a2k Official Skating Rink thread

Your soundtrack, sir.

I want to skate to O Fortuna. Im a baaad little monk.

I have such terrible balance that nobody allows me near skates but I do love to go to the skating rink near our house. It has a huge pipe organ that lowers from the ceiling and an actual organist who plays it. It's part of a 100 year old amusement park on the bank of the Willamette River.

I was ok at ice skating as a child, nothing fancy, especially when we skated on the vacant lot that had been poured as a rink with a warming hut. Bumpy rides..
And ok at roller skating, except that they kept coming off my shoes, causing me to leap to remain upright.

Did have a childhood visit to Rockefeller Center when folks were skating, and I'd never skated myself at that point. Magical might be the word.

I can't skate, roller or ice, but I can sit on the sides and laugh at the ones who bust their buttes on the floor.

Riverbank State Park Ice Rink

Where I went ice skating today.
http://www.nycgo.com/venues/the-ice-rink-at-riverbank-state-park

Other than hockey games I have observed very little use for this thing known as ice skating. When I was younger, much, much...(oh crap I'm getting old) I tried roller skating a few times. Seemed kind of, er, um...what's the word? Oh yeah! It seemed terrifying. Not to mention no matter how I tried tightening the darned things, my shoe would seem to slip out at the most inopportune moment.

Never even considered rollerblading, seems kind of insane, much like ice skating. Just not good with all that added height, so I'll stick with bowling where I can wear sensible footwear.

My wife is a really great figure skater. She got me up on ice skates nd Ive had several really bad experiences while trying to "turn" ( a complex movement that involves physics and sines) I was able to skate really fast in a strait line though. Back in the days before Mr Zamboni's invention, they would just spray the hacked up ice with more water and if it was really cold, it would freeze fast. Usually however, it would have puddles till the next day and , if you fell a lot (Ill later define "a lot"), you would be wet as a rat in A sewer and your pants would bcome plywood . Skating was only joyable if you could be kept upright an I would spend maybe >40% of my time lying atop the ice surface wherein my bottom would occasionally be soaked.

AND THIS all took place out of doors.

They'd only ever play the Doors when the speed skating was on. The video montage is surreal, exactly like skating, only thinner.

At the rink I'd go to, My Sharona was a big hit.

Chicago did what might have been the worlds greatest musical spoof of that one. They called it My bologna.

The only rink I was ever familiar with used something about Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.

Thanks. Now, I wonder why I thought it was Chicago. Maybe they recorded Real World, done to the score of Disney's Small World. Maybe I'm thinking of Three Dog Night. Hey, it's been a while.

Im talking good exercise and coordination workouts and all you guys are doin is peddling stupid roller rink music. Jeezus H Chrise. Next thing youll get into beer and pizza choices to enjoy while relaxing "après skateeng

Good music, good pizza, good beer. Now, you come along and think you can improve things. I suspect you're an engineer at heart.

Speaking of design, Ive been following that kerfuffle about the speed skaters uniforms with the "flap" that apparently acts like a big pizza box lid on the skaters backs. Is the flap system slowing our kids down?

I have an ad from BF Goodrich from a 1944 TIME magazine. The ad was for airliner tyres that have these little "Flaps" that catch the wind and make the tires "auto-rotate so that they are spinning as the plane lands.
SO, flaps DO affect the aerodynamics of any surface. I wonder whether they'll remove the suits with the forward facing and replace em for the final races

I've heard some commentary on those uniforms, but what I haven't heard is how they compare to those of other teams. Also, I believe they reverted to the previous Under Armor suits, and they were still lagging.

Yes, when you have absolutely nothing to say, nothing is indeed the best thing to say.