Monday - January 11, 2010

Curses, Foiled Again

Another bad night for my team at bowling. Another great night for me though.

It didn’t start out that great though. I couldn’t find my line during warm-up. I threw about 10 balls and didn’t make a single mark. But when the games began I cleared my head, relaxed, and just tried not to care. Then I made sure I went as slow as I could go, focused my eyes on the second arrow, and focused my awareness on getting my thumb out at the right time. And by golly, it worked. As my arm swung forward to my offside heel my mind said “thumb. turn. snap. lift” and my hand did exactly that, getting my thumb out, turning my hand towards the 7 pin as my swing went towards the 10 pin; snap your fingers up as the ball rolls out of your hand and lift the arm up while snapping up the elbow to an “answer the phone” position. And the ball sailed out a couple feet, right over the 2nd arrow, spinning like a top laid on it’s side, sliding most of the way down the lane to the break point where it caught traction, turned, and then accelerated. Right into the 1-3 pocket for a smashing big hit. Strike. Then I did it again for the 2nd frame. Boom! Strike! And for the 3rd frame. And the 4th, and the 5th, and the 6th. Six in a row to open the first game. I thought that for the first time I would finally know what a 150 in the 5th frame felt like (300 in 10 frames is a perfect game, but to be perfect at the halfway point you actually need to roll 7 in a row because of the way the scoring works). I was feeling a bit nervous in the 7th, and most of the way through the approach I knew something was a little off. I guess I turned my hand too much and came around the ball, because I threw it so far inside my line that it arced over to dink the 7 pin. Crap. Which gave me “merely” a 141 in the 5th. So instead of freaking out, I just found the zone again, and gently rolled the ball the right way to make the 9 pin spare. I struck again after that, then finished the game with a mixed bag of hits, winding up with a 238. Which for me (168 average) is a damned good game. Our team won the first game by about 50 points.

The folks we played tonight got 28 points worth of handicap from us, but as so often happens, they bowled their seasonal best series against us. I managed a respectable 189 in the 2nd game, but the rest of my team was stuck in flub city. So we got smeared, not only losing that game but losing it by almost 70, so we were behind in pins going into the 3rd. They managed a bit of a rally, but the other team was on fire. Conditions were breaking down as they always do - the oil gets pushed around on the lanes by all the balls rolling over it, and the balls absorb a bit of the oil which causes them to lose a bit of traction - and I was a little slow making an adjustment. I opened with 2 strikes, then Gumped a couple frames until I figured out that I needed to move over a board and throw the ball a little harder. After that I was back on track, but the damage was done. I finished up with a 177, giving me a 604 series; this was only the 2nd 600+ series I’d ever rolled. But the guy on the other team shot a 654 when he finished the 3rd with a 237. And my teammates were sucking wind. Mostly. Ok, my wife finally got it together in the 3rd and pulled out a 160-something, but our team went down in flames again and we finished the night 2-5.

We had a fun night, and I turned teammate Anne onto TheOatmeal.com, because she’ll appreciate the twisted humor there. Especially since she has horses and he has a bit on How To Ride a Pony and one on Why Horses Suck. I read the latest ones today, Printers Were Sent From Hell and Why I’d rather be punched in the Testicles than call Customer Service and they nearly killed me. Perfectly aligns with my juvenile sense of twisted humor and my appreciation of crappy cartoon drawings. You can have lots of fun at TheOatmeal. Be sure to read everything, and check each page for new links at the bottom, because it isn’t always well organized.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/11/2010 at 10:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
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