My wife and I had a birthday party for my oldest daughter this past Saturday night. We had 18 people here, most of whom had not seen the new bowling area of our basement. Some had no idea that I had been working on it. I mounted the new masking units on the wall just before people started arriving. Everyone was drawn to bowling area and asking lots of questions, and all of them wanted to try it out.

So…. I took some other laminate that I had (the same that I used for the approach area) and quickly made a lane surface. I was a little nervous because no balls had really been rolled down the length of the lane (other than rolling a ball down the gutter and sending it back down the ball return). Also, the pit area isn’t finished yet, still have a little painting and polyurethaning (is that a word?) to do, and I have not attached the cushion at the back of the pindeck yet. But people were eagerly lining up and I heard the kids calling out “I’m first, I’m second”, etc. so I made a makeshift cushion with some padding and the vinyl that will be used for the official cushion and let them have at it.

I can’t really explain the feeling of watching people get so much enjoyment from using something that I created over the past couple of months. I poured my heart and soul into it and it was a big moment. What if they didn’t like it? What if it just didn’t feel right? What if it wasn’t realistic? Would the laminate truly work as a lane surface? What if it broke when people actually used it? LOL!

I think my smile was just as big as everyone who took turns rolling the ball down the lane and knocking down pins. My youngest daughter went |9|-|, |X|X|, |X|X| in her first 3 frames! Much better than I did! The pin action was very realistic. The laminate seemed to be a perfect surface. The ball actually had some revs and hooked or backed up, depending on who rolled it.

My Dad and I had just as much fun setting pins and sending the balls back down the return as everyone else did bowling. I couldn’t have been more proud. I can honestly say that everyone who tried it really enjoyed it.

After about 45 minutes I cut everyone off and we headed upstairs to watch my daughter open her presents, eat some cake, and play some board games. All in all it was a great night, and a huge test was passed. My only regret is that I was so into what was going on that I didn’t take 1 single pic of all of us bowling.

The actual maple lane surface that I will install onto the lane came this morning, can’t wait to get it installed. The “full-sized” bowling league starts tomorrow night at the local lanes. Life is good!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.