A Scattered Brain

Greetings to all,

I have to figure something out; and so far I just can’t.  The lanes at South Point are certainly different than they have been in the past.  No matter which ball I use, by the third game (and last night even the second) no matter where I start my approach, my ball seems to come high.  I keep making adjustments, and still high;  once I’ve lost the pocket for the night, I can’t seem to get it back.

The worst part is I don’t know what else to do.  I move a little, no change; I change balls, same result; adjust my target line, either the same result or something else even worse than coming in high (e.g. missing the head pin altogether).  I’m just not sure where to go from here.  I’ve been meaning to schedule a lesson for quite some time; maybe now is the time to finally schedule it.

Last night I had one of my better nights of recent memory.  I had 215, 218, 140 for a 573 series.  The first two games were as good as the scores indicate with only one bad miss between both of them.  The last game, despite the score, also only had one bad spare miss.  The lane conditions had really changed, and no matter how I moved, I kept coming high and leaving some weird spares.  I even tried to take a deep line and yes, threw a first ball gutter; and it was right where I was aiming, but didn’t recover at all and slid off.  I don’t know if I should have changed balls or what, and maybe I’m too afraid to move left of center on the approach.  I’ll have to figure out what to do when the lanes break down like that.

I also wanted to go ahead and use this space to do my New Year’s Resolution Update:

• Weight: 204.4; Only lost a bit and that can be considered standard fluctuation so no real loss this month. We did have a lot of company and I’ve been eating dessert quite a bit this month, so no gain is probably just as good as loss would have been.
• Devotional: Weekends are still tougher but getting better.  Weekdays are still pretty good but sometimes I rush through more than I should.
• Bowling blog: I think I wrote, even if shortly, about each week this month so that’s good.  Also the last two weeks have seen my average going back up and that’s always good.

Overall grade: B.  Still room for improvement, but staying with all three through 2 months is better than I’ve been able to do usually.

Greetings all,

This week was a little better as far as overall scores go: 192, 184, 198; 574 Series.  All three games were above average so that is always good.  If I had made all of my non-split, easy spares (the ones that should be automatic), I would have had the following scores: 205, 216, 209 for a 630 series.  5 spares missed, nearly 60 pins difference.  That isn’t including any splits (I had two); just single and 2-pin spares that are easy.

My overall approach and release I was happy with.  I adjusted to lane condition changes better than usual and definitely focused more on each shot; even the spares.  I would hit my target mostly, I must have been lining up a little wrong that I’ll need to correct.

On a different note; Purdue faces Michigan tonight.  Go Boilermakers!

This one will be really short… kind of like my scores:

140, 170, 193; 503 series.

I just can’t seem to make even easy spares.  I would easily be over 200 average if I just made the easy spares.  Is my problem trying too hard, or not hard enough?  I don’t know; but I have got to figure out my spare shooting somehow.

Last night’s bowling wasn’t much to write home about; I had 520 series.  I mostly felt good about my strike ball but left a lot of single pin spares.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t converting them.  I missed 4 single pins in the first game alone.  That’s inexcusable!  Next week, during the 10 minutes of practice, I’m going to throw a strike ball once on each lane and then the rest of the time will be devoted to practicing the corner pins.

As a team we did well; we lost the first game by only 15 pins but won the other two and took total pins.  We’ve now won the last two weeks in a row for the first time I believe this season.  Now if only I had made those spares… we could have taken all 7 points.  Oh well, next week will be better, I’m sure.

In my efforts to maintain my New Year’s Resolutions; I want to give the following update on all three:

• Daily Devotional – I’m still finding it harder on the weekends than the weekdays so that is something still to work on.  On the weekdays, I do it nearly first thing in the morning; that isn’t as easily an option as often times I’m getting Connor up first thing.  Perhaps on weekends I should do it just after putting Connor to bed.  I hadn’t thought of that before but will try that from now on.
• Weight Loss – This is still going well.  I weighed in at 204.6 tonight so another 3 lbs or so this month.  I will be excited if / when I break under the 200 mark, but still have the goal of 190 by year’s end.
• Bowling Blog – I missed this past week of bowling so nothing there.  I hope to post again on Thursday after this week’s league session.

So, overall I’d give myself a B-.  Still areas to work on going forward, but want to remain accountable so I will continue these monthly updates.

On a couple of other quick notes:

1. NCAA Tournament site for 2009 is taking shape.  I’ve added in new visual styles for results and picks viewing that took quite a while to build but helps make the site even more dynamic and will allow me to reduce the amount of data that I have to FTP each time there are updates.  I’m more excited about March Madness than many and really hope the website does it justice this year.

2. This president is just doing a bang up job, now isn’t he? He’s everything I hoped for and so much better (exchange hoped for feared and better for worse, of course).  Nice job on an $800 billion stimulus package where almost all of it is just bloated spending and has no chance of helping the economy.  Here’s an idea: get out of the way and let the economy fix itself as it usually does.  The last time a president tried to fix an economy through wreckless spending we sunk even more into the Great Depression.  I just hope we don’t need another world war to get us out of this one… any more and I should make this a topic by itself.

Take care everyone!

Most, if not all of you, are very aware of my political views so I’m not going to go into my reservations regarding Obama’s policies and proposals.  I’m also not going to look back at the last eight years to discuss the Bush administration.  I wouldn’t be changing anyone’s opinion.  Instead, I’m going to focus on the innaguration itself and the over the top coverage.

Think about it in all of your lifetimes, has the innaguration of a new President ever been covered this much?  And for what?  I understand the historical aspect of the first black President and I respect that; but it isn’t like we’re celebrating a hero coming home from war.  It’s a change of President, something that happens every four to eight years.  This isn’t any different.

Some news agencies are anticipating this far beyond what expectations should be.  A CNN reporter stated that they expect the words from this speech to be carved into marble!  He hasn’t done anything yet in his entire career, let alone anything great to start planning a monument to him.

The news is also constantly reporting that we need to rally behind Obama.  Where has this been for any other President?  You didn’t hear this before Bush in 2000, or even Clinton in 1992.  I know the media is biased, but this seems to be a giant whirlwind of supposedly objective reporters trying to be a part of history.

The bottom line is he is just a man; his race means nothing.  He hasn’t accomplished anything yet, and the expectations that have been set are going to be very hard to meet.  Of course, to the media, he can do anything (or nothing) and will meet those expectations in their mind.

After a long day of calls, I had to take a late lunch and decided to get some practice in after Wednesday night’s poor performance.  The scores were as follows: 192, 182, 236, 259, 249.  The first two games were warming up and trying to put into practice one very valuable piece of information someone gave me on Wednesday… more on that later.

The last three games, I had a total of 1 open frame and if those would have counted, would have given me a 744 series (my first in a three game set of any kind).  So, what was this piece of very valuable information that helped today and hopefully can in the future?  I was told to “throw my second ball first”.  Apparently, to no real knowledge of mine until pointed out, I was trying too hard on my first ball, but had a nice relaxed swing and release on any spare ball.  So, today, instead of trying to guide or muscle my first throw, I just picked my target and went.  I didn’t try to add extra speed or revolutions.  The result; more consistent throws that hit harder.

Now, I know this was one practice session on one particular day and previous results don’t predict future outcomes; but if I can try to remember what I did (or really didn’t do) today, hopefully that can translate to better scores when it does count.

Have a great weekend!

So, this isn’t a great start to the revival of the bowling blog.  Last night we lost all 7 points (3 games and total pins) to our opponents, who were great fun to bowl with so that’s a consoloation.  The nearly one month layoff really didn’t help my scores:

Ouch, a 2 pin drop in average for one week.  Not good.  I was using a new ball, but that wasn’t the issue entirely.  I kept trying to hard.  I have a tendency to try to guide the ball which ends up taking away any power and drive.  When I start to do that and notice, I tend to over correct and throw the ball hard.  Usually I can make smaller adjustments and work out ok, but last night kept going from one extreme to another.

My spares really did me in.  Other than the times I had splits, I missed 2 easy spares in the first game, 4 in the second, and 1 in the 3rd.  That’s a total of 7 missed easy spares in 20 opportunities.  If I made those, that adds approximately 70 pins to my series and gets me to my average.  I know what I need to really practice on: smooth arm swing letting the ball do the work and spares.

I hope you all have a good rest of the week and weekend!

Greetings to all of my friends and family and Happy New Year.

I’ve never really been big into resolutions since most I’m sure are broken each year.  But for some reason, I feel like setting some this year.  More importantly, to help hold myself accountable, I want to make mine public.

Here they are in no particular order of importance:

• Daily Devotional – Most days this past year, I would read “Our Daily Bread” online.  I want to make that more of an automatic habit each day.
• Continue to lose weight.  My all time high was 263 lbs about 3 years ago.  Since then, through moderation, and don’t laugh, bowling, I’ve dropped about 55 pounds to around 208.  I would like to continue this trend even though it may start getting tougher here soon.  If I could be around 190-195 by next year, I’d be ecstatic.  I will settle with going under the 200 mark since I can’t remember when.
• Bowling Blog.  I hope to start it back up after next Wednesday’s night.  While I’ve kept track of scores, I’ve not done much reflecting and that always helps to improve.

Those are the three things I want to work on most this year.  Hopefully I’ll post more regularly too, and the bowling posts should help out with that.

I hope everyone has a healthy and happy New Year.