Commission Impossible

That MP3 phone message: Too funny!

Saint Mary's Church for the "Hail Mary pass"? or is it that church across from the Black Crow?

Lon,
Thanks for providing the first laugh of the day w/ that wav file. I usually expect my first laugh to come from tell-it-ER, but the lamo's were extra lame today.

Well that does it for me. I was under the impression that some of the worst impact of the sport is discs inadvertently hitting trees and scoring bark. Trees heal. These woman are clearly aiming directly at these fragile geometric mineral formations growing up from the earth. Those'll take millenia to recover, if they recover at all. You guys are barbarians.

Brian,

You should also know that the golf discs are made from the bony material of a dolphin's dorsal fin.

Lon

Sean,

I try to spread joy and hope wherever I go. Today I just did it a little better than usual.

Lon

Anthony,

Glad you liked the message. We once did a transcript of it. We used a piece of software to break out the emotional content to help us determine who sent it. This effort is displayed below.

•Hi Gregg [NB]

•I’m personally disappointed by your action of placing the Frisbee golf course on [NB] Bidwell Park land. [NB] It seems quite irresponsible to me [NB] that [NB] you would say that there’s no impact going on. I hiked it when you first [P] brought your uh, poles of destruction up there [NB] and I just hiked it this afternoon. [NB]

•Saw all the various new paths [ERP] that had been ground into the dirt. [NB]

•And all the various trash [ERP] spots where people have frequented your course and [VCLG] deposited their trash along the way. [NB]

•So, personally, I think you’ll rot in hell for it[OLOSOCAS] , but until then have a good day!

Transcript Guide:
[NB] = Nervous Breath / Heavy Breathing
[P] = Short Pause
[ERP] = Extended and Retarded Pronunciation of previous word in italics
[VCLG] = Voice cracking like little girl
[OLOSOCAS] = Obvious lack of separation of church and state

CIC: Yes it's a church (pretty obvious), no it's not local. Although it does look like the one across from the Black Crow.

Lon

I'm only minimally familiar with the disc golf controversy. In fact yesterday was the first time I have been to Upper Park (went up the Middle Trail to Salmon Hole and back). The wav files were indeed hilarious but the prize for the best psychedelics in Windows Media Player goes to Scott Gruendl.

Shatzi,

When you look across Salmon hole you'll see the cliffs on the south side of the park. On top of those cliffs is where the disc golf course is.

You can't even get to the disc golf course from any formal city access point to what is traditionally Upper Park. The access is about 3 miles east of town on the way to Forest Ranch.

Lon

Lon,
There is a path that branches off from the bike trail that goes along the underside of the cliff. It's a little treacherous, but a hearty soul can access the course via that path. It comes up right to the 17th and 18th holes on the short course. I used to take it to go retrieve a disc that would find it's way off the edge of the map. Although, I would spend hours looking for it, and most of the time not find it. Although one time I did find 3 nearly identical viper discs. And a scorpion.

That message is a classic that just gets better over time. A funny coincidence is that the message was left from a pay phone at the Cozy Diner.

Those girls could hold their own with any of the local frisbee stars we have around these parts. The video does illustrate how well the concrete tee pads help with the erosion impacts on a highly used course.

Maybe one of these days...

Hey Trevor,

Most players know about that path. I've never been down it, but a lot of people like to go down and retrieve discs that end up there. The reality is that I never throw discs that end up getting lost, and I never have to putt, because I always hit the target on the first throw. More people should be like me.

Lon

Gregg,

Nothing like having a big giant chicken fried steak, a vanilla malt, and some home fries. Then topping it all of with a breathless anonymous rant of a crank call.

I wonder if the guy knew he could walk across the street and buy disc golf discs at Big 5 Sports? Maybe that's what set him off.

Lon

haha Lon.

There was something odd I remember, the last time I went biking up on the trail heading toward the course, I turned up what was normally the trail at one point, to end up right in someones backyard. Why did I end up in someone's backyard?? We had to turn around and backtrack to a trail that took us down along the creek and into nasty tick territory.

Trevorino,

A segment of the south rim trail runs across private property. The property owner, Bill Brouhard, has been working with the Park Commission in an effort to transfer a portion of the property to the city. At some point in the recent past that trail was realigned to move it closer to Bidwell Park. But it still runs through his property. That trail change may relate to what you're talking about.

On the other hand, any homes up there now are not on his property. So maybe this trail change is unrelated.

I know Bill pretty well, and he's a nice guy trying to do the right thing. He wants to ensure the city has access across that area. He does want to put some homes on his property, which will cause a lot of people to get upset. So the whole question of where the trail should be, and how the city and property owner can both get what they want, will be an issue in the near future.

Lon

Ahh. It just surprised me really. Was one of those "uhhh... you see'in what I'm see'in?" moments.

Lon,

This weekend we played a tournement out at Oroville, in which Chico represented very well. We also had the pleasure of playing with many women,one of which Brandy who is a good friend of mine is 9 months pregnant, due date Dec. 31 took 1st. place pro womens. Now tell me that women can't play disc golf.

Steve B

Steve,

Well I think I have to point out that Brandy had an on board caddy who was probably helping out with some of the strategy. She'll have to share the trophy when the kid comes along. All the other girls were essentially playing against two people.

Lon

Like you said, Scott sounded the most reasonable and informed at the time, which only makes sense since he had already been on the council for a few years and the MMP was still spinning it's wheels.

Mary and Tom were both new and have since made the effort to go up and visit the site with both sides. That's a good sign of open minded research and representation, which is what we hope everybody wants from their Councilmembers.

Since then, the CItizens Advisory Committee and public participation with the MMP has shown overwhelming support. Both local newspapers and The Orion have expressed their approval for the activity and it's location. The draft EIR was released which also looked really positive for getting the mitigations and improvements moving ahead as planned.

Even with all their demands met, the Friends are still opposed but they have expressed support for the idea of a Lower Park course. This will become obviously sensible in the near future to lessen the use up the hill and provide easier access for teenagers and people on bikes. If this course were up and running, the use between the Beginner Course up the hill, which gets most of the concentrated impacts, and the Lower Park course could be alternated to deal with seasonal weather issues, if and whenever necessary. This could be done very easily and inexpensively, since a few sites have already been given mitigated negative environmental declarations.

Improvements will definitely improve things a great deal, but no amount of planning can predict everything, as far as amount of use and effectiveness of impact mitigations go. A lower course would give the Park Commission the ability to adjust things to deal with them as they see fit, as time goes by. Then the City could monitor conditions and regulate use and impacts by simply moving the baskets around.

No winner on the challenge? It's the Little Chapel of the West in Las Vegas, Nevada. Voted best place to get married in Las Vegas, no word on where the best place for an annulment is.

Lon