Friday: Arrived at Cartersville

Today didn't start off well either. This morning when I got up I couldn't find my cellphone. I turned the room upside down, checked the van, checked where I walked the dogs, checked with the lobby.... no phone. I tried calling it several times and could not hear it. I called Karin and had her call it as I checked the van, etc..... again nothing.  Wasn't looking good for my Driod X. Denise arrived and was helping me look and tried calling it again. This second time she tried someone answered.... surprise!! Turns out it was the supervisor for a contruction worker who found it at the Redroof. Wohoo!! We were able to meet the supervisor at a gas station about 20 minutes away and I got my cellphone back... Luckily I had a hard password on it so no one could do much with it. So I gave the guy a $20 reward to give the finder and set off to Cartersville.

We got to Cartersville about 4pm and got a good spot. I practiced throwing some but it was pretty windy so I didn't do too much. We got a bite to eat and went to the players meeting. Out of 51 Super Open freestyle teams to compete tomorrow, we get to go third!!! Yikes

I HOPE TOMORROW MORNING GOES BETTER THAN THE LAST TWO MORNINGS!!!!

 Go Team Cosmic Flyer!!!

Heading off for USDDN

Mya, Colt and I have arrived in Cincinnati. The day didn't start off well as I went out to take Mya for a last practice this morning and found that the Odyssey's rear driver's side tire was flat. I got it inflated and made it to Discount Tire. The tire had picked up a nail and they repaired it. I lost about two hours so Mya didn't get to play. But hey, if I was going to have a flat, I would rather have in my driveway than on the road or the morning of the competition. Denise and I will meet in the morning and head down to Cartersville.

Colt's about to explode!! He blistered a pad last Saturday. I should have put some paw wax on him but I didn't think the grass looked that dry.  It obviously was. He was a little gimpy on it for about two days but is fine now. But just to be safe I haven't let him play. I will need to throw some for him on Saturday before the competition on Sunday just to settle him down some.

Mya is good to go!! She's in great shape and has been doing well in toss-n-fetch practice. I'm hopefull that we will have a great TnF round on Saturday. We'll give it our best shot to make the cut and play again Sunday.

Skyhoundz World Finals on Sunday

Colt and I competed in the Sport Division (distance/accuracy) of the Skyhoundz World finals on Sunday. The weather was overcast with periods on light rain and very little wind. Blaidden, Mya and Denise were there to root Colt on. The first two rounds were held on the secondary field with the final top twelve round being held on the main field.

Blaidden was an eager spectator to root Colt on throughout the day!!

We went 18th in our first round. We had a good round with Colt scoring a 19.5 which put us in second place. Colt had one slight miss in that round or we would have had a stellar round. Pretty good for a one year old pup in the world finals.

In our second round we went next to last due to the reverse order. It was raining lightly. I was a little concerned because Colt never even wants to go out to potty at home when its raining. I guess I should practice some in the rain :-). I went a little conservative on my throws in that round shortening them up a little because of the wet disc. Colt went five for five on his catches and we ended up with an 18 which kept us in second place.

Our final round occurred a couple of hours later on the main field. Again we went next to last. I have to admit I was feeling some pressure. I was determined to just make my throws and let Colt do his thing. I wanted to go long and wasn't going to play it conservative. We started off with two 5.5 catches, then another 5. Then Colt just barely missed a 5.5 for the fourth throw and we ended with a 3.5 for a total of 19.5. We held on to second place and Colt won a very BIG trophy!!

Colt's third round - youtube

Colt did an amazing job in the Skyhoundz World Finals at just 13 months old achieving second place at such a big event!!!!!!

A big thanks to Denise for our her help this weekend!!!!

photo of podium taken by Heather Bednar

Skyhoundz 2010 World Championships Open Freestyle

Mya and I competed in the Open Freestyle Division on Saturday. There were around 29 teams competing in the world finals. The conditons were pretty good, mostly overcast and not very windy. We were the fifth team to compete. Our routine started off with a three misses, then we had a solid streak and ended up with a couple of more toward the very end. Definately not a good enough round for the world finals and it ended us up in last place and resulted in us having the lowest freestyle score of the day. I also had an issue where I was scambling for a disc at the end that had to hurt us too.

Our D/A round was less than stellar. We had three good catches. Mya jumped early and missed one and I had one throw drift out of bounds and we ended up with a 11 which moved us up a little.

Blaidden lending some moral suport after our poor first round.

Our second round of freestyle went a lot better with only two misses that were spread out. Everything flowed really well and my disc management was very good. Mya did a great job with the routine with one miss being on her end and one being on me. We scored about 4.5 points higher in our second round and we ended up in 23rd for the day. If we had done as well in our first round and had scored higher in D/A we could have been in the middle of the pack.

I think to move up more in Skyhoundz we would need to get some more wow with more air. I did that some early in Mya's career but stopped because I just wasn't comfortable with it. I want her to be healthy and good at 14. We are more about flow and diversity of tricks and diversity of throws. Maybe we will fair better at the USDDN finals in about three weeks.

Nate, Mya and I at the awards ceremony

Open Qualifier

The open qualifier startd with us arriving at the field at 7:15am. It was sunny and hot with not much wind. There were around 150 dogs in D/A and about 50 dogs in freestyle. Mya went 13th in D/A and had a very good round and was about 3 inches from a geat round. One catch for 5.5 points was about just out. She ended up with a 19.5 which turned out to be the high score for the first round!

Colt was next up in freestyle aand went 25th. He did pretty well. He was so wound up!!! He had some misses early on but settled down toward the end of the routine. We did 2 minutes even though we only have about 60seconds of a routine put together. Toward the end of the routine, I decided to throw a skip throw. I've never thrown a skip in a competition like this and have never thrown one for Colt, but he caught it!! Afterward Denise said at first she thought I made a horrible throw into the ground!!! Colt had a blast and ended up in 44th place.

Colt then went 126th in D/A. I threw 30 yarders for him because I wanted for him to have success. He caught 4 out of 5 throws missing one early one. That caused him to miss the cut. The cut was 14 and Colt had a 14. But he did great and will be ready for the real thing on Sunday.

Mya was next in D/A and we went last in the final round because we were in the lead. We ended up with a bad round... just one of those things.  She jumped early on the first throw and missed it. She caught the second for a 3.5 points and then caught the third throw for 5 and missed the fourth (not sure why) and with the two misses we didn't have time for a fifth throw. In hindsight, I should have floated the throws a little more but I think I was being conservative with lower throws to make sure they stayed in bounds and that probably cost us. So we ended up missing the cut which was disappointing but those are the breaks and we will get after them tomorrow in freestyle.

I need to get some pictures for today.

Arrived at Chattanooga

I met Denise in Cincinnati at 7:30am and we left for Chattanooga. We made it down to the field about 2:30pm and we were able to get a good spot for our EZ-up off of the left field end of the field. By the time we left at 3:30pm there were only about two spots left next to the field. It was pretty hot down here today and should be hot again tomorrow. Looks like I gotta get up at 5:30am or so... which violates my before 6am rule :-). Mya, Colt and Blaidden are ready to go tomorrow!!! Especially Colt.... he's a little wound up. Mya's the old pro and just enjoying the trip.

Getting ready to head to Chattanooga

I'm getting the van packed. Karin's getting the dog food ready. Mya, Colt and I are getting some last minute practices in before we hit the road. We will be competing in Chattanooga on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Mya has qualified in freestyle and Colt qualified in distance/accuracy. Right now I plan to play Colt in freestyle and D/A on Friday in the open qualifier just to get experience. Mya will just do D/A on Friday to give her a little play time but not tire her for Saturday's freestyle.

Mya is home

Mya entered her time travel capsule (sleeping in crate) as I drove from Asheville to home. The trip was uneventful and Mya awoke in our garage. Dreamer and Penny were happy to see Mya after her adventure. The two cats (Sebastian and Lorelei) were less happy to see her.

I want to thank everyone who helped make Mya's adventure as great as it was. Karin for making her enough food and chicken for two weeks. Denise and Blaidden for coming down to the USDDN to help root Mya on. Tracy for her help at the USDDN. And to Rick and Danny for their support at the UFO World Cup.

Hopefully if things go well, Mya can have another most excellent adventure next year!!!!

Mark and Mya - Final Round UFO World Cup Finals

Watch live video from teamxflyer's channel on Justin.tv

Final Day of UFO World Cup Finals

I provided a live feed for today's UFO World Cup action on the internet. The video above is a clip of the live action of our final freestyle round. Thanks goes out to Danny for helping me man the computer. Although he did start a bad trend by giving in the the will of the chat room and performing manual panning and zooming. I hope everyone enjoyed the show.

Mya and I had a good time today. Our two rounds of throw and catch were not good enough to hold our standing. Our freestyle was okay but could have been better. We ended the day in 7th place for the weekend. We were fouth in the all-star freestyle competition and ended up slipping from thrid to fourth in the 2008 Overall UFO world Cup standings. We have some room for improvement next year.

I truly believe that Mya has had and excellent disc doggin' adventure. We made it to Asheville, NC tonight and have a 7.5 hour drive tomorrow to home.

Today was a good day!!

The first day of the UFO World Finals went well for Mya and I. We had a strong first round of freestyle and ended the round in fourth place. Our throw and catch went much better than yesterday, we ended up with 12.5 points with one miss. This moved us up to third place after the throw and catch round was added in. Our second round of freestyle was not as good, but was good enough to keep us in third place.

The competition for the day ended about 2pm so Mya and I headed back to the hotel for some R&R... she is sleeping on the bed as I type. Tomorrow we have one round of throw and catch and assuming we remain in the top ten, then we have one more round of throw and catch plus a freestyle round.

The other Indy Club members did well too. Danny is in contention for the win.... he needs a good throw and catch round tomorrow. Rick did well and was in the top ten after the first two rounds.

We've had better days

We started off today with high winds and a lot of rain. Danny, Rick and I set up together. We got soaked setting up as it was raining hard with high winds. My rain sides came in handy as we were able to make a dry room for us and the dogs.

We got to the event site at about 7am and it stopped raining ~10am or so. Mya and I went third in the first freestyle round and I thought we had a pretty good round with maybe two misses. I went with my normal routine instead of my high wind version. After the first round they cut to the top 10 for freestyle and we did not make the cut as we ended up in 12th out of 22 teams.

Our next round was a throw and catch round. It did not go very well. When we went to the starting line, Mya got very spooked by the police car and officer next to the throwing line. With the number of homeless in the area the police department had officers at both ends of the field all day. Once she was that spooked I had trouble getting her into the groove and I think we ended with one catch and of course did not make the top ten cut in throw and catch. So our day was over early.

Congratulations goes out to Danny Eggleston for first place in freestyle and second overall. Also congratulations to Rick Kimball for making the cut in Throw and Catch and I think he ended up in fourth or fifth.

Rain, Rain, Rain!!

Being delayed 1 hour..... Rain is intense

Arriving in Daytona

We left South Carolina this morning and drove down to Daytona Beach for the UFO World Finals this weekend. I don't recommend taking a picture while driving but it can be done. We had a pretty easy drive except for it being extremely windy. We had some delay getting through Jacksonville.

Our hotel is right across from the Daytona Speedway. I hadn't seen the Speedway in person and was struck by the sheer size of the structure. Of course I had to get Mya out and take the obilgatory Mya photo. This time it is Mya in front of the Daytona Speedway main gate.

I went down to the field tonight and it is in an awesome location. Of course it was so rainy and windy, I didn't dare get my camera out. It is so close to the water that someone could shank a disc into it

After that I met up with Danny and Rick for dinner at UNOs. Now, I just have to get up at 5:30 to head to the field to put up our EZ-ups. I had better take my flashlight.

Wednesday Practice Day

Another nice bright sunny day, a little more windy which is good based on the current forecast for Daytona. We got a good TnF practice in this morning. The wind conditions were a little tough but Mya soon caught on so after 3 initial misses, we ended with 7 catches in a row. After that we went for an hour walk on the beach.

Walking from the beach area to the car, Mya stepped on something and wouldn't put any weight on her front paw. I checked her paw out and there was this small very spikey weed seed thing up in the area between her pads. I dug it out with my fingers and boy did that hurt. My thumb an index fingers still hurt :-)



We took a break for a while. I tracked down some dry ice to get for her cooler tomorrow. After lunch, we went to a different park that was just beautiful. It was like the frisbee field of dreams. It was a large soccer field carved out of the woods.
Mya is being a good girl waiting in the van while I take a picture. We had a really good freestyle practice.

We ended the day with another long walk on the beach. Although there was a strong wind along the length of the beach. It turned out to be like walking in a sandstorm on the way back. I guess I should have brought Mya's Doggles.

Tomorrow is a rest day for Mya prior to the competition. We will also travel down to Daytona.

Tuesday Disc Practice

We found a nice park with some soccer fields and had a good freestyle practice this afternoon. The park was right next to the ocean so we took a 45min cool down walk on the beach.

We went back this evening to get some TnF practice in and it was overrun with soccer players.... oh well, tomorrow we will have to get both practices in before school lets out.

Mya's first beach excursion

Went for an hour walk at the beach this morning. It is bright and sunny and nice temperatures for us northerners. Mya hasn't been to the ocean before and really enjoyed the walk along the beach.

This time of year dogs are allowed on the beach and can even be off leash. Since the beach wasn't crowded and there were no other dogs around, I decided to let Mya off leash and she how she did. I walked out onto a like sandbar area so that she would kind of be stuck in that area once I let her off leash.

So I unhooked her. She looked around a little bit and then off she went like a streak after a line of about 40 sea gulls. She scared the death out of them and she ran into the ocean after them. All the time I'm yelling at her to come back. I thought "man, I don't want to go in after her". Well, she came back after a bit and immediately got put back on her flexi.

Later on, I let her off leash for a while and she behaved much better and really enjoyed herself.

Monday - Heading South

Monday was a travel day. Denise and Blaidden headed back to Cincinnati and Mya and I headed for the coast of South Carolina for a few days.

Before we took off, Denise and I took to dogs to the park for one last romp before the long drives.

During the play we decided to have a Malinois-Sheltie Race..... Blaidden is pretty fast!!!

That's it for today..... off to the beach tomorrow.