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jamesqI had a three-day weekend. It was a lot of fun.
Friday I started with a neighborhood run (in the now mostly clear streets). Next I had lunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
conejita_diabla at Salt and Pepper (One of Calgary's better Mexican restaurants). It's improved greatly from the last time I was there ten years ago. The best part, a pleasant chat while just standing around in the warm sun. It was about 12c so we were enjoying the fresh spring weather.
I rounded out the day with some window shopping at the farmer's market and Costco, Friday night archery practice and a late-evening trip to the pub with some good folks. Also contemplating taking two days off sometime in the next few months just to go up to Borealis to see how the other half lives. I figure I could hit a tavern and an archery practice during the evenings while site-seeing around Edmonton during the days. Currently these plans are vague and ephemeral things, likely to blow apart at a touch. Time will give them more mass.
Saturday,garething and I went to the Calgary Archery Center to compete in the 2009 ATAA Provincial Indoor Target Archery Championship. AKA My first non-SCA archery tournament.
The format was simple, we shot at 40 cm targets divided into ten rings. Three arrows per end, 20 ends. The range was 20 yards. This gave us a possible top score of 600 points. I was hoping to break 300 points, but only got 294. G shot 391. What does that mean? It means that I was mostly hitting the blue part of the target. On a 60cm SCA target, I'd be mostly hitting the red.
I used to worry that we had too many categories in the SCA. Given that there was over twenty categories in the normal archery world, I'm less concerned. They had categories for age, gender and bow type. G and I were both in the "Men's Senior Bare-bow" division. G came in second. I came in third. That's the good news. The bad news is that only three of us competed.
Now that doesn't mean I suck - I figure plenty of people simply didn't enter because they figured they weren't good enough. Also, comparing myself to the other divisions I did quite well. Of all the Men's bare-bow, I came in 4th. Of the Women's bare-bow, I figure only one or two shot better then me. I think of it as being in the top half of the group of archers who figure they've got a chance.
As for G, he's just a better a shot then I. Probably because he's got that whole zen-martial-arts thing going for him that I find baffling. I don't grok it, and so I'll never be able to master it. I figure that means I'll have to simply brute-force it until I break that 100-point mark.
The guy who won our division? Never seen him before, but he was a helluva good shot.
conejita_diabla and sagaciouslu cheered us on during the Saturday afternoon shoot. We also got a surprise visit from F, one of Montengarde's sergeants, who normally lives in Medicine Hat. Finally, I managed to break the ice with several of the bow-hunting regulars who also hang out at the range.
Interestingly, almost every archer at the shoot whom I mentioned the SCA to understood what I was talking about. They generally knew nothing beyond "medieval re-enactors", but they generally knew of someone at their local range who was into it and they generally thought of these people as friendly, if a little weird. Certainly this is better then the "Friday night freak show" reputation that we had a few years ago. It helps that people aren't setting up looms on the tables anymore.
After archery a bunch of us went to supper at the Lion's Den. Joining me andconejita_diabla was thebrucie, thekillerb69 and naughtynat07. The fare was, as expected, decent diner food with the restaurant owner appearing to regale us with stories and bad jokes. If you're looking for anything more, go elsewhere. If you just want a decent meal for dirt cheap and you don't mind long rambling stories from a somewhat politically-incorrect old codger, knock yourself out.
Afterward, the others all went to watch lacrosse. I went home, but not before being trapped for ten minutes listening to the owner tell me about his old minor-league hockey days. It was about half-way through this when I realized this guy had slipped into senile dementia some time ago and nobody had noticed.
I spent the evening withgarething, stephtopia and our friends MJ and DJ. We gossiped something fierce and it was wonderful cathartic fun. I went home to discover that, after lacrosse, my dinner-mates had returned to play rock band.
I also discovered that the leading edge of a snow storm had hit the city. All that wonderful spring weather we'd been having? All undone by a record-breaking 25cm dump of snow. The city was now a winter wonderland again. And it was thick, wet, heavy snow that's very difficult to drive in. Good thing G's place is walking distance away.
Next morning I woke up after too little sleep. Par for the course for SCA archery tournaments, which tend to be first thing in the morning. I guess archery (and sprots in general) in the real world have lots of early mornings. I got into the car and attempted to drive across town to the range. This turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea because the roads were so bad.
I drove slowly, and this is probably the only reason why I'm still alive today. At one point, on Deerfoot trail (for you non-locals, that's the busiest freeway in town), I had a heart-stopping near-accident. The guy in front of me spun out and started going down the road sideways. I turned to evade him and then I started to slide out of control. I do know how to drive under these conditions so I regained control of the car only to have it start to get away from me the other way. This continued for several iterations while I managed to get past the guy who was now heading into the ditch at low speed (nobody was going very fast, thankfully - everyone was doing below 50 Kph on a road designed to do 100). Adding to the complications was that the vehicles beside and behind me were also moving to evade and also going out-of-control because of it. Somehow it sorted itself out (aside from the guy in the ditch, and I doubt he sustained much damage doing that) and we all got past it without colliding with each other, the median barrier or the ditch. It was, however, the closest I've come to being in the middle of a multi-car pile up. My heart was racing at the end of it. I slowed down to about 10 kph and slowly brought the car up to about 40 kph by the time I got to my exit. I continued to the range without incident.
G told me later that he had considered phoning me to warn me about conditions on Deerfoot. He decided against this because he figured I was on my way and me talking on my cell while driving was contra-indicated. Given the timing, he'd have probably reached me after the incident, so it was all moot.
The worst part? While I was in the middle of it, I wasn't thinking "Oh god I'm going to die", I was thinking "Son of a bitch, I just had the front end of the car fixed".
DJ showed up to cheer G and I on. The second shoot was a series of elimination rounds. They group us into sets and then the worst shot was eliminated each round until they had one left. So they teamed up the senior and master men's bare bow categories (there was a total of eight of us) and we started shooting. I came in fourth. Gareth came in first. They repeated this for all of the categories.
This left 20 competitors from each category who were now going to eliminate each other. At this point the format changed somewhat. First, you only had one arrow per round. Second, you were eliminated when you missed your target three times. The targets were handicapped based on your previous days results. Remember Gareth had shot a 391? That meant his target was 40cm - (40cm * 391/600) = 14cm. The guys using the tricked out hunting or Olympic bows? The ones with stabilizers/counter-weights/sights? They had to hit targets on the order of 3 cm. All other things being equal, I thought this was a decent way of doing things. The high-tech bows still had an advantage, but I'm not sure how you'd eliminate that further.
G made it several rounds, but was still eliminated early. He came in around 15th. Given there was originally 150-200 competitors, that's not bad. Top 10% is something to be proud of.
Afterward they raffled for door prizes (Sorryconejita_diabla, I didn't get the throw blanket) and gave out medallions for the winners. I now have a big damn piece of bling that may or may not go onto my quiver. We got out of the range two hours earlier then we thought we would.
The snow had stopped by this point and the sun was out. The City had plowed the major roads and the warmth contributed to the drive home actually being OK. Only the side roads were shit.
We (conejita_diabla, thebrucie and I) rounded out the day visiting thekillerb69 and naughtynat07. Sadly we missed oblivions and EP, who were there earlier. It was uneventful and fun. We watched Fido and The Transient, played Scene It and Rockband. And I discovered that some blessed soul has managed to combine beer and maple. Yum.
Friday I started with a neighborhood run (in the now mostly clear streets). Next I had lunch with
conejita_diabla at Salt and Pepper (One of Calgary's better Mexican restaurants). It's improved greatly from the last time I was there ten years ago. The best part, a pleasant chat while just standing around in the warm sun. It was about 12c so we were enjoying the fresh spring weather.I rounded out the day with some window shopping at the farmer's market and Costco, Friday night archery practice and a late-evening trip to the pub with some good folks. Also contemplating taking two days off sometime in the next few months just to go up to Borealis to see how the other half lives. I figure I could hit a tavern and an archery practice during the evenings while site-seeing around Edmonton during the days. Currently these plans are vague and ephemeral things, likely to blow apart at a touch. Time will give them more mass.
Saturday,
garething and I went to the Calgary Archery Center to compete in the 2009 ATAA Provincial Indoor Target Archery Championship. AKA My first non-SCA archery tournament.The format was simple, we shot at 40 cm targets divided into ten rings. Three arrows per end, 20 ends. The range was 20 yards. This gave us a possible top score of 600 points. I was hoping to break 300 points, but only got 294. G shot 391. What does that mean? It means that I was mostly hitting the blue part of the target. On a 60cm SCA target, I'd be mostly hitting the red.
I used to worry that we had too many categories in the SCA. Given that there was over twenty categories in the normal archery world, I'm less concerned. They had categories for age, gender and bow type. G and I were both in the "Men's Senior Bare-bow" division. G came in second. I came in third. That's the good news. The bad news is that only three of us competed.
Now that doesn't mean I suck - I figure plenty of people simply didn't enter because they figured they weren't good enough. Also, comparing myself to the other divisions I did quite well. Of all the Men's bare-bow, I came in 4th. Of the Women's bare-bow, I figure only one or two shot better then me. I think of it as being in the top half of the group of archers who figure they've got a chance.
As for G, he's just a better a shot then I. Probably because he's got that whole zen-martial-arts thing going for him that I find baffling. I don't grok it, and so I'll never be able to master it. I figure that means I'll have to simply brute-force it until I break that 100-point mark.
The guy who won our division? Never seen him before, but he was a helluva good shot.
conejita_diabla and sagaciouslu cheered us on during the Saturday afternoon shoot. We also got a surprise visit from F, one of Montengarde's sergeants, who normally lives in Medicine Hat. Finally, I managed to break the ice with several of the bow-hunting regulars who also hang out at the range.Interestingly, almost every archer at the shoot whom I mentioned the SCA to understood what I was talking about. They generally knew nothing beyond "medieval re-enactors", but they generally knew of someone at their local range who was into it and they generally thought of these people as friendly, if a little weird. Certainly this is better then the "Friday night freak show" reputation that we had a few years ago. It helps that people aren't setting up looms on the tables anymore.
After archery a bunch of us went to supper at the Lion's Den. Joining me and
conejita_diabla was thebrucie, thekillerb69 and naughtynat07. The fare was, as expected, decent diner food with the restaurant owner appearing to regale us with stories and bad jokes. If you're looking for anything more, go elsewhere. If you just want a decent meal for dirt cheap and you don't mind long rambling stories from a somewhat politically-incorrect old codger, knock yourself out.Afterward, the others all went to watch lacrosse. I went home, but not before being trapped for ten minutes listening to the owner tell me about his old minor-league hockey days. It was about half-way through this when I realized this guy had slipped into senile dementia some time ago and nobody had noticed.
I spent the evening with
garething, stephtopia and our friends MJ and DJ. We gossiped something fierce and it was wonderful cathartic fun. I went home to discover that, after lacrosse, my dinner-mates had returned to play rock band.I also discovered that the leading edge of a snow storm had hit the city. All that wonderful spring weather we'd been having? All undone by a record-breaking 25cm dump of snow. The city was now a winter wonderland again. And it was thick, wet, heavy snow that's very difficult to drive in. Good thing G's place is walking distance away.
Next morning I woke up after too little sleep. Par for the course for SCA archery tournaments, which tend to be first thing in the morning. I guess archery (and sprots in general) in the real world have lots of early mornings. I got into the car and attempted to drive across town to the range. This turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea because the roads were so bad.
I drove slowly, and this is probably the only reason why I'm still alive today. At one point, on Deerfoot trail (for you non-locals, that's the busiest freeway in town), I had a heart-stopping near-accident. The guy in front of me spun out and started going down the road sideways. I turned to evade him and then I started to slide out of control. I do know how to drive under these conditions so I regained control of the car only to have it start to get away from me the other way. This continued for several iterations while I managed to get past the guy who was now heading into the ditch at low speed (nobody was going very fast, thankfully - everyone was doing below 50 Kph on a road designed to do 100). Adding to the complications was that the vehicles beside and behind me were also moving to evade and also going out-of-control because of it. Somehow it sorted itself out (aside from the guy in the ditch, and I doubt he sustained much damage doing that) and we all got past it without colliding with each other, the median barrier or the ditch. It was, however, the closest I've come to being in the middle of a multi-car pile up. My heart was racing at the end of it. I slowed down to about 10 kph and slowly brought the car up to about 40 kph by the time I got to my exit. I continued to the range without incident.
G told me later that he had considered phoning me to warn me about conditions on Deerfoot. He decided against this because he figured I was on my way and me talking on my cell while driving was contra-indicated. Given the timing, he'd have probably reached me after the incident, so it was all moot.
The worst part? While I was in the middle of it, I wasn't thinking "Oh god I'm going to die", I was thinking "Son of a bitch, I just had the front end of the car fixed".
DJ showed up to cheer G and I on. The second shoot was a series of elimination rounds. They group us into sets and then the worst shot was eliminated each round until they had one left. So they teamed up the senior and master men's bare bow categories (there was a total of eight of us) and we started shooting. I came in fourth. Gareth came in first. They repeated this for all of the categories.
This left 20 competitors from each category who were now going to eliminate each other. At this point the format changed somewhat. First, you only had one arrow per round. Second, you were eliminated when you missed your target three times. The targets were handicapped based on your previous days results. Remember Gareth had shot a 391? That meant his target was 40cm - (40cm * 391/600) = 14cm. The guys using the tricked out hunting or Olympic bows? The ones with stabilizers/counter-weights/sights? They had to hit targets on the order of 3 cm. All other things being equal, I thought this was a decent way of doing things. The high-tech bows still had an advantage, but I'm not sure how you'd eliminate that further.
G made it several rounds, but was still eliminated early. He came in around 15th. Given there was originally 150-200 competitors, that's not bad. Top 10% is something to be proud of.
Afterward they raffled for door prizes (Sorry
conejita_diabla, I didn't get the throw blanket) and gave out medallions for the winners. I now have a big damn piece of bling that may or may not go onto my quiver. We got out of the range two hours earlier then we thought we would.The snow had stopped by this point and the sun was out. The City had plowed the major roads and the warmth contributed to the drive home actually being OK. Only the side roads were shit.
We (
conejita_diabla, thebrucie and I) rounded out the day visiting thekillerb69 and naughtynat07. Sadly we missed oblivions and EP, who were there earlier. It was uneventful and fun. We watched Fido and The Transient, played Scene It and Rockband. And I discovered that some blessed soul has managed to combine beer and maple. Yum.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 01:10 am (UTC)Hahahaha... You sound like a seasoned Calgarian Driver!
Re: Getting the Funk, you say?!?!
Date: 2009-03-24 04:19 am (UTC)