We don't have a Starbucks locally, but there is a small hole-in-the-wall coffee shop beside the station, about 200 yards away from the ice rink, which sells coffee which is a lot nicer and a lot cheaper than Starbucks provides! I usually bring coffee from home (wasn't it Icecatepairs who said you can always tell a skater because they have coffee stains down the front of their workout clothes caused by drinking coffee in the car?!), but many people just place an order with one of the mothers, who goes out to get coffee for everybody while her skater is on the ice!

It's a very useful place as it also sells bananas so if I've forgotten mine for any reason, or the ones at home are too ripe for me (I only like them on the green side), I can pop up and get one before I get my skates on.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Oh there is a third place that I can be found at as well..The Lake Placid Brewpub down next to the Sports Academy. I find a couple of Frostbite Ales takes the edge off of the muscle pain!

And where I am staying is about equal distance from all three!! Oh I am indeed a happy camper!

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

Hi I found your posting today while doing a Yahoo search on some skaters I knew. I was a student of Mark Hominuke, Brain Grant and Sonja Dunfield from 1980-84. I left skating and the SCNY in Jun '84 for the last time. I try to get out on the ice 2-3 times a year with my kids. I have such fond memories of those days and think back often of what a great sport skating really is. I knew:

-Scout Lloyd
-Elain Asanakis
-Leslie Abby
-Mark Nelson

Thanks,

-Dave Stroebel

YES YOU JUST MADE MY DAY!!! I know it's off topic but I'm a huge Beatles fan. My dad has an original copy of Beatlemania (the Beatles first North American release, it's very rare). I'm still trying to find a good, instrumental only, one and a half minute Beatles song to skate to!

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Alexei is LOVE
"You'll have to kill me to make me stop skating" -Alexei Yagudin

See if you can find a karaoke version, which will be instrumental. Or a pan pipes one (that is less easy, as it won't have a definite bass beat, which a karaoke version would). Then download a free music editing programme, like Audacity, and you can edit yourself a very tidy 90-second Beatles clip. Would you want a compilation (say, 30 seconds' worth of each of 3 songs)?

I did a free dance to Michelle once, but, sadly, I can't offer to send you the clip as it's on cassette, and I don't have a cassette player that I can upload it from.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

My DH is a *huge* Beatles fan - we even went to the BeatlesFest last month in Secaucus. www.Q1043.com has a Sunday morning "Breakfast with the Beatles" radio program that's great. (You can listen to it over the internet) The host is wonderful - we've met him a few times - and he takes requests over the internet or by phone.

Have you listened to the "LOVE" CD? (I think Cirque de Soleil uses it for their Vegas show.) It's a remix of popular Beatles songs and it's fairly easy to clip out a 1.5min segment. (DH and I don't care for the arrangements because we liked the old songs just the way they WERE, thank you.)

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I skated outdoors until 1967 when the city built a rink with their centennial money. I couldn't skate on freshly zambonied ice, it was too slippery and the idea that you didn't have to shovel it off first was amazing. A skating club was started and because every little girl wanted to figure skate, it was entry only by audition. (I can't believe that now, my club takes anyone who has the fee) You had to be able to do a shoot the duck and skate backwards. I could do the latter but not the former and was a bit older so was slotted into the hockey league instead. We played outdoors still but there was a rink guy who cleared the ice with a snowblower, we didn't have to shovel. Although, I tell my kids I did, along when I tell them about the five mile walk to school every day, four times a day because we walked home and back for lunch.

When I was in my teens we would skate outdoors and then drink beer with the rink guy in the warming hut. I haven't told my kids that one either.

I still have a turntable and records. The Cowsills ! With the popularity of club DJ's, turntables are easy enough to come by and I get it fixed every so often and a new needle. I also have the output plugged into the computer and have used records to make skating solos. There's a certain atmospheric feel to a record sound especially for some classical pieces.

The town where I live now still has an organ at the rink, but it doesn't work anymore, they play a record of old time organ music for the senior citizens skate, but I'd love to skate to live music sometime.

And yes, you got your skates sharpened once a year whether you needed it or not.

Christmas 1977. I'm 8. Santa shows up with skates for me and my sister. Dad takes us to Best Lake, a mile from our home in Watchung, and off we go. We take to the ice as if we had been skating since birth. My father stands on the banks for two hours.

I think of my Dad, who died 16 years ago, every time I leave the boards. I wonder whether he's standing there, watching me, nodding and waving and smiling in the cold.

Oh what a sweet and precious memory! I love the image of this! I'm sure your Dad is still watching you skate with a big smile on his face.

re: beatles instrumentals - do a search of Symphony orchestras, and there are some great SO versions. You would obviously need to cut them though to length. I have some great ones I've downloaded - one of my favourites is Eleanor Rigby

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08