Hobbies, Ice-Skating, and Stuff

At least once a week our kitchen table is transformed into a miniature warzone where the denizens of the 41st century settle their differences by attacking each other with guns and chainsaws. Warhammer 40k is one of my favorite games of all time. If you are friend or family, you've more than likely found me sitting on your couch painting and assembling warhammer models sometime in recent history. The pic here is from a game a few weeks ago: Ken's loyalist space marines squaring off against my traitor berserkers (the traitors are hiding behind cover in the mid-ground.) Also note the chaos dreadnought staggering around in the background looking for something to blow up.

I went ice-skating for the first time in my life today (technically yesterday. I'm up late). Some close family friends invited us to their son's birthday party at the Chiller, and we were happy to oblige. It was a lot like roller-blading, though with the added element of dodging children and other obstacles while endlessly circling the rink. To my credit I did not fall down, though we all wore furrows into the ice that kept tripping me up.

The experience made me nostalgic; I remembered my mom taking us to the skating rink at the Rutland Civic Center when we were kids. Mind you, this was back before the existence of roller-blades. I'm talking about these unwieldly things: clicky. You should remember these. They're a part of your past. Anyway, I remember some fantastic crashes at that civic center. Perhaps we should stop attaching extra bits to the bottoms of our shoes?

When I was in college, I was convinced by friends to take up rollerblading... the new, cooler version of roller-skating. Three of us bought some high quality rollerblades. These things were amazing, and we got what we paid for: sleek, fast death.

High quality rollerblades (clicky for picture) are synonymous with assisted suicide in the hands of noobs. I look back to the year 2003 and try to imagine how I was not outright killed in a rollerblading accident. At speed, it took only a tiny pebble to wipe me out. Rollerblade wrecks are the worst thing outside of car crashes. In 2004 I decided to hang up the skates. My dad and I got bikes instead. Our bike rides were a joy compared to the hell of rollerblading.

Apparently the correct term for rollerblading is inline skating. Rollerblade is a brand. Sort of like Q-tips for cotton swabs, or refering to adhesive bandages as Band-Aids. What did I do before there was wikipedia?