mattie g

13 minutes ago, mattie g said:

Wow. That's some serious sky piss!

I was just about to say that the cell is reaching back towards me - can't be more than a couple miles away now. Need that to continue!

And now I'm literally *just* on the west side of that appendage and it's dumping. I can actually see the breaks in the clouds looking to the NW!

We'll see how long this lasts!

2 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

1.83” and still coming down.  Mattie - a little tentacle headed towards you.

Wow. That's some serious sky piss!

I was just about to say that the cell is reaching back towards me - can't be more than a couple miles away now. Need that to continue!

4 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

Yup, right on the north side of that cell.  This is the best T&L the entire year so far.

Big outflow gust just came through here. I think we're going to miss out on this one.

2 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

 Very Florida like. Storms practically stationary, outflow boundaries crisscrossing all over, new storms popping where they met, etc

Yup.

MN must be getting hammered right now.

Damn...that Fairfax County-Arlington-DC cell is so close, yet so far away.

21 hours ago, vastateofmind said:

You inadvertently brought out a great point. Fair warning, and grumpy old dude opinion forthcoming -- if your kids sign up for summer swim season, here's a fresh idea....how about you (not LITERALLY you, mattie) and your family NOT taking your friggin' family vacations until AUGUST, so that your kids can be there to swim for all or at least most A/B swim meets?? Do these cavalier families ever stop to think about what issues this causes for coaches and team reps who are trying to actively seed the heats for all of these meets? (The answer is "no," and they don't care.)

I can honestly say that for every single year that my two sons were part of our NVSL summer swim team (probably a 12-year timespan) our family did NOT take family vacations during the NVSL swim season. I'm not patting "us" on the back, but I did stress to my sons...if you make the commitment to swim for the neighborhood pool, you damn well better show up to swim for every meet for which you're eligible.

Our team had dozens of families that signed up multiple kids to swim throughout the summer season...and then ended up being there for, like, THREE total meets due to their overstacked travel schedules and other sports commitments. I mean, seriously, why bother?? Sorry (not sorry) if that offends some folks, but summer swim is a commitment just like any other sport.

I definitely hear you on that. We haven't planned a summer vacation before August since my older daughter started as an 8&U three years ago, and I can't see that changing any time soon!

We have a few families who have taken vacations during the season in the past couple years, and we have other kids who aren't going to be here for certain weekends due to other commitments. It's definitely frustrating, but a team our size doesn't have the luxury of turning away swimmers who might be missing meets. As long as the families tell us early on that their schedules are packed and we know which dates the kids are/aren't around, we can work around it. One of the families whose kids have missed lots of meets in the last two years is actually that of a former Team Rep and our current DC. They ran it by us, and even though we were disappointed that we wouldn't have them available to swim for more than half the meets, we appreciated their being up front about it.

My co-Rep and I make a half-joking announcement at the May parents' meeting that we fully expect that everyone planned their vacations starting in August, and honestly most do. We just get the occasional family that does what they're going to do, so we just accept it and move on!

21 hours ago, hstorm said:

Incredible dead heat in the boys’ mixed age relay at our meet today. I have seen plenty of ties in 25/50 races, but never in a 200. Great finish to a great meet this morning. 

I had a feeling I knew which team you were…and I was right!

Very cool ending for you guys! Pretty amazing when a meet comes down to close relays, and it looks like you guys came out on top. Congrats!

We were surprised by how well our opponents swam yesterday. By the same token, we were a little off our own game, so we were only +2 going into relays. There were a few swing relays, one of which (13-14 boys) we weren’t sure would go our way but did, and that set us up for a finish we were confident would go our way. In the end, our girls mixed age pulled out a very surprising win without one of our star swimmers, which was a great way for us to win that meet.

3-0 start with our two toughest meets to come. We’re likely missing a few key swimmers for those, so we don’t have huge expectations, but ending 3-2 and tying for second in Relay Carnival after going up a division would be huge for us!

Just harvested 14 healthy heads of garlic. A few were separating already, so I'll use those first, but the rest are in really good shape (two heads were massive)! Far cry from last year, when I only harvested a couple runty heads, with the rest basically having rotted in the ground.

Seed garlic was local, organic Music garlic heads bought from Wegman's in the fall.

No Irish Spring needed.

I heard LWX radar is back online.

Anyone else?

16 hours ago, CAPE said:

If you can survive OK, you shouldn't have much of a problem around here. As a weather enthusiast, you should have some sense of this.

Yeah. It gets hot and it gets humid, but it's not that bad. lol

13 hours ago, hstorm said:

Always a fun night! And a beautiful evening (save for the smoke). Our kids swam great and, more importantly, had a blast.
 

Hope it was a good night for your team as well!

That's great to hear! It's such a fun meet, and the kids go absolutely berserk over it! For me, it was really comfortable down on the deck, which made it that much more enjoyable.

We swam really well and the coaches were THRILLED with how it went. We didn't have big expectations going in, but we ended up tying for second (12 points off first). The best part about it was that we had no DQs outside of a false start in the 15-18 girls relay in which would have come in near last anyway (I *think* she rocked on the start). Far cry from us going into the season not sure if we'd even have any 8&U relays!

11 minutes ago, frd said:

So what chemical reaction is causing this wildfire smoke to smell more like burning plastic and chemicals versus a typical wood burning ?  There are some conspiracy theories on the web about this currently.  

 

Of course there are!

NVSL Relay Carnivals tonight. One of the most fun nights of the season!

5 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Very pleasant late June morning 

It's been an unreal couple months, to be honest. You know it's been an easy summer so far when it hits 87 with some humidity and folks are melting.

1.3" at the closest CoCoRaHs that has reported yesterday's rainfall. That puts MBY over 3" for the last week, despite completely whiffing on Monday.

3 minutes ago, mattie g said:

Radar is more impressive than the rainfall so far.

Abd the skies then opened up.

3 minutes ago, H2O said:

I’m only gonna go out and look at the clouds today. Nice cluster to my west out PW/FX way

Radar is more impressive than the rainfall so far.

Just now, Terpeast said:

I wouldn't be surprised if areas that got no rain yesterday gets it today, and vice versa.

Keep talking...

10 hours ago, hstorm said:

Completely agree on the flinches.  Especially for younger kids and if it doesn't otherwise affect the start.

Our false start issue was a bit more unique, but is addressed clearly in NVSL's false start guidance.  One of our swimmers was using a teammate's legs for a backstroke start.  At the "take your marks" command, he started to pull up to get into his starting position, but one of his hands slipped off his teammate's legs and he fell backwards (all before getting set in his starting position).  NVSL's guidance covers this scenario and says it is not a false start if a swimmer loses his balance and falls into the pool before getting set.

We have a very experienced referee.  To his credit, he was  patient in letting them make their argument.  But there was no reason for them to push the issue for 15 minutes after the meet ended.  That, however, was just one of the many annoying (and petty) things that they did on Saturday.

Gotcha. Yeah...that's plain as day and even if the Reps weren't aware of the rule (which is totally understandable), they should 100% defer to the Referee in that instance.

What a crappy way to end a meet!

Just add to the chorus above…my co-Rep and I saw false starts on two different relays (both the other team’s) that didn’t get called. We both immediately looked at each other and mouthed “huge flinch”, but it’s just not worth making a fuss about it.
 

There’s something to be said for holding kids accountable to play to the rules, but there are other ways to address it than DQing kids.

1 hour ago, hstorm said:

Yesterday’s A Meet was the first time im our family’s 3 years of NVSL swimming that I left a meet with a bad taste in my mouth. Our opponent’s coaches/reps were just unpleasant (including a protest and staying for 15 minutes after the meet ended to argue with our referee over a — correct — non-call that they thought should have been a false start).  Seemed entirely out of place for a middle division meet  

It was too bad because both teams swam really well and it was otherwise a fun meet … including an entertaining 8&u fly where everyone DQed. 

That sucks. I get the idea of being able to protest, but it should only be used in the most obvious of circumstances and if it makes a difference in terms of the outcome of the meet…and even then I question whether that card should be pulled.

Full slate of DQs is hilarious! We have a small 8&U crew this year, and few of them are experienced swimmers, so our only boys fly swimmer DQed…but he was close!

We had a really fun meet that was closer than we thought it might be. Our opponents had some much better swims that their seed times suggested, but we held them off in the end. And <Dad Brag> my girl had another PB in 9-10 free, nonchalantly going MUCH faster than any of us expected </Dad Brag>.

We often get a single ant infestation in our mailbox each spring that always follows a heavy rain event. I just nuke them and they're gone...not to return until the next year. We only got that one decent rain event at the end of April, but I haven't gotten any ants so far this year.

1 hour ago, MN Transplant said:

Yeah, that's effectively where I am.

Makes sense since when we get general area-wide precip, we usually fall pretty much in line.

Swim practices cancelled this morning due to the cool temps. Pretty wild for June 22!

About .8" based on CoCoRaHs nearby. Seems about right.

1 minute ago, Terpeast said:

Have you seen a recent sst map? and the forecasts?

Orange and red everywhere, except for a few small blue spots. Frankly, it tells me everything I need to know about this issue. 

Lots and lots of underwater volcanoes?