June 6, 2010 by admin.

Sorry for not posting for a couple of months, I’m SURE that people missed my posts right? Ha ha. Even though this blog is more for my piece of mind than for reading material I try to post consistently which hopefully helps keep me sane by venting and sharing with the Interweb.

Over the last couple of months I have spent working at my new job at Cue and Case Sales Inc. in Saint Augustine, they manufacture Lucasi Hybrid, Players, Rage as well as carrying the majority of popular brands/ models of cues, cases, accessories and  such. They’ve been around for decades and were the reason why Clawson Custom Cues moved from Clawson Michigan to Florida and changed the name to Predator Products. There is a long history between the two companies which makes it interesting for Shane Sinnott, Daniel Hicks and I working there now. It’s been 3 years since I left the industry and at first it’s what i thought I wanted, but now I can tell you with no uncertainty that this is where I belong and I’m lucky to be where I am now.

That means that I am playing with some new technology in the form of Lucasi Hybrid cues and shafts, they are great hitting cues and after some adjustment I am playing at 95% of my potential (someone else’s words). They have a solid shaft construction which makes for a solid hit while keeping deflection to a minimum and providing radial consistency by splicing the shaft in 8 pieces.

They have a great/ well rounded team of 7 including me which is awesome, we have a good time at work when time permits and the brainstorming sessions are constructive instead of a platform for someone trying to showcase their skills. In fact we all have a certain strength as no two people are really in the same category, we are all different and have a positive influence on the company in our own ways. It’s hard to find a good team and I’ve been lucky to have been a part of a couple of them at different companies and it’s nice to be working with some familiar faces now.

Since I knock the balls around every once in a while they asked me to pick out some new equipment to play with, they have a nice selection of high performance cues and shafts to choose from. But they asked me to do something that I have never been asked for before……….design my own cue. While we all have ideas on what a cue should look and feel like I never would have guessed that someone would want my feedback in the highest degree, which is to design my own cue including what dimensions to build it to. Since I have had experience building cues over the years I had some very specific principles for them to follow when making my cue. It’s very different when working with “production” parameters meaning cost, design, materials and capability all have to be taken into account when building a cue. It’s hard enough picturing one for yourself so you have to take your hat off to the companies that build multiple lines of cues when they may have 20-40 cues in each line!!

All in all I feel very lucky to be working again especially back in the industry, making a decent living, playing in more events and traveling again. It’s been difficult since leaving Predator, working in different industries and positions,  and I feel like I learned so much from that experience which will help me at Cue and Case. It’s coming up on my 90-day review in a couple of weeks and things are coming along very nicely so I hope to be here as long as they’ll have me. If anyone has any questions about Lucasi, Players or Rage cues or any of the popular manufacturers/products please email me at neilf@cueandcase.com or take a peek at www.cueandcase.com, you can also reach me in the office at (800) 835-7665 ext. 101.

Take care everyone!!

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August 27, 2009 by admin.

Just started a thread on rail profile on www.azbilliards.com, you can find it here: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?p=1982449#post1982449

The gist of it is why the rails come to a point instead of being flat, therefore being more susceptible  inconsistent reaction due to the difference in ball size and correct installation. Hope to get some good posts from the greater minds in the game, it is a serious question and want to learn from it.

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August 25, 2009 by admin.

Mysterious Tubular Clouds Defy Explanation

• By Betsy Mason

These long, crazy-looking clouds can grow to be 600 miles long and can move at up to 35 miles per hour, causing problems for aircraft even on windless days.

Known as Morning Glory clouds, they appear every fall over Burketown, Queensland, Australia, a remote town with fewer than 200 residents. A small number of pilots and tourists travel there each year in hopes of “cloud surfing” with the mysterious phenomenon.

Similar tubular shaped clouds called roll clouds appear in various places around the globe. But nobody has yet figured out what causes the Morning Glory clouds.

This shot was captured by photographer Mick Petroff from his plane near Australia’s Gulf of Carpenteria.

Image: Mick Petroff/APOD

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August 21, 2009 by admin.

bdprofilefujiwara.pdf         NEIL FUJIWARA won his first professional tournament in October of last year, defeating Tommy Kennedy in the final of the Seminole Pro Tour that had come to Bank Shot Billiards in Jacksonville, Fla., where he was the house pro. He’d been playing for almost 20 years at that point. Six months prior to that match — the turning point in his professional career — he’d been forced to undergo spinal cord surgery that could have left him paralyzed for the rest of his life. He credits that surgery with not only improving his game, but adjusting his attitude, as well. “The surgery may have been the reason I was even there in those finals,” he said. “I’d always put too much of an emphasis on winning, but after the surgery, I was just happy to be there.”

          Born in Pearl City, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu, in 1973, he moved with his parents to Montebello, Calif., just outside of Los Angeles in 1984, switching up from relatively peaceful island “sublime” to big-city “ridiculous.” His mother recommended bowling as part of an adjustment strategy. He was at it for about five years but shifted to pool when someone stole his bowling ball. Though initially angered by the crime and loss, he was ready for something else.

“It seemed like a more fascinating game,” he said. “I was small for my age, and I liked the way that everything was so contained, that physical size wasn’t a factor.”

          By his sophomore year in high school, he was shooting pretty much every day. After graduation, while attending junior college, he started working at Varsity Billiards in nearby Norwalk. “I think that’s where I really started committing myself to playing better,” he said. “I didn’t do so well in college, because I was too distracted.”

          During the ’90s, he improved steadily, winning his first-ever tournament at Varsity Billiards as a ‘C’ handicapped player. With $80 in his pocket, he began considering pool as a potential source of steady income, while his interests in the sport expanded to embrace other aspects of the industry. As the 20th century drew to a close, though, he went out on the road as a player, traveling with Tang Hoa and Dave Hemmah, following the Russell Stewart Billiard Channel Tour. Having worked briefly for Predator Cues as a sales rep in Las Vegas, he was offered a full-time job as an account representative in Florida. Fujiwara jumped at the chance, traveling with his mom to Jacksonville, where they arrived on September 11, 2001.

          Over the next six or seven years, Fujiwara moved up from account representative to sales supervisor, while supplementing his income with a few odd jobs, unrelated to pool. By 2006, he’d climbed to No. 32 on the BCA rankings list, and Bank Shot Billiards approached him about becoming the room’s house pro in 2007. Currently sponsored by Tiger Products and Predator Cues, he recently worked with Tony Crosby at the 2009 Super Billiards Expo, under the Concept Cue brand, promoting Sniper break cues and the Concept line.

          In March 2008, Fujiwara felt a pinch in his neck, while going through a few stretching exercises at home. He didn’t think too much about it right away, but within 24 hours, he had lost all feeling and mobility from his chest down. He couldn’t even move his legs. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where, in a matter of days, he underwent spinal cord surgery that bolted a metal plate between his C6 & C7 vertebrae to maintain their stability.

“ It was,” he recalled, “a damn scary 24 hours.”

          He awoke from surgery in the midst of a detailed dream in which he’d been playing in a specific pool tournament, wearing a very specific teal shirt (a photo of him in that shirt is still the most commonly utilized photo of him in event reports). His dream ‘overseer’ flashed the image at him and suggested to him that he might never play or so much as walk ever again, which was a very real possibility entering surgery. He awoke in a panic, sweating profusely, to discover that his dream was just that — a dream. Life as he’d known it, though, had just changed forever.

          “I had to learn to walk all over again,” he said. “And it took nearly seven months for me to fully recover.” Only a month after surgery, though, he was back at Bank Shot Billiards, initially just to thank the friends and colleagues who’d taken up a collection to help him with incidental expenses. He played his first post-surgery tournament with the aid of a walker, shuffling around the table like a member of the geriatric set, out for a therapeutic stroll. He won the tournament, which relieved everyone in the room, Fujiwara especially.

          About five months later, on Oct. 12, he was sitting in the hot-seat on the Seminole Pro Tour, facing former U.S. Open champion Tommy Kennedy. On the brink of his first-ever win at a professional tournament, he faced that match with a previously unknown sense of serenity. “I was pretty much in the zone at that point,” he recalled. “My game had improved since the surgery. It had slowed down a lot. I was paying attention to the things you’re supposed to pay attention to in a pool game.

“I was just elated to be there. I was thinking, ‘This is amazing,’ and when it was over, I didn’t do any fist pumping or anything like that. I just sat there, grinning like an idiot.”

— Skip Maloney

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August 21, 2009 by admin.

Big thanks to Dennis Turner of DK Turner Designs for updating the website and making it all spiffy. He showed me recently how much traffic there was coming to the site and wanted to thank everyone and actually give them something to read.

Mostly I will be posting about tournament finishes, lesson stuff and about my life in general, if there is anything you folks want to know about please let me know and I will do my best to provide comedy gold.

Anyways, there is a lot to write about the past few events and I need to find out how to past post some things if possible so that the dates are somewhat accurate. Off to learn more about the blog settings, will be posting shortly!! Thanks again!!

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August 20, 2009 by dennisrturner.

Neil,

I see that you have a blog on your site now.  That should make it easier to keep up with your tournament wins.

Dennis

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August 20, 2009 by admin.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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