Swim Meets

It's been a while since I was involved with competitive swimming, and like everything else, the systems have been fine tuned and enhanced with information technology. It's really impressive what a group of mostly volunteers can pull off. Case in point:

The "Muppet Meet" last Sat. This was a regional meet for 8 and under kids:

• 15 teams
• 281 swimmers
• 890 individual entries
• Grouped by age [4-6, 7, 8] and gender [boys & girls] for a total of 28 events each with 4-6 heats of up to 8 swimmers per heat. 
• Approximately 150 heats
• Venue: Amphi High School Pool, Tucson

The heats are wham-bam, about 10 seconds apart. The meet is pre-organized using recorded best time for each swimmer, with heats from 1 (slowest) to 5 or 6 (fastest). The volunteers have to get their swimmers in the right heat and lane and ready to get on the blocks. It's controlled chaos, but nobody missed a designated slot! The attached link shows a few shots of the pool. It's a really nice facility at a local high school - full Olympic pool with timeing sensor boards, so the humans operating the two stop watches per lane are the backup.  

https://goo.gl/photos/FFyTD3fwWT2P5ZVc6

Note the two shots of a matrix of 8yo girls sitting on a grid. The grid organizes an entire event by heat and lane, a big help in getting the kids to the right block at the right time. Mikaela is in these grids peeking at the camera. Two sets of volunteers work the grid. one set is in charge of seating the kids at the correct matrix coordinate, another group moves them out by heat to the starting blocks. There are separate grids for boys and girls, so that one grid is being sent to the blocks while the other is being filled. The team coaches make sure their swimmers are at the grid in a timely manner.

Event results are ready to print and post within a few seconds after the last heat of the event.

BTW: I'm "awash" in swimming: 8 practices and 4 meets in 10 days. Plus I did some recreational swimming today after practice.

Go Marlins!

Barred Owl Postscript

The wing was shattered, the shoulder crushed. It was determined that survival would be possible only with a terrible quality of life. Barry was euthanized. He died peacefully.

Barred Owl

Today, 4:00am, I happened to be walking my neighbor's paper to her front porch, accompanied by Beauregard. He quietly approached a shadowy unknown object - and I heard the unmistakable CLACK of an owl beak. (If you have ever heard a mature owl do that, you know the sound. If you haven't, just know that it is menacingly loud, the equivalent of a ferocious growl from a canine. No creature wants to get near that beak after hearing it.)

I turned on my hand light, which I carry only "in case", preferring natural light. It was a mature Barred Owl with a sagging wing. Hurt and afraid, but not about to show it or give up.

I went home to think through what to do and get my equipment:

• Large cardboard box - cut two air vents in it
• Thick towel
• Welding gloves (the manly substitute for oven mitts at the grill)

Checked the St Francis web site, woke up Kathy and asked her to drive the car over to the neighbor's, and went back to get the owl. He had moved up to the front porch. With Kathy holding my light, I put the towel gently over him, amid ferocious clacking, and managed to get him in the box and thence into the car.

Called Northwood Animal Hospital [24/7 emergency animal care], which is the after-hours intake for St-Francis, to alert I was bring in an injured barred owl. They are only about two miles from us, yet by the time I got there the Leon Co Deputy who does the transport to St Francis was already there waiting for me. She was expert. Took "Barry" out of the box (with gloves of course) by the talons, got him calmed down, and looked over the injured wing. Several broken bones, some protruding. So sad. I had been thinking car, but she thought more likely a collision with a window. They promised to let me know - possibilities range from setting to amputation to, unfortunately, euthanasia.

This is undoubtedly one of the mated pair that lives in our immediate neighborhood and sings duets in the evening. I requested that if this one can be fully rehab'd that we release it back here. 

(Back home reading the paper at 7:00am.)

(See previous post "Owal Rescue", July 2012.)