We do not play next Monday (July 25) due to the National Open (specifically Come Monday).We have a guest blogger today, our own Joe Greiner. He's gone through the most recent Cribbage World and has some information for all of us.....Thanks Joe!! If you’re having trouble winning games against the players on Monday night, here may be why. The ACC has special sanctioned (generally weekend or week long) tournaments at which they award Master Rating Points (MRP). Periodically, the listing of the top 50 by region are published. In the latest Cribbage World magazine, Eastern Region, we find: #4 Larry Phifer #8 Jeff Raynes #30 Kristy Haught #40 Frank Abernathy #42 Tom Goeschel #43 Curtis Barbour #50 Bernard Whitfield I am pretty sure that no other club has such a tough lineup. On any Monday night, you may be playing against 3 or 4 of the top 50 MRP Eastern leaders. And... Congratulations to Jeff Raynes. 2021-2022 club champion Jeff Raynes with a total of 331 Grass Roots Points finished 5th in the nation for 9 game Grass Roots Club Champions. Jeff is also currently ranked 8th in the Eastern Region MRP standings. And caps this off with a 5th place standings in IRPs (Internet Rating Points). We had 22 players come out this week, including Dot and Jim (again!!!) This time, Dot's pegs failed her; she didn't take home any prize money. WIth 22 players, we paid out five places and three teams. First Place: Jeff Raynes, with an 18/8/179 John Morch was the Grand Slam Thwarter this time around. Second Place: Kristy Haught, with a 17/7/138 Third Place: Al Robinson, with a 13/6/35 Fourth Place: Jerry Gooden, with a 12/6/15 Fifth Place: John "Thwarter" Morch, with a 12/5/40 1st Team (combined 20/10/-11): Jeff Seidenstein (10) and Andy Wagner (10) 2nd Team (combined 19/9/6): Frank Abernathy (11) and Jennifer Johnson (8) 3rd Team (combined 19/9/-10): Mike Due (11) and Megan Player (8) Here are the current summer standings: Shortie today -- got lots to wrap up at work before the NATIONAL OPEN!!!
I hope to see most of you there!! ~ Jennifer
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Yes, I know, I blew it. LAST week, we had the Bon Jovi "Summertime" song; I should have waited for this week to play off their "Livin' on a Prayer" refrain. Ah well, there's always the next "half" milestone we reach. On July 11, 1804, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr met on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, New Jersey, to fight the final skirmish of a long-lived political and personal battle. When the duel was over, Hamilton would be mortally wounded, and Burr would be wanted for murder. Hamilton was a Federalist. Burr was a Republican. The men clashed repeatedly in the political arena. The first major skirmish was in 1791, when Burr successfully captured a United States Senate seat from Philip Schuyler, Hamilton's powerful father-in-law. Hamilton, then Treasury secretary, would have counted on Schuyler to support his policies. When Burr won the election, Hamilton fumed. It was the New York governor's race of 1804, however, that pushed the two men to violence. In that election, Burr turned his back on the Republicans and ran as an independent. Burr believed that if he won, he would regain power. The prospect of Burr leading New York mortified Hamilton, who despised and mistrusted Burr completely. In early 1804, Hamilton tried to convince New York Federalists not to support Burr. In the end, a relatively minor slight precipitated the Burr-Hamilton duel. In February, 1804, a New York Republican, Dr. Charles D. Cooper, attended a dinner party at which Alexander Hamilton spoke forcefully and eloquently against Burr. Cooper later wrote a letter to Philip Schuyler in which he made reference to a particularly "despicable opinion" Hamilton expressed about Burr. The letter was published in a New York newspaper the "Albany Register." Hoping that a victory on the dueling ground could revive his flagging political career, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton wanted to avoid the duel, but politics left him no choice. If he admitted to Burr's charge, which was substantially true, he would lose his honor. If he refused to duel, the result would be the same. Either way, his political career would be over. After Hamilton's and Burr's seconds tried without success to settle the matter amicably, the two political enemies met on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, New Jersey on the morning of July 11. Each fired a shot from a .56 caliber dueling pistol. Burr was unscathed; Hamilton fell to the ground mortally wounded. He died the next day. Instead of reviving Burr's political career, the duel helped to end it. Burr was charged with murder. After his term as vice president ended, he would never hold elective office again. And his next plot to gain power would end with charges of treason. On this date in 1969, David Bowie released 'Space Oddity' as a 7-inch single, via Philips Records – arriving in the run-up to the Apollo 11 moon landing. ‘Space Oddity’ was David Bowie’s first single to chart in the UK and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s pioneering sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It would mark a collective turning head of the world, as the moon landing had gathered the imaginations of the earth and told them all to look skyward. Necks craned to the heavens there was only one man to soundtrack this event—the Starman. Written about the launch of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut; Bowie would later revisit his Major Tom character in the songs “Ashes to Ashes”, ‘Hallo Spaceboy’, “New Killer Star” and “Blackstar”. We were all pleased as punch to see Dot Davis (and Jim Townsend) come in to play again. We had 19 play this week -- Curtis Barbour came in a few minutes after we started to warm up for the National Open, and took slot 19. With 19 players, we paid out five places and two teams.
First Team (combined 22): Bernard Whitfield (12) and Megan Player (10) Second Team (combined 21): Al Robinson (11) and Glenn McMahon (10) Here are the current standings, halfway through the summer season. Note that my program take the "best 8 weeks", so since we haven't played some of them yet, they show as 0 to the program and are discarded. Some news that I'll put into the email... as of today, we have 140 confirmed entries for the National Open; that's only 23 off the number we had in 2019. SO CLOSE to surpassing the last NOCT! Your ACC Membership can now be purchased (or renewed) online!! This is something new that the IT Committee has been working on for a while. At the moment the "ACC Store" only allows for single or joint memberships; lifetime memberships still need to be processed via the usual snail-mail method. You can also purchase rulebooks online. Look for the big red button on the ACC main site; it floats over almost all the pages. GrassRoots dues can be paid this way as well, but I'll collect those in September from everyone and send them in. Speaking of ... Grass Roots Dues for the upcoming season--starting September 1st--will increase to $8 per member. The increase will pay a portion of the Liability Insurance policy recently purchased by the ACC; sanctioning fees increase for Weekend Tournaments will pay the remainder. I have an abundance of $1 bills, but not everything else under $20, so you'll be asked to pay $23 the first time you play on or after September 6. Exact change is always appreciated, but I should have plenty of $1 bills if I need to make some change :) I was at that Bon Jovi show back in 2007. Feels like a lifetime ago. Anyway, we're into week 5, and hopefully I don't mess up anything on the blog like I did last week :) We all know what July Fourth is in the US -- it's the date where the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress, calling for the American colonies to secede from Great Britain. But some other notable things happened on this date in history.... On July 4th, 1831 "America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)" was first sung. The song, which was originally titled “America”, was written by Samuel Francis Smith in 1831 and served as a de facto national anthem for the United States until “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted in 1931. It was first performed on 4 July 1831 at an Independence Day event for children in Boston, Massachusetts., The melody is much older and has been used for songs in many countries (including the British National Anthem: "God Save the Queen"). Symphony No. 3 by Muzio Clementi contains the melody of “God Save The Queen” as a tribute to the United Kingdom, which was Clementi’s adopted country. It was this melody in Symphony No. 3 that caught Samuel Francis Smith’s ear. So, he wrote “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” to the tune in 30 minutes. On July 4, 1884, France presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States in Paris. Created by sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was intended as a gift from France to the United States to celebrate a century of friendship between the two countries. To great fanfare, the statue arrived in New York Harbor from France almost a year later, on June 17, 1885. It would take another year for the Statue of Liberty to be unveiled. Today, the Statue of Liberty is the ultimate symbol of American freedom and diversity. The sculptor modeled his statue after the Roman goddess Libertas, who represents freedom from tyranny and oppression. Between 1892 and 1954, 12 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island. The Statue of Liberty was one of the first images they saw when the arrived. Today, as we celebrate Independence Day, the Statue of Liberty is the ultimate expression of America’s ideals of freedom and liberty. Lady Liberty is a big gal, standing 111 feet, 1 inch tall from her heel to the top of her head. She consists of over 60,000 pounds of copper and 250,000 pounds of steel. The tablet she holds is two feet thick, and measures roughly 23.5 feet by 13.5 feet. In 1984, the Statue of Liberty was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The UNESCO "Statement of Significance" describes the statue as a "masterpiece of the human spirit" that "endures as a highly potent symbol—inspiring contemplation, debate and protest—of ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, democracy and opportunity." Less historic, but no less a bit of Americana, on this date in 1970, Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" debuted on LA radio. American Top 40 played "the best selling and most-played songs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico," as he stated on the first program. On any given week, American Top 40 could feature a ballad, next to a country song, next to a funk song, next to a rock song. The show became a national obsession but when it debuted, it was considered a risky idea. "You remember, at the end of the '60s, Top 40 was not the most popular format," Casey Kasem told NPR in 1982. "And here we were coming along with a show called American Top 40, and people said, 'You must be nuts!' " When American Top 40 launched, it was only played on seven stations. By the early 1980s, the show was heard on more than 500 stations across America and on the Armed Forces Radio Network around the world. The show succeeded not just because it was a list of popular songs, but because of the humanity that Casey Kasem brought between the songs. Kasem read letters sent in from around the world that dedicated songs to loved ones. In one such instance, a soldier stationed overseas wrote that his wife had sent him a handwritten copy of the lyrics to "Faithfully" by Journey and asked Kasem to play the song for her. By the end of the 1980s, a different radio network had acquired the rights to American Top 40, and they wanted to make a change. Casey Kasem was out; Shadoe Stevens was in. Kasem returned to host in 1998, but six years later, he handed the reins to Ryan Seacrest, who still hosts the program to this day. We had a smaller crowd today, 12 peggers came out to play. As such, we paid out four places and just one team. First Place: Jeff Seidenstein with an near-perfect 16/8/112. His Grand Slam was foiled by our #2... Second Place: Al Robinson with a 15/7/+77 Third Place: Kristy Haught with a 12/6/29 Fourth Place: Jeff Raynes with a 12/6/23 The Team (19 Pts): Tom Goeschel (11) and Bob Hewitt (8) The current results (I double-checked this time) are below: We should be back to "full summer strength" next week. Have a great week, everyone!
~ Jennifer Hi Friends -- It's been a week. Lots of drama in the personal space so Cribbage didn't get the attention it usually does :) BUT, I've got an update for our Summer Season, and I wanted to put it out there before we next meet. Speaking of that. We WILL be playing on the Fourth. OK, here are the results from this week. First, we welcome two new players, who found us after striking up a conversation during a pickleball game. Roger Doenges and Paul Restuccia are local guys who are long-time players and were looking for a place to play. They found one with us! With the addition of our two new friends, we had 18 people come out to play. That means 4 places and 3 teams. First Place: Newcomer Roger Doenges with a might pretty 15/7/74 Second Place: Al Robinson with a 13/6/+18 Third Place: Joe Greiner with a 12/6/+23 Fourth Place: Jerry Gooden with an 11/5/+71 1st Team (20 Pts): Glenn McMahon (10) and John Morch (10) 2nd Team (10 Pts): Allan Simpson (11) and Mike Due (8) 3rd Team (18 pts): Megan Player (10) and Frank Abernathy (8) Current state-of-the-summer is below. Finally, and by no means lastly, for those who haven't heard, we lost one of our own last week -- Steve Hooker. This was posted by his family on Facebook:
Steve suffered a heart attack and he is now with his Lord and Savior,Jesus Christ. He would rejoice when he spoke of the “new body” he would get. He is in his eternal home but that does not alleviate the loss and the void he leaves behind on earth. His family and friends loved him deeply. Steve did SO much good in this world and that love will endure forever. His service will be Brights Funeral Home in Wake Forest July 10th @ 2:00 pm The family appreciates your prayers. Rest in Peace, Steve. As Liz would say, "Hug your people and pets". See some of y'all soon. ~ Jennifer |
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