C’est Fini!

“If you stumbled across this blog by chance, you might want to consider hitting the 'Back' button before continuing. Consider this your first, last, and only warning...proceed at your own risk.”
Purple Nurple – April 12, 2008

Just over a year ago, I decided to start writing about my experiences playing ultimate frisbee in Ottawa. After over 100 entries, a stint of competitive frisbee, two URL changes, dating a team-mate, playing through injuries, pissing off a coordinator, a tournament victory, one fake Rambler, and captaining my first team...I’ve decided to stop. Although I have plenty of reasons, I’ll stick to the top few.

1. Lack of time

One of the great things about my blog when no one was reading it, was that I could hammer out an entry in 10 minutes. As more people started to visit, the time spent editing grew accordingly. Couple that with a job that’s got me thinking of dropping league altogether, along with other important commitments, and I just don’t have enough hours in a day to do an entry or two every week.

2. It’s not as much fun

Back around October, writing entries started to feel like work. Coincidentally, that was about the same time that playing ultimate started to feel like work. If you look back, one of my “personal goals” every time I listed them, was to keep frisbee fun. I have enough stresses in my life without ultimate being one of them. I can’t imagine the last few months of entries have been fun reading, since I didn’t have much fun writing them.

3. The blog has run it’s coarse

An income statement tells you what happened to a company fiscally over a 1-year period. If you can read between the lines, you get a great idea of the fiscal health of the enterprise. Similarly, those of you who have tracked the blog for a while can figure out much of what has happened to me on and off the field starting last April. Admittedly, I like the idea of stopping now, with tryouts days away…leaving some of my readers in suspense ;-)

4. It’s time for a fresh start

For those of you who have logged onto LeagueRunner lately, you’ll have noticed that your teams from last summer are gone (unless you’re returning). Although it was a bit of a shock not to see ‘BigFish’ on my list of teams, I love the idea of having to work my way back. This year, tryouts are a do-over for me, with limitless opportunities if I can step up…

5. I don’t have much to write about, nor do I plan to.

As awesome as they’ll be this summer, I’m debating dropping my Monday night league team so I can stay late at work more often. Without a league team, and considering I’d never write publicly about comp practices, that leaves me very little frisbee-related matter to blog about. Plus, for those who haven’t noticed, I’ve tried to stop using names of people in here. I like to think of it as protecting the innocent from guilt by association ;-)


I think that’s enough reasons. My short-term plan is to keep the blog up for a few weeks, and then archive it somewhere where I can review it in the future. I might post with the results of tryouts, but don’t promise anything.

I’ll pre-empt a few questions, by telling you:
A) Yes, I do have another project planned, but your chances seeing it are about the same as me hooking up with one of my many “man crushes”.
B) I stand behind everything that I said in this blog. Have I made some mistakes? Hell yes…who doesn’t?
C) No, I won’t tell you which team-mate it was.
D) I don’t harbor any ill-will toward unwanted visitors / readers. The amusement of their viewing patterns (even the ones who find my writing “painful”) more than makes up for the unwanted increase in traffic.

Looking back, it’s crazy how this evolved from something for my amusement, to a site that now receives several hundred views a week. Even though I’ve employed a number of measures to avoid popularity, I would like to thank my readers for all the feedback they’ve given me. As mentioned in my 100th entry, I’ve met some incredible players through this blog, and more importantly, incredible people. Thanks to all of you.

As for regrets, I don’t have any. If I’ve said something that’s offended you, get me back on the field. I hear vendettas are huge in OCUA ;-) Plus, despite a nasty flu that’s hampered me the past week, I’m in awesome shape right now and can’t wait to hit the grass this summer.

I thought about ending with the track-list for my summer ulty CD, but instead, am going to suck it up, and leave myself open for a few parting shots by posting “my” latest ultimate parody song. All criticism should be directed to the lanky, wobbly-throwing, purple-loving geek - James King. If you have compliments, I’ll have to tell you offline who deserves them :P Happy hucking!

Bids
(To 'Kids' by MGMT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnDF3TNYiBM&feature=related)

You laid out
Got turf burn on your knees from it
Making your team so proud
Cheering you ever so loud

They like to watch you flying
Snatching discs out of the air
No time to think of consequences

[Chorus:]
Control yourself
Or you’ll be scarred for life from it
Arthritic knees you never wanted
You’ll be haunted
[Repeat chorus]

The praise is sincere
The applause makes you shiver
A disc is released
Crying out for a sick bid

The memories fade
Like looking through frisbee goggles
Decisions to layout are made
A heavy price is paid
But you guessed it wouldn’t hurt a lot
I guess not