Hats, tights, and gloves...oh my!

~ posted by Bill

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to all the Buzzards who came out today. The rain stopped and it was just the wind and cool temperatures to contend with and once you started running it really wasn’t that cool anymore. I saw clothes being shed in fact.

But it was also a day for tights, sweats, hats, and gloves. The game started with some monster pulls, courtesy of a nice back wind. And through the course of the game we had some other types of pulls too. Like Brian’s pull that landed behind his line. Wind is a tricky think sometimes.

And some were surprised that there would even be a game today. A little after 0900 my instant messenger window popped up? “How many do you have today? Want to play racquetball instead?”

“Well, actually, if you’ll change your mind and play, we’ll have ‘Game On”” I replied.

“If I don’t, I’m going to feel like a ninny. I’m in.”

“Outstanding! Game On then!”

Todd may have been reconsidering his decision after about the first 10 minutes when the green team couldn’t seem to catch a disc. But they came around and worked some nice short passing runs with Hollan, Brad, Brian & Jason all getting in on the game with Todd.

The gold team started out well with Bob, Kevin & myself handling to Dennis, Bridgette & Paul…did I mention what a great turnout this was today for an inclimate weather day? But I’m not sure what happen with our 1-person advantage and some defensive breakdowns. The green team started scoring and hanging on to discs.

All in all though a great game. I’m headed out of here to the Swing State Voter Awareness concert tonight. Who knew Virginia would ever be a swing state again? Life is good. I’ll be groovin’ to some Jack Johnson, Sheryl Crow & Beastie Boys tonight. You all be good to each other. See you tomorrow.

pre Halloween & Election Day wear.

~ posted by Bill

It’s getting to be that time of year. What time of year you ask? The time of year when we walk around the wall of the loading dock on the way out to the pitch and that wind hits you and you say “Crap, it’s colder than I thought!” and wonder if you shouldn’t turn around and go back in.

Okay, it wasn’t quite that cold…but it’s getting there, quickly I suspect. And for the record, Brad and Jeana were the first to wear either tights and/or sweats out on the pitch. I thought wearing long leg wear before Halloween was like wearing white after Labor Day.

Some of you heard me ponder aloud a couple weeks ago, when we had 19 come out to play, “I wonder how many we’ll get when it’s in the 40’s and raining?” Well, I guess we’ll find out today. Not to lower anybody’s expectations but today has the potential for all the worst elements. Cold, it’s only supposed to feel like 40 around game time. Rain, chance of showers all day. Wind, and not just some little breeze like we had yesterday. It’s supposed to be 25 mph by the time we’d head out.

I bet we don’t see anybody on the volleyball court today. I overheard Larry yesterday complaining about frostbite on his feet from the cold sand. You ever try to serve a volleyball in high winds? You think throwing our disc is challenging? Alas, the netters can move indoors. We Buzzards? We’re resigned to the fact that if we want to continue to play our fine sport, that we’re going to have to play on days like this. Well, maybe not just like this. I prefer to only have to contend with one or two of the above mentioned elements rather than all 3 on the same day. Especially since I don’t have my tights with me today. However, I do have my gloves and if we get enough people to play, I suspect I’ll be wearing those.

But I actually think the chances of getting enough for a game today are slimmer than those of Governor Palin passing the CLEP for American Government and finding out that even if she were to somehow find herself on the winning ticket next week (also a long shot at this point), she would not be in charge of the Senate as Vice President.

So, it’s a good thing we had a game yesterday. Despite the cooler temperatures and breeze, it was a good day on the pitch. Where’s Rodney when you need him? You would not believe the example of Spirit of the Game attitude we had yesterday. But perhaps it’s gone too far when you stop to help up a defender who likely just fouled you and you miss your own player cutting into the end zone for a score…okay it didn’t happen like that Brian but next time you can just leave him on the ground until after you throw it and not risk it.

I checked with Kevin and he said most of the leagues he’s played in don’t actually require you to stop play unless it’s a puncture wound and you see blood spurting in the air. Speaking of league play. I heard Jeanna asking to play “the cup” yesterday after Paul kept getting past her or reaching above her for completions. So there’s your homework Buzzards. Find out what “the cup” is. I learned this strategy last winter when I played in CUDO. I’m not convinced it doesn’t actually take a higher degree of athleticism but maybe that’s just because I was nursing that pulled groin last year.

Thanks to everyone else that got out yesterday. Pull out the cold weather gear.

Ultimate & Electoral Math

posted by Bill

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

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

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

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

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

This is October???

-posted by Bill

Water bottles strewn under the tree, shirts soaking through with sweat, sun beating down on the field and enough players to play substitutes with almost everybody glad for the chance to catch their breath in the high humidity.

Sounds like August eh? Well here we are in the third week of October and the temperatures soaring back into the 80’s and in our first post-Columbus day game, we drew 17 players out today. I thought we only had 11 on the way out and then a whole new team of 6 showed up. We decided to play 8’s with a sub on one side but it was still pretty crowded.

Welcome out to Jeana. Not sure if it’s your first time out with the Buzzards or not (it’s obviously not your first time out throwing a disc) but it’s certainly the first blog entry since you’ve been coming out. Thunder (or Scooter if you like)….or Thunder Scooter (you could be a new Mario Kart bike)…anyway he was wondering if the Blog had somehow been on the negative side of the DOW collapse last week and been shut down.

Fear not, even without a government bailout, the blog is back! You know what I’d like to hear addressed in tonight’s debate? If you are starting play from your end zone line do you like 4 cutters at the front of your stack or do you prefer to have 3 runners going deep from the back? Do you like your dump throw to your strong hand or weak hand side? And do you prefer a domestic, import, or microbrew draft after a tough match on the pitch? I mean do we have to hear about the economy every day? Do we still have soldiers and sailors in Iraq? You’d barely know it by perusing the partisan media of CNN and Fox New respectively.

You want the Buzzard’s new energy plan? We put activity-charged battery cells on our cleats during the match and you store up energy by how much you run and then you plug that onto your car battery on the way home and that’s how far you get to drive that afternoon. That’s bad news of course for me since I’m used to driving to Richmond or Charlottesville and probably barely run enough to get me across the 14th street bridge but you know maybe I could buy somebody else’s energy credits? Say Will, Phil, or Bob’s today.

Welcome back out also to Bridgette & Mike today. And Bridgette gets extra points for agreeing to take the pinnies home to wash them. She admitted to finding the breaking point to her femininity… "I can stand the stench anymore”. Hmmmm, I didn’t tell her that when Todd takes them home he uses his special gardenia-scented fabric softner.

Great game today everybody. Thanks for the awesome turnout!

Bailout, Blue Eyes, Wine & Baseball

- posted by Bill

Musings from the weekend. Wanted to put something in the blog and thought I’d offer some thoughts from the weekend even though it may not have much, if anything to do with Ultimate.

For those of you who have worked in the Coast Guard, with the Coast Guard or some other service sector organization you may have heard the expression “Your poor planning does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

Well, in reality, if often does, usually from the top down. And so it seems, it has happened on a grander scale as I’m perusing through the 110 page “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) 2008”. Now, even though it doesn’t state it in any of the “purposes” of the bill, we all know it is to bailout Wall Street which has gotten itself into some unfathomable amount of debt which can not reasonably be explained or paid off in any other fashion. I heard this weekend that credit is basically frozen right now for items such as houses, cars, college tuition, etc…you know, only the non-important luxury items of our society. Is anybody else having “3 Stooges” movie flashbacks every time they see the trio of Bush, Paulson, Bernanke parade across the TV?

Okay, speaking of movies and television, let’s talk about something more pleasant while I try to figure out how to have all my assets transferred to the Bank of Venus or traded in for bales of tobacco and soy beans in preparation for our return to an agrarian economy. Want to bid a Buzzard farewell to Paul Newman who died this weekend. My Top-5 Newman roles were Henry Gondorf in The Sting, Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, Dodge Blake in Message in a Bottle, Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money, and Doug Robers in The Towering Inferno.

And I have a movie recommendation for the rest of you Buzzards. For any of you who enjoy British humor, not the Benny Hill genre slapstick but the more dry “Colin Firth-ish” type, you need to go rent or have Netflix deliver Death at a Funeral. If you have ever had to endure a dysfunctional family gathering of any kind, wedding, reunion, holiday, or funeral, this will make you laugh out loud that somebody had it worse than you.

I watched it Saturday night after having sloshed around at the Smith Mountain Lake 20th Anniversary Wine Festival. When I say slosh, I’m referring more to the rain, than the drinking, though not excluding the latter. My personal favorite from the 28 winery tents of Virginia wines was the 2007 Viognier from Veritas Winery. I confess that I’d never even heard of Viognier before going but it’s my new favorite white. Also, my shopping spree (and all the other soggy festival attendees) on wine was arguably a more effective way to “maximize overall returns to the taxpayers of the United States” than this ridiculous EESA 2008…Don’t you like how the wording of this bill’s purposes makes it sound like it’s some humanitarian effort for the middle class citizenry rather than the “golden parachute for the wealthiest 1%” that it really is.

Speaking of wealthiest 1%, in the world of professional athletics, there were some interesting notes this weekend beginning on Thursday with USC’s (please don’t try and tell me they aren’t paid) loss to the Beavers of Oregon State. And there were some good pro games too. I caught the 2nd half of the Redskins-Cowboys game on tv (a rarity for me to sit down and watch sports on tv for that long anymore), and as a former Redskin-aholic, I enjoyed that outcome. I also notice from the highlights that a guy named Brett Favre completed 70% of his passes yesterday and had 6 TD passes! Not bad for a “washed up” QB.

Apparently some good baseball action this weekend as well. The Brewers are going to the playoffs for the first time since 1982! I watched them beat out my beloved Orioles that summer by a game in the AL East with a lineup that included four future Hall of Famers on that team, Don Sutton, Rollie Fingers, Robin Yount, & Paul Molitor. Good to see them beating out the larger market choke artists of Shea Stadium.

Okay enough rambling. Let’s have a great game today.
Pull!

Welcome to Autumn

- posted by Bill

This run of 14+ games is starting to spoil me. When was the last time we got stood up by two players and didn’t miss them? Okay, well when I say “didn’t miss” I meant, we still had plenty to play, not that we didn’t want you guys there…

Listen Todd, I know it was your first day back after about a month of leave but in case you need a small reminder I found the perfect bumper sticker for you…

We had another great game on the first day of Autumn which ironically seemed much warmer and more humid then our last days of summer last week.

Want to welcome out Tim2 (look you already get a nickname since we have an established Tim), and welcome back to George and to Kelly who made a surprise visit and who obviously is in the spirit of the above bumper sticker, giving up the job search for Ultimate today.

We had some nice collisions today. Brook and I had a rude intersection after I had tapped a high pass into the air and that tried to recalibrate the landing. Rodney took out Scott on a slide tackle in the end zone and Brian clobbered Bob on one pass along the sideline (though apparently not hard enough as Bob caught it anyway).

In fact, with that grab and another one in which Bob outran Phil half way up the field and all the way across the end zone for a score took some credibility away from the “old stiff and sore” routine that Bob would like for you to believe. Jason found the words the more common belief among his fellow Buzzards, “Bob’s full of it! I’m not buying that bum ankle story anymore. He’s outrunning everybody.”

Will and Mark also joined us but somebody forgot to explain another Ultimate rule to them…if you’re going to be late, you don’t get to stretch. Again, it’s nice to have so many people playing right now that you can start without everybody that RSVPs.

By the way, anybody think that if the BPUC can increase our debt to income ratio a little higher that we’d qualify for the current Federal buyout of all things private. You suppose this is what Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he established the Department of Treasury? You suppose anybody will challenge Ben Bernanke to a duel?

Brook's Photostream...

- posted by Bill (all photos courtesy of Brook...well except this one to the right, he's not that good)

Yesterday was another great game and we had 18 players! So we had some photographers out there and got to sub players in and out, the weather was great, what more could you ask for? I'll let the photos speak for themselves...well mostly. I'm attaching some of the better ones here but you can look at all of Brook's photos...well, all the ones I kept posted on my Flickr site.





MikeC gets a eyewitness view of Brian and Rodney going up for the disc...this doesn't turn out quite like you might think. Check out the Flickr for the rest of the story.

Annette looks a little perplexed.

Bob getting off a throw as Phil tries to lay out to stop it.

Will beats Phil to the corner of the end zone.

Erik and Brad both go vertical for the disc.

Thunder leading Annette & MikeC in a Conga line.

Jason running down the field.

Eli getting airborne.

Brad chasing down the disc.

Hollan and Bill stretching for disc.