Posts from — August 2008

A bit behind on the blog lately, but it’s more due to lack of time, and definitely not due to a lack of stuff to write about.

I just got back from a trip to Toronto. It was huge change in pace from Nationals and the downtime was spent eating a ton of food, visiting, sleeping and watching Olympics.

Jeff and I went off the chips for about 3 months before Nationals in an attempt to be healthy and also because we had a serious problem. We’d go run stairs for an hour and come home and devour a huge bag of chips in seconds. Seriously, what was the point of exercising? So, we weren’t allowed to have them in our house and we were only allowed to eat them at social functions and on road trips. I also made a conscious effort to stay super healthy the month before Nationals. Limited junk food, lots of sleep, tons of water and exercise of course. I think it paid off as I felt way more fit than in past years. All of that has now gone out the window!

I got to see aunts, uncle, grandparents, my mom, and cousins while in Toronto. I went downtown with my mom and auntie Lorraine one sunny afternoon and that was awesome. We walked around The Beaches in Woodbine and after walking about 10 miles, had a beer on a patio downtown at Shopsys. It was a great trip and so nice to see my extended family as we live so far away, but I have to say it’s always so nice coming home…especially if you have an awesome husband and cute kitty like I do!

One night my aunt had a “Dorm Storm” for my cousin. He’s off to culinary management school and he’ll need all of the necessities that you need moving out of your parent’s place for the first time. She didn’t want to have a shower for him (it’s a little feminine), so she called it a Dorm Storm. Pretty clever if you ask me.

Now I’m finally getting settled and unpacked and we’re off to Golden this weekend. I get to finally meet Infinity Solstice Great Wizard of Destiny at his sport’s ranch where we’ll be playing disc golf. We’re also planning to dust off our mountain bikes after neglecting them all summer for ulti.

Pictures from Toronto (there’s more on our picasa site):

My nana’s spoiled dogs

Busker festival

The Beaches

My mom and aunt

Me and my Gido playing with the webcam.

It’s been quite sometime since I’ve posted (June 24th to be exact) and I’m starting to get complaints. You think people would have more pressing things to discuss then my lack of blogging but I digress… Oh and Lindsay will post a recap of her trip to Toronto tomorrow.

So what have I been up to?

Well, there has been quite a bit of Ultimate… in fact dare I say too much ultimate? Nah. I don’t dare. That’d be crazy. Besides ultimate I’ve been doing lots of work type of stuff. My ‘real’ job (aka 9-5) is going really well and we’re making some really cool progress that I really shouldn’t discuss in a public forum. My 6-11 job is going well too, I’ve got way too many ideas and too little time… C’est la vie.

Now that ultimate is over for the summer we’ll be biking, hacky sacking, playing disc golf and playing ultimate.

My Cat the Dog.

No this isn’t some way to protect myself from being called out by Mike for being a cat lover. My cat is seriously a dog! This morning we were playing “fetch” in the backyard. It wasn’t exactly fetch and it went a little something like this. I throw the Tupperware container lid somewhere in the yard, she sprints to it, looks back and meow’s at me. I walk over pick up the lid and throw it again, repeat.

Besides fetch she enjoys following us around the house. Today while I was playing ‘bike mechanic’ and I emphasize “playing” she was in the garage just hanging out. What a great little dog cat. I swear if she didn’t poop in the house I wouldn’t know she was a cat.

Well, if we couldn’t have top 8, Bronco took 9th!

First game was a blow out against Wannebego from Quebec. We didn’t play very well, but didn’t have to and won 15-4. The highlight of that game was some chick counting stalls to me in french.

Game 2 was super windy. We played Tundra and traded points for a while, then pulled away and won.

Game 3. Gecko. Because we like to stay consistent, we made nine-als (game for 9,10) way closer and exciting than it had to be. Ended up winning 11-9 in a time cap. Luckily Gecko spent so much time arguing with us, that they ran out of time!

All in all a fabulous nationals. Bronco played very well. I would have liked to have finished top 4, but we just couldn’t pull off a few key wins. Jeff and I had a super fun time. Maybe next year….

Now I’m Toronto visiting my family and putting the calories back on that I lost at Nats. Jeff is probably doing the same (back on the chips!) and taking care of Willow.

What an emotional rollercoaster!

Played Swarm in game 1 and won 15-5.

Game 2, played TFP (reigning WORLD CHAMPIONS). Traded points the entire game and Bronco comes out victorious!!!! It was amazing. Won 14-12. We played our game and they weren’t ready for our intensity. The underrated their opponents and paid for it. I’d have to say that the amazingly inspirational talk at half-time won us that game (thanks Luttmer!). If you believe in your heart that you can win, you’ll win. You just have to believe.

Game 3. Huge dissapointment. The way the seeding work and with upsets going on all the place, it came down to the wire. Bronco vs. Monster. Winner goes on to the quarters, loser drops down and out of contention.

Unfortunately we had a bye after our TFP game and weren’t able to take the intensity into the next game, but had 2 hours to sit around. Got off to a slow start, down by 3 and never recovered, losing 14-10.

Much like Regionals there were tears, but this time for the opposite reason. It was a great experience and the team is amazing with great potential. Now we are playing for 9th. At least we beat the world champions!

Final update to come!

I’m sad to report that Bronco had a disappointing day and finished 1-2.

Lost our first game to Liquid from Waterloo (who we beat in universe point last year at Nats). Maybe it was the early morning start (8:30am) and maybe they had the timezone advantage of being 2 hours ahead, but something wasn’t right. Got off to a slow start and could never recover. Lost 14-11.

Second game was much better. Played Bytown Flatball Club from Ottawa and beat them 15-8. They finished second at Nats last year, but I’m pretty sure they have a much different team this year.

Game 3 was another disappointment. Played Onyx from Quebec and lost 14-11. It was a super chipy game with lots of (bad) calls.

Hopefully tomorrow goes better! We’ve dug ourselves a pretty deep hole and I hope we can get out of it. Still contenders for the quarters, but just a tougher rode. We play TFP (from Vancouver and current World champions), Monster (MUST WIN!!!) and Swarm (beat them twice in Saskatoon this year).

Time for an epson salt bath and early to bed

Jeff and I will be representing Alberta at Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) this week. This year Nationals are being held in Calgary from Aug 14-17. If you are interested in checking it out you should drop by the fields one day. It’s a great opportunity to watch the highest caliber ultimate in Canada.

There are 5 different divisions being played at 2 locations in Calgary (Calgary Rugby Union and Glenmore Athletic Park) on 16 different fields (1500 athletes in total).

We are in the Mixed Division and our team name is BRONCO.

On Thursday we will play at Glenmore 8:30 AM (field 8), 10:15 am (field and 13:45 (field 7).

We will play again on Friday, it does depend on our Thursday finish. Most likely (fingers crossed) we will play at Calgary Rubgy Union at 8:30, 10:15 and 13:45.

On Saturday our first game will be at 8:30 am at Glenmore and subsequent games are dependent on how we do.

For information on field locations and the schedulte or just to follow our progress, you can visit the CUC website at: http://calgary2008.com

Games are played to 15 points or 90 minutes (which ever comes first). You can watch all games for free on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you do come by bring a chair, sunscreen and find some space on the sideline.

We will probably be pretty busy playing so might not get to say hi if you do drop by, but we appreciate the support.

Go BRONCO Go!!!!

If you’d like to volunteer on Thursday or Friday, it would be greatly appreciated and please email volunteer@calgary2008.com.

Also, happy birthday to both Larry (Jeff’s dad) and Scott Millar! Hope you both had a great day.

Since we haven’t been up to much but playing ultimate and watching World’s Ultimate — nice work on the Webcast Ultivillage — I thought I’d post a few pictures of Willow. She’s very difficult to photograph as she hates the camera and most of the time when she’s doing something cute, by the time you grab the camera it’s too late. We have managed to take a few good ones though. Many more pictures can be seen on our Picasa site.

My personal favorite:

Sticking her paws into whatever water she can find (hope you didn’t plan on drinking that Jeff):

Sleepy Willow:

She spends most of her time outside chasing bees:

Just got back from a weekend in Saskatoon. Went to Disc Oddessey for the first time. Although it was a fun time, Bronco didn’t do as hot as we would have liked. Actually, we played like crap on Saturday, but Sunday was much better. To be fair, we were missing a few key players, as well as our leader Duncan and it was super windy. It made me realize how lucky we’ve been this year so far and we haven’t had to play in gale force winds yet…until Saskatoon. We did have a bit of wind in Bozeman, but the bigger problem there was the rain.

We played Swarm from Winnipeg in our first game and beat them handily. They scored more points than they should have, as we got off to a slow start. Our next game was much worse and we lost to Syndicate from Regina. They were a quick, skilled team, but they didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves. The basics of catching and throwing were very off.

During warm up of our 3rd game my heel got caught on a slippery patch of grass and reefed on my hip flexor. It feels much better now, but was throbbing at the time so I didn’t play for the rest of the day. Instead, I watched as we beat Lawn Party and then lost in a terrible game against Saskwatch, who we had beat at Ho-down. The problem once again was catching and throwing. The team was soooo inconsistent all day and hopefully we don’t encounter that at Nationals!

Day 2 was much better. I had a migraine during the first game so didn’t do much, but the team played great against Psycho. Our O-line stepped up to the challenge and played great in the wind. The game got capped and we lost 9-7. That was the end of pool play. Psycho was 1st, Syndicate 2nd and there was a 3-way tie between LP, us and Saskwatch. They couldn’t decide how to break the tie. Originally they told us we were 4th and would be playing Psycho again in the semis. That would have been fun to play them again but strange as no one at the tourney had ever experienced having to play the exact same team back to back.

They changed their minds about the system for tie breaks and we ended up 5th…so the top 4 teams went on to the semi’s and we dropped down to play Swarm. We had a great game against Swarm and won 13-2 and I was able to play well as my migraine went away at the start of the game.

The final ended up as Psycho vs. Saskwatch and I’m not sure who won, but I could easily guess.

We stayed at the Sheraton and they had a waterslide which was a big hit. Fun car ride both ways and all in all a good trip.

Today was a bit disappointing as it was a day off and I slept until 4 trying to get rid of another migraine. Booo migraines.

The highlight of the day was watching Willow catch a mouse!!! We’re so proud of her. I watched her stalking something and then saw her pounce on it. I thought it was a bee as that’s her usual victim, but then I heard it squeaking and saw her running around with it in her mouth. She tossed it and chased it around for a while, unsure really of what to do with it, but then it got away.