1st place at FVO, disc golf at mt. morris and appleton area

there's a ton of pix in this post, so imageshack may not let you load them all on the first refresh.

two weekends ago, after the eau claire weekend, i won int am at the fox valley open at grignon in kaukauna. just 16 played ppl in the div, but lotsa the top of the pin high tour. so that's nice, got my first black disc.

this past friday i tripped up to green bay and played my way back down to milwaukee on saturday. played dretka from the longs sun (short pins) and shot -1, shot about that well there today with a coupla newbs, one from australia.



one of the few shots from tower ridge, brita from MN putting





i went up near steven's point, in Wautoma WI, to find an unlisted and unmapped course at a place called Mt. Morris Camp and Conference Center. a friend who'd been on the roadtrip to TN recently said it was as good as those, so i had to see. it's pretty damn good, and i captured the holes as best i could



hole 1's basket



hole 2



hole 3's really obstructed at first, then plenty of open over a midrange's distance



hole 4's tough. a big tree's in your way to start over a long hole



looking backwards, the pin's guarded too



hole 5's a flick into a cubby a little deeper in than the road turns off






hole 6's an impossibly tight flick through trouble opening into a field



hole 7's a scenic stretched hyzer following along a ditch






a meandering river alongside the walk



hole 8's a pretty hole; empty your bag going for an ace. over the river and moderately downhill midrange length



hole 8 looking backwards



hole 9's a pretty and very tech hole. small hole to launch from; hole's protected by trees and sits at the edge of a steep slide



view from about halfway



hole 9's basket



hole 10's a demandingly tight flick. the trees are cut back the same way behind for yards for must what be a future hella hard pro tee






hole 11's HARD. guarded tee, no holes anywhere to speak of flick or backhand.. oy!



view from about halfway



then the hole is REALLY garded by bushes and low-hanging trees even when you're close!



and THEN there's a punishing ditch JUST behind the pin with WORSE low hanging trees to punish those who throw even slightly too far! now THIS is a hole to separate the scores!

i couldn't find the teepad for 12, even tho i could find the hole. sufficed to say, it's right behind a BIG bushy tree.



13's a light curve left followed by a huge swoop right and downhill. fun hole built for flicking



hole 13's guarded basket viewed from about the curve



some teepees used by the camp



hole 14's a fun blind shot. sky hyzer not too far



hole 14's basket



hole 15's a good long drive if you can make it, lotsa stuff in just the wrong places



16's a long open hyzer



17's another HARD hole. narrowing path on an anhyzer curve over a good distance to some low bushes and a big tree to punish the landing on an anhyzer.. if you can throw a huge S starting on a spike anhyzer you can make it over, but everything else is gonna hurt



looking down the path



through the lack of a hole at about a good drive's length, out into a short opening and then the pin



18's fairly long, starting open and then into low-hanging trees




some extra shots:










mt. morris is one of the best in wisconsin for sure.


so onto the trip down from green bay:



triangle sports area hole 1 "prepare to unload... your bag"



hole 1 viewed backwards



another downhill shot, easy to mistake for the pin in view, but it's really tucked in along the treeline at left much shorter downhill, tempting the toss between the trees.



a couple views of a nice uphill hole






another uphill flick



view of a nice downhill hole about halway, on a hump that'll ground out those low coasting shots.



a dam in kaukauna not far from grignon






ohauser is a VERY demanding course that has teenager-teepees in the woods (yay!), and traintracks close to a lot of holes.



the train goes by another hole



peck drives out over the hardest water shot, trying to tuck it inbetween some of the big trees up and at right



a random odd tree at the rest stop between dretzka hole 14 and 15

so next weekend it's back up to appleton again for the eagle open.

man, scanning all this crap's work..

i can NOT stop... obeying the law, so fuck the police

i can not stop locking my car, even when i park it in the garage. even when i'm deliberately meaning not to as i get out of the car, i STILL instinctually lock it as if it's part of the ritual of opening and closing the door.

same thing for putting my seatbelt on when getting in. it's like pulling the covers up when getting in bed; i just do it instinctually.

which is why i'm pissed a cop gave me a seatbelt ticket when he pulled me over for having a headlight out, and i took my belt off to reach into my glovebox to have my registration inhand by the time he walked up.

why is it cops are always cutting you a deal? "i could nail you for the headlight, 150$, but i'll just give you the 10$ seatbelt". could it be because they're fleecing for revenue and want to encourage uncontested fine payments?

i almost think the police should be clearly divided into crimesolvers and misdemeanor-naggers. purely so that i can direct my respect towards one set and my frustration at the other. i don't think it's a healthy situation for normal citizens to be given reason to be so paranoid about their supposed protectors.

Standing Rocks Open, Tower Ridge, and Wakanda

so! back into playing tournaments the past few weekends.

3 weekends ago I played the standing rocks open in my normal division: intermediate ameture. threw a disapponting tho not that bad round and tied for 16th. it marks the anniversary of my tournament play ^^

the next weekend I took a stab at playing a division up (advanced am) again at standing rocks. they add a whole other course and change some temp holes around. again threw just ok, but for whatever reason, even though it wasn't as bad weather as last year (which was BAD), everyone else seemed to play poorly. I beat several friends who beat me 9 out of 10 rounds; I get to laugh and move back down where I don't pay as much or lose bigger ^_^;;; tied for 28th.



this was about the only pic I took tho. first weekend I thought my camera broke; second weekend it was rainy enough that I didn't bother myself on such a hilly course.



swung just a little out of my way to hit the merrimac ferry on the way home. I'd never heard of it, tho I imagine most wisconsinites already know it. I think it's cool there's a free regularly operating ferry as part of the highway system even to today.




last weekend I travelled out to Eau Claire for a couple of tournaments. Saturday was at Wakanda in Menomonie. Decent textbook course, it'd be nice to have tho it's got nothing that wows me. Threw pretty well; better now that I think about it tho it didn't feel too special. Wasted like 5 strokes on the first round throwing OB because I hadn't previewed the course =S but birdied some holes I was really happy to. ended up taking 2nd place, but the tournament was fairly empty. so far, it's pretty obvious the average skill of the division has plummetted this year, whether due to people moving up a division, not touring, or idunno what.

the above is the longest hole there. I think Barry Schultz deuced it the next day when he set the new course record at -15.



this was a well-designed hole: framing trees restrict your drive, blocking trees where a righthander's distance-hyzer would go, and rolling terrain over a good 3-400 feet.



same hole, view of the pin



the most scenic hole; happy to say on one round i straightened out a downhill hyzer over the road just long enough to get around the tree and tuck in for the deuce.







brickyard, a new 9er near wakanda, kicks ASS. completely reminds me of renassaince park in north carolina. deliciously impossible trees, great elevation, creative holes. a little hard to find the next hole, and obviously still a new course with rough edges, but in a few years it might be the best course in the state.

the above hole was an immediate uphill hard hyzer.



view of the pin, the rest of the hole at right, a crevasse just past the basket at left. tough to show accurately, even splicing these two images.



this was about the only short shot, a fun and easy midrange-anhyzer or flick over a gorge that was probably 100 feet wide and 50 feet deep. this course has you walking good distances just to get where your shot landed.. cuz you can't ever get straight from here to there. which RULES!



the drive-o-meter valley



spools marking 2,3,400 feet.









mount simon in eau claire is their equivalent to milwaukee's valley view: the social beginner's course. it's got better distance than i thought initially tho. i really liked this hole, with it's guarding trees at end. liked it even more when i parked my 150 wraith both times i played it.



a disc in mid-flight through the lone woodsy hole at mt. simon.

so sunday I played the tower ridge tourney in eau claire. demandingly tough course with lots of big elevation and some darn tight tree-hallways. too exhausting to waste effort on a camera during a tournament round. well, from the longs anyway. our division played a round from the shorts and a round from the longs. kinda wussy, but i hate getting up early for these sumbitches, so starting off easy's fine with me. got down to -6, avoiding any 4s. the round from the longs went pretty darn well, keeping in control and out of trouble; even getting a lucky shot now and then. shot a 4 up, keeping the 5s away, to end the day -2, which tied 3-ways for 3rd place.

lucky me, 2nd and then 3rd was good enough to win the division counting scores at both tournaments, so I got a nice trophy disc and display, and a nice metal portable basket! plus enough funny money for another temp basket of a cloth folds-like-a-tent variety. I go from never owning a basket to having two! all told, i got over 200$ wortha stuff, not bad ^^

crazy me, even after all that, I go back out for one more round at chippewa falls middle school. GREAT school course! nothing to play a tournament on or bring serious players, but if I had something like that at school, I'da started a lot earlier! shoulda brought my camera; this course is a perfect appetizer for a non-player, the shots are easy and FUN. so fun i don't knock the easy. variety too: a 600ft hole, a 40ft hole, a horseshoe hole, a tree alley hole, a alley with a strong dogleg, a 30 foot hole where you have to pitch it out 40 ft right and make it come back.. great stuff!

drove home 4 hours, got in at 1, crashed.

Chernobyl Graffitti

this site looks to be about a buncha graffitti artists who raided Chernobyl.