Tonight’s bowling highlights:

• Turkey in the 10th frame
• No huge swings–up or down–from my average means consistency
• Four consecutive strikes

That’s a pretty short list, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I did manage to pull a turkey, but it was only to turn a pretty cruddy game into an average one. I had the hardest time finding my “spot” tonight. This “spot” is that magical place that, once found, can yield several strikes and good solid hits on the pocket. I found it Saturday when I bowled that 199 and I held onto it for the entire game. I couldn’t find it tonight, though. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized that I haven’t ever found that spot since we started bowling at Alley Katz. I don’t know what it is about those lanes, but I just never roll very well on them. I dunno’, maybe it has something to do with the smoke machine, black lights, drunken screams and spilt beer. It’s just a theory.

So, I’m going to try to be in bed by 3:30 tonight. That’s a pretty good improvement over the past few days. I’m pretty worn out because I spent about six hours today debugging that stupid computer program I was writing. Ironically, it turned out that I wasn’t even debugging the right part of the code. The program I wrote to test my homework assignment was flawed, so that made it seem as though my homework assignment wasn’t working. What I don’t want to know is how long the homework assignment was working before I figured out that I was testing it wrong. I can’t stand wasting time because of sheer stupidity.

Anyway, the semester is winding down and that means my workload is winding up. Homeworks, projects, exams, quizzes, labs–all of these things are awaiting me, a gauntlet of sorts. This is my time to shine or fizzle out, though. I have to finish strong or I could end up with some pretty cruddy grades. I’ve already got my whole next week planned and, as long as I stick to my plan, I should be alright. Then, I just have to ace my finals and I’m home free. Here’s to hoping…

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I went bowling with some really good friends of mine this afternoon and we all did pretty well. I bowled a 145 my first game (pretty much right at my average) and a 199 my second game. For some reason, my inability to complete a turkey is still haunting me. I had three opportunities to capitalize on two consecutive strikes during that second game, but I always came up short. The first two times (which can be seen as X X 9 / on the score sheet below), I got two strikes and then left the five pin standing on my third attempt. That was extremely frustrating. What was more frustrating was that, when I went to bowl the last frame (the all-important tenth frame), I had to wait a good minute and step onto and off of the lane about three times because the people bowling on either side of us had no sense of “bowler’s courtesy”. Ultimately, I simply had too much time to think about that first roll in the tenth frame and I screwed it up. This was an excellent game, but I should have easily broken 200 and instead, I’m stuck with my highest score ever being a 199 and the thought that I still haven’t hit 200.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose. Maybe Tuesday night will be my first 200. It would be pretty special to hit it with my bowling buddies anyway.

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Let’s get right to it. Tonight, I had an embarrassing moment added to my short list of embarrassing moments. I think the story will have the most effect if told backwards. Here goes:

So, here I am, laying on my back on well oiled wood flooring, staring up at purple lights and wondering how many pins I hit on that botched roll. I decide to crane my neck and take a look. Eight. I drop my head back to the floor, stare at the ceiling for a minute and figure it’s about time to get off the lane so someone else can have a go. I make sure and put my shoe in the gutter when I’m standing, so I don’t have another spill before this one’s even over.

Alright, let’s see if I can capitalize on this double-strike and pull a turkey. All I have to do is the same thing I did the last two rolls: stand with my right toe two boards to the right of the second dot to the right and aim for the high pocket. One step, two steps, three steps, four ste…. stutter, stutter, reeling forward, trying to catch my balance, feet sliding on the oil, wham–somehow, I just fell flat on my back.

I’m next. I’ll just put a little slide in the thumb-hole, to make sure the ball doesn’t catch on the release–I want to make sure I get a good roll, so I can maybe pull another strike. That’s funny, my shoe isn’t sliding as well as it usually does. I probably just stepped funny when I was stepping up onto the wood. Can’t worry about that now. I need to focus on this roll.

(Unknown to me, the guy at the lane next to ours was thinking this:) Doh! I just spilled my cup of beer that I’m not supposed to even have down here on the lane. There’s a pretty nasty puddle under that guy’s chair too. I’ll just quietly walk myself and my half-spilled beer back up here to the table; maybe no one will notice my boo boo. Uh oh, that guy just stepped all in my spilled beer and those aren’t rented bowling shoes either. Hopefully he doesn’t notice.

Yeah, that’s right, some jerk spilled beer on the floor, which got on my shoes, which stuck to the floor and caused me to lose my balance. That landed me right in the middle of our lane with a bunch of drunk people (and also my good buddies–thanks guys) laughing at me. It’s not bad enough that I’m really self-conscious and extremely fearful of doing something to embarrass myself–now I have this guy helping me get set up for embarrassment. I have a hard enough time watching out for myself–I don’t need to be trying to make sure some drunk guy isn’t spilling his beer everywhere including under my feet. On top of that, I was rolling one of my best games ever before that little incident (98 in the 5th frame) and I ended up rolling an average game by the end and I was scared to death of falling, so I couldn’t get a good roll to save my life. What a stinkin’ night.

Anyway, other than that little mishap and the fact that all of us bowled absolutely horribly, I had a pretty good night. Also, my butt hurts, but I’m glad it was there to break my fall and buff up the lane for everyone else.

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Tuesday night means bowling night. My average tonight was up by about 20 pins per game. If I remember correctly, my scores (in ascending order) were 138, 147, 147, 153. Not terribly high, but pretty consistent. For now, consistency is all right as I’m basically just trying to figure out what works for me with this ball and on my approach. I Turkeyed at the end of our last game–I was in danger of not even breaking 100 and I break out with 3 strikes and a 9 to finish ‘er off. It was luck, but it saved my self-esteem for the week.

I’ve been trying to make some cash on Ebay lately, but so far I’ve had no luck. I don’t need much, just enough to get me through the semester–the story of my life. This summer’ll be good for bringin’ in the bucks. I’ll be back working at Raytheon Company again and I’m getting a raise (about a buck an hour, I think). The clincher will be whether I can pull two things off: First, I need to find a cheap place to live while I’m out there–I spent almost 1500 bucks on rent during the 3 months I was in Dallas last summer; Second, I need to find a subleaser for my place here in Gainesville while I’m gone–that’s never been a problem before, but it’s definitely not a gimme’. If I can manage those two things, I should be able to save up quite a bit of money by the end of the summer. That is, if my car doesn’t decide it needs a make-over again this summer–I dropped a grand on it last summer, just doing regular maintenance: alternator, battery, brakes, tires, fuel-injection service, etc.

Anyway, enough about money. My post a few days ago was pretty heavy. That was ’cause I was feeling pretty heavy. Since, I’ve spent some much-needed time with the Lord and I’ve tried to alter my focus from inward to outward. I realized that if I focused on myself, all I’d ever see was a disgusting being because that’s what my flesh is–disgusting. I decided instead to focus on God and His plan for me. That’s not disgusting, it’s relieving and ultimately beautiful, though it can be scary at times. Anyway, I’m trying to change my focus and so far–slowly but surely–it’s working.

I’ll soon be adding a link to a few of the songs that Chris (mostly) and I (kinda’) did a couple weeks ago at the Oxford Coffee House here in Gainesville. We’re hoping to record some things before Chris graduates at the end of the semester and I’m sure those recordings will be far superior to these. It was just too difficult to keep things tight (and accurate) without the benefit of monitors and with the hindrance of all the crowd noise. I think it was a blessing that the crowd was loud because they couldn’t here the little mess-ups (there were many on my part), but recordings don’t lie and so the recording sounds pretty bad at some parts (at least from my perspective–I focus mainly on my guitar playing). Anyway, the link should be up soon and any feedback is welcome (via e-mail or comment or whatever).

That’s all for tonight, sports fans. Except that I think I won the pool this year for the NCAA College Hoops tourney. One point separated me from second place. Whew. Now, I’m makin’ off with a cool twenty bucks. That’ll go toward the “driver improvement” course I’ll be taking to knock the points from “cutting corner to avoid intersection” off my license.

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