Ultimate & Electoral Math

posted by Bill

What do I need to do to get your vote? John McC and I seem to be in similar dilemmas except that I’m hoping I have a bigger “undecided” pool from which to still persuade than he does. By my count, I only see 5 states still in that big “U” column and even if he won all of them I think he still is behind in the Electoral count.

Here’s how the Ultimate Electoral count goes…I have 65 names on the Ultimate Distribution List and I only need 12.3% to be able to call a game but for the last two days I’ve been unable to get to that. Big Mac’s challenge is far greater…of 538 possible electoral votes, he needs 50.1% or 270. Thank goodness I don’t need half our list to be able to call a game. Though last week, we pulled 19 out on Thursday which was almost 1/3 of the list.

But see the problem that I have, not unlike the McCain/Palin ticket is that I have roughly 30 names on my list that I put into the “New York/California/Massachusetts” category of players. They are firmly on the side of “not playing” and haven’t been out or have any intention of coming out much like the chances of any of those 3 states voting Republican.

So, I’m left with roughly 35 other names with which to pull from. This means now, instead of only needing to get the 12 and half percent, I need almost 25 percent to win. Fortunately for me today, I’ve already gotten Alaska, Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, & Kansas (all states that haven’t voted Democrat in the last 30 years and won’t this year either). These are my sure players for today so far…Hollan, Tim, Todd, Kevin, and Moi’ (we can argue over who is which state later…Hollan you’re definitely ‘Bama or ‘Ol Miss). So basically, I’m looking for a few more. Maybe a big one I was counting on “Texas Phil” and another usually sure one, “South Carolina Thunder”. See because today, I’ve lost one sure one…we’ll call him “Virginia Bob” a usual sure bet, headed to the other side this time around.

Who knows how cold it will actually start to get. Don’t miss this opportunity for some sun shine and a great game today!

Finally...a dozen!

~ submitted by Bill

After about a week and a half of pretty nice weather but pretty sparse numbers (Travis & I got stuck on the short end of 2 on 3 game last week) we finally broke some people out of their offices yesterday…6 on 6!!!! It was upper 50’s, overcast, very light breeze…perfect day for Ultimate.

And the game was good. Seemed like a lot of running to me which you would normally think would be kind of the opposite when you have so many players. We may have been on a slightly smaller field yesterday also as we set up east to west instead of the normal north to south direction. Welcome to “the new guy”, Jay. Did anybody get contact info for him so I can add him to the distribution list? We were a man short yesterday on green when he came up to the field and asked to play.

I know the other team hated to tell him to put on a green pinnie because he was easily the tallest guy on the field when he walked on. And I know MattP would normally have been able to keep up with him but with his bad hammy, his vertical leaping is considerably hampered.

Speaking of leaping…did anybody catch Todd’s first few attempts at that yesterday? It was like he was hearing a different rhythm music than the rest of us and constantly going off the wrong foot. I think he mumbled some excuse about a volleyball tournament last weekend and a tender quad muscle but for those of us that are used to seeing Todd above our head, it was somewhat comical. He finally found his footing later on and was able to go up and grab a hammer throw from me in the end zone for an impressive score.

I mentioned Wings’ bad hammy…by the way if you saw that leg…it was ugly…but he managed to slip free for a couple scores that I noticed yesterday. Really not sure how that happened. He’s been studying Shadow’s elusive end zone camping apparently. The rest of gold managed some nice short passing drives yesterday. Swinny, Jason, MattC, Shadow & Hollan (who by the way I’m nicknaming “Ink” as soon as I get his ok…dude has some nice artwork) worked with Wings and gave them the edge for most of the game.

The green team of Todd, Bill, Bob, Travis, Conrad & Jay just couldn’t seem to get any consistency most of the game though they did figure out that offense was much easier when they were playing decent defense and made a few pretty good hustle plays for scores. But there were not a lot of long scoring drives for green yesterday.

March Madness begins today. The Buzzards have a friendly little pool going which, as of this writing has 7 participants, Scott, Todd, Ink, Bob, Swinny, Wings, & myself. I must say that for the most part the picks are fairly conservative. I’m in 3 different pools this year and there just aren’t a lot of upsets being picked. Now, I will mention that Swinny inexplicably has Wazzu (Washington St.) coming out of an East bracket where most of the smart money is either on Carolina or Tennessee, in fact the Buzzards were split on that one. And Bob has the bigger and crazier pick of Gonzaga coming out of the Midwest. But really, that may be the most open bracket and it wouldn’t surprise me to see one of a few teams emerge (not Gonzaga though). Our consensus pick was Kansas with Georgetown and Wisconsin also getting mention. The South also seems to be up for grabs even with a team (Memphis) with only 1 loss in that bracket. The Tigers were the consensus pick but not convincingly so with only 3 of us going that way. Two Buzzards picked Pittsburg to come out of that bracket and 2 others chose Texas. In the west though we unanimously chose UCLA as the Final 4 participant.

So right now, at 0634, there is still over 5 hours until tip off. You still have time to submit brackets.

Today’s forecast: This quote from the weather folks “A WIND ADVISORY MEANS THAT WIND GUSTS OF 45 MPH OR HIGHER ARE EXPECTED. WINDS THIS STRONG CAN MAKE DRIVING DIFFICULT... ESPECIALLY FOR HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES. USE EXTRA CAUTION.”

I don’t know if we have any “high profile vehicles” in our Ultimate club but I don’t know of any of us who can throw in 45 mph winds. We may take today off.