nationals07

Way back when, a couple years out of college, I moved into an apartment with a friend of mine who needed housing for only two months. She had graduated from Tech, which had a late school-year-end date, and heading off to Dartmouth, which had an early school-year-start date. Since she had a summer job where I was working, it made sense to room with her.

To do so, however meant I needed to move out of my one bedroom house. That place was preyty awesome, though the rats, flys and post-earthquake tilt made it less desirable as time went on.

So, my friend and I slapped down a security deposit, paid our first and last month's rent, and moved in.

Thirty days later, we gave notice. Twenty nine days later, the painters arrived to paint the apartment. They came in, looked at the walls, and asked how long I had been in the apartment. I answered, "two months," then asked why they asked me.

"Because this apartment doesn't need painting."

Which didn't matter to the property manager. They had it pointlessly painted, and took the cost out of my security deposit. I was angry. Was? Bah. I'm still annoyed by it. They spent the money needlesly because it wasn't their money.

Today I received the security deposits back from housing from Nationals. In past years, we've received the full amount back. This year, we didn't.

One of the damage costs was for excessive cleaning, which I expected, presumably from a wine spill (who puts white carpeting in a party rental?). The other was for a window replacement. And here's where my two stories merge.

The other charge was for a window repair. The window broke sometime during one of the storms that ran through the area when we were there. We were unfortunate enough to be in the place when the window actually broke, but were not the cause of the window breaking.

Didn't matter, we have to pay for it anyway.

Which annoys me to no end.

I have to wonder if I should write to them requesting a full refund of the deposit, citing non-responsibility for the window breakage, or just let it go. I was told about the breaking, and the amount when I called to see if we were getting our deposits back before I sent out "you owe me this much for housing," so I'm not actually out any money personally (okay, that's not quite true, I'm out $300 / 30 people = $10 for the non-return of deposits, but not out the full amount of $300).

I just don't know if this is going to be another one of those turns-my-stomach a decade afterward because someone shanghai'd money from me.

Or maybe writing about it will be a catharsis of both.

So, the layout.

I don't layout in ultimate. I can count on one hand the number of times I've laid out (4), but I've wanted to be able to do so for a long time. Actually, I've been wanting to be able to be able to reach a disc, increase my range of reception, be a bigger target.

So, to overcome this "limitation," I've been visualizing. My body can't do what I want it to do if even *I* don't know what I want it to do. I've been watching videos, and live games, watching for what I want to learn to do, imagining myself doing it. Mostly what I'm trying to figure out is how to lay out in stride. I recall seeing Dave Brokaw lay out in stride by reaching by just running and reaching out straight, and that seemed the smoothest way to go.

Figuring out the movement has been the challenge. I'd settled on a one-two-boom! step where the first two steps set up the launch.

Not sure it helped though. I've asked Doyle to teach me, but his response has always been, "No, you just have to do it."

Somehow, today was the day. I had cleared to the back of the stack, and saw the disc swing from the sideline to the dump straight in front of the stack. I started cutting in as the disc was swinging, as hard as I could. Ryan threw the disc, but it was low.

Just as Doyle say, "You just have to do it," I got low and tried to reach low. It wasn't graceful. It wasn't pretty. I held my right arm tucked into me as I landed, slightly jamming my shoulder as I landed, my left arm reaching out for that disc, I wanted that disc.

I missed. It hit the ground and bounced up. I don't know what my legs were doing during the attempt. I could have looked as much like a dork as I fear I did, but I don't care. I had one arm stretched out and I tried for that disc.

Shirley congratulated me on the attempt, and included a "so close!" A couple other people commented on it. I've heard a few comments on my attempt from other teammates when they didn't realize I was listening. I've been so happy to hear their praise. It means I didn't look like the dork I think I might have been at that moment. *smirk*

Odd that I'd post on just one play in one game in the entire tournament, but I'm happy that, on my last tournament at the elite level of ultimate, I managed to achieve that one elusive goal.

I can retire satisfied.

Today was better than yesterday. We played Brass Monkey in the first game. We have their number, though it was close, close, close, and won 15-13. I wasn't at the field to see the end of the game, as I took Steffi's friend Janie to the airport (thankfully close!), leaving as the score was 12-12.

The second game of the day was against AMP. We took half 8-5. Shirley let me know when we were up by four points, I should sub in. I asked if I should go in, or if I should wait for her to call me in, and she said just go. Three points later, and we were up 10-6. On the line, Kyle told the women to front their women. After the pull, I ran down, and was fronting my woman, but the sideline started screaming at me to back my woman. I did, and tragically she caught the disc three times going in on the way to their scoring the next point. Sigh.

Winning two games, however, meant we don't have to play a third today. The other games finished such that we have probably our best possible path to the finals. One game, one point, one cut, one catch at a time, not looking past the next game.

However, if I had to request a path, given yesterday's results, it would look like this: