2008 Archives
Tourneys 2008
Messages Posted to Flyballdogs.com
The following are all the 2008 tournament-related messages we posted to the flyballdogs.com email list.
Note: Since some of our tourney web pages change from year to year, a few of the links below go to pages containing information that might pertain to our upcoming tourneys instead of previous tourneys.
September 23, 2007
Subject: Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys 2008
At 1:51 AM Alaska Time today (Sept 23), the sun crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere marking the autumnal equinox. A major event along the sun's journey can mean only one thing...it's time to begin planning your trip to our 3rd annual Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys! If you've always wanted to come but have had a tough time convincing some of your teammates to join you, now is your chance because we'll be offering NAFA's new Open Class. We will also accept entries for Regular and Multibreed racing (it doesn't hurt to think big!). Which of the class(es) we run, other than Open, will depend on the number and composition of the teams that enter. We are, of course, willing to help coordinate the formation of teams in the Open Class. Just let me know if you're interested!
In the meantime, check out our tourney website.
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/
We will have two separate two-day tournaments on Wed-Thu, June 18-19, 2008 and Sat-Sun, June 21-22, 2008 at the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer, AK, which is approximately 45 minutes outside of Anchorage (the nearest large airport). If necessary, we will use Friday and Monday as make-up days due to rain. The racing surface will be grass with >70' of runback in a very scenic location with mountains all around. For photos of the fairgrounds visit the following webpage.
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/fairgrounds.html
To see what you missed during our 2006 and 2007 Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys, check out our tourney archives page which includes links to *LOTS* of photo pages, links to media coverage files, and comments from some of our visiting participants.
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/archives/
Throughout our tourneys, we will have 24 hours of civil twilight (i.e., usable light). On June 20 -- the summer solstice -- there will be 19 hours and 22 minutes from sunrise to sunset!!! Check out the following daylight calendar.
hhttp://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/archives/2008/daylight08.html
To help dispel the myth that Alaska is a frozen wasteland, note that it was a blistering 80 F (27 C) on our first day of racing last year. The average high and low temperatures for Anchorage on June 20 are 63 F (17 C) and 48 F (9 C). Give yourself (and your dogs) a respite from the heat down south and come join us! You can find more weather and climate information via the following webpage.
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/weather.html
So, let my data dump sink in, browse our website, sleep on it, and then give into you desire to come to Alaska! You deserve it!
Curtis
November 9, 2007
Subject: Getting Stuff to/from Alaska
Hi Danny (and anyone else thinking about a trip to Alaska!),
For both of our "away" tournaments (Woofstock in Santa Clarita, CA and Cynosport), our people/dogs flew with Alaska Airlines, which has relatively affordable pet fees -- $100 each way for large dogs in cargo, $75 each way for smaller dogs in the cabin. We checked our Willoughby Workshop flyball box as a piece of luggage. Alaska Airlines allows each person to check two bags and carry on one bag plus one personal belonging (laptop, purse, etc.). Even though our box is technically oversized, Alaska Airlines has never asked us to pay any additional fees; although, just to be safe in regard to weight, we took out two of the four thruster mechanisms to get it under 50 pounds. Our luggage also included a bucket of balls, a ball shagger, along with some chairs and shade tents. Friends, family members, and local teams supplied some additional items.
For any team willing to make the trek to Alaska for our tourneys, we'd be more than happy to lend you our flyball boxes, balls, chairs, and shade tents. With enough advance notice, we might also be able to provide you with a personal masseuse <grin>.
For those of you who might choose to fly up here, keep in mind that Alaska Airlines has nonstop service to Anchorage from many cities including:
- Seattle, Portland, and Chicago (year-round)
- Denver, Los Angeles, and Vancouver (seasonally)
Other cities serviced by Alaska Airlines include Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Miami, Orlando, and Dallas. For additional airline information, check out the following webpage.
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/airlines.html
*PLEASE* contact me if you have any questions or if you need any additional information.
Curtis
December 14 , 2007
Subject: Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys Sanctioned!
Our Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys have been officially sanctioned by NAFA! We're one step closer to four fun-filled days of racing! It's now time for you to take *YOUR* first step toward a flyball vacation of a lifetime by:
1) Visiting our tourney website at http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/
and
2) Emailing me with any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, gripes, well wishes, or just to say hi!
Curtis
December 14, 2007
Subject: Social Events at Alaska Tourneys
Once again, Alaska Dogs Gone Wild plans to host a BBQ at the end of our first day of racing, which will be on Wed, June 18 this year. The event will provide an excellent opportunity to hang out with numerous enthusiastic flyball-starved folks from our team, along with other flyballers who'll be coming from all over North America. Here are some photos of our food fests from each of the past two years.
>From 2007 - http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/archives/2007/
photos_bbq.html
>From 2006 - http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/archives/2006/
photos_bbq.html
If there's enough interest among visiting participants, we would also like to organize a hiking/biking/canoeing/volleyballing picnic on Tue 6/24 after the tourneys are over. It would take place in Chugach State Park along the shores of Eklutna Lake -- an incredibly beautiful glacially fed lake with majestic mountains on either side. Here's a webpage with some additional information about Eklutna Lake.
http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/units/chugach/eklutna.htm
Come on up! You can't be BBQing, picnicking, *AND* flyballing in Alaska!
Curtis
December 21, 2007
Subject: Alaska tourneys: Happy winter solstice!
At 9:08 PM Alaska Time today (December 21), the sun will reach the Tropic of Capricorn, which is the southernmost point of its yearly journey.
The Bad News
------------
There will be progressively less daylight over the next six months for those of you who live in the Southern Hemisphere...(sorry Australia!).
The Good News
-------------
There will be progressively more daylight over the next six months for those of you who live in the Northern Hemisphere...(which includes me, wahoo!).
The Best News
-------------
Regardless of your hemispherical residency, now is a great time to plan your trip for our Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys. We're hosting two separate two-day tournaments on Wed-Thu, June 18-19, 2008 and Sat-Sun, June 21-22, 2008. During your time in Alaska, it'll never get completely dark since we'll have 19 hours 22 minutes from sunrise to sunset set, which is in stark (or "dark" <grin>) contrast to the 5 hours 27 minutes we have today.
We're offering NAFA's Open class. So, bring your whole team or just yourself, and bask in our abundance of summertime daylight!
Curtis
February 19 , 2008
Subject: New dates for Alaska Tourneys
Due to a scheduling snafu with the Alaska State Fair, we'd like to move our tourneys to the week following the summer solstice (June 25-26 / 28-29, same location). We've contacted each of the folks who had thus far committed to coming, and they're fine with the change, as is NAFA's esteemed ED, Sam Ford. So, if you've already made some irreversible or hard to change plans to come up for our tourneys and I haven't already talked with you, please let me know *RIGHT AWAY*.
For those of you yet to decide, here is how the change in dates will affect you.
Bad news
--------
From sunrise to sunset, there will be 19 hours and 20 minutes (versus 19 hours 22 minutes the week before).
Good news
---------
The average high and low temperatures for Anchorage on June 27 are 64 F and 49 F (versus 63 F and 48 F for June 20).
As you can see, there won't be much of a difference at all. You'll still have lots of fun flyballin' in Alaska!
Thanks,
Curtis
P.S. If I don't hear from any additional committed travelers by the end of the week, we'll submit the new dates to NAFA and make the associated changes to our tourney website, at which point I'll once again start flooding the list with my recruitment messages. :)
March 12 , 2008
Subject: WANTED: Flyball adventurers!
Are you a thrill-seeking flyball fanatic? If so, then you're destined to head north for our Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys on June 25-26 and June 28-29.
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/
During our first two sets of Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys in 2006 and 2007, we had flyballers come all the way from North Carolina (DogGoneFast), Saskatchewan (Good2Go), New Hampshire (White Mountain Mayhem), and Michigan (QuickSilver). Participants from five different NAFA Regions have raced in Alaska (1, 8, 9, 13, and 18). This year, it looks like we'll have some folks coming up from Southern California and from the Edmonton area.
Add yourself to the above list of flyball adventurers! You know you want to! Please contact me if you are interested in coming. It'll be even easier to participate this year since we'll be running the Open Class. If you don't have a full team, we can help hook you up with some fellow frenzied flyball fanatics, including a multitude of marvelously maniacal members (and mutts!) from our team.
Curtis
March 20, 2008
Subject: Alaska tourneys: Vernal equinox logic
The sun crossed the equator at 9:48 PM Alaska time yesterday (March 19), which means:
--> Those of us in Alaska will have more daylight per day than all points south of us from now until 7:44 AM Alaska time on Sept 22 -- gaining daylight faster than all points south during the process (~ 6 minutes per day right now!), which means...
--> By the time our Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys roll around, it'll never get completely dark up here, which means...
--> There will be seemingly endless opportunities to romp around and enjoy the sights of Alaska, which means...
--> You won't want to miss our Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys, which means...
--> You need to check out our tourney website at http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/, which means...
--> You need to stop reading your email messages and get busy planning for your Alaska flyball vacation of a lifetime!
Bye for now,
Curtis "You can't argue with logic" Smith
April 25, 2008
Subject: Countdown to Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys!
The first race of our Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys will begin two months from today...or more precisely, 61 days, 1 hour, 43 minutes, and 23 seconds from the moment I sent this message. Can you tell I'm getting excited?!?!
Come join the fun! To share in the excitement, visit
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/
It'd be great if you came with some of your teammates, but since we're running NAFA's Open class this year, all you'll really need is yourself, your dog(s), and your toothbrush!
Curtis
May 19, 2008
Subject: Alaska flyball tourneys closing!!!
You're thinking...OH NO!...I knew I was forgetting something! I'm supposed to let Alaska Dogs Gone Wild know that I'm heading up to Alaska next month for their third annual Summer Solstice Tourneys.
Fortunately, our tourneys won't close for another two days (May 21), which means it's not too late to take part in the festivities. Yet another adventurous soul with two dogs added himself to the mixture just last week.
Right now, we're working on a hodgepodge of Open lineups with dogs from the San Diego, Edmonton, Calgary, and Las Vegas areas...(not to mention Southcentral Alaska).
So, be impulsive! Let spontaneity rule the day! A life with financial security is truly overrated <grin>.
Be sure to checkout our website at:
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/tourney/
See you in June!
Curtis
July 5, 2008
Subject: Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys getting bigger!
This year's Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys were our biggest ones to date. Six teams competed with 100 heats/team spread out over four laid back days of racing (race for 30 minutes, rest for 30 minutes, and repeat). Many thanks for the support provided by the following handlers/dogs who either flew or drove all the way up here:
- Steph Doerr with Thrill and Lizzie (from INXS near San Diego)
- Deanne Stolk, Jan Deters, and Anne Behnke with Borris, Sam, Chelsea, and Carlee (from Bark'n Mad near Edmonton)
- Bob and Vicky Baker with Pixie and Mercury (from Atomic Dogs near Las Vegas)
- Melissa and Rich Paul with Bosco (long-distance ADGW members who live near Las Vegas)
What a fun-loving flock of flyballers! We're proud to have them as friends!...even the diabolical folks from Bark'n Mad who hatched a plan to kidnap Steph's height dog extraordinaire, Thrill. Fortunately, their good consciences got the better of them <grin>. Although, I must admit I am a bit suspicious about the fact that Bark'n Mad has lured our height dog Zorro (and his handler Vickie) down to their tourney in September. Just so they know -- we are prepared to hire a PI if Zorro disappears ;)
For the third year in a row, we received some TV news coverage, and a local newspaper published an article in which Bob and Mercury were the star attraction (see the link below, but forgive the minor inaccuracies in the article).
http://flyballdogs.com/alaska/media/2008/frontiersman_6_27_08.pdf
Soon, we'll put some tourney photos up on our website. In the meantime, start thinking about joining us for our 4th Annual Alaska Summer Solstice Tourneys, which will start exactly 346 days, 10 hours, 41 minutes, and 26 seconds from now (at 10 AM on June 17, 2009). Tick, tock, tick, tock...
Curtis