Bowling Update

In my never-ending quest to be find the "right" way for me to bowl, I've recently had a little success with some minor changes. Previous changes I've blogged about worked some, then didn't work, even failing miserably a couple times.

The last two times out I've bowled sets of 707 and 656. I'm highly encouraged (again...surprise!), because the scores could have been even better, and hopefully will be better.

I went away from "less turn," as mentioned in a previous post, to simply not starting with my hand position so far inside. Since I am keeping my follow-through hand position the same, this amounts to "less turn" of the hand during the shot, without having to think about it.

I have also changed my push-off so that it is an actual push-away, and right on line with the target.  I met with a pro last year who suggested a certain starting position, which I still use, but from there he suggested that I simply let the hand start dropping. Before that, when I wasn't playing with the Del Ballard starting position, I was holding it a higher to start (think Mike Aulby), but not pushing off, or at least very little.

I prefer the feel of the push-off, and my current hypothesis is that if I do it on-line to the target, it helps with accuracy and consistency.  This is why I'm encouraged and feel my recent scores could have been better, and should be if I stick to this. I was more consistent with my direction, release, and speed on both nights.  All that wasn't working was carry, and spare-shooting.

Before the trip to Reno this year, I'll be working on the spare-shooting.  In particular, ten pins on the right-hand lane.  I have my thoughts as to what I need to do, but this is largely a mental issue, so I'm going to want to seek an expert. If I can't throw at a ten pin with confidence at my age, what makes me think I'm going to figure it out on my own anytime soon?

Nothing. So yeah, I'll be seeing a pro about that, and I'll have him look a little at my newer strike form, too.

Debate Dad in a Small World

When my oldest child played hockey, I wasn't a very good hockey dad.  I expected more effort out of him than I should have from a 5-6 year-old kid. When he switched to basketball, it was more of the same, only a bit worse, because I knew he could hear me from the stands, so I yelled more.

I was embarrassing to myself.

Tonight was a different experience.  My second-oldest child, my sophomore daughter, is in a debate tournament this weekend.  I love a good debate. I even love finding out I'm wrong, or being convinced so.  

But I'm not so sure about competitive debates, because unlike real life debates, the win-or-lose mentality seems to harm the experience. But I can't say I know that for sure, as this was my first in high school competition to witness.

I was a good debate parent tonight, but it's not that I didn't want to chime in.  It was because I was one of only two adults at this particular event. The other was the judge.  So, yeah, I was going to be on my best behavior.

A high school debate features two partners from one school (a first speaker, and a second), against two from another. (Although sometimes one student will go against two; this is called going "Maverick" as I learned tonight.) It actually went fairly close to how I expected, with few surprises. 

One of those surprises, however, was quite a surprise, and had nothing to do with the debate itself: it was my daughter's opponent. Why?  Glad you asked. 

Some 21 years ago, I had my heart ripped out of my chest by the woman whom I was certain fate had decided was the right one for me.  We spoke only once after that, a few months later, when I had barely built up the nerve just to call and say "hi" and see if I could get some closure for myself.  

I didn't.  The breakup was hard to get over, and even though I started dating again soon thereafter, and even married my first wife within two years of it, for the longest time, and I mean years, the one thing that still bugged me was just not getting that closure. I didn't even know for sure that lack of closure was the problem, what closure actually was, and how I would know it if I got it anyway. But not having it bugged me for a long time.

Eventually, yeah, time closes things for you. Out of curiosity, and thanks to the Internet and social networks, I learned two things about her over the years: her married name, and the city in which she lives. Nothing creepy ("sure it isn't," you're thinking), and in fact, I would hope that all is well for her.

So back to my daughter's opponent (and you can probably see this coming). My daughter and her partner had the "pro" position on the topic. She was in the first-speaker position, but the other school was to go first.

The other school's first speaker introduced his name.  It rang a bell. Then it took me another three seconds or so to realize that it was the same last name as "her," and his school is where "she" lives, and....HOLY COW does he resemble "her"!!

So yeah, I just saw my daughter go head-to-head in a debate against the son of someone I once thought I had a certain future with. At first it was a bit surreal, but then it became quite normal and rather nice to see this young man in action.  I was quite happy for her, knowing that as a parent, she must be as happy with him as I with my daughter.

I'll find out tomorrow who won, and I can't say that I really care. I found it interesting that this debate was just a touch nastier than the debates she and I used to get into.  That is to say, it really wasn't nasty at all.

Spot-of-the-foul Stinks

If I ever stop watching major team sports completely, or nearly completely, it will be because of the lack of integrity in the results of each game.  I think I've covered this point more than once.

My comment today is not in the integrity of the specific result of the game that inspired this post (Vikings vs. Bears today).  The Bears were the better team, to be sure.

But there was one play that, if the Vikings were to have had a chance, and I do mean if, the officials needed to get correct.  They blew it, but still, that's not the point...really.

What upsets me is that this type of play could, and probably has on many occasions, been the decider in a game.  OK, I'll quit beating around the bush.  It's defensive pass interference, and the ridiculous spot-of-the-foul punishment it leads to.

There are so many things wrong with that type of penalty, but what irks me most is that the interference so often doesn't even occur. So where is the logic in rewarding a team first-and-goal at the one after a 50-yard pass where both defender and receiver are mixing it up, and the officials decide to call a penalty on the defender? Today, it was only 25 yards, but the receiver appeared to be just as guilty, if not moreso, of the illegal contact. 

So what's my suggestion? Well, I'm not particularly fond of the college rule of 15 yards "no matter what." But I think it's a false dichotomy to suggest that one has to pick one or the other.  

How about both? Perhaps, like an NBA "flagrant foul," the NFL could make a rule where if it was blatant, then fine, spot-of-the-foul to the offense, but no less than 15 yards, or the one yard-line if the line of scrimmage was the 16 or closer. But where they are jostling together for the ball, and the defender is perhaps too aggressive? Then no more than 15 yards, and spot at the one if and only if the line of scrimmage was at the 16 or closer. Automatic first down in either case.

The spot-of-the foul reward assumes that without the foul, the receiver would almost certainly have made the play, and thus gets rewarded the yardage, and that's just ludicrous. They stop just short of giving them the TD if it occurs in the end zone, thankfully, but that's not enough.

I get that a lot of penalties perhaps over-reward the victimized team, and to some degree, as a deterrent, they should. But in plays like this in the Vikings/Bears game, when it was still a game, giving the Bears the ball on the one yard line ranks with shootouts deciding World Cup soccer championships in stupidity.

And the more major team sports leagues allow the integrity of their games suffer like this, the less I really care about the results, and thus, the less I'll be spending on their product.

Turning the Corner With Less Turn of the Wrist

After my worst two-week stretch of bowling in perhaps over a decade, I rolled a not-so-awful 625 this week.  What I'm encouraged about is that I stuck with my changes, and fought through 1 1/2 awful games, finishing strongly after a ball change and not missing the pocket for 16 frames.

Starting off with a 185, then having three opens in the first four frames of game two, almost put me in the same mood as the past two weeks.  I've matured a bit over the years, having once been a real hothead on the lanes, but those demons have come frightening close to reappearing recently.

But with my second ball change, I found the pocket, and didn't leave.  Game two went from 45 after four frames, to a 203, throwing strikes in all but two frames from there on (and one of those two was the 12th).

Then in game three, it was all nines or better on all pocket hits.  That makes 13 strikes in my final 19 shots, with the six non-strikes all being corner pins, which I converted (another very nice sign). A 237 final made me feel like perhaps I'm starting to turn the corner.

In my senior year in high school, I made changes to my game that initially caused me to bowl a little worse.  That's the norm for major changes, and while my recent changes aren't that radical, they do go against 30 years of habit. I'll try to post, with graphics, what the key changes look like.  But for now, I'll put them simply:

1) A more modern-looking release (pointer finger pointing down at release, and minimal wrist turn or flip)
2) Ball just rolling off the finger tips (so I'm not "squeezing")
3) Slightly higher backswing
4) A little more foot speed

And in case you recall my previous posts about form changes, I abandoned my "Del Ballard" approach last year.  It was causing me to have very little backswing, and when I tried to add some backswing, I was all over the place.

I'm determined to make these current changes stick, in part because my old friend and bowling pro wanted to see my hand behind the ball more, and not so much around the side.  These changes, particularly #s 1 & 2, help to accomplish that.

Those Darn Liberal Facts

After all of the election predictions I read, and after the election dust has settled, I have lost a ton of respect for several right-wingers, from pundits to people I know personally, who just knew Obama would lose.  Moreso for the ones I know personally, because, 1) The pundit's job is, in part, to incite, and 2) There wasn't as much respect to lose with the pundits in the first place.

Here's the reason: There was so much data for political followers to, well, follow. It all pointed to Obama. Even after the first debate. Even up to Sandy. The Electoral College still pointed to Obama.

Now, I'm not talking about an opinion, simple prediction, hunch, or anything qualified with, "I don't know for sure, but I think..." What I'm talking about are the cocksure, no-doubt-about-it proclamations that Romney was for sure going to win.  Even in a "landslide" as one Facebook friend put it. I simply can no longer respect anything he has to say of opinion in political discussion.

Because the data didn't support it, and yet he made his assertion without any qualifier.  Sure, some doubted the validity of the polls.  So qualify your claim by predicating it with that for your reasoning.  But even so, ALL polls being wrong on the Electoral College?  REALLY?

I was following Nate Silver's work at http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/. As a stats geek, I found it fantastic reading every day. Yet these right-wing critics called him liberal and biased. Fine, but then explain what in his writing is showing bias in his picking Obama day after day. (Crickets.)

They couldn't, because there was nothing.  The guy simply had too much of a reputation at stake to risk it on bias.  Unlike, say, a Dick Morris who seems to make a career out of being wrong.  Dead wrong.

So Silver ends up nailing it, spot on:  332 electoral votes for Obama, just like his most likely scenario showed on his final post before the polls opened.  Fantastic.

Perhaps Steven Colbert was right when he said, "Reality has a liberal bias."

Worst Night of League Bowling in Years

I bowled a 491 series tonight.  My final game was 134.  I have been racking my brain to find reasons, not excuses, so that I can learn from this and never allow it to happen again.

I had 702 last week, which was only that low because I inexplicably threw a seven count, after 19 strikes in 21 shots, and then whiffed the spare, in my final frame. 

That final frame was pretty much how my night went tonight. I've been experimenting with some changes (again) and after last week, which included a 279 game (perfection missed due to a ringing 10-pin in the 9th), I thought I was making progress.

Some of it was beyond my control.  Most of it was not. I am trying to use the Anthony Robbins mind trick of asking myself, "What is great about what happened tonight?"

One answer, if I try seriously, is that it is an opportunity to truly learn so that it never happens again.  Oh, I'm sure it will happen again on a sport shot in some tournament some time.  But not on a house shot on league night.  Since starting up bowling again five seasons ago, it's my only sub-500 series.  My second lowest was somewhere in the 540s.  The 134 is, I think, my lowest league game since starting up again.

I should probably do it now, but I am going to wait until I've cooled down a bit more to think more clearly, to start the brainstorming session.  The downside of waiting is that I may forget some things, but I doubt I'll forget much of the important stuff.  As surreal as it was, I think it's been planted in my brain pretty firmly for a while.

Sad news from Ortonville: Home to my first radio gig

I had not followed the traffic data to my blog until very recently. I found it interesting whenever I'd actually get, say, a half-dozen visits in a day. Today, I discovered that I got over two dozen visits, and all of them to my post about the Columbian Hotel in Ortonville, Minnesota.  It's the place I lived for a short while during my first year as a radio announcer.

Curiously, I decided to Google the Hotel, seeing that it was Google searches that drove the traffic.  I was horrified to learn that the reason for all of the traffic was Googlers searching for the story of the fire that destroyed this wonderful building.

When I lived there, the locals did indeed call it a "fire trap."  Here's the sad story: http://www.ksfy.com/story/19923121/fire-destroys-columbian-hotel-in-ortonville-minn

Random Stuff

I did squats and leg presses at the YMCA today.  I have been doing them for a few weeks now.  Just a few months ago, I thought I'd never do another weighted squat again. My back may go out again tomorrow, but I'm pretty darned happy to be doing squats again, even though I'm going real light for now.

Driving back from the Y put things into perspective for me. Bad back or not, I'm better off than the squirrel I tried (and failed) to avoid hitting. Poor guy...that's the first I've hit in several years, and hopefully the last. But probably not.

It was fun flipping channels between three blowouts tonight.  MLB, NFL, and DFL/GOP.

OK, so the Bears didn't exactly "blow out" Detroit, but I think history will back me up in saying no team has ever won a game scoring 0 points. (ETA: There were actually 2:00 minutes left in this game, so I spoke too soon just to make a cheap, not-very-clever joke. As it turned out, the score ratio more closely matched the debate than it did the baseball game.)

Hey Dennis Miller, do you think ass-kickings are covered by Romneycare? How about by vouchers?

Debate mash-up: Binders full of bayonets and horses.

Hey Barack, nice zinger tonight on '80s foreign policy, but David Spade called, and wants his SNL material back.

See, I can be bipartisan in my mockery.

Upcoming Concerts

Even though we should probably be saving the money, my wife and I are going to a few shows I'm pretty excited about. In November, it's Madonna and Springsteen, about a week apart. Madonna is my wife's all-time favorite.  Bruce is mine (alternating with Paul McCartney, depending on what day it is). I've seen Bruce five times previously, and this will be my wife's first time. And like a virgin, or two virgins, the Madonna show will be a first for both of us.

I know and like Madonna's music well enough to enjoy the show.  I hope it's not too much about the choreography, like the Janet Jackson show we saw last year. That one was basically 4 or 5 medleys with a lot of dancing.  Upbeat and energetic for sure, but just not something I get terribly into. I'm guessing it will largely be about all that, but I expect there will be a bigger production with more costume changes and whatnot, so it will be worth it.

Bruce will be Bruce. 'Nuff said.  No Big Man, sadly, and that's really too bad for my wife's sake. I'm quite anxious to see how she responds to her first Bruce show.

We've also got our Pink tickets already.  As with the Madonna show, we were able to purchase four tickets early enough to be good seats (fantastic, in fact, for Pink), and thus were able to sell two of them to help offset the cost of ours. Pink will be fun.  I like her stuff better than Madonna's and I think I will like her even better as a performer.

I keep checking online to see if McCartney is going to announce a tour stop in or fairly near the Twin Cities. At 70, he's lost some of the high end of his voice, but I'd like to see him for a third time. One thing I wish Paul would do, and I realize it's only a wish, is to pick some more obscure songs from his catalog.  His aging pipes might even be a good excuse to pull out some of those - ones he doesn't have to strain to reach the high notes on (like Band On the Run, for example).

I also wish he wouldn't croon so much, but that's his ham-it-up personality coming out. I like the many different things he's done with his voice on record over the years, but he pretty much does the hammy-crooner on all of them live.

Here are some songs I'd like him to do live, and that I think he could still pull off quite well.

Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (some high spots near the end, though)
Little Lamb Dragonfly (some high spots again)
Press
Wanderlust (pretty sure he'd have to tune it down at least a couple steps, but I'd be cool with that)
Waterfalls (hmm, see Wanderlust)
Listen To What the Man Said

Now that I think of it, he's got a lot of songs that would really push his high-end. It seems he doesn't like to tune them down to hit the notes, but many, many aging stars do. I'd rather they do that then end up like Eddie Money and some casino ballroom (Youtube it if you don't know what I mean). But maybe if singers didn't think they always had to sing so many songs at the top end of their range, this wouldn't be necessary.

I doubt Leon Redbone ever has that problem.

My 30-year-old secret

I'm not sure where this post is going to go, how it will end, or how long it will be.  But it's a long-time coming, and hopefully will allow me to sleep better at night.

In 1982 and 1983, on my high school golf team, I was accused of cheating. I'm here to say, finally, that I did.

I don't mean to excuse it, so I hope it doesn't appear to be my purpose from my words.  But I need to say it, and I need to say that at the very least, I have been able to live with it only because I know these things:

1) It did not help me earn a spot on the roster, and thus didn't cost anyone else a spot.

2) I never cheated in a match or practice round; only in the two rounds I'm about to share.

3) I learned a great deal from it.

4) As much as the words the accusers used against me hurt, I've beaten myself over it many times over. 

Yeah, I'm basically saying in that last part that having beaten myself up over a couple childhood mistakes makes me feel better.

So here's the story, and while it's a long one, it's late, I'm tired, and I really don't want to spend a lot of time on it because, frankly, it might hurt.  To quote a fake Yogi Berra axiom, I'll be brief for as long as can. 

In my junior year of high school, I tried out for the golf team.  I had played slightly-above bogey golf at times, and heard that would be good enough to at least not get cut, which is all I really hoped for.

Due to a misunderstanding of the rules, my entire foursome's scores were kept by me in the one-round qualifying round.  Not one of us had previously played on the golf team, and we somehow all apparently missed the part about each person keeping another's scores (and then later both signing and attesting).

At some point in the round, having not taken it seriously I guess, we were getting loose with the rules. Yes, the whole group.  I don't even really remember in what ways (Mulligans? Foot-wedges?).  I do remember thinking afterward that I shouldn't  have done it, because even with the harshest estimates, I benefited myself by about, but no more than, 6 strokes.  So my final of 91, which should have been a 97 at worst, was nearly enough to contend for a spot on the varsity. I got away with breaking the scorekeeping rule only because the whole group misunderstood, and the coach asked us each if we were comfortable with the integrity of the scores. We all answered in the affirmative.

Of course, it was not a 91, but it didn't need to be to achieve all I really wanted: to not get cut.  As I recall, 103 was the cut line to at least get to practice for a spot on the JV team. One other in our group "scored" well enough, with a 102. I don't know that he ever even showed up for more than one practice after that. Yes, we all played "loosely," but only two made the cut. 

While I didn't make the team because of the cheating, I sure paid for it.  At the preseason banquet, someone asked me what I shot.  "Ninety-one," I said.  "Oh!" was the reply, with a slight nod.  Then I heard another say, under his breath, "He cheated his ass off." Some soft laughter followed.

In some ways, I don't know if I've ever recovered from that comment.  Golf is such a game of confidence and mental toughness, yet those words live with me nearly everyday - everyday for sure during golf season. Self-doubt has been something I've never been able to fully shake, for more than four or five holes anyway. 

My first two practice rounds of 9 holes after the qualifying were identical: 59. One was with the coach, probably to keep an eye on me.  I can't imagine what he must have thought at that point. True, I wasn't that good yet, but I was no 59-shooter.  But my mind was an absolute mess.  Why I didn't quit after that, I still don't know. Probably too stupid to.

Every morning, the coach would put out either the practice schedule or match schedule of the day.  He'd give everybody a chance now and then to practice and improve, so they could possibly earn a JV or Varsity roster spot in a match.  I'm not sure when it started, but someone, or more, started writing "he cheats," or "cheater" next to my name when I had a chance to play.

I don't recall much about the weeks ahead, but gradually, I started to play better, even earning a spot in JV matches. Yes, it was honest, 100% so, practice or match. At the end of the year, our JV team finished 2nd in a final JV tournament.  One of our players, today a somewhat well-known figure in Minnesota Hockey in fact, won medalist honors with an 84 at Majestic Oaks' Platinum course.  Despite at least two "snowmen" on my card, I shot a 92. 

"He's really improved," I overheard one team member tell the coach.  That meant a lot.  He was one who played with me during one of my 59s.

So you'd think the next year, my senior year, I'd have learned my lesson.  Nope.  In the qualifying round, I shot a 94.  But it was really a 96.

I popped up a drive on the back nine, and found it embedded in the soggy, early-spring fairway.  Ignorant of the rules that would have allowed me to pull it and drop for free, I took two hacks at it.  I got it out on the third.  Because my playing partners had walked ahead, I flat-out lied and said I took two practice swings.

I was stupid enough to think that the guy I told this to bought it.  Today, I doubt it.  I do remember what I thought was a brief look of disgust on his face when I said it, but I suppose since he didn't actually see it, he figured he had to take my word for it.

Sad thing is, yes I cheated, but not only didn't I need to because of the again-generous cut line of over 100, I really didn't need to, because of the rules of golf.

Once again, the "cheater" claim greeted me virtually every morning that I was scheduled to play. One team member even confided in me that one other player, who wasn't having such a good year and thus not getting as many opportunities, asked the coach straight up: "Why do let all the cheaters play?"

"I'll let anyone play that I want to," said the coach, as I was told.

But this year I somehow managed to not regress in the first couple of post-qualifying rounds, probably because I had since learned the embedded ball rule, and felt less guilty about it. Yeah, it excuses nothing, but as a young mind and as immature as I was, I was desperate to find something to mitigate my lack of character.

I remember one day things really turned for the better. It was one of those very rare rounds (very rare for me, even today) in which I was unaware as to how well (or poorly) I was playing.  After finishing the ninth hole at Midland Hills Country Club, and the scores were tallied, I had shot 41 for the nine.  That earned me a spot in the next Varsity match.

I didn't play particularly well as the "sixth man," but well enough to hang around for two more matches, plus an 18-hole invitational.  A couple 45s and a 46 if I recall correctly (or perhaps a 45 and two 46s), and then a dead-last place 100 in the invitational at Hastings Country Club.

Something funny happened in one of those 46s. So self-conscious about playing by the rules, I got to the last hole pestering my opponent with a rules question, because there was no way in hell I was going to break a rule. Finally, at the green, with both teams watching, he said, "Just putt the ball, Ding Dong!"

You could hear the other players giggling and trying not to.  Sadly, and I do mean that, this incident may have won my team the match.  That same opponent signed an incorrect scorecard, having scored one more on that last hole than he signed for.  The way the scoring system worked, each team took its best five out of six scores.  His was thrown out, and their sixth man's was used, giving us the match.

The next day of play, and the last few times I got to play, instead of "he cheats" next to my name, someone put in the words "Ding Dong." It was an improvement.

My head hung pretty low after that 100, especially on the bus ride back, but I got over it eventually. I was ultimately beat out for a spot in regionals by the same guy who medaled at the previous year's JV tourney. I ended up earning my one and only letter in high school, and yeah, despite the guilt, I do feel I earned it.

And that's my story.  Amazing to me is how some of the details are so crystal clear in my memory, including all of the people I heard say things. I guess with that many emotional anchors to the events, many of the details became permanent staples in my brain.

Detail like one story about the guy who probably doubted my two "practice" strokes but said nothing. One day in our senior year I tried to playfully tease him about his previous day's 54 for nine holes. That would have been like another 59 for me, or worse, and in my senior season to boot. How did he take it? By wrapping his arm tightly around my neck, keeping me from breathing for several seconds, right in class.

Yeah, I could understand his lack of willingness to laugh it off, but I had gone through a helluva lot worse treatment than he did from my poor and ill-advised attempt at friendly jabbing, regardless of how much I brought on myself. 

In addition to the four points noted above, I would add these mitigating factors, not as excuses, but just in helping me cope over it all:

5) A playing partner and I witnessed someone else cheating in the "100" round, but we did nothing.  Doing something could have kept me from finishing dead last, but I didn't want to put him through the embarrassment.

6) Several years later, while playing with a friend and younger member of the same team, he confessed to me that he actually had cheated in a match.

7) The type of person I've become was at least in part shaped by my experiences over the two years on the high school golf team. I'd like to think for the better, as one motto I try to live by is to do the right thing when no one is watching.

Do I cheat today? In a match, MGA-sanctioned or otherwise event: never. I've called strokes against myself when I didn't have to as there were no witnesses. Not saying I deserve a medal...just saying.

When I play with friends, since I keep an MGA handicap, I still don't cheat, unless at least three conditions are met:

1) My buddies tell me to

2) It won't affect my GHIN index one way or another

3) Pace of play favors just moving on with the round

If they tell me to just take a drop when I've lost a ball, it gets sticky.  I typically add not one, but two penalty strokes, and almost invariably end up making at least my max double-bogey for Equitable Stroke purposes. I suppose one could say that ends up overstating my handicap, which is another form of cheating. Sorry, I won't feel guilty of the .02 strokes that artificially inflates it when we're trying to fight slow play in the world today.

Anyway, that's my "short, brief" confession.  It feels good.  I honestly thought I might get emotional typing it, but it was quite liberating.  I hope I didn't miss anything, but I don't really want to proof it other than a quick spelling check. I'll probably come back to it another day to make sure I didn't miss anything important.

If anyone is reading this, please, ask me follow-up questions. Full disclosure will give me closure. And thank you.

To Another Bowling Season

I haven't posted much about bowling since the Baton Rouge debacle that almost made me retire.  Not even sure I posted at all about it.  But it's a new season, and I'm off to my best league start (for 6 games) ever. It may be nothing, but after Baton Rouge, I vowed to make some changes in my game.  Namely:

1. Come from behind the ball better, instead of around it
2. Improve timing
3. Increase ball speed by about 1 mph (success in #1 and #2 should make this happen, or at least much more easily)
4. Improve spare shooting: throw a straight ball at the vast majority of my simple spares (went 11-for-11 in week 2)

One way I plan to make such improvements is to work with an old friend who happens to be a local pro.  He's a guy who seems to enjoy talking bowling as much as I do, so I'm looking forward to picking his brain.

Oh, and about that switch to the Del-Ballard-Style I wrote about last year: it didn't last. I can sometimes get success with it, but it limits my already shorter-than-average back swing, and in today's game, that isn't going to cut it.

Ryder Cup

I sure do enjoy the Ryder Cup, although I tend to think along the lines of David Duval, who famously, or infamously, suggested it was just an exhibition several years ago.  Really, that IS all that it is.  How anyone can get super patriotic over the result of a competition in an elitist sport consisting of one dozen very wealthy members of one set of states versus another dozen very wealthy members of another set of states is beyond me.

And yet, I'm one of those who does.  Well, maybe it doesn't make me patriotic, but I do so want the Americans to win every time it's played.  Crazy, ain't it?  I can't wait!

State Mid-Am: Hope I Don't Miss Out This Year

With my back at 100% (and by that, I mean 100% of what I can reasonably expect it to be), I am starting to play a little more golf now - only about as much as I was playing last year, at best.  But my scores haven't quite improved, despite my showing signs of playing better than ever.  The driver is still a little too crooked, although light years from where it had been recently, pre- and post-back issues.  Driver yips is what I had, and have hopefully remedied that, if not straightened it out altogether (yeah, that'll happen).

Because of said issues, not to mention being closer to 50 than 40 in age now, my handicap has reached Rita Coolidge territory (at an "All Time High"). OK, it's at 7.4, and has been higher of course, but not in the last 10 years probably. You can see the chart of my most recent 20 rounds below.

The tragedy in all this, other than a slight ego dip, is that the annual tournament I look forward to, uh, annually, requires it to be no higher than 6.4.  It's the Minnesota Golf Association's Mid-Amateur Championship, hosted every September on two courses.  I missed last year's, which actually was OK because my back was in no shape to be playing with, but I had played in it the previous four years.

This year was going to be really cool, not because I was going to finally make the cut for the third day of play (probably not likely), but because of the host courses this year.  One of them is Midland Hills in Roseville, which was, and I believe still is, the home course to my Alma mater, Roseville Area High School (Alexander Ramsey when I was there, pre-merger with Frank B. Kellogg High School). I haven't played the course in nearly 30 years.

The other is Town and Country Club, of which the V.P. of Sales in my company is a member, and has talked about taking me to sometime. I will then no doubt impress him so much with my character over the next four or so hours, surely the fast track will be mine.  He has offered some insight on the course as well (bring your straight club; leave driver in the bag whenever possible), and it would be nice to get it on the course for a practice round.

So I've got some work to do by the time my entry fee is due (September 4 ).  I'll need to drop my handicap a full stroke; some of which will be accomplished by my recent score of 79 (two combined nines from league play equalling a 6.0 stroke differential). If I were to play the same 18 holes for my next two rounds, scores of 77 and 76 would do it.

I wouldn't have to play quite so well if I can get four full rounds in by the time I register.  The challenge is that the next revision schedules after tomorrow are August 15 and September 1.  So if I don't get my handicap down by August 31, I won't be able to enter.  But if I don't get it down until after August 14, I'll be forced to wait until just a few days before entries close for the tournament before I can enter, and thus risk it being filled up, and I left out.

So my plan is to try to get three full rounds in on or before Aug 14, and hope that at least two of them are really good.  If so, I'll have a chance to come up with excuses-a-plenty as to why I again missed the cut.

If not, my sessions with my old friend and bowling pro instructor might begin a little early this year.

My Awful Golf Swing

My wife and I went on a wonderful trip to the Maine coastline last month. We stayed at The Samoset Resort, known as "The Pebble Beach of the East." The views from the fairways along the coast were phenomenal. Fortunately, the similarities ended there, as Pebble Beach $500 greens fees are a bit to dear for me. The early season rate of $70, including cart, suited me just fine at Samoset. And the lobster....yummy!

During one of our rounds, my wife caught my swing on video with her iPhone. Although the quality isn't exactly ShotLink-calibre, I was able to learn a lot from what she captured. I already knew that I had a problem with a lack of lag in my swing away from the driving range. Almost a yip-like reaction, in fact, when on the course. But what I saw on her phone was horrifying.

So I've decided to make lemonade from my lemon of a swing. I hope you enjoy my analysis, and if you have any thoughts to add, by all means....

I'm OK with this set-up.  The ball isn't as close to the left heel as
is commonly taught, but this angle is a little deceiving,
so it's not quite as much in the center of my stance as it may
appear. I tend to put the ball a little farther back in my
stance than "normal" with all of my clubs.

Still OK with the swing. Not quite to parallel, but I'm fine
with it.  J.B. Holmes, Tom Lehman, and others don't
go to parallel, and they generate ample club head speed.

It's hard to tell without the pictures side-by-side, or better
yet, overlapped, but my downswing starts with a quirky
move where I actually raise the club head a bit. I don't
like it, but it's not the worst part of my swing.

Here is where the worst part of my swing starts to
rear its ugly head. My wrists are already starting to
break down.  Horrible. The forearm/shaft angle should
still be at least 90-degrees here, and it clearly is not.
I also dislike how my legs flare, largely due to the
feet not being square at setup. I'm OK with the left
foot flare, a little at least, but don't like the
right foot.

One frame later, and there is almost no lag left. Absolutely
dreadful. One the absolute most key principles that
separate the pros from amateurs is the lag at about .05
seconds before impact, and I've already lost nearly all
of it here.

Right after impact, it's clear that I had begun my release
far too soon. And why is that right arm not tucked near
the side of my body? I taught myself that move in becoming
a fairly decent power hitter in softball. It's also a
fundamental of a good golf swing, and yet I'm nowhere
near doing it correctly.

This isn't so bad.  You would never know that what
immediately preceded it was so hideous.

Wrists rolling; again, not so bad.

A bit of a weak Reverse C finish, but not all bad.  A little
Nicklaus-like if I do say so myself.

Now for the positives:  Hmmmm. Give me a minute.

OK, that I can still swing at about 110 mph with this swing should mean that I have a serious upside if I can make the right changes. The lag/delayed release is what can generate so much effortless power from the pros. I have the strength to do it; I just need to put in the quality reps to make it habit.

I've already spent good time on the range trying to fix it, and results so far are positive. A nice side effect is that I re-aggravated an old back injury, which has severely limited my playing time, so I have to take it easy when practicing. How is that good? I'm getting to it.

Working on the small muscles to create lag in my swing is a lot easier on my back than trying to get it with a violent hip turn. I've lost no club head speed, despite swinging much easier now.  Once the back is 100% again (should I be so lucky), I would hope I could pick up a few more mph.

I'll keep the blog up-to-date with my progress, and assuming my back continues to get better, I'll do a similar bowling analysis. The debacle that was the USBC Open Championships this year made me do some soul searching.  But again, lemons to lemonade, it allowed me to discover a key thing the pros do that I don't do, and the similarity to my golf swing is striking, no pun intended.

Stay tuned.

Baton Rouge Breakdown

The trip to Baton Rouge a month ago for the USBC Open Championship couldn't have gone much worse, and yet I see nothing but silver linings.

For the tournament, I averaged 60 pins below my league average.  That's ten pins per game worse than I did last year, except last year my average was ten pins higher. (So it's really 20 pins worse per game.)

For the second year in a row, I had thumb swelling issues.  You'd think I would have learned to get the balls re-drilled to be large enough in the thumb holes to avoid this.

Don't get me wrong; I doubt I would have done well regardless.  The thumb hole wasn't sticking for the entire 90 frames, although it sure felt like it in afterthought. And my spare ball wasn't quite as bad, yet I couldn't pick up spares to save my life.

But it wasn't just the bowling that went wrong.  From having to wait around several hours after the flight landed due to some communication mix-ups, to United Airlines losing two of my bowling balls on the return flight (I got them back eventually), it was a comedy of errors. "Comedy" is a good word for it, too, as I am able to have a laugh at it all now, and I even managed to laugh at it while it was all happening.

So I'm looking forward to the things I need to work on already, beyond equipment issues. And I'm looking forward to redemption in Reno next year.

If any team will have me after this year's debacle, that is.

...and to think the Dixie Chicks' careers were ruined

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell

I haven't posted too often about political issues on my blog, although I hope to do more of that in the near future, perhaps even starting separate blog to do so. Part of the reason is that I don't want to alienate friends who may disagree with my points of view. I believe reasonable people can disagree reasonably, but you never know who's going to go unreasonable on you.

This whole Ted Nugent vs. President Obama thing compels me to write at least a little. As might be apparent in my few political posts, I tend to "lean left." The best way I could describe what I mean by that is if you were to take, say, 20 hot-button issues of the day, I would probably be on the "left" on about 13 of them, give or take. Relative to, that is, the general populace, NOT what the Fox News folks would want you to believe.

So while Bill O'Reilly no doubt would call the likes of me "far left" (to help move the perceived center as he is wont to do), the Nuge reminds me of one issue that gets me going sometimes. If you were to believe him and his NRA brethren, you'd believe guys like I want to take everyone's guns away. They even use the fact that Obama has attempted no such thing as an argument that he will do so if reelected.

That people believe this stuff is mind numbing.

It won't help, I'm sure, but I can definitively say that I know many, many people who are left of me politically. My wife, in fact, is a deer-lover. She'd swerve to miss a deer even if it meant putting pedestrians' lives in jeopardy. And yet I can say this with 100% honesty: I know of absolutely no one who wants to take away your or anyone's guns.

Sure, many like myself want reasonable laws to keep up with the times. Did our Forefathers have semi-automatics, or even nuclear weapons in mind when they considered the Second Amendment? So laws like waiting periods seem to make sense. This is no less an attack on the 2nd than saying you can't scream "Fire!" in a crowded theatre is on the 1st.

Put simply, it's a lie that people like the Motor City Madman keep perpetuating.

But if anyone reading this already believes it, I doubt my words have made an iota of difference.

Fenway Park and the Pebble Beach of The East

After checking StubHub nearly daily for over a month, I finally found five tickets that were decent enough, and reasonably priced enough, for the Boston Red Sox vs. Cleveland game May 10 at Fenway Park. Author Harvey Mackay once wrote, "A dream is a bargain at any price." So I could have spent more and justified it, but as I posted last month, I need to mind our budget.

I had a chance to buy a pair of State Street Pavilion Club tickets for $80 (face value is $170), but knew that my wife and I would likely be going to the game with her friend and her friend's kids. It wasn't easy to find five together that worked out price- and location-wise. Fenway Park is a "bucket list" item for me, but I wasn't going to settle for being 500 feet from home plate just to save a buck or two hundred. So for some $66+ per ticket after fees, we got our seats.

In fact, only four of them are together, and one is directly behind the four. I figure I'll take the one, while my wife catches up with her friend and helps with the kids. So that will be fine. I just won't be able to save their lives when a line drive comes their way while I'm watching every pitch, and they're comparing stories of motherhood.

My wife has interesting friends, in a good way. This particular friend happens to be a fairly recent Mrs. New Hampshire winner. Her husband is bass player for the metal band (or whatever genre you call their style) Godsmack, one of the few bands of their ilk that I quite enjoy.

(I don't think they'll mind my bragging about knowing them; I would guess that they pity me enough to offer their support.)

In fact, the idea was to get together when the band wasn't touring so that he could go, too, and when I reached out to her, she didn't think they'd be touring yet in early May. As it turns out, they are, and had I booked the trip for just a week later, their concerts would have been close enough to the Boston/New England area to meet up with the whole family. But I wasn't confident that I'd be able to find an open week to trade my RCI timeshare, as the Samoset Resort, where we're staying in Rockland, Maine, is pretty popular once spring gets going.

I'm pretty pumped for that part of the trip, too, as another "bucket list" item of mine is to play golf at Pebble Beach. Until I decide to take out a home equity loan to pay Pebble's fees (plus mandatory stay at the Lodge at Pebble Beach), Samoset, a.k.a. "The Pebble Beach of the East," will have to do. The sub-$100 greens fees make me smile, too.

Minnesota Warming

Sometime in the late 1970s I believe, there was a Sears Die Hard battery commercial which featured a car in the middle of a frozen lake in International Falls, MN. It wasn't even in the winter; it was in April. See, that's how long it stays cold in International Falls, near the Minnesota/Canada border. The point of the spot was that you can leave a Sears Die Hard battery in a parked car all winter long in International Falls, and it will still fire up just before the ice melts.

Today, International Falls broke its record high temperature. By 20 degrees! It reached 79 today. Yes, 79 degrees, in the winter, in International Falls.

That's like 33 degrees in August...in Hell.

I suppose there still is some ice on the lakes in IF, but I wouldn't walk on it, let alone hop in a car to see if the battery has lasted the winter.

Now, to the Global Warming deniers, of the human-aided kind (AGW) or otherwise, I won't be foolish enough to commit the same fallacy that many deniers do when they say, "Where's your global warming now?" whenever we get a big snowfall or cold spell.

But I will say this: "Why so quiet, now?"

Why March Madness just doesn't mean that much to me

As someone who enjoys athletic competition, I get caught up in a lot of events, especially when I have a reason to root for a team, even if it's not my favorite game. I'm thinking specifically of basketball, a game that I continue to lose more and more interest in.

What triggered this post is that in a rarity, my alma mater high school is/was ranked in the top ten in Minnesota. Tonight, they had a chance to go to the state tournament, but lost in OT in the regional final.

I saw the game-winning basket on the news tonight. The winning team's player dished the ball off to a teammate, who laid it in. In dishing it off, however, he also plowed over a well-positioned defender. After viewing and reviewing the play several times, thanks to DVR technology, I know a few things:

1) It was a textbook charge that went uncalled
2) It happened right in front of the official
3) My blood pressure went up a bit

Basketball is as fun a game to play as any for me, except perhaps ice hockey. But it's terribly frustrating to watch, because of the officiating. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with basketball officials as a whole; rather, the game itself simply makes for what seems to be a flip-a-coin process in deciding when to call fouls. Still, so often it seems that the officials are too afraid to make the calls that so clearly happen right in front of them, especially in the final minute.

"Let them play!" the non-thinkers say.

"No, make them play, so that it's a fair result," I say.

Yes, ice hockey needs to call boarding more strictly, and call a penalty a penalty even late in the 3rd period and overtime.

Yes, baseball umpires make up their own strike zones.

And yes, football officials seem to have trouble with holding and interference calls, to name a couple.

Yet none of them seem so random as in the calling and non-calling of basketball fouls. I'm sure you could point to a time earlier in the game where my school got away with something, and the calls probably do typically even out. But it's all about the integrity of the game, and a game that over the years has required me to invest a couple hours or more of my time, only to be decided by something so random as to whether an official decides to blow a whistle or not, has very little credibility with me. I also find it ironic that basketball officials are the least tolerant of criticism, "T-ing up" people if they look at them funny.

As much as anything, this is why I hope my two youngest boys don't follow their brother's footsteps by quitting hockey and switching to basketball. I'll put up with an idiotic parent cheering on his imbecilic son who just cross-checked my boy with no call from the ref. But I can't handle endings like I saw tonight.

Leaping Lucifer, look what day it is!

It's another late night finishing up some stuff for work that I didn't get to today. Yesterday I received 206 e-mails, 174 of them work-related. I'm working on a mini-project to break down the work e-mails beyong just how many. It's been very busy lately, but I guess that's a good thing.

It's also the last day of February, so I figured I'd better take a break from disecting e-mails and such to post something...anything. Not because February 29 only comes every four years. Rather, it's because lately my blog posts have come only about every four weeks.

So true to form, I'm realizing another month without as many blog posts as I'd like is about to end, and thus am trying to get one more in before the new month starts. Only this time, it's zero. So I will be clicking "Publish Post" before the stroke of midnight, because I would hate to have to try to access Facebook on a pumpkin tomorrow morning.

Lots has been happening lately, not just at work, but in my personal life. I'm glad my tax return will be nice, as much of the happenings happen to be expensive. To wit:

1. I just bought four tickets today to the Madonna concert coming up in November. Just under $800. We hope to sell two of them at a nominal profit, to help pay for some of it.
2. The trip to Baton Rouge for the USBC Open Championship is coming up. April 28 & 29, to be exact.
3. While I'm in Baton Rouge, Bruce Springsteen will be performing in New Orleans. I might just have to take the drive to see the Boss for the sixth time. It will be sad without Clarence this go-round.
4. After the USBC trip, my wife and I are going to vacation in Maine. We'll stop in Boston for a game at Fenway.
5. My son graduates high school in June.
6. I'm taking my daughters to the Brian Regan show Friday night. I took my son to it last time around, so it's their turn.
7. My wife and I have decided to put curbing in our yard this year, replacing the plastic lining that has been gradually coming out, being clipped by the lawnmower, etc., over the last nine years.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm starting to get depressed. I may have to skip the Springsteen show. Until, that is, he swings by the Twin Cities.

More Bitterness: Super Bowl Broadcasting Pet Peeves

This isn't against any broadcasters in particular, but in the general consensus there seems to be among NFL historians that even though a Super Bowl occurred in one year, they call it the Super Bowl of the previous year. It gets especially annoying this time of year, when 'round-the-clock, so it seems, we see highlights from past Super Bowls and Super Bowl teams.

I get it that "The 1998 Vikings" is the correct or best way to refer to the 15-1 team that came a dropped interception* away from reaching the big game. But when the announcer calls the Super Bowl they failed to reach, "The 1998 Super Bowl," I just scratch my head.

More like beat it with my open palm.

It almost sorta-kinda made sense back in the day when the Super Bowl and some playoff games were the only games played after the new year. But now all of the postseason, and even some regular season games occur in the new year. We won't call the NHL finale this spring, "The 2011 Stanley Cup Finals." Nor should we call this Sunday's game, "The 2011 Super Bowl."

But people will, I'm sure. People with jobs about which I'm bitter that I don't have, and that I'm sure I could do better, even though I never proved it when I had the chance.


*That missed INT was every bit as easy as Anderson's missed FG, and it occurred afterwards, with no time for Atlanta to make a comeback. So unlike the missed FG that most historians mention, I look at THAT play as the one that really cost the Vikes a trip to the Show.

More Embittered Criticism of Broadcasters

I posted on Facebook during the BCS championship game a pet peeve of mine, being committed by color analyst Kirk Herbstreit, when he said "excaped" twice in the game.

That shouldn't even be a pet peeve. Pet peeves are the little things that bug you. A national network broadcaster doing a championship game doing that is a disgrace. But then, as you may recall, I'm hypercritical of broadcasters, having been one for five years, and leaving the business despite it forever remaining in my blood.

Anyway, I have another gripe, aimed at local sportscaster Mark Rosen, as well as many others who have committed the same blunder. He said Baltimore Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff "pushed" his missed field goal (and said it twice, which is important to note, since I generally excuse mistakes when done only once, as possibly just moments of misspeaking).

The rule: It's just like in golf. When a right-footed kicker misses left, that's pulling it. When he misses right, that's pushing it.

I really need to see a therapist.

Bowling a 300: An Exercise in Probability and Statistics

February 8 will mark the 24th anniversary of my first and only sanctioned 300 game of bowling. I like to tell people I got mine back when it "meant something," which is mostly true, although most bowling historians (can I get a job like that?) will tell you that even in 1988, a 300 meant less than it did even only years prior, and in 1983, it meant less than five years prior to that. But at least it meant enough to feel like a once-in-a-lifetime event when it happened to this 21-year-old, a whole house full of bowlers stopped what they were doing to watch, and the 12th strike strike was met with a huge roar.

The problem with joke-boasting about having done it when it "meant something" is that one would expect that I'd have no trouble doing it again (and again, and again, ...). I expect it will come, but the closest I've come since "getting back into" bowling in recent years and actually keeping up with technology has been a 296 game (left the bucket...too much speed on the final shot). I've also had 15 in a row over the course of two games (Andy Veripapa, anyone?)

So the other day I was wondering, what would the mathematical odds be of me bowling a 300 game on any particular night? If I treated my bowling like a dice game, I could calculate this. Luckily, if a bit geekily, I keep stats for fun, and can indeed calculate this.

Among stats I keep are strike percentage and double percentage (how often I follow a strike with another strike). Over the past two season, with 72 games logged, my strike percentage is 64.71%. My double percentage is 63.25% (which means I might be inclined to let the nerves get to me knowing how important it is to follow a strike with another one).

So, if we had a 10,000-sided die to roll (take that, D&D fans), we could mimic my game by saying that everything between 1 and 6471 would be a strike, and in a frame following a strike, everything between 1 and 6325 would be a strike.

The odds, then, of a 300 game would be .6471 * .6325^11 = .004194, or .42% rounded off. Put another way, you could expect a 300 game every 238 games or so.

There was a time in my life where I bowled that many sanctioned games in a season. If I still were, I might be one of those guys with several 300 games to his credit. Still, the top bowlers in the Twin Cities area have scores of 300 scores (see what I did there?), so they are doing more than just bowling more. They are indeed bowling better. The former does tend to beget the latter, but there's more to bowling closer to your potential than simply bowling more.

If I were to improve my strike and double percentages to 65% each, my likelihood of a 300 game becomes 1 in 176. Improve them to 66.67% each (2 strikes in every 3 shots), and it's 1 in 130. At 70% each, it's 1 in 72.

The "dice" game version of course does not factor in the human element of pressure. The die would not know that it had just rolled 11 strikes in a row. So how does a human combat this? Knowledge is power, I say. Knowing that my time will come if I am just patient should, in theory, allow me to relax more when a game gets into the "nervous zone" of 8 or 9 strikes in a row. I just need to wait it out, and it will happen. Maybe not within the 238-game span, but it will, eventually.

Yeah, I know, easier said than done.

One other thing is clear from the statistics: Since I'm not likely to get permission from the better half to bowl 238, 176, or even 130 games a year, it behooves me to try to improve with the relatively few games I am able to bowl and practice, if I am to not only get that next 300 soon, but even more to come.

Ice Hockey and Checking

I received an e-mail from the Minnesota Hockey Association with the following:

Minnesota Hockey families:
Due to the tragic injury suffered recently by Jack Jablonski in a high school hockey game, the Minneapolis Hockey Association created Jack's Pledge. The Minneapolis Hockey Association is where Jack played youth hockey and developed his strong passion for our wonderful sport. Jack's Pledge is a grassroots program aimed at enhancing safety in the game of hockey. Through membership in Jack's Pledge, hockey associations, hockey teams, hockey coaches and hockey players pledge to play the right way -- Jack's way -- by the rules, safe, smart and skillfully.

We strongly encourage you to learn more about Jack's Pledge here.

Thank you,
Minnesota Hockey

Now, while I appreciate the sentiment, and agree that something should be done, I can't help but wonder why the Minnesota Hockey Association doesn't just insist on enforcing USA Hockey's declarations. To wit:

“The purpose of a body check is to (get position to) separate the opponent from the puck. Any time a player delivers a check for the purpose of intimidating or punishing the opponent, and therefore causes the opponent to be driven excessively into the boards, a boarding penalty must be called.”

I took the above quote from an excellent article by Jack Blatherwick, former strength and training coach with the University of Minnesota hockey team, an expert in training for hockey, and somewhat of a curmudgeon when it comes to the purity (or lack thereof) of the game.

Here are his most recent articles from the publication Let's Play Hockey, both of which were inspired by the recent injuries suffered by high school players Jack Jablonski and Jenna Privette.

Boarding penalty must be enforced with zero tolerance

Adults must make it happen: Replace violence with skill

To put it simply, spot on, Mr. Blatherwick.

Second League Session With New Style

I rolled a 683 with my new-old "Del Ballard" style last Tuesday. Scored 247, 201, and 235 for a 683. While better than average, there was a good deal of disappointment in it.

I started game one with seven straight strikes, then left a ringing 10-pin, and proceeded to Mika my spare shot right in the channel. I beat my man by five pins (one pin actual, as I get four sticks on him, since he averages over 240), so that was OK, but a seven pin in the 10th kept me from getting my team the win.

Game two I got a little lost, striking only five times, whiffed another 10-pin, this time to the left, but still managed to tie my opponent actual, thus winning with my handicap. Our team won our game as well. Game three was odd, and was not looking good, but I benefited from a 10-pin by my opponent in the tenth, while I went sheet from the 8th frame for a 235. It tied my opponent actual, giving me the win with my sticks, plus another team win.

Pretty cool tying my guy twice and beating him by one pin in the other in actual pin count. You don't see that too often.

So while my new form definitely worked in leading me to the pocket, my poor spare shooting and occasional brain cramping kept me from having a real fine series. Still, all in all, I'm encouraged.