The Golden Post

"In the hood, in LA, they sayin "50 you hot",
They like me, I want them to love me like they love Pac."
50 Cent - In Da Club

As I approached 50 entries, I started to re-evaluate the "raison d'etre" for this blog. As previously noted, at first, this was simply meant to be neutral location to appease my el-jay readers who complained about too many ultimate related entries, and my non-ulty Facebook friends who wondered about all the ultimate pictures. It's safe to say, the blog has evolved a fair amount over the last five months.

Having recently figured out how to see my profile views (at around 40, a tad too high for my liking) and site views (shockingly high), one of my biggest mistakes was choosing the "ottawaultimatefrisbee" url for this site. Not being smart enough to figure out how to change the name, or energetic enough to move the entries, I can't think of a way around this nasty little problem. A related issue is that Google searches tend to pick up a few words from my entries (i.e. "Ottawa", "frisbee", BigFish, etc.), and lead surfers here. For these unlucky readers, I'll give the disclaimer that the entries simply contain an average player's ramblings, and your better bet would be to visit www.ocua.ca to find out about the "official" Ottawa ulty scene.

Another downside about accidentally attracting more readers is that my entries are becoming more censored and edited. Overall, this is probably for the best. However, the result is fewer entries since it takes me longer to draft a politically correct post. With more readers, there's also some pressure to keep the entries verily ultimate specific. Looking back to the first few entries, the days of random poems, personal observations, and bitchfests are probably behind me.

One of the biggest changes of late is that I've started to feel guilty about using personal pronouns and writing about myself. This isn't a problem for Steve in his superior blog (which you should read instead of this one), as he does a much better job staying objective. Admittedly, I've tried to address broader issues and areas of interests (tournament recaps, popular OCUA threads, etc.), but still fall into using "I", "me", and "my" often.

There's also a small fear that by being rather candid about my own goals and current shortcomings on the field, I'll open myself up to smarter opponents who might try certain strategies to limit my effectiveness. However, I'm always up for a good challenge, so to all those smarter opponents:
a) Why aren't you reading Steve's smarter blog? and
b) Just bring it.

How will the blog change going forward? Well, I can't imagine hiding the entries in another address, or figuring out a way to avoid Google searches. The entries will continue to be semi-PC, with a low probability of poetry :P BUT, I'm not going to worry too much about overusing personal pronouns. Call 'me' crazy, but this is 'my' blog, so I'll write in the first person and about 'my' experiences as often as I'd like. In the immediate future, this means there will be recaps of Monday, Tuesday (picked up with Disco Fever when a Tuesday practice was cancelled), and even lowly Friday night league playoff games. As long as BigFish continues to practice, there will probably be some low-lights and high-lights of those nights as well (P.S. A high-light I didn't cover during my vacation – "The Aggressor" drill Jer invented!). Hell, if something semi-ulty related strikes my fancy, and even if it has little relevance to random readers, I'll probably include it anyway.

If there's ever something you don't like in my blog, I'll apologize in advance, since I still haven't figured out how to edit an entry after it is posted. If there's something you'd like to know more about (i.e. landsharks (ha), rules interpretations (ha ha), dangerous plays (I'm an expert on creating them), ultimate accessories (oohhh, great topic for a future post), etc.), feel free to comment, email, or ask in person. Oh, and if you feel like slagging me or Fish, just make sure you're able to back it up on the field ;-)

Looking back at the entries, when combined with my detailed BigFish practice journal, I've managed to capture a lot of my thoughts, lessons learned, and feelings about my first season of competitive ultimate. As stated in a previous post, it's nice to know that those types of memories won't be lost forever. Here's to the next 50 entries! Until next time, happy hucking!