Creepy Old Dude

I stopped in 7-11 on Sunday for a Slurpee on my way to go mountain bike riding. On my way in, I held the door open for some cute Grandpa type. I think he had to have been at least 80, maybe more. He walked like he had a bad hip. Anyway, we ended up at the cash register at the same time. He asked me in a tiny voice (I nearly missed it), "so what's the four for" *awkward, so starters. After a little pause, I realized I was wearing a jersey with a number on it. I said, "oh, it's for ultimate frisbee" and he said, "because I think you're a ten". Not cute Grandpa-like, weirdo old dude-like. Yikes. I had no witty comeback, I didn't say anything (not smoothly), and just left.

Two days later, I should have said:

"I think you're 100" or
"That was creepy" or
"Last time I hold a door for you, stalker-grandpa" or
"Gross"or
"Pardon?".

Ah, hindsight.

Last Weekend/My Birthday

I've been very busy of late, and I wanted to do a blogpost about it. I didn't have time.

I started the draft of this post last weekend, and never got time to get back to it. Last weekend was the Heroes for Hospice run. The Topper's organized it and did a great job. They raised over a $1000. I'm not feeling the blogpost about it anymore (just because it was a week ago, I guess), so if your looking for details, check the write-up on www.sills.net.

The fundraiser fun also brought me back to the idea I had been thinking about (since my last birthday) of what I want to do for my 30th. Here are my thoughts:

I think it would be awesome to organize a one day ultimate tournament that is a charity for cancer, followed by a party that night. I would need to start sooner than later (i.e. get a couple of things secured: day, fields, etc) and I'm sure the rest would just fall into place. Hopefully people would help.

This is my brainstorming on things I would need to do:


-talk to CUA about fields. Try to find other (ideally donated) fields if CUA doesn't work out.

-try and get people to donate prizes

-try to get companies to donate prizes

-make a website, post sponsors on it, maybe posters at the tournament

-50/50?

-best photograph of the day contest - $5 per entry, prizes for best, categories

-$25 (or $20?) donation entry to the tournament, or $10 for the party.

-maybe do a BBQ after the tourney?

-Try to get friends who don't live here to donate a little money, even if they can't partake.

-make a website or blogspot ahead of time?

If you have any thoughts or idea's, or you think you would be willing to help, please let me know.

I seem to have lost steam, so I guess I will have to blog about this weekend next weekend. Oh wait, I'll be in Boston!

German Just Kills Me Sometimes

Sometimes German just kills me:

Lech mich an Arsch (slang) - "lick my backside"
Rumtrashen (slang) - "to party heavily"
aufbitchen (slang)- "to get tarted up for a party" (my favorite)

Delphinbabys - Dophlin babies
Muskelbepackten Armen - Muscular arms

Stuff like this is why I am still motivated to study. I keep running into German words that sound like they can't possibly be real. I'm 'reading' the first Harry Potter in German right now. When I say reading, I mean reading a line or two of the German book, then reading what it means in English (thanks for the tip Bridget!). There are words and the occasional sentences that I understand, but it's for the most part it's really very hard.

Vancouver - not playing ultimate

My weekend (last) in Vancouver was lots of fun outside of the ultimate as well. The weather wasn't great, it was raining pretty hard on Thursday when I got there, and overcast for a lot of the weekend. Saturday afternoon was clear and sunny, and Sunday was cold, but nice to play in. How strange is it to go to Vancouver to get a break from the rain?

Thanks to Jenn and Ryan for letting my crash all weekend. I asked them to stay without having a clue where they actually lived. I was kind of afraid it might turn out in to one of those great-to-see-you-thanks-for-letting-me-stay-good-god-you-live-know-where-near-actual-vancouver moments. It was a a great-to-see-you and a thanks-for-letting-me-stay, but they live at Arbutus and West 12th, which is maybe 20 minutes from the airport, maybe 20 minutes from UBC, a ten minute walk from team dinner and near lots of great stuff. Awesome.

I had a rental car this weekend, which was pretty fabulous. It was a Ford Focus. I meant to get a picture, but I forgot. I realize that Ford Foci are little pieces of shit, but man did I ever enjoy this one for the weekend. It had power - acceleration, but also power windows! It seemed luxurious compared to Smoky, my Civic. I really wanted to be able to get around Vancouver this trip, plus I had an extra day on Friday there. Also, Sheasby and Ryan let me stay (previous years I had stayed at the UBC Rez, which is cheap, but still $40 a night), so I figured it was okay to splurge on a car.

As you likely guessed from my previous post, I went to the Vancouver Aquarium on Friday with my teammate Elise. I hadn't been since the Edgewater Fortune trip in Junior High. One of the Beluga whales at the aquarium (as opposed to in Junior High) was pregnant, and I read she gave birth this last Tuesday. When I read the article, both the baby and momma whale where doing well.

After the aquarium, we cruised around Stanley Park a bit, and then heading over to West Van to try and check out Lighthouse Park. Somehow I managed to miss, and ended up in Whytecliff Park instead. Fortunately, Whytecliff Park is gorgeous. I was aiming for Lighthouse because I hear it's awesome too, and I was in Whytecliff as last Flowerbowl as well.

Friday night, the Sheasby's made a delicious BBQ dinner, and then we wandered down to the beach. Good times.

I had team dinner on Saturday night after playing. We were trying to meet up for sushi, but the place was closed, and we ended up having Thai food instead. The restaurant was called Star Anise (on the corner of West 12th and Granville), and they made delicious food. I had a pine nut, shrimp and goat cheese salad, and Tom Yum soap. Also, I wasn't choked that we didn't go for sushi, because I had stopped on the way from UBC to Sheasby's for some pre-dinner sushi.

Sunday night after playing, Taryn picked me up and we headed to the Eatery for....wait for it....sushi! Vancouver sushi kicks serious ass, if you can't tell by the number of times that I mentioned it. I'm even skipping the Thursday night sushi story. Another post, maybe. Anyway, after the Eatery (btw, the first place I ever had sushi!), we grabbed some Chai teas and wandered around the path (seawall?) at Stanley Park. There was lots of stuff to see, but a highlight was lots of herons eating fish.

Holy crap, that got long-winded.

ps. one quick extra note on the last post: I forgot to mention that I jammed my thumb again, and hard this time. It's back to how bad at was when I initially injured it.

Flowerbowl - playing ultimate

The Vancouver Aquarium was great, but the real reason I was in VanCity was Flowerbowl. We were a half Flo, half Vancouver squad, since we couldn't get enough folks and neither could they. Some of the Van ladies were my Prime teammates from 2006, and a couple I met for the first time. We pretty much had the toughest pool play drawn I've ever gotten - Traffic (aka Team Canada), Fury (aka Team USA) and EZ Bake Oven (aka TFP women, aka Team Canada co-ed women). Ouch. The other pool had Riot (aka the second best team in the US), Great Britain women (who came to this tournament, and I think Cal States the weekend before, as a warm up for Worlds. How cool is that?), Viva (the second Seattle team) and Luna Tide (a Vancouver team - I heard they used to be Crush, who we played at Nationals last year).

Game 1 against Traffic was a bit rough. It was windy and rainy, and we were still working out everyone's names, let alone strengths and weaknesses. It was without question a difficult situation to go in to, but I don't think that excuses the result: we got bagelled 15-0. I felt like we played intimidated, made unforced errors, and didn't capitalize on the mistakes that Traffic made (more than you might think). It wasn't all bad, but I think this was our worst game on the tournament.

We started out gelling process in game 2 against Fury. We played harder, we were more organized, we relaxed, and we executed better. We lost 15-5, but I felt like I and we really got something out of this game. It's okay to get your ass handed to you by one of the best teams in the world as long as you run hard, play well and learn.

Game 3 against EZ Bake Oven was much more like the Traffic game than the Fury game. I'm not sure why this was the case, but whatever the reason, we just didn't bring it. There were more unforced errors of the EGADS variety. Again, it wasn't all bad, but I wasn't at all pleased with this game - I don't recall the score. We might have gotten 3?

The last game of the day (the crossover game against the last team in the other pool) was much better. Perhaps we had an easier time executing against the weaker defense (weaker compared to the other teams we played that day), but things seems to run a lot more smoothly. I think our connections were starting to get there as well. I didn't feel that we were especially challenged by this team. We beat them (guessing) 15-4?

If you can't tell by the title of this post, the rest of the non-ultimate stuff on Flowerbowl will be a separate blogpost.

Our 1-3 on Saturday put us up against Riot (from Seattle) on Sunday morning. This game was much more like the Fury game. Riot is an f'ing good team, but we stepped up our game and playing harder because of it. That's exactly the reason we go to Flowerbowl! We lost 15-1, but I felt like we were in many points much more than the score reflects. Disappointing score, but enjoyable game.

Our final game on Sunday was against Viva, the second Seattle team (all Seattle all day!). We beat Viva twice at Flowerbowl last year, but keep in mind we were Team Alberta, and not a half Calgary half Vancouver mix. We traded points for most of the first half. We took half, but I don't recall the score at this point. After half, we really started to pull away. We went up 11-8, and should have scored the next D point. Janice got a sweet (and totally clean D), which in my mind basically made it 12-8 (after getting a D like that, you really shouldn't f up - you should just put the disc in). Unfortunately, the girl Janice D'd called a totally bogus foul, and so they took the disc back (brutal) and scored. 11-9 and 12-8 are very different. Viva mounted a comeback at this point, and eventually brought it to 13's (then 14's). This one's a happy ending - we pulled it out 16-14 (it could have been 15-13).

ps. I hoped to never wonder, while writing this blog, if 'bagelled' had one l or two. At least not on the receiving end. Ouch.

The Vancouver Aquarium

I had a great weekend in Vancouver and a lousy Monday. I will post on Flowerbowl tomorrow, but in the mean time, here are a couple of pictures from the Vancouver Aquarium on Friday. Good times.

Biopiles in Drayton Valley

Drayton Valley is lovely this time of year. Plus there is the art scene, the clubbing and let's not forget the stellar public transportation system. Ok, maybe not, but it really is nice here right now. It's sunny and maybe 20 degrees.

I asked the dude working at the hotel if there was anywhere nice to go for a run here. There probably was something nice down by the river, but I wouldn't have known were I was going, and I didn't have that much time. The hotel worker recommended a bike path that ran from the hotel to the Wal-mart. I would have taken about 5 minutes a direction. Not so much what I was looking for. In the end, I lifted weights in the gym.

Lots of sampling tomorrow. Woot woot. I love dirt.

Frisbee Nap Frisbee Goat Dressing DV Shuffle

This was about how energetic I was this afternoon as well. I had to get up early (okay, not that early, but early for Sunday) to try and change our permit dates for the West Coast Trail. I thought that the office was open at 8 am, but since it was the weekend it didn't open 'til 9 am. Late, you say? I agree, but that didn't stop me napping for an hour between frisbees.

There were two frisbees today, women's at 11 am and juniors at 4 pm. I didn't cleat for juniors, because I had showered and was happy with the first practice in terms of amount of playing for a day.

Saturday night I went to a dance put on by the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association with a buddy. It was nice and close to home (sunnyside community centre), a fun time, and slightly weird - http://www.argra.org/rodeo_events.php. I had never previously heard of "goat dressing". In this case the "goat" was a dude in a helmet and a fuzzy shall. Another highlight was some dude in drag sprinting a "pole bending" course in stilettos - skills, seriously.

I was supposed to be leaving tonight, or first thing tomorrow for good old DV (Drayton Valley). Now I'm not leaving until at least tomorrow night, possibly not at all. I fly to Flowerbowl Thursday at 4 pm, so I'm pretty stoked for the extra time. Otherwise, I would have had to be in DV, ready for 4 days of field work, and packed for Flowerbowl at the same time. I'm hoping to at very least squeeze in one more pre-Flowerbowl practice.

I finally bought a new iPod. Oh yes. I decided to go with a little tiny shuffle. I can wait for the iPod that I really want, the 8 GB Nano. I was torn about buying one, because first I need some available cash, and second, I need a microwave too. I'm still having a hard time trying to decide which one I should buy first. At the same time, I'm was really tired of listening to myself pant when I'm working out or running. If I crank the techno, it helps so much. If I have to listen to myself breathe, it's hard not to think, "egads, I sound awful, I should stop." Anyway, the shuffle was $50, so until I can afford the real on, and least I can crank some techno while I work out. Oh yeah, and it's purple and tiny and cute.