ago, they gave me blisters, gave up on them, gave them to my brother, then while visiting my brother in Wisconsin I took them back. So they are broken in. I even skated them for a bit while in Wisconsin. Anyways, I felt ok initially then slammed super hard bailing an ollie out of a curb cut. Ouch. I also couldn’t seem to land a kickflip. Ugh. Chad showed up and cruised around with me. He’s got pop. We both just cruised the block hitting stuff. Chad front boarded a tall flower planter and started feeling out a potential line. I started feeling somewhat ok on my board, but then we got the boot. Then I filmed the rest of the night. It was one of those frustrating nights where we got the boot from every spot before people got tricks. Ugh.

After destroying my grip trying kick boardslides yesterday I decided it was time for a new board anyway. And I was sooo sick of those grey wheels that I put some new superthanes on. Lastly, since those Lakai’s were killing my feet I went with some new shoes too. Emerica Provosts. My first vulcs I’m excited about in awhile. They have Strobel construction at least though. After trying to get Ollie to go skating all day he finally agreed to it when Liz and India got home and I could have just gone skating solo or with friends anyway. Ha. We went to campus. Right out of the car Ollie sets his board down, does a fakie shove and then a f/s halfcab. Whoa! We rolled around the new dorms on the south side which were torture because there are so many new amazing ledges, but they all have that crappy flagstone finish with cracks between them. We did find a way to skate them a little though. We kept pushing, ollie’ing up curbs, off curbs, etc. Did the hill down from the basketball center which was fun. My new wheels are really really fast! Ollie foot drags with his front foot. Ha, darn mongo pushers. We ended up at the weird ledge thing that Carleigh and I kickflipped the monstrous flat gap a long time ago. This time I took a bit to get used to new wheels and did a gap to manual. It was pretty fun, I normally chicken out of manuals with drops that tall. Ollie was having fun ollie’ing down the 2 stair by it and riding through the grass. We moved on some more. I manualled one of the long downhill pads first try. Sweet. We dorked around that area for awhile. Then dorked around on that one stair ledge that you can’t get any speed for. I did a front tail off it which was still not the easiest thing for me. Oh, so my new deck was an 8.25 and I wasn’t really noticing a problem with it. Cool. The new shoes fit a little loose, but I was liking them too. We hit the art building area and I did some flatground while Ollie hid in the bushes so that people wouldn’t see him. I got a few heelflips which surprised me. I was 3-0. I forgot how awesome vulcs are for heelflips. Halfcab flips felt a little harder with the bigger board. After that we basically headed home.

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.

Yeap folks. We have found the price in which I sellout. It’s called a shoe that PJ Ladd skates and it costs me less then $50 (sometimes running a company and getting hooked up at shops has it’s privileges!).   NB+ Stratford 479.  They aren’t even broken in, but I could not find the will to try those DC Mikey Taylors anymore.  Instead I went with a brand I see every day at the gym on every retired man that goes there.  It’s hip to be old?  Anyway, after bringing some new boards to Crisis, Rob, Ollie and I went over to the Safeway ledge.  Ollie wasn’t stoked, but was cool about it.  I on the other hand was super hyped.  The PJ shoes were hyping me up in ways I thought they would.  I’m the ultimate PJ nerd.  For the first time in awhile I landed the first kickflip I tried.  I went on to have a pretty good session in general, especially for a new pair of cupsoles that didn’t really have a chance to be broken in.   I was happy to get a couple kick back 50s, almost good front tails, lots of kickflips, halfcab flips, and the surprise for me was multiple switch front 180 to front 50s.  Rob was killing it.  He called kick back 50s on the drive, but ended up settling for front hurricanes instead.  What!  They were sick.  He had also tried a bunch of nollie lipslides to front 50 and didn’t quite get one.  Ollie mostly just cruised around, but did a few front nose taps and back boardslides.

It got dark so we went to go meet Carleigh at the park.  Only every teenager in the area was there which bummed out the old and the young so we said to meet at yellow curbs instead.  It was my idea so I take the blame, but upon getting there it felt wrong to skate there when it was nice out.   Rob and I managed some nose and regular manuals.  Ollie did some ollies up the curb and back 180s off.  Carleigh tied her shoes and after maybe a couple ollies we got the boot.  Doh.  It was close to Ollie’s bed time so we just bailed.

Had a short amount of time after going to SOL and before date night with Liz. Since I was in Longmont I hit up Fuller and we skated Longmont High for about 30 minutes. The normal area was covered in teenagers so we went to the main ledges. It was super hot outside and I had new shoes. Some DC Mikey Taylors. They are cupsoles and were not very broken in. Dave struggled a bit more then normal. Got some rad no complies though. My flatground game was back to the drawing board with the new shoes. The heel is really thick on them. At least they aren’t vulcs though. Can’t believe how bad those Lakai vulcs felt for just one night. Anyways, I didn’t get much. Tried a line of ollieing onto one ledge then front 50 another one. Never got them together and I never actually landed the front 50.

Had some new shoes. Lakai – Picos. They are vulcs. I wanted to try vulcs again and see if I truly am sold on cupsoles or not. Well, I made the idiotic mistake of getting 10.5s again. Right out of the gate I didn’t like them and felt like I was swimming in my shoe. We got to the spot and after a couple bad ollies and failed manuals I wanted to quit and get new shoes. But John was already ripping and Rob showed so I had to skate. Rob was totally ripping. Manny and nose manny the long way no problems. Almost with back 180 out of the nose manny. He also had some good flatground no comply moves and a back 360. So jealous of that trick! I took a long time to do the long manny, but came remotely close to doing one with a front shove out. I want that trick! I did a fun line of ollie onto the manny pad, quick back 180 off, fakie flip on flat, switch front 180 up the curb then ollie a gap into the parking lot. John came super close to halfcab manny back 180 out. Did treflips, but struggled at kickflips (so weird!). Had some good flatground as well. Some lady came by and told us the noise was amazing and John sat down. Kinda ending the session.

So we went to Valmont and skated a pretty dry ledge. We ended up doing some tricks though. I got noseslide, halfcab noseslide, halfcab noseslide to fakie, front tail stall, almost front tail shove, back board pop out, bad crooks, bad back 50, horrible nosestall 270 pivot out. I was hating swimming in the shoes and new I couldn’t even skate them another day so I was pretty lazy. John got front 50s right away, killed his patented switch front noses and much more I can’t remember. Rob did a few front noseslides. All with epic extra reverts on accident.

Oh yeah, this was the first time I’ve skated in glasses in awhile. It was fine. Gotta get some different shoes for skating though.

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.

Feeling even better which was surprising considering how much I skated the day before. Jake and I went to Broomfield around noon on a warm and sunny day. The park was empty except for the occasional baseball family walking right though the middle of the park to get to the batting cages or beginner scooter/bike kids (what kind of parent things a skatepark is a good place to learn how to bike?). But yeah, Jake started off killing it and killed it all session. He had a front 50 on the sad ledge, front blunt on the quartapotty and then back blunt the blue ledge. Geez. I was happy to try tricks involving ollies again and other then some soreness wasn’t limited too much by arthritis. I manualled the sad ledge. Then we skated the black ledge for quite awhile. I did most tricks I’ve done there before. All took several tries though. We would do tricks on the little flat bank to turn around on. Jake had some rad boneless plant things over the rail and fakie flips. The front tails on the ledge were sick too. I almost had treflip to fakie on the bank. My grip got wax on it somehow and in the sun and dust from the park it made for a really slippery setup. We hit the pool for a bit. Jake dropped in on the deep end and did some good lines with front slash in the deep and back rock in the shallow. I started from inside and managed one carve with tile. Yippee. We each did fronside flips on the little mound then front 50 the pier 7 ledge. Then a game of SKATE that I won, but slammed on front shove and 3 flip super hard. I also sore through the sole of my Vox shoes. We called it a day.

After some lunch and a break I met up with Bernie, Scotty, Garret and Teagan at Wilville. I wasn’t really planning on skating much, but just wanted to hang out and maybe even film if it came to it. Everyone was feeling pretty chill. Oh yeah, I had my new shoes on. Get ready for this. Nike Koston 2s. What started as a dare became reality as I scored them for free. Basically I’ve talked so much shit on Nike that I was dared to try a pair. I agreed if I could get them for free. Well, it became reality thanks to Jaimie their rep and here we are. They were super bright red when I got them, I immediately painted them black though so the swoosh is hardly even visible. They felt decent, but I didn’t really skate much. I did a few kickflips and it seems like I’ll need to wear some of that paint off before they flick right. Bernie manualed it first try. Teagan slammed super hard trying to nose manual it. He basically put the nose into the last kink and dove over the whole bottom section. It was gnarly. He kept skating though after a brief break. Wow. I started playing with early grabs since I was so sore/tired and ended up getting a really fun dork trick. Early grab up the curb and hold on all the way to the end. It was really fun until Bernie asked me to do it again for the camera and I pulled up to get over the curb and something popped in my middle finger. Argh, it hurt so bad. I left after that as I was going to the outdoor ballet with the family.

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!