The Victorian Era

NUFL 1: This past weekend (August 18 & 19) was the National Ultimate Frisbee League tournament in Sydney.

Friday after work I went home, got all my stuff together and headed out to Southern Cross Station to catch the red SkyBus to Tullamarine airport. Also on the bus with me were my Team Box and NUFL captain Liz Edye and Heads of State team member Owen Shepard. The traffic was bad on the way to the airport and Owen was nervous about missing his flight. I wasn’t worried as I had plenty of time. I was going to check in, fly to Sydney, meet up with Liz in the airport and rent a car. I went to the JetStar counter to check in and couldn’t find the queue for my flight. Hmmm. I went to the JetStar information counter to learn that my flight (which was taking off in about an hour) was departing from Avalon airport near Geelong, not Tullamarine. No one’s fault but my own; it was right there in the confirmation e-mail I had printed out and not read very closely.

There was no way to make it to Avalon in that time, and that was the last flight to Sydney that day. The nice folks at JetStar moved me to the 6 AM Saturday morning flight at no charge. I called Liz to let her know that her parents would need to pick her up as I couldn’t give her a lift home if I was still in Melbourne. Back on the SkyBus (through traffic again) to Southern Cross Station where I learned that the bus I needed to the Avalon airport for my flight on Saturday morning departed at 3:45 AM. Great. It was 10 PM and I needed to get up at about 3 to make my flight. I went home, failed to change my Budget rental reservation because their customer service line closes at 6 PM (thanks jerks) and they won’t take same day reservation modifications online.

I got about four hours of sleep before returning to Southern Cross and then onto the SunBus to Avalon where I met Timill from Heads of State. Quick nap of a flight and then we’re in Sydney. I go to pick up my rental car which has somehow become twice as expensive because I didn’t pick it up last night but I have no time to fight with them as I need to get to the fields. It’s 7:30 Saturday morning and I’m tired and cranky from the mix up and lack of sleep. I need to exit the rental lot and double back around to terminal 2 arrivals to pick up Timill, Rueben and Dave from Heads of State who I had agreed to give a lift to the fields. I’m trying to hurry, adjust my mirrors, stay on the left side of the road and read airport signage. My rental car is also making a suspicious beeping sound. I can’t figure out how to get back to arrivals and I keep ending up in turn only lanes. Well, I end up miles away and have to follow the signs back to the airport and explain to the boys what happened and why I abandoned them at the airport. Rueben agrees to navigate, I assign Dave to ‘left side of the road’ duty and Timill figures out that the annoying beeping is a speed monitor that beeps when I drive above the speed limit. Thankfully, this distraction can be disabled. Let’s hope this ‘innovation’ never makes it to the US.

We go through three separate toll roads and tunnels that don’t accept cash and will require me to pay online later, but we do safely arrive at the fields at MacQuarie University in North Sydney in time to warm up and play.

The Victorian team here is VOS, Victoria One Squad, which refers to the three club teams that joined like Voltron to form the NUFL team: Team Box, Ishtar and Honey. Sydney has decided to form two teams to represent New South Wales: Betty Crocker and Sarah Lee. First up on Saturday morning we play Betty Crocker. The fields are nice, it’s warm and sunny and not much wind. It’s a perfect day for ultimate.

Check out this website for the results: NUFL .For more detail, read on.

Our first Sydney game was close and tough. We started out down a couple quickly like we weren’t quite ready to play. Then we traded for the rest of the first half. I was cutting well and catching well, but I had a turn when I threw a quick break to a receiver who called for the disc but wasn’t open. (I still have to look!) Despite the lack of wind, both teams were having more success with Zone and Junk Ds than with man. I think this is because it stopped the set O plays we had all been planning to run. We fought hard in the second half mostly trading but were never able to string enough points in a row to get the lead.

Pretty much directly after the first game, we had a second game against the fACTory girls from Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). This was another close, hard fought game. We trailed most of the game but were able to string together a few points late in the second half to take the lead and the game. Towards the end of the game I rolled my ankle jumping over to strike on the mark. Mama (Lauren) brought me ice. As close as the game had been, we were lucky to come away 1-1 for the day.

By 2:00 PM we were done for the day, eating a ‘typical’ Australian Frisbee lunch and watching the Heads of State guys lose a close one to Barefoot from Sydney. I was exhausted and getting cranky. In typical ultimate style there was a lot of faffing around and it was 6 PM or so before I could gather up the girls in my rental car to drive to ‘The Ranch’ which was a huge social club like restaurant where all the teams were going for dinner. At this point, I felt like a captive being subjected to sleep deprivation by my interrogators, the VOS girls. All I want is sleep and to be left alone. I ate some pretty crummy pasta and then went out to the car to sleep. In what seemed like one second after I sat down in the rental car, (but was actually an hour) the girls were outside and ready to go back to Liz’s parents place for sleep. We went to a grocery store on the way there to buy breakfast for in the morning and then off to the Edye’s home. They have a beautiful house that easily and comfortably slept the 10 of us. I showered and passed out in a bedroom.

I woke up 10 hours later and feeling much better to the sound of rain on the skylights. I met Liz’s mom and dad who were super nice. We had some toast and tea and packed up to get on the road to the fields, which were a convenient 10 minutes away. It seemed like it was raining pretty hard as I led the warm up for our game against Brisbane’s Sultry. Little did I know that was as light as it would rain all day. The game was dominated by zone on both sides of the disc due to the deluge. The standard of play was actually pretty high despite the wet disc. My ankle was feeling a lot better and I ran a lot of cup and fence. We were pretty much trading until Brisbane scored 2 in a row from 5-6 to lead 5-8. In a game that sloppy, I was concerned that those points would be the break that won the game, but VOS rallied to run off 4 straight points and take half at 9-8.

It was pretty miserable out there. We had a big squad so people were freezing when we were off in between points. It was raining harder than taking a shower. There was 2-3 inches of standing water on the field. I was still pretty happy with how I played getting a few Ds and busting long with enough conviction to make Tasmanian star Ash Martin cover me for most of the second half. VOS hung on to narrowly win in the second half at the cap (maybe 13-11?).

After that, the NUFL coordinators met and agreed to cancel games for the rest of the day due to the damage that is done to the fields when people play in cleats in that kind of rain. I was bummed to come all the way to Sydney and only play 3 games, but we were all blue, trembling and miserable, so I guess it was for the best.

We ran to a nearby squash court which sold us hot showers for $3 each, which was the best $3 dollars I have even spent in my entire life. My fingers were raisins for another hour after that. We all drove to a nearby hotel (read pub) to eat and wait for our flights. We passed most of the afternoon playing Dilemma and that 3 person chuck or marry game. In the most exciting event of the afternoon, Lucy Ross borrowed the keys to the rental to get her stuff out of the trunk and put it in the taxi to the airport. She forgot to bring back the keys and I called her 20 minutes later as she was on the way to the airport. She had to hop out of her cab and get another taxi back to us to return the keys so that I could let other people get their stuff out of the trunk and so we could drive to the airport. Now really late, she jumped in with us, and stressed the whole drive to the airport, in the still pouring rain, that she was going to miss her flight. Thanks to Owen, a Sydney native, for navigating well and keeping me calm despite the nutcase in the back seat during the drive.

We all ended up making our flights and getting back to Melbourne in one (soggy) piece. I've been to Sydney a few times now and there is just nothing charming about that city. It reminds me of Dallas. You have to drive everywhere and the traffic is terrible and there are lots of strip malls. I'm so glad I ended up living in Melbourne.

This week at work was pretty busy and I am very tired. I didn’t do anything from Monday-Friday other than work, work and sleep. Thrilling, I know.

In other news, Australia is having a national election for Prime Minister in a few weeks. It consistently gets less coverage by the local news media than the Hillary/Barack democratic primary races back home. There was a spike in the coverage earlier this week when Kevin Rudd, the opposition candidate, was exposed to have gone to a strip club in 2003 in New York City. He went to Scores. Big deal. Who hasn’t been to Scores? The best part about this story is that an Australian newspaper has got the Scores manager from 4 years ago on record saying he remembers Rudd’s visit and that he was there for about 15 minutes. Right. A politician that might be a big deal in Australia in four years would make a strong impression on your strip club management team. I can see that.

Here’s wishing you a good week and reminding you to turn off the mixer before you lick off the cake batter.

Also, I got a new Flickr Uploadr which makes it much easier to use, and I have no more monthly limit, so I've put some more pics from earlier this year up on Flickr and added some descriptions on the pics.