I thought I was going to get away from my first game problems last night.  First game was solid, one stupid open frame on a standing 8 pin, threw the ball too fast and not the right angle and missed it.  Oh well, still on 200 pace.  Then in the 9th frame I leave a split and end up finishing the game out with a 180.  Game two similar, split in the 10th, and opened, finished with a 191.  Then game three, 224.  It wasn't that I was throwing a bad ball in the first two games, I just couldn't combine strikes and I the pins I was leaving I couldn't pick up.  595 series.  Now I'm on vacation for two weeks.

 

Well, the weekend started off pretty good, was really looking forward to the High Roller Challenge league, week 3, Cheetah pattern, but first I had to take my kids to the North Pole to see Santa.  This is a no joke story, we hit the road about 5:00pm on Friday night, drove about 300 miles North to the town of Fairbanks, just South of Fairbanks on another road is North Pole, Alaska.  There is a Santa Claus House, Reindeer, the Mr. and Mrs. and elves.  Unfortunately, the big jolly fella was out on vacation, guess he needed a break before his cross world trip delivering presents, so the kiddos were kind of bummed.  But we hung out for a while and watched the reindeer fight over the females and if it was going to be Donner or Blitzen get to play with the Doe's this year...really, I'm not joking.  Anyhoot, hit up one of my favorite food joints in Fairbanks on our way out, the Food Factory, had some good grub, then hit the road for the five hour drive back home.  About Denali Park I began to vomit and realized I must have got the flu or food poisoning, and to say it was a long weekend of puking is short of telling the truth. 

Sunday morning came way too quick, our normal departure time of 830 became 850 and thank goodness Dan wanted to drive because I was not in the mood.  I shouldn't have even bowled.  Never the less, I hit the lanes with a grin on my face, mainly because I was only dry heaving at that point.  I qualified 30th out of 32, but only because the two blind scores didn't beat me.  This blows right off the start, I got to bowl the guy who was on target hitting the front 4 with strikes, but, with all I had I managed to put up an open, strike strike spare.  Great, only 31 sticks behind in the first 4 frames.   My opponent then went spare, strike, spare and I folllowed suit to maintain my defecit of sticks.  Then, in the 8th frame his first shot was way off line and he opened with a split, open, split open, dude just opened the last three frames to give me a shot.  I managed hit enough pins in the next three frames to tie the score at 201 scratch, and I had 3 sticks of handicap on him to win the match by 3 pins.  I used everything I had to come back and at least win the match and now going into the round of 16 was pooped.  I could barely stand up, at one point the opponent had to help me stand up because I couldn't do it myself.  I managed to beat him 197 to 190 to go into the round of 8 and at least get my money back for the week.  In the round of 8 I dropped a 147 and went home with an 8th place finish!  If I could start qualifying a little better then I may have more points in this league, but for now I'm sitting in 11th place total with two 8th place finishes after 3 weeks of bowling and am in good position moving into week 4 in 4 weeks.