I just got a bunch of photos from this weekend’s Frisbee tourney in my inbox, and I thought I’d share.

Our team was called “Shark Sandwich” after the Spinal Tap album. And at some point, some sticks were in my hands and somehow ended up tucked into my hat as antennae.

We actually did play some frisbee on Saturday: five games, in fact. Eight hours of Frisbee. And the mandatory group shot. We need to remember this team: we played really well together and had a lot of fun doing it.

Bonus photo– open at your own risk. This is from our cheer after the last game we played. We were going to do an “A-Team” cheer, but then we realized they wouldn’t get the reference, since they are only in high school, and that show was off the air before they were born. So instead we did a Briney Spears thing, and… well, I can’t even blame it on beer or anything, but like I said: open at your own risk.

So, I haven’t really written much about Ultimate Frisbee here, but it is really a significant part of my life. Fortunately for me, Madison is a HUGE Ultimate town, and I think I heard at one point that there are over 3,000 people playing Fribee in Madison. Whatever the numbers are, there are still enough people playing in the summer–when the majority of the 30,000 undergraduates leave town– to support an advanced league (15 teams), two recreation leagues (26 teams total), and a beginners’ league (11 teams). There are also Spring and Fall leagues that attract a large number of people, and some tenatious players even find indoor space to rent in the winter, when the ground is too frozen to play.

Anyway, in addition to league play, there are also the occasional tournaments, like yesterday’s 8th annual Dick & Jane charity tournament. The playing was awesome, the goodwill abundant, and the weather was perfect. It was so fantastic to have a really good reason to sit on my duff next to Lake Monona in the shade of a huge, old cottonwood tree, eating my lunch with a bunch of friends. That reason, of course, being that I had just played three games of Ultimate back-to-back, and I was really tired, and I needed to sit on my duff for a while, and since I was there anyway, it might as well be next to Lake Monona in the shade of a huge, old cottonwood tree, eating my lunch with a bunch of friends.

But the really great reason for sitting on my duff like that was that while I was doing something very selfish, and getting an amazing (over-)workout, and hanging out with friends, and enjoying the beautiful weather, the tournament is a charity fund-raiser. While I went out and had a great day, the 12 participating teams raised over $1,700 for the Madison Area Food Pantry Gardening Project, which collects fresh veggies for the local food pantries. How cool is that?

UPDATE: I added a post with some photos.

Over the past 4 years, President Bush and his administration has demonstrated their complete inability to represent me and my views. Fortunately, since I live in the U.S. of A., I get a vote to tell them how I feel about the job they are(n’t) doing. I believe it is in my best interest to get Bush and his people out of the White House, and by extension, I believe that is what is best for our country. Beyond that, I pay my taxes every year, and since I have already literally bought into the system, I intend to exercise my patriotic right to vote.

To continue down a slight tangent, the more people vote, the more likely it is that Democrats will win. That is the way our two-party system has worked itself out: the Republicans get a steady base of vocal (and wealthy) supporters, and the Democrats rely on the numbers. But when voter turn-out is low, Democrats do poorly. So, I don’t care who or what you vote for (yes I do), but let’s get people out there and voting!

To this end, the smart kids over at Hot or Not have set up Vote or Not, where you can easily register to vote from right where you are sitting right now. AND as a big mega-bonus, if you do it through their site, you can sign up for a $100,000 drawing. In fact, if you sign up through my link here, and you win the $100K, I, too, will get $100K.

So if, for some reason, you are not registered to vote, GO DO IT NOW. You get to take full advantage of your paid membership in our American society, and at the same time, you (we) might get paid, too. Actually, even if you are already registered to vote, you can still sign up for the sweepstakes.

Oh, and I am not very original, but I love Matt Haughey’s style. Thanks for the idea, Matt– I hope we get us a winner.