Looking for a Little Sympathy

[kevmac]

Part 1:

Every year the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend is declared the "Putting Up the Rink" weekend at my house. It usually begins on Friday evening after work when I start unpacking the boards from behind the shed and drag them to their winter spot. Saturday is spent attaching boards to each other and fine-tuning their placement to make sure the rink is somewhat "square?" (maybe oval is the better word here)
Last year, the rink was 10.5' away from the house so I lined up the north side at exactly the same measurement. I continued with the rink construction so that both ends were complete and only the south side was left. At this point, I called it a day knowing that I only had 6 more boards to put up on Sunday and I should surely be done before the 49ers game started at 4:30PM.

Sunday rolls around and I start surmising the work I did on Saturday. It dawns on me that I could avoid a high spot near the north side if I move the boards 1.5' further from the house. I take it upon my self to start moving the 3'x8' and 4'x8' boards. I am making great progress when realize I need my wrecking bar for leverage; unfortunately it is on the inside of the rink while I am on the outside of my rink. I lean over the 3' boards to reach for the bar when I occurs to me that this is not a good idea. None of the boards are braced in the ground anymore and they start leaning. The two 4x8 boards start to go down taking their four 3x8 sisters with them. The result of this debacle was two of the 3x8 sheets (which are quite old) ripped right in half. The rest of the day was spent trying to track down my father-in-law's truck to no avail. At this juncture, I focused on beer and turned to the 49ers football game for solace.

(Insert a little sympathy here - save some for later)

Part 2:

I was finally able to borrow a truck and some free time allowed me to head to the building supply center last Saturday. I bought 4 sheets of plywood and enough 2x4s to build 5 new rink boards (four 3x8 board and 1 4x8 board). This is what my garage looked like on the rainy Saturday afternoon:



On Sunday, I installed the new boards and finished off the rest of the rink:



Things were finally starting to come together or at least that's what I thought...

On Friday, I took the afternoon off work to go look at lights and granite slabs with the wife for our new kitchen. Fun! Fun! Fun! It was a crazy windy day - wind gusts at almost 90 kph (~55 mph). I came home to my 13 year old daughter saying that she had to get the recycling bin from underneath the spruce tree and that she thinks the rink boards might be falling over. "WHAT?!!" I run around the corner of the house and see this:



Both corner pieces are in terrible shape and yes, this is the same side that was already partially replaced last weekend. I have managed to get some of the pieces back up except for those big bastards in the middle with the light post attached.

(Insert the rest of the sympathy here)

It has not been a great start to the rink season for me. I can only hope that things go more smoothly from here on out and I'll forget about the crappy October and beginning of November I've had.

Thanks for lending a shoulder,
Kevin

[corbyville]

I feel your pain..
I have had endless issue's building our rink this year.
A few beers and walking in circles always works for me!
Good luck and im sure you will get it all figured out.