Animal IQ Test

Posted by Bill

It’s been said that "Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." I’m not sure where that puts Buzzards in the animal IQ chain as we got 12 to come out and play Ultimate yesterday (six who were repeat offenders from Tuesday) on a field that, in many places, still hadn’t been trod on and where the snow was probably still in the 12-18” depth range.

Wanted to give a “welcome back” to Nate who was one of the repeat offenders. He’s had fun diving (in most cases needlessly) for discs the past two days and has upped the number of Buzzards we consider “speedy” by about 25%.

There’s a strange thing about this snow. Even normally adept handlers have been heard the last two days swearing at themselves and asking why they cannot complete a pass. There haven’t been a whole lot of opportunities to lead anybody since not too many people have run under a disc. Todd may have been one of the exceptions yesterday as I was able to keep one up in the air long enough for him to run under it for a score.

Brad, after getting the full court press of peer pressure to play on Tuesday, decided not to reply yesterday but show up anyway and play. Anybody else noticed recently that he’s seemed to healed from whatever had been keeping him from running. I’m starting not to like it when I have to mark him. Still, you need to be careful when he’s marking you. Ask Brook who took a full body shot from Brad hurling himself at him. “Oh hey Brook, welcome back yourself!”

I was glad to see Frank out yesterday with long pants and socks after playing in neither back on our first snow game in December. Of course he’s headed out to Monterey soon on a Buzzard Sabbatical. Yesterday the temps there were in the 70’s and it was sunny. We hate you Frank!

The rest of the Buzzards besides Todd, Brad and Nate who have doubled up on the snow games this week have been Sean, Kevin, Eric and yours truly. And three of us are RSVPd for today’s game as well.

The rest of the snow Buzzards who have been out this week are Steave, Brian, Frank, Brook, Bob, Tom and Conrad. And today we’re expecting even some others who haven’t played in the snow yet…Erick and Dan G. Rumor has it there will be a camera out today also so stay tuned for some photographic evidence that Buzzards are perhaps no smarter than cats or dogs but certainly more hearty...Iditarod schmitarod.

Art Garfunkel where are you?

Posted by Bill


How good does your job have to be for a lunch time of Ultimate in a “freshly fallen shroud of snow” not to be better than work? That’s the rhetorical question for the day. Matt Caldwell got the first points of the day for correctly identifying the song lyric and calling me “a rock” but then followed up with an immediate point erasure for having forgotten clothes to play and complaining that his shoes would get wet.

Speaking of forgetting clothes… “Newbie” Sean who fancies himself a regular, having come out tirelessly since being introduced to the Buzzards, somehow was not “regular” enough to have shown up with certain articles of clothing today. Reminded of the option of our Coast Guard Exchange right in the same building selling all sorts of textile wares, he still begged out of the game.

Meaghan was actually the first to RSVP for the game today and we found out why later as she broke out her MVP performance with not one but two outstanding diving catches today and assist on the snowman crafting that she and Bridgette put together before the first pull. Sadly Snowbuzzard was decapitated at game’s end as I tried to remove the pinnie.

Fortunately we did get a game today because Karl was making a special appearance from the Charm City to our north. I think that was probably the first time we’d had Meaghan, Bridgette and Karl out on the same field since summer league play. Great to have you all!

Another somewhat unexpected RSVP today came from Mike C. I say unexpected, not because Mike doesn’t like to play with us whenever he can but because Mike is my favorite (only?) SoCal guy and I sometimes tease him that he may be a little fair weathered in his playing patterns. Well shame on me…and chalk up a snow game for the “Howler”.

Todd and I were the beneficiaries of Meaghan, Mike and Conrad’s winter energy and the svelte new disc which sailed long and smooth unencumbered by any cracks, scratches or warpedness.

Joining Karl and Bridgette on the blue team were Kevin, Eric, and Jordan. Both teams had sporadic success and both teams had some….uh, how would we say this at work “areas for improvement”. But really, the snow was great for snowballs which proved to be an amusing distraction for those of us who suffer varying degrees of attention deficit disorder and how good is your job if would not rather have been out there playing with us?
“I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never hucked I never would have cried”… or something like that. Thanks everybody for coming out today.

Roose, where were you?

Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't flick...

Posted by Bill

Anybody remember me? I’m the guy that started this blog a little over two years and 150 or so posts ago. I kept it fairly current with a post usually up once a week or ten days or more often depending on how much we played and then something happened this past summer. The Buzzards Point Ultimate Club sent a team into the Washington Area Frisbee Club Summer Corporate League and did very well in fact and Kevin started writing accounts of the league games for the blog which was great because well he was the Captain and that’s what Captains should do besides wear a hand scrawled “C” on their shirt.

Then in the fall something else happened. “Research Foundations” and “Policy in Education” classes and I stopped writing anything for fun. We did manage to get a Facebook group up for the BPUC and some of you have taken part in that arena. Mostly I was lazy. But today has inspired me to get back to the keyboard and chronicle what was certainly one of the more memorable Ultimate events in this club’s brief but storied history.

As most of you who will be reading this already know, the D.C. metro area had about 2 feet of snow dumped on it this past weekend. A record December snowfall by any accounts. It closed the Federal Offices on Monday which made for a nice 3-day weekend (at least) for most of us. Yesterday we slowly eased back into work while still fighting the icy side streets of our neighborhoods. At about 1000 yesterday Kevin sends me a message “What? No game?” I guess my expectations had been low and since he was the first to even ask, that seemed somewhat justified, but I sent out the invite anyway and he, Brad, Kelly, and Conrad all admirably RSVPd that they would play but it's all we could persuade and so it went "No Game"

Today I decided to try earlier and got a rousing response from a thinned out holiday mode Buzzards crowd at work. We trekked out to the field to find that much of the snow had been untouched. And it was still fairly deep despite some settling. There would not be much sprinting today by anybody. Tom remarked once he got out “Finally, speed will not be a factor” and he was for the most part right. Pinpoint throwing was more the premium today and we did some of that though Brian and I seemed to enjoy making our pinpoint throws to Kevin who happened to be wearing the opposite color pinnie.

“I couldn’t help it, he looked so darn attractive, I couldn’t resist” Brian protested.

“At least make him move hips and tease you. I mean he was standing still” I pleaded back.

Frank wins the award for coming out with the least weather appropriate clothing on. Shorts and no socks with his cleats. Sean was a close second also in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt until somebody turned over an extra long sleeved one. Kelly made the first snow layout with a beautiful grab and a face full of snow as she went soaring over the sideline. Conrad, Brad and Kevin also managed horizontal moves of varying degrees of effectiveness. I will say that Brad’s was for a score and even more impressive considering the cantaloupe-sized welt he had on his leg from his weekend kayak sledding accident.

For the first time, maybe since the departure of Matt P for Texas, I heard the claim of being in by one cone if not the other (that is a straight line between those right?) That was Sean I think using the “Peeler Geometric Theorem” Another Matt, the goggled one came out to balance the early uneven numbers and swayed the advantage back to orange for most of the rest of the game but there was not an overabundance of scoring. We don’t ever keep score out here but I’m pretty sure we didn’t reach 15 by both teams.

At any rate, as Conrad reminded me as we high stepped off the field, elements like this usually engender some sort of award or nickname for those who play. It wasn’t actually snowing while we played but the depths of the snow have hereby obliged the issuance of the first ever Buzzards Point Sherpa award. For braving snow depths of double digits in inches, snow blindness, insufficient oxygen (or alcohol), pedestrian garb, and holiday leave. Congratulations Frank, Tom, Kevin, Brad, Brian, Kelly, Conrad, Sean, Matt & Bill. It wasn’t Chomolungma but it was good. Happy holidays to all the Buzzards, their family and friends. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you back 2010.

p.s. congrats to Conrad and Juliette new parents of Genevieve Marie.

Where there's a will...

“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.” – William James

For all of you who have not exactly “felt” like coming out this week to play Ultimate but have done so anyway I sincerely thank you. Here we are on the 24th of September and we’ve just had our 4th consecutive week of the month with at least 3 days in a row of games. This week seemed particularly challenging after a couple weeks of unseasonably cool weather and low humidity got most of us deacclimated from the oppressive summer weather that frankly never materialized much this past July and August.

But summer staged a last hurrah as we celebrated the Autumnal Equinox this week and as our days begin to get progressively shorter. Three days of mid 80’s and high humidity certainly made it seem like it was still August. To exacerbate the conditions of the weather we also were having difficulty getting any big games called this week and so for two days were at the bare minimum of 8 and another day we managed 10.

So for those of you who willed yourself out there this week…bravo. Erick, Todd & Bob, you guys hit the trifecta and came out each day this week. Thanks for trying to keep me running and putting up with me when I wasn’t. Kevin, John & Frank all got multiple games in this week as well and then our string of solo acts included Dennis, Paul, Matt, Joe, Dan & Tom. Ladies, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but that list does not include any of you. A disappointing week for the girl power.

Oh, also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the alumni visit a couple weeks ago of Rodney who made it down for a couple games. Great to have you back out there. Now if you could arrange to have you Swinny, Phill, Hollan, Thunder & Matty P all show up on the same week...that would be fabulous.

I would like to just make a couple housekeeping notes. We’ve been playing on the south field for the majoring of softball season and the consensus has been…..”Yuck!” The terrain is neither soft nor smooth. I’m not sure softball has ended but I’m inclined to try back to the North starting next week. Also I’d like to throw out my semi-annual plea for starting our game at 1130 rather than wandering out at 1130 (or later). Of course we want you whenever you can make but if we can get the majority of us out on the field ready to start at 1130 we can salvage a little more play time…and get this, it’s a novel idea, have a little stretch time after we’re finished.

So we’re finishing off September next week and the extended forecast is showing highs only in the 60’s on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m thinking big finish to the month! Stop telling yourself you don’t feel like it or you’ll play when you feel better, or in better shape, or healthier…take the step out on the field, the “feelings” will follow and we’ll all be better for it.

BUZZARDS OVERCOME WESLEYAN 15-6, to Advance to the Round of Four!

If you want to know what a patient dump/swing/repeat/repeat/... Zone Offense looks like, contact Wesleyan Corporate C league (the real Wesleyan, from Waterbury, CT), because they showed it to us all night long. The Buzzards (Bill, Bridgette, Devon, Jeana, Jeff VoB, Karl, Kevin, Leroy, Meaghan, Paul, Reagan and Todd) pulled ahead early, but Wesleyan, a team of great heart and fantastic Spirit, did not give up and played a much tougher game than the final score suggests. It was a lot of fun playing you guys, and we definitely look forward to seeing you again.

One of the things that made the game so much fun was that we were able to resolve rules questions in the Spirit of fun and fair play. Here’s a rule thing that I had wrong(!). If you get fouled in the end zone, there are two possibilities: either you caught the disc and had it stripped out of your hands (AKA Bridgette, last Monday) or you went up for the disc and were interfered with and didn’t make the catch (AKA Todd). If either of these fouls is contested, the disc goes back to the thrower. If uncontested, Bridgette gets the disc at the spot of the foul and scores a point. Todd gets possession of the disc at the spot of the foul, and it becomes “live”, but he must carry it out to the nearest spot on the goal line and play from there. “Live” means the game is on, no need to check the disc in again, play it like you just picked up an out of-bounds throw. Kudos to Wesleyan for knowing the rule and to Captain Natalie for not rolling her eyes at my ignorance. See the 11th Edition Rules FAQ page for where that all came from. FYI, if you make the catch while airborne, but are pushed out-of-bounds, you are Bridgette, not Todd.

A fond Buzzard farewell for the next two weeks to Paul St. Pierre, departing for Norway for a well deserved rest. He’s leaving behind a legacy of second- and third-chance catches and a textbook on how to make popper cuts. You couldn't ask for a better send-off than to score the game winning point to advance to the semi-finals. You will be missed, we'll keep you updated on how it goes.

The thing that made our Zone offense work and that Wesleyan struggled with was moving the disc up the field after a swing. If you played wing during this game (Leroy, Jeff, Karl, Devon, Kevin, Bill) I’m talking about you, shuttin’ em down. And speaking of closing the door on the offense...

Reagan, you are tougher, per linear foot, than anyone else on the team. Yes, we turned it over too often in the second half. Many of those were the Buzzards trying something a little different for the purpose of player development. This is a good thing, but it still meant 15 minutes of cup for you.

In fact, all of the Buzzard women have made us proud all season long (under "budding handlers," see Jeana, Kelly; under “Defense wins games” see Mariam, Meaghan, Rachel; under “Just tougher than you,” see Annette, Bridgette). You are the stubbornest disc chasers in the league, and every time the Buzzards get the disc on the opponent’s own twenty-yard line, it’s the cup that put us there.

Cup, if you start flagging because the offense isn’t getting it done, you have two tools: when next on offense, call for a timeout. Only the person with the disc can call for a timeout (Rule VI.B.4), so communicate with that person that you need a break. This is something we as a team should have done better to support the cup in this game. In 11 games we’ve had 44 timeouts and called maybe three.

The other thing you can do in the cup is play the passing lanes, not the distance. At ten feet from the disc (the minimum legal distance) you cut off a lot of passing lanes automatically. But if you are unable to keep up with the movement, put yourself in the lane where they want to throw: cut off either the up-field popper or the swing. If you cut off that lane, you buy yourself time to get into position.

The Michael and Janet Jackson Award for Wednesday, August 5th goes to Devon and Leroy for sweet moves and possibly being the same person. Speed in the backfield means we could play the 3-3-1 zone (as opposed to 3-2-2) and really pressure the disc. Here’s some math: Which takes longer? A disc thrown from midfield traveling up the sideline or our deep man coming from the center of the goal line to get the block? I’m not saying what answer I put down, but my grade was 15/6.

The reason you shouldn’t both be in at the same time is because its considered poor Spirit to get the block, then have another defender make a play on the disc, and then, after a commercial break, have the intended receiver appear. Also, somebody’s gotta throw the thing.

A special wave of the feathery wing to our cheering section: season-ticket-holder Jack, mom Marianne (not Jack's mom. C'mon, keep up!), wife Mariam, sig-o’s Mary and Angela and future roommate Danielle (“She’s filling in for Ian. No, wait, I mean…”). We should have brought those bleachers from Bluemont with us. First ten fans get to take a Buzzard home with them. No home for you, Jeff. Get back to the NAC.

Our next game is Monday, August 10th at the Polo Fields (2B). Game at 6:30, cookout at 5:45. I’m not certain who our opponent will be (apparently, google docs is that hard to use), but best bet is our Sligo nemesis, Disc of Enlightenment. Bring your “A” game.

BUZZARDS DEFEAT PPC COMPLEXIFICATIONIZERS, 15-7, and Advance to the Round of Eight

Show up on time and put it up deep. That pretty much defined the Buzzards' key to early success (taking half at 8-3) in their first ever playoff win against PPC Complexificationizers, a company team of consultants who consult on the things that their company does, which is consulting (we think they may be ninjas).

The game started promptly at 6:30, possibly a first in Ultimate history, and PPC took advantage of a careless turnover at our own end zone to draw first blood. But the Buzzards (Todd, Reagan, Paul, Leroy, Kevin, Kelly, Karl, Jeff, Brook, Bridgette and Bill) stepped up, taking the game to 2-2, and then on a 6-1 run to half.

A big Buzzard “Welcome Back” to Devon Clark, Leroy Posey’s evil twin brother. Together, the twins scored probably 70% of the Buzzard Points on deep throws to the end zone. You can tell which one is evil because of the evil one always has facial hair (“I’ve got sensitive skin!”) and the good one reads the Washington Post.

Some more Complexificationizers showed up by halftime (including someone to make the twins work for the disk in the end zone), and the Buzzards gave up three quick points getting adjusted to PPC's zone defense. At 8-6, the Buzzards decided it was time to get serious, and eight points later it was 15-7 and “Good game, blue”. The second half was classic Buzzard flow, with nice popper cuts from Paul, Bridgette, Reagan, and Kelly, and relaxed, high-percentage handling from Todd, Karl, Jeff, Bill and Kevin.

Plays of the game (tonight on “the Ocho”):
Bill “maybe if I lay out it’ll fix my back” Putnam, for digging the disk like the volleyball powerhouse he is.
Kelly “Garot is French for 'Handler', boys” Garot, for not being afraid to put up the deep stuff.
Paul “Popper” St. Pierre, for making the cup look over their shoulders and cry one big teardrop, like at the end of that Prince video.
And Bridgette “strip me again and I will gut you like a fish” Barchek, for showing Jack that Mom is NOT to be messed with.

A rules clarification: Contact which affects your ability to make a play on the disk is a foul. In short: shoving on the way up is a foul and should be called, shoving on the way down is poor Spirit and should be avoided. On a receiving foul, if the foul is contested, the disk goes back to the thrower. If uncontested, the disk goes to the fouled player.

From the 11th Edition rules :
XVI.H.3.b.(1). If a player contacts an opponent while the disc is in the air and thereby interferes with that opponent’s attempt to make a play on the disc, that player has committed a receiving foul. Some amount of incidental contact before, during, or immediately after the attempt often is unavoidable and is not a foul.

but...

XVI.H.2. Contact resulting from adjacent opposing players simultaneously vying for the same unoccupied position, is not in itself a foul.

see also...

XVI.H.3.b.(1) The Principle of Verticality: All players have the right to enter the air space immediately above their torso to make a play on a thrown disc. If non-incidental contact occurs in the airspace immediately above a player before the outcome of the play is determined (e.g., before possession is gained or an incomplete pass is effected), it is a foul on the player entering the vertical space of the other player.

And, of course, pushing an airborne player out of the end zone is a no-no.

Things to think about for next time:
The Zone offense is all about smooth flow. The Buzzards did an excellent job of not forcing bad passes, but the dump-swing-repeat could flow a little faster. Remember, the mission is to run the cup ragged so that they are out of position when you want to go deep. The middle handler’s primary look is a quick continuation to the swing. He’s got about ¾ of a second before the cup gets there. If the middle handler dallies, then the swings are going to start looking for arcing passes across the width of the field. This is low-percentage play and exactly what the cup wants. Keep is simple and keep it moving.

On man defense, if your man is playing deep, cover him deep. But if he is playing middle or short, don’t be afraid to get between him and the disc. If they put up a deep throw, our own deep cover will be there to back you up. Don’t be afraid to commit up close, cut off the passing lanes and get the layout D.

Be proud of your performance, Buzzards. You played tough D against a team with good throws. You played smart O, and forced them to play your game. And you advanced to the round of 8.

Our next game is Wednesday, August 5th at the Polo Fields #1B. Our opponent is either "Air it Out" or Wesleyan. Game at 6:30, cookout at 5:45. See you there!

Is that a wet towel on me?

It’s here! You know that feeling you get when you walk outside and you feel like you’re swimming wherever you walk. When, no matter how leisurely your pace, everything you’re wearing is drenched by the time you get where you’re going? Any of you who are familiar with the D.C. area during the summer are familiar with this phenomenon called “humidity”.

As a native Northern Virginian I grew up with this and really thought nothing of it. I mean it’s what drove me away from other sports with lots more clothing and equipment like football. I remember that first summer of pee wee and having all those pads on and long pants and heavy jersey and just thinking there have to be better ways to have fun….I was 8 was playing for the Cardinals with all my other friends in Elementary school and though many of those guys went on to high school stardom at Gar-Field and Woodbridge Senior High Schools respectively, I don’t have much regret about not sticking with football. But I digress…other than the football experiment I don’t recall minding the humidity too much.

But I have to say, this July has been pretty darn nice…right up until about 3 days ago. This week, the humidity has moved up into the 90% range, the temperatures have hovered in and around 90 and evening thunderstorms have visited the area. This is summer as we metro D.C. area denizens have come to love it.

On the Ultimate pitch it means that we are in the season where the pinnies need to be taken home and washed almost every night. Please feel free to step up and volunteer for this duty occasionally. I’m pretty happy with my new Bosch washer and Dryer but I just feel funny saying that, I have a laundry room full of stray leaves that have found their way into our mesh bag, and it would just be nice to share the load (pun intended) once in a while.

We’ve had a couple decent games already this week all things considered. Thanks to those who have come out so far. July is typically a tough month to call games. Lots of people on leave, transfers just settling in or having left us, and oh, did I mention it’s humid. We want to give a bit Buzzard welcome to Marcia joining us for the first time yesterday. She’s newly arrived from Port Arthur, TX. Yes she’s the player we traded MattP for, no word yet on what type of towels she uses. Matt, did you leave her any princess motifs in the office?

Kelly was the star of yesterday’s game. She and Todd worked some great give and go drives late in the game and she make a couple great leading throws for scores. Great throws were not to be found much on the blue side as myself, Kevin, & Erick did not give Marcia a good first impression of the quality of game she can sometimes find out here.

Our theory of trying to force mark worked on and off. I remember having a really strong mark on Bob at one point and taking away the backhand completely and forcing flick. Then Bob finally relented and threw a flick that defied physics for half its flight, finally flattened out, never got more than about 2 feet off the ground and sailed into Todd’s hands for a score. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him make that throw out here before.

Low throws abounded though…ask Paul how it was affecting his pulls yesterday. Okay, so the air was a bit heavy. Did I mention the humidity? Marcia told me this wasn’t really even hot compared to Port Arthur. The flip side of that “truth is relative to the perception of the individual” theory (Mr. Bunn, 11th grade, U.S. History) is that Meaghan last week when the weather was still relatively comfortable (for around here) wondered if she hadn’t been transferred to the face of the sun. Of course she was coming from Seattle.

Welcome to D.C. everyone, welcome to summer, and just keep plugging along. Your playing in this will pay huge dividends when fall rolls around. You’ll feel like a seasoned tri-athlete…okay well at least like an 8-year old pee wee football player.

Pull!

Finding our lunchtime groove...

Lunchtime Ultimate had been suffering from expected transfer and vacation season flux and July temperatures rising (though this hasn’t been your normal July in D.C.), and the unexpected oversaturation that the Corporate League had perhaps added to. Yesterday the 1130 crowd was back out in force thanks to newcomers Meaghan (who has been playing Corporate with the Buzzards) and Dan, a basketball player looking for another exercise outlet (thanks Matt, you’re finder’s fee will be in the mail), and also to John who was back out with us after a bit of a hiatus.

We had our first 7 on 7 game in about a month. We were rewarded with another unseasonable temperate July day. Though the humidity did increase some, it was still in the low 80’s somewhat overcast and even a bit breezy again. I heard Meaghan on the field saying something about “I’ll get used to this heat and humidity soon” as she has come to us from Seattle. Any of the rest of you who have the pleasure of living or visiting the Pacific Northwest, know you can declimatize from this mid-Atlantic oppressiveness pretty quickly. Now reacclimatizing may not happen as quickly and I just didn’t want to tell her that it really hasn’t even gotten bad hear yet. Normally by this time in the summer we’ve had a couple weeks of solid 90/90 days.

You couldn’t really tell John hadn’t been out there in a while as he made several great pinpoint passes for the blue team. He and his receivers were finding the holes in the orange team’s porous zone. A good strong cup defense is difficult to play when you know you won’t be getting any substitutions for the full hour we’re out there. And even more difficult when you take a play off to discuss work business (as I found Dennis and Brian doing on one play). Before we could recover from that diversion blue had made two passes and were well over mid-field.

Also out with us yesterday were Steve, Kevin, Brad, Leroy, Mike, Tom & Frank. Thanks everybody for getting back out for a great lunch time game.

"One small step..."

Blasting off on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing the Buzzards took their own respective “giant leaps” yesterday, if not for mankind then at least for that 175 gram pie shaped piece of plastic. And unlike our Summer League games where we routinely spot the opposing team a good decade at least at many positions and which has been getting most of the press here in the blog of late I would guess that most of our participants yesterday were alive for that historic event in 1969.

In fact Tom gave me that look of incredulity again yesterday as I was dividing up the teams. “You did it to us again, didn’t you Bill?” he asked. Somehow insinuating that I had conspired to put the bulk of the old slow guys on the same team. What I also did, but what did not pay any immediate dividends, was to give us an extra player. Of course that did not stop the blue team from scorching us early and often as Kevin and Bob worked the disc around nicely, throwing to Leroy occasionally sprinting long, Frank, gliding across his old familiar haunts at the back of the end zone and Dennis, looking for every long pass he could throw.

For our part, the orange team struggled to find some rhythm early on. We had Doug back out with us for the first time in a long while after his soccer brethren abandoned a fabulous weather day… low 80’s, overcast, and breezy. Oh, also, I’m not sure I’ve formally welcomed out Ron who’s been out with us a few times over the last couple weeks. Please join me in giving him a fond Buzzard hello.

We put Doug to good use having him fly around as safety knocking down as many passes as we could but we just couldn’t seem to find him very often on the offensive side of the field. Brian’s chicken wing pass looked a little rusty, Tom was the recipient of a lot of contact on passes in the end zone. I saw him get hit by Bob, Dennis, & Frank on 3 successive possessions. Then finally when he was able to lurk around behind Doug and let him get hit instead, he was able to come down with a deep pass.

Mike made some nice grabs and passes while working up some short drives later in the game as blue started to come around some and make things a bit more competitive. I got caught trying to out jump Leroy on a couple long passes. The first one our lets got tangled up, and my knee went right into his calf and neither of us came down with it. The 2nd one we were able to avoid contact and both got up to the disc but he hauled it down with a nice 2-handed grab and then made the subsequent pass for the winning score.

Walking back to the sideline Tom offered his wry assessment of the final score. “Bill you’re old and you can’t jump, what did you expect?” To be fair, Leroy isn’t even old enough to legally drink, let alone have any recollection of Neil Armstrong taking that first step on the cratered surface of the moon. I could have used a little anti-gravity situation to out jump him.

BUZZARDS DON'T FLY IN THUNDERSTORMS

As Vince Lombardi said, "We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." Of course, as the 11th edition rules say “The team with the most goals at the end of the game is the winner.” So there you have it as the Buzzard Point Ultimate Club (2-1) receives its first Corporate League defeat at the hands of Multiple Scoregasm (a group of alums from Takoma Park Middle, Whitman and Mongomery Blair High Schools in Maryland) 10 to 9 in a game called at about 8 pm due to lightning.

To be honest, I’m having a hard time putting this one in the “L” column, as every circumstance seemed to line up against the Buzzards to create the loss. A tiny field created by a local club team’s need to practice in the middle of WAFC Corporate League games (I’m not a good sharer), a half-hour late start (I’m not patient, especially for late starts where we then run out of time), and a game called due to weather (I’m allergic to lightning) all combined to cut short a game that already had two lead changes and the Buzzards on a three-point run.

Kudos to opponents M.S. for running a patient zone offense. On the plus side, the Buzzards stuck with it and forced the opponents to crawl up the field in a dump, swing, [repeat] fashion. Nice job sticking with the defense Buzzards: no breakdowns on the Buzzards side, but certainly no mistakes by M.S., either. And at least a whole lot of us got to see it as we brought fifteen (!) Buzzards to the game (Todd, Reagan, Paul, Matt, Mariam, Leroy, Kevin, Kelly, Karl, Jeana, Jason, Brook, Brad, Bob, Annette).

A big Buzzards welcome to Mariam d’Eustachio, playing her first game of Ultimate in the 21st century. She says “Everyone on the team is really nice & helpful.” I say “It really is a great group, [they’re all so nice that if you had to pick someone (ha-ha), I would say that] I’m pretty much the biggest jerk on the team.” She says “Yeah, you are."

Things to do different for next time:
(1) Recognize we brought a LOT more players, and start running for the sake of running earlier in the game. We didn’t really realize this until halftime, and we started to see the benefits shortly thereafter.
(2) We spend a lot of lunch-time putting up big bombs to hyper-athletic end-zone cuts. We’ve tried to get away from this because we need to develop other skills, but lets not forget what we’re good at.
(3) Fix the grill. Cripes, what a piece of junk. You’d think that something I paid nearly twenty dollars for back in 2002 would stand up a little better. Thanks to Mariam, Annette and Kevin’s Mom for improvising hot dog skewers and feeding the Buzzards.

In my Great Big Book of Frisbee Strategy, things (1) + (2) = HORIZONTAL STACK! Give it a look here (http://www.ultimatehandbook.com/blog/strategy/horizontal/) . A good horizontal stack opens up the field for our athleticism and also our ability to run the length of the field on deep cuts, then bring in fresh legs.

Our next games are MONDAY, JULY 6th in Anacostia vs. ERG and FRIDAY, JULY 10th at the Polo Fields vs. Peace Corps/ Agency for International Development. Directions at www.wafc.org/page/fields. Sign up at www.rostermanager.com.

WAFC (Wimps Awaiting Fairer Conditions?)

Start of league play last night for the Buzzards…or maybe not. There was a very late call yesterday afternoon by WAFC to cancel games but as Kevin noted about an hour before game time, “This is the strangest Ultimate experience I’ve ever had…everybody is out here early”.

Early or no…that of course is all in one’s perspective, I hope this isn’t an indication of WAFC’s organizational skills. And as it turns out the field was completely playable and so that’s exactly what we did. The Buzzards had a huge turnout…the whole team (who said they were coming) except Leroy did show up. Reagan & Rachel, two of our female contingent were there for their inaugural (I think?) Ultimate experiences and they both used their athleticism to their advantage and looked like seasoned veterans. Bridgette, our true seasoned veteran, was there anchoring our women. And she brought Jack who I got to sneak a cookie to like I was some goofy uncle enjoying the luxury of feeding his nephew sugar and sending him home with mom.

Our Capitan’ Kevin, with shirt clearly marked “C”, showed up with a truck full of picnic and disc supplies. After a few minutes of conversation that ended with Todd clearly inpatient and wanting to get things going, I decided to roll the grill over, fire it up and throw on some hot dogs while Bob, Kevin & Todd tried, with varying degrees of success to walk off 40X70 and 25.

The rest of our crew arrived in stages, Brian & Rachel with a cooler full of beer, a watermelon and the aforementioned cookies, Brad with a couple tubs of salads and the news of the late cancellation, and Karl, Paul, Devan, Conrad (and family), Jeff (who it was great to see again), and even a last minute appearance by Thunder, fresh off house-hunting/moving bedlam.

There were a few other Ultimate players out at the fields. A Navy contingent of a half dozen were there and so we gave them a few players and scrimmaged. And we all clearly aren’t aligned well with the DC Ultimate modus operandi for calling games for weather…nobody from our actual opponent, Sloths! Sloths! Sloths! showed up indicating that they actually knew not to come out until the very last minute before a game.

Of course the WAFC was shown up by some local volleyball pickup league who wasn’t afraid of a little rain that didn’t actually come down or standing water, of which there wasn’t any. They had all their matches going on down on one end of the field. Why we didn’t play last night is inexplicable to me. I’ve played in an Ultimate league where we played in 30 mph winds and 7 degree temperatures so an overcast sky, with barely a breeze, and 75 degrees sounded idyllic to me. Is Jeana secretly on the WAFC board?

Rain or no rain, the Buzzards will be playing at lunch today. I’m looking forward to my last game before two weeks at the beach.

Pull!

Unveiling the orange and blue

Finally the new pinnies were unveiled yesterday! And a good thing I decided to order a dozen of each color because we had a huge crowd of 19 out yesterday! We played substitutes for the first time in a while. Want to welcome out 3 new players – Pinsuda, Lilly, & Lizzy. It was great to have you all out and hope you’ll join us as often as you can.

It was a nice return to our June numbers too after struggling to get a game 3 days last week. Hope to see this continue. If those of you who only play 1-2 days a week could partner up with other similar scheduled players and arrange to have your off days alternate with somebody else that would be fantastic! : )

So what’s the verdict on the new pinnies? I heard several comments yesterday (some of which are repeatable). Great new CG colors, sexy, long, durable, more to hold the stink. It’s the shirt with a little something for everyone. In fact I heard Lilly & Lizzy deliberating before the game as to whether or not they had to wear their shirts underneath them. I’m not going to make any definitive rule about this one way or another. I’ll tell you it’s been done before (I seem to recall Leroy shedding his shirt one day last summer) and some of us look better than others in mesh. For you women who play in some sort of half shirt/sports bra looking top I don’t think it would cause too big a ruckus. I’m going to leave this up to common sense. The problem I see in that is that I heard something about that on the radio last week – the commentator mentioned that he thought “common sense wasn’t very common”.

I’ll tell you what’s nice about having 19. It’s almost impossible to make the teams too uneven when pairing them off to begin play. We seemed pretty well matched up yesterday. The other challenge though is when you have subs running on and off the field is figuring out which defense you’re playing. Particularly when you have teammates who respectively love and hate zone or man defense.

Here was one conversation yesterday on the orange side – Todd running in from his rest on the sideline… “Okay, what are we playing?” as we readied to pull.

“Well” I offered “Paul just went out so we can go back to man if you want but he hates it so we were playing zone”.

And then whoever was pulling didn’t wait for the consensus before launching the disc and so we ran down in some bastardized combination of matchup zone which I, by the way, almost always prefer playing.

Blue wasn’t fairing much better figuring out what they were playing. As I was running off the field one play I heard Bob shout “Okay, let’s shift to zone!”

“I thought that’s what you were playing” I said half jokingly to which Erick replied,

“Well, that’s what we wanted you to think.”

Well, what I think was that there seemed to be somewhat of a lack of scoring going on yesterday on both sides so whatever the defense was must have been working or we just weren’t doing great getting the offensive schemes going.

Orange did have a stretch of a few plays where we got some short passing drives that seemed to work and on back to back plays Tim made really nice throws for scores after we worked the disc up field. On the blue side, I saw Brad, Kevin, Karl, & Erick seemed to put together a couple of weaves that worked well.

As is often the case we tried some deep throws that stayed up too long and Devan and or Bob would track down and break up.

Conrad, who would be the first to tell you that he sometimes drops throws he has not business dropping, caught a couple passes yesterday I thought he had no business catching. One was a juggling catch that he started batting around mid field and caught just before going out of bounds on the sideline. Lizzy in her first day out laid out a couple times on some great hustle plays.

Kelly! Isn’t it great that you aren’t the only female playing anymore? Yesterday’s turnout of 4 women was the best that I can remember in a long time. And when you add yesterday’s additions to yourself, Bridgette, Annette, & Jeana, and if Carolyn can ever stop hurting herself and get back on the pitch, we’d have quite a women’s team.

So Joe, your worries yesterday morning when you RSVPd to the game invite about it possibly being a 3rd game in a row that you could play and then didn’t get enough players for turned out to be for naught. Plenty of Buzzards in the nest yesterday.

Just a reminder for those of you playing Wednesday night in our corporate league to go onto Roster Manager and confirm if you haven’t already. I think at last check I saw that we only had 9 confirmed players 6 men and 3 women. If you aren’t playing but just to come out and watch, bring family and friends and come cheer us on! Game time is 1830 at the polo fields. See Washington Area’s Frisbee club’s page for directions. Folks that are playing, be there at 1745 for rehearsal.

"Wings" is leaving the Runway.

Farewell Matt – We’ll miss your Hello Kitty, Hannah Montana, and Lizzy McGuire towels, your calling yourself in by one cone but not the other (that’s a straight line between two points right?), your cries of “Ball up!” even though we continue to play this game with discs, and your politically incorrect sense of humor always welcome on this pitch. It’s been great having you with the Buzzards and we wish you Fair Winds as you travel to Texas.

Yesterday, and the last couple days really were fitting weather to send off somebody to Texas. Consider yourself acclimated as the humidity has been oppressively heavy. Or as another Texan Buzzard put it “You know what they call this weather in Houston? Spring!” Well, in fact Brian, it’s still technically just spring here also.

The first day of summer does not come until the 21st which coincidentally or not will also be my first full day of waking up for two weeks at the beach in Kitty Hawk, NC. Not that I’m counting the days or anything.

Prior to beach trip though we have time for some great Ultimate (and I’m sure there will be some great games when I’m gone as well). We’ve been playing in front of bleachers the last couple of days out on the parade field. Well, I guess more accurately, we’ve been behind the bleachers. Now we probably all have some interesting “behind the bleachers” stories to tell but this blogger doesn’t really want to head down those clouded and time embellished lanes right now.

What has actually happened behind the bleachers, which we assume are set up on the parade field for some pass and review ceremonies coming up on Ft. McNair, is that we’ve had two big games. The Buzzards are on a roll lately and it’s been a rare occurrence when we haven’t had at least a dozen players out recently.

So yesterday, when there was a wicked thunderstorm going on about the time I was sending out the morning invite, I suspected the potential weather might scare away some players. And, in fact, the email RSVPs to the game were sparse. Only 9 confirmed players on the way out to the pitch for Matt’s final game. But, as has been the pattern lately, plan for at least an extra 25-30% to show up.

You know there is a saying in some other team sports that “speed kills”. Well I’m finding that “heat kills speed” and our sprinters like Leroy, and Devan were showing signs of that as I noticed them walking up the field several times yesterday. Kevin and I continue to do our best tortoise impersonations and Tom keeps wondering why I’m sticking all the “old and slow” guys on the same team.

May have dubbed Steve with a new nickname yesterday – “Gunn” not to be confused with his handling aptitude but his desire to walk off the “Runway” with his pinnie on. Many of you won’t get this reference and so I’ll refer you to Erick who did know the Project Runway host’s name which may have only been slightly less disturbing than the fact that I used it. He “at least had an excuse” he claimed by living in a house full of girls. I’m blaming mine on 123 Washington Ave. and Alexa, Kelsey, Margaret & Mary.

Speaking of pinnies! Today will mark the unveiling of the new pinnies for the Buzzards so come out and see the new colors as we retire the green and gold for something a little more organizationally inspiring (or if you prefer, they can be considered the colors of Virginia, Illinois, Florida, or some Scandinavian’s national soccer team which escapes me). At any rate, gone will be the plunging neckline and thong models of the gently worn pinnies we’ve used.

Looking forward to seeing you all in them. I’m not sure they make the Tim Gunn’s 10 Essential Elements list but I think we’ll look “mahhhhhhhrvelous”!

Record-setting day on the pitch

June was ushered in yesterday for the buzzards in record-setting fashion. For the first time in the “modern” Buzzards era and I suspect ever, there were enough people on the pitch yesterday for us to have two games going on simultaneously, next to each other. 24 players came out yesterday in fantastic weather!

That becomes a challenge to get everybody named and I don’t think I’ll even try. Want to mention just a couple though. First timers always get a warm Buzzard welcome and we want to extend one to a new Jason who joined us for the first time, courtesy of an invitation from Tom. Also, welcome back to the building and the Buzzards to Kelly. She had made some guest appearances while she was gone but we’re looking forward to having you out there on a regular basis with us again.

I called the game yesterday at 0805 when I already had 10 responses. That, in itself may have been another record for earliest time for a confirmed game. But a funny thing happens when you call the game that early, you don’t really hear from all the others that may be coming out (they figure they’ll just surprise you I guess). Well surprise it was when we finally ran out of pinnies to wear and realized we had way too many for just one game. Paul looked at the ground when I told him to grab gold and saw that the only pinnie left was the ripped up string bikini model.

Okay, change of plans – “Kevin, Todd, Bob, and somebody else…choose up 4 teams, I’m going to set cones up for another field” I said more people wandered out. So two games it was. Then at the half way point, we switched up teams and played another game.

Just a great day for the Buzzard Point Ultimate Club! Well done folks. Thanks for enthusiastic participation. Looking forward to a great summer of playing!

Birthday game

It wasn’t our typical Monday game yesterday which usually means a lot of sloppy passing and some trouble getting all the muscles to act in concert with each other to get up and down the field. But despite the pretty steady breeze we played in yesterday which alternatively knocked passes down a bit or carried them about 10 yards farther, play yesterday was pretty good.

It was a birthday game for Thunder. I forgot that until I got home and had Facebook remind me but Happy Birthday. I apologize for missing the opportunity for us to sing to you.

It was also a Welcome Back game for JQ. I had to clear him through customs and check his ID before letting back on the field. Something about school and Africa having kept him away for so long. You looked no worse the wear for the missed time, patrolling centerfield and picking off all the throws that hung up in the air too long.

We had another nice turnout yesterday. I think it made the 6th game in a row we’ve had attendance in the teens.

For those of you interested in getting some more Ultimate in this summer. Kevin is soliciting interested players for a Summer Corporate league run in conjunction with Washington Area Frisbee Club. Please let him know if you’re interested as we need to get registered fairly quickly with play starting in June.

Hope to get another great turnout today. Weather is going to be awesome again all week.

See you on the pitch!

15 and no rain!

Monday, 50% chance of rain was the disclaimer on the game invite yesterday morning to which I got varying responses…

“Monday Ultimate in the Rain? Of course I'm down for that. I think that's the only time you actually get a Yes response from me.” – Thunder

“Don't say "rain" or Jeana won't play (she's made of salt, apparently). There's a 50% chance of summer snow. I'm in.” – Kevin

“Yee haw a chance to get wet too!” – Brian

“What are you doing telling people it’s going to rain? Trying to keep them away?” – Matt

Well, as it turns out, the Pillar of Salt…aka Princess…aka Jeana did not show. My last IM on the way out the door was “It’s not raining”. To which I got a reply of not so cloaked cynicism.

“Not now”

Well, not then nor at all in fact through the whole game. It was cool, overcast, the grass was a little high but not really any standing water and the Buzzards came out en masse yesterday…15 of them!

We’d like to give a hearty Buzzards welcome to John joining us for the first time yesterday. He’ll be taking over for Scott in their office. That was the easy part of his check-in but as tasked, Thunder also told John his check-in included coming out for a game of disc. Okay John, so we may not technically be on your check-in sheet but thanks for giving us your time. We hope you had fun and will come back out.

Welcome back out to Steve and Tim who we hadn’t seen much of lately. Great to have you guys with us.

So with 15 I’m sure you’re thinking the pitch was a bit crowded, and it was but green seemed to get their short passing game working a little better than gold was able to for most of the game. I noticed they did a little better job of getting a handler on the disc for the first throw. Todd remarked that he rarely had to run much further down the field after he would make the first throw because the rest of his team was managing to get it up quickly.

Brad and Brian, in particular hooked up on a couple great looking pass and catch plays in the end zone despite what I thought was fairly decent defense.

It was a great day for Ultimate and a great week planned. For any of you who haven’t heard yet. Wednesday we have our first ever Buzzards Cookout planned. Thunder has taken the lead on this and will be acting Grill Master after our normal 1130 game. Many of the rest of you have volunteered to bring things and I want to thank everybody for their support. If you can get out and join us for the game or the cookout, come on out!

Thanks again for the great turnout yesterday! Besides those mentioned above, the usual cast of characters put on the green and gold…Tom, George, Conrad, Paul, & Jeff were all out there as well. Did I miss anybody? Because last time I did, I wound up writing the person their own column.

Going to be a great day today, see you on the pitch.

Pull!

The nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away

One of my favorite song writers once penned the words “You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away”. And that was very much how I felt many times yesterday thinking I was making a cut for where I needed to be for the disc only to discover there wasn’t much footing and indeed the more I was slip sliding away.

With the forecast yesterday morning, and for that matter all this week calling for rain, rain, and then some more rain, I was a little surprised to get such quick response yesterday morning. The first replies coming from the usual suspects, Todd, Kevin, & Bob. Then Brian, eager to play after missing a couple games last week, rogered up. Then Joe and I started thinking to myself “Ah, he’s hooked, to be replying so early for a certain rain game”.

Not so hooked was “Princess Tiarable” who replied “I’ll play if it’s not raining” which sounded like a no to me since I knew it would be raining. So I did what I normally to when I receive cryptically worded replies…handed it over to the kangaroo court for a quick decision. The court’s decision was something akin to “Nana nana boo boo, we double dog dare you to play”, which of course she could not ignore and after a game time start without her (which sparked talk of how best to penalize her) Jeana did indeed show up giving green the extra person yesterday (arguably to no avail).

Welcome back out to Mike who had exhausted his list of excuses (many making the all-time Top 10 lame list) like “I’m too skinny”, “I don’t have enough core strength” and “I’ve got a toastmasters meeting” and joined back up with the Buzzards…the equal opportunity fitness alternative where we don’t much care about body shape or size, or give a rip about core strength and get plenty of public speaking opportunities in the showers after the game.

Conrad and Bridgette rounded out our drenched disc denizens yesterday and we had a fun game with some highlights like sliding catches through puddles and some nice defensive knock downs. And some low lights like getting hit right in the center of the core and dropping it and a few missed throws that somehow got away. Speaking of throws…Bob did anybody else mention to you that you completed more junk yesterday then I’ve seen in a while? Which brings to mind two axioms that I find a certain amount of resonance in….1) It’s better to be lucky than good and 2) You make your own luck.

On the day when two amazing hat tricks would be recorded later at Verizon Center by Alexander the Great and Sid the Kid, Bob may have had his own hat trick of missed throws that wound up in somebody’s hands for scores.

So when most fair weathered sports are hoping for some sunshine, the Buzzards were finding voice in another songwriter’s lyrics (one I’m headed to see tonight!)

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

Meet me at Mary's place, we're gonna have a party

Meet me at Mary's place, we're gonna have a party

Tell me how do we get this thing started

Meet me at Mary's place

Yo Boss, see you at the JPJ tonight…

Yo Buzzards see you on the pitch today?

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?

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.

Stealing my paycheck today...

Wow, that was a lot of people. And Brian didn’t even show up. But 16 others did and we had a grand game of 8’s today.

Welcome back from the long lost to Joe. He’s a holdover from the old “Lonnie Days” of goals, lots of banging with the likes of Tom and Lindsay.

Also want to give a big Buzzard welcome to Amy, from Seattle. Great to have you join us today too. Tell Brad not to forget to shave tonight, he was looking way too scruffy to come back to work tomorrow.

Speaking of “back to work”, that is where nobody wanted to be headed after today’s game. Fantastic weather out on the pitch today. So good, that Todd tried to bait a few of us to leave work and head to the links. His lure? “I’ve got an extra set of clubs in the car, they’re women’s and in a pink bag.”

“Yea, but that’s better than work right?” I asked. Kevin said something unrepeatable about women’s clubs but I knew he wanted to leave also.

Paul was back out today sans ring. But still with those big furry gloves? We know they don’t work to keep jewelry on but after watching one of the grabs he made in the end zone today, I can’t really question him wearing them. Kevin also made a nice grab or two that Dennis classified as “larcenous” I believe.

I wish we could steal a bunch more days like this during this spring. It doesn’t get much better.