Callista and Layouts

So in case you were not aware I was selected to play with the first team this upcoming weekend in Cardiff!  I've been training with the team all this week and on Tuesday (2/15) we had a team strategy meeting where we first ordered pizza, then talked about our rolls in the team... mine is to do whatever they need me to do minus hucking... then we went through a massive amount of plays... some of which i had encountered in practice but most were new.  I ate an entire large pizza during this meeting... not sure how.  We watched a documentary called Black Tide which was about the 2001 University of Cal. Santa Barbara frisbee teams road to nationals.  It reminded me of what our "Love Tap Road to Regionals" video would be like.

On wednesday (yesterday, 2/16) I had my first boat practical.  We went out on the R.V. Callista to take water sample to analyze them for salinity and silicon.  Callista is a large catamaran.  I would estimate 40' in length maybe 50'...  She comes equipped with a wet lab and places to do basically all of the analyses on board.  The silicon will be tested in the lab.  There is a large hydraulic boom connected to a winch that can be lowered out over the stern to place large equipment in the water.  (see facebook for pictures) We cruised up the estuary taking samples as we went along.

The boat got back later than expected and i was late for the 1:00 first team training.  Its a good thing the captain was just as late as i was.  We did our warm ups and such and without further delay we were taught proper laying out form because a few people have gotten hurt from laying out wrong in the past.  So we started slow just basically flopping down and eventually migrated to flying D's and catches.  It just so happened to have rained real hard yesterday (tuesday) and there were puddles on the field...  the captain selected a nice big puddle for us to practice in.  This was a good choice actually because the ground is much softer in and around a puddle... anyways here is the end result...

Mud from head to toe.  I missed the memo about bringing a change of clothes... so i played the rest of practice completely covered.

After practice and dinner we had a Laser Quest social planned.  We hitched rides up to Laser Quest and played 3 games over the course of an hour and a half.  This was really fun!  I would sit in a corner and snipe people until they saw me then i moved.  It was a good tactic.  After we finished we fiddled around a little bit before everyone decided that they were going to go bowling (laser quest was inside the bowling alley).  So bowling cost only 2 pounds!  I ended up bowling a 118 and beating everyone else :) Wings almost beat me with a 114 but not close enough.  After that we headed home and called it a night.  A great Day overall :)
cheers!