takeout pizza

beckie saw this, and the box, and thought I ganked it from a dumpster.   i have been known to do that. But no, again the day is saved by several feet of duct tape wrapped round the hand pump. I don’t want my dinner to spill.

It went like this…

i was biking the kids home from school, as per usual. Minding my own business. There was an artsy-walky thing going on at school. Little did i know. Hence our fashionably late arrival. Kids pranced around, showed me paper machete, and ran themselves retarded on the playground. By the time they were hungry, they’d nearly won the party, with an abundance of pizza and a dearth of eaters. $5 firesale, we took 2.

i was gonna strap it to the roof with bungy, wrap it up in a grocery bag in my pack, until G volunteered Alana to hold it.

Me: Alana?
Alana: i don’t want to
Me: pizza!
Alana: *gnom gnom gnom*

I’m a thinker like that. Its 4-20.

It sat on top of her like a delicious blankey.   She still howled and begged me to take her up and then down the big hill again. I’m scheming up an interval workout, soon, really really soon. But not tonight. When we pulled into garage she was hiding under it.   For a second i actually thought she fell out.

Disc Pics

First Forward,1- 2009:   This post is huge and has been brewing for a year.   I am only publishing it so it will appear live and taunt me into finishing.   the pics took a long enough time as it was.   When its done, I’ll move it to the head of the Q.

Second Forward, 4-2013: This post may be my cure for writers block, or nothing in the netflix queue. Or I could be sounding like a new years resolutioneer.  

Some posts spit almost unmodified from my brain to the blog.   Some start off with potential, then i realize its better to give up on them rather than polish a turd.   There is still that gem of an idea and it hurts to let it go, but if i learned anything from a couple years struggling to do stand-up, its way easier to generate many more good ideas and find ones that have legs rather than spin your cycles forcing one that doesn’t.   Then there are some posts that are just plain big, and take a long long LONG time to put together.   Consider yourself forewarned, I have a lot of discs.

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The first disc I bought was a white Wham-0 80E stamped with the Garden State Brickface design of Princeton’s Ultimate team. I think I paid $6 as a team member. It was a cool logo with the Thing from the Fantastic 4, a parody of an actual siding company that worked in the region. The disc cracked long ago due to the large stamp and soft plastic center of the Wham-Os, which very soon got phased out as the official Ultimate disc in favor of the far stabler Discraft Ultrastar. I did a web search for a picture, but only came up with an entry from UrbanDictionary.com: an ugly girl from New Jersey with a hot body but a hideous face.   Appropriate.

shirt pic

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Where to start?

Wilmington, NC was a frisbee factory of a small town, gobbling the best low-country athletes into their Fuck the World program. They were intimidating, fast, strong, and mean for many years, until I played on some teams with some of them. And played a year in Raleigh, NC. I had a terrible diet and a bad job waiting tables that made my feet and my depth sluggish, but i saw fitness and focus and improved so much in one year, everything would have been so different if i stayed there or moved anywhere but Tucson. In 1994 I picked up with a team of top-notch players to round out and off-season tournament roster. I got a lot of blocks, on the goalline. I got so much respect and validation i thought i could stop there and be satisfied.

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This was from the Callahan in 2003.

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Mebbe 1998 in Tucson. Pickup Sunday afternoons at Himmel Park were awesome, ride my bike with Tsaina, do doubles after driving up to Phoenix in the mornings for practices with the better Phx teams I played on.

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Washington, DC 1993 or 4. This was a club team that existed several years before i played there, but i liked their disc and a guy names Steve still sold them. He and I played on a really dysfunctional club team that practiced at the Anacostia Naval yards in the most fucked up corner of mainland America.

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My first of many New Year’s Fests, a massive earth-destroying political event annually in AZ ultimate. More teams and friendships were formed and destroyed by this annual winter tourney.   It used to attract half a dozen nationals-caliber teams and players looking for a winter escape.   Diablo Stadium getting sold to the California Angels pushed its slow decline to other winter events over the edge, but it was a good 20 years of popularity.

’97 went like this.

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1991? from some girls from Carnegie Mellon, cause I liked black discs and their legs.

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From one of several years of pretty-good Phx teams that usually made it to B pool finals or at least A quarters. This might also have been the year me and few guys picked up with (former)(perennial) winner of all-stars from Seattle. I completely caved in the moment, in awe of playing with National Champions. Among my most forgettable and memorable ultimate moments; at least it never happened again.

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College Nationals 1990! I was a project player on a very good team, played 10 points over 5 games and was a non-factor.   I had a lot of fun, and I realized some of my imperfections and some of the expectations for being a top player. Not enough, as most of the team’s leaders graduated. I’ve wondered how much difference another year coming up in a strong program would have made versus acquiring knowledge nomadically out in the big cruel world of club play.

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Visiting Princeton, the day before a tournament the year after graduation. It might have been Turkey Swamp, NJ – a local park I played 1-2 tournies a year from 1988 til I left the East Coast in 1996. With mostly non-rolling fields, flocks of turkey leaving black markles all over the fields, and the strictest no-alcohol laws ever.

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Princeton played Lehigh it seemed like 10x a year, 2 hrs away put us at most of the same tournaments. I’ve been to the campus maybe 4 times. Its in the hills outside Philadelphia, the fields were very green and very soft. Sometimes the fields 2nd-tier sports like Ulimtate were played on were not well-maintained, and they were deep and slow and pillowy powder days.   Many long rainy days with persistent gusty winds, many dank tedious walks across campus. I can’t believe I ever lived like that, loved this sport, with so little sunshine.   It was just before the omnipresent affordability of thermal wear and dry lite and goretex, my wet clothes and cleats must have been awful. I don’t remember well, which more likely means I too was disgusting and did not remember, rather my them actually being fresh like daisies. In 1992, one of my first ‘big’ purchases – as an actual adult with a job in the world – was a purple goretex jacket, the still enjoys its days as a Vecino in Rocky Point.

My first tournament ever was a drizzly fall day. 3-4 cars of us drove up early that morning, and I was awestruck by the crisp passes and catches the seniors displayed. Remembering it now, clearly – Matt, Hugh and Randy seemed to be running a drill. Like a drill they gained little yardage or imposed their will,   like 20 years later I expect to see of expert players.   The predatory rhythm of catch, lean, fake, take wide open space to throw a strike .

There was a guy on Lehigh named Little Pete, who was good before I was and I did not cover. Lehigh had a guy named Squiggy when I was a junior and senior, and I would match up and usually take care of him. Squiggy and I played on the Letterman in DC.

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I picked up with a team of mostly-Seattle top-flight players. I was ok being a role player at #15 on the roster. I

Daweena in 2001 when i picked up with Sockeye and won it; I had not loosened up the knee and back enough, and first point I doinked a goal over my head in the endzone then proceeded to throw two turnovers…all in my first point, with a bunch of guys who had played in multiple Finals at Nationals

I did it at Centex in 99, I did it when I picked up with the Miami Refugees at a tournament in Tampa earlier that year. I played very very well for a few years, even around a knee surgery.

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A gift from a michigan native, before my senior year. I think it was teammate Ted Ernst, good guy that i would love to catch-up with.

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My league team finished runner-up in Tucson in 98 or 9. I captained the team, and we let the finals slip away. I have a VHS of the game, and I throw 6 goals and catch 1. I know that if I watch that tape again I will still want to have a few minutes of leadership back, event though I personally had a monster night.

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Bought at Ivies one year, maybe 1989. That fall some of us went up early to Yale to party. Rain blocked traffic the whole drive up through NYC, made wandering through the campus boringly familiar, and led partygoers universally to be in a shitty mood. Mark got us all physically thrown out of a party, proclaiming the punch was making him more sober. He majored in philosophy, and his coolness and friendship was one of the draws to that major. I bicker Tiger Inn my sophmore year and was drunker than i’ve still evern been for a week straight. Mark broke the news to me the morning after the votes.

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it was another one of those career-defining Phoenix caving moments. Or maybe you always rmeember your great losses more. survery of athletes?

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somehow this came to me cause i was the team captain for the UPA Fall Series.   It was for a team named Capitol Punishment, maybe, in 1993, i think.

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my good friend Alex designed this. It was ahead of its time for mash-up design, as were the programs he was so proud to have used for it. He has been in Silicon Valley for many years.

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Vassar was about 3 hours north of Princeton. I drove up early that morning, we went 4-0, I had a cornerstone-for-me-at-the-time throw to win the game against Suny Binghamton. I hopped in my car as soon as our day was done and drove home, cleaned up, and did a show not far from school. I was collecting discs and spending money like a fool with my burgeoning standup career.

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bought this one from the team I beat with that throw.

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eeeeeee

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It is still crystal clear to me that I bought this from a short jewish girl with big tits, on a rainy day in the Mid-Atlantic. Most of the Venus girls were, most of the U Penn Void guys were short jewish guys.   Disciplined, competitive, they had neon orange road-workers suits that seemed perfect for the conditions. I remember 3 guys from those teams.   Chris and I played and co-captained a club team in 1994 in DC.   I saw him next again in 2000 at Coed NAtionals in Minneapolis. He was still : Adam, who was a good natured stoner that i bonded with in 1991 during Philly summer league, dreadlocks flipping when he said ‘man, you run like a dog’.   My team, the Blue Chunks, won league that year. I had won a hat tournament that summer.

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Lapin Intervention

Back after a 1 year layoff! BEST.RACE.EVAH!

Seriously Jim? I said on my registration I’m a fatter’sack’o’crap this year?

these have been sitting for 10 years in the garage, we do not play shot-chess.   Complete with their own 661 armor and a fistful of sharpies, i was inspired. If I could not break 2 hrs, I would win the Bunny Bribery Award!

one girl asked me if my kids did these. Hellz no, my artistry is a match for any kindergartner.

They were a huge hit.

Bunnies at Turnoff to Egg Hunt: these are so cool, you made them for us?
Me: yup!
Bunnies at Turnoff to Egg Hunt: oh i like that one, no i like the black one, oh look at the pink one…
Me: thanks for volunteering…now hurry the fuck up and pick.

riding to the start i saw this coyote. Hard to see, huh? So is the curb when you are snapping photos of a blurry coyote. Worst injury of the ride.

Derrick likes the glasses and the kahlua at the start

I raced, i cramped, I did surprisingly well. Were it not for stops to give out glassware and lend a dude a tube I would have tied my PR of 2:01.   Oddly, that year I made BV in 40 min and Telegraph Pass in 1:02, this year was 45 and 1:07.   Did I seriously make time on the HAB and ridgeline? The downhill again came faster than expected, and I had legs leftover. Next year I’m screwing the bunnies and the people needing tubes and shooting my wad as soon as we finish the hike-a-bike, mebbe i’ll finally break 2 hrs.

Amy pioneering the Squealer half-marathon

good times at the awards ceremony. i was disappointed it skipped the receiving of the Best Bunny Bribe – I surely missed a most-excellent group hug. The girls all bought me a big Lemon Drop, stoke for next week’s ride.

Chongo podiums again!

refill, rehash, resurrect and retire

Do I still ride bikes?  Its a fair question, but I have proof.

Feb 5: High desert and snow on Trail 37 in Prezkit, day after we hiked the Canyon

Feb 19: first time riding K-Trail by the Superstitions, with Gordon

March 15: 38mm tires in place of 32’s make the Masi a kinder ride. Diggin’ my reflection at  AZ Falls, where I met Yuri, Gordon and The Gnome for a 50 mile ride urban ride down to Boulders on Broadway

March 23: i dont want to hold her down dont want to break her crown when she says lets go i like the night life baby

I’ve repurposed the Blur, there is no need which I wouldn’t take the HeiHei or the Bird — $5k well spent. But I do need a bombproof utility vehicle, that i dont lock up cause its insured for $2500 more than its worth, and i dont clean and i dont lube and i dont care. Everything that once was shiny or new has been swapped out, drilled out rims for thorn-resistant tubes, but the seat is still comfy! A few more reflectors and its the Masi’s bigger, tougher, sturdier twin. Good for river rock and crapassminichunk, good for runzeheunding, good for pedaling G to school and locking her bike then towing Alana and locking the trailer then pedaling to work.

March 30:Good for mildly-offroad glowy sunsets.

G learning to notice things at bike speed

tinyGnar Junkie hit it 7 times in a row. i spotted her the first 3, then didn’t bother. She hit it the next morning going into school. Chagrin and consternation abounded amongst teachers’ aides.

This is your captain speaking, you may now feel free to move about the cabin. Alana puts her seatbelt on, she cannot take it off – is this an instinctive survival skill or anti-survival skill?

March 31: N. Scottsdale Slightly AllMountain Suburban Terrorist ShredFest. Drop-to-flat on Thompson Peak Parkway.

reload the tree

can this view be cross-triangulated to the tree?

42

This year sounds like is should be special!

I don’t feel older, but I do. tireder, fatter, brokendowner, greyer, grumpier, drunker and duller. I’m not sure I can make 42 more at this rate of decline.

Genevieve asks if I wish i was a kid. Sweetheart…you can’t imagine how badly. When she asks what I wanted i can’t even remember. Now i just want a day off.

Looking back is revisionist history written by my current state of mind. Bad days it is makes me depressed, melancholic, regretful of every choice that landed me right here where I am. Good days I celebrate every moment leading up to this one of perfection, but focus more on the accomplished feeling rather than the feeling. At what age did it become so hard to be happy? Sometime around 2 kids, 2 mortgages and 2 jobs ago…

Genevieve was psyched to give me a present, Beckie bought cake, and goddamit it was time for ThNR, even if it would be table for 1.

It was the worst 1 hr ride ever. Sidewall slice, pedal smack riding the wrong lines to protect the soggy rear wheel sent me tumbling over bars banging both knees in exactly the same spot, and I couldnt even find my own damn tequila tree.

but I did. and all was well again, at least for awhile.