Tee Hee

Congratulations to Bleys now officially the top ranked and fastest all time Cavalier in U-Fli....oh wait, he's the only Cavalier in U-Fli.

Puppy Flies with Friends

Yesterday went really well. Our team didn't do very well in the tournament, but because it was a pick-up team anyhow it didn't really matter. I think given a little practice we could have done much better. As it was Bleys ended up running anchor because he was a little spooked by the other dog running at him. We ran with an Irish Setter named Story, a small Border Collie name Whispie, and a Australian Cattle Dog named Nora.

Bleys did earn enough points to get his Top Flight title, but he was more interested in the squeeky toy he got for running on a team. The people were very nice again and very laid back about things. This was good because there wasn't much stress about things, but since everyone (including the judges) were pretty laid back it meant that racing went at least an hour longer than it would have if it had been more controlled. The judges we have in Florida keep things rolling right along and even shorten the warmups to 1 minutes after everyone has had a chance to get at least one 2 minutes warmup. I think people in Florida tend to complain a bit about the strict judging, but I really appreciate it! The lights we had even had a timer in them. The judge could just push a button twice and there were two minutes counting down for everyone to clearly see. I liked that, but I would miss being able to see how fast the dog doing the warm up was. A trade off I suppose. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad that I got a chance to do it.

Puppy Flies

We're all in Hastings this evening. We drove up today and participated in our first U-Fli singles event. It was interesting. There weren't very many entrys, I think between the singles and the pairs there were only 10 or so. Everyone there was extremely nice and helpful. A fellow just came up and ball shagged for me without any prompting. The event is being held at the Barry Expo Center which turns out to be a fair ground type place. There are 6 buildings that aren't really enclosed fully - sort of barn-ish and a lot of RV parking/camping. There is also a race track for those horse cart thingys. It looks like most all of the teams camp out right there, which makes sense because there aren't many motels nearby.

I still haven't met any of the people from the pick-up team since none of them signed up for singles or pairs. I hope that things go well and Bleys catches some balls tomorrow!

Update

Greetings from Michigan! Roland and I arrived yesterday at Jason's place in Kalamazoo. We started out on Friday taking a couple days in Orlando for a flyball tournament. Then we continued our trek on Sunday evening, finally arriving yesterday afternoon. It was a nice drive and we had a good time (although I think the puppy could do without two days of enforced confinement).

Bleys did very well at the tournament getting a shiney new title to add to his collection. He now has his FDCh (Flyball Dog Champion), which is awesome. Again it was thanks to everyone on the team who makes allowances for his speed that he gets any points at all. He did end up catching a couple balls outright which was great, and a little surprising. His time when he doesn't catch the ball is around 9 seconds, but when he caught it, he ran the course in 7.6 seconds! Go speed puppy, go! I think most everyone had a good time and we certainly did a lot of laughing.

We are staying here in K-Zoo until Friday when we will be driving up to Hastings. Why Hastings? We are going to try out a U-Fli flyball tournament. We are going to run singles (Bleys just running by himself - no team) on Friday night and I found a pick-up team for Saturday. There is also a qualifying event going on on Saturday which means we'll get to seem to smokin' fast teams. Hopefully it will be fun!

Is there anything you can't do with PVC?

Step 1: Get discouraged

Step 2: Get encouragement from great friends (thanks Anne, Dr. J, and Janice)

Step 3: Have a great husband who finds light box plans on the internet (with super-awesome accompanying tutorial)

Step 4: Get crafty

Let there be light

I'm feeling a little frustrated at the moment. When Anne originally found Etsy I was super excited about it. A whole community of other crafty minded people like myself. But as time goes on it gets more and more obvious that people have taken it to the next level. The most recent evidence of this are the pictures. On the front page of Etsy they put some hand picked items from different sellers. However, when I look at those items I'm intimidated because of the production value. I also keep searching around just looking at random stuff ('cause its fun) and again I see pictures that are clearly well thought out and staged. It makes me feel like my items aren't well made enough to be sold and that my pictures are terrible.

I just finished a new project that I was all geeked about, but now that I finished taking some pictures and uploading them I just feel disappointed.

Best. Site. Ever.

Urban Threads. I think Anne will also really real kick out of it as well. Personally, I'm going to make something that has the Craft Ninja on it. Like tomorrow.