I’m on the DL… but for bowling?

That’s right. I was bowling tonight–very inconsistently–and I shanked the ball off of my “plant foot”. Basically, I’m right-handed and that means I plant with my left foot and release with my right hand. Well, I tend to plant my left foot in front of me and the ball and so I usually throw the ball really close to my left foot, often knocking it off my leg or rolling it off my foot. Tonight, though, for the second time, I cracked my ankle bone when I was releasing. That sent a nice shot of pain up through my left side, made me limp around and produced a nice bit of swelling and some scuffed up skin. I bowled the last two frames�all the while with a grimace on my face–and headed to the cash register.

I think the people that work there are starting to get aggravated that I use my “bowl one get one free up to 10 games” coupon every time I’m there which, recently, has been about twice a week. Well, I say “the people that work there” and that’s true, except for the one girl who insists I’m in a league and gives me the “VIP” price and then gives me half off. I’m not sure what that had to do with anything, but there it is!

My scores tonight? 171, 104, 111. You read that correctly… A 70 pin swing from game one to game two. I don’t really know if there’s any particular reason either. I’d like to make an excuse, but I think just saying that I stunk tonight will be sufficient.

Finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius last night

I knocked out the final 30 pages before I went to sleep yesterday. All in all, I’d say it was a fine book, but it certainly wasn’t what I’d call “classic” or anything like that. It was autobiographical and the author has some deep-seeded bitterness and pretty much thinks the world owes him something. Granted, his parents both died when he was 21 or 22 and I have no frame of reference for sympathizing with tragedy of that magnitude, so maybe I’m just calloused or ignorant… or both. Either way, it was definitely worth the 14 bucks I spent and I’d recommend it if someone’s looking to read sarcastic, brash, bitter autobiography. It’s also a pretty good story.

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Back to bowling badly…

Well, not too badly, but certainly not consistently and consistency is a big part of bowling. I bowled a couple games in the 170’s and a couple in the 160’s, but I also bowled a couple in the 130’s and 120’s. I think I might have even bowled in the one-teens once. I’m normally a lot more consistent, but my average seems to be about the same. I bowled ten games and some I felt good (I had four strikes in a row to close out a game once), while others I felt awful (five, six open frames in a row). I’m not sure what this all means, but the good news is that I can read it later and learn nothing. Tonight’s highlight? My ten games of bowling only cost me ten bucks. When I was getting my lane, the girl behind the counter said, “You’re a league bowler, right?” I said no and she said, “Yes you are, I told you that last time you were here.” And then she wrote “VIP” on my sheet. So, I think that knocked the price down from $3.50 a game to $2.00 a game. Then, when I went to pay, I pulled out a trusty old “bowl one, get one free up to ten games” coupon and that cut my total in half, making each game cost one dollar. I’m pretty sure that’s the best deal in town… that could be the best deal period, as far as I know.

Mmmmm… Snickers ice cream…

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Bowl-o-bomba

Yeah, I went again tonight. All I have to show for it is a blister on my thumb and a tweaked bowling ball, courtesy of Mike in the Pro-Shop. Mike was really nice. My first game was great–lots of strikes, only three open frames and a mediocre score of 159. Everything was downhill from there. I didn’t record the scores because I didn’t want to remember them, but suffice it to say they were awful and for no good reason. I guess I didn’t every really get comfortable and that was probably my biggest problem. I usually find “my spot” and make decent marks from then on. That never happened tonight. The good news, though, is that I found an e-coupon for buy one, get one free games at the bowling alley I usually patronize. So, I bowled six games tonight for a measly eleven dollars. What’s more, there’s no expiration date or limit to the number of these things I can use. Soo as my thumb-blister heals, I’ll be back there, pressing my luck and hoping for more free bowling.

Anyway, I watched the I Am Sam DVD again tonight and I’m even more convinced that Sean Penn was robbed at the Oscars this year. I just don’t get it. The man does a fantastic job of portraying a difficult character and he gets nothing for it. Anyway, it’s an incredible movie and I highly recommend it to anyone.

I bought a new book tonight: A Prayer For Owen Meany, by John Irving. One of my English teachers from high school recommended it, so I went and got it. I guess I can add that to the list of books I�m currently reading and I’ll see how long I can continue reading multiple books simultaneously before my brain pops. For now, things are going well and there’s no sign of an impending aneurysm, so I think I’ll be all right.

I get to sleep in tomorrow… today.

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Bowl-O-Rama

Tonight was bowling-by-myself night. I dropped twenty-two dollars and change in a little over an hour, but I guess it was worth it. I tied my current best score–199. However, I think this game was my best game yet because I rolled a mark in every frame. Consistency. Of course, as usual, I could have had a much better game if this had happened or if that pin had gone down, but such is the nature of the game. The following is a table, mocked up to look like a bowling tally for tonight’s best game:

All my scores from tonight were as follows:

1. 144
2. 142
3. 142
4. 126
5. 199
6. 162

Looking back on these scores, several questions come to mind. I’m going to ask and answer them, so I have them as a reference at a later date:

• Why six games? Basically, after four, I wasn’t sore physically, but my ego was taking a hit. I figured I wasn’t going to get much worse than a 126, so I relaxed and decided to bowl a game for psychology’s sake.
• What happened in game four? I was simply getting frustrated. I wasn’t relaxed, so I kept slicing or hooking the ball and missing the pocket. No pocket-shot means sloppy leaves and that makes for tough sparing. Easy spares are rough enough; I wasn’t hitting the tough ones at all.
• What happened in game five? I relaxed and kept saying, “Nice and easy. Just roll it straight to the pocket.”, to myself every time I got up to bowl a first roll. For the spares, I just stayed as calm as possible and made nice, slow rolls to pick ‘em up. Because I was hitting the pocket well, I didn’t have any splits (until the last frame), so I was just bowling at clumps of pins for the slash. I did have some tough leaves, but nothing that a nice, well-paced roll couldn’t handle.
• So, why go for game six after such a nice game in five? Why not quit while I was ahead? I figured if I could be that consistent in game five, why couldn’t I continue it in game six? The answer, unfortunately, was that the people who began bowling on the lane to my right didn’t have any concept of “bowler’s courtesy” and they kept rolling, literally, as I was rolling. That was just too distracting for me.
• What was the key to game five? I was relaxed and concentrated on simply rolling the ball straight to the pocket. I didn’t concentrate on speed or the score, just on making sure I got a good pocket-shot in.
• Why the 8 to finish out the game? I rolled a decent pocket-shot after the strike in the tenth, but I left a 5-10 split. I just missed the split to the left of the 5.
• If I was 1 pin away from my all-time high, why didn’t I just pick a pin and hit it instead of trying to pick up the split? That one’s simple: If I had taken the easy way out and hit the 10-pin, I wouldn’t have tried to bowl my best game. I knew I could hit that split, so I had to try it. I didn’t get it that time, though.

Hopefully, I learned enough tonight that I’ll be rolling my first 200 soon. When I rolled that previous 199, I was afraid it was a fluke; I now know it wasn’t and that I can break 200 if I keep at it. Rolling such a consistent game was encouraging because there isn’t much difference between game five and a low-to-mid 200’s game–all I have to do is swap some of those spares for strikes.

Maybe I’ll be able to find a way to do it without dropping twenty bucks every time I go to the alley.

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More bowling

I also went bowling again yesterday. My scores were 160, 142 and 150; it looks like my average is right back up where I expect it to be. In fact, it’s probably about five pins higher than it was before the summer. The trick? Well, before the summer, I was standing with my right foot about two dots to the right of the center dot. I was doing that because I noticed that if I stood center, I’d ever roll too high, missing the pocket on the left side, or roll too low, dumping it down the right side and picking up about four pins. I decided to move right so I was forced to pull the ball back to the center. It seemed to be working, so I stuck with it. This summer, though, I’ve moved back toward the center. In fact, my spot last night was about three boards to the right of the center dot; that’s a pretty substantial change from where I stood during the spring semester. I’ve noticed it’s easier for me to hit the pocket consistently if I stand nearer the center, so I’m going with that for now. I think it’s strange that my first game was the highest scoring game, but I was throwing very consistently for the entire game, so a decent score was inevitable. I actually only had two open frames–the fifth and the tenth; I hate leaving the tenth frame open, especially when I’m rolling a solid game–and one of the open frames–the fifth–was a split (four-six) that I rolled perfectly, but missed by a fraction of an inch. The tenth frame, I just choked and missed a spare I’d been picking up all night. Ironically, I had eight marks in that game and every one of them was a spare–no strikes in sight.

After we rolled three games, we had about eight minutes left on the counter (we rented the lane for an hour), so we decided to just goof around for the remainder of our time. I decided I was going to work on throwing a hook, so I grabbed the pink, sixteen-pound ball and let it fly down the lane. Gutter ball. I knocked down maybe seven pins on the second bowl. My buddy went and then it was my turn again. I grabbed the same ball, not using the thumbhole, and let it fly. Strike! I sure didn’t see that coming. My buddy rolled. Then it was me again and I grabbed another strike. Then my buddy. Then I threw another strike. A Turkey? A turkey while throwing a “hook” and just sort of messing around? I’ve officially decided I’m going to save up and try to buy a new ball before the summer’s out. I think I can be a much more effective bowler if I learn to throw a hook. What’s more, if I learn how to throw a hook and also practice my straight roll, I might be able to utilize them both–hook ball for the first bowl; hook ball for the second bowl unless the shot would be easier for a straight roller. Something to think about, I suppose.

I’m not too sure what I’m doing today, but I do know I’m about to go workout. My friend told me about a pool party at his complex today, so I might check that out. I think tonight will be a good time to do some reading and writing. Hopefully, I’ll have something to write by this evening.

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Revived in my status as a mediocre bowler

That’s right. 191. I actually started pretty poorly, but I managed to scrap together a decent game at the end. I also managed to pull four strikes in a row–only the second turkey I’ve ever gotten, I believe. Ironically, I was using house balls–three of them–and not my own. I was also wearing house shoes. Makes me wonder if I need to get my bowling ball adjusted a bit. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the entire game, frame for frame, so I can’t put the recap in a table this time. I suppose that makes me less of a bowling-nerd anyway.

I’m postponing today’s workout until tomorrow, simply because I can and I’m feeling lazy. Also, it’s raining outside and all rain makes me think about is sleep. I just don’t think I could bring myself to workout while looking out the window and a dreary sky. Did I mention I’m lazy?

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Went bowling tonight and struck out…

Normally, “striking out” in bowling is a good thing. However, in this instance, I’m mixing sports analogies: I mean struck out in the baseball sense of the term. I’m not even going to post the scores because they were so horrible. I’m an embarrassment to the sport of bowling.

In other news, my landlord called me today to inform me that there are a few things with the house that need to be taken care of by June 15. Problem is, all the roommates are now gone and I’m in Texas, so making a trip home to tidy up a bit is out of the question. I’m pretty frustrated because she did the “walk-through” with one of the roommates about a month ago, when there were still two guys in the house. What I don’t understand is this: Why did no one fix these little things that are out of order? and Why didn’t anyone tell anybody that there were things that need fixing in the house until today–3 days before the end of the lease? I suspect my good friends laziness and miscommunication are present here…

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Turns out my acting lessons have been delayed

I got a call at 2:30 today letting me know that my lessons would begin next week because this week’s lesson was “posted”, which I assume means “postponed”, but maybe there’s some lingo I’m just not familiar with yet. Anyway, that was pretty disappointing, but it all worked out because I’m going bowling with some work-buddies tonight. It’s been a few weeks since I went bowling, so I’m expecting to do pretty poorly, so that means I’ll either get what I expect or I’ll be surprised and do well. Either way I win, in some respects at least.

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Tonight turned out to be bowling night.

And I rolled horribly. High score of the night? 137. And that’s out of four people, two of whom own their own bowling ball. It was pretty sad and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

I’m going to a Methodist church tomorrow for the first time in my life. I’m pretty curious how it’ll be and I guess I’ll know in about 10 hours now. I think it’ll be pretty interesting and I’m always up for learning something new.

I had a conversation with my old supervisor tonight in which he told me that engineering, even in the real world, isn’t much better than what I’m doing as a co-op this summer. My future as an engineer is looking bleaker by the day. Of course I’ll still get my degree and possibly even work as an engineer for a couple years, but only as a means to an end. I have to work “in the field” for two years before I can get a Master’s in Business Administration, so I’ll probably do engineering for two years after I graduate and then go back for an MBA. I just hope I can stand engineering for that long. I’m learning that I need to be challenged. Why am I so fascinated by basketball? Because I know there is and always will be room for improvement. Why has the guitar consistently held my interest for five and a half years now? Because I know I’ll never be as good as I want to be. Why am I becoming so disinterested in engineering? Because I’m realizing that the terminal velocity for engineering is extremely low in most cases.

I think my idea of success is simply different than most engineers. I don’t feel that I will have succeeded at anything when I get that first big job offer. Rather, I’ll immediately wonder how long it will be until my initial job offer seems puny. Success in engineering is measured by salary and I don’t see myself wanting to chase success that way for all that long. Success to me is somehow impacting the world. This impact doesn’t have to be huge, but it does have to be substantial. If I’m able to create something that somehow changes peoples’ perspectives on life, then I’ll be heading down a path that I would consider successful. I’m being vague and I’m having trouble clearly articulating what I’m thinking, but I think I’m laying down a good idea of my philosophy.

Anyway, music seems to be the out that most readily presents itself. I don’t know if I could cut it as a professional musician… I don’t even really know what a professional musician is. I just think that I would like to use music as my tool to succeed. I can’t think of anything that intrigues me more or has impacted the way I view things. I’d like to be able to provide something that can give others insight. Maybe I’m hoping too high for myself, I dunno’. So many uncertainties.

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5-7 split…

Yeah, that’s right, I picked up the ol’ 5-7 tonight while I was bowling. I actually had two opportunities at it over the course of my six game tear, but I didn’t get it til the second time. I was very close the first time I tried it, but I was able to correct just that little bit to pick it up the second time. That was a very fulfilling shot as I’ve been trying to get it for several weeks now. The best part is I picked it up just the way I wanted–knick the right side of the 5 and slide it nice and easy over into the 7. It’s nice knowing I picked up a difficult (at least for me) split and it wasn’t a fluke.

That’s progress…

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