Since 4/21 at 5:14am (7 days and 6 1/2 hours), we’ve had exactly 498 measurable earthquakes in the Reno area (about a 30 mile radius). About 95% of them are within 10 miles of my place.

16 of those have registered over 3.0 and three of those have been above 4.0.

According to a report Ash saw, before the first of the earthquakes, the Reno area had a 17% probability of a “significant earthquake” (7.0 or higher) within the next 5 years. After this spree of activity, that has upped to 98%.

I picked an awesome time to move!

*edit: One hour later and we’re over 500.  A very telling stat: before the February spree of quakes started, the average time between 2.0 quakes or higher in this area was once every three days.  Since the quakes started two months ago, it’s averaged 3 a day.  This week, it was 7 a day.

The short version for those who don’t want to read everything: two courses, two days, no pin placements stayed the same (so basically four courses). Deuce-or-die type tournament. I couldn’t throw with anhyzer at all. I took 5 pentalties for the weekend, one of which wasn’t my fault and cost me $80. Hit metal on my third to last hole of the tourney. Tied with 3 other guys for last cash.

Now the detailed version:

1st Round (or Those Damn Ponds!) The first round was at Penn Valley, and it was set up fairly easy. I started with a couple of birdies in my first five or six holes, then started to hit ponds. Now when I say ‘ponds’, I don’t mean water. It was especially dry and there was very little water to be seen. This round, I threw three OB’s, none of which were actually in water. One of the ‘ponds’ did have water, but the OB circle was painted to be about 2x the size of the pond, and I landed dry, about 18 inches short of the safe zone. That cost me 2 strokes (as the basket is about 10 feet beyond it). D’oh! I also had remarkable trouble throwing anything with anhyzer. The course is at 2500′, which isn’t much, yet I couldn’t turn a single disc over, including my Stingray. Very bizarre. I threw four birdies and three bogies, all OB bogies. (My other two OB’s were bad up shots that could have been prevented.) After round 1, I was 5 strokes from DFL and 5 from 3rd place. Nice.

Round 2 (or The Penalty From Hell): Also at Penn Valley with a different 18 pin placements (which produced many easier must-get birdies, but a few much harder holes). I played very solidly throughout the first half the round. I had a couple of birdies and a bogey. Then on my fourth-to-last hole, I step up to a tough hole (hole 1) where your main option is a sky-anhyzer around a mando to try to get a 2-putt. It’s a pretty simple three. In practice, I threw a wide roller and it put me within 50′. Also during practice, I asked who I was playing with WHICH tree specifically was the mando (it wasn’t marked well). I asked: “Is it the big one”, even pointing to the innermost LARGE tree (2′ in diameter) He says ‘yes’. Well, I don’t know what he was thinking about, because the mando tree is a scrawny 8″ tree about 4′ further on the fairway. So during the round I hugged my roller tighter to the trees on the right to try to get a deuce putt. I hit the scrawny guy and it trickled down. I wasn’t too pissed because I had a pretty clear 3 from there. Then my group says I missed the mando (in my head, I was a good 4′ away from the mando). I had to re-tee (I rolled about 2 feet past the mando, and therefore had to re-tee) That’s a two stroke penalty there. I was very upset and shanked my next drive, taking a 4 on an easy three hole. That pulled my -2 to +1. (The last four holes, I went 5, 4, 3, 2, putting me at even). This round I shot 4 birdies again, two bogies, and a double. Even. Not horrible, but with a -2 with only four holes left, it was disappointing. After the second round, I was 15 strokes from 1st, but also 15 strokes from DFL. Hangin’ in there.

Third Round (or Oh Putting, Where Art Thou?): At Grass Valley, this was easily the simplest layout all weekend. Every hole was birdiable, and quite a few were simple (less than 200 without too much in the way) Of course, this is my least favorite type of golf. I started 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3. The last of those five were all putts within 30′, and I only hit two. My putting up until then had been great. I proceeded to throw 4 birdies AGAIN and 2 bogeys. Very disappointing considering how easy the layout was. Before the round, I was only a stroke or two off the cash line, but a lame -2 (hot score was -12) didn’t help me. The putting came around in the second half, but it was after my driving stopped being good enough to give me many birdie putts. (My 4th birdie of that round was a gacked drive where I hit a 50′ uphill putt for the deuce) First round without any penalties!

4th Round (or Redemption): Effectively out of the cash without a huge round, I was just playing to have a good time. In Crocs and with a pretty fun group of guys, I headed out. It was a harder layout at Grass Valley, but still plenty of birdie ops. Everything started clicking. Nothing amazing, but nothing horrible. I had a few birdies early on, and was -2. Even when I was throwing pars, I was throwing my drives pretty much where I wanted to. Late kicks off trees or weird skips prevented easy deuces. On hole 14, it is a touch pin placement. For a righty, it’s an S curve with a overstable midrange to a left-slanting quick green, with a 3′ river at the bottom of the ravine. Scary. I threw a perfect shot (it skipped and must have missed the basket by inches). From our vantage point, it looked like it skipped to the other side (safe, and with a good look for a deuce). When we got there, it was wet, so it likely hit the other side and rolled back in. D’oh! I missed the putt and took my only bogey of the round. I followed it up with more solid play: on hole 1 (my 4th to last hole) I hit the cage on a 220′ tricky little hole, and put a VERY tough drive to about 20′ (missed the putt!). Surprisingly, it was enough to pull me into a four-way tie for last cash (too bad about that missed putt, huh?)

Overall: I asked for ‘solid’, and that’s exactly what it was. I didn’t have many egregious errors the entire weekend, although I had very little amazing play. I only had three drop-ins the entire weekend, and only threw 17 birdies when there were probably 50+ out there. My putting was solid, but shaky in the 3rd round. My drives were good, though I had trouble with hyzer angles. And best yet, I got my first CA cash! $20! Woo! (That penalty mando in the 2nd round ended up costing me an estimated $70. If i had missed all the OBs, I would have tied for 7th – d’oh again!)

I did take pics, but my camera seemed to have broke the final round, so I don’t know if you’ll be seeing them any time soon.

So I was chatting with Ash when I feel a little rumbling.  It only lasted two seconds, and I had to ask myself, “Was that an earthquake?”  I’ve never knowingly experienced one, so I wasn’t sure.  It felt like you were in school and someone was using a cleaning machine on the floor above you and everything shakes a little.  She thought it might have been.

It reminded me of a conversation that I had with her dad a few days ago about this – our area has seen a sudden increase in earthquakes.  So I went online trying to see if there is actually an increase of if we were just imagining it.  I first found a site that lists new earthquakes, and it listed nothing in the area, but it took two hours, it looked like, to update.  I figured I’d check it in another 2 hours.  I click on another site and see an up-to-the-minute chart of CA/NV earthquakes.  I zoom into Reno, and sure enough, a 4.1 hit about 8 miles from my place.  I was on the site for about five minutes, and in that time, three more smaller ones hit.

It’s now a few hours later, and I’m watching the news.  There’s been 40 earthquakes between here and Verdi (about 12 miles away) since 3:45pm (it’s now 6:30).  Yeah, some serious shit’s going down!  And there’s not even a real faultline there.  Oh, they just announced the biggest one so far was 4.4.  Neat.

It’s made me add yet another category: natural phenomena.  Between earthquakes, snow (there was some last night), blazing heat, wind (I’ve seen it in the 70+ mph range already), and pogonips (it’s in my blog somewhere), it deserves some ‘mad propz’

Thanks, in part, to a well-timed flu, I was able to complete FFI in only a couple of days.  It took nearly 25 hours for my intrepid party of Eephus, Poot, 4/7ths, and O0o0O (it’s pronounced ‘chad’) to complete the game.  Of course, I find out after the fact that in FF Origins, they unlock special endings if you fight every monster and collect every item.  I missed 6 monsters and missed 4 items.  D’oh!  I don’t think I have such a desire for completeness that I’m going to go back and do those now (considering I’d have to do them from start again.)

FFII is next.  I remember this one sucks to level up.  I plan on cheating.  Actually, since I plan on doing EVERYTHING in every game (using walkthroughs for the games I’ve already beaten in the past), I’m allowed to get help.  C’mon, like ANYONE knows how to properly breed chocobos and get the hidden treasure on their own.  Yeah, right.

I’m introducing a ‘gaming’ tab, so people can feel free to skip any that have this tab (I’m looking at you, females)

Holy Crap!

Okay, I know it’s a stupid quest, so you don’t need to answer that.  I finally got my orchestral versions of video game songs completed after a couple weeks of failed bittorrenting, and hearing the old FFIV theme cheered me up.  And made me want to do something stupid.

I’m thinking of playing every FF title that I own start to finish, chronologically.  The only ones I’ve never completed are 2 (not American 2, which is 4), 9 (which I hated the hour I played), X2 (because it looked horrible) and 12 (no good excuse why).  So why not do them all in a row?

I don’t think I’d do X2 and 11 is obviously only online, so I’d skip that.  But I’d do the rest (including having to buy 9).  Anyway, a few thoughts popped up.  1)  How long, as a not-avid gamer, do you think this would take?  2)  Why would I do this when I have plenty of other important things to be doing?  3)  Would my girlfriend talk to me again?

So I arrived Sunday night at around 10:30pm, greeted by my enthusiastic (and awesome) girlfriend.  My baggage was supposed to have already been there, because it was going on the flight I was trying to get on standby.  I didn’t get on the flight, but the luggage was supposed to.

We get there and the United door was locked and closed, so I had to wait for the luggage for my *actual* flight to unload and then someone would open that.  My luggage wasn’t on my flight, as expected, but it also wasn’t in the room.  It was gone.  I filled out a form.

Two days later and they just told Ash that they have ‘no idea’ where my stuff is.  Thats promising.  It had most of my good clothes, the only pants that fit me besides what I wore on the plane, and my medication (for my face).

I almost checked my disc golf bag and I’m SO glad I didn’t.

And it’s snowing.  Fuckin’ desert my ass…

Ruffino Chianti 2006 – I don’t know that I can say anything about chiantis that hasn’t been said before.  I don’t know because I’ve done no research on what’s been said before.  I’ll give it a go, though.  This wine didn’t taste like a shuttlecock in any way.  I imagine.  I’ve not liquified a shuttlecock and drank it, so I’m not sure of the taste (I had it injected intravenously).  Chiantis are red wines that tend to not sit on the tongue, but to wiggle its flavorful butt there and grind its flavor into your tongue.  And that’s certainly a good thing.

Ruffino is a good, cheap wine.  At $10 (at a generally expensive corner store), it’s a wine that would go well with any meal that traditionally goes well with read wines, and it would probably go well with many other things (except vodka, the thought of which which makes me shiver.)  Perhaps I’m easy to win over, as my tongue is as discriminating as Dennys (post 1985).  I’d highly recommend it.  7.5/10.

I had one major detriment in playing FDR Fool’s Fest this year, and it wasn’t the debilitating flu that destroyed my game: it was my pride.  I should have just said to myself I’m too sick to play.  Instead, on about 5 hours of uneven sleep, I got picked up at 7am and decided to “tough it out”.  After all, it’s just a cold, right?

Turns out I think it’s the flu, as halfway through the day I started getting the aches and pains, and the cold shivers.  My hands and feet went pretty numb after about 5 holes each round (it was 45 degrees with some wind).  Quite literally, my body just wasn’t responding to me.

All day, I had two 2s, but worse than that, I literally threw about 20% drives where I was aiming.  I was throwing really high all day, griplocking many and letting the rest go too early.  My putts were erratic and my ups were even worse.  If I didn’t have luck, I would have shot a few strokes higher still.

My day ended on the second throw – I started with a long drive on a pretty tough deuce and had about an 18′ straddle putt around a tree.  I airballed it.  Then I went 4 4 4 4 4 on the next five holes.  My day was done.  I tied for last, and the winner beat me by 32 strokes.

This was the worst I’ve done in a tournament since…. well, Fool’s Fest last year where I shot the exact same scores: 64 62.  I don’t know what wrong last year, I had no excuse then.

If I’m ever this sick again, I’m withdrawing.  It would suck, but it sucked more to play.

Now I have a bum knee to go along with my achy body, and most inexplicably I have a swollen tongue.  It hurts to eat cantaloupe.  I hate my body.