| LEXINGTON MA ULTIMATE FRISBEE PICKUP North of Boston / near Burlington Waltham Medford Arlington Woburn, Massachusetts (MA) |
| 2012 - 2039: Lexington Pickup Ultimate Frisbee is now steady enough (14+ years, we're all getting old <sniff>) that I've decided to skip the work, triple our time (quadruple is a bit sketchy), and update this page for the next 28 years via this single sentence (juuuuuuuust in case), which is here to inform you that I can get really seasonally lazy and not update such-n-such (or to be fair, that I just have waaaaaay too many projects to remember to update every single page of every domain every month), so whatever state the Lexington Frisbee Ultimate Pickup page is in at whatever month or season, take a note that Lexington Ultimate is probably still playing as usual, but you canlways email me to be sure. (See email below.) Lexington Pickup Frisbee (North of Boston) NEWS: NOVEMBER 2011 CURRENT TIME: 1:30 Saturdays - Every week - low numbers (4-8) We've been getting 4-8 lately; heading into the winter our numbers will be decreasing, and we'll probably won't make the full season. The good news is, it's one of the best times to play (imho). The cooler weather matches up with the heat generated by playing, and it's a great time to touch the disc more because there are fewer people. Great time for people who need extra practice, exercise, or just hate pussying out when the weather gets cold. We're now playing at 1:30, FYI. Jump on the list to know what's happening, or confirm each week what's going on. NEWS: FALL 2011 OK so this Lexington Massachusetts Ultimate Frisbee and Flying Disc update near Burlington, Waltham, Medford, Arlington, and Woburn--sponsored by Frangles.mobi--is mostly for Google, because I realize more and more every year just how much "G" likes it when I update this page. That's why I'm bothering to throw in the phrase "Lexington Massachusetts Ultimate Frisbee and Flying Disc update near Burlington, Waltham, Medford, Arlington, and Woburn", because that gets hits the more I say it. I'd say it a few more times, BUT, G's getting smarter to that all the time, so I won't... then again, G's still pretty stupid when it comes to manipulating SEO for moral purposes (like mentioning Frangles.mobi which has nothing to do with our pickup game other than if you go there, I'll be a happier person and like you a lot) this is exactly the type of page somebody running a search for "Lexington Massachusetts Ultimate Frisbee and Flying Disc pickup group near Burlington, Waltham, Medford, Arlington, and Woburn" would be looking for, but more than two times would still be a bit sneaky. Also, our UPA listing is down forever, but it will soon be replaced with something better, for UPA.org now directs you to... DRUM ROLL... USA Ultimate: THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL GOVERNING BODY for the SPORT OF ULTIMATE!! Okay, so their text isn't actually that big per se, but it represents what the spirit of the site screams, and rightly so. It's about time we moved our way toward an uber-official national league akin to the NFL or NBA or <whatever other sport acronyms exist that I don't know of because I only pay attention to ultimate>. I'd promote the site obsessively but it's only crack for oragnizers. For everybody else, it's more like weed. So go have a smoke if you want. And visit us, too. Not that we're technically the Hastings Park LEXINGTON MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNING BODY for the SPORT OF ULTIMATE!! ...but you get the point. We're currently in our standardesque fall season, which means we take head counts week to week and announce whether we're playing, and the predicted attendance level, based on 14 years of data, which makes me feel old, but at least gives us some credit for predicting things. We have enough where predicting attendance is a similar to predicting the weather, albeit I don't have a very evolved system down. It is, however, slowly evolving. In the past I've asked for "yes" or "no", then I quickly bumped this up to "yes", "no", or "maybe", and I've recently added "dependent" and "probably", like new Trix flavors that come out once in awhile. New measuring: Yes - 100% Probably - 75% Maybe - 50% Doubtful - 25% No - 0% ...plus
dependents, which will definitely come, depedent on how many people
will be there. (Basically they like 8 confirmed, but Lexington
Ultimate is a bit tricky, in that we rarely have
8 confirmed during head count season since a lot of people don't
respond or aren't on the list, etc. This is one of the reasons we
play every week in the summer, because this gets more people. These are just a few ways of overcoming the Pickup Attendance Paradox (A will go if B will go if C will go), but I'm slowly neturalizing this horrid principle with a prediction system. Since the system is mostly for the benefit of the dependents, I'm tentatively simply counting them as a yes based on that we're having decent numbers as I'm posting this, and it's not too dishonest a contrivance because I'm being honest about it. The honesty is of course dependent on reading the actual paragraph part of my emails, so any personal issues I feel over being sneaky (rather than honest or guilty) are are much less a problem for me. As for you, being someone who reads whole paragraphs, you may do or feel anything you like with the information, because you now have it all. Example of calcuation: 4 definitely [4*1] 1 dependent [1*1] 2 probably [2*.75] 2 maybe [2*.5] 1 doubtful [1*.25] +27% modifaction = 10 people [9.84] The
number in brackets is the precise predicted outcome, rounded to 10 in
this example. (We don't want any Saw remakes on the field.)
the modifcation, in this case, is based on the previous week.
That is, that 27% more people came than the previous predicted
number (not counting the modifcation for that week). Of course, this system doesn't take into account other factors like weather, holidays, last year's statistics, week-to-week variability the modification, period of time headcount was open, timing of the emails, etc, etc, etc... these are all very difficult to quantiy. The biggest is weather, which is the first thing I'll start to factor into the system. After everything's been taken into account in years to come, you can be sure as hell you're going to have a patented system on yours hands. (Invest in patent stock now.) Lexington Ultimate Times/Place Summer (DST) >> 2:30 Cold (non-DST) > 1:30 ... Hastings Park* in Lexington MA Summer - Every Saturday Spring & Fall - Head counts Winter - Knock on Plastic -Please bring a disc and a dark and light shirt. - ...or a red shirt & disc if you support Toodles. -Please pick up your poop & flowers. -Always check your email and the weather noon-ish on Saturday. [*Hastings Park is NOT the Lexington Green!!] Lexington Ultimate Full Description We're a group of really super friendly frisbee players, utterly all skill levels, from age 1 to 99, who've been playing in Lexington, MA, for 12 years (except the 1 to 12 year olds). We welcome everyone everyone everyone. We play every week, warm up 2:00, game 2:30, at at Hastings Park, by the basketball courts and pools, just by the high school track. It has a big friggin' bandstand in the middle that god cursed us with from the days of our births (Fortunately, we play to the side), but at least it makes the field noticeable. It's bordered by Mass Ave, Hastings Rd, Lincoln St, and Worthen. Hastings Park is NOT the Lexington Green! Squish/Chet Contact Email me to join or weekly mailing list, or for more info. EMAIL-- frisbee <that symbol> squish7.com If easier to remember - you can usually email anything you like @turbofrisbee.com, and it should get to me. Cell 617/816/2525\ Shameless Plugs: Xangles Frangles Blorkk Squish7 YouTube List Usage / Plugs I encourage plugging at all opportunities! Mainly this is just to excuse guilt of milking my mock philanthropic farce by plugging my own stuff (cough, Frangles, cough, Xangles fractal wallpapers), but if you'd like me to throw your page link or email on this page or a weekly announcement, please ask. Other uses of the list include asking for a ride (please do!); lost discs, cars, and nuclear devices; invitation to BBQs or parties; invitations to other pickup games, etc! Please email frizzbeee (spelt correctly) <at> squish7.com for that stuff. This is my personal email as there's no way to set up a one-email distribution list with my hosting provider. If you have a pickup group in the area, or any at all, I'll be happy to put you up a page on here (turbofrisbee/pickup). .. Ways to Hastings Park, Lexington View map.. For reference (rhetorically), Lexington is near a plethora of other towns and cities, just like any other town or city. Particularly, we're near a lot of the following: Woburn, Medford, Arlington, Burlington, Waltham, and everywhere else north of boston that we're near. (Rhetorically, again, redudantly, north of Boston & Cambridge, Massach..masssa.. how do you spell Massach.. mmmmaa. well, MA anyway) 1. Close address for GPS/Google/Mapquest/etc: 8 Hastings Rd, Lexington, MA, 02420. This will get you right around the field, we don't technically play at this guy's house. In some cases you may be able to actually punch in "Hastings Park", but in some cases I've seen this not exist. 2. For an online map, go on pickupultimate.com or ultimap.org and and search for (or zoom in) on Lexington, Mass. There are a lot of other games listed nation wide on each, too. 3. Directions from Route 95/128 (In either direction): Take 95/128 to Exit 31A [Route 4 and 225-Lexington]. Continue straight off the ramp. Continue straight through three traffic lights. At the fourth light, turn right onto Worthen Rd. (there will be a Starbucks and Walgreens on your right). Continue straight on Worthen through one traffic light. Take first RIGHT onto Lincoln St. after traffic light. Hastings Field with the bandstand is on your right. Free/easy parking on the left at John P Chase Skating Facility. The field is also along MASS AVE, which you can come from as well. The field is near Lexington High, across the street from the Town Pool. Extremely occasionally we may play at the track field or Lincoln field down the street. . Donations We gladly accept donations. For $100 donation (our bronze level), we can buy 10 new discs (even though we only use one). For $1,000 donation (our silver level), we can be lazy and hire a ball boy to retrieve the disc when it goes too far, or to dive into street traffic to save a disc that's about to get run over. For $500,000 (gold level) we can buy our own totally flat, un-hilly, properly marked, long, shaded, and gazebo-free field. Old Lexington Ultimate Frisbee Pickup News (newer to older) Summer 2011 <Bypass rant about not getting off my ass to write my standard friendly blurb here that entices new people to join and annoys just about everybody else.> <Insert your own blurb about what's going on.> <Wait you don't know what's going on, b/c I haven't told you.> <Ah well, more time you have to read Frangles Mobile, the un-sponsor of this non-news rant because it's disallowed me the extra time to write anything useful here.> <Run sarcasm filter confirming the tone of my unparsable fourthwalse jokes to be humorous and non-hostile.> <Apply psychofilter on sarcasm filter confirming humorous tone is a careful unconscious defense against deep-rooted post traumatic embitterment disorder from anti-rant campaigns detesting even run-on sentences like this one let alone whole paragraphs, a marketing style which ironically is what allows us to have such an active pickup group.> <Give a damn about veteran members' masochistic fetishes of reading my rants when God gave them free will for exactly these sorts of purposes.> <Include list of people who especially appreciate my Pulitzers as a subset of my list entitled, "People to be extra nice to when Frangles becomes a global franchise superpower".> <Review additions: "Newbies... Nonmembers... My brother... Cim... Niko... at least one or two more people...> <Run sarcasm filter again.> <Get dizzy.> <Watch Inception and sympathize with Cillian Murphy's character.> Spring 2011 Hey all- we're back to 2:00 (or 2:30 for new people who don't need me to say an earlier time to get you there by 8s) and starting up the spring season. (Remember that our time changes to compensate for daylight savings and always remains the same functionally). I'm taking headcounts, so jump on the list if you want to know which weeks we're playing. I'd write more but I'm lazy and in a hurry (as always) so if this post is still up in three months it only means I'm too busy with our masses of summer people to bother SEOing for more ;-). So come mid-summer, we'll by then be playing every week! NOVEMBER / WINTER Lexington Ultimate is now 1:00 now! (Sat). W're going a lot longer this year. In fact, we're actually still picking up new people, and, (knock on plastic) might make it through the dead cold of winter... Well, "dead" isn't a very good term to put out there... Neither is "cold".. which in combination with "winter" which I shouldn't have used either brings up the possibility of freezing to death, so just forget I said "dead cold of winter". As of this update, Lexington Ultimate Frisbee is still playing every week, but make sure you're on the Lexington Ultimate Frisbee Pickup email list for updates and announcements if you want to play pickup this winter, as we'll be taking headcounts when we stop playing ultimate every week. Lexington Frisbee headcount season is like death and pregnancy: it could hit unexpectedly at any moment.... Remember, the following is the new official Lexington Ultimate map URL; it's a good idea to bookmark it with your slew of iGPSDroidPhonePodBerries: PickupUltimate.com / map / view / lexington. On a ontrived segwey plug-alert note, Frangles is now mobile! So have some killer laughs on your way to the Burlington / Waltham / Medford / Alrighton / Woburn area (or anywhere else north of Boston... or anywhere at all in the world, actually)... if your iPSphonePadBerry can multi-task and read you funny fiction while you drive (most can, nowadays). 2010 OCTOBER Game ON All October... So we kinda started taking head counts too early <struggles with moral debate of eschewing blame by revealing it wasn't my idea>. But, I've done some heavy marketing calculation, and found a way to integrate our premature head count initialization with our relative attendance surplus... I shall call game on ahead of time when applicable, when my magic well-developed algorithms say we'll have enough people. Still check your email, however, because I have also found a way to harmonize the possibility of a market prediction downfall with a pre-calculated call. I shall cancel frisbee if something goes wrong. So! Frisbee is on this month unless cancelled. What a plan. The following is our new official map URL; good idea to bookmark with your iGPSDroidPhonePodBerry (it was there along but who knew): PickupUltimate.com / map / view / lexington On a contrived segwey plug-alert note, Frangles is going mobile! So
have some killer laughs on your way to frisbee if your
iDroidPhonePadBerry can multi-task and read you fiction while you drive SEPTEMBER, 2010 We've started taking headcounts (booo.) We are not automatically playing every week (booo.) We've played every week up until now and may continue to for awhile, but we're never sure about the future (except my two and a half decade prediction above). School's starting up and that means a big shift (i.e. "drop" (booo)) in attendance. We'll probably take headcounts for a couple months, so if you'd like to play this fall, please email me to join the list (contact info below). It is like super super super appreciated if you play with us to email me once a week when you have a good idea if you're going to make it (I'll try to send out an official headcount mid-week but I'm not always on time!) It's real quick.. you can just hit me a "YES" or "NO" or "MAYBE", or even some basic info like "I'll be a maybe for the next few weeks but after that I'll be at school" (etc.) Officially I'll send a game on/off email up to noon on Saturday (but very rarely that late), so please only respond YES if you know you'll be ready to come even if the email is that late, otherwise reply MAYBE (I don't think I've ever called it that late but it's at least some fallback red tape) =)... Of course, further vocabulary extensions help even more... like almost certainly / probably not / no chance in hell / please refer to my Masters dissertation on this issue / ETC! =) August, 2010 Sorry, haven't written an update since we started this summer. So much for obsessive SEO =(. (We're probably on Google's "check back twice a year" list)... But know that I get a bit lazy when we're extremely regular, it's not the opposite. (But no, I shouldn't take attendance for granted) =(. And of course, laziness from going strong is a perfect isomorphism to laziness from lack of attendance given no other information from the site, so sure, my bad. Fortunately, due to more laziness, I'm gonna skip a lengthly comedic masterpiece and just tell you quickly how the summer's been with details you'll have to come play to find out. We've had our usual attendance level this summer... In a phrase, "plenty of people every week to play" (ranging anywhere from 8 to 20-ish), which is why we just play every week during the bulk of our season (warmest 4-5 months of the year), as we've been doing for several years. People ask me for confirmation sometimes if we "still play", and I think we're consistent enough at this point where the answer will almost certainly be yes indefinitely... A lot of people live far away and come home or drop by the area once in awhile, so keep in mind you can probably just drop by on any given warm summer Saturday (May to August almost certainly) of the next several years, if you don't have our contact info or time to confirm, or think of it last minute. Obviously, no guarantees, but this is year 13, and I think my attendance algorithms in combination with my consistent manic obsession with dragging in unsuspecting innocents from surfing or sidewalks gives my prophecy at least a moderate amount of credibility. (Knock on wood... or plastic? acrylic? what the hell are frisbees made of again#$%$)... Few changes-- 1. Our age spectrum is now horrifically eclectic (rather than terribly as it used to be). We've had two or three middle school students attend this summer, and at least one senior citizen that I know of. Our average skill/play level is pretty steady, though, so if you're a total beginner, you're especially welcome if you bring an ambitious attitude to learn and get better even if you find the playing level too hard. 2. We've moved the field lengthwise so that the end zones are toward and away from the gazebo rather than street to street, where all the cars and benches and trees and hills and land mines were on both ends. It was kind of a no-brainer, which says something about our collective level of intelligence. (Particularly mine). 3. Weekly emails are now "announcements" rather than "reminders." I know, big whoop, but really, even if a lot of the information is redundant (where we play, what happened last week, blah etc), please read them carefully if you regularly attend, as I sometimes mention important things about field etiquette and so on. (Like I said, you can almost always just drop by without being on the email list, except for early spring and late fall when we take headcounts via email) confirming if we still play. Note that September-ish is when people start to drop off and we take headcounts for awhile, so if you plan or might want to play with us after next month, please jump on our email list because otherwise you won't know when we're playing! See you on the new un-obstacled field. April, 2010 Games have started (yay). Lots of people (yay). Come out and play whenever it's a nice day. One issue to note lately. When this group started over 12 years ago, we all sucked. That's why we started playing frisbee, cause we were horrible and wanted to get better. But now a lot of us (not all) are pretty competitive and keep getting so, but everyone else is still equally and infinitely welcome, despite any false appearances. So if you're a kid on a tricycle or a philosophy professor who's never played a sport, know that we are infinitely welcoming, we just might intimidate you a little on the field. (Although that's always the best way to jump into a sport). Some groups stick the cliche "everyone welcome" but play at a level where no beginner would feel comfortable. It's fine for a pickup group to play at a certain level, it's just false advertising=(. When we say "all ages & skills welcome", we do mean it. It's just that being so versatile is kind of tricky. It's hard to trample the football captain and give the girl on the tricycle a twinkie as you're running by, so just assume the twinkie is implied telepathically. It's like how frat houses beat up the pledges a bit, the very people whom without which there wouldn't be a frat house at all! So if you're a girl on a tricycle, just be ready to bulldoze the football to get a little playing time in, and maybe someone will give you a twinkie at the end of a game. (Did that make any sense?) March, 2010 (Update on Toodles) It's been months since this page has been updated, and I think many outsiders thought it was because Lexington ultimate pickup doesn't play in the winter. It's true we don't, but this was entirely coincidental. Those a little more informed in the Lexington / Burlington / Boston area know that our page was frozen because many of us Lexington-ers traveled overseas along with a handful of mobilized soldiers and Marines around the Boston area to bring back Toodles the Lexington Frisbee Factor Canary from capture upon learning he was alive in November. We weren't able to send word since then because we hadn't had desert internet access (most of our messages were sent back by petroglyph and carrier canary straight to the Pentagon), but we're finally back home to the Boston / Burlington area and can afford a moment for a blog post. We're still pressed for time, though, so be aware it could be entire weeks before another post. In short, we found Toodles, but the situation was far too evolved for us to grab him back easily. We spent three months tracking him down with the help of various US government agencies, and as time went on we discovered more and more about what was going on and why Toodles felt it necessary to leave everyone in Lexington & Woburn in tears by staging his death. (Until the end of last fall most in the Lexington/Woburn area thought he'd committed suicide by flying into the mouth of Mangles the Lexington area cat. A few of us didn't believe it, and our faith turned out correct: the Lexington media staged the rumor of a suicide to induce the appearance of a minor media cover up as a decoy to the major media cover up of the international crisis!) As I said back then, we knew Toodles had been developing filter algorithms for the global SIGINT network Echelon from the obscurity of Lexington Massachusetts when he detected a foreign nuclear threat that would not only threaten the Lexington/Woburn and Boston area but the entire country (birds are obviously excelent spies because they can blend into a crowd, and can monitor suspicious military activities from the air). Once deployed overseas, he located the source of the threat, but he also discovered there was no time to fly back to Boston for reinforcements. Our noble little Lexington factor canary went in alone and unarmed, and alas, was captured. When we found him, we were able to kidnap a flock of enemy geese and arrange an exchange, but as it was happening the entire flock flew away before we could finish the exchange. Toodles realized we had nothing to trade for him, and seeing his only chance to return home to Boston, took his only chance at escape. Toodles flew with inbirdly haste straight for us, but the sheer number of BB guns firing at him was just too overwhelming to evade, even for him. He was forced off to the mountains to the West deep within enemy territory, and we had no choice but to fall back. The last thing we saw was Toodles falling out of sight after a BB pellet nicked his left wing and brought him down. We believe him to be alive but he's almost certainly been captured again for more torture and interrogation. We were all ordered to return back to US Lexington/Woburn soil and told that another rescue mission couldn't be risked unless we found more volunteers and trained harder on the field. We've sent scouts from the Boston area all over the USA in search of volunteers to bring our little Lexington buddy back, and this post is our plea to the world to attend our games here in Lexington, where you will receive field training that will benefit you your entire life as well as help bring back our noble Lexington friend. It's urgent we begin our season as soon as possible, so everyone willing, please email me when you're willing to start playing. As soon as we have enough people, I'll be taking headcounts weekly until we get going, after which point we'll surely have enough numbers to play every Saturday, warmup at 2pm, game at 2:30 sharp. Cooler weather is better than mid-summer heat, so starting soon is a perfect time to start. (Woburn pickup frisbee played all winter to help give more practice to Lexington players who stayed behind). So hit me back soon when you can start playing. The life of our little friend depends on it. --Squish (email-- frisbee <that symbol> squish7.com) |
