Boulder, et al.

My friend Marc had a pub crawl (or Pub Krull as we called it) in Boulder a few weekends ago. It was so much fun! I love Boulder. The whole night I kept asking everyone why I don't live there. No doubt a 50 minute commute would get old quick but still. There's just this feeling about Boulder that's just so relaxing. They don't allow smoking in the bars there, so that's a big plus not smelling like ass when you get home. And there were hotties everywhere that night. We went to a wide range of bars including an Irish pub, a piano bar, a sushi bar and a club-type bar.

I've been really active (and sore) these past few days. We have this short dodgeball league at work that I've been playing in. Thursday was our 2nd (and 2nd to last) day. The first week we nearly had an "incident" with this all-Army team. John Martin from our team went on the opposing court to gather balls after he got out (since they weren't throwing them back in play like they're supposed to). Our opponent took offense and there was a little arguing whether that was allowed by the rules. The ref ruled that it wasn't allowed. We convinced John to let it go, but he wasn't happy. At this point, an Army guy threw a ball at him (when it was obvious he wasn't in the game). John got pissed, of course, and the guy claimed he thought that he was in (which was obviously BS). Now it seemed like John was about to rush this guy and take a swing, but we convinced him to stop. This other Army guy was egging him on telling him to take a swing. I tried to tell him to shut the hell up because he wasn't helping. It wasn't until the following week that I realized that they're supposed to stay disciplined and not start anything. So he was probably egging him on, so that they could fight back in retaliation.

Anyway, so that was a tense moment, but we ended up winning that game even though everyone was so intimidated by them (not to act like some super-brave guy, but I didn't really understand everyone's concern). So back to this past Thursday, we play them again, and Tonya's emphasizing that this is just a game and for everyone to keep their cool. We play, and they start being asses again. We all remain civil. Towards the end Marx is the only person left in on our team. He survives for a while against 3 Armymen and catches a couple to get Bob and Marc in (who get out fairly quickly). I think Marx had another catch to get Leon in before getting out himself. Leon catches one to get me in, and before I know it, Leon's out too. I'm by myself now and look up to realize they only have one person left too. Once I came to this realization, I was fine. I could feel the nervousness on the sidelines, but I knew in a 1-on-1 matchup, I was fine. The refs were really trying to rush the games that day and they kept counting down for us not to hold the balls. Well, the problem was they weren't enforcing this because the Army guys would just hold them even after the countdown reached zero. At one point, she counted down and looked at me. I just made this gesture like "He's had that one in his hand long before I got this one!" I think the refs had given up hope on trying to get the Army guys to follow the rules.

So this guy was obviously trying to pick his throws carefully. I didn't really care. I was moving around, and I didn't just hang out around the back waiting for his throw. Finally, he threw it at me, and I just squared up and caught it. The next thing I know the sidelines erupt and Marx picks me up on his shoulders. I was a bit confused. Leon picks me up on his shoulders too. It was a good win, but I was confused what was the big deal. I thought maybe since they were such asses, it was sweeter. Or perhaps because we were grasping on by a hair at the end of the game. Everyone told me what a great catch it was (even the guy who threw it). But, it wasn't until we finished the rest of the games and people kept going off about the catch that I realized: that guy must've really chucked that ball! Everyone was going off about how fast it was, and how amazing it was that I caught it. I thought everyone was just exaggerating or something because I didn't think it was that great of a catch (except that it was in the clutch, which I love doing). But soo many people were talking about how fast it was that I guess I'll defer to them and just assume that I was just in the zone. In any case, it was a great feeling!

Okay, so back to the soreness ... after dodgeball, my chest started hurting where I had a minor snowboarding injury the week before at Breck (I did my first double-black run! Though, that's not where I hurt myself). I think Marx and Leon might've aggravated it when they picked me up because it wasn't hurting this much even when it first happened. It's actually still pretty sore. So that evening, John Jost, Bob, Marc and I went to play some pickup Ultimate. I couldn't sprint very much without my chest hurting. I got pretty frustrated because a couple of times I was in a full sprint covering someone and just barely missed the disc and got scored on. It was an okay game. It would've been much better had the players been more sociable (they seemed to kinda stick to themselves). Afterwards, we threw around the disc for a while, and I practiced my flick (forehand throw) which has been terrible. That night, I realized one problem that I hadn't even thought of is that I'm ambidextrous with my backhand but better left-handed. But with the forehand, I can only do it right-handed ... which is probably not good since that means switching hands to switch between the two. So I figured I needed to improve my right-handed backhand (which isn't bad, actually ... it's just naturally, I go left-handed). I figure eventually I can use my ambidexterity with the backhand to my advantage to make it hard to defend my throws. Anyway, I took Friday off, and a bunch of us went to Wash Park later in the day to practice Ultimate. It was me, John, Dustin, Leon, Jolene, Tonya, Shannon, D and a couple of guys from Leon's team. It was really fun and helpful. One of the guys really helped me out with my flick, and I tried to practice my right-handed backhand more. We did some drills that were pretty cool.

The next day, a bunch of us went to Boulder to go hiking at Chautauqua. It was John, Tonya, Shannon, Leon, Marc, Annica and me.



It was great being in Boulder again, although a lot of us were still sore. We went up to the Royal Arch and came down and met up with Beth Ann at the Southern Sun for lunch. That place is awesome! Before lunch though, we threw around the disc some more. I was feeling a lot more confident with my throws and even did a few pretty good hammer throws.



Sunday was our Ultimate games, and it wasn't really that great. For one, I was sore ... my chest was still aching, and I knew I wouldn't be able to sprint all out without feeling it. It was a frustrating day for me because it was really windy, so I knew it'd be hard to get me the disc since I'm always the deep guy. You sprint and get open and realize you're not going to get the disc ... it's just disheartening. Anyway, so I didn't really feel like I contributed a whole lot (although I did run my ass off trying to pull in some), and I was hurting pretty bad at times. Some of my teammates asked if I was okay because I was holding my chest after a long sprint. One good thing though was that we played zone defense a lot that day, and I was feeling pretty good about our execution. We definitely caused a lot of confusion and turns (turnovers). It was by no means a dominant D, but I felt comfortable playing it which is good in case we need to play zone in the future.

Black

I'm currently hooked to this song right now ... it's not a new song by any means. It's "Black" from Pearl Jam's first album Ten. I've liked it for quite some time, but I borrowed the CD from a coworker and have been listening to it at work, and I just like it on a whole new level now. The lyrics are so poetic. Unfortunately, it's not really a song you can sing or has any lyrics that are resonant. But still, it's managed to keep me coming back for more for about a week now.

Actually, interesting story about that song. I had heard it on the radio for years and wondered what it was called. But of course, they never say the name of the song on the radio when you want them to. So for years, I wondered ... knowing that it was Pearl Jam, I tried downloading their singles to no avail. I remember hearing it in high school, so I knew it had to be pre-1998. Still, I had no luck. Normally, I just memorize a few lines from the song and Google it to find the song, but like I said, this song doesn't have any resounding lyrics ... just this repetitive beautiful, haunting piano/vocal part at the end. But I can't Google a tune! Then a few years ago, I heard it on the radio in Baton Rouge, and I emailed the DJ and told him the exact time that he played it, hoping that they had some kind of log of what they played. Apparently not. We emailed back and forth a couple of times as he tried to help me figure it out, giving suggestions of possible Pearl Jam songs ... none of which was my white whale. Finally, a few weeks later, they played it again, and my friend Dale was with me. We both memorized some random words in the song ("bitter hands" comes to mind), and after a little Googling, I finally found it! I felt kinda silly actually that it turned out to be on Ten which is only considered to be one of the most influential albums of our time (but I had never heard the whole thing until about a week ago)! Anyway, it turns out that "Black" was never really released as a single. I guess it was just one of those songs the radio started playing.

Okay, so another aside ... while posting this, I did some research on Wikipedia (as I always do) and "found out" that Pearl Jam used to be called Mookie Blaylock. "Found out" is in quotes because technically I had been told this several times when I was younger by my brother. He is such a good bullshitter that for all these years I refused to believe him because it just sounded like an absurd fabrication that he was persistent about. Why would Pearl Jam be called Mookie Blaylock ... an NBA basketball player? Well, for whatever reason, they apparently were. And apparently Ten was named such because that was his number!

Better than Ezra

So I went to Copper this past Saturday with some friends. I don't think I would've gone boarding at all this weekend (it just feels like ski season is over) except that Better than Ezra was performing there. I'm a fan ... not a huge fan, but a fan nonetheless. I've seen them in concert once before when they played at Bon Fete in Baton Rouge. Anyway, they have some good stuff. Plus they're from New Orleans, so that's a plus. :-) Actually I read that the band was formed when the lead singer was at LSU. In any case, so yea, it was a pretty uneventful day. It started sleeting which kinda hurt when coming down the mountain, so we stopped early and waited for the concert. They started kinda late which was annoying because I wanted to get home in time for the LSU game (yea, yea, so the men and women lost in the Final 4 ... still, it was a good run).



So we probably listened to about half their set and headed out. They were pretty entertaining performers, interjecting random comments in their show to keep things interesting. At one point they were talking about after the show, and the lead singer mentioned that the only thing they had to do was to cheer on the LSU Tigers at which point I started cheering of course! :-) The only song of theirs that I wanted to hear that I didn't get to was "Desperately Wanting". As we were leaving, we stopped to hear a few more songs, and they mentioned this interesting story about how before their 3rd album, they were playing at Breckenridge at this "Classical Festival." He described it as "Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Better than Ezra, Brahms" and that someone must've goofed in the planning. hehe ... so anyway, he said that they had this great song, but couldn't come up with a good chorus for it. And that night, at Breckenridge, they came up with the chorus. So then they play the song, and it's "At the Stars" which is probably my favorite song by them! I thought that was really cool.



So we left after that thinking that there would be a lot of traffic. I wish we would've stayed because apparently John Martin was there, and he said it was a lot of fun towards the end. Plus traffic was non-existent so we made it back to Denver in no time. And then of course, I watched my Tigers get slaughtered by UCLA. :-(

Other than that, I'm really getting into Ultimate. I had some pretty good plays Sunday, and I'm feeling more confident in what I'm doing. I threw for my first point for the team, so that was exciting. We have a practice tomorrow which should be fun. It's fun just running around. It really makes me want to play football again! Anyway, once I get some cleats, it's on!