Rolls Report: Sept 23 – A Mostly Uneventful Sunday

Posted on | by ben | 20 Comments on Rolls Report: Sept 23 – A Mostly Uneventful Sunday

In an attempt to give myself some kind of fight against my procrastination, I’m going to try and get these out at or before noon on Mondays. This will hopefully give me enough time to add things I had forgotten or get new info from others that were at rolls. Remember, if you were at rolls, I want to hear what you’ve got. Please email me at ben.matzke@gmail.com.

Sunday was the only day of rolls again this weekend, but this one is thanks to the diabetes walk that happens every year, so it’s not like we didn’t see this one coming. Next week we only have Saturday and from then on we should be back to the full weekend. With so few scheduled days to start with, and fewer still that will likely happen due to Pittsburgh doing what Pittsburgh does best, I’m interested to see how this will affect the spring, if at all.

Drivers have been getting more rolls in a day than previous year’s drivers got over a few weeks and because there are so few orgs in operation, Sunday started with only 5 teams on the course. Normally, at least 6 teams are required to make rolls happen, but sweepstakes had little choice in this circumstance and the organizations stepped up to man every barricade and sweep every hill. Despite being as hectic or more so than the first, there were fewer incidents making for a very uneventful Sunday morning.

In Attendance

Sweepstakes hasn’t yet gotten the roll count spreadsheet up, but it’s in the works. (Thanks in advance for getting that together Rachel!)

Org Sunday
CIA Orca, Ascension, Firebird, Quasar
Fringe Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan
SDC Avarice, Malice, Rage
SigEp Mamba, Pandora
Spirit Zuke, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka
No-Shows AEPi, Apex, PiKA, SigNu

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Rolls Report: Sept 16 – First day of Rolls

Posted on | by ben | 5 Comments on Rolls Report: Sept 16 – First day of Rolls

Welcome back to Buggy for this Raceday 2013 season!

RIP Sam Swift

For those of you that don’t already know, Sam Swift has moved on from Pittsburgh and with that has passed along the reins of the Rolls Reports to current Pittsburghers. In particular I (Ben Matzke) have taken over the organization of getting these out to you every week. Since I feel I don’t have (or yet have) the same dedication/time that Sam had, I’ll be asking for collaboration from any alumni or current students that attended rolls each weekend. If you are in the Pittsburgh area and attend rolls on any given weekend, please send any interesting notes, funny stories or overheard rumors to me. With that out of the way, lets get into what you’re really here for.

Rolls were slated to start on Saturday, but ran into issues with the new parking meters and their lack of NO PARKING signs. Many buggy fans were disappointed to have a similar start 2 years in a row. Because of this, the Police made some of their temporary signs and taped them to the meters for Sunday.

Sweepstakes (I assume it was them) also made some nice giant signs to help alert people of the weekend closures.These signs allowed Sweepstakes to get things running on Sunday and things ran well. Aside from the typical shenanigans that accompany the first day of rolls, everything ran incredibly smoothly and some drivers are already maxing their fall rolls. It was an exciting day for everyone and the surrounding wildlife, so lets get into some of the details.

In Attendance

Sweepstakes hasn’t posted their roll counts for the year yet, but this is what I remember. And with my memory suspect from those late nights of buggy building, there’s likely to be something wrong.

Org Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze
CIA Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar
Fringe Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage
SigEp Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Zuke, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka
No-Shows Apex, PiKA, SAE, SigNu

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Sweepstakes and the teams are on the ball and the 93rd season of buggy is scheduled to kick off this Saturday at 7:01am.  Are you ready?  Are you excited?  Is this the last thing on the list telling you that you have to admit that summer is over?

Well get ready, and get excited, because it’s time to stuff the smallest ladies in Pittsburgh into carbon tubes, send them flying down the hill and then push them back up to the top.  If it doesn’t put a smile on your face to think about our most peculiar sport ramping back up for a new season … your smile must be broken because you’re on this website, who are you kidding!

So, what does it mean to start a new season?

  • Our highly-esteemed rolls reports will resume next week, with weekly coverage of the weekend’s action usually hitting the interwebs on Monday morning to give you  something to look forward to as you start your week.
  • Our fall activities are coming up.  We’ll be running a welcome table at Cèilidh to meet and greet, Tom Wood will be giving his history of buggy talk, and we’ll be running the 2nd annual game of Fantasy Buggy scheduled around mini-raceday at the end of the fall season of rolls.
  • Now is the time to start working on projects to make buggy bigger, more popular, and more fun for alumni and current students.  Ideas tend to come up in March when the buggy buzz is really getting strong, but it’s tough to pull off the big projects in a month.  If you’ve got a big idea, throw it out in the Project Zone and rally some troops to get it done.  We don’t raise money for our retirement accounts, we raise it to fund fun projects.  Let’s do it!
  • It’s time to re-up on your BAA membership.  BAA membership is an annual affair so any contribution now until the end of May makes you a 2013 supporter.  A contribution of any amount >$1 gets you on the roster for the year and gives you the happy feeling of knowing that you enable the BAA to support buggy and make it cooler than it was the year before.  Check out our membership page to see the past year’s rosters and for details on the money stuff.
How are we going to pull off this exciting new year of BAA activity?
  • Well, that’s an interesting question.  The BAA is at a bit of a turning point.  The BAA will celebrate its 5th birthday at carnival 2013 and many of the folks who founded and have led this awesome organization have new, probably less awesome things vying for their time (babies, jobs, living in different cities, whatever).  As a result, we’ve got opportunities aplenty for alumni with energy and ideas on how to continue to contribute to the sport of buggy even though you’re no longer paying your student activities fee.
  • Janice Schneekloth is stepping down as chairwoman after 2 great years at the helm, and that is the primary role we need to fill.  The BAA is a group effort.  We work on things the community thinks are worthwhile and interesting and we try to do it by including everyone who can contribute.  Still, we need one person to make the tough calls (there aren’t many) and keep the organization hanging together and moving forward.  We also need more people to be part of the committee and adopt specific parts of the BAA operation and make them their thing.  This post from May outlines the jobs that need doing.
  • I am also one of the people who has been forced to move on a bit because I physically moved to Chapel Hill, NC this summer.  Blackjack is already hung on our new wall, so I won’t forget about buggy, and being part of the beginning of the Buggy Alumni Association has been one of my favorite CMU experiences.  This is my 147th post on cmubuggy.org, and I’m sure it won’t be my last, but I don’t think I’d do a very good job with the rolls reports from 500 miles away.
  • So Ben Matzke (CIA chairman, 2011) is going to be taking over to start things off on the news front, but he could use your help.  I’ll let him do the coordination, but rolls reports is an ideal job for a 2 or 3 person rotating team.  You’d be surprised how nice it is to get out of the house early, go see some buggy, and then start your Saturday.  That, and telling the ladies you write for cmubuggy.org works like a charm every time, trust me.
  • So, for the next 8 days we will be accepting nominations for Chairman of the BAA and volunteers for the other myriad of  roles that need filling.  Next Friday, we will either announce the new 2013 BAA committee, or (if we have more than 1 candidate for Chairman) a ballot .  Please comment on this post or email admin@cmubuggy.org to get involved.  Get involved, you’ll love it, I definitely have.