Tournament Time

I really had a good time at the ultimate Frisbee tournament on Saturday.

For one thing, it was nice to be here in town.  I knew where I was going right away, and I didn’t have to worry about that or even really worry about traffic getting there.

We as a team were more relaxed as well.  We were finally more focused on having fun instead of winning.  It helped us with our win on Tuesday night last week, but it didn’t help us with the tournament.

We lost our first game, which was expected.  We were 14th playing the 3rd ranked team.  Actually, everyone was surprised when we were up by 2 at one point before finally losing by 3 or 4.

We won our next game, which was a surprise, and quite handily.

Then we lost the final game.  We played a short game and fell behind and couldn’t catch up.

But with the more relaxed attitude, it was fun.

And, while the weather was hot, it’s wasn’t overbearing.  I mean, this is August in So Cal, so we should expect it to be hot, but last year’s tournament was definitely hotter.

I even stayed longer at the party than I usually do.  I was chatting with some people I’d met that day from other teams.  I was having a great time, so I stayed and talked.  I just wish they hadn’t turned up the outside music since it made it hard to do that.

Of course, I went to my ultimate pickup game on Sunday.  There’s no such thing as too much ultimate, right?

Word Association for August 19th

Here's this week's word association.

1. Hiding :: Place
2. Grip :: Strength
3. Sticky :: Situation
4. Games :: Olympic
5. Tunnel :: Drive
6. Japan :: Island
7. Super :: Mario
8. Map :: Navigate
9. Costume :: Party
10. Secret :: Hiding

Ending on a Good Note

Last night was my final summer league regular game for the year.  And we won!

It was a close game, but we were ahead the entire time.  We started out ahead, and they never caught up to us.  We were never ahead by more than 2 points the entire night, but we were ahead.  The lights went out when the score was 12-11, so we didn’t get a full game.  But we won!!!!

That puts the team at 3 wins for the year, and we aren’t in dead last place.  Both of those things are very huge accomplishments for my teams, and I’m thrilled.

And to show how thrilled about it I am, after our last game on Friday, I was debating about just quitting on the rest of the season and quitting ultimate period.  We had a lousy game, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  Then this happened, and I was back on cloud 9.

The one thing that kept me from quitting is that the tournament is this Saturday, and it’s actually pretty close to home.  After driving over an hour to every tournament I’ve played in, this is wonderful news.  It looks like our first round isn’t until 10AM, and I could leave as late as 9:30 and still get there on time.  If I’m smart I will leave earlier than that.  We’ll see what happens Saturday morning.  But how could I quit when the tournament was that close.

I’m still debating what I will do about ultimate long term, but I’m at least excited for Saturday.

Word Association for August 4th

Quick.  No one's watching.  Let's slip in this week's word association.

1. Substandard :: Wiring
2. Rude :: Expression
3. Equality :: Good
4. Smile! :: Picture
5. Presidential? :: Not this year
6. Fish :: Swim
7. Cloudy :: Rain
8. Wondering :: Puzzling
9. Thought :: Bubble
10. Calculator :: Math

Back from Family Vacation

Usually, when I don’t update my blog for a couple of weeks, I come back with something like “I didn’t mean to be gone so long.”  This time, I really did mean to be gone this long.

See, I just got back from a family vacation.  I was gone just almost two weeks.  We went on an Alaska cruise followed by a few days into the interior of the state, through Denali National Park and ending in Fairbanks.

We didn’t have the best weather.  We had sun and the beginning and end of the trip, but the rest of the time it was overcast, foggy, and threatened rain if not actually raining.  Fortunately, we didn’t get much real rain – at least when we wanted to be outside.  The last couple of days did clear up and we got some sun.  In fact, it was almost 80 my last full day there.

This was my first cruise, and that part was great.  We didn’t have to worry about much, and it was fun to tour a location and then be someplace new the next morning.  All of life should be like that, with the boring parts happening while you sleep.

Plus I got to spend almost two weeks with my family.  My parents and my brother and his family were all there, so I got to be Uncle Mark for two weeks.  That’s always lots of fun.  We flew home on my niece’s birthday, so I got to see her on her birthday for the first time in years (if ever).

We got to see lots of animals.  We saw Orcas and Humpback whales on our whale watching trip.  We saw bald eagles, foxes, grizzle bears, moose, and caribou.

Of course, now I’m back in the real world.  I’ve got up on blog promotional stuff for my reviews and am working on next week’s posts.  And I got back in time for our next month end at work, so I had to hit the ground running.  But it was completely worth it.

Summer League Update

Time to update you on how summer league is going.

There have actually been three games since the last time I blogged about it.  I missed one of them thanks to my business trip, but we won, and by a decent margin.

Unfortunately, we’ve lost the last couple of games, so our record is now 2-4.

I don’t remember all the details of the game a couple weeks ago, but it never seemed that close to me.

The game this week started out well.  We actually were ahead 5-3 at one point, but then we let them take the lead and we never really challenged them for the win.  We did make it to 12 points before they beat us, but we still lost.

I had my share of drops in both games, but I also had moments when I got the disc and passed it on successfully.  I was heavily involved in a couple of points in this week’s game and mostly successful at it, which was good.

We’re only about half way through the season, so there’s still time to work up to a break even record.  We’ll see if we can get there or not.

Word Association for July 14th

Quick, let's sneak in this week's word association.

1. Devastated :: Loss
2. Hello :: Goodbye
3. Agency :: Detective
4. Guide :: Tour
5. Air :: Breath
6. Expectation :: Met
7. Click :: Mouse
8. Result :: Test
9. Member :: Club
10. Infertile :: Baby

Good 4th of July Weekend

When left we left the saga of my life, I’d just returned from a business trip to Nashville on Friday the 1^st.  That got me back in time for the long 4^th of July weekend.

And I had a great weekend.  Saturday, I hung out all day with some friends and their 4 kids.  I hadn’t seen them for several months, and it was great to catch up and play some with the kids.  Plus I got lunch and dinner!  Seriously, though, it was a nice, relaxing day.

Sunday was church and hanging out with some other friends in the evening.  I tried to play ultimate Frisbee, but no one else showed up, which was a bummer.  I also got some reviews written and scheduled over on my review blog.

Monday, I did get some ultimate in.  While I didn’t set an alarm, I woke up in time for the morning game, which was a lot of fun.  From there, I headed home and did a bunch of stuff around the condo, laundry and other “fun” chores like that.  So it’s not exactly going out and celebrating a holiday, but it was nice to get those things done.  Also, Rory came over to look at the place one more time before he decided to move it.

Yep, I have two roommates again.  And I wasn’t even looking for a second roommate this time.  God definitely has a sense of humor after all the years I spent worrying about having two roommates.

Then I went back to work and hit the ground running.  It’s month end time after all, so I have deadlines to meet.  But the time off was very good.

Business Trip to Tennessee

One reason for no posts last week was that I was out of town.  Last Tuesday, I headed to Nashville for work.  It was time for our bi-annual inventory, and I went to visit the clinics I work with.

There are four in the Nashville area, and I got to hit up all four of them.  It’s always nice to put some faces with the names of those I work with on a regular basis but have never met.  And the work isn’t that bad because it’s something different.  Plus we spend some time looking at financials.

Since I was working most of the time, I didn’t get to play tourist too much, but I did get a little bit of that in.  The first night, I drove by the Grand Old Opry.  One night, I had dinner with a Trixie friend and her husband.  And I left late on Friday, so I had time to go to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home, for a few hours.  I also drove by the state capital building and walked around the Parthenon.  I would have loved to be able to go inside, but I needed to get back to the airport for my flight and it would have cost money.  Next time, right?

Plus I got to eat at Cracker Barrel.  I’ve heard about the restaurant for years, so that was fun.

And I finished 3 books on the trip.  It’s a wonder what hours of uninterrupted reading time while on planes will do for you, isn’t it?

I got back in time for a nice, three day weekend, so all told I was out of the office for a week.

ROC 2016

I’ve fallen behind again, so it’s time to start catching up.

I completed my three mud runs in June on the 25^th.  Okay, so the last one was really an obstacle run, but I always enjoy the Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge.

This time, it was in south LA County where the local Soccer team plays, which also happens to be next to a college.  They had set up all over the place, so I think we actually had a full 5K this time.  Last year, it was just weaving around a parking lot, and we definitely had that to start with before we started wandering around the complex.

As always, the obstacles were wonderful.  They are giant and inflatable, so there is lots of bouncing.  And they have a few different variations on water slides.  All told, it is just a ton of fun.  I did skip the new one where you climb up in a tower only to jump down.  It probably wasn’t that high, but my fear of heights decided to let me skip that one.  Not that I tried that hard.

It was nice that there was so much water since it was a roasting hot day.  I wore a shirt, something I don’t often do, and let it soak up the water to help keep me cool.  I didn’t even change for the ride home, and I was almost dry by the time I got home, too.

Despite the heat, this was a really fun day.  I will definitely be back to do this one again no matter where it is in the future.