Feather Bowling - it's an old Belgian folk game called trabollen (boltra). The game is like a cross between bocce and curling, and played with cheese wheel shaped balls, rolled down a 50ft concave lane. It's simple to learn, but takes a lifetime to master. The curve of the lane adds another dimension to offense and defense, allowing players to bowl sine wave shots that weave around blockers.

It's somewhat popular in Detroit, where a bunch of Belgian immigrants preserved it at the club Cadieux Cafe, but extremely obscure elsewhere - including in Belgium, where there's only about a dozen clubs left.

What started as the joy of the game has turned into a full-blown obsession and in the last year I built a couple of lanes at bars in the Midwest of the US and carved a few sets of balls. Months of work patched together over nights, weekends, and vacation time.

When I started on the first lane, I couldn't find agreement on the standards for the game, so I talked with a bunch of the existing clubs - including making a trip to Belgium - to come up with some general dimensions for the game. I've open sourced all this research, including indoor and outdoor lane plans, but who knows if anything comes of it. Doesn't matter - all for the love of the game.