2009 High Desert Classic at Albuquerque

[EZ Bagger]

Holy crap! Just how many BEers were on squad 3 with me and I didn't even know it? Eric, your name didn't even register with me out there. Sorry man.

You were on Squad 3 too?

Wish we'd have known.

We kept Eric and Brett entertained.

[Neomet]

By the end of the match I could actually see a whole new shooter in you Rick. You seemed to really let loose more as the match progressed and your performance seemed to really improve. I think it helped us shooting with some really solid shooters.

Thanks much Jason. I certainly was not the Zen master on Saturday!

[pbc44]

Just got home to AZ. Another great match from Rod and the crew. Nice to see Squad 1 did so well on C Open. Had fun shooting with the Keehner's and Nancy and Jim and everyone else.

Pete

Squad 1 was the place to be for C Open...1st, 2nd and 3rd place...it was fun!

Enjoyed meeting the Arizona crowd, laughing, joking, and downright harassment!

Hey Pete, don't run with that thing in your mouth you might trip and fall....

All we can say is goodbye C Class, It's been fun while it lasted. It's gonna be a drought for wood for quite awhile.

[taco101]

My video is up. Missed a couple of stages when the wind was too bad.

[geezer-lock]

We were tested....

I've lived in Albuquerque for 30+ years. The climate is just plain wonderful, but there are always Spring winds. This year, the winds have been more intense, and more often, than I can remember.

Saturday afternoon we encountered winds we rarely see around here. Gusts sometimes made visibility under 50 yards. Occassionally, you just had to turn your back to it, hold your hat, and endure a sandblasting. Rod

You guys did another great job this year! Earthlings can but endure the weather, so no need for apology from you or any of your team. Sunday was all anyone could ask for and a great conclusion to the match. The footing was great and the coating on my C-more worked just fine. MUCH safer and easier than rain and mud any day!

I'll be back!

David C

[SA Friday]

My video is up. Missed a couple of stages when the wind was too bad.

Hey, what's all that SHWEEEEEEEEEEE in the vid background?

[lneel]

Excellent stages, great RO's and a good time (except for 6-7 sandblasting sessions on Saturday) for all. Overall weather was good and I had a good time. Thanks to all the RO's and other staff who made it happen.

[Neomet]

Hey, anyone got any vid or photos of some of the brutal sandblasting? The wife went last year and said "Well, of course it was windy, just like last year." Uh, not quite!

[SA Friday]

Hey, anyone got any vid or photos of some of the brutal sandblasting? The wife went last year and said "Well, of course it was windy, just like last year." Uh, not quite!

Tell her I haven't seen a sand storm like that since I left Iraq last Jan. Only truely dedicated shooters and match workers would have stuck it out in that. We sures the hell wouldn't have tried to pull off a combat mission in it.

[Pat Miles]

I haven't seen conditions that bad on that range in the three years RGPSC has been shooting there. The weather today in Albuquerque was in the low 80's, mostly cloudy and light breezes. What a difference a day makes! Oh well, ya pays your money and ya takes your chances.

CYa next year,

Pat

[ogiebb]

I first want to say thanks for the crew for setting up such a great match. Some speed, tight, and technical shooting with plenty of hard cover and no shoots. I love this match, and have shot it for several years. Now I know why I come back year after year.....great stages, great people, and an all around great time(could have done without the bead blast on saturday). Rod, great job keeping things together considering the conditions. I met some new BE'rs at the match and look forward to seeing you all at another match in the near future. SQUAD 8 rocked the house and Phx was well represented. FYI, JASMAP did spend most of the nights locked in the bathroom, apparently he wont forgive me for stealing his lunch money when we were kids Jigger and August, you GOTTA make this match next year.

MIssed a chance to shoot with awesome shooters...will def try next year

[ironb]

the match was great. very nicely put together, some great stages, and lots of great people! glad I made the trip out there. next year, i'm taking my time and staying with my squad instead of shooting 10 stages in 5 hours. That was brutal.

[eerw]

Pat Doyle had to do that too. He had to shoot all on Sunday.

that would have been pretty rough

Edited June 10, 2009 by eerw

[dqshooter]

Staff did a great job. Different type of match than I am used to and I was just not prepared. I shot like crap, haven't fired a round since Dec and it showed. The sand blasting sucked (you must embrace the suck and work thru it) I spent 7 1/2 years in ALB and I figured the wind would blow but not that hard. You would have thought that the way alot of people bad mouthed Robert and I after our match that every match on the planet just ran smooth. We had alot of long waits and scoring was slow, we are sticking with paper The staff did nothing wrong and worked hard. shit just happens.

[TaterHead]

Staff did a great job. Different type of match than I am used to and I was just not prepared. I shot like crap, haven't fired a round since Dec and it showed. The sand blasting sucked (you must embrace the suck and work thru it) I spent 7 1/2 years in ALB and I figured the wind would blow but not that hard. You would have thought that the way alot of people bad mouthed Robert and I after our match that every match on the planet just ran smooth. We had alot of long waits and scoring was slow, we are sticking with paper The staff did nothing wrong and worked hard. shit just happens.

There were some delays. Horizontal dirt does take its toll. I do not believe the scoring was slow. One has to remember that PDA scoring catches all of the manual paper mistakes before they even get to stats. Those mistakes can lead to confusion and possible reshoots. RO's don't have to do any math to make sure they got it right. They don't need to remember to write down the time. Every mistake is covered, other than recording the wrong target hit, and you can do that on paper just as easily. The real benefit to using this type of system is final scores are done pretty much immediately. At this match, finals were posted under 10 minutes of last shot fired, and that's just getting the PDA in and hooked up. No one sat around for hours waiting for scores. We were off the range, with awards and prizes done, in just over an hour. You can keep your paper, and your 3 hour delay at match end!

I don't like to sit around for hours waiting, I gotta go.

Comments welcome.

[HGExplosive]

This is the second match I have shot where it was scored with the PDA system, total thumbs up on the PDA scoring. I hope to see more matches use the PDA instead of the paper system.

[pjb45]

There were some delays on some shooters during the scoring of a stage. But on our stage that amounted to less than 5% of the shooters. That fact of the matter is that our stage had the shooter scored before the stage was reset. The longest part was the transferring of the numbers from the PDA to the paper. This actually went fast when a squad member actually wrote the scores down as the RO called them. Not all squads stepped up like the LEO from Roswell. I suspect we may get battery operated thermal printers on the stages, which would really make things go fast.

Once the RO who resist change got use to the PDA, I am talking at the Nationals, a great majority of them became supportive.

Rod did an outstanding job on the PDAs at the match. I agree, I hate to wait for the scores to be posted. No longer is just one or few people having to key in numbers. The PDA does all the work. I bet, without prior knowledge, there were a lot fewer mistakes because of it. No longer does a shooter have to keep his paper and reconcile with the printed results to ensure his numbers were correctly entered. If you have been to Nationals or A2 you see 200 shooters crammed into a small area checking their scores for accuracy. You did not have to do that at HDC. It is a much more accurate and faster method.

[Neomet]

I am a fan of PDA. If you look at total time for scoring shooters plus the time waiting for final scores PDA crushes paper. Even if it took a little longer with the PDAs, which I don't think it does, I would rather have it out on the stages than at the end of the match when I am pretty much beat and ready to head for a shower. JMHO

edited for 3rd grade grammar mistake.

Edited June 11, 2009 by Neomet

[Rocket35]

All I can say is that we averaged about 3-4 minutes per shooter on Stage 8 (32rd field course) with two RO's using the PDA. That is including rebuilding the stage when the wind tipped over walls and bent over targets/stands. Thanks to all the shooters that helped us in correcting mother nature's menacing ways!

[jasmap]

I actually thought the PDA scoring at the HDC was quicker and smoother than at the Nationals. I had NO problem with it and I think the RO's did a great job.

[CHA-LEE]

There is no question that the PDA method is way better than the paper method. We have been using PDA's at almost all of the local club matches in Colorado and it is great. You know your hit factor instantly and all mistakes, misses, penalties are prompted for confirmation right after the scoring is input. The only complaint that I have ever heard about the PDA scoring is when you get a weak processor PDA and there is a delay in inputting the data because you have to wait for the PDA to process each action. But even this is a hardware issue, not a scoring issue. If you have a decent PDA you can input the scores just as fast as the RO calls them out.

Stage side printers are not very practical as they would not last long in poor weather. For example, I am sure that they would get absolutely ruined if they were exposed to the blowing dust/sand of this match. I know my digital camera took a death blow from it.

Locally we have the shooter review the results on the PDA and initial when they believe it is an accurate representation of their score. It’s still up to the shooter to confirm the accuracy of their score just after shooting the stage. If they dismiss the output on the PDA and initial it off hand then realize later that their score was not correct, then that is their problem, not the RO's or PDA's. That is a good lesson for them to pay attention next time instead of throwing a post stage temper tantrum because they had a poor run. In all the cases that I have seen where shooters questioned their score post match, this was the reason. But this happens when using paper or the PDA so you can't really correlate it to a PDA issue.

[Pat Miles]

Staff did a great job. Different type of match than I am used to and I was just not prepared. I shot like crap, haven't fired a round since Dec and it showed. The sand blasting sucked (you must embrace the suck and work thru it) I spent 7 1/2 years in ALB and I figured the wind would blow but not that hard. You would have thought that the way alot of people bad mouthed Robert and I after our match that every match on the planet just ran smooth. We had alot of long waits and scoring was slow, we are sticking with paper The staff did nothing wrong and worked hard. shit just happens.

Interesting that you think the PDA scoring was slow with long delays. I RO'd the 2008 DT and shot the 2009 DT as a competitor. The amount of waiting time at both was looong. Best I can recalll about an hour before awards even started and then easily two hours before the last folks walked the container for prizes. That SUCKED (you must embrace the suck...)! Weather, not much we can do about that. You whined at me on stage 2 about the weather and walked away quickly when I told you I was at the last two DT's and the weather there wasn't the most comfortable either.

CYa,

Pat

Edited June 13, 2009 by whatmeworry

[jasmap]

The HDC is now listed on uspsa.org as a classifier in the new update. I didn't shoot my best but I shot at 84.440%.

There were several GM's there but the organization, my great squad, great stages, and the staff made the match another great success.

[dbltapipsc]

I would have to say I was a little worried about the PDA scoring, but I thought it ran smoother than the paper trail. A couple downfalls were the scoring RO's at times were more worried about the PDA than confirming the target which led to a couple of miss scored targets. This was fixed with the shooter looking over the scoring RO's shoulder. Make sure you dont lose your paper copy, it saved me at the HDC. All in all I think the PDA will be the new rage.