The Phoenix rises...

Okay, despite what the blog entries would indicate, the Buzzards did survive the Summer Corporate League Season and actually represented very well as we finished in the Final 4. We also survived the scorching weather for a couple weeks after that and have made it to this week, which for disc players, has been close to idyllic. Temperatures in the 70s and 80’s, slight breeze, and low humidity.

We had a great game of 7 on 7 yesterday. One of the few big games we’ve had here at work over the last month. And we had a good game on Monday as well. We aren’t going to miss out on this weather. I want to first of all welcome out some of the new players this summer that I have been remiss in mentioning in the blog perhaps. Want to give a big Buzzard welcome to Dan, Eve, Joe, MattM, Ron, & Pat. Great to have you all as additions to our roster. Dan comes to us as a referral from MattC who also came back to us on his return to HQ as a civilian. Matt your usual “finders fee” is in the mail. Eve comes to us from academia, she’s a local professor of International Studies (I think that’s what you told me) and a “neighbor” of Brad. We won’t hold that against you. Joe is a former player here at HQ back for a 2nd tour. He remembers the days of playing with the soccer goals, and uh, let’s say when this club used to play the “contact version” of Ultimate. He recognized the name of Lindsay and for those of you who remember the Mallard, that is really all you need to know about Joe. To his credit, be blended into this evolved state of disc here seamlessly and I didn’t seem him foul anybody. MattM is a disc player transferring in this summer and a welcome addition to the growing stable of handlers here. And finally Ron joins us admitting his experience has been in some bastardized version of Ultimate/Frisbee football probably resembling more what Joe remembers being played here. Pat is our newest addition, just joining us yesterday for the first time, dragged out by Paul. Let me just say that this is two summers running when we have perhaps added more talent than we have lost which of course is the essential key to this club’s survival.

That is not to say that we haven’t missed the players that have left us. And so as our way of saying so and saying thank you we just want to give a shout out to Phill, Scott, Hollan, Will, Mark, MattP, Swinny, Travis, Rodney, JasonK, JasonN, George, JQ, Alec, Leroy, Kashyap, and hell, even Lindsay. I’m sure I’m missing some folks. Please forgive me and if you’re actually reading this, drop me a line and we’ll get you special mention and maybe even dig up an old pic to post.

Back to yesterday’s game of 7’s. Great to have Eli back out with us. It had been a while since we played with this many people and the early part of the game looked like it as both teams struggled to find spacing. So when you’re having trouble finding horizontal space you sometimes look vertical and it was good to have Dan on the blue team yesterday as he made a couple nice grabs up above the heads of some defenders. Todd, for the orange also had the idea of getting vertical a couple times but then I wondered what Erick was whispering at him as he’d run toward Todd just as he was jumping and Todd didn’t seem convinced his legs weren’t going to be taken out from under him and short-armed both throws. But then he finally found some space on the edges and made a couple of really nice leading throws on cuts across the end zones to Kevin and Dennis where both times a defender was pretty close on the heels.

The rest of the crew yesterday was Bob, Steve, Matt, Paul, Pat, Bridgette, Ron, and yours truly. It was great weather and a great game. A couple of promotions to celebrate – Bridgette & Todd, congrats! Bridgette says hers may hamper her Ultimate playing availability so I’m not sure that’s a great thing for us but it’s good for her. Todd’s thankful the upcoming wedding to another adopted Summer Buzzard, Reagan now has another income source. Reagan, if you’re reading, I’d certainly try and get an extension on the honeymoon with this as consideration.

For the new folks playing and reading this via the blog, please check us out on Facebook. I can’t actually add the hyperlink from here at work since our LAN police have that site blocked. Use your iPhone though if you can’t wait until you get home.

Great to be back up here. Will try to be better about keeping you amused, bemused, confused or just used. I only want you for your flick.

Pull!

Armistice from the cube!

Tuesday holidays? Strange things…Does anybody use the word armistice anymore? Do any of the Buzzards readers know what the word means? I’ll save you the time of going to Dictionary or Webster’s dot com edition…it’s the “temporary suspension of hostilities” which is a strange thing to call the end of the “war to end all wars”. Temporary? It turns out to be rather prophetic as a generation later the world headed off to the sequel.

In all seriousness, I’d like to give a big Buzzard’s nod to all Veterans all over the world who have served their countries in hopes that their children and grandchildren would have a safer place to live. Personally speaking, I’m Bill, III and Bill Sr., was a Major in the 29th Infantry Division at D-Day and Bill, Jr., was a swabbie aboard ship around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On a lighter note, I’d like to give a nod to some Buzzard “Veterans” no longer playing with us regularly…Lonnie, Lindsay, Craig, JasonN, MattC, Kashyap, Lon, Justin, Derek, Conrad, Frank, Tag, Travis, KellyG, Bryan, CAPTK and I’m sure I’m forgetting others. Thanks for your dedication and participation.

“Guys that should be Veterans” should have been the name of the gold team on Monday. As I wandered out on the field Tom asked “Bill, why did you put all the slow guys on one team?”

I thought he said “…all the old guys” –

“yea, it could be either” he corrected, “or both, old and slow…anyway, we’re all on this side”. I looked up and down the line….Tom, Bob, Scott, Mark and I. Actually, I think Mark just looks old and slow, he was really the “baby” on the team but the rest of us were mostly guilty as charged.

“Don’t worry” I assured Tom, “I gave us all the wily guys too.” He looked over and saw Todd, Hollan, Tim, Bridgette, & MikeC on the green team and didn’t seem convinced. Then when Lee wandered out…by the way, was that his first time? Welcome…just one point of rules…you can’t knock the disc out of anybody’s hands. We know you didn’t know that so we let you just celebrate it. As I was saying…Lee came out and I told him to throw green on too and Tom thought I had lost all of my limited faculties.

Turns out, wily was working on Monday. Even a player short we managed to control the game hitting on a couple timely long passes and basically working the field. It didn’t hurt that Hollan was recuperating from a bout of food poisoning (re: hangover?). Of course he gets points for coming out. Phil, reportedly having similar symptoms stayed safely inside.

MikeC ~ we’ve got to get you to learn to run with your hands down. Does anybody else get scared when they see Mike running by them with his arms waving frantically and him yelling something while having no chance of catching up to the disc? It reminds me of when I used to coach my daughter’s softball team. You have to persuade the outfielders they can run faster for a ball with their glove down and then stick it up when they get there. Just teasing you Mike...keep running...keep screaming...keep having fun.

Initially when we went out on Monday, people thought they had underdressed and Todd & Hollan considered going back in for long pants. Forecasts of varying wind strengths had circulated. One said 3 mph and another 15 mph. It was closer to the latter on the way out but by about mid game it had settled down to the other and the temperatures were quite pleasant. These days in the 50’s are really ideal Ultimate weather.

Other new players to welcome out of late have been Jeana & Rachel. Hope you all have had fun and will be back out with us. A few of you haven’t been out in a while but have played a lot in the past. I know some of you are injured but I just wanted to let you know the Buzzards were thinking about you from time to time…MattP, MattD, Brady, Eric, and ErikN. And then some of you are just hanging around on a distribution list and really have no good excuse for not coming out.

Come on! Think of it as a “work armistice” ….temporary cessation of hostilities of your cube.
Pull!

Farewell KellyG!

Tuesday was Kelly’s last game with us as she is leaving HQ. It was a good game to leave on. We had 15 people out there, overcast, not too hot, and NO SOFTBALL!

It’s nearing the end of transfer season and the Buzzards have done well. We certainly miss Swinny, Travis, MattC, Frank, JasonN and others but we have reloaded well. A bunch of new people have joined us this summer…I don’t know whether or not they’ve been here and just not playing or have transferred in but welcome to Bo, Mike, Dan, BobH, JasonK (back for a 2nd stint), George, Brian, Erik, Fred, Will, Eric, Paul, & Mark. Adding at least a dozen new players and only losing a handful works out to a really nice surplus as evidenced by the 8 on 7 game we had Tuesday.

Anybody else notice when you play with that many that you don’t get a lot of cross the field passes completed through traffic. I ripped one loose the other day to realize MattP was standing between me and where I wanted the disc to go. I saw Thunder and Kevin also finding several passes unintentionally coming there way.

Ultimate gets a good cross over from other sports as we have drawn from Flag Football, Soccer, Volleyball & Softball and whenever you get players from those other sports you make some prejudgments as to their strengths based on that. The football guys tend to have good field vision, the volleyball folks know how to position and jump, the softball players adjust well to discs in the air, and the soccer folks run and run some more. Then in Ultimate those skills start melding together and you find guys like Fred on Tuesday…a soccer guy if I’m not mistaken, finding his grip all of a sudden and pulling down everything thrown to him on Tuesday.

With that many people we, on the green team at least, attempted to run a few things from the stack and that worked with varying degrees of success. One of the things we did seem to do pretty well was to utilize the dump pass. In fact one of the new guys, Mike, used it quite well on at least 4 occasions that I noted. Never mind Rodney’s whining Mike. Anytime he doesn’t get the disc on a play he thought he should have he gets a bit agitated. We’ve learned to just ignore him. If some of you want to see some fairly simple diagrams of stack plays as well as some other useful basic info, check out the U of Oregon’s Ultimate Basics page.

Looks like another great weather day for us today. Hope to have a good game.

Pull!

Chiefly addition, playing for 2, & losing traction

Submitted by Bill

Great numbers toward the end of last week. On Wednesday we had a ridiculous 16 come on out. Much of the regular cast but a new face also. Welcome out Jorge. Another Chief is always welcome. Devin also came out for the first time since last summer and we took turns chasing him around. 8 on 8 is a lot of players. You’ve really got to have your short passing game on and some semblance of order and being able to run from a stack. We’ll have to have a skills practice or two sometime soon maybe.

Thursday I missed but I hear there were another 12 out there including Bryan’s wife and their child to be.

Friday was a rain game. Well, actually it had stopped by the time we got out there and we got a nice turn out (for a rainy Friday) of 8. They dynamics are crazy different from playing with 8 players on a team to only 8 on the field. I was apologizing ahead of time to my team for stacking the opposing gold team with more speed but as it turned out…erroneously so. Todd, Tom, Frank & I actually looked like the running team on many occasions as we found a nice formula…Todd and I would make the first couple passes then hit Tom or Frank on a medium length pass and let those two give and go it into the end zone. In fact, we ran Tom silly in the end zone from side to side on Friday. Tom was showing off the other aspects of his game this week (throwing & running) to become that renaissance player. Despite Rodney’s claims of goon play the week before.

Phil, Bob, Hollan & Conrad couldn’t quite get gold all on the same page Friday. I told Bob, who had been showing off some speed earlier in the week “that he must have run his tank low” by Friday’s game. Conrad was planning a trip to the sports store for the weekend to cleat shop after his third or fourth fall in the wet grass.

Today looks like it may be the best day of the week to play as rain and thunderstorms move in on Tuesday & Wednesday. So let’s get out and have a great game today.

Got an email from Travis late Friday afternoon…made it safely to Massachusetts and sends along his greetings to the Buzzards. Oh, and another reply to the historian that chalks up his initial attendance to Annette. Travis says he remembers her first email invite after she took over the list. Stand up and take a bow Annette (oh, you are standing).

Running on empty...it's too late for me

Submitted by Bill

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheelsLooking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields.

I could hear Jackson Browne’s melodic Southern California style ringing in my ears yesterday as I returned to the field after more than a week away and struggled to find my wind. Of course, that wasn’t the worst of it. In my misrepresentation of my own running potential I must have evaluated some others on our green team similarly and when Todd lined up for the first pull and looked down the line to see who would be “running” with him he must have been discouraged not only to find he was a player short but that there weren’t a lot of chasers there on his side.

After the game, Phil remarked “Well, you had a lot of handlers…” and to be sure we had a very nice team of handlers yesterday. Of course, the handlers can’t just all hang back and throw to themselves in the middle of the field all day long and our inability to cut and slash and run vertically caused some problems yesterday. The lack of running was not limited to the offense and we let a lot of runners by us on the defensive side as well.

I called the game with 8 responses yesterday and then Wings came out after we secretly sabotaged the football game by having his boss call a meeting and then excusing himself at the last minute…okay, we’re not quite that conniving…or smart for that matter. So we had 9 confirmed on the way down to the locker room. I saw Swinny as I was leaving and that made 10 and then got out to the field and Paul had wandered out as well. That gave us the 6 on 5 game and for some reason I thought putting Phil, Swinny, Paul & the “sneaky fast” trio of Bob, MattC & Wings on one side seemed equitable.

Myself, Tim, Thunder & Shadow are more “bursty fast” which is to say we have bursts of speed surrounded by a lot of, um, “field stagnation” leaving Todd to wonder whether to cover Phil or Swinny each time down and playing the odds that Tim or I might be able to stay with the other for a play or two. Even when Lon wandered out and gave us and even 6 on 6, we seemed to have problems tying 3 or 4 completed passes together or marking all our men at one time.

Give gold credit for realizing this and making several nice short pass drives up the field and playing some good D. I told Bob on one trip down the field that usually I could just toss the disc up and count Todd being able to out hustle a defender to the disc but after watching a lazy pass into the end zone get quickly double teamed and drop to the ground I realized that I’d have to do a better job placing the disc.

You know each game seems to bring something unique to the field and yesterday was no exception. While setting up the cones we noticed a nice surprise toward the middle of one side of the field…a pile of horse crap! So, we deployed a couple extra cones and had the added bonus of aromatherapy. I think I may need to switch to jasmine, juniper berries or patchouli today because yesterday’s scent was too indicative of the way I played.

I want to take a minute to offer a hearty Buzzard farewell to another regular. Yesterday was Travis’ last day at HQ, and in fact, in the Coast Guard. As one of the few guys who could actually run with Swinny on a regular basis, you’ll be sorely missed. We wish you the best as you head to MIT to get more geekier. We hope to see you on their Team Page in the future.

Good idea of the day ~ Phil making sure to have a 120’x40’ yard field mowed at his vineyard for the annual Ultimate Vine Invitational ~ “Now, pulling for the Shiraz team, Thunder”… “Oh, what a layout by Swinny of team Reisling” Quick, respond now with your favorite grape and start recruiting your players

It’s good to be back Buzzards.

Doctor my eyes
Tell me what is real
I hear their cries
Just saying "It's too late for me"

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!

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!

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.

The Wind Blew In!

It was a great turnout yesterday for a chilly and windy day! In fact, we have some new award recipients for the Wind Ribbon. Only MattP on the gold team yesterday already had his so we added his teammates Travis, Eric, Conrad & Frank. And on the green team, Bryan and Lon picked up their ribbons and were playing with Todd, Bill, & Bob who already had played in 25+ winds which may have explained the big lead they shot out to early in yesterday’s game.

The disc was dancing all over the place though and it was a gusty wind so we actually had many (okay, some) instances of being able to complete long passes between gusts. Todd connected on a few to Bryan and myself (800mg Motrin has been a miracle cure!) and Conrad hauled in a long one as well. Mostly though, both teams were more successful with the short passing game (which I think neutralized Frank). Not the really short passes like when Conrad took one in his ear but the more “medium short” passes. Because at other times Eric was sailing one through the SE endzone corner multiple times in a strange jet stream and Todd, when not completing long passes, was throwing it in the ground.

I saw at least 4 hammer passes completed yesterday, maybe more. I think MattP & I each threw one for a score and there were others. Interesting that pass would be somewhat effective in that kind of wind. Especially for me since I can not usually throw it where I want it on a calm day.

Tried to run the “39 go” play a few times today with varying degrees of success. Speaking of that, good to have Lon back on the field. He and Swinny had checked the same weather report thinking it was going to be in the 50’s and had been lured out to find temps down in the 20’s with the wind chill. So thanks to everyone who did come out anyway because 5 on 5 is a nice game.

As we head to the weekend the Chief Buzzard will be headed to the mountains for a little hiking and photography. However, if you’re so inclined to stay home and take in some indoor activities I’ll give you my weekend preview…

Quick Buzzard’s-eye view on the world of sports…NFL: Commissioner is in town speaking to Congress about drugs in his sports…ironically, Kevin Faulk of the Patriots was in Louisiana hangin’ with his peeps at a Lil Wayne concert and got cited for “simple possession”…nice poetic juxtaposition there pigskin league…speaking of better living through medication…how ‘bout “The Rocket”? The latest on the Clemens saga is that his wife and the ex of Jose Canseco allegedly had an implant show and tell at a Canseco party. Ah the life styles of the rich and famous. March Madness is not quite upon us…check back next week or so and I’ll be starting to get excited. The gear heads are in Las Vegas this weekend…Look for Toyota to get its first win.

Not in the mood for sports viewing…I’ve watched several movies on DVD in the last couple weeks I would recommend with varying degrees of enthusiasm…Knocked Up if you’re feeling nostalgic about some friends you haven’t spoken to since college…Fantastic Four 2...okay outside of Jessica Alba in a jumpsuit, there's not a lot of redeeming value here…if you’re in the mood for an adventure sequel, I’d steer you towards Spiderman 3, Pirates – At World’s End, or X-Men: The Last Stand instead. Want a good sports movie? Invincible has been out a while but is a decent flick based on a true story…and if you need a good, hmmmm, how should I say this? Uh, let’s say something on the more relationship based…romantic comedy side then No Reservations I thought was pretty enjoyable.

Doesn’t look like we’re going to get enough to play today which is too bad. Now I’ll be forced to choose between flag football and studying for my class.

Fly high Buzzards.

Peering out the window...

I feel like the little kid who wants to go out and ride his bike but he’s looking out the living room window…you know with your nose mashed up against it so your mom will be cleaning who knows what off of it later…and it’s doing nothing but raining.

I considered calling for a game anyway this morning since it was supposed to be relatively warm. But I got in this morning, hung over from a night in the classroom listening to 4 hours of discussion on Education philosophers, I just put down a big country breakfast, and I’m still suffering the after affects of almost getting skunked yesterday…plus none of the other Buzzards were clamoring via email for a game to be called…so “the better part of valor is discretion” or some such Shakespearean nonsense has won out today. But I will…already do actually…miss playing.

So, the story of the “almost skunk” you ask? Well, pairing up yesterday I thought I had broken up the teams equitably…Todd on one…Phil on the other…separated Bryan and Travis so they could run each other into the ground and then through myself, Bob, Justin, & Frank into a hat and just tossed out green & gold pinnies, with Frank & Bob joining Visor & Swinny on the green and the other 4 of us pulling on the gold. Looked “fairly even”…or so I thought.

First of all, it took about 10 minutes for either team to score. That may not be an exaggeration at all. There were seriously at least 3 or 4 possessions each up and down the field with nobody even sniffing the end zone. Finally green busted through with the first score. I bone headed the next pull and gave them the disc on the goal line for the next score and then…4 more unanswered scores for green. By my count it was 6-0…it could have been more…and we were literally 20-25 minutes into the game. I muttered something about wondering what a skunk was as we got ready to receive the next pull and unbeknownst to me, Swinny was asking his teammates on the other end if we had even scored yet….that’s when DK set it. You know Disc Karma….yea, don’t mess with that.

On the very next pull, we got all 4 guys to touch the disc, made some very sharp crossing passes and give and go’s and got right in for green’s first score. That was about as good as it got for us the rest of the game. We held our own I suppose and the defense on both sides seemed to be…uh, generally speaking…a little tighter yesterday. We tried the “Force Flick” on D against Swinny most of the game and he beat us for a couple flick scores and even tried out his Hammer. All in all, though there was some debate about this as we came off the field, it beat being in the cube.

Enjoy the day of rest. Get ready for tomorrow, I’m not sitting inside again.

Sponge Game

Many years ago, way before Lance Armstrong starting winning Tours De France and bicycle makers began stripping off every extra piece of equipment that might drag on the wind, back when Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman were known for their roles in “One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Electric Company”, respectively, back when you could get away wearing stripes with plaid together…

Well, back then, bicycles came with fenders. You know why? So, when you rode on wet pavement, you wouldn’t have this splatter streak up the back of your pants and shirt. Well, today was a bicycle fender kind of day on the Ultimate field. Particularly for people like Travis and Phil, who actually run hard. The field was very soggy and muddy. Actually, I suspect I may even have had the splatter marks since at one point when Kelly was marking me, she remarked “Wow, you’re muddy!”

I have a couple confessions both of which you could verify with my mom. One, I like to play in the mud, and two, I have worn stripes and plaid together before, probably with patches no less.

Today was a spongy game. green started off slow and the gold team of Phil, MattP, Brook, & Kelly got off to an early lead by navigating the mud holes more efficiently and making shorter throws and less cuts. The green team of Travis, Eric, Scott & Bill couldn’t seem to find their spacing very well, I threw 3-4 right in the mud where Scott informed me none of the rest of the team was running and we basically floundered around for a while before going on a small run in the 2nd half of the game and taking advantage of Travis’ speed, Eric’s reach, and Scott’s surprisingly quick defense.

“I’m getting to where my legs aren’t killing me every day after I play”, said Scott, spoken like a true Ultimate addict…er, uh…convert.

Well, BrianT, has come out this week, now Kelly. Geez, maybe Lindsay & Bob will show back up at some point. I haven’t read any news stories about a Chevy Impala being carjacked only to find it was being used as a bedroom or of any skullers in the Williamsburg area arrested in a bar fight with the William & Mary women’s hockey team so I’m guessing those two are alive, if not altogether well.

Great weather today…72 at game time, breezy but no where need the stiff winds that were being predicted. Heck, I even decided to have the egg salad. Don’t tell my van pool.

See you tomorrow.

By the way, Todd mentioned there may have been some “odious missteps” on the Ultimate Juke Box playlist. If you have some requests, I’ll see what I can do about including them.

Play nice everybody.

Super Fat Tuesday Game Day

Was it actually humid yesterday? Seems hard to believe but in the first week of February we were all in shorts and short sleeves and actually very warm yesterday during the game. Today is supposed to be even warmer.

While the temperature was great yesterday, the play was not…well at least not for the green team who, despite being a player up for the first part of the game, was getting beaten by gold’s quickness and accurate passing. Chasing Kash, Travis & Phil around is not ever easy but when you put me, Wings & MattC on the same team…well, we aren’t the fleetest of foot perhaps. Visor & Swinny were looking for spare parts.

So, it was a good turnout. CaptK & Conrad also joined us. Brook was a no-show…though he was careful to have an email waiting for me when I got back to the cube letting me know it was the first time he’d ever responded for a game and didn’t come out…and as far as I can remember, he’s right.

I understand the game on Monday featured new or returning players. Welcome BrianT & Chris. In fact I got emails from newer or resuming players yesterday saying Monday’s game needed recovery time before they could come back out.

Today should test your throwing skills if you venture out. The wind is supposed to be near 20mph. Don’t be intimidated though…that’s why Ultimate is played with that 175 grams of plastic…it can be done. So grab a friend or co-worker and come on out today. We’ll be missing a few regulars so we need some of you other, less frequent, or better yet new players, to come join us.

Happy belated Fat Tuesday Buzzards and readers…it was a Super Tuesday as well and while I’ll probably try and refrain from making any obviously partisan political comments here from time to time I may appeal to your social conscience as a citizen. For those of you that call the metro area home, the Maryland, D.C. & Virginia primaries are next week…get to your polls.

6-pack day...

Two days in a row of Ultimate in January! Maybe we’re turning the corner. Today was not for the faint of heart. In fact a new award was established today in recognition of the honor, respect, devotion to duty, and not enough sense to stay out of the wind exhibited by that special breed of player that has kept BPUC going on its lean days. “The 6-Shooter” award is given to those knowing we were only going to have 3 on 3 and knowing that the wind would be gusting at least around 25 mph when they came out and still playing.

Brook, Kashyap, Todd, Tom, Travis & Bill ~ Well done!

The initial plan was to shorten the field some to compensate for the sparse turnout and high winds. Somehow, I missed the dimensions brief and set up my end zone even bigger than normal and several points took advantage of the deep space on the south end of the field.

It had been a while since we’d had a good mugging but that ended when the two tights wearing Buzzards got tangled up in the normal sized end zone. I sent Todd sprawling to the ground and he almost caught in anyway before I continued tumbling over his head. Maybe a slight charley horse but no cleats to the head or groin areas so we just called the foul and then they failed to convert after the penalty.

Otherwise, Todd, Tom & Travis (Triple T) worked a short passing game fairly well and got Travis loose for a few of his sprints and scores.

Bill & Brook couldn’t seem to hit Kashyap on similar sprints with Todd loping behind with his considerable wing span. Kash did flick a nice toss to the corner on one score that I was actually able to hold on to the disc and drag my feet in at the same time.

The wind created a couple interesting plays. On one score Brook and Travis were in the end zone vying for a pass when we suddenly heard Travis yell “Where is the disc?” That’s usually a good sign for the other player and it was in this case and Brook came down with the score. On a similar play later in the endless end zone both players seemed to lose the disc and it descended right on top of Brook’s bean. Unfortunately, we found out he catches better with his hands than his head.

On another interesting play, I used my ultra-intimidating stall count to send Tom to the ground as he tried to pivot for position. Might have been the best defense I played all game…or maybe even the only defense though I think I got my hands on a couple other passes. Hard to hide with only 6 players.

I know we’re competing with Flag Football tomorrow but with a forecast of mid-40’s and sunny, let’s see if we can end January with a trifecta of game days.

The Mud Bowl

~ first guest blog account...from Rodney.

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Once the solicitation email went out on a rainy Friday immediate responses were received to my surprise. We had Visor (which came in handy with the rain), Mallard, Phil, Kash, Rodney, Scott, Matt, and Travis.

The walk to the field was what I consider to be the longest walk yet. I figured by the time we got to the field the rain would stop and all would be well, but I think it only got harder.

The field was set and the teams were good to go. Play commenced and so did the mud! I must say that the field was worse than I thought it would be. 5 out of the 8 of us had cleats and the poor 3 that didn’t were all over the place. Travis and Mallard were slipping and sliding like they were trying out for the Olympic Figure Skating team.

Phil threw a short pass to Mallard about 6 inches behind his impressive reach and there went Mallard sliding on his shoes like a barefoot water skier would on a sunny day in FL. Then as impressive was his skiing so was the crash on to the muddy field.

Needless to say when the game was finished so was the field. The players had more mud than clean spots and not a dry piece of clothing existed.

All in all it was a great game. A rainy, muddy day on the Ultimate field is better than a dry good day in the cube!!!!

Today’s Forecast: Around 40 degrees, light breeze at 8 mph, steady rain and mud…. perfect. Game on!

"...all sorts of Frank's parts..."

…that was the explanation from one of the Buzzards as to why he wasn’t able to catch a particular pass in the end zone today. Apparently there was just a “little” contact. And that was what much of the rest of the game was like as well. Just a lot of incidental (or not so) contact here and there. I’m not sure whether that’s attributed to the soggy field or the return to play after a couple weeks off.

Never the less, the weather was fantastic, we had 5 on 5, and weren’t in the cube so life was good.

Mandolin & Boom Boom took one for the team and took 3 hour lunches so that we could have the big game and they could also meet their subsequent dodgeball commitment. Matt D, did you recruit any new Ultimate players while you were over there or was it just a poor excuse not to be throwing discs today?

By the way, I got positive hits on APBs put out on Mallard & Bob. Between rants about Baton Rouge and wishing he was a non-rate again I culled from my conversation with Lindsay that he’d been traveling some and his current employer wasn’t exactly being sympathetic to his Ultimate schedule. Bob is awaiting signature on a contract so he can get paid to be back in the building. Hopefully we’ll see those two members of the “Ensure” team soon.

Elliot appeared out of nowhere yesterday and it was good to have him back on the field. My addiction to the long throw was fed by a dubious team matchup yesterday that had Frank aka “Endzone” always deep whenever I turned with the disc as well as Brook and Todd who kept tempting me enough with long runs that I just kept giving in…

The gold team had the runners yesterday with Travis & Mandolin but it didn’t translate into a lot of deep hucks for points. Two points of observation here; even if you have two guys that out run everybody else on the field, somebody has to be able to make that throw and if Kash is throwing long, he can’t always be running long. Worked out for good math for the green team if we could have only stopped turning it over on our first and second passes.

Some other observations…if we want to start playing like an actual organized team at some point (clearly hypothetical at this juncture)…Boom Boom, you only have one pivot foot and as soon as you lift that 2nd foot you have traveled, never mind lifting the first one again and then the second one again.

Phil, you could probably have called a couple fouls on me yesterday when I was marking you. Given time for reflection I don’t think I gave you proper “disc space” one diameter of the disc away. However if this is solely caused by movement of the thrower, then it is not considered a marking foul.

Wings – In answer to your question a while back, I think it is generally accepted that the marker should be within 3 meters (that’s 9 feet for you non-Canadians or roughly two Mandolin lengths if he was laid out in front of you) before a Stall count can begin. Of course, if you’re playing with a 1-player advantage I think anybody should be able to initiate the count from anywhere.

As far as offensive formations go…the spread offense may work well in college football but until we get to start playing a Big Ten defense in Ultimate we might consider packing in our formations a bit from the start of play in a vertical line rather than horizontally across the field or just cluster scattered all over the field with Endzone 60 yards away taking away one receiver all together.

Today’s Forecast: Around 50 degrees, light breeze at 5 mph…perfect. Game on!

Return of the Buzzards

I understand, with the New Hampshire primaries and the Joe Gibbs’ retirement that the Buzzards return to Ultimate this week may have flown under the news radar. However, the return after what seemed like an interminable holiday respite, was very welcome. It helped that the D.C. area has had almost record warm temperatures the last couple days.

Turnout was a little sparse yesterday though. Initially only a 3 on 3 game loomed but Phil & Kashyap dragged their boss, Scott out of the office and then an 8th showed up after about 20 minutes and saved the gold team from running 3 on 4. It was obvious that Phil had explained the gist of the rules to Scott because he thought poking me in the eye was a perfectly legitimate defensive strategy early in the game.

You have to love the surprises you always get in a game of Ultimate and we all enjoyed witnessing the two shortest pulls of recent memory, by Todd of all people. In trying to fairly report the facts, I’ll note that they were against a slight breeze and it looked like he might have been trying a new throw (the 65 yard roll pull) but neither throw came close to approaching that yardage and we actually got some extra rest in walking down to pick up the disc that lay much closer to the pullers.

Kashyap may have earned himself a new nickname… "Mandolin” as he came out with a heavily taped finger and wearing one glove to protect a wound suffered at the blade of that dreaded kitchen gadget…not the small guitar-like instrument. I'm not sure what's harder to imagine, him slicing julienned carrots or playing the Orange Blossom Special.

The field was a little soggy yesterday and I enjoyed sliding around some and bringing a couple layers of mud back in with me. Even with cleats the traction was questionable. Just ask Phil, who, when getting ready to make a cut, found himself completely sprawled out with his face in the mud, nobody within 10 yards of him.

The holiday toxins, in the forms of turkey, spiral ham, marshmallow covered yams, 15 dozen cookies, Merlot, Riesling, and a nice new Cab-Franc, began to drain from the body after a few trips up and down the field. The rested upper leg tendon reminded me it didn’t get enough rest and required a hot bath last night but it was great to be back on the field.

Thanks to Travis & Rodney who have tried, with moderate success, calling games in my absence. Let’s enjoy these unusual temps before winter returns next week.

Pull!

'ol man Winter

Okay, winter is here! Well, not officially maybe. That will be this coming Saturday, the 22nd. But the weather conditions over the last week have been winter. I had a winter league game on Sunday in Charlottesville. Read the game recaps of the Dark Grey vs Green where we finally won our first game.

The wind carried over into Monday and since I had forgotten the clean pinnies and was still trying to recover from a wicked case of face chap wind burn, we bagged the game here at McNair. Then yesterday, the winds abated and the lure of having fresh photography up on the blog, we managed to get 10 players to come out. Even though it was in the low 30’s, there was little wind and sunshine and wound up being a great game. Anybody else notice that field is starting to get chewed up though? Even with cleats, traction was tough yesterday as it was pretty wet, especially in the middle near the north end zone.

Many thanks to Bob for coming out and photographing us. As I was going back through the pics on the digital camera I was laughing to myself. Bob found out what my girlfriend, Mary experienced a couple weeks ago trying to photography Ultimate…it’s difficult to follow the action closely and get heads, feet, and the disc in the shot at the same time. Bob finally went with the strategy to zoom all the way out and hope I could edit them on the computer. I’ll let you be the judge of the results. I will be posting those soon...as soon as I can edit them, I'll put them up.

Frank was back on the field yesterday…well on parts of the field…usually the end zones. Bryan kept turning around after a turnover to use one of his patented sprints up the field, only to see Frank already drifting around the end zone waiting for the long huck. While green had a couple long scores here and there with that strategy, the gold team of Mallard, Rodney, Travis, Conrad, & Phil were a bit more consistent early on and worked the disc up nicely with short passes back and forth.

Green finally began to find some rhythm late in the game with some short cuts and a loose attempt at running some from a stack (hey, if you’re learning the terms, we might as well use them). And Wings made a stellar vertical leap (unfortunately not caught on film) for the game’s final point.

My personal favorite yesterday was the stretch of two deflected scores off of Rodney yesterday where I managed to bounce the disc off of one of his hands and into the waiting arms of Frank and Bryan. Todd was moving around a bit slowly yesterday complaining of something having to do with a tackle football game he had played over the weekend…note to Buzzards…stay away from tackle football, or as Bob can testify to, any football at all really. We can get hurt easily enough out here, we don’t need you increasing the risk factor playing other sports (as if there really are any other sports).

See you all out there today. Special game time of 1100 to accommodate one of our regulars who claims to have a meeting with mandatory attendance at 1300.

Green & Gold Addendum

U. of Vermont…home of the Chill & Ruckus the men’s & women’s Ultimate teams.

There’s a little school called Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. Their colors are “Coastal Green & Bronze” which is close to ours but we could all play on the same field and easily be able to tell the difference. They do have an Ultimate Club though. And the school mascot is a “Chanticleer” (that’s rooster to you and me) which may have more in common with a Buzzard then a Sea Wolf.

There are also the Baylor Bears which have the same nickname as our Coast Guard Academy but share colors with the Buzzards.

Great game this afternoon! We had 13 players and would have had an official 14 if we hadn’t been stood up by “Altar” (that’s as in ‘left at’), aka Kelly. She tried to throw me a bone by sending me an email (from her TREO 3 minutes after start time) saying her “plans had changed” and by giving me another name to add to the distribution list. And all Ican say there is Jason you’re working from a “guilty by association” already.

We had to start late today because of a baby shower. Yes, you read that right. Mallard where is your friend who thinks we’re a bunch of mid-life testosterone overdosed wannabes? We actually delayed our start time so that the lovely couple of MacKash could attend the shower, which they had to sneak out of early anyway.

Nutrition hint of the day: Don’t eat two chili dogs before game time. The normally gazelle-like Travis was trying to shake off the effects of Hormel & Oscar Meyer all game.

Welcome back off the DL to Annette. Okay, so she wasn’t completely in game shape. I last heard/saw her saying “I got him” as Rodney jogged up the side of the field, and then I turned to see him 20 yards behind her in the end zone. This is the same Rodney who is also coming off a leg injury and is not, how shall we say this, the swiftest of Buzzards. Kash even had to shake off a week and half’s absence as the first two discs thrown his way bounced off his hands.

Still, for the 2nd day in a row, the team with a 1-player disadvantage probably got the best of the game. Upper 60’s, partly sunny, soft field…it was paradisiacal from an Ultimate standpoint today no matter what side of the score you wound up on. And like the “Great Train Missing Duck” is fond of saying “A bad day of Ultimate is still better than a good day in the cube”.

By the way, when did “Taters” stop becoming an anatomical description and start being the “Winged One’s” new nickname?