Well, it’s officially over, and I have come to the conclusion that Marshall Street is perhaps not my place to play good disc golf. As in at all. It was ugly. If I take luck into account, it was the worst tournament I’ve played since becoming pro, and possibly the worst tournament I’ve played in the past two years. The reason I specify luck is because I didn’t particularly play so horribly, but I played poor (to be sure) and also couldn’t get a good kick until halfway through my last round, where I got a few here and there.

Things I walked away with:

- Marshall Street is a great time, and had the weather not sucked the proverbial monkey (mid 50′s and raining), it would have been ever better.

- Jason and Steve (and Lick and Kelly for that matter) are absolutely nuts.

- Even when you putt great (this was, bar none, the best putting I’ve ever had for four consecutive rounds) you can still throw like crap.

- I may have been the only one to throw 3′s on hole 1 and hole 11 at Maple Hill Airplanes (they’re very tricky and long holes).

- All the money I made from that 3 on hole 11 (Luke Butch put up $20 if anyone could do it) went to paying all the bets I had made with people. I paid $11 to Cromwell, $4 to Shanest, $10 to Jeff Cahill, and $2 to Flick. It was a slaughter of my wallet. Fortunately, because of poker and caddying, I still came out ahead, but with a bruised ego.

- If I make a qualifier tournament, I will be back next year.

And with 11 holes, I took myself out of the cash. In a word, it was ugly. The first round was at Pyramids, where I’ve only played the long layout once. I don’t recall doing so well there the first time. So I start on a few birdie holes, and I manage to throw a birdies. After seven holes, I’m -1 (which ended up being the hot round for the day) I’m putting well still and I’m holding my own. Then I proceed to vomit all over the course. I carded three consecutive 5′s, primarily on bad luck, compounded with bad play. Then I pull out a tough 2 on an 80′ uphill jump putt. And then I card a 3 on my nemesis hole. So I’m feeling good going into “the Airport Hole”, probably the toughest hole on the course. And I end up 6ing that sucker, completely killing my momentum. I ended up +12 for the round, which is pretty miserable.

After lunch, I go over to Maple Hill, the layout where I threw a -3 for the Qualifier round. And I would have loved to do that again. I think by my tone you can tell that I didn’t. I started 3ing the hardest hole on the course, birdieing (spelling?) the next, and then 3ing another hard hole. Huge start. But like the morning round, I fell apart, taking a circle six on the next (easy) hole. I slipped on the teepad. Here’s where it gets funky, because I played a very hot round all in all. My putting has been better today than in any tournament and, aside from straddle putts, I have only missed two in the circle, and I’ve probably made 5 or 6 outside. But I’ve had a bucket of suck in terms of luck, and I had a few bad kicks. But to throw a 58 on that course when you’re playing well is just a sin.

So not only did I get mutilated in all my side-bets (so far, I owe Cromwell about $6), I didn’t make the top 64 to make the “A pool”. While that takes a little of the pressure off, it also makes me feel like a mullet.

And so, I earned my new haircut.

Well, my cash streak continues, but in an unlikely way. It did NOT, incidentally, continue by me being a 3-pete Hold’em champion. I made it to the final table, but was knocked out 9^th, fourth out of the cash. I was very pleased with how I played – although it was a bit more conservative than normal. I folded the strong hand several times throughout the night, but that’s certainly better than calling while being the weaker hand. There was some drama, but really, the flops I got never matched my decent hands, and I got rivered out a few times. What can you do?

Another way I did not earn any money was playing disc golf. Because it was miserable day weather-wise, I didn’t throw a disc all day, which is questionable before a tournament, perhaps. Instead, I watched the skins games. There, Courtney Peavy (very good disc golfer) asked me to be a caddy since I was planning on walking with the ladies group anyway and she absolutely hates playing without a caddy in the rain (and it was bucketing fo sho’). I said sure (or fo sho’). Apparently, there’s an unwritten rule that caddies should get a “fee” for caddying if the player cashes. I think that’s silly, but then again, I would never use a caddy. Courtney won the most skins (11), accounting for a nice chunk of change – $550. My fee was $55. I rejected it twice, because, like I said, I think the entire ordeal is quite silly. She relented, so I made some more money. That brings my total to $147 for the week so far. And since I paid for this tournament in January, I’m still considering this to be a killer payout.

I start tomorrow at Pyramids on hole 18 with two players I’ve never played with before. MSDGC, here I come, hopefully well rested (I am at a hotel because our tent is officially a sponge.

Alcohol – what a miraculous invention. Something must be said for being able to properly function after having what I’ll describe as a “plethora” of alcohol. And it seemed to do the trick – but I’m seriously getting ahead of myself.

After about a billion comments about my hair (which can be seen here)

I decide to practice Maple Hill. This is a course I’d never played before, but apparently I watched the MSDGC DVDs enough to recognize nearly every hole. I think that’s a testament to how lame my social life is. But I digress. I step onto the very famous hole 1 (taken in photograph form by yours truly)

And I proceed to throw crap, although my discs stayed dry. For a round of the shorts, I shot +3, which wasn’t really great or horrible. I only three four bogies, so in that the round was solid. But one birdie is NOT good. It got me ready for the Birdie Skins qualifier.

To explain, there is a skins round that you need to qualify for by placing in the top 4 of a small mini-tournament. At the beginning, any bookie would have decided that I was a long shot at best. “Dark horse” is another term. “Not a chance in hell” also sounds familiar. I shot four birdies in my first six holes, taking a lead on such good pros as Mike Hofmann and Sjur Soleng. I did throw a few bogies and ended up carding 8 birdies for a super solid -3. I felt good about that, even though I was 4 strokes off qualifying for the tournament. I wasn’t upset – I was already ahead in money for the weekend.

Dinner and alcohol commenced, and I was ready for more poker. Early on, I got rivered out on a big hand (I had 2 pair and the guy only had an open-ended straight draw) and of course I lost out on the last card. But I was unfettered, as I like to be, and I came back to win my second game of cards in a row. I’m already $100 ahead (which was the cost for the big Hold’em tournament tonight). We’ll see how that goes.

And now I might play the other Maple Hill layout. Or go in the hot tub. Or take a nap. Really, there are alot of good ideas out there.

There’s a certain legacy about Marshall Street. I’ve heard the gamut of compliments: from it’s a highly competitive tournament to it’s the greatest party ever to it’s simply a must-not-miss event. Unfortunately, I’ve missed it both years previous to this, and I’ve only ever been up to Pyramids (one of the two courses that constitute Marshall Street) a handful of times. Already, I know the Southwick’s hospitality to be insane, which is fitting, since they are, by all counts, insane.

So I pick up the Mullet from the airport and we make good time up to good ole’ Worcester MA for the tourney. Of course, the tourney doesn’t start until Saturday. As we pull up, they’re starting a game of poker (it was already around 10pm at this point) Since I’m registered in the Hold’em tourney, I figured it’s good practice. And wouldn’t you know it, I pull the victory out, thanks to some favorable flops and a clever slow-play of a full house. I’ve cashed $40, and I’m still two days away from the tournament. Plus I’m eating a FREE pie, so that’s sorta like double cashing.

At this point, it’s around midnight, and someone suggests playing some glow golf. Sounds like a good idea to promote injury, so I’m on board. We play Pyramids shorts, which is the course I’ve played most, so I at least know where I’m throwing. I end up tossing a +7, which was better than it seems on paper. I threw some great shots with a disc I had never used and didn’t lose it. Mitch threw a -1, but I came in second, edging out the Yeti (sorry for the pun, Yeti).

So about 3:30am, I decide it’s time to go to sleep. You can’t beat 50′s in terms of temperature for camping. You CERTAINLY could beat the 50′s in terms of decades, though. Golly gee, those years blew chunks.

In perhaps the funniest moment of disc golf I’ve witnessed in a while, Steve Vann accomplished something that I’ve never seen before in the history of disc golf. (And I apologize for poor picture quality – the following pictures were taken with a camera-phone, the only thing we had available.)  So we step up to hole 1 at Rutgers and it’s a very easy high hyzer shot, less than 100′ long. I even point out to Steve the route:

You want to go around that and around the tree behind it. Well, Steve was paranoid about this lamppost, and he was having a bad round to boot. So what does he do? Not only does he throw it at the lamppost, he ACES the lamppost. The disc even stayed in the thing. I’ve never witnessed anything like it. Nor have I heard Steve ever laugh that hard. Ah, disc golf…

As a birthday present, Webmaster (and awesome bowler) Jason has set up my blog so that it is now fully interactive.  This was not done because of a deluge of interest in this type of blog – rather it was done more or less to placate Marsha, Mitch’s girlfriend.  She hounded me during my Donator’s Tour to have a place where she could post comments.  So there you go.

Big things in store with this blog, though – since it is now interactive, that means there will definitely be more contests very soon, and I’m beginning to think I may try to obtain sponsorship next year for a second Donator’s Tour (thanks goes to B.O.B. for the idea, which should have been simple enough for me to come up with).

Thanks Jason!

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

I start with another picture of Kevin and I. Because I didn’t want to oversaturate yesterday’s entry with photos.

The day started late, around 11:30pm. Which is just as well, really, since I was in need of sleep. After trying to figure out what to do with Domo, which in itself is an hour’s process, Will and I headed out to play some disc golf. He’d never played a single hole, and I wanted to add a new state to my repertoire. We headed out to the Oak Grove (Hahamongna Park) Course in Pasadena, which we’re told was the first permanent polehole in the country. With all the word I’ve heard about SoCal disc golf, I expected a wide open course with no particular challenge. This course, however, was quite challenging, especially for me who likes to throw fairly high (it had many low ceilings). The views from the teepads were exquisite, as you can tell from this picture.

And this picture.

And this picture.

As you might be able to see, Will has very good form for a first time player, something that surprised me, though only a little. We had, after all, played a whole crapload of frisbee growing up. He had some natural skills, and I sorta hope he takes the Beast we found on the course and goes out again to play.

Anyway, after that, we get back and meet up with good friends Brian and Julie, who are such good friends that I, in no way, took any pictures of them. Oops. From there, we headed out to Sardo’s, the heralded karaoke bar in LA that houses Porn Star Karaoke every Tuesday. There, I managed to croon out, to an underwhelmed crowd, Weird Al’s “You Don’t Love Me Anymore”, and capping off the night with the more-popular “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake. I think the two highlights were a couple singing a song from Avenue Q and before the song was even halfway through, the whole crowd was literally screaming “porn!” at them, and Will doing a Beastie Boys song entirely on his own, with me only helping on the chorus. Oh, and I was quite surprised to know that I still knew all the male words to The Time Warp.

After getting a few hours sleep, we awoke to try to plan going home. Lynly dropped Susan and I off at the subway station at around 11:30PST. We took three trains and a bus to even get us to LAX. Public transportation is not very, what’s the word, worthwhile in LA. We get to the airport at around 1:30, more than two hours early. In fact, when we got there, we found our flight would be delayed an hour and a half, giving us ample time to drink at the bar at prices that are The Price of a Bottle of Wine for One Glass of Said Wine. This delay was bad. If everything had worked out EXACTLY perfect, we would have just caught the final train home once in Newark.

Instead, we fly in, arrive at 1:30am EST. After getting my luggage, it was just after 2, long after the trains stopped running. So we wait around until 4:30am, take two monorails (bringing our train count up to 5) to get to the train station. We take a train to Secaucus Junction only to find out the train we want doesn’t depart until 7am (two hours later). So we take a different train (#7) and get into Hawthorne where Susan’s brother dropped us off at my apartment a little while ago.

The wedding was great, the awkwardness was minimal, and I had a great time. I now just need a backrub like it’s going out of business, if backrubs could ever do that. Kevin, thank you and good luck.

That was a wedding unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before. And as a note, any pictures that look larger here will NOT have the ability to be enlarged by clicking on them, because I stole them from Kristen’s private collection.

It was at some place with a totally bizarre name like the Inn at the Seventh Ray. In fact, that might have been the name. It was actually quite a quaint little outdoor setting.

It had a fountain.

The future Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Gibert – until I told him to marry Angela instead of the fountain

I was sat at a table with Kristen and Jeff, who are good friends from home, and there were shenanigans to be found. Here is photographic evidence of such.

Also enjoying shenanigans were Will and Lynly.

The entire ceremony started about 45 minutes late, which was interesting because the ceremony and reception together were four hours long, the length of time they had the place. So the wedding was short and sweet – with quite a few light moments. During the ring exchange, the priest (I’ll use that term because I don’t know what affiliation he belonged to) says “Please wear this” and both Kevin and Angela repeated it as a beg or a plea. Very good stuff. Then Angela started ad-libbing… “as a sign that you’re my property.” Good stuff.

There was no drama on my part at the wedding with any of the people on my “awkward” list, though it wasn’t exactly something I feel like doing again anytime soon. Well, I did shoot Kevin in the chest.

Of course, they had their typical things – the vows

the talking to tons of people

the cutting of the cake

the first dance.

the little later in the first dance

But I’m saving the capitalizing moment for last. Their reception ended in likely the greatest moment I’ve ever seen in a wedding. Kevin and Angela had chosen music from their Ipod collection as fodder for the reception. And as their last song, they chose the Mountain Goats “No Children”. They each took the microphone and crooned out the lyrics to the song (which you may remember is #2 on my top 113). Now, “No Chidren” is a song about a couple who are the brink of self-destruction. And not only were Angela and Kevin singing it, they had quite a few people singing alone merrily: “I hope you die, I hope we both die.” After the song, Kevin kiddingly asks, “who wants to hear it again?” And there is a huge cheer. So I push “back” on the Ipod and we hear it again, with more people singing the lyrics. It ended in applause and a kiss, how all weddings should. But I will leave you with the lyrics that we crooned out:

I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us.
I hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us.
And I hope the fences we’ve mended crumble beneath their own weight,
And I hope we hang on past the last exit; I hope it’s already too late.
And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here someday burns down,
And I hope the rising black sun carries me far away, and I never come back to this town
Again. In my life. I hope I lie and tell everyone you were a good wife.
And I hope you die. I hope we both die.

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow, I hope it bleeds all day long.
Our friends say it’s darkest before the sun rises – we’re pretty sure they’re all wrong.
I hope it stays dark forever, and I hope the worst isn’t over.
I hope you blink before I do – I hope we never get sober.
And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can’t find one good thing to say.
And I hope if I found the strength to walk out, you stay the hell out of my way.
I am drowning, there is no sign of land,
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand,
And I hope you die. I hope we both die.

Kevin and Angela, I wish you the best of luck. You are, as Kevin’s mother described, “my type of people.”