Google public calendars: inline skating in the Twin Cities

Google has expanded their public calendar offerings with new search facilities and better support for adding public events to personal calendars.

I decided to give it a whirl by creating a public calendar for Minneapolis and Saint Paul Inline Skating (Minnesota). Currently it holds only events from the Minnesota Inline Skate Club and for the Twin Cities Friday Night Skate.

I was motivated to give it a whirl after a memorable skate through Minneapolis last night. I don't get out very often (yearly, basically) and I barely recognized the den of debauchery across the river. (My home town of Saint Paul is more sedate.) The Guthrie seems to have been transported from Manhattan, and the skate into the city across the Stone Arch bridge is now a first rate experience. I particularly enjoyed skating the spiral hill by the Guthrie, and I am oddly fond of skating around the dealers of Hennepin. They mostly seem to find us an amusing distraction. Slaloming through Loring Park in the moonlight is not to be missed, and we end with a skate along the Nicollet mall, waving to the diners.

Alas, the group has shrunk over the years and we're mostly, to put it delicately, beyond the carding range. (That may explain why the dealers find us amusing.) I'll give some of the free "meet-up" type sites, and Google's public calendar, a try and see if we can get some new folks. Unfortunately the Friday night skates are every 2nd and 4th Friday, which has always struck me as odd. It's too weird a schedule for most folks to be able to track, I'd prefer the group try every Friday but I'm strictly a passenger.

Update: Just for the heck of it, I added an entry on eventful.com. So now a search on inline skating in the twin cities lists this event. The odd schedule is again an awkward fit.