Category: Administrivia

Files news about blog itself and changes to posts of older than the current day

Tri-City tournament note error

I had originally thought that entries for the Tri-City Women’s Bowling Association championship tournament next weekend would be taken on site. However, I got a look at the entry form today and noted that entries will actually close on Friday, so please get your entries in if you wish to bowl in the tournament.

“The Bowling Tree” added to blogroll

Today, one of my chat buddies pasted a link to an article on “The Bowling Tree,” a blog that appears to be about as established as this one is, but that I had never heard of until I saw the article in the chat. Giving the blog a look, it looks like it exists to pass along bowling news; however, as the blogger appears to run a pro shop, many of the articles announce new releases (including the release date) by the ball manufacturers, so this blog might be useful to the bowler who wants to be up on “the latest and greatest.” The link now appears in the blogroll on the sidebar.

Links to league secretary application homepages added to sidebar

As an assist to future league secretaries, I thought I’d add the links to the homepages of the two best-known league secretary applications, BLS and Perfect Secretary, to the sidebar. BLS may be more familiar to the average bowler because standings sheets generated by that application can be uploaded to the well-known LeagueSecretary.com site. However, my virtual league procured Perfect Secretary for my use, and I generally found favor with it; if a league doesn’t want to upload to LeagueSecretary.com and is satisified with uploading standings to Bowl.com, I would definitely recommend Perfect Secretary, but this shouldn’t be taken as though I think BLS isn’t good…Shawn uses it and is very happy with it. I included both so league secretaries in need of software can visit both sites to compare price and features and make an informed decision. 😀

Sept. 28 league standings update

Posting this pretty late, because the updated standings weren’t posted until tonight…

“Babe And Balls” is now tied with “Vakanczz” (three-fifths of the league champions of two seasons ago) in points for the league lead, though my team holds the pinfall tiebreaker. “Creative Threads” are tomorrow night’s opponents…I see that they’ve been wearing almost matching bowling shirts (the team’s captain wears a differently-styled shirt of the same color scheme), so I’m probably going to wear my tournament shirt (just to show off 😀 ).

As for the week’s individual honors, I had the high scratch game and series for the men this week, of course, and it wasn’t even close, with Ed Godino Jr. having the second high scratch game with a 247, and Shawn Coles posting a 635 for the second high scratch series. Eileen broke a 200 game and 600 series with her share of our team’s handicap, good for the women’s second high handicap game and series.

Also, the internal (to the league…the Bowler Express standings are done by Westgate Lanes) standings sheet is now up on LeagueSecretary.com, so the link to that will be going back up in the sidebar, and the summer links taken down. The summer BowlingTracker.com stat sheet will also be archived on that site.

Award notes

I was notified by Shawn through Facebook today that my performance the other night qualified for both a 275 game award and a 700 series award from the USBC, and I will be receiving these, as well as a 225 game award for last week’s 247 game (USBC awards go by current average rather than entering average early on, and my current average was fairly low because of my early struggles in the season.), at the league banquet next May. I also told Shawn that I was expecting a code to access an online certificate for 100 over average, but it turned out that the award certificates on Bowl.com don’t need any special codes, and all I needed to do was supply the website with the information (mostly my name and the date I bowled my 100 over average game) and it would create the certificate, which I not only downloaded (as a PDF file) and backed up to my thumb drive, but also printed it out and taped it to the wall near my dining area. I hope the next award I qualify for is in the honor category.

EDIT: As administrivia, the “About” page has been edited to reflect the dual accomplishment.

Sept. 15 league standings update

“Babe and Balls” was one of three teams that took all four points on the first night, along with “Bowling Stones” (a team with a couple of newcomers to the league) and “Butz N Gutz” (the Coles’ team, with Liz and Mike DiBenedetto joining them). My team was third in pinfall, with the other two teams listed in their pinfall order. My team faces “After Thoughts,” another new team, tonight, although I’m not sure about the lane assignment, as it seems to be in conflict with the Westgate Mixed League, which is using 41 & 42 this year. As the “administrivia” for this post, the link to the Brunswick Mixed League standings will be added back to its usual place in the “Author’s links” list in the sidebar.

Fall 2010 virtual league results, Week 1

Unlike my real team, my virtual team struggled and failed to take points against “Furious Five,” who share the lead in points with “AAA” after Week 1. A chat buddy of mine, “sk8shorty01,” had the high game of the week, submitting a 298.

Link addition note: I’ve been putting it off, but the stat sheet for the new Brunswick Mixed season is now in the sidebar list under “Author’s links.”

Link to “Let’s Talk Ten Pin” added to sidebar

A friend from the BowlingFans.com community today pointed me to a fairly new bowling podcast site, called “Let’s Talk Ten Pin.” It appears to be based out of southern California, and their archived podcasts recently included interviews with some ball manufacturer representatives about their new releases for the summer. They also round up the national bowling news for the week, and they appear to update every Monday, except for holidays, when they update on Tuesday. The link appears in the sidebar under the general “Bowling Sites” category.

As for additional maintenance to the list, the link to the “On Strike” podcast has been removed, as it’s been found that there’s been nothing new on the site in over two years. I was really hoping that one would take off, so hopefully, readers trying to find a bowling podcast will like the new site mentioned above.

Link to “Bowl-Tech” added to sidebar list

Today, I decided to add a site that I’ve known about for a while, but struggled with the decision to include it in my links list until now. Bowl-Tech is a forum site that, although there is general bowling discussion on it, should be of interest to anyone interested in bowling center operations, particularly the technical and management aspects. There are even forums where bowling jobs (and posts by users seeking them) can be found, so I finally decided the link would be worthwhile as a service to the overall bowling community. The link appears in the general “Bowling Sites” category.

Link list cleanup

First, not really a “cleanup” item, but the link to the LeagueSecretary.com Wednesday Summer Mixed League standings is now up after a delay in getting the standings uploaded for the new season.

Second, I noticed that a couple of ball company sites no longer exist, so those have been removed from the links list. As always, if you know of a new ball company site, let me know (with a working link) so that I may add it to the “Equipment Sites” list.

May 26 league night recap (start of 2010 summer league)

Before I go into how I did last night, a couple of notes…first, I learned during the Brunswick Mixed roll-off week that Rob and I are practically neighbors, and he and his wife Grace (who does the actual driving) offered me a ride to the lanes from now on (and back home as well, of course), so that will save me a bus ride on most league nights. What will happen is that I can now walk to Rob’s house to connect with him on the outbound trip. Second, Rob is again my teammate for the summer, and we are joined by John and Eileen. As captain’s prerogative, I named the team “Trip N Shred,” which was a name used by one of the teams in my virtual league over the winter that I liked so much that I decided to “borrow” it.

My Week 1 bowling, frame-by-frame (Link to series on BowlSK)

There was some to like and some to not like from the first night. I didn’t like that my spare game decided to desert me in Game 3, mostly due to chopping a 6-10 and a couple of 3-6-10s. The things I liked: my 222 middle game (which I believe is the best game I’ve ever had on the first night of a league), and actually making the 7 more than I missed it (made it 3 times in 5 attempts, and the 2 I missed were in the opposite direction of how I had been missing it during the winter).

Result: 165-222-143=530
Average (3 games): 176
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 532

Eileen had a solid 419 set tonight, and enough of us were over average in the first and second games to take points against a team that included my old friend Hawk, a good bowler that I didn’t really know (I’ll comment later when I know his full name), and two vacancies. Bill (the other bowler) had a game in the 250s in the last game, so that helped them take the third game and total; there are worse ways to start a league than to split the points evenly. 😀

I wanted to mention a couple of other things: First, my cousin Debbie told me Dave was in the hospital and had to miss the first night of summer league, so my thoughts go to their family. Second, Al D’Aquino, a new bowler that I “met” online through the BowlingFans.com chat, joined the league. I occasionally looked over to see how he was doing, and, though I knew he needed a lot of help with his game, his balance problems were the thing that stuck out, so I suggested that he try to hold his position at the foul line when he practices, a drill that helped me a lot when I was first learning the game.

The administrivia for this post is the beginning of the usual transition between leagues…I added the link to the new stat sheet on BowlingTracker.com to the “Author’s links” section of the sidebar. As usual, the standings sheets will be added when they’ve been posted for the first time, and the old league links will be removed from the section after the third week of the current league.

My day at the People’s Tournament, Jan. 31

My qualification attempt, frame-by-frame (Link to series on BowlSK)

My own comment to the series pretty much sums it up. I had never seen the “Dead Man’s Curve” prior to today, but I felt I threw a few decent shots on it, especially in the second game. More importantly, however, I didn’t give anything away with single-pin misses…it was when I left more than one pin standing on the deck that I ran into trouble, especially with 5 splits (one, a 3-10 in the 10th frame of Game 3, made) and a couple of washouts. All-in-all, if I could be happy shooting in the 490s, today would be one of those days.

Edit to last 2 league series made: As Harry Thibeault, Jr. told me that it was “Main Street” now out on Wednesday nights, I have edited the last 2 league series on BowlSK to reflect the new oil pattern.

Jan. 6 league night recap

My Week 18 bowling, frame-by-frame (Link to series on BowlSK)

The skinny: I hit my AVG+1 yet again, but I was hoping for more after the first game. Splits and washouts mostly did me in, but I missed a makeable spare in each of the last 2 games, as well.

Result: 243-160-198=601
Average (54 games): 189
Average for last 9 games: 210
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 615

The younger Ed Godino was back tonight, and he keyed a net win for his team against us tonight. Judging from the finish of the other matches, I think we ended the first half in 6th place.

I have also joined the virtual league that has been formed on the BowlingFans.com site, and I will be putting up a link in the sidebar to the league page/blog (look for “BowlingCommunity Mixed Virtual League”) in the “Author’s links” category. Tonight was my first night of bowling for the virtual league.

Contact information updated

Being that I’m on Facebook a lot more often than MySpace these days, I finally got around to updating the “About” page to point to my Facebook profile instead of my profile on MySpace, for people that want a contact option. I still would prefer BowlSpace for bowling-related messages, however, so the link to my BowlSpace profile remains on the page.

Blog linked on BowlSearch.com

I didn’t really notice it before, but BowlingFans.com, which is about my favorite bowling-related site, has a BowlSearch.com section that indexes bowling sites, similar to the listing on “The Bowling Zone.” As I sort of “know” the owner of BowlingFans.com, I was able to get quick approval of this blog’s submission, and it now appears on BowlSearch.com in the “Bowling Blogs” category. The reciprocal link requirement to BowlingFans.com was long taken care of, but I’m not going out of my way to include a separate link to BowlSearch.com; anyone wishing to find something on BowlSearch.com from here is hereby directed to use the BowlingFans.com sidebar link.

“Tonight We Roll” added to blogroll

Visits to some of the blogs that link to me have unearthed yet another new bowling blog. “Tonight We Roll” is by a fairly casual bowler based out of Albany, OR, and, in his first post, he stated that he wants to travel the country bowling at all types of bowling centers, large and small, old and new. We wish him well if he undertakes this journey, and I’ll suggest Westgate Lanes as a stop in a comment to his initial post. The link to the new blog has, of course, been added to the blogroll in the sidebar.

“The Thumbhole Chronicles” added to blogroll

I came across this blog in my referral list…seems they picked up on my post about last night via our friends at “The BM Report.” I don’t really know where this blog is based out of, but it’s a nice mix of personal bowling journal and commentary (something I try to accomplish, though with less commentary and more pure reporting), so I decided to add them to the blogroll. Good to have you along. 😀

Getting caught up

The computer I usually use to post to my blog had a motherboard failure over the weekend, so my computer access has been sporadic. I shall use this post to combine a few things into one post, and my usual league night recap may be delayed until the weekend.

Administrivia: Because of my lack of computer access, the “Cross-training” feature has been suspended until I get my new computer. You may not miss it, however, as this is generally a slow time for off-field activities in baseball and football, and with basketball and hockey training camps and/or pre-season just getting underway.

League standings update: “The Flintstones” are in a jam-up at second place, getting the #2 spot on account of pinfall, three points behind “4 MTD,” a team which includes my summer teammates, Rob and Bonnie. My team faces “Butz-N-Guts,” Shawn’s team, tomorrow night.

Monday practice: With nothing much better to do, I had a practice session yesterday, and I considered it time well-spent, as I averaged 11 pins/game over my current league average on the strength of a 228 first game. I didn’t really care about scores, however, as I just wanted to make good, consistent shots. Moving into the hold area around the second game, I found I needed to watch my speed or the ball would shoot past the break point and either miss the pocket (usually a washout) or go light and leave something like a bucket. I still had 179-ish games, however, which should’ve been better had I not missed spares.

Link to “Next Level Bowling” added to sidebar

“Next Level Bowling” is a site that promotes bowling instruction and personal appearances by PBA Hall of Famers Norm Duke and Brian Voss, PBA Tour exempt player Mike Machuga, and noted bowling instructor Bill Hall. A neat free feature of the site is a collection of short instructional videos, found by clicking the picture of Brian Voss under the “Learn from the Pros” header. The link to the site is now in the sidebar under the general “Bowling Sites” category.

Sept. 14 league standings update

Every team took at least one point on opening night, but, as my team only took one point, it’s understandable that we’re near the bottom of the standings, and we are, in fact, tied for 8th with “Foxy Srs,” as we had exactly the same pinfall with handicap. Four teams, “MTD,” “The Mustangs,” “Vakinc,” and “Warren’s Girls,” took 3 points last week, and I listed the four teams in pinfall order.

“Wild Samoans,” who are, as you’d expect from the summer league, the Boermans’ team, are my team’s opponents Wednesday night.

As the administrivia for this post, the link to the standings sheet for the league on Bowler Express has been added back to the sidebar (under “Author’s links”), and the summer league stuff will be taken off once there’s a current league standings sheet on LeagueSecretary.com.

“MyBowlingBlog” added to blogroll

I came across “MyBowlingBlog” by way of a user comment (The blog actually wanted to filter the comment as spam, but, upon seeing that it was actually related to the post in question, I approved it.) to my post of Osku Palermaa’s trick shot. Upon preview, he mainly wants to use the blog to post bowling news summaries, but he has it set up so that he also wants to devote space to youth and collegiate bowling. The link is now in the “Blogroll” sidebar category. Note: the blog currently contains World Series of Bowling “spoilers,” so avoid this blog if you want to wait until the shows air to see the results.

Welcome aboard, Aaron! 😀

Too little, too late

My Week 9 bowling (BowlSK)

Chalk tonight up to still trying to figure out what my Hy-Road can and can’t do. I had a few good shots early, but quickly had to migrate inside. My spare game was largely absent as well tonight, which didn’t help matters. My third game was the one that made me feel semi-decent about the night; although it was only a 154 (and still the best game on the night), I was playing much deeper inside than usual, and more or less finally figured things out in the middle when I decided to slow down, but swing it out more, keeping the side rotation. Attacking the lanes with this strategy, I had 3 strikes from the 5th frame on, including a double in the 5th and 6th frames. This might have been the best horrible night I’ve had bowling, all told.

Result: 135-145-154=434
Average (27 games): 179 Last 9 games average: 161
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 560

Team only took the first game, largely on the strength of Rob’s 236; we lost a close second game and got blown out of the water last game, with Sean Richard looking like he was going to string together 12 in the last game until the 8th frame.

Speaking of the team, here we are…

TNT, Summer 2009: (L to R): Me, Bill Macomber, Bonnie MacDonald, Rob Dickens
TNT, Summer 2009: (L to R): Me, Bill Macomber, Bonnie MacDonald, Rob Dickens

The photo above will also be added to the “scrapbook.” As a parting shot, happy birthday to my cousin Debbie, who celebrated it tonight while bowling.

May 31 league standings update

Our team’s split, combined with the “Wild Samoans” taking 6 of 8 from their opponents, created a tie for 14th in the standings after Wednesday night, with my team having the pinfall edge. “Heaven Help Us” now sit alone in the lead with 22 points, 4 ahead of “Git R Done” and “Phoenix Kings.” “Going Pro,” a middle-of-the-pack team, will be our opponents this week.

With the standings now available on LeagueSecretary.com, the Brunswick Mixed stuff in the “Author’s Links” sidebar category will be “retired,” at least for now, with the BowlingTracker.com stat sheet for Brunswick Mixed being flagged for the archives.