Other Pursuits

I understand why. Try google...

Okay I got it. I was actually thinking the right answer buy the online thing threw me. Thanks.

Avid cyclist since my days as a youth riding the hills of my native County Kerry in Ireland. Now I tackle the quiet summits and valleys of Vermont on the weekends.

Training for the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) on August 5 & 6 coming up. Riding the long route from Sturbridge, MA all the way out to Provincetown on Cape Cod. 192 miles.

Last years PMC raised $47 million for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. My team this year is riding and raising money for Dana's pancreatic cancer research. Last year was for my wife's cousin who passed from breast cancer. It's a fun ride and the boat ride back to Boston on Sunday includes some cold IPA's.

I understand why. Try google...

Okay I got it. I was actually thinking the right answer buy the online thing threw me. Thanks.

That's a very serious collection of baseballs!

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Yeah, I don't make the rules. I just try to live within them. Sorry for the cloak and dagger. I can openly discuss it without euphemisms or subterfuge on "TheOtherSafetyToo" (TOST) shave forum where I'm the mod' for that subforum. But it's a very small forum dealing only with SE razors and no other types. I can also openly discuss it on a BBQ forum where I'm also a mod' (the Primo forum).

Local matches aren't scored on paper anymore, but done with a tablet and software. Practiscore (online) is the scorekeeper and the scores are posted long before I can get home even from a match only 30 minutes away. When it was done with paper and a calculator it took much longer. But today, basically push a button and it's all done at light speed today. Once one gets to the "bigger" matches the scoring is done with the tablets, with paper as the backup. Those matches are pretty serious with serious winnings of gear and such. Probably cash at the nationals. But folks pay their mortgages from the sport if they're good enough. Some are very good indeed; I'm not. For me it's just a day out with some of the finest folks on the planet, doing what I've loved since I was an early teen, to my city parents (born and bred) consternation, so I understand the reason for the forum rules. During a competition it's also one of the safest places to be and one can relax a bit from the everyday condition yellow mindset. It's why cities are rife with violent crime and where we practice the sport violent crime is much lower.

USPSA acts as the statistician for classifications (akin to a handicap in golf), coordinator for the planet, and various other functions. The last area match I worked saw competitors from as far away as Lithuania (I think it was Lithuania) where they also compete. Anyway, it's done around the globe and USPSA coordinates the various disciplines.

It's an interesting sport of competing drives for the individual. It requires the subconscious mind to do the activity while the active mind pays attention to the minutia. Adrenaline is pumping to amp one up, while the activity requires "calm" for best results. It's sort of like Biathlon without skis in its dichotomy. It requires one to compartmentalize the various competing stresses*. Top competitors run throughout and also have heartbeat to contend with. I'm too old for that and I've had too much cartilage removed from my knees so I walk rapidly. What I need to see will be there when I arrive. I did state that I'm not a top competitor. :-)

*Minutia I don't handle well during the sport. The actual activity and safety I'm good at because it's an autopilot function. But scratch my butt and recite the alphabet backwards while doing it one handed, not so good (an exaggeration). Either my subconscious has control or my conscious mind has control and they don't share the body well at all. Old dogs new tricks. Many years ago when I was 18 I gave the body over to the subconscious mind to allow me to survive things that could kill me within seconds and it's something that's extremely difficult to break now since it was successfully employed and got me to today. The sharing is probably never going to happen so I live with it. I'm not a top competitor and never will be because the sport is well... a sport, and doesn't reflect reality. That body sharing thing between the 2 minds caught me today during one stage. I took care of the problem but forgot to move forward to a different area for the other 4 targets. :-) As one smiling competitor stated afterwards, heck you're using a PCC, so who needs to move forward? Yeah, I guess. I know it resulted in a zero score for the stage. My subconscious mind was content since it got the job done. I wasn't happy with the score, but I am what I am and it got me to here without serious damage. I'm still doing today what I was trained to do 4 decades ago to keep myself alive.

When I buy gas, as I did today, I have to wonder what the gas station attendant thinks when I show up wearing the extremely bright team colors with the sport readily understandable and emblazoned on it, and a sport video camera mounted on the bill of my hat. But it's country folks and they get it. City folks not so much. I get it, my parents were those, and I've come full circle. I don't make the forum rules. I just try to abide by them with no open discussion.