Comments on: Portland bowling

Portland bowling

curious nu — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:16:47 -0800

Grand Central Bowling, 3pm on March 18. Probably food/drink nearby afterwards.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:16:33 -0800

Tugboat. Oh wait, wrong thread. Sorry. Anyway, I'll add Interstate Lanes Cosmic Bowling as another possibility. BUT...I've never been to any Portland bowling alley and have no personal preferences; I'm just parroting what I've found online.

By: mimo

mimo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:18:16 -0800

I have only been to Hollywood Bowl; it was fine. As previously stated, I am unavailable the second weekend in March. Perhaps this is the meetup where we ignore tugboats.

By: Secretariat

Secretariat — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:18:32 -0800

Hollywood Bowl is perfectly nice bowling alley, and conveniently located at a transit station. I haven't been to Grand Central yet, but I've heard that when they renovated it they made it especially shiny and nice. Isn't it right next to the Green Dragon? Don't consider this my vote as of yet, just dropping off some info on bowling alleys.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:32:40 -0800

I had a company party at Grand Central, if we were able to get coordinated about what we were doing, we might want to consider them. We can do a reservation of two lanes and get a bunch of food and beer thrown in as well, they are pretty well geared towards entertaining groups. Hollywood looks like it offers the same level of service as well, and spitting distance from the Hollywood MAX. I'd say we would want to get a could count first, and then pick a date, and then find whichever place can fit all of us. If we do it as a group buy, chances are it will work out a lot better.

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:58:34 -0800

We'll be out of town March 24/25, so any other weekend should be good.

By: mimo

mimo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:07:18 -0800

Anyone have objections to March 18/19?

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:28:43 -0800

I'd prefer Saturday the 17th; Sunday the 18th would be my second choice.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:18:28 -0800

That weekend sounds good to me as well. We will be gone the previous weekend.

By: mimo

mimo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:21:10 -0800

whoops, I changed the day the calendar starts the week on. Yes, the weekend of the 17th/18th. Except that the 17th is St. Patrick's day, which could be a mess and would certainly suggest reservations.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:56:42 -0800

Hmm, good point. That brings us back to mrzarquon's suggestion, with the added incentive to not delay over-long in coordinating. So yeah, I'll cast my vote for the weekend of March 17/18; Grand Central and Hollywood Bowl are about equidistant from me time-wise so I have no preference there.

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:18:15 -0800

I vote Grand Central because I always think about suggesting a meetup whenever we drive by which is usually after leaving the Green Dragon.

By: mimo

mimo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:06:17 -0800

Then we should check and see if they have availability on the 17th before we go any further.

By: churl

churl — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:48:21 -0800

> Oh wait, wrong thread. Sorry. There is no wrong thread for tugboat

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:52:32 -0800

Reviewing the thread, I note that Hollywood Bowl is rather damned by "adequate" praise; a Grand Central group-type event is looking more and more like the way to go. I believe the ball's in your ~~court~~ er, alley, nu.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:54:44 -0800

The Tugboat which can be spoken is not the eternal Tugboat

By: curious nu

curious nu — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:55:54 -0800

How many people are we talking about? 10? And what time? Here is the pricing list for Grand Central. I don't actually see anything on the site about reservations but I can check when I call.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:35:00 -0800

For what it's worth, I have in the few times I've been bowling in the last several years never seen a bowling alley at something like capacity. We maybe need to worry about league events or such, but beyond that I'm not sure it's really a huge problem.

By: mimo

mimo — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:42:10 -0800

But isn't St. Patrick's Day a huge holiday for bowling?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:44:54 -0800

Ah, I have lost the plot and we have come full circle. I am still working on coffee.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:44:19 -0800

St. Patrick's Day ain't all beer and skittles, y'know.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:48:24 -0800

But isn't St. Patrick's Day a huge holiday for bowling? "I say, Biff, are you doing any traveling this year?" "Oh yes indeed; Muffy and I have booked a bowling holiday in Cleveland this March!"

By: curious nu

curious nu — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:44:27 -0800

So, for Grand Central: * they do take reservations * they do NOT take reservations for times after 7pm (unless you make a reservation with the event coordinator but I'm not sure if this would qualify, forgot to ask about that); those are first-come, first-serve, though they have a wait list available * Fridays and Saturdays can get very very busy, Sundays are typically pretty even * manager said that St Patrick's day is not actually that busy compared to other days, so it'd be anyone's guess as to how busy that particular Saturday will or won't be * they do not have leagues, so nothing to worry about there I'm kind of thinking Sunday, because if there's any desire for hanging-around-a-pub-or-something before or afterwards, that might be too crazy on Saturday. Of course, this would once again run into our "No one can hang out late at the meetups because they keep winding up on Sundays and everyone has to work the next day" thing.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:48:56 -0800

In that light, maybe the thing to do is start earlier, say 5 or 6pm, and avoid the rush. That way even if we spend a couple hours bowling there's still time to go to a pub afterwards and avoid the later-evening rush there. Especially if we do it on Sunday instead of Saturday, though I bet Saturday would work anyway if we went for the Early Bird plan.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:09:23 -0800

If we do it sunday, at Grand Central, we can go to the Morrison Hotel across the street, which has a pretty nice tap selection, and great booze. Also I know some of the bartenders there (and they a fellow red sox fans).

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:03:18 -0800

I tugboat, I mean second, the motion.

By: mimo

mimo — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:10:17 -0800

Date: Sunday, March 18th (one month from today) Time: TBD Location: Grand Central, no reservations required followed? preceded? by the Morrison Hotel Thoughts?

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:31:01 -0800

Thoughts? Yes - I think we need to figure out that "TBD".

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:08:08 -0800

Mid-afternoon on the 18th?

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:34:38 -0800

3pm! Enough time for folks who just want to come in for bowling, and gives us a chance for continued drinking / hanging out after an hour or two of bowling.

By: curious nu

curious nu — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:05:13 -0800

Updated and confirmed.

By: fiercekitten

fiercekitten — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:22:46 -0800

So the price sheet shows $30/hr. Is that per lane, and if so how many people fit on one lane?

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:36:26 -0800

Side-by-side, or lengthwise?

By: mimo

mimo — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:18:45 -0800

I think 4 to 6 people per lane, or it gets too long between successive turns. Also, cycling through more bowlers per lane would presumably make each individual game longer, thereby extending the time required for all bowlers on a lane to finish a game. There must be some function that calculates the time-per-game to bowlers-per-lane trade-off, but I don't know what that is.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:03:59 -0800

Yeah, I'd say four to a game is about the max before it gets a bit silly with the taking forever. Especially with none of us presumably being aces bowlers who'll be knocking out the strikes on a regular basis and thus shortening the number of throws per game.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:05:50 -0800

(That is, four people playing a single game on a single lane. If our head count is between 5-8 and everybody feels like doing a bit of bowling all at a go, probably best to get two lanes side by side rather than sitting and waiting to bowl the next game.)

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:02:17 -0800

... none of us presumably being aces bowlers I can safely say that I am as good at bowling as I am at putt-putt golf (so yeah, my handle is pretty much a lie). And I'll also second the opinion that we've got enough people coming that two lanes would work best.

By: fiercekitten

fiercekitten — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 10:19:05 -0800

We had a work thing this week at Hollywood Bowl and we were able to get in 2.5 games in 2 hours with 4 pretty poor bowlers per lane.

By: Sibrax

Sibrax — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:38:05 -0800

A weekend event! I think I can make it this time.

By: curious nu

curious nu — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 15:48:51 -0800

Tomorrow is bowling day!

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 15:56:42 -0800

It's like boxing day but with fewer concussions!

By: mimo

mimo — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:59:54 -0800

It's like boxing day but with fewer concussions! You haven't seen my bowling.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:19:31 -0800

It's like boxing day but with fewer concussions! Dude, just because they're your servants doesn't give you the privilege of throwing gifts at them! Especially if you've given them bowling balls.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:34:57 -0800

OH MY GOD GUYS WE'RE SERIOUSLY GOING BOWLING

By: curious nu

curious nu — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:37:32 -0800

This whole morning has been an agony of waiting.

By: mimo

mimo — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:45:15 -0800

Perhaps you should scale back your anticipation. There's no way this can live up to your expectations.

By: curious nu

curious nu — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:48:38 -0800

No way. OPTIMISM. Also: boredom.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:15:54 -0800

I'm just hoping my game doesn't live DOWN to my expectations.

By: mimo

mimo — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:54:53 -0800

I will race you to the bottom.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:17:22 -0800

I am en route and, thanks to being so sexy and brilliant about opportunistic alteration of bus itineraries, will be there a half hour or so early for no good reason.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:45:47 -0800

Am here and in the bar/lounge attached to the alley, at the bar.

By: churl

churl — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:47:03 -0800

If you guys keep the thread updated I can probably catch up with you in a couple hours, either for the tail end of bowling alley or if grabbing food/drink/whatev afterward

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:11:09 -0800

We were foolish and did not reserved lanes which means we are drinking instead of bowling at the moment. We do also now have a reservation for 5:00 for 2 lanes.

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:17:08 -0800

We'll be heading over to Green Dragon shortly. And them returning to Grand Central just before 5:00.

By: alygator

alygator — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:19:24 -0800

Nobody currently at the bar. Will start awkwardly approaching tables when my husband gets back from moving the car out if the ice storm.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:33:47 -0800

We have migrated a block south to Green Dragon to eat and drink until the five o'clock lane reservations.

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:22:21 -0800

We have lanes 11 and 12.

By: churl

churl — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:52:59 -0800

Can't make it. Bummer Random, but: anyone interested is welcome to join me afterward at Curious Comedy theater (on NE MLK) for "attack of the flix", an anything-goes open-submission short film (<10min ea) screening they do there monthly. Heading over around 7:30 or 8

By: nickthetourist

nickthetourist — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 19:59:29 -0800

That was wicked good fun. Bowling should most definitely be put into the meetup rotation.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:40:41 -0800

It was a fine time. I would enjoy making this a recurring thing.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:41:34 -0800

And cheers to alygator and Byron for braving the wilds of their first meetup.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:11:14 -0800

Seconding (or thirding or whatever) the "let's do this again" sentiment.

By: churl

churl — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:19:52 -0800

Guys who won Tell me who won

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:32:38 -0800

The beer, churl...the beer. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:35:32 -0800

I think I won all the games I played, but not by much. I think my 112 and 115 were the two best, Sibrax rolled a 110 on the former of those, mostly we were all in the 80s or 90s or very low hundreds on lane 12. I've got pictures of score breakdowns. Greg obliged me in a breakneck 2-person game to eat up the remainder of our waning two hours, and neither of our scores benefited from the hurry or the fatigue or the beer. I couldn't really feel it when I got up this morning, but boy am I feeling it now.

By: mimo

mimo — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:08:17 -0800

As predicted, I had the lowest thee-game score; but I still managed to bowl better than I have in a long time. I'm going to start practicing in secret.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:36:29 -0800

I think you just blew your cover, mimo...

By: mimo

mimo — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:54:41 -0800

Aha! But I didn't say what I'd be practicing.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:56:06 -0800

Fair enough.