A Few Roses

I used to really loathe roses for some reason. In fact I generally didn't like flowers except for the fact that they DID become a lot of the fruits and vegetables and nuts that we eat. Then somehow, I started appreciating roses a lot more. It all started in late 2004 or early 2005 when my writing projects picked up again.

Red and white roses especially catch my attention -- not particularly fond of pink roses and I have yet to see an actual black or blue rose, but the deep red ones and the white ones do catch my eyes. I blame it all on my literary projects and a certain literary collaborator who has been a "thorn" in my brain and a source of inspiration for various characters and (mis)adventures in my stories.

This last flower is NOT a rose but it looked pretty neat so of course I had to take a good picture of it!

And of course, there's a lot of gratuitous pictures of good rounds in fairly strong, variable winds on the order of 20-50 kph. I keep forgetting to clean out the camera! In any event, if I can pull this off at Gator Cup, I'm in reasonably good shape. I won't be in the 650 Club but at least I can kinda hold my own. This was from a windy and rainy day practice where I had a 72 arrow score of 521/720, which is ok in the grand scheme of things but a personal best for me after my 410ish last attempt.I need more time on the archery range and less time on the road!

Courtesy of One of the Judges...

This was taken from the judges' tent.  Such a beautiful day for SERIAC 2014!

SERIAC 2014 Video Collection and Mini Cauldron-Born

 First of all, here is the link to the SERIAC 2014 video collection with an emphasis on the barebow eliminations!

In other news:

  It's Arawn's Cauldron-Born from Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series! More specifically, from the Black Cauldron... which was also adapted into a Disney film! Why, oh why, can't Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain and T. H. White's Once and Future King be on AP/Honors English reading lists instead of drivel like Wuthering Heights or other disgustingly sappy love stories that really had no point to them?

SERIAC 2014: Fly on the Wall Photographer

I didn't get to shoot SERIAC because of the whole I'm no longer eligible to shoot as a collegiate archer. Graduation does have its down-sides! Here's the link to the FULL suite of photographs: http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/GuenhwyvarAnCrosaire/library/SERIAC%202014

Links to videos will be in a later post as they become available. YouTube is rather ... slow. In the meanwhile, here are a few of the more interesting shots that I've taken out of the literally 1900+ pictures I ended up keeping... out of 3000 or so I actually took. Archers can be very difficult to photograph!

Old Project Revived and Completed

It's been a while since I've actually posted any actual stories but it's *finally* up even though it's still a very, very early draft that I've finally hit a pausing point. This story has been around for quite some time, with its earliest roots starting in 2005 or 2006 after a friend told me about the ecosystems of north-central FL but it's never really developed past the occasional puttering around. 

Without further ado, here is draft 1 of The Legend of Tesaka

And a gratuitous lucky group at 70 meters, ends of 3 as practice for elimination matches. Slowly learning the way of the Olympic recurve and hopefully will eventually break either a 36-arrow score of  300/360 or a 72-arrow composite score of 560/720. 

Prowler Fun!

Today's WOD: 20 minutes of practice on building up to toes-to-bars which was basically me flailing around trying to figure out how to kip and get my knees to my chest in proper rhythm. And then our Metcon was 3 rounds for time of : 100 meter 75# prowler push, 6 hand-stand push-ups (or in my case, on the box so I'm not fully upside down to avoid puking), 9 75# power cleans, and 12 knees-to-chest.  Completed in 18:30... which was pretty slow but I also held back a lot on the prowler push because it was hot and I didn't want to have to get scraped off the pavement.

Post-WOD silliness after frying my legs and my butt... total weight of this setup is only 75 lbs. One day I'll Rx it at 115 lbs!