john helping tons for another day on the micro ramp wave we've made etc. and flowing around. davey helpin us get last bit of wood 2 finish building!?

and alley-oop scoochin.

and a couple of me landing fronside 180,



and showing the crutch cuts he made for the micro.



john throwin' down some nice feebles on the mids

ender's like that red-hatted travel gnome, always there. with his frible.





davey went out of his way to get us the extra wood we needed to "finish" and bring it over.

davey and john checking out the status.

next day

ender takes his fribbee in for a break after another long day.

but with thinner wood, twice.

formulatin' the plan. how'd it go in 3rd grade? hamburger instead of hot dog.

we spent a while to draw and cut a couple of wave forms, 2x4'd across for a solid frame and set our wave into the mini ramp flat. but it's too harsh for the wood! ender gives it the "mm mmm."

we moved the micro to fit in with the mini, but with it spread out so far, we thought a "wave" in the middle might be good to flow some extra speed. we also noticed there are now holes in the side of the micro ramps where 2x4's need to connect.

the poor micro ramp is the worse for wear. here, john and i are discussing what we can do with what we have.


but you didn't think we were done did you?

skatepaint AND THAT'S THE MINI RAMP

you can already see as it's drying too much got globbed on there in the first coat and we've got drips etc. i'd highly recommend patience and multi-coating! then again, it did get rained on the next day which invariably seeps through my patchwork tarp arrangement but wasn't able to soak in finally! sort of like a wax treatment for you car.







smoothed things out a bit.

hah! yes, it's very important that i flex throughout the entire photo shoot.

colleen and i hand rollered the whole thing, then got the pole.

beautiful sticky 8's

but with polyurethane in it

this stuff is like honey

SKATEPAINT!

5th day of ramp work, colleen helping now

the ant mindlessly working his way across the surface had an eerie familiarity.

not all screws would sink or craks were filled. paint?

were still some cracks left, was going to see what skatepaint would do with them.



at that point i was over the stupid ramp. she patiently kept doing what i'd let her, getting it done. so i had to too!

colleen was an invaluable help!

woodglue the seams

the masonite surface was another puzzle, but with enders help we cut a piece a little bit and made the whole thing go together better than ever.

my knee xray as a blind with the view out the kitchen window work well together. on a sunny morning, you can see amazing detail of the density in my knee. and where i'll break myself next in the distance.

day 4!

wait! were we working on a ramp this whole time?!

the plywood was a puzzle. it was pre-bent and cut to fit wherever it'd come from. colleen showed up and was very helpful.

i had to laugh at how torn up the yard was! yeah, it's a rental.

it was a challenge to keep things smooth overall instead of rigidly leveling out a section to itself. no bumps allowed!

this was an unrewarding day of LEVELING and shimming and reinforcing, that becomes worthwhile in retrospect.

day 3

this final pic of the day shows the shambles the yard and ramps were in. and how i felt about the whole thing. at this point it wasn't even really about skating anymore. it had become a construction project under a weather deadline.



this was our only chance to prevent soft spots, cracks, level and all the tedious less rewarding work that will make the ramp solid this time. before it's actually screwed into something and then skate painted over.



one of the biggest motivations for moving the ramp was to get it level. ALL seams had to have support or wood cracks and bends there.

ender went straight to work when i let him out the next morning

day 2

but they were moved.

my hands were swollen and cut up and the ramps were both in shambles.

shyrey showed up that evening and helped me move the micro over in a fraction of the time.

then spent another, even more exhausting hour and a half dragging the next big piece over alone.

did the middle



while waiting i decided to do everything i could by myself, to be prepared for help with the huge stuff. got the micro taken apart. extra wood out of the way. then went ahead and drug the micro out of the way completely by my self. still nothing and i was facing a huge job. blegh... so started in on dragging. i spent an exhausting, frustrating hour and a half moving the first big piece barely an inch at a time. it took all my force to even budge it at all. right at the end, yanking on the corner 2x4, i ripped it out! looking at the board i was holding i went sailing backwards right into the only puddle in the yard! a mud puddle. rad. if you look you can see the missing vertical support laid on the ground pointing towards the puddle i fell in . and my mud soaked pants.

these first pictures tell a thousand words. in the morning no one showed up! or answered. it was a complete ditch out for various reasons. i think we all had a guess about how much work it would be! the forcast was sketchy with rain only a few days out, which also added some unneeded pressure to get it done and sealed up with weatherproofing paint.