Bobby G's footblog

[Cass]

Yeah I sort of fell into organic synthesis but I don't like it all that much to be honest. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do once I finish my masters.

So you make handheld mass spectrometers? That sounds hella cool. I could use one of those..

I can't make any promises about NYFA jam but I will definitely be at East Coasts.


Check out this tutorial if you haven't already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf5uZPB ... G82ku-wvrF

[bobgreen]

Hey Cass, not sure if you are at all interested in doing analytical work but I can offer that I’ve known quite a few organic folks turned analytical. There is so much analytical characterization in organic synthesis work I think a lot of the skills are directly transferable. A strong organic background really benefits some analytical work, like figuring out degradation pathways for different materials. Whatevah though, I like what I do pretty well and I still find myself trying to figure out what I want to do down the road.

And thanks for passing on the link. That is a great tutorial, and I’ve been trying to really focus on a lot of David’s tips. I’ll get there soon.

Strange footbag week for me. Monday session with Hogan was great, and hitting paradox whirl and terrage were really pleasant surprises. Tuesday night I came home from work and after eating with the family I worked until 1:30 am, so no footbag. Set my alarm for 3:30 so I could catch a 5:30 am flight, and ended up having issues that got me in late to my destination. That pretty well canceled the 1/2 day of work I was supposed to have, so I took a nap for 2 hours and then had a footbag session. Location was very sloped and sucked and my lack of sleep all contributed to a lackluster session. Despite a pretty shit session, I was pleased that I still got off my duff and played. Thursday night more evening work prevented a session, and Friday night I flew home so no session then either. Saturday we had to tidy the house and then vacate for a showing. Saturday evening my son had 2 friends over and we ‘yard camped’. Slept in a tent in the back yard and made hot dogs and smores cooked over the chiminia. I can remove the smoke stack on that, so it really was just like a big fire pit. The yard camping with the kids was pretty awesome.....super glad I did it, but prevented me from playing on a Saturday for the first time in months. Today I wasn’t feeling it for some reason, but convinced myself to session anyway and ended up having a really good time. So two good days this week and one blah, but overall it felt like a slow footbag week.

Outside of the session, I spent a fair bit of time with my family today. That was really nice...haven’t been spending enough time with them. The weekend after NYFA is Labor Day, and I’m going to take the family up to Acadia National Park in Maine for a weekend camping on the ocean. I am really, really excited for that!

Planning to shred with Hogan tomorrow at La Casa Verde which should be fun. I’ll probably also try to get in solo sessions Tuesday and/or Wednesday, but I imagine I should give myself a day or two of rest before road tripping with Kevin to NYFA Friday afternoon.

[bobgreen]

Took the day off of work today. Got up and cooked brekkie for the family, then did a few chores. Took my daughter for lunch, and now I'm just relaxing for the next couple of hours until I head out to pick up Kevin so we can head to NYFA jam. Looking forward to the jam and to meeting a lot of new people. I hope I play well this weekend, but I think it should be fun no matter how well I play. It will be strange to be away for the weekend from my family, but I'm really looking forward to a proper road trip.

I need to remember to take pictures this weekend. Will be nice to actually blog about an event from the present.

[bobgreen]

Attended my first footbag event in nearly 10 years this past weekend, and it was a cracking good time!

I saw others did bullet point summaries, but I’m going for full paragraphs. Hopefully a few of you will still read it.

After relaxing a bit on Friday, I packed up the necessities for the weekend.....plenty of clean clothes, a sleeping bag, and some beer and salsa to share with everyone. Shot over to Hogan’s house around 5:30 where I got to meet his Dad briefly, and then we headed on our way. Fun drive down to NYC shooting the breeze and listening to music. Ended up listening to the Ice Cube Pandora station, which was kind of a fun flash back.

Arrived to Bruce Dole’s house maybe around 11pm. Said hello to a couple of folks that I had met in the past and then made introductions to folks I hadn’t met before. Felt like a bit of a douche for not remembering Drew Martin from earlier tournaments way back when. Honestly though, I’ve re-read posts about some of the tournaments that I attended my last year or two before stopping footbag in 2005 and I feel like there are a lot of things I don’t remember for some reason. Had fun hanging with everyone chatting and watching random youtube videos until ‘old guy syndrome‘ kicked in and I headed off to bed around 2:30 am. The nice thing about that though is that I scored a choice spot on the futon just outside of Bruce’s sleeping loft.

Woke up in the morning and was greeted by Bruce’s cat.


Eventually we all made our way to breakfast at a joint called Ridgewood Eats. Good food, but our poor waitress ‘Rosa’ was slammed so there was some confusion getting all of our food to us and getting us all silverware. Perhaps the highlight of the meal was when Nick tried to give John Good some water by nuzzling it across the table with his nose. Lets just say that Nick is not as skilled with his nose as he is with his feet.....John got totally soaked out of the deal.

Not too long after breakfast we headed over to Central Park for shred! Walked in through the Strawberry Fields area where John Lennon was killed. There is a nice little memorial there, and there were folks playing Lennon songs. Shred spot was awesome place with fairly flat brick area near a bandstand. There was a drum circle going next to us for a good portion of the day which was awesome, and there were also some B-Boys type guys nearby, and down near the port-a-potties there were folks rollerskating to Disco Music. I’m happy that footbag is my hobby, but I’m also happy that other people also have a variety of cool hobbies.



We had a solid 4 hour shred session that lasted unit about 6:30 or 7:00 pm, then we decided to head out. Ended up at some kind of Texas BBQ joint nearby. The portions were absolutely massive, and the drinks could all be “texas sized”. I started with a beer, but Polini and a couple of others ordered these Strawberry Daiquiri things. I’m not too much into fruity drinks, but I held inside any quips I might have regarding the candy ass nature of the drinks these guys were ordering. The drinks arrived with the optional ‘extra shot‘ and everyone was raving how awesome they were. So I decided to be a candy ass for the night and ordered one myself. I thought the extra shot looks like a tampon applicator. As a scientist I guess my mind should have jumped straight to test tube instead, but I guess that is just me being crude. The drinks were very strong and pretty well knocked us on our ass a little.



Back to Bruce’s house for evening festivities. Evening festivities mostly equals a bunch of dudes sitting around watching videos about Juggolos, having a couple of beers, and enjoying a few snacks. Someone ended up buying some corn chips, so we got to crack open the salsa that I had brought to share. Seems to have gone over pretty well, and I was excited to see a couple of salsa shout-outs in people’s blogs. Photo below is from a year ago or so when I was just starting to prepare some tomatillo salsa. I think everything in the picture below was grown at our house. I love gardening.



Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast at a place called El Montanero. They had options for ‘traditional’ american breakfasts but also a good variety of Columbian foods. I don’t read Spanish, but I am adventurous so I ordered “The Mountaineer” because I saw it came with Chorizo. Ended up having eggs, chorizo, thin cut steak, some kind of corn thing thicker than a regular tortilla, etc. Was awesome!

In the afternoon we made our way to the Afropunk Festival at Commodore Berry Park where more footbag was had. We didn’t last as long on Sunday, but there was still a lot of good shred. Afropunk festival was pretty cool too. Good music, and wow was that place chock-full of beautiful people.





I said before that I thought it would be a good weekend whether I played well or not, and I still think that is true. That said, I was really pleased with the way that I played so for me it was an excellent weekend overall. I hit a number of strings in the 10-15 contact range, and a few longer than that. I’d like to get where I’m consistently hitting 20 contacts, but 10-15 is somewhat respectable. Hit a couple of new combos I was really proud of too:
smear > toe drifter
lots of cool stylish stuff like flying clipper > funky knee* > squeeze.
single string with whirl > ducking clipper, a drifter and maybe a pixie clipper or something like that

*I don’t really know the proper name for ‘funky knee’, but it is the one where you kick your leg straight out and just time it so the bag hits your thigh right as your leg recoils from the kick. I’ve heard it called rubber knee too, but I don’t see people throwing it into combos. Too easy I guess, but I think it is cool.

If you made it this far, the summary is that I had a great time and I'm glad that I made it out to an event again after all of this time.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Excellent write-up, my man! It was sick to actually shred with you this time! I was dying at your little one-liners. You're hilarious and your salsa made my knees go weak. I'm stoked to "kick it" and also kick "it" with you at East Coasts! Also, thanks for the scandalous throwback story of Bob Reifer and the Spinning Ducking Butterfly You're the man, Bob. So jealous that Kevin gets to kick with you whenever. Also jealous that you get to kick with Kevin whenever. You guys complement each other in an interesting way. Like, even if I didn't know you or Kevin or know that you guys had even known each other, I would still think that you guys were somehow connected. Tough to explain, I guess.. Made sense in my head. Maybe we can discuss it over a blackout-sized candy ass drink in a month Shred hard til then! Peace dude!

[Cass]

Very cool write up! Thanks for that.

[PrunusAberration]

I was in Boston not too long ago. It's sad, I didn't know you were in Boston as I was kicking solo the whole time and was looking for someone to shred with. Also, awesome write-up and sweet photos. The salsa sounds amazing.

[boyle]

Enjoyed the writeup, sounds like a great time. Salsa seems to have been a genuus addition.

[bobgreen]

Thanks y'all, I’m glad you liked the NYFA write up. Yeah, Nick pretty stoked to have Kevin as a friend and I had a great time hanging out with you. Looking forward to hanging out with a lot more people at ECFC. And to PrunusAbberation, if you are ever back in Boston please look me up. I’m sure we could get a crew together for a shred.

Very brief footbag news is that I’m continuing to make progress on flip drifter and hit it 5x the other day. I’ve hit some other reasonable stuff that may be more impressive in some ways, but that is a highlight for me since I’ve been putting some effort into it.

I did go camping up by Acadia National Park with my family. Was totally awesome, and I’m thinking I’ll do a blog post just on that.

Turns out one of the professors from my former department is making the national news right now. What new breakthrough is being made there? Perhaps a new cure for foot cancer?

http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/l ... f887a.html

This comes less than a year after ISU made news for passing a law allowing guns on campus. Gun laws are a pretty sensitive topic in the US and especially in a red state like Idaho. I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but I guess it is my blog and I have to say I find it horrific that a gun was discharged by a professor during glass and that I am not a supporter of having guns on campus. If folks in Montana or Idaho saw me say that, I probably wouldn’t be allowed back to my homeland. I still have a little of that upbringing’ in me and am cool with folks having rifles for hunting (though I do not believe automatic rifles are necessary for hunting).

After getting back from NYFA, I did a Google search for “Australian comic that says cunt a lot”. We watched some Jim Jeffries at Bruce’s house and I couldn’t remember his name, but Google came to the rescue. I was looking for the special we had watched, but ended up finding his opinion on gun control that I watched the night before hearing about the news at my former department. Hopefully no matter what side of the issue you are on, you can see some humor in this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBpuLlw4Xjs[/youtube]

[boyle]

I am sure your Google search brought up more than one result....

[bobgreen]

I am sure your Google search brought up more than one result....

Nothing pornographic if that is what you mean (at least not in the first page of results…did not venture beyond that). Jim Jeffries took up the top two spots and he is who I was looking for, though there is another guy I haven't listened to called Rodney Rude that popped up.

Foul language aside, I had a nice solo session today. Started a new set of drills on Thursday, and today I was able to get through them in about half the time as it took the other night. I have so much more energy on Saturday morning sessions than on weeknight sessions after work, and it really makes a difference how I play. I started at 11:00 am to beat the heat, but it was already quite warm. I have a nice brick patio that is a great shred space but it has no shade. I kept doing a couple of strings, then popping behind the garage where the shade is to grab a breath and some water. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Highlights from the session:
-Couple of warmup strings with 25 plus contacts (repetitive same combos over and over, but still nice to work on string length)
-Pdx mirage > pixie clipper both sides. First time hitting this since coming back from 'retirement'
-Couple more flip drifters. So close to BSOS.

Going on work travel tomorrow evening for a couple of days. Perhaps that will give me a chance to write up a post on the recent trip to Acadia I took my family on.

[bobgreen]

Fifty nine. That is the number of national parks in the United States. I had no idea until I looked it up recently. Prior to that I had pictured it to be in the neighborhood of 10-15. Ahhh….‘Mericans and their geography.

As of this writing, I have only been to 5 of the National Parks:

Crater Lake
Glacier
Grand Teton
Yellowstone
Acadia (Brand new for us )

I’ve also been to Craters of the Moon (Idaho boy here), which is apparently a national monument and not a national park. What is the difference? According to the national park service, “National parks are areas set apart by Congress for the use of the people of the United States generally because of some outstanding scenic feature or natural phenomena.”. If the US-centric part of this definition bothers you, bear with me and keep reading. Apparently under current policies for establishing a national park, there is also a size requirement to “be sufficiently large to yield effective administration and broad use.”. National monuments have no such size requirement and are “areas reserved by the National Government because they contain objects of historic, prehistoric, or scientific interest.”.

Why all the background on national parks? Well, after having it on our list of stuff to check out before moving back west, I finally took my family up to Acadia National Park for a 4 day weekend over Labor Day. I selected a KOA campsite for our visit, which was pretty awesome. We got to sleep in a tent and cook meals over a fire, but we also got to take warm water showers and have the other less mentioned comforts of plumbing.

As with NYFA Jam, we first prepare for the road trip through the selection of an appropriate idol. In this case, Travel Monkey.


We didn’t get out of the house until about noon, and we stopped on the way up for Lobster Rolls. They are available in Massachusetts, but something is special to me about having them in Maine. I’m sure it is all in my head, but that is fine by me. We made it up to our destination with just enough light to pitch a tent. Below is a view from our campsite at sunset.


That night we roasted a few marshmallows for S’Mores, and then hit the hay. The next morning we got up cooked up a bunch of bacon and then poached some eggs in the grease. Unhealthy to be sure, but it was perfect camping food. We got a pretty late start that day, and checked out the sites around Bar Harbor (little village basically in Acadia).


After lunch, my daughter Aubrey and I checked out the local daycare while my wife looked around the local craft fair.


That evening back to the campsite for some campfire chili. We used homegrown tomatoes we had brought up with us specifically for this purpose, and it turned out pretty damn good for something that was thrown together in the dark. Got to bed early so we could get up early the next day.

One of the popular attractions at Acadia is Cadillac Mountain. In certain times of year, Cadillac Mountain sees “the nation’s first sunrise” and it is popular for folks to go up there just before sunrise. Like the good tourists that we are, we drug our asses out of bed to see that. Funny thing about mountains on the ocean at dawn is that they are sometimes foggy.


Some people were so angry that they had “wasted their time”. We were still pretty stoked and thought that even though we couldn’t see the sunrise through the clouds that it was pretty cool. The other nice part about it is that since we were already up early, we got a lot of sight seeing in. Back to the definition about National Parks that they are ‘for the use of people of the United States’. There were so many Indian people there that morning….thankfully the national parks are most decidedly not just for people of the United States.

After the Cadillac Mountain sunrise we went to Bar Harbor for breakfast at a restaurant and then continued sight seeing there. Bar Harbor is separated from Bar Island by a land bridge that is only crossable at low tide. We walked across that and imagined ourselves to be part of some great migration.


Also, the there was a park ranger trying to disorganize rock sculptures people had made. They are not natural and not befitting of a national park. Whatevs, they don’t seem to care right in Bar Harbor proper.


After the land bridge we continued on a loop route around the park. We got out at a cool place called thunder hole.


After that we made our way to the Jordan Pond House. They are famous for their tea and popovers (a really delicious, buttery pastry concoction). High society indeed! Here is the view from the grounds at the Jordan Pond House.

Finally along the loop route around the park we made it back to the summit of Cadillac Mountain after the clouds had burned off. The views were quite exquisite.


That evening I think we just grilled up some hotdogs over the fire and chilled out. After my wife and son bedded down, my daughter and I drove over to an adjacent town and had a couple of beers. The next morning we got up, had some sausage and eggs, and hit the road from home. Lots of pretty views from the drive, but this is already a really long post.

If you ever have the chance to visit Acadia, do it! After learning there are so many National Parks, I certainly have a hunger to get out and see some more of them.

[bobgreen]

Captain’s log, stardate 68160.3.

It is Saturday morning, and we are up eating breakfast preparing for yet another showing of our house. Ugh….tired of this process. Want to either sell or pull off the market for the winter soon. I have the Mountain Goats playing in the background and some eggs with Cholula and a side of toast to comfort me. No one named Rosa serving me though.

Hogan was kind enough to come up my way Thursday night for shred. We had a 2 hour long sweaty ass session in my basement. It is still warm outside, but we’ve run into issues with light for evening sessions. It was a really good, fun session.

I’ve been hitting flip drifter most sessions lately, and however meager that is at least it is progress! I’m going to BSOS that very soon, and honestly I don’t think B2B is too far away in the future. Some other highlights for the session:
-spinning osis bs (new for me since coming back to footbag, maybe totally new?)
-whirl > drifter > spinning drop
-spinning clipper > spinning clipper bs (seal was weak flipside so it may be premature to count these, but what the hell)
-spinning clipper > drifter
-osis > spinning clipper (first good zooming)

Kevin also hit a really sweet new trick. I don’t know what it is called, but it is the one where you fling up the bag and make it land in the exact spot where it can slip down the center of the wall for your shred spot. I hope soon he hits the stepping alpine version of it. The walls in my basement have this sort of tongue and groove wood paneling, and there is a spot at the top that is not finished and the bag arced right over that and down inside the wall. Yesterday I got the wall apart to retrieve the footbag and put it back together and managed to do so without destroying everything. Kevin felt pretty bad about the whole thing, but I thought it was kind of funny in a way. In photo below, left is before and right is after.



If you ever come to MA, you too can play in the footbag dungeon.

There was a FB post this week on tricks that come easily. Some new tricks come without too much practice of that specific trick, but most of the time those are ones where I’ve practiced the individual components a lot (spinning osis is the most recent example). Most of the time though, when I’m working on a new concept the trick does NOT come easily. Most recent example of that is drifter. Anyone reading this has heard me moaning about working on that for 2 months now. I can do clipper set mirage really well, but the movement for that does not seem to translate directly for drifter so I consider the movement for drifter a different concept.

Lately, Watsky’s song "Moral of the Story” grinds through my head as I’m trying to get better at new things.

But if you're blocking me,
I will soon defeat you
I will build a bridge above you or I'll tunnel underneath you
I will eat you and excrete you
And I'll feed you to the flowers
If I need to I'll go through you and absorb your fucking powers
I put in hour after hour
Let's be crystal clear
I'm gonna get there if it takes a day or fifty years
I'll finger-bang my fears
I'll fucking punch a dragon
Even with the Himalayas in my way it's gonna happen
Cause waiting doesn't work
And praying may not come through
And hoping doesn't work
So I will be the one to
WORK

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1L15hpphQ[/youtube]

That is all I have time for. Better go sweep some floors so I can invite strangers into my home so that they can look through my kitchen cabinets and all of my closets.

Cheers all, and go out and punch some dragons in your shred today!

[C-Fan]

Great writeups of your trips. Excited to see you again in a couple weeks. Was just thinking about you last week actually when I drove through Pocatello.

[bobgreen]

Thanks Ken, I appreciate the feedback. I take it you drove from Denver to Boise for your recent trip? If so, you probably went through Rock Springs, WY and Twin Falls, ID which are the two places out that way I visit most frequently these days (my Dad’s family and in-laws, respectively).

I’ve been hitting flip drifter most sessions lately...
I’m going to BSOS that very soon...

Today was that day, and the string it happened in was probably around 15 contacts which isn’t too bad. Hit some other decent stuff too, but nothing else really mattered as much after that.

Traveling again for work. Been working on a particular project since May, and it has been a grind with difficulties that were not anticipated initially. Science is like footbag in the sense that there is a lot of failure, followed by analysis of what went wrong, followed by trying again until you progress and (hopefully) eventually work through what the problem was. I know failing comes with the territory, but when it happens I prefer to work through it on my own for a while and then talk with others about it once I’ve had some time to dig through and make a bit of progress. Due to the nature of this project, I’ve kind of had to work through the pain of failure > iteration > improvement > failure > iteration in front of “the customer”. The customer is located half way across the country from me, so it also means that I’ve been away from home a lot. I apologize for the vagueness of this description, but the point is that as much as I love my job that it has been a little mentally defeating recently. I’ve had less of the I'm gonna kick some ass attitude in "Moral of the Story" (Watsky reference - see last post) and more of the just get me through this attitude in "This Year" (Disclaimer: "This Year" is a survivor story told from John Darnielle’s perspective of getting out of a physically abusive household, and I am not trying to trivialize that with my paltry comparison).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eetIgGXH6DA[/youtube]

Despite the desperation in the song, it is also very hopeful. I am banking on the fact that there is feasting and dancing to come.

My own desperation aside, things went very well today. I am crossing my fingers that tomorrow will go similarly and the project will be off and running and I will be home a lot more.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

"A rabbit gives up somewhere and a dozen hawks defend. Every moment leads toward its own sad end."

One of my favorite lyrics from them. Your taste in music is impeccable. Hogan got me into Watsky recently and you got him into Watsky, so I must thank you for indirectly introducing me to him.

Most importantly, big props on saucing Drifter! That was a big moment for me, too. If you really freeze the Drifter's clipper stall for a second when you delay it, it makes the trick a bit easier to deal with. Next goal, Drifter b2b

Good luck making it through the year... even if it kills you

See ya sooner that later! "The taste of Bob's Salsa rich on my tongue..."

[bobgreen]

Thanks for the nice post, Nick! I like my taste in music too, but I don’t reckon there are too many folks who would say that they think their own taste in music is shit.

This week has gone well so far, and I am finally growing confident that I will make it through the year even if it kills me. I will bring some more salsa to share next weekend as long as you promise to be my twin high maintenance machine.

Seriously though on the music stuff, I haven’t explored much of the Mountain Goats other than the Sunset Tree album. Per the the song you just referenced, I just now downloaded Heretic Pride, and I am stoked to listen to it.

I mentioned them recently in Boyle’s blog (commenting on Aussie groups), but if I haven’t already indirectly introduced you to Bliss and Eso or Joelistics via Hogan, you should check them out. Stop what you are doing, and download Circus in the Sky (Bliss and Eso) and Voyager (Joelistics) right now.

Speaking of Australian stuff, just yesterday I became aware of this joint:
http://kocateringandpies.com/south-boston/

I have no idea how authentic their pies were, but I can say that they were delicious.

So footbag. Things have been going really well, which is pretty awesome. If you count different sides and different setting locations as unique, I hit 11 new tricks this week. I am 38 years old, and I don’t think that I’ve hit 11 new tricks in a single week since I was like 22 years old (though I did stop for 8 years in the middle of that time frame). Right now I am at what I think is a reasonably healthy body weight, and I really wasn’t through most of my mid 20’s onward, so I think being in better shape is a big contributor to what is going on.

One of the new tricks I hit last night is ripwalk. What I hit was pretty weak and I mostly scampered over the bag without a proper snappy set, so I give myself a D+ on that one. But, D+ still passes the class! I may need to be put on a remedial improvement program, but at least I am progressing.

I am very excited for ECFC to see old friends, meet folks I just met at NYFA for the first time, and meet brand new people as well.

[boyle]

How good are pies? Heaps good. I just had a look at the site and it looks pretty authentic. Especially considering that KO apparently stands for "Ken Oath"....now is that an Australian term! I hope to see sometime in the future that Ken's blog will say "Ken Oath".

[bobgreen]

I'm working on a proper ECFC writeup, but end of quarter shenanigans will probably cause that to be delayed another day or two. I did want to at least quickly say that I was stoked to meet, reconnect, hangout with, and kick with so many of you this weekend. I had a great time, and you made my family feel very welcome.

[acxel22]

Was nice to see you after so long! Hope that november jam can work out, I'll be very happy to drive down!