… And that was Year 2010
It seems I missed New Years – I was playing Half-Life 2 on Steam, and completely lost track of the time. Oh well, it certaintly _was_ “one of those years”.
The year started off with me being on 7 weeks of Recleave. I did nothing.
Competitive Shooting
I started off my first full competitive year keen to see where my benchrest shooting would take me, and eager to start shooting prone smallbore.
By the end of the year, I’ve been crowned RBA Nationals Overall Womens Champion, NSWSARAI Smallbore State Benchrest Champion, ACT Smallbore State Benchrest Champion, scored two perfect 600 cards for benchrest in the Manly Prize Shoot and the Sutherland Prize Shoot, and also NSWSARAI Enduro Benchrest Champion. I’d also completed a perfect 1000 points in the NSWSARAI Winter League.
I’ve slowly worked my way up to winning trophies in the smallbore prone events at the various Prize Meets, quickly advancing grades to the point I’m now an A Grader, competing competitively against our Olympic and Commonwealth Games athletes. On one of my last prone shoots of the year at club level, I’d shot my first ever 200 point card. During practice at SISC one evening, I also shot a 593 prone score, which is an Australian PQS score. That one shoot was a monumental achievement for me.
Now, I look forward to defending my various titles in 2011, as well as add 3P shooting to my bag of tricks – shooting 40 shots prone, then 40 shots standing, then 40 shots kneeling.
On New Years Eve, I was rung up to be told I’d been selected to the Australian Shooting Team heading over to the USA to compete in the WRABF Rimfire Benchrest World Championships!
Score!
Gliding
I started off the year with every intention of continuing my flying, went up to Armidale, flew some great flights with my Super Ava, was completely unable to convince the contest organisers that the Super Ava was an example of modern “nostalgia”, so I won the RES event, but walked away without a prize. I received a beautiful new NAN Models eXplorer from Dave Pratley, the replacement for the eXplorer which disintegrated on launch in late 2009.
I then gave it to Steve Keep, who built it, and I flew it for the first time in Jerilderie. Steve worked the launch settings so that it launched to the moon! But I was too scared to push it, given it was a new model. I learnt over that weekend that the X likes to fly “clean” (with no thermal flap). A real floater which reminded me of the first time I flew an X, when Dave Pratley handed me the controls of his X up at Armidale.
I’ve not flown since Jerilderie. Dunno why, but I strongly suspect it’s been my shooting successes. I’m now thinking of selling my gliders.
Home Life
The last few months have been torrid and difficult, as mum suffered a bleed on the brain in mid November, and is still in hospital. It’s not nice taking a trip to the hospital and seeing one’s mum laid up in intensive care looking like death warmed up. It’s also not nice knowing that you have to have Christmas lunch in a hospital.
Financial Life
Same ole, same ole. BHP goes up, but Toll and Worley Parsons go down. Worley is an interesting stock – it announced at the start of the year that their income was adversely affected by the US/AU currency, as they get paid in AUD. They went from a high of $30 odd, to a post-announcement price of $22. This suggested to me that $8 is purely currency related pricing. Ok, but now the AUD is greater than the USD, no annoucement of being positively affected by the US/AU currency, and they’re up around $26.
The stock market I’m learning is a real head-scratcher at times!
Overall, post-2009 total stock price = post-2010 total stock price. < — I need to buy more shares!
Ice Hockey
I switched teams in 2010, and started playing with the Penrith Phantoms. I tell ya, their game is completely different to the Bears game, is much faster, and everyone knows what they’re doing. It’s hard for me to get out of the habits ingrained by the Bears, so I’m hoping 2011 is a bit better.
But in the end, the Phantoms won the comp, and that’s all that matters. It only took me some 6 years!
Hockeypulse has been largely treading water, whilst I work out how to improve the participation and community-ness. Late in the year, though, HockeyPulse became a sponsor of the Australian Womens Ice Hockey League, and discussions are in train for potential sponsorship of the Penrith Bears AIHL team (after all, I’m still a Bear at heart).
Once I bought my iPad, I started tweeting Bears AIHL games in near real-time. Lots of fun ensued, especially when Bluey turns up with his mega-horn and lets it off next to my right ear!
The issues with migration of HockeyPulse to a new provider and back-end CMS app is complex, with issues like how to migrate user accounts and passwords, and how to do a DNS zone delegation transfer… but I’m working on it.
… And that was Year 2010