Rugby Here and There…

Sorry the blogging has been in short order recently…work has been heating up with the next Fight Nite and life just keeps getting in the way!

A few exciting things that have happened this weekend and today:

ROBOSAURUS! The Alamo Drafthouse is premiering Transformers tonight and they brought in this awesome mechanical contraption. He is a 40 ft tall, 50,000 pd, fire-breathing robot/dinosaur that travels all over country. You would most likely see him at monster truck rallies, but TODAY he was in my gym’s parking lot. They had blocked off like half the parking lot and were running tests of his sound systems, lights, fire, hydraulics etc all morning. The real show is tonight at 8:45pm and I am thinking of going to see it…the only thing I didn’t get to see was the robosaurus crush cars. Check out this video:

In other news, the rain has ceased for a few days! But it looks like it is going to start up again tonight and go for a few days. I did end up taking Jake to the dog park (Auditorium Shores) and the water was VERY high. There were a few dog owners that were letting their dogs go in the water, but I didn’t let Jake go in. Some of the dog owners talked about seeing more snakes around the water, but didn’t seemed concerned. RIGHT, all I needed was Jake to get bit by a water moccasin.

If you look at the pic to the right, you can see the normal level that the water at Town Lake is usually at, imagine it about 3 feet higher on the pillar and actually having white caps it is moving so quickly.

Alright, time for some rugby:

The Austin Valkyries are hosting a Rookie/Collegiate camp on September 1st, 2007. The camp will be from 10am to 4pm and we will be showing a Tri-Nations match at our favorite rugby sports grill here in Austin. We have 5 veteran players from the Austin Valkyries running the camp, two forwards, two backs and a scrumhalf. Combined these players boast over 30 years of rugby experience. Email Wendy at scooterwe@gmail.com if you or your team is interested.

Summer 7s is in full swing all over the nation, check out my posts from last week for tournaments around TX, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Austin hasn’t started our touch league yet, but I can’t wait! We play out at Burr Field and it is every Thursday night. Touch as we all know is a sensitive topic. Some players absolutely hate it and even refuse to play it. Some players love every minute of it and wish the WHOLE practice was touch. I fluctuate between the two extremes, touch can go sour for me if there is no mediator (referee) and we are reffing ourselves. It seems to get out of hand quickly if there is no one with a whistle, the tag turns into “momentum” and players start reffing themselves. However, when touch is flowing and everyone is in a good mood, it can really be some rugby magic.

I have also started working on the Fall Schedule for the Valkyries and it is shaping up to be pretty awesome. So far we are traveling to Colorado and St. Louis for our league matches and we are hosting Sweet 16s here in Austin. For the social side of the season we are traveling to Houston for a round-robin and playing Texas A&M as well. Should be a great fall season.

I think that’s it for me, I should have some 7s tournament write ups coming in over the week and I will post them as soon as I get them.