What's new in Twizzler-land?

The following article was something I wrote back in May 1987 – fresh out of High School. I thought it would be fun to type it up and share it here. When I originally wrote this, I had been inspired by the fun I experienced while playing Frisbee with my sister. I submitted this article to “The Sportsmen Magazine” but they had unfortunately just stopped publishing and returned the article to me.

Now, over 20 years later, I’ve recently started playing more regular Frisbee again with Tobey, teaching him the same unique throwing style that my sister and I perfected oh so long ago. We nicknamed the throwing style the “Thumber“. Here is that article, in its unaltered, original state from 1987:

WRIST FLICKING FUN!

Frisbee throwing may be the most exciting, economical, easy to learn, and overall fun sport you’ll ever play. Or maybe you haven’t caught on yet and that’s why you’re reading this article. Then again, maybe you do know about it but you would like to find out more about Frisbee and the art of throwing. Either way, this article will show you new ways to explore this pastime growing across the nation.

Getting started in this sport may be the most surprisingly easy you’ll ever find. In my entire life, I have invested about $21 in the sport. How many activities can you say that about? I’ve tried Tennis – about $450 there for two nice racquets and several cans of balls.  I’ve tried Golf, but never been able to find the right set of clubs for my height. About $250 there just for clubs and green fees, not including what my parents pay for membership to the local country club. Enough said. There are just not that many sports that you can say – “I’ll take that up” and be playing it in under an hour later for under $10. You might even think that you need to spend a lot to have a good time or become real good at it. I played most of my life with a small, beat-up, lightweight Wham-O disc. I just recently added a trashcan lid Wham-O and an Aerobie to my small collection, but all you really need is a few bucks and you’re set for years. Most sports involve a court, a track , a golf-course, a swimming pool, or something else that is not available at a moment’s notice or on a whim that you and a friend have. Not so with your friend the Frisbee! All you need is space, and not until the year 3000 A.D. will we run out of that. You can use a front yard, a driveway, a cul-de-sac, a park, just about anything that meets your throwing specifications. I guess about the only other thing you need is a friend or two but I’ve never yet had that be a problem that’s stopped me from playing. As a matter of fact, my sister of three years younger and I have become very close just because of Frisbee.

Okay, now you are set. If you have read this far, you must already have the equipment needed. If not, what are you doing sitting here reading this? Well, how is the weather out, it’s too windy you say? Nah, never let a little thing like wind stop you! Some of my favorite memories have been in the wind when the Frisbee will do things that will defy nature. It will swoop and climb, go up and come back down behind you, and sometimes even seem to just float on a wind current for seconds. Oh it’s sunny out you say? Great! Put on some shorts, search for grass, put on sun-tan oil, take off your shirt (only guys now), even search for someone to impress! Have a ball! Dive for a throw on the grass! Talk to the person you’re throwing to, it doesn’t take so much concentration that you can’t gossip and catch up on the latest things in that person’s life. Try tricks! Who cares if you’re not that good yet, anybody has a chance of pulling off some fancy catch. There the behind the back, one hand through the leg, two handed between the legs, and for high ones, just hit in the center sending it spinning higher and hopefully back into your hand. For some real fun, try kicking it with you foot, then tipping it with you hand and then catching it, tough stuff!

What, you say you’re not having any fun and you can’t throw a disc? Oh, it’s easy! The only trick is to flick your wrist strongly while throwing it perfectly horizontal. All right, I admit it’s harder than it sounds. Is it going straight and then curving off to the side? You probably have the same trouble I used to have – you are having trouble flicking your wrist strongly enough. No problem! One of the reasons many trick throws have been invented is for practical reasons. I myself can’t even throw the normal backhand way everyone learns. I was heavily discouraged until someone showed me an unusual way many years back.

How to hold for the "Thumber" throw

Take your thumb, which is normally on top of the disc and balance the bottom edge on it so it hangs down and your hand looks like you’re giving someone a high five. Now simply grip the top of the frisbee with your four fingers and turn your hand like you’re hitch-hiking. Throw the Frisbee off your hand counter-clockwise if you’re right handed, the opposite if you are left-handed. This method is tough to perfect but helps if you can’t flick your wrist strong enough the other way.

Tobey demonstrates throwing form

Just make sure you throw it perfectly level; it sometimes helps to get on one knee and get into a sidearm throwing stance/action. This method helped my sister, who was quite young at the time and couldn’t snap her wrist enough.  Other methods of throwing are the sidearm and overhand methods. I haven’t quite perfected them yet but it’s fun to watch others who can.

Okay, some of you might be saying, I already know about all those things, I’m probably better than you so what else can I do with a Frisbee? Well, have you ever heard of Ultimate? Fast becoming a major sport, it has helped bring Frisbee throwing more credibility with the game oriented people. A game of two teams of around 7, you combine the elements of football, basketball, and soccer. In a brief summary, you pass the Frisbee to a teammate down the field who stops, attempts a catch and furthers the disc towards the goal. If a throw is missed or intercepted the other team takes possession. Many other games can be played, such as ’500′ and simple accuracy tests. They’re all fun, but I get the biggest thrill out of one-on-one flicking.

Go grab a Frisbee!

I hope this article has furthered your enjoyment of Frisbee or brought this sport to your attention. Is the weather nice right now? Grab a pal and your Frisbee and go toss a few! What do you know, you may have some fun!

Edit: Added a few current day pictures to help demonstrate the Thumber throw in action.

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For a long time, I’ve had a life-goal, a “bucket list” entry if you will, of becoming a published author.

It started back in High School, when I discovered a passion for writing thanks to a great English teacher in New Jersey. I wish I could remember his name to give him full credit. He kind of resembled Jabba the Hut on the outside (I’m not kidding) but his was a beautiful man on the inside and he was able to start a fire in me for writing fiction that continued thru-out High School and took a firm hold in my life.

So, I started writing a short story based on one of my favorite genres – Medieval Fantasy. The story “My Fair Maiden” was born. It started out based on a male hero – a somewhat braver, more adventurous version of myself, with a similar core set of beliefs. Added in was the vision of his perfect female companion, who was soon based on Carrie, my beautiful wife. With influences from several of my favorite authors growing up – Piers Anthony, Terry Brooks, and J.R.R. Tolkien, the story evolved over several years and culminated with a final chapter that became my actual marriage proposal to Carrie. My plan has always been to expand on and eventually finish the story in a full novel, but til that day, I now share with you the story as my first ever eBook.

Check out my new Author Page on Amazon.com.

Here’s how to read this eBook:

1. Visit the My Fair Maiden Kindle product page on Amazon.com(you can also search for “My Fair Maiden) from the Amazon homepage)
2. If you have a Kindle, skip to step 4.
3. Download the FREE Kindle reader on any of the following devices: PC, Mac, iPhone, Blackberry, iPadTo do this, simply look for the section “Read books on your computer or other mobile devices” on the right side of the page, make a choice, and follow Amazon’s download/install instructiions.
4. At this point, you have a choice – you can either purchase the entire eBook (about 30 pages) for $0.99 or you can download a free preview which basically contains the first chapter.Based on your decision, look for either the “Buy it Now” button or the “Try it Free” sections on the far right of the page. Make sure to choose a “Deliver to” option if you have more than one Kindle device.
5. You should have your new eBook, ready to be read in mere moments!The delivery process is quite quick and ordering thru Amazon, whether you’ve ever ordered thru the e-commerce giant before, is simple and efficient – they do e-commerce top-notch!

If this is your first experience with eBooks, I hope you enjoy it! It sure made it easy for me to be able to have the opportunity to publish “My Fair Maiden”! During this process, I’ve also learned a lot about other publishing platforms, so I plan to also make “My Fair Maiden” available for other devices, such as the Apple iPad, the Sony eReader, and the Barnes and Noble Nook in the very near future.

I would love to hear from you after you’ve had a chance to read this eBook! Please consider leaving a comment either on the Amazon product page, or here on this blog! Criticism is welcome… or if the story leaves you craving more – let me know!

In an upcoming blog post, I will describe how I was able to publish my story, for any other wanna-be authors out there!

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This year’s BolderBoulder Memorial Day 10K road race will be a bit different.

For the first time, after previously running it over 25 times in the past 3 decades, I have predicted my finish time to be over 1 hour. It will probably be well over that… yet I’m still very excited.

No, I haven’t recently suffered a stress fracture in my foot, nor am I completely out of shape. On the contrary – I’ve actually already run nearly 50 miles this year before the midway point, so I’m on track to more than double the total number of miles I ran last year.

Actually, the reason for my slow prediction is that I will be bringing another generation into the BolderBoulder “experience” this year!

Tobey will be participating in his first BolderBoulder this coming Monday, and has done a great job of training for it – mostly via family walks the past two months. My Dad, aka “Gramps” will also be walking with us, so it will be a three generation event!

Look for us in the “PC” wave that starts around 9:15AM on Memorial Day. My Mom and brother-in-law Brian will be running in earlier waves also.

Hope everyone has a great race this year. I’ll report back next week on how it went!

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It’s that time of year again! I typically end up carrying over a few resolutions from the previous year, so I’ll start by reviewing how I did last year.

• Read more
  I did not do well at all on this one. With Tobey reading more now, I had a few successes – like finishing a book while we vacationed in Florida this past October, and Tobey had the reading fever – tearing thru the entire “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. Still, I need to do a better job of creating family reading time on the weekends, and also take time out of my night work schedule to read – both technical books to hone my web development craft and pleasure books.
• Continue to exercise
  Not bad at all. Ran 67 miles according to my Nike+ stats, which is great compared to some previous years in my 30′s when my only training run for the Bolder Boulder was the previous year. Speaking of Bolder Boulder runs, had my best time in 10 years by running a 48:37 in the annual ritual 10K. Towards the end of the year I had a lot of DNE (Did Not Exercise) or one and done’s so there’s still room for improvement here in 2010. I’m aiming to average going to the gym or running twice a week.
• Make time to be creative
  I feel like I did an excellent job of this in 2009, making time to create some fun little projects like: Biggest Loser Family Challenge, Tiger Den Cub Scouts Website (password protected – just ask if you are interested in seeing it), new personal Sitemap, Grandma Switzer’s 90th Birthday Card, Aunt JoAnn’s Birthday, 2009 Holiday Card, a page that displays what I’m listening to on my iPod, and a few more still in the works.
• Spend more fun time with family
  This one was pretty easy – Tobey is at a really fun age right now and we can play video games, build legos or shoot baskets in the driveway at any time. Ashley and I enjoy having a passion for movies and Sci-Fi in common. Carrie and I put a high priority on family time and spending time together also. Grammy and Gramps usually have Tobey time once a month and we also have a few great babysitters.
• Minimalize
  Eeek – not good. I did do some of this, but I still think I brought in more than I got rid of. That’s not progress. The main focus is to work on de-cluttering the basement so I can have a more creative work environment, and not live in fear of collapsing the bottom portion of the house. I did make some late 2009 progress by getting rid of about 60% of my DVD cases since I am moving towards digitizing my entire library and keeping the disks themselves as backups in a few large CD/DVD holders. I need to come up with a more efficient way of dealing with the paper though. Might be worth investing in a better scanner and using Evernote more. This overall effort will definitely continue in 2010!

Finally, a few new Resolutions:

• Blog more often
  I’m sure a lot of long-time bloggers have found themself blogging less in the last year or two. Why? Services like Facebook and Twitter make it much quicker and easier to post your thoughts and status. Still, blogging serves a different purpose and enjoy looking back on the history of it to stop writing it now. A compromise of shorter posts (but longer than a 140 character Tweet!) might be a compromise that will help me succeed in this resolution.
  
• Communicate more often with my extended family
  I had some success with this in 2009 – starting up a private family Twitter group with my sister, Mom, and Dad has been great, but I would still like to do better at this – reaching out to my two awesome Grandmothers in Redstone and Salina, and my various cousins and Aunts and Uncles.  Facebook and Flickr and email make it easy, so I have no excuse to not at least check in more often.

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Looking good, birthday girl!

Originally uploaded by aswitzer

Our family’s faithful and loving Chocolate Labrador turned 12 this past Sunday, or roughly 84 in human years. When that monumental occasion occurs you try and create a special day for her!

Twizzler’s special day was spent in Boulder with Grammy and Gramps since Carrie, Tobey and I were in town for the CSU/CU game the night before. (YEAH RAMS!) After breakfast we headed to Rock Park with Twizzler and the whole crew. If you know Labs, you know that they are most happy when *everyone* goes together and is in one place, so they don’t have to worry or run back and forth between a split up group. After a bit of fresh air and exercise, we headed back home. Twizzler rested while we were at the pool. The topper was when Tobey and I ran some afternoon errands and he reminded me that we were supposed to pick-up a McDonald’s hamburger for Twizzler. She woofed it down in two large bites – yum! I think she had a great day.

On a very sad note, Carrie’s sister and brother-in-law (Amy & Karl) had their Black Labrador “Happy” pass away in the afternoon. Happy – may you rest in peace, and Twizzler will come find you to run with someday in doggie heaven!

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For the final Father-Daughter Bowl in Ashley’s time at CU Boulder, it was time to see a game in person. Of course, I had to choose the one year it was hosted at Folsom Field in Boulder, rather than the more neutral confines of Invesco Field in Denver. Carrie and I thought we might be able to meet Ashley at the game, but that didn’t work out… so there we were on a beautiful, warm, early Fall evening… deep in enemy territory.

I had major trepidations heading into this game. CU had won the past two games against us, and were quite convincing about it in 2008. I heard story after story from friends and coworkers about how rowdy the fans were at these games, so I decided at the last minute to shun my CSU colors and wear a less conspicuous brown shirt. Let’s just say I regretted that as soon as I saw all the current CSU students strutting around the stadium before the game, and even more so as the game progressed.

The game started off quickly with CSU jumping out to an early 17-0 lead. The CU fans, who were out in full force and mostly dressed in yellow, were quiet most of the first half. CU threatened a bit early in the 2nd half and the CU fans were finally heard a bit. Halftime was eventful with a teenaged streaker running thru the entire CSU marching band before getting tackled in the endzone by security. The CSU defense held on in the 2nd half, and the final score was Rams 23 – Buffaloes 17. The CSU fans stormed the field as Carrie and I headed for the exit. I couldn’t get rid of the grin on my face until well into the evening.

View the Game Summary on ESPN

Here’s my payment for last year’s loss, taken before the game:

Is this the final year for the Father-Daughter Bowl? I hope not… seems like we could continue on as we both will be proud Alums in the very near future.

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In late July, Carrie went back to Michigan to visit her family over a long weekend, while Tobey and I stayed behind in Englewood. Carrie flew out Thursday night and returned Monday night, so this was a little longer time away than Boys Weekend I. She had a great time and you can see her Flickr photoalbum here.

I’ll admit that I’ve been jealous of Carrie’s extra “fun” time with Tobey this summer between her working part time, or more recently, being in-between jobs as she starts a new consulting job with Comcast in early August. So, a weekend to just spend time with Tobey was both something to look forward to and a way to make up for some of that jealousy.

Thursday night started out with a quick trip to Anthony’s Pizza for dinner and then a trip to the pool around 7PM to close it out at the 7:45PM adult swim. The pool closes at 8PM. Tobey loves the diving board now that he got over that fear so we spent most of our time jumping into the deep end.

Friday meant work for me and G2G for Tobey but I worked thru lunch so I could pick up Tobey as early as possible. We headed to McDonald’s for dinner (I grilled brats for me) and picked up two RedBox DVD’s that I had reserved online – a new SpongeBob release and Inkheart. We were quickly disappointed with the SpongeBob video as Tobey had already seen every episode on it, even though it had been advertised as having a new episode on it. Must have meant a “recently aired” new episode. We switched to Inkheart, which looks promising but I fell asleep on the couch thanks to being up til 4AM the night before working on Online birthday cards and other side projects. Tobey noticed I fell asleep and got me going again. We decided to head outside and do some scootering, and take Twizzler for a walk. It was still quite warm outside as it had been in the 90′s that afternoon. I longingly wished I could have taken the day off and taken Tobey to Water World on a perfect day. I prayed that Saturday would bring more sunshine than the Denver weatherpeople were predicting.

Saturday morning was a bit of sleeping in as Tobey and I had both been up late the night before. We started off the day slowly and poked our heads outside on the back porch to confirm that it was indeed much cooler than the day before. We looked at some short video clips on Tobey’s computer about the many rides at Water World – including the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” – more on this ride later. We took a few pictures of our ongoing Lego Mindstorms Robotics project to send to Gramps. Finally, we decided to head out and have breakfast somewhere and run a few quick errands. I have loved the weekend breakfast tradition for the past year+ with Tobey, but lately his interest in it has waned quite a bit. He’s realized we can do a lot of the same things that we used to do at breakfast (play DS Lite together, chat) just as easily at home. Since he’s not really that into breakfast and currently has little sense of adventure in trying new foods, the allure of going out to a restaurant just isn’t that strong – even going to McDonald’s since there are very few things on their breakfast menu he currently enjoys. We tried to go to a nearby cafe that we had tried once before, but it had already gone out of business. So, we ended up at a Del Taco where I got coffee and a breakfast burrito. Papa was happy. For fun, we staged a Pokemon cards battle (our highly modified version of it) at the table in the restaurant. After quick trips to nearby Bellco, the Post Office, and Target (efficient errand running – my favorite) we ended up back at home. At this point, it was just after 11AM. We continued to check out weather reports, and with the temperate creeping up towards 80, we decided to “go for it” in regards to Water World.

Once we decided to go, it was scramble time. Packed a cooler with snacks and drinks, find our cameras, get our swim suits on and get on the road! As we were singing to a CD on our way up north, I realized I forgot one important thing for a swimming outing – towels! Doh! So, we stopped off on the way at a Sporting Goods store near Water World, which, being stocked with hunting and camping supplies had zero towels, and then the Soundtrack next door, for no reason other than we got distracted. At this point though, I realized if we waited about 50 minutes, we’d save $30-$40 on our admission tickets. With the weather still being quite iffy, I pushed for this, and Tobey agreed. We watched a bit of Blue Man Group, Bolt, and a few other movies on huge Blu-Ray setups for a bit and then finally headed out. A Walgreens stop finally granted us our quest for a beach towel, and we headed inside for the afternoon session at Water World. The weather held on just long enough for us to enjoy a trip or two around the lazy river, a few raft/tube rides, and some time in the wave pool. We stared at two of the cool, but slightly scary rides – Voyage to the Center of the Earth and Storm, but decided to pass on both… “til next year”. When we got home we were reminded that the neighbors were having a get-together so we headed out to that, where Tobey enjoyed a little time with neighborhood kids and I re-familiarized myself with adult conversation.

Sunday morning was a little warmer (of course!) and a very nice day. We decided to go play a little tennis. Tobey has been taking tennis lessons this summer and has really found a love for it. (Yeah!) He’s also getting quite good… so we had a blast playing for a bit, with freshly opened tennis balls. Mmm, love that smell right out of the can. There’s no other smell in the world quite like it… and its not really a good smell, but I think its the fun tennis memories that come flooding back each time I smell it. All too soon, it was time to head home, clean up and go to a Colorado Rockies baseball game. We were joining one of my co-worker’s and his son for a Boy Scouts sponsored outing against the San Francisco Giants. Our seats were in the lower foul ball area off of first-base, so we brought our gloves, sunscreen, and ballcaps. One foul ball landed a section over from us, and a souvenir Rockies jersey landed in the row right in front of us, but no other close calls. The game was great, and the Rockies won so we all left the stadium happy.

Since it was a 1:00 game, we got out of Coors Field before 4:00, and still had time to pick off one more item from a “things to do” list. So we stopped by Dave and Buster’s for dinner and some gaming. Tobey likes collecting the tickets for prizes so we played mostly games of chance. We did have a fun car-race or two, and I noticed Tobey’s get big enough and coordinated enough to drive his own arcade car, and steer it on his own. We stopped gaming long enough to grab a bite to eat, and Tobey declared D&B’s has the best linguine noodles in Denver. After dinner, Tobey made the tough but excellent choice to save his tickets for a bigger prize down the road, and we headed home. A perfect ending to a fun-packed few days.

If you made it this far, thanks for joining me on a rather descriptive trip thru our Boys weekend. I hope you enjoyed the ride, and it inspires you to savor those special moments with your children, friends, or loved ones, next time you get the opportunity!

Check out the Flickr Slideshow from the weekend:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

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Congratulations to Chris and Sara Smaling, who welcomed their son Jason James Smaling to the world on July 7th, 2009. One of the best parts of being friends with them is that they are also our next door neighbors, and that means we will get to see Jason often and watch him grow. From the guy perspective, I have to say I have never seen a more glowing new father than Chris… his smiles shines thru and tiredness he might have each time I’ve seen him the past few weeks. It only gets more fun!

Here are a few pictures from our visit to their house the other night:

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