Year: 2007   (from newest to oldest)

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

LD in Big D

2007 LD in Big DAce and I, along with my nephew Cameron attended the inaugural LD in Big D boomerang tournament. This was a Long Distance competition that took place at Eastfield College in Mesquite. The three of us performed below our expectations, but several of the competitors got over 100 meters. The top three finishers were Tom Wythes with 130 meters, Stu Jones with 113 meters, and Joe Rader and David Hirsch tying with 112 meters. Ace lets an LD flyAce was the family champion (2nd place in Intermediate), beating Cameron and I with his toss of 79 meters. This was 10-meter improvement on his personal best set in Houston in 2004 when he was also about 10 inches shorter. It was blazing hot, and we went through water and Gatorade like crazy. One gentleman collapsed from the heat well before noon (he was fine after cooling down in the shade and being checked out by paramedics), and it only got hotter from there. Unfortunately, prior engagements kept us for coming back for Day 2, so we only got two rounds of throwing in, and I felt terrible about not being able to help the guys out on Sunday. The good news is that they were able to round up enough people to range-spot and line-judge, so they were able to get another official round in on Sunday, even though the 3 of us couldn’t make it back. Ace and Cameron's fake musclesIt was definitely a fun outing, and even though LD isn’t my strong suit, it sure whet my appetite for trying to beat my personal best at some point in the near future. See my small photo gallery here, and here’s a link to the Dallas Morning News’ pre-tournment write-up.

Filed under: Andrew, Bruce  •  No Comments
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

The Strikers Go Undefeated

2007 Spring Soccer LeagueAt the beginning of this soccer season, Coach Shan told the team that this would be the last time he coached. The team complained strongly, begging him to come back again. He thought he was in the clear when he told them he would agree to come back only if they went undefeated this season. So of course they did it! This was the Waxahachie YMCA U13 Coed Soccer league. Last season was also a coed league, but our girls were a strong enough team to compete against teams of both boys and girls. This season, we brought in 4 brothers to make up an 11-a-side team. This included one of the girls’ twin, and her other, younger set of identical twin brothers. This was also our first league on a full-size field, so running was strongly stressed in the twice-weekly practices. Spring 2007 Soccer Holly PhotoHolly continued to improve and scored some goals on offense, but it became evident that she was most valuable to the team on defense. Her and the other tenacious defenders were sometimes so effective that they gave our goalie a half where she never even needed to touch the ball. The end-of-season party was at Pizza Hut where trophies and team photos were handed out, and where Coach Shan assured the team that he would be true to his word and coach them again in this Fall’s U14 league.

"Who wants to play next season?" The 'Serious' Team Photo 'Bugg' says Hi

Click here for the full photo album.

Filed under: Holly  •  2 Comments
Saturday, April 7th, 2007

A Rare April Snow

April Snow 2007The ground was too warm for any accumulation, but we experienced a rare April snow. There were flurries throughout the day, sometimes looking like a proper snow storm. By evening though, the ground was just a little damp, and photos were the only proof that it had really snowed.

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Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Spring Flood

The aftermath of a huge downpour.Soon after I completed Phase 1 of the Dry Creek Bed, we got an incredible amount of rain incredibly quickly. I saw reports of between 6 and 8 inches in just a few hours. Water was filling all the ditches, rushing over the road, and washing my carefully placed river rock down to the very back of my property. Scariest of all is that the front yard was so flooded, that water rose onto our porch, coming right up to the front door threshold. So not only do I have to do a lot of reworking of the creek, but I now plan to do some excavating to make the front yard drain better, to avoid the possibility of the house getting flooded if we ever have huge torrents of rain like that again.

Filed under: Home Improvement  •  No Comments
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

New Speed Test Site

I used to use Speakeasy.net for my Internet speed testing. I have recently discovered Speedtest.net and it has some pretty cool features, including a history of your testing. Below is my most recent result. See if your connection is as fast.

Filed under: Tech  •  1 Comment
Monday, March 19th, 2007

Dry Creek Bed Phase 1

Dry creek bed from the topSpring Break means another huge landscaping project. This year, we put in a 200 foot long dry creek bed. We are at the lowest point on the road, and we’ve had a problem with water draining through places we don’t want it to. We’ve finally decided to show nature who’s boss and route the water where we want it to go. This involved raising a low area, and more importantly, digging a trench. Luckily I was able to borrow a Bobcat skid-steer loader early in the project to get the basic shape of the trench started. This was incredibly helpful to getting the project going, and since I had never driven one before, it was also a rather fun learning experience. I was also able to borrow a neighbor’s excellent Kubota tractor, which included a front loader and a box blade. This allowed me to complete the trench and was also instrumental in hauling and spreading the “river rock” gravel base and Brazos cobble stone top layer.

Digging the trench Trench dirt used for fill The topsoil has been spread

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Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Tried my new Golf Clubs

I got some new golf clubs for Christmas: A set of TaylorMade V Steel fairway woods, 3, 5, and 7. “7-wood”, you ask? Yep. I’ve finally admitted that I’m old, so I’m happy to have this “old man” club. I haven’t hit a good shot with my 3 or 4 iron in years, and now I won’t even have to try. On Spring Break, I finally got a chance to try the new clubs out. I’d been waiting since December, so I was very anxious. I teed off with the 3-wood and it seemed to go nearly as far as my driver normally did, and it was definitely easier to control. I hit the 7 wood at every opportunity, and was very pleased. It goes 170-180 with little effort. I hit it on a couple of par 3’s where it was really too much club, but I just couldn’t get enough of it. This has turned out to be an excellent Christmas gift.

Filed under: Bruce  •  No Comments
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

New Denon AVR-887

Our new A/V receiver: The Denon AVR-887.Our new A/V receiver: The Denon AVR-887. It has HDMI switching for future use, but more importantly for now, it has high-def component switching and lots of digital audio inputs. This allowed me to get rid of 2 manual switches that my setup previously required.

Filed under: Home Theater  •  No Comments
Monday, January 15th, 2007

2007 Ice Storm

We had a bit of an ice storm in the middle of January. Click here for more photos.

DSCI0148 DSCI0149 DSCI0150

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Thursday, January 4th, 2007

Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Bailey RaeI’ve found another excellent musical artist via SNL: Corinne Bailey Rae. I loved her two performances on SNL and was very pleased to receive the CD as a Christmas gift. I’ve listened to the full album several times, with no hints of getting tired of any of it. I’m not sure exactly how to describe her style, but there are definitely elements of Soul, Jazz, Blues, and R&B. My first thought was “kinda sounds like Nora Jones”, then I thought maybe Alicia Keys, and even India Arie or Sade. I’ll definitely be putting a mix together with all these other ladies, but right now, Corinne Bailey Rae is by far my favorite.

Filed under: Music  •  3 Comments