Hey, Smiling Bowler here. Best of Luck! (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

Hello friends, I just came across this site today and was lucky enough to be approved and have my profile edited and all set up just before I head out to my non-sanctioned family fun league tonight. Hope we can connect and share experiences together. I'll be back after league play. Best of Luck to those of you who are bowling tonight! (: .)

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SmilingBowler
Like me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/SmilingBowler

[e-tank]

:):)

[SmilingBowler]

Hey e-tank I like how you have your signature line. How do I go about customizing mine?

[ChrisB]

Welcome to the boards smilingbowler.

[SmilingBowler]

Thanks ChrisB! I look forward to connecting with many bowlers and helping anyone I can. I see there are a lot of good chats going on all around this forum.

[Bonebrake]

Welcome to the boards

[zman1974]

Welcome!

[The German Shepherd]

Welcome to the Boards!

Jay

[SouthpawTRK]

You can create a signature by going to the menu at the top of the screen marked "Forum Actions". Click on that and a pull down menu will appear; choose "Edit Profile". It will take you to another screen and on the left side of the screen you will see "My Profile". There will be several options, one of which will be "Edit Signature".

[SmilingBowler]

Thanks Bonebrake! Rock and Roll! (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

Thanks SouthpawTRK! (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

Check it out... I've got a signature now! Thanks again to SouthpawTRK for helping me out. Cheers! (: .)

[75lockwood]

Welcome to the boards!

[SmilingBowler]

Thank you 75Lockwood!
Happy Bowling! (: .)

[ArtVandelay]

Welcome to the forum!

Incase e-tank doesnt see your question:
You can edit your signature by clicking on "Settings," at the top of the page. From there, you should see an option on the left to edit your signature.

There are quite a few things you can edit to your preferences. Welcome to the forum!

[ArtVandelay]

Whoops... See how easy it is to miss a post (and a second page of posts, for that matter....).

[SmilingBowler]

Haha.. Thanks Art. Still toying around with my signature, but 75Lockwood broke it down for me.

[eugene02]

Welcome to the board! may you have fun learning and the chance to win the ball!

[SmilingBowler]

Thank you Eugene. Best of Luck to you, too, man.

[SmilingBowler]

Tomorrow night (Monday February 18, 2013) at 5:30 PM EST I'll be pre-bowling for my Thursday Night League (USBC) and will be live-tweeting my progress using the hashtag #SmilingFrameByFrame so everyone can follow along.

Go ahead and follow me http://twitter.com/SmilingBowler to get in on the fun. Thanks! (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

Alright, so in case you don't follow me on Twitter and didn't see that I was recruited to sub in the Monday Mens League (great time last night, by the way) I am now going to pre-bowl tomorrow (Wednesday Night) for my Thursday Night League, before I bowl in my Non-Sanctioned Wednesday Mixed League.

This will be the first time since last summer I'll throw 6+ games in one day. It'll be interesting to see how well I do.

I'll prebowl early (around 5ish) and then hang out at the lanes until our League starts at 6:15.

Follow all the action of my prebowling (assuming the Wi-Fi cooperates) at Twitter.com/SmilingBowler (http://twitter.com/SmilingBowler)

[Trex]

Welcome smiling bowler!! I have not been around much as of late, Good luck with the chance to win a ball here, I won a Brunswick Loaded Revolver here, & it's a Great ball!!

Great to meet you, look forward to seeing your progress, and
Thanks again.

[SmilingBowler]

Thanks Trex. I joined a few weeks back and I often check in to see how others have responded to my comments and others.
This board is quite a great help to bowlers of all experience and levels. Thanks for letting me know you've won a great ball.
I hope to win the Roto Grip Disturbed this week or I'll likely buy the Hammer First Blood which is available in our local pro shop.
I've seen a couple guys in my Monday Mens League be able to bowl well with that ball.

The Hammer First Blood is definitely at the top of my target list and surely I'll buy it if I don't happen to win the Roto Grip Disturbed this week.
They're equally capable of helping me with med-heavy oil with the back-end. I'm also considering buying a spare ball, looking at an Ebonite Maxim, in the case I don't feel comfortable with various lane conditions, especially shooting the 10 pin. Though I have taken some tips from other some pros like Norm Duke via YouTube and I am confident with my Innovate shooting 10-pins now.

Enjoy Bowling, pal. That's the best way I learn. This game keeps us humble and when we keep it positive, we can improve our game.

[Bonebrake]

If you get the first blood make sure to post about it.... If i dont happen to win a ball within the next few weeks i will be buying one and first blood is also on my list but dont know anyone who has used it

[SmilingBowler]

If you get the first blood make sure to post about it.... If i dont happen to win a ball within the next few weeks i will be buying one and first blood is also on my list but dont know anyone who has used it

I know ecub uses a Hammer First Blood.

[Bonebrake]

I had actually just talked to.him about it after posting that lol im not sure ill be able to afford the 200 but if i can i definately think it will be the ball i get

[SmilingBowler]

I hear ya. My Dad just got his Hammer First Blood today. It was about 230 with grips and a slug.
I look forward to seeing how he shoots it tomorrow in practice.

Personally, I'm still debating. I can get a Roto Grip Disturbed for about 50 bucks cheaper with drilling, if not won here, in which case, I'd just pay the 40 or so to get it drilled at our local pro shop. Those guys have drilled every ball of mine since 1996 and they know how I throw better than I know myself. LOL!

[Bonebrake]

Lol yeah i went to my pro shop the other day and they are very helpful and my proshop does free drilling grips and slugs when you buy a ball i just hope i have the money soon lol

[SmilingBowler]

I bowled well this morning and will post my scores in the most trendy thread in a moment. I took video with my iPad 2 (set on the floor by the ball return - recorded all 3 games) and my iPhone 4 (set on the table between the lanes - recorded just the 3rd game) but here's where I ran into an issue... iMovie requires an update, and the update requires I update my devices to 6.0 which I really do not wish to do. I currently run 5.1 on both and have no reason to change.

So I went ahead and deleted about 5 unnecessary apps and downloaded a couple video-editing apps I found that still run on 4.0 and above. Then I come to find the clips are too long and the apps crash when I try to call up any video. So much for that idea, huh? Well... I didn't want to edit the original video, I only wanted to take some best or and worst of clips from it to create a short 5 minute video.

But, because nothing else is seeming to work, figured I'd go ahead and edit the original. I try to do this and... not enough free space to edit the video. I have nearly a full GB of free space and it still won't let me edit video. This is bizarre, in my mind... I used to edit video with less than 750MB of free space... but that was back when I was running 4.0 and before I decided I'd record myself bowling.

So - long story short, I have failed at my attempt to be able to share video of my bowling.
The good news is I was able to record the full session and can still view it at my leisure and learn from it.
Gotta be happy with that. (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

Now that I had to edit my signature to be less than 4 lines, I had to remove my current stats, which were updated frequently - after each league series, to be honest.

But I found a solution. I started a blog. http://www.bowlingboards.com/blogs/18243-SmilingBowler

It's one post, featuring my best-of bowling moments over the past two seasons (before then, I struggled to reach a 500 series consistently) and also shows my games spreads and averages, broken down by league. You'll also find where else you can find me chatting bowling and sharing my scores on social sites like Twitter, Facebook - and soon to be YouTube!

[SmilingBowler]

I like my signature line now. Complete with "My BowlingBoards Blog features Lifetime High Scores" which links to my blog. I am a proud member of BowlingBoards.com (and yes, it took some time and edits like font changes to fit it all in) it rings true as my final statement in every post I post on this site.

Thank you all for reading. I will be practicing again tomorrow and will share my scores (and maybe some photos and videos) - once they're edited for time. For now, time for some rest so I can bowl well in about 5-6 hours. No fear.. I only sleep about 4-5 hours a night as it is.

Cheers! (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

Tried out a few new custom gif avatars, but realized that they won't continue to change like some of yours.

For this reason, I chose the one that made it look like my Smiling Bowler logo was spinning. The other one shows the Ebonite Innovate and Hammer Black Widow along with my logo, but it stops (like the one I have now) at the end rather than continuing.

Any ideas why?

[SmilingBowler]

WOW! 200 posts!

I feel it was fitting to come back here, to my first thread where my first post appears, to post my 200th post.
Maybe, one day, I'll be lucky enough to realize I'm another milestone post and enter it here as well. (: .)

[Bonebrake]

that's alot of posts lol I've been a member longer than you and I think im close to 100 lol

[SmilingBowler]

haha.. I started a few that really took off and had a number of others posting than just me. That was encouraging. (: .)

[SmilingBowler]

In Autumn of 1999 I bought a pair of AMF shoes from Kmart and they lasted 4 years. I bowled once a week regular season and one summer league 2/3 of the years; about 300 games. Used the summer league in 2005 (after not bowling the previous summer) to break-in a new pair of AMF shoes. They went on to last me another 4 seasons, one summer league and a number of sporadic practice sessions throughout the years. In 2009 I didn't bowl at all. My third pair of AMF shoes started to skid more than slide this past January and as some of you know, I've been shopping around for a new pair of shoes.

After a conversation with a trusted pro shop guy, the same man who drilled my Hammer Black Widow and Jacked Raw Hammer, decided it was time to step up and go with Dexter SST1s.

Last Saturday I went ahead and placed an order. They should be here in a few days.
I'll likely pick them up this coming Monday, if not tomorrow.

Dad and I didn't practice this past Sunday (St. Patrick's Day) but bowled Monday Night.
This is what my left slide shoe looked like in the 9th frame of the third game.

http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/o670/SmilingBowler/A96C069D-1A55-4596-A8F8-766BCB7A3563-807-000000B14FC55EF9_zps9a68b9e5.jpg

I guess it knew its days were numbered.

So this left me without shoes to bowl with this past Wednesday Night. *gulp!*
You can probably guess where I went and what I bought. Yup. You're right.
AMF bowling shoes at Kmart. If nothing else, I know they'll last about 4 years.

That's all I can ask of my new Dexter SST1s.