Not what you want to see

This is a link to a seriously twisted story and You Tube video. It is a two year-old Indonesian toddler puffing away on a cigarette. British media outlets broke the news about Ardi Rizal, who allegedly smoked his first rocket at eighteen months under the watch of his father, Mohammed, thirty. The boy’s habit hasn’t escaped public notice in Sumatra, Indonesia. Reportedly, concerned local officials have offered to buy the family a car if young Ardi quits smoking.

Census Taker

As you may have noted, dear readers, the Census is going on, every ten years the Federal Government counts how many people are living in the United States. Not by estimating or projecting or sampling and extrapolating, nope they map the location of every residence in the United States, and mail them a questionnaire. If the questionnaire is not sent back, they send someone door to door to follow-up and do an interview. Most times in probably does not goes as bad as things do in this old Christopher Walken Saturday Night Live skit. Sorry about the crummy video quality. If anyone can find us a better video we will gladly post it.

NASCAR at Charlotte Motor Speedway

One of the Clarion Content's crack local contributors was out at the Charlotte Motor Speedway to catch her second NASCAR race ever this weekend. She snapped this hilarious picture with her cell phone camera.



Ahhhh, the revelry at a NASCAR event. Our correspondent is also an EMT, she verified that this woman was indeed still breathing, if hammered. Apparently her equally inebriated husband had left her on the ground and gone inside to catch the race. When asked if she was okay, the woman was able to nod her head yes, although because she was unable to lift her head while nodding, the process likely caused more grass and mudstains to appear on her face.

Premature Death

Premature death, the death of young or middle age people always kicks the Clarion Content in the teeth. As loyal readers know, the Clarion Content felt deeply the passing of actress Brittany Murphy. Earlier this week we were shocked and saddened to read of the death of Murphy's widower, Simon Monjack. Maybe we just don't read enough US Weekly, maybe we are not on TMZ as frequently as we could be, but dang, we did not see it coming and we cannot help but wonder and speculate on the interconnections of their passings.

Murphy's death from what is known as polypharmacy, the administration of excess prescription medications, was tragic and probably avoidable. Monjack's death has been called a heart attack, but one wonders what might have weakened his heart? Grief and stress have untold power. Self-medication is not the answer. People die anonymously from depression and prescription drug overdoses every day. All we can hope for is that these kind of sad passings are a lesson learned, not a life lost alone in a vacuum, or worse yet, a terrible course to be imitated.

When Google image searching the phrase, "Too many prescription drugs," images of Murphy, Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith all come up on the very first page. Don't go that way! If you are depressed, get help.

#7 - Banyak jalan menuju Roma, eh salah Arsenal!

Akhir-akhir saya senang pulang dirumah di sore hari. Walaupun rasanya agak aneh (jam 5 sore sudah ada dirumah? Bahkan pagar saya pun ketawa!) tapi ada satu yang menjadi ketertarikan tersendiri. Suara anak-anak riuh yang sedang bermain bola di belakang rumah. Ya! Tepat di belakang rumah!



Semuanya berawal dari sepupu di sebelah rumah. Saya lebih senang memanggil mereka krucil. Kurcaci-kurcaci cilik. Sepertinya kesenangan pada si kulit bundar sangat besar. Tidak pagi, siang, sore, pastilah saya bisa melihatnya bermain bola. Entah main sendiri, berdua bersama sang adik, atau justru beramai-ramai. Apalagi kalau hari libur, uuh! Suasana di rumah pasti layaknya stadion kebanggan. Penuh dengan (calon)para pemain bola yang siap mengadu ketangkasan.

Lantas kenapa juga mereka bermain di halaman rumah saya? Maklum, dampak hidup di jaman sekarang. Rasanya susah sekali menemukan tanah lapang untuk bebas berlari. Jadinya anak-anak malah bermain bola di jalanan atau di emperan ruko. Malah jadinya membahayakan. Untuk alas an itulah mereka di ijinkan untuk main di halaman belakang rumah. Tapi jangan bayangkan halaman rumah saya seluas lapangan bola yah! Hahaha!

Pokoknya bisa lah membuat dua buah gawang dan masing-masing tim bisa sampai 5 orang.
Saya selalu berpikir, bagaimana nasib anak-anak ini diesok hari yah? Karena saya tahu betul, beberapa dari mereka bukan menjadikan sepak bola menjadi sekedar hobi saja. Tapi mereka mempunyai mimpi untuk seperti bintang-bintang pujaan mereka, sebut saja Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, dan masih banyak lagi. Rasanya terkadang mereka pun saling berceletuk menyebut nama-nama pemain PSM Makassar bahkan sampai nama Ramang, sang legenda sepak bola di Makassar mereka sebut juga. Sekali lagi, saya hanya bisa tersenyum. Mampukah mereka mewujudkan mimpinya?

Eng ing eng! Sepertinya memang saya disengajakan untuk melihat para krucil itu bermain bola. Semangat mereka untuk bermimpi selalu menjadi semangat saya juga dalam melanjutkan hari. Tidak sengaja saya nyasar di notes milik Ntan. Salah seorang sahabat. Mengenai apa? Audisi ke Arsenal! Di bidang yang para krucil itu kuasai dengan baik, yaitu sepak bola.



Ah, rasanya ini menjadi mimpi yang semakin mendekat. Pasalnya, setelah tahun lalu hanya Jakarta dan Bandung saja yang menjadi tempat audisi, tahun ini ada Medan, Surabaya dan Makassar yang menjadi tempat seleksi juga. Bahkan tidak tanggung-tanggung akan ada 4 (EMPAT, sodara!) yang akan dipilih dan dilatih di Jakarta oleh Arsenal Soccer School dan SSI (Sekolah Sepakbola Indonesia). Tentu saja hasil seleksi dari kota lain juga akan berkumpul dan berlatih bersama. Ah, betapa banyak pengalamannya mereka nanti!

Oke, persiapan sudah siap. Sekarang tinggal mendata para krucil-krucil itu saja! Soalnya batasan usianya hanya 7 sampai 12 tahun saja. Plus satu lagi, saya menjadi manajer mereka! Hahaha! Soalnya untuk audisi ini harus diantar langsung oleh orang tua dan menunjukkan fotokopi akte kelahiran plus 4 bungkus Biskuit Juara. Berhubung belum punya anak sendiri, yah, jadi paman beruang baik hati lagi deh :D

Sekarang tinggal menunggu weekend! Karena audisi ini akan dilakukan tanggal 29-30 Juni 2010 di Lapangan Hasanuddin. Audisinya pun mulai dari pukul 7 pagi, jadi bisa skalian olahraga juga disana. Lumayan lah untuk membakar lemak, soalnya pasca radang telinga, kayaknya berenang menjadi olahraga terakhir yang bisa dilakukan.

Saya hanya bisa mengantarkan mimpi para krucil itu sampai disini, yah, kalo gak menang audisi, syukur-syukur dapat hadiah Handphone dan produk dari Nike. Daripada tidak ada? Tapi saya yakin mereka bisa. Dengan semangat dan mimpi, mereka mampu menjadi bagian dari 15 anak yang akan berangkat ke London pada akhir Juli nanti. Harumkan nama Indonesia! Saya yakin kalian bisa!

Untuk Info lengkapnya bisa dilihat Facebook atau Website Biskuit Juara

Flying Spa-Nyet-ti Monster / Beckless Life

*Great* pic snapped by fellow VOTSer Quan Nguyen at yesterday's charity hat tournament. And yes, I got the D. Wahoo!

Beck has been hiking in the Grand Canyon since Thursday - she's doing a veterinary relief effort trip for the Havasupai - so I've been all on my lonesome. Most of it has been spent taking a break to regather myself and get ready to reload for the Summer Sessions (and, in case you haven't noticed, catching up on blogging). I've caught some Stanley Cup Playoffs (I'm 0 for 2, as both the Sharks and the Habs look on their ways out), NBA playoffs (1 for 2, as it sadly looks like we're headed for another Lakers-Celtics Finals), MLB (don't even ask), and grabbed a movie in there, too (a re-viewing of the Coens' No Country for Old Men - I managed to find a good account of that ending, iyi). Pretty low key stuff, mixed with workouts and dog walks. Nice to relax for a bit before I plunge back in on Monday.

Beck is, you may have guessed, far more creative of a chef than I, but I've made do in her absence. A burrito bowl* on Thursday, turkey cheeseburger casserole** on Friday, and MoJo*** on Saturday. VICTORY. It's also worth noting that Beck is one hundred percent incommunicado - seems 3G doesn't cover the floor of the Canyon - and Friday was probably the first day that we hadn't communicated in any form since she went on her NOLS trip in what, 1998? I eagerly await her return...

* - Ground turkey w/ adobo, refried beans, cheddar cheese, taco sauce = mmmm. Accompanied by a big serving of broccoli w/ bbq sauce.

** - Ground turkey w/ mixed-in egg whites, chopped provolone cheese, and a mix of bbq sauce and ketchup = mmmm. Also accompanied by a big serving of salt & peppered broccoli.

*** - Ground turkey w/ ... just kidding. I took home a leftover slice of the lunchtime pizza (see below). So technically my dinner was a slice of NY style cheese pizza from Venezia's, but that was at 4 pm. After the nighttime tourney until 10 pm, though (again, see below), I fulfilled my day-long daydream of rushing back home from Avondale to get to MoJo before closing (I made it with 20 minutes to spare) and had a Beck-esque froyo in her honor - plain and vanilla yogurt w/ strawberries, fruity pebbles, a smattering of m & m's, granola, and pralines. And if you thought Mexican food after multiple hours of frisbee was tasty, tasty, let me tell you that concoction was friggin' transcendent. With the added bonus that I hung out at the fru-fru Biltmore Mall in my post Ulty state of disgustingness. Take that, beautiful people!

Yesterday was my first long, brutal day of disc in a while. True enough that we played all day, sorta, at Daweena, but that was w/ 19 people, and I only played O points. Yesterday was two games of SLUG frisbee with maybe 18, 19 people total (only two subs per side, and I really didn't take but one or two points off) for a total of three hours followed by four hours of essentially no-sub Ultimate at Kelly's night time charity hat tourney. The former was a bit of a mess; it was tough to balance teams because people showed up and were leaving early, and my side (and "my side" is randomly determined, mind you) ended up with an advantage, particularly at the end. We won 13-8 / 13-9 or so, but didn't really feel great about it as Dheintime in particular clearly got a little frustrated with the balance of powers. Still, free lunch is free lunch, and I committed only a single stall 9 turnover en route to my 8th SLUG win of 2010 (that's 8-0 for those of you, etc.). I also ran a ton of cup and cut a whole lot, which is worth noting because I still had another tournament in front of me. Anyhoo, my winning streak and the balanced teams issue are enough to inspire me to let someone else pick the teams next week (though in my defense, I did that last week - Ebay picked 'em - and I still won. So maybe I'm just on a good streak of late, so baby baby doesn't need to come back maybe next week).

Grabbed some pizza with les boys and then came home to watch the Habs lose at home. I played with the dogs for a bit, ate a little, then re-donned the armor and drove west to go at it again. Kelly Smith (of Mark of Zorro fame) took some big initiative and hosted a tourney for Arizonans for the Protection of Exploited Children and Adults (APECA) - $10 got you a t-shirt and four hours of night time Ultimate, and it was very worth it (and for a good cause, taboot). For whatever reason, it drew a lot of inexperienced players - there were maybe 15 experienced people out of the 40+ there. So it was set up to be a purely good times, teach new people how to play tourney, and it surely was - a good chance to run around (A LOT) and air it out. For some reason (I suspect there was sandbagging going on in the self-rating process), one of the teams ended up with Ebay, Big Nate, Tricky, and Rob Norbeck, while my team ended up with Ted and me and a lot of two or three pickup games of lifetime experience players. So we were not favorites by any stretch, which gave us all the more reason just to let it fly and try to show people the ropes.

I'll eschew a detailed account of a hat tournament, other than to say that I had two legit greatests for goals: one was a very controlled jump out the back of the endzone, flip it to Ted (and I knew right where he was, so this was something of an anticlimactic greatest), and the other was a high degree of difficulty full speed sprint, layout out of bounds and flip a nice floaty shot to the middle of the endzone for someone to run down. Very nice! I also just ran and ran and ran all three games, up to and including the very last one where I felt about as fresh and fast as I did all day and managed to dominate a little bit. At a hat tourney, but still. So that was a good feeling - I had set out to test the knee, and it not only held up, but propelled me to some layout grabs, skies, and high energy good play (for posterity, that all happened against Seth and Ary et al.). Our game against the aforementioned stacked team was a blast, too, as we managed to give them a good game despite the odds being decidedly not in our favor. And the first game we played was against a bunch of Air Force guys who have been using Ultimate as their cardio training - they didn't entirely know what they were doing, but they caught well and ran really hard and seemed to have a great time.

So yeah, great, athletic day for Saturday, and I am going to take today off to recover - I unsurprisingly feel pretty banged up, though it's more just general soreness from doing that for the first time in a long while than any injury; my knees feel pretty darned good. The worst part is actually my toes - my new, negative fifteen dollar cleats were very comfortable but not quite broken in, so I have a slew of blood blisters. Yeck. I imagine I'll survive.

Alright, it's Cubbies time. Here's hoping Beck's doing well and gets back home soon; the casa de flores is oh So Lonely without her. "Just take a seat / they're always free..."

Oh, and sure, here are some more tourney pics of your narrator for your enjoyment, courtesy of Stephen So and Quan:

The World in a Cup

Brand new, free copa mundials, courtesy of my new bffs at zappos.com. Blew out my right cleat 358 days after purchase last weekend, and that was enough for them to exchange them straight up, *less* the 15 dollars the price has dropped in the past year. I think I'm in love. I'll let you know how they hold up tomorrow at SLUG. In the meantime, let's hear it for ridiculously good customer service! My next footwear purchase is definitely coming from them. Because I grew a big hole in my zapato, but I was celebrating the minute I remembered zappos! Or something.

Yikes. That was like the paisley grey album right there...

#3 - Radio

So I listen to the radio (listen to the radio)
And all the songs we used to know (listen to the ...)
So I listen to the radio (listen to the radio)
Remember where we used to go

(The Corrs - Radio)

Poem of a Lost Generation

This brilliant poem by Jonathan Reed has received more 13 million views on You Tube.



Thanks to the Morris County New Jersey contributor who sent it our way!

...of a Thin Man

Fair warning - this is quite long and extraordinarily Nyet-centric:

Rewind to August 2, 2009. My right knee had gotten a little sore the day before in Boulder, but I'm a tough guy and wanted to help Sprawl win. So I pressed on despite the acute pinch through a couple of games until during the third game when a hard fake and an up the line cut got us a goal but made my knee cry uncle. I was done, and despite RICE-ing for the next several days, the knee just wouldn't get better. I was worried; I tried playing softball the following Friday and kicked some arse but still couldn't really run. I was worried, yeah, about my "athletic career," but there was another thing on my mind, too. Check the quote:

"On the minus side: why was I playing third base? Knee is still gimpy. Nothing terrible, just hurts laterally and continues to have fluid in the joint. Running is pretty okay, it's the stopping that's really bothersome, which obviously puts a damper on my Ultimate plans for the weekend. I guess it had only been five days since Sunday's breakdown, so maybe last night was a little early to expect to be back. Frustrating, but survivable. I will continue to rest, ice, ibuprofen and skip practices in the meantime. Oh, and not eat, since without the calorie-burnage of running and Ultimating, I can quickly become 1.4 Nyets. "

And yeah, the cessation of exercise came to pass:

"In more body-related news, Ultimate / softball / exercise in general have come to a grinding halt..."

I was already not paying too much attention to what I ate and such, pretty resigned to my fat handler status. "Nyet the Lesser" was relative, I suppose. But I recall that after a couple of weeks of zero exercise in order to get better accompanied by that lack of attention, I went to the gym to do some leg weight exercises. I stepped on the scale afterwards, and the 1.4 multiplier was in effect: I weighed 208 pounds. Yikes. I felt crappy, my clothes were tight, the whole deal. Getting back on the Ultimate field in September helped get me back into the 190s, but the holidays and such kept me up there. Sprawl started in earnest in January, and I can pinpoint a moment: after a bad switch, I was failing badly at guarding Dheintime with my swollen knee, and I had one of those crystalline realizations that this whole situation was utter bullshit, and I had to do something to better myself on the field - for me, for my teammates, for the general aesthetic experience of those who view me shirtless. :) This must have been mid January, because my birthday came up and interfered with any kind of dieting plan, but I jumped on it the following week. I hit the gym at some point during the week starting January 25th, and after the workout weighed in at 194 lbs.

Now, some fifteen weeks later, I weigh roughly 163:

A big self-congratulatory pat on the back (not to mention the borderline narcissistic behavior of having Sparkle take a picture of me shirtless) for losing 30ish pounds (45 since August!!) over an appropriate two-per-week fifteen week period. 163 is approximately my high school football playing weight - don't let the 6'1", 190 lbs. program stats fool you - and I figured it would be good to get back down to a weight associated with the last time my knees felt decent. So I started this self-designed program in late January and have stuck to it like a fiend (if anything, I've struggled to stop it here at the end). How did I do it? How really, given that I've continued to be injured through a lot of the spring, had family throwing nice dinners at me, and all of that? :)

The most obvious thing I did was to start keeping a food diary. I began the week of January 25th (as evidenced here), and other than the two day tournament at NYF on Jan. 30-31 (where I was a bit distracted and didn't really think ahead to keep track of all the granola bars, Smart Start and Gatorades, etc.), I've kept a pretty accurate account of everything I've taken in. Seriously, pick a date, any date. Roll of the dice ... March 9th? Here ya go:

3.09.10
-------------------
two oatmeals - 320
a little powerade 40
lp - 290
Guinness - 150
wine - 80
steak - 160
swordfish - 70?
salmon - 50
potato + cheese - 250
broccoli - 100
cookies (1.3) - 110
------------------------------
total - 1620

And that was an iPFam night, no less. How about April 19th?

4.19.2010

oatmeals - 240
fiber one cup - 120
popsicle - 15
lp - 290
milk in coffee x 2 - 40
Popsicle - 25
turkey burgers w cheese - 670
broccoli - 50
lemonade - 20
mango tangerine sherbet - 100
summer sam - 170
---------------------------
total - 1740

There's also some evidence of the second big thing I did within the diary system, which was to be very, very routine about what I ate for breakfast and lunch and control it. I've had two packets of oatmeal for breakfast pretty much every single day for the past four months. It's 320 calories if it's regular and 240 if it's lowered sugar. And at the expense of much fun-making by my colleagues, I had a lean pocket for lunch almost every day, too. Compared to whatever I was normally eating (who knows - 1400 calories?) before I started this, that was 610 calories a day like clockwork. It left an ample amount in the bank for a snack when I got home from work and a huge meal (1000 calories or more) if I needed it at night. And really, again, I didn't need it - once I got firmly in a mindset of small, controlled portions, I started really paring down what I took in. So I was largely eating a lot of the same stuff - turkey burgers, burritos, chicken dinners, fish - just controlling the intake. With burgers in particular, even with non-Atkinsian motivation you can drop the bun just to eliminate a surplus 200 calories. I completely recognized that i needed to be careful not to starve myself, of course, but missing those calories meant a beer or a side serving of rice / beans wouldn't really hurt me. If this is sounding OCD, well, yeah, but part of the benefit of keeping the diary and getting OCD about the endeavor is that it provides the framework from within which you act. And if you let the rules sort of take over, it's a lot easier than just winging it and thinking that you just won't eat as much*.

* - It's become readily apparent to me that essentially what I'm doing is a calorie-based version of the Weight Watchers points system - i.e., I'm turning it into something of a game, and attacking that structure and buying into its surrounding rules seem to be things for which I have a proclivity. Them WW folks ain't at all dumb, it seems...

The goal early on was to keep the total under 2000 for most days and to let it creep above rarely during the week; this kept me on track to win the whole calories in minus calories out game, but also let me e.g. eat MoJo or a pizza dinner on the occasional Friday date night and not get too hung up about it. I tried not to go too low, knowing the dangers of self-starvation (especially when I was still playing sports), but honestly once I got diligent about the operation, I found that I just didn't feel like eating a lot very often - as long as I spaced things throughout the day and took the time to savor what I did eat, things worked pretty well. Plus the act of writing down calories really forced me to value where I used them, so as you might guess, I sort of instinctively turned to a high protein, low fat and low carb diet while not really eliminating any of them. My only non-calorie guide was to eat vegetables often enough, get enough fiber, and to make sure my protein intake didn't drop off the map for muscle concerns (see below). Otherwise it was just an energy-in / energy-out mentality.

Plus, as we all know, I'm a big nerd, so along with the diary, I tracked stats. From Jan. 25 through March 21st., my median intake was about 2050 calories with a max at 3800 (big tournament day) and a min at 1215 (weird day where I missed dinner and didn't feel particularly well). I also occasionally guesstimated my extra calorie output through exercise, which makes those running meters on the ellipticals at the gym great things indeed. To date, meaning from Jan. 25-May 20th, I've eaten 266,830 calories. Assuming that 30 lbs is what I've lost, at 3500 calories per pound, that's 105,000 calories lost, or a total of 371,830 calories burned since I started keeping track. I know, I know, sounds like a lot, but we really have no frame of reference here. But it has been at least a lot to keep track of (aided by iPhones, incidentally), and engaging that area of my brain has helped my discipline something fierce. Discipline in food selection, AND discipline at the gym.

Ah, the gym. I had it etched into my brain to avoid starving myself as my body would start to break down muscle proteins as an energy source, so I tried not to go too low AND make sure my body was aware that the muscle needed those proteins to maintain the muscles I was tasking. So I started a pretty generalized arms, chest /back, abs, and legs weight routine that I alternated at the gym most days. Plus I started working out on the bikes and the ellipticals to help save wear and tear on the knees and assist in the calorie burnage / muscle maintenance endeavors*.

* - As I understand it, the general problem with a lot of American dieting is that most people opt to just starve themselves or starve themselves and add in some moderate exercise like walking. Problem is, with no signal to conserve proteins for muscular maintenance, your often glucose- and glycogen-depleted body will turn to protein stores as an energy source. Lost protein stores means a slower metabolism, so if you eat at a particular rate, drop it for a few weeks (and lose weight but also muscle weight), you will be operating at a lower basal metabolic rate when you return to your eating habits as usual. So your previous caloric intake will probably be too much for your new, lower muscle mass percentage body, so your weight creeps back up. You get back to where you started, only now you have less muscle mass, so it's not really a zero return AND it's now that much harder to lose weight the second time around. This is probably all 101 stuff, but I have found it meaningful to wrap my head around how relatively easy or not it may have been for me to lose weight while some people have a horrific time - a lot of it is very history-, not will power-, dependent. So this underlying lost BMR phenomenon at least gives a little insight into yo-yo dieting, and gives us a very good reason to incorporate relatively strenuous cardio and weight-training into even the most basic, small goal-having of weight-loss plans.

I shouldn't understate the importance of the gym and the discipline I've tried to apply there - lots and lots of waking up at 5, packing my stuff the night before, and getting in workouts at the school Student Resource Center, all before starting office hours at 8:30. I started with a low weight high rep routine to help dodge injuries (both on the field and in the weight room), but have since occasionally inserted "heavy days" to help with muscle mass. And back when I was doing PT, my trainer really emphasized planks and crunches and other ab drills to help with stability and knee pain - not sure if it's really helped the knees (as I've been doing all kinds of other knee strengthening exercises, too, and my knee still hurts regardless, so it's unclear what if anything is having a positive effect), but I've taken those on with a vengeance and have noticed better stability on the fields. Plus, you know, something resembling a six-pack* these days. Grrr, argh. Or something. Seriously, though, it's amazing what I can do now, just through a dedicated routine that I've stuck to (i.e. no crazy, spine-wrenching massive weight loads), that I've never really been able to do before. Just for a frame of reference, I began unable to finish five sets of 30-second planks with 30 seconds of rest between; now I do five sets of 45-second planks with ten seconds between routinely. I started off doing 25,15,12,10 sets of biceps curls on 15-20 lbs. weights and am now up to 32.5-35 lbs.; with the bench machine that I use (which apparently has no relationship to real, earth-gravity bench weights), my early weight range was 100-145 lbs on a 15-12-10-8 rotation; now I throw around 190-235 lbs. All of this while my body weight has been dropping - in other words, I started out maxing out at roughly 75% of my body weight and am now maxing out at 142% or so of my weight. And this with just two times a week on each muscle group. I guess what I'm getting at is that my little routine has successfully taken off weight without killing my muscle mass, and as this was the goal, I'm pretty happy with it. And as long as I'm at it, my cardio, which was already pretty good, is silly now; I can pretty routinely crank the resistance to the maximum on the elliptical machines at school, do 8.5 miles in an hour and burn 1000 calories. It keeps my heart between 160-170 bpm for the entire 60 minutes and wears me out pretty well, but I could definitely keep going at the end. So yeah, some empirically good outcomes in the gym.

* - Once when I was playing basketball in middle school in 1992, this kid (Ugly Boy, if you remember, which was an unfortunate but terribly accurate nickname; he went on to play sports at Holmes) elbowed me in the face and tore the central little membrane that is between the upper lip and gumline. I started bleeding profusely, and my mom took one look at me and screamed "Oh NO, you've TORN YOUR FRENULUM!" in a stunning crescendo that rang through the gym. I am pretty sure that she, the professional anatomist, was the only person who had any clue what she was talking about. In retrospect it was kinda funny, and probably the goofiest mom-anatomy reference in everyday life I can remember.

Until this past spring... I was in Texas for the GPGDS concert, and Aaron and I had just been tossing the disc up at Clark. So I was shirtless in the living room. And my mom looked at me and said earnestly "Oh MY, you can the see the EDGES OF YOUR RECTUS!" Rectus abdominalis, of course, but her meter indicated for all the world that she was about to rhyme this phrase with "the rims of my Lexus" or something. I.e., she sounded like she was freestyle rapping about my abs. So this is the new champion goofy mom anatomy utterance. Props to MC Doc J!!!

All of this is rather confusing - because really, it seems like a little dedication to Ultimate and Sprawl was all I needed to push me over the edge and get my act together. Which makes me worry as to 1, what will happen when Sprawl stops, and 2, have I inadvertently ingrained this so much that I'm a neurotic basket case about calories and weight-lifting / cardio? Have I created an unhealthy (whatever the hell that means*) obsession with Sprawl / Ulty as an excuse? I know I've written about this before, but I remember specific instances in Boston when trying to lose weight where I ended up standing on the Boston Common having a really vicious internal debate over whether the aesthetic value of a NY style slice of pizza was worth the caloric penalty. And I even couched in that exact term, "caloric penalty," to make sure that my attitude had all the trappings of an eating disorder. So I'm well aware of the dangerous psychological ground on which I tread, and I really would like to know why this time I was able to do it when I've basically known I was overweight for the past several years. I mean, if Sprawl Ultimate is such a great motivational device, why wasn't, say, "so you won't look fat in your wedding pictures for eternity?" Just as an example... really, I think I've been much healthier about it this time, but as my method has employed a fair bit of obsession**, I feel the need to be careful.

* - One of my favorite games - and it comes up in bioethics type classes all the time - is to challenge people on what they mean by "healthy." It's a slippery fish, friends. Because there are reasons you probably shouldn't just define it in simplistic terms of "living longer" or "feeling better" because of all kinds of assumptions about aesthetic values that are embedded in those ideas. And people don't often get that in depth anyways, instead employing surface level labels like "more natural = healthier," and again, what the hell does "natural" mean. Or worse, "organic = healthy." Or way worse, "processed = unhealthy." I will cut myself off here, but trust that health does not really mean what people tend to think it means if they've thought about it at all. People, especially undergrads, generally use "health" as an offhand or inherent label rather than as an indicator of some other form of benefit. Maybe for another post, but if we want to fire off on this in the comments, go right ahead. Maybe I will convince you that the fleeting orgasmic aesthetic experience of a MoJo yogurt is healthy independent of its probiotic benefits and in spite of its caloric detriments, an argument we employ quite frequently around these parts...

** - I mean, I kept a running mental note of how much Smart Start I munched each day at Daweena. I know I don't need to do that, but that's where the successful neuroses level has been set, so... help me out here?

I guess the real question is do I feel any benefit, or am I just proud of myself in a want-to-emulate-the-cover-of-the-latest-Men's Health kinda way - what are the real physical effects here? Well, I'll start with the domain of the stated goal: I definitely feel lighter / more agile on the Ultimate field, though I also get knocked down a lot more easily. My knees are still sore but are slowly getting better, again, a multi-variable scenario in which its hard to tell how much the weight training is impacting relative to the weight loss alone. And I'm not really suddenly fast or jumping over everybody; the effects are subtler (and really, I just finished writing pretty extensively on how *un*-athletic I felt at Daweena, though I am pretty sure that was more the time off beforehand due to the grapefruit knee than anything else) (though that grapefruit knee is also an indication that the lost pounds are not a magic joint elixir). In non-Ultimate physical effects, I don't even really know how I relatively feel - I ache from the normal sports stuff, I'm tired from working and not sleeping enough per usual... so I can't say. I do have lots of energy most of the time, though I definitely crash now and then. Psychologically /mentally or however you want to frame that aspect, I am certainly proud of myself for setting a goal and accomplishing it, and I think I look better by your typical Western mass media Caucasian standards. In that respect, I think I better appreciate the mirror-gazing that goes on at the ASU SRC weight room - I mean, if your corpus is your project and therein lies the motivation, why not ogle the results? Due reward, right? I still try to avoid the behavior.

But really, is my mood better or anything like that? Probably not. Still stressed, still concerned, still get irritated at life's little undergrad quandaries. So I think somewhere in the back of my head I "know" that it's a good situation - my vitals are great and I'm less likely to have a heart attack or develop diabetes with all of this work - but I'm also inclined to realize just what a conceptualization angle this all has, that if I think of physical fitness and weight loss as a good, then I'm likely to feel good accordingly. All of this, i suppose, is to say that there's something happening here, but I don't know what it is...

Yeah, you know you wanted that one. :)

The most interesting thing of all of this (provided that you think any of this is interesting) is the residual effects. One, I have definitely had the crystalline thought that milkshakes should be illegal - knowing that McDonalds monsters kills something like 40% of a regular male's daily calorie requirement and knowing how damn good they taste just makes me feel that the FDA should step in here. Those new iced frappe-ish things they're advertising are 560 calories a pop, and you know the intent there is to get people to throw that on top of an already stupidly caloric meal. I'm reciting the obvious here - Smack Donalds makes you fat - but the real deal is that I now have this visceral repulsion to the idea of their being allowed to serve these things sans alarms and flashing lights. Said the guy who eats 600+ calorie MoJo treats on a regular basis, but you'll recall that I'm doing that in the context of having run 8.5 miles that morning.

The second big residual effect is that now that I have hit my target, I have no idea how to maintain as opposed to lose. My appetite is pretty small from eating so little the past few months, and the internet is full of conflicting ideas on how much / little I should be eating to maintain my current state. Seriously, the estimates have ranged from 2500-3600 calories. The best advice I've found is to self-experiment - eat a particular amount (say, 3000 calories) per day for a week or two and see what happens to your weight. Of course, 3000 calories is now WAY more than I'm accustomed to eating, so I find myself just tossing on cereal and sorbet at the end of the day to compensate for my now-screwed sense of pace. And I am so terrified of regaining the weight that I've got a psychological brake that stops me at the 2400 mark - I just don't want to go more, even though I know I need to. A good problem to have, I guess, but still one that makes things frustrating. I'm sure I'll recalibrate given some time. We shall see.

Lastly, I have Pavlovianly fixed myself. I cannot eat a thing without thinking of the calories involved - so when some hands me, say, a chip, the "10 calorie" notion flits through my head. Good and bad - it's how I got to where I am, but I can see how much of a burden such a mindset could become. I press on.

Thanks for reading this far - there's more I could touch on in this realm (e.g., the fact that my lost weight and tendency to avoid alcohol as unnecessary calories over the past four months have rendered me a ridiculous light-weight of the two-beers-and-out division), but this is probably enough. It' s clearly weighed on my mind quite a bit and required a lot of creative management - I'm still a little shocked that I dropped the weight right through Houseguestapalooza and all the caloric engorging associated with that, but that mainly just speaks to the benefits of my breakfast-lunch routine. I will continue to work hard to "keep it off," though that is probably the opposite of my problem for the immediate future. As mentioned above, getting myself to eat enough is a big challenge right now, particularly since I have lost the concept of where "enough" is*. And I should thank the Beck for helping me out and committing to lower calorie dinners and such herself (though she is about to hike the GC again and can consequently eat whatever she wants for the next few I'm sure). Anyhoo, just thought I would share some of the running thought processes behind this endeavor, and if you have any of the same OCD-ish tendencies that I do, I definitely suggest the food diary and same meals every day rituals as rock solid foundations for a weight loss program. There is something nice and ascetic about the same food every day - so I guess my mom's monk comments weren't too far off the mark - but I'm not sure if you spice-of-life types could handle my appreciation of the lean pocket mundane. Still, good luck to all the weight losers or maintainers or gainers or whatever you're trying to do out there, and trust in self-aware, conscious routine as good practice towards achieving these sorts of goals.

* - Dhein et al.: "Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're not." Were it that simple...

What do you call your boy toy?

Our esteemed guest correspondent recently returned from Ethiopia and you might think that a guy like that would not have extra time on his hands for speculation like this. But you would be wrong. Without further ado, we give you the lexicographical musings of J. Coop.

I recently took a flight from Cairo to New York. Now, on solo domestic flights I generally make a point of avoiding conversation with my seatmates. Experience has shown that there is at least a 70% chance that the person is from a Great Lakes state and that they are visiting their (great aunt / second cousin / parakeet phone pal) on account of the recent (birth of their third child / refinancing of their home / loss of their tooth). Not only that, but by replying, “Fine, thank you” to their “Hi, how are you?”, you may have unwittingly invited a lengthy recounting of their thoroughly unremarkable family history. Best to have a book handy. When the hilarious exploits of your seatmate’s house pet become tedious, the conversation can usually be ended with a brief sideways glare and something to the effect of, “What was that? I’m sorry, I was having trouble hearing you over this fascinating book I’m reading.”

On this particular day, I suppose I was feeling generous and friendly, because I did indeed enter a dialogue with my seatmate. After all, I figured the risk was reduced, as most people can’t afford the upkeep of international parakeet phone pals (to say nothing of the language barrier). My seatmate was a pleasant American woman, probably in her 50s, and incidentally from the Seattle area, so we had something in common. Given the circumstances, there were the natural questions about what had brought the other to Cairo. I told her I was sightseeing on the way home from a business trip, and she told me that she had been traveling with her . . . partner, the final word said not with a literal wink and nod, but with an intonation that implied it. Not being familiar with the established insinuations of her generation, I was at a loss. What could be the meaning behind this bizarre emphasis of a perfectly ambiguous word? Was she referring to a business partner, or was this more like a “pardner”: an ally in times of cattle-wranglin’, whiskey-swillin’, and six-shooter-shootin’? Was she trying to tell me that she was gay? The word choice had left me confounded.

Fortunately, I had the good sense to keep my confusion to myself. I was able to deduce from the continuation of the conversation that this particular usage of the word could be defined something like this: partner, n. [pahrt-ner]: A gentleman bachelor, close in age to the woman, with whom she is romantically involved.

Here, dear reader, is where I beseech you for your advice and assistance. We must find a word with a more specific definition to be used by ladies in the situation of my seatmate. This word must grant her the ability to better communicate the nature of her human relationships to louts such as myself.

I’ve put some thought into this, and have yet to come up with a satisfying solution. For more mature persons, it’s understandable why the terms boyfriend and girlfriend might not be preferred. Fortunately for the seasoned and sophisticated man, there is always the option of referring to his female counterpart as a ladyfriend. After all, a girlfriend may be cute and flirtatious, but a ladyfriend is experienced and knows what she wants. Rawr.

But what is the male equivalent of a ladyfriend? The obvious response would be a gentlemanfriend, but that doesn’t roll of the tongue. Also, the term manfriend is right out, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Guyfriend, maybe? That’s still sort of boyish, but maybe could work. I dunno, I’ve got nothing else. So I’ll put it to you, standardized test analogy style:

Girlfriend : Boyfriend :: Ladyfriend : ???

(This should go without saying, but I better not hear a suggestion of “lover” or any phrase with “lover” as part of it. That term just makes me cringe, and it’s a word you just don’t want to hear come out of anyone, unless it’s Will Ferrell in an SNL skit.)

#2 - Pick and Play #1

Setelah track review mandek di edisi ke 5, untuk kali ini saya berusaha menghadirkan beberapa track yang layak untuk didengarkan dan masuk dalam playlist saya pekan ini. Dalam pick and play, tidak semuanya lagu baru, ada beberapa mungkin yang sudah uzur, tapi percayalah! It’s all recommended song. Sementara untuk track review? Saya akan berusaha untuk menghadirkannya kembali pekan depan. Ini dia track-track yang berhasil masuk dan bertahan dalam playlist saya untuk pekan ini.

1. One Republic – Marching On (Timbaland’s Remix)
Bisa jadi mungkin peruntungan One Republic untuk “ditemukan” oleh tangan dingin Timbaland. Terbukti dengan kesuksesan track “Apologize” menghantarkan Ryan Tedder dan kawan-kawan menjadi idola baru.



Kali ini di album Timbaland yang terbaru, Present Shock Value Vol. 2, sang produser meremix kembali salah satu track One Republick yang ada di dalam album “Waking Up”. Hasilnya? Tentu saja satu track yang keren! Dengan efek-efek turntable yang sangat kental, dijamin track ini bisa jadi andalan ketika di jalan.

2. Daniel Merriweather – Red
Inilah lelaki pujaan Mark Ronson! Hahaha, invasi yang datang dari benua down under yang tidak bisa diremehkan. Kemampuan vokal Merriweather memang mampu menghadirkan suasana yang tidak biasa. Sosok seseorang yang sangat galau bisa ditangkap dengan jelas ketika dia menyanyikan lagu ini.
And I can't do this by myself/All of these problems, they're all in your head/And I can't be somebody else/You took something perfect/And painted it red. Kurang apa lagi track ini? Cari ketika anda juga sedang mengalami kegalauan yang teramat sangat.

3. Adhitia – Sangat Rindu
Saya masih ingat kekuatan Adelaide Sky yang menjadi soundtrack film Kambing Jantan. What? Kenapa ada track sekeren itu? Salah satu lagu yang mampu membuatku melamun dan terhempas di dunia antah berantah.
Kini Adhitia merilis album solonya sendiri dan menghadirkan single ini sebagai track handalan. Dengan nuansa jazz yang sangat kuat di awal lagu, silahkan simak bagaimana cara Adhitia melantunkan kerinduannya!

4. Damien Rice – The Blowers Daughter
Ketika pertama kali diperkenalkan oleh suara Damien Rice, saya hanya bisa berkata, “ini apa?” kenapa ada orang yang bernyanyi seperti tidak mempunyai harapan hidup sama sekali? Saya membutuhkan sampai beberapa kali sampai “ngeh” dan bisa menikmati lagu ini sepenuhnya.



Diantara semua track milik Damien Rice (saya akhirnya suka dengan semua lagunya) tetap lagu ini yang membawa kenangan tersendiri. Dari album soundtrack Closer, silahkan nikmati lagu ini bersama rinai hujan yang turun di sore hari.

5. Dewi Sandra – Kapan Lagi Bilang I Love You
Bisa jadi ini playlist paling mewek dalam sejarah. Hahaha. Tiba-tiba saja saya ingin mendengarkannya untuk pekan ini. Kenapa? Saya terinspirasi dari cerita seorang teman, dimana dalam perjalanan cinta mereka yang sudah harus berakhir karena hanya masalah sepele saja.
Bisa jadi juga, dari perjalanan karier mantan istri Glenn Fredly ini, track inilah yang menjadi track terbaik darinya. Dimana vokal khasnya bisa diekplorasi dengan sangat baik dan menjadikannya sangat emosional. Atau karena lagu ini didedikasikannya untuk sang suami? Entahlah!

3BK - The Remainder of Pool Play and Semis... and Let Your Voice Drop

It's way too late to be trying to do this, both in that it's near midnight on a day in which I awoke at 5 AM, *and* this tournament is now nearly four weeks behind me. But 3BK brought the noise to the 2010 VOTS Spring League tourney just enough to gracelessly bow out in the semis to eventual Vince-led champion I'm With Coco. Here's what I can recall of how it went down... wait, first, the pic!

Tyler, Matt, Mike, Stefan, Nick, Dave, Chris, Beck, Jeff
Nyet, Ashley, Lindsey, Al, Mark

I'll just piece this together quickly - as you'll recall, I was hobbling my way into the tourney on an inflamed knee, so I was doing my best to be very smart and take it easy all week. I got the swelling down enough to put in a full day's effort on Saturday, so I cleated up, brought a ton of caloric, salty food and prepared to bring it. We were the 3 seed from Wednesday, putting us in a pool with the 6 seed from our night (Keith's FIGJAM, whom we beat the previous Wednesday 13-3) and the 2 and 7 seeds from the opposite night. First up was the 7 seed ,Tim Streit's team SupercalaHuckalicious-withD-alaPoaches featuring P-Mo, Phil Brown, Eric Nabity and others. They threw a Z on us and took a 1-0 lead... and that was about where the danger stopped. We picked apart their Z a couple of times early, they switched to playing us man and basically couldn't hang with us. It was the usual attack - Lindsey and Nyet abuse of matchups, Al getting off hucks, etc. - but pretty much the whole squad busted out some A level play. I particularly remember hitting Lindsey with a hammer over/around Nabity which was SWEET (though, to be fair, I also remember Tim blocking a BH huck from me, something that hasn't happened in quite some time. So it goes). We cruised out to a big lead and didn't look back, taking this one 13-4. I remember some chippiness with P-Mo, who likes to start stall counts from 30 feet away and was generally her usual charming self. (I was actually pretty serene for the most part on the day, aware that the aggro-ness on Wednesday had rubbed some the wrong way on FIGJAM). Anyhoo, this put us at 2-0, +19 in our two pool play games so far and gave us a lot of time to rest up for a big matchup with Your Dad* who was beating but having to work against Keith's FIGJAM across the way from us.

* - Solid team name, btw.

Ah, Your Dad, captained by Cisco and Katie: a great team led by two great peeps. I remember on draft night agreeing with every pick they made - Cisco is a solid player who ends up getting consistently underestimated, so he got a high (five?) draft pick on the men's side and took advantage of it. Their team had Joe K., Skyler, Tim, Chris Drew, Barry, Ed Finn, and a crowd of other super-solid players. We knew we would have our hands full, and from the outset, it really looked like we would get rolled. Despite my crazy layout efforts - I had two big D's in the first minute and a half of this one - they took advantage of some sloppy 3BK play to take a 4-0 lead in this effective quarter-finals game. Your trusty cap'n's called a timeout to get our heads back into it.

And... chip away, chip away ... back into it we did get. I went into absolute "get us to the semis" mode and ramped up my game a little bit - I think it started with me grabbing a deep high huck over a crowd for a goal to make it 1-4, and then sending a big forehand shot to Lindsey for goal number two. We just got turns, took care of it, hucked it deep, scored, repeat. Down 4-3 I remember putting up a stall 9 shot for grabs to Dave; he came down with it to tie the game at 4's, and it was really on then. Lots and lots of hustle from 3BK across the board - everyone really bought in, and we mixed the energy with a pretty unstoppable deep game. Mark and Stefan really stepped up their handling so I could enter the cutting fray; Al put up a ton of hucks; Lindsey, Ashley, Beck and Tyler just plain shut down their lady-folks and got open pretty easily, too. Our role player types - newer guys Nick, Matt, Mike, Chris, Jeff and Dave - all made some big D plays and generally played really smart, just getting gains, cycling it back to handlers, beating their guys deep on occasion... good stuff. The change from the beginning of the season to this game was striking, and I'd definitely say this game was the highlight of the season.

So that's a bit of a giveaway - we took half in this one 7-5 or 6, and just kinda leaned on them the rest of the way. I can't remember if they ever pulled even, but towards the end we got a couple of short field turns, capitalized right away, and put this one out of its misery. 13-8 for the good guys, and our ticket to the semis was punched. Really a nice, tight all-around game - hotly contested but no arguing, good stuff. (Katie even said "thanks for being chilly," so my efforts to downgrade to DEF-CON-I-don't-know-which-way-that-scale-goes panned out).

And since my bro said he likes the personal narratives, I can write this without feeling like too much of a self-centered idiot: I brought it in this game. Things started out a little shaky in that 0-4 run with me back at handler; people just weren't cutting, and I had to punt just to keep from giving them the disc on our own goal line. So I started putting Al, Stefan, and X back there (usually Mark, sometimes Chris) and ran myself into the stack as a primary cutter. Much smoother, even though I'm technically out of position when I'm a mid / deep. Your Dad came at me with a mix of Skyler and Joe on D - Skyler is a big, 6'3"+ dude who has allegedly become a"huge deep threat," and Joe is a club-level handler who is a bit short but otherwise a fantastic all-around player. And different as they were, I definitely won both of the matchups. I had Skyler's number for whatever reason, beating him deep and on up-for-grab discs on a couple of occasions. Opened up the under game, and I got some break marks off on him, too. He also didn't score deep on me, so hooray for our side. Joe gave me trouble when I was D'ing him - he is super crafty and quick, though he does hang back around the disc a lot in a conventional handler mode. On the other end, though, he just couldn't stop me deep - Al noticed this and put it up over and over. And I just made plays, grabbed a number of goals and helped lead us to a W. I'll throw in the usual apology if this is too much braggadocio - after a week of inflated knee and the general feeling that I had to come up big to get us through, it was pretty nice to meet the personal goal of getting us to the semis. And I think I sat out maybe one point in that game, meaning that despite the relative time off, I still had my wheels under me - and I played mid in this game taboot. Actually, I left quite a bit of salt on my shirt - see if you can spot the wacky "Jesus in the tortilla"-esque picture of a demon here:

Terrifying, I know. Yet good evidence of the effort that went into capping off pool play with a big comeback upset! Yeah 3BK!

And ah, if only the day had ended there ... well, let's just pretend it did. Because we got absolutely whooped in the semis by I'm With Coco - they threw a vicious zone on us (the first team to have the smarts to do that all season) on the too narrow VOTS-fields (33 yards compared to the normal 40 = less ground to cover) with some serious athleticism (Vince, Mike VE, Will Holt) that gave us a huge amount of trouble. When push came to shove we really only had two handlers (Al and me), and they threw a bit of a box and one with the usual cup plus the short deep manning me up. That's an idiotic defense if the handlers can take advantage, but when they can't - as is generally always the case in VOTS - it's pretty devastating. So props to Coco, they owned us* 15-5 and ended our day with extreme prejudice.

* - If I were feeling less gracious, I would mention the double teams and disc space violations on our younger guys and girls. Or maybe the other douchebaggery that was a certain jackass recklessly plowing into my co-captain and giving her a concussion early in the game - that really irked me something fierce, even moreso when I gave him the "oh we're going to play that way eh?" physical club-style D** and he responded by spazzing out and shoving me. Real consistent, homes. But that stuff aside - really, their borderline tactics weren't that egregious, they just happened to pick on some of my less favorite aspects of the general C-level-ness of VOTS Ultimate - they were just way better than we were at that particular style of game. So props to them. The mistake may have been made in the draft, going for too much athleticism and youth at the expense of some experience, however mediocre that available experience may have been. It just would have been nice to have another couple of people with just a little more field time who were chilly enough to make solid decisions / cuts against a Z. Ah, well, another draft at another time. Speaking of which, it would be nice if we would fix the draft so one team isn't picking at the beginning of every round and taking Vince, Will and Mike. Just sayin' - hey, I wouldn't be I if I didn't gripe sour grapes at least a little... :)

** - Alright, apologies to the universe - this was a bad decision on my part as the game was just not going our way, my D in particular was not likely to make any difference, and I was definitely pissed and trying to rattle the guy. Really just inappropriate for VOTS - what I did was not illegal or even unethical in any real way, I just took away his cutting lane on the open side in the endzone by stepping hard into it knowing he was about to try to go there. Very, very typical move in the club setting, but ... big collision, and he lost his shit over it. Again, it's stuff that happens a million times in a physical, competitive game, but people aren't expecting it in VOTS, and I'm an idiot and forget where I am sometimes. So, sorry dude (and I did apologize later in the game that day, though he pretty much ignored me. So it goes). But really, the relative sin of stepping hard and bodying up someone trying to cut to the corner in the endzone next to running through and not stopping on a collision with Lindsey? Egads, homes. I'm sure everyone disagrees with me.

So that capped an excellent 3BK season. Well, not really, as we are having a post-season barbecue in a week (YEAH!). But now's a great time to give a big kudos to Lindsey and the rest of the squad - people improved across the board, we came together great as a team and seemed to have some exceptionally fun times doing it. I think we struck a nice balance of intensity, learning and fun, and that's really what Lindsey and I were aiming to do. So another successful VOTS season on the books, even if the trend for my teams has been champions, finalist, semi-finalist ... I suppose I'm staring down the barrel of finishing completely out of the running in the fall...

P.S. The final numbers on the season: 9-4, +43. Bing, bing, bing ... KABOOMSKI!

UPDATE:

Katherine, you wouldn't be referring to this guy by any chance, would you?

And if you think that's bad, you should have seen what he did to Beck and Tyler. I'm not just griping re: that, they were double and triple teaming newbies with abandon. I mean, I guess you force people to call it, but it feeds directly into my hatred of zone in leagues where the average level isn't very high. Just sayin'.

Daweena: Paved, Part II

So in this ridiculous seven team tournament format, we held seed in the A pool, meaning we got to face the Salt Lake City team (who did not hold their seed, having lost to Boise) in a silly crossover game to end Saturday. Silly because with the teams leaving for SBR* and the small pools to begin with, I'm not exactly sure how the outcome would have affected anything. Still, we came to play and play seriously, so we got ready for a showdown with the effective host team. And a showdown it was - lots of clean, aggressive play on both sides, and very few turnovers. We started on D and got a quick break, but from there out it was just trading and trading, neither team separating by more than 2 points. They had a few good defenders and threw some poachy D's at us that we didn't necessarily handle excellently, particularly with our D lines (I got guarded by a really, really quick and good defender, so it was a fun challenge. Let's call him pink-shirt guy, because he becomes important later. Threw a lot of elbows in the open field, got a little grabby, loved it. He defended me better than I've been defended in some time - I think he got a lay out D on a throw behind me somewhere in there - but all in all a fun personal showdown, and much better than your typical VOTS experience). Blah, blah, really this was more of the same - pretty solid D, but we didn't capitalize on their turns, and they beat us deep fairly routinely. It ended up going down to the wire, though we never actually trailed in the game. Got pretty chippy toward the end - lots of physicality, lots of calls. Went to universe / double game point, tied 16-16 with them pulling to us. Right before this, they pulled the "hey, it's the last game of the day, we should just play this out, win by two."

* - Sabbath-based reasons

Seriously dudes? This may sound like nice and friendly SOTG stuff, but really, we started this game pulling to them and the game at that point was tied with them pulling to us. Meaning we were up a break for the game. So this would be them, um, pulling a fast one, to put it politely. I pointed all of this out and said no, thanks anyways, we'll play the double game point. So they send it down to us, somebody on our squad turfed it, but they tried to swing it across the field into the wind and it sailed out of bounds. We've got a short field, work it, work it, and I see a play develop well ahead of time - Trant's going to get the disc at the front right corner of the endzone in about two seconds. So I give a big fake, get my guy moving just a hair to the wrong side of the endzone, and time my cut for Jason perfectly. He catches, turns and squeezes it into me, and I catch the double game winner. My man, of course, lays out into the back of my legs. I was pretty ticked, but cooler minds (and a nice reminder from Dixon not to spike the disc at him) prevailed, so we just walked off the field. Phew... the meaningless game went our way, 17-16, and the chippiness set the stage nicely for any rematch coming up on Sunday.

After some tourney supplied cheeseburgers and other late day foody goodness, we headed back to the hotel having held seed but pretty dissatisfied with the performance. I won't go into crazy technical detail here, but our O was not exactly smooth, people were not improvising or generally being very artful against poach defenses and such, and we were rushing a lot of decisions for no particular reason. And our D was generating plenty of turns (I think I mentioned this last post, but also getting beat deep now and then), but really not converting those turns for scores. They just kept taking the overly risky risk or the too-hard break throw, or just rushing decisions for no apparent reason. I don't know how much of that was a personnel issue - too much heat and not enough chill peeps on our D lines - but it was frustrating. Still, Saturday night at the tourney, so peeps got ready to party down at the aptly named "Hogden," a biker bar directly behind the hotel where the party would be held. I haven't been to an Ulty party in quite some time, and though I can certainly throw down with the best of them in the drink Saturday and still play Sunday department*, I fortunately had the much better option of hanging out with Beck for the evening. And seriously, a biker bar in effing Ogden, UT, doesn't exactly sound like a swinging, not-just-a-drunken-fest time**. So I showered and waited for Beck to get back from SLC. Even though I had eaten some 3500 calories already that day***, we elected to check out a local eatery called the Sonora Grill, a Mexican place that looked promising.

* - I am invincible. This is a scientific fact. It's a general scientific fact, but in the Ultimate context, the correlation between my play and having had or not had alcohol the previous evening is non-existent. I have definitely erred on the side of not drinking as I've aged, so this is probably a ruined experiment, but trust that some of my absolute super star Ultimate games have followed long island nights, and I generally drinks lots of water while partying and don't get hung over. For whatever all of that is worth.

** - Don't get me wrong; I would enjoy hanging out with the Sprawlers; I just don't really enjoy hanging out with "the competition" at tournament parties and making small talk with nothing to do other than drink. This probably falls under the general "Ultimate: love the game, but..." mantra that we used to spout at Polaroid / Spirit Foul, and is probably one of many reasons I am not much of a true Ultimate scenester. I was right on this time, as all reports indicated that the Hogden was hella lame, except that some of the guys taught some genuine biker guys how to play a drinking game called Flip-Cup, which is all kinds of ridiculous. Oh, and the bikers were told they couldn't park on the street, so they rode their bikes INTO THE BAR. So I missed an opportunity to make some serious Pee Wee jokes as I watched skinny white nerdy dudes hang out with real life biker thugs, but otherwise I was very thankful to have the Beck with me. As I always am.

*** - There is another post coming about this type of thinking, I promise.

Post-Ultimate Mexican food is without fail the best salt-for-the-salt-deprived food ever, so I can't give an unbiased review of the SG. The local dive Chuy's is pretty much manna after practice. But that particular experience absolutely hit the spot. We headed back to the hotel, and I stayed conscious long enough to work on a paper - did I mentioned that I had two papers for ASU hanging over my head all weekend? Involving annotated bibliographies and extensive citations? Yikes. I got a bit done and woke up early the following morning to put even more of a dent in it. All of this for a paper that may or may not have been graded in five minutes... ah, well. Beck got up not-as-early to go see the Tabernacle choir, and I headed down for another oddly delicious breakfast before jetting over to the fields. We had a quarterfinal bye as the reward for holding seed the previous day, so we (or the rest of Sprawl anyways) slept in, grabbed a late breakfast*, checked out of the hotel and rolled over to the fields at 10 with ample time to warm up and scout the competition.

* - Don't forget - we were surrounded by tiny dancers, none of whom held any of us closer, thankfully. Unshaven ultimate players, innocent enough next to biker dudes, are suddenly rendered seamy in other contexts. I'm glad there were no incidents.

After a quick intrasquad scrimmage to get our blood flowing, we faced off against NUDE again, a rematch of our 15-5 win from the previous day. Their quarterfinal game wore them out, so this game was never in question (even though the score ended up exactly the same). We also had the opportunity to open up the subbing and rest our hosses which would prove important. So after about 40 minutes, we were resting again while the other semi matchup - Boise v. SLC, the team we had played in the third game the prior day - dragged on. SLC unfortunately won (we would have liked to play someone else, having already rematched someone that morning) and spent themselves in the process. Things looked good for Sprawl for the finals.

Whatever tendency we had on Saturday to underestimate the competition and lackadaisically approach the game vanished. We came out for the last frame fired up and very, very ready for the chippiness that had come the previous day. I'd even say we made some typical club level calls and exhibited dare-I-say ornery, aggressive play - SWEET. Plus we knew the matchups and their deep-gunning tendencies, so we threw out a lot more straight-up mark this time around. Here's the first half game score; as you can see, it was trade, three point run, trade three point run. We were just a lot steadier on Sunday and clearly less tired, both because of our big 19 person roster and our easy semi game. Check it:

0-1; 1,2,3-1; 3-2; 4-2; 4-3; 5,6,7-3; 7-4; 8-4;

Our O-lines didn't turn it over in the first half, and our D lines turned it 6 times. It really should have been an even bigger lead than this. I'm having a bit of trouble remembering details here; mainly I just remember walking on the field and cleanly working it down and/or hucking it every time I was in. Our D was very tight and frustrated them, but would get a turn and just fail to capitalize - well, obviously not every time, but there were some turfs and overly aggressive throws in there that slowed our pace to the win. I gave the negative Nyet speech at half - "it's nice that we're up by 4 and all, but we should be up by 8" - and did my best to keep us fired up. So of course we marched out and threw it away twice on the ensuing point. Ugh. Still, after a couple of trades, our O continued to be mechanical, our D continued to force the issue, and we pulled away. Check the second half:

8-5; 9-5; 9-6; 10,11,12-6; 12-7; 13,14,15-7

*Loved* our intense D this game, but really, it was the cleaned up O that made me happiest and prevented any notion of a comeback from our opponents. The O scored on seven of its eight points and seven of its ten possessions; sprinkle in a D that forces turns and converts on occasion, and you're going to have trouble beating a team that won't give you the disc back. Anyways, a big team effort; Vince, Cole, Dhein, Ian, Ebay and Trant all came up with some huge plays, and we walked away with the trophy.

Personally, I was guarded quite a bit again by pink-shirt guy, and whatever minor edge he had the day before I ate up entirely. I used his momentum against him much better on this day, took advantage of his aggressiveness, and ran around him. He clearly got frustrated - made a crappy travel call on a huck to Trant (that ended with a sweet layout grab, btw), and started whining like nobody's business when I took advantage of his huggy mark to draw a foul and get a free breakmark backhand attempt. My definite highlight was a tight play out of a timeout where I faked him on a dump and beat him to the front corner for the goal on a tight toss by eBay. To take the first half, actually. Definitely nice to win the matchup after having some unathletic-y feeling moments the previous day, and I don't mean to get schaudenfreude-y, but it's doubly nice to run all over someone who's trying to elbow you repeatedly. Boo-yay.

The TD offered us a choice of a discount for next year's tourney or championship discs for winning; we shrewdly took the latter. We had a good time (and were very glad that our play picked up the second day), but this tourney left quite a bit to be desired. Bumpy (though plush) fields, lined with tape (ugh - nothing like a sideline that moves to make for some sketchy calls), few teams (and few good ones, though again, they gave us all we could handle at times) ... I will say, nice guys, good food and water supplied, and the showers provided post-tourney were FANTASTIC. (Seriously, there are a lot of people who took a certain Southwest flight who have no idea how grateful they should be). But it sadly seems like Daweena is getting to be a minor place, so we'll have to see how the rest of the season goes before we decide whether we'll be heading back.

After cleaning up, Sprawl disassembled into its various components and traveled home again. Beck ran late at the Great Salt Lake and picked me up alone at the tournament site; that was actually just fine with me as I munched on granola bars, drank tomato juice and started my recovery process (again, I held up, amazingly enough). We got back to the SLC airport, returned the rental cars and boarded (where I handed out some free drink coupons to my fellow champions). I, natch, had to write a paper, so I locked in for the flight home and got some thinking done. Good weekend.

So what do we take from it? Well, I've been emphasizing that we can be happy, but we really just held seed against some lesser competition that we probably should have blown out a little better. Still, we did it with a hamstrung squad, so nice to see what some of our supporting cast could do. And good to see that after some bumps we can pick up our play and TCOB.

So that's probably enough about that. Congrats to Sprawl on its first win, a big championship, as qualified as it may be. Hopefully we can use this as a nice base for the remainder of the 2010 season. I'll end with some general notes on individual players for posterity, though this being a public, facebook-advertised post and all, I probably can't deliver the authentic inner monologue of Nyet. Or, you know, whatevs, and I'll just be a jerk... :) Here you go, with the numbers being Player (playing time / percent of that playing on O points / T+- / D+- / O +-)*:

* - for example, Mr. Toe (40% / 50% / 9 / 2 / 7) would mean that Aaron played in 40% of the total points for the tournament and split his time 50 / 50 on O and D-lines. His D plus minus was 2 and his O was 7, meaning that we scored two more goals on defense than were scored against us while he was in and we scored seven more goals than were scored against us on the O points in which he was in. That gives him a total plus minus of 9. All of this helps clarify why, for example, I led the team with a total plus minus of 26; I played 50 O points and 2 D points, and it's a lot easier to score when you start out receiving the disc.

J-Ro (41% / 67% / 22 / 1 / 21): Rock steady per usual. I think he had one turn all weekend. Didn't take any chances with hucks, which we need him to do sometimes.
Nyet (41% / 96% / 26 / -2 / 28): Not my best, not my worst. See the previous post. I'm trying not to be overly self-critical as is my wont. I need to stay back and QB; that's my job on this team.
Tim (29% / 65% / 17 / 5 / 12): Some good D and all around play, but some uncharacteristic turns and throws into poaches. Couldn't get his flick off on some occasions, oddly.
Paul (31% / 40% / 8 / 4 / 4): A few iffy turns, but a lot of good hustle on D. Good maintenance handling for the most part.
Jim (35% / 31% / 11 / 1 / 10): Gave us some good D handler points. Still slow on the draw, and we had a bad miscommunication on a dump after which he screamed at me on the sideline. No biggie, he's nice and intense, which is great, but we need him to make his decisions quicker so that he and we can be more confident in him with the disc.
Jose (25% / 28% / 4 / -3 / 7): Overall okay though he couldn't keep up on D and had a few bad turns, particularly early Saturday. Also committed the cardinal sin of talking to me about his PT in game. Boo!
Ian (47% / 20% / 6 / 2 / 4): Played some great tight D and made a few huge plays on both sides of the disc... and had some gaffes while handling, both on goof-up mistakes and overzealous breaks and the like. He's fine, but needs to find the energy chill balance, and he's aware of it. His sky in the finals was siiiiiiick.
Nappi (13% / 18% / 9 / 6 / 3): Knew his role and really did his job well, getting us some yards and getting the disc back to the handlers.
eBay (43% / 51% / 21 / 3 / 18): Great tourney from this guy, and he was probably the statistical MVP. Huge plus minus while playing equal parts O and D points. Lots of good D and mid work. Nice job, eBay!
Dheintime (54% / 53% / 18 / -4 / 22): Forgot he is a mid and not a handler on occasion, but otherwise turned in a per usual ferocious performance. His baited layout D on Saturday was nice, and he bailed me out on a huck or two. Gracias, co-cap'n.
Dixon (51% / 38% / 13 / 0 / 13): Not his usual self - his hand is still bothering him, methinks - but he ran a ton and played some shut down D. Definitely a good / solid tourney, but a tad less than his usual performance.
Rob (45% / 28% / 3 / -1 / 4): Came up huge in moments and ran all day. Made some great catches / saves. Dude's a phenom, and we rode him on D.
Trant (46% / 27% / 7 / 1 / 6): Ditto - colossal on D in particular. He's really jacking up his level of play and taking charge out there. Clutch cut / throw on the double game point
Studer (42% / 21% / 7 / 8 / -1): Quiet but great weekend, particularly on the D side - he shut down more than one dump and got us some key turns. One hilarious hammer. Good stuff.
Ryan (16% / 0% / -2 / -2 / 0): Got some D's in his first Sprawl tourney, and did a good job getting yards and dumping.
Clay (13% / 12% / -1 / -3 / 2): Also his first Sprawl tourney, he got some good playing time and took advantage of some poaches Saturday to snag some goals.
Vince (50% / 40% / 15 / 2 / 13): Defensive beast with the usual wacky decision making. Air-bouncing a lot of his deep throws in particular. Still, great to have him patrolling the skies, and his hybrid abilities make him an excellent Man option and a good shut down deep defender.
Cole (50% / 62% / 19 / 0 / 19): Great work on O, got beat unnecessarily because of his overly aggressive in-coverage on D. Made some very big plays in moments when we needed them - his, um, "crotch-first" layout late on Saturday was quite epic (and game-saving).
Big Nate (27% / 50% / 14 / 3 / 11): Played very smart all weekend and took advantage of his height / size intelligently. It was kinda tough to find points for him with the other deeps we had, but hopefully I got him enough. Good job.

#blog31hari

Mungkin pekan lalu adalah pekan yang paling tidak produktif buat saya. Pasalnya ada banyak postingan yang tidak selesai. Udah nyampe setengah, tiba-tiba aja moodnya hilang entah kemana. Jadinya hanya tersimpan di draft saja. Menunggu untuk diselesaikan dan dipublish di blog. Menurut saya ini tidak produktif, karena mengerjakan sesuatu tidak sampai selesai. Kalau begitu sih mending skalian tidak ditulis (halah!)



Apa yang bisa lakukan untuk mengembalikan mood yang sering jatuh setengah itu? Well, secara tidak sengaja saya melihat status Rara di FB. Mengenai tantangan #blog31 hari yang rame dikomentari sama Ntan dan Nanie. Perasaan saya tergelitik! Saya harus ikut!
Postingan awalnya sih mulai dari Endhoot. Temannya Rara. Saya pun belum mengenalnya. Hehe, hanya melihat percakapan-percakapan sekilasnya di Wall mantan bu erte. Tapi yang namanya niat baik harus terus dimajukan kan? (Kok jadi malah makin ngaco?)

Ya sudahlah, dengan ini saya meresmikan diri untuk ikut dalam tantangan #blog31 hari. Sebuah gerakan yang membuat para bloggerhood untuk meramaikan lagi kancah persilatan dan sebagai dukungan kepada Rara yang terpilih sebagai manusia kursi Pesta Blogger tahun ini.

And the journey is begin :D

Daweena: Paved, Part I

Oy. Okay. First, sorry for the usual late semester dearth; things got hectic with paper grading then paper writing then essay exam grading, resulting in a solid three weeks of 4:30-5 AM wakeups and fairly constant work. I need* to get better about taking breaks and maintaining something resembling a web presence during these stretches lest I lose both my readers. Measures being taken on that front**, but really, I apologize for the radio silence and appreciate your continued readership. Of course, if nothing else, we got these two gems out of the late spring reading season:

* - "Need?" Um, I "need" to defend a prospectus and start a research project in earnest, not be a blogger. And yet I press on. Don't worry, I don't understand my mindset either.

** - I'm going to start posting blog updates to facebook to see if I can generate some traffic / interesting conversation. Whaddya think, regular readers?

"Health is especially important because good health leads to a society that is healthy. Bad health leads to an unhealthy society ... health does not only effect [sic] the individual but the society as a whole. Anything that effects [sic] the whole society becomes vastly important."

"The lines between species have always been a bit fuzzy, and have lead to evolutionary
adaptations. For example, mules are the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. However, this argument moreso implies that eventually, the sexual interaction between humans and animals will be accepted."

Sorry for the repeats if you've already seen those on facebook, but hey, they're gems. Beck maintains that "Man has battled cancer since the age of the dinosaurs" is the undefeated-and-still-champion, but I am not sure. I also should not talk too much trash as I'm reasonably certain my papers were horrible, though I should say that I made no sweeping claims regarding bestiality, no tautological statements regarding health leading to health, and no claims that sterile animals were an example of evolution. It's the little things that separate the grads from the under-suches. Anyways, the rough semester is over and on pause for at least a couple of weeks in which I can catch my breath, get a little of my own work done, and, hey, write some blog posts*. Speaking of...

* - I should pause to give mad props to my labmate (and effective teaching boss for this semester) Jenny, who taught her first full university course and kicked its ass. There were some background details that made her workload stupid this semester, but she absolutely pulled it off with style and grace and Rita Hayworth gave good face. Seriously, I am extraordinarily proud to be associated with her; congrats on a great semester and here's to many more to come. As an added bonus, I think it's difficult for "equals" to be paired in a teacher-TA hierarchy like that, and we crushed it, kept it fun and efficient and wowsers. I hope (and sincerely doubt) the undergrads appreciated it.

Sprawl rolled up to Ogden, Utah, two weekends ago and brought its asphalting / tarring / road repair supplies. We won the open division A-bracket of Daweena, the first time Sprawl has accomplished that feat (i.e., the first time Sprawl has won a tournament outright) and had a sweet time doing it. Details below, but check out these CHAMPIONS:

Clay, Ryan, Vince, Ian, Tim, Big Nate, Jason, Cole, Nappi, Jim, Joser, Dixon
Tom, eBay, J-Ro, Dheintime, Rob, Paul, Nyet

A tres handsome bunch and not even really our A squad - BP, Griesy, Garret and others had to stay home for one reason or another, but we definitely danced with the ones we done brung. Actually, I should stop the self-congratulatory nonsense before it gets too out of control - Daweena is in its death throes as a tournament it seems. In the past, some big club teams have shown up, and even in the very recent past, the perennially Nationals-bound Johnny Bravo made appearances as did our in-division rivals Sweet Roll from New Mexico. This time around, well, you can check out the pools for yourself at the Daweena site, or I can just put them up here:

Pool A	Pool B
1 Sprawl (Phoenix)	2 Three 2 (Salt Lake City)
4 The Killjoys (Provo, Utah)	3 War Child (Boise)
5 N.U.D.E (Logan, Utah)	6 John Eichall Scoring Exp. (SLC)
7 Good Game (Rexburg)

Not exactly the Boston Invitational lineup. So really, we came into a tournament as a one-seed (also a Sprawl first) and held it. Not really all that spectacular in the grand scheme of things. Also a tad annoying that we traveled all that way to face a paltry six other teams, two of which obeyed the "BYU rule." What's that, you ask? Well, Mormons don't play on Sundays, and the state has quite a few of them. So effectively after day one, two teams dropped out entirely because of their Latter Day commitments. So we really bested four other teams. Sigh. Still, trophies are trophies, as they say, so we'll take the tournament victory.

And actually, the whole "hey, no one showed up" phenomenon was a bit of a problem. The majority of us* flew** up after work on Friday and, thanks to the evening departure, the hour and a half flight, the lost hour due to time zone "change," the car rental process and the drive from SLC up to Ogden, UT, we got to our hotel pretty late. The tournament director, as indicated above, was having trouble and trying to recruit teams until the last minute, so he didn't post the tournament program online until sometime where we were in the air over Nevada. So we didn't find out until late Friday night what our competition would be, and unfortunately, I don't think we responded well. At the hotel, late at night, there was a definite vibe of "Hey, no one's here, we got this," to the point that people were up and dicking around to one extent or another pretty late. Beck, JD and I made a grocery store run late that night in preparation for a serious Saturday, but we were the few who seemed to be locked in on the weekend ahead. And that would definitely come back to bite us on Saturday.

* - "Us" in my case included Beck and me, as my lovely wife took the opportunity to take a quick vacation in Salt Lake City for the weekend. She avoided the tournament entirely - a great call - and got to enjoy some museums, eateries, temples and the Great Salt Lake around Utah. We got a separate hotel room away from the 6 to a room mayhem that always accompanies tournaments, an arrangement that did wonders both for my sleeping comfortably next to someone vastly more attractive than the average Sprawler and for my not having to sleep next to someone who rambles violently in his sleep (cough cough Dixon) or conducts sonorous nasal symphonies at 95 decibels all night (let's just call him > Nate). It was also, natch, fun to travel with the Beck, and we got dinner, hung out and had a very normal-style vacation when I wasn't running around in the sun. Great time, and good to get away - SLC was approximately 65 and gorgeous all weekend while Sunny Azz was in the upper 90s, so the Beck definitely made the right call, even if she did have to hang out for moments with the motley paving crew. Here she is in profile hanging at the Great Salt Lake:

** - Two cars (eight dudes) drove the 12 hours from Phoenix to Ogden. I haven't driven more than 6 hours to a tourney since Tufts spring break in '02, and let me assure you that flying is the way to go, particularly if your drive each way is going to involve a desert and a possible through the night timeframe. Egads, I am, in strictly Lethal Weapon terms, too old for that shit. Anyways, props to the dudes for saving cash, but I was super glad on both ends to make it to my destination in a scant few hours without having to crowd into a vehicle for half a day.

So we rolled down to hotel lobby on Saturday and grabbed a free breakfast - I was SO HAPPY to have my routine Quaker Oatmeal available as a breakfast option, and adding some Cheerios (normally too expensive at our local grocery) was an added bonus. That's crazy, I know, you would think you would want something a little fancier at a hot hotel breakfast, but it hit the spot for me. The nineteen sporty dudes were surrounded, encompassed even, by a preteen / early teens dance competition crowd staying at the hotel, which made for quite the breakfast buffet scene. We're talking a swarming sea of besequined premenarchals, with Cougar-esque overly enthusiastic moms taboot. We were more or less behaved (yet told not a few mayhaps inappropriate Dixxxxxxxon jokes*), but really most of the convo was locked into how we were going to roll everyone at the tourney. Bad signs on the concentration front. We got collected and headed to the tournament; I left Beck to sleep in and enjoy her day in the big, overly clean and naive-as-to-the-true-meaning-of-postmodernism city.

* - that is a shoutout to any Tuftsman who may be reading, btw.

We got to the actual fields (I mean, with grass and tape lines and everything - we didn't know what to do with ourselves, so used to the barren Phoenix dirt-crete as we were) and got in a pretty decent warm-up, but it was apparently not enough. Our first game was against N.U.D.E. They started things off hucking and zoning, and we were apparently not ready for that in the slightest as we botched some easy plays and went down 2-0 quickly. Gathered ourselves and shredded the next few zone incarnations, causing them to drop the approach entirely*. We traded until about 4-4 and then got our collective act together - they had a couple of reasonable players, but really had no business hanging with us for as long as we did. We ran it out to 14-4 from there and won 15-5. That seemed to serve as a wakeup call, but it really wouldn't get us all the way awake . . . things were rusty throughout this game; I have us down for 12 turnovers on the score sheet, but some of that is probably unreliable tracking. The name of the game Saturday was rusty - we just were not clicking well and not valuing the disc. More to come. Unfortunately, after that quick win, we had a few hours to lose our focus as an odd number of teams invariably means a bye. Three hours off between games is not excellent, for the record (and you would think they would maybe given the team who traveled the furthest more games...)

* - Why do teams do this? Oh, no, they shredded our Z once, therefore we should never throw it again! I mean, I know it took them 75 throws, but they SCORED! Seriously, peeps, take a statistics class.

Game 2 was the Killjoys, incidentally one of the Mormon teams. They featured some solid players and one supergoon who was clearly a basketball crossover and had no concept of rules. Awesome. After a little "let's stop thinking about how easy this tournament's going to be" intergame speech from Nyet, we came out defensively insane, getting big turns and running things out to a 5-0 and then a 6-1 lead. Easy skeezy... not so much. We went on a really bad, turnover-heavy stretch and let them tie it up 7-7. We were playing some pretty trigger / huck happy teams all weekend, so the closeness of games was almost entirely dependent on how low percentage we were with the disc. That's sorta always the case in Ultimate, but other than getting beat deep on occasion, our D was pretty intense all weekend, it was really just the O that kept screwing things up with low percentage attempts. We did take half, but the rest of this game was a nasty battle back and forth - we got up 13-10 and had another collapse, actually letting them know it at 14s. That was quite a scare - but some big plays (I notched it at 15 with a huge flick huck to Dixon, and then our D lines came up huge) secured us a 17-15 win in a game that should not have been that close.

Now is as good of a time as any to insert self-centered commentary: I had two turns the whole weekend, and they unfortunately both came late in this game, both on overzealous, yes-this-is-a-tough-throw-but-I've-got-it-nine-times-out-of-ten IO flick hucks. The first one was to Big Nate, and just didn't quite get high enough; his beaten guy stepped in front and knocked it down. So I overcompensated on the next one and hung one up to eBay. That one actually wasn't as bad as it still went out to the proper side and gave him plenty of position on a guy who was shorter than he was; still, it wasn't crisp by any means, and eBay couldn't come down with it. Terrible, terrible timing on my part as this let them back into it late. Luckily, my D teammates picked me up, and we came away with it. I still felt pretty terrible there for a bit; hard to yell at people about valuing the disc when you're making crunch time errant, risky throws.

Speaking of feeling terrible - knee had still been bothering me pretty badly for the month before Daweena, so after the league finals tourney (two weeks before Daweena, write-up forthcoming), I tried to rest it up. This meant that in the two weeks prior to Daweena, I had sprinted once, at a Saturday SLUG, and had otherwise just ridden the stationary bike and run on the elliptical. So cardio wise, I was fine, but man, I had no quick-twitch or speed burst at all on Saturday. This manifested itself a few times: Big Nate threw a stall nine desperation blade to the back of the endzone that I swear I had but my legs just wouldn't move, so I ended up having to lay out for a trailing edge bid and missed it; Jim and Trant tossed me errant dumps that normally would've been fine, but I laid out to find myself two inches short on each; I beat a guy for an easy goal to the backhand side that Tim led me too much on and I just had no extra gear to run it down. And Dhein put a huck up to me that hung up a bit, giving the aforementioned goon time to run down and sky me from behind (in my defense, he did have about four inches on me, and the throw was sub-awesome). All that stuff, and I got beat deep twice by young dudes, and I just couldn't change directions well. Turns out you actually need to sprint now and then to be fine tuned for a sport that requires quick bursts of speed. So I felt pretty bad about my general athletic ability and play at moments on Saturday for sure.

All of that said - good experience. I was not 100% on Saturday, and I had a really bad stretch late in that 2nd game (and a little bit into the third game), but I kept my head, recalibrated and made some big hucks and breakmark throws to help us out. I'll fully admit I was down on myself at times, but I gutted it out and came through alright. So yay for me. (And two throwaways, one that was really more of an inadvertent 50-50 throw than an explicit throwaway, in five games is not terrible at all, especially given the number of hucks and shots I did hit). So probably a personal B / B+ weekend overall - I can play better, but I pretty much got my job done. Particularly since I evaluated the play on Saturday and came back for Sunday with a calmer, clearer head and played near perfectly. Trant helpfully pointed out that I need to QB the team more - meaning do more staying back and handling and less joining the cutting fray - and I agree. So there's that to work on, too.

Alright, slap a to be continued here - we'll finish Saturday and cover Sunday in the next post.