1st Annual BowlingBoards.com Virtual Tour!!!

[J Anderson]

Aslan, in calculating my composite average you combined my right-handed sport average, denoted by the sport bowling icon after the league name, with my left-handed regular average from last year. I haven't decided which way I want to bowl for this tournament. I would be willing to do what I've done for "Beat Your Coach" day and let the other tourney participants vote on which hand I should use.

[tccstudent]

Representing the Sooner State of Oklahoma:
- tccstudent, 185 average, +31, 216 handicap.
.

where did you get 185 from bowl.com has it listed at 186

[vdubtx]

where did you get 185 from bowl.com has it listed at 186

I didn't get it from anywhere, simply used whatever Aslan had listed for everyone with the incorrectly calculated handicap and updated it with corrected handicaps.

[Bunny]

You guys are definitely entertaining. I'm pretty much good with whatevs except bowling at Carter AMF. That place bites. Their archaic, wick-style oil machine, we call it "Old Yeller" lays down some kind of funky a** block pattern.

Good luck figuring that s**t out. Mike W. would literally lose his mind.

[Aslan]

All I can say...is...if the revised numbers are less than a pin different than the originally posted numbers....I'm not updating them. I mean for *&Dks sake...if we're going to, before this thing even starts, get bent about a .6 pin difference...this thing is going to be WAY too much of a hassle.

The spreadsheet too the averages, used the agreed upon formula, and it gave the numbers. Guess what...next week....its all gonna change!! Your scores will be used to calculate beautiful NEW averages...using the same spreadsheet....YIPPEEE!! If at the end of the season...ANYONE can point to how a < 1 pin averaging difference between Excel and the USBC rule book led to them not winning the gift certificate...I'll personally BUY them a $25 bowlingball.com gift certificate.

Don't annoy me before the thing even starts. I already gotta contend with the annoyance of me actually *$%&ing up. One of the rare times I shoulda listened to YOU GUYS...by making the stupid radius 90 miles (for initial center selection) rather than the more reasonable 45 mile radius...I've made the center list so god awful large that said step is taking forever. So, note to next Tour President....regardless of the California dilemma (zdawg living 58 miles from civilization)...DON'T use 90 miles. Some people live in "normal" states and 90 miles can take them to 3 different states....and cliff notes it' stupid. And it's ESPECIALLY ANNOYING because if I DID draw a center more than 90 miles away (for anyone but myself), they'd argue successfully for a re-draw to something closer...(i.e. why make it 90 miles when you're just gonna re-draw it, duh?)

Add that to MWhite being a constant annoyance just because he likes to torture me...knowing that WHATEVER the random generator picks...he's gonna say there's some kind universal nonsense at play and said center is imporssible to play at due to some weird common law technical BS...GOD FORBID it picks Temecula Lanes...the site of Aslan's dominant performance in the event that started it all...the 1st Annual Billy Hardwick Memorial ZDawg vs. Aslan Southern California Invitational...MWhite will probably have a vein in his head explode and then I lose my ball driller.

So settle down...let the genius (me) work his magic tonight...and we'll get this thing off the ground. If MS Excel gives vdub 5 pins instead of 4...then bowl 1 pin better when you're paired against him and stop crying. Am I the only one that has played other sports? Remember the coach telling you after a close loss...that it wasn't that last second shot not going in...it was the 10 free throws you missed throughout the game that cost you the victory? If you lose by one pin...it probably can be traced to 100 things other than .6 rounding up to 1.

[Bunny]

90 miles seems a little crazy. Half-way for zdawg and us is 45 miles. The problem is the huge amount of nothing that is at the half-way point. Oceanside is around 55 miles. 60 miles might be a good number. That would be about an hour drive time. Which seems reasonable. Too late for a rule change and re-draw for you?

Seriously though, thanks for all the work you've done on this!

[vdubtx]

If you're gonna do it, do it right from the start. If anything, for the legitimacy of it. 1 pin or not, get it right to start it.

My $.02

[bowl1820]

Aslan if you want go to this link at Insidebowling and just put in what handicap you want and it will make a handicap chart for you:

http://www.insidebowling.com/resource/league/handicap

[Aslan]

90 miles seems a little crazy. Half-way for zdawg and us is 45 miles. The problem is the huge amount of nothing that is at the half-way point. Oceanside is around 55 miles. 60 miles might be a good number. That would be about an hour drive time. Which seems reasonable. Too late for a rule change and re-draw for you?

Seriously though, thanks for all the work you've done on this!

I'm 3/5 of the way through. And Stormed1 has sent in his information so we're at an even 12 of actual participants.

I'll take a look at the link provided and "perhaps" redo the averages to take into account the < 1-pin rounding difference. I'm still undecided. While on principle I agree that I want it to be fully in line with the USBC guidelines....I also on priniciple and for the reason of setting precedent, don't want to have to redo a ton of work and make things even more difficult every time there's a teeny tiny miniscule issue. I mean, it's less than a pin for crying out loud.

To Bunny's point; Yes...the original reason I chose 90 miles was because of what I call the "Zdawg Protocol". Because I wanted to get us California folks physically together to bowl agaisnt each other...and San Diego while being a lovely area is isolated from the rest of civilized California by hills and desert and military bases...I had to expand the range slightly. I figured it wasn't a big deal because actually "driving" that way (or this way from there) is not really a traffic issue (as it would be driving to the other side of LA from Orange County or vice versa. But once we turned this thing into a "Tour" and involved more people...I didn't realize how problematic a 90-mile radius would be. For example:

- It now expands the non-ZDawg Californians from about Yucca Valley to Ventura....which even in moderate traffic would take 6-7 hours to traverse.
- In areas like JAnderson's Connecticut....smaller state...guess what....now his radius includes Connecticut, New York, a small part of Massachusetts, and almost New Jersey/Pennsylvania. Each state on average doubles the work.
- Thus far, Arizona was actually the easiest (classgranny) because the cities are generally well-defined and spread out and she isn't near any state lines...so it wasn't too bad. And zdawg's was easy because despite San Diego's size...they have relatively few bowling alleys.
- I just need to finish the lists for Mudpuppy, noeymc, and Stormed1 which will be a little tircky since Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois will "slightly" overlap. tr33frog will be slightly tricky as well with both Kansas and Missouri overlapping. And then vdub and tccstudent should be straight forward. There's a "slight chance" that noeymc, Stormed, and/or Mudpuppy could overlap enough where they might be able to physically face one another...but highly doubtful. The states are just too big and Indiana is unrepresented.

The easiest pairing to physically meet will be you and I since we're both in Orange County. And MWhite shouldn't be too much of a problem either. But Zdawg is on the fringe. Either we'd have to go to the Murrieta/Lake Elsinore/Temecula area to meet in the middle or he'd have to make a trip to the outer area of Orange County like Saddleback Lanes. But we'll see what the generator spits out. If he gets a San Diego center and Mike gets a North Riverside County center or we get a South LA center(s)....then maybe we'll save a physical meet-up with zdawg to a later month when he draws something closer. Now, he always the OPTION...of making a drive....and if he draws me...I will probably drive to San Diego just because I have no life and I go to Temecula once a week anyways...so I'd just swing by SD before heading home. But, with the price of gas at $4.15+ in this great state of our's....eghhhhhhhh...I might not.

Should have it ready tonight. I'm at work but not really working today....it's the Friday before spring break....half the folks aren't here anyways....so whatever.

[Aslan]

Another side note/benefit of this little "exercise in futility" is, if any of the participants want a list of every USBC sanctioned alley within 90 miles of them....I will have that list.

Not sure if anyone would want such a thing....but if so, my pain is your gain!!