Tag Archives: st. louis

Curling League Week Two

Well, this week went better for the team and worse for me. I wasn’t feeling 100% up to playing because I’ve been fighting a nasty cold for the better part of a week, but we made a pretty strong showing and ended up in a 6-6 tie, so that’s one point for our team.

I’m a little sore this week compared to last—I think I warmed up too early, but I also think my body wasn’t completely over the fever, coughing, and sneezing it’s been through. We had the late game as well, so the first draw didn’t happen until close to 9:00.

A sample score sheet from our league. Which happens to be tonight's.

Based on the scoresheet, we did pretty well, stealing a total of four points in back-to-back ends and giving up only one steal of our own. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem able to get the job done when I had the hammer to close things out. The second end was a failed draw into the four-foot, the fifth end (where they took three) was the result of a horribly botched runback that did not clear out the house, but instead cleared out the only scoring rock we had (which was on the opposite side of the house).

And we should have had two in the seventh, but I shorted one draw to the button and on the final stone of the game I fell over onto my stomach and completely lost my line on the shot. I suppose I’m lucky we didn’t end up making things worse with that shot, instead failing to make good on the hammer. Practice makes perfect.

Our second saved the third end with a rather remarkable double take-out. It was really satisfying to call the shot and then watch him whip the stone in there and make it happen.

We have a week off next week, so I might try to get some pick-up gameplay on this weekend. The ice was much better this week compared to last, but because it’s arena ice it’s had some weird peculiarities where the stone will pick on a skate rut and then curl almost 90º. I really wish we had consistent ice—one of my shots actually curled the opposite way from the turn!

It was just shy of a win, but as with many things, it was a great time had by everyone who played and I once again feel like I’m getting better at it.

How to Curl Pictures

There aren’t any of me in here because I couldn’t find a good way to get a picture taken that didn’t make me look like a complete idiot, but these are pictures of the session after mine on the ice.

(And there’s a couple of pictures of the bubble hockey table, too.)

East St. Louis Government Cuts What?

Rev. Joseph Tracy said he’s tired of going to funerals. And now, he suspects he’ll be going to more of them.

“It’s open field day now,” said Tracy, the pastor of Straightway Baptist Church here. “The criminals are going to run wild.”

The pastor voiced his fear of a spike in crime on Friday at a raucous special City Council meeting at which East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will lay off 37 employees, including about one-third of its police officers.

In total, 19 of the city’s 62 police officers, 11 firefighters, four public works employees and three administrators will lose their job in the layoffs that take effect Sunday.

At this point, they might as well just build a wall around East St. Louis and be done with it. This is appalling.

There are lots of good people in East St. Louis who have tried very hard to improve the conditions there. It’s a shame they don’t have a government that supports those efforts adequately.

(via St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

Westbrook In, Ludwick Out in 3-Team Deal

The Cardinals have acquired righthanded starting pitcher Jake Westbrook and cash considerations from the Cleveland Indians in a three-team trade that sends right fielder Ryan Ludwick to the San Diego Padres. The Cardinals receive minor-league lefthander Nick Greenwood from the Padres.

I’m good with this. Jon Jay is looking like a great investment in the future of the Cardinals, which gives Ludwick less of a place with the team, and another pitcher isn’t a bad move.

Sounds like a good money deal, too.

(via St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

First Family Ballgame

Abby’s Girl Scout troop was invited to group seats at a Cards game this past weekend, which included a walk around the warning track at the park. (The group seats were, as you would expect, very high up.) This is the first time any of the children were able to go to a game, and the first time Amanda and my parents had been to the new Busch Stadium.

MLB 10: The Show: First Impressions

I haven’t bought a baseball game in a few years—not since the 2K Sports series was still on top. But this year, after reading some fantastic reviews and seeing that last year’s game was well-loved by a lot of people, I decided to take a shot and grab MLB 10. I played a couple of innings tonight and here’s what I think so far:

  • The computer is a jerk of a pitcher, which is a good thing. It pitches around you, it mixes up pitch types, and it generally does what it can to keep you behind in the count. I like this. Even though I can’t currently hit very well, it’s a good challenge.
  • The animations and the environments are pretty good-looking. Busch looks pretty much like Busch. Fredbird looks pretty much like Fredbird. The players are as always hit or miss, but I think they look good more often than not.
  • The sound is incredible.
  • Umpires call different strike zones, and the game keeps a rotation of umpires, so you can “get used” to one umpire’s zone over another’s.
  • There are so many options here that I’m sure I’ll never even touch half of them. Custom crowd chants and heckles you can record yourself, custom walk-out music editing, league and player career options… a lot of stuff.
  • The built-in movie editor, while crappy in resolution, is a pretty neat way of showing people things you’ve done in-game. It even includes sound, which is better than the EA series. You can either export a specific play, or cut together a compilation of plays for a mini-highlight reel, which you can influence by setting camera change points and everything.

I didn’t play with the movie editor for very long, but here’s a couple of Carpenter strikeouts and a Holliday base hit:

Bonus tip: don’t keep the default camera angle. The “Offset” camera is much better for viewing the zone than the “Catcher” angle.