Who Let the Dogs Out?

This post is nearly a week old and I should have posted about it earlier but, better late then never I suppose.

Last Saturday the Davis Dogs went down to Cal Berkely to scrimmage UGMO, you know? The Dogs were excited about it and were ready to go and give Cal a good game. The previous time we played them was at the Santa Barbara Invite and they pretty much did what ever they wanted as we couldn't contain there offense, and they threw zone on us which was something we had not practiced nearly enough.

So we wanted to go down there and give them a better game, show them that we are talented and that we have improved since last time we met.

We get down there and walking down the tunnel into Memorial Stadium was somewhat surreal. I could imagine Cal Bear Football stars making that same walk and I was getting goosebumps. Anyway we start to play and we weren't going to do anything special, just come out play hard, match up well, and play our game.

The game started out trading the first few points. Our defense was getting some turns but couldn't convert while our offensed worked well, they even threw Zone in the first two points and we were able to handle that well and punch it in. When we got the break we were able to put it in, and then we went on to get two or three more points. We were pressuring their dumps well and they just couldn't complete the passes they needed. We weren't giving the disc back and we take half 8-4 I believe.

At half we discuss not letting up and being able to close teams out in the second half and keeping our intensity up. We come out of half fired up but we again end up trading to bring the score to 11-7. We finally start generating the turns and scoring as we take the game 15-8.

I think it was generally agreed that Cal didn't play their best game while the Dogs played very well. I expect Cal just had a bad day and we'll have a much tougher game against them possibly this weekend and or in the series. Either way the win has given the Dogs tremendous confidence which is good because we are a very good team. I have confidence that they will give it everything they have come this weekend at the Stanford Open (Qualifier).

Some Highlights of the game:

-Playing in Memorial Stadium in front of 50 people or so

-Finding Parking

-Barnes Sky in the back of the endzone followed by a huge spike

-Adam's two hand grab "over" Hagen

-Rob's sick upline catch goal

-Zimmer working so hard but still not get any D's

-Hitting the walk off two run homer in Baseball Pong later that night at Kevin's house.

Strait Chilin...

Can you think of a more perfect Saturday?

Weekend Update

Food for thought for the weekend

The New UPA Rankings Are Up!


http://scores.upa.org/scores/#college-open/Rankings


Interesting how the UPA is doing these rankings. They are only ranking teams with at least 5 sanctioned games under there belt. That screws several teams at this points since Vegas was a bust. So obvious teams missing are Florida, Carlton, UBC, Virgina, Oregon, among others. I like the bid allocation presentation. Easy to read and clear, too often we never knew exactly how many bids we were going to get. And of course using the current years results are much more beneficial then using previous years results at nationals. Since the last few years the NW teams do well throughout the season but tank at natties. Currently it says the NW will be getting 4 bids, wow that would be nice. We'll see if that changes at all as the series approaches.


Davis is ranked 5th which seems high based off our current results. But if you add those 5 other teams we may drop 5 or 10 spots. Interesting non the less.

Cal vs. Davis

The Davis Dogs are scrimmaging Cal Ugmo this weekend in Berkeley. I believe we are going to be in memorial stadium. Should be fun. Practice last night was all drills no games. So you know the guys have blue balls and are ready to go out there and play as hard as they can. Should be exciting, I'll try to have a solid wrap up after this weekend as well as any pictures. Maybe some video.

Coed Mash up

I have been invited to a coed mixer mash up thing this weekend in Berkeley. On Sunday I'm heading back out to Gilman Fields to play in basically this first crack at putting together a new Bay Area Coed team. I don't really know the talent level in the area when it comes to mixed ultimate so at the very least I'll go out there and have some fun. I'm not really excited to play for a mixed team, but I want to get to nationals this year. And if I can't make a nationals quality open squad (Revolver, Jam, Streetgang) then mixed might be an option.

Crossfit

I have been thinking about starting this Crossfit workout routine. I like that it is mostly movements and short bursts of things, I also like the continued improvement and the competition it instills. It also seems to include alot of coaching both on technique of excercises and nutrition. Both areas I could improve upon and both of which I do not get at 24 hour fitness. There is a gym by my house that I want to jump into but havent found the time to get over there.

www.Crossfit.com

I am also looking to join this gym www.fourthpowerfitness.com

Work

Sucks. Get me out.

That's all I got for now. Weekend time!

Weekend Timeline!

Friday

5:00 pm Left work - drove home from work, packed, threw it in the car and bounced.

6:30 pm Picked up my sister and started hauling ass down to San Diego

10:30 pm Rolling over the grapevine.

2:00 pm Arrived at Adam's house in SD, crashed on some couches and caught some Zzzz

Saturday

8:30 am Woke up to the blarring sun in Adams glass house - what a beautiful day

9:30 am Dennys!

11:00 am Liqour store - stock up

11:15 - 5 pm Drinking, heckling, sitting, throwing, drinking, watching ultimate, drinking, heckling, drinking

6:00 pm Tacos!

8:00 pm Girlfriend time!

12:00 - 2:00 am Bars then back to Adam's

Sunday

8:00 am God damn its bright in Adam's house

8 -10:00 am Watch Ace Ventura on Adam's coach with KC

10:30 am Breakfast Burritos from Truillos...So good

11:00 am Men's semis

2:00 pm Head to the beach, meet up with GF and steal her from her team

4:00 - 9:00 pm Alone time with the GF :)

9:30 pm Meet up with Adam, KC, Matt, and Sis at the shout house. Proceed to watch an amazing dueling piano show and drinking. Fucking Awesome!

12:00 am Overpay a bike taxi back to our hotel, and crash on the bed with my girl

Monday

7:00 am Wake up to take Christina to her games. Come back to find KC, Matt, and Cambria all sleeping together in small full bed. Christina took a pic.

8:00 am back to the hotel, pick up the others, got food and headed to the games to catch Christina's Semi finals.

10:45 am Drinking, heckling, drinking, skying KC, watching Oregon win the tourney!!!

2:30 pm Said goodbyes, met Adam for lunch

4:00 pm Started driving back home:(

7:00 pm Finally got trough LA traffic

12:00 am Pulled into the driveway of my home, checked my work email went to bed.

Overall it was a pretty awesome weekend. Great weather, lots of friends to hang with, lots of beer to drink, and ultimate to watch.

If only every weekend was a three day weekend I might do this everytime. I'm even more motivated to move out of this town and get back down there. It will happen.

Highlights:

-The dueling piano bar - Shout House

-Watching lots of ultimate

-beach

-GF

-Yelling "Re-Fund" as Cyle Van Aukin's team pulled the disc, and pretty much all the time.

Lowlights

-Leaving

Will

FYI...

It's been a few days since my last post so I thought I would just group together some of these thoughts togther since none of them seem to worthy an entire post.

Vegas What shit fest. I mean it was tons of fun walking the strip and loosing money to blackjack dealers and Roulette. But I went there Ultimate! I know that the TDs cannot control the weather but it seems to me that they should have been a bit more prepared knowing that rain was 80% possible. The Field manager shut down the games quick and Cultimate was stuck with there pants down. And normally in Vegas that isn't bad but in this case it was.

Overall I don't expect a refund and I don't expect Vegas to be the large event it has been the last few years. Cultimate will survive but there customers are not happy.

Work I went to a conference board meeting this past week. It was basically individuals from other companies in the same department and positions as myself. So of course it was 80% a snore and 20% good food.

It was ok but mostly talking to other companies about all the problems that we all have and the solutions we have used to solve them. So there were some interesting things that came up but mostly it was business mumbo jumbo. One thing I found interesting was the idea of paying Sales Operations people (me) on a variable scale. So basically my pay would be dependent upon how well (or bad) the sales reps I support do. The idea being that I would have more stake in how well he/she is doing and I can hopefully work to support and enable them better. Interesting idea not sure if I like it or now.

Presidents Day I'm heading down to San Diego this weekend to watch some Ultimate and to see the girls on Valentines Day. It should be fun since were road tripping it down with KC, Cambria, and Matt. Were gonna make the best of it and have fun in the sun.

Break I've been pretty busy these last several weekends, going back to Lei Out weekend I think I've been doing something everyweekend since thing. But after this weekend I'll have a bit of a break and I'll be able to relax a bit.

It goes to 11... So I feel like its time to start ramping up my work outs. I have been staying in pretty good shape with light work outs here and there. But I haven't started to kick my own ass. And I think its time to start doing that. Starting Tuesday, after this weekend, I'm really going to start and get in a rythem so that come March I'm in really good shape and then come April when some of the club try outs begin to pop up I will be in amazing shape. Then I can rape on fools.

Yeah Muff
Will

Vegas Baby!

Heading out to Vegas in a few short hours to coach the Davis Dogs. I wasn't excited about being the only coach heading out there but I've warmed up to the idea. Hopefully I can help guide these dogs to where they should be.

The plan is to kick some ass, gamble all my money away, and simply dominate. We'll see how that works but either way it should be fun.

Besides what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!...Except for Herpies, that shit will stay with you.

Schedule for this weekend. I'll try to keep people updated.

http://scores.upa.org/scores/#college-open/tournament/6670

Curveballs

Can be a deadly weapon for a pitcher. The pitcher works to set you up, maybe throwing you a few fastballs around eye level, or something inside, or just simply trying to blow one by you. Then when you least expect it he strikes!

The ball starts as you would expect it to, spinning fast so that you can only see a white orb coming at you as innocently as can be. But the curveball has no innocents, it is plotting your down fall, plotting to destroy your dignity, and it may very well succeed.

Just as you start your swing on this two face of a pitch the ball breaks downward. If you saw the curve coming then maybe your ready for it, maybe you don't swing and take your shot with the umpire, or maybe you can get the bat squarely on ball and put it in play. Hopefully the pitcher hung it up a bit and this devilish pitch turns into a beach ball and you can turn on it well.

Or maybe it gets you. Maybe a curveball isn't what you expected or wanted right now. It throws you off balance and you become uncomfortable in your stance. Your now desperate, desperate to make things right. So you throw your hands at the ball hoping to just get a piece so you don't have to go back to the dug out in shame. So you don't have to take that slow walk back while the pitcher gets to pad his stats.

Either way you didn't expect it, and if you can fight it off then whose to say a curveball won't come at you again and throw you out of wack once again. The question becomes can you handle the curve? Can you handle a wrench in the gears? Especially when you least expect it.

It is interesting how pitchers hardly throw you that curve when you're expecting it or wehen you're ready for it. But maybe that's what makes things worth while...if all you got were change ups down the middle that could lead to little growth and development as a player and person. How would you ever know how to hit not just the curve but the slider, sinker, fastball, forkball, slurve. And to be successful in this crazy rat race you need to be ready for anything a pitcher throws at you.

I've got a few curves this last week. Not sure if I've fought them off or if I'm waiting for that umpire to ring me up.