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!

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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!

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Well I am a famous Internet personality now, but don’t worry. I know you knew me when. Slogging the Super Bowl had almost nothing to do with the Super Bowl and was pretty fun. I lost all my Super Bowl bets, but was glad that the Saints won, which served as a decent hedge. It was no Eli face but any time we get to see a Manning face is a good time.

I went on yet another Gastronauts dinner this week and as the photos indicate I was pretty miserable. I almost heaved up my Natto, and that was the least gross thing we ate. Hipster Fear Factor was fun anyway; it was good to hang out with Curtiss, Benji, JK, Arnie and Rachel. Nice work Arnie on the snowy ride home.

On the woozy heels of all that sake and cod milt I made a decision. It’s risky for me to declare this early, but I’ve kicked off another ‘month off’. It is time for the 2010 edition. Once we get to April its time for Fools Fest (Flash Taco!), and the spring tournaments and before you know it baseball, and you know the Mets will drive me to drink. I’m sure it will be tough, but looking at the calendar, this was the time with the fewest landmines. I’ll let you know how it goes. 3 days down so far. Heading for March 11.

Already I’ve almost failed twice. It’s just social. If I want to see anyone, I meet them for a drink. I wanted to see Tim “Baby” Dahl (fellow Tesltra Alum) who is working in the big city for once, so I was halfway through sending him the, ‘Let’s get a beer sometime’ e-mail when I remembered I was out of commission. I tried to imagine fashioning the e-mail some other way. Tim, let’s get some soup? Tea? No. And showing up and watching him drink is a set up. I’d be pissed if he did that to me, so I’ll try to sync up with Tim next month and hope he isn’t ‘Into the Wild’ yet. Same with P-Funk. I want to see her, but it’s just too weird to invite her over for a biscuit. Maybe we can go for a run.

One of the best things about being in Ft. Greene is being a short jog from Prospect Park. I like to run a lap around the park on days I am in town. You know I am always posting my +/- here.

Today I ran around the park and looked at all the snowmen and forts. I love Brooklyn. A guy ‘Hey-Babied’ me today, while he was pushing a stroller. How was that going to work, exactly? Is he looking for a sitter?

My favorite part of the run is just at the foot of the big hill when I run past the mini-zoo where this happened. I’m transfixed by the story. Those kids were 11 in 1987, just like I was. What fascinates me about the story is the three boys hatching the plan, but only one being eaten by a polar bear. The New York times story explains that they folded their clothing in neat piles, which I might do too while I was stalling, but is pretty thin on how this actually went down. Either there was some group think and team daring and the boy who went first was just the bravest and got into trouble before the others had entered. Or maybe, he was the dumbest, and the other two 11-year-old boys were picking on him, goading him and never planned to go through with it at all.

Now as men, the surviving two are somewhere right now, and they still know and maybe those two alone, if they tricked that boy into being eaten by a polar bear, or if they were only luckier co-conspirators in the same poorly considered scheme.

I think at 11 I was pretty aware of consequences and dangers. I think I knew predators in the zoo would attack humans if they had the chance. I think I knew I couldn’t out run a polar bear. I don’t think I would have wanted to wade in the water enough to get in a bear enclosure (and you know that I really do want to get in the bear enclosure).

I think that at least one of them knew what was going to happen, but that it would have been easy for them to lie that they didn’t because adults would prefer to believe that to some juvenile manslaughter attempt gone ‘wry’.

“The third boy decided not to go wading in the moat and remained outside the enclosure, although he had taken off his trousers.“ You guys go ahead. I’ll be right there. See, I’m taking my trousers off.

RIP Teddy and Lucy.

When I go run in the park, I have to wear gear. I am on a team. I am training for something. I am not just out for a jog. I am running intervals and fartleks for a reason. I don’t think I could make the full lap without my 55 on display somewhere. It’s an excuse and a crutch, like I need my headphones on the airplane. I just don’t have the motivation to go out and run 6 miles if I can’t tell myself I have to try hard for a team, or for an event. I wonder if I will even be able to run after ultimate.

I was on the way home from a lap few weeks ago, when I had a mini incident I was meaning to tell you about. I was running on Vanderbilt, downhill with the light. I ran into the crosswalk about the same time as another person running uphill entered the crosswalk. Just then a speeding car heading up Vanderbilt made a right turn into the crosswalk. I screamed and jumped back and the other runner yelled as well. We both yelled at the car. I quickly slipped right into my “4 Wheels Bad, 2 Wheels Good” bleating mode.

I was jangled. I had been wronged, and frightened. In an instant, I reacted by forming an alliance with my fellow runner. We had been wronged. We had nearly been run over. The other runner banged his fist down loudly on the trunk of the car. “He could have killed you!” I encouraged. Teammates.

The car pulled over to the side. The other runner was yelling. “You have to stop, man. You have to look!” I was nodding from the curb.

Then the other runner spit on the windshield of the car.

Oh. Uh oh. We were right a minute ago, but we just lost ‘right’ and CMFK loves to be right like she loves brunch.

I stepped back and looked around. I looked at the allegiance I had so quickly joined. Two yuppies in performance gear, iPod shuffles and running shoes from Jack Rabbit Sports yelling in the street. And who were we yelling at? A middle-aged black man.

Now the other runner was waving his finger in the drivers face. Some people from the neighborhood had stopped to see what the shouting was about. Some other locals. Some black people. Who were these two gentrifying yuppies dressed like EMS devotees and why were they yelling at that middle aged man? Why indeed! I ran off. Ran home. I’ll try to be more choosy when casting my lot in with strangers going forward.


A few contributions for the links share program:

In the new entrant category:
http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/
The trick is to figure out which one your friends are. Jesse says I am Gus.

Jesse reminded me that these guys are still bringing it strong:
http://straightcashhomey.net/
I need to get my Alabama State Chief Kickingstallions jersey made so a can be famous here too.

Kate sent along this website of blizzard instructions from the DC government:
http://snowpocalypsedc.com/

I love you Tobias, I love you Dr. Manhattan. (Thanks to TG)

I know I say this all the time, but if you have not be staying close with Awkward Family Photos, then you have been missing out. I check it every day and every day I laugh, and since laughter is the best medicine, I no longer need to worry about the death of the health care bill.

One more for the why Terrorists Hate our Freedom list: Yale.
(You may not believe it, but all my research indicates this is NOT a joke.)

Finally, in the file under good ideas category:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30s6d67xCFA
Think it over.

even paradise is hell when you'd rather be in new york city

day 3 in fiji: quick post here. i am about to head to the airport. (yay!) i cannot wait to get back.

today was great really, but i am so ready to leave. i spent today on this beautiful (calebra-esque) island spec called south island. it was all you can drink and there was a buffet lunch and a 20 minute back massage provided. still, it drove me friking nuts and i could not wait to get off.

one major problem is that there are "couples only" islands, (which i am not eligible for) but no child free islands and those little buggers just scream and scream. i hope there are none in business class. grrr!

on the up side, snorkeling was even more incredible today. the island is completely surrounded by a reef (does that make it an atoll?). i saw huge bright plum starfish at least 16 inches across (inches are back! bye-bye metric system). also heaps of sea cucumbers over a foot long. i also saw bright blue fish and swam through a school of large fish with every fluorescent color on their body at once. incredible. the weirdest bit is that you can hear the large fish when they eat, when they take bites off the coral it makes a loud "chomp!"

lynn: i took out a sea kayak called a 'peekaboo' with a clear plastic floor. i had fun and saw lots more fish. i also got beached on the reef several times as it gets right up to the water level quite suddenly. (i know it's bad to touch the reef but this one is pretty much gone as it literally has children climbing on it all day and there are no warnings or restrictions. i decided to be part of the problem...)

i also went for a ride on a glass bottomed, and sided boat and saw even more of the reef and the diverse fish population. beautiful. crowded with humans.

i am still quite sick of taking multiple ferries everywhere you want to go and the requisite 30 minutes for loading and unloading. and all the honeymooning couples. and all the college backpackers. and the families. and basically anyone but me!

happy 4th of july. see you in nyc. anyway i am about to miss my plane.

(ps: does anyone remember how to make it rain in gaston hall?)