Saturday, November 17th dawned cool and drizzly at Julia Davis Park --
 near-perfect orienteering conditions.  Unfortunately, approximately 15
 minutes before the 11AM start, the drizzle changed to a downpour, and the
 intrepid (or insane, depending on your viewpoint) competitors who showed up
 had the joy of tromping through a large portion of the over half inch of
 rain that fell that afternoon.   Luckily, temperatures stayed in the
 mid-forties, so hypothermia was only an issue for the meet director.
<br>
<br>
Three courses were set.   The first two (the Easy and Intermediate
 courses)were the usual loop courses.  The Easy course was 1.22km, and was
 basically a loop around the zoo.  The Intermediate course was 3.77km and
 took participants on a tour of both Julia Davis Park and BSU.   The Advanced
 course was 5.46km and was set as four-leg "memory" course -- competitors
 were given a blank map, and had to memorize the location of the first three
 controls from a fixed map at the start (no marking the blank map allowed).
 After the first three controls, the third control had the next three
 controls marked for memorization.  This repeated four times, for a total of
 12 controls, and a nice criss-crossing tour of Julia Davis Park and BSU.
 All three courses had neglible amounts of climb.
<br>
<br>
On the Easy course, Masha Velichko splashed her way to a soggy solo victory.
 To her credit, not only did she find all the controls, she also found every
 puddle on her course (hey, what are boots for, anyway?).
<br>
<br>
On the Intermediate course, it was the battle of the McCall-ites, as Ben
 Hipple and Karin Didisse battled it out.  Karin, handicapped by picking up
 the controls as she ran (as well as having one of the controls missing, due
 to a pickup mixup), allowed second-timer Ben to build up his confidence.  
<br>
<br>
The Advanced course saw quite a bit of competition (at least after Sergey,
 who managed to blaze his way through the course even while claiming injury
 status).  The next three places were a tight race, with Birthday Boy Dave
 Bergset narrowly edging out the team of Joell Ramirez and Tom Mort.  Ole
 Bergset, while complaining that there should be a special advanced course
 for "senile" competitors, still managed to turn in a very respectable time.
 Dan Herring, unfortunately, committed the cardinal sin of memory courses,
 and mis-remembered where one of the controls was.  After thrashing about for
 awhile, he decided to try, try again another day.
<br>
<br>
All in all, it was a interesting day, and drove home that "rain or shine,
 the meet goes on".
<br>
<br>
Be sure to make it out to our next monthly meet at Simplot Sports Complex,
 Saturday December 15th, 11-1.  Maybe we'll get lucky and get to have a ski-O
 course this year :-)
<br>
<br>
<pre> 
Easy  1.22km   0m climb   5 controls
                                         Time  
--------------------------------------------------
Masha Velichko                           21:00

Intermediate  3.77km   0m climb   10 controls
                                         Time  
--------------------------------------------------
Ben Hipple                              27:53
Karin Didisse                           44:10


Advanced  5.46km   0m climb     12 controls
                                         Time  
--------------------------------------------------
Sergey Velichko                           31:30
Dave Bergset                              46:07
Joell Ramirez &  Tom Mort                 46:25
Ole Bergset                               50:05
Dan Herring                               60:40 MSP
</pre>
<br>
Meet Director Andy Hill