Farewell Beer Hunter

Michael Jackson, The Beer Hunter, has passed away.

I've sat with him at a table at the Great American Beer Festival, talking about beers from all over the world with passion and gusto. I was proud that he loved the beers we made at our brewery and trumpeted them on his web page and on Seattle radio show interviews. I felt like I'd let him down when our brewery went under.

At the GABF, I saw him diligently tasting beer and keeping notes all day, then drinking beer after hours with us brewer-folk, then saw him from outside the window as we limped back to our hotel room, leading a scotch tasting at the host hotel bar. Found out later there was spontaneous wine tasting until early hours after that. The next day, I saw him diligently tasting beer and keeping notes, working his way through many of the 400 plus beers on the festival floor. He was an inspiration.

He loved Belgian beers, as do I, though I've not tried as many as he.

He made a living writing about beer for 30 years. 'Nuff said.

Abbey brewers say that in Heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here. So:

Godspeed Michael, I'll do my best to help hold up this end---but I'll need some others to help out. A great spirit has risen from the earth, and we must fill in where we can.

Vacation in Tuva

Feynman famously wanted to go to Tuva, and Putin is taking his vacation there. It's amazing that the president of Russia would consent to having vacation snaps of him showing off his 6-Pak, but maybe more amazing that a former KGB head wears a crucifix.

Summer in Siberia seems pretty nice.

Match Analysis

If you win matches, like Rob Leatham, match analysis is pretty simple. In my case, I have to resort to statistics to see if I did well or not.

USPSA matches are free form and can be wild, but your classification is based on standard exercises. In the beginning, I was much better at the standard exercises (not everyone is) and so my rating outpaced my general match ability---still does in Limited 10. I shot Area 1 in Limited, however, and that big Division is a good test of how much I've improved in non-standard courses of fire (or not).

My rating is 53.57% and I shot 52.25% so that's 97.54%. There were seven Grand Masters, so my average will count as another classifier.

In summary, I didn't have a great match, but I shot almost to my ability measured over a year's length with standard exercises. I didn't let the pressure of the match get to me. In fact, I had to do a reshoot on a stage that I only was down a point on because of a timer/official error. I'd been reading some books before the tournament that stressed that the shooter should only have positive thoughts. I therefore focused on the opportunity to pick up that point. Amazingly, I picked up the point---an upper A-zone hit---and bettered my time. There may be something to this positive focus thing.

Chrono Spider Bites, Prez Vanishes

It's election time for USPSA, the shooting organization that will allow even me to join. The Prez is standing for election again with pretty stiff competition. So, I imagine he thought he should pop up to the Area 1 Championships and put on a good show to improve his elect-ability quotient.

Most of the big wigs just blow into town and do a shoot through, i.e. muscle on to squad after squad. Then, toss off a few hand smooches to the hoi poloi and head for the airport.

The Prez would have won too--looks great, he's winning matches, beating seven other Grand Masters, and leading our organization to greatness. But...he blew right by the chrono station...ooops. It's like he was never at the match. Those chrono-spider bites can be nasty.

Bye Bye Prez! Hope you pay more attention to detail when it comes to association business :).

Our other VIP shoot through did chrono and did win the match.

One of the other presidential candidates stayed through to the end, collecting proxies for the prize table so he could collect swag for the junior program. He was raking it in big time.

In other chrono-spider news, one of our club shooters went minor (scoring is less for off-hi-zone shots), but managed to win his class anyway. I guess if you're pure of heart, and accurate, the chrono-spider venom is not so deadly.

The group before us had a guy shooting 200 gr 0.45 bullets with a 223 power factor! No wonder we did ok---the poor chrono spider was still cowering in the dark hiding from the bad old hand cannon.