Revolution (Davis, CA)

Aggressive mark
Fake once or twice (cutting and throwing)
Talk to the thrower
Go deep when poached, then come back to handle
Play confidently, and everything else will follow

Laundry time at the NG household

Urban Race San Francisco!

Bryan, Doris, Jin and I participated in the CitySolve Urban Race SF today! It's sort of like The Amazing Race, for San Francisco. It was a timed race, with 10 clues (you had to complete 9 clues to be eligible to win), and one of the clues were mandatory. It was pretty hot in SF today, about 80 degrees, and we were walking/running/sprinting around all day but it was a ton of fun and I would totally do it again!  Our team name was Mixed Nuts!

We started off at a bar where we received the first clue, in which the answer to the multiple choice question was attached to a location:

Which band is NOT from San Francisco?

A) Jefferson Airplane
B) The Doors
C) Grateful Dead
D) Sly & Family Stone

And we were off!

In North Beach, we had to find a tourist wearing a gold chain (you can sorta see the chain):

 And take a picture with pizza (the guy was so hopeful that he was going to sell us some pizza :P)

We ended up in some kind of festival or market near Coit Tower and it smelled so delicious:

We also had to find a trumpet or a saxophone. So we found a music store, with what we thought was a trumpet in the window:

Me: "Hey it's a trumpet! Let's take a picture!"
Bryan: "No, that's flugelhorn."
Me: "What?! It's a trumpet!"
Bryan: "No, it's a FLU-GEL-HORN"
Store clerk: "It's a trumpet."
Bryan: "It's a flugel... nevermind. Let's just take a picture."

So here we are with the flugelhorn:

We started waiting for a bus, which never reached us because it kept turning, so we just walked from Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf. Here we are unfruitfully waiting for the bus:

 Michelle was a trooper and came along for the ride:

 We found Musee Mechanique near Pier 45:

Then we went to Pier 39 for our mandatory clue, which was to sell a bottle opener for $5 as a donation to OneBrick, a charity that connects volunteers with charities. Bryan says, "I think you girls would have the best chance at selling, go." So we ask about 10 people and they all turn me and Doris down. And then I started offering to take pictures of couples:

Me: "Hey, do you want a picture with both of you guys? I'll take your picture."
Random guy: "Okay, sure!"

And then after I take their picture, I chat them up and ask where they're from and such (the couple was from Brazil!), and then said, "Oh hey, so we're fundraising for this charity... yadda yadda, do you want to donate $5 to this charity...???" So the guy reluctantly gave me $5, and we were off! The dude had the funniest man-I-just-got-ripped-off face ever. Hahaha oh well it's for a good cause :P

Then SPRINTED to catch the bus to Civic Center, sitting down for the first time in 3 hours:

Took a photo with Sightglass (didn't get any coffee because it was already super hot out):

And then we were done! We ended up back at finish line, completing 9 out of 10 missions, along with some bonus clues as well. Woohoo! The first place team finished at 2 hours and 10 minutes, I think we were close to 4 hours. :P Oh well, go Mixed Nuts! :)

Flugelhorn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flugelhorn

We're playing for ABBQ!

I feel like this is one of those announcements that couples have that are like, "We're engaged!" or "We're having a baby!" It's just that I'm so excited and pumped!! So here it is: "Doris and I are playing for ABBQ this year!" Here's to another season of silly catching faces (mostly Doris), getting knocked around (mostly me), massages (mostly me stepping on Doris' back), new friends, fastness, awesome frisbee, and WINNING.

I think Bryan's calves are deflating.

I went to another mixed team tryouts today, and tried out as a cutter again. I'm doing things as a cutter that I've told cutters not to do.. like, not facing your dump before throwing, and cutting people off. Dah!

Tryouts!

I'm trying out for different mixed teams in the Bay Area.. man, there are SO MANY TEAMS! And a lot of the mixed teams' names are sexual (or maybe everything on Urban Dictionary is sexual). It weirds me out!

One fun and interesting thing is that I'm trying out as a cutter instead of a handler. Ever since I hurt my shoulder in October last year (strained my supraspinatus tendon on the most awkward layout ever), I'm very hesitant to throw backhands, and I'm still uncomfortable throwing backhand hucks. The only way I can confidently get backhands off is if I throw really low (which is good, I guess) because it forces me to put a lot of spin on the disc and have a short follow-through after I release, but it really limits my range of backhands.

I did PT for my shoulder for a couple months and it helped a lot so my shoulder didn't limit any normal activities. But it still gets sore when I throw a lot of backhands or do pushups.

Anyway, I tried out as a cutter this past weekend and it was way fun and took a lot of the pressure off my throwing, so I think I played a lot better. It also helped that Doris and Bryan were at tryouts too, reminding me that I play my best when I'm having fun with people I love. :)

Karen Ng, PhD

I decided a couple weeks ago that I wanted to attend my graduation ceremony because I thought my mom and grandma would enjoy it. So this morning I received an email from MIT telling me that I only have a few more days to reserve my cap and gown before I was charged a $25 late fee. So I went onto the MIT commencement website, which says that I can either reserve my gown in person at The Coop, or I can call in. Obviously I can't reserve my gown in person so I clicked on the website for The Coop (which is linked directly from the MIT Commencement website), and clicked on "Contact Us," which had a phone number for the The Coop.

I called the phone number and spoke to a delightfully friendly person named Adam. I told him my situation, and he said that he can just take my info via phone and will submit my rental request for me. So we went through the process: I gave him my name and all my contact info (including my email, karenng@alum.MIT.edu), gave him my height, weight, and credit card number. Then he told me I'm all set and that I can pick up the gown any time before graduation.

Then I said, "Just to confirm, I can pick it up in the Kendall Coop, right? Not the MIT Student Center Coop?"

And then Adam paused.

And said, "Oh. This is actually the Harvard Coop. I guess I forgot to ask you the most important question, which school you're graduating from. And you even said your email was alum.MIT.edu, but we have a lot of Harvard students with MIT email addresses."

Me: "...Oh." I'm such an idiot.

Adam: "Welllll... Let me ask my supervisor and see what the correct protocol is for transferring this order to MIT."

Me (so embarrassed): "No no no, it's okay, just cancel the order, and I'll call the MIT Coop. I'm really sorry..."

I hung up the phone, and turned to my boss, who was sitting next to me (we work in a conference room, with 3 other people, who weren't there yet) and told him, "I just ordered my graduation gown from the wrong school."

I don't deserve to graduate. :(

Frisbee friends can be found anywhere :)

So for the last month, I've been doing an externship in LA that requires me to travel to Fresno, CA during the week. As the "ultimate junkie" that I am (as Michelle calls me), I googled "Fresno ultimate" and came across a group that gets together every Tues night at 7:30pm for some pickup in a city park.

The first day I show up, I pull in the parking lot and see like 150 guys playing football. There was a full-tackle game going on in one field, and two flag football games going on in two other fields. "Where's the ultimate?" I'm thinking.

Finally, some people show up and we don't have enough to play a full game so we play 3-on-3 goaltimate, which was the first time I played goaltimate in my life! Everyone was super friendly and welcoming, asking me where I'm from, and where I played, etc.

Incidentally, I realized that my story is kind of complicated... "Well you see, I grew up in LA, went to school in Boston, then moved to SF, but I'm living in LA for the month for an internship, which has me traveling to Fresno for the week. But I live in LA on the weekends. And my husband is in SF. Um, yeah... yay frisbee!"

Anyway, I've been going for a couple weeks now, and even though the crowd is constantly changing and we play 3-on-3 goaltimate, or 4-on-4 short-field, or 2-on-2 hot box (that was a tiring one) depending on our numbers, I learned that you can always find a friendly group of people up for playing ultimate, wherever you go.