SandWraith's Footnovel: Now with more footbag!

[SandWraith]

...i guess our equivilent would be sage francis coming up here in early october.

WHAT?!
Dude... I wish I could go to that. Dammit. Oh, and I found out your spring break is at the same time as mine, so I guess you can't really come down here for spring break activities... or at least I won't be here.

By the way, Brian and I had a 52 minute conversation on the phone today and I was laughing and smiling more than I probably have since I've been down here. It was pretty awesome, so if you ever are feeling down or just looking for a laugh, call him.

[SandWraith]

No footbag again-- my day, as a string, is as follows:

Wake up at 8 > chem lab till 12 > work study till 2 > lunch > homework. At this point I had about 40 minutes before our floor was scheduled to leave for City Museum, which is like a playground for adults. It was pretty darn cool-- all kinds of stuff to climb through and over and to explore. So during that 40 minute period I went and had another run (first two runs I've had here, yesterday and today). I kept a good 7 minute pace or better, I would think. Probably 2.25 miles plus or minus .25 miles.

Running uses some muscles footbag doesn't though, so my legs are actually sore. :/ Tomorrow is looking like homework and footbag and that's it.

Also, I really hope my abshire gets here cause my DocBag isn't gonna last too much longer.

[MaelstromEx]

Wait when did your docbag get destroyed!? how'd it happen!? Well good luck kicking, we have heavy....holy shit i just looked out the window and its frucking pouring rain. Guess i'm not kicking today

[SandWraith]

Yeah, my bag has numerous little holes as a result of getting soaked from my sweat. If I haven't mentioned it before, it has been consistently 90+ degrees Fahrenheit and high humidity. Also, I sweat a lot to begin with.

And yeah, it was raining hard here too, but I hadn't kicked Friday (WILD) or Saturday (lab + work + City Museum), and I know I won't have a chance to kick tomorrow (Monday is always filled), so I tried to make it work today. Unfortunately, the glue on the big hole on my bag had been coming loose, and when I got there I noticed it had fallen off completely. I tried to keep going, and just kept an eye on how the bag was. After about 5 minutes of this, I noticed that a bead was coming out of the hole, so I had to promptly quit. Dammit. I really hope my new bags show up soon, though I just finished gluing the holes on this one again in case I have to keep using it.

Since I couldn't play and still wanted to do SOMETHING, I went running again. Yes, that's 3 times in 3 days. And this time is was in the pouring rain. I'm not sure exactly how far I ran, but here's the path I made:

(I wouldn't read this cause you will have no idea where any of this is, but I'm writing it more for my own sake, though I don't even know what good it is):
Starting behind Gregg, through the underpass, over to Brookings and all the way to Crow (other side of campus), along Snow Run road (or whatever it's called), down to the road under construction and along that back to Whitaker, then uphill past Brookings and up Forsyth back to the underpass and back to my dorm.

So I more or less ran a diagonal across campus, then ran to one of the other corners, back to the first diagonal, then to the other corner I hadn't hit, and back to where I started.

I thought I'd also mention why I run, besides that I want some exercise when I can't play footbag. I play footbag because I love it. I run because I hate it. You know how people say that if you're angry you should take your aggression out on a pillow? Well, running is like that-- except you take the aggression out on yourself. Put on some good, fast, angry music and run yourself to death. Not only do you beat the anger out, but when you finish you're too tired to be angry. It's working well for me.

[SandWraith]

First real kicking since thursday (that's none friday, saturday, sunday, or monday, for those of you that are counting), so I didn't expect much. I had touched up my DocBag again and headed out with all three of my preciouses-- emmings, abshire, and doc. Things weren't really that bad, considering how long it had been (not that most of it was that great).

It didn't help that there were people smoking on one side of me and a bus sitting at the Knight Center on my other side, so the situation was like depicted in the diagram below:

BUS EXHAUST >>>>>> me <<<<<< CIGARETTE SMOKE

dammit.
-diving mirage > osis BS-- had never hit diving mirage before, so that was a good way to start the day
-mirage > clipper > blur > butterfly > ripwalk > spinning osis
-butterfly > butterfly > osis > butterfly > ripwalk > butterfly > butterfly > butterfly > osis > butterfly > ripwalk-- I'm not usually that butterfly happy, but I was trying to link two drills together and that's how it turned out
-butterfly > butterfly > osis > butterfly > ripwalk flipside-- cause I wanted to do that both sides (wouldn't be a highlight if I hadn't been kickless for 5 days)
-drifter > spinning clipper BS-- again, not a huge highlight but cool nonetheless
-bubba > toe whirl BS-- first try strong side, about a million tries flipside
-ducking clipper > blur BS-- not hard either, but a cool link I want to remember to use more often
-diving clipper > ducking clipper > diving clipper > zulu clipper BS-- maybe 2 tries each side before hitting it
-drifter > whirl > drifter > whirl
-barrage > butterfly > ss butterfly > far osis > torque-- a highlight because I wasn't really thinking, and so that was all more or less subconscious, meaning true-blue unplanned FREESTYLE
-ATOMSMASHER TWO TIMES-- hit from right toe so freakin cleanly and fluidly it just rocked my socks off; flipside atomic set is close, and I'm sure if I actually worked on it I could get this pretty quickly. I haven't really been working atomic to be honest, just illusions, so I'm pretty psyched about hitting atomsmasher-- I've been wanting that set.
-butterfly > osis > whirl BS-- so much fucking harder than it should have been; osis > whirl is HARD

I also whipped out my richie and whapped it around a bit when I got tired, and found that it's pretty tough to use at first. Hitting toe stalls wasn't a cake walk, so you can imagine how hard toe stall > op side clipper > osis BS was for me.

It was almost dark at this point, but I remembered Henry had hounded me on messenger about getting on his informal butterfly > paradox mirage > repeat challenge, so I decided to try to get at least 8. Given the lighting, I wasn't really expecting to hit that, though. I got 9 on the third try (dropped the butterfly delay for the 10th), and so I called it quits. I just have to try to beat that each day and I'll get to 40 in no time.

In other news, I feel like my identity is being taken cause Brian is starting to do a LOT of stepping. I know it's not like I have rights on this set, but I just hope he doesn't become a really big stepping person, or I'm gonna feel really unoriginal. :/ Just me whining, really.

[MaelstromEx]

Don't worry zach it's all around progression, i also hit pdx torque (once...painfully) and i even hit PIGBEATER. Although stepping does feel really natural i have trouble integrating much more than a ripwalk into my runs. Your identity is safe...for now

[SandWraith]

Was gonna play footbag today... and then it starting raining hardcore. Crap. So instead I went running in the pouring rain and did around 3 miles again. My ipod worked quite well despite the wetness... until I turned it off. Then when I tried to turn it back on, the screen was all black. You could still turn on the backlight or reset it, and I must have done that at least ten times. I finally reserved myself to the fact that I had fucked up my ipod by getting it wet, and that I would have to shell out like $225 to have it repaired, with just the slight glimmer of hope that when it dried it would work again. Well, it's dried and it works again, so that's a breath of fresh air.

Physics exam tomorrow night, so footbag after math (ends 1pm). Then I have to study for my Calc exam. I'm not angry, just disappointed, as the parents would say (hyucks).

I'm gonna try some symposium barrages though and see how they go.

In other news, I had dinner with Sharon and her roommate Betsy today, just as friends, and it went well. I'm feeling very happy with my current state.

I finally busted out the digital camera today too, and so sometime in the next couple days I should be able to get a bunch of pictures of campus up (it's only got a 32 mb internal memory stick though, which is about 50 1 megapixel photos or 30 3 megapixel photos, so I will probably have somewhere in that range, consisting of my room, my dorm, and the campus at large). Look for a post with those.

[SandWraith]

Today was good. My old bag feels really brittle and geriatric, though. The only problem with today was that it was a bit brisk out. I didn't even sweat very much playing footbag, which meant that it was hard for me to get into a groove for a while.

(in case it hasn't become obvious, the order in which I list things is the order in which I hit them, almost always)

-whirl > torque BS-- might try BSOS sometime soon
-10 toe stalls with my abshire! yeeeeeeeees! (yeah... it's pretty rolly at the moment)
-mirage > toe whirl > osis-- shut up, I wasn't kicking well at first
-drifter > osis > butterfly > ducking clipper > drifter > barrage
-op clipper > spinning clipper > repeat-- good spinning clipper and change of direction drill
-butterfly > paradox mirage 11 contacts-- I actually didn't think I would beat yesterday's without a lot of difficulty, so I was surprised when I got 11 on the second try (didn't try it again)
-atomsmasher, strongside again-- didn't put a ton of effort into hitting atomic today, just made sure I could do atomic sets both sides and then went back to trying not to suck; I actually hit atomsmasher like 3rd try or so
-worked on getting my flip atomic
-far osis > op clipper > spinning clipper > near osis BS
-blizzard BS-- first try strongside, second try flipside; should try to work into runs
-VORTEX!-- got the spin and dex SO many times, and wouldn't stop till I sealed it; the trick is in hopping a bit as you spin so that your leg isn't torqued by the frictional force
-tapping osis? atomic ss osis? crispy toe dyno? hell if I know-- anyways, it struck me as I was taking a water break that this would be a cool move, and for once it was a cool move I could try to do. I wanted it to be all uptime, like atomic gyro clipper, but eventually settled for atomic ss osis
-toe whirl > drifter BSx2, then...
-toe whirl > drifter BSOS

At one point 3 students stopped and watched me for like ten minutes, which at the time sorta sucked cause I was still... sucking. I kept dropping after every two moves, but they were smiling and saying stuff like, "woah! did you see that?". Anyways, the point is that I kept trying to do well and didn't stop at all between "runs", so as a result I started sweating and playing better (once they left ha).

As you can see, I also did a lot of spinning today, and got pretty damn dizzy at times.

I also had a physics exam today-- my first college test. It wasn't very hard but was very LONG (2 hours to complete). There were only 3 questions, but they all had many parts. The first involved the scene in Napoleon Dynamite where Pedro does a jump off a bike ramp. The second involved Kenny from South Park trying to outsled a snow ball on an incline plane. The third involved Ripley from Alien trying to get to her spaceship before the spacestation blew up by using conservation of momentum. Like I said... not too hard.

[SandWraith]

Today I only had time for about an hour and a half of footbag between the end of my physics class and our floor's dinner date (we went to the loop). Nonetheless, it was a good day again (don't know why these keep coming, but I'm not complaining).

-diving mirage BS-- wanted to start the session with something that I would miss not because I wasn't warmed up but because it was hard, so I wouldn't feel frustrated with myself
-zulu (paradox) mirage BS-- from clipper, just to specify; took me a lot of tries, even though I cleared the zulu and the dex almost if not every time I tried it... I just couldn't land the toe delay
-blurry whirl BS-- first try strongside (wtf) and the first time I've hit it flipside ever (only hit blurry whirl once before, and it was on video)
-butterfly > paradox mirage > repeat for 9 contacts-- this drill is NO fun so I may not do it anymore; elaborated below
-atomsmasher strongside x 2-- I only tried it a couple times strongside, so it's definately there. Flipside I can clear both dexes before the bag hits but can't get my foot under it yet
-legbeater strongside-- I never thought this move looked that cool on video, but doing it makes me say OH MY GOD is it fun to do! So rhythmic and sproingy.
-osis > paradox mirage > toe whirl BS
-spinning clipper x 4 > spinning clipper drop-- did this out of the blue
-spinning clipper (flipside) > spinning clipper
-butterfly > spinning clipper BS
-blur BS with Abshire-- the bag's actually getting to the point where I can do some really short runs, but it's definately not playable yet
-ripwalk > blur BS
-ducking clipper > blizzard BS-- blizzard's are coming pretty easily, and are a nice-feeling change from blurs, so you might see more of them

If I forgot to mention it yesterday, I figured out why my flip blurs are harder for me than my strongside (which I can now hit consistently). The issue is that when I step flipside, I don't drag my leg far enough over that I have to turn my body. Thus, the paradox mirage part of the blur requires me to turn my whole leg around to the bag and then go around it (in contrast, but turning as you step, you just have a nice, easy mirage in front of you). It seems to be easy enough to solve.

To improve my flip spinning, whenever I do a spinning clipper strongside, I stop and do two of them flip. For example, when I did 5 consecutive strongside spinning clippers, I then spent the next couple minutes doing 10 spinning clippers flipside. It's kinda a hassle, but it should serve its purpose.

As a side note, I want to incorporate far pickups BS into at least 1 run every day, because even though it's 2 adds, it's not an easy move for me flipside and I like how it feels, a lot more so than paradox mirages.

As far as the Henry's challenge (butterfly > paradox mirage > repeat till I can get 40 contacts, with the goal of besting my personal best every day), I may stop doing that. For one thing, I don't really like paradox mirages that much-- they don't feel comfortable or flowy at all. Also, doing repeat drills is fine and sorta fun, but not when you just keep repeating them. I can't even try to see how many butterflies I can get, even though it wouldn't be that many, because it would drive me insane.

Of academic note, I had my calc 3 seminar test today, which I thought would own me. The name of the class is "How Math Works: An Introduction to Multivariable Calculus", and it really isn't so much about calculus as it is about the real gritty math behind it. For example, if you've ever done a formal limit proof with delta-range and epsilon tolerances, you know what I'm talking about. So anyways, everyone (all 12 of us) were expecting to get thoroughly ravished by this test, but it was surprisingly simple. Kinda nice.

Lots of homework this weekend and various other things to do, including but not limited to: calling Brian, determining which music to give Sharon, uploading my digital images to photobucket, modding my shoes, going to the grocery store, and meeting with Winston and James so they can watch me play footbag. Yeah, so perhaps that last one merits an explanation. James from my floor watched me play footbag a while ago and now enjoys telling people how freaking awesome I am at it, and will vigorously describe how footbag is different from hacky sack and why it's so hardcore. Well, his (our?) friend Winston now can't wait to see me play, so we set up a good time Saturday for the two of them to watch. Kinda weird, eh?

[wolfpac444]

Of academic note, I had my calc 3 seminar test today, which I thought would own me. The name of the class is "How Math Works: An Introduction to Multivariable Calculus", and it really isn't so much about calculus as it is about the real gritty math behind it. For example, if you've ever done a formal limit proof with delta-range and epsilon tolerances, you know what I'm talking about. So anyways, everyone (all 12 of us) were expecting to get thoroughly ravished by this test, but it was surprisingly simple. Kinda nice.

Yay delta-epsilon proofs!

[SandWraith]

So saturday isn't really a part of my weekend. :/ Chem lab from 9 to 1, then work study from 1 to 3. It's a full day.

After work study (wherein 1 hour and 40 minutes were spent studying cause they didn't have anything for me to do), I went to play footbag. James and Winston said they were gonna show up, but James is notoriously capricious, so I figured he'd make another 5 minute showing near the end of my session (and I was right).

Anyways, so I started kicking and two girls girls in a car drove by and yelled something. I'm saying that pretty randomly but it was pretty random then too. They drove by later and yelled something too. (???)

-ducking paradox mirage BS
-toe whirl > osis > ss butterfly > osis > MLO
-diving clipper > ducking clipper for 6 contacts-- not that great but I haven't done a lot of diving for a while, so it ain't bad
-toe whirl > drifter > barrage > butterfly > sidewalk drop
-toe whirl > drifter BS many times as I attempted to tag a barrage onto the end of it
-spinning butterfly (from LFC) midrun without thinking-- that may be the first time I've hit that move, and it was my first try... and I didn't plan it
-spinning butterfly flipside second try-- meaning my spinning is apparently not too shitty anymore

This following highlight deserves a break from the listing, and that is that after Winston and James showed up and Winston left (their floor was doing something later), James was watching me and I decided to show him some of the new things I had been trying. I showed him atomsmasher second try, and then while we were talking I decided to try legbeater and hit it first try (only hit it once before and yesterday, and yet it comes easily strongside). Then, since I was on a roll, I told him I wanted to show him what was in my opinion the prettiest move in footbag, and proceeded to attempt vortex. After about 15 tries I hit it... for the second time ever/ in two days. There ya go-- 3 moves that I am only working on getting and I hit them all within about 5 minutes for James. Now for flipside. (my flip atomic is getting there, but I still don't have time for atomsmasher)

-blur > butterfly > blur > osis > butterfly > butterfly > spinning osis > handcatch
-butterfly > gyro mirage > osis > butterfly > gyro mirage-- I want to start putting gyro mirages into runs, not just as a training tool for vortex but also because they look hot

New moves hit today with variations on spinning and illusions:
-gyro legover > op clipper > gyro bubba-- yes, that's the first time I've hit either of them (or tried, that I can recall)
-gyro bubba flipside with much ado-- didn't get gyro legover BS but perhaps soon
-spinning illusions BS-- a hell of a lot easier than gyro bubba, really

-butterfly > blur BS
-butterfly > blizzard BS-- first try strongside, second try flipside; consciously doing blizzards and they should fit into runs fluidly

And finally, I did butterfly > torque BS with my abshire! Not sure if this is impressive for me (cause the bag is rolly) or just a sign that my abshire is getting broken in, but it's good either way.

As you can tell, I'm having fun at the moment seeing the fruits of my practice. I haven't been working on hitting new moves, but instead focusing on just doing runs, though I often will decide on a particular string I want to hit and go for it. The point, though, is that I haven't been trying to hit a lot of the moves I'm hitting now-- it's all coming from just practicing runs. Kinda cool, eh?

Things to work on:
-incorporating more drifters, gyro mirages, and blizzards
-spinning more consistently
-developing atomic set both sides

I am going to try to upload the pictures I took around campus after I finish this post, so if I get it to work tonight I'll post a link or something.

[SandWraith]

Ok, so the pictures have been uploaded. Woot. If you want to see what my life / daily routine is like or what WashU looks like, feel free to click here to start. However, cause I uploaded them the way I took them, the first picture in the series is the last picture I took, and so to see them properly you have to start at the end (pic 78 of 78, which is where the link goes). So if you do look at them, just click <<previous>> to advance through them.

For those more footbag-inclined, there are 4 pictures in the album related to my shred locale, and one picture of my footbags, which are:
Eliot Hall-- behind which I play footbag
View of My Shred Spot from behind Eliot
Shred Spot Pic 1
Shred Spot Pic 2
My Footbags

I hope you enjoy them and, as always, feel free to comment!

[MaelstromEx]

Kickass spots and bags, i hope to shred down there one day with you

[SandWraith]

Kicked with Tony today, so I didn't write down much. We had a lot of fun and near the end just tried to hit hard stuff for us. For him that included osis > torque, which he hit strongside, and dyno > dyno, which he couldn't get (and probably won't for a while since neither of us does dynos much). I hit vortex, dyno BS (and will try to incorporate them with time), tomahawk (first time ever) strongside (but footed flipside 3 times), blurry whirl strongside (came close flipside but was getting tired). Overall, it was a lot of fun just testing ourselves out and seeing what we could hit.

Goals for next time we sesh:
me: tomahawk flipside; blurry whirl flipside
Tony: dyno > torque; flip torque

I'd like to work on hitting dyno > butterfly as a good change from my usual osis > butterfly routine.

No footbag tomorrow (monday). Not much else to report.

[SandWraith]

Got to kick again today. I had a 2 hour nap before it though, so I was still a bit groggy at first, and it didn't help that it was ridiculously humid, either. However, I eventually found my edge.

-spinning butterfly BSOS in an 8+ contact run
-dyno BS
-drifter (from LF clipper) > gyro mirage-- my flip spinning isn't good enough for me to land that flipside yet
-gyro mirage (flip) > op clipper > gyro mirage > op clipper
-toe whirl > osis > butterfly > far legover > butterfly > far pickup > toe whirl drop
-paradox mirage > toe whirl (flip) > drifter
-atomsmasher, legbeater strongside once each-- worked on flip atomic once I was sure I could hit both of those
-10 flip spinning clippers, 5 strongside spinning clippers
-paradox mirage > ss toe whirl BS-- I wanna work on doing more ss toe whirls, because they look and feel really cool
-toe whirl > osis > paradox whirl (from RF clipper)-- finally hit what I tried to do September 21st (the flipside of what I did then)
-toe whirl > MLO-- both sides first try; did it more times without much trouble either, so I hope to eventually go from toe whirls to stepping consistently
-toe whirl > blur-- couldn't hit flip, but perhaps because it was getting near the end? I'll try that next time (if I remember)
-dyno BS again
-butterfly > gyro mirage BS
-sidewalk > blur BS-- was gonna try sidewalk > blizzard but I was running out of time (see below)
-10 more flipside spinning clippers, 5 more strongside spinning clippers

I was on a time limit today because I told Sharon I'd meet her at 6:30 for dinner at the Village. Too bad, too, because I was over the humidity and really enjoying my session. Dinner was good though, I suppose. It's odd, because it's like we have to do things together once in a while to maintain a friendship. H'oh well.

Tomorrow is my last big test for a month-- spanish exam. I'm in a class where about half the students have been to a spanish-speaking country for an extended period of time and thereby speak much better than me. That means I have to study a lot for this. :/ It's a good thing, really-- I have to work harder to do well and as a result get a lot better at the language. So yeah... I'll be studying.

[SandWraith]

Short session today because I left at 5 and wanted to be back for our floor dinner at 6:30.

-butterfly > dyno > op inside > op clipper > butterfly > dyno drop-- the op inside is cause I am not very comfortable with dynos yet, and so I can't really predict where exactly they'll land
-dyno (flipside) > near pickup > butterfly > drifter > osis > butterfly drop
-butterfly > far pickup > toe whirl > drifter drop
-flip butterfly > far pickup > toe whirl > osis > inside delay > butterfly > refraction > ducking clipper > ducking clipper > spinning clipper drop-- the inside was actually intended on that run, because it seemed cool with the butterfly and the refraction, to me at least
-spinning ducking clipper-- first try strongside, 5 tries flipside or something; if it weren't so god damn hot out I would have tried to do spinning ducking butterfly or something like that, but I didn't want to get my bag soaked from banging it into my head
-atomsmasher strongside again... flipside will come eventually (I hope)
-gyro mirage first try strongside, two tries flipside-- meaning the spinning practice is paying off and I should be able to work those in pretty well soon
-spinning clipper > drifter BS
-spinning clipper > drifter > spinning clipper > drifting toe-- so close to a cycle of that... perhaps tomorrow
-butterfly > sidewalk > blizzard BS-- as promised yesterday
-10 flipside spinning clippers, 5 strongside spinning clippers
-10 flipside atomic sets

Things I want to work on/put into runs:
-gyro mirage
-dyno
-more spinning
-atomic set
-drifters
-blizzard
-getting a furious set

Had a spanish test today, too. It went very well, even though I had to write a literary analysis essay on one of the stories we read (I wrote on the symbolism in El Almohadon de Plumas). I've never had to write anything like that before, but I think it should turn out well. Got my math and physics tests back, and did well. Clear skies ahead, me thinks.

[SandWraith]

I woke up today with the precursor symptoms of a cold, and since it was also kinda chilly outside (high 50's, low 60's), I decided it'd be a good idea to just take today off. If I still feel a bit under tomorrow, I won't kick then either... which sucks. But I've tried playing through these and it turns a 2-day recovery (without playing) into a 10-day cold (with playing)... and you play shitty.

Oh, and so I woke up this morning to my alarm clock, as usual, but in trying to turn it off -- it wouldn't! So I had to take the damn batteries out. I reset the time later in the day and set the alarm to wake me before fencing at 5. To make a short story short, it didn't wake me. I had set the time to AM when it was PM. I woke up at 4:49 and literally just put my contacts in, threw on clothes, and biked like hell to get there by 5. I made it... and then realized that fencing was at 5:30. Gawd.

It was really cool though, because we suited up this time and got to do parries, disengages, and half lunges. Then, at the end of the session, we got to fence against someone else. It was SO fun! I was told that I'm really fast, and I hit the other guy a lot more than he hit me... so obviously I enjoyed it (since people tend to like doing well).

The only notable footbag-related thing is that I think the problem with my barrages is that I dex around the ankle, so I don't set the bag above knee height. I am gonna make an effort to do barrages more like a half-stepping ss mirage from now on, so that the barrages are a lot higher and I can work them towards a barraging set.

EDIT: Just watched "Numb" again and I have to say Chad D's gyro whirls are so ridiculously fluid that I now want to work on gyro whirls.

[SandWraith]

Day 2 of the sickness. My head feels denser than normal, resulting in a weird nauseous, out-of-it feeling. A mild cough, but nothing too major. No shred today or sunday, and monday is filled with classes. Hopefully I will be recovered by Tuesday.

Did well on my spanish test, and only have chemistry left on Tuesday, though that shouldn't be bad.

Hope I can get enough sleep since I have chemistry lab tomorrow from 9 am to 1 pm. :/

[DoctorJay]

Ok, so the pictures have been uploaded. Woot. If you want to see what my life / daily routine is like or what WashU looks like, feel free to click here to start. However, cause I uploaded them the way I took them, the first picture in the series is the last picture I took, and so to see them properly you have to start at the end (pic 78 of 78, which is where the link goes). So if you do look at them, just click <<previous>> to advance through them.

For those more footbag-inclined, there are 4 pictures in the album related to my shred locale, and one picture of my footbags, which are:
Eliot Hall-- behind which I play footbag
View of My Shred Spot from behind Eliot
Shred Spot Pic 1
Shred Spot Pic 2
My Footbags

I hope you enjoy them and, as always, feel free to comment!

cool pics

you are playing on concrete all the time --- roughhhhhhh
do you have an indoor location too?

wait until I got a cam than I will post some pics too .
It is always interesting to read your blog - there is some personality in it .

[SandWraith]

Awesome! I'd really like to see your pics.

I'm feeling much better today-- just a bit of a cough and the knowledge that I'm a little sick yet, but not at all like it was yesterday. That was perhaps one of the weirdest nights of my life.

I had chem lab saturday morning, and the experiment this time had to do with redox reactions, so I spent 5 hours friday learning and drilling them. I must have balanced at least 30 redox reactions... it was ridiculous. So anyways, I started getting this really bad headache. I called it quits and went to bed, but started sweating profusely. What's worse, I had these weird nightmare/hallucinations related to redox reactions. It was horrible. I woke up at least 10 times throughout the night, always drenched in sweat, and afraid I was late for chem lab. In my dream, we were always given a redox reaction we had to complete before chem lab, and (no idea why, but) it always involved bromine or barium (can't remember which). I would wake up thinking I had failed chem, that I was late for chem, and knowing I was sick and totally soaked.

The good news, though, is that I feel better now... despite nearly throwing up in chem lab. H'oh well. I think last night was when the fever reached its max, and so now the worst should be past. I'm hoping that tomorrow I won't feel sick at all, and then sunday and monday can serve as recuperation days and, with any luck, I can play footbag Tuesday. Before then I'd like to scope out some good potential backup spots (if the racquetball thing doesn't work out).

Oh, and an interesting aside:
After chem lab I went to subway and got a 12-inch sub to cram down my throat (though I didn't feel like eating, I knew it would be good for me). It had pepperoni, salami, pepperjack cheese, spinach, and pickles on it. After eating about 3 inches, I realized I didn't really like how the pickles and spinach tasted on it (I usually do), so I took those off. After getting halfway through, the pepperjack was bugging me, so I took that off too. Then, as I got down to the last 3 inches, the salami started tasting really shitty, so I took that off too, and then realized I didn't like how what was left tasted either, but ate it anyways. Random anecdote, yeah... but that's what an aside is.