Dan, I must have missed your intro, welcome to the site. I see you are a fellow Northern VA resident like myself, where do you bowl at?

Jim, I've been here over a year. Actually we have met before, as I took an excellent footwork lesson off you last year up in Gaithersburg. I'd have been back for more but my schedule and budget both were a bit fouled up for awhile.

Right now I bowl at Dranesville, but I'm moving to Woodbridge in a month and will start bowling leagues down there.

I thought that was you, I never heard back from you, and I have been in and out of the hospital since then.

Where do you bowl PBAX at?

Sorry to hear you've been in the hospital. Nothing serious I hope.

I'm doing PBAX at Dranesville. Unfortunately it's not sanctioned as such, but we're using the oil patterns as well as a couple sport shot patterns coming up in a few weeks.

I have been out of bowling since last November. I tore my quad from both of my kneecaps practicing at Gaithersburg one Sunday morning. That's what I get for not checking the approaches when they have cosmic the night before.

Let me know if they are going to run it during the fall, I am interested in bowling in PBAX leagues as much as possible.

OWWWWWWWW!! I take it your legs are heal(ing/ed)?

Once in December I went down hard after sticking and wrenched my knee. Wasn't bad enough to stop me from bowling but I was wearing a knee brace from then until the end of the season. Lucky, too, because in late April I went down again, this time someone's child spilled a drink and nobody said anything and of course I got it on the bottom of my shoe. That one I thought I'd done some real damage, and went to the hospital. But no damage and it feels great now. I think the knee brace saved me there.

I don't know about a fall PBAX league at Dranesville. They tried last year and had 8 people show up. I think it was a combination of having it on Sunday morning and that so many people were burned out after the summer PBAX. Spring PBAX ended up with 8 3-person teams and summer has 28 3-person teams. Who knows what this fall will bring. I'll check it out and email you with details.

Like I said, I'm moving to Woodbridge so will be looking for a PBAX league down there. I'm interested in doing it in the fall as well.

I am getting better, I am still not working and am going to therapy 3 times a week.

If there isn't a pbax league in woodbridge, your average will jump about 10 pins, that house is one of the highest scoring houses around.

Did you see the most recent NCAUSBCBA magazine with all the honor scores listed. Woodbridge had both the highest series and most honor scores of all the houses in the area. Part of me is looking forward to it, but on the other hand I like challenges and if it's too easy it'll be boring.

No I haven't seen this years magazine, I was basing it on the last 7 or so years' stats in that same magazine.

Either way enjoy it and have fun. Much of the high scores and averages are attributed to many of the higher average bowlers in our area sitting in 2 or more hours of traffic to bowl there, so the numbers are skewed a little. You would think they would sit in traffic to bowl in a PBAX league, but apparently it is better to burn gas to bowl on the easiest shot in town. I have seen more than a few of their addresses change over the years so they don't have to drive down there.

Gaithersburg has many of the same bowlers, but the house average is 10 pins less. So to combat this Gaithersburg has bought a new lane oiling machine to make the shot easier and their averages are all up at least 5 over last year. I am looking forward to picking up a copy of the local Bowl magazine to check and see if they improved or not, they may not because the machine was broken for most of the year, but just wait until next year. I will probably average 220 on two bad legs and a one step delivery

Wow! I can't believe anyone, with today's gas prices among other things, would drive 1-2 hours to bowl on easier conditions. Just unreal.

One thing I heard last night is that the manager of AMF Dale City lanes is really good. Since I'm probably equidistant from the two I'm going to check into those lanes as well. What I'd really like to do is find one regular PBAX league and then sub in other leagues on a regular basis. But if I can't find a PBAX league then I'll go into a competitive mens league.

BTW, I posted my games from last night at bowlSK. I'm listed as double.wood.dan, I think.