Day Eleven:
We all got up at 7:00 so we could be at the site in time for the 8 am delivery of the Skatelite, but Gordo graciously decided that it was too cold to work and we should stay home. So we got dressed and then, oh wait, we went back to bed. When Gordo finally returned it was 9:30 or so and he was pretty cold. Grover and I were ready to work but Gordo was having a hard time getting warmed up. Actually, I think he was suffering with separation anxiety from his baby daughter. We had planned on grabbing a bite to eat in order to kill some time after the 8am delivery, but by the time we got Gordo out the door it was 10:30. We stopped off at a store called Harbor Freight to exchange our two cordless drills that we had broken the day before. Gordo didn’t have receipts but they exchanged them anyway as long as he promised not to return anything else. This is a true story. Grover was insistent on going out for breakfast, and as a result we didn’t get to the job site until shortly after noon.
It was still super cold. We started working on the second ply and were still having problems with the plywood cracking so we tried different methods with varying degrees of success. Gordon had made an elaborate timetable for finishing the second ply and all the platforms. Unfortunately it all went in the crapper for a variety of reasons. We had two brand new drills which had to be charged before we could use them. Birdy, our favorite electric drill from yesterday began to exhibit signs of illness. Grover performed emergency surgery on it but ultimately had to euthanize it. Gordo is against euthanization, very strongly against it. So with Casey dropping by and only one working drill available, there was a lot of standing around. Grover’s double extra short attention span wasn’t helpful either. Remember our friend Carl the ramp critic? It turns out that he is in charge of the athletes for the Ice Village. Gordo spent most of his day walking back and forth talking with Carl who kept insisting that we had to double up on all of our ribs behind the transitions. It seems that he doesn’t have a grasp on the concept that a one-event ramp is temporary and therefore does not need to be made like one that travels from venue to venue. Carl was stressing Gordon out so much that he didn’t even enjoy testing the ramp to see if it was indeed “mushy” as Carl feared. Without the final ply, the verdict is still out. What will probably happen is that we will add some extra bracing.
So what did we get done today? We put down another third or so of the second ply, raised the final two platforms, and plyed half of the vert’s first layer. We finally got Gordo to agree to buying a second electric drill. I fell down several times, much to everyone’s amusement. We learned that when it’s really cold out, Gordo’s legendary plumber’s butt looks like two angry red salmons in a denim basket. My lack of dexterity on the ramp may mean that I should wear full pads during construction as well as when skating. Casey kept trying to change the new wave station to the new metal station. He is under the impression that our appreciation of the new wave station has something to do with homosexuality. Ajax attacked the skateboards. I took a picture out the window of our moving car of a amusing sign. If you want to see what eight grand of Skatelite looks like, take a look at the second picture.
When we got home, Gordo ate some pizza and then went to bed at about 8:30.
Next Day Rollerblading in the snow.
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Intro - Building Days: 00 - 01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - Aftermath |