'Gator John

 

Welcome to the Creek of Canaveral Blog!

All your base is belong to us!

Jimmie is correct. Back in my day, the mini war coup was this big!

Easily, this big. And the big war coup, the one my generation owed, Giant!

Whew, they turned the flash down.

Hey, RJ, Who is that guy taking your picture?

Tom's idea for dinner!

250 g baby octopus (about half a dozen)
1/2
cup water
1/2
tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1
teaspoon garlic, crushed
1
teaspoon fresh parsley, chopped
1/8
teaspoon dried oregano
1/2
lemon
Not the one? See other BBQ Garlic Octopus Recipes

Bring water to boil in a small covered saucepan.
Place octopus in saucepan, cover and reduce heat to medium-high and cook for 10 minutes. This is a lazy way to steam / boil them.
Remove from heat and drain remaining water using the lid.
Add olive oil, garlic, parsely, oregano and squeeze the lemon over the top and mix together.
Place on pre-heated medium BBQ grill plate and cook around 2 minutes with the head facing down and around 5 minutes with the tentacles facing down.

Look who's driving.

This is not New York.

Thinking about Oysters.

Anything you can do, I can do better!

Waiting on the Stones.

Melbourne Mayhem

Updating the Blog

Menu Planning Meeting.

The menu planning committee met and discovered the predations of the last campout exhausted the creek tribe funds. Being dead broke has caused us to revise the meal plan. Friday night dinner will be on-your-own. The traditional wine and cheese will continue. We will have plates, clean forks and knives. Tom is planning on served a beautiful, tap, water with wines and cheeses the tribe members bring. Saturday we plan on slop-in-a-pot breakfast, lunch is another on-your-own, but hot-dog cooking dads are encouraged to bring enough to share. Saturday there will be a dinner, Tom was thinking grilled veal chops marinated in Rosemary and Garlic, we need an attendance figure before we start marinating 40lbs of veal chops. Sunday we should finish with Pete’s breakfast grill, somebody should contact him.

To post: Hover your cursor over the word, "comments." When the word changes appearance, click through to the posting board.

The Hopetown Light

July Campout?

Study shows safety balls, faceguards cut number of Little League injuries

CHAPEL HILL -- Use of such protective equipment as faceguards and modified "safety balls" can significantly cut the number of injuries to children and adolescents playing organized baseball, a major new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study concludes. The equipment cannot eliminate injuries entirely, the investigation shows, but researchers recommend the special balls and face protection even though they say the incidence of serious injuries in the sport is already low.
Conducted by UNC Injury Prevention Research Center-affiliated scientists, the study involved analyzing injury information resulting from three years, or more than 6.7 million "player-seasons," of Little League participation. It is the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind ever done, the scientists say.
"We undertook this study at the request of USA Baseball’s Medical and Safety Advisory Committee because it was not known for sure whether these two types of equipment reduced the risk of injury in youth baseball," said Dr. Stephen W. Marshall. "Little League Baseball, which was highly supportive, shared with us extensive data they had on injuries compensated by insurance. We found that one type of ‘safety ball,’ known as a reduced-impact ball, cut the number of ball-related injuries by some 29 percent, and faceguards reduced the risk of facial injuries by 35 percent."
Marshall, assistant professor of epidemiology and assistant professor of orthopaedics, respectively, at the UNC schools of public health and medicine, was principal author of a report on the findings that appears in the Feb. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Study principal investigator was Dr. Frederick Mueller, professor and chair of exercise and sport science at UNC and Marshall’s long-time mentor.
Health behavior and health education doctoral student Jingzhen Yang of UNC and Daniel P. Kirby, director of risk management for Little League Inc. of Williamsport, Pa., were co-authors. Mueller also directs the UNC-based National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injuries and chairs the American Football Coaches’ Committee on Football Injuries.
Central to the research was compiling information over the three years on which leagues used and which did not use the optional safety equipment and comparing that data with insurance records of who suffered serious injuries, Marshall said. The team found 4,233 injuries serious enough to have warranted insurance compensation and an injury rate of just over 28 per 100,000 player-seasons.
Faceguards, which are either clear plastic visors or wire mesh devices, clip to baseball helmets and are used during batting and base running. Reduced impact balls, one of the most commonly used types of safety balls, are made with polyurethane centers rather than the traditional cork and yarn so that they will act like regular baseballs when batted, pitched or thrown, but transmit less force when they hit a child.
"There are different kinds of reduced impact balls -- some softer than others -- but all are engineered to ‘play’ as much as possible like a standard baseball," Marshall said. "Despite what some people have said, studies have shown that when you remove the manufacturers’ labeling, by and large, almost nobody can tell a difference between reduced impact and standard balls when pitching, batting and throwing. Thus, concerns about safety balls’ play possibly revolve around perceptions rather than the actual performance of the ball."
The risk of injury increased with the level of competition, whereas the use of safety balls and faceguards dropped as the competition level increased, he said. Data on girls were excluded since there were too few for meaningful analysis in this study. Likewise, too few injuries occurred among special needs children to include them in the analysis either.
"Our work shows that safety balls and faceguards do reduce the risk of injury," Marshall said. "The study makes a contribution to medical science, but more importantly, it makes a contribution to health and safety issues in youth baseball, and that’s very important."
About 5 million U.S. youth play organized league baseball each year, the scientist said. About half of those belong to groups affiliated with Little League. Major League Baseball supported the UNC research through a grant to USA Baseball.
A study Mueller, Marshall and Kirby published in 2001 showed that 13 Little League players died from baseball injuries between 1987 and 1996. Mueller said at the time that he believed safety baseballs could have prevented or reduced the severity of some of the more than 15,000 ball-related injuries suffered over that decade.

Campout

I just received this message about the past weekend's campout. The classified portions have been deleted and the following report is posted for your enjoyment.

M e s s a g e - CONFIDENTIAL

Declassified 17 Apr 07 (with deletions)

From: TomCat ■■■■■■■■

To: Menawahad ■■■■■■■■

Subj: After Action Report

1. Members of the Creek Tribe were assigned to secure a beachhead, move into the ageing out ceremony and return with coup. Results were mixed. ■■■■■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

2. Early in the morning of 13 April 07, the Bull family landed and secured a beachfront position. The Creek trailer followed and was pushed into a mainland position under the oak tree. Further families arrived securing the beachhead and the inland trailer position. By sunset on Friday, the Creek tribe had secured both the beachhead and the inland area. The fire ring was established and dinner was prepared.

3. By 0930 on 14 April 07 the tribe breakfasted and secured the beachhead and fortified the Oak Tree area. In the late morning hours Creek tribe troop strength was severely
diminished when units were detached for athletic duty. Senior units remained in place to engage in ageing out ceremony practice and war games. While the former was convincingly accomplished, the war games were significantly more difficult.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. The Creek tribe had only two
braves able to compete in the war games, however, overmatched and undermanned, the creeks waded into the fray and struggled against insurmountable odds.

4. Reports of increasingly adverse weather conditions, coupled with already high
winds led to the decision to withdraw from the area earlier than scheduled. The Creek tribe took the walk of fire, engaged in the ageing out ceremony and withdrew from the KARS park landing zone without incident. No reports of successful coup awards have reached this author.

BT

The Mini Measurement Olympics!

Ms. Montalto's class had a BLAST using our measurement skills last week! Students were asked to measure objects in metric, customary, and non- standard units. The picture above shows the most challenging event, the "left-handed marble grab." Here are some of the students' comments about The Mini Measurement Olympics: Hali said, "it was fun!" "My favorite part was the monkey bar hang, man!" exclaimed Nick.Taya said "My favorite part was when I had to measure my cartwheel in centimeters."Robert said, "I loved squeezing the sponges thingies""I thought the javelin thing was cool!" said Lev.

The Florida Gators left one final, indelible memory as one of the great teams in modern college basketball.

The White Feather

The White feather is earned by the brave when he and his father complete, and display before the tribe, three Indian crafts. The award of the White feather is in recognition of father and son working together and demonstrating their useful services.