Tag / Arrow

by Andrew

Newest USA Archery Level 1 Instructor

I just got the last email from USA Archery that all my pre-requisite checks were now complete.  I’m officially a Level 1 Archery Instructor!  I’m now qualified to teach beginning archery skills to 8-13 year old children.  While not a difficult process in general, it was actually more time-consuming that I had originally thought and of course, more expensive.  As with any organized sport, the organizations will charge more money than anyone thinks is proper, but you don’t have a choice.  That is all behind me now and I’m already looking forward to actually running a weekly practice session at our local range.

My daughter has taken archery lessons now for just over a year and it’s the longest activity she’s managed to stick with in her 10 years on this planet.  It’s a big deal people!  We even were confident enough to go out and buy her first bow with all the trimmings that go with that to the tune of more than $400.  She’s actually become quite good and has achieved most of the pins for indoor and outdoor re-curve bow.  Her skill with shooting has quickly matched mine and in some respects, surpassed me.  I don’t have my own bow but am planning on purchasing one with my next work bonus next month.

She’s tried soccer, softball, basketball, tennis, swimming and field hockey and wanted to quit all of them before the first season was over.  We did force her to finish out the season because we did pay for them up front.  Archery was one of those things both the wife and I thought she would quit.  Well, it turned out to be something that she looks forward to going to each week and actually gets mad when we have a conflict and can’t go.  I was there so much that when the went around asking for people to volunteer as instructors, I naturally volunteered given that I’d been shooting off and on since college (more than 20 years ago!).

Now I can help teach other kids while spending time to and from archery every week with the daughter.  We play this game where she tries to explain to me what anime and manga are and I obviously act like a Dad and just make it harder for her.  It’s all in good fun and I never make it feel like I am making fun of anime and manga, even though I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.

Let’s hope I don’t hurt myself!!

by Andrew

Three Things Thursday

TTT

As seen on Nerd in the Brain

1 – Listening friends

Hitting a rough patch this past week (see Where Am I?), I had the awesome opportunity and availability of a friend to listen to me, well, bitch/moan/complain. It was very therapeutic and certainly helped a lot. A few beers between friends helped keep the brain vomit flowing and they even joined in at certain points as well. Here’s to mutual friends helping each other out on a bad day.

2 – Arrow

I’ve embarked on another Netflix binge and am trying to control my “fires of hell” urge to call off work and rip through three seasons in under a day. After having come off watching Flashpoint, Primeval, and Leverage, I recovered enough to start watching Arrow. An amazingly dark and brooding type of show with just enough violence to make it interesting but not so much that it’s hard to watch. It’s also not bad seeing Emily Bett Richards and Katie Cassidy in almost every episode. Shout out to John Barrowman, who will be forever known to me as Capt. Jack Harkness (Dr. Who / Torchwood)!!!!

3 – Courage

I’m a private person, and have since 2012, run this blog as “private” and discouraged search engines. Having read through all the posts, and confirming that there isn’t a shred of personally identifiable information from my real life, I decided to open things up and make this a public blog. I’ve had several people stop by and start to follow, people I probably wouldn’t have found on my own. Discovered the long way that you can’t be found if you’re not listed in the first place.