Swimming is unfair

Not to take away anything from Michael Phelps and his amazing 8 gold medals won with 7 world records and the other just an Olympic record, which took an amazing feat both physically and mentally, the latter of which is not benefited by any known drug enhancement, but swimming medals are cheap. It seems a little silly to have medals awarded for FOUR different ways of swimming the same length, then add relays on top of that, along with races of different lengths.

It's not like for the 100m dash, there's one where you run normally, one where you run backwards, another where you run sideways, do cartwheels, crawl, crabwalk, or run on your hands. It's silly. It's 100m and you get from point A to point B as fast as possible, regardless of technique. It's not like when people found out that doing the "flop" was more effective than the "scissor kick" in high jump that they branched out to make a new event where you had to do the flop or had to do the scissor kick, you just get over the bar any way that you want and who ever jumps the highest, wins. Simple.

You could argue that the different swimming styles require different specialization, but apparently not enough if one guy can get the world record in 8 events and don't give me the argument that it's just because Michael Phelps is amazing (which he is), but Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals in swimming in a single Olympics in 1972, so this is not a unique case (there must also be other athletes that compete in multiple swimming events). Despite the different styles being rather different, it's been proven that it's possible for someone to win in multiple of them, which seems to indicate that they are not that specialized and perhaps that the events are too similar. The backstroke seems different enough still, as it's something that Michael Phelps doesn't do.

Sure, the 100m, 200m, 4x100m, and 4x200m track events are similar in that you can win multiple events with basically the same training, but if you were to keep going to longer events, it would work entirely different parts of your body (aerobic vs anaerobic). Then there's diving where you can basically do the same thing on higher and higher platforms to win multiple medals. Rowing, badminton, equestrian, table tennis, and tennis, could all score you multiple medals if you compete in various combinations of individual and team events. Still, these all seem to pale in comparison to swimming in terms of medal opportunities.

Even just the chance to have more than one Olympic gold medal in a single game seems unfair, because there are many sports where it is impossible to get multiple medals, no matter how good you are and how much you train. Volleyball comes to mind for obvious reasons. No matter how good you are, you can only get one medal. Because of scheduling reasons, it would be impossible to compete in both indoor and beach in the same games, not to mention the grueling schedule and the amount of training that is required to form a proper team. Then there are the sports where no matter how good you are, you can't even transfer those skills to another event even in a different Olympic games. If you were the best batter in the world, the only sport that you'd be able to compete in would be baseball (sorry, no cricket in the Olympics). It wouldn't matter if you were Zoro, you could only ever compete in fencing and win that one medal each Olympics. The discus throw doesn't really translate to being able to compete in any other events.

Michael Phelps must train extremely hard and must be entirely dedicated to swimming, but seriously, 8 medals for him, while an entire volleyball team with a roster of probably 12 or more playing in several preliminary matches followed by playoffs yields you only one single medal? Yet, in the end for the rankings, all medals are worth the same regardless of the event, individual, or team. The amount of effort, talent, performance, ability, and training required for each medal is vastly disproportionate and that to me, is unfair.

I still love watching the Olympics though!

How to record the Olympic games from CBC

This tutorial will show you how to record the Olympic games from an internet streaming source using VLC. Since I am in Canada, I'm recording from CBC Olympics, which streams the videos in Windows Media format, but this procedure should work for other non-flash, non-silverlight, streaming videos as well (i.e. not YouTube or NBC Olympics).

1. Load the video that you want, eg. from CBC Olympics

2. Right-click the video

3. Select "Properties" from the right-click menu



4. Copy the URL of the streaming video



Edit (Aug. 14): The CBC is smarter than I give them credit. You can't just get the URL as described above. What you have to do is look at the URL of the page, something like:
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/livevideo/#n=cbcsports_ca_4&p=athletics&e=mens_100m_round_1&dt=2008/08/14_08:49%20PM&s=http://authmfile.akamai.com.edgesuite.net/akamai.stream.auth/35018/wm/cbcwm.gen/v001/reflector:13377.js

Then, load that in your web browser (Internet Explorer doesn't load this page for me, but Firefox does), and there is a single line, something like:
var streamPath = "http://authmfile.akamai.com.edgesuite.net/akamai.stream.auth/35018/wm/cbcwm.gen/token_MTIxODc2ODQwMw==_febc7bc84345875bacae79a34caf97c4//reflector:19191.asx";

The URL in between the quotation marks is the actual URL to the streaming video.


5. Open VLC and open a network stream



6. Select HTTP source

7. Paste in the URL

8. Select "Stream/Save" in the "Advanced Options"

9. Click "Settings..."



10. Select "Play locally" and "File"

11. Specify the save file, eg. "Women's Volleyball - USA vs Japan.wmv"

12. Select "ASF" under "Encapsulation Method" (because the video is in Windows Media format)



13. Click "OK" twice to close the windows for steps 6-9 and 10-12, then watch as it also records (you can also close the browser window from step 1)



14. When you want to stop recording, click stop or close VLC, then rename the save file to .wmv (VLC adds an extra '}' to the end of the filename by accident)

Still the same after 11 years

Around this time way back in Grade 10, the usual suspects (John, Kives, Kevin, Matt, and Tim) would come over to my house after school every day and we'd play Mario Kart 64. Our favourite was Battle Mode. There were only 4 or 5 different tracks for Battle Mode, but we'd play them over and over. It wasn't boring though because the more we played, the better we got and the more sophisticated our strategies. For me, video games has always been a social activity. Video games was however, far from our only source of socializing. We were a well rounded bunch. We did well in school and played video games, but we also played all kinds of sports together and spent countless hours playing cops and robbers on bikes (even with girls!) throughout the neighbourhood.

Fast forward 11 years and things are eerily similar. I just got Mario Kart Wii last week and I had some people over to play and then we went to go play basketball. Even stranger is that the new Mario Kart has a lot of tracks from the older games in the Mario Kart series, so that just really brings back the memories. Sometimes it's just great being a kid again.

CN Tower Climb

It's been 11 days and I've had over a hundred hits to
my donation page after just having it as my status message for GTalk/MSN Messenger. I always wondered how many people actually click links in peoples' status messages. Surprisingly, I've managed to raise $100 so far without actively pursuing the issue. Now, I'm taking it one step shy of mass emailing and seeing how much I can squeeze of out blogging about it. This also has a reverberation effect because this post will also be automatically imported into Facebook.

Anyways, on Saturday, April 19, 2008, I will be doing the CN Tower Climb, where I'll be walking/running up all 1,776 steps (a total of 144 flights) from the bottom to the top of the CN Tower to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund to help protect our oceans and coasts, our freshwater and forests, and wildlife everywhere.

Please sponsor me

(The page is slow, so please be patient while it loads)

S Dance 2007

Front

Back: MVP. I'm better than you, and now you know it

Glass I swiped from dinner. Not sure if we were supposed to take them, but it's not like they can do anything with them afterwards. They were way nicer and more practical than last year's mug-shaped oversized shot glasses.

S Dance is the annual engineering athletic awards ceremony, dinner, and dance. But because it's an engineering party, that really just means a lot of drinking. It's an undergrad party, but I feel that I am making up for my previous lack of participation in engineering related activities :). I went to get my wrist band and the chick at the desk looked over my ID: "81??? YOU'RE 81????". There were also shout-outs to the various graduating years. 0T7 is the graduating year, but there were plenty of 0T8's, 0T9's, and 1T0's. There were some boos for the 0T6's and the 0T5's were considered out of place (PEY + grad school). I kept my mouth shut about my 0T3 status :)

I got an MVP shirt for coed volleyball intramurals again! The shirts are way better than last year's because of the return of the slogan, "I'm better than you, and now you know it." Incidentally, Nastassja coined the term in response to the MIP's "I suck, now I suck less." shirts. I still don't have a stein... I'm determined to get one next year!!

The party was fun. I still have "S Club 7" music stuck in my head. The DJ was pretty crappy, playing a lot of country, 60's music, YMCA, and an inordinately high number of slow songs (to which Rob was my only outlet). Everyone was hammered, so the dance floor was still packed.

Me and Nastassja on the school bus to Scarborough. She was pretty hammered having pre-drunk with Ron at her place. I wasn't originally sitting there, but Ron had better things to do.

Ron trying to pick up a Romanian girl. Dejected and really drunk, he threw up after getting off the bus. He eventually got inside the place, but left early. I don't think he'll ever live down the fact that Nastassja drunk him under the table.

Me, Rob, and Steph

The celebrity (Robyn) and Me. Robyn won everything. Actually, 6 out of the 9 "athlete of the year" awards for the various years and sexes, went to people on the coed volleyball teams! Rob, Steph, Siobhan, Jess, Afjal, and Robyn. Woo-hoo! Go team!!!

More pictures

Totally jinxed myself

I say that I managed to avoid injury and now my back is tweaked, my left knee is hurting again, my left big toe is hurting, and my right hand is bruised. At least the blister on the back of my left heel is mostly healed. I don't think exercises during my newly acquired free time has been helping.

Can't seem to make it past the semi's

Winter 2007 Div 1 Skule A & B Coed Intramurals Volleyball Teams. Back: Sarah, Cyrene, Siobhan, Julie, Ron, Tom, Rob. Middle: Kevin, Afjal, Vince, Steph, Bu, Kristen, Tom. Front: Nastassja

Winter 2007 Div 1 SGS Men's Volleyball Intramurals Team. Julius, Utku, Greg, Gadi, Bu, Vince. Missing: Marek

Can't seem to make it past the semi-finals in the playoffs this year. I keep making it there and putting up a good fight, but the balls just never roll the right way. Oh well, at least my evenings are freeing up. This semester was way too busy with all the teams I was on:

• Monday
  • Coed Div 1 Skule Volleyball Intramurals


• Tuesday
  • Men's Div 1 SGS Volleyball Intramurals


• Wednesday
  • Sub for Newbies GSU Comp Div Volleyball League
  
  
  • Sub for One Ugly Skin Head GSU Comp Div Volleyball League


• Thursday
  • Pub Group Pick-up Volleyball
  
  
  • Six Pack GSU Comp Div Volleyball League


• Friday
  • U of T Ski and Snowboard Club


• Saturday
  • Toronto Warriors 9-Man Volleyball Practice


• Sunday
  • Coed Div 3 CCF Volleyball Intramurals
  
  
  • Coed SGS Dodgeball Intramurals

I was also "Hangaring" some Friday's and Saturday's. Perhaps the most surprising thing was that I managed to avoid any sort of injury.

I need a break

Today was supposed to be my day of rest (golf doesn't count), but I got asked to sub for a volleyball game. I haven't had a day without playing at least 1 sport for a week:

volleyball, volleyball, snowboarding, curling, volleyball, dodgeball, volleyball, volleyball, volleyball, golf, and volleyball

The outlook ahead for the next week is:

volleyball, volleyball, snowboarding, volleyball, volleyball, dodgeball, volleyball, and volleyball

Not sure if I'll sub in for that team again next week, but if I do, then I'll be going like 3 weeks without a break. Fortunately, health-wise, I'm feeling pretty good. My left arm and shoulder are a little sore, which is probably a combination of curling and golfing left handed. My knee's been doing pretty good as well. It's sometimes a little sore after volleyball and snowboarding, but not too bad. I need to do more squats to strengthen the supporting muscles.

I need a break, from sports and otherwise...

Golf: I've been doing it wrong this whole time

University of Toronto Varsity Centre Bubble

Inside the bubble

Driving range ball that I swiped

I came back to Toronto after the Christmas break and all of a sudden there was this bubble on campus! It's being used for soccer, ultimate, and other stuff. It's fake grass inside. For half of every day, half of the bubble is set-up as a golf driving range, and as an introductory offer, it was free!

It was pretty busy, with most of the little cubby things were occupied. The bigger problem was that they had a very limited selection of golf clubs (also free). When I got there, there were only left handed clubs. I've only ever golfed right handed, but I decided to give it a shot as I play hockey left handed (not that I really play hockey).

I'm actually better left handed than right handed! I could consistently get the ball in the air, going straight, and hitting the back wall of the bubble! I've never been able to do that before. I was however, using a pitching wedge and a 6 iron, which are easier to hit with, but still, I've never hit like that before.

Unfortunately for you guys, now that I can hit a golf ball, there won't be any more videos like the last golfing video. You know that I had to link to it :). There have been 1,672 views of it on Google Video!!! That's pretty crazy!

While I had a fun time, the regular price of $17.50/hour for students is outrageous. I'd pay like $5 or $10. I'm already paying athletic fees in my tuition after all.

Sporty weekend

4 different sports this weekend: snowboarding, curling, volleyball, and dodgeball.

• Friday: Snowboarding with the U of T Ski and Snowboard Club
  • Pretty much pwned Blue Mountain - greens, blues, blacks, and double blacks. The only run I didn't do was the glades run, which goes through the trees, but it was closed anyways, not that I would've gone. I value my neck too much.


• Saturday: Hart House Curling Bonspiel
  • Random team of individuals that hadn't met before and we won the whole thing!!! Our skip was good, having played since high school and on the U of T varsity team. The skips on most teams were good, but usually the rest of the team is inexperienced. The difference with our team, was that while I've only played a handful of times (just at these random bonspiels over the past 3 years, which usually boils down to about twice a year), I think I've caught on pretty quick. I'm pretty good at throwing what's being called and I can do take outs and throw draw weight pretty consistently. We should not have won though. The team we played against was good (they won their first game 20-2 in 8 ends) and we won only by pure miracles. We were down and then managed to steal the last 3 ends to win the final game by 2. Every end, we were like, "oh, we're screwed", as the last rock was being thrown by the other team's skip, but by some sort of miracle, the rocks just rolled our way. We won 4 $25 gift certificates as a team to HMV, Indigo, Roots, and LCBO. I got the LCBO one ;). The other team won as well for being the highest one game winner (it's a score bonspiel with points given out for wins, ends, and points, with a cap of 12 for points), and they got the same prize. We figured, either way, both teams probably would've won since we both had good first games (ours was 12-2) and then the second game was close. I continued my curling prize streak. My shoulders, back, and triceps are still sore 2 days later from sweeping so much!


• Sunday: CCF Volleyball Intramurals
  • I'm not really allowed to play, since I play for Skule in Div 1, but I snuck on anyways :)


• Sunday: SGS Dodgeball Intramurals
  • Yes! Dodgeball! It's quite a sophisticated game when you get to as advanced a level as ourselves. We've developed some killer tactics. We had problems getting out this one girl at the end of the first game. She would just hang around the back, and with the balls we were using, it was hard to hit her. What eventually did it in was Eric going up without a ball, and me hiding behind him. She threw and got him out, I came from behind and pegged her off :). Next week we practice with wrenches.

Takes me back to junior high school

I went to go play badminton at Brown Community Centre with Tina, Donna, Sue (who asked that I bring her some mango pudding), and Darren. It took me back to Laidlaw as that was the last time I had played badminton. It was pretty fun, though it took a little bit to remember how to play and I'm still not that great. I was able to beat some old people though.

There were tons of people - 30+. 3 courts. Even with doubles on each court, there was a lot of sitting off. I think my record was 2-3 for the afternoon.

My right arm is pretty sore. My forearms are tired from gripping the racket for so long and my shoulder is tired. I was using muscles I just don't normally use, which is odd b/c it should be similar to a volleyball hit, but maybe I just used it more, or more likely, I used muscles I wasn't supposed to use b/c of my poor form :p

Afterwards, we went to Teppanyaki Sushi (maybe that's not it's actual name) near Don Mills and Eglinton (Ontario Science Centre and one of the few Superstores, but still not as Super as in Winnipeg). It was my first time having Teppanyaki, which is Japanese food where they cook it right at the table. I found it very amusing to watch. It's cool b/c you get to eat the food right after it comes off the grill, so it's nice and hot. You also eat as it's made :)

Tina dropped me off at the Loblaws near her place and I picked up a giant bag of frozen fruit (for blending of course) and some miscellaneous groceries before rollerblading home (only took like 10 min. b/c it was downhill :)). Then I did some hardcore vegging. Nice start to my vacation :)

Seattle wrap-up

I'm sure that this is going to be a long post, so here's the executive summary for those of you who have exams and don't have time to read the entire entry. Wait, people with exams need to procrastinate :). Ok, this summary is just for you lazy working folk then. Except those of you who read at work. You know who you are :)

My trip was quite good overall. Interviews went well (I think and hope), wrote and submitted a good paper (I think and hope), snowboarded twice (Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie), played volleyball twice (Pro Club and Kamiakin), GReunion 2.0 (Jonny!), saw most of the people I wanted to see, and had the most amazing dragon boat practice.


Dragon boating with Hot Sake

Being on the water on Saturday was simply amazing.

Bright shining sun. Clear blue skies. Still glass water. Fresh cool air. Magnificent mountain backdrop.

The most fascinating thing was putting my bare hand in the nice, cool lake water and watching the steam come off my warm hand.

I still remembered how to paddle and my technique improved with Charlene coaching me. Dropping my shoulders when the paddle enters the water made it so my arms were way less tired. My endurance and power were way up. My ass got bruised from the hard plastic seat of the boat, but I'm told that's a good thing b/c that means I'm rotating instead of just using my arms.


Chinese restaurant tradition

I've noticed that I've been privy to several Chinese restaurant traditions.

• After dragon boat practice, we always go to Jade Garden in Chinatown for dim sum.


• It's always Jeem's for dim sum with Nebojsa


• UTCCF always goes to Kowloon on Baldwin after fellowship


• I don't even have to ask where we're going for family Saturday dinner when I go back to Winnipeg, b/c the answer is Marigold

Tradition is good, but some variety is good as well.


GReunion 2.0

By freak coincidence, Jon and I were both in Seattle at the same time.... for interviews.... for different companies (MSR and Amazon)! Crazy. I always knew that we'd meet again, but I figured it would be here in Toronto since I'm here for school and his family lives here.

I was meeting up with Dmitry, his wife, and Sarah for dinner, and Mr. Deyo blessed us with his presence. We went to Bluwater Belltown Bistro in Belltown near Sarah's place. Nice place.

Sorry, no pics b/c I forgot my camera in Toronto. I had the battery charger and USB cable, but no camera :(


Snoqualmie

I went to Snoqualmie by myself on Monday. Pretty close, like a 1 hour drive. I wasn't impressed. Only a small portion of the mountain was open and there was only 1 good run. And it was raining / freezing rain. I got my bindings ladder fixed, now all 4 of the straps have been replaced and they don't match - 2 grays (instead of black from Blue Mountain), 1 ugly beige (from Stevens), and 1 shortish bright red (from Snoqualmie). The guy said that he wished he could give them away for free, but he couldn't and asked me if $3 sounded fair and I said 'ya'. I went to go pay, but the cashier was just ignoring me. I was obviously standing in a place to butt in (like you'd do at McDonald's) to just do a quick payment, plus I was next in line anyways, but in the wrong direction. Anyways, I got sick of waiting and just left.

The best part of the trip was when my fuel gauge hit empty on the way there and I took the next exit to get gas, only to find myself driving for a few miles into the town of Snoqualmie. I saw signs for Snoqualmie Falls and decided that I'd go take a look as I had heard about it previously and it was close by. I was impressed. The water flow was quite low when I went, but it was cool to see the huge drop. Again, no camera, no pictures :(


Volleyball

Volleyball at the good 'ol Pro Club was fun. Good to see all the familiar faces. Not as many as I had hoped to see though.

I went with Alex and Stacey to Kamiakin, which was a bust at first b/c there was no open gym, but they didn't change the hotline. We had to wait until the league playoffs finished. I ran into Reiner (Rodney Blanco's older brother) there who was playing in the league, which was pretty random.

Alex and Stacey have definitely improved since I last played with them in March.


Flight entertainment

Flew direct back to Toronto on Air Canada. They had screens on the backs of each seat with on demand entertainment. I was watching My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and it was fine for a while, but then it started to get freeze every few seconds and it was so annoying that I just had to stop (they should really do some buffering or something). Sleeping was a better alternative anyways since I only had 4 hours of sleep the night before.

At least my luggage wasn't overweight - 46 lbs, only 3 lbs heavier than I went, but that's only b/c I moved a stack of papers into my carry-on and stuck my gym shoes and some socks into my snowboarding bag. I went shopping at Redmond Town Center and Bellevue Square on Monday and Tuesday, and dished out like $300, which translates into a couple pounds of clothing...


Clothing rant

Clothing is expensive. My credit card bills were much lower when I didn't like shopping. Recently I've been thinking about the (approximate) amortization cost of clothing. If I buy a (relatively cheap) $30 sweater and wear it once every 2nd week, for 4 months out of the year, for 2 years, then that's ~$2 / wear. If I wear a pair of jeans 80-100 times, then it's about $1 / wear. Shoes are probably the best deal. I've been wearing my new pair of Sketchers (the infamous pair where I was asked if I was under 14) since Aug. pretty much every day, so that's already $1 / wear even if I were to throw them out now. I always thought underwear was cheap, but it's not. I have enough to last me about 2, maybe 2.5 weeks, so that's about 26 wears / underwear / year. Some of the boxer-briefs (yes, that's what I wear, and if you're a girl, you're invited to my bed to check them out for yourself ;)), are like around $26 (after tax, etc.), so that's like a dollar every time I put one on! 50 cents if the pair lasts 2 years, 33 cents if they have holes in them. Socks, I'm not sure about. I have a bunch and I don't know the price and I don't know how long they last, but I'm guessing around a quarter per wear. Coats are very seasonal. $100 coat, 3 months out of the year? If I wear that coat every day for those 3 months (unlikely) for 2 years, then that's still more than $1 / wear. So, given that it's fallish, every time I walk out that door, it's costing me more than $6. Say I'm wearing a few layers, and put on a toque and gloves. It starts adding up! Summer I suppose is cheaper though.

I think this is a good argument for walking around naked. Again, cute girls are encouraged to explore this option in my bedroom. I am able to accommodate multiple visitors simultaneously.

4 different sports this week

5 if you count rollerblading (downhill on Bathurst is way more fun than uphill). 6 if you count beach and indoor volleyball as two separate sports. The others were ultimate, ping pong, and tennis. I don't play tennis, as evidenced by the blister on my hand, but I had fun anyways. Try new things, that's the new motto.

Rollerblading + volleyball + 5k run + rollerblading + beers + stairs + washroom = fun

See title.

Weak in the knees

I got it bad. I didn't think that I'd feel this way again so soon. I was actually losing hope that I'd ever feel this way again. My legs are practically trembling when I stand. I'm short of breath. My heart is beating uncontrollably. My palms are sweaty.

This is of course completely unrelated to my return to training where I ran around the park across the street 4 times. I only did the South side so I didn't have to cross Grant, but it was about 3.5 km. I was doing about 5 min. / km, which isn't bad considering that I haven't trained for about 3 years, and is just over the pace I did in the Toronto Marathon 5k run in 2003. It felt pretty good too. Every day (or day I train), I will add an extra lap (~875 m). What am I training for? A couple things. Getting in shape for the U of T varsity volleyball try-outs, training for the Toronto half marathon, and just to improve my aerobic capacity (since most of the sports I play are anaerobic).

Why snowboarding is better than surfing

I went to Pacifica this morning to go surfing by myself (everyone else claimed that they had to go to "work"). The conditions weren't great, but I managed to entertain myself and get up a bunch of times on the white crumbly stuff. It's actually quite scary to go by yourself. One time I got my ass kicked by a wave and while I was tumbling around, not sure which way was up, I remembered that there was no lifeguard on the beach.

I realized while I was out there, that I like snowboarding a lot better. Here's why:

• Chair lifts
  • None of this futile work trying to get past the waves, only to be pushed further back from where you started at every attempt you take


• Snowboarding is warmer
  • Yes. You heard me right. Frickin' ocean in "Nor-Cal" is freezing, even with a wet suit. At least with snowboarding you can put on more layers.


• You get to wear a tuque


• You don't have the constant taste of salt in your mouth


• You get to stand up for more than 5 seconds


• There is food mid-slope
  • mmm... beaver tails :)


• You don't have to wear a frickin' wet suit


• It's possible to go to the washroom
  • You try getting out of a wet suit


• You don't have to lug around a massive board
  • In fact, you can just skate with it


• Your board doesn't try and knock you unconscious


• Mother Nature doesn't continuously try to drown you


• You don't have to plan your day around the tide and you can board all day long


• You don't get sandy


• People don't say hella
  • As in, "dude, that wave was hella good"


• It's an Olympic sport
  • 2010 baby!


• You don't get showed up by 12 year olds
  • You get showed up by 5 year olds

With all that, I still think surfing is fun, just that I'd enjoy it more if the surf was good and I was in say... Hawaii, where the water temperature is actually above the freezing point. Oh, and if there was a volleyball court on the beach ;)

Ultimate Skirt Pictures

Vince

Natalia

Adam

More pictures

Pictures from Ultimate Skirts. Unfortunately, the photos are quite limited (us skirts forgot to take pictures) and not everyone is in the pictures. Plus, we forgot to get a group picture :(

The best was when Anna, Mike's gf, called him up the day after and was like "So, you were playing frisbee in a hot pink mini-skirt?" Mike was flabbergasted because he hadn't told her yet. I apparently have a reader in Switzerland ;). The thing is that I tend to blog late at night and with the time difference, she read the post before Mike :).

Yes, I've had enough of linking to Mike Perrow and have decided to go with variety. Note that anytime I link to peoples' names multiple times in a post, they are generally to different (compromising) photos :D.


Here's a random picture from Six Flags Marine World last Sunday. It was 40-something degrees (Celsius) outside (HOT) and Brian left his Starbucks Cup in his car. It used be be a grande or whatever is a big size.

Melted Starbucks Cup

Playing ultimate in a skirt

I played ultimate frisbee in a skirt today. It was actually quite liberating. I felt very free. The scary part was that I was quite comfortable in it.

Don't worry, there's a story behind this and it involves a girl, a bet, and beer.

Kendall bet Natalia that she couldn't get a bunch of interns to watch/play frisbee in skirts. Beer was on the line. Well, he underestimated how crazy us interns are and what people will do for beer.

I was not alone. I was joined by Adam (in his smock skirt), Brian (in his tu-tu), Mike Perrow (in the hot pink mini-skirt), and Jason (in a knee-length skirt). Natalia was the only one with a "normal" skirt. I myself had like a longer than knee length skirt, which I tucked into my underwear to make it a mini-skirt so I could run properly. It was hot. I wasn't wearing anything underneath. If you're gonna do something, might as well do it right.

Beer and ultimate was interesting. After my third, I was starting to feel it, esp. on an empty stomach and while doing exercise. I think I might have actually played better because of it :p. I'm not really sure how the bet worked out though b/c both Natalia and Kendall brought beer. So, seemingly, we wore the skirts for no reason, but hey, it was hilarious and good times were had by all.

My calves are like totally screwed up. In yesterday's volleyball game (game 3, 16-16, rally point to 17, no win by two, and we serve into the net...) everytime I jumped, my calves like cramped up afterwards. Same thing today, but to a lesser extent as I was just running, not jumping. It's probably b/c I've been doing a lot of physical activity this week (everyday since Sunday). Rollerblading to work today probably didn't help. A little under 8 km, and I did it in just over 30 min., but I would have been able to do it in about 25 had my feet not started to blister (new rollerblades), as I eased up a lot in the last 1/2 - 1/3 of the commute. Plus my body was just sore (had difficulty bending over b/c my lower back was sore), and rollerblading around the block last night after volleyball probably didn't help things either.

Charlie's was out of food after ultimate. Stupid visiting profs hogging No Name and significantly reducing the amount of available food. We hit up In-N-Out. Not sure if I was just hungry or I hadn't had grease for a while, but it was good. That place is interesting. The menu is very simple, literally just hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, and drinks, but there's like this whole secret menu where you can get like 4 patties and 4 slices of cheese, hamburgers without the bun wrapped in lettuce, and others.

Pre-Jill

This is the pre-Jill weekend blog entry.

Friday

• Volleyball with the locals
  • Finally went to an open gym volleyball. Went to Wilcox High School in Santa Clara b/c City Beach was closed that week. Quality wasn't great, but I was smacking it pretty good. Cute girls on my team :). Though they looked rather high schoolish. One was there with her brother (who couldn't play) and their parents were watching.


• Ditched Michele #1
  • I was too tired to go to a club with a Playboy bunny in San Jose, plus surfing the next day.

Saturday (Happy Canada Day!)

• Went surfing at Cowell's beach in Santa Cruz
  • MUCH easier than Pacifica. You could actually get past the waves, wait for a swell, catch the wave, stand up, and ride it! Much better for learning how to surf, although there were way too many people. I found it quite easy to stand on the boards we got (big styrofoam boards) and it was rather natural to control it (like a snowboard). Water was still frickin' freezing even with a wet suit.


• O Canada...
  • Since it was Canada Day, Adam and I sang O Canada out in the water while waiting for a wave. It was awesome. We sang the whole song, then caught a sick wave and were standing side-by-side surfing. I went to give him a high five, but he thought that I was trying to push him over, so he pushed me, but he fell over. Later on, Natalia and I were able to surf side-by-side and we accomplished the high-five feat while surfing!


• Loud crashes and Mike's awesome morning face
  • You'll have to ask Adam about this one. He went to go wake Mike up to come surfing, but Mike was not nearly awake enough.


• Ditched Michele #2
  • Stupid Michele, Jon, and Jenny stayed up until like 4 and got 3 hours of sleep, so they didn't come surfing. Also, with Jon crashing and burning at Michele's, Mark had no way of getting to Santa Cruz. Went with Natalia, Adam, Brian, Janna, and Erik (who lives in SC). Michele, Jon, and Jenny eventually met up with us, but I had to take off to pick up Jill and Janna wasn't feeling great. Mark almost made it, but he just missed the Caltrain, so the poor SF dweller was stuck in the city.

More Weekend Pictures

Volleyball action

How about being a little bit more specific?

Don't ask.

I stole Adam's pictures and put them up on Picasa Web. Why? Because I can and I think it's a nicer interface.

AVP Pro Beach Tournament and the State Capitol

Surfing