As much practice as I can get.

I went to the club today at 6:30 pm. I worked on a smooth delivery and throwing guards.

Had Beth take a couple of videos. My back leg is moving around just a little bit. Not sure if that is normal or because I was thinking about the camera. *sigh*

Will have to worry about that later.

Yay for practice!

I was worried I wasn't going to be able to practice today. No one who had a key posted on the calendar they were going to open the club.

However, I lucked out, and my husband pinged me to let me know Steve L was going to practice at the club. Beth and I showed up at 6:30 pm on the dot and got a chance to throw some rocks.

More exciting news, there will be practice ice available tomorrow at 6:30 pm as well! Yah!

After practice, I picked Jeremy up from bridge. They were still in the middle of a game, so I pulled up, managed to get the car stuck in a snow and ice drift, and then unstuck. I also helped ingest Joe's gingerbread house. May not sleep so well tonight.

Too much snow!

The roof over our deck broke this morning.

Working from home.

We've received a ton on snow and the weather has continued to stay cold. I can't remember getting this much snow since high school.

They closed the office down. Most of us are working from home. Jeremy and I made a quick run to the grocery store. There's so much snow, you can see the scrape marks from where the underbelly of the car scraped the snow off. As it was, it was close. Jeremy had to get out and rock the car so we could get out.

Jeremy's making beef stew, and Gravity is taking a nap in the couch next to me.

Officiating Class

Yesterday, Jeremy, myself, and a few other club members took the officiating class offered at Seattle Granite Curling Club. The price was $15 per person, IF they chose to apply for certification.

It was a great class filled with lots of interesting bits of information. As a member of a team going to its first regional playdown, it was great to know before hand, how much practice time we will have, and when the clocks start and stop for each team. Knowing this before the regionals can keep us from losing a game because we ran out of time.

This class is also excellent for curlers who AREN'T interested in officiating or curling competitively. It showed us how to measure rocks. Starting by setting the device behind the hack so it cools down and doesn't leave marks in the house, to properly holding the device and entering the house.

Gravity seem to be okay, but the everything else is just yucky.

After her seizure on Tuesday, and the 2nd seizure on Wednesday, Gravity seems to be doing well.
I stayed home on Tuesday to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't have any seizures during the day. Wednesday, just after midnight she had a second seizure.

I spent a couple of hours working from home, and then I took her to the vet. She whined and cried the whole visit there. She definitely needs to get more exercise. Gravity has gained 2 pounds since last year, weighing in at 29 lbs. The results came back, her red blood and white blood cell count were fine. Her kidney tests were fine. Her liver however was a little elevated. I need to get back there for a fasting blood test.

Yesterday they closed the office down due to snow. They still went through with the release. It took me awhile, but once I figured out how to edit my host file and tunnel to work, I was able to assist. Other than that, I've just been writing test cases.

Today I feel a little lame. I worked from home again. I was one of only three people who didn't make it in. I don't drive well in snow, and I was once trapped on a Metro bus for 6 hours in crappy weather. I'm not too keen on repeating it.

I also received a phone call today, letting me know that a compressor fan at our curling club froze and that there's water on our ice. I find it amusing, because the heater has been broken for a couple of weeks and its been almost as cold inside (26 degrees) as it has been outside. Not sure how that creates water. :D

The ice should be ready by mid Sunday, but that ruins our last 2 team practices before women's regionals. *sigh*

Post-Ictal Dog Seizure

This morning just after 4 am, Gravity, my 6 year old beagle had a post-ictal dog seizure.

Gravity likes to sleep under the covers, and there was a lot of motion. I flung off the covers, to find her on her side, with her legs moving like she was running. She was panting heavily and foaming at the mouth.

I'm not sure if she was hyperventilating or not, but she was breathing heavily. There was lots and lots of drool/foaming. She really managed to scare Jeremy and myself. I was in a panic. Afterwards, she spent a lot of time pacing and sniffing around. I feel like she was scared to go back to sleep, but the documentation says being disoriented for the 1st hour afterwards is normal.

She seems to be okay now, but I'm working from home to keep a close watch on her. The emergency vet said to keep an eye out for a 2nd seizure.

Monday Night Leage, Dec 15, 2008

Finally,we were able to show off the Neil shirts! No more secretive planning and whispers. :D

The "I survived Neil Enns and his tutu (er, I mean petticoat)" made their debut at the Seattle Granite Curling Club three minutes before the late draw.

I'm sure Neil was wondering what was up. I sent him an email earlier that day, pestering him about his petticoat. "You should wear your petticoat! Make sure Andrew gets the full Neil Enns experience." And the response,"Andrew worked for me for 9 months, I'm pretty sure he got the full experience."

Additionally, Neil was running around all over the club last night. Upstairs, downstairs, upstairs. I was thinking he knew what was up. Andrew finally got to the club and I managed to get him away from Neil. Just before we went on the ice, we hid in the stairwell and then came out wearing our ice blue Neil shirts.

I'm pretty sure they were a hit. I had a couple of extra ones made, and sold one on the spot!

All day at the Seattle Granite Curling Club

It was a very long, cold day at the Seattle Curling Club. The heater is broken, and it was practically colder inside on the ice than it was outside.

Gabrielle and I spent an hour and a half attempting to get to the club. Her rental did not navigate our icy hill very well. It took close to 45 minutes to get to Juanita Drive.

We finally made it, and spent a couple of hours with our team practicing. We went through our 10 minute practice routine. That went fairly well. Then our team continued to work on our line of delivery, that we had started in Richmond. We all still have a few quirks to iron out. At the end, we had our draw to the button, and I finally won, with a draw of 3 1/2 inches away from the button!! The next closest was 6 inches.

I then subbed for Steve L in the mixed doubles league. After women's practice my draw weight was pretty good, and I feel like I played well. Our team beat Jake and Betty (who subbed for Emily) by 4 or 5 points. I got a great compliment from Steve, who said I was his first choice when he needed a sub for mixed doubles. I still have a lot of work to do to, but its always cool to get the warm fuzzy compliments.

Our Mixed League game - Calcagno vs Benson also went well. We won easily and shook after the 6th end. It took time for me to readjust to the ice. The first two ends were super heavy compared to earlier in the day. It took something like a split of 3.28 to make the T Line. One of my 'take-outs' ended up as a 4. The first end set the tone of the game with us taking 4 points with hammer.

My inturn is getting much better. I had two phenomenal shots, but again, still needs a lot of work for consistency.

Snow!!

Yesterday my women's team drove up to Canada for a team practice at the Richmond Curling Club.

On the way there, we made a stop up at the Langley Curling Club for supplies. I had to exchange a right gripper that came down with my left sliding shoe. What was really funny, is that Nigel came back out with two right grippers.

I said, "Nigel, I need two left grippers."
Nigel, "You're both right handed."
"Yes, but we need left grippers. The sliding shoe is on the left foot."
I got another puzzled look, and then he headed back into the room with the grippers. In the end, I left Langley with 3 performance broom heads for a friend, a new broom head for myself, two grippers, and a Langley curling baseball cap.

We then struggled through some traffic to Richmond. The Olympic ice facility opened across from the Richmond club and were allowing visitors onto the ice. In the end, we made it just a few minutes past 1 pm.

We worked on a timed 10 minute practice, to simulate the practice time we'll get at the regionals playdown. After a 3 or 4 of those, we switched to working on our line of delivery. For the most part, we worked on our out turn. It was a good practice.

Afterwards, Beth came with me as I drove as quickly as I could back to Seattle, to assist in a rental at the Seattle Granite Curling Club. It had started to snow, so the usually 70 MPH drive was brought to a mere 50 MPH for safety. We also ended up taking a detour from Peace Arch to Blaine, as Peace Arch had been closed.

Great practice session today!!

I felt like I had an excellent practice session today. I threw about 16 rocks by myself, when my teammate Beth arrived. I threw another 16 rocks or so after she showed up.

My line looked pretty good. I felt more comfortable in the hack today than I have in awhile.

I ended up subbing on Elizabeth Booth's team tonight. We ended up beating the Richard team 7 to 3. Turns out it was Elizabeth's 1st win of the season on women's league. I asked her how my line of delivery was, and she said I was spot on. My weight however, was a little off. I was a little heavy, and ended up with some rocks in the top of the house, instead of guards.

I'm still more worried about line of delivery than my weight at the moment. I would like to continue to be consistent with how I threw tonight for the next month. I will be practicing in the Richmond club in Canada this Saturday, and I have practice on Sunday along with 2 games.

Yay for curling!!!

Photos from this weekend

Holiday Spiel 2008

My women's team, minus our skip Gabrielle participated in the Seattle Granite Curling Club 2008 Holiday Bonspiel. Our substitute skip was Clare Cloutier.

We did fairly well. We won our first game by one point Friday night against a Canadian team from the Peace Arch club, the Renner rink. We continued in the A bracket and won against the Booth rink 8 to 3. That was very impressive, because we stole points in 5 of 7 ends.

Finally, we lost 9 - 4 in 7 ends to Wes Johnson's rink. A very respectable team to lose to. That ended our time in the Holiday spiel. I make the side note : we started in the A bracket, and finished in the A bracket . :D

Jeremy's team should be finishing their game. His team is in the B bracket. He's playing the Canadian team we played in our first game. His team should beat them, which means he gets to get up and head back to the club for a 10:30 am draw.

The Holiday spiel was a lot of fun, but seemed quite a bit more subdued than last year.When we got off the ice around10:30, the upstairs seemed fairly empty. However the participation for the ugly holiday sweater contest seemed to be in full swing. There were lots and lots of ugly sweaters out there. We missed seeing who one, because we were on the ice playing our third game...