Medalist Worlds Championship July 2011 – Venting my opinion on several issues

Dear Friends

What should’ve been an exciting and wonderful experience didn’t happen – too many outside dramas that affect everyone’s abilities. Let no one tell you that they can shake it off and be totally focused on throwing darts when all around you there is stuff and I mean stupid stuff happening.

I should be happy that I placed in 4 out of 7 possible events but it is a bitter sweet victory what I see my friends mad at each other or people that owe money to others are gambling while the people they owe money to those that are struggling to make it. I see this happening every year and yet it still goes on – I am not personally involved but I see this and some people continue to associate with these people who borrow and never really get paid back.

I think the emotional – though I am not one to show my feelings very often – came out when I let my partners down. I say I’m sorry to my partners because I was not able to be totally focused on the matches and I think about what could’ve been. I had a lot of concerns for my friends that were in this situation and I think this kept me from fully concentrating on what was happening at the games. I feel bad for those that borrowed money and for those that were owed monies – I know this has got to affect your relationships as well as friendships, so I say to you pay what your owe – no matter how little - it does eat away at you when you know someone owes you money and they don’t pay when that’s all they had to look forward to for spending money. Eventually this will hurt your relationships and I truly believe saying your sorry will help if your truly mean it.

Even when I was gambling I would be thinking about the situation my friends were in. Now my thoughts are how these friends going to handle what happened up there and how are they going to make amends to those that were affected.

On the brighter side we had the largest contingency of 97 players strong. Many of us placed and got money and trophies etc. However I was a little disappointed that many of the players I expected to make it to the pit did not. Congratulations to those that did – these are some of the ones that I knew about: 1^st Shane H and Richard (B) division 1^st place, Jan N and Aaron H (C) division 1^st place and Neil and Derek (SW-CC) division 1^st place. Please let me know if you placed or went to the pit for later updates.

Wednesday night at Pandora’s tournament Las Vegas, NV – great showing everyone we had 43 teams and we were done by 12:15 pm. We had a parity blind draw no handicap. We had 10 valley boards to work with - and kept them all going as they were released from play. Thank you to Scott Powell and company for getting the matches called since we did not have any sound system to work with.

Well here we are getting ready for Hawaii Classic in September and the ending of the PDL next week and many tournaments being posted in the off time. So much to do in prep and so much to look forward to – we will be having Japan players coming and Miho will be here as well. If you would like to know the schedule for Hawaii Classic click here for details  though the pre-registration date has ended you can still register at Hawaii Classic for events on Saturday and Sunday there – you will have to pay a higher entry fee. You can also go to www.leisuregameshawaii.com for more details by clicking on the events tab.

One word of advice to everyone – we all want to be somebody, but think about this:

• You are somebody to all your family and when you show example of good traits and your children copy this – your legacy will live on
• You are somebody to all your friends – when you show support and they acknowledge you in good faith (this includes teasing it is meant in good fun and sometimes jealousy)
• You are somebody – when people know your name even before you have been introduced to them
• You are somebody – when your faith in God or the powers that be – helps you set a good examples to everyone around you

We all would like the acknowledgements of being somebody and having our names be a household word but we all know in our hearts that faith, friends and family is the greatest accomplishments anyone can ask for – whether we have 50 friends or thousands. Our greatest feature is how we affect the lives of others by example because if you emulate your goodness this becomes your legacy to the world and if they acknowledge you – you have added one more thing for people to remember you by. As with everything you must take one step at a time and influence as many people with the good things you have to offer not the bad. It’s easier to remember the bad stuff and eventually the bad will be remembered more than the good, do we really want that?

I covered a lot in this blog – just had to vent – sorry if I offended anyone but these are my opinions and not those of the general public. I hope this will help some people see a different point of view.

Take care and thank you for reading my blogs

Aloha

Jo Ann Dowling