Bring your questions and whatever tools you might need for your puzzles, including notes, scratch paper, writing instrument, and/or laptop or tablet - free Wi-Fi is available. This is an unstructured gathering, and we continue to see successes at each meeting. Maybe you'll find inspiration to create your own puzzle cache, as well.
Field trips not included. But it's a great time to plan them!
Today is US Bowling League Day. In the bowling world, there are generally two seasons for leagues - winter and summer. Many "winter" leagues begin their annual season right after Labor Day, with weekly bowling for 34 to 40 weeks, while summer leagues typically start in late May or early June, ending just before Labor Day. This also coincides with the practical start and end of summer.
Amazingly, bowling has a history that goes back at least to 5200 B.C. in Egypt. I'm sure the game was a bit different from the one we know today. In 1818, the first recorded instance of bowling in the USA was made by Washington Irving in his story "Rip Van Winkle". 1895 saw the organization of the American Bowling Congress (ABC), which became the governing body of organized ten-pin bowling in the United States. Their purpose was to establish and publish consistent game rules, regulate equipment specifications, provide guidelines for league and tournament management, and certify leagues and tournaments (commonly called sanctioning). In 2005 the ABC merged with the slightly younger Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) - originally formed as the Women's National Bowling Association in 1916 - and now operates under the new name of the United States Bowling Congress. The USBC continues to publish and arbitrate the rules of play, equipment specifications and league management for sanctioned leagues and tournaments, even though an individual league has the option to customize some of the playing rules via the league's by-laws.
There are three primary types of bowling in the USA today:
- duckpin, with balls 4-3/4" to 5" in diameter and weighing between 3 lbs 6 ozs and 3lbs 12 ozs, and pins just over nine inches tall;
- candlepin (the least popular), with tall, slender pins (just over 15-½ inches tall), and balls just a bit smaller than those used in duckpin, and;
- ten-pin, the most popular form of the game in most of this country, and perhaps the world, with balls weighing from 6 to 16 pounds, and pins about 15 inches tall. This version is the most televised version, airing collegiate tournaments, as well as professional tournaments which have their own governing bodies known as the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) and the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA).
If you drop any trackables into this event, make sure they have all been claimed or reclaimed before you leave. We don’t want them getting lost in the muggle world!