Critters

Grey tree-frog that narrowly escaped being impaled by one of my arrows while calibrating at 70 meters.

Beautiful dragonfly at archery practice. Can you find it?

Truly beautiful dragonfly that really liked Aesa's longbow for some reason.

One of the many "black snakes" in the area at Fred Bear.

Ooh! Another one! They did get into a bit of a scuffle for a bit. I think it was two males fighting over territory and access to a nearby female... don't think they were fighting over the big bugs or small rodents they usually eat.

FAA Field Championship 2010

As always, click on the title for the full set of pictures. I shot an extremely solid round this weekend: 275 (2x) field, 180 animal, 297 (4x) hunter.

Rhinehart 100

As usual, click either the title or here for the rest of the Rhinehart 100.

I actually resisted the temptation to shoot him elsewhere *and* ranged correctly. I decided that having two gentlemen in the party didn't warrant my favorite shot on a standing bear.

Yes, we were supposed to shoot the tree stump as well as the little bear.

A giraffe and a demon of some sort. R insists it's a gargoyle of some sort. Whatever it was, I certainly don't want it alive around me!

This target absolutely made my day! And yes, we were supposed to shoot both the bear and the toilet. Except... where *would* be an appropriate kill on a toilet?

Did I mention that I really enjoyed this target? Toilets are just inherently cool!

Great Group at 40 Yards

Moments like these are truly rare. I shot this round at 40 yards onto a 60 cm target face with wood arrows. The odd 3-fletched arrow in the red belongs to a fellow archer who's still starting off and shows a lot of promise both as an archer and as a veterinary researcher. I shot my highest score of the season as well: 214 IKAC and a 94 Royal Round -- but the season is still early and there's still tons of room for improvement.

Will this year be the year I make Grandmaster Bowman (100+ average of top 3 Royal Rounds of the season, last year averaged around 94) or break 250 in IKAC? Stay tuned!

Forgot I Had These Too...

Caught at about 80% draw prior to full expansion, still need to tense the left arm muscles especially triceps and forearm and tighten up the scapulae.


Happened during a calibration round at 20 yards.

Mostly Sacrificial Weekend...

Sacrificing about half of the weekend to see if I can get a semester write-up out of the way but still got some good outdoor workouts in... plus the weekend sacrifice is going into either helping me train for the NFAA Southeastern Sectional field/hunter championship at the end of May or the Sunshine State Games in June. I don't know which event(s) I'll be entering for the Sunshine State Games but here's the breakdown: 60% FITA target, 40% 900 round. I think I'm a stronger contender for the 900 round and they're my favorite event but FITA target shoots are extremely hard to come by aside from the FAA state championships in August. I'll find out once I figure out the logistics behind the two events. There's also field and 3D but the opportunities for FITA and 900 are much more limited so I like to jump on any of those I can.

Die, Vile Pink Marshmallow!

Can you deep fry one of those Peeps marshmallow monstrosities? The answer is... yes. Was it edible? Well, click on the title and see!

Pic from Aesa's Camera

Courtesy of my fellow archer, Aesa while we were waiting our turn for the King's Hunt.

Spring Coronation and International Round

As always, click on the title or here for the link to the full suite of pictures.
Spring Coronation was on Saturday at Camp Ocala near Altoona in the southern part of the Ocala National Forest, International Round was on Sunday in Inglis.

The Royal Huntsman's Quiver and Trimaris sash. I get to design the Hunt for the Fall Coronation Event!

Eiszeit

Usually not a big video fan but I'm just very much amazed by this song... I'm looking forward to the rest of the album coming out.



I definitely like the powerful male vocals... still favor Rammstein but Eisbrecher has grown on me quite a bit and they have some pretty impressive songs, even if some people around me cringe in pain/terror!

Ooh Cool!

I just figured out how to embed stuff into my blog. I'm really looking forward to the next Eisbrecher album, which is called Eiszeit (Ice-Age). I think there seems to be a real fascination with ice and freezing things going on there.

Journey to the Dark Side...

Wrong anchor though... was supposed to anchor under the chin, not the corner of the mouth for the full Olympic effect but close enough for now.

Survived TBoF Spring 2010

I don't look too bad for having about 2-3 layers of clothing padding my gut area! It was beautiful but cold and I had to wear multiple layers in the morning before I had to run into the cabin to remove layers, although I still kept one extra layer as insect protection in case I had to get intimate with the local vegetation. More later on as my brain defrosts and recovers from too many changes in temperature.

Pre-TBoF Entertainment

I seem to have really gotten a bit too fascinated with Neue Deutsche Haerte (New German Hardness) music in general. It's great for screening out most noises that may emerge in/around a lab and I just really enjoy the sound of the (usually) powerful vocals.

Here's a couple of samples of what I've stumbled into:
Bis In Alle Ewigkeit (Into all Eternity)
Herz Aus Stahl (Heart of Steel)

Anyway, off to prepare for Traditional Bowhunters of FL! This time it'll be quite the experiment in whether or not the new shooting techniques I've been learning will actually work or if I need to make significant modifications for TBoF-style 3D. More on this new technique I've been working with later. Suffice to say, it has shrunk my groups quite a bit horizontally but I still have some trouble with my gaps and I have no idea how well it'll work under unknown distances.

New Longbow

64.5" reflex-deflex longbow, 42 lbs @ 28". Looks like a good performer. I shot a 405-410 grain Vapor 2000 carbon arrow (30", 145 grain tip) through the chronograph and got about 145-150 feet per second. These are the same arrows I put through the 48 lb @ 28" Chek-Mate Crusader and peak about 150-151 fps. I now need to find arrows properly spined for this low poundage bow because the Vapor 2000 shafts are too stiff (about 0.535). I'm guessing that I'll need at least a 0.600 spine or even a 0.700 spine and try to have the arrow weigh around 300 grains. Minimum arrow weight by my estimate is about 280 grains -- assuming I get 35 lbs at full draw and 8 grains per pound of draw minimum. I'd rather have a bit of extra fudge space, so 300 or so grains should do. Now to find a decent, affordable shaft that spines low enough! Thankfully, my arrows for IKAC / Royal Rounds are slightly weak for this bow, so until I can find some carbons or aluminums (preferably X7 alloy), I have some heavy logs to shoot and they do group pretty well out to about 25-30 yards!

From the Depths of the Camera Phone

The in-progress longbow that's being built and should be done by the weekend so I can go and bond with it. Walnut limbs with an elm core and a walnut riser with a maple accent stripe.

This was from back in January when I felt like annoying one of the more arrogant compound shooters. Now if I could do this more consistently at both IKAC and the more official spot-shoots!

NFAA 300 and FITA 600

Click on the title for the pictures. And no, I don't have any (non-embarrassing) pictures of myself -- apparently the photographer caught me as I was about to sneeze. Still, though, there were some good pictures (I think at any rate). I shot my personal best NFAA 300 round (blue and white target) and my first ever FITA 600 round. It was supposed to be a FITA 450 round but we were moving along so fast that it turned into a 600 round (15 more shots total).

I finished the 300 with a 218 and the 600 with a 376. The 600 round was much more difficult but I shot very well considering that the small rainbow targets combined with bad fluorescent do make me slightly nauseous. I like the blue and white NFAA targets more, but I'm hoping that I can raise my IKAC / Royal Round scores by practicing on the 40 cm FITA faces instead of the standard 60 cm FITA faces.

First 2010 Long Hammock

Double Ouch!

As of this writing, I never thought the combination of garlic, habaneros and lots of squats and lunges would hurt so much. The squats and lunges do feel good in their own sick way and I'm starting to see a bit more definition in my legs ever since I started incorporating them more aggressively in my workouts the past month or so. And why garlic and habaneros? They, along with zinc supplements and citrus fruits, make for a great way to either avoid or nip colds and just about anything else non-digestive in the bud nicely.

In other news, things are slowing down a bit in the Morgenstern epic but let's just say right now, I'm standing alongside a bewildered mechanical engineer who's faced with the choice of either staying imprisoned with a bunch of corrupt officials or escape with a bunch of heroes who are more likely to get into trouble than get out of it. I'm also following along a master archer who's walking the fine line between honorable but merciless vengeance and blood-crazed savagery... and she's being targeted by the Clawed Fury even more than before.

Hoggetowne Part 2

Click on the title to see the rest of the pictures although I didn't really get to take too many pictures the second week. Let's just say I've had more than my fair share of yelling, heckling, and bending over to pick up arrows.

Last Day of Hoggetowne

My pics will be up later once I get my camera back... Someone got tired of running around as a monk but I thought I'd keep up with the garb. Courtesy of my friend Aesa.

A Flicker of Cerebral Activity

First, I was just pretty much blown away by Creek Mary's Blood from Nightwish's End of an Era. Click on the title to see/hear it.

In other news... I'm in the midst of running sensitivity tests on my CART and ANN models and now finally have a real validation data set to work with. What can I say? Research oozes forward like a pudding (sorry, NetHack reference), which beats being sessile like a fungus!

As far as the Morgenstern epic goes, let's just say I'm standing alongside an impulsively curious youth who's trying to stay focused on her spying mission...

Courtesy of Aesa...

This was from a friend's camera. Hope we'll have more pictures rolling in!

Hoggetowne Medieval Faire 2010, 1/2

Survived week 1 of Hoggetowne Medieval Faire. One more weekend to go! Saturday was buggery weather -- lots of rain and wind, but Sunday was gorgeous, albeit cold. As always, click on the title for the full suite of pictures.

TBoF Charity Shoot 2010

I shot my personal best in 3D with my Chek-Mate Crusader and wooden arrows. I finished in 3rd place with a 345/400. I actually tied for second, but we had a shoot-off and the other second placer made a perfect shot in what would've been the ASA 12 ring. I made an anatomical kill in the neck and also knocked the target over, my proudest moment all day because of the amusement factor involved.

Click on the title or here for the pictures. For some reason my upload rates are sluggish so I'm just gonna do the link thingy.

And now time to try and fight off the cold that kinda started kicking in after the shoot...

Part 2 is Up...

The absolute first draft, the electrons are still hot and shoving each other around. This is tentatively titled Shadowhawk and continues the (mis)adventures of the Five that began in Morgenstern. I suspect that this will be a 4 part epic, although there's no telling how things will develop. It's on my Caltech website by the way. As always, it's a work in progress and constantly evolving.

Wickerman 2009

As always, click on the title for the pictures from the Wickerman party. It was a real blast closing 2009 and now it's 2010!

In other news... time for a new semester and hopefully I'll be able to get through cleanup on Shadowhawk and keep pushing on Part 3.