Sporting Clays: More Data

Due to popular requests (ok, it was 1 request), I have summarized performance in a different way.

I don't know what conclusions you can draw.

Andy seems to have trouble with Station 10 (one of the shots is a relatively fast left-to-right).

I was less stable this time around. I either "solved" the station, or I did not. Station 4 gave me trouble both times, and stations 2,4,7,11 were "unsolved". Every third station I did well, except the last one on this most recent outing (which wasn't the last one that I shot).


Cumulative chart is interesting, for 4/12 we were together until about the 5th station(being generous to me), then Andy pulled away. On 4/3 he pulled away at the third station.


Note to internet: Do not give me data. I will plot it and look for conclusions.

Sporting clays: Fund Raiser

So we went back to the sporting clays place to take part in the GUCA fundraiser for scholarships.

Andy and I were only two, so we played with the guy in charge of the scholarship group, Billy. We had a fourth team member, "Jake", where we took turns playing him for each station.

Anyway, on to results. Andy:62, Me:42, Billy:57, Jake:54. Jake's score was actually very close to the average of our scores (53.67). If we swapped out for Jake's score when we played him (and it was better than we did for ourselves), it was Andy:65, Me:44, Billy:57 (Billy didn't improve).

We started at Station 8, with Andy starting as "Jake" then me, then Billy. Station 2 gave us all some trouble. We all did well on station 9. I felt like some of the stations I "solved", then I would hit them. Getting 8 feels really good. I got all 8 once for myself and once for Jake.


As you can see in the running total, station 2 really stopped my progress. My slope was still lower than the others, but it wouldn't have been that bad with a few more in station 2.



Overall, I improved this time (42 vs 35). There was only one other guy there with a pump shotgun, he seemed to believe it was a handicap. I don't think it mattered. Sometimes I would leisurely pump it, but in general I was fairly brisk with it. In general, I bet if you spent the money on an over/under, you shoot clays (thats about all they are good for (I suppose they ARE a shotgun, but for the money you wouldn't get one if you wanted it for other things)). Most other people had semi-auto shotguns. I think Andy was the only one with a side by side. I think I had the largest magazine capacity, people seemed to enjoy the ol' side by side from Andy (comments like "Take care of that, my grandfather gave me one like it" and "I am scared to shoot my old shotgun that looks like yours"). I got comments more like "Where does he live, Grant Park?"[evidently a high(er) crime area of Atlanta (historically?)] and "He can fit a whole box of ammo in that magazine" (I wish! (actually, I don't that would be really heavy)). Its amazing what a black parkerized finish and some black plastic can do to change people's mind about an action.

Note: Reading back over this, I found many typos. Ha, tell me if there are more! I am getting sloppy in my old age.

Spring cleaning! and weekend

I just noticed that all of my titles suck to my posts.

Titles are hard.

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled post.

Saturday, we cleaned the house. I think it was the first time that we really cleaned the house, all the way through. I even reached along the side of the fridge (who knows, maybe not even touched since the last tenants!), it was gross. If something fell there, we just let it fall into the puddle of poison and grossness and left it hoping that some bug would eat it and die.

It felt really good to get that done though (cleaning the house)[I exaggerate a bit about the sides/under the fridge, but not much]. I bought a new set of shelves, I was very impressed. We were in target to get some other things, these shelves were on clearance, $15. Veneer on particle board, but it seems like it will work for now, and now I have room in my room (no more random stuff just stacked in a laundry basket).


Sunday we went to Medival Times. It was pretty fun for a dinner and a show, as long as you let yourself have fun (the plot is for kids). The horse-work was pretty cool.

Sweepstakes

I entered into a sweepstakes this morning.

FIVE minutes later, I got a call from them asking if I wanted a trial membership, of course, only pay shipping and handling. Then its 60$ a month after that (I assume if you don't cancel).

I quickly gathered this information from the nice sounding dude and then told him that I wasn't interested.

Amazing how fast telemarketers can get you!

So, is it a good trade to enter into a sweepstakes, but then have to deal with things like that?

Attention to detail

I was reading this article "Why time stands still at 9:42am on iPhone" while killing time when I should have been working.

Basically, the time is at 9:42 because that's the local time of the launch of the product, with 40 minutes of lead up to the product from when the presentation starts.

Love apple or hate apple, what I got out of the article was a culture committed to detail.

You plan out your presentation so well (and far enough out) that the static images in your presentation are synced with real time.

Shooting Clays

Andy, Emma, Ben, and I went shooting clays last weekend.

The game was 12 "stations" of two clay launchers (at different speeds/angles) in each station.
Stations 1-10 we shot 8 shots in sets of two, the second clay was launched on the sound of the first shot. Stations 11-12 were 10 shots. We went to Cherokee Rose in Griffin.

Anyway, here is a summary of the performance. Andy did much better than Ben and I. Ben and I had basically the same slope. Andy was about double in performance per station. Station 4 gave Ben and I problems. Station 8 gave Andy and Ben problems. Station 10 gave Andy and Ben problems, but I did my best on that one (I think it was relatively fast, left to right). I tended to do better with fast clays (I suspect I was over-leading).
It looks like Ben got tired at the end, but I think it was just that I did very well(for me) in station 10, then just 1 clay better on the last two.

We were practicing for a fund raiser event where Andy and I are going to be on a team of some sort. I hope that my lines look better next time.

Yellow coatings

The pine trees have decided to coat everything in a yellow 'dust'.

blargh.

Rain is coming, or so they say.

The front will need to pickup some moisture if it is going to have much of an effect here.

Leaked videos and what you get out of it

I just watched the wikileaks video that came out today about how some reuters camera people were killed back in 2007.

Its fairly graphic but also shows the trouble that the fog of war can cause.

Wikileaks leading up to the release of the video described it as "indiscrimate" "slaying".

As I watched the video, I was struck by how I probably would have fired in that situation. It seems (based on quotes in the video itself) that gatherings of males in courtyards was typically done by people that wanted to attack the US military. The way that the guys were carrying their cameras made it look like they were shouldering rifles (it wasn't like the camera was resting on their belly). There was a problem with timing, as the camera man pulls out his zoom lens camera as he pops out behind a corner to check out the street. At the angle of the helo-camera, it looks like something about rpg sized that he is poking out from the corner. If the helo-cam (was it a helo?) was 180 degrees off from its position at that time, they might have been able to tell it was a camera.

I guess my point is, with the resolution of the camera, the lighting, the building occluding stuff, I could see how the mistake was made. They followed all ROE it seems though, as they kept asking for permission to take shots. I can't imagine being in a shaking helo starting at a little screen trying to tell if a black smudge is a zoom camera lens or an RPG that is going to shoot down my helicopter.

Its sad that those people died. Its sad that they had their kids in the van. It seemed to be a mistaken identity rather than an "indiscrimate slaying" of civilians.

I doubt that any of the people in the helicopter are proud that they fired on reuters camera men and onlookers (although at the time, given that they thought they were the enemy, they were proud of the work). In fact, they probably have problems with grief over it.

I suppose I am worried because I think you can take what you want out of the video. If you believe the US military is mostly evil, this video can reenforce that. If you believe that the military is mostly good, you can also reenforce that.

Side note: Anyone else think that wikileaks has/had some nation state sponsoring it?
Might not even be overt sponsoring, but more like enabling (in terms of seed funding)? Once the ball is rolling, I bet it wouldn't take much to get it self sufficient.
I dunno what to think about them, but they seem to have an agenda on the really big stuff. I don't advocate classifying material to bury controversy, but I also will not advocate releasing classified info just because you want to. They seemed to have strayed from their original goal of exposing corrupt regimes in asia and africa (focusing on gitmo, US in Iraq/Afghanistan, banking corruption related to the subprime and nation debt, and etc) [I like the info about nation debt and banking deals though... ] Might just be the stuff that is submitted to them, who knows.

Movie predictions

I have a friend (name begins with a 'T' and ends in an 'odd') that has been pretty good at predicting what movie will make #1 for that week.

Two recent movies that I have been sort of "meh" at, thinking that they would not do too well have done very well. Alice did well and last weekend was very good for Clash of the Titans. He was pumped about both of those movies, like, visibly excited.

New heuristic: If I am "meh" on the movie and he is totally pumped about it, I should be prepared for it to do well.

Spring time

Its spring time!

I was hot yesterday for the first time since fall, where it wasn't because I was running or something.

I need to figure out a way to make slides in my head sleeping in a hammock...

Still working on new glasses...

Gah, glasses all look very similar.

Yet, they seem to make a big difference.

I'd probably be better off just rolling some dice and not wasting time.