Every year we have The Gathering in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  This is year 6 and I have been to them all.  It is a gathering of bowlers from BallReviews.com and Bowl4Fun.com.  Ron Clifton, aka Magic Carpet is our host.  This is the vent about this years travel to The Gathering.

Let me set the stage.  Monday night I bowled my Sport league, stayed a little to talk to some friends and then home.  There had been a major accident on the 101 that was now cleared, but still causing congestion.  I got home about 10:40 PM.  I had to get the last things packed and put in the car for a departure from the house by 3:15 AM.  I try to sleep a little, but managed less than hoped for, about an hour or two.

Now it all begins.  I get to the FlyAway station about 3:30 AM, purchase a ticket for the 4 AM bus.  Good so far.  The bus comes, luggage is loaded and on to the bus.  A family rushes on to a packed bus, 4 seats in various locations left for the 4 passengers.  The adult male asks if the seat next to me is available, I stand to let him in.  He had asked another passenger about the seat near him and he too stood to let the person in, a kid.  As the guy sits next to me he makes a comment about people liking the seats they were in.  I guess he wanted us to move to accomodate his late arrival.  Which would be sort of okay, if he communicated that before stepping in to the seat.  Personally I have a family heading to the airport, I arrive at the FlyAway early for the bus to get seats together.  But that's just me.

After being kneed a few times by the guy and 30 minutes drive we arrive at LAX.  Mind you it is about 4:20 AM, the line for the skycap/curbside check-in is the longest I've ever seen it.  I chose to go inside where at least the line seems to be moving and is not much longer than outside.  Baggage tagged and dropped off at the TSA screening station, so it is on to the security area, which isn't bad at all.

Through security uneventful and to the gate.  I make a stop at McDonalds, the only place open, grab a Sausage McMuffin and Diet Coke, then have a seat and wait.  It is now about 5:15AM.  Sit, read a little, use the restroom and finally the boarding call.  I am flying Southwest, so all A group lines up in number order with 1 - 30 on the left and 31 - 60 on the right.   I am A31, so I go stand at the front on the right, stepping in front of a gentleman.  This guy tells me he was there first.  Thinking he is not familiar with the boarding procedures,   I expaline nicely that I have #31 and we are to line up in order.  He continues to tell me he is in front of me.  I checked the sign tomake sure I was on the correct side of the post, I was.   I then said that if he was ahead of me he needed to be in the other line and pointed to the sign.  He grunts and steps to the other side, paying no attention to the numbers.  I smiled to myself when the ticket taked told him he had to wait, they were only at  #15 and he was #27.

The first leg of the flight was only about an hour into Phoenix.  Only enough time for a short cat nap.  I figure the next leg is 4 hours, I should get to sleep a goo part of that flight.  BAD GUESS.  We get to Phoenix ontime and the gate is not too far away.  A stop at the rest room and then it is sit and wait about 45 minutes.  I noticed the same gentleman from LAX in the seats and wondered if there would be a repeat of LAX boarding.  No, he finally figured out the number system and when the call to line up came, he was about 5 people in front of me -I was A 43 this time.

We get on the plane and I am seated by the window with the aisle seat taken before I got on the plane.  As the last few passengers board, the largest lady I have seen on a plane says to us sorry folks, tosses her bag in the overhead and plops into the middle seat, plus part of my seat and part of the other ladies seat.  I get jabbed in the side, nearly hit in the face with flying elbows, and the nightmare begins.  Now mind you, I am not a tiny petite lady, BUT I do fit in my seat and I do make sure I am not sticking my elbows beyond the arm rest.  In fact I usually do not use the armrest unless the middle seat is vacant.

I tried to sleep, head against the wall, and as far towards the wall as I could get.  Her thigh against mine and elbows in my side were things I was hoping to avoid.  Then my back begins to ache, so I try to shift positions to sleep.  Everytime I get almost comfortable, here would come the elbow. 

For those who have not flown Southwest recently, they no longer have the little snack packs for the longer flights.  Now they come through with a variety of 100 calorie packs to choose from.  They do not limit what you can take, but most people take one or two.  So here comes the flight attendant, I take a pack of Wheat Thins.  The lady on the other end took 2 different ones and of course the BIG MAMA takes 4.  It was disgusting to see and hear her devour all 4 within 20 minutes.  It was a relief when about an hour later she left her seat to use the restroom.  A few minutes elbow free.  She comes back with 3 more snacks, no not from the restroom, the galley is adjacent to the restroom. 

The last hour of the flight was not only the elbow, but the kid behind me had become restless and now I also got the kick from behind.  He was traveling with is slightly older brother and no parents.  The 4 hour flight was one that felt like it would never end.  Finally we get the announcement to prepare for landing.  Okay, now it is not just the elbow, but she has this mini chalk board that she puts under her arm while gathering her junk and I get that in the ribs a few times.  She sits there with all her carry on from under the seat in her lap.  The flight attendant tells her to stow it under the seat.  She does for all of 5 minutes.  I'm not quite sure what she was thinking we were in the row just in front of the wings, so it is not like we won't have time to get things together before we get to deplane.  Oh and the 4 hour flight was about 20 minutes longer because we had to fly around some severe weather.

Thankfully on the gound things got better.  My luggage arrived safely and I got out to the Rental Car Shuttle just as it arrived.  The guy behind the desk was trying to get me to upgrade from compact to mid-sized for an additional $22/day.  He explained that most compacts do not have power locks and windows or remote locking features.  I said it was fine.  He then asked if I was a Costco member, I am but didn't bring the card.  He goes and does some more calculations and says it will be a total of $72 more.  I still decline.  He then goes to get the keys and can't find them.  He goes to the back to get more keys and tells me the car has power locks, windows and remote access.  Yahoo!  I told him finally something good has happened, he laughs and says he was glad to have helped turn things around.

I get the car and head to Winston Salem.  Aside from some blinding rain, the trip is smooth and uneventful.  Hotel check-in is smooth and I get a room on the ground floor.  All is good until I realize in my repacking Monday night at home, I packed the video camera, but not the battery.  So it is off to Best Buy to purchase a battery pack.

Thanks for reading and letting me get this out of my system.  The joys of travel, but then I guess I should have expected a nightmare flight since last week into and out of Chicago went flawlessly.

Tonight was the first night on the new pattern.  We played on a modified TOC pattern.  It is 50 feet and, according to what I was told, about 1/2 the volume of oil of the actual TOC pattern.  I thought I had a couple possibilities in warm-ups.  One was the Whirl Wind inside at about 11 standing 18.  The other was the Gamebreaker more outside around 4/5 standing 12.  I decided to start with the Gamebreaker.

Within about 3 frames I couldn't get the ball to the headpin from outside or inside.  The only way to hit the headpin with the Gamebreaker was to go in to about 15/16 standing 23.  The problem was that resulted in 1 strike and several multipin spares to shoot at.  My spare shooting was horrible.  In the 7th frame I went to the Whirl Wind standing 20 targeting 10.  I finished with 3 marks and a 129.

Game 2 I continued with the Whirl Wind standing 20 targeting about 10.  I had much better results.  As the game progresses I got more comfortable and found I was rolling the ball much better.  I was more confident and my spare shooting improved.  I also recalled a conversation a month or so ago with a friend in the league.  The line I had been playing that day was not getting the ball to the pocket.  He told me to flatten the wrist and bring the thumb up a bit to get better forward roll and allow the ball to better read the lane.  It paid off.  I had 2 opens and a 176 game.

We moved a pair to the left and had to wait about 20 minutes for the opposition to finish their first 2 games.  I decided to play the same line I had for game 2.  I was successful, though I did have to make a few minor adjustments.  I had 2 opens in game 3 for a 179 and 2 opens in game 4 for a 172.

Despite being told this would be a tougher pattern, I shot my best set of the summer and improved my average 3 more pins to a 150.  What I did notice is not only did I roll the ball much better, but my ball speed was also higher.  Prior to this past winter my ball speed had always been in the 15 - 16.5 mph range.  Until tonight I was more in the 13.5 - 14.5 mph range.  I wasn't really paying attention, but I happened to look up sometime in game 3 and saw the first ball was recorded at 16.02.  I rolled for the spare and the speed was 16.32.  After that I checked every so often and the lowest was 15.05 and highest was 16.7. (The center has Quibica scoring units). 

I talked to my coach briefly after league and told him about the ball speed, he said that was good and off the hand it was probably around 17mph.  He also commented that the shots he saw looked really good.  That also felt good since I haven't received any feedback from him in quite some time.  I am feeling good about this pattern and look forward to next week.