Hi everyone. Sorry it's been a bit. On review, my post frequency has been trending down year-by-year (although the posts have become longer and my views keep going up), so I made it a bit of a New Year's Resolution to post more often. First half of January, this was coming along just fine, but come February and I lapsed. I just need to fit in three more posts before the end of February and I'm back up to speed (I average one post per week)
I've been posting mainly on major-ish events as well, instead of more slice-of-life observation stuff. Another blogger that I'm a fan of, Ali Brosh from Hyperbole and a Half, as she began posting less and less, justified it by saying when she writes about the little things, it's like a burrito, which is nice, but when she'd write about big important things, it's like a jet plane, which is amazing. And after she's made so many jet plane posts, she doesn't want to disappoint her fans by giving a burrito.
But personally, sometimes I don't want a jet plane. Sometimes I want a burrito. Sure a jet plane is awesome to watch and more difficult to produce, but a burrito is nourishing and relatable. Some of her best stuff were burrito posts, and I actually make an effort to alternate between jet planes and burritoes on this blog. The reason Seinfeld was the most popular show on TV during its run is because there is an appeal in the smaller things in life.
Remember that post I made about going for a walk in the woods after finishing my last ever college class with two of my fellow graduates? We got scared by some snakes and we stalked a guy into the woods because we thought he might try to kill himself. That was one of my favourite posts, and I'd call it a burrito, since nothing in it happened which had a lasting effect on my living situation.
So the excuse for not updating is because my days are divided between work and travel. And because of the nature of my work, confidentiality has to be considered in everything I do. And since traveling by bus takes such a ridiculous amount of time, I have those large lengths of time where not much happens (usually. Remember when that young guy and older woman got in an argument about priority seating, he attacked her and I jumped between the two and took the hit?)
But even if there's nothing life-changing, I should be able to come up with something to talk about.
I finally got a coffee maker. Remember how I was missing the coffee filter basket, and the only way to get a new one was to order it in? The price was reasonable but hsipping and handling would cost more than the piece itself, which struck a wrong chord with me on a moral level. And then, it would be easy enough to buy a $15 coffee maker from the secondhand store across the way, but I didn't want to buy a whole new maker when I only needed a piece of plastic. But eventually I just sucked it up and got a whole new maker.
The other day, I was going through my backpack for paysheets and found a Christmas envelope addressed to me that was still sealed. It was from someone who'd given me a present, and I guess I put the envelope in the front pocket of my backpack and forgot about it, even though I put the present under the Christmas tree. I open the envelope and there was a $100 Fairview Mall gift card! Suddenly my expression of gratitude toward him seems a little lukewarm on reflection.
I recently found out that I can get reimbursed for a loud of things during my work that I've been paying out of pocket for. A year and a half in and I just found out about something called an "expense sheet". Yeesh.
I saw some turkeys last Friday. I wasn't sure if they were domestic or not, as they were on somebody's property, but they were just out and about, not restricted by anything. House by a highway. I approached slightly to snap a few pictures, but when they noticed me I backed right out.
I don't think it's a breach of confidentiality to mention that sometimes in the work I do, I go bowling. I used to be a terrible bowler, but I'm actually pretty decent now just through my experience at work. But last time I went, I saw the best bowler I've ever seen in my life. He was in the lane next to us, and he'd come alone.
Before he started, he slid all over the floor in front of the lane, I guess judging it's smoothness, and for any knicks that might throw his concentration or shift his gate as he approached in whatever minuscule way. He'd brought his own balls of course, and every time before he'd throw, he'd wipe them with a cloth. His actual throw was interesting.
I always throw the ball to travel straight. I try to have it travel just off-centre so it hits the head pin at an angle. Almost all semi-professionals, however, do this weird crescent moon shot, where it curves out, skirts along the gutter, then comes back to hit the head pin at an angle. I don't know how they do this, it looks magic.
This guy had an even stranger throw, though. He'd throw it so it traveled straight, until it was almost at the end of the lane, and then it would jet out, hit the gutter's edge, then jet back and smash the headpin at an angle. It was seriously like he had telekinetic powers.
In his entire first game, he only got strikes. That's a perfect game. Like, why would you even continue to play after you'd perfected your technique? There would be no variety anymore.
Even though he was playing alone, he wouldn't play rapidly. After every turn, he would sit down and gaze at the alley meditatively.
His second game wasn't perfect, and it was funny because he couldn't do precision hits. He was so used to getting strikes that if he had to hit at a different angle, he could never do it.
There was a full moon yesterday, a minor eclipse, and we had a comet come closer to the earth than one has in the previous 30 years. I forgot to check for the eclipse and the comet.
Life has been pretty dynamic over here. Actually, I'll have a lot of stuff to talk about once the dust clears, but I can't really talk while things are still up in the air. You'll understand when I'm more free to talk about it on here.
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Not sure if this is of interest or not, but I'll share anyway. The secret to throwing a hook is spin. When most people throw a straight ball, they bring their hand back with the ball, then straight up. To throw a hook, you still bring your hand back, but when it comes up, you also turn it, so that at the end of your delivery it's almost like you're shaking hands (although for lefties like me you'd be shaking with the wrong hand).
ReplyDeleteThis works because of the way that the lane is set up. The oil on the lanes allows the ball to slide most of the way to the pins in the same direction without using any of the rotational momentum on a spinning ball. When the ball gets to the drier part of the lane, the spin takes effect, and combined with the forward momentum, that's what causes the ball to go from the edge of the lane to the pocket. (Or somewhere else, for those of us with less skill!)
You are correct - one of the first things a lot of pros and amateurs do is check the approach to make sure there aren't any sticky spots or slick spots, both for safety (that wooden floor is hard!) and for consistency of approach, particularly for hooks. Because there are more variables at play - the timing will affect the spin on the ball as well as standard speed and straight-line direction - even a small spot on the approach can throw you off.
The other thing about throwing a hook is that the oil on the lane is like any other kind of oil in that it slowly gets used up through contact with things (which is why you wipe off the bowling ball after every throw: extra oil on the ball can prevent it from spinning as you expect). That's also why it's important to practice a full series or more, so that you can get accustomed to how the oil pattern changes through wear - drier places make it hook more, and places where the ball has left a little oil may make it hook less. (That's also why a lot of bowlers carry a ball with a shinier surface, so that it slides better and hooks less - that's their spare ball. It's a lot easier to hit a single pin or two if you don't throw a hook!)
One nice thing about bowling is that you don't have to learn how to throw a hook to be a good bowler. A lot of amateur bowlers do just fine by learning to hit their targets more often, especially on spares - you can score as high as 190 without getting any strikes at all, and the average bowler would do much better to practice picking up spares than to focus solely on strikes. (I should have paid more attention to this when I bowled in casual leagues. I did pretty well, averaging high 150s to low 160s, but struggled with consistency.)