Slow Start to an Awesome Weekend

Friday was a bit of a pain because it took me 8 hours to get home after class. George W. was in Raleigh Durham so he and Air Force One made a delay on all the incoming planes. This put my outgoing flight to Chicago behind. When I got off the plane I heard a final boarding call to Austin and my gate was two terminals over. Remember when pulling an O.J. didn't have anything to do with a glove and stabbing? I ran through the airport to catch my flight. Once on the plane, an older gentlemen diagonally across from me on the plane had medical issues. He was nauseated and the airline wanted him OFF. He wanted to stay so it was a long time till paramedics and Security came and got him.

That was my Friday. It was a pain but it was the only day I didn't play disc golf and I got to play several awesome courses in North Carolina including one at UNC Chapel Hill. They are preparing for a "Tarheels Tournament" there at the end of the month so the course was getting some TLC. I love North Carolina courses. Imagine a tight tunnel to the basket like at The Rivery. Now imagine that tunnel going steep up or down a hill through hardwoods and curving to a basket that isn't visible from the tee. Sweet!



Here's an interesting shot at Valley Springs disc golf course. There were three concrete tees for every basket. Here, you could either play the straight tunnel to the right or go up and over to the left with an anhyzer shot.



I chose the anhyzer for a satisfying birdie.

Saturday morning at 9:00 we "Played in the Shade" at the Rivery disc golf course. We had 10 people and I got to play with Dr. Steve and Matt. Both of those guys are upbeat, positive, and supportive during a disc golf round. Each of us took our time to really make our shots count too. That was the secret to doing well at the last tournament I was in too. I used to play with someone who was all "let's get this show on the road" and "I don't have all day" if you even thought about your shot.







Three new people got bag tags! That's awesome. Some of the people are unlikely to compete for them but still wanted a tag to show their group spirit. I'm going to have to make up some more. I had another tie on the course and this time it was with Steve at 6 over. That's one better than I shot in the tournament but I've still got a long way to go to be anywhere near the good players. Since Steve had the lowest tag (4) going in, he kept it and I took the next lowest tag (5) available. We play with the convention that we throw in tag order on the first hole now. That's a better convention than that "Gravitt breaks all ties' crap of the past.

Some of the new folks played a round of doubles. Robin brought her dog but only made it part-way through the course with it. It's not well-behaved; don't know why she brought it.



Word Games

We had a big group for word games at Wicked Sandwiches in Round Rock. Gina came and she did well and enjoyed the game of Quiddler that Brian brought. I never played it before and it was fun. I also played a lot of Big Boggle and some My Word! before Gina and I headed off to church. In Big Boggle you only play words of length four or more. Afterwards a group at another table played a game without the timer. That would drive me nuts; the timer is what makes it fun. There was lots of Scrabble being played too and new fun word gamers showed up that I didn't know before.


Manor

Sunday morning I tried to make it to Manor by 9:00 to play with the Double R disc golf club. I got turned around on the way there though and wound up playing by myself around 9:20. They had 10 show up at a last-minute event and that kind of thing totally impresses me. I love the course at Manor. I played the short tees though and still only got a few birdies and had lots of trouble on certain holes. Hole 2 I let my Gazelle go right and I could never find it. When I came back to the tee, I put my new Star TL I got at the tournament last week right under the basket for an easy putt. I've also been having trouble with my new Banger GT Soft putters. I left one on the course during the Solo tournament and never had it returned. This week, on a short hole across water at Manor I had my replacement GT Banger soft get spiked. It was dangling on a log with a new hole in it's center that makes it tournament illegal now.

When is disc golf not free? When it's a long drive with tolls and you lose discs. Oh well, it's still a ton of fun and it feels good to get better.

Tichu
We had 6 for Tichu Sunday night. Well, Gina came to watch and we had 4 actually play Tichu. After a movie, Traci dropped by too so Gina and she played a couple of games of Hive while we finished up our Tichu game. This was the first time Traci played Hive. She enjoyed it and told Gina "I didn't know a game about bugs could be so intense." That's good praise for an abstract. I like the fact that you can easily explain it to someone and get into a competitive game without them having lots of experience under their belt. The player aids I downloaded from Boardgamegeek.com make insect movement easier to understand for the various species as well. Wings and Rings has a lot more than wings by the way. I had jalapeno poppers, Gina and Wayne had a gyro, Stephanie had a delicious-looking salad, and Nick had a hamburger. The brownie bites were tasty afterwards as well. That was the first time Gina had been out to Tichu since our kids were at Camp Grandma last Summer.

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Birdie Beads

OK, I'm officially nuts.  I ordered beads and cordage from Ebay.




I built my own birdie beads for scoring in, for me, disc golf.  The one on the left says 3 over par and the one on the right says two under.
That's a lot of work for something that can be done with a scratch piece of paper that actually gives you a record of your score per hole.
We also know that the best practices are for skill (hyzer, tomahawk, roller, putting) and not scores but it can be a fun way to keep score
when just a couple  of people are playing.

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Fun at The Rivery

I had a blast at The Rivery disc golf course all weekend. I started by winning the #1 bag tag in our disc golf group Saturday morning at 7:00 AM.





It looked good on my bag for the couple of hours I had it until our group played at Old Settlers. Jason also bought my breakfast at Duke's in between rounds Saturday.

Friday, I ran into a "friend" who told me I would lose Saturday and would lose in the tournament because I "overplayed the course." Thanks Mr. Sunshine.

On Sunday we had 72 people in the fifth annual Flying Solo tournament. That's a lot of people for Father's Day, the only day they could rent
the Pavillion at The Rivery.



The near guy in the blue shirt, Dan got first place in our recreational division.



Tracy got sixth place in the Recreational division and I got third. I didn't birdie the first three holes like I did playing Jason Saturday morning but I was able to keep from going off tilt and had a lot of nice shots. Scores.

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Morning Trip to the Rivery, games I play I suck at

My wife and I went to visit a different church last night at 6:00. This freed me up to hit The Rivery disc golf course before 8:00 this morning. If only I could shoot par next week in the tournament. I birdied the first two holes in a row.



I thought it strange that someone would bother to spray paint the way they feel about games on a garbage can. It made me think about some of the games I hardly ever win
at but that I still want to play:
Gemblo, an abstract spacial game I hardly ever win comes to mind
Age of Steam, I'm not terrible at it but I've always played with more-experienced players
Hamburgum, I like this game but I usually peter out after doing well at the beginning. I taught two people how to play this Thursday and I didn't even end on the same side of the board they did.
Traders of Genoa. This is probably my favorite game with the right players yet I hardly ever win.

The Double R Disc Golf Group did a lot of work on the course. They also brought orange out-of-bounds paint.



Oh, and here's a random disc golf video from a different area.

Embedded Video

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