Holly was one of three nominees for “Cub Sweetheart”, the junior-high equivalent of Homecoming Queen. Along with the other nominees, she appeared in the Homecoming parade, riding in a Beetle convertible and waving to the crowd. Several pictures are available in the gallery.
Oh, yeah: She ended up winning!
The 2008 National Boomerang Championships and Expo are coming to Dallas!
I am co-hosting the tournament at Eastfield College in Mesquite Thursday through Sunday. It’s my bad luck that we finally got the tournament on the same year that the world championships were in Seattle. Lots of the regular competitors used up their travel budget for that tournament, so I’m not expecting as big a turnout as the Nationals usually have. We’ll have around thirty throwers, and some of these folks are the best in the world.
If you want to see something you’ve never seen before and may never see again, come on down to Mesquite on Saturday or Sunday and watch a bunch of guys and gals throw curved sticks at themselves. In addition to seeing some exciting action, you can purchase boomerangs and we’ll teach you how to throw and maybe even catch them.
Here’s the official web site with maps and schedules: www.boomerangexpo.com.
The Lady Cubs volleyball team took 3rd place in their first tournament of the year. Holly and all the girls played great, and more importantly, played great together. It was great fun watching them have fun. And they didn’t want the fun to end: After the tournament, almost the entire team had a sleepover together.
I’ve started putting together an album of volleyball photos, but there are only a few so far. Check it out here.
He waited until the last minute, but Andrew finally whipped up a T-shirt design for the 2008 National Boomerang Championships and Expo. The design will be on the front of over 100 shirts that we’re ordering for the event. Click the thumbnail to see a larger version. Go to the Expo site to see what the design looks like on different colored shirts.
The USBA National Boomerang Championships and Expo is coming to Dallas in October this year, and I decided I wanted to try to get in a little better shape by then. It seemed like having some of my neighbor buddies also trying to lose some weight would be a good motivator. A few of them agreed and the “Skinner Road Committee Fat Contest” (or “Biggest Loser”) was born. Our first weigh-in was June 1st, and the final one will be October 1st.
I’ve never made a concerted effort to try to lose weight before, but I figured I should be able to lose 25 pounds in about 3 months time. Though it was hard work, it did turn out to be doable. In fact, in only 9 weeks time, I’ve achieved that 25 pound goal! My new goal for October 1st is 35 pounds. If I make that, I ought to be able to move around on the boomerang field much better than I could have 35 pounds heavier.
How am I doing it? Well, anyone who knows me, knows that pasta is my staple food, with lots of pizza thrown in too. I’m still eating the same stuff, just less of it. Also less and smaller snacks and I’ve cut back on beer. Probably most importantly, I’m getting way more exercise. I’ve borrowed a LifeCycle exercise bike from one of my fellow contestants and have ridden it over 500 minutes. Walking the dog and just playing with him in the yard has helped out too. My real secret weapon though, is walking golf courses in 100+ degree heat. That started out really tough, but it’s a breeze now. Some people don’t think of golf as being that great an exercise, but walking 4+ miles definitely burns some calories. Heck, just being on your feet for 4 or so hours has got to be good for you. Plus, my average golf score has dropped by several strokes. 🙂
I was curious how far these golf walks were and found a cool web site that lets you draw a path of where you’ve walked and it calculates the distance and calories burned. Here are maps of two courses I’ve walked a bunch this summer:
Of course the routes I drew are straighter than reality and the calorie estimate doesn’t take into account swinging the golf club dozens of times.
Our neighbor Ed got us tickets to the Death Cab for Cutie concert at The Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie. We were in the Nokia luxury suite and it was a heck of a show. The photos are terrible because the only camera I had was my cell phone and it doesn’t handle low-light situations very well.
For the second year in a row, my nephew Cameron Kelsey was down from Oklahoma visiting during the weekend of the “LD in Big-D” long distance boomerang tournament. Last year Cameron, Ace, and I all competed in the tournament, and we were all disappointed in our performances. Cameron showed great promise, throwing incredible distances, but not quite getting those awesome throws to fully return.
This year was different. On Cameron’s first throw, he got what looked like respectable distance, and a very nice return. The official measurement: 118 meters! This was the first successful return of the tournament, and it would stand through all 5 rounds as the winning throw.
We weren’t able to be at the tournament for the second day so we only got in three rounds, but Ace and I didn’t do too shabby ourselves. Ace set a new personal best at 106 meters and I set new personal bests with throws of 89, 94, 100, and finally 107 meters. (Yes, my best beat Ace’s by 1 measly meter.) Not only did we all set personal bests, but we are finally in the “100 Meter Club”. Our results should be up on the LD website, www.baggressive.com soon.
At the end of the second round, Cameron, myself, and Ace were in first, second, and third. This drew some good-natured ribbing and threats of finding something in the by-laws against that kind of family collusion.
We all have to thank the tournament host, David Hirsch for sharing his LD boomerangs with us, and helping tune them between throws. Thanks, David!
Since neither Cameron, myself, or Ace had ever thrown over 100 meters before, we were classified as “Intermediate” competitors. So not only was Cameron the Tournament Champion, he was also the Intermediate Champion. Ace was the Junior Champion, though there were only 2 juniors entered.
There was other excitement too. We had a storm blow in and cause a rain delay. I needed a break at that point, because I had worn myself out by chasing my wind-blown golf umbrella clear off the campus and into an apartment complex across the street. There was a also scary moment when one of my throws hit a range spotter, slicing his pinky finger to the bone. Glad to hear you’re OK, Larry!
I didn’t have my good camera out much, but I did take a few phone-camera shots. A small gallery is available here.
Here’s something I had heard about, but just now found. I don’t know how long this link will remain active, but there’s a pre-tournament news spot video on WFAA’s site here: http://www.wfaa.com/video/?z=y&nvid=253881
Here are the full final results:
There’s been tons of stuff on this site about Holly’s athletic accomplishments, but she is also a very good student. On Friday she was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. Because of the lighting, we couldn’t get good photos of the ceremony itself, but we’ve got some gorgeous photos of Holly both before and after. Click here for the gallery.
We’ve been promising the kids for several years that we would get a dog. Andrew’s 16th birthday turned out to be the occasion for finally making it happen. Michelle and Andrew drove over two hours into East Texas to pick up “Scout”, a pure-bred Border Collie. We’re looking forward to years of fun with him. More photos are in the Scout gallery.
