Joey Gibson’s Blog

I was really worried about game 1, but it improved. Game 2 was good and so was game 3.

I don’t know what happened, but last night was really bad.

The league took two weeks off for Christmas, so this was our first night back in three weeks. I did a lot better than I was expecting.

Excellent night, tonight! I bowled in a church fund-raiser tournament yesterday and my scores were so bad I didn’t even write them down. It looks like I got rid of most of the junk yesterday, which is good.

I got some tips from a pro over the weekend and tried to put them to good use last night. First game was good. Second was bad. Third was excellent. Here’s a clip of a printout of the game. Notice frames 7 - 10.

Ugh…

Last night was a disaster. My entire team bowled like crap…

I did fairly well this week. Last week was Halloween, so I had pre-bowled and thus was not present last Monday night. Apparently the other team had only one person show up, and the rest of his team had not pre-bowled. This means that they had to forfeit all three games. But wait! That does not mean that we won all three games. No, our scores had to be within some number of pins of our team average and since we all had rather lame weeks, we only “won” one game. In most sports, when the other team forfeits, the other team wins. Period. But not on our league…

Since Monday is Halloween and my bowling night, and I don’t think I’d be able to convince the entire Halloween-celebrating world to move the festivities, I pre-bowled during lunch today. The first two games were OK, but game 3 was a disaster. I had very little breakfast this morning, and I could tell I was running out of gas by about the third frame of game 3…

First game was OK, but I was not happy with the second two games.

While my scores last night were only slightly below my average (which had actually gone up based on last week’s excellent game), I was still not happy with them. Games 2 and 3 I was really concerned that I wasn’t even going to break 100. Those two games were saved in the last few frames.

My first game last night was my highest score ever. I finally broke 200. Game 2 was not bad, but game 3 was a disaster.

I needed to test out a ball that belonged to my father-in-law, so I headed up to the alley today for a bit o’ practice. I bowled 4 games in 45 minutes, and I was worn out by the end. Good scores, though. Afterwards, I took the ball by the pro shop to get it weighed (14 lbs) and to check the grip. The guy said the grip was a bit short, but unless I started feeling pain in my hand, I shouldn’t get it re-drilled. I’ll be using this ball for my league bowling starting Monday night.

Oh yeah, I bought a new bowling bag to keep it in as well. The bag it was in was old and my shoes (size 13’s) wouldn’t fit inside it.

Excellent night, last night. And these scores were after driving for 5.5 hours to get home from the beach! Game 1 is my all-time high score.

Much better last night. But I have got to get my own ball. Trying to find a decent house ball stinks. I did find one last night that didn’t rub a blister on my thumb, but I couldn’t get my fingers completely in the holes, so I ended up pretending it was a fingertip-grip… Not fun, but my scores were decent.

First game last night was good. Second game was better. Third game the wheels fell off. I did buy some new bowling shoes, so it wasn’t a total loss…

I haven’t bowled on a league since I was 14 or so, but I’ve always loved bowling. I just don’t get to do it that often. Yesterday I returned to church after a many-week absence (work…) and happened to see in the bulletin that there was a new league starting up Monday (last night). I spoke to the coordinator and all was then set. We had our preparatory meeting last night, assigning teams, electing officers and whatnot. (It is amusing that officers an by-laws are needed for a bowling league, but such is life.)

So now I am the captain of a team which currently has no name. We are simply team #6, which actually has a nice ring to it… Seriously, we need a name, so if anyone has any suggestions, I’m open. It needs to be clean since this is a church league.

So, how did I bowl? I’m glad you asked. The first game was a bit shaky. I was using a too-heavy ball, but I got that adjusted about half-way through. The problem then was that while the weight was good, the finger holes were either too tight, and my fingers stuck, or the grip was too wide. I settled on the too-wide-grip ball, but ended up with a blister on my thumb. (I have a ball here somewhere, I just have to find it.) My second game was better and my third game was one of the highest scores I’ve ever had.

The team we bowled against only had one member present, so the night went really quickly. Many times as soon as I finished bowling on one lane, it was my turn again on the other, which made for quite a few jokes.

I’m really looking forward to Monday nights.