I know the pro shop can sell you a customized spare ball with your picture or other design on it, but didn’t know where the company that does it is online until the topic came up in my bowling chat and I did a search. The link to “On The Ball Bowling” is now in the sidebar under “Ball sites,” but keep in mind that they can do custom bowling pins and other bowling gifts, as well.

“Gutter To Glory” is a Roto Grip-sponsored blog written by Timmothy Merath, a web development/social media specialist for the company living in Milwaukee who is bowling in his first league this season (not counting those occasions in which he was a sub). I think his experiences as a neophyte league bowler should be interesting reading, and, as such, I have added the link to it to the blogroll.

I realized that, in the BowlSK sheet for my latest league night, when I changed balls (to my Hy-Road), I noted the change in the first frame with the ball, but not the second frame, so I had to go back to the sheet and reset the ball to the ball I was using in the frames that still had the ball I started with (my Reign of Fire). The sheet now gives a truer account of the night.

I was contacted today by the owner/administrator of the site, “All Ten Back,” who notified me both about his main site and his blog. Giving both a perusal, I noted that that blog had a nice collection of ball reaction video, mostly of Storm/Roto-Grip and Hammer balls. Where he does have other videos, I decided to add the blog to the blogroll rather than make it a site in the “Ball sites” listing. The addition of the blog is with the understanding that people can find the blogger’s main site through the blog.

I had meant to note it in previous posts, but the links to my winter league’s standings sheets on both LeagueSecretary.com and BowlerExpress.com are back up in the “Author’s links” sidebar listing with the start of the new season. More importantly was the real reason I waited on this post: I had created a new sheet on BowlingTracker.com for this year’s winter league, but it had problems showing the correct AVG+1 after Week 1 (it just repeated my Week 1 series score instead of that score plus 6 pins, as it should have been with my series evenly divisible by 3). I am now satisfied that the AVG+1 score (which I note in most of my league night recaps) is correct after Week 2, so the new sheet has been added to the links listing. I will probably take down the summer league links tomorrow, so if you want to view anything from that, you have one more chance. 😉

I found “Steve’s Bowling Blog” by way of my friend(s) at “The Thumbhole Chronicles,” where they had the blog linked. This blog seems to have a daily video and quote, as well as the occasional opinion piece. I thought it would make a good addition to the blogroll, so the sidebar link has been added in that category. Welcome! 😀

More “summer projects”…

First, for those of you whom I’m friends with on Facebook, I’ve connected this blog to Facebook so that, now, my posts also show on my Facebook wall and in my friends’ news feeds. I did this mostly to eliminate the need to post a separate note on Facebook about my league nights, but I may leave it connected full time for the time being.

Second, I visited the blog’s sharing options, and there’s now a Facebook Share button on posts. As I know some of you are also in the “Twitterverse” (I’m not; I’ve thought about it as an adjunct to the blog for posting about honor scores via text message as they happen, but I can’t be at every league, and I don’t know if I can have more than one cellphone number able to tweet to the account.), there’s a Tweet button on posts, as well.

Have fun with the new “features,” folks. 😀

The RSS feeds from BowlingDigital.com were a start; however, wanting stories on the official sites as much as possible, I endeavored to find, and succeeded in finding, the official RSS feeds from Bowl.com (for the USBC) and the PBA’s website, and have changed those widgets to point to those feeds. Also, where those feeds have stories more important to bowling in the US, I increased the number of stories the feeds show and link to to 10.

As my blog host lets me know what stories are being clicked on, this will give me feedback to which feeds are actually proving of interest. In other words, I’ll be watching. 😉

EDIT: I’ve now also reordered the widgets mostly to push the RSS feed ones closer to the top of the page, where they’ll be more eye-catching.

I’ve been keeping a local focus on this blog for quite some time, but I’ve also been looking for a way to keep my readers up to speed on news from the larger bowling world. I looked at what the widgets feature on my blog’s host had to offer, and saw that RSS feeds could be added, which would appear in the sidebar, so I decided to take four feeds (USBC, PBA, American Zone, and World) from BowlingDigital.com, and set it so that the five most recent items in those feeds would appear. My first try caused my other sidebar features (pages and such) to disappear, but I saw I could add them back as widgets, so that has been done. Another thing I could do with the original sidebar features as widgets was of a space-saving nature…I could get all of the months’ archives to appear in a drop-down list.

This was an unplanned “summer project,” but I hope the new sidebar proves useful to all of you. 😀

EDIT: Not wanting to miss bowling stories out of the United States that aren’t provided by the USBC and PBA feeds, I’ve added the widget for the BowlingDigital.com “Top Stories” feed.

The recent item about Alex Aguiar’s tournament win prompted a search, the result of which is that the link to the site of the Mini-Eliminator tournament (along with a couple of other tournaments) has been placed in the sidebar under “Tournaments” (since it is not a local tournament).

I finally got around to updating this blog’s “About” page, primarily to note recent developments, including my 290 open bowling game and my recent election to the Brockton Bowling Association Board of Directors. I also noted some of my other bowling-related activities online in the update.

I completed my other summer blog project today by adding post categories, as follows:

Women: Posts about honor scores bowled by female bowlers, and about women’s leagues and tournaments
Youth: Posts about honor scores bowled by youth bowlers, and about youth leagues and tournaments

I also went into the archives and added the categories to posts where appropriate. I hope this accomplishes something similar to what I did for the sidebar links list. Note: I may not necessarily add the women’s category to posts about mixed leagues and tournaments, but I absolutely will set the youth category for posts about youth bowlers bowling with adult bowlers.

I completed one of the projects I wanted to do with the blog this summer today. I have reorganized the links listings in the sidebar to allow readers to find sites related to their interest more quickly. As part of the reorganization, a few new categories were added, as follows:

Ball sites: Sites related specifically to bowling balls. All of the bowling ball company sites are in this new category, as well as those sites dealing primarily with demos and reviews. Note: some of the bigger ball companies make and sell other equipment, but if I thought the company was best-known for balls, they made it here.

Coaching/Tips: Sites devoted to coaching or bowling tips.

Local/New England: For sites pertaining to bowling in the Brockton area or throughout the New England region, including tournaments operating in the region.

Other equipment sites: This is actually the renamed “Equipment sites” category, and will include the shoe companies, as well as online pro shops.

Tournaments: For tournaments operating primarily outside the New England region.

Again, this reorganization is in service to my readers, and I hope this makes it easier for everyone to find what they need. 😀

The transition of the links in the “Author’s links” sidebar category to the summer list has commenced with the addition of the BowlingTracker.com stat sheet. The winter league links will be taken down when the standings sheet links for the summer league have been added, and the winter league BowlingTracker.com stat sheet will be archived on that site at that time.

I’ve known about the new Norm Duke instructional DVD, “Learn To Bowl Competitively,” for a few months now, but I’ve been waiting for the reviews to come in on it before making a decision to include a link where you can purchase it in the sidebar. The feedback on it has been very positive (I plan to buy it myself in the future), so I have done so; it is in the “Bowling Sites” sidebar category (for now). Being that the domain name for the site is in the plural, there are probably more products to come.

I forgot where I came across a link to this site, but Radical is a new bowling ball company. Their maiden offering is named the Slant, and they’ll announce the rest of their product line at the coming Bowl Expo. The link has been added to the sidebar, under the “Equipment Sites” category.

While I was at adding the link to Radical, I did a Google search on the Bowl Expo show, and found that they, too, have a website. Being that it’s an industry trade show, I’m not sure if the link should be added to the general “Bowling Sites” category, but, being that all of the equipment makers have booths at the show, I thought it better to add the site under “Equipment Sites.”

I had been meaning to do it sooner, but finally got around to it today…where I’m mentioning the High Roller at Sam’s Town often in connection with Alex Aguiar and Ed Roberts, I’ve decided to give the High Roller a link in the sidebar (it’ll be in the “Bowling Sites” category).

I found the “Above 180” site while looking for information on the 2010 Bowlers Journal Ball of the Year. The driving forces of this site are a Wisconsin pro shop owner who happens to do a lot of the ball testing for Bowlers Journal, and the host of a DC-based nationally-syndicated radio talk show who also happens to be a bowler. The site has plenty of articles on the national bowling scene and a section dedicated to coaching articles, but it also has an audio podcast, which the radio guy seems to be behind.

I wasn’t quite sure how to categorize it for the sidebar, but the site does run off of WordPress and acts like a blog, so I figured the blogroll would be the best place for it, but please keep in mind that there is audio content on the site, as well.

I had mentioned the Northeast Junior Scratch Tour in a previous post, and I have since found their website; the link has been added to the sidebar in the “Bowling Sites” category.

I was going to add the Brockton Bowling Association’s new Facebook page to the sidebar links, but I wanted to wait until a Facebook username for the page was secure. With the page now having 25 “Likes,” that has happened, and I added the link to the sidebar, under “Bowling Sites.”

Note: I am planning a project having to do with the sidebar for this summer…I could probably do this whenever, but I figure I’ll have more time when the winter bowling season ends.

Always wanting to give my readers alternatives when it comes to stuff like ball review sites, I’ve been pointed to the “Bowling Ball Vault” on the forums. This is another site with reviews by bowlers, but a couple of features help make this site stand out: 1) There is a feature where you can compare specifications between bowling balls, useful for when you’re looking for a ball similar to one you already have and are looking to replace; 2) The reviews and listings are on RSS feeds, and you can specify a feed for any given manufacturer.

The link is now in the “Equipment Sites” category of the sidebar listing.

The post about the results of the Tri-City championship tournament has been updated with the scores (with handicap) for the cashers.

Consider this a project for the insomniac; however, it was something I’ve wanted to do and was thinking of doing in the summer.

Wanting to give my readers an easier way to access the history of the honor scores I’ve noted on this blog, I have added an “Honor Scores” category, which can be found in the sidebar on the main page of the blog (the one the blog’s main URL loads), and gone through the entire archives, adding the category to those posts that needed it. For the most part, I note all of the honor scores at Westgate Lanes and those recorded by Westgate Lanes bowlers in other area centers that I know about, and may also, on occasion, note an honor score in something like a NEBA tournament. Here are the scores I consider worthy of honor score mention:

Men: 800 series, 300 game, 11 strikes in a row in a single game
Women: All of the above, plus series of 700+ and games of 270+, particularly if the game is a high on the season for a female at Westgate Lanes.

Usually, only the first post mentioning the honor score in question will be filed under the new category, but I did make an exception for Ed Greene’s recent 300 game, for which I have video on the blog.

If you’ll look in the sidebar, you’ll know that 100 posts are currently in the new category, and, if you sift through the category’s archives, you’ll find that the first honor score I’ve ever noted on the blog was Mike Zeoli’s 300 game in the 2008 Tri-City mixed doubles tournament.

I made an error while inputting the data for the first game in the frames after I put my Reign of Fire away; I had forgotten I had to reset the ball to the Hy-Road in two frames, so it was still alternating with my Reign of Fire. I also made a similar error in the frames after I put away my Fast in the third game. Both errors have been corrected on the BowlSK sheet.

WordPress.com gave me some new “toys,” in the form of a new contact form builder and a section of the dashboard for feedback, so I decided to use them to implement a contact page on the blog, labeled, simply, “Contact me,” in the list of pages in the sidebar. I’m looking forward to seeing what you think. 😀

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the blurb on the “About” page about contacting me now links to the contact/feedback page, too.