Bobby G's footblog

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
Post Reply
bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 05 Mar 2016 22:32

What up modified? Thanks, Nick…I had a great time shredding with you too.

Home from Saturday shredz with Stanford University Footbag Club. I hadn’t played since last weekend because I was sick most of the week. Honestly speaking, when I woke up this morning I only mentally put myself at about 80% of making it. I knew Derek was making the trip from Sacramento though, so I decided not to be a candy ass. That was so the right decision…bomb ass session from everyone. Had some good foursquare to start things off with Steve, Alex, Derek, Brian, and Fuzzy. After the squares were over, Steve skipped off to kindly work on pizza while the rest of us played. I thought everyone played pretty well. I had one string where I dropped just out of fatigue, and while that means I need to get in better shape it was still a great feeling. I also hit paradon rake today. I am very excited by this….I’m only 2 months from 40 and I hit my 2nd ever 5 today. My only other one is dimwalk squeeze, which is hard to play out of with anything cool, so in a weird way this feels like my first real 5. And yes, adds shouldn’t matter, but it is something that can be measured so it is still exciting.

In other news I also finally edited the footage from my second Christmas session in Idaho. I posted it on the freestyle page, but it didn’t get many comments or a whole lot of views. The edit was still 7 minutes, which is a bit long, so that is one potential issue. The other is that the day I posted this, a lot of other videos were posted too so I think folks may have just missed it. If you haven’t seen it, please give it a look. If 7 minutes is more time than you have, then skip to the string at 5:30. Close to 80 contacts, with some bops here and there but fairly hard stuff throughout. If you like this, go to the freestyle Facebook group and give it a like there so it gets bumped and other folks see it too. Last thing on my mind today is a little bit of footbag history 101. I saw AdAstra posted his first paradox mirage today…congrats if you are reading! It occurred to me from his questions and from other recent discussions, that there are some newer players that might appreciate some historical context. For the reader with a voracious interest, I will refer you to the old freestyle listserv discussion archives here:
http://list.footbag.org/majordomo/lette ... .137%5D%3E

Reading through those posts is a little time consuming, but can be pretty interesting too. If you would like the ‘readers digest version’ condensed down a bit, I’d encourage you to check out the old tutorial on footbag.org. I’m sure there are additional discussions on modified that I’m unaware of, but I think this would be a good place to start.
http://www.footbag.org/faq/show?id=paradox-tutorial

There was some discussion this week on Facebook about spinning vs gyro and how what was near becomes far (near legover far legover) when a backspin comes first. That tutorial above at the end in a sense discusses the same thing in the context of paradox (e.g., spin switches what side paradox is).

I guess that is mostly it. Hogan mentioned in his blog that he is most likely going to come for a visit this summer. Super stoked for that along with the corresponding ROAD TRIP to USO!

janis
Post Master General
Posts: 2707
Joined: 29 Dec 2005 18:46
Location: Australia

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by janis » 06 Mar 2016 04:41

Thanks for the awesome video!

AdAstra
Multidex Master
Posts: 218
Joined: 25 Jul 2015 07:16
Location: Lexington, KY, USA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by AdAstra » 06 Mar 2016 07:56

Last thing on my mind today is a little bit of footbag history 101. I saw AdAstra posted his first paradox mirage today…congrats if you are reading! It occurred to me from his questions and from other recent discussions, that there are some newer players that might appreciate some historical context. For the reader with a voracious interest, I will refer you to the old freestyle listserv discussion archives here:
http://list.footbag.org/majordomo/lette ... .137%5D%3E
Thanks! Really pumped I hit it. Very fun trick to do. I'll have some free time in a week and will definitely read the historical stuff, I've actually been looking for things like that to better understand the game and it's nomenclature.
Austin
Lexington, KY, USA, Pale Blue Dot

User avatar
Cass
Egyptian Footgod
Posts: 1213
Joined: 07 Jan 2007 20:44
Location: London, Ontario

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by Cass » 08 Mar 2016 19:07

Hey Bob! I like your blog.

Moving across the country sounds like quite an ordeal. Way to make it happen.

User avatar
Sporatical_Distractions
registered sacks offender
Posts: 4510
Joined: 12 Oct 2004 19:14
Location: Guy's American Kitchen & Bar

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by Sporatical_Distractions » 08 Mar 2016 22:04

Fuck yes bob! Love you man!

Didn't see the video til this blog. It's been ages since I've seen Boone footage!

Keep keepin it real brotha!!
Welcome to Flavortown

Kevin Crowley

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 01 Apr 2016 19:10

Wow, thanks for the recent comments! It is flattering and makes me feel good that a few of you like to come here and read what’s going on with me.

I have a couple of mini-projects for this blog about half way complete. One is just a little year in review of 2015, which I realize is very late, but basically I was looking through all of my photos from last year and I tried to pick one or two from each month. So basically a little post with a picture diary of last year and perhaps a few sentences on each one. That will be a smattering of footbag stuff and non-footbag stuff.

The other thing I need to get out the door is to finish editing the footage I took on February 7th when I kicked with Kevin and Ben. Pete missed that session; I think maybe he was in New Orleans? Anyway, I took the time to film so I’d like for the footage to not just die on my computer. I actually have a third project in mind too, but I’d rather not say anything about it until I know whether I’m going to get it done. It is time bound, so if it doesn’t happen by a particular time then it won’t happen at all.

Speaking of BSC, I got to kick with Kevin, Pete, and Ben this past Tuesday evening. Super fun session because those guys are just so great to be around, and as an extra bonus everyone played well too. I felt like Ben Little’s consistency was really up and it seemed like he had a number of 30+ contact strings. Of course Kevin and Pete were going hitting nice strings too with huge tricks and unique combos. Epic calorie binge at 5 guys afterward. I feel pretty lucky that since moving I’ve gotten to play with those guys semi-regularly during work trips back. I just scheduled flights for another trip in a week and a half, and I set it up to fly home on Saturday afternoon instead of Friday so I can hang out Friday night and Saturday morning. The trip this week was largely scheduled around a meeting to discuss/prepare content for a big program review that is coming up. That’s technically not in Boston, but is on the East Coast, so I’ll go to Boston the latter half of that week.

I’m around half way home from this trip right now.
Image

There is a Stanford session scheduled tomorrow, and we haven’t had one in a few Saturdays because each week it has seemed that a critical mass has been out of town. My son has church thing that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law have flown in for, and I’ve been asked to attend. I am not religious, and it probably makes me a bad dad to say, but I’d rather go play kicky sack. I’ll go though, because it is important to all of them and they are important to me. I think there is some transitive property there that follows it is important to me too.

Looks like Stanford crew may get a special guest just after I return from my next Boston trip, so I’m pretty excited about that. Will blog about that later I’m sure, and that will probably be another good one to crack out the camera for.

Been playing pretty regularly until one week before this work trip. That was a pretty nutty work week getting ready for this trip that didn’t allow time for footbag. Just prior to that mini-hiatus I had had a pretty good session that I meant to blog about but didn’t get the chance to yet.
==> FINALLY hit drifter b2b. I really struggle with drifter, so that was satisfying to finally do. :roll:
==> Tap BSOS
==> whirl > ducking clipper > repeat

I need to start riding bike to get in better shape, and also learn to focus on breathing during my strings. I feel like when I stick to tiltless stuff that I should be able to go for 20+ contacts every time, and in reality it seems to only happen a handful of times a session. I also feel like a broken record on this point.

Anyway, life is good and I hope you are too.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 03 Apr 2016 19:10

I got off my rump this weekend and edited that footage from a couple of months back. Unfortunately missed Pete that trip. I think that might be when he was just back from New Orleans shredding with Mark.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 30 Apr 2016 18:18

Hello modified! It has been a busy month and I’ve had a fair bit of footbag since my last post.

I blogged about my last ‘full BSC’ shred session, which was really fun. Two weeks after that I was on the east coast for work again; in Baltimore for a couple of nights, and then in Boston. I was a good worker-bee during the week, had very long work days, and didn’t end up getting any footbag in during the week. Here is a photo I took on the walk back to my hotel after dinner one night.
Image

My wife was super cool, and agreed to let me fly home Saturday afternoon instead of Friday night. I took the opportunity to go up to Salem Friday night and have a shred session with the one, the only, Kevin Hogan. We played footbag at the Young Men’s Christian Association, and then went to a local bar called the Anchor for dinner and hydrating beer. Kevin calls it a dive bar, but I’d probably classify it as a townie bar. Not fancy, but not sketchy either and they have good food/drinks for very reasonable prices. Saturday morning we got up, and Kevin bought me breakfast at a local establishment. That was sweet! After that we hit Salem and had another shred session. Back to Kevin’s for a quick shower and then off to the airport to fly home. I was actually super impressed with how efficiently we got up early on a Saturday morning and then squeezed in breakfast and a nice shred session before I had to hit the airport.

Sunday the 17th I hung out with the family and Monday the 18th I worked from home. It was actually a company holiday due to Patriot’s Day. Patriot’s Day is more celebrated in MA than any other state I’ve lived in (meaning that no where else I’m aware of celebrates it), but my company is headquartered in Boston so it is one of our corporate holidays. Anyway, Boats arrived mid-afternoon on Patriot’s Day. David had been in Southern California for a while and came up to the Silicon Valley for the last few days of his vacation to hang out with the Stanford crew. I think that night we just hung out and grilled. Boats took an opportunity to get some swimming in with my family.
Image
Image

I took Tuesday, April 19th off of work. Given that the prior day was a holiday that I worked, I just took the 19th as Patriot’s day. Boats and I hung out at my place in the morning, and then met up with Brian Sherrill prior to the footbag session at Stanford. Brian is a long time local, whereas I’m basically still a tourist here. Anyway, Brian knew of some cool places to check out, so we all went for a hike to get loosened up ahead of shred.
Image

After a nice hike, we ended up in Mountain View at a nice little taqueria. It was the day before my birthday, and it seemed destined that I should have fish tacos.
Image

Fast forward to the session, where Boats, Brian, Steve, Alex, Derek, and I warmed up with foursquare and afterward had a shred session. You read that right…Derek figured out how to make it down to Stanford for a mid-week shred session on account of Boats being in town. I taped a good chunk of that. Actually I taped Kevin and I playing a few days earlier too, so I need to get some time in to edit that footage. I’m pretty sure I have video of Brian hitting triple spinning clipper. I’ve seen him hit it before, but I’ve rarely seen it on video so I’d like to make sure and get it out there.

After Shred we ended up at my place. I had cooked a pork roast in the slow cooker all day while we were away, so we ended up having Pulled Pork Sandwiches. Nick Polini has been making some really cool gravity art by stacking rocks. We were fucking around stacking citrus, which was fun.
Image

The meal itself was with my entire family (e.g., including Kristin and Ruari). Ruari was talking about a cow with five rows of megladon teeth. I’m not sure where that had come from, but Boats made it a thing.
Image

My birthday was the next day on modified day. In addition to the Cow for Ruari, I was given this sweet piece summarizing my first four decades. The location at each decade is accurate. Too bad MA is not represented….we lived there longer than we lived in PA, but it didn’t fall on one of the decades.
Image

To commemorate the occasion, we went to the foothills I live near and had a nice evening hike.
Image

I was unable to take off the final day that Boats was in town, but he was all set to meet up with Brian and Derek for celebratory festivities in San Francisco. I had a cup of coffee with Boats on the morning of the 20th, and then we said our goodbyes. That evening I came home and had a nice birthday evening with my family relaxing in the hot tub end of our pool and then over-indulging on food and drink.

I collected a bit of footage in the 5 weeks leading up to my birthday. I made this video to benchmark where my game is at age 40. Hopefully I can look back on this and use it as motivation to stay in shape and keep getting better.

User avatar
Cass
Egyptian Footgod
Posts: 1213
Joined: 07 Jan 2007 20:44
Location: London, Ontario

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by Cass » 01 May 2016 07:15

Thanks for the update!

Your run length and variety are great. Guays would be a neat addition to your game.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 03 May 2016 07:32

Cass wrote:Thanks for the update!

Your run length and variety are great. Guays would be a neat addition to your game.
Thanks Cass. I'll work on some combos with guays. I've also been trying to reclaim flyers recently, but none of that made it into my video.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 05 May 2016 19:32

shred4life wrote:
bobgreen wrote:I really had meant to get a group photo to commemorate the occasion, but two margaritas in after shred I simply forgot. The only photo I managed to get is the one below. I’ve always thought these lights were somewhat breast shaped, and this is the first time I had seen one mounted on a wall instead of the ceiling. The adolescent inside of me couldn’t help snap a photo.

Image
I saw this pic today:
Image
It totally made me think of this post :lol:
This image came across my Facebook feed today:
Image

I'm thinking when I get tired of this scientist gig that I might go into interior lighting.

User avatar
boats
BSOS Beast
Posts: 329
Joined: 25 Jul 2010 16:29
Location: New York
Contact:

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by boats » 07 May 2016 05:57

hahahaha. Tit lights posts. It was awesome hanging with you and your fam in California. Also the fact that i got to chill with you the morning of your birthday / 420. I know hogan got to hang with you for 39, and he was stoked on that. Thanks for incorporating my drawings in your blog / video. I still cant get over all the coincidences surrounding you, your name, and your birthdate. The utimate is (dont know if I'm getting this right) a footbag jam that you and Bob Reefer through in Potstown, on High St. Thanks again for the hospitality

User avatar
DC Clinks
BSOS Beast
Posts: 337
Joined: 01 Jun 2014 19:26
Location: NY

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by DC Clinks » 07 May 2016 06:29

boatz: that drawing was super dank yo.
@bob: enjoyed all the life posts n shred videos. I like your use of pictures in blog updates, keeping ripping it up yo.
-Daniel C. NY, USA. "Sacrifice a goat to our Lord and Savior Evan Gatesman".

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 13 May 2016 20:24

boats wrote:Thanks again for the hospitality
Dude, my pleasure. Sorry I couldn't take off on the 20th to hang out with you guys. Had a blast hanging out with you and welcome you back anytime!

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 13 May 2016 20:30

DC Clinks wrote: @bob: enjoyed all the life posts n shred videos. I like your use of pictures in blog updates, keeping ripping it up yo.
Thanks man, I'm trying to rip it up! I don't think I commented, but I was super impressed with your last video. You've gotten so consistent now with such a solid base.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 18 May 2016 22:35

My 15th anniversary is coming up, so I’ve been trying to locate some photos. We’ve not fully settled in, so I’ve been digging and I haven’t yet found everything I am looking for. I did stumble across a few things that I hadn’t seen in years which may be of some interest to this readership.

Kristin and I married in May 2001, in Pocatello, Idaho. The ceremony was planned one day after my graduation ceremony. Both of us had family members without a lot of cash, so it was kind of a logistical thing so family could attend both if they wanted to. Three weeks later we moved to PA for my first job.

Prior to our big move, I had been in e-mail contact with Bob Riefer out of Philly area who I knew of from the old footbag.org listserv. Bob by this point had already taken an interest in footbag organization/promotion, and had run a couple of events. Kenny Shults, who had essentially been retired from freestyle in he very late 90s, had moved to PA from Oregon a year or two earlier. I don’t know the story of how it went down, but Bob somehow culled him out of retirement and we were lucky enough to have Kenny attend our sessions pretty regularly. There was an awesome crew of other folks like Jon Schneider, David Sanchez, and many others like Josh Benham who came around later on.

The PA move represented my first ‘professional’ job, and that year Kristin and I saved up a little money and took a May 2002 trip to Germany. I remember it was May because that is when spargel is in season, and we had one meal that was basically bread, asparagus, and wine and it was fantastic. I had a good friend who was attending graduate school in Berlin and we visited and stayed with him while we were there. While we were in Germany, I had my buddy contact the footbag club in Berlin and he arranged a session for me with them. Tonight I unearthed this photo, which I suspect I haven’t seen in over a decade.

Image

This is the only time I ever played with any of these guys I think. The guy in the center I am pretty sure is Matthias Lino Schmidt and that the guy on the other side of him is Paul Cronjaeger. The guys on the ends didn’t speak with me as much, and I don’t recall their names. I have a vague memory that the guy in the left of the photo might have been from France. Paul had been an exchange student in PA a year before I was there and had gotten to play footbag with the Philly guys. So that was something he and I had to chat about, because we knew some of the same guys and to a lesser extent some of the same places in PA.

Anyone here recognize the guys on the ends?

The next photo I thought this crew might get a kick out of is this wedding card that I found. It was made by our friend Lou who is an artist that we are still friends with today. My primary college hang out was a coffee shop called the College Market. In addition to selling his art to whoever he could, Lou had a deal with the College Market and would paint their windows with a different theme about once a month. In exchange he got credit toward free coffee/food/etc. Anyway, this wedding card is in the same style as how he painted the windows and I was super stoked to find it tonight. You’ll note that the top right panel was inspired by a certain interest of mine. The bottom left also has something that looks like a footbag, but actually represents the origami that Kristin does sometimes.

Image

Last thing that I found isn’t a photo, but I took a picture of it. When I was younger my legs were growing bowed and it was making it problematic for me even to be able to walk. This x-ray was taken sometime after my first surgery when I was 12 years old. This surgery was to staple the outside of my epiphyseal plate so that just the inside of my legs would grow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyseal_plate

Image

My legs didn’t straighten at the same rate, so I had two additional surgeries later on to staple the insides of my growth plates as my legs straightened out one at a time. The original intention I believe was to leave the staples in there, but they started causing issues later on so I had a 4th surgery when I was 15 where they reopened all 4 locations and removed all of the staples. Somewhere I still have all of the staples in a bag.

I have yet to get really good at footbag, but I’m pretty lucky to have been able to have it be a big part of my life. Had I been born a century earlier, I’d probably have been lucky to be walking at age 20 let alone being active.

I've been playing pretty regularly lately. I think my consistency and string length are getting better right now, but it feels like that is coming a little at the expense of harder links and tricks. For example, I'm having a lot less success/consistency with pixie stuff recently. I'd say in addition to consistency on the longer tiltless stuff, that my BOPpy consistency is up too so for now it is a good tradeoff. Been working a bit on guay per Cass' suggestion/challenge. I think that is going to be fun to get more consistent at them, and I can tell it will strengthen my clippers too.

User avatar
Asmus
Ass Moose
Posts: 3773
Joined: 13 Jun 2004 08:18
Location: Copenhagen
Contact:

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by Asmus » 18 May 2016 23:03

Great story and amazing photo!

Pretty sure the guy to the far left is Yves Kreil. I can ask Matthias, if you want me to, if I am right and who the guy to the far right os. I was planning on sending him an e-mail anyway.

boyle
Post Master General
Posts: 3146
Joined: 19 Sep 2007 23:42
Location: Canberra, Australia
Contact:

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by boyle » 19 May 2016 01:21

I always look forward to seeing new Bob G blogs, and this one doesn't disappoint. I think Asmus is right, and that it is Yves, but I'm not certain.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 22 May 2016 10:11

I watched the video Asmus posted, and I’m fairly certain you guys are right about that being Yves Kreil. Also, with the name Yves it is pretty sensible why I had associated him with France. I found this other video that makes me wonder whether the guy on the right of my photo might be Jakub Wagner. This video came out sometime in the year or so after my visit to Berlin.
Friday was our 15th anniversary and we celebrated by going for dinner and a concert. A couple of towns over from us is Saratoga, and in the hills behind Saratoga is “The Mountain Winery”. I’d never heard of it before three weeks ago, but my boss brought up that there is a nice winery with an amphitheater and that they have a summer concert series. I checked out their website, and found that The B52s were playing on our anniversary so I snapped up a couple.

Seems to me like the 15th anniversary is kind of a big one. I’d had visions of some kind of far away trip for just the two of us, but the logistics surrounding these things are difficult. Due to continued failing health of aging family, we prioritize a lot of our vacation time around visits to them. The one noticeable exception is that I’m taking a week off when Kevin is out here around US Open, and Kristin will have some time off for a trip to Hawaii with her Mom, her Sister, and Ruari. In any event, we have not left an additional chunk of unallocated time for an anniversary getaway. In the end, we were happy to find someone who could watch Ruari for the evening so that we could get in a local getaway.

Back to our date. The concert venue was way better than I imagined it would be. It is a very beautiful property with great views. They had two ‘fancy’ dining options, and a few other options that included a pizza stand, a burrito stand, and a crepe bar. All of the food options are overpriced (per typical concert pricing), but that kind of comes with the territory and is something I was okay with for an anniversary meal. I think we will definitely go back, but next time we might eat on the way up or bring a cooler and have a picnic before going into the property.

Here are some pictures from the evening.

This was looking onto the amphitheater as we approached it.
Image

This was taken from our seat during the openers’ set. I was pretty happy with the seats we got.
Image

I’m not a die-hard B52s fan (only recognized a couple of their songs), but I’d have to say that they put on a pretty good show. According to Wikipedia, they’ve been playing together since 1976.
Image

Okay, footbag. Had a four day streak from last Saturday through Tuesday, then 3 days off, and finally our regular Saturday session yesterday. All week long, I just schooled boring tiltless strings and drills. Working on those to pump my string length up (can force myself to do a certain number of strings with 20+ contacts). Yesterday I expected to have ‘super energy’ since I’d had a few days off and it was a Saturday, but my energy was at a pretty normal level. I didn’t want to just drill boring stuff during our group session, so I worked on some stuff that was a bit more interesting. Ended up hitting a few things I was pretty happy with:
whirl > osis BSOS;
barrage BS
drifter BS
paradox whirl BS

The last one is a particularly big deal for me. Flip paradox whirl was brand new, and even on the other side I’d only ever hit it once or twice before. Whirls were feeling good yesterday, so hopefully I can continue on that front.

I also got two thirds the way through ducking clipper > far rake > near cross body squeeze. It is not huge by proper standards, but it is pretty unusual and I think stylie and would be the sort of thing I might consider submitting for the instagram 'sick three saturday'. Do you guys think non-huge, but interesting, 3 contact combos would be of interest for that?

Had planned to play today, but I’m having a lot of pain in my left heel. This has been occurring after the last few sessions….I guess I need to look into what is causing that and start doing some stretches or strengthening exercises to make that problem go away.

bobgreen
Multidex Master
Posts: 207
Joined: 01 Dec 2013 11:55
Location: Haverhill, MA

Re: Bobby G's footblog

Post by bobgreen » 25 Jun 2016 15:30

Kevin Hogan is en route from Chicago at this point and USO is coming up. I expect this will be a pretty epic week with lots of blog worthy content, so I need to write up the last month or it will never happen. Several of these topics deserve their own post, but I just haven’t had the time. Quick chronological recap of the last month...

Shortly after my last post, Rory Dawson was in town, Derek Littlefield was in town, and we had the Cardinal Cup at Stanford University. I’d known of Rory from online presence, but this was the first time I had met him. Based on his videos and photos I’d seen him tagged in on Facebook, I had an idea on what I thought his personality might be like and that I would like him. I was delighted that he is indeed a cool guy, and glad I got to meet him. I think some aspects of his work are similar to some of my own (machine learning math-y type stuff), so I hope to someday get more time to meet him and perhaps have some geek talk.

As I mentioned, Derek also drove down. I think everyone played pretty well. I have some video I captured that day, unfortunately it is collecting dust on my computer at the moment. Derek gifted me with an awesome footbag as a belated birthday present. He’d seen me scoping out one of the 14s he sewed for himself, so he was awesome and made one for me. Pretty cool.

The weekend after that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came for a visit just as Ruari’s school year was coming to completion. During their visit we took a drive down to Big Sur. Part way to Big Sur, we took the 17 mile drive which goes through Pebble Beach. Whole drive there and beyond was beautiful. Here is a photo of the lone cypress tree on the way during the famous 17 mile drive.
Image

When my in-laws left, they took Ruari with them. House is quiet now. He will be gone for most of the summer; a bit long for my taste, but he wanted to go hang with Grandma rather than stay local and go to YMCA day camp everyday. They will have a great time.

Last weekend I met the Australian Matt Baker. He stopped by one of the Stanford Saturday sessions, visited while we shredded, and had pizza with us afterward. My boss was going to be flying to Sydney on a late flight the same evening as Matt, and we were speculating that they were likely on the same flight.

Last week I was in Boston for work. Very busy time at work getting ready to take the week leading up to USO off. First trip back to Boston where I did not get in touch with BSC just due to time constraints. Actually didn’t even bring my shred shoes because I knew there wouldn’t be time. I do miss this view from work and enjoy it whenever I go there for visits.
Image

Meeting the Australian Matt Baker made me think it would be good to have a pie from KO Pies while I was in Boston. Myself and several co-workers ordered some meat pies and/or sausage rolls, so I was pleased that worked out. Very happy with how productive the week was. Hitting milestones on multiple different projects in the same timeframe is stressful but feels good when things come through. Home very late Thursday night and worked from home Friday. Tailed off at about 2:00 pm once east coast day was winding down and I laid down. Not feeling so good yesterday or today. Seems much worse whenever I go outside. I’ve never had allergies before, but it makes me wonder since this is the first time I’ve lived here this time of year. Today went and got some over the counter non-drousy allergy stuff, and I’ve been trying to hydrate a lot. Hopefully it is either fatigue or allergies and I’ll spring back into action the next day or so.

Just so there is one footbag related thing to look back to later, last session I ended on smear > toe whirl. It was a pretty meh session for me, but I was happy to end on that.

Finally, to keep all of you happy I’m including a picture of Piper. You are welcome.
Image


I'm pretty stoked for the coming week. Shenanigans with Hogan and the Stanford crew then a road trip to Boise where we collect Derek and Lon along the way and have an overnight at Tahoe if everything works out as currently planned. I'm planning to crash at Penske's house so I'm looking forward to catching up with him and seeing tons and tons of folks at USO as well. I'd expect that some good stories and/or videos should come out of the week.

Post Reply