Ultimate Dozen

There are a lot of great things that comes in sets of twelve, or dozen if you prefer. Some that come to mind for me right off are a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts…having recently “passed” another Coast Guard weigh-in, they can go back on the diet a little more often…do you know there is one of the old original KK factory stores in Richmond. You can go there and watch them rolling off the lines and get them hot…it’s pure ecstasy. There is also Horace Mann’s Twelfth Annual Report on Education. This will be incredibly obscure and probably unknown to most of you but I feel compelled to mention it since I had to read it during this current class I’m taking and much of the excuse I’ve given to not keeping this blog updated more often. There is, of course, the classic film The Dirty Dozen, of which may actually have some interesting application to the characters of this blog and we may address that later…how about a 12-pack of ice cold adult beverages? Realizing, I am way down the food chain of Buzzards as beer coinsures (maybe they’ll offer up a comments for some I’ve missed) here are maybe my top dozen brews, in no particular order…Amstel Light, Wiked Pete’s Summer Brew, Rogues American Amber Ale, St. Pauli’s Girl, Sam Adams Pale Ale, Anchor Steam, Schlitz (has an inexplicable dorm room nostalgia feel to it…I offer no excuses)…and you know what, I don’t think I can ramble off another 4 impressive ones so I’ll leave that to Todd, Swinny, Phil et al…I like the Twelve Days of Christmas, not the song mind you, but the actual days…I’m a holiday kind of guy and it’s a great excuse to bake desserts…but of course the best 12 is a dozen Buzzards flocking about in the sunshine for a game of Ultimate.

It was a fabulous turnout and game yesterday. Early on, it looked like a fairly even match up but for some reason the green team never really clicked and the gold team of Bryan, Bob, MattC, MattP, Hollan, Scott just found its groove and spanked us. Half this team is in recovery from some sort of injury, knees, calves, shin splints, hamstring…but you would not have know it from the way they kept getting open. The green team was definitely the more winded as Bill, Lon, Conrad & Frank kept watching their guys go by them. We stuck Todd with Bryan who complained after the game that he “didn’t get to run enough with 6’s” ….poor guy. Green also had a new Buzzard out on the field…Tim. He more than held his own showing that could both catch & throw as Scott observed…sometimes on the same play which can be a rare occurrence for us.

The first Ultimate cookout is in the planning stages. Hope to have something on the calendar in the next few days so stay tuned and be ready to tell your supervisor that you’ll be headed out for a game of Ultimate and then a cookout…estimated time back in the cube, uh, tomorrow morning.

It's a 10!

Ten! Not in the Bo Derek sense mind you (do people still know who she is or was?) but 10!!!!

We had a great game of 5 on 5 yesterday with two fairly evenly paired teams in beautiful sunshine and in the upper 50’s. Even missing many of the “regulars” the Buzzards managed to round up a great game of …well mostly regulars…which makes me ask…hmmmm, if all the regulars came out how many would we have?

Scott, perhaps the newest addition to “regular” status found that when you play with Todd, you get rewarded for all your running and cutting generally and found himself on the receiving end of many a score yesterday for the green team. It was nice to have Eric & CAPTK back out with us. Both are very good handlers who will get you a throw if you will get open.

Jason found himself out for a 2nd day in a row (separated by a weekend but 2 in a row none the less). When was the last time you were able to swing that? He must have felt buoyed by the fact that he made some of the few good throws for our team last Friday.

Rodney & I played a little game of bump & run yesterday with some friendly contact in this non-contact sport. But with two old and slow guys, bump & run is not usually that dangerous.

Two of my favorite plays from yesterday…who threw that disc half way down field that bounced off Frank’s chest? Hey, flatten that thing out some! Also, I may have found the key to slowing down Todd…when you’re running down the field with him, step on the back of his cleats (you know the old flat tire trick from middle school?). I managed to de-cleat him wrestle the disc away and make a throw to the end zone. I don’t often get that chance is why I’m going on about it.

Hey Tom! Quick…how many pivot feet do you get? :)

On the way back in yesterday the Buzzards had their own little “Sorkinese” comedy of walking banter on this week’s visit of the Pope to National’s Stadium. Just a little good natured irreverence but no lightening strikes. I guess the “Big Guy” has more important things to worry about…like polygamy in San Angelo,Texas; Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and of course this fiasco about the Harry Potter Lexicon…we were probably flying under the radar.

The weather is going to be great all week. There were even hints of a Friday BBQ for the BPUC. More to follow if that pans out.

Let’s have another great turnout today!

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.

Old guys holding their own...

Sunny day, new players, 5 on 4…good day for Buzzards Ultimate.

We continue to enjoy the spring-like weather even though we’re still technically in winter. Thanks to MattP for selling Ultimate to his Flag Football corps on days they don’t play. We got some cross-over yesterday as Hollan came out and joined us. Welcome! And not to blow too much smoke up…well anyway, one of the better Ultimate debuts we’ve seen in a while (once he realized 10 seconds is a long time)…dude can run!

Speaking of runners, who was the ringer that came in at halftime? Rumor has it that was the office mate (re:boss) of Scott, Phil & Kash. Well, first off, congrats for being the best represented office on the Ultimate field and maybe in fitness activities in general. Secondly, and maybe Lon, aka “39” said it best “Why does the extra player get to go to the side with the young guys?”.

Of course, the green team, pre-qualifying for AARP yesterday, of 39, Bob, Bill, & CaptK had one of their best points against the extra-manned team by shredding their defense with short passes up the middle for an early score in the 2nd half. But the extra (and fresh) legs took their toll and gold pulled away towards the end.

We saw one of the best layouts of the season yesterday by Phil catching up to a disc that looked like it was sailing away from him for a one-handed fully extended grab. Well done!

Oh, speaking of the 10 seconds…We had one turnover yesterday on a stall count and were an "open mouth words about to come out" away from a 2nd one as the gold team decided to exercise all their time yesterday…or maybe the old guys were actually playing good D. By the way, because it doesn’t happen very often and we want to recognize the participants in that play, Bill got the stall turnover on Scott.

So Buzzards, it’s March Madness time and I’m a bit of a college basketball fan so look for my invite to a little online bracket challenge. If you did not get one it might be due to a couple reasons. I wasn’t sure about your email address (if you didn’t have a .uscg.mil address I wasn’t sure about using it ~ CaptK), you don’t actually come out and play with us so I may not really know you very well and didn’t want to bother you. If you think I’ve made an error and just plain left you out, send me an email, plead your case and I’ll reconsider my invitation list.

Going to be a great day today. We have a volunteer photographer so you have the potential (if Scott knows how to work a zoom better than Shadow) of seeing your photo up on the blog soon.

Busy News Cycle...

~ submitted by Bill

A lot of things in the news yesterday! You know the Mayflower Hotel, Mary Ann caught with the Mary Jane, Mississippi voters heading to the polls, Madonna headed to the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame…Mmmmmmm good.

I can see where you might have missed the return of great Ultimate weather. Perhaps that was the reason we could only draw 7 out of their cubicles on the best weather day we’ve had in months.

The green team, playing a man short yesterday played a very spirited game. Phil kind of assumed a new role (for him) of handler and managed some nice give and go drives with Shadow while also discovering a new weapon…a sliding (and therefore previously running) Scott making two fabulous catches yesterday. On one play that Phil was actually the recipient in the end zone, we had the best collision of the day as I was closing from the other side of the field on him and sent him tumbling, with disc in hand, across the back of the end zone.

Another end zone play for gold saw Todd jumping way up in the air about 5 seconds before he needed to, hoping to avoid a collision with the sneaky yet impact-ful Frank. Bill & Todd both had loads of trouble throwing yesterday…well, really I just wanted some company in that sentence but it was basically just me…my excuse…it’s the first game we’ve played with winds under about 15 mph in several weeks.

Speaking of several weeks. That’s how long it had been since we’d seen Jason who made it back out on the field today. Wings volunteered “It’s only been a week since I played and you aren’t any more rusty than I am”. We generally found our most success when all four of us touched the disc.

Today is supposed to be even a tad warmer than yesterday but there are a lot of people unavailable this week for playing and I’m shaking my head in disbelief that we might not get enough to play.

Hey you new folks, or very sporadic players…today is your day. Come on out, the weather will be great, you can get back into the game, maybe even get your picture taken for the blog. Really, it beats sitting in the cubicle, you gotta believe me on that.

Pull!

Buzzards Marching On

Well March came in on the wind…and unusual warmth. I was up on the ski slopes last Saturday night doing some unintentional laying out as I tried to tame a snowboard for the first time. Then on Monday and Tuesday those of us out on the fields were in shorts and shirt sleeves for the most part with temperatures in the 60’s both days at game time. But wow was the wind whipping. And on Monday the wind was coming in from the south which it does not do very often so instead of our normal cross wind there was a definite wind abetted and wind limiting sides of the field.

Enjoy some pics from Monday…


After Frank dinged his calf he took a few pictures from us. This was the only one where you could actually tell there were people in the picture....Zoom in Shadow!!! Thanks for trying though.

Todd looking very patriotic...flag in the background, flag on the disc...I'm proud to be an American just watching him.

"Come back here you stupid disc!" - Scott

Kelly needing longer arms to reach this one.

Bob flicks to Tom.

Eric getting reading curl that long arm into throwing motion.