A Double Win for the Cincinnati Rollergirls!

On Saturday night we went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ Summer of Shove event at the Cincinnati Gardens. The event was a double header with CRG hosting teams from the Harrisburg Area Roller Derby group. CRG’s Silent Lambs took on the H.A.R.D. Fallout Femmes and CRG’s Black Sheep battled the H.A.R.D. Nuclear Knockouts. Both of the CRG teams won their bouts – the first time that happened at home this year. Congratulations to all the Cincinnati Rollergirls!

It was an extra special night as we had a large group friends from work and their families who joined us for the match. Stephanie labeled the group the Bleating Beau Beeps and made shirts for many of the folks in the group. The photo above shows her with family in the suicide seats. It seemed everyone had a great time thanks to all the friendly volunteers, staff, and skaters. Our folks in the suicide seats were cheering hard for all the Sheep and Lambs and just a couple seats down, Sadistic Sadie had some added cheers (see the photo).

In the first bout between the Silent Lambs and the Fallout Femmes, Cincinnati controlled the match from the start. As in past bouts, Dr. McDerby did an excellent job as a jammer. I wasn’t keeping any stats, but I’d guess she led scoring for the Lambs. The photo at the right shows her sprinting to catch up and pass the pack again.

Miss Print also had a great night scoring and I think had a couple grand slams. She kept up her momentum in the pack and had some good help from the CRG blockers to open up some holes. I really like the photo below that shows Miss Print passing the pack. Other jammers included Cherry Choke, Shirley Temptya, and Rocky Balrolla. All the CRG blockers were doing well at coordinating their efforts to stop the Femmes and aid the CRG jammers. All the Lambs have to be excited about their win! The Lambs won handily with a score of 143 to 56.



In the second bout between the Black Sheep and the Nuclear Knockouts, the pack was skating fairly fast and both teams were pretty physical. The blockers were really working hard on both teams. There were quite a few skaters that took some hard falls and I’m sure there are a lot of sore shoulders today. All the blockers and pivots were contributing to stopping the Knockout jammers – and were pretty effective at doing that. The Knockouts were no pushovers though and they hung in there until the end. I thought one of the best Knockout skaters was Rainbow’s Revenge – both on offense and defense. She didn’t back down from anyone.

Cincinnati held the lead the entire match. Sadistic Sadie was on fire as usual and probably led the scoring. The photo at right shows her keeping an eye on Knockout skater Mother Trucker (I think) while Polisa watches. CandyKICKass also had a good evening with her speed being a lot for the Knockouts to handle. One of my favorite photos of the night is the one below showing Sk8r Kinney giving a hard block so candyKICKass can get around the outside of the pack to score while Fireman Bill keeps a watch on the pack. Hannah Barbaric, Ruff’n the Passer, and Jungle Lacy also jammed for CRG. The Black Sheep won the match with a score of 115 to 69. There was a bench clearing brawl near the end of the match – a surprise and something we haven’t seen for quite a while. One of the Knockouts ended up being ejected from the match.



After the match Dianne got a photo of me with Shirley Temptya, one of the Silent Lamb skaters. Earlier in the evening I got to meet her parents and in-laws that were there to cheer her on. We also talked briefly with Miss Print and her parents, who were visiting from out of town. They picked a great night to see their daughter in action. Jeff Sevier, one of the photographers, came up and introduced himself. Jeff took a nice shot of Dianne and me talking with Morgan Donor after the last home bout. He and Jason take some great derby photos that they post in their Flickr photo streams. Finally, although I have a funny look on my face, Dianne got a photo of me with June with a Cleaver (center) and Killian Destroy (right) who are two of the blockers on the Black Sheep team. Thanks to all the skaters for taking time to chat.

I have a few more photos in my photo pool in Flickr. There is one more scheduled home bout on Saturday, July 19th when the CRG Black Sheep take on one of the top ranked teams in the country, the Carolina All-Stars (now ranked #5 on Flat Track Stats). It’ll be an exciting match and a tough bout for the Black Sheep. Be there to cheer them on at the Gardens. The night before the bout, at the Know Theatre, I just read there will be a showing of “Hell on Wheels,” a roller derby documentary. I'm sure there will be lots of CRG skaters there for the film even though they live the experience.

Summer of Shove

The Cincinnati Gardens will come alive this Saturday night when the Cincinnati Rollergirls have their "Summer of Shove" doubleheader against the Harrisburg Area Roller Derby teams. Several friends from work and their families will be sitting together as a group for this bout. It should be a great cheering section for the Sheep and Lambs.

I just checked the Flat Track Stats site and CRG moved up after their recent bouts to #19 in the rankings. It's only the second season for the H.A.R.D. skaters, so I'm guessing Cincinnati's talent and experience will pay off with a couple wins. I found a fairly recent bout recap for a H.A.R.D. match against Philly that you can read here. From that recap, it seems like the Nuclear Knockout jammers Mother Trucker and Rainbow's Revenge will be the ones to watch. That article also calls out H.A.R.D. skater Dosa Badazz as a formidable blocker. We'll have to see if she can stop the Black Sheep.

If you haven't caught the Rollergirls yet this season, what are you waiting for!?! This is the next to last scheduled home bout, so get to the Gardens and cheer them on! See you there.

More Cicadas

I posted about seeing cicadas around here a couple weeks ago when walking to our local Memorial Day parade. This past weekend they have come out in full force near our house and the noise is deafening during the day! When Dianne came in the house a couple days ago, she said she couldn't hear the beep sound signaling the locking of her car doors.

The cicadas are covering the trees and flying around all over the place looking for a partner and laying eggs. The photo to the right shows them in the shade of a tree outside our place. Here is another shot near our neighbor's door.

If you don't have cicadas in your area and you're not familiar with them, you can read more about cicadas here. I found this page with some recordings of cicada sounds. It's hard to appreciate what a chorus of hundreds of them sound like. I think Dianne pegged it when she said it sounds like the Martian noise in the original War of The Worlds film. I found this segment from the film on YouTube. Listen to the sound about 2:30 in to the clip. I'm sure that was their inspiration.

I tried taking some macros of the critters. They are about an inch long, so it's hard to get all of them in focus in an interesting way. The shot below was the best of my close-ups. This one was taking a break from climbing up the tree trunk and just hanging out in the sun.

ADrive

This site gives 50 Gbytes of online storage free. I guess you always have your stuff available in one central spot. However, it is beta so I could see you losing everything. Is this really better than a thumb drive?

CRG's Welcome To Our Jungle

On Saturday night, Dianne and I were joined by Carla, Bob, Sue, and Stephanie at the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ event called Welcome To Our Jungle. The doubleheader event pitted the CRG Silent Lambs against the North Star Rollergirls from Minneapolis and the CRG Black Sheep against the Steel City Derby Demons from Pittsburgh. It’ll make Brenda’s day to hear the North Star team beat the Silent Lambs with a score of 109 to 31 (the Minnesota gals must have heard you cheering). In the WFTDA rating bout, the Black Sheep beat Steel City with a score of 130 to 98.

The North Star Rollergirls have a solid team all around. Their blocking was fairly well organized and very tough. The North Stars also had some good jammers. The toughness of the North Stars looked like it made skating in the pack a lot of work! But the Lambs weren’t shy and I thought all the blockers were working hard the entire match. There were a lot of folks trying their hand at jamming. It seemed like the Lambs were swapping folks to find a magic set to get some big points. Dr. McDerby, Miss Print, Jewel B. Hurt, Cherry Choke, Shirley Temptya, and Rocky Balrolla all wore the star at least once. It’s good experience, but I can’t help but think that made it hard for blockers to coordinate and anticipate how to help a particular jammer. I would guess having a couple folks absent (like Jungle Lacy and The Librarian) and a couple moved to the Black Sheep (like Sk8 Crime and candyKICKass) must have affected the team dynamic too. Nevertheless, the whole team worked their tails off until the end. Although it was a tough loss, they all should be proud of their effort. The photo below shows Dr. McDerby and Rocky Balrolla (right in black) look to stop the North Star jammer (in green with star) while just behind her a North Star blocker puts a hit on CRG jammer Cherry Choke.



In the other match, the CRG Black Sheep had a bit of a rocky start against the Derby Demons. I expected the Black Sheep to take an early lead and never look back. It was close for a while, but CRG did finally pull away – especially in the second half. Early on it seemed there were quite a few CRG folks in the penalty box which seemed to hurt some. As usual, the CRG blockers were tough and they seemed better coordinated last night. Most all of the usual suspects were giving some hard hits (I was surprised not to see pivot Kinney) to keep Steel City bottled up. That was a tough job against Steel City jammers like ‘snot Rocket Science (in the photo at right about to be hit by Panterrorize) who is a solid, determined skater! The usual CRG jammers Sadistic Sadie, Roseanne Scarr, and Hannah Barbaric were joined by candyKICKass. It seemed like an additional jammer in the rotation let them get enough rest and still rotate in the pack regularly to help with blocking. Sadie was giving some hard hits like the Bekkie sandwich she made with Mae C. Stars on the inside (see the photo below). The Steel City team had some good blockers too which required CRG teamwork to make holes for the jammers. I thought Steel City’s lead blocker was Athena. She was dishing out some hard hits and just slowing down the CRG jammers in general. Congrats to the Black Sheep on a solid win.



There was a pause in the Black Sheep / Derby demon bout when June with a Cleaver took a hard fall and did a face plant on the concrete. It looked like she split open her chin. She did skate one jam after that with a bandaged chin, but she was bleeding. I certainly hope she feels better soon.

Aside from being kinda hot in the Gardens, I thought it was a good event as usual. I didn’t hear a crowd count, but it didn’t seem like there were as many as the first home bout. What’s up with that? There was a lot to cheer about and the place came alive several times. At half time the Cincinnati Zoo brought out an eagle and some zoo characters for the kids and it was nice to hear some live music at the event.

We had the chance to meet and chat with several of the CRG folks for the first time. First, thanks to Cam for the hospitality and taking time to say hi in between running around for his event duties. It was nice to meet and say hi to Pale Rider before the bout. I hate to disturb him while he's preparing for a match so it was nice of him to stop and say hello. After the matches, Dianne got a photo of me with Silent Lamb skaters Trauma Tease (at left) and Skates with Fists (at right). It was my first time meeting both of them. They were both blocking hard in the Lamb’s bout. I also met Fists’ husband, Brian – always good to meet a fellow derby blogger. Finally, Dianne got a photo of me when we met Morgon Donor (below).

You can see more photos with captions from the event in my Flickr sets for the Silent Lamb match and the Black Sheep match. I decided to kick up the film speed and go flashless, so there is a little grain. A different look, but nice.

The next home bout is on June 28th when the Cincinnati Rollergirls have another doubleheader with two teams from Harrisburg, PA at the Gardens. Be there to cheer on both CRG teams!

Organic Water Macros

The Macro Mondays group theme this past Monday was "organic water." They had done water before, so the organic clause was attached to eliminate any potable water -- or water you would typically drink.

One thought I had was a teardrop. Dianne kindly served as a model once again and supplied an eye. I put on a couple drops of water as a fake tear. She gave her best sad eye look. She was dealing with allergies and sneezing a lot so her eye is a little red and watery. That added to the effect. I bounced the flash off a white reflector in front of her face for the main light. A grazing flash from the left created a little shadow across the face.



The next shot was a shrub outside our place that has very waxy leaves. The rainwater beads up nicely on them. Since we didn't have any rain this weekend (contrary to the weather people that said we'd have showers) I had to use a spray bottle to mist the leaves. I chose a fairly bright flash and used a small aperture to make the background dark even though it was shot in the middle of a sunny day. After looking at some of the other photos in the pool, I think I would do it differently in the future. A grazing flash from above enhances the drops on the leaves.



As a final shot, on a whim I misted a spider web on some type of evergreen shrub near our place. The web suspended the drops nicely. I took the shot and then later noticed when processing it that all the big drops acted like little magnifying glasses and you can see the reflection of the shrub in each drop. It looks pretty cool, but I didn't think the photo was that great from a composition standpoint. I was pleasantly surprised to see this made it to #4 at one point on the Flickr Explore list of the top 500 photos of that day. You can see a larger version by clicking here.

It's a Roller Derby Weekend+

This Saturday night the Cincinnati Rollergirls have another double header scheduled at the Cincinnati Gardens. The CRG Silent Lambs will battle the North Star Rollergirls from Minneapolis. You can see the North Star travel team here. I know all you Minnesota readers will be pulling for the North Star team, but we'll see if they are in one piece after challenging the Lambs. In the other WFTDA bout, the CRG Black Sheep will take on the Steel City Derby Demons from Pittsburgh. You can see the Pittsburgh travel team here. According to the rankings on Flat Track Stats, the Black Sheep should have a good night. Be there to cheer all the CRG folks on.

On Thursday evening, the Cincinnati Rollergirls will be in the Milford Frontier Days Parade. This is also their pep rally for the bout on Saturday. For more info on the parade route, check out the Frontier Days site here.

Also, on Friday evening, the Rollergirls will be at the C&D Cafe in Northside from 7-9:30. That was posted on the CRG Flock message board. I'm sure you're all registered there and visit regularly, so this is probably old news.

Marital Rating Scale

I find old articles an interesting glimpse into the thoughts and culture of the time the article was written. This article on the American Psychological Association's website caught my eye. It has one page of a marital rating chart that a husband would use to rate his wife. Dianne would rate high -- I knew that even before I saw the quiz. One reason for her high score is she would have very few demerits. She never wears soiled or ragged dresses and aprons around the house, never wears red nail polish, never has cracked seams in her hose, and never goes to bed with curlers on her hair or much face cream. Now, item #9 is a different story.

Check out the article to see a larger version of the chart.

Another To-Do List

A week or so ago I posted about a new todo list site called remember the milk. That might be too complicated when you can just grab a pen and jot something on your hand. How many folks haven't done that before?

Well here is the high-tech implementation of that approach. To-Do tattoos. Check it out here.

Out and About on Sunday

Yesterday Dianne and I went to Lunken airport to see the Liberty Belle, a B-17 Flying Fortress. You can read the specifics about the plane here. It's always a thrill to see a beautifully restored warbird in use. I saw it fly over our place on Saturday. I heard it coming -- a very unusual engine sound. I knew the plane was in town this weekend so I popped my head out the window and saw it flying back down to Lunken.

I didn't take a ride. The $430 price for a 20-30 minute ride was too steep for me. It was just great to watch it in action. There was quite a crowd as you see in the photo to the right showing the Belle taxiing for takeoff. The photo below shows the Belle on the ramp near the old terminal, exchanging passengers for the next flight. If you look closely, you'll see the left two props spinning as they wait to load.



After visiting Lunken, we drove to Devou park in Covington, Kentucky. The park is just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati and there is a pavilion at the top with an overlook that gives a wonderful view of the Ohio river and downtown Cincinnati. The photo below shows us at the overlook with downtown Cincinnati to the left. A nice park to catch the view.

What Happens In Vegas...

...stays in Vegas unless you blog about it and post a video on YouTube using the iMac in your hotel room. The Fontainbleau hotel and casino, scheduled to open in 2009 at the North end of the Vegas strip, says it has partnered with Apple to provide a digital media program and will have an iMac in every room. As their brochure says, "an iMac in every guest room inspires guests to share memories and encourages personal expression." Can you imagine the material that will be available from a 3889 room hotel/casino/resort?