I had no plans for Saturday evening, but I got a last minute invite to go to an art gallery opening by my yoga instructor and her boyfriend. It sounds like urban life channeled through "Sex and the City", but the reality is far more facial hair in strange parts, patches of tattoos on the border of shirts, and cranberry juice for beverages than the HBO show has. If you aren't wearing a black t shirt then at least you have to have dark rim glasses that if Clark Kent owned he would never take off to lose his cool - speeding train be damned. The art is closer to the "heavy metal" school of design - girls with boobs spray painted on felt - than the renaissance and would be more appropriate on the ceiling than the walls. Then again Michelangelo did do the Sistine chapel.
My friends picked me up in an SUV battleship and told me that they have to make a quick stop to pick up the yoga instructors friend, Jessie. It feels like a set up. I have nothing really against these (I do need help at some level), but it is always a little disheartening to find out where your friends place you.
I *always* get the perky side kick (a bat girl to somebody's cat woman). And when Jessie hops in the car she seems just the type. She is a little larger than average from a clear lack of exercise, but at least is busty. She is a few years younger (which is a huge plus), but is powered only by cigarettes. Normally this is a deal breaker, but I have gone sort of past absolute eliminations at 34.9 and am left with tough compromises. Great girl when medicated - that kind of thing. I would love to find a girl who was born in the 70's, laughs occasionally at my jokes, and is basically normal. Where can I find a woman like that?
She bounced with the conversation and I played along with the charade. The four of us wandered through the art exhibit and then go look for a place to eat. At the restaurant which only serves warm Portuguese beer the talk drifted to how I should where tighter clothes at yoga class. I explained that might help with the yoga, but with my little belly it would not help with the fashion department. Somehow the conversation drifted how the yoga instructor could excite gay men and I babbled about how much fun it was to talk to lesbians.
This is when Jessie chimed in "Well you are talking to one right now." Either this is a great date cut off maneuver, or Jessie has a girl. And like most guys I would want to make her mine. You, know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute. I want to say "try a nice guy", but the point is probably mute. No point going through life chasing Amy.
I guess love is more like Shakespeare than hallmark cards - not the part where everyone dies in act five in Romeo and Juliet, but more like when girls are pretending to be men pretending to be interested in the duke. My whole set up bias was much ado about nothing.
If I were to compare love to a summer's day, I would have to pick a San Francisco one.
Monday, August 25, 2003
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Almost There
You can find yourself in deep, cold waters. Your face and hands are long ago numb, and your arms feel heavy. The tide pulls you sideways, and shore seems far away.
When the waves bounce you, you can sometimes see your home. Not your house. Your city. From the grey Embarcadero buildings to the red television tower you see the sourdough city melt into pointillist dots. There are splotches of green for parks, and you can make out the mission style roof of Fort Point. It is early morning, and the stillness of San Francisco contrasts against the Bay's anger.
Somewhere ahead is the ferry that had brought you to next to Alcatraz. Earlier, you walked barefoot with the rest of your pack of swimmers over cobblestones along Fisherman’s Wharf to get to the Blue and Gold pier. Two homeless guys, perhaps sober but still hungry, looked at this parade of neoprene as it wandered by Hooters. The girls there don’t wear anything as anatomically revealing as your wetsuit and still get much better tips. You tried your best not to look at your fellow well toned competition, but are left with the small hope that you will float far better than they will.
You boarded the boat and took a seat next to a grey haired husband and wife team from Seattle with shoulders the size of Mount Rainer. They casually mention how they swim in the much colder Washington waters. At the table across the aisle, a daughter with her swim cap already on twitched next to her father who stared out the window. There was a snack bar towards the stern, but no one bought anything. Finally the ship stopped, the doors opened, and the crowd started chanting “Go, go, go …” Pair by pair the swimmers launched out into bay and dipped well below the wake of the ferry. That was a half hour ago.
Your head is underwater again. You blow bubbles out your mouth even though your Russian swim instructor had barked at you to breath through your nose. You don’t understand most of what he says anyway, but he is at the YMCA every morning at 5:45 with a crew cut and red lifeguard shirt to shout at whomever paid the twenty-dollar masters fee “grab beach ball.” His daughter is sometimes there in the faster lane. You hope she can translate, but she is already starting her second set of pulling for one hundred yards. Beach balls will remain a mystery.
The Russian lets you wear fins so that you can keep up with the rest of the class. You are a genius with a kickboard for no particular reason. Everyone should get one athletic gift in life – like the tall, thin kid with bad acne and Motley Crue t-shirt from summer camp who was a master at foosball. He owned the machine in the Rec Center and only stopped to munch on the microwave bake bean burritos. You hope that for the Beijing Olympics they will have foosball as an exhibition sport and you will see him still thin but with better skin taking on the best from Australia. Everybody you knew growing up was going to be famous. You haven’t heard from most of them since.
You take a breath on the other side.
Swimming is repetition. Three strokes for each breath. Eighteen strokes for a length. Two lengths for a lap. Thirty-two laps for a mile. After a while you lose count. Perhaps it is lack of the oxygen or maybe you have your stroke number confused with your lap count, but you find yourself in a mathematical uncertainty, an aquatic déjà vu of thinking that you have already done this lap. It feels like the one you just did and the one you know you will do, but it lacks the formality of a name. Am I on twenty-one or twenty-two? You can check your watch to for the amount of time you have been swimming and estimate how many laps you should have done. But this requires math and you don't have enough oxygen for that.
This numeric uncertainty follows you. You used to laugh off still writing checks with the prior year in February, but there are times now when you forget your own age. You get used to using phrases like mid thirties. You have migrated from a specific to a demographic – a slightly less influential range but with more disposable income. Singers now wear things that you would not dare to try and everyone on American Idol looks too young. You realize that if you were on Survivor that you have crossed over from the young person camp to the "tag along" tribe and that your only hope for them to keep you around is your superior fishing skills because you learned how to swim from the crew cut Russian.
You have friends now who are been divorced and others have been to cardiologists. That belief that somehow you weren't going to make the same mistakes as your parents, that your love was different in way that they could never understand, that there wasn't going to be those compromises of keeping a job to make a mortgage - these things all have slowly faded like the soccer intramural runner up shirt that you won in college and you realize that your parents must have thrown out their own mementos from that time long ago.
Years blur. What happened in 1998? Did we know about Monica then? Had you started working at a start up or had you left one with a mound of empty options? Who got married that year? Did you have a summer vacation? Did you listen to Hansen? Are they now too old for American Idol?
You don't smell the ocean as much as you taste it. The salt water drains around your teeth and pushes against your tongue. It is a siren's kiss - sloppy and urgent. The restorative mocha after the swim will taste exceptionally sweet, and you hope that it will come soon.
In the fall there is a race called Swim of the Centurions that is run by a smallish leathery Chilean man named Pedro. He is of the sea, having been one of the first to do this swim a hundred times. Sometimes he goes out and back from the shore and every Thursday he holds a swim clinic. Swimming is repetition.
But it is also about diving in. You must take risks. Little gambles check to see if you are alive. You buy a lottery ticket when you get a bus pass in the hopes that there a few magic numbers that could change everything. You sometimes dare to get the mocha without non-fat milk. Life sometimes needs the cream.
When asked for advice about entering the chilly bay for the first time, Pedro will tell you in a slight accent "Just go for it." While it might just be a variation on a shoe company logo, you need to hear it. You can't always just wade into the water and hope that somehow it going to turn pleasant and warm. The water stings the blood vessels in your feet for five minutes and then you will feel nothing.
Forget about blowing bubbles. Forget about insurance companies. Forget about the sharks. Forget about worrying if you were invited to the right birthday party. Forget about the runoff of the dirt of the city into the bay. Forget about a writing assignment that isn't really working. Forget about the people from Seattle, the crew cut Russian, and Pedro.
Just go for it.
The shore is getting closer. One of the guides in a kayak comes over to you and suggests that you aim a little to the right. You see patches of splashes ahead. Small groups of swimmers are drafting off of each other and the opening into your landing harbor, Aquatic Park, is visible up ahead.
Swimming from Alcatraz is the easiest hard thing you can do. Marathons are much harder. Relationships are harder. Figuring out what your boss actually wants you to do is harder. But you will get a t-shirt if you finish Alcatraz and maybe that can replace the one from college.
It is hard enough that your friends will think you are nuts except for the ones who also do triathlons. Your family will wonder why you can't take up something a little safer like bowling. Tourists will come up to you afterwards and ask questions like "Isn't it really cold?"
“Yes,” you will tell them. “It is.”
You think you are close enough that you can stand and you drop your legs into the nothingness. You can see the race clock ahead and hear the announcer slowly call off the contestants as they stride onto the sand. You are past the last section of moored boats and the buoys that mark the swim area. You are almost there.
When the waves bounce you, you can sometimes see your home. Not your house. Your city. From the grey Embarcadero buildings to the red television tower you see the sourdough city melt into pointillist dots. There are splotches of green for parks, and you can make out the mission style roof of Fort Point. It is early morning, and the stillness of San Francisco contrasts against the Bay's anger.
Somewhere ahead is the ferry that had brought you to next to Alcatraz. Earlier, you walked barefoot with the rest of your pack of swimmers over cobblestones along Fisherman’s Wharf to get to the Blue and Gold pier. Two homeless guys, perhaps sober but still hungry, looked at this parade of neoprene as it wandered by Hooters. The girls there don’t wear anything as anatomically revealing as your wetsuit and still get much better tips. You tried your best not to look at your fellow well toned competition, but are left with the small hope that you will float far better than they will.
You boarded the boat and took a seat next to a grey haired husband and wife team from Seattle with shoulders the size of Mount Rainer. They casually mention how they swim in the much colder Washington waters. At the table across the aisle, a daughter with her swim cap already on twitched next to her father who stared out the window. There was a snack bar towards the stern, but no one bought anything. Finally the ship stopped, the doors opened, and the crowd started chanting “Go, go, go …” Pair by pair the swimmers launched out into bay and dipped well below the wake of the ferry. That was a half hour ago.
Your head is underwater again. You blow bubbles out your mouth even though your Russian swim instructor had barked at you to breath through your nose. You don’t understand most of what he says anyway, but he is at the YMCA every morning at 5:45 with a crew cut and red lifeguard shirt to shout at whomever paid the twenty-dollar masters fee “grab beach ball.” His daughter is sometimes there in the faster lane. You hope she can translate, but she is already starting her second set of pulling for one hundred yards. Beach balls will remain a mystery.
The Russian lets you wear fins so that you can keep up with the rest of the class. You are a genius with a kickboard for no particular reason. Everyone should get one athletic gift in life – like the tall, thin kid with bad acne and Motley Crue t-shirt from summer camp who was a master at foosball. He owned the machine in the Rec Center and only stopped to munch on the microwave bake bean burritos. You hope that for the Beijing Olympics they will have foosball as an exhibition sport and you will see him still thin but with better skin taking on the best from Australia. Everybody you knew growing up was going to be famous. You haven’t heard from most of them since.
You take a breath on the other side.
Swimming is repetition. Three strokes for each breath. Eighteen strokes for a length. Two lengths for a lap. Thirty-two laps for a mile. After a while you lose count. Perhaps it is lack of the oxygen or maybe you have your stroke number confused with your lap count, but you find yourself in a mathematical uncertainty, an aquatic déjà vu of thinking that you have already done this lap. It feels like the one you just did and the one you know you will do, but it lacks the formality of a name. Am I on twenty-one or twenty-two? You can check your watch to for the amount of time you have been swimming and estimate how many laps you should have done. But this requires math and you don't have enough oxygen for that.
This numeric uncertainty follows you. You used to laugh off still writing checks with the prior year in February, but there are times now when you forget your own age. You get used to using phrases like mid thirties. You have migrated from a specific to a demographic – a slightly less influential range but with more disposable income. Singers now wear things that you would not dare to try and everyone on American Idol looks too young. You realize that if you were on Survivor that you have crossed over from the young person camp to the "tag along" tribe and that your only hope for them to keep you around is your superior fishing skills because you learned how to swim from the crew cut Russian.
You have friends now who are been divorced and others have been to cardiologists. That belief that somehow you weren't going to make the same mistakes as your parents, that your love was different in way that they could never understand, that there wasn't going to be those compromises of keeping a job to make a mortgage - these things all have slowly faded like the soccer intramural runner up shirt that you won in college and you realize that your parents must have thrown out their own mementos from that time long ago.
Years blur. What happened in 1998? Did we know about Monica then? Had you started working at a start up or had you left one with a mound of empty options? Who got married that year? Did you have a summer vacation? Did you listen to Hansen? Are they now too old for American Idol?
You don't smell the ocean as much as you taste it. The salt water drains around your teeth and pushes against your tongue. It is a siren's kiss - sloppy and urgent. The restorative mocha after the swim will taste exceptionally sweet, and you hope that it will come soon.
In the fall there is a race called Swim of the Centurions that is run by a smallish leathery Chilean man named Pedro. He is of the sea, having been one of the first to do this swim a hundred times. Sometimes he goes out and back from the shore and every Thursday he holds a swim clinic. Swimming is repetition.
But it is also about diving in. You must take risks. Little gambles check to see if you are alive. You buy a lottery ticket when you get a bus pass in the hopes that there a few magic numbers that could change everything. You sometimes dare to get the mocha without non-fat milk. Life sometimes needs the cream.
When asked for advice about entering the chilly bay for the first time, Pedro will tell you in a slight accent "Just go for it." While it might just be a variation on a shoe company logo, you need to hear it. You can't always just wade into the water and hope that somehow it going to turn pleasant and warm. The water stings the blood vessels in your feet for five minutes and then you will feel nothing.
Forget about blowing bubbles. Forget about insurance companies. Forget about the sharks. Forget about worrying if you were invited to the right birthday party. Forget about the runoff of the dirt of the city into the bay. Forget about a writing assignment that isn't really working. Forget about the people from Seattle, the crew cut Russian, and Pedro.
Just go for it.
The shore is getting closer. One of the guides in a kayak comes over to you and suggests that you aim a little to the right. You see patches of splashes ahead. Small groups of swimmers are drafting off of each other and the opening into your landing harbor, Aquatic Park, is visible up ahead.
Swimming from Alcatraz is the easiest hard thing you can do. Marathons are much harder. Relationships are harder. Figuring out what your boss actually wants you to do is harder. But you will get a t-shirt if you finish Alcatraz and maybe that can replace the one from college.
It is hard enough that your friends will think you are nuts except for the ones who also do triathlons. Your family will wonder why you can't take up something a little safer like bowling. Tourists will come up to you afterwards and ask questions like "Isn't it really cold?"
“Yes,” you will tell them. “It is.”
You think you are close enough that you can stand and you drop your legs into the nothingness. You can see the race clock ahead and hear the announcer slowly call off the contestants as they stride onto the sand. You are past the last section of moored boats and the buoys that mark the swim area. You are almost there.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Sometimes it does rain even on weekends...
A strange thing about triathlons is that they lack narrative and theme of pure running. They are neither the four-line poem of a mile or the epic journey of a marathon (which in my mind is far tougher). I want to write about them but don't have an easy slant.
Doing them (and granted I only have two medals) I break them down into little pieces - a swim scrum, a few buoys, some hills on the bike, watching older guys and then younger women pass, and then a run/walk. It is a disjointed mix in which none of the stuff in the first act really affects the third. Most of the time I wind up paying attention to my heart rate and how many minutes I have until snack time. Like the fish at the Steinhart aquarium I need to feed every half hour.
Maybe the weather is where to begin. Wildflower was more about foreshadowing. You know that it might be a tough day when the car parked next to you is from a guy who was just voted off of surivor ). I had heard that wildflower was supposed to be the Woodstock of triathlons. And while the crazed hippies were replaces with crazed tri geeks, we did have Woodstock's rain and mud.
It rained most of Friday. That night I huddled in my Charlie Brown tent and listened to scattered squalls pound the walls. My important tri stuff was wrapped in Ziploc bags while the rest of my clothes absorbed water from a small hole in the tent that I did not cover. The low for the race was lying in the dark unable to sleep and wondering how much it was going to hurt - like a kid the night before the dentist.
The rain kept coming even as we trudged down the hill to set up our transition areas.
I don't know if the lake was choppy, because I really could not see it. Rumors started to flow around that they were going to change the course and they did. They decided to make the run hillier. Rather than have an Arch-Rock-like climb on trails we were going to do a Divasdero-street(where my parents live) uphill on concrete. Twice. We would be required to walk our bikes over steel bridge at mile forty and the race was going to go forward.
In fairness it was more of a California rain than a southern drenching. If you squinted you could gaze far enough to see the bikers ahead, but the flowers and the mountains were blurred. There were patches of dryness but these occurred more in the open flats than the white knuckled descents.
It was also windy. And then got hot in the run. I think I might be the only person dumb enough to have finished Wildflower in a turtleneck.
As stupid as the day got there was never really a moment of quitting. Sure I was going to walk up beach hill, but I was going to run after that. When you have waited over a year to do something you damn well want to make sure it gets done. I never really had the moment of despair that I got when I hit the wall at mile 18 of the Honolulu Marathon or the fifth hill of the Top Hat Classic. It was a slow, steady whittling like a boxer who is aware how many more rounds he has to go and knows how many teeth he has left. Take a few punches. Keep shuffling the feet.
Also, I knew that I wasn't having the toughest weekend. The night before we had our kick off party catered with low budget meatless pasta and salad driven in from Salinas. The coaches spoke and then a couple of honorees, cancer survivors doing the triathlon, gave talks. It is inspirational to hear someone has come back from chemo and is strong enough to do what you were about to do. A guy missing an arm passed me on the run. A blind women would do the Olympic course. In the scheme of things I travel through life blessed.
After the second honoree talked, the coordinator introduced "And now Oleg."
Oleg?
He is a tall fellow with a Clydesdale build. He is jolly, enthusiastic, has the sweetest wife, and used to work at Mellon before I arrived. I have had to actually clean up some of his spreadsheets. From time to time he joins the work crew at Aquatic Park, but has yet to come close to be able to swim as fast as his wife. He can run faster than she and they had both come down for the Olympic distance tri.
Oleg?
I had done water running with him on Tuesday as my last taper workout. (I am still a complete nut the weeks leading up to a distance event and I have tried to buy the person working next to me many burritos to apologize).
Oleg?
The day before he had felt a bump on his neck and went to the doctors to check it out. He found out he has a lymphoma but the biopsy has not specified the exact kind. Obviously unable to do the race, he had come down to support us and would wind up running the entire 10k with his wife who finished her event in a haze. She could have dehydrated through tears.
He has named his tumor Jerry and told us all he plans to get rid of Jerry as soon as possible. Standing in front of three hundred people and telling "yesterday I learned that I had cancer" is tougher than any rain on any bike. On any day.
I did talk to my boss and he asked about how you assist someone in this state. I only know the part of how to feel helpless during your senior year at boarding school when my brother was in 8th grade with ALL. His approach was getting a Nintendo and watching Divorce Court. He referred to the probabilistic approach of which treatment he would receive to as the big spin. Dark humor can help with the healing. There were plenty of dark moments without humor, but I don't want to talk about them now.
I know Oleg will keep his wit and I hope he knows that he will have a lot of us cheering for him. I will buy him beers next year when he completes the course (and help as I can in the meantime).
Yes, it did rain during wildflower. I had it easy.
Doing them (and granted I only have two medals) I break them down into little pieces - a swim scrum, a few buoys, some hills on the bike, watching older guys and then younger women pass, and then a run/walk. It is a disjointed mix in which none of the stuff in the first act really affects the third. Most of the time I wind up paying attention to my heart rate and how many minutes I have until snack time. Like the fish at the Steinhart aquarium I need to feed every half hour.
Maybe the weather is where to begin. Wildflower was more about foreshadowing. You know that it might be a tough day when the car parked next to you is from a guy who was just voted off of surivor ). I had heard that wildflower was supposed to be the Woodstock of triathlons. And while the crazed hippies were replaces with crazed tri geeks, we did have Woodstock's rain and mud.
It rained most of Friday. That night I huddled in my Charlie Brown tent and listened to scattered squalls pound the walls. My important tri stuff was wrapped in Ziploc bags while the rest of my clothes absorbed water from a small hole in the tent that I did not cover. The low for the race was lying in the dark unable to sleep and wondering how much it was going to hurt - like a kid the night before the dentist.
The rain kept coming even as we trudged down the hill to set up our transition areas.
I don't know if the lake was choppy, because I really could not see it. Rumors started to flow around that they were going to change the course and they did. They decided to make the run hillier. Rather than have an Arch-Rock-like climb on trails we were going to do a Divasdero-street(where my parents live) uphill on concrete. Twice. We would be required to walk our bikes over steel bridge at mile forty and the race was going to go forward.
In fairness it was more of a California rain than a southern drenching. If you squinted you could gaze far enough to see the bikers ahead, but the flowers and the mountains were blurred. There were patches of dryness but these occurred more in the open flats than the white knuckled descents.
It was also windy. And then got hot in the run. I think I might be the only person dumb enough to have finished Wildflower in a turtleneck.
As stupid as the day got there was never really a moment of quitting. Sure I was going to walk up beach hill, but I was going to run after that. When you have waited over a year to do something you damn well want to make sure it gets done. I never really had the moment of despair that I got when I hit the wall at mile 18 of the Honolulu Marathon or the fifth hill of the Top Hat Classic. It was a slow, steady whittling like a boxer who is aware how many more rounds he has to go and knows how many teeth he has left. Take a few punches. Keep shuffling the feet.
Also, I knew that I wasn't having the toughest weekend. The night before we had our kick off party catered with low budget meatless pasta and salad driven in from Salinas. The coaches spoke and then a couple of honorees, cancer survivors doing the triathlon, gave talks. It is inspirational to hear someone has come back from chemo and is strong enough to do what you were about to do. A guy missing an arm passed me on the run. A blind women would do the Olympic course. In the scheme of things I travel through life blessed.
After the second honoree talked, the coordinator introduced "And now Oleg."
Oleg?
He is a tall fellow with a Clydesdale build. He is jolly, enthusiastic, has the sweetest wife, and used to work at Mellon before I arrived. I have had to actually clean up some of his spreadsheets. From time to time he joins the work crew at Aquatic Park, but has yet to come close to be able to swim as fast as his wife. He can run faster than she and they had both come down for the Olympic distance tri.
Oleg?
I had done water running with him on Tuesday as my last taper workout. (I am still a complete nut the weeks leading up to a distance event and I have tried to buy the person working next to me many burritos to apologize).
Oleg?
The day before he had felt a bump on his neck and went to the doctors to check it out. He found out he has a lymphoma but the biopsy has not specified the exact kind. Obviously unable to do the race, he had come down to support us and would wind up running the entire 10k with his wife who finished her event in a haze. She could have dehydrated through tears.
He has named his tumor Jerry and told us all he plans to get rid of Jerry as soon as possible. Standing in front of three hundred people and telling "yesterday I learned that I had cancer" is tougher than any rain on any bike. On any day.
I did talk to my boss and he asked about how you assist someone in this state. I only know the part of how to feel helpless during your senior year at boarding school when my brother was in 8th grade with ALL. His approach was getting a Nintendo and watching Divorce Court. He referred to the probabilistic approach of which treatment he would receive to as the big spin. Dark humor can help with the healing. There were plenty of dark moments without humor, but I don't want to talk about them now.
I know Oleg will keep his wit and I hope he knows that he will have a lot of us cheering for him. I will buy him beers next year when he completes the course (and help as I can in the meantime).
Yes, it did rain during wildflower. I had it easy.
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Staying
I think Christmas came a little late for SF this year. It seems like only last week that I was trying to plan a new years resolution clearing out my closet to make room for the new stuff - the sweaters that my parent's gave me and the 19-inch monitor I gave myself. However I had to hesitate when my brother ask me Do you want throw this hat out?
It was the red one still stained with dirt and a white V in the middle - a proud memento from my graduate school softball days from a time when a beer belly was considered to be proper sporting attire. The purpose of most PhD programs is to get the hood, but my headgear earned from those two years is that cap. In baseball you get more of a chance to run out a weak chopper down the third base line; academia only likes power hitters. Our softball team, the Viking death rats, might not have had the best record, but with the team of mostly robotics grads we probably could have quoted Monty Python better than Symington could. That hat isn't going anywhere and after dusting it off I decided to wear it yesterday.
Still that wasn't the important question from Sunday. Nope, the question I will remember for years was when I asked my brother Do you want to go? We agreed that a four-touchdown deficit was the minimum to leave a playoff football game, but I was unsure whether a three touchdown and a field goal margin was enough. The New York Giants had dominated the ball at Candlestick Park. Between the laser passes of Collins, the craftiness of Toomer, the power of Shockey, the speed of Barber and a stingy defensive, it felt like the game was rerun of some ESPN classic Giants team with Simms tossing it to Bavaro while the Big Tuna played mind games along the sidelines. Actually it looked more like the whopping that my brother gave me on a Nintendo. 38 to 14 through forty minutes is a crushing.
If you take enough math classes (and I have had way too many) you get a deeper appreciation of statistics that ruins playing blackjack because you realize you are making a losing bet. There is a point when you that you need to cut loss and move on. I have spent that last three years working with folks who are the master of hedging (although if they were better wall street guys they should have just sold). Twenty-four points is more than Steve Young ever overcame in the playoffs throwing to Jerry Rice. It is more than Joe Montana ever did going to Dwight Clark. I think it might have been bigger than David versus Goliath considering that they did not have the two-point conversion then.
San Francisco is an odd town in that it almost reveres its musicians more than its athletes. The more famous Garcia in these parts played for the Grateful Dead. And somewhere up in the sky he must have been humming Since it cost a lot to win and even more to lose. You and me bound to spend some time wondering what to choose.
A couple of other brothers wrote Should we stay or should we go?, but they probably weren't thinking about traffic on highway 101 the way that I was with mine.
We stayed.
I never was a full deadhead (certainly not at Cate), but I really did enjoy two concerts. The truly whacked out fans would be the ones dancing outside, but I always thought that the hardcore were the ones flicking lighters so that they could write down the set list. A sea of stars (not really the thousand points of light that Bush talked about) would go as soon the lyrics blared out. Trouble ahead, Trouble behind and you know that notion just crossed my mind. Or perhaps Sometimes the light's all shining on me. Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been. There was such an incredible buzz at a dead show that I have only seen since at a republican convention and Babylon 5 show (although now I tend get both of those memories confused)
That kind of feeling wasn't there in the third quarter. There were sixty five thousand quiet niner fans that were being heckled by the ten giants fans in my section all of whom could have been named Dino. Even the women. But the crowd had did not have enough energy to whimper, much less cheer. It was a very tough day.
Garcia started to play as if he were in his backyard. The no huddle offense has pretty much gone the way of the leather helmet (and the words going both ways has gone to a different meaning in this town). But it worked. The Giants could not rest their defense, and the niners could creep down the field. It felt like Garcia was almost scratching the plays in the sand to Owens. Hook a left at the fire hydrant and I will hit you over the middle. One by one the offensive players started to step it up. Little by little the crowd began to rise and cheer. By the middle of the fourth quarter the place was on their feet and cheered as if they were going to be at a cough syrup audition on Monday.
A new question started to float around the chants of Go. Niners and D. Fence. Could this really happen?
Can you comeback from this kind of a mess? Will you one day find out that you weren't really working for the man? Is George Bush going to say Hey the UN did not find any weapons so there is no reason for a Coup in Iraq? What is wrong with the Lakers? Did Mr. Boning really know everything that happened at the mesa? Can I wear a shirt and sweater that actually match?
The truth is I don't know. But I did learn that maybe just maybe the answer to things might be better than you expect. Some days you have to stick with things even if you are down by 24 points. (Unless you are an angel's fan in which case I still don't really like you). There might just be a thing called luck and for that reason alone I am taking the hat to Vegas this weekend.
Maybe with that same little luck I will catch you soon. Here is hoping.
It was the red one still stained with dirt and a white V in the middle - a proud memento from my graduate school softball days from a time when a beer belly was considered to be proper sporting attire. The purpose of most PhD programs is to get the hood, but my headgear earned from those two years is that cap. In baseball you get more of a chance to run out a weak chopper down the third base line; academia only likes power hitters. Our softball team, the Viking death rats, might not have had the best record, but with the team of mostly robotics grads we probably could have quoted Monty Python better than Symington could. That hat isn't going anywhere and after dusting it off I decided to wear it yesterday.
Still that wasn't the important question from Sunday. Nope, the question I will remember for years was when I asked my brother Do you want to go? We agreed that a four-touchdown deficit was the minimum to leave a playoff football game, but I was unsure whether a three touchdown and a field goal margin was enough. The New York Giants had dominated the ball at Candlestick Park. Between the laser passes of Collins, the craftiness of Toomer, the power of Shockey, the speed of Barber and a stingy defensive, it felt like the game was rerun of some ESPN classic Giants team with Simms tossing it to Bavaro while the Big Tuna played mind games along the sidelines. Actually it looked more like the whopping that my brother gave me on a Nintendo. 38 to 14 through forty minutes is a crushing.
If you take enough math classes (and I have had way too many) you get a deeper appreciation of statistics that ruins playing blackjack because you realize you are making a losing bet. There is a point when you that you need to cut loss and move on. I have spent that last three years working with folks who are the master of hedging (although if they were better wall street guys they should have just sold). Twenty-four points is more than Steve Young ever overcame in the playoffs throwing to Jerry Rice. It is more than Joe Montana ever did going to Dwight Clark. I think it might have been bigger than David versus Goliath considering that they did not have the two-point conversion then.
San Francisco is an odd town in that it almost reveres its musicians more than its athletes. The more famous Garcia in these parts played for the Grateful Dead. And somewhere up in the sky he must have been humming Since it cost a lot to win and even more to lose. You and me bound to spend some time wondering what to choose.
A couple of other brothers wrote Should we stay or should we go?, but they probably weren't thinking about traffic on highway 101 the way that I was with mine.
We stayed.
I never was a full deadhead (certainly not at Cate), but I really did enjoy two concerts. The truly whacked out fans would be the ones dancing outside, but I always thought that the hardcore were the ones flicking lighters so that they could write down the set list. A sea of stars (not really the thousand points of light that Bush talked about) would go as soon the lyrics blared out. Trouble ahead, Trouble behind and you know that notion just crossed my mind. Or perhaps Sometimes the light's all shining on me. Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been. There was such an incredible buzz at a dead show that I have only seen since at a republican convention and Babylon 5 show (although now I tend get both of those memories confused)
That kind of feeling wasn't there in the third quarter. There were sixty five thousand quiet niner fans that were being heckled by the ten giants fans in my section all of whom could have been named Dino. Even the women. But the crowd had did not have enough energy to whimper, much less cheer. It was a very tough day.
Garcia started to play as if he were in his backyard. The no huddle offense has pretty much gone the way of the leather helmet (and the words going both ways has gone to a different meaning in this town). But it worked. The Giants could not rest their defense, and the niners could creep down the field. It felt like Garcia was almost scratching the plays in the sand to Owens. Hook a left at the fire hydrant and I will hit you over the middle. One by one the offensive players started to step it up. Little by little the crowd began to rise and cheer. By the middle of the fourth quarter the place was on their feet and cheered as if they were going to be at a cough syrup audition on Monday.
A new question started to float around the chants of Go. Niners and D. Fence. Could this really happen?
Can you comeback from this kind of a mess? Will you one day find out that you weren't really working for the man? Is George Bush going to say Hey the UN did not find any weapons so there is no reason for a Coup in Iraq? What is wrong with the Lakers? Did Mr. Boning really know everything that happened at the mesa? Can I wear a shirt and sweater that actually match?
The truth is I don't know. But I did learn that maybe just maybe the answer to things might be better than you expect. Some days you have to stick with things even if you are down by 24 points. (Unless you are an angel's fan in which case I still don't really like you). There might just be a thing called luck and for that reason alone I am taking the hat to Vegas this weekend.
Maybe with that same little luck I will catch you soon. Here is hoping.
Monday, October 28, 2002
Early Halloween
I know that the "holidays" are safe to send stuff to people in your distant circle - old classmates, roommates, or coworkers. And with the release of "Santa Clause: 2" on November one, maybe the season has been stretched as far as the southern California megalopolis.
Still there isn't enough space in my apartment for the bounty from seventy-five days of Christmas; there are too many golden rings, partridges or lords a leaping. However, there aren't any more baseball players a playing.
The smells from this October aren't the sweet scent of fall's foliage, but the dark stench from a car wreck world series. The 415 area code hasn't had this kind of colossal bummer, since a batch of bad acid during 1967. It was less of a "long strange trip", and far more "walking on broken glass"
We were up by five runs. Bonds was trying to one up Lou Gerhig for the best series by a player. (He didn't but he can't own *every* record).
And then came the Disney Angel's. I am not sure whether they got their name from Buffy the Vampire's ex beau, but I pretty sure that the red in their uniform comes from Dracula. Could anything kill them? Giants didn't need to bat better but could have used some wooden stakes. Garlic fries could only slow down the monster.
We were up by five runs.
Nobody calls Jason in the Friday the 13th movies scrappy. Nobody calls Goofy long suffering. Nobody should have called the Angels underdogs. This wasn't a team of jimmy crickets, but a plague of locusts.
I guess in the off-season for tri's I have been watching too much TV. (How was Sentinel?) There is a new yoga place on Fillmore between California and Bush that my hamstrings appreciate. It is a block up from where we had sushi and across the street from Argentine Ice Cream place - let me know if you want to go sometime.
I am spinning a few times a week. A former co-worker of mine is trying to land somehow after tumbling through a divorce. I suggested about healing through endorphins and she drives me to class three days a week.
I invited her and a small group of friends out drinks for my birthday. It was a tough week - I was paying for some bad karma from having worn a race jersey during an actual race. You can't cheat that kind of stuff. Most of the people there were from old TNT marathon seasons. She brought a red headed date, but he disappeared from her mind when she met my boss.
They hung out at the bar and wandered through each other stories. She hadn't met someone so interesting; he never knew someone so cute. I had a half an hour of answering machine message - reference checks from both sides. "Yes", I assured them "they were wonderful."
They grabbed dinner and movies (and thankfully not each other in my company). They saw the "Now and Zen" festival and talked about biking together.
I think the duration of magic is measured in moments. In slow motion you can see cards being shuffled, but in real time you can't guess the red queen. After an hour of guessing it stops even being precious, and starts annoying. Some relationships follow the same trajectory.
My boss had three weeks off to climb up to Everest base camp - if you outsource enough of the supplies to surpa it isn't that bad. Perhaps the hard part is coming home. After such peaks it is hard to return to the topology of everyday life. The weight is the same, but you are the only one left carrying the burden.
They are breaking up slowly. Like Livan Hernandez pitching kind of slow.
Life like baseball has more moments closer to Halloween than Christmas.
Still there isn't enough space in my apartment for the bounty from seventy-five days of Christmas; there are too many golden rings, partridges or lords a leaping. However, there aren't any more baseball players a playing.
The smells from this October aren't the sweet scent of fall's foliage, but the dark stench from a car wreck world series. The 415 area code hasn't had this kind of colossal bummer, since a batch of bad acid during 1967. It was less of a "long strange trip", and far more "walking on broken glass"
We were up by five runs. Bonds was trying to one up Lou Gerhig for the best series by a player. (He didn't but he can't own *every* record).
And then came the Disney Angel's. I am not sure whether they got their name from Buffy the Vampire's ex beau, but I pretty sure that the red in their uniform comes from Dracula. Could anything kill them? Giants didn't need to bat better but could have used some wooden stakes. Garlic fries could only slow down the monster.
We were up by five runs.
Nobody calls Jason in the Friday the 13th movies scrappy. Nobody calls Goofy long suffering. Nobody should have called the Angels underdogs. This wasn't a team of jimmy crickets, but a plague of locusts.
I guess in the off-season for tri's I have been watching too much TV. (How was Sentinel?) There is a new yoga place on Fillmore between California and Bush that my hamstrings appreciate. It is a block up from where we had sushi and across the street from Argentine Ice Cream place - let me know if you want to go sometime.
I am spinning a few times a week. A former co-worker of mine is trying to land somehow after tumbling through a divorce. I suggested about healing through endorphins and she drives me to class three days a week.
I invited her and a small group of friends out drinks for my birthday. It was a tough week - I was paying for some bad karma from having worn a race jersey during an actual race. You can't cheat that kind of stuff. Most of the people there were from old TNT marathon seasons. She brought a red headed date, but he disappeared from her mind when she met my boss.
They hung out at the bar and wandered through each other stories. She hadn't met someone so interesting; he never knew someone so cute. I had a half an hour of answering machine message - reference checks from both sides. "Yes", I assured them "they were wonderful."
They grabbed dinner and movies (and thankfully not each other in my company). They saw the "Now and Zen" festival and talked about biking together.
I think the duration of magic is measured in moments. In slow motion you can see cards being shuffled, but in real time you can't guess the red queen. After an hour of guessing it stops even being precious, and starts annoying. Some relationships follow the same trajectory.
My boss had three weeks off to climb up to Everest base camp - if you outsource enough of the supplies to surpa it isn't that bad. Perhaps the hard part is coming home. After such peaks it is hard to return to the topology of everyday life. The weight is the same, but you are the only one left carrying the burden.
They are breaking up slowly. Like Livan Hernandez pitching kind of slow.
Life like baseball has more moments closer to Halloween than Christmas.
Thursday, September 05, 2002
Tomales Bay
The town of Inverness has been around for some time, and while the trans-bay swim does not have the 98-year history of the Fourth of July road races after 28 years it has its own traditions. There is a pancake committee that creates post swim hotcakes, and the kayak escort will give you a swig of tea during the swim.
Everyone seems to know each other's first name. My mom, who invited me, was invited by her friend Nancy Jo. It was in general an earthy crowd.
Inverness did not have the traditional immigrant waves like the rest of the country, but was settled by Czechs, hippies, bikers, and John Carpenter - horror movie director. The fashion was less from Paris more of an Advance Studies in Pottery Class mode. The group looked like it could be quite happy bird watching.
There was a range of swimmers from nouveau dog paddlers to a guy who qualified for the Hawaiian Ironman. Having far more swimming gear than actual technique, I put on a full wet suit, body glide, and swim cap. I began to think that I might be over dressed for the 70-degree water, and looking around I notice a few who had a different view of their bodies.
Freedom, baby, freedom.
Apparently there was another tradition besides the pancake breakfast. A woman a few feet over from me completely shed her clothes while remarking, "I guess I forgot my suit." By the looks of things she was more Woodstock than Burning Man. A couple others joined her by going topless. Maybe it really was closer to Paris after all.
I do have to say on that list of things for which I am truly grateful, somewhere near the apartment with a hot tub and that I still have all of my teeth, is the fact that my mom and her good friends decided to wear their suits. There is only so much family history I want to know. Even now I shudder.
The nudists did go to the front of the group picture - important to keep a memento for the yearbook.
The shots were taken and we headed out across the bay. The dangers are more legendary than real - the bay is on top of the San Andreas Fault line and great white sharks breed at the northern most part, but the difficulties are more with mud and sea grass. The distance lies the vague small town scale where the fish that got away was always a yard long - the route was claimed to be a mile and a quarter but was most likely less than a mile round trip. The day had flat water, sunny skies, and the swim was soon over.
No one has ever asked me to be a godfather (I think my friends expect me to give no more guidance than "pull my finger"); I have not had a close seat at a baptism in a while. And while the event did not have a religious slant, there is something more than just exercise when a town goes down to the sea. Places have their traditions whether they are pagan or brought to you by greeting card companies. Perhaps it is that realization that when you are swimming across tectonic plates it is better to do it in the company of neighbors than to struggle at it alone.
Everyone seems to know each other's first name. My mom, who invited me, was invited by her friend Nancy Jo. It was in general an earthy crowd.
Inverness did not have the traditional immigrant waves like the rest of the country, but was settled by Czechs, hippies, bikers, and John Carpenter - horror movie director. The fashion was less from Paris more of an Advance Studies in Pottery Class mode. The group looked like it could be quite happy bird watching.
There was a range of swimmers from nouveau dog paddlers to a guy who qualified for the Hawaiian Ironman. Having far more swimming gear than actual technique, I put on a full wet suit, body glide, and swim cap. I began to think that I might be over dressed for the 70-degree water, and looking around I notice a few who had a different view of their bodies.
Freedom, baby, freedom.
Apparently there was another tradition besides the pancake breakfast. A woman a few feet over from me completely shed her clothes while remarking, "I guess I forgot my suit." By the looks of things she was more Woodstock than Burning Man. A couple others joined her by going topless. Maybe it really was closer to Paris after all.
I do have to say on that list of things for which I am truly grateful, somewhere near the apartment with a hot tub and that I still have all of my teeth, is the fact that my mom and her good friends decided to wear their suits. There is only so much family history I want to know. Even now I shudder.
The nudists did go to the front of the group picture - important to keep a memento for the yearbook.
The shots were taken and we headed out across the bay. The dangers are more legendary than real - the bay is on top of the San Andreas Fault line and great white sharks breed at the northern most part, but the difficulties are more with mud and sea grass. The distance lies the vague small town scale where the fish that got away was always a yard long - the route was claimed to be a mile and a quarter but was most likely less than a mile round trip. The day had flat water, sunny skies, and the swim was soon over.
No one has ever asked me to be a godfather (I think my friends expect me to give no more guidance than "pull my finger"); I have not had a close seat at a baptism in a while. And while the event did not have a religious slant, there is something more than just exercise when a town goes down to the sea. Places have their traditions whether they are pagan or brought to you by greeting card companies. Perhaps it is that realization that when you are swimming across tectonic plates it is better to do it in the company of neighbors than to struggle at it alone.
Monday, September 02, 2002
Circles in the Sky
It was a story told late night in bar. The margaritas helped the telling, and I did my best to listen over noise from the pool table to a girl at a mutual friend's goodbye to San Francisco party. A blond from the Midwest she told a small cluster of us about a wedding she went to over the weekend.
For me weddings come in waves. You can go a year with no one being hitched, and then out of nowhere you are spending your Thursday's shopping at Pottery barn for gifts, Friday's traveling to wherever a college roommate grew up, Saturday's blurring through a reception, and Sunday's trying to make it back for the dry cleaners. The conversations melt. You think you have told the first time you got really drunk with the groom or bride to everyone, but you can't really remember the last time that you did anything with them that wasn't about the wedding.
There are little things that separate the events apart. One might have a "make your own sundaes" at the reception, a barbeque on an Iowa farm, or a cute bridesmaid. This wedding was held on a Sunday. The requested attire was Renaissance.
A satellite keeps in orbit by constantly falling and missing, and some relationships follow the same circle of being too attracted to leave but too uncertain to fall completely. He might have commitment problems. She might think she can do better. Their friends spend hours listening to them in coffee shops or a bar on buffalo wing night. No one is sure.
This is when entropy enters uninvited. People complain that their relationship needs a jolt but freeze when that moment comes. Six months ago she found out she had liver cancer.
I can't quite hear about the treatment process - a couple next to me is talking about a triathlon. There is something about not getting a transplant and the medication not really working. She is going to switch to a different type of treatment, but it looks like she has about three months left.
I don't know when he proposed or how she could plan for the event. Maybe the secret is to keep it simple: gather a few friends and find a good beach on a hotter than normal Indian summer day.
The crashing waves and gawking gulls served as music. A large hat hid her baldness. They wanted each of guests to bless the wedding rings during ceremony. They gathered in a circle and passed the rings around. Somebody held the ring up to the sky. Somebody held the ring close to their heart.
One by one family and friends spoke. Nobody was thinking about Pottery Barn.
The girl telling the story wandered to get another round of margaritas and the rest of the crowd went either to the restroom or to the pack playing pool. Now alone except for a coaster I watched Newtonian physics of the balls on the pool table colliding and breaking away, and then glanced up to see mingling of old friends, the flirting of new acquaintances, and the contemplating of those also alone at different tables or next to pillars. A few hugged the one leaving San Francisco and I realized the great need to celebrate in front of partings.
For me weddings come in waves. You can go a year with no one being hitched, and then out of nowhere you are spending your Thursday's shopping at Pottery barn for gifts, Friday's traveling to wherever a college roommate grew up, Saturday's blurring through a reception, and Sunday's trying to make it back for the dry cleaners. The conversations melt. You think you have told the first time you got really drunk with the groom or bride to everyone, but you can't really remember the last time that you did anything with them that wasn't about the wedding.
There are little things that separate the events apart. One might have a "make your own sundaes" at the reception, a barbeque on an Iowa farm, or a cute bridesmaid. This wedding was held on a Sunday. The requested attire was Renaissance.
A satellite keeps in orbit by constantly falling and missing, and some relationships follow the same circle of being too attracted to leave but too uncertain to fall completely. He might have commitment problems. She might think she can do better. Their friends spend hours listening to them in coffee shops or a bar on buffalo wing night. No one is sure.
This is when entropy enters uninvited. People complain that their relationship needs a jolt but freeze when that moment comes. Six months ago she found out she had liver cancer.
I can't quite hear about the treatment process - a couple next to me is talking about a triathlon. There is something about not getting a transplant and the medication not really working. She is going to switch to a different type of treatment, but it looks like she has about three months left.
I don't know when he proposed or how she could plan for the event. Maybe the secret is to keep it simple: gather a few friends and find a good beach on a hotter than normal Indian summer day.
The crashing waves and gawking gulls served as music. A large hat hid her baldness. They wanted each of guests to bless the wedding rings during ceremony. They gathered in a circle and passed the rings around. Somebody held the ring up to the sky. Somebody held the ring close to their heart.
One by one family and friends spoke. Nobody was thinking about Pottery Barn.
The girl telling the story wandered to get another round of margaritas and the rest of the crowd went either to the restroom or to the pack playing pool. Now alone except for a coaster I watched Newtonian physics of the balls on the pool table colliding and breaking away, and then glanced up to see mingling of old friends, the flirting of new acquaintances, and the contemplating of those also alone at different tables or next to pillars. A few hugged the one leaving San Francisco and I realized the great need to celebrate in front of partings.
Thursday, August 16, 2001
Alcatraz
I think I need to hang out with larger people. Spending time with the 5% body fat tri-athletes makes it tough to feel fit. I don't consider myself large. I am more like my nine-year-old Nissan Altima - a bit round the middle, low maintenance, surprising oomph, and with a few dings from misjudging distances. It just looks a little out of place in a marina parking lot full of Audis.
The journey from Alcatraz isn't as much of swimsuit contest as a wetsuit one. The sun hadn't yet risen by the time we had donned our O'Neil armor and headed over to the ferries. We must have looked like a pack of seals as we trotted over the same ground that tourists and mimes would wander later that day. The stores of fisherman's wharf sell the usual drek of personalize license plate key chains, and t-shirts that say "I escaped from the Rock." It is, however, far better to earn one.
We boarded the ship and headed across the sea. There was a Viking mystic to the voyage except our vessel had a snack bar. Little groups of friends huddled around the small tables, and talked nervously as the boat rocked in the waves.
A woman's blurred over the load speaker. "With the tides going out you are going to want to aim 200 yards to the left of the white Aquatic Park building." Nice to know that the ocean is taking you to China.
We rushed to the side of the ferry, and I came to the conclusion that pretty much all of the buildings along the shore looked white clustered around patches of park. We when close enough we were to mark according the three tall masts of a ship. Plan B was to follow the swimmer in front of me - navigation lemming style.
The doors of the ferry opened and the crowd started chanting "Go, go, go ..." Pair by pair the swimmers launched out into bay and dipped well below the wake of the ferry. I took one last look around and realized that I was the best-insulated one of the group. It was time to jump, and I flung myself out the door. The water wasn't that cold or at least not that unexpected in the way that the showers are at summer camp.
I paddled towards the starting line marked by kayaks. The horn blew and the pack splashed towards the city of hippies, sour dough bread, and ex dot comers.
There is a soothing rhythm to swimming and the waves did their best to interrupt me like techno music during a yoga class. At 40 minutes out, I wasn't that close to shore and began to wonder about that "misjudging distance" thing.
Eventually I pulled myself out of the sea, landed on the time pad at Aquatic Park, and handed my ankle bracelet to the next person in our relay team. Time for a well earned mocha.
Heavily caffeinated, I made it to the second transition area to cheer my relay bike and run partners. A few women I knew from team and training were hanging out near the finish line. They were doing their best at a separate event - the 30-yard oogle.
"It something about guys doing triathalons."
"I can't believe he is going to do the run with his shirt off."
"He kind of looks like Jesus in a Speedo." I had to comment that the trip from Alcatraz would be a great deal easier if you were allowed to run on top of the water. But that was lost in the testosterone appreciation.
I spent most of the time hanging out with the boyfriend of the running relay partner. He is a nice guy, and has sort of a John Corbet from "Sex in the City" quality. His girl friend had the tough sand ladder part, which I was very happy to out source. She had a great run certainly compared to my badly aimed swim and the gear problems that happened during the bike up Baker Beach hill.
Eventually our team finished and the girls wandered off to meet up with Jesus in a Speedo. There is no way I can compete with that any more that I run with someone who is a sub 3 hour marathon time. I need the larger Americans found at fast food restaurants and amusement parks. Ask me where I am going next. I say I am headed to Disneyland.
The journey from Alcatraz isn't as much of swimsuit contest as a wetsuit one. The sun hadn't yet risen by the time we had donned our O'Neil armor and headed over to the ferries. We must have looked like a pack of seals as we trotted over the same ground that tourists and mimes would wander later that day. The stores of fisherman's wharf sell the usual drek of personalize license plate key chains, and t-shirts that say "I escaped from the Rock." It is, however, far better to earn one.
We boarded the ship and headed across the sea. There was a Viking mystic to the voyage except our vessel had a snack bar. Little groups of friends huddled around the small tables, and talked nervously as the boat rocked in the waves.
A woman's blurred over the load speaker. "With the tides going out you are going to want to aim 200 yards to the left of the white Aquatic Park building." Nice to know that the ocean is taking you to China.
We rushed to the side of the ferry, and I came to the conclusion that pretty much all of the buildings along the shore looked white clustered around patches of park. We when close enough we were to mark according the three tall masts of a ship. Plan B was to follow the swimmer in front of me - navigation lemming style.
The doors of the ferry opened and the crowd started chanting "Go, go, go ..." Pair by pair the swimmers launched out into bay and dipped well below the wake of the ferry. I took one last look around and realized that I was the best-insulated one of the group. It was time to jump, and I flung myself out the door. The water wasn't that cold or at least not that unexpected in the way that the showers are at summer camp.
I paddled towards the starting line marked by kayaks. The horn blew and the pack splashed towards the city of hippies, sour dough bread, and ex dot comers.
There is a soothing rhythm to swimming and the waves did their best to interrupt me like techno music during a yoga class. At 40 minutes out, I wasn't that close to shore and began to wonder about that "misjudging distance" thing.
Eventually I pulled myself out of the sea, landed on the time pad at Aquatic Park, and handed my ankle bracelet to the next person in our relay team. Time for a well earned mocha.
Heavily caffeinated, I made it to the second transition area to cheer my relay bike and run partners. A few women I knew from team and training were hanging out near the finish line. They were doing their best at a separate event - the 30-yard oogle.
"It something about guys doing triathalons."
"I can't believe he is going to do the run with his shirt off."
"He kind of looks like Jesus in a Speedo." I had to comment that the trip from Alcatraz would be a great deal easier if you were allowed to run on top of the water. But that was lost in the testosterone appreciation.
I spent most of the time hanging out with the boyfriend of the running relay partner. He is a nice guy, and has sort of a John Corbet from "Sex in the City" quality. His girl friend had the tough sand ladder part, which I was very happy to out source. She had a great run certainly compared to my badly aimed swim and the gear problems that happened during the bike up Baker Beach hill.
Eventually our team finished and the girls wandered off to meet up with Jesus in a Speedo. There is no way I can compete with that any more that I run with someone who is a sub 3 hour marathon time. I need the larger Americans found at fast food restaurants and amusement parks. Ask me where I am going next. I say I am headed to Disneyland.
Sunday, July 01, 2001
Midnight Sun
Maybe it is possible to get anywhere in the world with five plane rides. Anchorage took two. From there you can take a plane out into the mosquito farm at the center of the state, but I took a cab to the motel.
The driver was from Pakistan, and had been trying to leave the state for the last 10 winters. He left for a couple of weeks once for a wedding, but the summers and the mountains bring him back. The city wasn’t too large and there wasn’t much traffic - he could drive across it in an hour. It is a manageable size town of 250,000, and it felt nice to be driven by a cabbie who wasn’t trying to do a business deal on a cell phone.
He dropped me of at the motel, and after checking into the room I went back to the front desk. A large pale woman was behind the corner. Ignoring the brochures on the wall I asked, “What is around here that I could see this afternoon?”
She replied, “The Mall.”
Perhaps I did need more than two plane flights. For her the nearby glaciers had nothing on the local center with its footlocker shoe shop and Walden Books that did not carry anything written by Jack London. It was much easier to find an ice planet visited by the large selection of Star Trek books than to find the impression of John Muir when he first came here.
Her other suggestion was to head downtown. It has been 17 years since I have been to Anchorage. The shops on Fourth and Fifth Avenue are still huddled together for the Alaskan style combo of warmth and convenience. There is brewpub next to a science museum -which probably measures the affects of alcohol on the size of fish. Sharing an office a few blocks away is the police and chaplain in case of a heated midwinter argument. On the other side of the street it is possible to pick up not only arctic furs but also the ulu that cuts them.
Still much has changed. The concept of blue light can now refer to not only to the Aurora Borealis, but also the Big K-mart on the outskirts of town. That complex is super sized like most of the food that is served between the pawn shops and cash advance stores. The crazy horse saloon has a tourist brochure in the rack between the flying fishing trip and glacier tours. It advertised that the nude woman arrive after four any day of the week and a great gift shop. I fear for the family whose travel agent misunderstood the details behind the full arctic experience.
The day I arrived the front page of the local paper covered both a police officer and a fifteen-year-old girl, and an 82-pound fish. I figure the chaplain and brew pub must have been pretty busy that day as well.
It is a place that has always been in motion. In the winter it is the starting point for the thousand-mile Iditarod dog sledding race. The summer brings both the migrations of whales to feast on the plankton bloom and the white motor homes to follow them.
I was there for my purple herd - the noble band of warriors who decided only a few months ago that they would go this distance to raise money for Leukemia research. My knee has been out of commission for a while and I was unable to run with my friend who I convinced a few months ago to try and do it.
You might not get to know someone by walking a mile in their shoes, but you will understand their heart if you watch them go 26.2. The race was during the summer solstice, which affects your circadian rhythms like a trip to Sugarville for the a.d.d. crowd. I never knew that being on top of the world meant being so close to the sun.
It was a scorer of a day. The smiles I saw at mile 4 had disintegrated into a steady concentration at mile 17, and dazed enthusiasm at the end. I ran with a few people at the middle mark to help with their transition from tank tracks to office parks, and cheered everyone I saw. A good portion of the people helped my cause by having their names written on their jerseys. It's the same convention that causes the bodies of water north of Anchorage to be called "Big Lake" and the perhaps more popular "Fish Lake"
The end was a blur of medals, tears, hugs, and bottled water. The endorphin high was so great that my group got kicked out of a bar on Fourth Avenue during our post-post-post victory party. A hundred years ago on the same land there would have been gun fired. The only causality was a headache and a slightly later start the next morning.
I headed down to Seward with Barry, my friend whom I convinced to run the marathon. The road south of Anchorage winds along the coast. There isn’t much space for the asphalt; the white splotchy mountains almost dip their toes into the sea. The earth is carved either by humans whom tunneled to Whiter, a small village home to sea kayaks and fishing boats; or by 10,000-year-old glaciers that grind gentler u-shaped valleys than rivers do in the south.
These glaciers are retreating. Gravity still pulls them down hill, but they are melting a little more each year than new snow being added to them. It comes across as exhibit A for global warming, and the viewing stations built with the oil war chest in the early 80’s can no longer see their edge. Instead the stations have a plastic model and a half hour slide show - almost better than real nature. The gift shop remains open.
Seward is another town that harvests halibut. While most of the bounty heads back to the lower 48, some is available in a burrito package with three different choices of salsa and a Corona to wash it down. It’s cuisine by NAFTA, and when we were done we caught a ride on one of the boats that toured the harbor.
Most of our fellow passengers still wore their medals from the marathon and stumbled around the deck in a Mr. Roboto homage. Mike was our captain and he would shout instructions at his sole member of the crew. He certainly could have run the boat by himself; he once sailed solo from Hawaii to Seward on a 25 foot sloop, but he prefer someone else make sandwiches and point out the head, while he barked into the radio to nearby ships.
“Lovely Captain Heather, see anything out there?”
“Just puffins. No goats. You?”
“Saw a bald eagle in the same cove as yesterday.”
You could try to ask him questions about the birds in the water, but he would explain that he was a captain and not a naturalist. The tougher question, however, was how did he lose both of his arms? Rather than answer the same story twice a day during tourist season he kept a black binder with the tale.
In the early 70’s he was working as a fireman and fell into the flames. He lost one arm right away and after several skin grafts on the other he had that amputated as well. With the insurance money he went to college and got a boat. He spent several years battling with authorities to get his pilot’s license. The binder is full letters from government agency trying to find the right language to explain that they were sorry for his condition but were worried about how self reliant he would be in an emergency.
It was hard to look at the letters and not wonder if government agents knew the difference between a Genoa and a jib, much less how make the journey from Hawaii to here on their own.
He took the boat away from the shore and headed towards a group of islands. A few porpoises danced in the wake of our bow. They have the same coloration as killer whales and puffins, as if to suggest that hunting for fish requires formal attire. Mike mentioned that porpoises once saved him on that solo trip. He added that it gets pretty lonely to be on the sea that long.
Now he gets to chat to the Lovely Captain Heather a few times a day. She was bringing a troop of boy scouts out while we were headed back to the harbor. Mike told her about the porpoises, and she tried to downplay the job of shuffling 20 packages of hormones clothed in green attire and merit badges. We said thanks to Mike as we left the boat and headed back to Anchorage so that we would be ready for the following day’s route. We did see a few eagles, some gulls and a couple of moose, but I have no image for the Lovely Captain Heather.
Denali is to the north of Anchorage. The way is more through the woods and one of the better marijuana growing areas with an occasional oasis for gas and espresso. I am not sure what the chemical inspiration was for the Purple Moose Shack, but they do make a mean cup of mocha.
The driver was from Pakistan, and had been trying to leave the state for the last 10 winters. He left for a couple of weeks once for a wedding, but the summers and the mountains bring him back. The city wasn’t too large and there wasn’t much traffic - he could drive across it in an hour. It is a manageable size town of 250,000, and it felt nice to be driven by a cabbie who wasn’t trying to do a business deal on a cell phone.
He dropped me of at the motel, and after checking into the room I went back to the front desk. A large pale woman was behind the corner. Ignoring the brochures on the wall I asked, “What is around here that I could see this afternoon?”
She replied, “The Mall.”
Perhaps I did need more than two plane flights. For her the nearby glaciers had nothing on the local center with its footlocker shoe shop and Walden Books that did not carry anything written by Jack London. It was much easier to find an ice planet visited by the large selection of Star Trek books than to find the impression of John Muir when he first came here.
Her other suggestion was to head downtown. It has been 17 years since I have been to Anchorage. The shops on Fourth and Fifth Avenue are still huddled together for the Alaskan style combo of warmth and convenience. There is brewpub next to a science museum -which probably measures the affects of alcohol on the size of fish. Sharing an office a few blocks away is the police and chaplain in case of a heated midwinter argument. On the other side of the street it is possible to pick up not only arctic furs but also the ulu that cuts them.
Still much has changed. The concept of blue light can now refer to not only to the Aurora Borealis, but also the Big K-mart on the outskirts of town. That complex is super sized like most of the food that is served between the pawn shops and cash advance stores. The crazy horse saloon has a tourist brochure in the rack between the flying fishing trip and glacier tours. It advertised that the nude woman arrive after four any day of the week and a great gift shop. I fear for the family whose travel agent misunderstood the details behind the full arctic experience.
The day I arrived the front page of the local paper covered both a police officer and a fifteen-year-old girl, and an 82-pound fish. I figure the chaplain and brew pub must have been pretty busy that day as well.
It is a place that has always been in motion. In the winter it is the starting point for the thousand-mile Iditarod dog sledding race. The summer brings both the migrations of whales to feast on the plankton bloom and the white motor homes to follow them.
I was there for my purple herd - the noble band of warriors who decided only a few months ago that they would go this distance to raise money for Leukemia research. My knee has been out of commission for a while and I was unable to run with my friend who I convinced a few months ago to try and do it.
You might not get to know someone by walking a mile in their shoes, but you will understand their heart if you watch them go 26.2. The race was during the summer solstice, which affects your circadian rhythms like a trip to Sugarville for the a.d.d. crowd. I never knew that being on top of the world meant being so close to the sun.
It was a scorer of a day. The smiles I saw at mile 4 had disintegrated into a steady concentration at mile 17, and dazed enthusiasm at the end. I ran with a few people at the middle mark to help with their transition from tank tracks to office parks, and cheered everyone I saw. A good portion of the people helped my cause by having their names written on their jerseys. It's the same convention that causes the bodies of water north of Anchorage to be called "Big Lake" and the perhaps more popular "Fish Lake"
The end was a blur of medals, tears, hugs, and bottled water. The endorphin high was so great that my group got kicked out of a bar on Fourth Avenue during our post-post-post victory party. A hundred years ago on the same land there would have been gun fired. The only causality was a headache and a slightly later start the next morning.
I headed down to Seward with Barry, my friend whom I convinced to run the marathon. The road south of Anchorage winds along the coast. There isn’t much space for the asphalt; the white splotchy mountains almost dip their toes into the sea. The earth is carved either by humans whom tunneled to Whiter, a small village home to sea kayaks and fishing boats; or by 10,000-year-old glaciers that grind gentler u-shaped valleys than rivers do in the south.
These glaciers are retreating. Gravity still pulls them down hill, but they are melting a little more each year than new snow being added to them. It comes across as exhibit A for global warming, and the viewing stations built with the oil war chest in the early 80’s can no longer see their edge. Instead the stations have a plastic model and a half hour slide show - almost better than real nature. The gift shop remains open.
Seward is another town that harvests halibut. While most of the bounty heads back to the lower 48, some is available in a burrito package with three different choices of salsa and a Corona to wash it down. It’s cuisine by NAFTA, and when we were done we caught a ride on one of the boats that toured the harbor.
Most of our fellow passengers still wore their medals from the marathon and stumbled around the deck in a Mr. Roboto homage. Mike was our captain and he would shout instructions at his sole member of the crew. He certainly could have run the boat by himself; he once sailed solo from Hawaii to Seward on a 25 foot sloop, but he prefer someone else make sandwiches and point out the head, while he barked into the radio to nearby ships.
“Lovely Captain Heather, see anything out there?”
“Just puffins. No goats. You?”
“Saw a bald eagle in the same cove as yesterday.”
You could try to ask him questions about the birds in the water, but he would explain that he was a captain and not a naturalist. The tougher question, however, was how did he lose both of his arms? Rather than answer the same story twice a day during tourist season he kept a black binder with the tale.
In the early 70’s he was working as a fireman and fell into the flames. He lost one arm right away and after several skin grafts on the other he had that amputated as well. With the insurance money he went to college and got a boat. He spent several years battling with authorities to get his pilot’s license. The binder is full letters from government agency trying to find the right language to explain that they were sorry for his condition but were worried about how self reliant he would be in an emergency.
It was hard to look at the letters and not wonder if government agents knew the difference between a Genoa and a jib, much less how make the journey from Hawaii to here on their own.
He took the boat away from the shore and headed towards a group of islands. A few porpoises danced in the wake of our bow. They have the same coloration as killer whales and puffins, as if to suggest that hunting for fish requires formal attire. Mike mentioned that porpoises once saved him on that solo trip. He added that it gets pretty lonely to be on the sea that long.
Now he gets to chat to the Lovely Captain Heather a few times a day. She was bringing a troop of boy scouts out while we were headed back to the harbor. Mike told her about the porpoises, and she tried to downplay the job of shuffling 20 packages of hormones clothed in green attire and merit badges. We said thanks to Mike as we left the boat and headed back to Anchorage so that we would be ready for the following day’s route. We did see a few eagles, some gulls and a couple of moose, but I have no image for the Lovely Captain Heather.
Denali is to the north of Anchorage. The way is more through the woods and one of the better marijuana growing areas with an occasional oasis for gas and espresso. I am not sure what the chemical inspiration was for the Purple Moose Shack, but they do make a mean cup of mocha.
Sunday, June 04, 2000
Might as well be walking on the sun.
My hometown is terrorized by the Mark Twain quote of "that the coldest
winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." The platitude makes it
way through the city on buses shaped like cable cars, and gets mentioned in
hotel lobbies when an entire tourist family realizes that they should have
packed something more than their Hard Rock tee shirts and shorts. This is
not an "it's not the heat but the humidity" city. The costal fog is much a
summer ritual as waiting for the Giants to get over .500, the North Beach
street fair, and watching Willie Brown deal with Muni.
But despite my over packing of my usual race equipment - extra power bars,
running shoes, and a back up jersey, I was unable to bring the costal fog
with me to the Rock & Roll marathon in San Diego. It was a scorcher of a
day. The piercing sun was a dermatologist's dream.
The race itself was well organized for the parts I could remember. In the
blurry last few miles that all marathons become, it seemed to melt into a
Frank Zappa concoction of Rock & Roll, teenage cheerleaders, and Advil.
There is trouble in the deep haze when you get band number 21 confused with
mile 21.
But at times the right rock ballad did push me along. I was happy that it
was not four hours of Britney Spears covers, which would have hurt my
stomach far more than the ultima sports drink did. There is a difference
between having a good time in a marathon, and a good marathon time. I am not
sure if you can do both in the same race.
I ran this one concentrating more about the road than the clock. It is the
kind of thing I am trying to seep into other parts of my life - to deal with
those moments like last week when my father suggested that I start using
Agrecian formula. Somehow I don't think my medicine cabinet is ready just
yet.
But somewhere in background of this season there has been the steady notion
of time. At the team social we learned from Dr. Ablin that it takes four
months from a million cancer cells to go to a billion. The malignant growth
goes from a silver dollar to a quart. It represents the danger of
exponential growth.
But the flip side is that four months is also the amount of time it takes to
train for a marathon. By being an ambassador to the team and recruiting more
friends to join in the cause either by helping with funds or water stops, we
get exponential growth in funding research. Towards that end I am collecting
fundraising letters to hand over as templates to next web captain.
Four months brought us countless job changes. I think the number one cross
training activity of the team was interviewing.
Four months brought us two births. I figure I have few years until Skylar
beats my marathon time. That's when I take Geritol.
Four months brought us a tragic loss. I have no words that are better than
John's. I feel far more humbled by the efforts that a great deal of people
did helping the McDermott family than anyone's marathon time.
Four months was the amount of time my brother spent between diagnosed with
cancer and getting into remission in 1987. This season he wished he could
have gone to more events as an honoree before heading to Michigan. He talks
a great bowling game. On Saturday he ran his first marathon, and, like his
eldest brother, went out too fast only to crater the last 6 miles. He also
blames the heat.
I still can't believe that I have run two of these things - I wish I had
some better wisdom than the necessity of body glide and the importance of
thanking everyone who put me on the road.
To April, John, Mike, Jay and Timmy thanks for guidance.
To the captains and mentors it has been great to work with you.
To Kristi and John, thanks for being the glue.
I know the season is not over, but I thought I would say thanks before our
mailboxes get completely full.
My brother today instead of taking the day off to recover spent the morning
playing golf. Mark Twain called that "a good walk spoiled." I imagine given
his fondness for cigars he would say the same thing about marathons. All I
can respond is the proudest races I have ever run are the ones with team in
training.
winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." The platitude makes it
way through the city on buses shaped like cable cars, and gets mentioned in
hotel lobbies when an entire tourist family realizes that they should have
packed something more than their Hard Rock tee shirts and shorts. This is
not an "it's not the heat but the humidity" city. The costal fog is much a
summer ritual as waiting for the Giants to get over .500, the North Beach
street fair, and watching Willie Brown deal with Muni.
But despite my over packing of my usual race equipment - extra power bars,
running shoes, and a back up jersey, I was unable to bring the costal fog
with me to the Rock & Roll marathon in San Diego. It was a scorcher of a
day. The piercing sun was a dermatologist's dream.
The race itself was well organized for the parts I could remember. In the
blurry last few miles that all marathons become, it seemed to melt into a
Frank Zappa concoction of Rock & Roll, teenage cheerleaders, and Advil.
There is trouble in the deep haze when you get band number 21 confused with
mile 21.
But at times the right rock ballad did push me along. I was happy that it
was not four hours of Britney Spears covers, which would have hurt my
stomach far more than the ultima sports drink did. There is a difference
between having a good time in a marathon, and a good marathon time. I am not
sure if you can do both in the same race.
I ran this one concentrating more about the road than the clock. It is the
kind of thing I am trying to seep into other parts of my life - to deal with
those moments like last week when my father suggested that I start using
Agrecian formula. Somehow I don't think my medicine cabinet is ready just
yet.
But somewhere in background of this season there has been the steady notion
of time. At the team social we learned from Dr. Ablin that it takes four
months from a million cancer cells to go to a billion. The malignant growth
goes from a silver dollar to a quart. It represents the danger of
exponential growth.
But the flip side is that four months is also the amount of time it takes to
train for a marathon. By being an ambassador to the team and recruiting more
friends to join in the cause either by helping with funds or water stops, we
get exponential growth in funding research. Towards that end I am collecting
fundraising letters to hand over as templates to next web captain.
Four months brought us countless job changes. I think the number one cross
training activity of the team was interviewing.
Four months brought us two births. I figure I have few years until Skylar
beats my marathon time. That's when I take Geritol.
Four months brought us a tragic loss. I have no words that are better than
John's. I feel far more humbled by the efforts that a great deal of people
did helping the McDermott family than anyone's marathon time.
Four months was the amount of time my brother spent between diagnosed with
cancer and getting into remission in 1987. This season he wished he could
have gone to more events as an honoree before heading to Michigan. He talks
a great bowling game. On Saturday he ran his first marathon, and, like his
eldest brother, went out too fast only to crater the last 6 miles. He also
blames the heat.
I still can't believe that I have run two of these things - I wish I had
some better wisdom than the necessity of body glide and the importance of
thanking everyone who put me on the road.
To April, John, Mike, Jay and Timmy thanks for guidance.
To the captains and mentors it has been great to work with you.
To Kristi and John, thanks for being the glue.
I know the season is not over, but I thought I would say thanks before our
mailboxes get completely full.
My brother today instead of taking the day off to recover spent the morning
playing golf. Mark Twain called that "a good walk spoiled." I imagine given
his fondness for cigars he would say the same thing about marathons. All I
can respond is the proudest races I have ever run are the ones with team in
training.
Wednesday, March 29, 2000
Howling at the Moon
Most of San Francisco lies in a grid. It lacks the topologically wandering avenues of Pittsburgh or Boston. Sure there is Lombard, but at either end of the crooked tourist magnet is pure grid. No, the real exception is Market Street, the cross-town traversal nightmare. It is the off-kilter divider of downtown, and its pedestrians share the slightly skewed view of the world.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax). The we-are-all-freezing-together attitude was a binding part of the experience at Dartmouth.
Perhaps the alcohol helped. There was one guy who I would always seem to stumble into at parties whether it be at scorpion bowls or recovering from the smells of AD. He would always insist that we go outside and howl at the moon. It was a great, nutty moment between two guys both somewhat frustrated at their attempts to seduce the opposite sex to shout a primal scream into a New Hampshire winter night. No one complained
Now I did run into David O’Brien outside of parties – I went to his Frost play during our summer term and a couple of meetings of “Students fighting hunger.” I would like to say that I was involved in charitable organizations more, but I tended to gravitate towards my studies and Ultimate Frisbee. Definitely drank quite a bit as well.
I graduated and made a promise to keep in touch. I found Dave’s humor and enthusiasm infectious. He wrote a long letter to me in grad school (my dark years) and I never had the time to write back or for that matter quite a few other good classmates. He was the sort of person that I had hoped to meet at a reunion – someone that no matter what had happened over the remaining years would just be happy. A few remarks about the chicken sandwiches at EBA’s and we would be back to our usual banter. I figured our tenth is coming up shortly and even though we celebrate twelve years out maybe I could track him down then.
Yesterday, I was cleaning up my desk when I ran into an old class newsletter. Normally I avoid these things – there is only so much of Jake’s nicknames, and finding out about marriages and kids that I generally want to know. In this one there was a page describing how there was a dinner honoring David. I was pretty excited and wanted to know what great thing he was up to. I found out that the award was being given posthumously.
It turns out that he did go on to do wonderful things. He was the Dartmouth volunteer coordinator and worked with CARE in South Sudan and Somalia. He went to India to study food distribution and caught a respiratory virus.
It hurts to lose one of the few people I know that would have spent time with the poet wearing Santa Clause hat. The guy with the streamers needs someone to believe in him. In my years since Dartmouth, I have spent far too much time drifting in the ebb and flow of start-ups. They have the duality of having everything being absolutely important right away, but no one remembering what went on three months ago.
The one major charitable thing that I do is Team in Training, an organization that uses marathons to fundraise for blood cancer research. It basically takes four months to prepare for a marathon. Tuesday mornings we have a buddy run that takes us from the marina to the golden gate bridge.
We are usually are at the middle of the bridge when the dawn breaks. This morning looking to the east, I could see the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street silhouetted by the rising sun. A new ball park is opening up around the corner, and the whole city seems to be coming alive to the possibilities of the up coming season.
Towards the west, the moon was starting to set. And for the first time in many years, I howled.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax). The we-are-all-freezing-together attitude was a binding part of the experience at Dartmouth.
Perhaps the alcohol helped. There was one guy who I would always seem to stumble into at parties whether it be at scorpion bowls or recovering from the smells of AD. He would always insist that we go outside and howl at the moon. It was a great, nutty moment between two guys both somewhat frustrated at their attempts to seduce the opposite sex to shout a primal scream into a New Hampshire winter night. No one complained
Now I did run into David O’Brien outside of parties – I went to his Frost play during our summer term and a couple of meetings of “Students fighting hunger.” I would like to say that I was involved in charitable organizations more, but I tended to gravitate towards my studies and Ultimate Frisbee. Definitely drank quite a bit as well.
I graduated and made a promise to keep in touch. I found Dave’s humor and enthusiasm infectious. He wrote a long letter to me in grad school (my dark years) and I never had the time to write back or for that matter quite a few other good classmates. He was the sort of person that I had hoped to meet at a reunion – someone that no matter what had happened over the remaining years would just be happy. A few remarks about the chicken sandwiches at EBA’s and we would be back to our usual banter. I figured our tenth is coming up shortly and even though we celebrate twelve years out maybe I could track him down then.
Yesterday, I was cleaning up my desk when I ran into an old class newsletter. Normally I avoid these things – there is only so much of Jake’s nicknames, and finding out about marriages and kids that I generally want to know. In this one there was a page describing how there was a dinner honoring David. I was pretty excited and wanted to know what great thing he was up to. I found out that the award was being given posthumously.
It turns out that he did go on to do wonderful things. He was the Dartmouth volunteer coordinator and worked with CARE in South Sudan and Somalia. He went to India to study food distribution and caught a respiratory virus.
It hurts to lose one of the few people I know that would have spent time with the poet wearing Santa Clause hat. The guy with the streamers needs someone to believe in him. In my years since Dartmouth, I have spent far too much time drifting in the ebb and flow of start-ups. They have the duality of having everything being absolutely important right away, but no one remembering what went on three months ago.
The one major charitable thing that I do is Team in Training, an organization that uses marathons to fundraise for blood cancer research. It basically takes four months to prepare for a marathon. Tuesday mornings we have a buddy run that takes us from the marina to the golden gate bridge.
We are usually are at the middle of the bridge when the dawn breaks. This morning looking to the east, I could see the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street silhouetted by the rising sun. A new ball park is opening up around the corner, and the whole city seems to be coming alive to the possibilities of the up coming season.
Towards the west, the moon was starting to set. And for the first time in many years, I howled.
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
City of Babble
Most of San Francisco lies in a grid. It lacks the topologically wandering avenues of Pittsburgh or Boston. Sure there is Lombard, but at either end of the crooked tourist magnet is pure grid. No, the real exception is Market Street, the cross-town traversal nightmare. It is the off-kilter divider of downtown, and its pedestrians share the slightly skewed view of the world.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax, and better roads around Boston) as was for that matter the A-team. And while our group lacks the insanity of Murdoch and perhaps the wisdom of Jefferson, we do wondrous things.
The research does make a difference. We do get people into the best shape of their lives. And on those days when it doesn't rain we have a great timedoing it.
For all of his boxing prowess, I am not sure if Mr. T. ever ran a marathon. Some how I don't see him working the water stops, or going over a fundraising letter with his mentor group. However, in the mid '90's he was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. We run for him.
So when you cross market street on a buddy run or during the marathon, I hope you take a moment to appreciate the tilted nature of our city. I dovery much enjoy running with you folks.
But perhaps, I am just babbling.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax, and better roads around Boston) as was for that matter the A-team. And while our group lacks the insanity of Murdoch and perhaps the wisdom of Jefferson, we do wondrous things.
The research does make a difference. We do get people into the best shape of their lives. And on those days when it doesn't rain we have a great timedoing it.
For all of his boxing prowess, I am not sure if Mr. T. ever ran a marathon. Some how I don't see him working the water stops, or going over a fundraising letter with his mentor group. However, in the mid '90's he was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. We run for him.
So when you cross market street on a buddy run or during the marathon, I hope you take a moment to appreciate the tilted nature of our city. I dovery much enjoy running with you folks.
But perhaps, I am just babbling.
Friday, January 28, 2000
Here we go again
There is a joke that winds up a little too often in my in-box that goes as follows.
One day after completing a long project for yet another pre IPO dot com company, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer programmer are driving home when all of a sudden the cars starts to spin out of control down a steep hill. Just before it is about to hit a large tree the car manages to skid off into a bush. Because the car has air bags the group is ok after they dust the broken glass.
The mechanical engineer turns to his two co-workers and says “the breaks must not have had enough fluids which cause the car to crash.”
The electrical engineer responds “No, I think there was a short in the drive system.”
The computer programmer shrugs “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
* * *
I am a computer programmer and look forward to being the Web captain for the following season. To me the fact that I can combine my love of hacking with the same group of people I run with is an honor and a joy.
Towards that end I have converted the running calendar to a Microsoft .pst file. If you use Outlook, you can import the file. It is also great if you later synch with a palm pilot.
I am also thinking about putting some fundraising letters on-line. If you have a copy of a fundraising letter, a follow-up letter, or a thank-you note that you could send me for distribution it would be fantastic. The more letters that the group can see the easier it would be for a novice to write a good one. Or at least a piece that doesn’t start with cheap joke.
When I got the introduction letter from Kristi, I was thinking about the three engineers spinning in a car together while frantically trying to prepare for the bottom of the hill. It must have been an intense, nervous, almost exhilarating few moments before the final bit. They were lucky to have each other to comfort and advise each other after the ordeal and will probably remember that one incident long after they have vested their stock and moved to Oregon.
I am a computer programmer and I love to run. Any day on the open road is a good day. Last season I snuck into the level three group under the guise that I had done approximately a marathon thirteen years earlier. I was pretty well humbled in Honolulu and afterwards spent some time trying to figure what I had learned.
The main thing I took away (other than I really need to stretch far more than I do) is that marathons are more of a life style than an event. The buddy runs and the brunches are better than the shells at the finish line. On any given day it might rain. But if you work at something a few times a week you would be surprised how far you can go.
So if you ask why I am going back to this thing after spending a week walking down stairs backwards, I will tell you “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
One day after completing a long project for yet another pre IPO dot com company, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer programmer are driving home when all of a sudden the cars starts to spin out of control down a steep hill. Just before it is about to hit a large tree the car manages to skid off into a bush. Because the car has air bags the group is ok after they dust the broken glass.
The mechanical engineer turns to his two co-workers and says “the breaks must not have had enough fluids which cause the car to crash.”
The electrical engineer responds “No, I think there was a short in the drive system.”
The computer programmer shrugs “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
* * *
I am a computer programmer and look forward to being the Web captain for the following season. To me the fact that I can combine my love of hacking with the same group of people I run with is an honor and a joy.
Towards that end I have converted the running calendar to a Microsoft .pst file. If you use Outlook, you can import the file. It is also great if you later synch with a palm pilot.
I am also thinking about putting some fundraising letters on-line. If you have a copy of a fundraising letter, a follow-up letter, or a thank-you note that you could send me for distribution it would be fantastic. The more letters that the group can see the easier it would be for a novice to write a good one. Or at least a piece that doesn’t start with cheap joke.
When I got the introduction letter from Kristi, I was thinking about the three engineers spinning in a car together while frantically trying to prepare for the bottom of the hill. It must have been an intense, nervous, almost exhilarating few moments before the final bit. They were lucky to have each other to comfort and advise each other after the ordeal and will probably remember that one incident long after they have vested their stock and moved to Oregon.
I am a computer programmer and I love to run. Any day on the open road is a good day. Last season I snuck into the level three group under the guise that I had done approximately a marathon thirteen years earlier. I was pretty well humbled in Honolulu and afterwards spent some time trying to figure what I had learned.
The main thing I took away (other than I really need to stretch far more than I do) is that marathons are more of a life style than an event. The buddy runs and the brunches are better than the shells at the finish line. On any given day it might rain. But if you work at something a few times a week you would be surprised how far you can go.
So if you ask why I am going back to this thing after spending a week walking down stairs backwards, I will tell you “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
Monday, December 20, 1999
Do you remember when we used to sing?
What ever happened to Sundays so slow?
There are two sides to hubris. The first is the wax that binds Icarus' wings; the belief that there are no limits to the human spirit or the bounds of the human body. It is a fickle glue.
Somewhere along a long, straight road spelt with the usual Hawaiian ratio of consonants to vowels, it melted. After four months of training, a week of hydrating, and a careful pace at the beginning of the marathon, I found myself stumbling slower and slower past the endless water and first aids stations. 8 miles left.
I guess I have been abusive as any on using running as a metaphor for life. But not many things in life are this painful. Few are voluntary. A marathon is a brutal brown-eyed monster. Hats off to anyone who can run them quickly.
Sometime in the aftermath I tried to figure out where I made a mistake - eating gummy bears with a frizzy hair woman on the plane over, trying to sleep when somebody was defacing Van Morrison and Buffet with a ukulele in the hotel lobby the night before, or being woken up by the Japanese jumping jack squad. Probably should have drank two waters instead of one at each stop - used chocolate power goo instead of cinnamon apple power bars.
There was also the weather. Most people go to the islands to wade in sun tan lotion and gulp mai tai's. The place has more macadamia nuts than health nuts.
The rain had started the night before sometime after ukulele guy closed with "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" and kept going for the first portion of the race. To the extent that it kept things cool it was a blessing, but the humidity was cranked up to heavy sautŽ. Although my cotton socks absorbed a small lake and the mass of roughly 30,000 people had to squirm around puddles, the real difficulty with the rain was that it drove home the point that it was a far better day to stay inside, drink mochas, and read one of the last Sunday morning Peanuts strip than to test the resilience of my knees.
But to blame things on the weather is like Icarus blaming the crash on sun spots. The damage was done because of arrogance.
There is a flip side of pride. It is part that gets you out on the road in the first place; it is the belief that you can stretch your limits; and it is the hope that there is something beyond the road.
It was time to down shift. Too tired to moan, I lowered my gait to a condemned man's shuffle, picked points on the horizon and tried to run through them. 8 miles including Diamondback hill. Note of caution: be careful of things named after poisonous snakes.
I had not lost all of my senses though. I still could notice the cheers of the Team in Training folk and the bubbly assurance of my running mentor. There is no better sound track.
I would like to thank those who helped with the last desperate miles and those that gave me the faith to be out there in the first place. To my mentor Corrina, a huge gold star. To the fellow runners, a well earned purple heart. To Coach April, a thanks for not pulling me off of the road at mile 24 even though I was in a different time zone. To Kristin and the other organizers of so many of our activities a huge smile.
The time spend this fall training on buddy runs, waking up early on Saturday mornings for the Coaches workout, and eating brunches afterwards to offset the calorie burn was one of the best times of my life.
I did finish and was asked by five different people whether I needed medical attention. ( I gather now that is not the same thing as being asked whether I want a t-shirt. ) I slowly healed myself by drinking bottled water and clutching a TNT tent rope.
In the end I feel I neither conquered nor surrendered a marathon. But there is valor in survival. As much as I enjoy the puka shells and pin from finishing the race, the real trophy was spending time with good people for a great cause.
My muscles are almost healed now and the blisters and chaffing will soon fade from memory. In that quiet time, I will decide whether I want to try once again at that brutal brown eyed beast.
There are two sides to hubris. The first is the wax that binds Icarus' wings; the belief that there are no limits to the human spirit or the bounds of the human body. It is a fickle glue.
Somewhere along a long, straight road spelt with the usual Hawaiian ratio of consonants to vowels, it melted. After four months of training, a week of hydrating, and a careful pace at the beginning of the marathon, I found myself stumbling slower and slower past the endless water and first aids stations. 8 miles left.
I guess I have been abusive as any on using running as a metaphor for life. But not many things in life are this painful. Few are voluntary. A marathon is a brutal brown-eyed monster. Hats off to anyone who can run them quickly.
Sometime in the aftermath I tried to figure out where I made a mistake - eating gummy bears with a frizzy hair woman on the plane over, trying to sleep when somebody was defacing Van Morrison and Buffet with a ukulele in the hotel lobby the night before, or being woken up by the Japanese jumping jack squad. Probably should have drank two waters instead of one at each stop - used chocolate power goo instead of cinnamon apple power bars.
There was also the weather. Most people go to the islands to wade in sun tan lotion and gulp mai tai's. The place has more macadamia nuts than health nuts.
The rain had started the night before sometime after ukulele guy closed with "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" and kept going for the first portion of the race. To the extent that it kept things cool it was a blessing, but the humidity was cranked up to heavy sautŽ. Although my cotton socks absorbed a small lake and the mass of roughly 30,000 people had to squirm around puddles, the real difficulty with the rain was that it drove home the point that it was a far better day to stay inside, drink mochas, and read one of the last Sunday morning Peanuts strip than to test the resilience of my knees.
But to blame things on the weather is like Icarus blaming the crash on sun spots. The damage was done because of arrogance.
There is a flip side of pride. It is part that gets you out on the road in the first place; it is the belief that you can stretch your limits; and it is the hope that there is something beyond the road.
It was time to down shift. Too tired to moan, I lowered my gait to a condemned man's shuffle, picked points on the horizon and tried to run through them. 8 miles including Diamondback hill. Note of caution: be careful of things named after poisonous snakes.
I had not lost all of my senses though. I still could notice the cheers of the Team in Training folk and the bubbly assurance of my running mentor. There is no better sound track.
I would like to thank those who helped with the last desperate miles and those that gave me the faith to be out there in the first place. To my mentor Corrina, a huge gold star. To the fellow runners, a well earned purple heart. To Coach April, a thanks for not pulling me off of the road at mile 24 even though I was in a different time zone. To Kristin and the other organizers of so many of our activities a huge smile.
The time spend this fall training on buddy runs, waking up early on Saturday mornings for the Coaches workout, and eating brunches afterwards to offset the calorie burn was one of the best times of my life.
I did finish and was asked by five different people whether I needed medical attention. ( I gather now that is not the same thing as being asked whether I want a t-shirt. ) I slowly healed myself by drinking bottled water and clutching a TNT tent rope.
In the end I feel I neither conquered nor surrendered a marathon. But there is valor in survival. As much as I enjoy the puka shells and pin from finishing the race, the real trophy was spending time with good people for a great cause.
My muscles are almost healed now and the blisters and chaffing will soon fade from memory. In that quiet time, I will decide whether I want to try once again at that brutal brown eyed beast.
Wednesday, July 21, 1999
Start up 2.0
Summer is the smaller of San Francisco’s two seasons of winter, and for the umpteenth Sunday in a row I bought a mocha to battle the fog. There are caffeine ATM’s every few stores – starbuck interludes between overpriced furniture shops, double malt liquor stores, and remainder bookstores.
Usually the fog doesn’t make it down the peninsula to San Mateo where I work – in summers my father as a child used to travel there to escape the cold city. As a kid I would go to Cape Cod and visit my cousins on my mom’s side, but this summer with a new job in yet another start-up means no summer trip.
The job itself has a strange sense of stability. In my previous three jobs after four months my first boss would be on the verge of quitting as the company would be about to make (or was recovering from) a near fatal business mistake. In such places you only see the rocks in the road instead of routes around them.
I carry the employment at will caution with me. Thrice scorned, I don’t think that any job can be the one, but I don’t mind traveling with less angst. The side effects are that I don’t write as much but exercise more. I enjoy taking a class on Java, but don’t have anecdotes explaining messed up deals with the Peoples Liberation Army or missing time sheets from Brazil.
Now there are little nits of the place: “Build your own desk” day seemed neat in concept, until it was pointed out that the prisoners in Gulag Archipelago did the same thing. 24-hour service means that I carry a luggable cell phone on Sundays. Some weeks I must scrub through scarcely commented code in Access 2.0 to support some cranky legacy client and start to think that it is bad in the same way as running into an ex while slightly drunk is. But in comparison to worrying about career pivots and resume objective statements, these are small.
Small like the fact that the new air conditioning unit at work hasn’t been set up properly. There is a constant trade wind blowing down my cubicle that grows stronger as it gets hotter. I wind up wearing the same North Face wardrobe I use during the weekends and evenings in the city. At first my boss did not quite get my wander-from-the-north fashion, but after a few visits to check up on me and the code he realizes that “yes it is really cold here.” I smile and nod happily knowing that my current difficulty can be solved merely by a sweater and a touch of understanding.
Usually the fog doesn’t make it down the peninsula to San Mateo where I work – in summers my father as a child used to travel there to escape the cold city. As a kid I would go to Cape Cod and visit my cousins on my mom’s side, but this summer with a new job in yet another start-up means no summer trip.
The job itself has a strange sense of stability. In my previous three jobs after four months my first boss would be on the verge of quitting as the company would be about to make (or was recovering from) a near fatal business mistake. In such places you only see the rocks in the road instead of routes around them.
I carry the employment at will caution with me. Thrice scorned, I don’t think that any job can be the one, but I don’t mind traveling with less angst. The side effects are that I don’t write as much but exercise more. I enjoy taking a class on Java, but don’t have anecdotes explaining messed up deals with the Peoples Liberation Army or missing time sheets from Brazil.
Now there are little nits of the place: “Build your own desk” day seemed neat in concept, until it was pointed out that the prisoners in Gulag Archipelago did the same thing. 24-hour service means that I carry a luggable cell phone on Sundays. Some weeks I must scrub through scarcely commented code in Access 2.0 to support some cranky legacy client and start to think that it is bad in the same way as running into an ex while slightly drunk is. But in comparison to worrying about career pivots and resume objective statements, these are small.
Small like the fact that the new air conditioning unit at work hasn’t been set up properly. There is a constant trade wind blowing down my cubicle that grows stronger as it gets hotter. I wind up wearing the same North Face wardrobe I use during the weekends and evenings in the city. At first my boss did not quite get my wander-from-the-north fashion, but after a few visits to check up on me and the code he realizes that “yes it is really cold here.” I smile and nod happily knowing that my current difficulty can be solved merely by a sweater and a touch of understanding.
Saturday, November 21, 1998
Aussie Rules
The night before and for most of the morning it rained. I hadn’t set up my dome tent correctly, and I woke up to find most of clothes floating in a puddle. I was sleeping on top of an air mattress, and hadn’t noticed the rain seeping in. I soon went to huddle underneath the large tarp our guides had set up. The rest of our sea kayak campers joined us - a pair of bay area travel agents, a volleyball couple from Boston
We waited for the rain to stop. We had camped for two nights on an uninhabited island four miles off of theshore of Northern Australia
But soon our boat was last, a kilometer behind everyone else - the boat the guides moan about afterwards in the pub when they are sucking their XXXX beer and reminiscing aboutAustralia versus England
A month before I had a career hiccup and decided to go on a break after a good dinner and a Johnny Cash album failed to cheer me up. Normally I listen to alternative rock but I had had too much of thirty-one flavors and then some. I needed a change.
After using the Internet as a way of spinning the globe and sticking a pin in it (search = English speaking, warm, end of November)Australia
It is a fierce place - a home of sharks, 30 proof sun block, pythons, strangler fig, and drivers on the other side of the road. And then there were the stickers and blood suckers: the lawyer cane vine, the elephant ear plant, the stinging jelly fish, and, of course, the leeches. The trip was broken up into five parts - canoeing, biking, backpacking, scuba, and the sea kayak. When the pamphlet came for what to bring for the 8-mile backpack into the rainforest (the politically correct for jungle - no one is for jungle) it mentioned insect repellent somewhere between a water bottle, a good pair of socks, and a good hat. It didn’t say that the spray was for leeches.
These leeches are smaller than theHollywood variety - a half inch long and pencil lead thin, but quicker. They move like inchworms, head to toe, always creeping towards heat. They avoid the zones of toxic levels, and quickly find the barren sections of skin. We flicked them off (no salt, cigarette, or Humphrey Bogart needed) but we had to be careful not to bombard our fellow hikers. Two of them clung to my hands after a miss-flick and nibbled gently at my palms. By the end of the trip I had had about twenty of these on me with about a half a dozen successfully drip drying me of A positive blood. This year I not only tried to save the rainforest, I also fed it.
It did take a day to get over the leach search breaks - you get strange dreams at night after spending a day with these worms. Eventually I came to the conclusion that leeches are like mosquitoes that apologize with
anaesthetic before the bite. All things considered I would much rather have blood-letting leeches than skin crunching mosquitoes (but this is the type of decision I am not really looking for in my little career search).
Now there was also beauty on the trip: sleeping in a hammock next to a waterfall, watching the sun set over a coral beach, hovering above a sea turtle or a giant clam in the Great Barrier Reef, discovering what looked like a branch of a tree was really a bird, stopping at a strangler fig that floated down from the rainforest canopy like a curtain, and eating fresh pineapple that had been carved into a boat or the fresh fruits (tucker) that our guide picked for us in the rain forest.
There was the shame of the feral things that had been brought to the island - the gigantic raging cane toad, the root digging pigs, and the TV show,South Park America
There were the storms. On the second day of the trip (the first day of biking, the day after the canoe) after we biked around what felt like a mostly uphill Atherton tablelands, we stopped atLake Eachem
It was a machine gun downpour. The rain hit like an over caffeinated masseuse. InCalifornia this weather would cause land slides, national guard movement, and a long afternoon for a marketing department spin control ("I think we should call it something like el tiburon"); in Australia
We rode on. The rain slapped into the forest causing the leaves and dust to fall onto the road. Pretty soon there were small branches coming down and we were forced to zig zag around the mounting debris. The rain kept pounding. Up ahead the cars had stopped and were starting to back up the street. A tree had fallen across the road. We flung our bikes over the tree and continued into the storm.
More branches. Bigger branches. And then the realization that a tree is a fairly large object. This was not an automatedDisney Land
The third tree that fell was the smallest. Our guide motioned us out of the forest - he would take care of the last tree and we were close to the exit and the main road. Only a few minutes latter we were out of the forest. The rain still pounded the rest of the way home, and it was impossible to see much of the traffic on the road. But we knew that the
tough part was done and a pub was within reach.
Most of the time, we deal with small problems - the hobgoblins of daily commutes, status reports, and under-budgeted projects. I believe the great vacations are the ones that the at-home issues get flung away - that you really do only take the four tee shirts, water bottle, a good pair of socks, a wide brim hat and, of course, insect repellent; and leave the did-I-turn-that-report-in worries behind. If you have to clean out a backpack because you have spilt meat sauce all over it and are worried about the marsupial equivalent of big city rat will perforate most of your remaining underwear as a snack when it is dark out and the leeches are still moving, you will forget about how you babble too much at interviews and the general career angst that awaits you back home. Cherish these moments as you scrub. In the rain pedal forward squinting and listen for the crackling on the sides of the roads.
My partner in the sea kayak righted herself and cleaned her mouth out with the last of the water in her water bottle. My right shoulder started to feel better and I was able to do the deeper paddles and catch up to the group. Shortly we turned to our right so that the rest of the trip was with the surf and wind. We pulled the boats back up on shore,
and I smiled at the troubled sea.
We waited for the rain to stop. We had camped for two nights on an uninhabited island four miles off of the
But soon our boat was last, a kilometer behind everyone else - the boat the guides moan about afterwards in the pub when they are sucking their XXXX beer and reminiscing about
A month before I had a career hiccup and decided to go on a break after a good dinner and a Johnny Cash album failed to cheer me up. Normally I listen to alternative rock but I had had too much of thirty-one flavors and then some. I needed a change.
After using the Internet as a way of spinning the globe and sticking a pin in it (search = English speaking, warm, end of November)
It is a fierce place - a home of sharks, 30 proof sun block, pythons, strangler fig, and drivers on the other side of the road. And then there were the stickers and blood suckers: the lawyer cane vine, the elephant ear plant, the stinging jelly fish, and, of course, the leeches. The trip was broken up into five parts - canoeing, biking, backpacking, scuba, and the sea kayak. When the pamphlet came for what to bring for the 8-mile backpack into the rainforest (the politically correct for jungle - no one is for jungle) it mentioned insect repellent somewhere between a water bottle, a good pair of socks, and a good hat. It didn’t say that the spray was for leeches.
These leeches are smaller than the
It did take a day to get over the leach search breaks - you get strange dreams at night after spending a day with these worms. Eventually I came to the conclusion that leeches are like mosquitoes that apologize with
anaesthetic before the bite. All things considered I would much rather have blood-letting leeches than skin crunching mosquitoes (but this is the type of decision I am not really looking for in my little career search).
Now there was also beauty on the trip: sleeping in a hammock next to a waterfall, watching the sun set over a coral beach, hovering above a sea turtle or a giant clam in the Great Barrier Reef, discovering what looked like a branch of a tree was really a bird, stopping at a strangler fig that floated down from the rainforest canopy like a curtain, and eating fresh pineapple that had been carved into a boat or the fresh fruits (tucker) that our guide picked for us in the rain forest.
There was the shame of the feral things that had been brought to the island - the gigantic raging cane toad, the root digging pigs, and the TV show,
There were the storms. On the second day of the trip (the first day of biking, the day after the canoe) after we biked around what felt like a mostly uphill Atherton tablelands, we stopped at
It was a machine gun downpour. The rain hit like an over caffeinated masseuse. In
We rode on. The rain slapped into the forest causing the leaves and dust to fall onto the road. Pretty soon there were small branches coming down and we were forced to zig zag around the mounting debris. The rain kept pounding. Up ahead the cars had stopped and were starting to back up the street. A tree had fallen across the road. We flung our bikes over the tree and continued into the storm.
More branches. Bigger branches. And then the realization that a tree is a fairly large object. This was not an automated
The third tree that fell was the smallest. Our guide motioned us out of the forest - he would take care of the last tree and we were close to the exit and the main road. Only a few minutes latter we were out of the forest. The rain still pounded the rest of the way home, and it was impossible to see much of the traffic on the road. But we knew that the
tough part was done and a pub was within reach.
Most of the time, we deal with small problems - the hobgoblins of daily commutes, status reports, and under-budgeted projects. I believe the great vacations are the ones that the at-home issues get flung away - that you really do only take the four tee shirts, water bottle, a good pair of socks, a wide brim hat and, of course, insect repellent; and leave the did-I-turn-that-report-in worries behind. If you have to clean out a backpack because you have spilt meat sauce all over it and are worried about the marsupial equivalent of big city rat will perforate most of your remaining underwear as a snack when it is dark out and the leeches are still moving, you will forget about how you babble too much at interviews and the general career angst that awaits you back home. Cherish these moments as you scrub. In the rain pedal forward squinting and listen for the crackling on the sides of the roads.
My partner in the sea kayak righted herself and cleaned her mouth out with the last of the water in her water bottle. My right shoulder started to feel better and I was able to do the deeper paddles and catch up to the group. Shortly we turned to our right so that the rest of the trip was with the surf and wind. We pulled the boats back up on shore,
and I smiled at the troubled sea.
Tuesday, July 21, 1998
EdGinny
It was a little strange actually seeing the rock. Carefully chosen to be impressive but not too large and then shipped out of state to avoid sales tax, the diamond engagement ring clung to my youngest brother's fiancée finger and sparkled through out our family dinner like blissful punctuation marks in a cheery and slightly bewildered conversation. He was actually going to get married.
It wasn't really a surprise - they have been dating for four years and have just moved into together (probably to find out whether they were compatible in the deepest sense - hygiene). She is the metronome in my brother's crashing about world; a steady beat of reason and patience; the one who returns voicemail messages and sends thank you notes (I have long since eliminated the middle man and have phoned her directly when I want to schedule my brother's time).
And there we were the six of us in a French restaurant that was still recovering from the World Cup and Bastille Day complete with a waitress who muttered to herself about getting hazard pay for the last week "worse than New Year's. Much worse than New Year's." Six (mom, dad, George, me, and the couple) trying to get used to the concept of a family and going about it in our usual way - making fun of other family members and long monologues about one's own career.
George's video empire is doing well. I am breaking in a new boss - the getting up to speed is never easy since I think we have developed our own little language with words like GSM, ISD, ITD, Gary, and BVI which can be strung together in any arbitrary combination.
Outside of work for the most part, I keep rummaging through hobbies - piano, pottery, swing dancing, jogging, and tomato plant growing (well technically killing). I know that my random piano music (politely called experimental) and large banana slug model (complete with two smaller slugs) are not going to make it into a museum, but they bring me unconditional joy. It is the pride that I actually built something; it is the amazement that I can created something new; that I have created a new noun.
Perhaps that is what the rock is about. That Edward and Ginny will build something special together. That they have formed the new noun: EdGinny - two names never really to be separated. And as the six of us sat there eating the ahi with leeks or chicken in a mushroom sauce, and sipping Anchor Steam or Irish Whiskey, we knew that this new creation was good.
Saturday, March 21, 1998
Time Going Bye
There is a bar in Hangzhou where the ex patriots hang out called Casablanca. Most of the ex pats have left the scalding heat of an Asian summer and on Friday night the bar was filled with almost entirely of locals sipping pints of Guinness that were far too thin to have been brewed in England. A pretty good band was playing and it was quite a site watching this crowd sing "Country Road, West Virginia."
The next day after a morning meeting to discuss our company wide MRP system, I went to airport to catch a flight back to Hong Kong. This trip is moving into its third week, and though still fascinating it is a bit like watching some one do the same magic trick a second time.
No one was manning the quarantine at the airport and I slipped by and went into the customs waiting area. There was tall brunette woman reading a pink book which I would later found out was titled "The Psychology of Stress Management". She wore a pair of white slacks and a wrap-around blouse that left her belly button exposed as if to make an anti "I Dream of Jeanie" statement.
The military officers motioned us through the assorted luggage zappers into the main terminal. I went through first and took a seat in the large terminal. A few minutes later the brunette came in and took a seat directly across from me. After an awkward half an hour of eyeing one another we finally started to talk. She was British and was working with some of the silk factories as a fashion designer. After a while we discovered that we did have a few things in common such as a preference for using forks and agreement that the real growth industries in China were bicycle repair shops and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
They started the boarding process which broke up our conversation. We were headed up the mobile stairs to the plane, when a military man came rushing after us telling us to stop boarding. We asked why and he informed us that there was a typhoon coming and that we would have to spend a night in a hotel in Hangzhou.
I was convinced that this could have been the best natural disaster ever.
Now the rest of the story isn't about candle light evening with rain pounding at the windows. The only heat that night came from the long Asian summer; the only ones who knew magic were two road show engineers specializing in projecting lasers using a combination of smoke and mirrors and who joined us at the dinner table. Life unfortunately isn't fiction. Sometimes a conversation is just a conversation - a sigh is just a sigh.
The next day after a morning meeting to discuss our company wide MRP system, I went to airport to catch a flight back to Hong Kong. This trip is moving into its third week, and though still fascinating it is a bit like watching some one do the same magic trick a second time.
No one was manning the quarantine at the airport and I slipped by and went into the customs waiting area. There was tall brunette woman reading a pink book which I would later found out was titled "The Psychology of Stress Management". She wore a pair of white slacks and a wrap-around blouse that left her belly button exposed as if to make an anti "I Dream of Jeanie" statement.
The military officers motioned us through the assorted luggage zappers into the main terminal. I went through first and took a seat in the large terminal. A few minutes later the brunette came in and took a seat directly across from me. After an awkward half an hour of eyeing one another we finally started to talk. She was British and was working with some of the silk factories as a fashion designer. After a while we discovered that we did have a few things in common such as a preference for using forks and agreement that the real growth industries in China were bicycle repair shops and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
They started the boarding process which broke up our conversation. We were headed up the mobile stairs to the plane, when a military man came rushing after us telling us to stop boarding. We asked why and he informed us that there was a typhoon coming and that we would have to spend a night in a hotel in Hangzhou.
I was convinced that this could have been the best natural disaster ever.
Now the rest of the story isn't about candle light evening with rain pounding at the windows. The only heat that night came from the long Asian summer; the only ones who knew magic were two road show engineers specializing in projecting lasers using a combination of smoke and mirrors and who joined us at the dinner table. Life unfortunately isn't fiction. Sometimes a conversation is just a conversation - a sigh is just a sigh.
Thursday, November 20, 1997
Wish List
I have already made up my mind what I really want for Christmas. I know it’s a little early and I have not seen the claymation specials telling me the true meaning of the holiday with snappy tunes from the fifties. Cold Miser has hit the Bay Area; the rain finally scrubbed away the last warmth of El Nino. I leave work in darkness and meander my way home through streets still not reconstructed from the earthquake.
My work is also being cleansed. At the start of October I was working a multi -gazillion dollar deal in Hong Kong. I am now hibernating in a cubicle - my chances of future travel are dripping away and I am left with the paperwork of consequences. My company is going through seasonal changes, a reshuffling of the corporate deck. In the end I feel that I have the job security of Sherazade - along as I can keep spinning the tales of financial intrigue, the king will not kill me today. A couple of people so far have not been so lucky. I know that this down phase will pass in six months until the next king arrives and just maybe I get to repeat some of my greatest hits.
Still those deal making moments, chatting up with merger specialists - the corporate anesthesiologists, dim sum at two in the morning, the long looks and head shakes, the winks and hand shakes - all of them were brief highs of capitalism adrenaline. It is a little tough to go cold turkey.
So my Christmas wish is for smaller victories - for the patience to keep trying to use my norditrack, for the parking spot close to the door but not under the tree, for warm laughter at meetings, a smile from girl behind the counter when I order a mocha grande decaf, for a long kiss during a slow dance that says just once after the music stops there will still be remnants of possibilities. These brief flickers of hope, fleeting moments of triumph are ultimately what lets us survive storms.
Yesterday as I drove to work the rain behind me had stopped and I could see a rainbow in my rearview mirror right above "some objects larger than they appear." It was a splendid Kermit's monument for the faithful - the lovers, the dreamers and me. Later that day, I did not get the good parking spot nor even a small peck from a nice date who I think enjoyed her butter fish entree a little more than the conversation. But I still have few shopping days left.
My work is also being cleansed. At the start of October I was working a multi -gazillion dollar deal in Hong Kong. I am now hibernating in a cubicle - my chances of future travel are dripping away and I am left with the paperwork of consequences. My company is going through seasonal changes, a reshuffling of the corporate deck. In the end I feel that I have the job security of Sherazade - along as I can keep spinning the tales of financial intrigue, the king will not kill me today. A couple of people so far have not been so lucky. I know that this down phase will pass in six months until the next king arrives and just maybe I get to repeat some of my greatest hits.
Still those deal making moments, chatting up with merger specialists - the corporate anesthesiologists, dim sum at two in the morning, the long looks and head shakes, the winks and hand shakes - all of them were brief highs of capitalism adrenaline. It is a little tough to go cold turkey.
So my Christmas wish is for smaller victories - for the patience to keep trying to use my norditrack, for the parking spot close to the door but not under the tree, for warm laughter at meetings, a smile from girl behind the counter when I order a mocha grande decaf, for a long kiss during a slow dance that says just once after the music stops there will still be remnants of possibilities. These brief flickers of hope, fleeting moments of triumph are ultimately what lets us survive storms.
Yesterday as I drove to work the rain behind me had stopped and I could see a rainbow in my rearview mirror right above "some objects larger than they appear." It was a splendid Kermit's monument for the faithful - the lovers, the dreamers and me. Later that day, I did not get the good parking spot nor even a small peck from a nice date who I think enjoyed her butter fish entree a little more than the conversation. But I still have few shopping days left.
Sunday, September 21, 1997
Themes and Variations
My improv class ended a few weeks ago, and I am now attending a Saturday afternoon workshop perhaps mostly because that there is a very cute blond women that I have a inkling for (I am not the world's most passionate guy - I think I am too old for crushes, but too young for total apathy). Forty or so people show up for these things, and there is a break in the middle in which we mingle and chat about pennant races and quality burritos.
Unfortunately on this Saturday Tara, the funny blond Cornell graduate in the aforementioned inkling, was already surrounded by a pack of testosterone vultures. I always feel stupid in these situations - it is as if I am playing bachelor number three and the other two guys have picked the cool ice creams answers to the question and all I am left with is "vanilla."
With shoelaces in the usual somewhat untied fashion I stumbled towards Tara but as I get closer I overheard her mention something about her boyfriend. I figured that this was a good time to come up with another strategy. I have 11 months until I smack into that 30's barrier and I think it is time to lower my standards.
I noticed that there was a guy talking to this somewhat-but-not-really-very attractive women. I decide to sneak into this conversation. The three of us get to talking. Her name was Berta not Roberta and she had only tried doing improv for a few months. The guy, a future Hollywood star but now a waiter at Chevy's, was rapping quite well with her about coffee shops in San Francisco and the importance of the San Francisco Chronicle's little man theater reviews. About three minutes into the discussion she turns to him and says "Of course you realize that I am a transvestite."
This is what I call a conversation stopper.
I really don't know if my life has some weird built up karma - that it is supposed to have a soundtrack by the Kinks (the flip side is that he might not have told and I would have wound up in the Crying Game). For the second time in four months I have run across a trans something or other. The first being my sophomore neighbor from boarding school at our reunion. I think twice in a summer time is a fairly bizarre theme.
I mean what ever happened to the WYSIWYG interface? Shouldn't Microsoft release a product like Dating 97? Aren't there protocols out there? Is it really supposed to be this tough? (There is also a strange disappointment about the transvestite liking the other guy more.)
Anyway next week I am going back being one of the many vultures around Tara, the blond with the main feature of not being a trans-something. And when that ice cream question of love gets to my turn I am saying "Rocky Road."
Unfortunately on this Saturday Tara, the funny blond Cornell graduate in the aforementioned inkling, was already surrounded by a pack of testosterone vultures. I always feel stupid in these situations - it is as if I am playing bachelor number three and the other two guys have picked the cool ice creams answers to the question and all I am left with is "vanilla."
With shoelaces in the usual somewhat untied fashion I stumbled towards Tara but as I get closer I overheard her mention something about her boyfriend. I figured that this was a good time to come up with another strategy. I have 11 months until I smack into that 30's barrier and I think it is time to lower my standards.
I noticed that there was a guy talking to this somewhat-but-not-really-very attractive women. I decide to sneak into this conversation. The three of us get to talking. Her name was Berta not Roberta and she had only tried doing improv for a few months. The guy, a future Hollywood star but now a waiter at Chevy's, was rapping quite well with her about coffee shops in San Francisco and the importance of the San Francisco Chronicle's little man theater reviews. About three minutes into the discussion she turns to him and says "Of course you realize that I am a transvestite."
This is what I call a conversation stopper.
I really don't know if my life has some weird built up karma - that it is supposed to have a soundtrack by the Kinks (the flip side is that he might not have told and I would have wound up in the Crying Game). For the second time in four months I have run across a trans something or other. The first being my sophomore neighbor from boarding school at our reunion. I think twice in a summer time is a fairly bizarre theme.
I mean what ever happened to the WYSIWYG interface? Shouldn't Microsoft release a product like Dating 97? Aren't there protocols out there? Is it really supposed to be this tough? (There is also a strange disappointment about the transvestite liking the other guy more.)
Anyway next week I am going back being one of the many vultures around Tara, the blond with the main feature of not being a trans-something. And when that ice cream question of love gets to my turn I am saying "Rocky Road."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
