Currently having a quiet day at Cindy’s place in Toronto, but about to head out to check out Danforth St. It’s a lot colder here than in Vancouver and with snow on the ground it’s a fair bit more effort to do anything outside. Still, I’ve seen plenty of people out jogging and cycling so it can’t be all that bad once you’re used to it!
Went to Niagra yesterday which was very pretty with all the ice and snow. I really liked Niagra on the Lake – beautiful little town with snow everywhere. Got some excellent fudge there, maple and walnut mmmmm…
The falls were spectacular which ice and snow everywhere. We were able to get down close to the falls, but the outside areas were mostly iced up. The portals behind the falls were almost completely iced. Have to get back there some time in summer I suppose.
Went ice skating Tuesday. I was a bit sore afterwards, which isn’t good. Silly knee. It was snowing at the time, so while it was great fun it was also pretty wet. I’ve mostly forgotten all the things I used to be able to do on rollerblades, I can still go forwards pretty quickly but turning round to go backwards and stopping quickly seem to have been lost. Still, I didn’t fall over.
I ended up watching the world juniors gold medal match in a pub a couple of blocks south of cindy’s place. The skating speed and precision of those guys seemed amazing after my slightly less amazing efforts on the rink earlier in the afternoon. Got talking to a local guy at the bar which was good fun – seems to be a very friendly relaxed culture here. Sad to see Canada lose in golden goal overtime but still a fantastic game to watch. I think I could get used to watching hockey even though it is so so fast. Big difference to what I’d usually be watching this time of year
Planning on looking round the yo yo ma gardens tomorrow, then dinner up the CN tower with family. Washington DC on Saturday.

So I’ve arrived in Vancouver and am having a great time. First day here Amanda and I spent the afternoon at library square watching the hockey on tv. That sport is so fast. Of the 16 goals scored (in a very one sided match) I actually saw about 7. The others happened so fast and from such unexpected angles that I struggled to see them even on replay. Oh well….still got to work on being a proper Canadian I suppose.
Although, the barman did show me how to shotgun a red bull – which apparently is a fairly canadian thing to do. hehe.

Spent a fair bit of time yesterday on Granville Island which was great. Caught the aquabus over there, and then had a few hours walking round the shops and food market. Had a great salmon bagel for lunch. Since it was a lovely sunny day I walked back across the bridge to the city. Great view of the city, mountains and bay from that high up. Also saw my first every (partially) frozen over pond on the way back. It’s the little things that are cool!

Temperature wise I’m doing ok. Its a bit weird, as some times I’m really cold went making the transition from inside to outside, and sometimes it’s like walking outside in melbourne – no difference. Haven’t needed to wear the big coat yet.

Anyhow, on with the day. I think we’re heading to the suspension bridge. Or I might go check out the anthropology museum.

Trying to figure out plans for next year. The Kiamana classic looks earlier than I thought – mid February. So the plan might be:
1. Move out of apartment late January.
2. Couple of weeks in Swan Hill.
3. Fly to Hawai for frisbee mid February
4. Fly into America and travel up east coast
5. Arrive Toronto – June/July
6. Summer in Canada either
7a. Find a job in Toronto for a year or so
7b. Continue trip to Europe, find work/study in Germany or UK.

Hmmmm…..decisions to make.

Once again, it’s been a while since I last posted, but hey – that’s not really surprisingly. It’s been a very busy few months, mainly due to the need to finish off my master in traffic and transport engineering. The final subject was a research case-study project which was pretty exciting to do, but quite time consuming. My topic was road safety at tram stops, in particular comparing the safety at the new `platform’ stops with the older style safety zone stops around Melbourne. The project went well, although was hamstrung by a lack of data. It was difficult to get it all done in time, but it came out really well. I’ll post it here in a month or so. My supervising professor wants to convert it into a joint-authored paper for publication, which is pretty exiting!!!

I’ll need to figure out what I want to do next with all of this over the next 5 years or so. The extra knowledge gained through the masters is useful at work, but I doubt I will get an opportunity to fully use it unless the company gets a lot bigger very soon. I am still planning on heading overseas in early 2010 to have a change from Melbourne and explore some of the work, so I don’t think I need to figure out work/study plans just yet. Still, I certainly enjoy research and would like to do some more in the future. Whether this means doing a PhD in a few years…we’ll see.

Work continues as normal. A mix of road safety engineering and road design. Mostly small projects, with the typical cycle of quote, undertake and deliver. Another 8 or so months before heading overseas should be good, but I’m not sure that I would look for work in small consulting in a new position. There is certainly a large amount of flexibility as far as working hours and the like, but that cuts both ways – with an average of one night out looking at a road each week and an overnight country trip every couple of weeks.

Now that the study is all over there’s been an opportunity to get back to a `normal’ after hours life. I picked up a book called `the joy of laziness’ and am trying to implement it! Certainly feeling a lot less stressed and enjoying the chance to relax. I was certainly getting a bit tired and grumpy towards the end of semester. And my health was pretty bad too. I’m still not quite sure what’s going on with my asthma. Have had about 6 months worth of treatment from a respiratory specialist, but not much has changed and we haven’t made an real progress. Have had a lot of tests, most of which have said I either don’t have asthma, or I have some weird type of asthma that doesn’t act like asthma. Either way, still feels to me like I can’t breathe. It’s been good the last few weeks, but who knows how it will be next month. Frustrating!

Living in a one personal flat in the Melbourne CBD has been good. Nice and central and easy to get places, but living mostly (mostly) alone for 1.5-2 years running might be getting might be getting old. Still the regular frisbee crowd are great company and I see them 3-4 times a week, so its not completely quiet. The weekly Iron Chef cooking sessions are good fun too! I now know how to make apple pie, and how to cook with maple syrup – New Hampshire or Vermont

Anyhow, the footy’s over. Must go to bed as I’m flying to Birchip tomorrow! Still doing the flying lessons (when I have time) and am working toward my cross-country navigation endorsement. Should be fun.

I recently played in a game of ultimate where we had 5 players and the other team had 10 or 11. Unsurprisingly we lost, but still managed to score 4 points and stretch the game out to time cap. While we played well, we struggled to score points and had to make our defense up as it went along. Having had a bit of time to think about it all I present now the Pirate’s and Ninja’s guide to defense and offense for 5 on 7:

Defense – Marking
There are two marking approaches that should you should switched between intermittently so that their offense doesn’t get settled.
Firstly, the aggressive mark where you actively seek a point block. Switch the force up part way through the count, force forward when they look to dump, leave the break side a little bit open so that they are tempted to go for something you might get a touch on. Basically go nuts on the mark. The other 4 defenders should just mark all the ins rather than trusting the force. Forget about trying to prevent the deep throw, unless you can get a hand block on it!

Secondly, there is a more conservative mark, possible forcing towards the sideline although force middle could be considered. This will allow defenders downfield to ignore the breakside (somewhat) and try to get a poach D.

These approaches should work equally well on man and zone, but will have a significant impact on how the other defenders set up.

Defense – Man-on-man
Clearly playing conventional man-on-man defense is not possible, but that isn’t to say that it should be abandoned completely. There are two possible variations, which would be a good change up once the opposition have adjusted to playing against the various zones that your team tries.

Firstly, there is the option of playing 5-on-5 defense against the 5 players closest to the disc, and tempting the big throw to the remaining two deepest players. The strategy is to hope for a throw away or sprinting down once the disc is in the air and getting a D. A straight up force is not appropriate as you are actually trying to force them to huck. A straight up force will make it difficult to play effective D on the 5 players that are being marked close to the disc.

The second man defense option is to play against the 5 strongest players and hope that the remaining two weakest players get the disc and throw it away. This should be taken to the extreme of not even marking the two weakest players when they have the disc. You should be totally shut down the 5 better players and force the two weaker players to pass it between themselves all the way down the field. That said, feel free to poach off one of the 5 better players for an amazing layout block if they get close enough!!

Playing D to exploit the potential for the rookie drop or throw away doesn’t sound too sporting, but hey you’ve only got 5 players. At the end this comes down to what you are trying to achieve by turning up. My thoughts are that if you aren’t going to make it as difficult as possible for the opposition to score points, you should have forfeited rather than playing 5 on 7.

Defense – Clams, Zones, Fences and Poaches.
There are all manner of different junk defenses that can be tried in a 5 on 7 situation. The only advice is not to have a deep-deep player. Just put a big tall guy on one of the wings and make him responsible for the deep throw as well. Always allow the deep throw as one (wing arriving late) vs two in the endzone is more likely to get a turn than 5 on 7 in the middle of the field trying to shut down the 10 metre passes.

Assassinating the dump, or the dump and the swing is another approach worth trying to shut down their handlers and force them to use their weaker players. Taken to the extreme this could be used as a weird 2-1-2-0 zone (two players denying the dumps/swings, one marker straight up , one left wing and one right wing.

The Wam (weakest player clam) is another option. Don’t play much D until a weaker thrower (or short woman) has the disc. Then transition immediately to an agressive all 5 players in clam.

Be creative, pressure the throwers, but once the disc has moved more than 10 or 15 metres down field of the cup, clam or fence it is likely that the point is over and you should conserve energy for the next point. Remember you have no subs!

Playing a 4 or 5 player fence across the front of the endzone is another worthwhile strategy. This can either be set up off a turn close to the endzone, or as a deliberate Braveheart style play, off a pull or huck and D attempt. Set the fence up 3 to 5 metres back from the front of the endzone so as to have a chance of being in the contest for anything that goes over the top to the back of the endzone. Look for the layout block at the front of the endzone. You probably won’t get it, but it’s a better approach than giving them the whole depth of the endzone to put a soft hammer or outside into. In the endzone having a 1-3-1 fence is a waste of time as there is too much area for the deep player to cover.

Anyhow, our experience was that defense is the least of your concerns. If you are willing to run like madmen and pressure the throwers there will be turns, regardless of the 5 on 7 mismatch. The problem is converting the turns into points.

If you’re playing high level ultimate with fewer turns – why didn’t you forfeit already?

Offense
The key issue with offense is that the standard cutting approaches just don’t work. They will either play zone, or man with a deep and open side poacher. Either way, you can’t simply run harder on offense to get scores.

There are plenty of strategies to try, here’s some that `might’ work:

1. The deep game
Always have a player standing in the endzone waiting to receive a huck. It is an excellent opportunity to have a rest, and the opposition has to waste at least one defender to guard you. There is no reason to `keep the endzone clear’ like you would in regular 7-on-7 ultimate, as in 5-on-7 there will always be a someone poaching deep anyway.

If it is one on one in the endzone don’t be afraid to put it up, no matter where the disc is. One on one is better odds than 4 on 6! A one on one game of 500 in the endzone is not a bad result, particularly if the huck is high and floaty.
Worst case scenario there is a turn over in your end and you get to set up a defense. Even better is if they play two players standing in the end zone on your deepest player. If this happens you’ve successfully changed the game from 5 on 7 to 4 on 5.

2. Break the force – all the time! It is a complete waste of time and effort cutting in on the open side, so just don’t bother. Cut almost exclusively to the break side and trust the thrower to go for it. However, dump-swing style offensive should be avoided, as you will use up 3 of your 5 players and gain little ground. If you did swing it to the other side of the field there’s probably no one over there to throw the next pass to anyway.

3. Play lots of very short throws – particularly against a zone. This reduces the amount of running that needs to be done and avoids the problem of everyone being too far away when the stall count gets a bit high. Two or three player isolation/give-go plays are a good way to keep possession for a while (even if you don’t score) and give the other players on your team a breather.

4. Avoid turnovers except in the endzone If there is a choice between a 75 percent throw to a cutter 10 metres outside the endzone and a 25 percent hospital pass into the endzone, take the endzone option. It’s not like your expecting to score many points anyway, so you might as well take as many shots as possible. Don’t be afraid to play huck and d when receiving the pull.

Final thoughts.
Although your team will probably get beaten playing 5-on-7 can still be a lot of fun. It’s important not to care too much about the scoreline, it’s not like you were expecting to win anyway! Consider it a good opportunity for your 5 players to go for throws they wouldn’t normally attempt, play hard and aggressive defense and get fit.

Try to be creative, test the opposing team and force them to use their weaker players on offense and defense. While getting pantsed (15-0) is fairly likely, at least try to make the opposition work for their points rather than letting them walk all over you!

Continuing from a previous post this describes how a 1-3-3 offense formation can be adopted to play against a zone.

As shown in the below figure offense (blue) again has an offensive formation based around two groups of three receivers and a single handler/dump player. Defense (red) has a standard 3 person cup, 2 wings, middle-middle and deep zone formations.

Unlike most zone offenses this approach does not rely on constant dump – swing disc movement. Why not? Well, the dump and swing uses up three offensive players but does not allow significant territory gain. Plus most defensive teams are expecting numerous dump and swings, and may be counting on the inevitable poor throw to get a turnover. Dump and swing is also vulnerable to a sideline trap.

Instead, this offensive approach seeks to hold the disc in the centre of the field. As shown in the next figure, 4 of the offensive players are positioned immediately behind the cup, standing still in the gaps. The handler seeks to pass to one of these receivers either through or over the cup. While this is a difficult throw, it may be less of a risk than the alternative of many dumps and swings.

Once the pass is through, over or around the cup two things happen. The group of three players with the disc seek to give-and-go amongst themselves to move the disc up the field. Meanwhile the other group of three players stream deep to keep the 2 wing defenders and the deep-deep defender from collapsing in on the disc. Hopefully, by setting up groups of three behind the cup it will be easier to get a give-go moving. Plus, as the cup is stationary in the centre of the field, rather than running across the field flowing a swing it is likely that the defenders will take a little bit longer to arrive after the disc has gone over, through or round cup.

Once the cup catches up the disc is passed back to the handler, the original formation is reset and there is another attempt to break through/over or round the cup.

What happens if the handler can’t break through the cup? The immediate priority is to reset the stall count so one of the 4 receivers behind the cup should crash through the cup and receive a short pass. Doesn’t matter whether this pass goes forward or backwards, as long as the stall is reset. In the longer run, if the handler can’t break through the cup they should watch for the double team, switch positions with someone more confident, switch back to dump-swing or just be a bit less timid and go for it!!

Every ultimate frisbee team I’ve ever played on has structured its offense around 3 handlers, 2 middles and 2 longs. Sometimes it works well. But often it results in a lot of handlers standing around the disc getting in the way, the middles not knowing what to do and the longs being too deep and complaining about it not being sent long enough.

Plus it’s really hard to explain to beginners what each position is supposed to do – other than spouting something about achieving `flow’ from handler to middle to long. Many social/beginner games that I’ve played in have degenerated into one or two of the more experienced players (the handlers) making whatever cuts they feel like all the time and telling all the beginners not to clog, hardly inclusive of the entire team – but I digress.

Here, for your reading pleasure, I present the 1-3-3 offense which aims to reduce the number of people around the disc, get everyone involved in the offense and gain large yardage at low risk.

As shown in the below figure, the offensive team is divided into 3 groups – a single dump and two groups of 3. In a mixed 4-3 team a good structure might be 1(male)-3(women)-3(men).

The group of 3 which has the disc (let’s say the women) essentially play a three person weave or similar to advance the disc amongst themselves. Timing cuts and avoiding double cutting is a lot easier when there are only two `eligible receivers’ to choose from. Try playing some 3-on-3 at the beach and you’ll see what I mean! The only downside is that it’s pretty tiring to do that much cutting.

But nevermind, that’s what the three men are for. While the 3 women have been playing an iso the 3 men have been standing in a stack out of the way – preferably near a sideline to open up the field but not invite deep defenders to poach in. If the women start getting tired, or the play breaks down we move to the next figure – a dump!

Many offenses revolve around the dump-swing play. Once the dump gets the disc the aim is to have a 15-30 metre crossfield throw to another handler to reset the disc near the opposite sideline and have another go from a different angle. In my experience the swing pass is a difficult throw to achieve, particularly in windy conditions. It also seems a waste to have a handler, who is typically one of the team’s better throwers, throwing low yardage gain but moderate risk passes across the field.

So instead this offense treats the dump as an opportunity to bring in a new offensive group. The 3 women make their way into the stack for a rest, and the 3 men get their chance to play an isolation play. But, as shown in the next diagram, there is opportunity for a high yardage gain in cut off the dump, or even a deep put to the endzone if the defense lets the dump have an up the line cut (or if the dump fails and the thrower has to huck it on stall 9).

In the next diagram the disc has been dumped backwards.

Note that the previous thrower immediately runs towards the stack, but there is no immediate swing cut. Rather, the male cutters provide back in cuts for (hopefully) large yardage gains. It would be expected that the dump would hold onto the disc for a while, say to stall 4 or 5, rather than trying to get a swing off on stall 0 or 1. But that’s fine, the player who is the dump is likely to be a reliable thrower and comfortable under pressure. The initial deepness of the two receivers and the wide open field may allow an inside-out break force throw to get the disc away from the line and some yardage if it is trapped, rather than the typical outside-in swing pass.

And so, the progression has run full circle. We now have the three men playing a three man weave and the three women in the stack, the same as the first diagram but with the roles reversed. What happens next? Well, hopefully some yardage has been gained, but we rinse and repeat. Once the three men get tired or the weave breaks down, the dump gets the disc again and throws it to the women cutting out of the stack.

So, why try this offense?

Firstly, it gets everyone on the team involved in the offense. It’s almost impossible to look off a player in 3-on-3 ultimate. By assigning two groups of 3 it is much more difficult for a player (ie beginner) to be looked off and overcut. The person with the disc only has three people to throw it to – the other two people in their group and the dump.

Secondly, it reduces the number of people cutting at once and gives a clear indication of when it is your turn to cut. If someone in your group has the disc you should be cutting, otherwise you should be in the stack resting until the disc is dumped.

Thirdly, it dramatically reduces the number of people near the disc at any one time. There is only one dump, and little opportunity for anyone else to be lazy and fall behind the disc – they are needed downfield!

Next post on this topic will be about adapting 1-3-3 offense to playing against a zone.

One of the biggest hassle with using a bike or public transport or walking is the need to carry stuff. Shopping, a change of clothes, sporting equipment, tools and paperwork are just a few of the things I regularly cart around with me. It’s not too big a deal carting all that stuff around in the back of a car – but it’s a different story on PT, bike or foot.

On long train trips it is easy enough to check luggage with the conductor, which reduces some of the hassle of carting stuff around. Still, you do have to get your luggage to and from the station and then carry it around in the station itself. The carriage of your luggage is only good until the end of the train journey. It is not point to point like a courier (or airplane). Also, you usually have to travel with the luggage – you can’t send it on alone.

What are the options in a city for sending personal `micro-freight’? Typically motorbike/bicycle couriers. Some supermarkets offer home delivery. And pizza/indian/etc home delivered meals are a form of micro-freight.

Is offering micro-freight services a possible way of increasing revenue for public transport services? There’s plenty of buses and trains traveling throughout the city anyway – why not add some freight carrying capacity, or use spare capacity in off-peak times to carry freight.

However, could be some significant start up costs. Computerised tracking and some form of secure `containerised’ shipping system would be needed. A high level of automation would be needed too. Freight drop offs could be hampered by last-mile issues too – how do you get a delivery from the bus stop to the receiver? Some form of automated secure storage at each bus stop?

It seems unlikely that you could get the responsiveness required to deliver pizzas. Unless the system is wider than just public transport, and allows any accredited carrier to shift micro-freight around the city. Maybe this could allow better use of taxi drivers, and reduce the prevalence of empty trips back from the airport.

Man, this is a poorly formed post :p oh well.

Multi-storey parking sites are predominately difficult to drive in due to tight corners, confusing layouts and other drivers. The worst thing about them is that you can never find a park when they are busy. Instead you’ve got to drive around and around looking for a free space. Do you go up to the next floor? Or just try your luck on this one?

The need for circulation of vehicles has implications for the design of the parking layout. Space needs to be allocated at the end of rows to allow drivers to turn around or into another aisle to continue their search for a free space. If there was no need for circulation to search for a space, more spaces could be provided – probably not all that many more per floor, but over a 5 or 6 storey car park this would add up.

Reductions in the volume of circulating vehicles would also have significant safety benefits, both for drivers and pedestrians.

One of the areas that ITS is supposedly going to improve things is in parking allocation. You’ll be able to `book’ a parking space over the net as you approach the parking lot and drive directly to a space that the in ground sensors have determined to be empty. All sounds very high tech – and a bit unnecessary. The benefits are available with today’s technology.

At the moment in most multi-storey car parks you arrive at the boom gate, obtain a ticket, look for a parking space, find a parking space, shop, validate the ticket and pay, put the ticket in the boom gate and leave. The computer system knows how long you’ve parked for, but not which space you parked in.

Consider if the entry boom gate allocated you a parking space. All spaces are numbered – say number 101 would be the first parking space on the first floor for example – and big signs say `you must park in your designated space’ etc. Heck, there could even be a button on the entry machine that allows you to choose which shops/gate lounge you would like to park near. No more searching for car park spaces!

The only issue would be compliance. If someone parks in the wrong spot the system will fail to work. Two possible solutions spring to mind – 1. have a couple of boxes on each level that let people `request a new parking space’, would be a bit of a pain but at least it solves the problem. 2. Give people two tickets, one to pay at the validator with and one to put on the windshield – would require manual enforcement. Alternatively, video imaging technology could be used to capture license plates, rather than requiring tickets on the windshield. Actually, option 1 would allow infringers to be highlighted to the parking facility manager, and in conjunction with option 2 the need for searching for infringers would be done away with.

I’ve spent the last week catching up on all the reading that I didn’t do last month – sigh. Last month was `assignment month’ with 4 of the things to do. Each one seems to take about a week, and I find it difficult to concentrate on an assignment and keep up with readings.
Guess I’m too used to consulting engineering, where you just go in hard on the `current project’ until its finished. No point in having 3 half done projects if you can have one completely finished and another half done. Means you’re only getting phone calls from 2 clients asking where the project is instead of 3!

The course this semester is pretty good, although there is a fair bit of stuff I already know or has been covered in other units. Things in boga are quiet. Particularly now that the olympics have finished and there is nothing on TV! hmmm… I want to move to Germany and take up handball.

Off to see the asthma specialist again next week. If anything my asthma is continuing to get worse. Had to give up my daily afternoon bike ride a couple of weeks ago because it was just too tiring. Bit worried about how I’ll do at the frisbee tournament next weekend, but hey we’ve got a big team I suppose.