CLX Trivia Contest

Hey people.

I've decided to put together a CLX trivia contest for those interested. There will be 25 questions, each worth one point. To do well, you will need knowledge about CLX ranging from the 2003 roster/season to the current 2006 roster/season. We can do this two ways, though. Either post answers in the comments page and be on the honors system to not cheat of others' work. Or email me your answers. Feel free to do whichever you want. I'm thinking of having two divisions: CLX members and non-CLX members. The CLX member with the best score will get free tournament entry into CHCs in two weeks. The non-CLX member with the highest score will get a prize yet to be determined. Maybe fast-food gift certificates, Landshark discs, Santa shorts, or cash prizes. One more note: The quiz may be too hard, but I couldn't help it.

I'll accept answers until 8pm next Wednesday. Then I'll find out who the winners are and post the answers. Enjoy!

The quiz:

1. How many different people named Sara or Sarah have played for CLX? Name them.
2. Who got the D, who threw the score, and who caught the score to beat Six Trained Monkeys in Club Nationals semis of 2004?
3. What tournament was the first to be attended by a team named The Chad Larson Experience?
4. Who is the only rostered CLX member to never have played a point for CLX?
5. How many all-region players has CLX rostered and who are they?
6. Which team beat CLX at 2004 club regionals? Give me the team name.
7. How many double-game point matches has CLX played at club nationals?
8. What tournament did CLX make its first finals at?
9. What is the highest combined team total for points in a CLX game (add both CLX's score plus the other team score)?
10. From 00 to 99, what is the highest number never to be worn on a CLX jersey?
11. What tournament does CLX have the most championship victories at?
12. Which CLX team members have won multiple Des Moines Summer League championships?
13. In how many games did CLX face worlds-bid ending elimination in 2005, while attempting to qualify for 2006 Worlds?
14. Which CLX member had a team-low one offensive touch at 2004 nationals, but made the most of it by catching a score?
15. Of the teams CLX has played more than once, which is the only one to remain undefeated against CLX?
16. How many married couples have played for CLX?
17. What men's team did the bulk of the CLX 2003 men spurn to play coed?
18. How many CLX members have won the Freshman of the Year award in college?
19. What former CLXer now resides in Belarus?
20. What did the fledgling CLX crew play as at Poultry Days 2003?
21. How many players had played in a national championship before playing for CLX and who is it/are they?
22. How many sibling combos has CLX rostered?
23. The Chad Larson Eggs-perience has played Poultry Days three years in a row now. What is CLX's combined Saturday record? Also, what is CLX's combined Sunday record?
24. Of 1-year, 2-year, 3-year, or 4-year veterans, which does CLX have the least of?
25. Though CLX and Flaming Moe have battled repeatedly over the past 3 years, they only met once in 2003. At what tournament and when in the tournament was it?

Sellouts?

I've been mulling this over in my mind for the last three or four days, not continously, because it isn't that big of an issue, but for small periods of time on sucessive days.

Has CLX in some way soldout?

The Chad Larson Experience was a do-it-yourself project when we started. We're talking about homemade tee-shirts with iron on transfers. Sure, they didn't wick away sweat, indeed, they were made of cotton, possibly the worst choice for jersey material, but they were unique among high level teams.

At 2004 club nationals, of the attention we received, nearly as much could be attributed to the jerseys (blue tee and santa shorts) we wore as to the things we accomplished. News reporters and newspaper journalists chose to interview our players because we stood out in the crowd. In game write-ups, mention of our uniforms were always included. We were the unique team that was competitive without following the trends of boring ultimate.

Now, I don't wish to take away from the work that has been done on our jersies the past two years and the efforts of Shawn, James, and others, but I have to say that while CLX looks more like a team unit in our uniforms, that we've lost something in the process.

CLX got a deal from Patagonia, which, admittedly, I don't know all the details of. I am fairly sure that we pay as much for our jersies as other teams that order from Patagonia do. Thus, is it really a deal? Now we order all of our jersey components from Patagonia whether they be shirts, shorts, or now all the optional things CLXers will be sporting in the future.

I can't help but feel that we are just ordinary now. Our jersies don't set us apart, but make us look like everybody else. Idris Nolan noted on his blog (why I was reading it I don't know, his blog bores me, as mine probably does to him) in a series of observations that "nearly every" at the tournament he went to was wearing Patagonia jersies.

I was excited for new worlds jerseys, assuming they were something different from what we already had, but now it seems that we're going to have new jersies made for worlds that are simply a tweaked design on a new, possibly blander, nickel color. So, I ask, what is the need for the new jersies? I like it that our Chad design has him sporting Australian attire and gives off a worlds feel, but is it worth making everybody pay another 25 or so dollars for?

Now, there are some on the team excited about new jersies, some uninterested, and probably the majority have no opinion but are just accepting the decisions made by others. I am probably in the minority. Maybe I'm just the old man that doesn't want to accept the changes happening around him.

Shawn, if your feeling are hurt, it wasn't the point of the entry, just to voice my opinions. Again, I appreciate the work done by those involved in decking out CLX, but in a race to moderize our jersies, I think the CLX philosophy was lost along the way.

Shawn, please keep reading my blog.

I have a problem

Dang it. I never thought this would happen to me...but it has. Maybe the first step is to admit that I have a problem.

Here it is: I like classic rock.

I've been fighting it at work for so long, so maybe it is familiarity that has weakened my defenses, but I have to admit that classic rock...well, it rocks.

My guilty pleasure band for at least a year has been AC/DC. This is not a band that I would normally listen to at home, nor would an AC/DC album fit in anywhere in my CD collection, but I have to admit that they have THE best guitar riffs of all time. Just listen to Thunderstruck, Back in Black, or TNT. AC/DC, you rock, and I salute you.

Who can avoid singing along whenever Van Halen (pre Sammy Hagar) is played over the airwaves. I've got it bad, and I'm hot for classic rock. I work with a guy who said the Van Halen concert he attended in the 80's was the greatest experience in his life. Imagine David Lee Roth up on stage singing and swinging swords to strobe lights and the like. Guaranteed to satisfy.

I suppose I've liked almost everything Pink Floyd has to offer since my 3103 West St. basement days, but those days are long gone. My affinity for Pink Floyd remains, though. Dark Side of the Moon still is and will always be my favorite album. I remember trying to stay awake once on a car trip and JimiMac did some interpretive hand movements to the guitar solos in Time and Money. Sweet.

How can you listen to ZZTop's LaGrange and not want to rock? How about some Queen, maybe some Bicycle? Stevie Ray Vaugn (spelling) tearing through the bluesy Texas Flood? Billy Idol and his White Wedding? I can't get enough.

Just one thing. You'll never get me to like Lynard Skynard. Or will you?

Odds and Ends

There have been a couple of topics I've wanted to write about or comment upon recently, but I haven't found the time to sit down and type some blogs out. I have 10 ten minutes until pickup, so we'll see what comes out.

-Look for a CLX trivia quiz coming within the next couple of days. I'm looking to make it so hard that 50% would be an excellent score. Prize(s) for the winner(s).

-One thing I wanted to blog about was My Life On the Mississippi. Two weekends ago, seven of us headed over to Lansing, Iowa to spend a day out on the river. We spent the day out on Gibb's family pontoon. Activities included tubing, random jumping out of the boat while it was moving, a game of beach ultimate complete with 2-point scoring pit, backwater log bumping, and much talk of, but little display of bridge jumping. I did get a great tan/burn. Thank you Gibbs for inviting us out there and to the Gibbs family for the hospitality.

-Yesterday, 6 of us got together to run some sprints. I did a half mile warmup jog and felt fine. Then, stood by Lana for a little bit and my knee started having some acute pains. I took a couple of steps and it hurt so bad I had to quickly sit down to get pressure off of it. What did I do? I waited five minutes and then did the sprints. I'm not too sharp, but the pain in my knee is now. Well, only eight minutes to practice. Should I?

-For some reason, when I write, I want to add the word really into all of my sentences. Such as, the weekend was really fun. Or my knee really hurt. I have to actually catch myself doing it because I really do it too often.

-I believe all the travelling members of CLX Worlds2006 have their place tickets now, with Drew included in that list! After the last couple of tournaments CLX has played, I'm getting very (not really) excited to play Worlds. I believe we have a great shot at making quarters and beyond, but just like at nationals, the key is to make quarters, not win all of your games. You simply need to start winning them when elimination is possible.

Well, out of time. Watch for CLX sometime before Sunday.

Captain's Log: 82106

Captain's Log: 82106

The Chad Larson Experience played in the 18th Cooler Classic, hosted at the Delafield Polo Fields near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. CLX has been very successful at the Classic, winning the tournament as an unknown against Blah in 2003, and becoming champions again against Meth in 2005. Though CLX has been able to win a fair amount of tournaments each year since 2003, a successful title defense has never been performed. We went riding dirty into Cooler with the same team we had at Madison, plus Papa Troyer, Darren, Abby, Natalie, and half a Derscheid.

Our pool showed games against Meddling Kids, Optimus Lime, and GLUE. The game against Meddling Kids was not very exciting, a 13-5 win, or something near that. Then, a 2 hour layover until the next game. The next game was more of the same as we easily handled Optimus Lime. This team was especially lame to play because they called a lot of stuff. They are not very good, but want to be competitive and have made the mistake of practicing abundant call-making instead of disc throwing skills and overall endurance and athleticism. It annoys me when teams think they are good because they have matching jersies, run some sweet drills, and overstrategize everything. In a romantic swashbuckling sort of way I hope CLX is the antithesis of all that I think is lame about the game of ultimate today. Oh yeah, we zoned GLUE a lot and won that game fairly fast. Then, had a wait around a little while to beat The New World Love Clan 13-2. Played a lot of zone in this game too, which was nice. We were able to spread playing time very generously, and it seemed that everyone had a good time.

Sunday games were going to be harder, as we knew our schedule before we left the fields. Our first game was against Munquoi, a pickup team from Colorado. These guys performed surprisingly well last year before losing to CLX in the semis and were playing well again this year. We went up 2-0, but then folded. There were many dropped discs and careless throws, with a liberal helping of uninspired defense. We quickly fell behind and never regained the lead. Munquoi led 6-5 and was very near making it 7-5 for half, when a woman on their team became injured on a swing pass. She suffered a severe concussion and was taken off the field by ambulance. Munquoi decided to forfeit the game to CLX and we advanced to play Mr. Briefcase.

I was a little worried that we wouldn't survive the Briefcase game based on the way we had been playing in the first game. Those worries were rapidly taken care of as we cruised out to a lead that we would never give up. I think we were ahead by two or three points the entire game and ended up winning 13-7. Again, we played a lot of zone, but weren't afraid to switch to man defense. We were aided by the fact that they did not help themselves early in the game by dropping a couple of scores and throwing some errant passes.

Finals: The Chad Larson Experience vs. Flaming Moe (Part III)
CLX and Flaming Moe met in the finals for the third consecutive tournament. In Madison, CLX claimed a 13-10 victory over Moe, though it was not decisive by any means. This time, I believe Moe was nearly fully rostered and CLX was about the same. I don't remember much of the first half except that I believe CLX got a break on the first point, maybe had a two-point lead at one time, and led at halftime 7-6. After halftime, CLX got the upwinder to lead 8-6. A score on the next point made it 9-6. Moe gets 3 of their own, I believe, and the game is tied at 9s. Then 10s. We make it 11-10 and send in the defense. They are able to get a stop and put up a big huck to Drew who hauls it in to make it 12-10. We leave to team in to finish the job, but Moe scores to make it 12-11. We call timeout to rest one of the guys. Up to that point, CLX had only played 7 guys, I believe, to Moe's 14? We needed to score upwind to win the game outright, otherwise overtime. Moe had been doing a great job of pulling downwind and trapping us in the endzone, but I figured if we could get the disc moving and out of the endzone, we'd score. It took three passes to get the disc safely out of the danger zone, and then it was three or four more passes and we advanced it sixty more yards for the win. With the victory, we should have sealed up the top seed for CHCs, something that maybe we don't want! It would be nice to get some better competition in pool play. A higher placement than Moe at CHCs should get us the top seed at regionals, too, so we'll see how it goes.

-I felt good all weekend. A little before Madison, I started to work a little harder on getting into playing form. I've started running sprints and 5Ks during the week. I don't really ever work on my throwing, but I felt that I was more confident than I have been all season with the disc at Cooler. I felt almost like my college handler self at times, and though it certainly wasn't perfect, I felt I had my best throwing tournament of the year. For the tournament, I felt I played some of my best defense, too. I really started to get a grip on the middle-middle position in the zone, and played decent man defense in the finals. The plan was to guard handlers when I was in on defense, but Becky wouldn't stop running around, so I switched to Wade for a point (that was stupid), and ended up guarding Bjorn a couple of times. Otherwise, I think I played all O points. The conditioning I've been doing certainly payed off and by CHCs I hope to be ready to play a lot of hard teams and keep a consistent level of play all weekend.

-CLX now says goodbye to Drew until November, when he'll be playing Worlds with us. I don't know why we're so lucky to get the pickups that we do, but we are. It's ridiculous to think about some of the CLX players that have just fallen into our laps over the years. Luke and Camille especially come to mind. Drew was a great cup defender, an excellent long (I think I saw him misread one disc in three tournaments), and good thrower (show us the hammer!). His style of ultimate and his personal traits are what make him CLX material, though. It was easy to tell within an hour of meeting him in Detroit that he'd be a natural fit for CLX.

-Taiwo played some inspired defense over the last two games on Sunday and made some incredible grabs on both days. She certainly strives for perfection and let's it bother her too much when she isn't (but who is!?), so sometimes she's so baller and won't even acknowledge it. Face it, Tai. Joe Brisbois played some of the best defense I've seen him play all summer, too. He made some huge plays early in the Briefcase game that set the tone for what was to come. I don't think he has scored on until the Moe game, either.

-Our zone offense was great. We've never talked strategy about it and we've got a lot of people from different teams playing for CLX, but we just fall into positions and get the job done. I was definitely pleased in that department.

-The zone defense was very good all weekend long, too. We were using it against teams that weren't equipped with enough throwers, but we were able to score very quickly by zoning and not letting up. I think Saturday we took half at 7-0 or 7-1 three of the four games. Against Briefcase some weaknesses were exposed, but it was still sufficient. We haven't zoned Moe much, but it hasn't really been necessary yet. We considered zoning near halftime, but instead clamped down hard on their dump handlers and started having even better success frustrating Moe's offense.

-Trent played well over the weekend, adding his specialty in the cup when we zone. He also is our resident strategist against Moe and pointed out some key issues to us during the game. Some people just watch the game, but Trent really studies the opponent and is able to give us feedback. His services on and off the field will be important in Perth.

-Our first cuts were better than usual, with Shawn, Lana, and RSheldahl especially lending their talents there. The attempt to maim Rachel was unsuccessful, though, as two or three times she was clobbered by poachers in the Briefcase game.

-The deep game was not especially "on" during Sunday play. We had a lot of discs sailing out of bounds and over heads on the 45+ yard hucks, and had to settle for 20-35 yards scores. We were able to show that we aren't just a hucking team, though, as we scored a lot of points short, especially in the finals.

-CHCs better be good. Cooler just ended up being a slightly pumped up version of the last couple of tournaments. I wouldn't mind playing Moe again, but give us some competition earlier! I checked on the tournament page and there are some decent teams in attendence, but what kind of teams they'll have is unknown. Also, as the #1 seed, we'd play the 8, 11, and 14, I think. The teams only go about 9 deep, so we'd still have two games we should win without too much exertion and another one that is tough, but certainly winnable. Have to wait until the crossover to play a team like Six Trained Monkeys or Slow White

Signing off.

On Sleeping

Sleeping is one of my five favorite things to do, along with eating, playing ultimate, playing cards, and farting. It is odd that sleeping is in the top five, because I'm not very good at it. I have various levels of skill at the other four.

I've gone through periods of my life where I've slept nearly 12 hours a day (in college), and periods where I've slept less than four hours a day (also in college). Now I usually try to sleep between the hours of midnight and seven in the morning, sometimes a little more, usually a little less.

I used to have a hard time falling asleep when I was in high school and college, but since exiting college, I've been able to fall asleep in a standard amount of time. I do wake up during the night many times, though, probably an average of four or five times a night. It is rare that I sleep all the way through a single night unless I've been drinking.

When sleeping, I like to have a lot of pillows. Currently, there are five on my bed. I like it as cold as possible when I sleep so I can roll up into a comforter and slowly get warm and fall asleep.

As far as positioning is concered, I usually sleep on my side because that is what I'm used to. I can't breathe well if I sleep on my stomach or back. My ribs are a little misshapen, though, and I wonder if its from too many years of side-sleeping.

I rarely have dreams. They most frequently occur during Saturday and Sunday nights of ultimate tournaments. I would say that at least two-thirds of my dreams are bad dreams. I've found that if I fall asleep on my back that I have a bad dream. After waking up from a bad dream, I am almost always sleeping on my back.

Once in Whitewater during Hucktoberfest I woke up in a hotel bed screaming bloody murder for about thirty seconds before I actually woke up. We're talking a crazy scary dream here. When I finally woke up, my arms and legs were pointed up into the air and Dave Karsten was putting his arms around me to wake me up just yelling "It's okay! It's just a dream!" We all had a good laugh about that one.

Speaking of ultimate tournaments, I've shared a bed with Shawn Walding many times. One time, I woke up with my hand on his face. Strangely, he did not wake up. Another time, he was all the way over on his side of the bed, and in the night I made my way over and woke up spooning with him. My brother Ryan has experienced the same thing multiple times in family hotel rooms. It got to the point where both of my brothers would sleep on the floor and I would get the bed to myself. I guess I move around a lot. Sometimes I have bad dreams and move around, namely, where I had a dream that my brother Ryan was throwing spiders on me. I woke up and felt something like spiders on me and just started wailing on my brother Ryan in a half-sleep. We all had a good laugh about that one.

Well, I'm going to try to get better at sleeping. I may not stay still, I've been told I snore, and I have bad dreams, but I find a way. Maybe I should start drinking more...

Another Ten Thoughts

21. There's a lot of focus on health foods these days, with food companies putting labels that say "no trans-fat", "whole-grain", or "anti-oxidants". What do all these mean? I can't just go eat a bunch of Lays potato chips and be healthy because it says "no trans fat". What about anti-oxidants? They are present in fruit, but are they in juice or dried fruit? I need a good place to read about this stuff.

22. Right now I'm reading Down Under by Bill Bryson. It is the English version of the book In A Sunburned Country that was released in America. Same book, just a different title. The book chronicles his journies through Australia, mostly highlighted the east coast, where I won't be travelling to, but the book is still a great read. Bryson writes with a style that is thoughtful and educated with being elitist, historical and educational without being boring, humorous without a need to have humor drive the book along. He makes great observations about people and delivers his stories in a way that makes you smile and feel as if you were there with Bryson. Also try A Walk in the Woods, about his hike on the Appalachian Trail.

23. I want seedings and pools to come out for worlds. I'm eager to know who we will play. Maybe I can learn to count stalls in the languages of the teams we'll be playing.

24. Now that I've been wearing my Adidas Copas so often, I've nearly forgotten that I once had a pair of cleats that I thought I couldn't play without. I can't decide if I should get new ones or not. The new cleats don't dig into the ground as hard as the old ones, I felt like I could change directions very fast. Now I seem to slip more, or have to turn slower so the cleats don't give out.

25. I can't remember if I've already told the national parks that I've been to, but here they are: Saguaro National Park, Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Arches, Crater Lake, Redwood, Olympic, Yellowstone, Wind Cave, Badlands, Smoky Mountains. Eleven in all. Nine of those were part of the same trip, though. All of them are worth visiting except Badlands, there wasn't much to see there.

26. When I was a junior and senior in high school, I wanted to become a filmaker. I even looked at schools that had specialized filmaking departments and even visited the school at Northwestern. In high school, I tried to undertake making a sequel to a movie some friends had made. It was going to be called Kung Fu Coup Two: First Coup, Part Two. Budgeting problems, talent strikes, and the inability to find a good key grip lead to the project going belly-up. I think John Woo may have recently picked up the script, though.

27. Speaking of college, I made a lot of school visits and the two schools I wanted to attend were Carleton and Notre Dame. It's funny that I almost went to Carleton because it is a big ultimate frisbee school, but I had never played it before going to college. My parents wanted me to go to Notre Dame, why I don't know because neither parents were alums, nobody in my family ever went to Notre Dame or talked about Notre Dame, and my family was not catholic. Explain that one to me.

28. I need to go to the casino and play some poker, I have this problem where I have too much money right now.

29. I don't have my own computer, or at least one that works, so I've had to use Dave Karsten's and Lana Meyer's computers to write this noise. Thank you, without you none of this is possible.

30. I thought it would be a great idea to buy a big box of pop-ice at Wal-Mart one night. Now a month has gone by and I've already eaten all the good flavors. All that remains are the orange, lemon-lime, and assorted tropical flavors. I should throw them away, unless there are any takers. Takers?

Captain's Log: 80706

Captain's Log: 80706

Last weekend, we rocked Mad-Disc-On, held in Oregon, Wisconsin. The tournament field was not too different from that of Aquatennial, maybe just substitute Mr. Briefcase for Hot Dish. The weather was deceiving because it wasn't very hot with frequent cloud cover, some rain, and some wind, but I got the worst sunburn I've had all summer. It isn't anything that is painful, though, just a little annoying.

When I picked up everybody in Ames, Jon asked who was going. I said, "Three from St. Louis, three from Minneapolis, Lana, and who you presently see in the car." He put his hands behind his head, cowered, and sustained a lamentful "NO!". He was ready for a nice easy, full-substitution tournament. Not so. We had eight guys and six ladies. We did end up picking up two more guys, though.

Our first game was against Seiche, a team from Milwaukee that we have trouble against for some reason. We always play close games against them, but have yet to lose to them. This game was no different, as they took an early lead, even leading 6-3, before I believe we took halftime 7-6. I think we were tied at 11s before we took the game 14-12. It would be our closest game all tournament.

To finish out the day we played TFB, Soy Nuts, and Mr. Briefcase. I think we beat TFB 13-4 and Soy Nuts 13-5. The Mr. Briefcase game went to 8-8 before we scored 5 in a row to win. Although the Briefcase game was close, I never felt like we were in any trouble of losing. I got footblocked bigtime by Tony from Mr. B.

Sunday was filled with Talledaga Nights references, as our team went to see the movie together. Also, some Dave Chapelle Lost Episodes references were had. We had to finish out pool play by playing The New World Love Clan (13-4) and Meddling Kids (13-9). Our semis game was against Kablammo, a team from Minneapolis. I think we went up 8-1 fairly quickly and then cruised to a 13-5 victory. Moe was taking care of Seiche just as fast on the other field.

Finals. CLX v. Moe. I think this was only the fifth time we've played Moe in a final and the finals series was tied at 2-2. To think about that was surprising, because it feels like we've played them in every final over the last two years, but not true. We come out zone because our man defense hasn't been great. They turn 70 yards later, but I throw it away soon enough. They work back down and score. On the next point, we turn on the second throw and they quickly score. 0-2. We tie the score at 2-2. They take another two point lead at 4-2, and it seems that the game is starting to slip away. We battle back hard with some good defense and long hucks to tie it up at 6s. We call a timeout and plan on scoring, but they are able to connect on a huck. Still, the general feeling at halftime was one of confidence. We had withstanded the early run and fought back, something we didn't do in Minneapolis. After half, we tie it at 7-7. We start to build a lead off big hucks and less than textbook plays. CLX may not have the throws that other teams do, but we're great 500 players. Shawn makes some big grabs in the middle of this game, scoring on three big hucks during the stretch. I believe the game is tied at 10s, when I come down with a huck from Mike. Then, we get a D and Jake throws a big huck to Shawn, who outruns three Moe defenders. Sometimes, you can't be afraid to throw into triple coverage. We come down the field on D, I pick up a quick footblock, launch a craptastic hammer up to Drew who pulls it in for the victory. It wasn't pretty, but it counts. 13-10.

-Our defense came up big in the Moe game. Man defense was not our strong point during the tournament, but we were able to pick it up for the big game. It wasn't perfect, but enough to get the job done. Rachel Sheldahl and Jake played particularly inspiring defense. I don't remember too much about our zone in the game, but I seem to remember it resulting in a few turnovers. It helps having Drew on the mark.

-Speaking of Drew, it was great to have him in blue. After picking up with us in Detroit last weekend, he decided to come and watch this weekend. Well, after much pestering, we got him into a pair of cleats on Saturday and he brought his own on Sunday, showing up halfway through semis. The guy is synonymous with "hammer". I think half the scores he catches or throws involves a hammer. Drew is a great example of the CLX spirit. He loves to play ultimate, joke around, have a good time, throw hammers and hucks, and catch them. What else do you need to play ultimate? Also, it was good having Mike pick up with us. He was a solid addition to both the D and O line.

-Handling. It's getting better, and Solarz is a big reason for that. She is probably has the highest completion rate on the team, throws great I/O breaks, and is starting to huck too. Jon and Mike did a good job over the weekend. A big load of our offense is on their shoulders right now and they are doing a good job with it. I think they would both rather play from the stack and maybe not as many points, but they are handling the position well, in true ISUC form.

-Shawn. I think Shawn has improved his offensive game every year. In 2003, we were seriously thinking of cutting Shawn because he threw way too many turnovers. In 2004, he cut down on the turns and really turned up the D, becoming an outspoken leader on the team in the process. In 2005, he added great cutting to his game. He no longer clogged lanes for entire stall counts, but timed his cuts and was a great cutter underneath. Now, in 2006, he's throwing the disc as well as I've ever seen him and is filling in as a handler at times. I've been impressed by his yearly progression in skills.

-Gibbs played with us again and played well. She looked a little tentative to throw sometimes on Saturday, but came up with some big grabs both days, and over Joe Brisbois! She's a welcome addition to the team.

-Jimi. As Shawn's offense has improved, Jimi's defense has improved. There were points where I was surprised at the consistency and intensity of the defense he was playing. James has really worked hard to join this team and he's earned his jersey. I swear this guy sprinkles diamonds on his breakfast cereal he's so baller.

That's about all I've got. Our next tournament in less than two weeks away now, back in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, where we'll be defending champions at Cooler. CLX has never been a repeating champion, so we have something to shoot for. I hope Cooler offers more resistance than previous tournaments. Certainly, we could be playing harder teams in semis than we have been. Ice may be there, which would certainly do the trick. They could be good. Like national championship good. I guess I don't know who they've lost off last years roster, but they already have some bigtime additions to their current roster.