St. Louis Boomerangs

Something I've noticed lately is that boomerangs seem to be hitting store shelves here in St. Louis.  I think that is pretty rad.  Throwing out a note to try to catch anyone that wants to learn how to throw them, if it's not working out for you yet.  If there are any questions I will try to blog them out and/or go to a field for a meetup.  St. Louis or Metro East Illinois (Shiloh, O'Fallon, Belleville, Swansea)  Boomerangs.

Found this Wham-O Boomerang at my local Target the other day.  Not a bad boomerang if I do say so myself.  Tends to keep a lot of spin, so I may have to junk it up a bit.

If you'd like to make an order of them from Target:
http://www.target.com/p/flying-discs-license-multi-colored/-/A-16603419#prodSlot=medium_1_10&term=frisbee

Towel Day, Volunteering, and ISTP

First off: Happy Towel Day!   Particularly for all you Hitchhikers of the Galaxy.

Second this whole volunteer thing is still pretty dern interesting.  I'm always finding events or finally getting around to just signing up for stuff.  Finally signed up for the St. Louis Bluesweek Festival.  I've known about it for a while back when it was the Rib America thing that went all Memorial Day weekend long.  Stuff happened and it became Bluesweek.  I've always been a little torn about volunteering for it in the past few years because I'm always got a boomerang tournament to attend on Memorial Day weekend.  Specifically the Gateway Classic; going on 26 consecutive years thus far.

Anyways the St. Louis Blues week is a good event.  Good music and food.  They still do the whole BBQ and ribs thing.  Tasty for mouth and ears.  Yeah I was working it but I do fit in time to hang out and enjoy stuff.  I probably enjoy it that much more because I'm volunteering for it.

Not really that odd I think.  I am an ISTP.  It's interesting to think about everyonce and a while to think about the whole Brigs Meyers personality things sometimes.  Sure they are generic and cover lots of people like horoscope.  I do think I fit in with the various descriptions of the ISTP (link and other link and another other link) out there.  I'm an adventurer that likes to tinker and understand enough for me to get good at doing stuff.  But also don't like getting stuck into routines and following strict rules.

 But it's late and I probably should proof read but I just wanted to get it out there.

Speech Topics and Curiosities

Just digging around the interwebs, researching a project 2 for either Humorously Speaking or The Entertaining Speaker manuals. I've got a case of the writer's block.  Not that I even know what I'm even writing about.  Seems like it's the hardest part sometimes to come up with stuff to write about.  At this point I've written/talked about a lot of boomerangs, volunteering, or juggling.  Don't really feel that I want to go over those again.

Some Photos of Summer/Fall 2012 (Part 2)

More photos of stuff that I did this summer. First one is from one of the Thursday's at the Intersection out in front of The Fox.  JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound were the main act for this concert.  The concert also doubled as a fairwell party for one of the KDHX directors.  It's not to far off from Circus Flora that I've mentioned before in other posts.  

Weather: It sucks sometimes.

Yet another night of an event that got rained out.  The Shiloh, Illinois Homecoming is tonight (9/7/2012) and tomorrow (9/8/2012).  Luckily only tonight is forecasted for some rain.  That's the way it goes sometimes.  Much like boomerangs, you can do everything perfect and something out of your control with throw you off.

Still have the O'Fallon Kiwanis and American Red Cross blood drive tomorrow as well as the Shiloh Homecoming for tomorrow.  Can't quite give blood this time around because of some poison sumac.  It sucks.  Still can help out with setup and tearing down and maybe a bit of studying for my midterm.

I found that the medicated body powder (Gold Bond has a version but I got the generic stuff) is good stuff for the oozing that you get with the poison sumac.  Seemed like it was oozing for a while.  A good cleaning and dusting of the powder and it just stopped right up.  Still have the itchies though and that totally sucks.  I have been using some of the Cortisone 10 for those and it's been helping for a little while.

Midterm wise, it's a basic finance class.  Interesting stuff.  Covers corporate finance and touches a  very little bit of accounting.  Pretty straight forward and covering the important topics.  Feel overall pretty confidant with it, except for maybe the essay questions but a little more reading should help out.

That's whats going on tonight.  Lots of volunteering tomorrow.

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Weather....It doesn't always play nice

This upcoming weekend was suppose to be the Midwest WingFest (Aug 31 - Sept 1).  Always a bummer when things get rained out.  Sometimes its a few minute thing and be okay for going on but sometimes not so much.  Local forecasts are predicting 3+ inches of rain over Friday and Saturday with the possibility of 10".  May just get some wings from one of the list of participating wings places and that should cover me for wings this weekend.

If boomerangs have taught me anything, its that everything can be set up perfect but can still be thrown off by weather.

Art, Tie Dye, LouFest, and Running Totals

Busy weekend over August 24-26, 2012.  Hung out at the Midwest Salute To The Arts, The Shanti & KDHX Tie Dye Fundraiser, and LouFest.  Pretty neat.  Got to help out artists on Friday and Sunday and talk with them.  Got to meet a neat lady that makes didgeridoos.  Also tore down the event and consolidated rental equipment and electrical cords.

The Shanti and KDHX tie dye event was cool.  Got to tie dye a few shirts for other volunteer events.  Turned out pretty well.  Pretty simple process of scrunching up your shirt and wrapping rubber bands where you want them.  It's kinda cool knowing that I can now tie dye my own shirts.  The "tie dye" shirts you can buy at the store seem so generic.  They all look the same.  When you actually do your own tie dye you get the imperfections and that's the way it should be.  No two shirts should ever be the same.  Similar at most but very unique and different.  A lot like boomerangs in that regard.  No two boomerangs should ever be exactly the same, as much as they look like it.  Boomerangs should fly similar but different.  All part of the fun in tie dye and boomerangs.

Got to hang out at LouFest.  Saw Little Barrie, Son Volt, Phantogram, and Dinosaur Jr.  Lots of great music at the event.  Meet a lot of fans of KDHX as well.  Gave away a lot of stickers, fans, and station info.  Even wandered the crowds to give away stickers.  The musician were very melodious and gave me an idea for a new KDHX give away.  The idea has been passed up to the station folks and we shall see where it goes.

I do enjoy the process of spending a weekend volunteering at local events and radio stations.  It gives people a chance to meet their community.

On a side note, it does get me to wonder about organized service groups.  I am a member of the Kiwanis and frequently hear about Rotary.  Seems like they are all in need of members but I still never hear about them, at least from members themselves.  If I weren't a member of Kiwanis, I probably would not know about them, nor Rotary.  Attendance policy is another story.

Think I will try to include stats of how far I've gone hour wise with volunteering as I do them.  I'm not going to retroactivly update posts but I will continue them forward from here.  Therefore I will give the stats as of the details of this post.  Started logging at the 2011 Midwest Salute To The Arts last August.  Moving forward I will only post the cumulative for 2012 and then at some point stand out the year end total.

The totals as of the completion of these events are:
Event year (Aug 2011 to Aug 2012 Midwest Salute To The Arts): 330 hours
Cumulative 2012: 247

25th Gateway Classic

Memorial Day weekend means its time for the Gatway Classic Boomerang Tournament.  Lots of boomerangs and great throwers.  My favorite events of the year are always the boomerang events.  Not that the other events aren't cool but, come on, boomerangs.  Feeling the sun and wing.  Smelling the air, grass, trees, and maybe corn and cows.  There are so many cool boomerangs and throwers out there.  People that aren't throwing are seriously missing out.  Got to stock up on some boomerangs from the Mark Legg milk crates of Lincoln rangs, all going for $5 each.

Art On The Square 2012

The Art On The Square 2012 has commenced for the year.  Pretty interesting to see an area go from regular car traffic to fully packed with people and artists over a four day period.  There is so much that goes on behind the scenes to make it happen.  While just showing up you don't fully get how much goes on.  Volunteering for these events gives a different perspective on these events.

KDHX Membership Drive

The KDHX Spring 2012 Membership drive has completed.  Pretty stellar that the station raised 101% at the time of this writing.  It's pretty neat that I was one of the phone volunteers and helped make that happen.  I helped make part of that goal happen.  Yes, I do have a few bucks in there too.  Keep listening folks.  Lots of great stuff coming up.  Get a sticker from me if you see me on one of the many KDHX events.  Don't guarantee I'll be at all of them but I will make what I can.

I have thrown boomerangs in the station using what I could find in the station.  Not sure if it's a first or anything but I'd probably say it was.  New members are not calling full time, so got to fill the time in interesting ways during the down time.

Boomerang Madness

Just got back from a 13 day trip of throwing boomerangs a few weeks ago. July 30 and 31 there was the 32nd annual Free Throwers tournament and the 2011 NALDO. August 4 - 7 was the 2011 US Boomerang Nationals. I didn't do to bad but I wasn't exactly in the top 10 either. It's so much fun to be at these events. There are lots of great people with a common passion for throwing boomerangs.

Boomerangs are complicated things. You can never create the same boomerang twice. Little differences in the blades will determine how the lift gets generated. The weight on the tips will also determine how the boomerang gyroscopic precession will turn the boomerang. Tip weight further back will try to keep the boomerang upright longer and moved forward will cause the lower half to precess upwards. This is the difference between a fast catch and a trick catch boomerang.

It really is a sport where anyone can throw from 8 to 98. If you can throw something you can throw a boomerang. Much to learn about life in boomerang throwing. You can aim and throw perfect but still be thrown off by things out of your control (i.e. wind, temperature, humidity, atmosphere). Or you will never know the full potential of a boomerang till you throw it. Good things are coming back. Throw sticks, not stones. Boom to live, live to boom.