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.