I don't usually post about my open bowling here, but I thought I would today b/c I had a breakthrough:

190-221-176=587

Or 47 pins over my league average...bowling on the tougher Monday night shot rather than my normal league condition. I did two things differently than the last time I was on the Monday night condition: I played more where I usually play my THS (stand 17, target 6 @ the arrows), and also tried something CoachJim suggested...uncupping my wrist at release to get an earlier reaction. I might've thought about entering The People's Tournament's year-end tournament (which was why the Monday night shot was down), but since I would've had to pay $150 to enter (less than 3 TPT entries), I decided against entering this weekend. However, I'm not as scared now to enter another tournament, knowing I have a chance to do well on the tournament condition.

Nice shooting Richie. You beat me by 27 pins. =( maybe next time. Lol

549. league started well, then i fell apart in the last game. i'm not focused on the game right now.

The last couple weeks for me have been brutal, I think my average has dropped by like 5 or something, haha. Been qualifying for tournaments, so now I'm in the last spot for one tournament waiting on the guy below me to finish to see if he beats me out. He's gotta shoot 850 for 4, so he's got his work cut out. Yesterday I shot 907 for 4, averaged 227. Bowled well, except my last game, shot 208 with the front 6. Yeah, I know. Front 6, big four, strike, 7 pin miss, big four minus 10 pin. Love it. Shot 259 after that for a fifth game for additional qualifying for another tournament, an adult one. Had a good day. Haha, funny story from the week before. Left a 10 pin. I throw my spares hard, but this has never happened to me. Missed just a fraction left. The ball bounced off the back off the pit, and hit the 10 pin, tripping it forward. I'm fairly certain this counts, since the ball didn't go in the gutter, but I'm not actually sure. If someone could let me know, that'd be great, haha.

Just got back from a tournament, shot 620 and missed the cut by 20 pins. Have to try again next time.

Friday was another abyssmal night for me, I couldn't get my ball to turn. I left more variations of the 1,2,4, 10 to last me a lifetime, but near the end I believe I found something that will help me improve. Oh well, I don't remember the games but it was a 428 series.

On a side note I took Amateur's advice and decided to throw my Scout with my little finger exstended and my index finger in close, and come completely underneath the ball. Staight and true, for most of the night. Still needs some work because I didn't hit as solid or straight on as I would've liked. Regardless, I was 5 for 6 on single pin spares ( I got stuck on the approach shooting for a 5 pin). 3 for 4 on my 8 count spares. So that was cool.

Struggled quite a bit tonight. 217, 204, 201. Just couldn't carry well or string anything together. The good news was I fixed my 10 pin problem, so even in a weak scoring performance, I made progress. Plus, we swept, so there were a lot of positives.

You must mean Infernocal.

Yesterday was an average day, literally. I walked in to my PBA league with a 172 average, and finished with 691 for 4. That's an average of 172.75. I walked in to my handicap league with a 199 average and finished with a 597 which is 199 exactly. I wish I would have scored better there, but that didn't work out due to some spare problems.

173, 199, 213, 202, 158. The cut was probably around par - I didn't stick around to find out. I was 16 out going into the last game, but I had to finish on a pair that only gave up 4 200s out of 26 bowlers.

The shot was good - every part of the lane was playable, though I noticed a lot of guys who started out around 3rd arrow had trouble later. I started out straight up 6 with the Big One, and ended up straight up 5 with the Total Inferno. It was an Execution contest, not a carry contest - that said, I had some pretty [censored] carry in game 4 that could have cost me making the cut. I was in the pocket on every shot, and left 5 single pins. Never had carry like that playing outside. Even left a 9 on a ball that had rolled out. How does a rolled out ball leave a 9? Anyway, 5 missed single spares (one of which I stuck, 4 of which were bad Execution) might have made the difference. I'll find out when they post the results. I'll get a link to the BowlSK as well once I enter it - the center had no reception, so I couldn't do it while I was bowling.

Now I love bowling about as much as the rest of you guys. But after this weekend......maybe not so much. Bit off a little bit more then I could chew.

Friday night league at 9:15. Nothing, strike here and there, lots of spares, couple of dumb misses. 590. We get out of there about 12:30am, home about 1am Taco Bell in hand.

Next morning tournament. I guess when we signed up for this monster it seemed like a good idea, either that or we were drunk. 5 man 6 gamer. You move after three games to another pair. I find a replacemet for Mark who has a hand issue right now and shouldn't be bowling. So we're in well under the cap with a bit of handicap. MAMBO stands for Mexican American Bowling Org. www.mambo.org And the tournaments are nortorious drinking parties that draw folks from Fresno, Bakersfield, Bay Area, Stockton etc..... They are a blast to say the least. Anyway, we had a full house 32 teams of 5. We get 1 and 2 for the first three "yuck" but much better then 13 and 14 so I'm optomistic. Our lowest average bowler is a new bowler and this is her second tournament; she's nervous. The rest of us are fine, but only two of us really get on the horse and have some decent scores. I finish the first three with a damaging 573. We break for pizza (one per team) and they oil the lanes. Usually they don't oil the lanes but I guess they figured with the eating pizza they had time. Unfortunately a 45 min break only allowed more business to go to the bar. Start of the second set, finds two of my teammates a bit drunk. I had helped out in the Pro Shop so I was unaware of how much they'd been enjoying the break. Still after 4 games we were in a position to cash if we could just hold on the last two games. New pair is 21 , 22 a familiar and comfortable pair for us. We should have shot lights out. But one of us (our new bowler) gets very high maintenance and we drop from 8th place to 17th that 5th game. Oh well, I shoot 650 the second set and we basically bombed. Our new bowler calls for a ride, we head off to our assoc. Christmas party. 6 games.....7 1/2 hours of bowling!!

I'm beat. But Sunday we have travel league. So we're up early and on the road to Modesto. McHenry Bowl. Looks nice, but looks can be deceiving. LOL I'm tired and not all that fired up for another three games. The approaches were very tacky synthetics which I hate. And its dark. Even though this is a beautifully remodeled bowl, its dark as a tomb. Really dark. You cannot even see which ball is yours they all look black. Only lighting they had was the cosmic lighting and lane lights. I shoot 513 with more splits then I've seen in months. The shot was OK, just no hold. I had footing issues all set. When you bowl on Sunday afternoon, you never know what you are going to get. Sometimes they oil, sometimes they don't. We bowled at 1pm. We arrived at 10:30 for some prior meetings and they were not oiling the lanes. So my guess is that they oiled the lanes first thing that morning or not at all. That's all part of a travel league.

So here I sit 6am, can't sleep, but at least with the knowledge that I have until Wed with no bowling. :-} MAMBO was still really fun. Even though we tanked, we had a good team, a fun team and a good day. Only one of us was regretting the fun the next day.

Erin