One Grand Disc Golf Tour

10-31-08

Thankfully, I purchased the “Apple-Care” package when I bought my computer way back when I had money. I just replaced my battery a couple of weeks ago and now my power cord went on the fritz. Both were covered under the warranty N/C! Can you dig it?

I did, in fact practice juggling with 3, 4, &5 balls, clubs, cigar boxes and got a very low key freestyle jam in. There was enough sunlight at the end to throw a few distance shots with some of the new GH-GM08 Wraiths and Destroyers. Well, the INTENT was ‘distance’ anyway. I also made good on my threat to practice some sidearm shots, making sure to throw smooth rather than hard.

Hey…Happy Halloween!! I have to decide if wearing a costume could possibly be scarier than just showing up “as-is”.

Tomorrow: ODGC handicap etc

10-30-08

I meant to run, stretch and practice my juggling for Sunday’s Diz gig, I really did.

Once I decided to go ahead and open an eBay store, the next 7 hours were filled with reading about and figuring out the process in getting the store set up and listing a few items. Before I knew it, it was too dark to run or practice.

I got so involved that I even missed 30 Rock! Tina Fey will be soooo disappointed. I just don’t know if I can face her now.

Oh well, if you happen to vist eBay…find the Miniac Merch disc golf store. Not much on there as of yet but I’ll try to add stuff each day. I’ll probably put some other types of stuff up there… Like the anti-Chrysler for instance. It’s time to clear out a LOT of the stuff I’ve collected over the years.
(Though I’m sure much of it will have to be RIPPED from my hands)

Then there’s the stuff that is just outdated. What do you do with half a dozen out-moded cel phones and all the acutrim a? I guess I’ll have to write or become prop-master for a movie about someone who did a lot of cel phone yakking in the 90’s. That should pan out nicely.

I wish I could nail down a date for my final two courses. I need to get-er-done fairly soon. But I haven’t gotten a check for a while. In fact, I am looking at streamlining my current set of bills, which will probably mean a change of email address. Needs to happen anyway, I get more SPAM each day than I’ve EVER eaten.

BTW… my room mate, Leon Lilly (who does a verrry funny 12-step recovery comedy show called “Stand-up STRAIGHT”) did some checking… Do you know what S.P.A.M. actually stands for? It’s the ingredients…SQUIRREL, POSSUM AND MONKEY! Yum

Oh… my power cord doesn’t seem to be working. May not get on line over the weekend…

Tomorrow: Mac doctor and P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E the juggling stuff.

10-29-08

I got up at around 7AM to beat the masses to the poling place. About 10 minutes before I was to leave I realized that I had a doctor’s appointment this morning. So I did that first. I should live.

I waited a little over an hour in line at the polls. Normally, I would have had trouble wasting time in line, (I need to be active when wasting time) but I had enough forethought to bring a socially relevant book with me… George Carlin’s “Napalm and Silly Putty” seemed appropriate.

As I may have stated before; there isn’t a good choice between the two major candidates. One will screw us and the other will probably get us killed. And their roles could easily reverse. I feel as if I should have voted based on the Vice President. McC is too old and probably won’t survive the tenure and Obama?… well I’m not in ANY sense condoning this, but there are some folks in the south that will feel compelled to rebel (rather than simply vote for the other guy).

I was surprised to see so many other candidates on the ballot. The problem with voting for one of them is that, unless I read this incorrectly, they don’t stand even the remotest chance of winning the election. If the electoral-college were not in place the popular vote might actually MEAN something. In which case I wouldn’t even CONSIDER voting for the Rep or Dem parties. Frankly, I think those in power have already decided who has won.

Here’s some trivia…If Palin gets into office, she’ll become the first “V.P.I.L.F”

Once back at home I decided to clean out my van from all of the course work etc over the weekend. I guess I felt so ‘dirty’ after voting that I needed to clean SOMETHING! My van is easier to clean out than my conscience.

I realized that I’ll have a Disney gig next week and I will need to spend much of the week getting back into shape and practicing again to pull it off. I went for a run for the first time since the USDGC blowout. My normal time is just under 20 minutes. This time I finished in about 18.5! That would indicate that I hadn’t been running very fast in previous runs if it weren’t for the fact that I cut-off about 2 1/2 blocks from the normal route.

Erggh! The knees were the first to complain. Then the head of the hamstrings. Somewhere in there was the lower back. But when I switched from the regular running gait to my scissor-stepping trunk twists, my hips nearly took me to my knees. I gritted my teeth and kept running…though I guess I should call it jogging due to my lack-o-speed and what I felt each step was doing to my joints. And there was another odd sensation.. Holy Crap!!! Is that my flabby ass jiggling with each step? If this morning’s ballots offered a proposition to repeal gravity I’d have hung my chad firmly upon that tab…if we actually did it that way this year.

BTW…I actually went to high school with the guy who was (and apparently still IS) supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County during the last Presidential elections. In fact, his brother is actually a damn good disc golfer here in Florida.

I picked up my juggling clubs after the run, which I had not touched since July 4th. Holy &^$#@!! Has it been that long? It showed.

I may do a store on Ebay. That way I can list stuff for the price I want rather than wait for a bid by someone who doesn’t KNOW about an item, or they may never find the item at all. I have a LOT of cool stuff but most of it just isn’t in demand. Partially because there isn’t a lot of it in existence.

I called a couple of course contacts from GA and SC today to start working on the final two courses.
Could be a verrrry interesting finish!

Tomorrow: Back to the polls to see if I can retract today’s vote and re-vote for Nader!

10-28-08

Up at 6am, yoga, shower, coffeeeeee, pack, drive across town to the Convention Center by 7:30.  It took 4 of us maybe 9 hours to set up the booth on Wed & Thurs.  That same booth was down and in the crates in less than 4.  The guy in charge of the booth gave us a “half-hour” tip on the time cards.  Bonus!

I headed over to Turkey Lake to drop off some of the park’s traffic cones and talk to the park manager.
Working with Bill Girard is a pleasure.  He has been behind the disc golf projects the entire way.

I inquired as to his take on the event and he seems to be happy with how it went.  There is a new rack of discs in the office that EVERYONE can see as they drive through the gate and I found out that they also have old rental discs in a file drawer.  Once Daylight Savings Time is over, they will also have someone working late when we start back up with our Wednesday Night Flights random draw glow doubles.

There is a new person in the parks system just above Bill who will, apparently, be far more amenable to meeting and talking about projects at the park.  She is in charge of “Green Up Orlando”, which should fall in nicely with some of the planting we’d like to do on the courses.

Every course evolves.  I planted T2’s red tee #10 in a perfect spot to keep people from going out over a road, but the pines that were in the way are no longer there.  So we had to put in a “mando” for the event. (I hate that!!  But it had to be done)  Maybe we can replace those pines with something bushier.  And when we are in the meeting with the parks lady, I expect that the barely functional, archaic M2 baskets on the Original course will also become a topic of conversation.

Things are looking up for Orlando Disc Golf.

Soon, I will also approach the DeBary Parks and Rec people about running a 50/50 weekly or monthly with half going into the purse and half going into the course.  DeBary currently wants 30% from each event we run there, which is why the course has been in for nearly a year and we’ve run exactly ZERO events.  It’s a nice little course that is getting play but they want too much too soon.  A course in a new area needs to be nurtured.  You can’t plant it in the ground and just expect it to start generating revenue like a several hundred thousand dollar ball field.

Tomorrow:  VOTE!

10-27-08

WIFTM… I nearly get eaten each time I go over to Mike and Donna Gill’s place. (Donna was the 01? Women’s National Champ.  That was the year that I drove home from the USDGC with TWO trophy baskets!!!  One was Donna’s and the other was Climo’s.  Everybody needs a friend with a van.  I’m glad I don’t own a truck because then I’d have to help people move!  I’ll settle for shuttling pole holes around)

The Gill’s (or as we call Mike…”Gillbilly”) own a big, dumb, smelly Rotweiller named “TANK” that tries to eat me whenever I walk around to the back porch.  Each time I have to face him down while wondering where all the paint chips he’s been eating are coming from.

Then, after they yell at him, he spends the rest of the night trying to cozy up to me.  But, as I just mentioned he’s got a heapin’ helpin’ of the big dog FUNK about him.  So from here to eternity I shall call him ‘STANK’.  (Here’s a hot-stamp that I put on an order of discs in the late 90s.)

WIFTM 2: A big shout out and “Get Well Soon!” goes out to Beckett Carduff, formerly of Kansas City, now residing in Ocala, FL.  Beckett was leading the Advanced division in last weekend’s Orlando Open when, without warning, he started swelling up around the eyes and lips and could barely speak.
Someone immediately called 911 and he was taken to the hospital.

It turns out that Beckett is allergic to fire ants.  (Wow!  This is a bad state to live in if you’re allergic to fire ants!)

Mike Pieranunzi, also from Ocala, accompanied Beckett to the hospital, so I called him to get an update.  After a shot of epinephrine (??) he said Beckett was fine.  Since he was leading his division at the time of the incident, the folks from “Shut Up and Throw” sent him a prize package.

Ironically, I won my cat, Hogan, in Hogansville, GA at John David’s Fire Ant Regional Tournament (F.A.R.T.)
Monday was filled with mostly errands but the big disc related deal of the day was drafting a letter to the Mount Dora parks people.  I had a course pretty close to being planned out.  I had designed 14 suuuuwweeet, holes when I found out that not only had the grant not gone through but the parks director that I was working with was no longer there.

Now, the new people who are not really familiar with disc golf, have another grant on the table, but disc golf is not included.  They may try to do it later but if the trails go in first… everything I’ve worked for will be moot and I expect that the course will end up being nothing special.   I’m trying to convince them to consider the course when they put in the trails so that they can co-exist.  But parks don’t often think along those lines since there is no “perceived need” for a course in an area that doesn’t yet have players.  Catch 22.

Trying to sell the idea of disc golf in Florida is possibly the most futile venture I’ve ever embarked upon.   And yet I persist.

Tomorrow: Tear down at the Orange County Convention Center

10-26-08

John E. McCray is one of the great disc golfers of our time. If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that he tied for 3rd at the 2008 USDGC with the current Open Pro World Champ and the Greatest disc golfer of all time. Or you may have heard about him missing the first two holes of the finals in the 2006 Worlds in Augusta where he shook it off and gave a clinic in how to get-er-done! John has also won the Fab Florida Tour overall points race AT LEAST 7 times and is well on his way to fulfilling his goal of 100+ open division wins. He should be solidly into the 80’s by now and shows no signs of slowing down. He can deliver drives with a wizard that I can only hope to accomplish with a full on driver.

But John E. nearly died last year from lime disease. I am soooo happy to see John back and playing as if he only gained from his brush with eternity. Maybe he has. I’m certain that he and Jen are even closer. I imagine that his lust for a great challenge has only been heightened by it, and it may have even enhanced his focus to a degree. Wherever it comes from, JEM seems to have plenty of what it takes to extract the birdies out of a course. Unfortunately for disc golf galleries around the country, John’s devotion to his family prohibits him from extensive touring.

John took a decisive lead in the first round and never looked back (or even sideways) The US Distance Champ and new Innova Team member, Garrett Gurthie, trailed by a few strokes.
(I think I’ve convinced GG to wear a shirt during distance demos that says… “My brother throws farther” Evan Gurthie, when in competitive form, can throw a roc 600-ish feet. It’s both sick and wonderful. )

Your current Women’s Pro Master World Champion, Pam Reineke, moved up to win the Women’s Open Pro division. Your current Pro Grand Master World Champion, moi, moved up to win the Pro Master’s division over rookie Master Billy Seaman.

We got the course into pretty good shape leading up to the event. Our new club is demonstrating some strong TD abilities. Daryl Siddon is a machine!! He’s our treasurer but I’d rather see him bump-out both of our U.S. Presidential candidates. Co-TD’s James LeBaube and Mark Janssen poured enormous amounts of time and expertise into this event with back up from Bill Burbage, Francis Guzman, Steve Meyhew, Marshal Scribner and the list continues. I’m so pleased that the list of Orlando Disc Golf “workers” exceeds my ability to name them all. In each player’s tournament package was a copy of the 2008 Orlando Open Caddy Book, which rivaled any caddy book I’ve seen on tour (short of the USDGC).

On to other things. Ya’ll be on the look out for Garrett “Double G” Gurthie. He is a very strong golfer and, as his 2nd US Distance title would attest, he can flat out throw far. Innova’s Team Capitan, Sam Ferrans, should find some common ground with our newest member as he is a former world record distance holder (See the front cover of the 1990 Guiness Book of World Records) PDGA World Champion.

I dropped by a buddy’s place on the way home and demonstrated my vast knowledge of baseball by discovering that tonight was the 4th game of the World Series and there’s a team from Florida in it. I showed off similar knowledge of football a few years back. Oh…the Superbowl is tonight? Who’s in it?

Tomorrow: Letters to parks departments and cleaning up the room, the van etc.

10-25-08

Orlando Open-Day 1

Oh yes! There was rain. Those who pitched a tent could likely give you a far more personal report on that front. I missed most of the players meeting doing last minute course projects and in the process forgot to prepare a list of announcements. The list would need this as the first entry… “Start a list”.

I told them about some slippery old carpet (mostly walkways) that I just didn’t have time to replace and said “have fun”.

Big Announcement…As of this morning, the popular “What I failed to mention” segment is expanding into the player meeting market!

What I failed to mention… “Those playing from the long tees on T-2 the first round will be throwing from CARPET tees. Since they are the BLUE tees, tee only from the cobalt blue carpet. Not gray, green, red, not even faded light blue. “

See, I also use other neutral colored carpet for walkways, staging areas and especially for the follow-through in front of the tee…to avoid front end erosion. We have some golf holes with perfectly white sugar sand surrounds a basket and the subsequent pro tee. The carpet helps with erosion control. I built an entire green with carpet to cut down on erosion on the very first hole.

Those experiencing difficulties in grasping the concept behind color-coding tend to feel that any area carpets are free to tee from. nay nay. Here is a Gold Tee (that I’ve sort of hidden on the course) notice the green carpet at either end for erosion control at either end of the actual GOLD tee. The side benefit (front and back, really) is slightly longer run-up area and a bit of a follow-through area up front.

But I digress…
We got out on the course, umbrellas strapped to some part of each disc golfer or their disc golf utility belt. Once the round started I don’t recall having to open it. About halfway through the round we didn’t have to use our towels on a disc with each use.

The Original’s M2 baskets are frequently cruel to the smaller faster “modern” putter. Though the broader, lighter discs apparently do NOT have an advantage either as I spread my two bona-fide “bounce-outs” between old & light and modern & kinda light too.
The remainder of the round worked itself out to where I shot a –8/46 WITH those two BFBO’s to lead Masters by one.

Round two: Editing staff of the 1K-dgt blah blah blah’g would like to claim some recent outbreak of “swine malaria” to detract from my less-than-stellar play, it was nothing so exotic. I was up late with last night’s “blurt” and a pretty good edition of “Disc Golfers Separated At Birth??” (see below). But for now I’ve gotta drop offline, drop out of consciousness, and try and salvage this tourney in the am.

Tomorrow: Involves getting back out there in the AM and trying to salvage a disc golf tourney.

Another quick installment of What I Failed To Mention…

From yesterday…I went around the park with a righty, turned lefty after blowing out his right shoulder and left achilles… Adam Harris, who reminded me that I need to start posting more of my “Disc Golfers Separated At Birth” photos.

The “Next Generation” of S.A.B? suspects are Adam Harris of Delaware and Steve Millward of North Carolina.  They don’t resemble one another, but there is a resemblance to another pair that control flying objects.

10-24-08

It was drizzling as I loaded up the van with a couple of baskets on top of a coupla rakes, shovels, carpet, spikes, and half a mini van’s worth of course building paraphernalia, shipped off an ebay pkg at the PO, and headed to Turkey Lake a couple hours after the gang was to be there to start the tourney prep.

I think Marshal and I were the only “workers” there at around 11AM.  Some of the gang arrived shortly thereafter.   I dropped off a Mach 3 (One of the Boylan Family Farms baskets) near tourney HQ.  The other “poho” was a brand spankin new M5 (I’m pretty sure) It was the one I’d been waiting to find the right time to assemble…my GM 2008 prize from DGA.  (Thanks Scott)

I opened the big box expecting to find the dual short and long “screw-in” poles (like the brass chained M3 that I finally talked Ed into sending me for 1987) but they weren’t in either box.  My roomie received the boxes while I was still on the road.  I didn’t remember seeing a separate pole for it.  So, my new toy had to hide-out in the box in the van for the day.

To begin my actual “work-day I went to T2 to try to figure out what to do with the massive ruts that the trucks burrowed into the #5 fairway pretty much in a place where a perfect drive will probably get penalized with poor footing conditions.  I didn’t want to rake it smooth because that would expose MORE sugar sand (also bad footing).  All I could do was start stomping on it.  After seeing what they had done to our fairway I WANTED to stomp around anyway!

There were a couple of deep troughs farther down the fairway.  I started shoveling sand and throwing from about 20 feet away. Which each lift, I could hear the old wood give off miniscule cracks as another few fibers of wood splintered inside the handle.  Or it could have been my back.  Hard to tell these days.

The shovel survived but my rake did not fare so well.   I was shoving sand around with it upside down and it snapped within a couple of strokes.  Probably had it coming.  I don’t trust rakes.

I had asked Becky to come by with a gator-type of 4 wheeler to move some mulch into the troughs.
A couple of spots were so mucky that even 6-9” of mulch didn’t slow my foot down as it dipped and the ooze crept up through the shavings.  We may lose someone in there this weekend.  Can I pick who it will be?  I wonder how MANY people it could hold?

Another problem with the trucks is that somehow they had managed to also drop a butt-load (yes, in Texas, a “butt-load” is a tangible unit of measure) of cement chips that had then gotten crunched up and drivin into the grass that we’d been trying to grow for about 3 years.

And this, if you’re joining us late in this drivel-fest, occurred exactly one week before our club’s 1st large event and the Fab FL Tour’s largest single-weekend event of 2008.  (If it is nearly as good as we expect, it will be one of the better FFT events.  Two very different types of courses, both in very nice shape.  A very strong group of organizers, and the weather is supposed to be GREAT!  (OK, tomorrow, it should be great…probably in the afternoon…after it finishes raining tonight and tomorrow morning)

I found a ton more to do but forced myself to go out and throw some holes despite a few carpets that could use some work.   Once home, I found the accompanying DGA pole about 5 feet from where the boxes had been.
Tomorrow:  The Orlando Open.

10-23-08
10-24-08
Slackin’

Hey Gang,
Sorry about the lack-o-posts over the last couple of days.
The Orlando Open is coming up this weekend and since I’m course pro on BOTH courses we’re playing on this weekend I’m up to my eyeballs in course projects.

And both Wed & Thurs, I had work at the convention center setting up booths, so when I got home, I just crashed out.

Plus John Houck (J-Ho to you hip hop fans) asked me to write about ONE outstanding hole from the 1K-dgt.   Tough call since I played over 2,300 new holes in less than 3 months.  Many of those holes I was at a full run which didn’t exactly give me time to admire the designer’s work.

I have to leave RIGHT NOW to go work on the course some more…in the rain…. JEALOUS?

Tomorrow:  The 5th Orlando Open (but the first OO to be run by our new Uber-club…The Orlando Disc Golf Club)  It should be the largest attendance of the Fabulous Florida Tour for 2008.