Forfeited Chemistry

Last night’s ulti game was awesome. We actually forfeited since only myself and two others showed up. We managed to scramble a bit and get a line on the field. The other four players had just played a game so weren’t exactly fresh.

Right off the bat this new line had some chemistry. We flowed the disk up the field making crisp precise passes. I struck for the endzone all alone, and almost got snubbed by the handler. He was looking to throw it elsewhere, and it wasn’t until his girlfriend yelled that he tossed it to me.

The sun was pretty low making vision difficult, but we perservered and the team made some excellent defensive moves. There were several hand blocks by our team throughout the game.

I was amazed at how I felt the entire game. I had wheels. I could break free of anyone last night. As such I was able to cut to the endzone and catch for many points. Also, since I had wheels, we did a semi zone so I was in line to mark one of the handlers. Each time we pulled I had to boot it down the field to try and cut off the throws.

One offensive play that stands out for me was when I was striking for the end zone, and my check had a better position than I to catch a high floater. I knew I was beat so I stayed back a bit. He actually didn’t catch it, but swatted it. The disk didn’t drop as he planned, but instead wobbled and floated a bit. Seeing my chance I raced at it, dove, and got lucky grabbing the disk shortly before it hit the grass. Did I mention we were in the end zone? I dove and made the point. Sweet.

Another stellar play we did was when we had the disk right on the end zone line. Mike called for the moses play with me set to receive the throw. Everyone stacks up in the end zone clogging everything up. When the disk is in play, suddenly everyone peels for a sideline, each person a different direction than the person in front. The last person back then has a clear run at the disk. Just like moses splitting the red sea. It worked for the second time this season.

Anyway, everyone I played with was appreciative of the energy and drive I had. For me it was a perfect night. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t windy, I felt like running, and I was having a great game. Can’t wait for the next one.

Canada Fun

Yesterday was an excellent Canada Day. We started off by going for breakfast at our favorite breakfast restaurant, then headed out to Fort Rodd Hill for their celebration. Lots to see and do there, not that we ventured far from our blanket. For Rodd Hill is a beautiful venue and perfect for lots of people to run around and have fun.

They had a small medieval village set up there, and this guy was just getting his armour on. Looked like a complicated process.

We got there early enough to get a good parking spot, and to get a great place to spread out in the shade.

This watershed model is a great way for kids to learn about how our polluting actions can affect our surroundings. The demonstrators show how oil, herbicides, and fertilizers can make their way into out oceans. The kids have fun too by using the bottles to make it rain.

Here is my pirate daughter practicing her scowl. Very convincing!

Here is a happy pirate.

Then the big gun show was on.

The military people got ready, and so did we. We knew from last year that it was going to be loud.

I set the camera to some good fast settings and let rapid fire do its thing.

In this shot you can see the flame erupting from the barrel, and by the next one it had turned to smoke.

This sequence is the last shot of the day, and for some reason (maybe on purpose), the gun blew a perfect smoke ring.


Poker Biking

Early last week I heard about the SIMBS poker ride. I thought it sounded like fun so I enlisted a couple other friends and we headed out for it.

There were 4 stations scattered about the park and we had to visit each one to get a card. First person back got a price, last person back got a prize, best hand, worst hand got prizes, and there were a few others too.

I had a great ride and felt like we really pushed ourselves. We rode some pretty technical trails that I hadn’t ridden in a very long time. It was a blast.

At the first station I got a 6 of spades. After bombing down SouthRidge we got to the second station where I got an A of hearts. Not a bad start. We then hit Green Ribbon in its entirety which brought back lots of memories. After Green Ribbon we found the third station where I got another 6. Looking good I though.

We took crossover, climbed a short ways, then found the fourth station where I got a 5. Meh, that didn’t help at all.

We hit up a great little chute, then dropped in to the back side of the TTA. Back up the hill we got back to the parking lot. We were out riding for a little under two hours and we didn’t really stop all that much. I was surprised at how well my legs and lungs held up. I haven’t been mountain biking much at all lately, and I was on my big bike. Add on that I have been fighting a cold for the past few days and I was expecting a pretty bleak picture.

I felt great skill wise on the bike too. My balance was good, jumping, manualing, braking, and cornering were good. It was a perfect day for a ride.

My final card was another A. Sweet, A’s and 6’s. My hand was recorded and I was looking pretty good for a long time until someone else showed up with 3 5’s. 🙁 Then, the last person to the parking lot (who won a prize for being last), pulled out an A high flush! 2 prizes for that guy.

SIMBS finished off the event with a burger BBQ that was free. I paid $5 to enter the race and at two yummy sirloin burgers. Got my money’s worth I would say.

Pieces Molted

Last night when I got home I could see some crayfish shell on the bottom of the tank. I was sad that one of them had gotten eaten.

I looked a little closer, and the only crayfish that I couldn’t immediately see was the smallest one. Looking at the shell pieces I decided they were too big for the tiny crayfish. I moved a couple of the decorations and the tiny crayfish bolted.

One of the crayfish must have molted. Today I asked my co-worker who I got them from and he confirmed that they do that about once a year. Cool.

Accomplish Huck

Ulti tonight was fun. I needed to get out and run, and I did accomplish that. I cupped a bit, handled bit, and made some decent cuts.

Something I need to work on is my memory. This is the first team I have played on that changes things so much between points. Positions, the force, man versus zone. Once the disc is in the air I seem to forget what was laid out. I’m lucky if I can remember who my check is. Once tonight I had the force totally backwards. That is bad for so many reasons.

My throwing and catching were good though. I had a few excellent throws to open players and I was proud of that.

We did a couple huck and zones due to the wind and I was part of a couple of them. I even managed to catch a point on one of them.

There was another endzone play after a huck where my teammate put the disc just out of my reach. Running my hardest I was just a couple steps too far away. Quite frustrating. In retrospect I wonder if I had laid out, maybe I could have got it. Who knows.

At the end of the game we were still down a couple points, so we chalked up another loss. One thing we can be proud of is that we scored an upwind point while being zoned.

Crayfish Flurry

I got my crayfish today. My co-worker brought them in a plastic bag and left it next to my keyboard. They startled me when I sat down to work. Throughout the day they flitted around in the bag in a flurry of activity.

Tonight I dropped the bag in the tank, let them acclimate to the new temp, then released them.

In all there are four of them, a really big one that likes the rock cave, then three other smaller ones that are still sorting out where they want to be. Very cool addition to the tank.




If anyone is looking for some crayfish of their own, my co-worker has lots to go to good homes. Use the contact link above if you are interested, and I can pass your information along.

Weekend Shopping

My fathers day weekend was extremely fun and gratifying. Sox and the kids were away in Vancouver, so this was my chance to tackle and conquer a couple construction projects that have been on my list a very long time. We needed to organize the downstairs area a bit (bikes, riding gear, tools, dog supplies, and more), and we needed a way to keep children from falling down stairs, or climbing up stairs.

I did some planning ahead of time, and had a basic plan drawn up of what I wanted to build, and how I would build it. We had an old shelving system kicking around and it was really bugging me that we weren’t making use of it. I suddenly had an idea of how I could incorporate those shelves into the bike rack storage area. With a few more measurements I was off to Home Depot to do some shopping.

First up, I needed a circular saw. After talking with a salesman I picked one out and was happy to learn there was a 15% off sale on certain brands. Without the power tool, I wouldn’t have been able to get the projects done in the time I had. I also picked up some clamps (godsend devices), some screws, and the materials to make some sawhorses. I grabbed the 2X4’s and 2X6’s I needed and loaded everything into the truck. At this point I was feeling pretty good about how things were going.

I dismantled the existing shelving int he basement, cleared a good size work area, set up a sawing area, measured again, and started chopping. I was a little nervous on the first couple cuts, but once they were out of the way it was smooth sailing.

The clamps more than made up for their price as I was hanging the structure of my rack, and trying to get it vertical. Hanging the cross member 2X6 would have been impossible by myself had it not been for the clamps. I loved the clamps! Once the bike rack was done I moved on constructing what I could on the child gate. With all the construction done I cleaned up the basement and put things away in their new homes. The amount of open space in our basement now is incredible.

I was feeling pretty good about how things went so I decided to tackle another couple projects. I found some moulding tucked away in the corner. I fashioned a couple blocks to put between some windows so they couldn’t be opened from the outside (the window locks are broken), and I decided to build a shelf in the crawlspace to make extra storage that was off the ground. This shelf required another trip to Home Depot for more lumber.

The crawlspace shelf was an easy build, but was hard for me to get it into the crawlspace on my own. The shelf 8 feet long by 32 inches wide and the crawl space is three feet high. With that in place I whipped up some legs, attached those and called it done.

Here is the storage area before I cleaned it up. Not shown are a couple big boxes, and a messy recycling are. Bikes leaning against one another, car pod in the way. Inadequate shelving space.

Here are some after shots. Bikes hanging neatly. Car pod has its own space out of the way.

Usable shelving with places to keep things out of the way of children.

This is the shelf in the crawl space. This is a pretty bad picture of it, but it helps a lot with storage.

The thing I love about a weekend full of sweat and hard work, is the feeling of accomplishment when you are done. Being able to step back and say “I built that” feels great. I get pleasure every time I step into the basement now.

Book Bet

Friday night I had some friends over for a poker night.

I recently read Phil Gordon’s Little Green book and I liked a lot of the things he said in the book. I was eager to try out some of what I had learned.

The night started off well for me. I remembered a few of the techniques laid out int he book and tried to stick to the plan. One of the things I need to work on is remembering how people play certain hands. Typically for me, once a hand is done, it is quickly forgotten. I am going to work on this.

The first few hands went well and I was happy with my play. On one hand I found that I had pocket jacks. I made a decent bet pre-flop and all folded except one friend who I had never played against before and he called. On the turn, nothing spectacular showed up. I was first to act and made another bet. He raised me.

Now I had a decision. Did he have a hand? No flush was possible yet, same with a straight. He either had a pocket pair better than mine, or trips. Hmm. Maybe he had nothing and was bluffing. I really had no idea since we were only a couple hands in and I didn’t really know what kind of player he was. I ended up folding and waiting to get more information on him.

After a few rounds I was sitting pretty good. I kept with the strategy and managed to keep raking in some good pots. Near the end of my run I guessed that I was up at least $15 (the buy in was $20).

From there it was a slow decline as my card luck fizzled. I was dealt so many J2 combos it was incredible. I played a couple of them when it was cheap to see the flop, but otherwise I folded them.

For the last hand I got an A6 suited. I decided to play the last hand, and unfortunately my strategy went out the window. I kept chasing the pot when I should have folded much earlier. I was up against a co-worker and eventually came to my senses, but not before I lost most of my profit. At the end of the night I was up $2.10. Sheesh.

Next time I will stick to my strategy, pay attention more, and try to remember how people play hands. Still, it was a very fun time with a great group of people.

Electric Slower

Last week while riding to work I caught up to someone riding an electric bicycle (that always sounds like such an oxymoron). I have a huge distaste for these contraptions. These things look pretty much exactly like a scooter, except they have pedals. It really is very hard to see the difference.

The people riding them don’t ride them like bikes, they tend to ride them like scooters. Except they ride in the bike lane. And sometimes on sidewalks. Quite often I see the rider weave around, and most of the time the electric bikes are slow. I have passed many of them while riding my bike.

On Monday when I rode to work I came up behind one nicely dressed woman on an electric bike. She was definitely on her way to work, but she was dawdling a little so I managed to catch up to her pretty easily. At a red light I waited behind her and when the light went green we both left.

I wanted to pass her, but she was going just a tich slower than me so I would have ended up beside her for a long time. Then I noticed there were no pedals at all. She was actually riding an electric scooter in the bike lane. Is that legal? I kind of doubt it.

She shoulder checked a couple times and saw me right behind her. After a quick hand signal she turned right, then drove up onto the sidewalk and rode along for a short bit. I know that isn’t legal. I guess she had reached her destination.

This is just another rant about someone doing stuff I don’t like.

Rusty Guiding

The ulti game was pretty decent tonight. I hadn’t played the last couple weeks, so I felt a little rusty in the game. During the warm up my throwing was fine, even with the windy conditions, but my catching was atrocious.

During the game my catching got better (thankfully). I was doing well tonight. I handled a fair amount and made some good passes, even guiding some of the newer players on where to go, then throwing the disk to them.

I caught at least one point, which always feels great. I made some good defensive plays, even getting an excellent D block at one point. I did get burned a couple times on defense, but I couldn’t run 100%. I even managed a halfways decent pull to start a point.

I felt like I was cutting pretty well, but sometimes I had to stand still while the mess in front of me cleared. It seems whenever that happens I get yelled at by a couple of the veterans. I can’t run forward since someone is cutting in front of me, and someone from my team is also cutting behind me. It is a mess.

The zone cuts are definitely starting to sink in with me. Putting on the zone, and me being mid-mid I am not entirely comfortable with but I am getting better. I get the first position correct, but I always screw up when the person forcing the handler changes. All of a sudden I am out of position and have to hussle to get back in position.

My biggest goof of the night was I totally screwed up a force. I knew the force was away, and when my check got the disk I put on the force hard and didn’t waver. Unfortunately I was facing home, and by the time I realized what I had done (after having more than one person yell at me), it was too late and the other team had scored a point because of it. Now, to explain a little bit, with the direction we were playing, the force normally would have been home to make the thrower throw a flick. We reversed it so the catchers would be facing the sun, and also hoping that a backhand throw wouldn’t have enough spin to cut through the wind.

Anyway, fun game, good team. We lost by a little.