I got back yesterday from the National Mixed tournament in Reno.

I bowled with my hubby, ThongPrincess, and a friend of hers. We had a lot of fun - I hope our partners weren't too disgusted with our performance.

The tournament seemed to be VERY well run this year. In fact, we got a bit of a surprise on Friday night.

I met up with The Curse of Dusty to bowl doubles. Instead of doubles, we were asked to fill in as subs on a team from Michigan, so we did.
Everyone told me to bring my oil balls - that there was so much head oil that getting the ball through the heads without rolling out was going to be an issue.

Surprise!!!
The lanes came on for practice, and WOW - the ball was left off my hand. DRY, DRY, DRY, TOASTY, ARID, DESERT lane condition. WOW!!! Talk about unexpected!!! And my urethane was in the truck, elsewhere, with my hubby...

Well, we practiced, and worked at getting lined up. Dusty and I were both stunned! But I finally got lined up, and threw strikes in the 7th through 9th frames. At that point, a tournament official came up to us, and let us know that something had happened to the lane machine, and the lanes did not get oiled correctly prior to our squad, so they were moving us to another pair, to start over. They did this to/for the entire mixed team bowlers. (the
doubles/singles lanes were oiled by another machine).

I was quite impressed with the tournament officials admission that they messed up. Our team is currently sitting in 19th place, with 3 weeks left in the tournament.

I went through the CATS system as well. Mike Jasneau may just have figured out what's wrong with my game - late timing on the first couple of steps, combined with muscling the ball through the swing - recipe for disaster. So.... I'll be working on that the next couple of months - can't wait to see the benefit.

Overall, great trip!

--------------------
If winning isn't important,
why do they keep score?
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Vince Lombardi

Edited on 10/12/2004 4:22 PM