This Side Up

New things

2011-02-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

For the first time in... a long time, I have a job. And in my second full week of work (next week), I'm being sent to Las Vegas for a trade show. For a week. Everything paid for. Can you say awesome?

Also, since I have a job, I can start coaching again. Shweeet.

Watch This...

2010-09-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYtXoUZbUCQ
Feel insignificant yet?

Good luck to Polar Bears this weekend.

The Rules

2010-09-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.usaultimate.org/resources/officiating/rules/11th_edition_rules.aspx
This has been up for a little while, but with the Club Series upon us it is a bit more relevant.

If you haven't read the rules already then you obviously have no respect for our sport and the SotG that we all claim to try to follow. In a player-officiated sport it is usually pretty important that the players know what and when to actually call something.

For those of you that have read this before then please reread this version. ~~The UPA~~ USA Ultimate has finally put a notes to clarify most of the harder to understand rules (in red.)

So check it out. Especially before you make some mistaken call this weekend.

P.S. Congrats to the Polar Bears for their sectionals win this past weekend. Regionals in 17 days (according to 808's daily ticker.)

Discos 2010

2010-08-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

Discos Calientes is this weekend: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmeLsG3nk9lMdGNUTTUxUzhFN3FsXzlOMWtpeVBJSWc&hl=en&authkey=CNyR0oEH#gid=0
We are in a pool with Seduction... and 3 other teams that I have no idea about. But really I don't know who any of the teams at this tournament are. All I do know for sure is that it will be hot, and that we have the worst possible schedule. Most of us won't be arriving till well after midnight, and we have a first round game. Then we play late on Sunday, which means most of us won't get back to So Cal till well after midnight. Oh well.

My fever finally broke today, so I should actually be healthy enough to play. I've been sick since Venus left last Thursday. A week. Usually I'm only sick for 2-3 days. Oh well.

I took a page out of 808's book. New team, new role, new number.

-#24

PS. Good luck to Polar Bears, Safari, Streetgang and Metro this weekend at ECC. Make some highlights for me to watch on Ultivillage.

Numbers

2010-07-29T00:20:00.001-07:00

7, 14, or 24? Which is best?

USAU Club Finals

2010-06-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

The USAU Club finals will be a repeat of last year's finals (Revolver vs Chain Lightning). Can't tell who will win this yet but it should be rather exciting (as long as Revolver goes more than 10 deep). Apparently Chain is getting Jolian Dahl, Sam C-K, and Kiran Thomas (three of the top cutters in the nation) while Revolver is getting the top talent from JAM.

Going to be an exciting season.

Food

2010-06-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from dinner at my friend's place. His family is full of amazing cooks so I relish every opportunity I have to go over than and stuff my face. They usually don't mind because they enjoy making fun of me. I think it is a fair trade.

Here is what was on the menu for tonight:

Baby back ribs (that fell off the bone), goat cheese melted on baked spinach and lobster ravioli, mushrooms, asparagus, fried potatoes (with some sort of Spanish sauce on it), and a beer. For dessert we were going to have a Spanish baked apple thing, but it imploded into a sauce, so my friend's sister turned it into a topping on toasted bread with goat cheese. So tasty.

Anyways, this got me thinking about cooking, and how I need to learn to do it better. Since I've moved back home I've gotten rather adept at most breakfast foods (eggs of multiple varieties, sausage, french toast, etc) as well as grilling hamburgers and turkey melts.

Typical breakfast/dinner:

But I haven't really forayed into any real dinner dishes. No real cooking. Part of that is because when I'm hungry I want to eat, not cook. So I never really think ahead for what I'm going to have for dinner. The most I ever remember is to defrost the hamburgers. Also, it is hard to cook nice things when I'm the only one that is going to enjoy it. But oh well. At least I have something to look forward to.

P.S. I got A-'s in my last two classes at UCI. Officially done. Woot.

The Show

2010-04-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

So it looks like the UPA have finally released the end of season rankings. Somehow the GL got 3 bids (wasn't this new system supposed to stop stuff like that?), but it also looks like UCLA was able to do well enough at Centex to give the SW a 3rd bid! And CSULB 'strategically' messed up their roster for Easterns so their 3 losses didn't end up hurting us.
That brings up a good point. In the past is was only going to be beneficial for teams to travel long distances to play quality opponents that they've never played before. But in the new system it can be a double edged sword. Now that every game counts towards the bid allocation going to tournaments in which everyone is out of region will only help the SW (in particular) if you win the games. Just a thought.

In any case, now that the SW has 3 bids, who do you think is going to make it?
I think the two easy choices are Colorado and UCSD (as long as neither chokes). That 3rd bid is going to be a dog fight between UCLA, SDSU, and UCSB. So far UCLA is 0-3 combined against the other two, but I have faith. Plus it would be awesome to see them finally go. Then again, regionals are in CO again (stupid), and even worse, they are in Fort Collins (even worse weather than Denver.) Hopefully some CO team used to the weather doesn't end up taking the 3rd bid when they don't 'really' deserve it (a la Psychoplastique, a 9 seed, at NW mixed regionals last year.) But hey, win the games that matter and you get to go to the show.

Good luck in the series.

The Off-Season

2010-04-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

My off-season has been pretty successful. So far I'm 3 for 3 in tournament victories. City Wok won Club TiV over the Wisconsin Alum team. Then 'Humboldt Alum' (aka ABB: Always Be Boosting) won BTOYL 3 over New Mexico. And then this last weekend Polar Bears dominated at DUI beating BCBC 11-5 in quarters, then beating Mischief 11-3 in semis, then finishing off beating CTR 11-6 in finals.
I didn't count Polar Bears at Lei Out because I was filming instead of playing. But they did make the finals.

In case you haven't seen it yet, Zip made a super sick highlight video from the footage I took at Lei Out. Check it out here: http://vimeo.com/9831097. I love how you can tell how drunk I got over the course of the weekend.
Polar Bear love.

Run

2010-03-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

3 Miles - 24:08. Pitiful.

Gotta start somewhere. No college season to keep me in shape is definitely hurting.

Foxy

2010-03-15T01:58:00.000-07:00

I like it that certain people call me Boxy instead of just Box. Thanks Enway for starting that. :)

The Universe Hates My Car

2010-01-31T12:14:00.000-08:00

Last night I locked my keys in my car at dinner. First time ever. Not a big deal, by the time I'm done with dinner AAA was out there and I had my keys back.

Later last night. I come out of my friend's house to find that my car was broken in to. First time ever. Only stole my loose change and my iPod. Lucky they didn't find my wallet that I forgot to grab from its hiding place. Worse than locking my keys in the car, but not all that bad really. Sucks that my iPod was taken, I love that thing. Oh well.

This morning. I wake up to a crash and I see a white pick-up truck speeding off. My car got hit and run. First time ever. Bumper knocked out of position. Gaping hole in the front driver's side quarter panel. Not good. I got the police report, called the insurance. Only going to have to pay my deductible, but that is money I don't have.

A friend said that at least I got all of this out of the way in one 16 hour span. Hopefully it won't happen again for quite some time. But still, why does the universe hate my car?

City Wok does Vegas

2010-01-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

Shitty Wok beat the Hodag alumni team in the finals to win Club TiV. Great playing by everyone. Bigger/better update soon.

The Weekend Part 1: Great Goonie Gettaway + OC Sunday Pickup

2009-12-30T22:06:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been pretty awesome so I figured that I would document them for posterity's sake. :)

I guess it all started on Saturday after I picked up Grip from John Wayne at 430. Then went to dinner at Island's with her, Annie, Elmo, and baby Elmo (her brother Frank.) That of course was a fun filled time (besides the uncomfortably expensive pint of Hawaiian Lager.)
Anyways, then it was time for the Great Goonie Getaway at the Goonie's House (of course.) It was a little weird partying there with almost none of the Irvine crew, but at least Khosh had finally made his return. Plus Andrew 'Coppa' was there, so that was pretty awesome (Andrew^2.) Fish and I beat Annie and Elaine early on to dash their hopes of making the wall, but Coppa and I went 0fer on the night (sad face). All in all a good night partying, spent the night there that night.

Sunday morning some of the girls made pancakes and hashbrowns and little breakfast weenies then we all went to OC pickup for some ultimate action. There was a pretty large crowd there (mostly young guys again.) I love pickup during winter break because it seems that most of the old geezers are busy, and all of the young college guys are back in town so it's actually competitive. Big surprise to see Goldmember for the first time in over a year as he was back from Australia visiting during his holiday break. 808 also showed up to play, and for some reason I always play harder with 808 on my team. Put in some good effort in the game. Meeko also graced us with a surprise visit on her way back from her home in Santa Clarita. I'll try not to give away the whole story, but I will say that she didn't get back to SD till today.
After pickup Meeko and Sam went back to JSS to hang out and watch football while a couple of us went to hit up Tap Ex for some delicious boba (and some squid balls for TK.) Then most of us went over to Sam's to watch the game. While watching football and generally hanging out I mentioned to Meeko that I had yet to see Avatar, so we made plans to go see it Monday, which meant she had to stick around for at least one more day (keep in mind, I think it was her original plan to drop by in Irvine just for a few hours to hang out, then continue on her way to SD.) Plus there was Rocketsauce pickup Monday night, so Meeko decided to stay. Hooray.
Iris, Meeko and I also went to go pickup Allen from John Wayne while blasting Taylor Swift the entire time. And Del Taco ("Absolutely not!" haha).
So I finally went home Sunday night after not being home for close to two days.

Rain

2009-12-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

I love the rain.
But I hate when it ruins my Ultimate plans.
Bumsy.

All I Want for Christmas

2009-12-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

Is this:
http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=231&catid=132
Then my computer will be almost fixed. Now I just need to figure out this dead monitor issue.

Regionals Preview

2009-10-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=124&id=6094

The UPA Club Southwest Open Regionals are this weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona. We are seeded about where I figured we would be at 6th overall, 3rd in our pool. Johnny Bravo(1) and Streetgang(3) are the two seeds above us with Monsoon(8) and Sunburn(9) below us. Sadly the tournament has dropped down to 9 teams now, down from 12 at the beginning of the week. It's very unfortunate that the SW region can't consistently (read: ever) put together a 16 team regionals tournament while almost every other region never has a problem fielding a full tournament. But oh well.

This will be the first tournament that Monster will have our full roster of 26 ballers. Our top 10 can hang with anyone at Regionals (save for Johnny Bravo) so I'm pretty excited to say the least. That's not to say that the rest of the team isn't up there, because I don't mean that at all. Everyone on our team made big plays at Sectionals, and I expect more of the same at Regionals. We are going to surprise a lot of people (and probably ourselves on the way.) Anyways, this is turning too much into my own pump up instead of the preview I meant to write.

So. Preview time. We have game-bye-game-game-game. We play Johnny Bravo after our bye (after they play Monsoon), and we play Streetgang last. Should be a fun day. I'm kind of glad that we are in the pool with 5 teams instead of 4. With our huge roster it will help us more to have more games. At the end of day 1, I see Pool A holding seed (sad.)

Pool B on the other hand is a different story. All 4 teams are very strong. Sprawl is the bottom seed and they took 2nd at Desert Sectionals with their only loss to Sweet Roll on DGP. And now they are the last seed in their pool. Brutal.
We got shellacked by Condors at sectionals in our worst game (and their best game from what I heard) of the weekend. They are a good team who has fought through a lot of personnel losses to remain a strong team. They might surprise Sweet Roll (who only got seeded above them late this week) but I don't think they'll be able to take down Strike-Slip. They got trampled at Sectionals in a very one sided game. Anyways. The Sweet Roll - Strike Slip match up will be interesting, but I still see SS taking that pool. Strike-Slip battled through a lot of early season losses, but finally seemed to have put all the pieces together when it matters. Or at least for Sectionals. I'm hoping they still have what it takes for when it matters this coming Sunday. We'll see.

Back to us. I keep looking at possible paths to the game to go. (I know its a very long shot, but I think that people underestimate our potential... and it is fun to see the possibilities.) Anyways. Assuming all of the seeds hold (long shot, but its a hypothetical situation anyways) then we will face B4 in the first round on Sunday (Sprawl). Very winnable. After that we face the loser of the 1st place semis (likely a SoCal Sectionals rematch between Streetgang and Strike-Slip). Possible upset there. We do have the surprise factor. And I would love to play spoiler to one of those teams. Obviously I would love to see Strike-Slip make nationals. I have a lot of close friends on that team. But how sweet would it be to ruin their shot. I mean come on. The 'B' team beating the 'A' team. Anyways, lets get back on track here. After that win (hypothetical) we'd play the winner of the other 2nd place semi's who would probably be... Sweet Roll. No idea what that team is capable of. They had sweet jerseys last year (John Wayne's face on the front). But yea. Then we play the loser of the finals. Very far-fetched, but hypotheticals are fun.

So yea, I'm excited for this weekend. I'm driving out with a bunch of cool people. I'm staying in a bombass hotel for super cheap that is only 1 mile from the fields. The fields in Scottsdale are awesome (at least they were last time I was there.) So yea, just need to get through the next two days.

Do work Monster.

Sectionals Recap 2

2009-09-28T02:22:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I start to remember more of the weekend while I write this, but who knows.
Unfortunately for us, 5 Ultimate was not able to get our jerseys to us in time for the tournament so that kind of sucked. But we have them now, so no worries.

We started off the day against Get That Fly, a group of older guys from LA. We win 13-6.

Our second game of the day was against the Long Beach team Little Giants. We played a scrimmage against them the weekend before where we won 11-6. It was a fun game. Ed got a few big Ds on Reggie that kind of surprised me. We won 13-2 going away.
Up to this point I think I had played a total of 4 points. I was sick or hungover or both. (It was Iris's birthday the night before.) Anyways.

Third and last game of the day was against SD Streetgang. I know I said before that we didn't really have a legitimate shot at this game, but boy was I wrong. We came out firing on all cylinders trading to 5s I think. Our D line was getting at least a block a point, we just couldn't punch in the break. We finally get a break before half to go up 6-5 (I think?) It is a bit fuzzy. We get the disc again to take half. Tommy bombs a backhand huck to KG super open streaking deep (I was the closest guy to him) but it gets called back on a travel call. We turn it. They break twice to take half 7-6. After half they started throwing zone a lot to mix us up a little. I think they got maybe 1 D on us the entire game, the rest of our turns were mental mistakes (throwing while not set, drops, etc.) Gordy, Tommy, and Bishop in the backfield were shredding through their zone. Anyways. They went up a few breaks in the second half. up 9-11 game to 13. We trade downwind with two hucks to Jake who skies Dollar without jumping. Cash in an upwind break (also to Jake.) I think they broke back. We pull on game point 10-12 and they win with a huck to a wide open Kory. GG Streetgang. We put up a solid showing though. This game reminded me a lot of the Strike-Slip game we had at Chico. Partly because we came out so strong and really played to our potential (almost) and partly because I'm pretty sure they thought we were just going to roll over. Hopefully we get another shot at them at Regionals. Would love to play spoiler.

So we played 3 games then we were done for the day. Pretty nice schedule for us. I spent the rest of the day watching mixed. Heckled the Metro-BCBC pool play game with most of SS. Watched Metro almost throw it away (won on universe.) There are a lot of turns in the mixed game. But it was nice to watch Metro pull it out.

So. Day 2.

Our entire pool got a first round bye, but I showed up a bit early to watch SS play a bit. Seduction was up first on Sunday. They were definitely underseeded (10th overall) and I didn't want anyone to take them too lightly. They are a mix of UCSD and SDSU kids that got cut from Streetgang (analogous to the Monster/SS relationship, but we picked up a lot of extra talent.) They had a few too many throwaways, and Matt had some sick grabs. We won 13-5.

Last pool play game was against ACR. Mix of SLO, Redlands, and APU kids. The score says 13-7, but I don't remember it being that close at all. They came up with some lucky second chance grabs in the endzone I guess.

So, a 4-1 record in pool play set us up against the Condors. They have had a serious drop off in talent from last year. They lost all the LA people to Strike-Slip, Welsh to Metro, Paymaster to Johnny Bravo, Dugan to the Beyondors, Hester to JAM, and Whit and KVB to Revolver. So yea, they lost a LOT of talent, but they bolstered their numbers with a lot of UCSB kiddies fresh off a Nationals run (plus The Arbiter from UCLA.) I think we were tired by this point, and we didn't come out with the fire we did against Streetgang. We traded the first few points, but it just didnt feel the same. We lost 9-15. I double scored twice (both from Tommy), one point Tommy actually quadruple scored (got called back each time.)

Last game of the tournament we played Seduction again in the 4/5 game. We lost Ed at the beginning of the game because he had to go to some family function. Also lost Tommy halfway through because his ride was bailing. They had a lot less drops/throwaways. And we were very tired after a big loss to the Condors. We traded most of the game. I think they went up a break late in the game. We tied it at 14s, win by two, hard at 17. Matt ended up scoring the last two points on some pretty sick plays. We win 16-14 and take 4th place out of So Cal Sectionals.

We have a huge team this year. 26 guys on our roster. I think we had 23 playing this weekend, and EVERYONE made big plays all weekend. Regionals is this coming weekend and I can't wait to have our full roster (hopefully Louis can actually make it this time, that'll be a huge pickup.) I am so excited to make some noise in Arizona. Should be an awesome weekend. And even if we don't do so well, which I doubt, it will still be a ton of fun playing with this group of guys.

Congrats to Strike-Slip for winning the open division over Streetgang. We were playing on the field next to them, and they were playing balls out all game. Linux's grab to end it was spectacular. Hopefully they'll be able to pull it off again next weekend. You know I'll be rooting for you guys.

Also congrats to Metro on winning the mixed division over BCBC on universe after blowing a lead. Better increase that margin next weekend. I want to see domination.

Pre-Regionals post once the schedule is up. I'm predicting 11 teams go and we should be the somewhere around the 6/7 seed (but I doubt we'll end the tournament there.)

Sectionals Recap

2009-09-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

0 turns
1 D
4 scores
4 times scored on (all on sunday)

better recap coming soon

So Cal Sectionals

2009-09-17T02:08:00.000-07:00

Southern California Open (and Mixed) sectionals is (are) this weekend and the schedule was finally put up (sort of, no times, no brackets yet.)

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=6208

Pool A:
A1: Streetgang (1)
A2: Monster (4)
A3: Get That Fly (6)
A4: ACR (7)
A5: Seduction (10)
A6: Little Giants (11)

So we have a pool of 6 and a pool of 7. Not much of a surprise here as there is only one approved format given 13 teams with 8 advancing. The seeding is a bit different from what the UPA calls for, but who really cares. Anything after the top 4 seeds is a wash, so seeding them is rather arbitrary anyways.

Streetgang is the 1 seed overall, and the favorite to take the second seed to The Show behind Johnny Bravo. We play them in the 5th round (should be the last round on Saturday.) As much as I want to say that we have a shot, I really don't think we do. They are the only team in the section to play at the elite level all year (Colorado Cup and Labor Day.) Although they had some solid late wins at CC they got rolled at Labor Day. Oh well. Hopefully they can find a good game in the finals against SS or the Condors.

I don't know anything about Get That Fly other than Score Reporter says they are from LA.

Monster played ACR last year at sectionals. From what I remember they had some APU guys and some Cal Poly SLO guys. Athletic, but young. I'm pretty sure we'll play them first round on Sunday, so we'll need to come out strong to secure the 2 seed in the pool.

Seduction is the second team out of San Diego. Outside of the top 4 seeds, they are the only team to have actually gone to any tournaments over the summer. According to Score Reporter they had a rough Discos Calientes, but they did put up a fight against Condors. They are seeded 10th overall, which I think is pretty low, especially since they actually have results. Oh well.

Little Giants is made up of mostly CSULB guys with a few community players tacked on. We scrimmed them last Saturday and came away with an 11-6 win. They have a few ballers, but are still really young. Its good to see that they ended up putting a team together though. Should be a fun game.

Our team has the potential to play really well (a la Strike-Slip at Discos) or choke (a la the Army of Darkness game). We have a solid group of guys that have been working hard all summer and now is when it is going to pay off (I hope.)

On a related note:
This will likely be the first time in over a decade that the Condors do not win sectionals. Pretty impressive feat, but it had to end sometime.

Bad Practice

2009-09-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

I had a bad practice today. Felt really sluggish, wasn't cutting decisively, wasn't dictating on D. I did have one D and a score. But it didn't make up for the rest. Overall a bad personal performance.

Sectionals in two weeks. Need to step it up.

Post Chico

2009-09-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

UPA Page: http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=6651

Drove up with Ringer, Fawkes, and Evan Friday afternoon. Stayed at OJ's brother's place.

Our first game against SCUC was our worst performance of the weekend (6-13 loss). Their team was made up of mostly UCSC and Stanford kiddies (plus Joaq and Shy from Claremont.) Lots of speed on that team.

Next we had some chump team from Sacramento (?). I don't remember much of anything from this game other than we won by a lot (13-5)

Our 3rd game of the day pitted us against Strike-Slip (the 'other' LA team.) They had just dropped a shocker to Santa Cruz (9-13) so I went in to this game thinking that they were going to make a statement in our game. We also wanted to make a statement of our own in this game. Ed told us at the beginning of the game to not worry about who was on the other side of the field, but rather to play within ourselves. If we played our own best game we would have a chance to take down SS. We went up a break early after Bogo got a layout poach D off of Dot's in cut (I was marking Dot.) I then busted for the uncontested score. That got us fired up really fast. Stig and Jake both played really well this game (I think Jake had 5 scores, while Stig had 2.) Stig also got a huge layout D on Jer-Bear that Jerry called an iffy foul on (both teams called BS.) Anyways. We had the disc on the goal line at 10-8 (SS up.) Ed threw the quick forehand to Jake to hit 10-9, but it got called back because one of our own guys called foul as Ed was releasing (because it was called as Ed was in the act of throwing, it should have remained with Jake as a score, but oh well.) So it went back and we ended up punching it in JUST after the hard cap sounded. So we lost 10-9. I don't think anyone on either team could have predicted such a close game, and I'm itching for another chance to play them. Strike-Slip definitely has a stronger team on paper, but we proved in that game that its still possible to beat them. Something I noticed about SS was how disciplined their offense was. They don't really have any superstar players that can single-handedly take over a game (maybe BOFA), so a complete buy in to a solid offensive plan is the only way they have a chance to make the big show. I have a lot of friends on that team and I'd love to see them make it.

So. Really close loss against a good team.

Our last game of the day was a (pointless) crossover. Pointless in the outcome of the tournament, but that early in the season every game helps give experience.
Ed gave us a big speech right before this game saying how we need to stay serious and play as well as we did in the SS game. Then first point he goes and drops the pull. Good going. We won 13-2. They didn't have much of anything going for them. I only really remember Ed dropping the pull and then another play where Ed yelled that he didn't have a mark so I busted and sat on some guy's shoulder for the score. Was pretty impressive from what I heard. It's about time I started actually jumping. I also blew out my cleats in this game in a way that I've never seen before. The outer seam tore 5". Came out of nowhere. I ended up taping it up for the rest of that game, but that wouldn't work permanently. (I ended up borrowing Allen's gold soccer cleats for Sunday.)

After our games were done for the day a few of us decided to stick around to watch LAMEtro play. We watched the beginning of their game against Classy, and then promptly left after they had multiple one throw turnovers. Disappointing. We watched a little of the BCBC-BAG game then went to get some lunch/beer. Came back to heckle Metro and watched them lose a nail biter to the Brass Monkey revival team. Keegan called a timeout on the goal line on universe (?) when they didn't have any timeouts (sad).

That night we didn't do much of anything. I opted not to go to the party. Ended up crashing pretty early. We got to the fields early the next morning expecting to play the 2nd SD team (Seduction) when instead the TDs inform us they are cancelling the last pool play game because a few people they talked to were playing Open and Mixed. Kind of sucks for those of us only playing Open, but oh well. We took the 3 seed out of our pool and played the Buddies (Davis team) in the B bracket semis. They only had 10 guys I think, but the people they had were solid. Taylor is a beast. And Pumba's little (6'5"?) brother is damn solid for being as young as he is. We ended up winning on universe after a tiring game.

Our last game was against Army of Darkness from Oregon/Humboldt. They had an ex-Voodoo guy that was just dominating, but the rest of their team wasnt all that solid. We were up 10-7 when soft cap went on. They ended up winning on universe after Keegan turfed the first throw after the pull. But that was hardly our problem. We gave them that game. People were tired. Oh well.

We had all varieties of games over the weekend from blowout losses (SCUC) to blowout wins (Sacramento and Pirate Bay) to a universe point win and loss. Plus a solid performance against Strike Slip.

All in all a pretty good weekend.

Final Pre-Discos Post

2009-08-11T22:35:00.001-07:00

I promise.
The schedule has been put online:
http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=6651
In the B pool with us are

Strike Slip (2)
Monster (3)
SCUC (6)
Seduction (8)
Club Sac (9)

We also have a midday crossover (on Saturday) against The Pirate Bay who are the last seed in pool A (and the last seed overall). Currently this crossover is scheduled in the middle of the day on Saturday which doesn't really make any sense at all. But oh well. Games are games, and they all need to be played. The schedule also currently has all of our games being played at 8am Saturday, but I'm pretty sure that will change. Currently we only have one game scheduled for Sunday as well (finishing up pool play), so hopefully that changes soon.
And there we go. Last Discos-related post till after the tournament. Promise

Chico Preview Continued

2009-08-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

I realized that I neglected to actually offer up any real predictions for this weekend.

1 Condors
2 Strike-Slip
3 Monster
4 End Phase
5 Army of Darkness
6 Santa Cruz
7 The Buddies
8 Seduction
9 Club Sac
10 Pirate Bay

I'm gonna call a Strike-Slip vs End Phase finals right now.

I'm pulling for Strike-Slip to not only win Discos, but also to take that coveted 2nd bid to Natties out of the Southwest. They have some really good young talent bolstered by a strong veteran core. Sucks that they didn't get their shit together soon enough to get into Labor Day, so I guess they'll have to slum it with us. They should be able to get some good experience against End Phase (YR 4.0), Condors, and SC.

End Phase lost 808 to Strike-Slip. Not sure who else they lost/gained. They do have a lot of experience playing together. If they do lose before finals it will probably be to either Condors or SC.

The Santa Cruz team beat Strike-Slip at Cal States in June, but that was in June. This is August. Plus Strike-Slip actually has some tournament experience under their belts already (3rd place at Colorado Cup a few weeks ago.) So I don't think there will be another repeat of that 13-6 loss from Cal States. But based on the teams attending they have a solid chance to make semi's.

It will also be interesting to see how good the revamped Condors are this year. They have a lot of UCSB college talent who are fresh off a pre-quarters appearance at Nationals (hard loss too, especially after a solid pool play performance.) Plus they picked up The Arbiter from UCLA. But they also lost a lot of older talent. So we'll see how well they have picked up. Look for them to at least make semi's.

As for Monster? I'm not so sure. We are missing a few studs for this weekend, and we don't actually have any real experience playing together. But we'll see. We have some strong players, and hopefully a good system. Plus playing with Ed is always fun (not to mention Fish and Stig.) I'm hoping we can get a few solid wins in against some good teams, but I'm not expecting to win the tournament. Should be fun regardless. (Sucks that Danny and Steve won't be there though.)

In the mixed division we have (top 8 seeds only):

1 Brown Chicken Brown Cow
2 LA Metro
3 Brass Monkey
4 Night Train
5 Team Bag
6 Classy
7 Bidwell Nuts
8 Humboldt

The mixed division has 22 teams, but I don't see anyone else making any noise (besides maybe Merge, Diesel's new LA team.) Not that I really know much about most of the teams in the mixed division. Anyways. Of course I'm hoping its a LA Metro vs BCBC final, with Metro pulling out the bagel*, but who knows. From what I heard, the mixed bracket play is going to be late on Sunday, and I'm sure quite a few people might have to leave early (flights home, etc.) Oh well. Hopefully they still play in the showcase game Saturday night. Although Calle mentioned that BCBC might forego that game so they can eat a homemade dinner at a castle (jealous).

Weather.com is claiming temperatures in the mid 90's. Wouldn't be Discos Calientes if it wasn't freaking hot all weekend.

So that's it. We'll see how it goes.

*I feel like I should add a disclaimer. I have friends on both BCBC and Metro. And I know that this will only rile them up to provide a better game for the fans. So hopefully they tear it up in the finals (and showcase) game. I'll buy a case of beer to anyone who callahans Calle. But only him. ;) And only against Metro.

Chico Semi-Preview

2009-08-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

So Fetch (Chico TD) put up the seeds for Discos Calientes this weekend:

1 Condors
2 Strike-Slip
3 Monster
4 End Phase
5 Army of Darkness
6 Santa Cruz
7 The Buddies
8 Seduction
9 Club Sac
10 Pirate Bay

No idea how we got seeded 3rd. I actually put up my stab at the seedings on RSD and had us seeded 6th. My seedings went more like this:

1. Strike Slip
2. End Phase (YR?)
3. Army of Darkness (SCUM?)
4. Condors
5. The Buddies (Davis?)
6. Monster
7. Seduction
8. Steve's Team
9. Club Sac

When I did my seedings I thought that AoD was the Santa Cruz team, which I guess wasn't correct. Anyways... Long story short, we are seeded a bit too high. Given a standard snake seeding with 2 pools of 5 would have:

Pool A
Condors
End Phase
Army of Darkness
Seduction
Club Sac
Pool B
Strike-Slip
Monster
Santa Cruz
The Buddies
Pirate Bay

Ouch. But oh well. Those aren't pools from the TD, so hopefully they aren't final. But oh well. Not much I can do about it. Should be fun anyways. Tournaments always are.

And now back to rewatching season 1 of Chuck.

Monday Pickup

2009-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Went to Rocketsauce pickup today in Irvine. Usually this game isn't all that high level, but today we had enough for two fields. So people kind of filtered into the two games based on skill. I was able to go deep a few times for uncontested scores, had a few strong deep Ds. Two really good backhand hucks to Hammie. Calle was marking up on me and we started bickering (harmless) but that got me running more (making good cuts, playing tighter D). So that was good. Chico semi-preview up next.

Puppy

2009-08-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

So.

My mom was looking at puppys on Puppy Rescue last week. That's probably what prompted me to rewatch Marley & Me the other day. Well, my mom and stepdad go up to Big Bear most every weekend (we have a place in Big Bear City.) When they got back Sunday afternoon they had a surprise with them:

Her name is Mena... or Indy... my mom isn't entirely certain yet. She is a 4 month old German Shepherd/Aussie Shepherd mix. Or at least they think she is. The place we got her from wasn't exactly certain what her other half was. Oh well. She is adorable, albeit a little timid. But even in the few days she's been here she has opened up quite a bit. And she loves chewing on plastic water bottles:

Isn't she a cutie?

Dogs

2009-07-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

I just watched Marley & Me for the second time. I cried at the end. Again. Not ashamed of that. I'm sure that anyone else who has had a dog before can relate. Boomer, my childhood dog, was also a yellow lab. Reminded me a lot of the dog from Marley & Me.

Good news is, my mom is seriously considering getting a dog.

Kalgin Koch 1987-2009

2009-07-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

(photo credit to Meeko - Irvine Huckfest 08)

http://www.adn.com/running/story/869611.html

I don't know what to say. I didn't even really know Kal that well. He stayed at my place once when we were hosting Huckfest this past year and I got the chance to talk to him for a little while while the rest of his team was across the street at the jacuzi. We didn't talk about much, but even in that small amount of time I could tell what an amazing person he was. This is all such a tragedy. I'm still in shock.

Rest in peace Kalgin.

Birthday

2009-07-13T15:05:00.001-07:00

It is my birthday today. :)

Potlatch

2009-07-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was my first taste of Potlatch. And man I want more of it. I hope to go as many times as I can in the future.

In any case, here are a few thoughts I wanted to jot down before I forget them. Hopefully I'll get a chance to expand on these later.

Playing cards on the flight up with Sara and Allen.
Staying at Casey Ikeda's place in Seattle Thursday night. It is super awesome how much his parents support his Ultimate. Apparently the entire Seattle community is like that. Amazing.
Going 7-2 on the tournament. Starting in the C bracket and ending up in the B bracket somewhere between 17th and 24th overall.
Having our last game against friends from UCLA (awesome way to end it, even if we did lose... not that anyone was really taking it seriously anyways)
KG's Octobong
Bravehard's Castle and 20ft beer bong
Camping at the fields for 3 days with 2000 other people.
The river. Even though I did slice open my toe on a rock Saturday afternoon.
The party. With unlimited (almost) good beer and salmon. Definitely nice to have that last round bye as we only had to wait 45 minutes for food instead of the rest of the party who had to wait upwards of 3 hours.
Playing with friends (new and old).
Roeder's Runners
And so many other things I'm forgetting right now that I will hopefully recall after checking out Steve's video.

All in all, Potlatch '09 was probably the most fun I've ever had at an Ultimate tournament... ever really. I only hope that I can continue to attend this amazing tournament in the future. Roeder's Runners 2.0 anyone?

-Box

Natties Predictions

2009-05-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

Not having Oregon and Florida makes natties pretty interesting this year (not to mention the increase to 20 teams.) Here is my educated guess at how it will all turn out. What do you think will happen?

Pool A:

Carleton 4-0

Tufts 3-1

Illinois 2-2

UCSB 1-3

Georgia 0-4

Pool B:

Colorado 4-0

Cornell 3-1

NC State 2-2

Kansas 1-3

Luther 0-4

Pool C:

Wisconsin 4-0

California 2-2 (loss to Pitt)

Pittsburgh 2-2 (Loss to Texas)

Texas 2-2 (Loss to Cal)

Williams 0-4

Pool D:

Michigan 3-1 (Loss to UVA)

Virginia 3-1 (Loss to Stanford)

Stanford 3-1 (Loss to Michigan)

UCSD 1-3

Minnesota 0-4

PreQuarters:

Cornell over Pitt

Cal over NC State

UVA over Illinois

Stanford over Tufts

Quarters:

Carleton over Cornell

Cal over Michigan

UVA over Wisconsin

Colorado over Stanford

Semis:

Carleton over Cal

Colorado over UVA

Finals:

Carleton over Colorado

Reinstall

2009-04-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

Just finished reinstalling windows xp. Gotta love a fresh start.

SW College Open Regionals

2009-04-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend in Commerce City, CO (same place as SW Club Open Regionals last year.) I was hoping the weather was going to be nicer than last time I was there, but the report keeps getting worse. Went from highs in the 70s with no rain, no wind when I checked last week, to the current report of highs of 59, 15mph winds, and 20% chance of rain. Still, I doubt anything can be as miserable as TiV '09 or SB Invite '07.

We are the 16 seed (ouch) and are in Pool C along with Cal Poly - SLO (3), UCLA(6), and SDSU(9). We were originally the 15 seed, but I'd rather lose to UCLA than any of the teams in Pool D. Maybe a bit selfish, but hey, its my last regionals and I want to have some fun playing against old Monster teammates. I've had more fun the few times we've played UCLA this season than in almost any other games. If we hold seed (C4) then we won't play a crossover, and will likely have either APU or Claremont first round Sunday (man oh man I hope its APU -- revenge time.) I think we have a good chance of breaking seed at this tournament. Score reporter may not think so, but how many times has score reporter been wrong? (Answer: a lot.)

Anyways, all of Nightlife (except KG and Evan) are on the same flight out of John Wayne Friday night. Maybe this time I'll even remember to bring my wallet (with ID.) Flying out of LAX with no ID was interesting, but not something I want to have to do again. (Don't worry, I didn't get the 'full' treatment.) So it should be a fun flight (most of Grass Ninjas are also on our flight.)

All in all, I'm looking forward to a fun filled last Regionals. Good luck to everyone else competing in Regionals this weekend.

Open Tournament Page:

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=5922

Women's Tournament Page:

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=5930

Weather Report:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/recreation/ski/weekend/USCO0080?from=36hr_topnav_ski

Sectionals Preview

2009-04-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Sectionals tomorrow: http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=18&id=5879
We are down to 16 registered players (stupid rookies and their not signing up for the UPA.) But whatever. All of our top players will be there, and we are looking mean.

Davis Part 1 - The Ride Up

2009-04-07T02:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to the Davis Ultimate Invitational to play with Monster (kind of on a whim, I decided to go only 3 days before.) I drove up with 3 other teammates (Roeder, Khosh, and Thunder.) We were set to stay at another teammate's house in Sacramento. Seeming as our 7 hour drive ended up taking 15 hours I think you can say it was quite the adventure.
So we left at 2pm from Khosh's place in Costa Mesa after an impromptu BBQ chicken lunch prepared by the master chef Khosh himself. Hit a little bit of traffic though LA, but nothing too bad. We were making good time until just before 6pm when Roeder's car inexplicably breaks down on the middle of the 5 north just north of the 58.
So there we are on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with no idea what had happened to the car. We try calling AAA but Scott's card number has expired so we opt to have CHP sent out. While waiting, Scott finds that his card is not in fact expired and we get AAA to finally send a tow truck. CHP gets there, but ends up not being able to help us out much. Tow truck gets there and says he can tow us into Bakersfield (about 20 miles due East from where we were.) Unfortunately its a Friday night at 7:30, so no auto shops are open. We end up getting taken to this auto shop in this guy's backyard. Our situation was definitely a good start to a bad horror flick. So the mechanic who lives there tells us the timing belt is busted, but that we might have damaged the valves inside the engine. That added to the fact that no machine shops open till Monday morning means we are stuck... in Bakersfield. Not a good situation.
So we started calling around to different rental car agencies, but none are open. We try the places near the airport, but they don't have any cars. The only car we could find in all of Bakersfield was an Infinity that was $120 a day (wow) and that we couldn't take one way. No bueno.
So we call a cab with the intent of staying at a motel for the night and hoping our rent-a-car fortunes will improve come the morning. And man our cabby was crazy. He tried to convince us to let him drive us to 'somewhere in North LA' for only $250. Not the best of ideas, especially with this guy. So motel 6 it is. On the way he decides to call the motel and ask if we can have a room in the back because he has the great idea that two of us will hide behind the hotel while the other two book a room so that the staff doesn't know we are stacking 4 people in a 2 person room. What a crazy idea. I don't think I've ever done anything like that at a Motel 6. Hilarious. Anyways, I was glad to be rid of that cabby.
So at this point of the night (around 9:30) our plan was to get a rental car in the morning and just drive back down to Irvine. Steve had other plans. He called from Irvine just after dropping Jerry off at the airport (he had opted to fly up instead of drive. smart idea all things considered). But yea, Steve called with the crazy idea that he would drive up to bakersfield to pick us up then we would continue on to Sacramento and then Davis the next day for the tournament. It was so crazy it just might work. He ends up getting up there around 11:30pm and we sit around for an hour trying to figure out if we want to drive up to sac or back to irvine. Of course we choose Sac.
Playing ultimate > not playing ultimate.
So we start driving after a pit stop at Del Taco (with crazy drunk people who high fived us for being ultimate players). I opt to take the first driving shift and drive till about 3:30am or so (up the 99). Then steve starts driving as I fall asleep in the passenger seat. I'm awoken around 4:30am just north of Stockton to steve saying 'oh crap' and flashing lights behind us. I guess steve was in a hurry (understandably) and had been going a bit above the speed limit. He was ticketed for 95 in a 65, but from reports from the back seat we had been hovering a bit above 100mph for a while. I'm glad I was sleeping. Even then, I know Steve, so I wasn't worried.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We got to Henry's place just past 5 in the morning and slept for a few hours before we had to get up and drive the half hour to Davis for our first round at 9am the next morning.
And that is how our 7 hour drive to Sac turned into a 15 hour adventure.

Finals Prep

2009-03-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

My last final is today at 1:30 (Dynamics of Propulsion). For ever final (and most midterms) for the past 2 years I've worn my 'Irvine Men's Ultimate 2006-2007' shirt (I have 3) and listened to 'Your Hand in Mine' by Explosions in the Sky right before the exam. Some people have their rabbits feet or four leaf clovers, I have EitS and my Irvine Ultimate shirts.
Good luck on finals.
-Foxy Boxy

EitS

2009-03-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

Listen to The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place EP.

Stanford Update

2009-03-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

So after looking over the schedule with Danny I found that if we take either 1st or 2nd out of our group we play either 3rd or 4th of Tier 1 Group 4, which includes Colorado, Cal, UC-Santa Barbara, Stanford, Brown, Humboldt State. So that makes things a bit more exciting.

What do you want?

2009-03-04T00:40:00.001-08:00

Hey you. Yes you, that person reading this. What do you want to read about? Ultimate related of course. But what kind of things? Let me know.
-Foxy Boxy

Stanford Invite Schedule

2009-03-02T14:17:00.001-08:00

So we are going to Stanford Invite this weekend. Even though the field has definitely been weakened this year, I'm still excited to be going (that's what happens when you go from a 16 team tournament with a qualifier to a 48 team tournament). The officers had decided when the season started that it would be too expensive to go all the way to Stanford, but a combination of it being in Ripon and us getting in last minute for only $100 made it too hard to resist. I think most of the vets on our team have wanted to go to this tournament for quite some time. With it being in Ripon, we can get free housing at Coach Steve's house in Modesto, plus it gives me the chance to visit a few close friends at UoP in Stockton. Should be exciting.
Here is our schedule.

*YOUR TEAM’S SCHEDULE IS AS FOLLOWS ::*

Sat Rd 1 (8:30) - BYE
Rd 2 (10:25) - Sonoma State
Rd 3 (12:20) - BYE
Rd 4 (2:15) - Pacific Lutheran
Rd 5 (4:10) - Stanford-By
Sun Rd 1 (8:00) - Claremont
Rd 2 (9:55) - UCSB-B
Rd 3 (11:50) - Westmont

7th Game based on how we do against the previous 6 teams.

Our group is Group 4 :: Lewis & Clark, San Diego State, Simon Fraser, UC-Merced, UC-Irvine, Stanford-By

Kind of weird how we only play one other team from our group. Not sure what that will mean for the last game of the weekend. Cu1timate is definitely shaking things up this season, even after their failed attempt at C1. I kind of like having all those byes on Saturday. Gives me a chance to check out the top teams playing.

As little as RRI really matters, I still find it interesting to see how the computers think we should do: http://upa.org/scores/scores.cgi?page=3&team=2107&team=1569&team=1303&team=1249&team=1647&team=1298&team=1635
As for my own predictions? I don't think 6-0 is that far out of reach. Claremont is definitely weaker than last year after losing Stout, Shy, Jay, Gordy. But they do have some stellar juniors talen though, adding Tommy Li from the USA Junior Worlds Team, so we can't underestimate them. I don't know much about Pacific Lutheran so they might be wildcards. It also depends how we play. If we have a repeat of our Vegas performance then this weekend doesn't look too promising. But I know that our team can play much better than that. We had some moments of brilliance at SB Invite, and our last 2 games at SB Quals (when we were actually challenged) showed that we can turn it on when we want to. We just need to do that from beginning to end. And now I'm rambling.

-Foxy Boxy

P.S. Irvine Invite is March 14-15

Disappointing Performance

2009-01-25T23:13:00.000-08:00

I had 12 turns this weekend at SB Invite with 77 points played. 3 Ds, 5 Scores, and 4 Assists. 12 turns! That is 12 more points for the other team. Won't happen again, I promise.
Link to SB Invite:
http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=18&id=5767
More to come after I watch the video. SB Quals post in the works as well.

SB Qualifier

2009-01-21T05:53:00.003-08:00

We won the Santa Barbara Invite Qualifier. Go us.
http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=18&id=5766

SoCal Warm Up 2

2008-11-30T23:23:00.000-08:00

Day 2:
We were relegated to the bottom pool after losing all of our games on Saturday. Also in our pool: UNLV, Pepperdine, and Redlands (read: chumps)
It was pretty obvious that we had gotten shafted on our initial Saturday seeding (our pool probably being the hardest) but at least having super easy games on Sunday would give us a chance to get our rookies quality playing time against other teams. Anyways.
First game at 9am against Pepperdine. They had two girls playing. Actually, I'm pretty sure one of their girls was better than a bunch of their guys, so go her. They only really had one handler and I stalled him.
In fact it was probably the most interesting situation I've been involved in since I started playing Ultimate. Here it is: We pull. I run down and am marking their one main handler flick. Count starts rising and he still has nothing. At 8 or 9 he takes three steps away from me and still doesn't throw it. I say 10 then up (no idea why I said up at that point, he had not thrown it.) So he is standing there 3 steps away from where he should have been and I'm in shock. I'd never seen anything like that. I call stall (after all, I had indeed reached the T of Ten.) For some reason he says no. He says I had only gotten to 8. (REALLY?!) I exclaim that I did indeed hit 10 AND on top of that, he had travelled like crazy. But whatever, this chump sucks. I'm just going to stall him again so I tell him to contest my stall. Count comes in at 8 (after I told him that he had travelled, so he had to come back to me.) Anyways, count comes in stalling 8, 9. I'm about to hit 10 again but lo and behold, he travels into me again to throw and calls foul. I swear, he was trying to bait the foul, but I was too far off, so he had to travel into me to get fouled. I contest the foul in shock. I only fouled him because he travelled into me. He says: "Yea, you probably should contest that". WTF!! This guy is a super douche. Anyways, I'm tired of this absurdity so I decide to not argue with him (I mean, really, what is the point.) So count comes in at 6 and he ends up getting the throw off at 9. Total bullshit. I think we ended up winning this game 13-2 or 13-3? After the game Mr. Douche just sat in the endzone sulking. Whatever. Not worth it.
After that game we had a 2 round bye (or so we thought) so we went to Jamba Juice. Ends up they were giving away free smoothies if you wore a banana suit. So 1 free Strawberry Wild later we get a call from KG saying that UNLV wants to play earlier so we are bumping our game up a round and playing at Muir. My car goes back to the fields to watch UCLA beat UCSB on universe (woot.) Then go to Muir fields to find that UNLV had already bailed (as had pepperdine) so we are set to play Redlands.
I think our goal going into the Redlands game was to bagel them. Then Roeder got handblocked and then scored on. Oh well. I think we won 13-3 or 13-4. Highlight of that game was a complete rookie game scoring the last point.
Went to Chipotle afterwards for the ritual burrito and beer. I still don't understand why we go to Chipotle when we go down to SD with all the actual mexican food around there, but whatever. It's still good. Took a team picture and then drove Nate, Elaine, and Hannah home. Fun time driving back.
Thats about it. Fall pre-season is over and I'm excited for our team. We are picking up two studs for next quarter that weren't able to play with us in the fall (Evan and Kobe.) And our rookie class is 4 times as big as it has ever been. This year should be a lot better than I had initially expected. Now back to Spanish homework.

SoCal Warm Up 08

2008-11-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=5703
As you can see, we didn't do so well. Saturday we lost all of four of our games. Sunday we won both of them. Even though our weekend wasn't successful in terms of wins I do think that it was still a success. Our rookies are really starting to step up and I can see a lot of heart when they are playing. Now we just have to get them all better at throwing.
Our first round started at 9 so we left Irvine around 7. No real traffic on the 5 till Camp Pendleton when the freeway just stopped. Fish is in the car ahead of us and calls to say they shut down all but one lane. Luckily we are only a hundred yards or so behind the accident so we get through pretty quick. Unluckily, us, Fish and Roeder's cars were the only ones to make it through quickly. So we spent the rest of the ride trying to figure out if we would even have enough players to start (yes, we had 3 cars, but a few riders weren't players.) Ends up not being that big of a deal. Everyone else showed up about 20 minutes before game time.
First game against CSULB (the eventual tournament winners). This team has blown up in the past year or so (ever since Raty left.. coincidence?) I don't know what Smeltzer and Cos are doing over there, but whatever it is, their entire team has bought into it and it shows on the field. They play very well together and even though they don't have the best athletes or the best throwers, they definitely get it done. I can see them making some noise this year. We lose 8-13.
Then we had a 1 round bye. The schedule kind of sucked, but I can empathize with the TD (too many teams, not enough fields.) A few of the guys went to watch the women play against Oxy (who they beat. Woot.) Came back to play USD.
USD game was a disappointment. We start forcing backhand to take away Joe's flick huck, but then everyone keeps getting beat under. And I mean everyone kept getting beat under (not just our rookies.) So that made it pretty easy for them to walk it down the field every O point. I don't remember much else from this game. We lose 7-13.
Next game against one of the three UCSD teams. It always amazes me how they can get so many people to commit to their program. Anyways, their deeps scorched us all game. Their O points lasted maybe 4 throws. All they had to do was float it up to Forge and he would come down with it, even over Stig (crazy, I know.) We went down 5-0 to start I think. I had a horrible game with 3 turns and a drop. We lose (don't know the score.)
Another bye. Sat around and talked to old Monster teammates. And Enway. Roeder gave tattoos to everyone again. It was the logo from The Incredible's. Pretty cool but damn those things are hard to wash off.
Last game of the day against the Hillbilly UCLA squad. They divided their team by SAT scores. Blue Collar Ballers and Nerds. The squad we played had Banshee, Knuckles and Sultan. This was definitely the most exciting game of the weekend. Under the lights, with our women's team watching, and their other split squad also watching. Sidelines were packed the entire game. We broke the first point. I think we trade for a few then they break back. We traded breaks the entire game with neither team going ahead by more than 1. I can't remember who takes half. You can tell during our half time that we want this game. (Although I think even if we had won it we still would have gotten last in our pool.) We are up 12-11 (game to 13) and Roeder throws the game winner to Stig only to have it called back on an iffy pick call. Roeder trys the huck again but its a little too far past Stigs bid. They score to make it 12s. They score again to go up 12-13. We hold: 13s. Pulling on universe, they didn't give us a chance with Frenchie throwing a nice backhand huck for the score and the win. This game was a lot of fun. I played the last 9 points straight while Fish and Roeder played the last 11 points straight. I think the last 5 points or so were Universe lines (sorry rookies on the lack of play time.) I hand blocked Frenchie. Then also threw two turns to Miller (one D'd by Sultan, the other by Frenchie.) Big sidelines help out a lot in big games. Keep everyone focused and they also keep everyone pumped up. Big ups to Enway for helping out so much on the sideline (reminded me of the way Danny used to help out on the sideline.) So we lose 13-14 in a heartbreaker.
Afterwards the team started exploring trying to find this mexican place one of the rookies recommended (although we later found that he had never actually been there.) It was pretty good. The 2 dollar beer made up for the so-so food.
After that we went back to the hotel (first time the team has actually gotten hotels for a SD tournament.)

Anyways, its time to work. To be continued..

Irvine Fall Huckfest 08

2008-11-12T02:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=18&id=5377
Long Beach X (Mineshaft) won. That was the LB team with Smeltzer and Cos on it (arguably the 'stacked' LB team seeming as they made the finals of their home tournament a few weeks ago as well.)
I think the tournament went really well. No huge injuries this year, which is always a plus. I think the last time I ran this tournament we had a broken rib and a severely bruised hip? All I remember is this guy's hip swelling into the size of a small watermelon in front of my eyes. Anyways, nothing like that in the case of injuries.
One really cool thing about this tournament was that it was the biggest one Irvine had ever hosted. Once I announced the bids on RSD I received record response so decided to open the tournament up to 20 teams total. It also helped that I did not have to run a women's division concurrent with the men's division. So 20 teams. Good stuff. Gave a lot of teams the opportunity to go X/Y which I know helps at this time of year. UCI even went X/Y. At first I was apprehensive about this decision by the captains (doesn't help when we only get ~17 max at practice.) But in the end I think it worked out. Teams of 11 weren't super ideal, but I think the teams were able to bond better that way. Plus we had some help from some LPC kiddies that came down looking to pick up.
This post lacks coherence. Probably because it is 2:40am and I'm at work doing my Wind Tunnel Lab.
BJSS hosted a bunch of Arizona guys Friday and Saturday night (always cool guys.) Apparently one other car showed up in the middle of the night Friday night. When I went to sleep the Sunburn guys had taken over every available spot in the living room, but when I woke up I almost tripped over someone sleeping at the top of the stairs. Then went downstairs to see the entire downstairs covered in AZ bodies. Last year's Callahan Award winner Joe 'Loppi' Kershner was actually sleeping on my kitchen floor. Anyways.
Got to the fields Saturday morning by 7:30 to meet the club sports people with Fish. About half of UCLA was already there in the parking lot waiting around. Club sports people were slow to open the gates and every time I passed Linux he would ask if the gates were open yet. (Note to self for next time, don't say 8:15 at the latest, because that is the earliest they will open the gates.) Check-In went smoothly from what I heard. I delegated that to Thunder, Phil, and Dad. Only narrowly avoided a major problem (no cones) with some stellar help from KG and Iris (thanks you two.) Captain's meeting went a lot smoother than I remember from the last time I did it. Also helps to have another 2 years under your belt. Plus knowing most of the captain's helps the nerves I guess. I did forget to mention that the upper fields were going to be used for a field hockey game, but it ended up not mattering. Once things got underway Fish and I flipped a coin to see which of us would play in the UCI-X (Roeder's Runners) vs UofA Y (Decepticons) game (not really, he said they would need me more.) So he stayed to run the tournament while I cleated up. That game was fun. Sunburn always wears the best costumes. Plus I got to play against Kellen again (played with him over the summer at Rocket Sauce.)
I'm going to make this more abbreviated now.
Phil got injured and decided that Fish and I should both play and that he would worry about the tournament. Things were running smoothly so I didn't put up a fight.
Roeder's Runners went 2-2 on Saturday with wins against SDSU Y and Pepperdine and losses to Arizona Y and CSULB X. My mom and sister showed up for the last two games.
I had a sweet huck to Stig (ok, it was a little janky) that got him into the school newspaper (kudos to Claire for getting that picture btw... and to Meeko for getting the same exact timing only from 10 feet away.)
BTW, the reason I'm at work at 3am doing a lab write up instead of at home is because my computer crashed and I had to reinstall windows. And my wireless card needs drivers, but I can't connect to the internet to get the drivers. Isn't that a paradox?
I think I played well during the tournament. I really need to get back to writing my lab report. So I'll post this as an unfinished entry and hopefully get back to it later.

P.S. It is now almost 4am. Just wanted to add a few things.
After games ended on Saturday I headed over to watch one of the UCLA teams play APU (I think.) It was fun to catch up with Dot and Linux and Kiosk again. I miss Monster 08. Too bad the rest of the Monster guys couldn't make the trip to Irvine. Hopefully they will all be at So Cal Warm Up.

the club season is kaput

2008-10-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

And I don't think I'm ready to put this season into words. So this will be a placeholder till I can put together something more coherent.

Planes are Expensive

2008-08-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

I just bought my tickets to regionals. Another 200 bucks into Southwest's coffers. So far that is 400 total just in plane tickets this summer and that doesn't count the tourney fees, hotels, and jerseys I'll have to pay for. It has forced me to kind of reevaluate my spending as of late. No more fast food, no more steepandcheap, no more eating out every night. My diet now consists of cereal and fried egg sandwiches (the one thing i can actually make without poisoning myself.)
But it will all totally be worth it. Practice this Sunday in Long Beach, then Chico next weekend. Going to be awesome.

New news

2008-07-30T02:04:00.001-07:00

Made Monster. As did Jerry, KG, and Roeder.
Our first tournament is in Chico (Discos Calientes) August 16th and 17th. They (the TDs) had to combine the men/womens side of the tournament with the mixed side due to the recent fires that have plagued northern california. So now instead of the typical 8am/9am to 3pm/4pm we are playing from 2pm to 9pm on Saturday and 2pm till around 6pm on Sunday. This makes it harder to play ebay in my off time, because I'll have to stay fresh for Monster, but at least we wont have to play in the stifling heat all day. Night time is the right time.
Regionals are in Commerce City, CO this year. So that makes two plane trips. Muy expensivo. It will definitely be worth it though. And the Monster guys seem like a really fun group as well. Plus I think that learning from Korb will help my game improve a lot.
And now back to watching Top Gear.

update

2008-07-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

Someone told me that I needed to update again. So here you go.

4th of July weekend I went up to the mountains to spend time with my family. Maybe if you're lucky I'll put up some pictures.
Chico got postponed because of the fires up North this weekend.
My birthday was crazy fun. I spent it at Pleasure Town playing some drunk ultimate.

I guess that is about it for now.

-Foxy Boxy

p.s. Annie totally wishes she was awesome. ;)

Woops

2008-06-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

Apparently this didn't last long at all.

Update:
Sam, Steve, Grip, and Swell all made LA Metro. Go them!
Allen made Condors. Even bigger WOOT for him
Miller made YR. woot for him
Jerry, Danny, Fish and I are still trying out for Monster. Good luck to us.

Irvine Nightlife finished tied for 9th at Regionals. Didn't meet our goal, but still had fun along the way. This next year will be tough for a lot of us, but for me especially. I'll be the only 5th year on the team, and most of my closest friends and teammates have all graduated. Time to step it up.

-Foxy Boxy

Intro/Regionals

2008-04-17T01:26:00.001-07:00

So I've finally decided to start writing about ultimate (the sport itself, the people, and anything else I feel relates to it.) Not sure how long this will last, but for now it will at least give me a spot to keep all of the other blogs I frequent somewhat organized.

So for right now what I've got on my plate is Southwest Regionals in two weeks in La Jolla, CA. My team is the 10 seed and will have to play national powerhouse, and 1st seed, Colorado first round. Then we have a bye followed by a rematch with our rivals SLO Core. We've been playing them tight all year, and finally notched a win over them this past weekend at So Cal Sectionals. We then lost to them later in the day, but I think we can take them down again. After that game we'll play Occidental in what should be an easier game, even with their former elite coach. Hopefully we can break our horrendous Regionals streak of 1-9 (abysmal record.) From past experience San Diego will not be anywhere near the 90+ temperatures we were playing in last weekend in Claremont.

So there we go. I wonder how long this will actually last.