Mr. Tom Gets Around

Katoomba

Perisher Blue, Thredbo, Hotham

stories to follow…

I promised myself i’d try to do a game by game update , that means, remembering to take my recovery pills after the days events to keep the memory sharp.

Well, a week has passed and I’m still hurting from the 4 days of boarding in the snowy mountains.

NUFL #1 had BAREFOOT vs. Brisbane’s Firestorm, a pretty even match up on paper but if we played our cards right we could of come out ontop.  The game started with much intensity, both teams putting up long huck’s on O and scored easy. This set the tone for the match, Defense was to be key if one side wanted to come out above the other.  Firestorm proved there salt and managed to take a 3 point lead into halftime. As far as I can remember it was 3 points but could of also been more.  With Firestorm’s Jonathan Potts and Brett Matzuka turning up the tempo the team stayed ahead of BAREFOOT just after the half. BAREFOOT did make a second-half comeback of sorts putting heavy pressure on the handlers and causing some Defensive turns to fall their way. In da end, Firestorm was too strong and made fewer mistakes on O which cause them to take the game 17-14 if I recall correctly.

Game 2 Day 1, BAREFOOT vs. Melbourne’s www.headsofstateultimate.com, a young team who we played at Nationals and and had a great game against.  This young team has alot of talent that has yet to be controlled and put into a winning team. I did see them playing Firestorm on day 2 and did see them getting fired-up against the big boys Firestorm had put out on the pitch.  Their game against us was a bit more low-key.  BAREFOOT came out with solid D and this set the tone for the rest of the game. If our O wasn’t working then our D would have to take charge and score the points that way.  We still we’ren’t playing up to our standard, but we were managing to score points.

a chilli game still in my head… 

Right, a chocolate muffin in my belly and we still had to play Chilly, in the pouring rain, not that i’m not used to that coming from The Netherlands and all, but really, cold stuff, could of been snow if i’d of snapped my fingers like Cinderella. The things was, as we strolled in from the late nite, mostly ready to play Chilly, we heard some tasty vibes that the fields would be closed and we wouldn’t have to play, I mean repect to the fields, if we’d of played on em’ they’d of been totally 86′d. But as luck had it the Dowle’s managed to find us some other field’s which no one was looking after and within the hour we were playing Chilly as BAREFOOT for the first time. Having just missed playing them in the Final of National a few months back, we were keen to make our mark. The chocolate muffin, made some noise just before gametime. We got our pump on and decided, Defense was gonna have to step it up in this game in order to take the lead and the game. The deadly rain, keep you warm, not!!!, sideline had to jump and jog just to keep warmed up. Somehow I remember thinking to myself that this was possiblly the wettest and coldest game of ultimate I’d of ever started.  Could only think of a crappy tournament in Rotterdam called Harbour, when it rained for 4 days straight and I couldn’t get the water outta my tent till a week afterwards.  This was indeed a bit more on the extreme side of things.  Oh, by the way it was also a bit windy, added to the freezing rain and coldness this made for an incredible ulimate experience.  Regardless, the Chilly’s were a firing and the BAREFOOT D was on call, so the game produced some odd moment’s.  Not being able to see your pivot foot cause the rain was that deeply laided on the pitch, caused for interesting travel calls. Fingers in an array of colors from white to blue-purple were on display. I had never really found out if my Skins were waterproof but without a doubt they weren’t.  As the game progressed both sides managed to get in the O points while turns were given on both sides having us look like some sort of middle class womens’ game.  At the half (8-6) we spoke of the turns and that they would continue to happen but if we dug down and pulled our Defense up a notch that we would be able to pull the game to our side.  The Second half was as if we’d ordered popsicle sticks to be planted around the field to create the illusion that things were really getting out of hand. Anyway “Game ON”, BAREFOOT managed to pull with in one and then tie up the score with both teams really feeling the sideline subs bitter cold viewing experience.  Many players stopped playing and were turned into spectators in the final minutes as BAREFOOT tried to take the lead but was plagued by turns. D did manage to get the disc back but scoring the point seemed something else.  The final score was 17-16 to Chilly.

 oh, boy did the warmth of a carseat feel good after that game.

hot chocolate at the Common Ground Bakery (a must visit Bakery)with just off the pitch kit was excellent as well. They seemed to think we were some sort of muddy cycling team.  The guys at the Drive thru beer shop , just asked “did you at least win?” we had to tell the truth.

Oh yeah bitchen’ Martha!!!!!, before I begin the Tasmania part, I must comment on a play/theatre production I saw in sydney the nite before I flew to Hobart.  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , an intenstly heavy drama production about a couple who hosts another younger coulple for after party drinks.  The stage is a spinning square of mirrored floors and glass.  The dialogue’s are choppy,cheeky and humoureous.  All this while trying to fight off jet lag from flying 25plus hours from amsterdam-tokio-auckland-sydney.  The battle of words, ice cubes, flowers ,and drinks makes the stage a war zone as the couples play games with one another and try to out do one another to see who is the winner in the end.  Truely good drama on stage with all the fillings included.  My favorite charater was by far George, this being Martha’s husband.  Calm, cool and with witty humour and body language that kept him mysterious.

 Next day, Hobart, still sleeping in the plane. Hobart, a great place to let yourself sleep too much and then get stuck in bed trying to beat out your jet lag. 

With my hostess, pre occupied with pre arrangements, I dove into the local movie theatre for a little hollywood entertainment.  Managing 4 films in 3 days with no apparent order of interest, things got dragged out a bit.

1st up, Michael Moore’s Documentary SICKO,  in more ways than one, Moore show’s how america’s health care system is not really that great.  With comparisions made with Canada,France and the England the movie unfolds and shows how little the US is doing in terms of keeping its population alive.  The real shocker came when Moore took some sicko’s to Cuba and they received better medical treatments for far less than the US system provided.  The movie really goes into showing the parts of system that are not working and how other countries have there systems working on a much ordered scale.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/ so get out there. 

2nd, Die Hard 4.0, after watching at least two repeats of Die hard 2 and 3 at fred’s house within the last month, mostly late at nite, when nothing else was on, on a monday nite that is. This one was recommended to me by Miles who was up in Cairns.  Action, action, we want action, well, you do get a fair bit of action.  Whether or not you choose to believe the action, example an F-16 pilot from the US navy decides to fly lower than normal to really get close to Bruce out hero so he can drive the druck into it, makes you wonder.

 3rd, yeah Harry Potter #?, em, not really my idea, I suggested Simpsons, but it was a tie in the end. Yes, Harry gets of the train, learns some stuff, does some magic, defeats the bad guys and gets back on da train. yippie

 4th, Simpsons The Movie, having gradually become a fan of the simpsons, so much as having them on my ZEN(mp3player) along with Arrested Development that is.  Well any way, maybe Homer said it right when he said we were all “Suckers” for coming out to see the movie when we’ve watched the Simpsons on the telly for free for all these years.  For now, I’ll just stick to my mini versions of the Simpsons and just pretend the movie never came out.

I did manage to see some daylight while in Hobard. A tour of the commerical distict proved plentyful in preparation for next weeks upcoming snow fields adventure at Therdbo. This all right after the two solid days of ultimate this weekend at NUFL #1 in sydney.  A drive up to the top of Mt.Wellington proved cloudless upon arrival but was quickly clouded out once the pickups doors were opened. Too bad, but some interesting cloud images were taken, regardless.

So, my first major Ultimate tournamtent with the Dutch National team proved to be an array of physical extremes. 6 days of hard-ultimate, including all the extra’s that are free of charge at a huge tournament like this. This all gave great incite into how the body handles physical exhaustion, day by day. The nitely Pro-team shakes(protein) provides a wealthy line up of things each of us left somewhere on the pitch regardless of how many points we played that day.

dutch_men_women2.jpg,the_run.jpg,the_catch.jpg

team stats