The Wandering Minstrel

The Arizona Game and Fish Department sponsors a program developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation in conjunction with the firearms industry. It’s good to see that kids in our new town will have a chance to get proper firearms training from NRA certified instructors.

From Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club:

Kids win. Parents win. Coaches win.

That’s really what we’re shooting for!

The Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) is a team-based youth development that uses the shotgun sports as to instill discipline, safety, teamwork, ethics, self-confidence and other life values. Team members can participate in any or all of three clay target disciplines: trap, skeet, and sporting clays.

SCTP was developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation in conjunction with the firearms industry and shotgun shooting governing bodies and is now nationally governed by the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation to provide team participation to youth in the shotgun shooting sports.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department sponsors the program in Arizona and invites students from age 9 thorough graduation of high school to an opportunity to learn about firearms, safety, and teamwork in a safe environment by certified shotgun coaches. [more]

I ran across this article while perusing the Wickenburg Sun website:

This past spring, a high school rifle team consisting of Wickenburg representatives set a new national record while competing in Arizona’s State Midrange Championships.

The team of Michael Dalton, Victoria Gray, William Burg and Travis Burian recorded the highest team score for junior shooters in the nation. Five state records were set by the team consisting of Jordan Busone, Victoria Gray, Michael Dalton, William Burg, Dylan Evans and Travis Burian. The other four records were all set by sharp-shooter Burian.

In addition to Arizona state championships, the junior team will be going once again to the national championships held at Camp Perry, Ohio. They will leave July 27 and compete there for more than a week.

Although it is not yet final who will participate, the members who have committed to this challenge so far are Burian, Dalton, Gray, Burg, Busone and Steven Swayzee. The trip will be funded primarily from donations the Wickenburg community.

The rifle team will be practicing all summer long for Camp Perry, a National Guard post on the shores of Lake Erie. The National Trophy Team Match brings in the top civilian and military shooters in the world together every year.

Imagine the scenario, as described by The Union Democrat newspaper, of Sonora, Calif.:

Six-person teams line up — eight at a time — along a quarter-mile firing line, starting at 600 yards. The targets are of the military variety, human upper-body silhouettes, rather than the usual bull’s eyes.

At the command to begin, all the shooters start firing as fast as they can, sending as many rounds downrange as possible in 50 seconds.

Shooters then hustle up to 500 yards and do it all over again, laying down a barrage aimed at slightly smaller silhouettes.

Next, it’s 300 yards and even smaller targets.

When it’s over — and it’s over fast — the team that hit the most targets the most often wins.

Practice for the local rifle team generally takes place at the Ben Avery shooting facility located off State Route 74 near Interstate 17 in Phoenix. This year’s WHS team is quite a bit larger than last year’s, in spite of the fact that Coach Rex Powers has retired as a teacher. Powers has been the coach for more than 16 years, and often personally finances much of the team’s expenses.

We’re not going to post a lot here today - just a quick review of the Superbowl. We watched the game in its entirety, but took an after-dinner walk during the halftime show. We’re not into “The Who.”

The Better Half was a bit disappointed with the outcome. I remained pretty indifferent since I just wanted to watch the best two teams get to the Superbowl and I think they did. The final score was a bit lopsided but it was actually closer than that in the stats.

We rated the commercials this year as mostly either weird, boring or stupid with only a couple of exceptions. When Jack (the plastic-headed fast food clown) impaled his plastic pointed hat in the concrete river bed after a failed bungee jump off of a bridge above, we both had a good laugh over that one. Go Daddy outdid themselves for best commercial by a pack of morons this year.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for their victory. To the Colts, you have nothing to be ashamed of . . .

Now for the football withdrawals . . . We used to watch the Pro Bowl the week after and that would let us down easy, but the NFL screwed that up for us.

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to move the pro Bowl out of Hawaii and to a time slot a week before the Superbowl. Way to go genius. Now the players in the Pro Bowl will be without the best players in the NFL, namely the members of the two Superbowl teams. How can they call it a showcase of the best NFL players when nobody playing tonight will be going to the big show?

I will miss the casual Hawaiian spirit and the bright Aloha prints worn by the coaching staff. I will miss the post-season atmosphere wherein all the best players came to participate. Tell me what you think by voting in the poll. Thanks.

A long time ago, my Dad and I went to a Pro Bowl when they were playing it in the Los Angeles Colliseum. It was after the season as I recall. Dad and I really enjoyed going.

The Better Half and I watched all of the football games played this wild card weekend of playoffs. Until the late game today, the other three previous weekend games were sort of one-sided affairs, with one team or the other taking an early lead and the losing team never quite getting back into the game.

It initially looked like the Arizona Cardinals were going to make it four for four lopsided games when they led the Green Bay Packers 24-7 at halftime. Not so fast - the Pack came back in the second half and outscored the Cardinals by a score of 35-21 to tie the game at end of regulation. Arizona had a chance to win the game, but missed an otherwise easy 34 yard field goal with seconds left on the clock. The fourth quarter ended with the score tied at 45.

In overtime, Green Bay won the toss and elected to receive. After receiving the kickoff, they started off from the 20 yard line. After a couple of plays, Green Bay was assessed a penalty for holding which moved them back to about their 10 yard line.

This is where the bizarre ending comes. Aaron Rodgers, the GB quarterback, faded back for a pass, but Arizona had a blitz converging in the pocket. Rodgers released the ball forward, but it was immediately blocked by a defender. The blocked ball then fell to Rodgers’ right foot where he inadvertently kicked the ball to a defender, who took it into the end zone for a Cardinals touchdown.

As I said, a very bizarre - and sudden - ending to a very entertaining football game.

Next week’s playoff lineup . . .

The last Monday Night Football game for the regular NFL season is currently in progress. While watching football is a lot of fun for us, we recently discovered the pregame feature called “C’mon, Man.” Chris Berman and the guys run selected clips from the weekend games where punts are shanked, field goals are missed and a variety of other events that are worthy of exclaiming “C’mon, man” when you see the often funny on-and-off-field screw-ups.

The Better Half and I will watch the games (we watch the Red Zone HD channel) and try to guess which of the muffs or fumbles will get selected. Tonight’s selection by the ESPN crew included at least two of the candidates we thought they might select from yesterday’s games.

Even though this is the last MNF, ESPN’s Pro Bowl pregame show is supposed to feature the “C’mon, Man-of-the-year” The event is scheduled to take place in Dolphin Stadium on January 31, 2010 - the first time since 1980 that the game will NOT be played in Honolulu. C’MON, MAN!

I got nothin’ today. Still recovering from a great Christmas. Here - read this . . .

How would you like to watch all of the NFL games on Sunday? Without those lame commercials? And no need to flip through the channels to see what’s happening around the league? The NFL Sunday Ticket SuperFan Package has a feature called the Red Zone Channel that does all of that for us. The only drawback is the occasional bad jokes the Red Zone commentator makes. Most of the time, though, you’re hearing the audio from the broadcasts.

In the clickable image above, you can see the split screen feature that allows you to catch the action even if in two separate places. The RZ channel also plays highlights from games for events like turnovers and scoring. If not in real time, they get around to showing it all.

Hmmm. I think it must be time to pop a beer and park my butt in front of the TV.