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.

USDDN International Finals (Sunday)

The weather was great today ~70F with light but variable winds. I scratched Mya out of super-pro tnf since we made the cut yesterday in freestyle.

Our first round went pretty well but we had a few too many misses.

Mya and I had a great round of TnF with a score of 22. 22.5 is the maximum in this event.

After the first two rounds we were in 7th place. Our third round of freestyle was better and that moved us up to 5th place in the end. We got a trophy for our efforts as the top five places got trophies.


Tracy and Jack did a great job all weekend and ended up in third place. Teams from Japan took Second and Fourth and Mark Muir took 1st.









Thanks to Tracy this weekend for all her encouragement.

And a huge thanks goes out to Denise for coming down to Georgia this weekend. She and Blaidden did a great job and had a lot of fun. She was a big help to Mya and I this weekend!!!

USDDN National Finals(Saturday)

Beautiful day today..... nice temperatures for us northerners (high around ~70) but very WINDY. Going third was a benefit for me. I went about 10:30am and the wind was not as high as it was later in the day. We had a lot of misses in the very early portion of our routine, but from the start of our single disc sequence we had a clean round after that.

TnF went well. Mya really did great. There was a significant tailwind ~15mph and Mya and I scored a 21 which turned out to be a very good score for the day.

After the first two rounds we were in fourth place out of 39 teams. Our third round (FS) was good for the windy conditions.

Overall we finished in fourth place. Japanese teams took first and third. Tracy Custer took second place. Tracy really did a great job with Jack today!!!!

Well it's late and I need to get some sleep.... sorry no pictures. We play tomorrow in the international finals since we were in the top 15.

Friday's Georgia States - Open Qualifier

Well today was a rainy day..... it rained most of the day.... not super hard but heavy enough to get everyone pretty wet. I entered Mya in super-pro tnf and freestyle. I debated about this but she was so wound up I wanted to get her used to the field prior to the US finals on Saturday.

We did super-pro tnf fist and got a ZERO..... not a good start. I had very good throws and she would run down the field but was not tracking the disc. We think she was watching the person signaling the bonus zone at the opposite end of the field.

Our freestyle round (in the rain) went pretty wel with may three drops but it felt pretty good. Our tnf round for the freestyle event ws much better. We got an 18.5 which isn't great but lightyears ahead of a zero.

I scratched her out of the final round to keep her freash for Saturday and Sunday. Denise and Blaidden did real well.

Well, it's late because we had to draw for the starting position for tomorrow and didnt get back until 9:30pm. I drew third (yuk) and I think the person in first wont be there so I will end up going second out of 39 or so. I think Tracy drew 39.

The dogs can't wait till tomorrow

Mya and I plus Denise and Blaidden made it down to Cartersville okay. Denise left from Cincinnati and I left from Kokomo this morning. After all those hours it worked out that I merged onto I75 south of Chattanooga one car behind Denise and Blaidden.... what are the odds of that happening? We got our rooms and went over to the field and set up our ez-up. We have seen quite a few players from Japan at the motel.

There are supposed to be a few showers around tomorrow but not much wind. I think I'm going to enter Mya in freestyle.... not sure about toss-n-fetch. I probably should do both to get her used to the field prior to the nationals on Saturday. She seemed pretty wound up tonite after a long travel day.

Denise is going to enter Blaidden in both TnF and freestyle.

That's it for now......

Dry Ice

Stopped on the southside of Indy to get some dry ice. Gotta keep her
food cold :-)

Mya's ready too!!!

Mya is ready to get the show on the road!!!!

Loaded up.....

The van is fully loaded.... Ready to go....

This blog covers Mya's Excellent Disc Doggin' Adventure.

Mya and I will be traveling to the USDDN finals in Cartersville, GA
and then on down to Hilton Head, SC for a few days.

After that, we will be off to the UFO World Cup Finals in Daytona Beach, FL!!!!