Connected Vision

Last night I had a bit of a rude awakening. I woke and headed to the bathroom for a pee. I was only a couple steps out of the bedroom when WHAM, my head connected with the linen closet door that had opened all on its own (I wonder if the cat had a role in that). The door was at a 45 degree angle to the hall and I managed to connect right with the edge.

I woke Sue with the noise (sorry about that), and it took me a couple minutes to work the stars out of my vision. Back in bed it took me a while to get back to sleep.

When I got up in the morning, I saw a small scrape on my forehead where I hit the door. Mental note: close the linen closet door all the way when I am done.

Model Destroyer

The coolest thing we saw and did last weekend was the model boat show. These models were extremely detailed. I can’t imagine how many hours went into creating them. Elliot was spellbound by them and loved sitting next to the pond watching them drive around in the water. Amy enjoyed them as well, but not to the extent of Elliot.

I had lots of fun with my camera, a polarizer, and some decent lighting to make some interesting shots.

This sailboat was actually wind driven. There was no motor on this one.

This next ship was a model of a Canadian destroyer.  Some cool features: two spinning radar dishes, a Sea King helicopter whose rotor blades could spin, and the turret on the front not only turned, but also had a 35 shot magazine and could fire pellets!

I think my favourite was this aircraft carrier. Very detailed and lots of fun to take pictures of.

This working sub could actually dive below the surface and motor around a bit. I wondered how he controlled it underwater since radio waves don’t travel so well through it.


Midway Draw

After dark a friend and I wandered down to the midway to take some night shots. I was surprised at the lack of people at the midway this year. I seem to recall it being packed until closing on previous years. Perhaps there was just too much going on around town to draw a big crowd.

The octopus ride made for some fun once it got moving. Long shutter, small aperture, low iso, lots of blurry goodness.

I like the simplicity of bokeh shots, so I tried that out for a bit. There were quite a few throwaways, but I had a couple I liked.


Review Short

One of the things that was happening as part of the international fleet review was a performance by the Snowbirds. We heard where they would be performing and thought that Cairn park close to our house would be a decent place to view them.

Now we have seen them many times before and love our Snowbirds, but this year I was disappointed by the show. We were late getting to the park, and then we realized that there were going to be some trees in the way. Add on top of that the Snowbirds were performing down low, and we didn’t really see much. It also seemed rather short.

I still got a couple shots off though.


Man Trapped

Last night was our first double header of summer league. The first game got going late, and was actually a bit of a let down. Noone was running very hard. Nobody showed any energy. The points came pretty easily, and we ended up winning. The game was just weird though and I didn’t enjoy it at all.

The second game was totally different. We played against the top team who was undefeated. They had many excellent players including a husband/wife combo who are both national level players. The rest of their team was just damn good. This game would be a challenge to us.

Sure enough they got off to a great start. They were up 6-1 and it wasn’t looking so good for us. Then we changed our luck and started playing better. We scored a couple points and started to get a little momentum. The teams went back and forth for a while experimenting with zone and man coverage on a perfect ulti night (a slight breeze, sunshine, and warmth).

I managed to catch a couple points on the night and felt my throwing was pretty decent. I screwed up a couple times, but overall I was happy with how I felt. On defence I made a few blocks to be proud of. In all my game was going pretty well.

Then there was the play that made my night. My team was on offence and I was striking for the endzone. I had broken from my check and was right where I should be. Then I looked back and saw the disc was going to come up short. I put on the brakes, dove backward trying to make the catch. My fingers hit the disc. It flipped up and I fell down hard on the ground. I then felt the disc land on my outstretched arm. Quickly I looked up and saw it balanced on my arm. With my other hand I reached up and trapped the disc against my arm before it touched the ground. An opponent was right there watching (one of the national level players) and he called it a fair catch. Somehow the disc never hit the ground. He congratulated me on the catch and the rest of my team caught up. Big smile on my face. Of course, the ground was hard like cement so I lost some skin on my knee, hip, side, and elbow.

As time was winding down we were down by a point. We tied it up, then scored another on the last point. We had won the game. Totally awesome.

Strong Hucker

Ulti tonight was a blast. I had such a great time, and played really well. I had some wheels tonight, and felt strong the entire game. It was a close one too.

It was slightly windy which meant a lot of zone coverage. The team is doing very good with the zone and that makes playing so much more enjoyable. I played all over the field on defence too. I was in the cup for a while, I was mid mid, and I was even deep quite a bit. There was one player on the other team who was really good. For many points we simply had one person follow him around trying to shut him down a little. I was that rabbit for a couple points and that was rather tiring.

Also on defence I made some excellent reads on the disc. Since it was windy, sometimes it would float way up there, and sometimes it would dive for the ground. The other team liked to huck and zone, and I made quite a few d-blocks that stopped points. The only thing that wasn’t so nice was that a couple of them were on women, but it was to prevent a point so I don’t feel that bad. I even made a diving block that almost worked. I got a couple fingers on the disc, but wasn’t able to catch it, and the receiver still got the disc.

On offence I was throwing well which was great since I was handling a fair amount. I was very pleased with my throwing, and managed not to throw it away.

One point that still brings a smile to my face was a set play. It was a downhill point, and we called a huck and zone. I let the hucker know where to throw it and he agreed he could get it there. At the pull I ran downfield fairly fast and watched the handler set up for our play. I cut left, got behind my check, then cut hard right for the sideline as the handler hucked. It was a little far away from me though so I had to push it pretty hard. I saw a teammate attempting to catch the disc, but it was over her head. I was getting close to the sideline in a full sprint, and the disc was starting to dive for the ground. My only option was to dive. This resulted in a spectacular one handed grab, just inside the sideline, and a full body slide. That put a smile on my face for quite a while.

Nearing 8:15 the score was 10-9 for the other team, we stepped up and scored the points needed to win the game 13-11. That was one of the most fun games I have played in a long time. Strong opponents, my team played well, the weather was a little unpredictable, and it wasn’t a blowout.