Just for the Heck of It...

I attempted a 100 meter shot at Gator Bowmen just for the fun of it. Very interesting considering that my dial-up sight only goes to 100 yards. For those of ya'll who aren't familiar with metric, that's 109.36 yards at the 100 meter mark. I took my standard 4 shots at the target and I actually did pretty well -- the 4th shot actually hit the X after doing a sensitivity analysis and remembering that I tend to aim a bit low when tired.

Super Piggy: 99 Me: 1

Remember that little javelina I had a picture of in my last post? Well, it took out one of my arrows yesterday at 3D practice. Right now Sorondil-Telcontar and I seem to be having a bit of a spat (darn, what did I do wrong? I waxed the string and watched my form and spined the arrows right!) but anyway, I took a shot at Super-Pig with my friends from behind the bushes to simulate TBoF conditions. Super-Pig is hard enough to hit from the green (and even the yellow stake) but from behind the bushes somewhere between the green and blue stakes was even harder. I had trouble identifying a good spot to hit and finally settled on a safe, reliable butt-shot. Only problem was, I forgot that I was a lot further out than usual and hit Super-Pig in the leg. In the blink of an eye, I saw sparks and aluminum shrapnel flying about and my arrow flew into the air and into the thicket behind. A few minutes later after my friends and I searched for my arrow, the following returned to me: an 1816 I lost at the tournament, a pair of 1814s I lost at another tournament, and most of the 1814 that shattered on Super-Pig's leg. Suffice to say, that shot provided my buddies with some serious entertainment!

3-D Exploits

Yesterday was the Central FL 3-D Circuit Championships. Shooter of the Year had already been determined but there was still a big pot of money to be distributed and a lot of fun. Because of rather uncooperative weather, they decided to to the known yardage targets first. Over time, I've learned to make good use of this data in traditional shooting, but I forgot to take one thing into consideration. I had three targets in a row that I took the distance on and shot under. I was already having other issues to deal with, including some things that wanted me to remove certain internal organs. I got my butt handed to me on a bed of rusty nails to say the least, but I had tons of fun with fellow traditional shooters and being in the woods instead of being in the city.


Figure: My first 12 of the day after deciding to not use the range-finder again for the rest of the day.

Today, after lunch (venison!) with some more traditional shooters and practicing for TBoF, which is coming up soon, I decided to do an experiment with my compound. I stood at the red stake, which I think is used by Open C, Super Seniors, and Hunter classes, but with the equipment on my Equalizer, I pretended to be shooting in Open C. I did the first round at Forest Archers without my range-finder and generally got decent results... Then I was using the range-finder and kept shooting a bit low. Then I realized what happened -- I was getting measurements in meters, not yards, so I was consistently shooting under!

There was one target that was propped up against the tree such that the 14 was lined up with the tree but the 10/12 region was not. It was a long shot (later measured to be 40 yards) and I wasn't too confident in my estimate so I decided to go for the 14 -- I figure even if my estimate is off, I'll at get the arrow in the tree instead of in the huge patch of Serenoa repens unless my form really gets thrown off. I got a line-cutter 14. One major problem I noticed with shooting compound in this kind of climate is that I have a nightmare of a time seeing the target because my glasses fog up.


Figure: The line-cutter 14... just barely. This was from 40 yards but I under-estimated it to about 38.


Figure: Kinda what it looks like when I try to shoot except I should be looking through the scope through the peep-sight and it's darned hard to both hold the bow and get the camera to behave itself!


Figure: This is what it looks like when I'm trying to judge distance. I'm standing right in front of the white stake (the REALLY big fish stake)

And below are pictures of what I think is the most difficult shot at Forest Archers for any class. Javelina targets are tough enough for me, but I've missed this target 90% of the time with trusty little Sorondil-Telcontar and even once with the Equalizer.


Figure: Itty-bitty javelina at 36 yards. This is what it looks like from the red stake that I'd be competing from with the Equalizer.


Figure: This is what it looks like from the white stake. Kinda far, isn't it?


Figure: 10-point shot. Not too bad considering I couldn't see the rings even with binoculars and my glasses got completely fogged up!


Figure: Here's what it looks like for a traditional shooter. I didn't measure this one but my Ranger instinct tells me that it's between 20 and 25 yards, probably 23-24 yards.


Figure: Here's what it looks like from the blue stake, which is the stake for bow-hunter intermediate, bow-hunter novice, youth, and pretty much everyone else who isn't in traditional, little kiddies (yellow), or one of the big-fish classes. Gut-instinct tells me that this is probably a 27-28 yard shot from the blue. This is where I'd be shooting from if I put my fixed-pin sight on my bow and put a short stabilizer on it.

Killer Parakeet is Back!

Click on the above link to view the absolute first draft of "Family Secrets" (tentative title for the story). What trouble will Killer Parakeet and his friends get into this time?

KP is Almost Back

I just finished writing my latest Killer Parakeet story. I'll post it as soon as I clean it up a bit and make sure everything's in good shape to share with the world. All I can say is hang on to your d20 dice!

A Beautiful ASA 12 at 34 yards

One of these days, perhaps not too far in the future, I'll have a picture of a pinwheeled 14 from 30+ yards on the Equalizer or any distance with Sorondil-Telcontar.

Return from New Jersey

I recently got back from a friend's wedding and had a nice little reunion with many of the quirky critters I survived Caltech with. I also survived 2.5 days of being stuffed non-stop with either spicy or painfully sweet vegetarian Indian food. Good food, but much more than my digestive system can handle and I went through an entire package of Pepto-Bismol. I also had my eardrums blasted out by people who didn't quite understand that some of us do have sensitive ears. And this is coming from someone who still enjoys the occasional concert, although not so much now that the Ranger is the dominant force in me now. Anyway, here's a few of the pictures that actually did come out on my camera. Contrary to what other people may say, I don't feel at all normal wearing anything that won't let me either run a few miles, go through the dense underbrush, or be able to carry everything on my person. Having to use a purse-like instead of large cargo-pants pockets, hip-quiver, or fanny pack object is also inherently wrong.

Gratuitous Top n

For some reason I got a random urge to post this... I think I need to spend more time outdoors.

Top 5 Statistical Analyses That Amuse Me (for whatever reason)
-- ANOVA
-- Kolmogorov-Smirnoff (non-parametric goodness of fit)
-- Regression Tree
-- Barltlett's Test of Homoscedasticity
-- Tukey's Honest-to-Goodness Test

Top 5 Ecosystem Models (in no particular order)
-- CANOAK
-- Biome-BGC
-- IBIS
-- MAESTRA
-- SPM2

Today's Wise Tip of the Day

Phones set to both electrocute mode and ultra-loud with an unusually obnoxious ring-tone are a bad idea in most office situations. Doubly so when it's in a room full of very quiet people and the room is quiet enough to drop a pin and it'll sound super-loud. At least this current phone's electrocute mode is nowhere as bad as the last phone I had before it died a horrible death in the saltwater marshes near Yankeetown.

I have to admit though, the looks on my officemates' faces was quite something when the chorus to Moenia's "Lo Que Tu Digas" (for any archery-related calls) suddenly blasted out of my phone and I jumped about a meter up from my chair. It was even funnier when the chorus to Depeche Mode's "Strangelove" (for CSULA-related calls) also blasted out of my phone about 10 minutes after I finished dealing with the first call and I did the same. Thank goodness I don't have that ring-tone for O-Zone's "Despre Tine" or "Dragostea Din Tei" anymore or that would really cause the fur (and probably the phone) to fly :)

Gratuitous Amusement

So when I need to turn my brain off for a few minutes, I have this habit of going onto YouTube. Here's two VERY noteworthy videos, both footage from a very high-profile Erasure concert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW3yBp9YXrc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pR1hLrOzbc

For some reason these clips just absolutely cracked me up. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what cracked me up so much. And now back to my regularly scheduled show.

An Evening with Hawkwing

So today, I decided to do a bit of 3-D to amuse myself a bit. Hawkwing, by the way, is my 68" longbow, a not-so-maneuverable weapon for me. Anyway, here's all my non-embarassing shots (ie, I hit the first time and suffice to say, I've come to the conclusion that while Hawkwing is a real fun bow to shoot and is actually very forgiving of my technique although it has been a bit picky with arrows (but not as picky as most longbows). I think I prefer to compete with Sorondil-Telcontar -- as fun as Hawkwing is to shoot, I didn't exactly appreciate half of my hits either ricocheting into a nearby patch of some species of Rhus or a hornet's nest or on one target, near a pair of rattlesnakes that were doing things I wish I didn't see. One nice thing though was that the arrows were a whole lot easier to pull out than normal. But yeah, for 3-D, I really prefer a bow that I don't have to arc my shots -- most of my good shots were the ones where I remembered to aim a lot higher than usual and let the arrow "fall" into the target or were close enough where gravity wouldn't quite take its toll!

A Bit More D&D Amusement

Here's some character stats for some of my really memorable characters, both PC and NPC, with the name left out. Just the bare numbers, race, alignment and class to see what you can infer about these characters... For those of you unfamiliar with D&D, character statistics are formed by rolling 3 six-sided dice and summing up the results and then applying any racial modifiers. Also in 3rd edition, the player adds a point to a stat of their choosing every 4th level, allowing some stats to get freakishly high. All characters are as they show up at end of the campaign...

PC #1 (chaotic good elven 20th level fighter)
STR: 20
DEX: 20
CON: 12
INT: 16
WIS: 7
CHA: 9

PC #2 (chaotic good human 6th level wizard with distant elven blood)
STR: 10
DEX: 16
CON: 14
INT: 18
WIS: 12
CHA: 5

PC #3 (chaotic neutral 8th level gnome illusionist)
STR: 8
DEX: 10
CON: 18
INT: 18
WIS: 7
CHA: 11

NPC #1 (lawful neutral, later lawful evil 9th level human necromancer)
STR: 5
DEX: 15
CON: 3
INT: 20
WIS: 14
CHA: 10

NPC #2 (chaotic good 7th level elven bard)
STR: 9
DEX: 13
CON: 14
INT: 16
WIS: 5
CHA: 18

NPC #3 (lawful neutral, later lawful good 15th level fighter of questionable ancestry... best description is an unusually powerful quasi-alien race I made for the campaign to harass or help the players)
STR: 14
DEX: 24
CON: 22
INT: 13
WIS: 9
CHA: 5

NPC #4 (lawful evil 12th level fighter/4th level rogue of questionable ancestry... see NPC #3 for description)
STR: 20
DEX: 20
CON: 16
INT: 15
WIS: 13
CHA: 15

Lessons and Further 3-D Exploits

I took two of my office-mates and their significant others with me to Gator Bowmen today. As usual, I had a pretty wide range of abilities, ranging from someone who already shot as a kid and had a knack at it... to someone who had never handled a bow before and was barely strong enough to handle the Mini-Genesis until I backed off the limbs as far as possible. There's something fun about teaching the basics of archery to a group that normally wouldn't have had a chance to try it and then watching them have tons of fun regardless of whether they hit the target (or something else). Here's some of the better pictures below:






I also had some rather amusing 3-D exploits at Forest Archers and Long Hammock last weekend, just that I didn't bother to extract them from my camera until today. Venison and wild boar for dinner, anyone?

A Few More Fond D&D Recollections...

Here's some more memories that cracked me up when I went through my old D&D materials...

[1st game in this campaign I had some time ago, party meets in a tavern run by a zany group of friends in a town that would soon be a disaster area]
Bard Girl: I don't trust that hooded girl who talked about honor. I think she's some kind of paladin.
Solron: That girl's hot, plus I think she's a ranger. If she were a paladin, I'd know.
Sidney: Are there any cute blonde elven guys who look like Legolas?
DM: There's a foppishly dressed blonde elf boy with a banjo who's hugging the hooded girl, who just removed the hood from her head.
Sidney: Is he cute? Does he look like Legolas?
DM: Kinda. He's more interested in the girl. The red-haired halfling named Fox brings your food. It smells very strongly of garlic. In the meanwhile, the girl talks to the elf boy about honor.
Sydney: Eew... he needs to lose that banjo.
Solron: [barf] I'm gonna kill Fox!
Bard Girl: I really don't trust that hooded girl. She's got a huge sword and she's still talking about honor.

DM: Marrq [ice devil] invites you to have a drink with him.
Tindariel [somewhat intoxicated]: I'll go drink with him. I leave my weapons behind in my room. If he starts acting like an idiot devil, I can frontier justice his scrawny butt with my bare hands!
DM: [laughs]
Casi (out of character): Oh heck... Tindariel you idiot...

[Casi had some bad luck with this deck of enchanted cards and her soul got placed somewhere extraplanar]
Tindariel: Ok, now that I have Casi's soul back, I'm gonna take her to the temple of Cai [nature god] and clean her off. [Bad idea... Casi is THE high priestess of Obixx, the god of filth, decay and undead]

Catnip: I don't trust this guy at all. He's regenerating and dresses and dances worse than O-Zone. Let's really kill him, plus the talking trees are cheering us on.
Solron: I hate him because he's Black Swan's twin brother and he's interfering with my womanizing!
Sydney: Can I turn him into a cute Legolas clone? He's got the blonde hair and the elven build!
Caol [the dual-rapier wielding foppish guy who regenerates]: I shall avenge myself upon thee! [rolls a 1, falls into the trap that Catnip and Solron built earlier]

Sydney: I don't like that parakeet guy. He's trying to steal my charmed elven prince! I'm going to tell Solron's kobold army to hunt him down and start an Empire Fried Parakeet franchise.
Solron: I whole-heartedly agree. The kobolds deserve a treat after proving themselves to be more competent than the noble guards.

Casi: I follow the old guy up to the library and copy his book. I leave him with my copy and take the original.
[Said old guy was a lich, albeit one who miscast the spell and is suffering from some embarassing side effects, including borderline senility and chronic aches and pains]

[Oskar the gnome druid (filling in for Catnip) is lounging in a hot tub in the Emperor's palace.]
DM: While you're relaxing the aches and pains, a blonde elf boy dressed like the O-Zone guys with a banjo on his back barges in. He trips on his own feet and nearly falls on his rapier. He says, "You stole Kida [ranger in the tavern that Bard Girl didn't trust] from me! I shall avenge myself!"
Oskar: I call the guards to have this idiot arrested.
Solron: [laughs uncontrollably. Little does Solron know that Xather would be a chronic annoyance along with Caol and Fox]

Blip: I cast phantasmal killer on the giant spider.
Demon playing as drow mage's familiar: So what would be so horrible to the spider to kill it?
Drow Mage: A can of raid?
DM: [laughs after rolling dice] The spider visualizes the can of raid but it shakes the effects off. If anything, it looks angrier and thinks that the fat little gnome would make a good snack.

Funny D&D Memories

I happened to be doing a small bit of cleaning (rain made it kinda hard to get to catapult safety training) and came across some of the more amusing quotes/notes from my D&D days... at least as far as my memory and notes can be reconstructed :)

DM: The mayor of the town looks rather upset and he's surrounded by guards.
Tindariel: I shoot him in the butt and shout "Frontier justice!"

[The party is trying to investigate what's going on with the mayor of the town (same guy that someone attempted to "Frontier justice".]
Casi: We want to know if they mayor's here.
DM (as this demon we're chasing): No, he's not here. [Closes the door]
Tindariel: Hey, let's come in on official business and send the mage and the whiny fighter guy in. [Knocks on door] Hey, we're here on official business with the mayor...

[The party just captured one of the mysterious toga-clad elves to figure out what's going on with the random attacks on the town.]
Barbarian: He's not responding to my threats [after rolling a 1 on intimidate]
Catnip (sorceress): I cast mage hand and use it to squeeze the prisoner's (censored).
DM (as prisoner): Owwwww!
Barbarian, Rogue, Druid: [collective doubling over and clutching themselves in pain]

Blip (serious glutton of a gnome illusionist): [passing a note that reads: I cast shocking grasp and shake hands with the high priest]
DM: [groans] The high priest suddenly gets furious and shouts at the party.
Drow Mage: Oh crap. [Stuffs food in Blip's mouth]

Tindariel: I build myself a banjo and go to the tavern where I do my best Eminem inpersonation while playing the banjo.
Sunflower (crazed, enimatic druid filling in for Catnip): I polymorph into a fly and hide in her banjo. When she sounds really bad, I'm gonna jump out and turn into Eminem.
DM: [chokes from laughter]

Tindariel: I want to bring back a friend who's been banished. His name's Zavon, scrawny pathetic wuss of a half-elf... [she's unaware of his demonic nature]
DM: The wizards look at you and say "Are you sure?"
Tindariel: Yeah. He's a friend. We're trying to beat up on some devils!
DM (as one of the wizards): Are you really sure? He's going to kill you if we do it!
Tindariel: Hah, I'd frontier justice his butt before he could do it. Plus he's harmless.
DM: You overhear a wizard commenting on how Tindariel must be desperate for attention. The paladins also mutter about how Tindariel must be demon-posessed.

[PC1 inadvertently drank some spiked punch at a school party. Best way to describe his attire is to imagine Arsenium or O-Zone in their music videos.]
PC1: Hmm, I'm gonna sneak behind the DJ and replace his awful hip-hop and rap CDs with some country and Chinese opera before I go up and sing of my undying love for the most popular girl at school.
PC2: Oh crap, I deny knowing that idiot.
DM: Suddenly the entire room full of people look at you in disgust. All of the girls run out in terror and all of the boys decide to dogpile on the nerdy little dork. The next day, a newspaper article about the ugly little nerd messing up the party gets published.

DM (as a cop-like character): What are you doing out past curfew in the graveyard?
PC1: Uhh, I'm doing an experiment on mosquito population dynamics.
DM (still as cop): Well, don't get bitten too hard.
[PC1 was really investigating this cult and has a habit of insulting the cop-like character.]

DM: You find several little bags of white powder in the dressing room.
PC1: I'll take some of these bags to analyze the contents.
PC2: [busy rummaging through clothing] I didn't know they played with that stuff.
PC1: I'm gonna sniff it to see if I can identify the stuff.
DM: [laughing] Suddenly you feel really hyper and high. You hear the little salt-creature sighing at you.

Sidney: I'm gonna hang around the big fat dumb guy and the mage and wait for the mage to die. [said mage had a severe cough and was usually either coughing up blood] If the big fat dumb guy keeps bothering me, could someone help me get rid of him?
[Let's just say Sidney was very disappointed about waiting for the mage to die]

Bard Girl: I'm gonna read the book that the cultist handed to me.
Solron: No!!!
DM: As you read the book, you suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to preach the words to everyone else. Roll a Will Save [Bard Girl fumbles big-time]
[later in the adventure]
DM (as townsperson): The dragon's here!
Bard Girl: [preaches to dragon... content left out due to severely offensive content]
Solron, Sydney, and the two NPCs (they lost the big dumb guy in an earlier battle to save a village from giant were-parakeets) are beating up on the dragon before Solron decides to make the dragon fall to its death.
Bard Girl: [still preaching]
DM: The brass dragon suddenly writhes in pain and falls from the wall right on top of Bard Girl, who also gets nailed with a lightning bolt from Baelnorn (sickly mage) and all of your attacks also hit Bard Girl.
Bard Girl (out of character): You killed Kenny! [Bard Girl had asked for a South Park-style death and everyone's dice roll just fit in perfectly by sheer random luck]

Central Florida 3-D Circuit Shoot @ Bunnell

All of the first place winners in their respective divisions.



This was only a 5-point shot, but I got her in the carotid artery. Can you say, a nice quick kill and plenty of blood, had she been flesh and blood? I probably got more anatomical kills than high-point shots, but what the heck, with the wind and bits of rain that turned my fletching into a post-bath Pomeranian, sometimes any foam is better than no foam!

I took first place in Traditional with 166/300 points and my opponent had 164/300. I also just found out that now that I've shot at 2 of the Central Florida Circuit 3-D shoots, I can qualify for Shooter of the Year. My opponent, an older gentleman who shoots a longbow, has also attended 2 tournaments and is slightly ahead of me in total points. I really want to attend the next shoot, which is on Sunday, June 24 in Zellwood, and then the July championships at Forest Archers in Ocala -- I think I stand a pretty good chance of getting Shooter of the Year in Traditional! My newly-found archrival is actually a better shot than I am, but our scores are close enough that I really want to battle this one out to the end.

A New Experiment Brews On

Time to see what broadhead/shaft combination gives me the best results. I'm fixin' to hunt me some deer or hogs this fall, assuming my experiments produce something useful and I can find a setup that yields the smallest possible variance and smallest possible error function in my model. So far, I've had 2 catastrophic misses that resulted in lost arrows in a nice patch of poison oak / huge nest wasps/hornets and they were both with my four-bladed. Flight was excellent, but the first two shots were my "let's see how close it is to my usual aim at 20 yards into a little block designed to stop broadheads".

Time to apply my statistical training! More as I make progress and hopefully I don't lose anymore shafts! I really need to find somewhere I can shoot broadheads without being harassed by humans or bugs with stingers...

Forgot I Had This Picture...

Cell phones with cameras on them are very useful sometimes! Good thing that wasn't a real hunting situation, or I would've been a dead archer. Ear piercings, anyone?

Bug-Swallow and Random AD&D Pondering

I swallowed a bug last night while jogging. I coughed and spluttered and out came bits and pieces of what might've been a pretty good-sized fly of sorts. It sure as heck wasn't the usual gnat that goes up my nose, but whoa, that was gross. It made me think of a cartoon I had seen recently -- "Bug-in-Mouth Disease" on the Homestar Runner website. Once I was able to talk again, the first words that escaped my mouth as I resumed my nightly constitutional was "Bug-swallow! Bug-swallow!". For the first time, I actually felt a bit of a bond with Homestar Runner (generally not so fond of him but I'm a huge fan of Strong Bad and Homsar) and then I contemplated all the possibilities of having swallowed a fly. The next thing I thought of was that song/story from elementary school, the one about the little old lady who swallowed a fly and how she swallows a menagerie of progressively larger animals to catch the one she swallowed before.

Out of the blue while pondering over regression trees, I suddenly had a flashback of the old AD&D games that came in gold boxes. For some reason, I thought about paladins, a character class that amuses my group to no end when it comes to tormenting them. They're pretty much your stereotyped knights in shining armor on a holy mission for those of you not so familiar with Dungeons and Dragons. Anyway, in AD&D, especially in the old games, paladins radiate a protection from evil, 10' radius spell at all times. The "official" explanation is that as their god(s) holy knight, they get a bit of protection. Here's some random thoughts that came up in my ranger-biased imagination:

-- It's really the fact that they reek and their fellow adventurers put up with them because they're used to it.
-- They eat lots of garlic, which may also for their ability to scare off or destroy undead creatures like vampires
-- That shiny armor is blinding
-- "My honor is my life" (well, at least for the Knights of Solamnia in Dragonlance)
-- They preach way too much and the party they travel with has learned how to screen out their preachy ways
-- Beans. Lots of beans in their diet.

Ok, time to go back to work. I just had to let that brain-fart out of my system before I laugh my head off too much. I can't wait to shoot another 3-D and another 300! Sorondil-Telcontar calls to me... as does the Monster (yes, that's what I call the Equalizer after someone in my office said "What is that monster?")... but it's mostly little Sorondil-Telcontar that calls after a wildly successful round last night where I scored 98/240 and a 3-D where I scored 114/200 earlier this week :) Oh and a 300 where I scored (with the Monster) 258/300 (ouch... I was reaching 270-280 on the Scott Sabertooth, that back-tension release is really whipping my butt!)

I also need to do a lot of arrow repairs and apartment clean-up... My place is starting to look like a linear combination of Howl's moving castle and the room in the music video for "Drama" by Erasure. I think I might also want to get my hands on some extra 1814 X7 Eclipses -- they're actually doing pretty well after spending a bit more time with them and putting more emphasis on back-tension in shooting traditional. The cedars are still more reliable for me as far as the magnitude of the error functions go, but the Eclipses are doing well with keeping a very consistent bias even if it's very easy to over-compensate. I really should be doing a more thorough analysis of their behavior!

Where's the Writing?

Let's just say as far as the Dunheasa series goes, I've hit a bit of a road-block. As a sneak quasi-preview, suffice to say that in terms of the story, I'm standing in an enchanted forest that sprung forth in what was once Newins-Ziegler Hall at UF... and one of the young heroes is watching a master compound bow shooter undergo a mysterious transformation in the moonlight...

I'm hoping the inspiration will come back soon now that I've survived the boot-camp semester. Who knows, maybe something else will pop up. Killer Parakeet, anyone?

Fun at Camp Boggy Creek

About a week ago, I got an e-mail from a friend from TBoF (Traditional Bowhunters of Florida) about doing maintenance and repairing archery equipment at Camp Boggy Creek in Eustis, FL, 100ish miles from me. If there's anything I have a hard time resisting, it's playing with traditional bows and learning how to repair and maintain them. So I go to Camp Boggy Creek and after braving the terrors of road construction and scary tourist buses filled with what looks like Oakland, CA (or Richmond or the crappy parts of LA or any number of these hell-holes called big cities), I finally arrive at the camp, which is a camp for kids and teenagers with serious (and possibly fatal) illnesses. It's a neat camp that lets otherwise indoor potatoes have a chance to enjoy the wilderness. Anyway, some of my friends from TBoF are tinkering with their own high-end custom-made bows. There's a pretty neat-looking take-down longbow that happens to be made by Four Winds Archery. The bowyer for Four Winds Archery, by the way, is local to me -- he lives in Silver Springs, FL, which is just east of Ocala, FL. I don't blame my friend, an ogre of an Englishman transplanted in Florida, for insisting that he would never part with the bow. It shoots and aims well, but whew, it's got a bit of a vibration and really likes my arm! I also tried a few other custom-made bows, but even if they do aim a bit more easily than my little Chek-Mate, they still give me a bit of vibration that travels up to my funny bone, which isn't quite so funny anymore.

The real fun, besides playing with bows and repairing them in the wilderness, was talking about the local ecology, especially the plants. One of my friends did have to remind me that I was no longer under a certain professor's reign of terror when I was running around trying to identify all these trees. I think some of these trees have been permanently burned into my mind. I have a strong feeling that a future story may have various scientific names embedded into character names and locations.

Highlights from Today's Lesson

All in all, it was a successful lesson. I had 4 students -- a fellow forester, a colleague from botany and her husband and son -- and they were a pretty good group. Aside from minor arrow damage and my students realizing there some muscles they've never really used, it was a nice, casualty-free gathering. I think I did a good job of scaring people away from shooting a high-end compound, although the second-hand Mini-Genesis that I've been tinkering with to hone in on my own bow mechanic skills did come in very handy. It's a real blast teaching basic archery, especially traditional. I think I also made some people's days by letting them have a taste of Lord of the Rings and realizing that it's not as out of reach as it seems to be. Sure, I got a lot of orc jokes about the Equalizer, but I also got a lot of comments about being like an elf with the longbow!


Gotta train the little one too! We're the fighting Uruk-hai! Rawr!!!


Gotta work on my follow-up a bit...


I'm gonna shoot that little spot! (I would also hit my own arrows... thank goodness for these tough X7 Eclipses!)


Ouch! I just hit my arm!


Where's the big dot?


I challenge you to a duel! Closest to the target wins!

The 300 Test

Well, I did some intensive testing on the two back-tension releases and so far, I'm preferring the Carter Evolution over the TRU Ball Sweet Spot II. I know my experimental design has some issues because I literally did two 300 rounds (12 ends of 5 arrows on a 5-spot target from 20 yards away) back-to-back with only a short break in between. My scores sucked on both 300s, especially compared to what I was getting with the caliper release and a draw weight in the mid-high 40 lbs. Just to give you an idea of my suckage, I got 252/300 with 10/60 arrows in the X ring with the Evolution and 219/300 with 4/60 in the X with the Sweet Spot II. As far as comfort for extended periods of time go, I actually like the Sweet Spot II better, but for control even when my stamina's running low, the Evolution wins out. If there was a 4-finger version of the Evolution, that would be the ultimate release for me based on what I've tried (and witnessed) -- I'm still not quite brave enough to try a lot of the other back-tension releases after a good friend of mine told me about his trip to the ER (and resulting stitches) after his release went off prematurely and he punched himself in the face really badly. My friend is also missing some teeth in front because of this accident.

I'm definitely nowhere near ready to compete with a compound, at least in anything remotely competetive! But as far as traditional goes, I think I'm ready to hunt some foam animals again and maybe with some training over the summer with some experimentation, I might even be ready to join my friends on the trail or in the tree-stand to get myself some quality deer or wild hog meat!

And the Battle Rages On...

Which will it be? The Carter Evolution or the Tru-Ball Sweet-Spot II, 4-fingers version?

The epic will continue!

Fun Right Before the Liquid Sunset

I went shooting some of my colleagues today and shared the joys of archery with them. It was a real blast, especially considering two of us had just finished finals. Our trusty photographer (not in the pics) also survived his qualifier exams so it seemed fitting that he goofed off. The only down-side I think is that I may have to be a lot more protective of my little Chek-Mate -- the post-doc in our group instantly fell in love with Sorondil-Telcontar as soon as he took a few shots on it. I don't blame him (or the rest of the party) for drooling at my bow. I have to admit, the post-doc has some nice bows himself, including a pair of classic Fred Bear bows, both a recurve and a compound. It was also a photograph moment watching everyone's faces when they saw me shooting the compound, even if it also got a lot of "whoa, that looks like a torture device"-type comments. It was a well spent afternoon with my colleagues and just being vegetables with weapons. Archery is indeed addictive!

Another Cool Invention

The fishing vest is a work of genius. It's great for carrying lots of small objects and it's very comfortable to wear. I used one the last few days for my little jogging excursions and it's just as comfortable as a fanny pack, except much less likely to have a zipper open and lose something. It holds my house keys, cell phone, and iPod very nicely as well as a bit of change if I suddenly decide that my bottle of water wasn't enough to make it back home on or if I get a serious case of the munchies about 2-3 miles out. It's also great for carrying writing instruments and flash drives without worrying about squishing them, losing them, or otherwise overcooking them from body heat. It also does wonders for archery practice, at least until I can get a quiver that actually has a supplementary pocket without a huge hole in the bottom for carrying my release and repair kit. Yeah, fishing vests also rule. So do overalls and camouflage hunting pants.

And now back to writing up my term project for my simulations class. I'm trying to build a really nice little neural network to predict net ecosystem exchange (NEE) using micrometeorological variables. It's a pretty nifty model with five hidden neurons in one layer. I think I might've overfitted it considering I had 8 inputs and it couldn't predict the test data worth crap even if I got an r^2 of about 0.85 when I trained it. Lesson learned and hopefully a mistake I can avoid when I do it for real with my dissertation!

Once this semester's over, I'm going to have to spend some serious quality time shooting. I want to see if I can do some serious butt-kicking in 3-D with trusty little Sorondil-Telcontar and master shooting with a back-tension release so I can also do some serious butt-kicking in spot-shooting. Hopefully my butt doesn't expand to get molded to the chair and/or engulf my poor bike seat by the time I'm done with finals. My gut's already struggling to fit into a lot of the desks in the classroom and my butt's engulfed one chair on campus already.

Ok, exercise and then work on my project. I hate it when I'm in danger of getting my butt impaled by my bike seat or when I block the doorway with my corpulent self.