Joaq's Thoughts

Sean Ryan 2010

2010-11-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

The best thing about Sean Ryan this year (besides being held at the best fields an Ultimate player can find) was that it was effectively a preview of Region 2 (The new California + desert region) regionals. The only top tier teams missing were SDSU (got their bid in too late) and Arizona (have never attended Sean Ryan to my knowledge). I would guess that regionals in May will have an almost identical top 8 teams as Sean Ryan. The only difference that I foresee is that UCLA will be out and SDSU will be in. The ordering of the 8 teams may very well be different in the spring time, but it is clear who is in the top tier of teams.

Notes about Sunday’s play:
The quarter finals saw UCSC playing Cal State Long Beach. It was a mostly upwind downwind game in which Long Beach made strong athletic plays to take the early advantage. The Slugs made up the deficit in the second half by keeping their sideline energy high, mixing their D looks, and playing smart O. Final score 12-10 UCSC.

The wind picked up significantly for the Semi Finals. UCSC played UC Davis in a game that saw only two goals scored upwind. UCSC scored upwind in the first half, and Davis did so in the second half. The game came down to double game point with UCSC receiving going downwind. UCSC punched it in without any turns and won the game only because they won the flip.

UCSC then faced Cal Berkeley in the finals. The wind had died down significantly for the finals, and at 5-5 the wind went away completely. UCSC took half 8-7 and up one break. They then ran away with the second half to win 15-9. The second half showed UCSC’s depth and athleticism, and also showed that Cal was missing some key players.

Scouting reports on the teams I saw in order of finish:
Santa Cruz: The Slugs have a very deep squad that is hungry to improve on last years 4th place finish at Northwest regionals. They lost only 2 rotation players from the 2010 team and have gained valuable experience playing club over the summer. A key to late season success will be finding ways to get both Cassidy and Russell out from behind the disc so they can do damage with their legs. Missing Players: Jordan Sheffield, Devon Anderson (for the finals)

Cal: California did exactly what was expected of them at Sean Ryan. They ran a disciplined vertical stack offense that utilized the width of the field and got young handlers playing time. I only watched them during the finals when it was clear from their lack of dynamic play that they were missing Andrew Hagen, Sam Kanner, and a couple of other injured players. If they have Kanner hucking to Hagen come spring time, Ugmo will be very dangerous. Missing players: Andrew Hagem, Dalga Surofchy, Sam Kanner (Sunday), that guy who played with End Phase and isn't James (Sunday)

Davis: Davis plays a very dynamic game. Taylor Lahey still runs the show, and picking up the top recruits from around Northern California has things looking up. Their O revolves around quick movement out of a close horizontal stack. It looks like they will be relying on freshman to handle along with Taylor, and will probably start three freshman on their O line. They look to huck off handler movement and breakside incuts, and I would bet that they’ll let Taylor and Eli Kerns do most of the hucking. Unfortunately, I didn’t see them playing in calm conditions so I don’t know too much about how things look. Missing Players: None that I know of

Long Beach: Long Beach has more athletic depth then almost all of the other teams I saw. The question is how well will they use it. For now they are running a vert stack with very quick movement. They seem to like the long ball, but are okay with working the under when the deep shot isn't there on count one or two. They had the best team chemistry of any team I saw all weekend. Missing Players: None that I know of

UCLA: They look very young, but are well coached. They run a horizontal stack and are mostly a faceless army. It seems like they’ve lost a lot from last year and are going to use this season to rebuild. Missing Players: None that I know of

SLO: It’s a shame that Jake Juszak plays for Cal Poly SLO.

Also of note: UCSD was missing Josh "Forge" Nickerson and Daniel 'Roget' Cox

Backcountry Backpacking

2010-08-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

I recently went on a sweet backcountry backpacking adventure, for more info check out my shared blog with some old college friends.

Word.

Bay Area Club Restructuring

2010-04-11T18:30:00.001-07:00

SF Bay Area ultimate promises to look a lot different for this club season than it has for the past two seasons. In the past there have been two top level teams, Jam and Revolver, and then at least two second tier teams. With the disbanding of Jam this year, and Revolver's addition of Bart Watson, The Bay now officially has one commanding team and a bunch of leftover talent. It appears that a lot of that talent is looking to join up with a new team "Wolf" which will be conducting tryouts the weekend of the 24th (April).

Here's the interesting thing about Wolf, while Revolver draws it's talent from all around the bay area, it looks like Wolf will be primarily an east bay/SF team, with not much representation from Davis, the South Bay, or Santa Cruz. I believe this will lead to strong regional teams from these locations. From conversations I've had with friends around the area it sounds like there will be local teams in Davis, Palo Alto, and Santa Cruz. If you count Wolf as an SF/Berkeley/Oakland team, that would make 4 regional teams competing behind one super team.

I predict that Wolf will have a strong enough roster to compete for a bid to nationals, but I think the days of the Bay having two teams in the quarters is over. I wonder how having one top dog again will suit bay area ultimate.

Joaq

P.S. I wonder why I didn't post this April 10th when I wrote it.

P.P.S. More funk. I wish the sample game was still as tight as it was in the late '80s / early '90s

Notes from Stanford Invite Sunday

2010-03-11T10:59:00.000-08:00

I made it out to the invite last Sunday with Daniel "DMC" Max Chazin. Good times were had, beer was consumed, and ultimate was observed.

So, scouting reports:
On the Woman's side there are four good teams this year and they will all make semis at nationals: Oregon, Santa Barbara, Washington and Wisconsin. I'd put my money on Oregon winning nats, their height and athleticism is hard to handle even for the other top teams.

Open is a little less clear cut. There are two legit teams who probably would have made club nationals out of the Central or South West last year (Carleton, Oregon), then there are a bunch of teams on the level. My observations (alphabetically)

Cal: A strong team with great fundamentals, and a great coaching staff. I'd say their strengths are end-zone O, d-line O, and decision making. That's really all you need as a college team.

Carleton: They look like a club team based on their team speed and the speed they play at. The youth on their O-line hurt them a little at Stanford, but I think they'll right the ship by nats. They'll be in the semis at worst.

Colorado: They're big and they play physically which is hard for college teams to handle. Still, they're very much a college team. Still, I'm not even sure they'll win the SW.

Florida: Didn't get to see much of them, and Brodie wasn't playing while I was watching. The one observation I have is that while on the field they looked more like a collection of athletes than a team.

Oregon: They're experienced and fast and their O line has at least 4 5th year players on it. They're going to win the NW and take one of the top 4 seeds at nats. They should make Semis at worst.

Those were all the teams I got a good look at. Quick note, there should have been more qualifying spots and the following four teams should have gone to the "Stanford Open" instead of the invite: Texas, Stanford, UCSB, Brown. I guess having a good history as a program helps you stay at the top.

P.S. I'm know 808 is a proponent of adding pictures to posts. I not so much of a picture guy, so I'll try and throw out some funk instead:

Word.

More about Sean Ryan (a birthday present for the Jughead)

2009-11-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

I didn't get to see all the teams, I did watch: Santa Cruz, Cal, Claremont, UCSD, Chico, Humbodt, and Santa Barbara. From what I saw graduation hit a lot of these teams hard. I'd say the level of play was slightly down at this years tournament, Daryl commented "I think the Slugs were playing at the same level as they have in the past at Sean Ryan, the other teams just looked bad."

Anyway, team by team:

Cal: Mateo played well, as did Hagen. They lost a lot of guys to graduation, but they still play smart and break the mark well. They have good coaching and team speed, they're still a presence in the NW.

Chico State: The Hops looked much better than they have any of the past three years. They have throws and athleticism, we'll see if the work ethic is there come spring. They'll make regionals, but I'm not sure how far they'll go. Oh, and they still love hucking.

Claremont: Is back to the level of competition of 2006 or so, but they aren't a similar team. The team is smart on O, and committed to having a system. Although they had a good weekend, Maniac didn't play well. If he and Markham can start connecting on hucks for their D line they'll be really scary. In classic Claremont fashion have to work on not playing down to the level of competition.

Humboldt: The Ben Carlson show!

Santa Barbara: Didn't get to see much of Tide, but they look to have the same intensity and discipline that they're known for. They peak really well, and I didn't recognize more that three faces from years past.

Santa Cruz: The Slugs have a lot of potential, but they'll have to make sure they don't get complacent after winning their home tournament. I think Cassidy, Russell, and Max will lead by example well. If they can avoid the injury bug that bit the team both of the last two years they could have a very successful spring.

Jay, let me know if you need more.

Post Sean Ryan NW and SW all Region Preview

2009-11-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

The Slugs won Sean Ryan for the first time in a long time. This means Sean Ryan is over and we have a better idea of who's good in the NW and SW. As such, here goes my all region preview.

NW - A lot of this is speculation

1. Cassidy Rasmussen - UCSC

2. Russell Wynne - UCSC

3. Andrew Hagen - Cal

4. Eli Janin - Oregon

5. Eli Friedman - Oregon

6. Jordan Mcphee - UBC

7. Taylor Lahey - Davis

SW - None of this is speculation

1. Dominic Sheehy - Cal Poly San Louis Obispo

2. Dom Captan of SLOCore - Cal Poly San Louis Obispo

3. D.C.S. - Cal Poly San Louis Obispo

4. Dom "Cunnilingus" Sheehy - Cal Poly San Louis Obispo

5. Dom King of SLOCore - Cal Poly San Louis Obispo

6. "You can't spell dome without" Dom Sheehy - Cal Poly San Louis Obispo

7. To Be Determined

Word.

Cal States 2009

2009-06-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

Cal States is one of my favorite tournaments and provides an interesting early season glimps at the best west coast teams. I only had a chance to watch Open and Mixed this past weekend, so here's what I got.

Notes from the Open Division:
NW:
Tier 1:
Jam: Didn't get so see much of the defending champs, but I did notice a lot of roster changes. Gone: Bruss, Cissna, Gabe, Husak, Scow?, Steets, Woody?. more?
In: Julian (Kansas/CLX/Monster/BCBC), Tommy (Cal), Fast Asian Guy (MagnUM), Johnny Hester (Condors), Ian Ranahan (Revolver), Will Chen (Harvard, Stanford Coach). Maybe more?
As long as Damien is around, the team will be strong.

Revolver: This years Revolver team has the most team speed I have ever seen. An already very fast team with Chapman, Weisman, Martin, and Jit has added Ashlin (Davis), Cassidy (Santa Cruz), and BEAU (word on the street is that there might be a late addition). Damn. It didn't look like they were challenged all weekend. Oh, and Cassidy was unstopable in the finals (while being guarded by a high school tryout on Sockeye). He played every O point and had 2 goals and 2 assists with 0 turns and 1 awesome spike.

Sockeye: Looks like they should be keeping Skip and adding BJ and Kurt Gibson. I hope they take The Sultan, and we'll see if Seth chooses to play club or just focus on team USA. There were some other no shows this weekend, but I have no info on that front.

Tier 2:
Portland: Looks like Thompson High from regionals with more bodies. More skilled then Rhino, less desire // work ethic. Their fate depends on Aaron Richards.

Rhino: A fast hard working team. Didn't see any UO guys, but they do have finals next week, so Solstice might show a fastly differend Rhino team. They seem like the team most prone to runs, either for or against.

Scumbags: Looks like they had a lot of fun. This team was sharing a bid with the Slugs, so there were a ton of players, with lots of them coming and going. It will be interesting to see what the roster looks like at Solstice, and how it changes at tournaments closer to the bay.

Shark (YR): It looked like their O line rotation wasn't nearly as tight as in years past. I think having Will the Thrill captain will really help that, and I think it could change the culture of the team. Loosing 808, Joey D, Corey Lee, and Charles also changes things. They had a strong showing, but it looks like some of their stronger tryouts decisded to play elswhere (Fedi from Arizona, Kissman, and Jamison from tide).

SW:
Tier 1: Only contains Bravo until proven otherwise.

Tier 2:
Condors: AKA Black Tide alum from '06 or later with some SLOCore. Look for them to improve as the season goes on, while having the best fundimentals of any tier two team. The SB isolation will help the Tide, especially if Husak and Steets decide to come out for the later half of the season. Word on the street is that Dugan will be around to help, but will be playing masters with DoG come fall time.

LA (Strike-Slip): LA is once again full of talent, but it's all from different college programs that teach different things. The team will take time to jell, and they need to get on the same page ASAP. The team also seems short on blue-colar type players. To many people who are used to being the star. Until their downfield cutters work hard consistantly, they are going to have issues. I predict Dr. Buel will bring it all together. Also, a lot of their hopes rest on where Matt Welsh decides to play.

SD (Street Gang): The actually united Sand Diego team looked very strong, and a lot less like a Squids Only club than either PBR or SD United looked. They also emerged as the potentially dominant team in SoCal for the season. If this weekends results (and team rosters) are any indicators, I'd expect SD vs LA in the Game to Go come regianls with SD going back to Nationals for the first time since '05.

Notes from the Moxed Devision:

A lot of teams in the Mixed devision are waiting on Womans teams to anounce their rosters. Mischeif and CTR are not among those teams. Scotty Conway was playing with the home town people after playing with Flycoons last year and Family Style before that.

Personal: I played co-ed this weekend working on my recovery from ACL surgery. I felt faster than last time I played (Memorial Day), but I think I was limping a bit more. I've decided to stop climbing for the next two weeks and focus more on rehab. Hopefully I'll be able to play Open come Solstice, if not, maybe I can find a co-ed team to take me.

Notes From Bay Area College Sectionals

2009-04-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

I went to my first Bay Area sectionals this past weekend to help out the Slugs and watch the first suspenseful college sectionals in the Bay Area in a while. I was with the Slugs pretty much the whole time, so I don't have much insight on either Stanford or a non-tiered LPC. So, notes from the teams who are going to regionals (and a little on LPC).

Cal: The team nobody seems to want to play. They have a ton of versatile players that are conservative and break the mark well. They play to their strengths as a possession team, and communicate better on D than most teams. They have a lot of depth and work very hard, but from what I saw, they don't have a ton of team speed (note, when the Slugs played Cal, Choongil wasn't playing). Also of note, Ryo seems like an evil genius sort of coach.

Davis: The Davis Dogs are a very fast team. They have lots of height and athleticism to go along with strong leadership from Taylor Lahey. In the game against the slugs the did a good job possesing the disc amongst their handlers on both D and O. They also run a lot of called huck plays on the D line. Look for the Dogs to be strong again next year returning their top two players, and geting a lot of cub experience.

Stanford: I only watched them a little so my observations are limited. First, props to Will Chen for rocking the suit on Saturday, baller. I was surprised by the inconsistancy of their O, especially considering the individual skill of their players. Look for them to play much better at regioanls. Also, Alex "Glass Eye" Drlica-Wagner

UCSC: What a difference a day makes.

LPC: Watching their game against Davis it was clear that they were puting all their regionals eggs in that basket. As the game went on, and as the heat ramped up LPC's regionals hopes grew dimmer. Still, they stuck to their guns, and played their top guys almost the entire game in the game to go to regionals. If Adam, Zip, 808, Ernst, and Sticks are indeed done, I wonder what comes next for their program.

That's all I got for now. I'm intending on going to NW club regionals, so maybe I'll write something about that. Hell maybe I'll write somehting about all region hype again. Or maybe I'll not post for 4 months. Honestly though, I think I'll post more as I satart to play again.

I Love This Game (Warriors Basketball)

2008-12-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

It's true.

I'm a big time fan, and have been through bad times and good. The current state of the team is a bit depressing, but it doesn't mean I'll jump ship, it only means that I have a lot to say (and that I'll be able to go to more games because people will be StubHub-ing their season tickets like hot-cakes).

Over the next week or so I plan on breaking down my thoughts about the team. I'll start with the summer // going into the season, then move on to the early season and the play, and finally move into what I'd like to see happen. A lot of change within the organization appears eminent over the next few months, I just hope it goes down at all like I'd want it to.

My current top 5 favorite Warriors:

5. Capn. Jax (More so when there is a real play maker to bring the ball up, he's not a point forward. Loved him the last two years).

4. Marco Belinelli a.k.a. poor man's Manu

3. Andris a.k.a. Drago

2. BWright (I really liked him last year, and he seems to do good things for spacing and ball movement when he's out there. Sure he'll make some mistakes, but he's young let him develop.)

1. Monta (I don't care that he hurt humself in a freek accident, kid is sick. I was going to buy a mid 90s throwback Monta Jersey if the Ws made the playoffs last year.)

More to come.

Questions for the Upcoming College Season

2008-12-08T23:26:00.000-08:00

Okay loyal fans, I'm sorry that I'm a bad blogger. It happens. There is no way I can catch up on all the post ideas I've had in recent months, so instead I'll throw out something quick to try and get me going again. So, with all the controversy this fall over the '09 college season, and all the eventual inactivity, I figured I'd review some things to think about going into winter break.

1) Who will emerge as the Open devision front runner in SoCal? We should get the answer to this question post SB invite. UCSB has historically performed very strong at their home tournament, but I don't know if that can be expected from them in this rebuilding year. As I see it now, Claremont, UCSD, and UCSB seem to be relinquishing the hold they've had on the section of late with a Semis birth at Sean Ryan for SLO and a SoCal Warmup Championship from CSULB. My instinct tells me this is SLO's year (they've got this guy Dom, Captain of SLO-Core, and I think he'll wind up being the difference maker).

2) How strong will Arizona be? Sure, they lost a lot of guys, but they've built dedication, and their younger guys got great experience last year. I predict they make semis at SB Invite.

3) Will any SoCal team make semis at SB? Right now I'd go with no.

4) How strong will the NW be this year? After a recent low in strength as a region last year, can the NW rebound? I think it will, and I think there will again be a top 10 team left out of Nationals because of the current bid allocation process.

5) When will the Stanford invite happen? Well?

6) Where will the competition go? In a way, this was the question that defined the fall, and it can still define the spring. Most of the teams invited to C1 were prepared to go where the competition went. Now the question is, where will they go next. I think Vegas, Stanford, and Centex will prove strong again this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of teams defected from Centex for Southerns or Easterns (tournaments where the men's and women's teams could both play, and then spend the week together). Also, I wonder how many teams can really afford to travel across the country all the time anymore.

and the big one for me:

7) What does the separation of Women's Centex from Open Centex, and the emergence of Pres Day as the choice tournament for top women's teams early in the season mean for the future of college ultimate tournaments? Will we see more single gender events with the creation of a regular season.

I do like the evidence of growth in the women's devision this year. With the expansion of Women's Centex and the addition of a Qualifier for the Women's devision at the SB invite. Maybe we'll see more college women's tournaments this spring.

Co-ed Scouting Reports

2008-07-30T00:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I attended the one day co-ed thing in the bay as a member of Brown Chicken Brown Cow (BCBC say the name with a 70s porn bow chica bow wow melody), but wound up being a spectator. My plan was to have fun for a day, and maybe right something in the blog about scouting reports, my thoughts on co-ed, and why I'm playing open this year. Well, I don't really feel up to all of that, so I'll just stick with the scouting reports thing. Honestly, I wasn't as observant as I usually am, instead focusing on drinking and being obnoxious (I call it heckling). Still, I'll try and dig through the fog to say something useful.

Australia: I'm not sure about the ethics of giving stuff about a National team away right before worlds, but in reality, this probably won't help anyone. They run a vert stack and the dump goes up the line when activated. After that they like to hit the inside to the front as a space throw. Off the break the love to continue down the line. Even when you think you've cut off the around, they'll still take it, especially if you're forcing backhand. Aside from that, their cutters aren't the strongest throwers, but they are all good athletes. Employ hucker calls.

Night Train: I think loosing Nilla hurts them, they seem like they could use another set of hands. They still love the deep game, and Will DeBello is still the go to cutter in terms of the guys. Bethany is good, don't let her go deep on you. Doug needs to do more, he just doesn't have enough ego to assert himself like he should. Brian Yoxall is so married.

Mischief: They're a very different team at these things then they are once the series rolls around. They're also a very different team this year without Kevin 'Dollar' Smith and Tyler Grant. They still rely heavily on their athleticism, and seeing as most teams in co-ed can't match it, they probably won't regret their strategy any time soon. Chucky needs to sack up and drink more, I don't acknowledge 'I've been drinking for the past three nights' sort of excuses; sometimes it's 10 am and you need a beer.

CTR: They're a very meat and potatoes type of team. They move the disc well, and don't really take many chances. Still, if Shasta is indeed not back with them, they've lost a lot of the possibility for big plays (from the thrower end). Mateo is a nice pickup for them, super consistent, and has the ability to dominate as a give-go handler in co-ed.

All I can say about Monkey and AIR is that they have some beastly athletes. Don't underestimate Lil' Tom James or Beach.

Hope that was interesting, and good luck to all these teams as the season continues. Extra good luck to Australia at WUGC.

Word.

My Future in Ultimate

2008-07-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of time this summer facing obstacles in the advancement of my ultimate carrier, at least, in how I saw it going while I was in college. I always thought I'd make an elite club team within the first two years I graduated from school, and that I'd be traveling around the western US playing high level disc. Well, by the time DUI ended I had been cut from both Jam and Revolver, and I had to settle on how to spend my summer.

If I was still in school at Claremont, the decision of where to play would have been easy. All I would have to do is find the best way to get better individually over the summer off season. Well, seeing as I no longer have a college team as a reason to devote myself to individual improvement, I had to reconsider my reasons for playing competitively. I thought about my personal goals in Ultimate, and decided to by into Yeager's desire to improve the UCSC program.

I agreed to co-captain a team with him, and once again became excited about the game. I wanted to help the Slugs, and have an outlet for playing quality disc with friends (of course, being in a position of leadership wasn't a downside). I also told Yeager that, seeing as I was helping to captain a Slug centric team for the summer, I'd be more than happy to help the Slugs prepare for the college series in whatever capacity I'd be useful. Even with these new reasons for playing the club season, I was unsure of my individual aspirations.

After a couple of practices with our fledgling team, Yeager and I led a rag tag bunch of 14 to solstice and wound up winning the open devision. This promising result, combined with picking up some Stanford kids and a couple more Yay Area club players started to get me reall stoked about the team's potential, and I dedicated myself to actually getting in good shape for Ultimate. Then, right as I had started to get into a grove in terms of workouts, feeling a little in shape, and even climbing reasonably strong (flashing easy 11s, redpointing some harder 11s and working on some easier 12s, still only climbing v5 though, I hadn't broken back into the 6s) I tore up my knee.

Injuring my knee brought me out of focusing on the short term success of SCUC (the Santa Cruz Ultimate Club, sort of what we settled on for a club name, we can still have different team names at tournaments), and back to thinking about my long term plans for ultimate. When I told my boy Robin I was no longer sure of why I play the game he responded "I think I get it. You've invested a lot of time in the community and you're well respected within it. You also have a lot of potential to advance your standing."

Robin is right, it's easy to know I'll continue to play ultimate for a long time just from the fun I have playing, and my involvement in the community. The real question is what are my competitive aspirations. I guess in every short term situation I play for my teammates (and therefore will remain dedicated to the SCUC guys this summer), I've just been struggling with finding a reason I play for myself.

I understand that at 22 I'm still young and have a lot of disc still ahead of me, but I'm no longer sure I'll need to play on the absolute best teams to fill my competitive aspirations. I'll still want to push myself athletically, and playing elite is one way to do that, but wanting to play elite is no longer the main reason I play competitive ultimate. I guess what I do next summer will really answer the questions I have about my competitive aspirations. Either I push myself to get in shape for the tryout season and dedicate myself to the process, or I show up in not the best shape again, and wind up playing with a second tear team for another summer (and likely many more). It seems that in the end I can't come up with the answer just sitting at my house and over-thinking it. I do know I want to make it back to open club nationals, and I would enjoy playing playing with the best. I also know that I don't have to play with the best to be satisfied, I just need teammates.

Word.

P.S. I really appreciate the concept behind Bob's WDUPU series.

Solstice Recap

2008-07-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

This is the latest recap I've ever written. I guess I just have to post it so I can move on to writing about other things.

I am now officially part of the leadership of a team again. We were called the Yeager Bombs at Solstice in Eugene, but we're not settled on a name as of yet (okay, the program said Jaeger, but we all know it's with a Y). It seems like being a captain has potential to change how my tournament recaps go. Well, here is the first chance to see if it does. Game by game:

Game 1: UOish

Both teams looked horrible to start, with a 5 turnover point to start the game. Both teams were clearly learning to play with each-other, and I think they had a bit of a head start on this. Things that stick out: Us having bad zone points (these were gone by the end of the weekend), and Kevin Stout getting an amazing D on what looked like a great hammer from Yeager to Jughead. We wound up wining, and thus started and undefeated season (or so we joked).

Game 2: UWish

This was the game we played our poorest in for the weekend. Jughead played maybe 2 points due to a sore hamstring, Laurent was out due to a gimpy calf, and Aman reinjured his rotator cuff. Anyway, they wound up winning a close one. Our shorthanded roster couldn't keep up with their deeps, and we continued to learn to play with each other. I guess our undefeated season was over. We were down to 11 at this point, and we could have mailed it in for the tournament but we resolved to stick with it.

Game 3: Predator (Tacoma)

They looked really organized, and had a really tall receiver. It was our third game of the day and they came in really confident, we came in really tiered. Well, the wind picked up a tad and made the game noticeably upwind downwind. I think it was in this game that Yeager hurt himself getting a huge layout D. That Injury brought us down to 10 guys which was pretty devastating considering how out of shape we were (people have been taking a small break since hard college seasons, I was just out of shape). It seemed like we were loosing the whole game, mostly because we were working so hard for the points we scored. Somehow, it turned out the game was really close, and we wound up wining by about 2. We were surprised and excited. The reward was #1 in our pool and a crossover with the Seattle 3rd team.

Game 4: 3rd (Seattle)

We were exhausted. Sitting on the sidelines, sitting during time outs and half, stalling for more rest. It was just bad. It felt like we were being crushed the whole game. Still, somehow half was on serve, and we won on universe point. It wasn't glamorous or pretty, but it felt damn good.

After finishing an exhausting day we went back to the house where we were staying (3 blocks from the fields! sick). And gathered to plan the evening festivities. We were able to grab showers at the Y then head over to the showcase game and dinner. After dinner we regrouped and eventually made our way to the party.

The party was really good. The beer wasn't great, but I enjoyed to local. And of course, any party with Alex Wells will be great. We stayed pretty late, I got good and toasty, and Yeager rocked the dd status seeing as he had hit his head on a bid earlier in the day.

Game 5: Kirkland Frisbee Club (KFC)

Day two started with us playing a young team from the Seattle area. They wound up scoring one or two points, it was a nice warmup, and even better than a bye. Winning this crossover put us in the semis against the UWish team.

Game 6: UWish

Our second game against UW was also really close and contested. We commited to taking away Sean's flick, and we tried to keep the disc out of Gabe's hands. Well, we wound up winning by a couple this time, but not before letting our out of shape-ness catch back up with us. Winning this one put us in the finals against a local team.

Game 7: Eugene Open

Our seventh and final game of the weekend was against the team formerly known as Darkstar. The game was close, with us up one or two the whole time. I don't remember that much because I tweaked my back early in the game, and was relegated to sitting on the sideline trying to stretch out. I do remember Aman dropping one huck because he had to go left handed, then deciding to do the sure thing and catch the game winner two handed.

It was great to win Solstice, even if it was just the open devision. We had victory cigars thanks to Aman (they were for Spain winning in the UEFA Cup), and everyone on the team got excited for the upcoming season. Anyway, we've got Chico next weekend. Maybe having a larger roster can help us throw down.

Lifting

2008-06-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

I lifted for the first time in a long time about a week ago. Anyway, I remembered how fun it was. Anyway, I did some easy lifting today after playing a round of disc golf with some friends. So, as a tribute to all of those who post their workouts, here was mine today (I'm also just trying to be a good blogger, look at me!).

Warmup (10 min run, stretch)

Lift:
Bench (3 x 10 @ 100 lbs.)
Lat Press (3 x 10 @ 70 lbs.)
Lat Pull-down (3 x 10 @ 70 lbs.)
Curls (20 per arm @ 20 lbs.)
Leg Press (3 x 10 @ 155 lbs.)
Calf Raises (3 x 50 @ 90 lbs.)
Hamstring Curls (3 x 8 @ 60 lbs.)

Core (all tups done on an incline bench holding a 6 kg med ball, all pushups done with feet on a yoga ball):
(30 situps, 20 pushups) x 2
(20 twist situps, 15 pushups arms wide) x 2
(15 situp then twist side to side, 10 diamond pushups) x 2
lower back thing with 10 lb wait (20)

Shits and giggles:
Campus pullups x 10 (The gym where I workout is the climbing gym I work at. Anyway there is this chinup bar that has another chinup bar a foot and a half above it and maybe 6 inches out. Well, do a pullup on the lower bar and explode to grab the upper bar with both hands, then go down with both. It's fun.)

Anyway, I didn't really push myself on the lifting front, I guess I'm just building a bit of a base. I'll probably do this again later this week, then go a little harder next week. The best part of lifting today was the shower-sauna-shower combo I got in. Word.

My Ultimate Life

2008-06-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

So, tryout season in NorCal has come and gone and I didn't make the team I was trying to make (Revolver). The week after that happened I hurt my knee at work randomly, and for a number of reasons I was really close to not playing competitive ultimate this summer. Luckily, James Yeager of UCSC came along with the perfect opportunity.

Yeager realized that the best way to try and get the Slugs back to nationals next year was to have everyone play club together this summer. He also realized that simply turning your college team into a club team isn't amazingly effective, so he recruited me as a co-captain for this as yet to named* summer team. We invited all of this year's Slug A players onto the team, then, using our ultimate nerdy-ness and connections, Yeager and I started recruiting and trying to fill out the roster. Well, we eventually settled on having tryouts, and have been doing so for the past couple of weekends. As of now, we're really stoked on the potential our team has (I'll release a roster once we have a team name, it'll be on the Score Reporter).

So, after starting this team so late, we were stuck without a bid to CalStates, but we came up with an awesome alternative. We held tryouts in the form of a double practice on Saturday, then had tryouts in terms of heckling practice on Sunday. Because we weren't actually playing in the tournament, we were able to go huge at the tourney party Saturday night and bond as a team the next day.

On Saturday, Shy and I arranged to pick up with some LA homies for the first game Sunday morning so I could get in some hungover co-ed play in prep for Potlatch. We got to play against the team Shy left to play with Yeager and I for the summer, LA Metro. It was a lot of fun seeing as Shy and I had a bunch of friends on both teams. Basically we ran around the field doing give and goes until one of us jacked it to an open receiver (if felt like the good ol' days). 808 was supposed to pick up with us, but he overslept, what a bummer. I'll just have to wait until Discos and e-bay to play with Bobby.

That's what I got from the personal side for now. I'll try and get back to spreading rumors about the top teams soon.

*I was originally pushing for us to be the Yeager Bombs, but James has insisted on spelling it with a J, so we'll hold a team vote to settle on a name (hopefully it won't be Justice League**).

**Too Soon?

Quick notes from CalStates

2008-06-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

CalStates went down here in town this past weekend, and thus the hype machine for the summer has started. Here's my early contribution.

Condors:
They've been picking up a couple of LA guys per year for the past few years, this time they're just going bigger (also, with only two bids from the SW, the LA guys want to get back to the show). There are no '09 college players not from the SB that are still trying out for the Condors, so they're not poaching the young talent from LA. In fact, they're letting LA do the work in developing the young guys. Still, their roster is not set yet, and we'll see how big of an effect the new influx of personnel will have.

Furious George:
It was cool to see these guys at such an early tournament. It was also predictable because of Worlds. It looked like Lugsdin and Cruickshank both didn't make the trip down, and Oscar, while present, wasn't playing. Also of note, due to CUPA rules, they were trying out a bunch of non-Vancouver guys, 5 of whom were from GOAT. So remember, while Furious will be representing Canada at Worlds, GOAT placed higher at the UPA Championships last year.

Jam:
They took 3 new guys this year, and it wasn't to get younger (although they did a little of that). I don't know how much of the JL stuff is carrying over, seeing as JL ran a ho while Jam seems to primarily be a vert stack team. Their performance at CalStates was a little surprising, but I think it'll just light a fire.

Revolver:
Funny thing, of the new players they took, there is only one player who will be playing college ultimate next year, and none of the players they took were from Stanford. In fact, I'm not sure if any Stanford guys even tried out this year. They got a lot taller with their additions, picking up Seth Wiggins, David "Fetch" Janinis, Tyler Grant, Chuck Kindred, Alex "Dutchie" Ghesquire, and Patrick Sweigert. As per CalStates Seth Wiggins spent most of his time playing with Sockeye, and both Nan Gao and Nat Kinsky were out.

Sockeye:
They did their usual CalStates thing. Winning a lot of games, and getting the tryout guys a good amount of time. They moved all the tryouts onto the finals team to get a closer look. Seth didn't play for either team in the finals.

That's it for the 'Elite' teams. It's weird writing about people I know (and some I don't), but I guess I'm just trying to get some information out there. Does the public really have a right to know? I'll have to struggle finding the answer to that one.

D-III Nationals - Why We Didn't Go

2008-05-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

The first year of D-III nationals, captain Alex and I talked about attending it briefly after the tournament announcement and decided the we (Claremont) wouldn't go. We decided that the combination of school being out of session and the team not being accustomed to flying to tournaments was enough to not go. In addition, we thought we had a legit shot of making it to UPA Nationals that year, and we didn't want settling for D-III nationals to be okay with anybody on the team. Some people brought up the idea of going, but the majority of the team was in favor of out decision to focus on the UPA series.

The next year I was a senior and a captain and the team had almost no shot of making nationals (we wound up tied for 3rd in a region with one bid, but we knew Colorado and SB were better than us that year). We decided to have a team meeting about D-III nationals (it's not that hard to have team meetings when everyone lives on campus). My stance, along with that of many of the other seniors, was that we wanted to be as proud of our senior season as possible. To us, that meant finishing as high as we could at regionals, and pouring our harts into doing so.

At the team meeting, the general consensus was that because D-III nationals isn't hosted by the UPA, and because we knew other top level D-III teams wouldn't be there, any victory wouldn't be satisfying. We also wanted to put the team in a position to succeed in years to come, and we thought having people focus on regionals was the best way to do so. The team voted something like 16 to 3 not to go to D-III nationals that year. If the UPA hosted some sort of devision two event for small schools, we would have gone (especially because our club sports department would have paid for our trip).

So that's where Claremont stood on D-III nationals while I was there, and it seems like not much has changed. Also, as the team improves, I wonder if they'd even go to (or be eligible for) a UPA hosted D-II style event (still, it'd be hard to pass up the free accommodations).

Word.

The End of My Season

2008-05-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

I drove Connor to the airport this morning so he could fly to Boulder and play in college nationals. It really happened, and I could have been there. I'm happy with my decision not to go to school. Anyway, I get to go to Claremont instead.

NW Regionals

2008-05-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

This was my first time ever as a spectator and not a player at college regionals. Man that sucked. Still, I got to watch the team I should have been playing with win regionals. It was great to see all the guys I call friends and used to call team mates step up.

What stood out to me:

All of Stanford's cutters not named "Ezra" or "Tom James" are willing and eager to loose yards to give the disc to Sherwood. They'll catch an in cut and turn around and give the disc to Sherwood loosing 5 yards. By now Mark must have a sore back.

Jeremy Nordan played great in the Whitman vs. LPC game. I thought that if Whitman was eliminated on day 1 things would be a lot easier in terms of FOTY voting, well, Whitman wouldn't let that happen. Of note, Daryl, the SC coach was kind of fed up with all the Cassidy vs. Jeremy talk and said "Why can't they just be co-freshman of the year? It's happened before, it should happen again. One as a cutter, one as a handler." Seeing as both were within 5 yards of him at the time I just said, "Maybe they should fight to the death."

Speaking of Daryl, he doesn't get enough credit for the development of the young players (and even the vets) on the Slugs (I know, he doesn't really want the credit, well to bad!). Yes Danny is the on field leader, and yes Danny is deserving of their callahan nomination, but he isn't responsible for the Slug's hard nosed D or team wide understanding of the rules, or their practicing calling marking violations in practice. Also, Daryl called all the lines at regionals, and is a great calming force to counter Danny's fiery-ness.

Um, it was 99 degrees when I got in my car to leave Davis. So yeah, as hot as SoCal Sectionals. People were talking about how they couldn't believe they were playing in that kind of heat, try playing in the desert section, or a lot of SoCal.

I know, it's not much, but who needs scouting reports now that the best part (regionals weekend) of the season is over?

Word.

Re: I'm not feeling the love

2008-04-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm writing this because Cassidy Rasmussen is my boy, but also because I feel like the FOTY* award isn't discussed enough. The guidelines for the awards are laid out pretty well on the UPA website (and I wish they weren't, screw them, I'm sticking with my definitions. Also, can we get a search function UPA? thanks.) but the chatter is definitely pretty low quantity (and low quality, I don't pretend to help there) regarding FOTYs.

I think the FOTY award isn't about the best individual freshman in the region, but instead the freshman that contributes the most to a relevant team (that's right, I don't think a FOTY should come from a team that isn't competitive at regionals, same with all-region players).

In my All-Region post (column? maybe when I get an editor) I talked a little about FOTY candidates, but I didn't want to distract from my real purpose. Anyway, I wrote:

[NW] FOTY: Jeremy Norden, Whitman - I think he's had this locked up since Vegas. That being said, I think Cassidy Rasmussen should get some dap if UCSC wins regionals.

I stick by my statement, still, I'd like to explain. I think Cassidy is an exceptional player, and if I had to choose between the two, I don't know who I'd take, (but I do know I'd have Cassidy play D). The thing is, I think Jeremy has had to do a lot more for Whitman than Cassidy has for UCSC. Also, I think Whitman stepping up and being better than expected has helped Jeremy, while UCSC underperforming for much of the season hasn't helped Cassidy. If UCSC wins regionals and Cassidy plays huge, I think people should consider him for the award. Still, I expect both players to make the all region team in the coming years, probably as soon as next year.

As far as the SW debate goes, I just don't know enough about Hylke Snieder from Colorado to comment. I guess I'll let The Pulse (that nickname was for you, Conor) do the talking for me:

I've played against both Markham and Hylke, and Markham, while I do think he's the better player, also means so much more to his team than Hylke. . . . He's a big part of [Claremont's] rise to contention in the SW.

Okay, there you have it.

*Can we all agree to pronounce FOTY like E-40 when he calls himself 40 Water? Just listen to Yay Area, and focus on the chorus.

Notes From SoCal Sectionals (Sexuals?)

2008-04-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I used SoCal open sectional being hosted in Claremont as an excuse to make it down south and visit my alma mater and catch up with some non-frisbee friends. Well, I know you're probably not here to read about me chillin' at Mudd, so here goes that sectionals scouting reports thing.

I managed to watch:
Cal Poly-Pomona
Cal State-Long Beach
Cal Tech
Claremont
Claremont - B
Occidental
Redlands
San Diego
SDSU
UCLA
UCSB
USC

I figure I'll keep the reports down to teams that made regionals (it's always a shock to me the quality of some of the teams that make SW regionals, I guess that's what happens when your section sizes are 20, 8, and 5 for a region).

Cal Poly-Pomona: Um, they have girls on their open team. Their program is really young, and the enthusiasm for the sport is inspiring. I with them the best of luck as their team grows. They go into regionals seeded 16th, and will finish as such IMO.

Claremont: Their zone O is a lot better than the last time I saw it (in fact, it's good now). They rely on Stout and Jay to heavily, also, more people should want the disc in their own hands, sometimes it's just chicken shit to only cut deep.

Occidental: I saw them playing against Claremont-B, so I couldn't gain too much from watching them. I can say that they like to huck, and frequently travel while doing so. Okay funny story. I'm watching Claremont-B vs. Oxy with my boy Monkey (a sophomore at Mudd who wasn't playing ultimate due to injury, he was playing acoustic guitar covers of songs like Digital Love and Ignition (Remix)) and we were yelling at the B guys while they were on D. Well, one of the B guys not on the field turns to me and says, "Did you used to play?"

I reply "Yes." So he says "Why did you stop?" At this point, Monkey can't stand my dumb grinning anymore and says "Manz, do you know who this is? He's Joaq, the captain from last year." The B team kid sheepishly walked away and Monkey said "Sometimes I hate you, wanker."

SDSU: Not much has changed since the Stanford Qual. They don't play good man D, and instead have to rely on a match-up zone with poaches on the handlers. If you move the disc quickly, you should shred it. Steve isn't assertive enough and can be taken out of the game to easily.

UCLA: The Sultan is a baller on D. When Seraph is heated, they're a much better team. And finally, force Fozzy under, he's great in the air, but not as good with the disc. Um, make them throw a lot of throws to score, their handlers are okay with it, but it seems like their cutters don't want to have to grind things out.

UCSB: Rory was out, making Jeff handle. I don't think that'll happen at regionals. I do think that loosing A-bomb really hurt their D, because now not as many people can front. They really want to jam it up the sidelines, and don't want to have to use the middle of the field. They'll throw clam on a turn, and it's pretty good, but not as good as last year's when Alex was lurking deep. Also, Tide has always been good about not showing their hand at sectionals, I think that'll hold true this year as well.

Okay, that's all from sectionals in terms of Ultimate. I can say it was fun doing halftime shows for the easy games on day 1. Also hosting sectionals in Claremont was a great idea for the Brains, and there'll be more field space next year, so it might happen again. Word.

Edit: Jay deserves credit for at least half of my blog posts.

All-Region Hype NW & SW

2008-04-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

I think what All-Region really means is ambiguous and I've talked to many people who have different thoughts on the matter. So, before I make my pics, I'll elaborate on what I think the all-region team represents. I've heard two dominating theories, both of which I disagree with (to some extent).

The first theory is the all-region team is a regionals tournament team. I guess the logic here is that regionals is the only meaningful tournament for a majority of the good teams in the region. Still, I think there is more to all-region than just one tournament, and even the people who subscribe to the tournament team view definitely know who their looking for before hand.

The second theory claims that the all-region team is a reword for work put in all season. I think this is unfair because it overly benefits those who have played stronger competition. Also, I think the ability for teams to peek for the series is important.

So, this brings me to my theory. The all-region team is about the series. Basically, players should be rewarded for how they perform when there is something besides sectionals seeding on the line. I think this explains a few all-region decisions from the past few seasons in the SW (no Assa in '06 and no Rory in '07). Still, it makes me wonder how Mike Stout, Senior, Claremont got it last year (the UPA should check with schools before the post all-region teams to make suer their info is correct. I guess someone should also tell them that MStout was a Junior last year and goes by Michael not Mike). Anyway, with those qualifications in mind, here goes my all-region breakdown in terms of people I think are locks, likely, and deserving (I'll only write about the regions I know well, and watching TiV, SI, and Centex doesn't mean you know all the regions well).

NW
The parity and depth in the NW this year makes it hard to decide on an all-region team. Once a player makes all-region it's typically hard to leave them off the list the following year. That being said, I think there is a lot of potential for some of last years all-region recipients to be left off the list this year. I think the team that wins the region will get two players on the all-region team. There is a chance the second place team will also get two, but that more depends on who finishes second. I also think each top 4 team will have at least one representative.

Locks:

Mark Sherwood, Stanford - I think this is an obvious choice. Sherwood is widely considered one of the best college players in the country, and is the focal point of everything Stanford does.

Likely:

Dusty Becker, Oregon - Having made it last year, I only see dusty being left out if UO fails to make a game-to-go. I guess putting Dusty here tells you something of what I think of Ego's chances (um, good).

Mark Leduc, UBC - UBC is a very top heavy team and Leduc manages to stand out among their top players. If the T-birds make the top 4 at reagionals, I don't see how you can leave him off the list.

Danny Karlinsky, UCSC - Danny is the face (or at least perceived voice) of the Santa Cruz program, and his leadership // throws put him among the top handlers in the region. SC winning sectionals is a good start, now if they finish top 5 at regionals Danny will repeat as all-region.

Kevin Stout, Oregon - If UO makes nationals, KStout is on the all-region team. If not, he'll have to once again be the clearly dominant athlete at regionals to make the team (yeah, I think he'll do it).

Deserving (there's some order to this list, see if you can figure it out):

Nate Castine, Western Washington - Great player and nice guy. Western might be a year away, but if they make enough noise, it'll probably be because of Castine. Definitely all-region '09.

Nick Chapman, UCSC - Chapman is the go to receiver for the Slugs, along with one of their best cutter defenders. If UCSC makes nationals, I have to assume they'll get two people on the all-region team. I think Nick is at least second in line from the Slugs, but there is always a chance one of his teammates will steal his thunder at regionals.

Charles Denby, Cal - The perception that Cal has no stars hurts Charles's chances, but his insistence on getting open under helps. Still, I think Cal will have to win regionals for Charles to make it.

Choongil Fleischman, Cal - I think Choon's chances are better than Charles's because of his impact on D. If Cal is in the game-to-go, I think Choon deserves all-region.

Tom James, Stanford - If they win, he's in, in my book. Great on D, and has to do a lot for Stanford to be successful against athletic teams.

Michael Liu, LPC - I don't really think LPC has a chance of getting anyone on all-region, mostly because of the prejudice against them. That being said, enough people like 808 to give him a chance if LPC makes UPA Nationals (they'll go to D-III if they don't make UPAs, I think).

Joe "BJ" Sefton, Washington - Washington's finish at sectionals helps BJ a lot here. If they can make the top 5 at regionals, it'll be because they relied heavily on BJ (and Dutch). Anyway, if they're in it on Sunday, BJ will have a shot at all-region.

James Yeager, UCSC - Amazing handler defender, and the anchor of the Slug's dline O. If the Slugs make nationals there's a pretty good chance Yeager played huge at regionals.

FOTY: Jeremy Norden, Whitman - I think he's had this locked up since Vegas. That being said, I think Cassidy Rasmussen should get some dap if UCSC wins regionals.

SW
Doling out SW all-region spots seem pretty straight forward to me (at least compared to the NW). It's true that there is a depth of candidates, but I think the lack of depth in terms of teams helps in determining who gets it. I'd give the winner of the region three spots on the team, the second place team two spots, and 3rd team would get one, with the last spot a little more up for grabs. With that said, it'll be hard to keep Colorado and Arizona from getting two guys each on the team, no matter where they finish.

Locks:

Jolian Dahl, Colorado - Word.

Austin Gregerson, Arizona - In my opinion Austin is the best player on Arizona (even if he doesn't have the same psychological effect on the rest of the team as Gafni or Kershner). He's both one of the best throwers and receivers in the country, in addition to playing some of the best deep D.

Joe Kershner, Arizona - Everyone's favorite Arizona player, and understandably so. He's a well rounded player, and amazingly explosive.

Michael Stout, Clarmeont - On the team last year, and only more beastly this year (and hopefully less injured at regionals). I really don't see any way to leave him off the list, also, it'd be cool if brothers were on different all-region teams consecutive years.

Mac Taylor, Colorado - Arguable the best player on Mamabird, and certainly the one that creates the most matchup problems.

Likely:
Jeffrey Silverman, UCSB - Missed a lot of the season, but clearly the key player for SB at sectionals (and likely will be at reagionals). If they get only one representative, I'd go with Jeff.

Deserving:

Daniel 'Maniac' Bobrowsky, Claremont - Claremont relies on a pretty tight rotation, and there are a lot of candidates for a possible second representative, I think Maniac stands out the most. Because MStout hasn't been as much of a threat with the disc since his labrum surgery, having maniac step up as a primary cutter // thrower has been huge for the brains. His hucks are amazing, as is his D and ability to get open.

Martin Cochran, Colorado - Martin is an interesting case. He's made the team the past two years, but if Colorado doesn't win the region this year, I don't see them getting three all-region representatives. Still, his impact on Mamabird is immense, allowing people to not play out of position.

Eric Gafni, Arizona - Gaf is a big-time leader and receiver for Sunburn. In addition, he's not hesitant in putting up hucks (like the rest of the 'zona guys). If Arizona wins the region, I think he'll get their third spot.

Rory Orloff, UCSB - Rory was hurt at sectionals, which hurts him a little, but he can easily make that back at regionals. Hopefully he'll be able to play, I wouldn't with missing your last two years of eligibility for injury reasons on anyone. If the Tide goes to nationals, Rory is easily on the all-region squad. If they make the game-to-go, I guess he and Jeff will just have to fight to the death to determine who get all-region.

Steve Prodan, SDSU - As Steve goes, so goes the feds. When he's able to get the disc you can count on break mark hucks and easy goals for SDSU. Otherwise, their O often becomes stagnant. With the results SDSU has put up this year it wouldn't be too surprising to see them in contention on Sunday, if they're there, Steve deserves a lot of credit.

Chris Shepard, Arizona - Shep is a great thrower and a reliable anchor for the Arizona offense, weather dline or oline. Without his calm handling, their other stars wouldn't be able to shine.

Ben 'Seraph' Tong, UCLA - Seraph is probably the most explosive player I've ever played with. He has all the tools, and is clearly the focal point for UCLA when they're successful. It sometimes seems like he gets frustrated with his team to easily, but other times it seems like he makes every big play in their victories (like over SDSU at sectionals).

FOTY: Markham Shofner, Claremont - Word.

I realized I left out two teams that have good chances of being in contention on Sunday of their respective regionals, Whitman and UCSD. Don't worry, I had my reasons. Whitman because I've haven't seen much of them, and because I don't think Jeremy has a shot at all-region as a freshman. And UCSD because I think they're even more of a faceless army than Cal.

I won't give up who I think will actually get all-region, because that'd give away my pics for regioanls, and I'm not quite ready to do that. Anyway, feel free to comment, but please actually address the post instead of just throwing out more names. it's lame to not respond, but instead try and just make your own mini post (I guess I'm just asking for it now, fuck).

DUI Recap

2008-04-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I played in my first ever tryout tournament. I think I'm moving into the veteran ranks of trying out soon. I played with half of Revolver (we were called Bulldog). Anyway, game by game . . .

Game 1: S-M-A-U-G Smaug! Smaug! (UCLA)

We got to play my old SoCal friends first game. They've got sectionals next weekend and are looking to peak at the right time. The game went about as I expected, UClA made some execution errors, and we didn't. Still, there were some things I didn't expect, notably UCLA hucking a lot, and those hucks not coming to or from Seraph. I think they'll tighten the rotation a bit next weekend and lean more heavily on Seraph/Sultan/Devinci. Final score 15-7 ish.

Game 2: YR

They came out fired up, we came out without much chemistry on O. Not a big surprise for a team with only 7 returners, at least 4 of whom played D last year. We scored on O first, then they scored 5 strait before we finally scored on O again. Well, getting our D on the field was a good decision. We wound up taking half 8-6 to on a 7-1 run. Early in the second half we were able to reap the benefits of them having such a tight O rotation and continue take and build to a 12-8 lead. And a 15-9 final. I think this game speaks volumes towards teams giving the D line a shot on O after maybe two consecutive breaks.

Game 3: Condors

Um, I think they broke us three straight times before we got on the board. That's right, in typical Bulldog fashion we were down 3-1 before the D got on the field. Well, also in typical Bulldog fashion we took half 8-6 (awesome). We wound up winning 15-11 ish. Wow, that was my first time beating any team called The Condors. That was a big moment for me. I played all right, but got beat deep once or twice (I also got the D on a deep shot).

The game against the Condors concluded our day and Revolver headed over (two blocks over) to The Graduate for greasy food and final 4 b-ball. Well, I could only stay for like 30 min before having to jet to B-town for a dinner party (so good). Anyway, the night was fun, but I didn't quite have the time I usually do in Berkeley, but only because I had to get up at 8:20 to make it to the fields by 10:00.

The next morning was easy and headache-less (rare for Sundays when I wake up in Berkeley) and I was able to make it to the fields 3rd out of everyone on my team.

Game 4 (Quarters): J-men

Um, it was lame and boring. Luckily, this was the game I played worse in (two drops, the only two turns I had with Bulldog).

Game 5 (Semis): Spoonbender (Jam)

I spent this game trying to stay with Matt Bruss. It should have gone better, but I can't say it was a total failure. There was only one point where my man touched the disc multiple times, but Matt did score some goals on me. While I was guarding him Bruss was hucked to 5 times, 3 resulting in goals and two in turns. Unfortunately, we didn't convert any of our upwind chances on D, turing it over 5 yards out twice, and turning it after both of the timeouts the D called. Anyway, this was a game we could have won, and I'd like to be in this matchup again.

Magnum, the other Revolver split squad, also lost in the semis. So, instead of essentially scrimmaging, both teams called it quits to socialize instead. Well, Charles and I decided it'd be more useful to us as tryouts to play with YR in their last consolation game.

Game 6 (with YR): Smaug

Both teams were very tiered, one happened to play a game predicated on high percentage throws and disc movement while the other relied on big strikes. It was fun playing with YR and getting to be a primary cutter. I found that it was easier to take on a large role with these guys than with the revolver guys. Mostly, I didn't feel out classed in the throws department. Anyway, we won easily and I played well scoring a few goals and assisting on a couple. Still I had a turnover, that shouldn't happen. I had a good time playing with these guys.

All in all it was a fun weekend, the tryout season is in full swing. I can't wait until the season starts after Cal States.

Fools Recap

2008-04-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I got to play with my two favorite teams in my favorite tournament. What a treat. Anyway, here goes the boring style recap.

Game 1: Claremont vs. YR
Claremont was without their three primary throwers for this tournament so I tried to fill that role (luckily it's what I did last year). Also of note, this version of YR was clearly a tryout team, and they weren't trotting out top lines or anything like that. I don't remember all the specifics of the game, but I do remember that we went up a couple of breaks in the first half. We then proceeded to give one or two back in the second half before the hard cap blew with us up by two. They had the disc and Gordy decided he'd pad his states getting his 4th layout D of the game and letting us score the final goal.

What stuck out to me most in this game about my own play was how out of shape I am compared with this time last year. I played far fewer points then I would have last year and was far more tiered. Where the two teams are concerned, YR really liked their IO breaks, and they moved the disc really well. Still, height on D was an issue for them, but I think that will get worked out as the season approaches. Where Claremont is concerned, I was impressed with the younger players, they seem to have good heads for the game, instead of just running aimlessly. I think it's more a lack of skills instead of understanding (play club this sumer guys, really).

Game 2/3: DTB vs. Cruz current and past.

These games blended together for me. It was all a swirl of sweet beats and playing against UCSC hommies. I played pretty well in these games, as did my brown teammates. Still, I got D'd once on a huck, that sucked, and I put a little too much zing on an upline throw to Jimmy. I had a couple of goals and assists, along with a D or two. Winning these two games won us the pool and put us in a crossover game with YR.

Game 4: YR (again)

This time the outcome didn't seem as uncertain before the game. Also, it was funny to hear people getting frustrated about Nick getting touches. They were like "Will someone shut down the fat kid?" I just bit my tongue. We won.

That was it for the games on day one. We helped DJ dave load up the truck and all sat down for the circle. It was great, it always is, and I look forward to sitting down with everyone once again. After we finished up Haddock and I picked up some food at Charlie Hong Kong's and headed back to my place. We eventually made it down to the party at Rosie's. It was a lot of fun, as it always is. Okay, on to day two.

Game 5: Claremont

We rejected the box, mostly because we don't take handouts (and we were afraid they wanted Manhattan). Anyway, I didn't play in this game until it was like 7-3. I went on for D, guarded Rook, and we scored. Rook did manage to get the disc once, that kind of bothered me, but hey, he has broad shoulders and I wasn't going to try and bit through a good friend. Anyway, I only played like 6 points that game. Jay commented that it was boring while I guarded him. It was like practice or something. Jay did have a good game though, including a layout D on the first point. We wound up wining 15-10, I think it would have been a bit closer if Claremont wasn't missing 3 of their top 10 guys.

Game 6: LA/SB

We were up 10-9 on O going down wind on O. They got the break, we didn't recover. I can't wait for a shot at winning this tournament next year. We'll see.

I really enjoyed playing with and meeting new people. Also, I dug playing open again (first time since college regionals last year). DTB will come back stronger in '09. Word.

Stanford Invite // Qual Scouting Reports

2008-03-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

These past two weekends have been great for watching and getting back into the swing of things with ultimate. Seeing as game by game recaps would be boring, and nobody really wants to know the details of me hanging out with X at the 5 booth or hitting on the Texas girls (hot), I figured I'd just throw out some scouting reports (kind of like what I did for club teams this past summer, man, I didn't know what I was talking about, that seems to be a theme). Anyway, here it goes.

From the qual:
UW: They have a lot of height, but they don't seem to be that explosive outside of a few top guys. I think they would benefit from having Dutch and BJ play more on both sides of the disc. On the other hand, they focus really well, and seem to have dedicated coaches. Not much, but that's all I got from one game watching them. Um, force backhand, Dutch's flick is that good.

SDSU: Make Daze work to get the disc. It all runs through him, and if he's tiered he'll have more turns. Also, have the dump defender watch his feet for the first three-four seconds he has the disc. He travels to set up his throws, but not on the throws themselves. Also, their dump set is always the same. First guy up line, front of the stack strait back. It works a lot, but they don't do a good job of going deep from the front, so it should be easy to adjust.

Claremont: You're fucked. :)

From the invite:

Pitt: They move the disc well with their handlers, shut down the around and they'll be hurting. Also, pressure their under cuts, they're not trying to huck right away, so make those first few hard. They have a good 4 man cup zone, and you won't beat it by working the disc side to side; once you're around the cup you need to attack downfield by fast breaking // give-and-go-ing, then they'll crumble (out of the zone).

Arizona: Loppy and Snatch are all region players. I like these guys to give up too much more for free. Um, pressure the dump.

Stanford: Make Sherwood stay around the disc, it's not that hard, because he's often near the front of the stack. Make people besides Ezra, TJ, and Sherwood beat you. Pressure their young throwers, intelligent poaches can hurt them.

Texas: No around, make them prove it with the IO throws. Go deep on them. stay at home, poaching won't help you.

UBC: They want to huck, don't over commit on the first in cut, they're just setting you up to go deep. Make them throw more throws, and expose their lack of depth with patient O.

Wisconsin: Their defenders really want to get the D on the inc-ut, once you turn you hips and take a step or two, they'll close their cushion. Take them deep on the double move, oh, and don't float your huck. Um, try poaching? I really don't know how to stop their O.

That's all I got for now. Maybe I'll write something else, like about how awesome 5ultimate is, or how cultimate is trying to good things, even if they seem unresponsive, but don't count on it.

Lei-Out

2008-02-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

What can I say about Lei-Out besides the fact that I love it. I mean, I love all of it. I love the people who organize it, and the people that attend it. Lei-Out will always be one of my favorite tournaments.

I think going to three days this year was a worthy experiment. Three days makes the tournament more worth the time to east coasters, and it allows for more games without all the soreness usually associated with beach. Also, I love going to player fees and lifting the roster cap. I guess the only other thing I would want is a second party, that'd really set it off for me (yeah I know, higher player fee, but come on, $50 wouldn't be unreasonable). I'm sure Drew will set up some sort of polling to determine where to go with the tournament next year. I think Lei-Out is definitely in the top tear of tournaments for both competition and fun.

As for my team this year, I loved that we all managed to stay in one hotel room. I think we had 12 people in the room, (don't worry, there were three beds). Basically it really added to the whole team chemistry thing, and was a great way to reconnect with everyone. I like that Lei-Out is the first time everyone sees each other for like a month because of winter break (and longer for both the alums and the kids who were abroad). Anyway, Lei-out was my first US tournament since Sean Ryan, so seeing everyone (not just my teammates) was extra special. Just thinking back on it makes me hunger to play again.

Brazil IV - The Last One

2008-02-23T15:35:00.000-08:00

The morning of the finals seemed very normal, but everyone was a little more distracted than usual. I borrowed a bike someone had rented so I could get to the fields faster, but then the chain kept on coming off, so then I tried to put the chain back on, but I should have been mentally preparing // warming up. Anyway, that's just the sort of distracting thing a lot of people were going through. I hope I can learn from this sort of lack of mental preparation and be more diligent before tournament finals in the future (well, I mostly hope I'll have reason to learn from this).

The other big distraction was that the masters final was going on while we were warming up, and a lot of us wanted to support the masters guys in their effort to take home the title. Well, we were ready to take the field just as they were pulling for game point. Up until that point their puller, Jason Trevor, was throwing rollers so they could get down field without giving the other team a brick. On the last point he made a great adjustment telling his team he was going to float one to catch the British off guard, so the D needed to hustle down. The adjustment worked brilliantly and the US guys got the block on the second or third trow, then converted the break to take the title. It was really great, and inspirational leading up to our game.

Our game started with us going down wind and our O scoring on one possession. Our D then went out and forced a turn pretty quickly. Well, we weren't able to convert, but we got it back again, and once again weren't able to convert, the Germans finally scored, and I knew things were about to go south. Basically, whenever a team wins a hell point, they'll definitely win the next point, or at least that's what I've observed recently. Well, sure enough our O turned it and the Germans converted on their first chance, putting them up a break. I went in on the next O point and set my guy up for a deep cut right as the disc was being centered to our captain and main handler Dave. Well, the throw went up, but it was a little slow (dave puts a ton of spin on his throws, so they tend to move slowly, but they're very accurate) and thus gave a poaching German defender enough time to catch up to the disc and make a play on it, well, I was ahead of the disc waiting for it to catch up to me, and I understood that I had no chance to make a play on the disc until after he did. He layed out and tipped it, but I was still able to catch it easily for a goal (check facebook for some pics). Well, we traded for the next 30 min or so (only really eventful moment was me turning the disc over right after calling a timeout, man I'm good).

Anyway, the game was tied at 9-9 and we were going downwind and once again on D. Well, they moved the disc well, but we finally get them to turn it on a high stall count throw that they try to put up the line. Finally, our D fastbreakes effectively and we move the disc down with two long gaining in cuts. After the second in cut Erin gives me a quick little dish and so I have the disc 5 yards out and maybe 5 yards from the left sideline. Well, right as a catch the disc Erol runs between me and the near sideline and says, 'Yeah Joaq!' as he's running towards the flick side of the endzone. Somehow I knew what he wanted and put a high backhand right in the near side of the endzone and he turned just as he crossed the perpendicular between me and the endzone. He caught the goal easily and we took our first lead since 1-0 at 10-9.

Between points the time cap went on, and according to the rules of the tournament we then played to 11. A fresh D line went on and we pulled for the win. The D got the turn near the endzone, and after a few quick passes Arnie threw to Carla for the win, and the gold. We all rushed the field and partied on Carla for a minute or so before going and having our post game spirit circle with Germany. Right after the spirit circle, the guy I was covering most of the finals comes up to me and says "Do you want to trade jerseys?" I quickly replied "My white for your white?" He said "Yes." and we had a deal. I was stoked that he was down with the white jersey, because I had already arranged to trade my red to a Philippines player.

After hanging with the Germans and cheering them multiple times, we all set up in the bleachers with beers to spare to watch the next two finals games. Both games followed a similar path. The team with fewer players come out strong and gets a couple of breaks before running out of gas and eventually succumbing to the depth of the other team. The only difference was that the US women were not only short on players, but aside from the other Americans, they were short on crowd support. The Philippines on the other hand, were the darlings of the tournament, so in a way it was nice to see the 'villainous' Ausies win, seeing as they were put in the same spot as we were.

When the open finals ended the tournament awards ceremony was held in the stadium. There were commemorative discs presented to the people who got the most assists, goals, and D's in each devision, along with and MVP disc for each devision presented to the person with the greatest sum of D's, goals, and assists. Well, three awesome things came out of this. First, in the open devision, guys from the Philippines won in each category. Second, in the Mixed devision, we didn't have a single person win any of the discs, in either gender, showing how much of a team we were. And finally, in the Woman's devision, Becca Tucker from the US won all four awards, now that's just sick.

Anyway, after the discs were presented, medals were given out, and each gold medal wining team got to give a short speech. Everett was very eloquent in giving ours, and made a point to shout out the Spanish team seeing as they were the only ones to beat us. After the ceremony was over the Peace Team organized a small ultimate clinic for the local kids, it was really cool, and they all dug it. I don't think it'll last long in Maceió, but it was all the rage while we were there, and there's a small chance it will have some staying power.

I left part way through the clinic to go back to the hotel and do some packing//sopering up//cleaning up for dinner and partying. We tried to get a team dinner at the nice all you can eat place in the back of the beer themed party venue, but it didn't quite go down. People from both the mixed and masters teams rolled through, and we all had a good time (I mostly ate sushi, I mean, it's not that often that you get down on some all you can ear sushi). As dinner was ending everyone was feeling real tiered, but a couple of shots of espresso later and we were inspired to make the trek to the party.

Once again we were duped into walking do to faulty information, and once again we walked through some sketchy ass places to get to the party venue. When we finally arrived we found that the party venue was full, and that no ultimate players were there. Luckily there was a sweet bar with a huge patio just down the street and all the ultimate folks just changed venues (and I was able to sneak some jungle juice in, so there was no need to buy drinks inside). Anyway, at the party I was introduced to the medal game by some of the Ausie girls. The game goes like this, if someone is able to dunk their medal in your drink while it's still around their neck, you have to finish your drink. All in all, it's pretty sweet, and a good way to make friends and get drunk, what more do you want?

I think this party is where I let loose the most, it was really fun. Even though I left earlier than from the other parties, I'd say I partied harder. So, I guess you could say I mailed it in, but I'd just say I went home early.

Anyway, the next day went by quickly. I packed then caught a cab to the airport with some teammates. The whole trip home seemed much faster than the trip there (and that's not only because we had a 2 hour layover instead of a 12 hour one). The most memorable part of the trip home was saying goodbye to all my new friends, but seeing as we all play ultimate, I'm sure I'll see them all again. Anyway, Sunya and I made it home safely and swiftly.

Okay, that's it, nobody has to endure any more poorly written brazil posts. I guess it's time to asses the college ultimate scene (and maybe write a quick something about lei-out). I should have a post up after next weekend's Stanford Qual. I'll be out in Palo Alto on Sunday, so I'll try to write about the elimination games. Word.

Brazil III - Pool Play (II)

2008-01-31T01:36:00.000-08:00

Here we go agin. After getting a whopping three and a half hours of sleep, I got up for food and warmups. I made it to the fields around 9:15 and began warming up down by the beach fields (our game against Germany was on the main stadium field, but it was occupied). Anyway, the Germans had played a game already that day, so we knew they'd be warm and that we couldn't afford to come out cold against them. Well, we were probably more ready for this game than any other of the tournament. We started out on O (as was our want seeing as we were playing timed games with no halftimes) and converted. On our first D point I guarded Rue and got a D when they had to try a bail out huck to him. We then converted the break and were on our way to victory. Somehow, I wound up guarding more handlers than cutters latter in the game because we had a lot of tall guys on D. Anyway, the strategy they were employing in terms of dumps was to break the mark without having the handler move. After a lot of yelling by one of the masters guys watching the game (I heard he coaches Florida), we adjusted and started playing right on the dump's hip. Well, this adjustment led to me getting a layout catch D on a dump pass then throwing a goal. Over all, I think this was my best game of the tournament, we wound up winning 11-7.

After the game we had a great rapport with the German team, and, luckily, we had a great cheer that was set to an old German drinking song. Well, after hanging out with the germans for a bit we had a long break until three, at which point we were to play the Canadian team.

Going into the tournament we had all assumed that the Canadian team would be strong, and that playing both them and Germany on the same day would really test us. Well, much to our surprise, the Canadians were floundering for the first few days of beach worlds. Our game with them wasn't necessarily representative of their abilities due to the very windy conditions on the beach fields that day. I don't remember too much about this one, I think Tucker got his callahan in this game (another tall guy eats up a floating upwind dump pass), and we won easily 10-2.

Well, after having only two games we all stuck around the fields to watch the game between Great Britain and the Philippines on the showcase field. It was the only game going on at the time, and as such had a huge crowd. It was during this game that everyone at the tournament fell in love with the Philippines team. They had a total of 8 players, one of whom was a woman, and another was a water boy during important games. So, they were playing one of the top four open teams at the tournament with a rotation of 6 players, and because there were only 60 seconds between points, the Philippines players would drink water on their way back to the line.

The O that the Boracay Dragons ran was very give and go heavy and made great use of the amount of touch they had on their throws. Basically, they'd overload one side of the field with 4 players, letting the 5th rest upfield from the disc on the far sideline. They'd then throw as many quick passes as they could to gain yards, and when the D adjusted they'd either reverse the field and use the resting player, or they'd swing, and the player who wasn't involved would cut deep. Every possession they had was a ton of fun to watch with multiple rediculosly athletic plays. Also amazing was how GB kept hucking, assuming they could get jump balls over the smaller Philippino players, but inevitable, one of the Dragons would make a sick play, and they'd get the disc back. I think my favorite part of the game was when the game was clearly already won by the Boracay Dragons and the relented to the crowds chants of "Number 9! Put her in!" It was really cool to see the whole team get playing time, especially in such a big game.

Well, after the game we had an impromptu west vs. east us scrimmage, which turned out to be very fun, with the west dominating (I don't actually remember how it went down, but I'll at least claim we rocked house). Anyway, after the fun, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up then off to a team dinner at pretty nice Brazilian all you can eat place. The food was good, and it was nice to hang out as a team. After dinner we went as a team to the party. I really enjoyed the dinner to party transition, it lead to a warm team bonding sort of feel to the whole night, and I think it translated well onto the fields in the following days.

The party that night was at a large beer themed bar that had a very fancy all you can eat place in the back (if only we had known that ahead of time). The place had a very classy feel with good lighting, hardwood floors, a large outdoor patio, and a stage and two bars inside. All the classiness and chillness almost made me feel bad for sneaking in some jungle juice, almost. There was a cover band playing classic rock like the Beatles and Pink Floyd. They rocked some harder stuff towards the end of the night, but it was all good. I think it helped the social atmosphere, but there was still a sweet dance party. The biggest effect the music had was determining who won the party. Even though some of our team stayed until the end, the swiss were there in force, rocking out. It was a decided swiss victory.

The next morning we had an early 8 am start (our first of the tournament) against the winless host team Brazil. It was a chill game, and we wound up winning 18-3. I don't remember to many stand out plays, but there is a big one I'll shout out. Grant got a layout callahan on a dump pass, where he landed on his knee, thus staying in bounds for the goal. So, that made four of us with callahans on the tournament, we joked we should make "I got a callahan in Brazil" T-shirts, I still think it's not a bad idea.

With our victory against Brazil we secured an afternoon by and our spot in the finals. Still, we were left with a final pool play game against the Spanish team that was ineligible for the finals. We had to play them on the windy beach fields, and they were incredibly motivated to beet us. Well, we had a turnover riddled windy zone-y game and they wound up winning. We had a lot of trouble stopping their three woman possession oriented O, and he had even more trouble scoring up wind. This was also the first time we didn't come out strong in a game, something that was troubling, especially since our only remaining game was the finals. Well, even though we were humbled by a loss, I don't think it helped us in the next game. After the game I went to lunch with Kali before her women's devision semifinal with Australia. After lunch we went back to the fields where I watched and supported the other US teams in their bids to make the finals.

After the games ended that evening there was a lot of drinking and a pickup game between the pickup teams at the tournament (Currier Island and the Peace Team). I played with my hommies on the peace squad, and I'll say we won the battle of the pickups. I then headed back to the hotel before going to the trade night at the point.

Trade night was held in the cleared out banquet room at Hotel Ponta Verde (the sight of player registration). The room was very bright and different teams had their own sort of trading stations set up around the room. Also, Michele played some music for the people. I had a blast and got to see a lot of sweet jerseys and shirts from around the world, and I also arranged trades for Brazil shorts and sandals, and a Philippines jersey. After the trading I headed out to dinner with the guys from the Peace Team, some of the younger guys from the US open team, and J9. We had dinner at the all you can eat place close to the fields. Dinner was light (relatively) and I capped it off with an espresso before heading out to the party.

Due to some confusion and accidental misinformation we thought that the party bar was close and easy to get to, so we decided to walk. Well, it was relatively close, but out walk was mad sketchy, and we probably should have been a lot more nervous then we were. I guess we were to excited about meeting sweet people and being in Brazil to be overly concerned about where we were walking. We wound up making it to the bar after about 20 min.

This party was awesome. All the teams that had been eliminated were getting real shitty (especially the US guys and the Australian women). Anyway, for a team with an early finals game the next day we made a great showing. Dave, Ken, and Erol were their with the Brazilian girls they had met earlier in the week, X was there being his usual 24 hour party self, and J9 and I were busy meeting new people (and trying to mediate the stolen hat affair going on between the US open team and the Australian woman's team). Well, despite our presence, we were outlasted by one German man. That's right, in the battle for the party, we lost because one guy from the other team held down the fort (to be fair, he was their with his hot girlfriend from the Spanish team).

Well, we all made it back in time to get at least 6 hours of sleep before the finals the next day. I guess that wraps up pool play, at least I made my personal goal of getting this post up before the end of January. Still, I have to write another Brazil post and a Lei-Out recap in the coming weeks.

P.S. I hope you enjoyed my lack of proof reading.

What I Did This Week

2008-01-24T17:25:00.000-08:00

I arrived home from LA Tuesday morning to find cold weather and a need to restock the wood piles (downstairs inside and out, and upstairs) . What I didn't anticipate was my dad's back acting up and the need for me to take my mom to Stanford for her 8:00 a.m. appointment on Wednesday morning. Without much time to relax, I updated myself on the world through the internet, then hauled some wood out in the cold.

Stacking and hauling wood affords me the opportunity to reflect on life; it's the time when I'm most introspective. I usually think about my house and what I want it to be like. I look out at the woods and picture what they could be like; I think about a vibrant and healthy forest. I look back towards the house and picture it in different colors, with different decks, and with a better kept garden. Basically, I picture my house as my paradise. I think this process is my way of dealing with loss. I think about what things will be like in a few years, how they'll change, and what will be good.

After finishing the wood it was time to head over to Palo Alto for the night. My mom and I left around three, just avoiding traffic, and got into Dinah's Garden Hotel around 4. I don't like dealing with people I don't know well (and even more so when they know of me), especially if what I'm doing is a personal matter, so when we arrived mom checked us in while I waited in the car. Through my parents frequent visits, my mom knows the whole staff of Dinah's Garden Hotel well. In particular, my parents have become friends with the concierge, David. David is an ex-navy man and, according to my parents, an exceptional concierge. He's in his late 40s and wears a smart blue suit, a buzz cut, a sizable belly, and small glasses with a strap the connects the ear pieces. After checking us in he showed us to our room and told us that we should feel free to ask if we needed anything.

He left us outside the apartment that was to be our room for the night. I was excited that we had an apartment, because I knew that whatever the room looked like, I was stuck with it as my stomping grounds for the next 18 hours or so. Basically, there was no way I would be roaming around Palo Alto looking for things to do. The space was nice. The living room had a couch, a typical hotel TV, and a nice desk. The kitchen was attached to the living room, in fact, the only reason it wasn't part of the living room was the floor changed from carpet to linoleum tiles. The kitchen was fully furnished with a small table, a stove, a microwave, and a full sized fridge stocked with soda, wine coolers, juices, and a coupe of Heinekens. The bedroom was sizable with two beds, and the bathroom was a typical hotel bathroom.

After having a quick look around, I helped my mom mover her stuff then settled down for a night of internet browsing and IM chatting. I had brought a couple of books, but I didn't feel like I had the focus it would require to read either of them. The night went on uneventfully and I eventually went to sleep around midnight. The following day was simple and went according to pan. I took my mom to the hospital then returned to the hotel. To my pleasant surprise I had the focus to read while I waited to go and pick up mom. When the time came, I went back to the hospital, picked up mom, then we went back to the hotel to pack and check out before heading home.

When we finally got home I went strait to work then had a typical Santa Cruz do nothing night.

Okay, so what's the point of this post. Well, I've started reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and I decided to write a little something now, and compare how I'd write similar things as I continue to read. Basically, I'll try and write little "What I did this week" posts every once and a while, and we'll see what happens. I think the first thing I've noticed is that I need to be more descriptive in my writing. I guess I'll see where this all leads, hopefully it'll make my blog a bit more readable.

Brazil III - Pool Play (I)

2008-01-23T00:47:00.000-08:00

Well getting the next post up quickly really didn't happen, but I can blame the massive power outage I went through for that one. Anyway, I'll try to tackle at least the first few days of pool play.

Well, there was a rain storm the night before our games started, and we lost power for a while (meaning the AC turned off and I woke up all sweaty, how lame). Anyway, it was relatively clear when we woke up for breakfast but you could definitely see stormy weather on the horizon, Our first game was against Ireland and conditions were clear when we started. Games were to time with no half so we chose to start on O. We scored the first point easily, then got the break right away. Things were looking good and it seemed like we would role. Then the weather happened and we all know that wind is the great equalizer in ultimate. Anyway, we began trading down winders, but somehow it still felt (to me) like we were rolling. I guess we just came out of the gates quickly so I figured we continued. Well, the eventually got a wind break, making to score close, but we were able to get it back and score downwind to win 8-6 (the games were like 50 min long).

After the game we had a spirit circle, as is costume in international ultimate. What our captain didn't know is that the wining team's captain is supposed to summarize the game with what worked and what didn't, then the other team's captain talks, then the teams to the gifts and such. Well, this lack of knowledge made out first day's spirit circles kind of awkward, but I think things got better after that. Also, we were blessed to have someone who's a cheer expert on our team, and always had great songs for our opponents.

I think it was after this game the J9 decided we should mix a bunch of jungle juice (how American, right) and give bottles of it as gifts to our opponents. After the 10:00 am game we had a long bye until 3:00 then another game at 5:00. We used our huge bye to go to the super market and buy ingredients to mix some delicious jungle juice. Our first attempt at mixing our gift involved stealing the large trash can from the hall and a big trash bag from the kitchen. Well, this round wasn't incredibly successful, that is, we lost a lot of the juice in the poring process, but it was delicious. Well, we finished with two 1.5 leader bottles of our new gift, and just in time to get to the fields and not warm up for our game (we also learned that we needed to make some sort of funnel).

Our 3 o'clock game was against Great Britain, and we went into it really confidently; we had done well against them a couple of nights before, and that was without our whole team. The game went by smoothly, I had my first layout D of the tournament in this game, and I scored a few goals. We wound up winning 18-3 (no wind makes a big difference). Chilling with GB after the game was maybe better than with any other team, I guess there just isn't as much of a culture gap.

Our Last game of the day was in the arena against Trevor and Tyler's team, the Peace Team (a pickup team that also volunteered to do some outreach stuff in Maceio). This time our start wasn't as strong, it seemed like they lulled us into playing pickup style disc, still, we never trailed. the game was 4-3 then there was a hell point where Xtehn and I were the guys for our team and Trevor and Tyler were in for their team. It was really fun playing against those guys, and we eventually got the break to go up 5-3. After that we went on a huge run (partly because we had a lot of depth, and with Trevor and Tyler tiered from the hell point, they had lost two of their top three guys). It was 10-3 before anyone really noticed. We closed out the game kind of slowly and wound up taking it 13-6.

With our games for the day over and the sun setting we all headed back to the hotel and the adjacent little burger stand for showers and dinner. After dinner J9 and I got to mixing jungle juice for Ireland, our opponents for the next day, and to have at the party that night. Our refined mixing technique involved a smaller trash can that we got from one of the bathrooms, a 1.5 liter bottle with the top cut off and turned upside-down to create a funnel. We also began to rock a new recipe with a 12 pack of beer, a fifth of Pitu (cane sugar rum), and a lot of powdered flavor packets. So, with our concoction in hand we went to the party.

The party was at a small bar on the beach front, and it was a good thing that we pre-gamed // brought our own drink. The party was fun and full of dancing. As it wound down there was a skinny dipping group (not my thing), and I also threw my fire at this party (a story for another time, all you have to know is that I wanted to throw my fire in Brazil, and I made it happen). I wound up leaving around 1 a.m. and got to bed by two so I could be ready for that 10 a.m. game.

We had the same buys on day two as we did on day one, so that was nice for our internal clocks. Our first game of day two was against Austria. I don't remember too many details from this game, I just remember that it was very clear, and they didn't like the level of physicality we played with. The final score was 13-1 and I know they were disappointed with how they played, but they also said that we were much more physical than they were used to, and they felt that we were unspirited because of that. As I see it, we were a lot less physical than is typical of ultimate in the US and we toned it down more so when they asked us to. I also think that it shouldn't be fully on us to change they way be play. People play the game differently in different places, and everyone has to realize that. I understand that international ultimate is less physical than US ultimate, but I also think that a lot of teams didn't give us a chance and had decided how they would perceive our play before the game started.

Anyway, our next game was against Scotland and it was also pretty uneventful. The Scots were a really young bunch and they relied a lot on hucking to their athletes, the only problem was we were more experienced with better athletes. That is, I don't remember much, and it was windy. I think Erol got our first callahan of the tournament in this one, it was on a floaty dump pass in the up-wind endzone. The final score was 13-4.

Our last game of the day was against Switzerland. They had beat us in the little three team round robin scrimmage thing, so we got up for this one. We came out really strong and played hard D and efficient O. I got called for a couple of travels during this game, and the guys explanation was "you're taking 3 or 4 steps after you catch the disc every time." I said I'd try to stop faster, but I was going left right left then pivoting to throw, so I wasn't really traveling, but good spirit // ambassador of the sport and so on. I also got a callahan by getting a layout catch D on a dump pass after a stoppage (would that sentence be at all readable if you don't play ultimate? I didn't think so).

The post games activities were the same for day two as day one, small time dinner and big time drink mixing. This time the party was at a legit club, so we all took cabs that way after dinner and partied it up. There was a small issue with getting in because the people who were working at the club hadn't communicated well with the owner and didn't understand the tournament party thing, but it just resulted in a sweet 30 min outdoor party and dance circle, so all was good. This night was by far the biggest for me. After leaving the party around 2:30 or 3:00 we went to a little stand on the beach for late night food and drink. I think I wound up not going back to the hotel until the sun was rising around 5:30 a.m.

Anyway, that gave me plenty of time to rest up for our 10 a.m. game with Germany. I'll discuss that along with the rest of pool play next time.

Shelter From The Storm

2008-01-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

The big west coast storm did a pretty good job messing things up around Santa Cruz county yesterday morning. The power was out in most of the town and roads were out everywhere. So, if you know where I live, it' not surprising that my house has been without power since 8 a.m. yesterday. Around 1 p.m. yesterday I realized it was going to be questionable whether or not I would be able to make it of the mountain for much longer, so I sought refuge in town. I went to Robin's house to grab a shower (they had watter but no power) then spent the rest of my day at the climbing gym (luckily the power was on in their part of town). Well, knowing I wasn't going home I decided to get good and drunk last night and rely on my friends for a place to stay (I was already stuck in town, i might as well get drunk was the logic I was using). Anyway, the power is still out at my place, and will be until tonight. I'm just thankful that robin has let me chill here at his house, even while he takes his girlfriend to the airport. Basically, I might be out of touch for a while.

Now for the real reason for this post. Drew, I've already read a book this year. That's right, Joaq 1, Drew 0 :). I know I'm going to loose this race so I have to gloat while I can.

EDIT: Still no power, staying at a hotel. Life is surreal.

Brazil II - The Tourist Days

2008-01-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

My first few days in Maceió were amazing and really touristy. After raging the buffet and getting settled into our rooms, Sunya and I went back to meet up with Trevor and Tyler. We met up around 10:00 am and spent the rest of the morning tossing on the beach and swimming in the warm ocean water (it was my first time being around warm ocean water, and it was amazing). After finally accepting we were in brazil, we decided to get lunch and a nap before evening pick-up (yeah, there was international beach pickup, under lights, on the arena fields. Well, some teams didn't participate and instead just practiced, but we all know that's lame).

So, we hit up the local fare (burger/sandwich-y things with mayo) and parted ways for some (barely)afternoon napping. Well, I hit the bed around 11:45 and read maybe 10 pages of my book before passing out hard. So, how the hotel we were in worked was, you had to slide the key into this port thing in the room for the electricity in your room to work (well, luckily, the mini-fridge was exempt from this rule). Anyway, I wanted the electricity for the air-conditioner while I was napping, so I had the key in the room. Apparently, at some point in the afternoon my roommate wanted to get some things, but couldn't because I slept through him banging on the door for like 15 minutes. My plan was to be woken up for some beach chillin' before evening pickup, but that never materialized. Luckily, I woke up just as one of my teammates (with a bike) was leaving for the pickup/scrmmages. It was on the way there that I realized there are lights all along the beach-front at night. Also along the beach there is a bike/skate park, volleyball courts, basketball courts, and three soccer pitches (two of which had sand trucked into them so they could become beach ultimate pitches).

We got to the fields just as Switzerland was wrapping up beating GB for the second time (apparently Switzerland, GB, and us were playing a round robin with games to three and a three wins and your out rule). Well, after Switzerland beat GB we were up to play them. I jumped in on the first point (a D point) rocking a sunburn and some sweet DTB shorts. We wound up getting the turn and I went deep and caught a sweet huck from Kenbrah. We didn't get the second break in a row, but we managed to score our O point without turns, then get a break to win the game. This brought us to what our leadership (who was present at the time) built up as the important game of the night. Apparently us loosing to them with our skeleton squad was unacceptable, and we needed to lay the hammer down. Well, we didn't quite shut them out, but we did get one break so we won 3-1 having started on O (I'd like to think my showing up made the difference, but I actually think it was just our team respecting them and deciding to really play). After beating the Swiss we took care of GB again then called it a night (in terms of ultimate).

After playing we headed across the street to one of those all you can eat meat places and gorged ourselves on some delicious food. Brazilian all you can eat restaurants are super sweet. How it goes down is you hit up the buffet for some appetizers, then the waiters start coming around with different cuts of meat on these huge skewers and you just say if you want some. When you do they cut you some meat and there you have it. It was also at this dinner that I was introduced to the Brazilian national drink, the Caipirinha (fermented sugar cane with limes and lots of sugar). After dinner I was once again exhausted, and didn't make it out the the clubs that night, instead retiring early with my book for a good night's sleep.

The next day was awesome. We got up at a reasonable hour, hit up the breakfast then made our way out to the reef on a sweet $7.50 a person boat tour. What happens is you head out to the reef area where all these boar tour boats park and snorkel around with the option of ordering food and drinks from the kitchen boat. Now, these boats aren't motorized, actually there really rickety little sailboats, and the experience is awesome. Our boat tour lasted al morning and involved a lot of waist deep tossing with Grant from L&C. One of the best parts of doing the reef thing was spending time together as a team. I think hanging out together was more valuable than playing together could be. We acted like a team all week, it didn't matter how much we had played together, just that we all got along and gelled well socially.

After the boat tour we had a really low key day hanging out at the hotel, going to the grocery store, and the flea market thing. After lazing about all day we hit up the little burger place next to the hotel for dinner before going to the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony was really nice, all the different countries marched through with their flags and formed a huge circle. The TD then gave a speech, and finally it turned into a party. There were frisbee drinking games being played on the beach stadium pitches, and Michele (of Paganello fame) played songs for the crowd. I think the music played until around 1:00, then got some food with J9 (this was probably the best food I had the whole trip, and only because we just asked for the same thing as what the locals just got). Well, we got back to the hotel around 1:45 to get some sleep before our 10:00 am game with Ireland.

Well, that does it for the pre tournament festivities and posts, I'll get to posting about the games soon, and by soon, I definitely mean there will be less time between this post and the next.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays everyone. The Brazil posts might be on hold for a day or two because of holiday festivities. I just wanted to post about the best holiday gift I've gotten. Well, I got myself two new pairs of cleats, a pair of Nike Mercurial Vapor III FG (I loved these cleats last time I had them, this time I got $70 off with the sale and $20 off with the over $100 purchase coupon, also, they weigh 8 o.z.) and a pair of Puma v1.06 SG ($110 off sale, they weigh 7.4 o.z., I guess now all I'm missing is a pair of turf shoes), but those weren't my favorite gifts.

The best gift I got this holiday season was my flick. For about a year I haven't been comfortable throwing flicks, and somehow that all changed in Brazil. In fact, I remember the exact moment it felt better, it was while I was tossing before warming up for the finals. Ever since I injured my right hand in November '06 my flick hasn't felt right. After the injury I took a month of from throwing forehands (that's when I learned to throw a lefty backhand), but when I started throwing again my grip was awkward, and I couldn't really settle on a comfortable way to throw. Anyway, it's all finally coming back to me and I no longer have to think really hard just to throw a flick while tossing. Man, this is awesome.

Brazil I - The Trip Down

2007-12-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

I love Ultimate. I love the anonymity of it all. I love that the journey to a world championship event has humble beginnings for all the players who come from around the globe to play. That's not to say that the journeys themselves are small or easy, just that they aren't glamorous. What people will go through to get to an Ultimate tournament is immense, and it only magnifies their emotional investment in the outcome of the tournament. One story I heard was that a player from the Philippines flew to Tokyo, then to San Francisco, then Miami, then Sao Paulo, and finally to Maceió. Now, my trip wasn't as long or epic as his, but it'll have to do for now.

So, my journey started on an average Saturday morning in Santa Cruz, some fog, low 40s, you know, that horrible December weather. Sunya and my flight was at 11:30 so we met our friend Anna, who was giving us a ride, at 8:00 and got on the road. We got to the airport comfortably around 9:30 then went through the long an arduous process of checking in for an international flight. After waiting in line for like an hour we finally got to the check in counter. When the lady asked for our tickets Sunya handed over hers and I just gave my ID. She told me I'd need a ticket, at which point Sunya and I looked at each other with that "oh shit, is this really happening?!?" sort of look. Well, I just said "I was told by my travel agent that I'd only need an ID" and let it ride.

Five minuets went by with awkward silence and a lot of typing by the lady behind the counter, then out of the blue she hands us both our boarding passes and says "have a nice flight." What the fuck, right? She didn't say anything the whole time, and there was a lot she could have said. There wasn't a "You're right, the ID will do fine." No "I'll try and get you two seats next to one another." No, "Sorry, I can't get you guys adjacent seats." Nothing, just awkward silence and typing. I seriously thought I wasn't going to Brazil for those 5 minuets, and man, that sucked balls. Anyway, I guess it worked out. After getting our boarding basses we hit up an airport book store where I bought a Rolling Stone mag, and Empire by Orson Scott Card (I wouldn't recommend it, btw). After making our plane reading selections (Sunya bought a People mag) we made our way through security and got some food before boarding our flight.

The first leg of the trip was relatively uneventful, and the plane was empty enough that we could sit next to each other. Over all, it was nice, and I managed to resist listening to the iPod shuffle I had brought. I was really happy with the collection of music I put on the shuffle. It was really eclectic, and I found it all pretty jetset-y. I think I liked my selections because it was all good background music, but also great if you wanted to pay attention. Also, the music I chose isn't the greatest driving music, but it all does well for traveling (I'll post the list at some point). *

After landing in Chicago, Sunya and I garbed another quick bite to eat before boarding our long flight to São Paulo. I was expecting this ten and a half hour flight to be the real kicker, but it went by relatively quickly. I traded my isle seat for the easier-to-sleep-in window seat and the book I bought proved very readable, even if I didn't enjoy the politics it was plugging. Also, the music really carried me through on this one. Anyway, the flight became bearable, but I didn't get nearly enough sleep. I thought I might be able to get like 5 or 6 hours on the plane, but instead I got about three. Normally I could function enough to make it through the day on 3 hours, but after all that traveling, I was starting to fear the 12 hour layover in São Paulo.

After getting into Brazil (south of the equator for the first time ever!) we spent about 90 min in the airport figuring out details about our next flight, changing and brushing teeth, finding lockers and getting maps. After taking care of all our airport business we took a cab to down town to check out the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). MASP was really cool. I dig museums, and this one was great. It had two floors of modern art below ground, an outdoor market at ground level, to go with floor of photography and a floor of fine art above ground. I think we spent about three hours looking around, but I could have used at least another hour (especially if I wasn't so tiered). Down town SP was pretty sweet, it was really hot and humid and there were Santas and Christmas decorations everywhere, like bizarre-o Christmas. Also, we went to the coolest public park I've ever been to, it was really jungle-y and there were kids play structures everywhere. I was exhausted the whole time and I tried to drink inordinate amounts of water to make up for it. It almost worked, then, in the museum, I fell asleep while walking and almost tripped into a priceless piece of modern art. Right then I knew the layover couldn't end soon enough.

Luckily that was toward the end of our stay and the museum, and it was dinner time. We found a restaurant at a hotel for some food, then after dinner we took a bus back to the airport. It was a nice charter type buss and we both got a good hour of sleep in, followed by the usual airport business and a nice two and a half hour flight to Maceió. Well, after sleeping on the bus and the plane I felt really energetic, and I was mentally prepared to stay up all night in the airport. See, our plane got in at 1:30 so we had our bags around two meaning we either had to get a cab to our hotel and wake people up around 2:30, or we could just stay up in the airport and save money by taking a bus in the morning. Well, it seemed to inconvenience the fewest people if we stayed up, also, saving money is always good on trips. So, after getting our bags we made our way up towards the airport eateries.

About a half hour into our airport all nighter we encountered a couple of fellow ultimate players who had the same plane. We had seen a few on our flight, but they all went off to grab cabs and meet up with teammates. Well, the two we met in the airport were predictable american college students who had been studying abroad in South America. When we met them, Trevor, captain of the University of Utah Zion Curtain, and Tyler, baller from Tufts, were wavering from there initial airport all night plan and were contemplating hitting up a hostel for the night, luckily the met us and found inspiration to stick it out in the airport.

I couldn't have been happier with how the airport thing worked out. First, the Bob's Burgers (I know, what a sweet name for a Brazilian fast food chain) stayed open all night, giving us a constant source of burgers, shakes, and fries, and second, Trevor and Tyler had tons of awesome stories from their semesters in south america. Basically, I remained energized all night, and the sun made an appearance at like 5:30 because of how far east in the time-zone Maceió is. At around 5:40 we asked some employees about busses/cabs into the city and they told us about a 6:00 am bus that'd get us where we needed to go. Jumping at the opportunity to save money we jumped on the public transportation and got a tour of both the outlying slums and some of the rougher neighborhoods that Maceió has to offer (the crazy thing is, the people who live in these neighborhoods all dress nicely to go to work in the touristy areas, also, all the women in Brazil wear high heels). We told the buss driver where we were going and they let us off where they said was really close. It just turned out to be about six blocks to far. Anyway, we had a nice little adventure figuring out where our hotel was, and eventually got there around 8:00 am. Just in time to hit up the breakfast buffet and chill with teammates. Meanwhile Trevor and Tyler walked the 4 additional blocks to their hotel, which turned out to be right across from the arena fields.

Okay, so that's the journey down. I'll try to get a post up about the pre tournament activities and the opening ceremony soon.

* I guess if you've also read my Road Trip posts you must think that I get really excited about any travel playlist I put together. This is partially true, I'm always excited about it right after I make it, but they don't always stand the test of time. In retrospect I really like the 1st, 2nd, and 5th I-5 playlists I made, and so far I'm still into my Brazil playlist. I could get into this whole thing more, but I really need to just organize my thoughts and devote a whole post to long playlists.

Quick Update (and thoughts on tonights Warriors game)

2007-11-28T13:37:00.001-08:00

I've been plaining posting about Music, what I'm listening to and the art of making playlists (one of my favorite thing), but it's taking longer than I would like to motivate myself to write it. So, to at least get myself writing, here's a quick update about my ultimate life.

My club season hangover has finally worn off and I'm really feeling college disc again. We had a great practice last weekend and I finally felt comfortable as a teammate. Now it looks like I might be moving to O instead of staying with the D line. O has the potential to be a ton of fun, but I think it takes more chemistry than D does, or, more accurately, the chemistry O requires is harder to build. Also, it's easier to heckle as a D player than as an O player (calling your teammates brutes just isn't as fun as calling them prima-donnas). Either way I'll be happy, I just want to figure out my role soon.

In other news, I've also started a regimented workout, finally. Starting last week I've been working out before climbing on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Basically, I'm doing a winter workout day two, except climbing for an hour or two between the jumps and the core. It's pretty fun, and it's getting my ass in (better) shape before Brazil.

EDIT (this doesn't warrant a full post, but I want to put is somewhere, so here it goes): The Warriors win tonight was so awesome. If you don't know, the Warriors beet the Kings tonight 103-96, despite shooting 8-31 from three and having each of the teams three captains pick up a technical foul. In any of the seasons since I've been a Warriors fan, including last season, this would have turned into a big loss somewhere in the 2nd half, probably when either Baron or Jax picked up their tech. Basically, I was expecting them to loose because the Warriors have never really known how to win before, they've just been mentally week. That was also true of this team early in the season, but it's all changed since Stephen Jackson came back from suspention. The Warriors now have a swagger and mental toughness to them that's just a joy to watch. Seeing Jackson make back to back triples when the team had only made 6 of 29 to that point really drove it home that this year's Warriors team expects to and knows how to win. Also, the Warriors' D in the 4th was inspired and this is the first time I've seem them both be a high scoring team, and a good defensive team. Anyway, I'm trying not to get to excited about this recent spurt, because every team has it's ups and downs, but, needles to say, I'm really hyped on this year's team. GO WARRIORS!

State of the Blog

2007-11-21T23:53:00.000-08:00

Moving from the club season to the college season, I find that it's harder to write about my team. With Family Style, I knew most, if not all, of my readers were not my opponents, and I feel like writing about club ultimate is not as personal. If I was with the Braineaters, I think I'd feel better about writing about the college season; but as a player on a new team, I don't feel like it fits my role to keep a blog about our play. I might still write about how I played, and I'll probably give a mid season report and such, but if I write about ultimate, it'll usually be about how Claremont gets no respect (well, I'm learning they get a little bit of respect, but I still say not enough!).

I can say I really like the Slugs. I'm finding a role I enjoy (even if I go back to being around the disc) and I'm having lots of fun. There might not be a week long trip to Mexico for fish tacos, Pacifico and a lac of working out right before the series, but it's still fun. I'll also say it's different not being in a leadership role on a college team, but I like being one of the players. I like getting to hear what everyone has to say about the captains, and I like not running practices. I also like having enough committed people and field space for separate A team and B team practices.

So I guess my Blog won't be as much about college ultimate as I initially anticipated it might be, but I will write about things like Lei-Out, Beach Worlds and club tryouts. Also, I've found I just enjoy writing, so it might be hard to resist the everyday life non-ultimate sort of things.

Life Update (Roadtrip: Visual Key)

2007-11-13T11:54:00.001-08:00

Luckily for Robin, Miles, David, and I disposable cameras still exist. None of us are the I take my camera everywhere type, so being able to buy disposable cameras was essential to us chronicling our adventure. I didn't know that Robin was going to be so on top of things in this regard, but I am very happy it turned out that way. The following is a brief trip through our road trip:

The gas station where Miles paid $40 for $20 in gas:

The alleged thieves:
Miles and Robin at the first night's party:

Fatso and Robin:

The morning after at Fatso's (really, check the size of those calzones):

Our trip to the mountains (David, Robin, me, Miles, and Matt):

Matt's birthday party:

The trip home:

If you want more pictures, you should friend Robin on facebook and check it out.

Life Update (Road Trip Recap Pt. III)

2007-11-09T02:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I got distracted by Scrubs and by real life. Well, back to the trip. We got to Matt's in Santa Fe around 7:30 P.M. MDT time after leaving Claremont around 6:15 A.M. PDT. Instead of feeling drained from a long day of driving we were all energized by the prospect of crazy parties and new people. When we got to Matt's we were greeted with some delicious bbq steak (first meal since Del Taco in Flagstaff) and some new faces. We met Matt's housemates, Rainer and Emily, along with some of his New Mexico homies, Amber and Katie. After eating it came to our attention that the party we were going to had some cover, $5 if you had a costume and $10 otherwise. As such, we went scouring through Matt's house for what to wear. Robin wound up with a gold shinny sweater and a pink boa, Miles got a female African ensemble going on, and I found a pick, a tie dye shirt, and two headbands. Everyone threw their costumes on and we all headed off to the party (after buying another disposable camera, thankfully).

The party was pretty sweet, the garage was set up for root (like almost every other college-house garage), the living room was clear for a dance floor, and there were three kegs in the back yard. What I didn't expect was how much the altitude would affect my tolerance (Robin also didn't see this coming, usually he's a tank, but he actually puked, although it was after two consecutive beer bongs). At the party I learned that one of Matt's friends had 5 visitors from Colorado, so Matt had a reel full house that night.

The next morning (around noon) we all went to a place called Fatso's for some ridiculously large portions of food and general hangover recovery. It wasn't until we drove around Santa Fe a little bit on Saturday that I really got a feel for the place. I realized on Friday that most of the people seemed strait out of the 90s, but Saturday I found that the place reminds me a lot of Beck, The Pixies, and Techno, so I guess, by association, lots of drugs. Santa Fe has this crazy combination of altitude, desert, and standardized architecture that all adds up to a drugged out feeling, like it couldn't make sense unless you were from there or were on drugs (or a crazy road trip, it was kind of the ideal place to find as a destination). I can't say my conclusions about the kind of place Santa Fe is were hurt by Matt's particular group of friends, but I still think it's a crazy environment.

Anyway, my conception of the craziness of New Mexico would only increase from this point. Later that afternoon we went up into the mountains to have a wilderness experience. We went up into the Aspens. It was sweet because I'd never been in a deciduous forest before. The idea that all of those Aspens share a root system was kind of too much for me to handle. We were only able to spend about an hour up there before we had to go back into town to set up for a house party at Matt's.

Man, Matt's house party was huge, we went through 2 handles of vodka, three 30 racks, and a 24 pack. Not to mention it was byob. There was a root room, an outdoor area, a smoking/lounging room, and a dance floor. A good time was had by all, and I think Matt had a great birthday party.

So, all the out-of-towners crashed at Matt's that night, but the Colorado kids left around 6:45 am so the morning had an exceptionally empty feeling. That next day flew by, we got some breakfast at a sweet local spot, we then cleaned some, watched the brains doc (shy gave it to me in Claremont and I was too stoked on it to wait), then went onto campus to see a crazy 25 piece alt-rocky band (think Weezer + Phil Spector, I guess). Matt then gave us a quick tour of his crazy campus (old military combined with art school combined with Santa Fe architecture), then we were out.

The ride back was went by surprisingly quickly, well, considering we drove pretty much strait through to Berkeley. We left Santa Fe around 5 pm MDT with me taking the first and Robin manning the tunes. I don't think I fully understood the magnitude of the drive we were leaving on. We were to have about 19 hours of drive time with only Robin and I able to take shifts driving (Miles was clearly not an option and I wanted to give David the chance to get some sleep before he had to drive from Claremont to San Diego at 4 am). This sort of deal may be common place to some of you cross country travelers, but I don't think anyone in their right mind does it leaving at 5 at night. So, I drove the first 6 hours from Santa Fe to Flagstaff, we had one stop for gas that somehow took over a half hour because Miles was looking for a cigarette to ac adapter so David could write a paper. Well, we eventually got out of there and made it to Flagstaff and back to the Del Taco.

The Del Taco wasn't exactly what we were looking forward to in Arizona. The real prize of making it back to the same gas station was the nick-nacks. Robin and David both got gifts for the girl friends, and miles bought like 4 shot glasses, but all that paled in comparison to the big purchase, a bull skull. That's right, a Georgia O'keefe status (but without a vagina like rose), bull skull. Well, David, Miles, and Robin went in three ways on the skull than guessed who was closer to a number from 1 to 100 that the gas station attendant chose to see who would get the prize. David won, and I hope it's chillin' on his wall in SD. With the skull ordeal out of the way Robin took over driving and I rode shotgun. Robin got us all the way to Barstow, before we had to stop for gas again (we didn't stop in NEEDLES!, and instead chose to drive on in hopes for more reasonable [$3.60 a gallon?] prices). Well, it was Miles's turn to rock the gas, so he put down the $18 he had left to his name (true story, maybe he shouldn't have spent like $40 in Flagstaff on a bull skull he didn't win and 4 shot glasses, but I guess that's Miles for ya). Anyway, I took over driving again due to familiarity with the LA area and such. We continued into Claremont and got there at 4 am.

We had a couple of missions to accomplish while in Claremont. First of, we had to get the original party cam (disposable camera 1) from 'Shwa's room in north quad CMC, and we wanted to score some adderall so Miles and Robin could stay awake for the drive. So, I parked by ducey so Miles and Robin would have a strait shot back from Josh's. Well, somehow, they didn't make the connection of where the room was in relation to the car and they took like a half hour to get the camera. I had no luck finding any adderall for them, and decided I wanted some Carl's, unfortunately I also decided that I would wait for them to get back first. As such, we had no time to get food and instead had to just refuel and leave (luckily Miles still had a couple of energy drinks to compliment the 2 1L Mountain Dues I had from Barstow, and the Fritos I was getting). Well, Miles put down both the energy drinks before we got on the highway, and we were off.

This last stretch of driving I did was the most taxing I've ever done. I went from about 4:45 to 7:00 (2 to 7 if you count from Barstow) and I hadn't slept since 11:30 the previous morning. Luckily for all of us, I stayed awake the whole time, although the last 20 min were getting dicy seeing as Robin was asleep in the back and Miles managed to dose off while ridding shotgun. Anyway, I pulled over on some random road north of Harris Ranch and let Robin take over the driving on his massive 2 hrs of sleep. He got us back to Berkeley at 10:30 am in one piece and got that great relief of being home. Miles and I took quick 1 hr naps and got back on the road to drive down to SC. Feeling rejuvenated, but knowing I couldn't eat on pain of falling fast asleep, we made it back to Miles's in about 90 min, he gathered his things and I made the final 20 min trek back home.

Somehow, we all made it back without harm, and I made it home safely. I was also able to stay up until like 7 pm allowing me to not completely fuck up my sleep cycle (I slept until 9 the next day, which is like really early for me). Well, I guess that's the tale of my grand road trip. I should probably have some final thoughts and such, but I'll save those for the next road trip post, a kind of wrap up // picture guide post (thank god for disposable cameras).

So, that's it for now kids. Maybe the next post will be more road tripin' maybe it'll be recapping Sean Ryan, maybe I will get caught up in TV and life and not post for far to long. However it turns out, writing this has been fun; I hope you liked it.

Life Update (Road Trip Recap Pt. II)

2007-11-05T21:28:00.000-08:00

The second long drive was much weirder and harder than the first. For one, nobody in a car slept more than like 4 hours, with Miles sleeping 4, Robin and David sleeping 2 and myself sleeping 30 min. Still, we were all surprisingly sober, apparently the concept of a 12 hour drive will sober you up when you've stayed out late drinking and partying (getting late night Carl's also helped). So, we were supposed to leave Claremont at 6 in the morning, and as such I left Never Land at about 5:40 and got to the car at about 5:50. Being the impatient type, and wanting to save some time I went to fill up on gas and buy some personal driving fuel. Seeing as this wasn't an all night drive we were about to embark on I decided on a 1L bottle of Coke instead of ramping all the way up to the Dew. I got back to the parking lot at about 6:05 to find Robin, Miles, and to my surprise David, waiting for me. Initially Thomas a.k.a. 'Jenga' was considering joining us, but that would have been 6 strain driving weekends for him (fall break, road trip, UCLA tournament, Sean Ryan, SoCal Warmup, something else) so he decided against it. Well, David is a free spirit and an awesome guy who realized that the San Diego wild fires afforded him a great opportunity for a sweet life experience (reading On the Road and writing a paper about the mystique of the road couldn't have hurt either). Robin, Miles, and David all got in the car, we then made a quick stop by David's car so he could get some things, then we hit the road at about 6:15.

I took the first driving shift because it was my car and I couldn't have slept with someone with less than 4 hours of sleep that was not me driving it (unless that person was Shaggy with a 2L of Mountain Due or an appropriate amount of physics homework and coffee). Robin took shotgun with the responsibility of staying awake and choosing the music seeing as none of us undertook the task of making a 12 hr playlist. Luckily for me, Robin had his laptop and thus a sweet assortment of music that I don't have. His musical choices combined with the post apocalyptic feel of the early morning I-15 were enough to easily keep me awake.

There were already a ton of cars on the road when we started our drive. False dawn came around 6:45, bringing with it a red haze through all the smoke that had drifted north with the wind along I-15. The early morning traffic (well, the flow was between 60 and 80 mph at all times) combined with the red haze and the still visible moon gave the drive a Mad Max sort of feel that really tripped David, Robin and I out in our sleep-deprived states. Unfortunately for Miles, he slept like a rock and never got to see the smoke, even though that was a big goal of his for the trip (he had even suggested that we take a detour to see the flames if it wouldn't take to long, in fact, on the way down he was almost insisting that we do so seeing as the flames were visible from the 5 and we were on it, but we got off at the 210 instead of driving through LA just to see the fucking fires).

We got off the 15 on the north side of Barstow and got on I-40, which apparently connects Wilmington, NC to, um, Barstow. When we got on the 40 we were greeted with a sign saying Needles 144 miles, Washington D.C. 2,556 miles. Somehow we decided that this meant needles was a very important destination, and that yelling NEEDLES! anytime we saw a sign for the place was a very funny and entertaining action. Well, it seemed logical that we should fill up in Needles because we'd be be at about a half tank then and we didn't want to spend a ton of money each time it was your turn to fill up (I couldn't convince everyone that we should go till just about empty then play credit card roulette for who pays). Little did we know that Needles is such an important destination that gas costs $3.70 a gallon there (luckily for me I payed for gas in Claremont and wasn't hit with the bill in NEEDLES!)

I traded off driving to Robin in Needles and decided to play captain iPod for a while. After about an hour of this we went to instrumentals and started freestyling, basically, we all sucked compared to Robin, but we all improved greatly during our first forte into freestyling on the roadtrip (except maybe Miles, he's kind of special when freestyling). I think my favorite part of freestyling was trying to get Miles to rhyme. Inevitably, when he did, he'd try and rap about Man Ferns, but he couldn't mess up without being to self conscious. I really liked "Man Fern, yeah, Man Fern, man fern, uh, man fern, fuck." as a rap. Anyway, the hours flew by and Robin drove until we got to Flagstaff, at which point I (unwisely) took over again.

After about a half hour of driving I realized I was far to tiered to drive, and that I should pass the torch again. Well, I started driving again for two reasons, first, Robin is a really good driver, he's just not that fast of a driver, and I wanted to get to Santa Fe pretty quickly, second, Miles is a crazy sob when it comes to driving, I am often legitimately scared when I'm in a car and he's behind the wheel. Somehow, in my drowsy state I forgot that I was so hesitant to let Miles drive. When I pulled over to hand over the driving responsibilities I foolishly let Miles drive thinking I'd just nap in the back and not get scared/stressed. Well, I should of known that this was a bad plan when Miles got up to 120 mph just getting back onto the highway. I was about to fall asleep when I heard my car fucking roaring so I looked up at the speedometer from the back seat and saw a new speed record for my car. I was like "what the fuck Miles, you're going 120!" He was like "oh my god, sorry, I was looking at the other meter and was wondering why I was going only 40." "Well, just slow the fuck down" I said. Miles responded "Okay, don't worry." Needless to say, I didn't sleep to well.

Eventually Miles's horrible driving lead me to become very aware and awake. I had him pull over at the first gas station and we switched back for driving duties. At this gas stop we lost all of the time that Miles's craziness might have gained us because he paid to put $20 in the tank then never actually did because he assumed one of us would pump the gas even though he didn't tell us he'd paid the $20. Anyway, we got back on the road and I noticed that we were still at half a tank so we turned around and had to go back to the gas station. This time we filled up with no hitch and were on our way. Thankfully that was our last stop before we finally got to Santa Fe. Wow, that took a while, still, I'll try and write about the weekend and the trip back for later tonight.

Life Update (Road Trip Recap Pt. I)

2007-11-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

So, before Wednesday the 24th of October I'd never really been on a road trip. This past summer I took a NW trip, that took me to Seattle for Potlatch and the 4th, then backpacking with Alison and her friends, then finally to Vancouver, WA to visit my brother and his family. It was a sweet 2 week trip, but there was far to much hanging out time compared to driving time, and there was no crazy all night drives. Well, two weeks ago I took a real road trip.

The seeds of my trip were planted last summer when Miles promised Matt he'd find a way to visit him in Santa Fe this semester. This promise developed into the idea of Miles and I road-tripping down to visit Matt for his birthday. We then combined this idea with visiting friends in Claremont and vwala, a road trip was born.

Still, the magnitude of the trip was not yet clear to me. The unpredictability of a trip with Miles was exciting, but when Robin decided to join us I was elated. Robin really knows how to party, and having a second competent driver was a relieving prospect (I'll get back to this point).

Our initial plan was to leave Santa Cruz the morning of Tuesday the 23rd and stay at USC with Miles's high school friend Hans. In order to add Robin to our trip roster, we had to scrap this plan and instead postpone leaving until Wednesday. It was disappointing we couldn't visit Hans, but it was nice that we would have another travel partner, and we'd cut down on the total trip time and money spent. So, we scraped this plan and came up with a new schedule.

Our schedule became leave Santa Cruz in time to pick up Robin at 12:00 on Wednesday. Drive to Claremeont, and stay there Wednesday night and all day Thursday. Party Thursday night and leave Claremont for Santa Fe at 6 a.m. Friday morning. Arrive in Santa Fe in time for dinner and a Friday night party. Chill Saturday, then hit up Matt's birthday party Saturday night. And finally, recover on Sunday and leave at 5 p.m. so we could get back to Berkeley by noon Monday when Robin had an office hours appointment with a professor. It was a tight schedule and looked like one of a real road trip.

So, Wednesday came and we were on our way. I picked up Miles in town at 10:15, we then proceeded to Mountain View so Miles could sell some comics and get money for the trip. From there we went on the B-town to pick up Robin. After picking up Robin we got some gas, a disposable camera, and Miles donated $5 to breast cancer so he could get a plastic pot for a Man Fern. (Okay, quick sidebar, Miles really wanted to get a Man Fern for Matt as a house warming gift. He was planing on digging one up while in SC, but never got to it. As such, he was on constant lookout while we were on the road in case he spotted one and we could dig it up and take it to Matt. Anyway, the quest for a Man Fern was a constant subplot for our trip).

Our drive down to C-mont was painless and quick. I feel like a pro making this drive by now, it flies by. Also, I made a new I-5 playlist for this one, 6 sweet hours of hip-hop, old school, and dance music. We got into Claremont around 7 and split up. Miles and Robin went down to CMC to figure out where they would stay that night while I went to find Shy and chill out for the evening. My Wednesday night was chill, Shy and I went and got some brew at Vons then proceeded to watch footage from club regionals and last year's Brains doc. Jay came to join us for the footage watching, then we all went to the Mudd Hole. Over all a chill night, and what I was looking for.

My experience was far from what Robin found at CMC. From what I gathered, Robin was trying to avoid ending up in an ex's sweet/bed and wound up falling asleep on the CMC baseball field. He then encountered camp sec and went to the apartments, winding up on the couch of said ex. Well, he claims it was a positive experience because he wound up with home cooked muffins in the morning.

My Thursday was pretty mellow and real sweet. I got some China Star with Case and the Markstein brothers (unbeknownst to me, Miles' younger brother David joined us in Claremont, he's a UCSD student and didn't have classes because of the wild fires). Then I had my fantasy draft with Jay, and finally I went to Braineaters practice. Honestly, I was nervous that Weston would just shut me down, and I wouldn't be able to get open, but luckily I had success cutting. Still, Wes is clearly improved as a defender, and got a pretty nice lay out D on a dump cut I made (I wasn't expecting the throw because I was setting up another cut, but yeah, excuses are the nails that built the house of failure). Anyway, after practice I hit up dinner with the team, then went to chill with the NL kids. I wound up taking a bunch of stuff from the Mudd network before heading down to CMC to drink and live it up. I managed to have a pretty mellow Thursday night, playing some root, hitting up a little dance sesh, then a TNC after party before going back to Mudd and getting some Carl's. I wound up sleeping about a half hour before having to leave at 6 a.m. and start the second and more epic leg of our journey.

Part two coming soon (hopefully late tonight).

Food Poisoning

2007-11-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

I would have finished my road trip post for tonight, but I've been feeling horrible since I got home from climbing (honestly, I wasn't feeling that great at the gym, but I still got a 10.d and an 11 in there). Well, I guess tonight was a right of passage for me, my first bout with fo0d poisoning. Anyway, I have a busy weekend of ultimate ahead of me, so I might be a while with the road trip post.

NBA Western Conference Preview

2007-10-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I said I wanted to white about basketball at the beginning of this whole blog ordeal, and with the season starting tonight, I figured it's about time. Since I've always lived out west, and I've always intended on doing so (I only applied to schools in Washington, Oregon, and California), I figured writing about the western conference would be appropriate. (Last year I could have made some jokes about the JV-ness of the eastern conference, but they're starting to be legit, even if the 3 or 4 best teams are in the west, which will be true this year)

Anyway, on to the preview.

This year there are five clear tears of teams in the west. Now, I'm not as clever as The Sports Guy, so I won't have really clever names for the devisions, but I still think tears is the best way to think of the west.

The Favorites:
1. Phoenix
2. San Antonio

San Antonio and Phoenix are more consistent, playoff tested, and confident than all the other teams in the NBA. Now, I think Phoenix would have won it all last year if not for the suspensions, and Tim Donaghy (the NBA has done well to keep that he reffed game three quiet). With all that said, the Spurs are the defending chaps, and have won 4 of 9. For all intents and purposes, who wins in a series of these two teams is a coin flip, so, because the Spurs never win back to back titles, I'm going with the Suns. Also, I love the addition of Grant Hill in Phoenix. He'll take some ball handling pressure off of Nash (something that hasn't been done since Joe Johnson left), and fill the role that the Suns were hoping Penny would a few years back. This will lead to a more rested Nash for the playoffs, and a title for the Suns.

The Playoff Shoo-ins
3. Houston

Houston may never win a playoff series, but I think as long as Yao and Tmac are healthy the Rockets are the third best team in the NBA. By switching coaches from Jeff Van Gundy to Rick Adelman the Rockets will get a lot better offensivly, and it's not like they're going to forget how to play D (defense is an easier thing to have players motivate than offense).

4. Dallas

Last year's regular season champs haven't changed much, I just think they're not that great through a series. I think they're nice, I just don't see them making the conference finals (unless they get the one seed, then they have a chance, but I still think they'd loose to the 4 seed).

5. Utah

I don't think Jerry Sloan will let these guys get too hyped about last years success. In fact, I'll be surprised if the Jazz don't work even harder this year. As much of a distraction as AK47 might prove to be (the only way he'll be less of one if his wife ups the per year allowance to like 20), Deron williams will make up for it with an all star season. Also, Calos Boozer is a monster, and will average 25 and 11.

6. Denver

Where's the D? Sure AI and Mellow are nice, but neither can play real D (AI plays fantasy basketball D getting you steals even though he can't stop anyone). They'll score a lot, but they can't beat anyone in the playoffs.

The Race for 8th (well, 7th also)
7. Golden State

I'm a homer, but I also think the Wariors are improved over last year's addition. Loosing J-Rich will hurt, but having the Indiana guys all season will help more. Also, I like the additions from the draft, and I think the young guys improved well. Basically, I don't think there's any way that Baron will let these guys miss the playoffs. Last note, the Pistons have officially handed over the title of hardest team in the NBA to Golden State.

8. New Orleans

Chris Paul is a baller. Now, if these guys stay healthy they should make a real strong push for the playoffs. Also, look for Peja to step up.

9. LA Lakers

There out. Out of the playoffs, and out of sorts. Kobe will get you to #9 alone, but not much further. Kobe has no help, and there's to much disfunction in Laker land. I think this is the last year the Lakers will be in the playoff hunt, and that they'll go into rebuilding mode after this year.

Now, being a long standing Warriors fan, I have developed the ability to easily talk myself into a team's prospects. So, I might have an overly optimistic about cellar dwellers. Still, I think the NBA is in a good place talent wise and that makes a lot of teams dangerous to break through.

One piece away:
10. Memphis
11. LA Clippers

Both of these teams were recently in the playoffs, and have great big men. The Clippers are out for this year because of injury, but they'll be back in a big way if they get a high draft pick. I think Memphis will be alright this year, but any team counting on Mike Miller can't be that great. I think the Grizz are one good perimeter player away from being in the playoff hunt. Also, Pau is real underrated.

Headed in the Right Direction
12. Portland
13. Seattle

Both of these franchises are headed in the right direction personnel wise, unfortunately the Sonics are also headed to the Mid West. Still, getting a nice draft pick this year, along with being well under the cap makes both of these franchises futures bright. Still, I worry about the durability of the Blazers players.

No end in sight:
14. Minnesota
15. Sacramento

Minnesota is counting on the worst GM in the league to rebuild, and the Kings are right where the Warriors were seven years ago (honestly, it looks really similar). I feel sorry for the fans of both of these teams.

Okay, that was my first attempt at writing about basketball, it was fun, expect some more. Also, coming soon, Road Trip Recap.

Peace.

Open Nationals Preview

2007-10-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

So, I'm going to go ahead and give away my Claremont Club Nationals Office Pool (CCNOP) picks, but I don't think that'll hurt my chances as I've never won the thing (Prude, do I still have to email you these picks? If I do, I might just email you this post). Anyway, on to a pool by pool breakdown (kind of like what was done on other blogs).

Pool A:
Jam: You all know what I think of this team by now. Anyway, they should win this pool handily. The other teams here like to huck, and that plays into Jam's strengths on D seeing as their shortest player is 5'10''. Also, I don't see this veteran team faltering early. Watch out for a lot of D's from Bogle and a lot of hucks from a loose team on Thursday.

GOAT: The big question here is will they be able to peek twice in one season. So far the evidence suggests yes. I don't know too much about these guys, but it seems like they play hard D and huck a lot. Well, that's a fine game plan for getting to the show, but without discipline you won't make it far in such a deep nationals. Whether or not they make the power pools, I see this team loosing in pre-quarters. If the wind is calm in Sarasota their game against ring on Thursday should be immensely entertaining.

Ring: They've had some strong results this year, and are always a threat to get hot and go as far as semis. Personally, I don't see that for them this year, but I do think their nationals experience will serve them well. This team seems similar to GOAT, just with more history and slightly crazier D. More hucks will be thrown in pool A than in any other pool.

The Van Buren Boys: Great name. Well, the first time since '04 a non SoCal team will be last at nationals, there's a 50% chance it'll be these guys

Thursday records: Jam 3-0, GOAT 1-2, Ring 2-1, VBB 0-3

Pool B:
Sockeye: I can't really see these guys slipping early, and I don't think they're ripe for an upset either of the first two days. Already having a loss to Boston this season should motivate them enough to really get up for the last game of the day, and I think it's apparent that Rhino doesn't match up well with the Fish. After an ugly semi with Furious and NW regionals expect the offense to be polished and less urgent. As far as their starts go, I think the secret is out about how good C-K is, but I think people are still over looking MC, the dude is uncoverable and has great puts, he's also deceptively 6'2'' with ups, no wonder he's always open under. Last bit, Nord and Chase haven't been spectacular thus far this year, but I think they'll bring it for the nationals highlight real.

Boston Ultimate: They got a lot younger, meaning they're more athletic, but slightly less disciplined. Interestingly, I think that taking more risks will help these guys. Still, what will hurt them is looking a little past Rhino and gunning for another upset of Sockeye. I think Boston has more depth than Rhino, but the portland guys are real good at the top, and they can get off to great starts. In the end, Boston vs. Rhino should be a great game to watch. When playing against Boston, watch out for Steve putting huge lefty flicks to Gibson (hopefully), and in reality, watch for lots of Ds from Seigs.

Rhino: Lots of confidence and skill, not much discipline, lots of crazy. I think all that adds up to Rhino taking teams by surprise early, along with the ability to implode. Personally, I don't see them imploding on Thursday. In fact, I think they'll go big early against Boston, then the east coasters will get back in it late, but it won't be enough. The biggest thing when playing Rhino is that they always want to move the disc, so you can never let up. Also a big help, they're captained by a man with two last names, just check #44 on the score reporter.

Pike: Lots of good nationals experience, but not that much experience being to go to guy at nationals. It'll be a tough first two days for Pike. Chance of being last at nationals, 40%.

Thursday records: Sockeye 3-0, Boston 1-2, Rhino 2-1, Pike 0-3

Pool C:
Johnny Bravo: Sure there are some injuries, but there is still some Parker, Richter, and Beau. Also, they won't be happy with how they played at regionals, and this will lead to them crushing early at nationals. Remember when UCSB beet Mamabird at regionals? Yeah, the guys from Boulder went on to win it all that year. Look for more of that crushing sort of play this year. Also, they were in the finals of Labor Day without Richter, who will be in full effect this year, kind of like in last years semis.

Condors: Lots of talent and desire in these guys, but there is also the potential for an emotional let down leading up to and after a big game. They have some great wins this year, but not too many great tournament finishes. Look for them to get up for the JBVO game, but also look too much past the boys form Texas. The youth movement in SB is a good thing for the program, but I think it's fruits won't show up for another couple of years. Look for them to build on this year in years to come, and also look out for them stealing college players from LA, not just club guys.

Doublewide: Tuff++. Lots os speed and discipline. Also, they do a good job throwing away passes instead of bombs. I don't know too much else about these guys except that they're great off the field, and two current Claremont guys would love to play with this team some day. Still, making Semis at labor day and beating a staked Chain team at regionals shows there not to be looked past.

Machine: They've always had the team speed, and gaining Cash from Revolver will help with the experience. Still, putting taller guys on their short handlers hurts them. Still, they did make last year's pre-q's, and they don't give up the disc easy. In the wind, these guys are real ruff (funny they're from the windy city, ehh?).

Thursday records: Bravo 3-0, Condors 1-2, Double Wide 1-2, Machine 1-2. Bravo and Condors move up, Machine and Doublewide move down.

Pool D:
Furious: They bring it in the fall every year. Last year they were able to take the NW region without Shank and regionals, but they had more star power then. Still, this year they made the finals of NW regionals without Mike Grant, even though they don't have Al Bob andymore. Look for Oscar to step up big time this year and expect a typical thursday performance from FG.

Sub Zero: They're tall, young and fast. They'll play harder D than any other team, and they'll take their shots on the D line. The big problem is the O. If their O can get off the field quickly Sub Zero has a great chance (I almost wrote "If they can keep the D on the field" but that's the most obvious shit ever). Anyway, the D will do well, but the O is the question mark.

Truck Stop: It's sweet they managed to get a three seed in a pool. It sucks balls that Chain is the 4 seed in their pool. They're young and a sweet group of dudes. Still, I don't think they have great chances in this pool. Unfortunately, it'll be bottom brackets again for TSGH.

Chain: They're loaded with talent, and they play great D, the problem is the HnH. It went well last year, but they loosed to a more disciplined team at regionals. Maybe adding Zip will help, but I think adding Asa next year will help more. Like SZ, if their O can get off the field quickly, they're in good shape. Wind will help them because it will cause them to have more patience.

Thursday records: Furious 3-0, SZ 1-2, Truck Stop 0-3, Chain 2-1

Now for the power pools, this is where I differentiate myself from those other slacker blog. I promise, this will be shorter.

Land of awesome pools:
Pool E: Jam 3-0, Bravo 2-1, Condors 1-2, Ring 0-3

Pool F: Sockeye 3-0, Furious 2-1, Chain 1-2, Rhino 0-3
The only note here, this is really hard to pick.

Douche-land pools:
Pool G: GOAT 2-1, Doublewide 3-0, Machine 1-2, The VBB 0-3

Pool H: Boston 2-1, SZ 3-0, Truck Stop 1-2, Pike 0-3
Note: Pool H is stronger than pool G, even if you switch Boston for Rhino, or SZ for Chain.

Pre Quarters: Rhino over Doublewide and SZ over Ring

Which gives us Jam vs Rhino, Furious vs Condors, Sockeye vs SZ, and Bravo vs. Chain in the quarters.

Okay, Semis: Jam vs Furious, Sockeye vs Bravo (Note, I think Chain is the other top 5 team)

Finals: Jam vs. Sockeye

Winner, and you all saw this coming, Jam.

Still, here's the most important part: Condors beat Rhino for the strength bid, fuck.

Notes on my picks: I'm a homer, I like the NW teams most of the time and I think Rhino is better than GOAT and Ring. Having three of the top 8 teams in pool D makes the power pools kind of wacky. Also, I really wanted to not have Furious in the Semis, but their road seems perfect.

That's all I got for now. Peace.

Corporate Sponsorship

2007-10-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Lately I've found myself really interested in the business side of disc, like how companies like 5ultaimte are run, or what Skip is doing with cultimate, or what the budget for Potlatch looks like. Well, what's interested me the most has been team sponsorships. On some team websites you can find their sponsors, but I've always wondered why you can't find these sponsors on the team jerseys (like in Soccer). Interestingly, teams started having non-apparel company sponsorships more this year.

For years Furious has been sponsored by Gaia, while Sockeye and The Condors have been sponsored by Patagonia. Well, this year Sockeye also picked up a sponsorship (and logo) from Cliff Bar, while Riot has some local Seattle businesses (I think they might have for a few years now though). Anyway, other lesser known teams are also getting sponsorships. Shadrach, the second Seattle mixed team, has a Crocks sponsorship with the logo on the sleeve of their jersey, and Contra, a bay area open team, has a sponsorship from greenoptions.com with adds on both their shorts and their jerseys (in these last two cases, a company employee was a member of the team).

There is also a trend of getting tournaments sponsored by companies. Sandblast and Lei-out come to mind first. I think this can easily evolve into having banners around the showcase field, much like there are banners around soccer fields. I think this is more effective than advertising on jerseys, and that the larger "fun" tournaments will all be doing this within three years (I hear plans are being made to test the exposure companies would gain from these sorts of banners through tournament dvds and such).

Does this all add up to ultimate now being considered a legit sport? No. Does it help? Yes. But what it really means is that ultimate is big enough to have its players be a legitimate marketing target. These jersey adds won't be seen by most of the general public, and they aren't reaching out to spectators, instead their main target is the opposing teams' players. Because other ultimate players are the only possible targets (at this point), I think it'll be a while before you see a Pirelli add across the front of a Chain jersey. Instead, we'll probably see more teams with adds from companies that think ultimate players would be interested in their products. If I were leading a team, I'd look into getting sponsorships from camping/backpacking companies (cross over market?), energy bar companies, and sports drinks.

I guess the final question this raises is, is advertising and sponsorship good for the sport? I think the answer is yes. First, and financial burden that can be taken off of the players is a plus. And second, having corporate sponsors for the larger established teams and tournaments could lead to the UPA being able to spend less of its own money on naties, and more on events attended by your average player (sectionals, league). Anyway, I think sponsorship is a good thing, but I don't think it will cause ultimate to become any less of a niche (it'll just be a growing niche with some corporate sponsors).

Regionals Recap

2007-10-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

Regionals Recap

So, we didn't make nationals. I really thought we had a chance, and when we took half on the Flycoons 8-7 in incredibly windy conditions, I really thought we were going to make it. All the way through 10-10 I thought we were going to be in the game-to-go, but when they took that up winder to make it 11-10 the wind came out of our sails. Anyway, the end of our season (in terms of contention) was loosing to the Flycoons, who I think will make at least the pre-quarters, not that bad.

Now, game by game recap:

Game 1: Dr. Si (Chico guys, UO girls)

Well, this team was the 16 seed, and their best guy was drinking a beer by the second half What i remember: they had only 2 girls to start the game so they had to play one down, Maggie benched herself because she didn't see the point in taking up playing time, we won 15-4.

Game 2: The Horde

We finished our game early and had a lot of rest time, but we also didn't really play our top game against Dr. Si. The Horde on the other hand, had just played their hardest against Shazam and were warmed up and ready to go. First point we started on D going up wind. Their O was moving it pretty well until Courtny tried to throw a break side goal to my man off a dish. I got a big layout D and things looked good that we'd get the early break. Things looked good until I threw my first of 3 turns (two throwing, one catching) this game. On their next possession, Scotty got a sick layout block on a dump cut, bet again we weren't able to convert and they eventually scored. I don't remember the exact sequence of scores for the rest of the first half, I just remember going in on and O point, and having the iso get called for me. So, I'm out in the lane and my guy is backing me by about 5 yards. I shoulder fake deep, then start under, go back deep for about two steps, than under again for three, at this point he finally thinks he's forced me underneath and he bites. I then go deep and he falls over trying to keep up. Anyway, the huck goes up and I catch it about three yards short of the end zone and call a time out. After the TO, the iso doesn't get open because she slips in the rain, so I turn to the dump who is being face guarded really well, At about stall 9.5 I finally throw something and the guy gets a blind block (turn #2). Well shit. They convert, and wind up taking half like 8-6. We managed to battle back in the second half (no thanks to me, I dropped a potential up wind goal (turn #3), we wound up getting the disc back, and I caught the next one) and wind up taking the game and securing second in the pool.

My favorite part of this game was hanging out with Venus. I remember standing next to her at the end of the game watching, it was like standing with a teammate, whether or not we were rooting for the same outcome. That was cool.

Game 3: Shazam Returns

Going in to this one I think we all knew they were going to win. Anyway, I got to bate a fun layout D where a cut off a away pass, but it wasn't game changing and it was on an O point. They had a tough 4 person cup zone with a big man marking and three women as a wall. We tried the same, just with me marking instead of a big guy, not as effective, but really fun.

Highlights: Cassidy had a huge layout grab on a huck, he layed out around a guy and when he landed it looked like he had his arm bent the wrong way. Also in this game, Ayron had a 4 foot hi layout catch D (to show me up?), then, on the ensuing possession, he was behind Cassidy and reached around him (not in the air, just real quick) to snag a huck (to show up Cassidy?) then threw the goal.

Game 4: CTR

We came out slow, again, and they killed us with the long game. This team is one that doesn't give away the disc. The three players that hurt us most were Rob, Shasta, and Alan (Brains alum, who knew (Drew knew)). Well, they took half 8-4, then we brought the intensity with the zone and battled back to lead 11-10. Still, our O just wasn't clicking, and we game some points away. They wound up wining 15-13.

That was the end of day one. Loosing CTR put is in the 4th place bracket, meaning we'd have to win 4 strait on Sunday to make it to Florida. After loosing, I went to find Drew and plan our trip back to Seattle. Well, I found Drew playing against Nigh Train for the right to play us in the morning. To my pleasant surprise, Drew and Shadrach (sick team name btw) were wining, and I'd probably get to play against my old college captain the next morning. Well, it all worked out and Shadrach won. On the way back to Seattle, I went to dinner with Drew and his team to a brewery for some good eats, beer, and scouting.

Day 2 (Wind ball, not ultimate, basically, keep scores in terms if up-winders)
Game 1: Shadrach

in this one, we got the first up-winder, then came out with zone, and we just didn't have it, so they got it back. The most fun part here was guarding Drew any time he was on an up wind point, because I played almost all the down winders. Anyway, we score another up-wind point and wind 2-1.

Game 2: Flycoons

This game was the big test. The Flycoons were heavily favored to take the 4th spot from the NW, so if we won this one, the road was only going to get easier. Anyway, they came out strong and got the first up wind point (it was actually the first point, and they had no turns). From here, we trade down wind the rest of the first half, until we score up wind to take half 8-7. At this point, if we trade out, we win. Well, somehow, we got away from hard flick D and out marks became flatter when they were going up wind. Well, they manage to run an effective dominator against out flat marks, and score two more up-winders in the second half. Flycoons win 3-1 and end out season. I was pretty happy with the play of the team over all, and I think we gave the Flycoons a real tough game. They're a strong team, and i hope they do well at nationals.

After this one, we decide to play a consolation game against CTR so all the people who didn't get the play time they wanted could get out there and crush.

Game 3: CTR

Crush crush crush. We won 15-7, and all the people who hadn't been playing showed that they should have been. I sat this one out, preferring to reflect on the season then play consolation. Somehow, I don't have as much fun just playing when I don't think there's something on the line.

So, in the end we tied with The Horde for 6th, and I think that's about appropriate for our place in the region. Sure I would have loved to take that 4th spot, but in the end, I think our team played as well as could be expected giving or pension for not practicing.

There you have it, a 4-3 regionals, and two games short of nationals. Over all, a fun season, but I'm still looking forward to playing open.

Observer Thoughts and Regionals Preview

2007-10-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Being an observer is hard work. First, it's hard to just watch the cutters when the action is coming your way, it's just against your instincts of watching Ultiamte. Still, watching the cutters means you do get to learn some things about cutting (I got to spend a whole game watching Aaron Richards cut, that was educational). Second, when watching the thrower marker interactions, it's hard to watch for both fouls and travels, but it is doable as long as you maintain your concentration (remember, whenever you start to lose concentration is when they'll need you). Still, observing is worth it, and it's kind of fun. The last hard part is keeping your focus through observing four strait games on a hot and dry day.

After getting some experience, I think that only 'elite' level players should observe 'elite' level games. In my mind (and in the UPA observer manual), the real purpose of the observer is to keep the game moving while keeping it in the players hands. Basically, the observer should never be the focus of the game. Because of this, it is important that the observer is there for the benefit of the players, and not for themselves. It is my contention that non 'elite' level players are more likely to be at the games for their own exposure than 'elite' level players. Also, they are more likely to make it all about them by interjecting themselves into discussions when they're not needed or by wanting to give their ruling to soon. These desires come from a want to be seen as equal to the players on the field. This is just my theory, and I've seen it happen a few times. Still, when I saw things not being played out by the rules I did want to step in, but I think I did a good job of laying off. The biggest thing I learned is to go to the rule book quickly if you need to ( for those interested, the continuation rule is on page 28).

Okay, enough of that, it's Regionals time.

Going into regionals I feel better than I have all season. Honestly, I feel real fast. I've done three of the four sprint workouts I've ever done in the last two weeks, and it's made me feel fast (I don't care if it's a placebo effect or not, feeling fast will make me dig harder). I also think the team we have at regionals we be better than the team we had at sectionals. Having Daryl and Lean will be huge for us, not just on the field, but also in calling lines and making sure the team stays focused. Lastly, I'm excited to apply what I learned by watching top cutters at Open regionals.

As far as the bracketology goes, we have the hardest pool I could imagine. Sure, every pool has a team that qualified for nationals last year, but not every pool has that team as the three seed. Also, not every pool has the best (and most athletic) team in the country in their pool. Despite all this, no matter what seed we take in our pool, we have a good shot of making at least one game-to-go. I've thought we have a shot at making nationals for a while now, but now I'm starting to think we're going. I'm not buying plane tickets yet, but I am setting myself up to be devastated if we don't make it (luckily for me I'm staying in Seattle an extra day for recovery). I don't know the last time an 8 seed made nationals, but lets hope this is the next time. Also, I'm stoked that my friends will be out there heckling because I think I play better when people are watching.

That's all I got for tonight, but I'll write more Thursday after the first UCSC practice.

Peace.

A Collision and Some Random Thoughts

2007-09-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

At sectionals last weekend I had a classic ultimate collision, the type people point at when they argue against co-ed (don't worry, there were no serious injuries). It was during a hell point in our seventh game of the weekend, right after we lost a close one to Night Train. Anyway, our team was playing poorly, and there were multiple hell points that game. During one such hell point I made an up line cut. Well, I was feeling good about the cut as soon as I started it; I had a lot of separation from my defender, and the throw was right next to me, moving about as fast as I was. Everything seemed great and I decided to milk the throw. About a second later I heard some steps so I caught it and turned my back to the oncoming defender.

I instantly had flashbacks of the Claremont vs. UW game from 06 when I got crushed in the same situation. Well, this collision was much different. When we hit I heard a high pitched scream, and instead of thinking about my UW experience, I started thinking about Stout's horror story about running into a poaching women in Spain. Well, the women I hit started freaking out and yelling for her inhaler. I also got really worried, until my defender put his hand on my shoulder and said "Don't worry, you did nothing wrong." It was really assuring, and somehow it turned the whole thing into a positive experience for me, and my understanding of co-ed.

At the same time, I heard one of the Cows say "That's co-ed ultimate." When I first heard this, I interpreted it as a "shit happens, but it's okay" sort of statement, but with some reflection, my interpretation is changing. I'm starting to see it as a critique of co-ed, and the potential it has for injury. Anyway, this whole event is making me think I don't want to play co-ed for too much longer. Still, hanging out with women, and having a relaxed schedule is really nice. Anyway, if I start grad school next summer I'll probably wind up playing co-ed again.

In other Ultimate news, I had my first real zone practice outside of college ultimate today. It was really fun, and I got to play the point in a successful zone. I think the best part was playing with knowledgeable players. Everyone was learning a new zone, but we didn't have to design drills to teach people new things, also, because we had a coach, not everyone was talking. It was a really sweet experience, I hope this is a trend for the rest of my ultimate carrier.

In non-ultimate news, I saw a real inspiring film about climbing a few weeks ago. It's called "King Lines" and will be available on DVD in October. The film is about Santa Cruz local Chris Sharma's global search for the perfect climb. If you have the chance, you should check it out*. I was lucky and got to see it on a big screen during the "Real Rock Film Tour."

Last thing, I'm looking for new music (of any genera) to listen to. Suggestions?

WARNING: This movie will make you want to go climb rocks.

Sectionals Recap

2007-09-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

This tournament had the most schedule changes of any tournament I've ever participated in. I'm just glad I'm only a player on our team so I didn't have to look at any of them. In hindsight not checking the schedules might have been a mistake since we thought games didn't start until 10 on Saturday when they actually started at 9. Well, we had 12 people cleated by 9, and we were playing "Kill My Land Lord" so it all worked out okay (We won 13-2 ish). Our second game was against the "Feral Cows" and was similarly non-memorable, we won 13-8 or so.

The next game was our big game for day one. We played Night Train for first in the pool. Our games have been close with this team all year, and everyone anticipated this game to be real close. We started on D and got three chances with the disc, but didn't convert. Still, it was encouraging to generate turns. After this, our O comes out and gets the job done. Their job does the same. Then they get a break to go up 3-1, then 4-1, then 5-1. Our O finally scores to make it 5-2. When our D got back on the field, we were finally able to convert the turns we were getting, and we converted a lot of them. We broke six straight times to take half 8-5. We then cruzed in the second half and won 13-6 ish.

We then played the "Thunderbirds" in the quarters. This team was exhausted and had just won a big upset to make the quarters. Anyway, we take half 8-1 and win 15-4. This was followed by a nice drive back to SC from Stanford and me watching like 4 episodes of Heroes when I got home.

First game Day two was against Brass Money at 9. This time we knew the start time, and got there good and early (7:50). This game was not as close as I had hoped. They got two breaks in the first half to our none. We got one back in the second half, but they promptly got another and wound up wining 15-11. Our loss in this game set up a rematch with Night Train.

We started on D and got a turn, them almost immediately hucked it away to a reciever who was coming back under. Our O then scored easily with no turns. D gets another turn, and hucks it away. O scores with no turns. D hucks it away. O turns it, and they get a break. They get another. We right the ship and get it to half 8-5. In the second half we manage to mount a comback and bring it to 13-12 game to 14. We're on D and we get the disc. I end up dropping a pass and they march it down and score. It was kind of crushing. I had played really well in the game until then with 4 Ds and 2 goals, but that one drop is what really made the difference. I was kind of in a stupor for the next one, another game against the Cows, and we wound up wining 15-10 or so.

This put us in the game-to-go to regionals against Wagon (kind of ridiculous when you look at our RRI). Surprisingly (and pleasingly) there was a crowd for this one, as Brass was still around drinking after their finals victory, and "That's What SHE Said" stuck around after having loosing to Wagon on the same field in the previous round. We played really well the whole game. Our O had one turn that I can remember, and that lead to the one break they got. I got to go deep a few times in this one, and caught two easy goals from nice flick hucks by Kevin Beck. I'd like to think that I had a positive effect for those playing fantasy because I added the "if a cutter's defender falls over while the cutter sets up a deep cut +1/2" rule, then proceeded to make two defenders fall over when I was setting up deep cuts.

So, we got out of our section, and we're on to regionals. I think regionals will go well, and getting Daryl and Lean back wont hurt ether. After this weekend I realized how crowded it is at the top of the NorCal mixed section.

The State of West Coast Elite Disc (open)

2007-09-13T14:48:00.001-07:00

I'm writing this because Match Diesel seems to be the only non-player writing about elite disc, and I think he's way off base when it comes to the west coast. I figured I'd write scouting reports about some of the top teams (I think he did this a few weeks ago). I'm going to break up my little scouting reports into two categories, a "how they play" category which should be self explanatory, and a "talent/culture" category about who plays on the team, how the team operates, and the over all talent level.

Revolver:
How they play: They move the disc well, and the majority of their risks come with break mark throws. They are built on consistency and seem to run into the most problems when they put up too many 50/50 shots to Wiseman.

Talent/culture: A lot has been made about how this is the Stanford team and Jam is the Cal team, that's bullshit. It's true that Revolver has a good amount of Stanford guys (at least 9), but they also have 2 from UCSC, 2 from Cal, 2 from UCSB and 1 from Davis. Basically, they're the younger team and Jam is the older team. Talent wise they're very strong, but mostly their strength is that nobody on the team thinks they're better then they are.

Jam:
How they play: I've already said a good amount about this team. They like the long ball and they like "keeping it fun" as Idris explains in his blog. Each individual seems to hold the disc a long time. I think this happens because everyone on Jam can make things happen with their throws. I think Jam would benefit from a culture of fast disc movement (but I think that about every team). Basically, there aren't any role players on this team (no, I don't think I'd fill this void, I just think some of the better players might have to take a little bit of a back seat).

Talent/culture: This team has a lot of great players, none of whom payed college last year. I think Boo is the youngest guy on the team, and I'm pretty sure everyone else played in club nationals '04 (just as a point of reference). A lot of these guys are at least 5 years out of college, and there doesn't seem to be much of a talent pipeline into Jam.

Sockeye:
How they play: The same as last year, just with more talent. They do a good job of not showing their hand while still dominating during the summer, but I think everyone knows that their O line from the finals last year will be back in effect this fall (just with Tim G instead of Dave Bestock as an O handler)

Culture: Sure there is strong imported talent, but this team does the best job of any team in developing the local talent pool by taking on young local players. As far as team dynamics go, I don't think chemistry will ever really be an issue for the Fish unless Seth becomes captain (I kid). Anyway, it seems like everyone wants to play for these guys, even if they don't need to be a hanger on to some great players coattails (I'm looking at you Michael Stout). As per what has been said about their chemistry issues in '05 and their recent stockpiling of Callahan winners, the '05 finals were just real windy, and just because you've won a Callahan this decade doesn't mean you would have won in '98 (when looking at that list, remember that UCSB, who won that year, doesn't nominate candidates and Namkung, Steets, Husak, and Yarbrough were on Tide in '98). Whatever, they're still stacked.

That's all I'm writing for now, I don't know enough about Rhino or Furious to write anything intelligent about them.

Life Update

2007-09-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

I got a MacBook Pro. It's awesome. I love it. The only thing is I'm having problems with the iSight camera thing, apple store, here I come. Along with this new toy I got one on the new iPod classics (the thin 80 gig one). My only complaint is that I wish they still made them in white. It'll be nice to have a music library for my car again, although I'll need to make new playlists.

In retrospect, I'd say using the iPod shuffle did good things for my musical horizons. It really made me realize how much I don't listen to good music by some of my favorite groups like The Roots, De La Soul, J-Live, and Zion I, and it helped me realize a couple of sweet things about hip-hop. Fist, if you shout out Slick Rick in your song, it'll probably be great (see "Mellow My Man", "1nce Again", "Grindin'" "It's Like That" from The Grind Date), and second, that J-Live is like three great tracks away from me being able to make a sweet greatest hits style playlist (right now I'd go with "Wax Paper", "Braggin' Writes" (the original, not the one with the retarded kermit voice thing), "Them That's Not", "The Best Part", "Satisfied", "Like This Anna", "Do That Shit", and "All Of The Above" (mosty because he shouts out Optimus Prime)).

Now I have to go and upload all my music to my new iPod and make those new playlists.

Completing the Throw

2007-09-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

So, I was reeding TrueHoop over on espn.com the other day and I realized something about teaching throwing in ultimate. The article of interest was about how LeBron has improved his jump shot over the summer. David Thorpe (an NBA trainer guy) was saying how in his new improved jump shot, LeBron lands where he took off from, and he is still when he lands (with his hand up, '98 Jordan style). In Basketball they call this "completing the shot." The reason this is important is that in order for the shooter to get to this point, they must have had proper mechanics all the way through their shooting motion. Now that's where it all applies to ultimate.

I've heard you should be able to be still after throwing a backhand or a forehand, but I never fully understood why. Now it's pretty obvious. In order to be still, your mechanics must have been correct all the way through your throw (another great side effect is that you won't travel when you throw, so they'll have to call you on pivoting). Basically, I think that one should emphasize the follow through, and that it should finish in the thrower being still, along with explaining this reasoning behind this when (re)teaching throwing.

I know this gives me something to work on.

Labor Day Weekend Ultimate

2007-09-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

I was in SF this past weekend playing in the co-ed decision of Labor Day. First off, the Golden Gate Park Polo Fields are horrible, and there is no way they let horses run on them (those are some expensive ankles). Anyway, here are my thoughts on the teams we played:

Bad Larry: They look deep a lot and isolate their cutters well. They also use their women effectively. If they make nationals, the wind could be a problem in they stick with this game plan (I say if because the three SW teams look pretty even). I can't see this team making it past the quarters.

Pleasuretown: They play a regimented split stack offense, with a guy and a girl on each side, thus making it hard for teams to switch. They also rely on their resets a lot. They're a good young team that will get better in years to come, but they rely on their athleticism too much right now, they come up with a lot of second effort grabs that won't always happen, especially in windier conditions. Personally, I think Bamboo needs to play more, the team is noticeably better when he's on the field and he can really run things for their offense.

AMP: They seemed to have a tough game with injuries and jet lag when we played them. Anyway, this is what I noticed. They relied on their resets more than any other team we played, and when they don't get them, they seem to tunnel to their men. Because of this we had success letting our women poach while we shut down their dump. Also, they have height and seem , but seem to use it to get open under more then deep.

The Horde: This was our forth game on Saturday, so I didn't get too much out of it in terms of what they'll usually do. Um, Courtney Dale touches the disc a lot for them.

Mischief: They have good team speed and rely on it. They seem to have trouble with Shazam because Shazam is just a little bit faster, and it forces Mischief into a plan b. Chucky is a big pick up for them, and seems to be in on every d point. Forcing them backhand might be a good idea because of the strength of both Dollar's and Chucky's flicks, and it makes Punky's flick not a break (god damn lefties).

Brass Monkey: They like to break the mark then look long, and they have the height and throwers to do it. Also, their zone is very strong, and they trap sideline well. They also use their women better then any team aside from Shazam. It seems like most teams really get up to play them because of both their reputation as a top team, and because their record this year indicates that they're more beatable then the other two big dogs from the NW.

Okay, enough about mixed. I was also able to make it back to SC for the Open final and here are some observations from that game.

The Jam jerseys aren't as ugly as people claim they are, but they aren't exactly pretty either. Still, I like the blues.

Jam is incredibly fast as a team, and uses that team speed well to put pressure on opposing offenses. Also, I think this team is much more regimented then last year's JL team (running a vert stack instead of a ho helps this).

Bravo is very tall, and it seems like their reputation of looking deep helps them get open underneath. Also, they count faster then any team I've ever seen, maybe it was just the finals, but I swear I heard some 5 second paced 10 counts.

Parker is an amazing thrower, and Jam always let their defenders know when he had the disc. They did this so the week side defenders would tighten up on their man (really similar to '04 Jam calling "Shank!" when playing against Furious as was noted on Disc 1).

Wow, that's my first ultimate related post. There will be more to come after NorCal open sectionals this weekend.

Desert Island, All-time, Top-five Hip-Hop Albums (chronologically):

2007-09-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

Quick post to get me started on the music front, because I know I'll do too much talking about disc. These are my Desert Island, All-time, Top-five Hip-Hop Albums (and why) (chronologically):

The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique (1989)

This record has the most pop culture references of any record ever made, period. The lyrics aren't too complex, but the beasties trade lines well and are exceedingly clever (I love their ode to New York references). Also, the production on this record changed how records were produced in hip hop and music in general by revolutionizing the technique of sampling. The production is rich and layered, sampling multiple records to create each track. It's been said that Paul's Boutique could not be made today because of the overhead it would require to clear all of the samples. I'd say this is my favorite record of all time.
Favorite tracks: High Planes Drifter, Car Thief

The Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)

If you like kung fu flicks, grimy minimalist beats with eerie piano and sped up soul samples, and sum gully lyrics, check out The Wu. Also, if you want something energized and/or angry this is awesome.
Favorite tracks: Clan in da Front, Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit, Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber - Part II

NaS - Illmatic (1994)

NaS is one of the best lyricists ever, and if you want nuanced lyrics with imagery and vivid story telling, check out this record. The production on Illmatic was largely influenced by the Jazz rap coming out of New York in the early nineties and this style meshes well with NaS's Gambino rap storytelling. On a lyrical level, I don't think enough has been made of NaS saying "Sentence begins indented .. with formality/My duration's infinite, moneywise or physiology/ Poetry, that's a part of me .." I really think that NaS's lyrics on this album are worthwhile as poetry, and that they'll be respected as such some day.
Favorite tracks: NY State of Mind, Memory Lane (Sittin' In Da Park), One Time For Your Mind

A Tribe Called Quest - Beats Rhymes and Life (1996)

ATCQ is my favorite hip hop group, and although most don't consider this their best album, I really appreciate the slick production and the subject matter. The MCs of Tribe show a lot of maturity with the lyrics on this album without sacrificing their artistry. Also, I think J-Dilla was a great addition to the production crew. This album hurts from only having one obvious single in "Stressed Out," but it's start to finish consistency is amazing, from Get a Hold, to Mind Power, to What Really Goes On.
Favorite tracks: Get a Hold, Jam, and Stressed Out

Black Star - Black Star (1998)

This is an all around great record with two of Brooklyn's finest MC's teaming up to bring back the feeling of the native tongues movement from the late 80s and early 90s. Both Mos Def and Talib Kweli deliver some all time great verses on this album, and keep everything positive. Check out both "Definition" and "RE:Definition" along with "Thieves in the Night" and "Respiration." If you ask me, "Respiration" is one of the top five hip hop songs of all time, and arguably the best (check out Mos Def's Thomas Paine reference at the end of the first verse, its pretty cool and not overly obvious).
Favorite Tracks: RE:Definition, Respiration

There you have it.

Mission Statement

2007-09-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I made this blog for a couple of reasons, first, I think it'll be sweet to have a place to put down my opinions on the things I love to do, second, I'm not going to school this fall, so this might be a way for me to keep my mind occupied, and finally, Jay said I should. With that said, these are the things you should know about what will show up here:

1. A lot of typos. I'm a horrible speller, and my grammar is questionable at best.

2. My predictions about sports. This will be mostly on Ultimate, but I think the NBA will make an appearance or two.

3. My opinions about music. I like writing about music, and I don't know how good I am at it, but I'll give it a shot.

4. Some everyday boringness. I like reading about what my friends are up to, maybe you guys will appreciate reading about what I'm doing.

So, with all that out of the way, here is where I'm at in life right now:

I'm living at home after having recently graduated from college. I think it's both good for my parents and myself, also, if and when I get a job, living at home will allow me to maybe save some money while paying off loans and things like that. For the current club ultimate season I'm playing coed with a Santa Cruz team called Family Style (FS). As a young guy who wants to play 'elite', I'm lucky to have a team like FS to play with because it isn't a team with a lot of carrier co-ed players. I really like my teammates, and I'm fortunate to be able to play with and learn from veterans who've played top level open and womens.

Also, my iPod was recently stolen at a party. As such, I've had to make do with my mom's Shuffle for my car music. Although it's a bummer to have lost all my playlists and the random songs I've gotten from friends over the years, not having my iPod has made me focus on music a little bit more. I'm actively seeking it out, and really thinking about what I want on the little 1 GB shuffle.

So, that's kind of where I'm at in general. Word.