Yet another lesson I am incapable of learning...

There are some things I just cannot learn. I have some kind of psychological block. I've told myself many times, and I continue to repeat the mistake.

Pretty much every time I vacation in a warm place, I forget to bring any kind of hoodie or jacket and have to buy one there on a chilly evening.

Similarly, when I am guarding the dump/bail, I often over-commit to the swing side and let off the much more dangerous cut up the line. I see this develop in front of me one moment before it occurs in that sickening way that you might realize you are locking your keys in the car a split second before you actually do it, but too late to stop your arm from clicking the door closed. I see that I am out of position and lean in to chase, but the cut is made, and the throw is usually off before I set the mark.

Yet another disappointing recurrence is my ordering of custom kicks, waiting for their delivery with increasing anticipation and my crushed expectations when they finally arrive. I just did this a third time with Mi Adidas. Every shoe company has a program like this. First I ordered Nike ID Dunks years ago. They were shoddily assembled and poor quality materials. A couple years later I remade the mistake again with Puma's Mongolian Shoe BBQ.

Just today I got my CMFK 55's out of the box from China. This is what the website led me to expect:
Hot!

And this is what I got:


Basically the same shoe, but everything is a touch off. The CMFK is a bit too small. The light blue is more smurf puke than robin's egg. The dark blue is more navy than royal. The tan is too dark. The eyelets are metal, not royal. Most bothersome, the assembly is poor. There is a large gap between the body of the shoe and the heel cap. The toe cap isn't actually a separate piece, but a false seam.

Despite my long term love of nice kicks, I don't really have the vocabulary to explain why these are shoddy, but I see it in a second, and it disgusts me. Seams that should be sewn are glued. The synthetic upper is stiffer and shinier than typical material. The seams are clumsier. They look a bit like shoes you would expect to see on a Cabbage Patch Doll.

Today, I've given a lot of thought to why this happens. This could be so great, and instead it is such a kick in the gut. Seeing your dream shoe poorly executed is much worse than never seeing it.

I think it's a function of two causes. One, there's clearly more labor involved in this type of custom shoe and I'm always surprised that the price point is about the same. My Nike ID dunks were much cheaper than any LE dunks I'd purchased. Same price, more labor means they need to make up the margin somewhere, and it guess it's done on shoddy materials. Second, the lego- style swap assembly required to customize every component seems to mean that the overall assembly is substandard. The pieces don't fit as cleanly together as they would on a large scale run.

Ah well. I'll be rocking these. I mean, they are CMFK-55s, but I won't enjoy it like I could. Stay tuned here for me complaining about some crappy custom Reeboks in about 18 months.

In other news, Deirdre has shiny new tires. Jesse said I needed them. I don't really know why. It is probably a conspiracy with the local bike shop and he gets a cut.

At least once a week, I take a flight that takes off at 6:00 AM. This has me getting up at 3:45 AM a little more than suits my constitution, but I do see more sunrises than I would otherwise. Here's one my iPhone camera doesn't quite capture but I thought was pretty:

Next weekend, I am taking the Beacon Girls to the O'Hara Invite. I am very excited for them and also sick with worry about keeping an eye on the girls in the hotel.

There's been more running, SNERTZing and Tabata. I'll let you know when the Mets call me up.

Tacos Fooled, Scheme Hatched

Happy April. As much previewed, last weekend I went to WAFC's Fools Fest with my girls from Flash Taco. It was pretty much a perfect time.

Here's the gang:

Yes, I am wearing a taco costume. I wore it for every game. I threw the first goal of the tournament, and I caught a score in every game. We were a fun group.

I've spent my fair share of Fool's Fests huddled in a car during byes, cursing the rain, but this year the weather was just perfect, sunny and warm all three days. It was great to play with everyone. Maximum fun was had.

There are about 700 pictures of the weekend. Here's a few of my favorites:

• Me, running my mouth about something, as usual
  
• Me on the hammer mark
• Me on the line, ensuring my spot
• Romer with a typically athletic catch
• Dorks killing it like she did all weekend; Seriously, all day
  
• Tucker puts it
• SUSSMAN is so fing cute, even when she scrambles, See!
• Maybe the only thing in the world cuter than SUSSMAN! (Kim & Zoe)
  

I had so much fun at Fool's that I didn't vomit fire later that day when I learned that the Eagles had traded away near certainty of making the playoffs and one of the top 5 QBs in the entire NFL, inside the division, for the 37th best draft entrant in 2010 (read NOBODY). What am I supposed to do with this? Seriously, Donovan, who I love, is going to get shredded by that nonexistent offensive line in Washington. And how is that supposed to make me feel? I hate the Redskins, so I should be glad when their QB gets sacked, but I won't be glad about Donovan. And what about the Eagles? Should I be glad when they go 4 and 12, because they made this terrible decision? What about the Eagles/Giants games? I may need to move rather than bear Jesse's gloating about this. What if this means a bigger role for Vick? Getting sicker. I have been an Eagles fan since I was 7 years old. I have a poster of Randall Cunningham in my bathroom. I am so sick about this, I feel so betrayed that I may have to forsake the Eagles entirely. I am thinking about being a full-time Jets fan. This should provide about the same level of gut wrenching pain I've come to expect from the NFL.

Speaking of nausea, I did another SNERTZ on Thursday. You'll recall that last time I puked twice. This time there was a considerable improvement. I finished the whole workout in 51:35 (first set = 13:30, second set = 28:00, third set = 40:00). That's about 8 minutes better, which is a huge improvement, but really only shaves off the puking time. Saturday I'm playing women's pickup. Sunday I'm planning some horrible sprinting before a game of pick-up.

Spring is for real here in NYC and I am loving it. Looking forward, this weekend I'm coaching Beacon on Sunday morning. The girls have an overnight trip to Springfield, PA coming up April 24-25. You know I'm not religious, but if you pray you might consider praying for me about this. 16 high school girls with me in a hotel. I am terrified that I will lose one of them, or one of them will try to run away and join the circus or get married or something.

Next week I'm working in Reston, VA. This week I worked in Knoxville and Reston and took two 6 am flights. Killer.

I am still reading for the 20 minutes each flight before I'm allowed to get out my laptop. I recently finished A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I liked a lot of the prose and descriptions, but in the end the plot proved a bit to metaphysical for me. It was as if Murakami wanted to write certain passages, but couldn't be too bothered to put together a narrative that those passages fit inside.

Oh yeah, This just in: I went ahead and hatched the scheme to form my own women's team: WTF. After talking smack about it all off-season it was time to put up and get serious, and how do you show you mean business, by starting a blog of course. Here's my blog for Women's Team Frisbee.

Thanks to Benji for sending along this pretty awesome clip:

March Madness Effectivly Treated with Zyprexa

Things are looking up.

I had a great time in Vegas for the opening weekend of March Madness, baring the catastrophic, gut-wrenching opening round losses by my Hoyas and U of L. I pretty much did not leave the Sports Book at the Red Rock, but here's a picture of the fountains at the Bellagio.

Speaking of water, like the first robin of spring, the city has turned the drinking fountains on in the parks. I'm always glad about that. Much improved runs around the park and Nalgene refilling at pick-up. Today I did a lap around Prospect Park and Forsythia bushes and Tulip trees were blooming. It was gorgeous out.

In other local news, we've had a bit of wildlife around the city.

This Thursday morning with Beacon went really well and the girls ran their offense and looked a lot like an ultimate team. We are making progress.

Afterward, I stuck around the field and did another SNERTZ. Total time 59:33. That is pretty bad but includes not one, but two separate instances where I had to stop and puke in a trash can. (First on the ground jump + 40 yard sprints, and then halfway through the 5-10-5s.) You know it's bad when the homeless people who sleep in the park are concerned for your well-being. The second time I spewed, a guy dozing on a bench asked me if maybe I should call it a day. He's no trainer! I gutted out the end but the last few 'sprints' were anything but.

I'm planning another SNERTZ for Saturday. I'll let you know if I can bring that time down a little (but it'll be after two hours of pickup with the rockstars from Bent, so who know what kind of shape I'll be in.)

This weekend is about watching the NCAA, doing some cross training, and women's pickup on Saturday with the ladies from Bent. Tucker's birthday is on Saturday night so that should be fun.

Great news that Lindy's latest test showed no evidence of the return of cancer. Thanks to all of you who continue to ask how she is doing.

6 days to Fools!

Life Fail?

There's nothing like running intervals by yourself in the rain to make you take a little life assessment.

Things are not going well.

I lazed out again today and did 10 hard minutes, which is apparently my favorite way to limp through pretending to cross train. Not sure who I'm fooling or why I bother. I guess since all my friends moved away or got hurt I need to get a trainer. I hate having to pay for friends. Doesn't anyone want to get into game shape?

Tomorrow I am doing a Snertz, in the rain. By myself. Hoo-ray. Maybe I will try to get the slumlord in on that, but he says he is 'retired'.

I got fired. I am no longer a famous west coast internet personality. Now I am just a schmuck like all of you. The slumlord is still working on my new business cards, so I guess I'll still get ones that say, "Famous West Cost Internet Personality" with a strikethrough, and "Just a Nobody Like You" below that. My editor tells me that there is no more money for freelance writers and I have heard enough about the death of the newspaper to believe him. It was really fun while it lasted and thanks for checking out my posts.

Yesterday at 6:30 AM at practice some of the girls on my wayward High School team asked if we could just stop practice and watch the boys. This makes me sick and sad. I cannot imagine asking any of my high school coaches this. What are they thinking? They must think I am such a joke, and they must also not want to get any better which is at least part of the reason we are so much worse than the Bad News Bears.

I hate the off season! 22 days until Fools with Flash Taco.

That reminds me of the old days and made me want to throw this up:

Oh My! Mel feeding baby Ezra who is now 5?!?!? Since then Goldy's married and knocked up. And Tucker is married?!?!?! And Brenda is married!!!!! LP and Jess have both gone off to and finished (?) med school at Emory. Taliesin is married and Michelle had a baby and got married. Kim Koo and Becca got married and retired. Crystal tore 2 (TWO!) ACLs. Erica retired and Redhook got an IKEA. RIP Ambush.

Tonight I am going to MSG to see the Hoyas play Marquette. Hoya Saxa! I am getting all geared up for March Madness.

There are a couple more Olympic hockey posts up at the Stranger here.

This has been the most prolific month for 'Spondence since its early days. I think there are several factors contributing to this. One, I've been traveling less as I've been working in NYC some and ultimate is in the off-season, so I have more time for you. Also, writing for the Stranger has made me feel like I need to set the record straight about what is really going on in my life somewhere else on the internet.

Last night at Marino's birthday Ali reminded me of this near-perfect literal video interpretation, which I've posted before here, but I just watched it again and laughed out loud and you should too. There's nothing wrong with reruns if they are awesome.

Also, you know I love viewing gruesome sports injuries and yesterday's hit by Ryan Shawcross on my beloved Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey is one of the worst I've seen in Premiere League, though this you tube clip really does not do it justice.

Today I went to the park to run a fartlek pyramid and I could not make myself do it alone. I did 10 hard minutes again instead. I thought about it and I would rather get in a barrel of snakes than run that workout. I would rather you put that mask from 1984 with the rats that eat your face on me, so go ahead. I will not run that workout alone. So there.

My Hoyas are wildly inconsistent so I can't be too shocked about the loss to Notre Dame and this weekend was no better for U of K. Syracuse is really scaring me as we near the Big East tourney.

Saving your life, only so I can control it

Apparently, I have become the man. Look out. I am now the New York City Metro Sectional Coordinator for the women’s division for the UPA. (Thanks a lot Dorko!)

I’m a known UPA loather. They are well established as consistently taking the ultimate out of ultimate, being pedants for pedantic’s sake and generally not supporting the members. I think you remember when they banned Ali and Amanda for ALL OF NATIONALS for what they agreed was a typo. They even suspended their own rule, I. C:

“Captain’s Clause: A game may be played under any variation of the rules agreed upon by the captains of the teams involved. In tournament play, variations are subject to approval by the event organizer. Such things as game length, field dimensions, number of players and stall count can easily be altered to suit the level of play. Before a game starts, each team designates one captain to represent them in disagreements and arbitration.”

The point of the captain’s clause is that our sport is THE ONLY sport where the players have all the supremacy. Not coaches, not referees or officials. Not jackasses in Boulder. Players. Calling rank with the ‘event organizer’ term about an irrational suspension served only the UPA’s need to be in control and ‘right’.

Not top be outdone, last year those jackasses made the cool kids from Bashing Piñatas play in beaters because a few of the jerseys did not have the same sponsorship on the back. Nice work UPA. You’ve got that Letter of the Law down. Now if you could ever learn the spirit of it.

I think there’s an inherent tension between the core feature of our sport being player supremacy and an overarching body making decisions. The UPA is definitely a necessary evil. It’s nice to have insurance. Someone has to organize the national qualifications. But just like politics, egomaniacs that like to be in charge are the ones who run for positions and then act exactly like you would expect.

Anyway, now I’m one of those egomaniacs, but on a local level. Look for me to wield my power with a clenched fist and a bloody disc. I’m thinking Sectionals will be single elimination, losers put to death on the field by the winning team. Might help hold registrations down to a manageable number.

Last Sunday I took an 8-hour CPR and first aid certification course recommended, but not required, for my coaching position. I am ready now, so do not give me an excuse to compress your chest. I learned a lot but here are a few things to keep in mind if you don’t have time to take a course:

1) Get help first. Someone who’s lost consciousness, isn’t breathing or doesn’t have a pulse needs to get to a hospital ASAP. If you are alone, you need to call 911 first.

2) If you know help is on the way, you can try to keep a person’s brain from dieing using rescue breathing and CPR.

3) Give two 1-second breaths into the person’s mouth (after opening the airway and sealing the nose). You’ll see the person’s chest rise.

4) Give 30 hard chest compressions right on the sternum. Pretty fast (a rate of 100 per minute). You need to push way down (2 inches) to actually compress the heart to make blood circulate, so you’ll likely tear the cartilage around the breastbone and maybe break the sternum. That is the least of this person’s problems, so don’t let that stop you.

5) Keep up the cycle of 30 compressions and 2 breaths until real help arrives or it is no longer safe to continue.

This is no alternative for taking the course, but the way I see it, if you are around someone who is not breathing and no one else is better equipped, they are going to die soon, so you might as well try to help. The outcome of trying and doing this wrong won’t be any worse than not trying.

Today we got 17 or so inches of snow. It is pretty out, but has delayed my getting into shape. I was going to try and rally folks on Saturday for a cross-training and ACL tear prevention session but something tells me that more than a foot of snow on the ground is going to put a damper on attendance.

Also a problem is that usual support structure is not in place. Dorko moved to Philadelphia after she finished laundering drug money for the Mexican drug cartels . Ali played on her plantar fasciitis too long in cleats and has been recovering FOREVER. P-Funk hurt her hammies at Kaimana. Kate has some cocktail of hamstring injury and Sciatica that threatens to sideline her for too long as well. Mara is in Rwanda. That is no fair. I cannot do this on my own. I need you there to watch me or I will slack.

All of this is to begin the long process of making excuses. I did a hill workout in deep sleet yesterday. I ran the Prospect Park hill stoplight to stoplight 6 times. It sucked and I ran slow. Though I told myself I was going to run each of them ‘all out’ I ran them all in about exactly the same time which, of course, means I was dogging it. If you run hard, your times increase. If you don’t run hard, you’ll stay the same, which is a complete waste of time.

I had the exact same time on the first 3: 60 seconds on the first part to the fire hydrant (where slacker slumlord Jesse begins his hill) and 2:40 total. All 3 exactly the same, to the second. On the fourth one I passed a guy so I had to run hard to keep that up, and finished 2:30. On the fifth one I did the universal 'next to last one let up' and ran a 2:55. On the 6^th I think I have the Hawthorne effect to thank that I did the 6 reps at all, because I was all alone in that park, and if I didn’t have you to tell about it, I probably would just have run home. and final one I tried to psyche myself up as much as possible and ran, you guessed it, a 2:40.

Here we are on Day 18 of the month-off drinking. So far so good. It’s nice to be one the second half. It has mostly been annoying to hang out in bars with my friends and not drink. Saturday is Marino’s birthday and I’ll be there for a while so maybe I’ll try O’Doules.

Maybe you don’t need to know about every one, but I’ve had another Stranger post. You can see all of my posts here sorted by author.

Tonight I’ll write some kind of preview for the gold medal game. Oh Canada!

My Fame Continues to Expand

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/02/21/olympic-hockey-the-best-all-star-games-ever

The Finer Points of Time Travel

Hey there. Here's a few recent pics off Leroy:

Sorry I had my finger over the lens and I am too lazy to crop it out. This is a new program to allow people refill water bottles rather than buy new ones. I love it. Thanks Aveda!

This is your typical truck in NYC. What you got Vancouver?

This is Prospect Park, and that is a giant snowball Stonehenge fort.

That's me by the subway by my apartment. The sleeping bag coat is really warm, and has recently been named Sheila. Person-sized, Sheila is my quiet friend who tags along with me when it's cold out, and who needs her own chair.

A few notes on time, and its passage. I ran around the park again today. We all know that doesn't make you better at anything, not even running around the park. Maybe it makes me a little better at singing along with my iPod shuffle. Practice makes perfect.

No, it's the second half of February and that means it's 'time', (Maybe way past time, folks?). Time for intervals. Time for fartleks. Time for pain. Today I ran the '10 hard minutes' workout for maybe the 100th time in my life. I've written here before about my ability to be re-astonished about the same things, and my inability to learn certain things (Pack a jacket! Bring a jacket, even if you think it will be warm: Vegas, West Palm Beach, LA, Miami, Adelade, Howth. Pack a jacket. Why is that so hard?!?!?)

This is another example of the phenomena. You know the workout: run for 10 minutes to warm up and then run '10 hard minutes', with a minute off to recover in between each off them. I like to tell myself that 'the odds are on.' So I ran hard the 11th, 13th, and so on until the 29th minute. It went okay, but every minute of the workout, I was re-astonished about time. Every minute! Fool! Every 'on' minute I try not to look at my watch until I think it must be almost over and every on minute I look at about 20 seconds in. Even when I count. Every 'off' minute, I look at my watch at what I think is the half-way point, and instead it's about 53 seconds in and I have finally stopped gasping like a fish in the boat and just about have to start running again.

How can I be unable to learn that? How can time in pain run so much more slowly than time out of pain that even when I tell myself that it just seems like time the minute is up and really I have to wait longer, that still doesn't get me close?

One thing I thought on the 27th minute was that, it does seem that the best way to slow time down is to go as fast as you can, which made me smile and I think is perhaps good approach for living your life. Give that a go and let me know how it works out.

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Brief update on the month off alcohol (which is actually passing fairly quickly): So far it's going pretty well. I don't really miss drinking. 10 days down. There have been a couple of annoyances. Twice since the start of the month on the wagon I've gotten the Delta complementary upgrade to first class. I typically take this as a personal challenge to drink as much Woodford as they'll give me. Anything else is like leaving change in the ashtray of a rental when you return it. Take what is yours! Instead I've sipped my club soda and it's never tasted so flat.

Socially, it's a bit of a bummer as well. I went to a birthday party that would have been a lot more fun if I had been drinking. More bothersome, I just don't have a way to see people as I mentioned a couple posts ago. I now have two more folks on the 'let's get a drink' backlog, waiting to catch up when I start acting like a normal adult again. See you in 20 days Matthew and Erica. Have one for me.

And finally, I'm adding a category I didn't cover in my Julie Andrews post, this is my favorite ever ultimate jersey (Ryan Scribner, designer). Hot!

rejected

Here's something from last week that my editor rejected as stiff and too long. (Insert your own Beavis & Butthead joke here.) It might not be good enough for the Stranger, but it's good enough for you.

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This was a tough sports viewing weekend.

I guess Seattle can be forgiven if you’re not exactly excited about watching Oklahoma Zombie Star Kevin Durant win the NBA H.O.R.S.E. competition and then represent his new city in the NBA All-Star Game.

Never fear. Bite back that bile and tune to NBC. The international spectacle that is the Olympiad is here.

If the Olympics are an excuse for rampant, irrational nationalism (think chanting if U. S. A.! U. S. A.!) and yet another kick in the gut to ‘have-not’ countries, the Winter Olympics take that all a step further. There’s not a lot of pick-up ice hockey played in Bogota or in Asmara. Events like Curling, Skelton and Biathlon have limited general appeal worldwide. Doubles luge has me questioning what is sport and what is losing a bet.

The Winter Olympics lack the star power and name recognition of the Summer Olympics. One possible exception to that is US Speed Skating Star Apolo Anton Ohno but he has forfeited any respect or admiration from me as long as he has that ridiculous facial hair.

SI Cover Girl Lindsey Vonn has sparked Shin-watch 2010, but if you are like me, you are finding it hard to stay focused on that particular injury vigil.

Instead there are a couple other items I’ll be paying attention to in the Vancouver coverage.

One of these will be the riveting Biathlon (cross country ski and then shoot). Keep an eye on Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen who should bring the traditional Norwegian pizzazz to the chocolate/peanut butter perfect combination of cross country skiing and shooting. Hungry for more of this same type of drama, I’ve made a petition for more combined-skill events. What about a downhill toboggan race and chili cook-off? What about a 400-meter speed skate combined with an ice-fishing competition? Perhaps a 24-hour ice-dancing marathon crowned by a synchronized ski jump for any couples still standing? These are the type of ideas that could save the winter Olympics for me.

Also garnering some of my attention will be men’s figure skating. What will Johnny Weir wear? The Lady Gaga of the US figure skating team, Weir has already been forced to change his accommodation plans due to his flamboyant costumes outraging animal rights activists. Weir is known for skating in corsets, feathers, fur and all manner of bedazzling. I think this is the type of thing that the judges will take in to account when evaluating not only the artistic interpretation score but also the of difficulty score. I know it would be a challenge for me to be seen in front of a crowd wearing any of the above and I cannot fathom how he keeps his concentration, but I’m glad he does as it is certainly a good show.

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Post script is that I thought Johnny won the whole thing last night, though people say he didn't have the degree of difficulty he needed.

words and their 'meanings'

I wrote this to someone else recently, but later thought you might want to know it too. (Yes, this is why I chuckle every time you say we need to "eliminate more waste".)

My dad gave me this baby physics book when I was 4. I remember it so well. It had a chapter on simple tools like levers and pulleys. It also defined some basic terms like mass and work. (Do work, son.)

I can still see so clearly the drawing that accompanied 'work' with two clowns. There was a happy clown lifting a feather and a sad clown pulling on a chair that was nailed to the ground. As work is the movement of an object through space or some such thing the happy clown was the only one doing work. I felt so bad for the sad clown then. When I go to 'work' I am the sad clown pulling on the chair in so many ways. (Hence the part time track...)

I had this book on raising a healthy puppy when I was 8 (for Penelope Lane who was my dog almost my whole life in Cherry Hill, Dallas and Rochester). The term the book used for potty training was 'eliminate' as in 'how to train your puppy to eliminate outside'. I like to pretend this is the ONLY meaning of the word, which is a little joke only for me. Every time I see or hear 'eliminate' I imagine the object is being shit out by a dog. Risk is often eliminated, also positions and sometimes individuals. The mental image this creates for me is hilarity.

Also 'terrific'. I used terrific a lot at work with people who worked for me to mean adequate. I would ask for a status on x and they would say they did x and I would say 'terrific' by which I meant, "I will not have you fired today, you imbecile."

I use 'interesting' to describe pain, as in 'interesting meetings' or 'interesting ideas' both of which are actually unbearably stupid.

I use 'high energy' as code for a total loathsome jackass. That I stole straight from Accenture. If you ever read a review of a person that had 'high energy' in it you knew to steer clear. It means moron.

So there, maybe that will help you to crack the code.