We had a hail storm roll through this afternoon and I was able to snap some photos and get a short video. The hail stones were between “quarter sized” and “pingpong ball sized”. The storm was quite loud, but didn’t seem to do any damage. There’s a small album with a few photos and a low-quality video on YouTube.
My web host was hacked and I’ve had to move to a new server. I’m still working on getting things back in order, and hopefully making some improvements along the way. Next time you check back, hopefully things will be in better shape.
The 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.
We purposely slept in today, and had a fabulous brunch at the Waffle House. Then we went across the street to the Piggly Wiggly to buy an ice chest and stock up on water, sports drinks, and snacks. Finally we got to the field where the Long Distance guys were competing. Ace and I met some guys we hadn’t seen since the 2003 Nationals in Houston and just hung out for a while, watching the LD guys across the field. As soon as we started practicing, we noticed that the wind might be a problem. Sometimes in the Dallas area, I have to wait out several days in a row of howling winds before getting what I consider proper boomerang conditions. I always talk about the wind being my enemy. Now we’re worried that there might not be enough wind. The windicators would often hang limp, and also totally change direction when there was a noticeable wind. These conditions wreaked havoc with the LD guys. Lots of throws were coming up short on the returns. I couldn’t believe how many non-scoring throws I saw on the scoresheet. Before leaving DFW, Ace and I had settled on a couple of boomerangs (30 and 40 meter range) to use for Aussie Round that we were having really good results with. Today during practice, we could rarely get them to return all the way. Tomorrow’s wind forecast seems similar, so we’re really concerned about that first day of the actual tournament. It turns out too much wind is actually better than none. I never want to see “Winds Light and Variable” during a boomerang tournament again. When we got back to the hotel, we hit the pool for a while before finally cleaning up and going out to dinner. About a dozen of us went out to a small Italian joint fairly close to the hotel to carb up for the next day.
Ace and I missed the 2nd Annual Texas Long Distance Shootout boomerang tournament in Houston this year. Ace was not able to defend his junior championship from last year. Hopefully we’ll make it back in 2006. I’m happy to report that a Boomerang Association of Dallas (BAD) member was the champion. Congratulations, David Hirsch, for throwing 126 meters! Full results are here on the BAggressive site.
The Armstrong boys spent the weekend in Houston for the first annual Texas LD Shootout, a long-distance boomerang tournament. Ace and I didn’t expect to be able compete with our lone phenolic LD boomerang, but we knew we’d have some fun. It was amazing to see so many boomerangs fly over 100 meters with a full return. Everyone was super-nice, especially after our only LD boom ended up in two pieces. Roy Dempsey and David Bacque loaned us very nice boomerangs that we were able to achieve personal-best throws with (Ace-69m, me-83m), and I ended up purchasing a super-high-tech model from the tournament champion and new Canadian record holder, Andrew Cross. Hopefully with it, I’ll be joining the 100 Meter Club whenever I can make it to another tournament. Even though Ace was the only junior thrower, he represented himself quite well, and he definitely deserved to be Junior Champion. His pick from the prize table was a very nice “Anaconda” boomerang by Alberto Sabal of Mar del Plata, Argentina. My pick was a neat sport model that maker David Bacque says will go around 60 meters. I gotta find a decent field to try it out. Though I didn’t take as many photos as I’d’ve liked, I have put up a gallery of the pictures I was able to take.
My sister Chris and her 14 year-old son Cameron came down from Oklahoma for a visit this past weekend since they had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day. Lots of our time was spent making boomerangs with Cameron. This kid came up with some crazy new designs, and even though they may look like weapons of some sort, I’m happy to say that at the end of his visit, they were flying great. In case you’re thinking the 3-blader’s paint job looks too good to be true, you’re right. We scanned in the boomerang and then used Photoshop to try out paint jobs until we found one we liked. I forgot to get photos of the finished products, but next time I see Cameron, I’ll be sure to do so.
It was cold and rainy most of the weekend and to get to the workshop, we practically had to wade through a pond in my back yard. After a couple of days of this, we were dying to try out these new designs. Luckily Monday (the last day of Cameron’s stay) was a reasonably nice day. It was cold and windy, but at least the sun was out. I took the kids up to the field for a while and we were pleased to see that these radical new untested designs flew like champs. Thank goodness we didn’t have to work on them after testing, because due to time considerations, we had already painted them. Soon Holly was ready to go home, but Andrew and Cameron wanted to stay. I left them at the field alone for a while and they made great use of that practice time. Cameron has only thrown a few times, but he has caught on quickly, and later on Monday he was competing quite respectably in a few rounds of GLORP with Andrew and I.
ayne loaned me some boomerangs to scan in. Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!
Added the Videos page under the Graphics page. There are some morphing videos and an old Digital Boomerang Systems logo video. Check it out. I have received complaints about the Boomerang page being blank. To placate these individuals, I scanned in several boomerangs and finally started on the page. Scanning in the boomerangs was incredibly tough because I had to do it in two or more pieces and cut-and-paste them together. Oh, how I wish I had a digital camera! I also added a list of links to the bottom of this page for people thinking about setting up their own websites. (Michelle told me that some of her co-workers had asked about it.)