sports

Camptathalon 2024

· May 17, 2025 · Musings · , , , , , , , , · No Comments

Holy crap. Camptathalon 2025 is less than a month away and I haven’t even posted 2024 yet? What the hell? I wrote the damn thing in July. It then took me ten months to upload a few pictures from my phone.

Anyway…

Father’s Day weekend, 2024, six total campers, only five competitors, descended upon Wolf Creek Campground on Union Valley Reservoir for the thirteenth annual Camptathalon. John was a second-time attendee, making his first appearance since 2017, although he couldn’t stay for the  competition on Saturday. Meanwhile, Thomas was a noob who somehow survived the experience.

The first campsite we reserved was on the other side of the lake, but the Forest Service canceled those reservations on account of some eagle babies hatching in the campsite. It’s not Camptathalon unless we’re scrambling to find an ancillary site at the last minute. Usually it’s a fire or snow or a Coronavirus, but I guess the propagation of our national mascot is worth camping a mile the other direction. Unless they were regular, full-haired eagles. Fuck those guys. Us balding types need to stick together.

When we first got the notification that we might have to move spots because of some Eagles, our text thread erupted with phrases like if Camptahtalon was canceled, it would be a “Heartache Tonight” when the Forest Service told us “You Belong to the City.” Fortunately, we made back-up reservations so we could “Take It Easy” with the “New Kid in Town.”

But since those texts occurred before Camptathalon, they didn’t make it in the official Camptathalon journal. So you don’t get to read them. What you get is:

Thursday
4:41 Chris arrives, making three. Camptathalon begins.
4:57 Next year, pina coladas
4:58 Tony already beat Sparky in Backgammon and chess. Too late to add them as Camptathalon events?
4:59 Dammit, forgot my sleeping bag
5:05 I’m gonna go get wood before I get drunk
5:47 Chores are done. Time to drink.
5:59 I don’t have any flour. It’s stickier than I thought it would be.
6:19 How’d you get a coal hole under your ass?

6:36 Dutch oven pizzas, cause nobody said we were roughing it.
7:42 No fish
8:07 First broken chair of the weekend
8:45 Switched off of baseball game, found angry preacher radio.
9:24 Bear lockers are complicated. There’s not much difference between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.
11:13 Same damn problem as last year. It wouldn’t stay up.

Friday
5:05 Some asshole’s car alarm goes off
6:15 Some other asshole starts chainsawing
7:00 Still motherfucking chainsawing
7:18 Frank Sinatra Friday
7:42 Sorry, when they typed in dirty bomb, I just assumed they were looking up porn.
7:48 Text to Rick: “Bring Syrup. Don’t ask why.”
9:48 “Going to rain this morning.”
    “You’re about four hours too late.”
9:58 Camphost: “Hey, I’ve got to ask you to leave. I won’t, but you can’t use your chainsaw in camp.”
9:59 Someone should tell him PG&E’s been chainsawing all goddamn morning.
11:06 Sparky pegs to 120 in cribbage, but loses to Chris
11:32 Yeah, the Beaver usually comes out fast
11:47 Can’t tell if the neighbors are Russian or Mormon
1:24 Second car in last half-hour driving the wrong goddamn way. It’s one thing to miss the fine print about chainsawing, but the One Way is pretty well marked.
1:57 Two injuries while constructing the child-safe axe throwing stand. Haven’t even got to the axes yet.
2:21 Who the hell ordered the wind?
2:39 Rick arrives. And then there were four.
3:02 Thank God you’re here. This dude just showed up with a chainsaw.
3:05 “I got a growler at Cool Beerwerks.”
     “I got a growler at Moonraker.”
     “I’m gonna drop a growler pretty soon here.”

3:12 I think that’s a cult moving in next door. All tents in a row, put up in less than ten minutes.
3:21 It’s not too big. It’s a little big
3:25 He’s backing that big ass up
3:26 Is it going to fit?
3:36 In fact, it does fit.
3:45 I am an equal opportunity sausage man
4:35 That reminded me of a terrible joke
4:36 Where’s my whiskey?
4:57 Everything at camping is community property. That part of the Red Menace we’re fine with.
5:22 John arrives. Five down, one to go.
5:31 I just stuck my last one in, and I think I will retire there.
6:21 Thomas arrives. Camptathalon can start with a record six people.
6:54 Chili is served
6:55 How do I turn this thing off?
7:23 “Correct me if I’m wrong.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    “Fuck you.”
7:35 Opening Toast of Old Fashioned
7:36 Oh, I lost my cherry long ago.
7:41 But then it’s just going to hang there.
7:44 Flag is up.

8:24 Trophy out, Rimmer reading
8:29 Blender isn’t working
8:35 While attempting to fix a full blender, don’t unscrew the bottom
8:36 I need to clean up like a fucking bitch.
8:39 Hey, the blender’s working!
9:03 “Here, let me clean up your fucking chips for you.”
    “Lick my ass.”
9:08 The poker game is like a peep show. It keeps showing me something cute and makes me pay to see more.
9:09 Hey, that reminds me of this one time in Tijuana
9:10 I kinda wish I was the rooster
9:14 Nobody calls you the Gangster of Love
9:17 John goes all in. Loser Libation reveal: Wisconsin Lunchbox (but no peanut butter sandwich)
9:25 Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. How familiar are you with Urban Dictionary?
9:28 Taking a Smoke Break (pausing poker to avoid the fire smoke)
9:53 “Just shut up and smoke your cigar!”
     “Okay, Dad.”
9:54 REDACTED
10:05 We talk Chaucer and Moby Dick
10:07 Thomas “wins” Loser Libation
10:10 Isn’t there supposed to be a woman with a vagina?
10:11 REDACTED
10:14 There would only be two people in that circle jerk. Not much of a circle.
10:20 Who here is a Chuck Mangione fan?
10:35 Chris Out
10:39 John Out
10:47 After coloring up chips, they all tip over in the dirt
11:11 Sparky Out
11:15 Camptathalon Standings after One Event: Rick: 5, Tony: 4, Sparky: 3, Chris: 2, Thomas: 0 (John withdraws)

SATURDAY
12:01 The cult next door starts singing Happy Birthday
12:44 John gives Thomas pointers on proper Butter Toss technique
2:01 First vomit of the weekend
3:40 Oh, good. Another car alarm
4:25 Visited by a bear because Rick left his nuts out

6:00 The chainsawers showed up late today
6:52 “Did the bear eat my nuts?”
7:11 He left me half a cashew
7:13 “Did we split the pot?”
     “Yeah, cause I was beating your ass.”
     “You were also winning at poker.”
7:25 I wasn’t wearing my glasses. It might not have been a bear at all. It might’ve just been a cult member
7:50 Where’s Thomas? If he dies, I will stop inviting new people.
8:03 Signs/sounds of life from Thomas’s tent 
8:58 First Saturday beer opened
9:46 The butter has been removed from the cooler
10:03 Sparky’s attempt at alphabetization: Chris, Tony, Thomas, Rick
10:06 I have hydration tablets if you want to put them in your water or beer.
10:22 Prep for HR Derby with lake as backstop

10:28 Robbed by the Tiny Green Monster
10:45 First Round: Rick 4, Thomas 9, Chris 3, Sparky 5, Tony 2
10:58 Round Two: Rick 0, Chris 1, Sparky 3, Thomas 4
11:05 I need more balls
11:10 Round Three: Chris 7, Thomas 4, Sparky 4 – First Jack-Off of 2024
11:14 Worst. Jack-Off. Ever. (Thomas 2, Sparky 1)
11:23 Final Round: Chris 7, Thomas 3
11:24 Standings after Two Events: Chris 7, Rick 7, Sparky 6, Thomas 4, Tony 4
11:55 The Godfather of the Wisconsin Lunchbox
12:08 First Round of Cornhole
12:28 You paid good money to watch two cats fucking
1:19 Final Cornhole Standings: Chris, Sparky, Rick, Thomas, Tony
1:20 Standings after Three Events: Chris 12, Sparky 10, Rick 10, Thomas 6, Tony 4
1:45 Sausages and burgers for lunch
2:05 Will this fit in there?
2:44 I’ll break off in a moment and tell you about the grandma flashing us from the 7th floor
3:01 Inaugural Camptathalon Axe-Throwing Event. Objective: Get to 21 Points.

3:10 Do you get bonus points for lodging it in somebody else’s ass?
3:20 Sparky & Tony both finish in second round. Sparky wins the Toss-Off
3:23 Chris takes third place in Round 3
3:26 Thomas 4th, Rick 5th
3:27 Standings after Four Events: Sparky 15, Chris 15, Rick 10, Thomas 8, Tony 8
3:46 Adventure Bocce. But first, cookies.
4:40 Adventure Bocce results: Chris, Rick, Sparky, Tony, Thomas
4:41 Standings going in to final event: Chris 20, Sparky 18, Rick 14, Tony 10, Thomas 8
4:45 Butter Toss target: Boston Celtics logo

Before
After


4:52 Rick wins Jon Goudreau Memorial Butter Toss, followed by Chris, Sparky, Tony, Thomas
4:53 Chris wins his first Camptathalon with 24 points.
4:54 Chris jumps in the lake in celebration

5:21 Draft: Teams we hate. (Snake draft: Pick order goes down in round one, up in round two, etc.)
Thomas: Patriots, Cowboys, 49ers, Phillies, 76ers
Sparky: Red Sox, Alabama, Miami Hurricanes, Seahawks, White Sox
Chris: Chiefs, Broncos, Florida State, Blackhawks, Dolphins
Rick: Celtics, BYU, Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Cardinals, New Mexico State
Tony: Yankees, Nebraska, Astros, S.F. Giants, Chelsea

5:33 Draft: Favorite Sports Moments
Sparky: Kordell Stewart Hail Mary, Montana to Taylor in Super Bowl, Nolan Ryan 6th no-hitter, Game 7 of ’02 World Series, Montana returns after injury in ’92
Chris: Marcus Allen Super Bowl revers, Bo Jackson into tunnel, Bo Jackson TD through Bosworth, ’89 Earthquake Series, 1980 Lakers final (Magic’s first year)
Rick: Robert Horry game 4 shot vs Kings, Stefon Diggs winning catch vs Saints, Rockies winning NLCS, ’97 UTEP upsets BYU (take down goalposts), ’92 UTEP beats #1 Kansas
Tony: Spiezio Game 6 HR, Music City Miracle, Boise State Statue of Liberty, Kerry Wood 18 strikeouts 1 hit, Ipswich promotion goal
Thomas: David Tyree Helmet Catch, Cavaliers beating Warriors, Johann Santana no-hitter, Giants over Patriots in ’08, Knicks over Pacers in ’01
Honorable Mentions: Chris coaching high school soccer, Robin Ventura fucking around and finding out, Miracle on Ice, Jadaveon Clowney hit, Angels combo no-hitter after Tyler Skaggs died, Garrison Hearst overtime run vs Jets

6:50 The cult next door breaks out a pinata. It is a Pokemon.
7:30 Meatball subs for dinner

Sunday
6:35 Flag comes down.
7:07 Wheels up

A Hall of Famer and a Degenerate Walk into the Afterlife

· December 28, 2024 · Musings · , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

I wasn’t planning on writing about baseball in the middle of December. Nor finishing the year with a downer about somebody who I never met dying.

But Rickey Henderson has always been about disrupting gameplans.

I was saddened last weekend when news started trickling out that the all-time stolen-base leader was had gone off to play in the Field of Dreams. It took a while for it to hit official sources. Somebody sent me something from TMZ, but nothing was on CNN or ABC News. And MLB.com was awash in the Yankees signing Paul Goldschmidt. An important move, I’m sure, but I didn’t think it would trump a Hall of Famer dying. 

Unfortunately, before long, everybody was confirming it.

Old baseball players die. Heck, there was another baseball icon that died a few months ago that had everyone gushing over “playing the game the right way.” 

The only difference is Rickey never disgraced himself by belittling the sanctity of the game.

Truthfully, I wasn’t much of a Rickey fan for most of his career. Part of that might be because I grew up an Angels fan and he was indicative of everything that was frustrating about those dominant, arrogant A’s teams of the late 1980s. 

I mocked him often, as a guy who didn’t realize how dumb he was. He had one talent, being fast, without an ounce of reflection on any shortcomings or the basics of the game that made him a millionaire. He was a Jose Canseco without pop.

Although not even Canseco had the audacity to scream out “Today, I am the greatest of all time.” Except maybe when he was banging Madonna.

I remember one particular play that, to me, defined Rickey. Tie game, runner on third, less than two outs. The batter hit a towering foul ball. Rickey camped out under it. The runner on third tagged up, ready to dart home on a sacrifice fly. Tony La Russa was shouting from the dugout for Rickey to let the ball drop. Guessing the third baseman and centerfielder, and maybe half the stadium (this was back when fans attended A’s games), were yelling for him to let the ball drop foul, because if he caught it, the go-ahead run would score.

He caught it. The team lost. In the press conference after the game, Rickey said his job is to catch the ball, so he caught the ball.

As time went on, as Rickey got older and became an elder statesman, and maybe partly because I moved to Northern California and started watching more A’s games, my opinions of him shifted. I still think he might’ve been dumber than dirt. But I also think he was in on the joke.

Some of the things I thought he was lucky for, or maybe just an idiot savant, actually turned out to be talent. I wasm’t the only person at the time who thought getting walks was more a matter of luck than skill. If it was common knowledge, they wouldn’t have had to write a book about it.  

And Rickey’s stolen bases, especially as he got older, had less to do with speed, but n knowing when to run. In an interview, he claimed the elbow on the pitcher’s throwing arm was the tell he looked for. That’s some pretty deep knowledge for a pretty dumb guy. 

Then, of course, there’s the “Rickey being Rickey” stories, many of which have been confirmed by multiple players. The fact that when he got his first million dollar bonus, he hung the check on his wall instead of cashing it, which led the A’s to have accounting issues all year. Something they still seem to be suffering from today. 

When he played with John Olerud, who wore a helmet while playing first base, in San Diego, Rickey told him about some other guy he used to play with in Toronto who also wore a helmet. “Yeah, Rickey,” Olerud said. “That was me.”

And of course, his propensity to refer to himself in the third person. “Man, Rickey can’t do nothing without breaking a damn cleat.” That gem comes by way of Tony Gwynn, another baseball hero gone too soon.  Sometimes i forget he’s dead, and I turn on a Padres game and hear his son, who sounds just like him, doing color commentary and i think “Oh cool, Tony Gwynn” before remembering, once again, that he died.  

You know which recently-deceased baseball player I don’t give a shit about? Pete Rose.

Ironically, if I were to assess them during their actual careers, I would have had a much higher opinion of the all-time hit king than the all-time steal king.

I’ve already gone through my opinions of Rickey, and in many ways, Pete was the anti-Rickey. All grit, no flash. A workman instead of a showboat. And even better for kids my age, he was the host of “The Baseball Bunch,” a Saturday morning show that alternated between explaining the game, showing some highlights, and letting the famous San Diego Chicken run roughshod over a bunch of little leaeguers. 

Rickey never could’ve done The Baseball Bunch, because I’m not sure he could’ve read and memorized a script. Not even sure he could’ve explained all those nuances of the game he’d picked up through experience, like the pitcher’s elbow and when not to catch a foul ball. There are players who are great at explaining their process, like Greg Maddux, and there are guys who thrive through instinct. It’s why Bill Parcells, not Johnny Unitas, goes on to become a coach.

Plus, if Rickey had hosted a kid’s show, the entire thirty minutes would’ve been bleeped out.

But “The Baseball Bunch” was scripted. And Pete Rose wasn’t actually that calm and collected. He played every single game like he needed to prove the world wrong. 

Rhe defining moment of Pete Rose’s career was when he rounded third in the All-Star Game and, instead of sliding, barreled into the catcher, Ray Fosse, to dislodge the ball. Rose scored the run, his team… well, I don’t know if his team won or lost because it was a meaningless exhibition game. But I do know that Ray Fosse dislocated his shoulder and suffered fromongoing back pain that probably shortened his career as a result of the collision. 

Who the hell ends another man’s career to win a meaningless game? Maybe he had money on it.  

I can’t tell you how many obituaries I read saying Pete Rose played the game the right way. Like a hard-ass. As if the Yogi Berras of the world don’t want to win?

Interesting side note: Yogi Berra won a whole hell of a lot more than Pete Rose did. Pete did win one more than Rickey, but there’s a Kirk Gibson sized asterisk attached to that. And I don’t know how much Pete Rose did for that Phillies team. Three of his for seasons there, he was statistically worse than a replacement player. 

That’s what people loved about him. Even though he didn’t have a ton of talent, he still stuck around. Who cares if he fored his teammates to work around his terrible baserunning because he always hit singles!

His fans call that grit. He was just hyper- competitive, you see. He had nothing else in his life except hitting singles! 

Oh, and maybe the gambling. 

And again, i also loved that about him when he was playing. But I was also under the age of ten. You know what I realize is manly now? Realizing when you’ve lost a step. Not making those around you take a back seat to your ego. 

I’m in the wind-down of my career. i sure as hell don’t make others teach the way I used to. Scantrons all around! 

Sometimes it’s good to let those with a little less experience take the lead for a bit. You might learn some new skills like interactive timelines or media analysis. Or scoring from second on a single.

In his later years, Rickey took diminished roles on teams. Hell, he played for unaffiliated minor league teams in his late 40s because he loved the game so much. Or, more likely, because he didn’t know what else to do with his life. Maybe he should’ve taken up gambling. 

He then became a “roving minor league instructor” for the A’s, which basically meant he going to their minor league teams as a  motivator or a fun ambassador. We used to love him coming to Sacramento when they were an A’s affiliate. Here was a fifty-something Hall of Famer playing first base coach for some twenty year-olds. 

I know, I know. Pete Rose also stuck around the game. He managed. Until he got banned for betting on the games he managed.

Pete’s defenders say he never bet against his team. And that’s true. He only bet them to win. 

But!

He didn’t bet on his team to win every game. 

The most damning thing is that he managed the game differently in games where he did or did not bet on his team. So if he had a one-run lead late in a game he hadn’t bet on, he might leave his best pitchers in the bullpen, saving their arms for tomorrow, when he might make a bet. And I’m sure his bookies never took advantage of knowing which games the manager wanted to win and which games the manager was fine losing.

A lot of people who agree that the gambling was bad say it shouldn’t keep him out of the Hall of Fame. The Hall is based on what you do as a player, not a manager. And while there’s no official investigation into whether he gambled while a player, some basic understanding of addiction and human nature says he didn’t wake up one day in 1985 and think, “Hey, you know what I just realized? I have a lot of inside knowledge of baseball!”

The other argument to put him in the Hall is that it’s not the Hall of Nice People. It’s got racists and wife beaters. Even Ray Schalk! What you do on the field is the only thing that matters.

Why does what happens on the field matter? Because fans watch the game. Why to fans watch? Because we believe it’s not fixed. Shitty people make it in the Hall of Fame because they don’t turn the game into a mockery. If we start to think the game isn’t real, we’ll stop paying for twenty-dollar beers. The one thing you can never do in any of the legitimate sports is bet on that sport. 

Otherwise it becomes wrestling. Wrestling is fun. Wrestling has its own Hall of Fame. Guess who’s in it? Not Rickey. 

I’m sure Pete Rose loved baseball. I’m sure being kicked out of baseball ruined him. I’m also sure that he thought he was bigger than the game and could do whatever the hell he wants.

Pete Rose also came to Sacramento. Before we got an official minor league team, we had an unaffiliated team. To give you an idea of how competitive they were, they played their games at a junior college that didn’t serve beer. Pete Rose was there only as a publicity stunt. For him and the team. He used most of the attention not to talk about the kids he was managing, but to complain about the fate of poor wittle Petey Wose.  

Now that Sacramento has grown from unaffiliated to triple-A to, allegedly temporarily, the majors with the A’s coming to town, I was looking forward to Rickey being a staple at the stadium. Some of the others known for showing up at A’s games from time to time, like Eric Byrnes and Dennis Eckersley, aren’t as likely to show up at a minor league park seventy miles away from their former fan base. But Rickey would’ve loved it. If he was happy to be here with minor leaguers, the A’s being here would’ve sweetened the deal even more. 

Unfortunately, that ain’t happening now. 

What I hope is happening is Tony Gwynn and Rickey Henderson reuniting to corner the outfield of the Field of Dreams. Along with other players like Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson, both taken too young. 

As an Angel fan, I imagine Nick Adenhart as a pitching equivalent of Moonlight Graham. He pitched a gem to start out what was supposed to be his rookie year, but was killed by a drunken driver before the sun rose the following morning. 

Willie Mays probably anchors centerfield. Not saying he died young, but he loved baseball till the day he died, which is the only requirement to get in.

I just hope when Pete Rose asks to be let him, they give him the old Ty Cobb treatment.  

“None of us could stand the son-of-a-bitch when we were alive, so we told him to stick it.”

Who Shall Lead the Cheers?

· October 3, 2024 · Musings · , , , , · No Comments

Let’s have a nice post today. Try to avoid anything controversial or political. 

Hey, how about women’s sports?

Don’t worry, not going to delve too deeply. 

But I recently noticed something odd at a recent college volleyball game I took my daughter to. I had to text my friends to ask,  “Is this sexist?”

As a general rule, anytime you have to ask a question like that, the answer is yes. 

As an example, the Oklahoma City minor league baseball team changed their name this year from the Dodgers (and before that, the RedHawks) to the Oklahoma City Baseball Club.

At first I assumed this was a permanent change, reflecting a new trends in team names. Soccer teams in Europe regularly go by “Football Club.” When the Washington Redskins decided to drop their controversial name, they went with that moniker. Now they’re the Commanders, but I kinda feel like Washington Football Club was cooler, more distinctive. Commanders is so forgettable. 

The new hockey team in Utah is going through a similar transition. The were the Phoenix Coyotes last year and the NHL said Utah couldn’t keep the team name. Utah, of all places, should not be allowed to keep team names from old locations after creating the worst juxtaposition in professional sports: “Utah Jazz.” Since they only had one offseason to pick a new name, they’re going with Utah Hockey Club for their first season.

But it turns out that the Oklahoma City Baseball Club already had a new team name ready to go. Then they wondered if the name might be offensive. 

Spoiler Alert: it’s offensive. I don’t even know what the possible name was. In this decade, if you have to ask if something is offensive, the answer is always yes. Hell, you could call them the Oklahoma City People and someone, somewhere would be offended. 

What annoys me about this story is that they didn’t reveal WHAT the potentially offensive name was. It’s not like they want to have the discussion of whether or not the name is actually offensive. Instead, they want to pay themselves on the back for being sensitive. Call them the Oklahoma City No Offense Buts.

Competitive Offendedness seems to be the real sport everybody’s playing.

My guess is they were looking at returning to the 89ers, which was the team’s name up until the late 1990s. But 89ers refers to the settlers who came to Oklahoma in the Homestead Act land grab of 1889. Of course, that land was grabbed from someone. If you look at a pre-1889 map, it probably shows Oklahoma as “Indian Territory.” Not that the Indians wanted to be there, but there was a whole Trail of Tears thing where the government promised them that, if they moved this one last time, to land that no white person wanted, they’d be fine. If not, they’d be genocided.

Then the white guys decided they wanted that new land, after all. 

So yeah, if the Oklahoma City Baseball Club was thinking of returning to the 89ers, maybe taking a year to brainstorm ain’t a bad idea. Come to think of it, if they wanted to return to RedHawks, that might be problematic, too. I think that was on the Washington Redskins’ shortlist, but was determined to be too wrapped up in Native American culture.

Good luck, Oklahoma City Baseball Club. 

But to return to my initial quandary, I’m still not entirely sure I was being sexist. 

Here’s what I found odd: There were cheerleaders at the women’s volleyball game.

Not many, to be sure. Only nine of them, eight of which were female. So this clearly wasn’t all the cheerleaders on campus. Considering it was a Saturday, I assume most of the cheerleaders were at the football game, which was on the road that day.

I don’t know what sort of calculus goes into which cheerleaders go to the football game and which ones go to the lesser events. In high school, there’s really only one sport per season they cheer at. Football in the fall, basketball in the winter. And half the cheerleaders quit after football because that’s the one they want to cheerlead for. 

Plus, a number of high school cheerleaders play other sports. Soccer, softball, tennis, badminton. Most of those sports are in the winter and spring. 

So in high school, there are fewer cheerleaders at a basketball game than a football game, but it doesn’t mean they’re the B squad. This usually works out better, because there’s less room in a gymnasium than a football field with a track around it. 

The only women’s sport that interferes weigh cheerleaders in fall is volleyball. So I guess they COULD cheer at a volleyball game. But they don’t.

I realize that, in theory, cheerleaders are there to,  you know,  lead the cheers. Hence the name. Their job is to get the crowd going, to rile up those rubes. They’re there for the fans, not the athletes.

And yet… and yet… The star quarterback ain’t takin’ the drama club president to prom.

Even if we grant that cheerleaders are there for the crowd, volleyball is still a weird sport for them to attend.  Football is a game with five seconds of action followed by a minute of inaction. Perfect time to lead some cheers. Game specific cheers, even, like “Sack that quarterback, yeah, sack that quarter back!” or “First and ten, yeah, do it again.”

Volleyball is the opposite, where a rally might take thirty seconds and then another one starts ten seconds later. What are they going to cheer? “That was a block! Hickory Dickory Dock!”

As a result, the volleyball cheerleaders sat in the corner for most of the game. The only times they cheered was during a handful of timeouts. In each set, there’s one media timeout and two team-specific timeouts, although in the game we watched, each team only used one. These timeouts are one minute long, so the cheerleaders don’t even come out to the middle of the court. They stand up, sway a little, shake some pom poms, make one of those human payramidy things, then sit back down. 

I did not feel led to cheer.

You know who did some good cheering? The volleyball players! 

It’s a great sport where they congratulate each other after each point scored and give each other a “we’ll get ’em next time” after each lost rally. The girls not currently on the court have cheers and dances catered to what’s going on in the game. At this particular game, whenever there was a video review (something that seemed odd considering there was only one camera), the bench players got down on their stomachs and wrapped their hands in front of their eyes as if they were spying on a lion in a safari. Great and timely. And when the review came back in Sacramento’s favor, you know what we did? We cheered.

Plus, the volleyball players were cuter than the cheerleader. 

Not that that matters. 

Except it kinda does.

No, I’m not going to question or hint at the sexual orientation of the players. But if I were to… Aren’t volleyball players, of all the major women’s sports, the most likely to be heterosexual?

Except for cheerleaders, maybe.

But now, after commenting on the relative attractiveness and sexual orientation of various female athletes, let me state why my initial observation wasn’t sexist. 

I wonder what those volleyball players think about the cheerleaders. 

This wasn’t intramurals. While Sacramento State ain’t exactly a volleyball powerhouse, it’s still Division I. Considering there’s no professional volleyball (side note, why is there no professional volleyball?), Division I college is pretty much the pinnacle of that sport. I imagine those players worked their asses off to get there. They were probably not only the best volleyball player in their high school, but maybe their entire district. They’ve probably been going to practices for ten to fifteen years.

The cheerleaders, meanwhile, had to… be willing to wear short skirts and wave some pom poms.

Yes, I know cheerleaders have to be fit. They practice and prepare. Most are excellent dancers that memorize complicated routines. Even if those routines consist of the same moves over and over. Some might even be at the school on a scholarship.

But these weren’t those cheerleaders. It was a Saturday on a college campus. The A-squad, and probably the B-squad and C-squad, were all with the football team. This group were the ones who couldn’t figure out an eight-count.

At one point, they did a cheer that went (in the same cadence as counting 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7): S-A-C (Space) S-A-C-R-A-Men-To. Meaning they weren’t really leading cheers for the college, but for chewable mint candies.

So I have to assume the volleyball players rolled their eyes at these cheerleaders. Said, “Do what youre gonna do, ladies, but we’ll keep the crowd excited on our own, thanks.”

Meaning my initial comment WASN’T sexist.

Everything that came afterward? I claim no responsibility.  

Ten Years of Curling

· February 26, 2024 · Musings · , , , , · No Comments

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Do you realize that February, 2014 happened, like, TEN YEARS ago?

It seems like only moments ago. 

The president was a physically fit, well-spoken fifty-something. The most-recent pandemic was over ninety years in the rear-view window, never to rear its head in modern society. Newfangled social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram showed immense potential for regular people to interact with respected journalists and celebrities, who we wanted to learn the profundities and musings of.

Like I said, it’s like nothing has changed.

But it’s been ten years.

Something else from February, 2014, was a Winter Olympics. Sort of. They were in Sochi, a city Russia just kinda made up but didn’t bother actually constructing, except for an intricate doping and cheating infrustructure. Who needs working toilets when you can just swap in someone else’s pee?

Again, I doubt Russia’s gone on to do anything more nefarious in the intervening decade.

While watching said Olympics, I engaged in my once-every-four-years tradition of trying to figure out what the fuck curling was. I mean, who sweeps ice when it isn’t even dirty?

One of my friends claims I used to say curling was dumb. I never said that. What I always said was “Hell, I could do that.” So in February, 2014, I signed up for a learn-to-curl.

Turns out I was right. I CAN curl.

Not at the Olympic level, mind you. Many a beginning curler thinks they’re only a year or so from competing for nationals. Not so much. It only takes a half hour to learn, but decades to master. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve followed up the shot of my life with a shitstorm that looks like I’ve never been on an ice rink before.

When I first started curling I was obsessed, which you can probably verify by searching the number of curling related posts in this blog between 2014 and 2018. 

(Holy crap, I’ve been blogging here for more than a decade, too? Crazy! Even crazier than my starting a decade after blogging was edgy in the first place. Based on that track record, I should be migrating to Substack in another seven years or so. Maybe I’ll just keep at it until blogging, like a mullet, is hip again, which should happen right around when both Twitter and daily newspapers go out of business. So, like, fifteen months from now. Give or take.)

The dearth of curling content on this blog the last five years shouldn’t be taken as a waning interest. Maybe I don’t watch every single professional match like I once did, but I can still talk your ear off (or write your eyes off) about Korey Dropkin’s chances of finally getting past John Shuster or whether Rachel Homan or Tracy Fleury should be calling strategy for their team. 

It’s always funny when a professional tournament has been broadcast recently, because us novice curlers all of a sudden start calling impossible shots that we saw the pros make. 

But after a decade of curling, it’s a matter of “been there, done that.” I’ve beat Olympians and I’ve lost to noobs. I’ve had games where I place my entire team on my back and singlehandedly deliver victory and games where I give away the winning points to our opposition. And for blogging purposes, there’s only so many ways I can describe a double takeout or a picture-perfect draw to score one point that prevents the other team from scoring five. 

So instead, I waited for a big anniversary to see if I can enunciate it all at once. 

Here’s one thing I know for certain: the losses stay with you a lot longer than the wins. I think that’s human nature, some ingrained caveman instinct that forces us to fixate on the mistakes.  Want to know what I did right those times I beat Olympians? Couldn’t tell you. But holy crap, I can still explain that one time in 2018 that I held the broom in the wrong spot, causing my skip to miss the shot for the league championship. 

Had one of those moments last year. Through pool play, we were the number one seed out of a thirty-six team field. The team we were facing was a bunch of noobs, most of whom we had mentored at some point over the previous year. We were up 6-0 with two ends left, had chances to run up the score but didn’t want to be assholes. Guess we should’ve been assholes. We gave up one point in the penultimate end, and figured they’d shake hands, down by five without hammer. It’s the Spirit of Curling thing to do, to not make a team that’s advancing in the playoffs play longer just because you’re being eliminated. But these guys were new, so whatever, all we had to do was take out three of their eight stones and walk away with the win.

I don’t know how many sports analogies there are for losing a five-point lead in the final end of a curling match. Maybe the infamous Atlanta Falcons Super Bowl collapse? Except the Patriots had an entire half to come back and, well, they were the Patriots. We were the one-seed, so it would be like if the Falcons had instead come back against the Patriots. 

The more realistic analogy would be a ninth-inning collapse. We were the L.A. Dodgers taking a six-run lead into the ninth inninng against the Oakland A’s. Or a double-a team. We needed three (take-) outs. We only got two. Even worse, we had the final shot, so it was a top-of-the-ninth collapse, followed by maybe a bases-loaded double play to end the bottom of the ninth.

How does something like that happen? If you want, I can give you a play-by-play. Even though it happened more than six months ago, I remember every bad decision, every missed shot, and every bad decision forced by those missed shots. The only reason I don’t wake up in cold sweats thinking about the guard that, instead of removing from play, I actually pushed backward into the house, thereby removing the only stone we’d actually put in the right place, is because I can’t fall asleep while thinking of it.

What about those other games in the tournament? After all, we were 3-0 going into the playoffs. Can I tell you what shots I made? What smart calls we made? No. I can’t. 

And you might think it’s a recency bias. Except I’ve played plenty of times since then. Literally yesterday, my skip and the opposing skip said I was lights-out. I kinda maybe remember a couple shots they were talking about, but they’ll be out of my mind by the next time I curl. The shots all run together. 

Except the bad ones.

I tell my students about this curling tendency when I return tests or essays. Instead of focusing only on the parts they got wrong, they should notice the things they got right. Inevitably, they’ll get questions they thought they were guessing on right, and it’s informative to determine if it was a lucky guess or some nascent inkling that they can trust more in the future. if they only  review the guesses they got wrong, it won’t improve their test-taking skills.

Does it work? Not usually. Because no amount of teacher blabbing will counter human instinct. 

My skip, by the way, hasn’t been back on the ice since that shitshow. Granted, he has multiple children with continuous sporting activities, so it was already determined he wouldn’t play in Fall League. But we’ve had a couple more sign-ups since then and he hasn’t come back yet. I know the feeling. I almost didn’t stay for broomstacking, the post-match tradition where the winners buy beer for the losers. There’ve only been a few times in my life I’ve been a poor sport, but dammit, I had every right to be a bad sport after that game. Even if it meant no free beer.

In the end, I swallowed that humble pie and let those hooligans buy me beer. My skip was there, too. That’s the last time I saw him.

Unfortunately, I’m not currently at the top of my game. I think I steadily improved (okay, maybe not “steadily” but “mostly upward trajectory”) for the first seven years or so, but then I hit my late-forties. Now, as my wisdom continues to advance, my knees and back retreat. I usually know what shot needs to happen, my body just doesn’t comply.

Add to that my eyesight. I wear glasses while driving now and the target is far enough away that I should really be wearing glasses. But I’m a right-hander with a dominant left eye. Without glasses, I can compensate by craning my neck a bit to the right while delivering, so my left eye is above my right arm. But somehow with glasses, it doesn’t work as well, like I’m looking through the wrong lens and can’t get it pointed in the right direction. It also didn’t help that I started wearing glasses during Covid, when we had to wear masks, and the fogging is much worse on the ice. 

So yeah, no glasses. I’m pretty much curling blind. With a bum knee.

At least there’s a group of noobs who think I’m the greatest curler in the history of curling. I skipped for them, which is usually a no-no (to prevent a team bringing in a ringer to make the most important shots) but allowed because they’ve only played a few games and wouldn’t really know what to do otherwise. I made a few clutch shots. A few weeks later, I skipped for them again and made some clutch shots again. At the end of the season, they were 2-5, with the two wins being the two times I played for them. Wait till they face me in a bonspiel a year from now and I can’t hit the broad side of a barn.

And no, in case you’re asking, I don’t remember any specifics about the good shots and good calls I made for that team.

Among the crazier things I’ve done while curling is my two outdoor bonspiels. I blogged extensively about one of them, back in January, 2020, right before the whole damn world shut down. My second one was a few weeks ago. Hopefully no armageddon follows suit this time.

The first one had mostly good weather. Lows in the mid-teens, highs in the mid-30s, mostly sunny skies (not that we play when the sun is out, because even a sub-freezing sun will melt the ice). On Sunday morning, when we were in the semifinals, it started to snow and that changed everything.  We couldn’t figure our asses from our elbows and before we knew it we were down 6-0 and, boy, that drive back to Boise was going to take longer in this weather so maybe we oughtta just shake hands and be on our way. 

At the more recent outdoor bonspiel, it snowed the whole damn time. And you know what? It was an absolute blast. Nobody gave a shit if they won or loss (okay, we all wanted to win, but we weren’t exactly watching game tape to wonder why we didn’t call the out-turn on shot five), and were primaily concerned with getting in touch with those Scottish originators of the sport, throwing granite on some dark frozen loch. A snow shovel and push broom replaced our expensive carbon fiber brooms. Seeing the snow puff off the ice with each push of the broom made me realize why those Scots probably started sweeping the damn ice in the first place. Kinda like whatever caveman cracked open the first crab leg, I might not understand what inspired him, but I’m glad he did it.

Oh, and drinking. We were also concerned with drinking. Twenty-five bucks got all-you-can-drink beer for the whole weekend. And I don’t know about you, but I hate feeling like I got cheated out of an all-you-can-whatever. By the end of a crab feed, I’ve degenerated into full caveman mode.

The biggest thing I’ve gotten out of my decade on the ice is all those curlers I’ve met. It might not surprise you to find we’re a quirky bunch. Competitive but humble, analytic but brash. We spend three minutes moving the broom left and right by five inches to ensure the exact right spot, then miss our target by ten inches. 

One time we came back against a team that was beating us something like 7-1. It took three or four ends for their collapse to play out, during which they were getting more and more frustrated. The skip and vice started disagreeing about what shot to call. As the skip headed down to take his shot, the vice muttered something under his breath. The skip turned around and shouted, “No, if we’re going to talk about this, let’s fucking talk about it. Right Now!” We all looked sideways at each other, thinking we’d be broomstacking alone. Nope. They were all laughing about it ten minutes later.

In general, curlers are amazingly polite and fun. Part of it’s because they’re Canadian or Midwesterners, but there’s also something called the Spirit of Curling, which says you compliment another team when they make that unbelievable shot that plunges a dagger into you. And you don’t beat when you hit that very same shot. Again, it could be a Canadian thing, but more than anything it’s that you know how quickly the fates can turn. 

I recently played in a bonspiel near where my sister lives. Her husband had always asked questions about it, so I said she should come out and watch. I told her to ask people watching what was going on, because a) if you’re just watching, you don’t know what is going on; b) other curlers can usually explain what’s going on and which shots are good or bad (even if they are on the other side of a partition disagree with the call), and c) curlers love nothing more than explaining curling to non-curlers, especially when a game is in motion.

By the end of the game, my sister was banging on the glass and giving thumbs up when I hit a good shot (I remember that one – it was a simple draw behind a guard, but it blocked the other team’s access to the button). After the game, she was asking us all sorts of questions, talking us through how the various ends played out, and why we changed strategies at certain points (Again, the other curlers explaining to her probably said, Okay, they’re trying this shot, but I’m not sure why”). At one point, she turned to my teammates and said, “You have to understand, my brother’s always been a dork, so when he started posting about this weird curling thing, I had no idea it could be so intense.”

Said a hell of a lot of learn-to-curlers, too.

When we travel, there’s a tradition of trading pins from your curling club with the teams you play against. What we do with these pins varies. Some put them on equipment bags, others on their clothes. One of the guys at the recent Montana bonspiel put all the pins of clubs he’d been to on his right lapel and those he hadn’t yet been to (ie we’d come to him) on the left with the goal of eventually moving them all over to the right side. 

Me, I got a corkboard and a map.

So what do I have to show for a decade of curling?

Well, here ya go:

Flunking College Geography

· August 12, 2023 · Musings · , , , , , · No Comments

I really shouldn’t get involved in this whole college sports “realignment” fiasco.

Nobody comes to this particular blog for sports stuff. There are, from what I gather, at least one or two other websites where those interested in sports might gravitate for their latest “hot stove” insights.

Not that I have insights. No inside info, no breaking news. And by the time I write and edit this bad boy, this’ll be such old news that’s been analyzed and overanalyzed to death.

But The Writing Wombat is where people come for snark, and assuming anybody is going to care about that annual Rutgers vs. Oregon barnburner deserves a shit-ton of snark.

I once opined that the Beavers and Cocks should play in the same conference with Ball State and Sac State. That seems about as random as putting Arizona and Central Florida in the same conference. So consider me an expert.

For you non sports-inclined readers, here’s a quick rejoinder on what the sports landscape looked like up until about five years ago. Then I can better explain just how whack-a-doodle it’s become.

Most sport leagues are divided up for geographic purposes.  The reason you always hear about the Boston Red Sox playing the New York Yankees, or the Chicago Bears’ long history versus the Green Bay Packers, or the grueling rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors, is because they 1) play each other more often and 2) are vying to “win” a four to seven team division. 

Even international sports divvies up by region. Sure, you might only pay attention to the World Cup, but to get to that World Cup, the teams have to play through regional tournaments. Maybe it’s not fair that the Dutch need to power through the Germans, French, and Italians to make the World Cup while the United States’ gauntlet includes that powerhouse of Trinidad & Tobago, but come on. If the U.S. had to play real countries, we’d never make the tournament and then FIFA would lose out on a bunch of advertisement dollars.

Not that money ever drives any sporting decisions. Qatar totally got the World Cup because of its vaunted sporting history. And Washington is totally right next to Pennsylvania.

The main reason for these divisions comes down to travel costs and fatigue. If the Los Angeles Dodgers get on a post-game plane in San Francisco or San Diego, they might be home by 1:00 am. If the flight’s from D.C. or Philly, it ain’t landing till tomorrow morning.

And bear in mind, those major league players aren’t flying Southwest. They’re got their own chartered flights. The college kids don’t. Sucks to be them. I’d tell them to unionize, but they aren’t making any money so no union would want them.

The divisions work out great for fans, too. The closeness of your rivals makes it easier to travel to those away games. It also means you’re more likely to intersperse with their fans while in all walks of life, which increases engagement.

College sports used to follow a similar pattern. There were twenty or so regional divisions. Most of these divisions overlapped with each other so the universities that were more focused on sports didn’t dominate those silly universities that care about those non-athletic weirdos walking around their campus quoting Kierkegaard. 

For instance, on the west coast, we had the likes of USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Oregon in the top division, called everything from the Pac (or Pacific)-8 to Pac-10 to Pac-12, changing the name to match the number of teams. Put a pin in that for later. 

The second level of West Coast teams play (at least for the last twenty years) in the Mountain West Conference. You might not have heard of all of their colleges, but you’re at least aware of their locations. San Diego, San Jose, Fresno, Reno, Vegas, Boise. Even Hawaii, which contains both Mountains and the West, but isn’t what normally equated with the western mountains. Rockies and Sierras, yes. Volcanos, not so much. 

Below the Mountain West is a handful of conferences, depending on the sport. My alma mater, UC Davis, is in the Big West for basketball but the Big Sky for football. 

Yes, colleges can be in different conferences for different sports. This might be something these universities might want to consider before the Pac-12 goes belly up for good.

Many other major and minor conferences spread out across the country. Historically, the Big 10 had its foothold in the Midwest while the Big 12 catered to the Great Plains. I’ll not insult your intelligence by explaining where you might find the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences. All these conferences have unaffiliated conferences “underneath” them. 

These conferences have never been particularly static. Conferences poach from other major or minor conferences. Returning back to the Pacific, the Pac-8 added two Arizona teams to become the Pac-10, then Colorado (from the Big 12) and Utah (from the “underling” Mountain West) made it twelve. Colleges would base their decision to stay or leave on recruiting, as opposed to money because, last I checked, universities, particularly the public ones, are supposed to be… non-profit?

The difference between the old poaching and the new is that it used to be on the periphery. Does Colorado fit better with the West Coast than with the Great Plains? Once they legalized pot, I feel like they’re more likely to entice an Oregonian to attend than an Oklahoman. Nebraska followed their move by bolting in the opposite direction toward the Big Ten. Someone from Chicago might not consider Nebraska to be in the Midwest, but being in a conference with Minnesota and Iowa makes a certain amount of sense for Nebraska. 

This Nebraska defection was when the conference names started to make no sense. The Big 12, having lost two members, now had ten schools. The Big 10, meanwhile, which had actually had eleven teams for some time (but Big 11 sounds stupid) now had twelve. Everybody just shrugged and figured there was no reason to have institutes of higher learning be able to finish the Sesame Street counting song. 

Not sure where the wheels came off. A few years ago, the Big 12 lost its flagship schools, with Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC. This was the first time it seemed to be about money more than wins.  The SEC is, far and away, the best conference in the country. Both schools moved from a conference where they were the preeminent power, virtually assured of winning their conference and being in the playoffs to a conference where they’ll be lucky to compete for fourth place. Trust me, Texas ain’t stealing the top recruits from Alabama any time soon. 

Still, you don’t have to squint hard to see Texas and Oklahoma being at home in a conference named Southeast. 

Then, about a year ago, USC (that’s the University of Southern California, in case you were wondering) and UCLA (the last two letters of which stand for Los Angeles, also in Southern California) decided that, instead of playing in a conference named for the ocean they played next to, they wanted to play most of their games three time zones away. Both schools joined the Big 10 and, starting next season, will be nestled into the standings with the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. Again, that Penn is short for Pennsylvania.

The Pac-12, which had just lost two of its premier programs (well, one premier programs plus UCLA), reacted by doing… well, not really much of anything. If you ignore a problem long enough, it’ll just go away. Unfortunately for the Pac-12, the “it” that their ignorance made go away was six more colleges and a t.v. deal. 

Colorado left first, returning to the Big 12 from whence it came, although now that Big 12 doesn’t have Nebraska, Texas, or Oklahoma, so they’ve got to be feeling good about their chances. There were rumors that the Pac-12, now down to nine members, might bring in San Diego State, or maybe Boise State, to get back up to ten or twelve. But first, they needed to figure out that whole t.v. thing.

They were finally on the cusp of a deal with AppleTV. Don’t bother looking for AppleTV on your cable or satellite offerings. Nothing screams great sport viewing like a service primarily watched on one’s phone or tablet. Brilliant strategy, especially once we learned, after its demise, that they turned down deals from ESPN, Fox, CBS, and probably every other network in order to be on a platform that fewer than half of Americans have. Glad it ended up falling apart, because I’m a Google guy and I didn’t want to have to choose between Android and football.

Then, within a few hours of each other on a recent Friday, five more teams left the conference. The three easternmost teams followed Colorado into the Big 12, while Oregon and Washington followed their L.A. brethren into the Midwest. If anything, they did those schools a solid with this move, as now they’ll have a few more games in their time zone.

If you’re keeping count, the Pac-12 is now down to four teams. They’ve got a lot more problems to worry about beyond their name, which is why I can’t find a Pac-4 shirt anywhere. Unfortunately, some of them are still planning on leaving. Personally, I’d stay in the conference if I were them, assuming the conference champion still gets an automatic bid to the Rose Bowl and March Madness. That path just got a hell of a lot easier. 

But nope, the Pac-12 is officially in “Last Person to Leave, Turn the Lights Out” territory. Oregon State and Washington State are being mentioned as joining that “minor league” Mountain West Conference they’ve scoffed at for years. Cal and Stanford won’t slum it down there, though. So those two schools, which sit on the two sides of the San Francisco Bay, are flirting with joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. You know this whole DeSantis/Newsom feud is getting serious when Berkeley and Florida State consider themselves natural rivals.

That move was blocked by some of the ACC teams who finally decided to look at a map and realize that, if the S.F. teams were playing on the east coast, then the east coast teams would also have to play out west. Nobody wants to start their games at 10:00 pm. That aversion will cost at least a few more million to overcome.

So here’s your updated crib sheet: The Big Ten has eighteen members, the Big 12 has sixteen. The Atlantic Coast might stretch to San Francisco. Too bad there’s no Canadian Conference or  they could extend an invitation to Cuba.

Football will be fine. They play one game a week, usually on a weekend,  and the millions of dollars they earn in t.v. revenue can cover some charter flights. The real problem with this realignment is that the other sports have to follow suit. What’s it going to be like for a baseball or volleyball player from Washington who has to play a Tuesday game in New Jersey and a Thursday game in Ohio while also attending classes.

I’m sure that badminton scholarship sophomore is going to be absolutely thrilled with this new set-up. After all, their college is getting millions of dollars. From which the average student gets…. A few more books? Maybe faster internet? Nah. Any money will be invested back into the football stadium. Or maybe a few extra million dollars in the pocket of a “non-profit” regent. 

But it’s all about that education, right?

Bump, Set, Coach

· June 5, 2022 · Musings · , , , , , · No Comments

You know how sometimes you wake up in a weird location? Sometimes it’s a dark hotel room when you turn the wrong way while looking for the bathroom. In my younger days, I found myself sprawled out on my living room floor with the front door still wide open. I’d managed to make it all of two steps inside my domicile.

In a similar fashion, I recently looked around, bewildered, coaching my daughter’s volleyball team.

An odd place to find oneself, to be sure. At least when I passed out in my living room, I knew how I got there. But coaching a sport one never played beyond maybe junior high takes a gargantuan lack of organizational skills. Surprisingly, in this instance, not my own.

We figured Daughter had more chance for success in volleyball than in the standards like soccer and softball. Sports that required endurance and precision, or even a general awareness of where your body is at any moment, were never going to be her forte. 

First we tried soccer. She was okay with it, except for the fact that it was a co-ed team. The boys were mostly ball hogs and the girls had little desire to assert themselves. The following year, it would’ve been girls only. Not sure why they wouldn’t do that from year one, but whatever. Daughter wasn’t opposed to trying soccer again, but also wasn’t gung-ho to return to the pitch.

In softball, she was already a year behind some of the other players. Then everything got shut down for Covid. In 2021, when it returned, we still weren’t sure it was the best idea, so by now she’d be three years behind other players and, even worse, at the age of eight, she’s at a point where she’d notice being behind, and Daughter ain’t the type to use that as motivation to catch up.

Volleyball, we figured, was a better option for her. She loves playing keepy-uppy with a balloon, which is the basic concept behind volleyball. Don’t let the damn thing hit the ground. She’s also, somehow, always been tall for her age. Don’t ask me how. I’m 5’8″ on a good day and my wife needs tip-toes to reach 5’5″. Neither our parents or grandparents come from tall stock. A bunch of diminutive Irish and Italian ancestors. Yet Daughter has consistently been above the 90th percentile for height. Her birthday is in May and she’s usually the same height as her classmates whose birthdays are in September and October. 

Allegedly my dad was one of the tallest kids in his elementary school classes. Then he stopped growing in eighth grade, and by the time I knew him, he was 5’6″ and looking up at the gents the ladies call handsome. So maybe Daughter will peter out in time. Maybe she’ll be the blocker in elementary school before transitioning to the digger in high school.

And no, basketball never entered into the equation. Remember, she has virtually no coordination. Basketball requires not only running up and down the court, but bouncing a ball at the same time. If it’s possible to trip over both a foot and a ball at the same time, Daughter would find a way.

So it’s volleyball or curling. And I don’t think many colleges offer curling scholarships.

I still wasn’t planning on coaching, though. That came much later. Much, much later. As in, two days before the season started.

We signed Daughter up in January and, apart from an initial acknowledgement of registration, we heard nothing for a good eight weeks. It got so bad that my mom thought we lying to her about having no schedule, trying to finagle out of her visiting, but it was legit. We were less than two weeks from opening day and were still on radio silence.

I was on my curling club’s Board of Directors for six years, and ran the league for a good portion of that time. I totally get that these endeavors are chaotic in the best of times. You can tell people when the sign-ups are, you can email them repeatedly, and you’ll still get a whole lotta “Wait, when does league start?” Noting’s more infuriating than, a week after the “deadline,” when you find yourself with an odd number of players/teams, you contact someone asking if there’s any way they can spare the time, expecting an ”Of course not, otherwise I would’ve signed up,” but instead getting a “Yeah, totally. Sounds great.” Umm… then why didn’t you… You know what? Never mind.

But at least when we were rearranging teams 24 hours before the start of the season, we were still sending out information. “Don’t forget we start this weekend.” “Here are the dates, but we might be assigning byes, so let me know if there’s a date you’ll be out of town.” “We’ve got more teams than skips, does anyone want to try their hand at a new role?” In reality, we were still recruiting ten players while those were going out, but from the members’ perspective, it seemed like it was ninety percent set.

With volleyball, it was a whole lotta nothing until about ten days out, when an email gave a generic list of days, not dates. “Every Thursday and Saturday, starting next week.” No mention of which days are practice, which are games, but if I know anything about youth sports, the games gotta be on Saturday morning. Just maybe not the first Saturday? Cause Daughter doesn’t know shit about volleyball yet, and given that they don’t allow any kids younger than her, for once she won’t be the only clueless kid.

Buried in that first email was a brief mention that there were still coaching spots available, so hey, if you’ve ever thought about maybe wanting to help out, they’d love to have ya.

Yeah, no thanks. Looking forward to letting someone who knows what they’re doing take the reins.

As a bonus, the email went on, the coach gets, not only their own kid, but one other player of choice to ensure your child’s with their friend. Considering we didn’t know anyone else signing up, that wasn’t much of an incentive. Also, while I was unaware at the time, they only had enough kids for one under-nine team, so whether I coached or not, Daughter was going to be on the same team as everyone younger than fourth grade.

Another week went by before we heard anything else. This time they were a *little* more focused with their messaging. We need fifty coaches. We only have ten. As of now (three days before the first practice (or maybe game), your child’s team does not have a coach.

Okay, that’s a little different. If they were forty coaches short, one wonders what the numbers looked like when they sent out the, “Hey, have we got a great opportunity for you” email. Maybe they should’ve been in four-alarm fire territory long before the eve of play. 

While the email never explicitly said that if we didn’t step up, the season wasn’t happening, I took it as such and signed up to assistant coach. So did one other parent and one older sibling who’s in high school. Wow. A team of thirteen and, even after a “you have no coach” plea, only three sign up to assistant coach. Maybe if there’d been more regular communication, they might find more buy-in.

At least no other parents better bitch about my coaching. Cause they all coulda had the position.

Ironically enough, when I followed the link to sign up for assistant coaching, I had to provide two references, particularly people to attest to my volunteer work and work ethic. Uh huh, sure. It’s Wednesday and you are hoping to get forty-plus coaches “hired” before Saturday. I’m putting my hooker and drug dealer in the field and daring you to tell me no.

Instead of a “sorry, but no” email, I get, predictably, a “Hey, thanks for your interest in being an assistant coach. Wanna be coach?”

To which I reply, “Not really. I’ll miss at least one practice and I am bad with names, to say nothing of my propensity to beat small children.”

“No problem,” they respond. “Welcome aboard, Coach!”

Evidently, Adolf Stalin Beelzebub must’ve given me a great reference.

They sent me and another co-coach (Who also reluctantly signed up to assistant) a couple YouTube videos, and wit twelve hours to spare, we were set to teach a bunch of seven-year-olds how to spike a volleyball.

Wait, spiking is first? Not bumping? I thought every volleyball instruction started with bumping. Maybe this is why they only recruit coaches two days before the season starts. Fewer questions.

Coaches were told to come a half-hour early to help set up nets, for which there was also a YouTube. When I showed up early, however, it was absolute chaos. We gravitated toward a few parents who had volleyball t-shirts, meaning it’s at least their second season. They showed us how to set up a net, but there was little guidance beyond that. 

By the time the hour was up, and all the peons (ie parents smart enough to not bow to last minute, passive aggressive recruitment) showed up with children ready to play volleyball, only half the courts were set up. Parents and children practiced bumping to each other during the delay. Bumping, that skill that won’t be covered till the third or fourth practice. After setting. How the hell does one set without first receiving a bump?

There was supposed to be a coaches meeting ten minutes before practice started. In reality, it took place ten minutes after practice was supposed to start. My co-coach and I already had our kids in a circle playing the “name game” when we were called away. Um, so maybe let the kids keep playing the name game amongst themselves? It’s not like we coaches need to know their names or anything. 

The coaches meeting, it turns out, was only to go over the agenda for today’s practice. Like the name game, which we were already doing because they’d sent the agenda out the day before. We’re to spend ten minutes playing the name game, then fifteen minutes spiking, then thirty minutes serving. Except now we only have about thirty-five minutes left for the whole practice.

Again, I understand these volunteer organization difficulties. At the curling club, we throw a number of events that come off by the skin of the grace of God’s teeth. There are league games where the rocks sink into the ice because we forgot to bring them down to temperature first. Or learn-to-curls with five instructors and forty students. 

The difference is that participants rarely know when we’re skimming the tangent of disaster. In my eight years curling, six of which I was on the Board, we never once made a new learn-to-curler carry a rock to the ice. Even if we were still setting the hacks while they receive introductions in the warm room, the second they walked onto the ice, the picture’s pristine. After we rope them in to the game, then we can rope them into helping.

If Big Volleyball wanted to look like a well-oiled machine, the type of organization other parents would want to join, they probably should’ve had us fools who agreed to coach show up an hour early, not a half-hour. Then, when the average parent shows up ten minutes before the first practice, the courts are all put together and the coaches are off to the side at an ooo, aaah, special meeting that wouldn’t you really like to be part of in the future?

Other practices followed suit. The coaches meeting that is supposed to occur ten minutes prior to practice actually takes place five minutes after call time. My co-coach and I stopped going to them, because they only go over the practice plan, which was emailed to us at 10:00 last night, and which we’re going to promptly ignore. Unfortunately the damage was already done, because half our team doesn’t show up on time anymore.

The reason we ignore the agenda is because it isn’t what our kids need. I understand it’s hard to make a practice plan that fits teams ranging from ages 7 to 14 And far be it from them to come up with, I don’t know, two practice plans. So we’re stuck “teaching” our team how to block a powerful jump spike. Because that happens all the time with seven-year-olds. How about we focus on getting the fucking ball over the net instead? Or, I don’t know, maybe explaining the purpose of the game to them?

Their long-term planning is even worse than the short-term. The night after our second practice, we received the agenda for practice the following day when we were finally going to go over bumping. A coach replied-all that the invoice we were sent didn’t have the park reserved tomorrow. Does that mean we’re on Spring Break? An hour later, the “in charge” guy emails back that, hah hah, oh yeah, the next three practices aren’t actually happening. See you in two weeks.

Um, okay, but are you going to tell all the parents who I said “See you Saturday” to last night?

Damn, I really wish we had gone over bumping first. If for no other reason than I don’t want to spend the next ten days making my daughter work on setting, a skill that rarely shows up before varsity-level high school.

Later in the season we had another late all-call. “Reminder:” the text read, “Tomorrow is a game day. The game will last two hours, rotating fields every twenty minutes.”

Perhaps they don’t understand the subtle nuance of “reminder.” It’s usually meant to imply something we’d already known. For instance, I can “remind” my wife that I’m hitting the grocery store on the way home from work. I can’t “remind” my students about the fall of the Berlin Wall when we’re still studying the Enlightenment. 

Needless to say, when we showed up the next day, I had a whole bunch of parents coming up to me saying they had to leave after an hour. If only they’d known beforehand. I fired back that I was right there with them. As coach, I’d love to have more than twelve hours notice that we might have a game instead of a practice or scrimmage. 

That’s the particularly shitty thing about this arrangement. I’m somehow seen as an authority figure, as if I have any fucking clue about what’s going on. When I told them I was as surprised as them, they roll their eyes as if I’m just a slacker. Shit, they probably think I came up with the bright idea to hold off bumping until after Spring Break. I can only politely remind them that they could’ve had the fucking job.

Fortunately, whatever league was visiting us didn’t have a u9 team to play against, so the fact that I would’ve been down to three players after one hour didn’t matter. The guy in charge said they contemplated rotating us in with the 9 & 10 year olds but decided against it. Of course, they didn’t incorporate any of the coaches or parents to these discussions.

The guy in charge, by the way, says he loves teaching our age level. They’re so enthusiastic and their growth during the season is spectacular. In fact, he’s coached the u9 team each of the last four seasons. Really? Well then why the fuck did he leave it up to a couple know nothings who can’t even convince the kids that the goal is to get the ball back over to the other side of the net this time? How about he give us the 14-year-olds he’s currently coaching. I’ll have them setting like motherfuckers.

Although maybe not. Then I’d have to stay for two hours on game days, whenever the hell those things are. Probably with only half a team, all of whom were pissed at me for hoarding the information to myself. 

So maybe I should just stay over here on my court with a bunch of kids who have no idea what they’re doing. 

They’ll be in good company.

March Madness at Covid Casino

· March 26, 2021 · Musings · , , , , , · No Comments

For years, I’ve thought about posting a real-time account of March Madness. The highs, the lows. The buzzer beaters. The “why the fuck are you trying to win the game if you already covered the spread”s.

You see, I usually spend March Madness in Nevada. You’ve never truly experienced a basketball game until you’ve been in a room full of three hundred people absolutely losing their shit at a team dribbling out the remaining seconds of a twelve-point game, the winner of whom was obvious by halftime. 

Shoot the ball, motherfucker!

Or, if I’ve bet the underdog, don’t! 

For the uninitiated, March Madness is the college basketball championship, wherein 68 teams vie for the title. Those 68 (or at least 64 of them) play all their intro games in two days. Thirty-two games, spread out over 36 hours or so. And you can bet on every single one!

I had this grand plan. I would precede the Madness with a general post about gambling, then, as with Camptathalon, I’d tabulate all the craziness. The fifteen-seed Davids beating the two-seed Goliath that nobody cares about because they covered the spread by halftime. Or the meaningless eight-versus-nine-seed game, the winner of whom will most likely be destroyed against a number-one seed in the next round, that has the entire sports book on pins and needles because a two-and-a-half point spread brings all the boys to the yard.

But don’t worry. This post isn’t about college basketball. It’s only tangentially related to sports.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m a degenerate gambler, but when the casinos closed, I started playing the stock market. One of the stocks I bought was Draft Kings, meaning I’m now gambling on gambling becoming more prevalent. 

Whenever my friends and I find one of those “signs you are a problem gambler,” we make bets about how many of the checklist items we’ll mark. Even if those lists are bogus. One checkmark is getting upset about losing a bet. Doesn’t that mean we don’t have a problem? You become a problem gambler when you shrug off one loss because you’ve made ten others.

I have the same issue with the alcoholic checklist. Do any of my stories start with, “I was drinking one time and…”? Um, yeah. Do you want good stories? I can start out my stories with “One time I was sitting on my couch rewatching a Marvel movie,” but it’s not gonna get much more exciting than that.

The reason I never got around to that projected March Madness post is how ephemeral it is. When it takes me six months to transcribe my Camptathalon journal, the hilarity still stands. Whether it’s June or January, fart and dick jokes work. But reminiscing about the eighteen-year-old who shanks a free throw and now will never realize his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA has got a shelf life.

So unless I plan on carrying a notebook throughout the casino (which I assume they would frown upon), then transcribing that shit while still blowing a .12, a March Madness post is gonna be tough.

But if I can combine a little bit of sports gambling with my first trip to a casino in the COVID-era? Make my observations more  observational than transactional? Just maybe…

But seriously, University of California at Santa Barbara, how the fuck do you lose by one point when I bet you on the money line? Wide open layup to win the game and you brick?

Okay, with that off my chest, how bout them COVID-restrictions?

As with every other stripe of life, Nevada seems more concerned with appearance than efficacy. Like the TSA guy who pulls me aside for a ham sandwich in my backpack while three terrorists walk through. It’s to make me feel better.

We’re supposed to wear masks, except for when we’re eating or drinking or smoking. Not sure if you’ve ever been in a Nevada casino, but the amount of time you’re not doing one of those three activities is maybe ten percent. I don’t even smoke, but I think it’s state law that we have a cigarette in our mouth fifty percent of the time. Just ask every numbnut sitting next to me at every fucking table, going through a pack an hour. And those new partitions aren’t as good at blocking cigarette smoke as they are (hopefully) at blocking viruses.

Hey, speaking of the numbnuts always at my blackjack tables, one sticks out as the worst of the worst, and that’s saying something. The numbest of the nuts. 

It was at the Tropicana in Vegas, not where one expects to run into high rollers. He was making stupid moves as soon as he sat down, like doubling down on a thirteen and splitting face cards. It was shortly after the book and movie about the MIT card counters, so numbnuts the world over thought they’d figured out how to beat the system. What’s worse is he was sitting in the last spot before the dealer, where a bad move can fuck over the entire table. To wit:

Dealer was showing a five. Fuck Face gets two sixes. The book says you stay on your twelve and wait for the dealer to bust. This guy splits. He hits his first six, gets a ten. Now he’s got a sixteen and he’s hmming and huhing. He finally decides to stay, then hits the other six and, wouldn’t you know it, another ten! 

“Two sixteens!” he exclaims. “What are the odds?”

Umm… those are the exact fucking odds! Literally the entire blackjack playbook is based on one rule: always assume the next card is a ten. 

What made it worse was that after Mr. Fucknozzle takes two bust cards away from the dealer, who now turns over the fifteen we all assumed he had, then hits a five (instead of either of the two tens Einstein took) and takes all our money. 

Casinos don’t discourage you from card counting, because most people make a phenomenal mess of it. Now if you care count well, then they’re taking you out to the desert.  

At least if that jackwagon were still at that table today, he’d have this nice visual of how one drinks or smokes while wearing a mask. 

Whew. Glad they laid that out. As if that weren’t enough Idiocracy, this sign was posted multiple times in each bathroom:

To quote Whitney Houston, I believe the children are our future. Cause if it’s up to us adults, we are well and truly fucked.

Oh, and did I mention that Florida State was favored by 10.5, meaning they had to win by 11 for me to win my bet? Guess how much they won by: Ten. Which matched the number of seconds left in the game when they got the ball back for the final time. And what did they do? Just dribble it around, never even looking at the basket. Come on, people, don’t you know what the spread is? There are people out there who had confidence in you, and you’re rewarding us by standing there for ten seconds instead of piling on two meaningless points that are anything but meaningless.

Why bother winning the game if you aren’t going to cover the spread?

So how are the casinos adjusting to the pandemic, aside from instructions on how to smoke cigarettes and what not to flush down the toilet?

They’ve put up Plexiglass barriers everywhere. Just in case you weren’t feeling lonely playing slot machines before, you’ve now got a three-sided cone of silence. No high-fiving each other after getting that big cherry combo that pays out a thousand credits before remembering thata thousand pennies is less than your initial twenty-dollar deposit. 

Not that there are legitimate penny slots anymore. They say they’re penny slots, but then it costs a minimum of 60 or 80 or 125 credits for one spin. What’s worse is they don’t pay out in those increments. So you bet 60, you win back 17. Then there reaches a point where you’ve got, say, 58 cents left in the machine but you can’t do anything with it. So you cash out and now you’ve got a slip of paper “worth” 58 cents. One machine had the last four “victims” left behind, four printouts of various small denominations. I added my fifth. Perhaps someday in the distant future, someone will be able to combine enough to make one spin, get twelve cents back, and begin the stack anew.

I understand the way inflation works in the casinos. They can’t make legitimate penny slots anymore, because pennies aren’t worth shit, It’s not so much the sixty cent minimum that piss me off so much as the partial payoffs. I’m a completionist. If I’ve blown the twenty I put in then, dammit, I want to be down twenty bucks, not down nineteen dollars and change. And they’re not fooling anyone. Is there anybody who bets sixty, wins back ten and thinks, “Huzzah! Finally able to retire!”

You know who’s really been screwed by inflation? The cocktail waitresses. Back in the nineties, I sat down at a two-dollar blackjack table and, when my “free drink” came around, I tipped the cocktail server a dollar. Nowadays, I sit down at a ten-dollar blackjack table and, when my “free drink” comes around, I tip the cocktail server a dollar. I went from tipping her fifty percent of a hand’s value to ten percent. But it would feel somehow wrong to tip five dollars for a free drink. That’s almost as much as the drink might cost if I paid for it.

Are strippers experiencing the same diminishing returns?

The cocktail servers can’t be hurting too much, though. I see the same ones year after year at March Madness. There are a couple of them who have worked the same portion of the sportsbook at the same time of the day as they were a decade ago. They must not be hurting, even if they do seem a tad slower than they once were, not turning in their orders until they have pre-orders filling every centimeter of their tray. 

Maybe I should up the tip to two bucks, as awkward as that would feel. Although in my defense, I still tip more than some of the people I’m at the table with. I tip my dealer, too. If I was an asshole like the Maker’s Mark fucktards, I might not walk away down forty bucks all the time. Damn my service industry background!

In addition to the partitions up at the slots and tables, you’re not allowed to touch your cards. That took some getting used to. My hand was slapped away three or four times before I adjusted to the new normal. Even after I figured it out, it was friggin hard to keep my hands to myself as my two cards sat there screaming at me. 

I’ve played at blackjack tables where everybody is dealt face up, but this wasn’t that. Your cards are dealt face down, then the dealer comes around to turn up one set of cards at a time. That player then decides what to do and it’s on to the next. It leads to shorter decision times. Not like it’s difficult to add two single digit numbers, but it goes beyond that. If the dealer’s showing an eight, I have to think ahead of time what I’m going to do if it’s a twelve or a fourteen or a sixteen. Normally I can think about those permutations ahead of time. 

The weirdest action was when asking for/buying insurance. If the dealer is showing an ace, they try to take more money in the suckerest of all sucker bets. If you “win” an insurance bet, that means the dealer has a blackjack and you’re getting your money back instead of losing your bet. Still not winning anything, though. And if the dealer doesn’t have a blackjack, you “lose” the insurance bet, but then play the hand normally, which means you can still lose and now you’re out 150% of your initial bet. Even if you win, you’ve lost 50% of the win because you lost it to “insure” the hand. 

Obviously, the insurance bet isn’t going away, just like the extended warranty on cars. But they have to show us our cards to see if we want to insure it. Who would insure a sixteen, after all? Heck, who would insure a nineteen? So when the dealer has an ace showing, she goes one by one, holding up our cards to the plexiglass at eye level like Jim Carrey at the jailhouse in Cable Guy. You nod or shake your head, then she puts your cards back on the table, face down. At least then I get a few extra seconds to decide what I’m going to do with those cards. Just in time for her to reveal she did, in fact, have that blackjack, so maybe I should’ve insured my sixteen?

But as with the TSA, the “what you can touch and what you can’t touch” rule seems arbitrary. For instance, after the dealer shuffles the cards, one of the players still cuts the deck. The dealer hands a plastic divider card to the player doing the cut. First it’s my turn, then with the next shuffling, it’s the guy next to me’s turn. This being single-deck, it’s only a few minutes between my grubby hands and the next guy’s. Not saying he’s going to get any viruses I’m carrying. Didn’t we determine many moons ago that it’s not traveling via touched surfaces, but water globules? Hence the masks and partitions. I mean, maybe if I spit in my hand before cutting the deck, he’d be in trouble. I’ve seen a lot of strange superstitions at blackjack tables over the years, but none have involved bodily fluids.

Then I went to the pai gow table. In pai gow, you’re given seven cards that you divide into two hands: a standard 5-card poker “high hand” and a 2-card “low hand”. The dealer doesn’t turn over his cards until everybody has made their hands. In fact, most beginning pai gow players ask the dealer or other players for advice as they learn. For instance, if you have two pair, do you put one pair in the high hand and one in the low, or do you make the high hand a much stronger two pair, leaving the low hand crappy and all but insuring a push?

So it can totally be done the same way as COVID blackjack. The dealer could turn over my cards, I could instruct him to put the jack of hearts and seven of diamonds into the low hand, then on to the next player. There might also be some difficulties of communication, but pointing works fine, and again, I’ve seen plenty of conversations between player and dealer about which cards should go where and never noticed a communication problem. The real issue is the amount of time it would take. If there are five players at the table and each one takes thirty seconds, you’re looking at five minutes gone by the time the dealer’s done his own and paid out winnings and collected losings. Even worse is that pai gow is a game where the casino doesn’t make money every hand. There are a lot of pushes. I often play it when I need my money to last longer. So if they don’t accumulate money as quickly as possible, and then they add to that the time it takes to play each of the six hands one-by-one, those drinks ain’t gonna be free much longer. But if we all use our thirty seconds simultaneously…

So it should come as little surprise that, in pai gow, we’re allowed to pick up our cards. They’re the exact same cards being used at the table next door. Technically, they go through a shuffling machine, but I’m almost certain they aren’t sanitized inside there. They don’t come out dripping with antibacterial residue or anything like that. They feel like regular cards. Or at least what I remember regular cards feeling like. I couldn’t confirm on the blackjack table. 

Because the casino might say they’re concerned about our safety, but in reality they’re really just “interested in” our safety. What they’re “concerned with” is making profit. And if the two of those can go hand-in-hand, then so much the better. Partitions help remind us we’re all making sacrifices. No blackjack touchie for you!

Just don’t let those sacrifices go too far. 

Camptathalon 2020

· February 12, 2021 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , · No Comments

Seeing as I posted about our aborted attempt at snow camping, now seems a good time to finally post the journal from last year’s oft-canceled, nearly-aborted Camptathalon trip. After a number of false starts and offside penalties, four of the five regulars were able to escape the shitshow of 2020 long enough to make an abbreviated attempt at a bona fide Camptathalon. So sorry if it’s a little light this year. 

As per usual, we logged what occurred. Everything here is 100% accurate. 

Taken 90% out of context. 

Friday.

3:10 Stop at Snowshoe Brewery in Arnold, CA to fill growlers, might as well stay for a pint. They don’t even require food to purchase booze in this county. It’s the wild west!
3:15 “Is it too early to put my mouth on your beer cup?”
3:40 “Sucking Daniel Craig’s dick would be just like kissing Rachel Weisz”
4:20 First two arrivals at campsite.
4:35 Last two arrivals at campsite. That was quick.
4:37 Chris opens first beer. Rick follows.
4:46 Oops. Packed tent but not poles. Fucking 2020.
4:55 “Why is there a tea bag in my tent?”

5:11 “I’ve decided to make a Camptathalon T-shirt contest. Since none of you knew, I win this year.”

5:37 “How spicy do you like your chili?”
   “Like my women. Hot, brown, and full of meat.”
5:44 Sparky is all-time leader in Loser Libations, the shitty alcohol the first person out of poker is required to drink.

5:57 Official Opening Toast

5:59 First baseball card of Camptathalon 2020 – Chet Lemon

  • 6:06 Every time that flag’s unfurled, they’re comin’ to Camptathalon. Today!
6:27 Hey, has anyone seen Rick?

6:35 Is it proper chili without beans?
   (Grabbing Crotch) “I got your proper beans right here and if you give me five minutes, I’ll make some sour cream for you.”
   “Dude, you need five minutes?”
6:46 Sparky recalls being invited to a loose girl’s house in high school, watching Kent Mercker’s no-hitter on her TV. “So she pitched a no-hitter, too?”
7:10 First party foul. Spilled beer while grabbing cookies.
7:21 First Event: Friday Night Poker
7:41 Loser Libation Preview: It hasn’t been iced.
7:51 “It’s from that movie called… What the fuck is that movie called? It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer making out some other chick.”
    “Oh, that’s Cruel Intentions!”
7:52 Wait, who the hell dealt this hand? Check, check, check.
7:56 Put your dick on the table. One red chip dick.

8:17 With the first all-in, Loser Libation is revealed as Franzia Sunset Blush

8:19 All-in won. Live to see another day.
8:23 Can we please put that on ice now?
8:25 “No. Fuck you guys. Tell the story. Tell the story right now.”
8:34 Chris out on a double full house.

8:38 [redacted]

8:42 “I have a 4.”
8:50 “Loser Lube-ation.”
8:53 Sparky keeps dropping cards. Tony invokes Jon Lovitz as Dukakis. “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy!”
8:58 Two growlers down.
9:00 “Are you taking this stick or do I need to wrap up these sticks?”
9:11 Loser Libation is finito.
9:17 Another card dropped through the table crack by the crack whore.
9:23 “As happy as I am that you can do math, I cordially invite you to suck my cock.”
9:33 “Gunslinger Rick puts out his second opponent of the night.”
    “I put out all the time.”
9:34 “It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a pok’er.”
9:43 “How is this guy still in it? He was up against it twice and I had to fucking drink the hole fucking Franzia all in one night.”
9:49 Sparky down for the count
9:58 Standings after one event: Rick 5, Tony 3, Sparky 1, Chris 0
10:01 I think we can leave the baseball cards out. I’m not worried about bears eating cards.
10:37 Savory in your mouth
10:57 Rick retires
11:11 Tony & Chris out.

Saturday

6:57 Upon further reflection, those last two beers, and the entire bottle of Makers Mark, might not have been entirely necessary last night.
6:59 “I evacuated the Loser Libation last night.”
7:24 “Where the hell did you find Franzia?”
    “You can find it behind the tree over there right now.”
7:57 Guess it’s time to go read the constitution

8:07 Butter removed from ice

8:23 Chipmunk jumps in the fire

9:10 Same stupid chipmunk jumps in the bocce ball box.

9:25 Trip to store unsuccessful in locating Miller Genuine Draft. Thank God.
9:27 First beer of the morning.
10:00 Cribbage.
10:42 “I’m ready for some cornholing.”
   “That’s all you, buddy.”
10:47 It’s probably too early to start drinking heavily
10:59 Rick cornholes Tony in Round 1 with a score of 21-2
11:02 “I need to get better. I’m going to ask my wife for a cornhole for Christmas.”
11:09 Another cornholing as Sparky beats Chris 21-8
11:40 Lunch: A couple of hot Hawaiians
12:10 Round two of cornhole
12:19 Chris wins third place.
12:22 “What’s a devil’s three-way?”
   “Do you need me to draw you a diagram?”
12:31 “You keep tickling the cornhole, but not going in.”
12:39 Sparky powers back from 15-3, wins 21-20.
  Cornhole results: Sparky 5, Rick 3, Chris 1, Tony 0
  After two events: Rick 8, Mark 6, Tony 3, Chris 1

12:42 Hurricane Laura is the Butter Toss target.

12:51 Too close to call, Rick and Sparky must toss-off to make the final round against Chris.
12:53 Butter Toss results: Chris 5, Rick 3, Sparky 1, Tony 0
    After three events: Rick 11, Sparky 7, Chris 6, Tony 3
12:57 Homerun Derby
1:07 Round 1: Chris 8, Sparky 4, Rick 3* (7 outs left), Tony 2
1:13 Round 2: Chris 2 (8 outs left), Rick 2 (7 outs left), Sparky 1
1:18 Rick and Chris headed to a 5-out jack-off, tied 7-7 in finals.
1:24 Rick 2, Chris hits 3rd with four outs left, flips bat, runs around gimpy and pumping arms like Kirk Gibson
   After four events: Rick 14, Chris 11, Sparky 8, Tony 3
2:00 Chipmunk in bear locker. Bear’s going to be pissed.
3:16 “I’m going to take a leak. Then change clothes. And then I’m going to have a beer. Not that you all needed the play-by-play.”
3:40 Exhibition event. Welcome to… New Las Vegas “board” game.

5:11 Tri-tip on the grill, time for Adventure Bocce

5:43 Adventure Bocce results: Chris 5, Sparky 3, Tony 1, Rick 0
   With one event left: Chris 16, Rick 14, Sparky 11, Tony 4
6:01 Tri-tip sammiches
6:25 Rick putting cooler back in car. Quitters never prosper!
  “Fuck you. I’m out of beer in that cooler!”

6:31 “Like a 14-year-old groping around on prom night.”
6:35 It’s about time we read from the Rimmer book.

6:47 Final event: Cards Against Humanity
7:17 Rick wins on “A romantic candlelit dinner would be incomplete without… calculating every mannerism so as not to suggest homosexuality.” If Chris comes in second, we’ll have a tie atop the standings.
7:26 Tony finishes second with “What helps Obama unwind? Out of this world bazongas.”

7:32 Final Camptathalon standings: Rick 19, Chris 16, Sparky 12, Tony 7

7:37 Draft: Action Movies
Order: Sparky, Chris, Rick, Tony
Rd. 1: The Rock, Terminator, Die Hard, Missing in Action
Rd. 2: Top Gun, Red Dawn, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Red
Rd. 3: The Fast & the Furious, First Blood, Aliens, Gone in 60 Seconds
Rd. 4: Bourne Identity, Tango & Cash, 300, The Goonies
(Ed. Note: Drafts are snake-style, so Tony took Missing in Action with pick 4, then Red with pick 5)

8:09 Draft: Holidays
Chris, Rick, Tony, Sparky
Rd. 1: Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Independence Day
Rd. 2: Father’s Day, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day
Rd. 3: Constitution Day, Veteran’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day
Rd. 4: Easter, Super Bowl Sunday, Opening Day, MLK Day
Rd. 5: Fishmas, Cesar Chavez Day, Canada Day, 21st Amendment Day

8:31 “Now that the sun is down, I can pee openly.”

8:35 Draft: Candy
Rick, Tony, Sparky, Chris
Rd. 1: Pay Day, Peanut M&Ms, Twix, Whatchamacallit
Rd. 2 Snickers, Reese’s Pieces, Peese’s PB Cup, Hershey w/ Almond
Rd. 3: Mr. Goodbar, Almond Joy, Gummy Bears, Kit Kat
Rd. 4: Butterfinger, 100 Grand, Caramels, Nestle Crunch
Rd. 5: Twizzler, Goobers, Starburst, Swedish Fish
Rd. 6: Lifesavers, Bueno Bar, Orange Slices, Black Licorice
Honorable mentions: Junior Mints, Heath/Skor, Hershey’s Kisses w/ almonds

8:47 Ladies across the way already went to sleep. Fuck them. Quiet hours aren’t until 10:00
8:58 “Is it 9:00 yet?”
  “You must stay up until 10:00. First person who falls asleep, we’re dipping your hand in warm water and shaving your eyebrows.”
  “Without warm water or a razor?”
9:32 “I can blow well.”
9:44 “On that note…”
“It’s not 10:00 yet, bitch.”
10:01 “And on that note…”

Sunday
6:34 Shushed by karens next door for packing up too loud.
6:37 Every time that flag’s refurled…
6:52 That smoke in the sky is new. And ash on the cars. Looks like we barely beat the fire this year.
7:43 Westbound and down.

Passing on a Passion

· November 20, 2020 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , · No Comments

I’ve been teaching Daughter some of the finer parts of sports recently. Y’know, “beyond the box score” stuff that gives you a deeper understanding of what it’s like to lace up them cleats and face the world like men.

But before I could get to the intricacies of ideal down and distance for a screen pass, I had to start with more basic fundamentals. Like “this is called football.”

Not that we’ve avoided exposing her to those various American pastimes, altogether. Wife and I met at a baseball game, so Daughter attended her first minor league baseball day (on Jimmy Buffett Night, no less) at about six weeks old. She’s been to three of the five major league stadiums in California. If we’re ever allowed to travel out of state again, she should finish the AL and NL West in no time. One trip to Seattle, one trip to Colorado, two places I love to visit!

What’s that? Arizona? Texas, too? During the summer?!?

But I don’t inundate her with many televised sports. Wife and I both grew up in the 1970s and 1980s when every television in America was required to be turned on whenever anybody was inside the house or else the Russians were going to win. Nowadays we prefer to have music on instead of TV. With SiriusXM and Pandora and Amazon Music all streaming on our Alexa, it’s a variety that would’ve given me carpal tunnel system with that behemoth of a five-CD changer I spent a month’s salary on my senior year of high school. 

When we do watch TV, it doesn’t follow the same pattern as when my father only knew of two types of programming – news and sports. By contrast, our TV is tuned to Disney, Jr about ninety percent of the time. 

The times I absolutely need to watch a baseball or football game, I’ll go to another room or, since this is the 21st century, watch it on my laptop or phone on the couch right next to my daughter watching Bluey. Daughter actually thinks curling is as prominent as football, since it’s only on devices, never the TV, so I watch it more often. Use that for your 21st century communications thesis!

Ha-ha, just kidding. Communications majors never write papers longer than a paragraph. 

Sometimes I wonder if my relationship with my own father would’ve been improved if he could’ve watched his sports by himself. Or, more realistically with my dad, if he could’ve sent me to the other room to watch my cartoons because, goddammit, he worked hard to pay for that roof over my head and, goddammit, he only gets to watch sports on weekends and every evening, but not Sunday evening because that’s 60 Minutes time and…

Sorry, where was I? Oh right, if I hadn’t interrupted my dad’s sport-watching so much, he might not’ve hated me so much? Or vice versa? 

But due to a confluence of events over the past month or so, she’s had to cede a little bit of her television dominance to some live sports instead of the same episode of Vampirina for the sixth time in a row. And since I’ve commandeered the tele, the least I could do was explain what’s going on. It makes me feel less guilty about asserting my manorial rights. Plus if I don’t engage Daughter and she jumps all over Mommy, then Daddy’s sports-viewing time is going by the wayside regardless of the fact that they’re going for it on 4th-and-one.

The first sport to grace our television screen was the baseball playoffs. I couldn’t watch them on mlb.tv subscription, which I use during the regular season because I root for an out-of-town team. But somehow the 150 hard-earned dollars I spent for their product doesn’t extend to the postseason. Sheesh, talk about a rip-off! I only get to watch 162 games from my favorite team for that $150? Why, back in my dad’s day, he was able to watch something like seventy WHOLE games. But only for the local team. And only if they weren’t opposite Belle and Sebastian, which my dad referred to as “What’s-his-face and his dog.”

At least he knew there was a dog in it. During the Latchkey 1980s, that might’ve won him a nomination for Parent of the Year.

So, sitting next to Daughter for an opening-round Padres game,  I started trying to explain baseball to Daughter. And herein the problems began. Because, in case I haven’t made it clear, my relationship with my father wasn’t great, and it was even worse when it came to sports.  If you need more proof, his favorite teams were the Dodgers and the Raiders. I grew up (yes, even when he was in the house) an Angels fan. When I finally got around to noticing the football, I opted for the Broncos, probably because I’d heard my dad curse John Elway’s name many a time.

I wasn’t entirely a self-taught sports fan. My grandparents were in the Angels booster’s club and I’ve been going to games in Anaheim my whole life. But I was in my teens before I learned how to throw a baseball. I used a VCR to tape a Braves relief pitcher’s delivery on TBS, then played it back in slow-motion to copy the mechanics. To this day, I still can’t throw a football. I throw it like a baseball, which countless people tell me isn’t possible until they see me throw a football, then remark, “Holy shit, you throw that just like a baseball!” 

It’s a good thing Daughter’s name isn’t Son.

Most of my sports viewing came about in college, primarily so I’d have something to talk to “normal” people about. My interests revolved around history and classic rock and penis/fart jokes. Meatloaf says two out of three ain’t bad, but I was, at best, batting .333, and unless I could pick and choose my audience, most of the time it was a hat-trick of strikeouts. So I expanded my understanding of baseball, including the fact that there were, at the time, 23 OTHER teams not named the Angels. I also partook in the weekly dorm-floor football viewing on Sunday mornings. Sprinkle in a dabbling of hockey and basketball and, voila!, I don’t have to leave the room when my anecdote about Catherine the Great falls flat.

I’ve taught plenty of girlfriends and other nerd-friends about how to follow sports, but seeing as my own appreciation for sports occurred beyond the age of reason, I don’t know if those experiences translate to fathering. When explaining the game to a six-year old hoping for guidance and discovery, the differences between a two-seam and a four-seam fastball probably ain’t gonna cut it.

The only thing my mom ever told me about how she raised me to like baseball was that, when we went to a game, we couldn’t go get food until there was a number under the “4” on the scoreboard, meaning top of the 4th if the away team scores a run, otherwise we had to wait until the middle of the inning when the “0” pops up. In retrospect, that seems to predicate one toward rooting for the away team, but I guess she was more concerned with her wallet than my blooming sports interest. Perhaps that helps explain my disparate, heterodox sports fandom these days. I live in northern California and the short list of teams I root for include the Anaheim Angels, Tennessee Titans, Colorado Buffaloes, and Calgary Flames. Don’t ask. It’s probably worthy of blog post of its own.

And no, they’re not the Los Angeles Angels. California Angels is okay, but Anaheim Angels is ideal. It’s alliterative and appears first in the alphabet. You’re never going to win over L.A., Arte Moreno. People in Orange County hate L.A. Lean into it!

My dad is no longer alive, so I can’t consult him about how he tried (and failed) to pique my interest, or at the very least, how he explained sports to me. I assume it was something along the lines of, “Fuck off, kid, the game is on.” Not in so many words, but the message would’ve been clear.

So I started with the basics. Pitcher versus batter, the most pure faceoff in all of sports. Equal parts strategy and execution. Two warriors trying to out-think each other before resorting to natural talent honed by thousands of repetitions.

How did I translate this into Daughter-speak?

“The guy with the ball is trying to throw it through the little square on the TV screen.”

One thing is certain. I can guarantee that isn’t how my father explained it to me. 

The “little square on the TV screen” is, of course, the strike zone, which is digitally imprinted on most baseball broadcasts over the past decade. I’m usually not too big of a fan of it. It’s not the official strike zone, of course, because that’s only in the eye of the umpire. But if nothing else, it gives us verifiable proof of what we’ve all been yelling since “Damn Yankees” – “You’re blind, Ump. You’re blind, Ump. You must be outta your mind, Ump!”

As an aside, who the hell decided that Broadway musical and 1950s baseball was a good mix? Throw in the devil, too. I’d be curious to watch the “Mad Men” episode that analyzed exactly which cross-section of society they were aiming for with that one. And why, when they revived it in the 1990s, did they stick with the Washington Senators, a team which hadn’t existed in 25 years? It’s gotta be even more confusing now, with the new Washington team playing in the national league and, ergo, never losing a playoff spot to those Damn Yankees. Baltimore Orioles is the same number of syllables. Just sayin’.

So I managed to get a few basics through to Daughter. Four pitches thrown outside the little box means a walk. Unless the batter swings and misses. Until I told her, on a 3-2 count, that the next pitch was the one where it would all be decided, only to see it fouled off. Then again. Then again. 

And she was done. Maybe next season she’ll learn what a base hit looks like.

Since the World Series, we’ve been doing some mandated COVID home-improvement projects. At least I assume they are mandated, because everybody I know is building house additions and buying new couches and converting the kid’s bedroom into a dry sauna room even though the kid is still living in the house. 

Our particular project was getting new carpets. This necessitated moving a bunch of furniture around, and for about a week, we only had (shudder…) one TV plugged in. In the whole house! What is this, 1947?

To make matters worse, my Titans were on TV. Since they made the AFC Championship last year and have the best running back in the game, they’re showing up as the game of the week a little more often. This is difficult for me because I’m used to the years when they only show up on my TV once or twice a year, so I’ve attuned myself to watching every time they’re on. This year, I’ve already seen them four times and we’re only halfway through the season. Although one of those was a Tuesday game that was delayed due to COVID, so maybe it’s less about Derrick Henry and more about 2020 just being fucked up in general.

Anyway, the Titans were going to be on TV and we only have one TV in the house. Sorry, Daughter, but I’m going to do an impression of the grandfather you never met. Now pull my finger.

So Daughter plopped herself next to me and asked me what was going on in the game, what the teams were trying to accomplish.

And what did I tell her?

They’re trying to get to the yellow line. 

That’s right, the magical first-down marker which I mocked and reviled when it was first added to football games. I considered it the greatest dumbing-down in the history of sports. How the hell hard is it to figure out how far they have to go if it’s listed as third-and-four and, by the way, they’ve got a giant fucking orange stick glaring at you from the sideline. 

Yeah, THAT magical yellow line.

You see, Daughter, they have three chances to get past the yellow line, and if they’re successful, they’ll get a new yellow line. If they don’t make it, they have to kick it away to the other team, who will get a yellow line of their own. 

Fortunately, she didn’t watch long enough to see somebody go for it on 4th down.

So let’s chalk “teaching sports” up as one more thing I can’t conceive of doing before technology existed. I don’t know how we found random businesses before Google Maps. Nor how we coordinated schedules with friends. How the hell did teachers teach without googling “Russian Revolution lesson plan.” How did authors write without cut-and-paste functions? Did they really have to retype the whole fucking page to fix one typo? What happens if there’s a typo on the retype?

And now, sports. The pitcher is trying to throw the ball through the little square. A football team is trying to get to the yellow line. If I ever turn on a hockey game, I’ll have to tell her they all want possession of the glowing thing.

Well, at the very least, I can be sure of one thing. 

I’m certainly not approaching sports with my daughter the same way my dad did with me.

Outdoor Curling, Off-Ice

· February 9, 2020 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , , , , · 3 Comments

I originally intended for this post to be a two-parter.One for preparation, one for the Sawtooth Outdoor Bonspiel. But one of our games turned into an epic, inspiring poems retold for centuries to come. So now it’s a threesome of posts. No, wait a second. Is there another word for a group of three? Perhaps a double-team? You’re currently reading the meat of this curling-post sandwich.

Read on to find out what the beautiful town of Stanley was like and how I managed to snap my wrist! Then you can find the on-ice stuff here.

Okay, so the good news is that the weather was way warmer than expected. I spent the last three months expecting zero degrees Farenheit, and in the end I got zero degrees Celsius (and y’all thought I didn’t know metric.)

Heck, we didn’t even need the beards and goggles. But when you deck yourself out this sexy, there’s no turning back on account of weather.

The bad news is that it’s really, really difficult to curl when the ambient temperature is the freezing point of water. Because, you see, we need the water to be actually frozen. If it’s melting, the stone can’t glide across it, as it’s supposed to. We went to a hockey game and a water polo match broke out. Not that I’d trust horses on either surface.

As an example, we time our deliveries in curling, in order to give the sweepers an idea of when to sweep and to give the shooter an idea of how the ice is working. We only time the beginning of the delivery. Under normal conditions, a delivery of 3.5 or 3.6 or 3.7 seconds means the rock will end on the button (the middle of the “bullseye”) at the other end, about 25 seconds later. And if I’m timing the lead on my team and discover it’s 3.7 to button versus 3.5, then that tells me I need to slide out a little slower than usual.

At the beginning of our first game, it was 2.6 seconds to button. As far as we could tell. At those speeds, it’s hard to get an accurate reading, as the sweepers are chasing after a 20 MPH bullet. So yeah, for the first two ends, we were pretty much throwing as hard as we could and hoping for the best.

The game was scheduled to start at 5:00, but they pushed it back to 5:30 to accommodate for the weather. They should’ve pushed it back to 6:00. Because by the third end, the ice was closer to normal. Okay, maybe it was 3.3 to button instead of the usual 3.6, but that’s something we can work with.

Not that we could work with it. We scored one in the first end and then got shutout for the next five. There were a few times we’d get a little something going, but then the other team would make a perfect draw and we’d end up with squa-doosh. I was ready to throw in the towel on the second-to-last end when we were down 8-1. But then we were looking at three points before I took my final two shots. We all agreed: if we score less than five, we’ll shake hands and concede the game. Because if we score, the other team gets the hammer (final shot). And it’s really, really hard to score more than two if the other team has the final shot. But if we scored five, we’d be down by two. And then….

We scored five. Game’s now 8-6. Other team wants to shake hands, but we went dick-mode and made them play the final end. It didn’t matter. My final shot curled a foot too far, pushing our own stone back instead of their stone, as intended, so they didn’t even need to take their final shot.

The weight actually normalized a bit when the sun started to set. Although human beings might not like the temperature in the twenties, curling rocks do. That’s one of the ways we were able to mount that comeback. Once the ice behaved in a marginally normal way, we were able to make some stuff happen. The lines were still wonky. If you moved the broom six inches to the left, the rock might end up six feet to the left. But that actually worked in our favor because the other team kept missing their hits. A team can’t really score five points in an end unless the other team messes up.

Then again, you gotta be ready to pounce on the opponent’s mistakes.

After the game, we headed to one of two restaurants in Stanley. There’s usually a pizza place, too, but it was closed for renovation. We were worried that, in a town of 67, the restaurant might not be open past 8:00. Heck, I live in a city of 60,000 and it’s sometimes hard to find anyplace open that late.

Turns out we didn’t need to worry. They stayed open for us, and were still open when the next draw ended. Makes sense. Sixteen teams, four curlers apiece. We just doubled the size of their population. I guess when you live in a remote town, anytime there’s outside money coming in, you gotta accommodate them. Otherwise you’re just taking money from Henry at the hardware store, whom you’ll be giving it back to next week when you need some more propane.

Word in the restaurant was that the late draw worked the opposite of us. The speed of the ice was normal for the first couple of ends, and then the fog rolled in, which pushed people back up to 2.6-second draws. I never thought about the effects of fog on curling rocks (not something we encounter too much indoors), but it makes sense. The air’s going to get heavier and there’s going to be more moisture. Neither of those are great for speeding up a 42-pound rock sliding across a frozen pond.

Unfortunately, because we lost game one, we were stuck in the early draw the next morning. 7:00 AM, an hour and change before sunrise. A wonderful time to enjoy the comfort and extravagance of a mountain retreat. It was pitch black when the game started. Check this out:

You can almost see where you’re aiming, huh? It changed how I held the target broom. Usually I try to make the target as small as possible. I stand directly behind my broom, tuck one foot behind the other. The head on my broom is usually a neon green or garish orange that really pops against the black of my pants and shoes. Don’t want to confuse my team with where the target is. Some skips stand with their legs a foot or two wide and the next thing you know, you’re accidentally sighting in on their left foot or the open air in between instead of the broom.

I started this game doing just that. Then one of my teammates told me to spread my legs. After the commensurate and anatomically errant “That’s what she said,” I opened them up wide. When finished, I saw why they were asking. My body had been blocking the spotlights. They couldn’t really see the orange target. But if I widened my stance like a GOP Senator in a Minnesota airport, they could see the giant stick between my legs.

And there was a broom there, too. Hey-Oh!

I was told by a guy who had come in previous years to be on the lookout for the sunrise. It’s beautiful, he said, and it will, however temporarily, help you stop the nagging doubt building in your gut as to why you signed up and paid for the “privilege” of frostbitten testicles. Then again, he was there on one of those negative-five days, not a twenty-degrees-at-sunrise type of day that I got to experience.

But he wasn’t wrong about the sunrise:

These photos are brought to you by a couple of stones that I didn’t bother watching. I probably could’ve swept them to better positions, helped my team win their fucking game. But really, how can I let that sunrise go by? I didn’t come here to win games. I came to freeze my testicles!

I decided to throw on an extra layer of clothing this time. Despite months of planning, the previous night had been a bit chilly. My legs were fine. My toes, despite two layers of socks and two layers of rubber, felt the ice whenever I stood still. But the worst part was my chest and arms. One layer of thermal, then a t-shirt, then a onesie was not enough. And that had been at thirty degrees. This time the thermometer read a crisp eighteen when we left our hotel. What had been a wee bit uncomfortable last night would be a tad more hard-core today.

It was fine, though. I brought the flannel shirt I usually take camping. It’s thick. Add that to some thermals underneath and my super fancy onesie on top and I should be nice and cozy, right? Well, it was better but still not ideal.

I did finally get my chest to a happy medium, though. After our second game, we were supposed to return to the ice rink to help them out with some stuff around midday. This time I went old school. I have some of those old-fashioned wool long-john style underwear that I’ve had since I was a teenager. I don’t want to say we’ve regressed as a society, but the ugly-ass shit from World War II works a hell of a lot better than the sleek black Audi shit of today. We’ve become more concerned with looking good than, I don’t know, surviving the elements. At least the rescuers will find a very sexy corpse-sicle.

Fortunately it stretches, cause my gut ain’t what it once was. Or rather, it’s a lot more than it once was. Unfortunately it doesn’t stretch THAT much, so the downward-slope of my undergut was feeling a bit drafty. But whatever, it kept the rest of me warm. I actually just wore a t-shirt over it. No onesie! Besides, it was the low-thirties once again, so I didn’t need to ward off frostbite.

By our third game, I had perfected it. Sleek black thermal, wool longjohn, flannel shirt, onesie. Four layers! I was downright toasty.

Except for my feet. Cause no matter how protected my chest and arms were, my toes were still permanently aware of the fact that they were walking on ice. One layer of cotton sock, one layer of thermal sock, shoe rubber and gripper rubber be damned.

I tried some of those iron-oxide foot warmers, but they didn’t seem to do much. I put them outside the thermal socks, thinking the closer to the ice, the better. Maybe I should’ve put them in between my two socks. If I ever return, I’ll test that out.

Oh, and I fell on the ice when I helped during the day. You see, when the sun is out and it’s 34 degrees, it makes the ice super slippery. It’s a bad time to curl and evidently it’s a bad time to walk. I was in the act of kicking an errant rock over to the edge. The ice was in the act of kicking my ass to the ground.

The good news is that years of curling has taught me how to fall on ice. Always fall forward, never backward. Backward is where blackouts and cracked skulls happen. And trips to the emergency room with the commensurate ambulance bill. Unfortunately, when your ass gets above your teakettle, you can get a concussion on the front-end, too. Did you know it’s possible to land temple first?

The good news is that my on-ice instinct must be honed very well. The bad news is that I got my wrist underneath me at the last minute before my face planted. Or maybe it’s the good news. Because a sprained wrist is better than being knocked unconscious and whisked off to the nearest hospital, which was over an hour away. But unfortunately, a sprained wrist is substantially worse than an unsprained wrist. It looks gnarly, too.

That’ll teach me to help out.

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