you know, there's pretty much never a dull moment around here.  i mean, if it's not one thing, it's another.

 

ok, so this past sunday - the 27th - some of my friends were having a pub crawl here in ocean beach.  the newly minted doctors - audiologists, to be exact.  anyway, pub crawl and everyone wears a goofy sign on his/her back, etc.  like 10 bars on the agenda with 45 minutes at each bar and a minimum of a drink at each bar - you know, a pub crawl.  anyway, everybody had a goofy sign on their back and it was ear related - mine said "can you hear me now, bitch?" and had a little clip-on ear on it.  ha-ha , funny, people loved it.

 

so we're about halfway through the crawl and we're at a bar called 'the sunshine company'.  a pretty cool bar with a rooftop patio.  anyway, we're hanging out up there having a good time and what not, and are almost getting ready to get off to the next bar.  only like 5 more minutes til leaving time.  i'm off to the side looking over the balcony onto the street and the sunset.  another nice san diego day - a bit cloudy, but still a nice one.  can't complain about the 70 degrees.

 

so i'm just looking at the sunset and around at the scene, etc.  a guy is sitting over at a table nearby and the waitress stops by him to pick up or deliver a drink.  i halfway hear him say to the waitress, "so, is his shirt basically calling all of us bitches?"  i glance his direction and he says, "hey, are you calling all of us bitches?"  the waitress looks kind of perplexed, and i just say, "uhhh, i don't know...  i guess so?"  i turn back to looking at the street, and i guess that's when he throws a pint glass at me - i turn back to look at him - and all i see is a fist right in my face.

 

yeah, the guy jumped over his table and totally clocked me right in the face, breaking my nose and putting a gash in it.

 

totally didn't see that one coming at all.

 

my friends immediately restrain the guy, and he just yells out, "HE CALLED ME A BITCH!!!"  the bar is in pure shock.  meanwhile, i'm like a geyser just spurting blood out of my nose.  ridiculous.  a friend gets me some napkins and i just walk off to the bathroom to survey the damage.  security eventually takes over from my friends and throws the guy out, but not before they get his info.  anyway, i'm in the bathroom just trying to clean up, and i can tell it's broken right away.  yes, it's sad to say, i'm experienced enough with broken bones that i have a pretty good idea whether or not something is broken now.  awesome.

 

anyway, get most of the bleeding to stop and leave the bar for the ER with a friend driving.  after a long wait, i finally get served, get some x-rays, and get 4 stitiches in my nose.  luckily no disfigured nose, so everything should heal just fine.  just on antibiotics and vicotin for the next couple days still.  the stitiches should be out on friday in time for vegas.  i've got a black right eye, and it was really swollen on monday and the early part of today, but it's steadily gone down since.  should be down to normal in the next day or 2.  the bummer was i couldn't race bikes on monday or today like i had planned.

 

anyway, after the hospital visit was over, we made it back in time for the very last stop on the pub crawl - a bar named pacific shores.  i had a shot of tequila just to put an exclamation mark on the whole monstrous evening.  yeah.

so i just finished booking a flight to philly for june

still need to work on a flight to venice, fl

 

june is going to be absolutely ridiculous

 

may 31 - june 1 : San Jose to visit my buddy Vose and help him get out of town as he makes his trek out to Boston to begin his surgery residency.

june 2-3-4 : Vegas for more of the 30th.

june 15-16-17 : Philly for a surprise 70th birthday party for Aunt Anna (Mucha side)

june 22-23-24 : Venice for a giant 90th birthday party for Grandpa Bennett (Brudevold side)

 

wowsa.

so i started back to track racing last tuesday night and went back for more punishment tonight. yikes - no leg speed at all. but, it's not like i've really trained any of that yet either - i'm taking a little bit of the hard way by putting in the road miles and then racing myself back in to shape at the same time - somewhat before doing any real structured interval training. the hardest part with that is struggling through the poor initial results before you can break through to real race fitness. i prolly won't be in real race shape until the middle of july, and that just feels *so* far away...

so i turned 30 a couple days ago. wow. i got some serious props from my p-mom, too. here's a link - not to the best props in the world - just a tribute.

james brown *is* the 8th wonder of the world.

 

 

so i was just in a really pissed off mood.  pretty annoying work day.  left late so i wasn't going to be able to get 3 hours in on the bike - only 2.  whatever.  anyway, start riding and i'm pretty much just stewing for a good half hour.  was listening to gnarls barkley and that ran out, so i decided to put on the jb.  jb starts playing, but it's not doing much.  please please please.  yeah, please don't.  it's a man's world.  yeah, and it sucks.

 

and then my teammate nick and his wife lisa drive right by me, hoot and holler that they're glad to see me on the bike and at that exact moment, get up - like a sex machine comes on and i've got to say, i totally got up.  followed immediately by i got you - i feel good.  and i felt good.  what can i say?  teammates and james brown - totally appointed.

 

 

i'm a sex machine...  hah!

just shaved my legs tonight for the first time in months.  that means i'm a bike racer again.

23 weeks until nationals on the track.  finished out the week with 105 miles on the bike.  that's a little less than what i was planning on, but that's cause the trip to dc just became a little more than i bargained for.  no worries, though - all is well.

 

trip to dc was to support a thursday brief on a project that i'm working on.  i wasn't giving the brief - just needed to be on hand to answer the hard questions if any were raised.  well, questions came fast and furious and the overall program manager just said "enough - we don't have time to talk about this right now - you need to come back and brief me separately."  unbelievable.  so i scheduled to brief the pm the next day - friday.  of course, the guy who was i was there to "support" was flying out on friday morning and wouldn't change his flight.  no problem - i just made up a new brief over night and gave it solo on friday.  it was scheduled to be a 20 minute q&a but turned into me standing up in front of a bloodthirsty room answering questions for an hour and 15 minutes.  that was awesome.  i came out ok though, and seemed to get all the major points across - managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as they say.  just kidding.

 

anyway, that was pretty much it.  hung out with the dc clan and flew back to sd early saturday morning.  just missed my big bro in the dallas airport by a couple hours.  i was flying dca-dfw-san.  jason was flying sat-dfw-fra.  oh well, next time.

so i'm enroute to DC for work.  GBS meeting on thursday out in reston, va.  it's always fairly annoying having to spend a day getting out there from the best coast and then a day getting back, all for a 20 minute briefing, but oh well.  no big deal - get to visit some of the phellas back east.

 

checked out san diego tuesday night track racing from the stands last night - i won't get around to racing until may - need to get some miles in my legs first.  anyway, some of the team was there and it was really great to see 'em.  we went out to eat burritos after the racing and talked about how the season was going so far, etc.  started talking racing tactics, training ideas, and all that nonsense.  man, it was great.  started getting super excited about *my* upcoming season and racing with the guys again.  good times...

fortune cookie of the day :

 

people find it difficult to resist your persuasive manner

so i'm counting down to track national championships in october - it's 24 weeks away - first week of october.  just got back on the bike this week and i'll close it out with 4.3 hours of training and 73 miles down.  next week should be around 140 miles - just need to ramp it all up somewhat slowly to avoid injury.  lookin good...

happy easter!

 

ok, that may be a couple days late, but that's right on schedule in my book...

 

anyway, wow.  i just finished up the snowboarding season this past friday with my slalom race at nationals.  the race didn't go super great, but it was still a good learning experience.  my first run down the course i was just slightly "over anxious" and i crsahed 3 - yes three - times.  that made for a pretty shoddy run 1, and i was pretty down in the dumps.  i just rode like a novice and didn't handle some of the turns very well at all.  anyway, run 2 comes up and i'm much more relaxed - i take the course just fine - no kind of record time, but a clean run and i beat the guy i'm racing next to.  you see, it was parallel slalom - 2 courses side by side (like just 10 - 15 feet side by side).  race the red course first, then switch to the blue course for the 2nd run - the competition that you're paired with does vice versa.  anyway, even though you're still ultimately racing against the clock, you also race against the person just to your side.  kind of like a rabbit to chase if they're leading, etc.  right, so i beat that guy on my 2nd run which was a really cool feeling - i don't think i've ever beaten anyone in slalom before...  of course my combined time of runs 1/2 still put me in last place due to all the crashing my first time around, but hey, no big deal - it was my first time at nationals (and doing the parallel format).  very cool.

 

45 days on the snow this season - went from absolutely zero to a fairly decent rider.  just bought my season pass for mammoth mountain next year - it'll be even better.  maybe i can finally become that boardercross star i've been dreaming of...

 

so snowboarding ended right with easter and in memory of the resurrection of Our Savior i've decided to resurrect my cycling career.  got back on the bike today for the first time in 8 weeks - wow.  and over the last 24 weeks - 6 months - i've only ridden about 686 miles.  yeah, 686 miles is what you should be riding over about 2 to 2 and a half weeks.  oops.  well, at least i'm well rested...  track nationals are in the beginning of october - 6 months away - plenty of time, right?  right...

ok, so a buddy of mine - let's just call him 'the dude' - sent me this email a couple days ago.  it pretty much sums up my entire situation, so i just had to republish it:

 

 

Subject: Something to Ponder

An interesting reflection: Slow Down Culture It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule. Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in another words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here
early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

 

now, i can't say that i'm always at work early - no, i do drive fairly quickly to get there at the appointed time.  so i can't necessarily say that part 1 applies.

 

but the 'slow food' part?  man, i've been eating slow for years.  i remember sitting at goldie's bbq entertaining (or maybe mildly amusing?) the reids' with just rambling and rambling stories - just springboarding back and forth.  sitting in britain dining hall for hours on end with the phellas just layin down the food and discovering e time monikers.  hanging with my buddy jaan in france eating tiny octopusses in our dejeuner.  teaching the greeks a thing or two with my big bro.  warming up on a cold day in norway with all the brudevolls.

 

yeah, mealtime is really one of my all time favorites.  always has - always will.

 

and part 3?  the work schedule?  well, that was definitely a byproduct of my time in europe.  it's hard to even explain it sometimes.  once i got the ability to pull back on work a little bit, it made all the difference.  sometimes you just need to do less in order to do more.

so i'm just waiting for my flight to reno.

 

leave at 4:50 - get in to reno at 7:30 - stay at the sands casino for the night.

 

then it's a full week of snowboarding at northstar@tahoe.  that'll be just such a sweet way to finish off the season.  entry in nationals included a 6-day lift ticket, so of course i'll use that to the max and then some...  slalom race is on friday, apr 6.  totally appointed.

 

more to come.

so today was another brilliant day on the slopes.  i actually wasn't going to come up here this weekend, but my buddy jonathan's brother, scott snow, is racing the junior olympics up here in mammoth, so i had to come up and support the hardqoreness.  he's racing well, finishing in the 20's out of 90 or so competitors, and he's only 13 in the 13-14 division.  he'll win next year.

 

but scott's putting all that high school peer pressure on me - "what, you've never done a 360 off a jump before?  it's easy - if you can spin a 180 standing still then you can totally do a 360 off a jump."  "uhhhhh, you've got to be crazy, scott.  i'm not exactly the best jumper..."  "oh, you can do it."

 

so yeah, now i've got to get the courage up to do a 360.  i make a halfway effort and pull a 180, but just sit down right away.  "oh, that's cool, jeremy - nobody makes a 360 on their first try."  "..."

 

360's.  not sure i'll keep on trying those - maybe i will - but i really think i better learn how to ride goofy foot first, and that's just not easy at all.  anyway, yeah, whatever.  scott also got me to step up to the big jumps - the ones where you start to catch some serious big air.  and i've got to say - that is absolutely terrifying flying when you're getting big air.  it's just something you have to get used to, and it'll definitely help out the boardercross racing, but wow - pushing the limits for sure.

so i'm supposed to write about 6 weird things about myself, but no way - just too tired.  midnite jut followed by full day of boarding followed by hot tubbin and lasagna.  yeah, sleepy time so i can do it all over again tomorrow - sans the midnite jut.  word.

dude, i just made record time, as in land speed jutqoreness thereof, up to mammoth.  rolled out of SD at 00:39, got in to MM at 06:07.  394 miles in 5 1/2 hours with a stop halfway.  pretty good, considering 2/3 of the trip is not on the interstate.  that, and it sure is nice to get through LA at 2 in the morning...

 

so here's a great quote from the brief i gave yesterday - the one that held me up from leaving SD.  we're discussing risk levels and how we would rate the project that i'm managing.

 

CAPT Pope : so this is a pretty low risk project, right?

cap'n hq : well, yes, but i can't be entirely sure we'll get the desired results until we actually test the system over-the-air.

CAPT : but we've got the OEM designing the enhancement, so we shouldn't have the typical integration issues

cap'n : that's absolutely true - they know the system better than anyone else

CAPT : so everything should work then?

cap'n : Yep, everything should work perfectly fine - it's just the unknowns that always trip you up...

 

that was my Yogi Berra moment for the day.  Everyone just dropped their jaws and shook their heads.  It was awesome.

so it's midnite, and i'm about to hit the rode for mammoth.  was supposed to leave thursday around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and take 6.5 to 7.5 hours to get up there.  work said otherwise - i was giving a brief to our main boss man (CAPT Pope) from 2 yesterday, and that meeting ran over til after 4.  the meeting went really well, and everyone like my brief, but no point in even trying to fight traffic, so midnite jut here we come.  just got a good nap in, so i'm rared to take it jutqore to the promised land!

Day 2 of the CA State Games:

 

GS

 

Giant Slalom is supposed to be a more spread out - and therefore faster - course than Slalom.  Well, the course was definitely longer than the SL course, but it really didn't seem any faster.  Plus the surface was just so so icy.  I mean, I guess that's just how the alpine courses are - icy.  But wow, who really likes ice?  Anyway, time for the 1st run down the course.  I start out at what I think is a quick speed, and start bombing down the course.  I'm really trying to initiate the turns early so that I just barely come around the gates.  Anyway, I'm about 1/3 of the way down the course, making a turn, and then I realize that I'm heading straight at the gate - not in a tight arc around it.

 

Oh, no...

 

No time to change my angle and I just slam right through the gate (it's only a triangular flag, so there's no damage or anything).  I slide on my butt past 2 more gates until I can finally stop.  Now, if you miss a gate in SL or GS you get DQ'ed.  Usually the races are the combined times of 2 runs, but at the Cal Games it was the best time from the 2 runs that was your final score.  So, normally I would have had to have hiked back up and gone around the gates to keep from being DQ'ed, but since it was best of 2 I could simply miss the gates, go down the rest of the course, and have that score thrown out.  Of course, that meant that I had to nail the 2nd run correctly.  Yeah, no pressure there, especially after I crashed from being just a little aggressive.

 

2nd run, and I do what I think is a conservative run, but the entire time, I'm still skidding on the ice after every turn, and that's just so no good.  I still took some turns where I almost nailed the gate stake, but I made it down ok.  I ended up winning my age category, as I was the only competitor, but it was certainly no record time.  Mine was around 53 seconds - plenty of other people were around 50 seconds - and the guys tricked out in actual alpine race gear were around 42 seconds.  Yeah, lots to work on, to be sure.

day 1 of the CA state games :

 

SL and BX today.

 

rode around all morning, just doing jumps and some easy cruising.  it came time to do the SL, but nobody was at the course, so I took another run down the mountain.  get back to the SL course, and all of a sudden i'm late.  need to take my first run.  i take it really conservatively - not entirely on purpose - i simply had no idea what the course was.  anyway, that was slow, so i took the lift back up for my second run.  best time out of the 2 runs was the score, so i really needed to take it a bit quicker this time.  came out of the start - took the first turn - and i could tell this was going to be a good run.  took the 2nd turn - feeling fast.  3rd turn - just kill it.  4th turn - and i start skidding on the ice.  skidding so much that i had to sit down to avoid missing the gate.  nuts - there goes that time...  get back up and get back to speed.  finishout the run as fast as i can and that's that.  3rd place of 3 racers.

 

got over to the BX course as quick as i could and found out that i was too late to take a practice run on the course.  oh, wow.  my heat gets called - i'm feeling pretty no good - i mean - going down the course on its own at a fast speed without seeing it is hard enough.  but add in other guys that know the course?  forget it.  whatever.  heat comes up - 3 guys + me.  pull the start - i'm slowest out of the gate - i crash in the first turn. wow, need to work on riding those berms...  get back up and finish the course.  not too bad - time for the 2nd run.  so here we go - 2nd run.  i start slow again, and see the other 3 stacking up in the 1st turn.  they make it through, but 2 of the guys clash in turn 3 and one goes down.  perfect, i'm thinking - now i can cruise by.  but then he crawls up in the turn just as i'm coming by - oh, snap!  i'm able to go high in the turn and get by him just as he's getting up.  ok, now if i can just keep him at my back, then i'll finally actually beat someone at BX!  and then he passes me in the next turn.  huh.  finish out the course and that's that.  no injuries, so that's a success.

 

tomorrow is GS - that should be fun

So my team manager called me the other day:

 

general : hey, you're not quitting bike racing are you?

cap'n : naw, naw...  i'm not quitting - just taking some time off, i guess

general : is your knee still bothering you?

cap'n : oh, not as much anymore - it's still a little swollen, but i've got full mobility.  it's healing

general : been riding much?

cap'n : not a whole lot - been mostly snowboarding, actually

general : well, that's prolly good.  it's nice to have a change and just do something completely different now and then.

cap'n : yeah, it's really nice to just take a break.  i'll prolly start racing toward the end of april or the beginning of may.

general : that's cool.  so i'm out of town in colorado next week, but then i'll be back.  wanna go for a ride when i get back?

cap'n : sure, sounds good.