Wow - I'm not used to good news...

Well, we found ourselves a replacement bowler for the guy on our team who's leaving town to do a fellowship. Just in time. Had a lesson today - there was so much carry-down oil on the lanes that NO general setup would work. So I had to learn a whole new line which took a while but I managed to get something out of it. One thing that I had noticed with the new hand position is that the old "trick" I had been taught for bad oil couldn't work. Fortunately my coach knew how to adapt for it with the new hand position - it's rather amazing to see in action.

BUT, that's not the big surprise of the day. I left to go for a lesson and discovered that the two next door apartments have been completely boarded up and seized by the land lord of that building. While I feel bad that these people can't function in real life in the way that they need to, at the same time their behavior has been abyssmal, and reached the point where I think the other neighbors were starting to fear for their safety. I don't know why this went on as long as it did - sometimes the police were there several times in a week (although we never were the ones who called them and I have no idea who did).

NOW, if we can use this opportunity to get our move downstairs to happen sooner than later... that would be great.

D's medical situation seems to be finally coming into focus.

I can't believe how things have improved so quickly. What a great way to end an generally horrible year.

qitinngusiangaaqtuq

ᕿᑎᙳᓯᐊᖔᖅᑐᖅ

"Happy Holidays"
(lit. "Have a good Xmas and New Year's")

Have Myself a Merry Little Xmas

It's going to be an interesting Xmas. My Mom is over my breaking her leg the other night. Well, sort of. No this isn't some weird case of domestic violence at a distance, we were on the phone and she went off to get something, and I heard the crash when she tripped. After a few minutes my Dad gets on the phone to let me know she's OK (aside from the probably broken bone and that she'll be right back...) ???! Um - shouldn't they be taking care of the injury? I love them dearly but sometimes I feel as if I'm trapped in a weird real-life sitcom. However, as a result the shopping's all done. :-)

We all went up to decorate their tree since she's in this huge cast (ours is slowly and incrementally getting done). Hopefully I'll begin to get to enjoy it this week.

No one's having any parties this year. Weird.

But as much as there's all this ritual in our family, and my parents go completely overboard, I always look forward to spending time with them around the holidays. We always DO have a fun time.

Got a card from my sister with a picture of my godson. He's growing up SO fast.

OK - so things got better

Went back to CT to have the ball redrilled. Now all of a sudden it's as if there's been a miraculous transformation.

First, a 3-string practice session (house oil) averaged 205 (230, 200, 186).

Then on Monday in sports condition, I averaged 183 (185, 181, 186).

I've never NOT felt what I'm not feeling now. :-)

Freaking excellent.

Still have the cold though - my face feels like a Botox experiment gone awry, and with some weird yo-yo fever.

Ka-thunk

I dread to think how low my bowling average slipped this week. Okay - probably no more than 3 pins. Nonetheless with my new "wonderful" ball, I did NOT make a great showing.

It hurts. Something about the very-oval-shaped thumb hole twisting on my hand during the release is making it impossible to throw the ball the way I ought to be. (I do admit that this is my problem, not the ball's).

Worse, my two other balls are being redrillled as I type. So, I have until Monday to get this sorted out. Ouch.


Having a bad cold (or the flu?) all week hasn't helped.

Got most of the Xmas shopping done. Thanks Amazon - now just deliver the items this time and we'll be a lot happier.

Jealousy and Why My Thumb Hurts

So, probably not too surprisingly, my early Xmas gift from me to me this year is a new bowling ball. I only have five. This entailed a 100-mile drive to CT to get it and get it drilled from someone who has 30+ years of experience.

Aside from the weird road trip drama of getting there (to protect the innocent), we did have a great lunch at Rein's and arrived at the center around 3 PM.

It was mobbed because of a full house league (40 lanes) who were EXTREMELY NOISY. Not good. Then we had to wait and wait and wait.

I was the last to get fit, etc. But I ended up with a new ball, a weird drilling, and now I have to actually learn to bowl with the dang thing by Monday night.

It's like carrying a 15 pound suitcase that's spherical. BUT it does rev, does rotate, and does arc.

We'll see how this works.

Meanwhile for my efforts, I caught a cold. Bleah.

Meanwhile why the jealousy? One of the other people on the trip was a 16-year old girl with a 200+ average (house pattern). After she got her ball she proceeded to bowl a 770 series.

Despite being very likable, I WANT to hate her. :-) Nah - I really hope she gets a ton of scholarship money for college.

Pluto

This is my call out to anyone with an interest in our solar system to stand up for the little guys.

OK - I "get" that Pluto occupies a different neighborhood of the solar system and its physical characteristics put it out of place with the other eight planets. However, in my mind it's extremely short-sighted to completely drop it from the "official" list (after 76 years), because of size.

I'm particularly upset about the rationale used, in particular the claim that Pluto hasn't sufficiently "cleared out" its orbit using Neptune as the "reason".

What a minute --- shouldn't it be Neptune that clears out Pluto (owing to its much higher mass) instead of the other way around? Of course this doesn't even get into the issue that the two orbits don't exactly intersect (they appear to in 2-d from "above" but since they're elliptical orbits you have to take all the elements into consideration).

So ... by their own definition, we can also eliminate Neptune from the list of planets too.

Hold on - but if that's true - what about Jupiter? Surely the encounter with Levy-Shoemaker 9 indicates that it's not completed the task of clearing out its own
orbit, so Jupiter is out too.

All the terrestrial bodies show cratering, and there's no indication that that process has completely stopped.

So that leaves Saturn and Uranus as the only two planets. Uranus' 98-degree axial tilt suggests an impact history, so it's suspect, and Saturn's grandiose rings definitely indicate an excess of debris in its area of influence.

Which means that there are no planets in our solar system at all now.

I hope the Belgians are happy.

---

Instead, why not go with 11 planets using the other two criteria: orbits a star, and is large enough to be mostly spherical. That handles mechanics and some physical parameter to distinguish planets from other bodies.

Then you have five terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Ceres;
four giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; and at least two icy planets: Pluto and Eris (with others certainly to follow). Since they all nicely
"clump" into their various neighborhoods in the solar system, it won't be too taxing for astronomers to keep them straight and concentrate on particular classes of objects as desired.

Breaking Dates

I should've known this was coming.

Once again, I made plans to visit with someone (4 hour drive) with their intent to call me the night before to make the final arrangements (when, where, etc.).

Of course that call never happened, and there hasn't been a call today.

Why do people do this? I would've been disappointed had they said "Gee, I'd like to get together while I'm in town, but I don't think I'll have enough free time." but I would've understood and that would've been that.

Instead I clear out time on my schedule, arrange to get the car, etc. and now I'm socially "on hold" waiting to see what - if anything - is going to come of this, at least for a few hours.

Where Santa Clauses Come From!

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time:

Well, so much for that!

So, I had decided that it would be fun to join a second bowling league. After this week, I think I'm never going back.

It's not as if it wasn't a problem from the outset. Although they advertised for new people, there weren't any open slots and so I ended up as a substitute waiting for an opening on a team when someone else left. It didn't help that I also had the lowest average in the league. So, when a team DID have an opening they were "stuck" with me and they pretty much made that clear.

If that weren't enough, these guys were really loud all the time and fairly crude. The other league that bowls next to them can't stand them.

But the tipping point came this week when one of my teammates started a long, loud, and angry tirade full of verbal abuse because of a few missed shots (I was definitely having an off night - it wasn't as if I didn't KNOW this on my own!). Somehow being called a f#$()*$ing retard by one of your own teammates doesn't tend to support to encourage loyalty.

So, after some thought, I decided to change venues and maybe show up more often for the Tuesday tournament in Davis Sq. instead.

Then I remembered this morning that I already had plans for next Thursday anyway and wouldn't have been able to show up. Oh well.

Meanwhile things are going GREAT in the Monday night Sports league. We're in 3rd place (might be 2nd) and there my team is completely supportive. There are still some jerks in the league: the vice president needs to be removed from office, and one of the teams (as we found out last week) has a real problem with poor sportsmanship and just being crybabies when they lose.

Current average: 167 (which is about 180 on a house pattern).

But the BEST news was discovering that for the first time in 6 years, I made the high score board (under the sport category) for a 220 game.