Basking in it

Just another beautiful day in the sun. Great turnout of 15. Thanks to Scott and Karen for helping to take some pictures today.

Todd skys over brian, Matt with perfect pancake prep, Jason' magazine cover, Todd & Tom battling with Jeff as safety observer, and Joe waits on one with Bob behind him.

Matt goes up for the jump ball, Bill runs one to the cone, Todd snatches one on the back line.

Summer turns to high...in the Spring

Mercury
is rising still
Turn the fan on high

I won't step on my own shadow
No-one wants to cry

Someone put a pox on me
I spit in their eyes
Summer turns to high

It’s still April right? Wow! As temperatures soared into the 90’s yesterday on April 27th (Happy Birthday Mary!) the Buzzards soared to the Ultimate pitch in droves…or flocks I guess would be more appropriate…yea, that’s it, they flocked to the field. And the Mercury was still rising with no fan in sight which was too bad for Kevin who for some reason missed R.E.M.’s weather forecast and decided to come out with his long sleeve t-shirt while a few of us decided to go sans sleeves altogether.

I don’t know about any pox, or swine flu for that matter but somebody put a hit on me early in the game. Okay, maybe that’s not quite a fair representation of what really happened. A disc remaining in the air for an inordinate amount of time all of a sudden looked like it might be in play for me and so I decided to run, faster, close to top speed for the ol’ Chief in fact and then “Splat!”, I ran right into something that didn’t move (that something was Paul) and as I was crumbling to the ground I heard ringing and after a couple seconds of coming back to I took inventory quickly to realize, in a relief, that I did indeed still have all my teeth and that none of them seemed to be sticking through my lips, though they had tried to make there way through as evidenced by the colorful red expectorant I spit out…fortunately, in nobody’s eyes.

Summer has indeed turned to high!

Great, great turnout yesterday. Would like to welcome back Bridgette from her month long sentence of jury duty. She wanted to know who the heck this new girl was out there that wouldn’t stop running. Oh, Bridgette, meet Karen, Karen, Bridgette. And not just running yesterday apparently. Todd had a front row seat for a nice one-handed, left-handed running grab Karen made late in the game yesterday. It was one of many really nice plays I saw yesterday.

Want to also welcome back out Joe. He’s from the previous generation of Buzzards but has been on hiatus.

Jeff made a banned substance induced-like cut in end zone on one play that Bob zipped to him on a line and had to because JasonC was running step for step with him on D. And that must have been a switch off because for the most part I enjoyed watching the match up between Jason and Erick during the game as they traded nice grabs in traffic. I also saw Conrad make a nice rolling catch of a disc destined to hit the ground.

After 4 or 5 drives down the field Bob & I finally got ready to field one pull and I heard him remark “Hey, I’m finally going to touch the disc”. And so it goes with 15 people on the field. Some nice attempts, at times though gold to run formations from the stack. It was the multiple cuts we were having difficult with. And no wonder, it was hot. Yesterday marked the first day this year I can remember sun screen coming out on the field. And the first time in a while we had an all-hands mandatory water break called. Kind of like a safety pit stop mandated by NASCAR.

After a week of being away in Montreal and presumably not getting in a lot of Ultimate, I heard Brian calling for his mama out on the field and then suggesting in the locker room later that we find another sport on days like this….Blasphemy! Thunder did suggest though that we purchase some cool water Jacuzzis for post game relaxing. Not a bad idea, maybe I’ll run that by the next Fitness Council budget meeting.

I also tasked Thunder with getting together with Hollan once he gets down to the Tidewater area and getting together a team there that the Buzzards can travel to play against. Beach Ultimate anyone?

We are losing some other Buzzards soon. I believe Matt, Karen, Paul, & Scott are all departing. Am I missing anybody else? We tried last year for a picnic with very tepid response at the time. Anybody feeling more ambitious about that this transfer season?

Off Balance

“Don’t worry, I’m not a girl” I heard as I opened my locker to change for today’s game. Having been given a heads up that Thunder was taking part in “Bring your child to work” day, I had a heads up his son was coming and I’d already seen pictures of him so his long locks didn’t even phase me. It was like seeing me when I was 12 or 13 anyway.

Poetry in motion

“I know” I replied to Gradey “I’m not worried”. Then Scott mentioned that there was a Barber Shop right in the building.

“No way” said Thunder-lite “then I’d look like you”. Man you can’t argue with sound reasoning like that, even from a 9-year old.

So off I walked with Thunder and the “Gradey White” out to the field. We found a relatively dry spot, set up the cones and then began to toss it around in the formidable breeze.

"Get up lazy!" Brad laying down on the job again, Bill & Jeff not so impressed.

But the sun was out and it was a great day for some Ultimate. The teams paired off by themselves as they left to warm up. Note to self, don’t let them do that again. Green, though having a distinct height advantage had some other issues and the gold jumped out to an early lead. It probably didn’t help that there was also an extra player on yellow.

By the way, welcome back out JasonC. Great game today with some really great defensive break ups and a catch on the leg.

Todd & Karen fielding the pull.

Matt getting airborne as the disc slips by over his shoulder.

We made some player adjustments and then green seemed to make a big run and we just had some balance issues the rest of the day.

Annette also, good to see you out. Thanks for taking some of the pictures you’ll enjoy up here. And it’s always great when we have 7s and 6s out there. Thanks everyone else who came out…Jeff, JasonK, Paul, Brad, Kevin, Matt, Bob, Todd, Karen, & Conrad. Hope I haven’t forgotten anybody. I’ll put up some of the photos here but for those of you still not up on Facebook, get with the program and come join the BPUC group.

JasonC & Jeff adjust to the disc.

By the way, we didn't to formally wish Sir Phil farewell, it was a pleasure being out on the pitch the last couple of years with you. Safe travels and fair winds, you'll be missed.

Meteorologically speaking...

Door #1 Drizzle- Small, slowly falling water droplets, with diameters between .2 and .5 millimeters

Door # 2 Mist- Consists of microscopic water droplets suspended in the air which produce a thin grayish veil over the landscape. It reduces visibility to a lesser extent than fog.

Door #3 Light Rain - precipitation falling with an intensity of between a trace and 0.10 inches (0.25 cm) per hour

Those were the 3 possibilities we heard prior to heading out to the pitch yesterday for some disc. I even peeked at the radar right before I logged off to head to the locker room and saw that Buzzards Point was moving out of the “green” (re:Rain) zone at 1100.

As we walked out though, the drops certainly felt bigger than .2 to .5 millimeters and I know that while we were out there for our hour that more than .10 inch of rain must have come down… “Mist” was not even in the equation. I’m not sure what the meteorologists call it but I don’t think it was any of the answers behind doors number 1-3.

The just as credible explanation is the addition of a new player yesterday…Buzzards, everybody say hi to Karen…. “Hi Karen” who comes to us from the place where meteorologists discovered all the terms for wet precipitation…Seattle. That coupled with the Buzzards uncanny knack the last few months of welcoming new people out on the worst possible weather days (right John? Jeff?) and it was almost the “Perfect Storm”…the only thing we were missing were the Swinny and Hollan sliding and mudding show. We missed you guys yesterday, just wanted you to know we were thinking of you.

Speaking of missing…Phil, how can we miss you if you won’t go away? Phil’s Buzzard career is winding down as he gets ready to leave us. Not sure if he’s playing today I know he and Todd are talking about some “Beer Movie” premier later on. I don’t know if the “pre-gaming” for that affects our Ultimate today. Thunder and Paul, can you maybe see if we can keep him in the office long enough to play today?

Jeana was back out yesterday after her time on the disabled list… “I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I ride” A little welcome back gift of a set of training wheels awaited her courtesy of Kevin.

We didn’t actually get to see any of Jeana’s bicycle wounds but I’m betting they couldn’t have looked as bad as Shane’s face did yesterday after taking the disc to his eye. A nice bruise right below the eye socket and blood trickling down his face made you think this sport is more dangerous than it looks at first glance.

Brad got hit with the disc yesterday too but not from a hard throw but because he was invading personal space on the mark a bit too much. Remember everybody…if you hold out your hands, draw an imaginary line between your hands, the thrower should not intersect that line, if they do…you’re too close!

Thanks everybody for coming out yesterday in less than ideal conditions. You should reward yourself today with a game in the sun.