Wowee, it was one of those weekends where you are rushing from one place to the next, but you manage to get alot done. Ate at two new places, learned some new skills, and did some showing off on the Mukluk to the group.
Cody showed me how to wax a snowboard. Not with the rub on wax, but the real drip drip off the iron onto the board wax. It's really quite simple:
1. Melt the bar of wax onto the board.
2. Iron the board to smooth out the wax.
3. Scrape away the excess until you get a silky smooth underside
That's it! Super easy. Doesn't take much wax, just about an hour or so of time to do. I'm sure that I'll notice a huge difference when we hit A basin and Loveland this weekend. Can't wait!
Drip the melted wax onto the board
It is literally, "Wax on, Wax off"
Cody was nice enough to show me the ways
Ate at Eat the Worm with Jena before heading to the Roller Derby and Loom. The food was very good, pretty authentic. Empinadas, Taquitos, tacos, burritos, and nachos are the main entrees. They do have dry rubbed wings, chips, etc. Pretty much made right in front of you. It reminded me of Lazari's in Lincoln, where they serve you pizza by the slice at 2 am on O Street. You can see them make it right next to the bar! It was less of a restaurant than it was a bar, but it was pretty good. Give it a try.
We decided to give the Roller Derby a try. It took place at Mid America Center. Tickets were only $10. Cheap! Unless you go through Ticketmaster. Those guys are thieves. Two tickets for $20. But, if you go through Ticketmaster, they charge you $12 in delivery and convenience charges. So just to give a big F! you to Ticketmaster, I took off from work an hour early and picked up the tickets at Mid America. No taxes, no fees, no facility fees, no nothing. $10 a piece. Highway robbery is synonymous with the way that Ticketmaster runs their business. Sure I lost an hour of wages and had to pay for the gas to drive to Council Bluffs from West O, but I did it to prove a point.
Nothing like going off on an angry tangent! Anyway, the roller derby was alot of fun. They explain the rules to you before they start. There were actually two matches, the Omaha Roller Girls (O.R.G AAA) vs the Des Moines Crash Test Dolls and then the 10th ranked Omaha Rollergirls vs the Des Moines Derby Dames. Pretty exciting, especially since I've never seen a real match before.
Yes guys, they wear some short shorts!
It's not like the roller derby that they use to show on tv. For one, the floor is flat. No ramps and inclines. Secondly, there is no railing for the girls to fling each other off of. Still fun nonetheless. There were more officials and refs than one could count, but I guess with the complex scoring system there has to be. Good times!
So the goal is to block the other team's jammer and get yours ahead first. The first jammer through gets to call the shots for that round. When a jammer passes the blockers on the second lap, they get a point for each they pass. The first jammer can call the session over whenever they want, so they can prevent the other jammer from scoring points if they choose. There are lots of penalties, out of bounds, and other things I'm not sure of. So sometimes it can get down to just one blocker versus a whole team.
I was trying to do some panning action shots. Basically you move the camera with the subject as you depress the shutter button. It's important to have a slower ISO speed setting on your camera to achieve this effect. Unfortunately I was using my little Canon Elph, up in the stands, and zoomed in 5X trying to get this to work. It would have been fun to have the big DSLR on a tripod at one of these matches. Anyway, the goal is to have a blurry background and keep the subjects in focus. Very cool effect where you can represent the speed in the picture.
After the Roller Derby, we headed over to Loom. They were celebrating Carnivale. It was pretty cool, people were dressed in costumes and masks. DJ Brent Crampton was spinning South American styled techno while drummers banged on tambourines, steel drums, bass drums, and even cowbells. It was very busy and packed, but also very fun at the same time.
And then came Sunday...
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