Like this:

My back survived Wednesday disc. I was pretty unwilling to twist or bend much. This lead to my dropping (and I do mean in-my-hands and then to-the-ground dropping) of an easy throw from Obert, more a vertical marking style which probably helped me get a hand on one of tall Mike’s throws, and backhands with more wrist action. Now, my back is cranky and insists on a few days of rest. I’m inclined to oblige and not complain too much.

Switched from working on Fuel Eaters to working on Divine Fire. My job for this past week has been to come up with how to end the book. While putzing through a few ideas, I occurs to me that Divine Fire might be better with a totally different beginning. Oh, the first chapter is okay, but the entire set up of our main characters would have to change. This would solidify a few ideas that are currently a little amorphous. Or, in a grand gesture of procrastination I’m considering rewriting the beginning of the book to avoid writing the end. I’ll run it by Eric.

—###—

Book #8 – Over to You by Roald Dahl

Dahl is another author I totally missed as a kid. I finally read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a few years back and found it enjoyable though obviously a kid’s book. While looking for some other author in the adult fiction section of the library, I came across Dahl’s general audience works. I picked out a slim volume of short stories based on his experiences as a pilot in WWII. It’s a decent collection. No one story stands out, but as a whole they paint an interesting picture of the R.A.F.’s involvement in Greece and Africa.

On an interesting synergy in my reading:
I’m currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring and I was struck by the similarity in Tolkien and Dahl writing about mountains. In Dahl’s case, Penteliko (among others); in Tolkien, it’s Caradhras. Both are anthropomorphically given malevolent wills. Just interesting considering Tolkien’s WWI experiences.

Also, Dahl might be one of those authors that would cause problems in the land of Amazon.com filtering.  Imagine, a kid searching for Charlie and coming up with the result Switch Bitch as well.

Queue Queen

Cleaned out my almost empty beer cooler for the last time for a while. Spring League 2009 is finished for me, at least playing-wise. And it ended somewhat, kinda-sotra auspiciously.

Monday and Wednesday teams were picked from entirely different rosters and there was an obvious talent difference between the nights. Regardless, we played crossover games and had combined pool play, resulting in a championship bracket of top ranked teams from each pool (which will be played on Wednesday and is populated entirely with Wednesday teams) and an “opposite day” bracket which was filled out with, in this case, the Monday teams with the best pool play records. (These weren’t necessarily the #2 teams in each pool.) This secondary bracket received the label “consolation;” the NIT of our ultimate league. And, unless you root for a team that makes it to the NCAA tournament once in a blue-moon, no one gets incredibly excited about the NIT.

Our first game last night was against Fade into Bolivion, a team in bright orange shirts that made it into the bracket by beating the bottom Monday team. To their credit, a good portion of Fade’s roster showed up for the game and played us pretty hard. We were down two men and a woman, but Ned, Brent, and Christie had missed weekend play and were fresh for us. I think the score was 7-2 at half when Fade picked up their play and we went a little lax. We regrouped and ended out the game 13-9.

In the meantime, the other “semifinal” game got off to a late start since Mad Bids and Stimulus Package had trouble gathering enough players for a line. There was (non)serious talk about them putting together a combined team to play the winner of our game. It didn’t come to that. They eventually got a game going with Stimulus Package coming out as the winner. Adding to the lack-luster atmosphere of the evening was the lack of hecklers. It’s always more interesting to play with some noise going on. I have to give some props to the Wednesday players that did come out to see the Monday final.

First game of league, we lost to Stimulus Package.  During that game, we didn’t play very well. It’s been very satisfying to see the improvement in our playing. Stimulus was missing a few key players including Sam, one of the better huckers in league. On defense, they almost exclusively played zone. I assume this was in an effort to get us to turn it over near the endzone and take advantage of the chaos that ensues. And if we had been playing that first night, it would have been an excellent choice. The Plastic Falls of Game 15 swung the disc with endless patience. Big Nate couldn’t get much done on offense with Eric covering him (and in some cases with two Erics covering him), and the rest of the team was pretty much held in check by the rest of us.  We won 15-6.  So there you are: Plastic Falls, the Monday don’t-call-it-the-consolation Bracket Champions.

Well, “the rest of us” didn’t entirely include me. I warmed up my back with two hot baths, three ibuprofen, a dollop of Icy-Hot, and a good long jog. My backhands were sketchy since I didn’t want to twist much and my running/cutting was tentative, but I played the first game and about half of the second. The nice thing about Stimulus Package using zone defense is that I didn’t have to move all that much in the handler spot. Unfortunately, on a defensive point I turned just the wrong way and couldn’t straighten up for a while afterward. The girl that I was covering zoomed across the endzone for a score before I could remember that I should yell “Injury!” The disc could have gone back to the thrower, but we were up, she was happy to have caught a score, and I just wanted off the field with a minimum of fuss. So ended my playing in “finals.”

My back is stiff and sore today, but in surprisingly decent shape.  Of course, I’m going out to play tomorrow at noon. Or try to. No one ever accused me of being very bright.