Some People Keep Pets, Others Keep Weapons...

I have yet to decide on a name for this beautiful little longbow from Four Winds Archery (based in Silver Springs, FL... just outside of Ocala), although originally I had thought to name this bow Undomiel (elvish for "Daughter of Twilight") until I looked at the nearly-complete bow last week. Then I knew that name just didn't fit, although three other possible names have come up from last week and they still stick in my mind after seeing the finished bow and practicing with it. The three names in my mind are: Sparrowhawk (inspired from watching the local kestrels hunting for small birds and large bugs), Irian (after one of the "were-dragons" in Ursula LeGuinn's Earthsea series), and Haitaka (the name given to Ged in Gedo Senki, the anime adaptation of Earthsea by Goro Miyazaki, I think it translates to "Sparrowhawk")

I did spend a bit of time trying to tune this one and after bruising myself pretty thoroughly even through the arm-guard in my efforts to find an optimal brace-height and spine/point combination given a set nock-point. I had prepared a set of bare shafts with points to do this some time ago and so far, it's still unclear what works best, although I eliminated the 5/16" 35-40 lb spined arrows after watching some serious fish-tailing (left-right oscillation). The 40-45 lb spined arrows seem to be working fairly well and I haven't worked with the 45-50 lb spined arrows yet. So far, given an arrow length of 28" (if I had more time, there's so much more I could do!), seems like a point weight of around 145-160 grains seems to work best, although I need to do a bit more of a thorough analysis. This also includes paper-tuning, which is watching how the arrow tears through the paper and the nature of the tear will say a lot about the arrow-flight and whether or not my points are too light/heavy and my shaft is too stiff/soft. Even with the challenge of tuning this one, I already can tell this one shoots extremely well -- very fast and smooth-drawing. I'll soon see what arrows fit it best once I can have some time to myself during daylight hours!

I Need To Do More Of These...

This was a very lucky shot from about 45 yards. The rest of my shots weren't quite this good, but I'm making progress on my gap-shooting from 35 yards and beyond. I also need more arrows -- my gap-shooting drills and a recent mini-tournament took a toll on my arrow population and school's about to kick in.

TBoF 2007 Fall Rendezvous

There's nothing quite like the feeling of shooting 3D with a traditional bow. It's such a thrilling experience for me, stepping up to the stake in the bushes and shrubbery, seeing that realistic critter and then shooting it. It's even more thrilling when that arrow flies straight and true from my bow and strikes it through the heart and lungs, had it been flesh and blood. I didn't realize how much my performance got affected by stress until this weekend because I had just finished doing my part of a grant proposal and printed a poster that I'll be presenting at a big conference and I didn't have anything hanging over my head. I took 4th place and got a total score of 330/600 -- I don't remember the exact score for the winner, but I knew the person right ahead of me got 360. I was very pleasantly surprised when I got my card this morning for the championship round and saw that I got grouped with the huge fish in my division instead of my usual bottom-of-the-pack group. It was a blast shooting with this group today -- lots of humor (mostly potty jokes) and very little pressure (well, unless you count that one target with the "ick" behind it). Now that I know I am capable of keeping up with some of the top shooters in the area, I feel a whole lot better knowing that when I'm on with the right arrows and completely relaxed (ie, nothing to worry about), I can do some serious butt-kicking.


Figure: Shootin' my trusty little Chek-Mate


Figure: He's further than he looks! I was the only one who hit him at all and he would've been limping around and furious.


Figure: The little coyote that nobody hit. How embarrassing!


Figure: Partial group picture. We lost a few members of our group somewhere. Did they get eaten by bears or hungry bow-hunters?


Figure:Trick-shot through the trash can and to the critter behind it. I think I abused that poor trash can a bit too much. Thank goodness this one didn't count to my final score!


Figure: Top 3 in women's longbow.


Figure: Top 3 in women's recurve.

Spewing from a Pile of Brain Jello

I'm almost done with my grant proposal and just about ready to print my poster, but my brain is in pretty sad shape and it's pouring outside. I'm almost tempted to shoot indoors with my targets, except I'm running a bit low on compound arrows and I'm trying to make this set last as long as I can before I sink another $150-200 for another set. I'm also trying to conserve traditional arrows -- woods (or delicate aluminum arrows) and shooting from about 3-4 yards into a target don't exactly mix. So to amuse myself, I'm gonna post random "lists"...

So there's a certain type of song that's sometimes referred to as "Earworms", or songs that once heard, get imprinted into the mind, similar to the effects of staring into the sun or having a flash photo taken after being in the dark for a day or two. Here's a list of fifteen of the biggest ones (only stuff with vocals) in my book in no particular order:

Dragostea Din Tei (O-Zone)
Despre Tine (O-Zone)
It's the End of the World As We Know It (REM)
Shiny Happy People (REM)
Just Can't Get Enough (Depeche Mode)
Dancing With Myself (Billy Idol)
La Gloria (Erasure)
Oh L'Amour (Erasure)
Love Me, Love Me (Arsenium)
Tu Sabes Lo Que Quiero (Moenia)
Closer (Nine Inch Nails)
Dancing Queen (ABBA)
Tren al Sur (Los Prisioneros)
Du Hast (Rammstein)
Rock Lobster (B-52s)

Here's some (10) of the instrumental earworms:
Trepak Dance from the Nutcracker Suite (P. Tchaikovsky)
Gopak (M. Mussorgsky)
Fuer Elise (L. van Beethoven)
Dueling Banjos (?)
The Celts (Enya)
In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt Suite (E. Grieg)
Revolutionary Etude (F. Chopin)
Rondo Alla Turca (W. Mozart)
Rustles of Spring (C. Sinding)
The Three Musics (Jo Morrison)

And now back to the regularly schedulled show so I can be happy and relaxed at TBoF and ESA!