Aisle 10...irregulars

Submitted by Bill

It was great to have a game of 5 on 5 Friday when many of the regulars were not here. Welcome out Pete & Dan. It was my first time playing with both of you and welcome back Tim & MattM who, though fairly new, have been coming out pretty frequently lately. Sometimes, when somebody new comes out they get discouraged that their “playing wind” is not quite what they want it to be. Me, being the compassionate and empathetic guy that I am, I had one of the new guys, Dan mark Swinny to start the game.

Hey, what do I know, he looked young, in shape… a few times down the field Dan, made a couple nice grabs and throws but was bent over trying to catch his breath. “Want to switch” I offered, knowing I couldn’t keep up with Bryan, but secure in my shortfalls.

“No, thanks. I’ll be okay when he starts to slow down” Dan said (breaking New Guy rule #4 ‘Never overestimate your ability to keep running’).

“Well, I’ve been playing with Bryan for a year now and I haven’t seen him slow down yet” I replied. I was marking Matt at the time and he was running a like a mad man also but I thought I’d give Dan the option.

Bryan had apparently already sufficiently briefed Pete about the pain and running as I checked in with him about midway through the game “Hey, don’t kill yourself out here, we’re not trying out for any Olympic team yet”.

“Yea, don’t worry” Pete responded “I’m trying to keep the running to a minimum”. Ah, Ultimate wisdom…it’s a keen quality. Know your strengths and play to them. Pete made some great throws for a first day out and not having to chase Swinny or Matt probably helped.

Hey Rodney! What the heck did you do with our old Warrant Officer? I could have sworn that was you sprinting behind the defense on several occasions for long huck scores. Sprinting and catching on the same play. Who knew? Tim & I just want to thank you for giving us somebody to actually throw to.

No sign of Travis, MattC, or Justin this week. Jason did come out Friday and was at least one soon departing player looking to squeeze in as much Ultimate as possible before transfer time.

Conrad was also getting in his last game before hanging out up north in Baltimore these next two weeks. Best wishes also to Brady who will be headed to the DL after surgery. Heal quickly but don’t try to come out too soon (check with Wings for the official disclaimer there).

Lon, did you say you were bringing another facet of your game out on Friday? Well, I heard somebody comment that you were running all over the place. I assured them that couldn’t have been you but they were pretty adamant. Did Rodney share his secret potion with you? You guys need to quit bogarting that brew and hand some over this way.

The cookout is on hold after some less than overwhelming response about attending. I guess I’ll try and follow my own advice and play to my strengths.

Force home!

Deep grass, humidity, & nets…

Submitted by Bill

Anybody else notice sweating from the ground up yesterday? That’s how I can tell the humidity is rising. It was heavy on the chest and lungs as the temps bumped up a little and the humidity went up a lot. It’s only April Buzzards…start conditioning now for summer.

Speaking of conditioning, I don’t know what to suggest for the grass conditions we played in yesterday. Very deep, it was a good thing Kash wasn’t still here, we might have lost him. Even though the humidity may have had more to do with it, the grass length was a great excuse for some slower running.

And we went out yesterday with only 7 (Bob saved us from 6 with a last second RSVP) until Conrad finally showed up so we went with a version of Ultimate we used to play quite regularly a few years ago…with goals instead of end zones. An added feature was the hockey-like crease that Todd decided to set up. This game theoretically favors the strong throwers. Of course it takes a few to get dialed in on range as I found out after sailing my 3rd shot at an open net just a little high. Wings was upset the new setup was having negative impact on his MVP season.

Out of common courtesy, we used to outlaw the tomahawk throw when playing with nets. The defender can really get lit up that way. But Thunder, wasn’t around in those days and may not have any common courtesy but regardless, he let loose a scoring tomahawk. I think it was one of only 2 or 3 scores we even had on the nets before the soccer folks came out to play. Anybody else notice they didn’t make it out Monday in the rain?

Anyway, by then we had 8 and went back to our regular game but team speed never really proved to be a factor. Not sure whether it was the grass, humidity or general unfit for play status but Phil & Bryan did not break away for as many running scores as they’ve been known to. In fact Phil may have had the best play of the day and it was defensive…a fantastic “Secret Service Layout” (thanks for the idea Scott) on a sure long pass score from Todd to Bill.

I heard Conrad complaining that his “Kungfoo Grip” just wasn’t what it used to be. Rest easy my friend hardly any of us have anything working as well as it used to.

Enjoy a day off everybody. I think the ACO picnic or football will keep us from having enough for a game today…of course I could be wrong so good luck Rodney in getting enough players.

Looks like we’ll have great weather again tomorrow though and hopefully the fields will have been mowed.

The Greatest Rain Game Ever (is that too hyperbolic?)

Submitted by the whiny, dutifully remorseful and apologetic (you told me so) Chief Buzzard, Bill

You know you’re having one of those weeks when the LTjgs have to pick up the slack for you…

After a weekend of hiking and then getting a torrential rain shower Sunday night, I thought, after peeking at the weekly forecast that Monday and Tuesday might be a good little break on the Ultimate field. Not that I don’t enjoy playing in the rain, contrary to all the “I’m melting” jibes I received Monday (despite actually being out there), I love playing in the rain. But I thought it was going to be thundering and lightening as well. It turned out being just cool and breezy and apparently there was a groundswell of voices wanting to play as Swinny called Phil before heading to a meeting to beg him to call a game.

Meanwhile, even though I did have gear here, well all except a towel, I thought I might just quietly sit in my cube, eat my Caramel Chex Mix and sleep…er…uh…I mean catch up on some work during lunch. And then I got caught! On my way back up from the Exchange and getting my Chex Mix, Rodney spotted me coming out of the elevator (I knew I should have taken the stairs) and asked in his quiet unassuming manner “What the hell are you doing here? Why aren’t you playing?”

So, I was shamed into going back to my cube and replying that I would come out. And it turned out…finally…to be a great sponge game. The whole walk out the field, it just started raining harder and harder and the wind was blowing and I was grumbling to Phil about what he had dragged me into. But after more than my share of whining, we got 10 out there as Kelly had been similarly manipulated and dragged out by Bryan.

It wound up being a great game of many layouts and slides. Frank, Hollan, Todd, Bob, & Scott were the other hard core Buzzards who came out. Well done everybody! You would all make the universal Ultimate club very proud. I felt like I was 11 or 12 again heading out to play football in the rain and mud. My cleats are still wet.

Kelly stepped up yesterday when I was legitimately tied up in a meeting (of very little value…especially when balanced against missing Ultimate) and I hear there was a great game of 12 and the sun finally came out.

Today the forecast is sunny and low 70’s. Time for all the fairer weather Buzzards to come out. It will not get any better than today for weather…but you really should try a rain game sometime. As demonstrated by Hollan and Bryan doing belly slides into puddles at the end of the game Monday, it will bring out the inner kid in you when you used to like to stomp in puddles and get muddy, and track dirt into the house (yea, Scott, I know that was just last week for you).

Fly high Buzzards. Pull!

Ghost in the Machine...

submitted by Kelly

It was ghost- town-city here yesterday; you could hear a pin drop in my office. But I thought with the flippn' awesome weather why not try to call a game. We had only 6 people for a game, not a very healthy number by any ultimate means but Eric emailed me about an ultimate variation called "hot box" or "half court" that you play with smaller numbers like 3 on 3 or 4 on 4. Here's the link he sent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_box_(game). I sent this to the 5 other players and had them on board for trying this out. Well we didn't actually play that version we just shortened the regular field and played 3 on 3. A great day and we had a blast!

Double the numbers!

5’s on Monday, 6’s on Tuesday and then as I headed down to the locker room on Wednesday I was thinking, "mmm, good week, we have 11 playing again today." Walked in to find Hollan dressing out…he hadn’t originally replied…

"Can’t stay away” he said, getting dressed. Outstanding, another daily dozen!

Then I wander out on the field and by the time the “crowd” makes it’s way over there are 16!!! That’s like 2 games worth for us over the last couple months. Amazing what a little warm weather and a couple new people catching the bug can do. Want to send a welcome out to MattM & Paul who came out. Matt has been out a few times before but this was Paul’s first time with us I believe. Great to have you both out there. Usually, I like to give everybody else a shout out to that comes out but I’m telling you, I know I’ll forget somebody.

We have made some field modifications, stretching out the end zones to the official field size of 25 yards. Wow, that makes a big difference huh? Unbelievably, a couple people still managed to exceed the limits of the end zones with their throws. But it was definitely nice to have the extra space considering how many people were on the field. It was tough finding open lanes coming down the field though. Great game, great weather, great turnout. Thanks to everyone for coming out. Looking forward to some great numbers this spring and summer.

I saw that Kelly got a game yesterday while I was on papal (does that rhyme with maple or scrapple?) leave. Will look forward to a report from the game if anybody wants to submit something, email it to me.

One of your teammates, Todd, certainly one of our better handlers wants to send this along for your learning opportunity. I, for one, love anything that’s going to teach me about gyroscopic stability and I am absolutely going to try and add the “Wheel of Death” throw to my repertoire. By the way, Todd is the only one I see out there using the Push effectively and I’m not even sure what he threw me the other day for that score in the end zone. I am also disappointed by the conspicuous absence of The Machete, a throw I’ve come to master and other to hate. Not that I’m the only one who throws it. I believe it was a Machete throw earlier this week that bounced off of Frank’s chest and I guess we should all be glad we didn’t have a sucking chest wound on our hands.

Played an interesting variation of 2-man Ultimate yesterday. There were two soccer nets on the field where we’d gone to play catch and the were about 35-40 yards apart. We each stood in one goal and tried to score on the other. 2 points for a score, 1 point for the defender if the disc overshot the net. At that distance, the disc gets to you quick and your hands can take a beating. Good times though and made for an interesting twist on catch.

Hope all you Buzzards have a great weekend. I’m heading out for the mountains of Virginia to do a little hiking. Be safe and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Ultimate Dozen

There are a lot of great things that comes in sets of twelve, or dozen if you prefer. Some that come to mind for me right off are a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts…having recently “passed” another Coast Guard weigh-in, they can go back on the diet a little more often…do you know there is one of the old original KK factory stores in Richmond. You can go there and watch them rolling off the lines and get them hot…it’s pure ecstasy. There is also Horace Mann’s Twelfth Annual Report on Education. This will be incredibly obscure and probably unknown to most of you but I feel compelled to mention it since I had to read it during this current class I’m taking and much of the excuse I’ve given to not keeping this blog updated more often. There is, of course, the classic film The Dirty Dozen, of which may actually have some interesting application to the characters of this blog and we may address that later…how about a 12-pack of ice cold adult beverages? Realizing, I am way down the food chain of Buzzards as beer coinsures (maybe they’ll offer up a comments for some I’ve missed) here are maybe my top dozen brews, in no particular order…Amstel Light, Wiked Pete’s Summer Brew, Rogues American Amber Ale, St. Pauli’s Girl, Sam Adams Pale Ale, Anchor Steam, Schlitz (has an inexplicable dorm room nostalgia feel to it…I offer no excuses)…and you know what, I don’t think I can ramble off another 4 impressive ones so I’ll leave that to Todd, Swinny, Phil et al…I like the Twelve Days of Christmas, not the song mind you, but the actual days…I’m a holiday kind of guy and it’s a great excuse to bake desserts…but of course the best 12 is a dozen Buzzards flocking about in the sunshine for a game of Ultimate.

It was a fabulous turnout and game yesterday. Early on, it looked like a fairly even match up but for some reason the green team never really clicked and the gold team of Bryan, Bob, MattC, MattP, Hollan, Scott just found its groove and spanked us. Half this team is in recovery from some sort of injury, knees, calves, shin splints, hamstring…but you would not have know it from the way they kept getting open. The green team was definitely the more winded as Bill, Lon, Conrad & Frank kept watching their guys go by them. We stuck Todd with Bryan who complained after the game that he “didn’t get to run enough with 6’s” ….poor guy. Green also had a new Buzzard out on the field…Tim. He more than held his own showing that could both catch & throw as Scott observed…sometimes on the same play which can be a rare occurrence for us.

The first Ultimate cookout is in the planning stages. Hope to have something on the calendar in the next few days so stay tuned and be ready to tell your supervisor that you’ll be headed out for a game of Ultimate and then a cookout…estimated time back in the cube, uh, tomorrow morning.

It's a 10!

Ten! Not in the Bo Derek sense mind you (do people still know who she is or was?) but 10!!!!

We had a great game of 5 on 5 yesterday with two fairly evenly paired teams in beautiful sunshine and in the upper 50’s. Even missing many of the “regulars” the Buzzards managed to round up a great game of …well mostly regulars…which makes me ask…hmmmm, if all the regulars came out how many would we have?

Scott, perhaps the newest addition to “regular” status found that when you play with Todd, you get rewarded for all your running and cutting generally and found himself on the receiving end of many a score yesterday for the green team. It was nice to have Eric & CAPTK back out with us. Both are very good handlers who will get you a throw if you will get open.

Jason found himself out for a 2nd day in a row (separated by a weekend but 2 in a row none the less). When was the last time you were able to swing that? He must have felt buoyed by the fact that he made some of the few good throws for our team last Friday.

Rodney & I played a little game of bump & run yesterday with some friendly contact in this non-contact sport. But with two old and slow guys, bump & run is not usually that dangerous.

Two of my favorite plays from yesterday…who threw that disc half way down field that bounced off Frank’s chest? Hey, flatten that thing out some! Also, I may have found the key to slowing down Todd…when you’re running down the field with him, step on the back of his cleats (you know the old flat tire trick from middle school?). I managed to de-cleat him wrestle the disc away and make a throw to the end zone. I don’t often get that chance is why I’m going on about it.

Hey Tom! Quick…how many pivot feet do you get? :)

On the way back in yesterday the Buzzards had their own little “Sorkinese” comedy of walking banter on this week’s visit of the Pope to National’s Stadium. Just a little good natured irreverence but no lightening strikes. I guess the “Big Guy” has more important things to worry about…like polygamy in San Angelo,Texas; Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and of course this fiasco about the Harry Potter Lexicon…we were probably flying under the radar.

The weather is going to be great all week. There were even hints of a Friday BBQ for the BPUC. More to follow if that pans out.

Let’s have another great turnout today!

Penniless, no Kash, just broke…

submitted by Bill (recently ressurected from school work)...

No, I’m not describing the current economic woes in the Chief Buzzard’s life…even as gas skyrocketed above $3.30 a gallon which you can really feel when you drive 250 miles to and from work a day. Have I mentioned that Bush (Arbusto Energy, Spectrum, Harken Energy, big Oil) + Cheney (Haliburton) = Exxon/Mobil Corporation record profits? Not, that I’m bitter or anything.

Actually, it’s the Buzzards Point Ultimate Club that was “penniless” on Friday. Shadow copped to having separated the pinnies from the rest of the gear the game before. Actually, well intentioned, as BPUC and Ultimate, in general, instills the kind of camaraderie and esprit de corps that makes everybody want to share in the responsibility and function of this well-oiled machine…but in the future gang, let's keep the pinnies with the gear (they are washed and cleaned for today).

Okay, maybe that was a bit melodramatic….In fact, the well oiled machine could use a some new parts. I mentioned no Kash. Friday we said goodbye to one of our regulars over the last year, Kash. Well, actually Friday was his last day but we haven’t seen him in about 3 weeks as he’s been job hunting presumably. A couple more of our regulars or quasi-regulars, Travis, MattC, & Sniper will all be on their way out soon as well. Couple that with Mallard’s move into the Witness Relocation Program and a solid part of the BPUC core, over the last year is or will be soon, gone.

What that means for the rest of you is that you need to get your best recruitment lines out now. I’m up for any and all ideas…cookouts, disc raffles, cube to cube visits, flyers, dunk tanks, skills fair…but we need some more players. We currently have about 50 names on the email distribution list but less than 20 of those have been out over the last few months

Okay, starting now, any current Buzzard who brings somebody new out that plays at least 3 times with us will get their own brand new 175 gram disc for themselves and the newbie.

The play the last few weeks should not scare anybody off. We look like we’ve been stumbling out of hibernation for the most part. There have been flashes of brilliance here and there buried under a lot of mediocrity. I saw Scott go head first last week in his first ever layout. Swinny and Todd continue to run most of us into the ground…by the way did we mention that Swinny won our Buzzard NCAA tournament bracket? Phil had his "best" and "3rd best" days ever...at least that's what he told his 2nd and 4th best friends...

There have also been a bunch of nagging little injuries lately. Please remember to stretch before and after as you need and act your age….no, I mean your real age with stress levels, cholesterol, blood pressure, and diet all taken into account.

Have some cool weather today but should be nice and then warming up through the week. No game on Thursday…there is a Papal visit planned for Nationals Stadium and much as I’d like to wander over and get a little holy water thrown on some of our Ultimate gear, I’ve been encouraged to stay away from HQ that day, as I’m sure some of you have as well.

Play nice and practice that next new throw…you know, hammer, off the head, bouncing through 5 arms, score!

Pull!