And the winner is...

Minneapolis. That's right. Not London or China or somewhere in Africa. Minneapolis. Perfect timing too. I guess I better buy a coat...

I'll be up there at least through the end of the year, but likely longer. You know I'll keep you posted. (Pun intended. Help me...)

I fly up there on Sunday after practice and I am dreading the first day of school feeling...

Looming much larger on the horizon is Nationals in Sarasota next week. I'll fly to Tampa on Wednesday. Do keep an eye on the results here. I am really looking forward to it. This weekend will basically be practice and packing.

Went to see TV on the Radio with Stephen and that was a pretty good show. A psychic told me I liked Abraham Lincoln and freaked me out, but maybe he just says that to everyone. Burgers at the Spotted Pig post show.

I was also summoned for Jury duty recently. Man! Let me tell you, if you ever think a process is inefficient, you should compare it to jury duty. I was selected for a jury pool for two trials, but was never placed into the jury box for voir dire so, I never got to tell the judge that as I did not believe in 'facts' or 'reality' it would probably be difficult for me to follow his instructions. I just sat there for two straight days listening to others in the box think of any excuse possible to be excused. One watched too much CSI. One refused to sit on a gun related charge in defense of the second amendment. One woman announced that since the beginning of the voir dire she had developed a strong dislike of the prosecuting attorney and could not possibly be objective.

They asked everyone the same introductory questions: Where they lived and for how long, what level of education, what they did for employment, who else lived in their household and what they did for employment. It was very strange. We are all strangers. This city does not look you in the eye on the subway. Now there you are sitting in a jury box in a room full of 100 strangers telling us all that you've lived in Hell's Kitchen for 12 years. You went to SUNY New Paltz for 2 years and dropped out. You're in between office jobs and supplementing your income with online sales (eBay) and you live alone. I had too look away. All this personal information. It's like when the homeless guy bathes in the fountain. You just can't watch...

And that last question. Most New Yorkers, it seems live alone. I would say 12 out of 18 on each panel, (and I watched 4 but was never called to the box) responded that they had no one else in their household. Everyone answered that differently, "Divorced" "Single Occupant Household" "On my own" and one woman who confessed, "I am alone, totally alone".

I left with a sense that I am one of the least crazy people out there, on average. It seemed to me that everyone in the room was enduring some kind of withdrawal. Is everyone on drugs? Just sit quietly and read the paper. Do not fidget ceaselessly. Do not feel the need to comment on all the proceedings. Do not complain like this is the height of torture. DO NOT try to talk to me and get me to commiserate with you about how terrible this all is, how inconvenienced you are. Just sit still and be quiet you stupid babies!!!!!!! Grrrrr.

Anyway that's over for a few years and I'm off to Scandinavia Camp. Woo woo.

frantic

I'm frantic. Work is completely insane. There could be no worse time to be heading out for a few days off, but there's never a good time.

I'm off to coffs Harbour for Nationals in a few hours.

I am super psyched to be going with my team.

I have not packed. You know how I feel about packing.

Will there be live scoring again this year? I do not know.

If so, it might be here:

http://nationals.ultimatefrisbee.org.au/email.php

If not, i'll tell you all about it when I get home next week.

Happy Anzac Day!

Nationals Pics

http://digitalarts.mindsocket.com.au/gallery2/v/events/nationals2007/

Nationals Recap

Apologies for the delay. I was waiting to feel less exhausted to write this post, but I don't want to forget everything that happened and the current forecast for some decent rest is distant. Random thoughs I have on the Tournament:

Nationals was great. Thanks for everyone who checked in and was thinking of me over the tourrnament. There were professional photographers there taking photos daily and several of our games were featured, so I will post that link once those are up and you can check out the scene.

Our kit was all Patagonia. The jersey material is really nice. We liked them much better than Gaia. (I still recommend 5ultimate, but we needed a pretty quick turnaround so we went with someone larger and more established.) The patagonia shorts material was super light and thin. They looked great and dried very quickly. The only drawback was that they were so light they gave the impression of not being there at all and we were all saddled with the vague notion that we were wearing the emperor's new shorts.

We also had matching Team Box wristbands, supplied by Michelle, who morphed a former Nike swoosh into the bill and neck of a goose, perfectly completing our professional look.

We played 9 games over 4 days. We had a first round game EVERY day. I got a ride in two of the days and took the tram in two of the days. Either way I left very early in the morning each day and was very tired by the time to come back home. The tournament site was a good hour from downtown where I live (more by tram).

The tournement was well run. The fields were nice. Rounds started on time. Everyone was fed and watered. There were scoreboards, but no timekeepers.

For each of our games we did the same 60 minute warm up, with running, stretching, plyos, drills and sprinting. After each game we did the same cooldown with running, plyos, stretching, and singing.

Team Box pre-game chants included:
Get out of the Box and into the Zone, Team Box is going to take this home.
and
Open the flaps, get into the box.
and
1-2-3 - Team! 1-2-3 Box! 1-2-3 Go Team Box!

Team box had 15 year olds and women who haad been playing for 10 years. I asked Sophie, one of our high school kids what she was doing for school on Monday and Tuesday. "Oh yeah. I'm not going."

Team Box captains insisted on and stuck to a plan where no subs were called. Even in finals. On most teams this would have been a disaster, but everyone on Team Box got along and there were no disc hogs and I think we all had equal, fair playing time and everyone was happy about it. Those of you who don't play won't understand how remarkable this is. Those who do play will not believe me that this happened. This is like Joe Torre just telling the Yankees to bat in whatever order they all agree on, and it working out instantly and silently with no dissenters. It was great.

Wednesday was the final day of the tournament. It was a national holiday here in Australia (ANZAC day) which I think is something about World War One and Turkey. It's basically veterans day. Of the 4 women's teams in semis, 3 were from Sydney. We played the Sydney Southsiders at 9, and they were looking for revenge for the close pool play round loss we handed them on day 2. It was a gorgeous day with very little wind. Every point was hotly contested and we were down 6-8 at half. In the second half we came out with a junk/clammy D and scored 5 in a row to get to 11-8. After that we traded points to get to 15. I was in on several of those D points and it was so exciting to feel the momentum of the game shift. You could see it in the Southside body language that they just knew we had stepped up the intensity and they were going to lose.

In Finals, we faced the only team we had lost two all tournement, Wildcard. There were a lot of spectators. The finals were filmed and there were commenators calling play-by-play. It was all a bit distracting, and I think our youth showed as a team. We came out slow in the first half with some acharactertistic mistakes including a pull out of bounds at mid-field and a dropped pull. Wildcard played a force middle D that effectively shut down our horizontal stack offense. They took half 8-6. We played a little better in the second half and even had some little runs, but never really played our best. I think we were tired and a bit unused to adversity. Wildcard played very well and played low risk disciplined O. The game was filled with layouts and sic bids on both sides and many people in the crowd said it was the highest level of play they had seen at a women's finals.

After finals we had a team circle up, a birthday cake for Riss, and then we got some beers and barbeque and watched the men's final. After that, there was an awards ceremony where we all got our second place medals and our name called out. It was fun cheering for everyone.

After the awards ceremony we had some champagne, went out for dumplings, and then I went home to deal with having to go to work the next day. I had a great time this season with Team Box and I'm dissapointed that the season is over and wondering what else I can find as an excuse to escape work.

Nationals: Quick Re-Cap of Days 1-3

This will be quite brief as I need to go to bed, since I have Semis tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Go Team Box!

On Day 1 (Sunday): We went 2-1, winning two games quite easily against teams from Brisbane and South Australia. Then we lost a close, windy, zone based game against Wildcard from Sydney.

On Day 2 (Monday): We went 2-0 and won a very close game against Ishtar from Melbourne. We took half 8-3 and narrowly hung on to the second half 9-8. Then we beat South Side from Sydney in a close one as well.

On Day 3 (Tuesday): We went 2-0 and beat the Sugar Magnolias (from Canberra?) at 8:30 and narrowly beat the undefeated NoNoNo from Sydney (15-13) in a high speed, huck filled game. I caught a long goal and also threw a goal and got some Ds. NoNoNo are an experienced group of women that have played a lot of club and world championships and don’t bother with practice or plays. They are very talented. Winning that game allowed us to keep the 1 seed as, only 2 of the top 6 had only 1 loss (Team Box and NoNoNo) and we beat them head to head.

Day 4 preview:
At 9:00 AM, as the 1 seed, we will play the 4 seed: South Side (again) from Sydney. If we win that, we’ll play the winner of the other Semis: Wildcard (Sydney) or NoNoNo (Sydney). We are proud to represent Victoria and Melbourne in a comp that is otherwise dominated by that other city with a fancy opera house (who cares!). We are healthy, amped and skipping the party tonight to get some rest.

There will be pictures and more details later, but this is a quick update. I am having a great time.

Live Nationals Scores

http://olennick2.homedns.org/scores/