My Mind: Lifesized

2012-02-24T08:50:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I am on an ultimate kick today. Great 2011 highlights from the Open division.

2012-02-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

This is absolutely hilarious.

Sniffing Out the Songs

2011-12-27T13:50:00.001-07:00

I mentioned that I was in the midst of a year-end gorge of 2011 music in an effort to solidify my best of...I'm happy to report I keep finding more and more sites with great reviews and, once again, music that hadn't reached my ears. Here is another example I Guess I'm Floating Presents: The Best Albums of 2011.I'd never heard Pepper Rabbits before, but am loving their sound. 2011 was indeed a good year in music and I can't wait for my compilation to be complete so I can share.Back to work....

Annual Music Dash

2011-12-23T08:17:00.001-07:00

I've always loved music, always. I have strong memories of my childhood and some that stand out are of my Mom, driving the car and signing out loud an d"dancing" as she drove. She had this elaborate hand dance she did that made both me and my sister laugh. We didn't think she was a dork, we thought she was cool. At some point, I think around my college years, I started making "best of" lists and compilations. In college these were done on cassette tapes and I prided myself on my ability to make songs fade and blend together. My tapes were all titled, "Juicy John's Best of...". At some point the cassette's were dropped for mixed compact discs and I developed a whole network of like minded friends who would trade me their best of discs for mine. I guess I've been at this for 35 years or so, wow!Since the birth of my first son, Liam, the importance of always being ahead of the curve when it comes to music has diminished somewhat. I now find myself trying to cram a years worth of new hits into very short hits of free time. The end of December seems to be the time when I most try to seek out all the music I may have missed this past year.I'm in the process of creating my Best of 2011 compilations and I am pleased to say there was some great music created in 2011. Today, NPR is hitting me with their list of top 5 Groove songs, top 100 tracks of the year, and top 50 albums. I'm having quite the morning.Here's a sample:

2011-12-19T17:09:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been a long long time my beloved blog. I wish I could connect my brain to blogger and upload the good stuff since my last post. For now let's just say here is 2012 and a chance to get back in touch with my blogging side.

Cole Schmidt as Evel Knievel 2010

2010-05-14T12:14:00.000-06:00

Cole played Evel Knievel in his school's wax museum this year. It was a hoot. he worked really hard to memorize all the details and also to use exaggerated hand gestures as recommended by his teacher. Pretty funny stuff.

Health Reform

2010-03-23T12:11:00.002-06:00

I've been in some pretty vigorous debates on health reform over the past year. I've been surprised at the anger and downright misinformation displayed by some of my friends who sit on the far right. During one exchange I was shocked by comments from a friend who is quite religious and who basically said there is nothing in the bible that says she has to pay for the health care of those who won't pay for themselves. Another friend told me she couldn't believe the government would try to penalize people who worked hard their whole life and now wanted to have cosmetic surgery (this was when a tax was proposed on cosmetic surgery).
The whole thing has turned sour. I am a big fan of T.R. Reid and his research on health care around the world. He presents a fair and unbiased view on the shortcomings of our system and just the economic sense covering all citizens makes. I am not a fan of a single payer system, but I am a fan of universal coverage done in a private/public combination.
Today, on one of my professional lists, members were cheering for the 13 republican attorney generals who filed a lawsuit saying the reform bill is unconstitutional. I was appalled and this is what I wrote them back:
I’ve worked on health reform for the past two years, serving on a national committee and being lucky enough to meet with senate finance committee staffers on the hill. In the end, last week our association actually opposed this bill. It is an economic fact that our current system, which is socialized, subsidized, private, and commercial is killing our economy. It is fact that of all the richest industrialized nations on the planet we are the only one who does not, whether private, public or a combo, cover all its citizens. Taking personal beliefs aside, it just makes economic sense to cover them up front instead of the rest of us covering them afterwards while bankrupting them and providers in the process.
Our association didn’t oppose this bill because we were against it as much as because it didn’t go far enough. Our position is meaningful reform must do the following:
• Fix the Medicare physician payment system (not done in this bill)
• Simplify administrative transactions (decent start to this)
• Enact meaningful medical liability reform (not done in this bill)
• Expand coverage (excellent start to this)
• Improve quality and safety (could be good, could be misguided)
• Promote the adoption of health information technology (good start but need to fix the meaningful use definition)
While the legislation contains valuable provisions related to issues such as administrative simplification, it is hard to envision the successful transformation of our healthcare system without permanent repeal of the SGR. Additionally, establishing an independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) will exacerbate the SGR crisis by placing physicians in double jeopardy of additional reimbursement cuts.
So it was due to shortcomings, not because we feel big government is going to take over healthcare that we opposed the bill. I find it extremely damning of the republican partys to choose to litigate in this manner rather than using the other avenues to add the additional fixes needed…especially in areas like tort reform and the SGR. To throw all their eggs into the basket of “no” and to portray this as an evil imposed on the people is disingenuous at best. Both parties have their problems but I am very disappointed in the aggressive, negative, and downright slanderous approach taken in the past 72 hours by members of the grand old party, including the party chair. And if those nutjobs who showed up to protest and shouted racial and other hateful slurs at our elected officials represent the GOP, I want nothing to do with them or the party.
This and the other lawsuits soon to come are a disgrace in my opinion.

It's how I feel.

I'm Not Samuel L. Jackson

2010-02-02T08:18:00.001-07:00

From Newsweeks Oscar roundtable.

DCFC Does Simple Minds

2010-01-15T22:02:00.001-07:00

Tonight we let Coley (my 10 yo step son) have a birthday sleepover party. 6 boys and much chaos! I took the opportunity to sneak into the back room and flip on the tube. VH1 happened to be on and to my surprise, Death Cab for Cutie was performing live at the VH1 Critics Choice Awards. Cool performance of Simple Minds with a tribute to John Hughes was playing as I tuned in. Sweet memories as John Hughes movies played in the background. Check out the video:

Quinn the Eskimo

2010-01-10T18:50:00.003-07:00

At this point I am figuring my blog is now really more like a diary that is left on a counter so any hapless passerby with nothing better to do could open it and peruse as opposed to a real blog...I continually bemoan my own pathetic attempts to maintain anything similar to a regular posting regimen. And it's a shame really, as so many things have happened to me, my family, and friends since my last entry and well, I think they are rather interesting. Oh well, trudge onward.
The most significant event of all was the birth of my second son, Quinlan Charles Terry O'Connor on December 2nd, 2009. After another hard labor (not quite as long or hard as Liam, according to Jen), Jen delivered the mighty Quinn at about 5:15 PM. He is an awesome little boy who has already developed one heck of a personality. My wonderful parents were able to be here again and stayed for almost three weeks; they were amazing in their support and help and love. As is our habit, we couldn't decide on a name so we used three! Quinn has settled into a routine of being up about 4 times a night and I am again rediscovering the art of getting by on little to no sleep. I am now fully sucked into family life and am having a great time.
Some other items of note...last week we were in just an awful accident that I am reliving several times a day. On the way home from Billings, Montana we struck a full grown deer at 75 mph on a very dark stretch of Interstate I-90 at about 7:00 PM. This was not your Indiana deer...this was a large deer of the Montana variety that took out the entire front of the car. She literally exploded on impact. The air bags deployed and everything worked exactly as it should have...all 4 kids were unscathed and neither Jen or I were hurt either. The trooper arrived about 10 minutes after the 911 call and was extremely helpful and out wonderful neighbors drove a half hour out to pick us up. It was only at about 11:00 PM that it all set in and my hands started to shake. Seriously, I am quite certain we would have all died had I swerved to avoid the deer. Unfortunately we are down a car but otherwise we are spectacular.
All of this puts my ultimate frisbee misadventures in perspective. My team, the Mental Toss Flycoons (winners of the 2008 national championships) once again qualified for the national championships and went into the event with a big swagger. I gave up my spot as an active player and opted to fill the role of coach for the series. Don't ask me why or how (that will be a post for another time) but the experience in Florida this year was just plain bad. We finished tied for third, losing in the semi-finals to the eventual champions, and qualified for the world championships in Prague to be held in July of this year. But my personal experience and just about everything I thought about my place on the team and the esteem in which I thought I was held were all shattered. I suppose it was what needed to happen for me to finally say, it is time to set aside my addiction to Ultimate.
More later, it is time for a hair cut.

Car Wash Gone Bad

2009-09-22T08:13:00.002-06:00

I keep sticking events and stories into a compartment in my mind with the intent to post more often. That compartment is getting pretty full!
Last night I left the office a little early to make a deposit at the bank and run an errand for my Ultimate team. It was about ten 'till 5:00 PM and so rather than going back to the office I decided to pick Liam up and get 30 minutes of solo Daddy-Liam time in. He was pretty cute when I picked him up from daycare, he already had his little backpack on and was waiting at the door, blanket in hand. After we got loaded I said, "Hey Liam, want to help Daddy wash his car?" to which he replied "sure". Did I mention the boy is cute? So we headed to the ancient self-serve at the bottom of the hill. After some negotiations it was determined that he would remain in the car so he could see the water and soap from the inside (shrewd negotiations on my part). I loaded the coins in and got my 5 minutes. Being a savvy veteran of the self-serve, I avoided the foam spray and went straight to the brush after wetting the car down. Somewhere along the way, Liam decided he wanted to help, so he wriggled his upper straps of the car seat down to his waist, leaned over and opened his door and began shouting, "Daddy, I want to help now". So I ran around the car, released him from his seat and got him out to help. He wanted to spray so I stood behind him and wrapped my arms around his and helped him work the spray gun. Simple enough, mission accomplished and off he went to stomp in a puddle.
Several minutes later while I was applying the "wax" coat, Liam popped back over and asked if he could spray again. He proudly announced that he wanted to do it himself and so I stood behind him, leaning over him and getting my arms ready to help him. He took the gun (those things are fairly big and heavy for a22 month-old) and the tip immediately dropped to the ground. As I started to move to help him, he squeezed the trigger with both hands, the nozzle shot straight up and an intense blast of water nailed me...right in the eye and sent my flying backwards on my ass. I immediately jumped up to see the nozzle and gun flying all over with Liam attached to it. It was comedic in the least. After wrangling the gun away and making sure 1. my eyeball was still in place and 2. my glasses weren't broken, I looked at Liam and he said, "Daddy, that was funny". All the anger that had been building in those few seconds immediately left and we both laughed.
Funny indeed.

Conan O'Brien on Twitter

2009-06-03T11:35:00.001-06:00

Garrett - you might be the only person who reads my blog still...admittedly my content lately has been less than captivating. That aside, this Conan O'Brien bit is simply hilarious.

Colin Hay Band

2009-05-12T16:27:00.002-06:00

Today I was driving from one office to the other and, as sometimes happens, my mind was wandering. I had a local station on and suddenly I was brought back into the now by a beautiful melody and voice that at first I thought I recognized. I listened intently to the song and by the end almost felt like crying. All I could remember was one line, "if I live to be 102, I just don't think I will get over you". So just now I googled that line and after a second attempt found a link to this video on Youtube. What a wonderful voice...Colin hay formerly of Men at Work! And really a beautiful song, so it made my day more satisfying. Enjoy!

Twittering Away

2009-04-17T16:30:00.002-06:00

Some time around May of last year my friend Garrett, who always seems to be light years ahead on the next big thing in technology, told me about Twitter. I signed up to check it out and promptly could not figure out what to do. So I watched Garrett's tweets mainly and would occasionally tweet back pleading for him to explain what this whole tweet thing was all about. At the time it was a tool used mainly by tech heads to talk in their odd techie way to each other and so I could barely understand what Garrett was tweeting away about. My twittering languished in obscurity. Slowly though I heard about more people using Twitter, mainly my friend Timi in Singapore (another web head...a pretty web head at that...sorry Garrett). And so I determined to master this so called Twitter only to find I had very few people to Tweet to and even fewer friends who'd ever heard of Twitter. In October I was stuck at home while my beloved Ultimate team traveled to Sarasota for nationals and I spent days on end trying to keep up...luckily Bill Elsinger came to the rescue using the mobile Twitter app and I've been hooked ever since.
Twitter may get passed by soon, that seems to be the way things progress on the web, but I find it to be a great way to keep in touch, get quick tidbits on people and issues (now CNN and the like are twittering) and generally feed my head with even more stimuli than before.
You can follwo me at Twitter: @jtocon

Washington DC Day 5

2009-03-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Our last day in DC was a blast. We ate breakfast inside Union Station and then made our way to the offices of Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) where we had an early morning appointment for a private tour of the Capitol! Although a stunning (and extremely expensive) new visitor's center recently opened, I'd opted for contacting the Senator's office to see about the private tour. It was fantastic. Our guide was a young staffer from Wisconsin and he was excellent. Getting to bypass all the lines, and the crowds was really amazing and Brian 9our guide) did a great job filling us in on all the trivia and historical events.
After the tour we decided to unwind from our hectic schedule and made our way over to the National Botanical Gardens...simply amazing and beautiful and like everything else, FREE. Just the smell of the place helped relax us and ease tension.
I know we experienced the nice side of our nation's capitol, even so we both loved our trip. I'll come back and fill in these last two posts.

Washington Adventure, Day 4

2009-02-20T17:13:00.002-07:00

There is no way it has been almost a month since I posted my last post...oh, I guess there is a way. Anyhow, Washington, DC continued. Sunday, our big day and what an amazing day it was. I'll write more later and edit this post. Highlights:

Breakfast in Georgetown at Le Pain Quotidien
Three hours at the Holocaust Museum
The War Memorials on the Mall, WW II, Korean, Vietnam
The Lincoln Memorial
Seeing a pickup game of Ultimate being played on the Mall
The National Archives - Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Constitution
The National Gallery of Art and the Robert Franks exhibit, The Americans
Hopping the subway to Shady Grove and then a car ride to ED & Cathy O'Rourke's home for a great dinner
Riding the subway back to Foggy Bottom at 11:30 PM
Collapsing into bed at midnight

Mr. O'Connor Goes to Washington, Day Three

2009-01-27T22:16:00.003-07:00

Friday night was a blast but it made the 6:15 AM wake up call come too early. My Government Affairs Committee meeting began promptly at 7:30 AM, and since they paid the bill I was obliged to be on time. The association's Washington offices are two blocks from the White House so I was anxious to see if there was a good view. At least that is what I was thinking as I said hello to the Indian man who passed me walking briskly. He hesitated at the corner and asked if I was heading to 1717 North Pennsylvania and we were happy to discover we were both headed to the same meeting and so we shared good conversation along the rest of the walk. I soon discovered that he emigrated to the US a decade ago but decided not to jump through the hoops that were necessary in order to continue practicing medicine and had instead gone back into health care administration. His son is a 4th year medical student in Washington so he visits regularly. I got some good recommendations for authentic Indian restaurants mixed in with his views on what was in store for us and suddenly we were at the entrance to the building. Even though the inauguration had occurred four days earlier, or perhaps due to the buildings location, security was tight. We had to be buzzed in, screened and signed in before we were escorted to the 6th floor. It was a beautiful office building designed so that I felt important just being allowed inside!
The meeting was quite exciting, although it was full of subject matter that would make most peoples eyes glaze over. Lots of lobbyists spoke, policy makers weighed in, and I was pleased that my feedback and input seemed to have some value. I also discovered that people were keen to discover what happens in Montana thanks to Senator Baucus saying he would rely heavily on input from Montana physicians and patients when crafting his legislation on health reform. The time flew and it was 2:00 PM before I knew it...side highlight was getting to go up to the roof top for an eagle eye view of the White House and stories of sharp shooters planted there during the inauguration parade.
After getting back to the hotel and meeting up with Jen (who'd spent the day in Georgetown soaking it in), we were disappointed to discover our camera was missing. We believe it was stolen, either from the restaurant coat room or our hotel room , but couldn't rule out the scenario that we'd lost it ourselves. We spent the next hour walking around trying to find a camera store and then spending money we don't have on a new one that was far more than needed. Some grumpiness ensued but we fought through it and trotted off to continue the adventure. Despite itself, Washington is a real city, full of real people doing all sorts of things besides government work. Once we got the camera and our bearings we realized we were in the heart of a vibrant, busy city full of people scurrying about in their own worlds. But we refocused on the task at hand, being tourists and taking in the good stuff. We headed down to the White House, the Ellipse and then Washington Monument. The front view of the White House was blocked mostly, due to bleachers and the official viewing stand, which were all in different stages of disassembling, so we weren't able to see much other than all the other folks trying to get the same shots as us. The rear view though was awesome and we just stood, half expecting the President to come out on the balcony and wave to the crowds. The Ellipse was fenced into sections and otherwise not worth mentioning other than the wind that began to sweep across the open space and nip at our necks. By the time we reached the lines of Thai-manned vending trailers, the day had suddenly turned bitter cold and nasty, with strong winds which forced us to bail on our planned walk of the war memorials and Lincoln's Monument. We tried to fight it and walked to the Washington Monument, but by the time we neared the base we were walking backwards against strong winds. We could see Small dust tornadoes whipping up on the Mall. After a brief huddle to discuss our options, we opted to abandon our planned walk back to Foggy Bottom and headed straight for the Metro, which was filled with many cold and dazed folks just happy to be out of the wind.
After a quick warm-up in the hotel, we took my new friend Pawan's advice and headed into Georgetown for Indian food at the Taj of India. It is a delightful little restaurant just across the bridge on M Street that seems to have as many waiters as patrons, but soon the place filled and once the food began arriving we knew we'd hit a great spot. Authentic and varied, the Taj features options from many regions of India, although it seems as though the main focus is on northern and eastern Indian cuisine. I really didn't see much in the way of southern Indian choices, but since I love the gravies and sauces of northern Indian cuisine, I was quite satisfied. The food was outstanding, as was the service and the prices were some of the best we experienced our whole trip. I'm told DC is a "foodies" paradise and everything I saw suggests this to be true, we just didn't have enough time to take in all the local offerings.
After fully stuffing ourselves (Jen got a vegetarian sampler platter that could have easily fed both of us) we hiked back up to Foggy Bottom where we caught the free shuttle to the Kennedy Center. I managed to score two seats in the Orchestra level of the Opera House for the 9:30 PM Bill Cosby performance. We loved the Kennedy Center and Bill Cosby was hilarious. He is still an amazing performer, especially in light of the way he performs...no profanity, no direct sexual content, no disparaging remarks...just great storey telling and down to earth humor. He told a very long story about the woman who has cooked for him the past 40 years and at the end of the performance he introduced her...she was sitting in the front row and he had brought her out to see the inauguration. I expected him to talk about the inauguration or President Obama, but he only made one brief mention of the new President, much to the delight of the crowd. The place was packed and the earlier show was sold out. He still has it going on and had everyone bellowing with laughter at points in the performance. After the show, we crowded back onto the bus where I promptly started taking pictures and began chatting with anyone that would listen letting them know we were in all the way from Montana. Most everyone humored me, including my wife. The bus let us off two blocks from the hotel and we retired for the evening, shortly after midnight, knowing our big day was the next.

Washington Adventure, Day Two

2009-01-25T22:43:00.002-07:00

Friday morning I was nervous as all get out...I had two meetings scheduled on the hill, one with a senior Senate Finance Committee staff member and the other with a staff person from Senator Max Baucus's office. Even though I kept telling myself the meetings would be a breeze, my stomach and nerves weren't so convinced. I took the Metro from the Foggy Bottom station (1/2 block from our hotel), switched at the Metro Center and popped out at Union Station. The sun was shining and I suddenly felt some confidence in my bones. I arrived about 4 minutes late to my first meeting but managed to smooth over the receptionist and front staff. I was supposed to have 15 minutes to share my thoughts on health reform, as luck would have it, I got 40 minutes. We had alively discussion and I left feeling quite good. I navigated my way to the Russell Senate building and was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming Senator Baucus's staff were and how friendly the atmosphere was...there is a reason Baucus keeps getting re-elected. My meeting with the Baucus staffer was equally productive and I was sincerely impressed with the enthusiasm and interest he showed in my requests. I walked out of there re-invigorated with the notion that one person can make a difference.
I popped over to the Russell Sneate building and dropped off some information at Senator Tester's office and then walked along the back side of the Capitol, passing a pro-life protest, the Supreme Court and the Congressional office buildings. I stopped into Congressman Rehberg's offce to drop off another packet about Fort Missoula Regional Park before heading back to the hotel to meet Jen.
We hopped back on the Metro and headed down to the Smithsonian/Mall. Incredibly, they were still taking down barricades from the inauguration. We met a delightful Ethiopian woman at the main Smithsonian infromation desk who filled our heads with all kinds of facts about the Washington Ethiopian community. We then headed over the the Museum of the American Indian for lunch. Fabulous! I had pumpkin/cocounut conszuela, maple brined turkey, and Indian pudding while Jen got a more Central American dish of braised beef and chicken wrapped in torillas, grilled brussel sprouts, and a squash dish. expensive as all get out but well worth the stop. The museum is well done and is beautifully designed. After about two hours we then trudged over to the Air & Space Museum...a complete wonder to both of us! We took all kinds of photos and gazed, mouths open at the displays and exhibits. Unfortunately at 5:30 we were promplty herded out of the museum like cattle to slaughter by the Museum security staff, cutting our visit way too short.
After Metro-ing back to the hotel we quickly changed and took a cab to meet another Purdue friend who remains one of my best friends, Eddie O and his wife Kathy in Georgetown at Cafe Milano. Excellent food, great company, superb atmosphere, and a penchant for laughter all combined to make our second night in Washington even better than the first. After dinner Ed and Kathy drove us on a night time tour of the monuments. It was really breath taking to see the big three (Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington) all lit up at night and the Capitol in all its grandeur. After our driving tour they dropped us off at the hotel where we promptly collapsed into a deep slumber.
Day three tomorrow!

John & Jen's Excellent Washington Adventure

2009-01-24T15:59:00.003-07:00

In November I was notified I'd been selected to be a member of the Government Affairs Committee of my industry association. Pretty cool for me from both a business perspective and personal interest angle. Later that month I was told that duie to the impending change in administrations, they had decided to move the meeting from May to January and from Chicago to the Washington DC offices! Woo hoo. Unfortunately, plane fares and the meeting schedule prohibited me from combining it with witnessing the inauguration, nonetheless I was quite excited. To make matters even better, Jen had never been to DC so we decided to make a small vacation out of it and she came along. My Mom & Dad agreed to come visit and watch Liam for us, giving us our very first opportunity to ever spend this much time together alone as a couple...but that is another story all in itself. So here we are, enjoying the wonder, splendor, bustle and hustle (and incredibly cold winds) of our nations Capitol.
We arrived on Thursday late in the afternoon and as the plane flew into Reagan National, we could see all the signs of the inauguration on the mall. It was clear and sunny, so we could easily see the landmarks and people working below. The jumbotron's were being taken down, temporary barriers were still everywhere but being disassembled and the ground bore all th emarks of being underfoot to a massive crowd. We took the Metro to our hotel, which is right next to George Washington University in Foggy Bottom. We fumbled a bit with the fare cards and felt a little like country bumpkins, but everyone we met was very nice and patient with us. After a short rest we headed down Pennsylvania Avenue where we met my old college roommate Beedo, his partner Chris, and some of their friends for dinner at a new Washington hot spot, Founding Farmers. The restaurant is owned by a farming cooperative and all the food is fresh, organic, and local (although local was never defined). It also is Washington's first LEED restaurant and is certified as a green restaurant. Coming from Missoula, where just about every business is either green or in the process of going green, it was a little refreshing to feel one step ahead of the city slickers. I gigled inside thinking about how all the crunchie chewy Missoulians would feel about a green restaurant that charged $20 for organic mac & cheese and fried chicken. Then I thought to myself I was being a little snobbish in the opposite direction and got back to enjoying the evening. Beedo brought a workmate who had just gotten back from the Galapagos Islands and she had loads of photos. She was super nice and interesting and turned out to be quite the traveler having also been to Africa and getting ready to head of to Cuba. We also met his neighbor, who works for customs and is just a riot. Chris and Beedo have been together for almost 14 years but this was the first time we'd met and I must say it was like I'd known him for a long time. He was great and had a big laugh, something a loud laugher like me really appreciates. It was a really wonderful evening that ended too soon.
I'll post about Friday tomorrow.

Gran Torino

2009-01-17T10:24:00.003-07:00

Jen's sister is visiting us with her two kids Jack(4) and Evan (3). Last night we had Jen and our three (9, 6, 2), Nancy (her sister) and her two, their friend Vicki and her two (6, 4), Jen & Nancy's Mom and their niece all over at the house. It was chaos in grand proportion.
Luckily for me, I'm sick. And sick enough to justify saying I needed to get the h-e-double sticks out of the house. So I did something I haven't done in about three years...I went to a movie. It was between Defiance and Gran Torino so I asked the cute girl at the ticket counter for her advice. Without hesitation she said Gran Torino and I am glad I took her advice. I dropped 8 bones on the movie (what the hell is that all about?) so opted to skip on the small bag of popcorn for $5.75. I now understand how Jen spent $55 last month taking 5 kids to the movies!
Clint Eastwood is a bad ass who happens to make great movies. i've always been a fan...I even like the flick where had the pet orangutan and traveled around fighting bare knuckles for a living. He is a great actor in my opinion and an even better producer. While his character in Gran Torino doesn't fall far from the tree of his stereotype (rough exterior with a heart beating faintly inside), the movie does a great job of portraying a man confronting his own mortality and prejudice at the same time.
It is set in Michigan. Eastwood plays a retired Korean war vet who hasn't changed as the world changed around him. Some great side plots and supporting actors as well. I cried in this movie, I laughed and I grew used to the large amounts of profane and vulgar language pretty quickly.
On a scale of 1 to 5 stars Johnny O gives this one a 4.

Will Ferrell Does Bush on SNL

2008-10-24T16:07:00.002-06:00

This is a hilarious spoof on Bush, McCain, and Palin.

Craig Ferguson Gives Us A Lesson

2008-09-14T08:34:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRVQ4xwwmQ

It's RATPOD Time Again

2008-04-28T08:01:00.002-06:00

If you look to the right of this post you'll notice I added a fund raising widget. A couple of weeks ago I did not know what a widget was but now that I do I am quite certain I will become a widget king. Yep, it's RATPOD time again, that super cool, super challenging one-day ride through the big hole valley and up and over the Pioneer mountain range of Montana to support Camp Mak-A-Dream. Camp Mak-A-Dream is a magical place in Gold Creek, Montana that is an all-expense paid camp for kids and young adults with cancer. You can visit my fund raising web page to learn all about the camp and to hear my full story about why I think this is such an incredible cause. I'm shooting big this year...$10,000.00 US dollars big. Wanna help me get there?

It's Just a Little 2mm Punch...

2008-04-21T17:36:00.002-06:00

As part of my effort to be a more responsible adult, I decided it was time for me to establish medical care with a primary care doctor and to get the various spots and blotches and tingles checked by a dermatologist. Today was my appointment with the dermatologist and it went like this...
Arrive 10 minutes early (I work in a doctor's office after all and know how this new patient stuff can be time consuming) and begin to fill out the paperwork. The receptionist actually gave me two sets of paperwork but was unimpressed at my sarcasm, "do you need me to fill out two sets of paperwork...do I get a discount for that?" I filled out the paperwork and began the waiting process. Their office set up is kind of weird, with the doctor's actual office in plain view of the waiting area and the billing and reception area all open and in earshot, as in I could hear every conversation. Anyhow, I waited just long enough that I was considering a snooze by the time the medical assistant called me back into the exam area.
We got into the room and the first thing I noticed is she never looked at me...she sat at a little table with her head buried in my new chart (containing all my personal information I just filled out like date of birth, meds, allergies, etc.) and began to ask me questions like...what is your date of birth, what are your allergies, what meds are you taking, etc. All the stuff I just wrote down but she was now writing on a separate piece of paper. She then asked me what I was there for and I told her just a quick look at some trouble spots on my skin. She said it sounded like I needed a "skin check-up" and I immediately became a lemming and said, okay, sure! The next thing I know she tells me I can put on a paper gown and wait for the physicians assistant but to leave my underwear on.
So med assistant leaves, she may have glanced back at me on her way out but otherwise she never did make eye contact, and I disrobe and put on the paper garment. I sat on the exam table and the paper garment poofed out, so I squished it down and it crinkled out to the side. I spent the next 15 minutes alone, trying to figure out the damn paper gown and eavesdropping on the office next door (not a medical office next door but someone who didn't know they could be heard). Then the PA walked in and she was eye popping pretty and I was immediately embarrassed to be sitting in a room with a paper garment on and only my boxers. Soon thereafter her assistant came in, a 20-something hottie herself and the experience became surreal. We talked about my skin and I joked about the gown. She told me I could take it off if I was uncomfortable. She asked me lots of questions and I kept thinking, "all I want is for someone to look at this brown spot on my cheek and tell me not to worry, it isn't cancerous". The next thing I knew I had agreed to get three little samples of skin taken from my cheek, my forehead and my scalp. As I lay on my back, with the gown now smooshed and centered over my boxer shorts, I suddenly recalled she had mentioned a three week healing time. I snapped out of my haze long enough to say, do I really need this, I mean all I thought I was going to have was a check-up, not an underwear party with two attractive women". At least that got a chuckle. She assured me it was probably nothing but better to get checked now since I'd never had it checked before. So I let it happen...I got local anesthetic and then they took punch chunks of skin and cauterized two of the holes and sutured my scalp. I should know in three or 4 days what is up with my skin. And for the next three weeks if you see me and notice a few holes in my head, now you know the rest of the story.

My 2.5 seconds of fame

2008-04-05T18:19:00.002-06:00

This morning we headed down to the University of Montana to try and get into the Adams Center for Barack Obama's free Missoula rally. The Obama campaign announced the event on Wednesday night and decided to give away 8,000 tickets...all were gone by Thursday morning. So they added an additional 2,000 tickets, which were gone in another 2 hours! Yesterday they announced that after the Adams Center was full(first come first served), anyone wanting to could sit outdoors in the University football stadium. I would estimate there were 12-15,000 people there by 9:00 AM.
We stood in line with a group of friends (Nate, Markie, Daphne, Sarah, Alex, Russ, Julie) and wound our way across campus hoping to get in to the event. Suddenly a reporter asked Jen and I if we would mind answering some questions; I guess I talked for about two minutes. He asked me about why I came to the event, why I was excited, what it meant to Montana and things like that. Afterwards he mentioned he was with NBC Nightly News and to watch the news tonight and I might be on. I really didn't give it much thought after that.
We went inside and proceeded to be blown away by Barack's speech; he is charismatic that is for sure. He didn't use a script at all, he spoke passionately about education and restoring America's place as a respected nation. He did the usual political dance on jobs, healthcare and tax breaks...almost all politicians talk about "fixing" these problems. But I felt moved by his comments and he just may have finally won me over.
Afterwards, I got stopped again by a reporter, this time from ABC! He told me I'd be on the news there too...
Clinton comes tomorrow, maybe I'll becoome a professional sound bite.

Without further ado...here is my 2.5 seconds of fame.

Best of 2007

2008-01-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

I'll put up my best of 2007 music soon, but in the meantime, this was just too good to pass up.

Human Tetris

2007-12-13T13:51:00.001-07:00

Speaking of funny

11 Guys You'll Always Find Playing Pickup Basketball

2007-12-13T13:44:00.001-07:00

This is pretty funny

The Great Christmas Tree Hunt of 2007

2007-12-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

I love the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. And a Christmas tradition I've really come to enjoy since moving to Montana is the tradition of cutting my own Christmas tree. Friends of mine have property that butts up against national forest land and land owned by Plum Creek (A big timber company) and for the past 5 Christmas's I've headed up the mountain to cut down a tree. This year we opted to stay closer to home, going up into the Pattee Canyon Recreation area of the Lolo National Forest. It is an area Jen has gone to before and is literally only 4 or 5 miles from our house. I was a bit skeptical we'd find a nice tree so close to home and without the long hike into the forest, but Jen was confident and we had the Liam factor to contend with, so off we went.
On the way back into the woods we passed the remains of a deer carcass hanging from a tree...either tossed there by a hunter or maybe left by a mountain lion and then when we pulled off the dirt road there was another carcass right off the road...ahh hunting season in Montana! It was a pretty short hike to get into a stand of pretty good trees...young, in a dense area that could use some thinning and the right type (we both like Douglas Fir and Alpine). Within a short period of time we got two great trees, one for Mary Ann (Jen's Mom) and the other for us. Here are some photos.

And now for the rest of the story….

When we got the tree into the house it was so skinny that we both thought we needed another one…we weren’t about to load Liam back into his fleece get up and the backpack,so I headed down the hill to the Pink Grizzly. In typical Missoula style, the Pink Grizzly (a family owned nursery since the 50s that occupies the last open space on Russell street and Missoula icon) offers hand cut trees from forest land and also the more traditional shaped and farmed trees they call “plantation” trees. Those trees go from $40 - $70 while the hand cut trees go from $12 - $30. We got this doozee for $18 clams. Not a bad deal and a beauty of a tree.

We decorated it tonight (the kids were a big help…not) and drank egg nog.

A Very Nice Thanksgiving

2007-11-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

For the second year in a row, my Mom & Dad joined us for Thanksgiving in Missoula. We had a blast despite the fact I was away from most of my family again and not in Indiana. We started cooking pies on Wednesday night and got up early Thanksgiving morning to begin the rest of the cooking in earnest. Even though we were planning a meal for 5 instead of 15, we cooked up a storm. Dad and I picked out a nice Hutterite turkey, fresh from the New Rockport colony in Choteau, MT to go with all the dishes we prepared. Jen had stuffing and sweet potato dishes that are traditional in her family, and we had stuffing, dressing and pie dishes from ours. It was an awesome meal, spent with family...we even pulled out Jen's grandmother's China, the first time I've ever hosted a meal and used China. We started off with a nice relish tray and roasted nuts. Then to go with bird we had cornbread dressing, oyster stuffing, sage stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, candied yams, sweet potatoes and pecans, cranberry relish, cranberry roll, and yeast rolls. For dessert we had two types of pumpkin pie, pecan pie, mincemeat pie, cherry pie (using Flathead cherries we pitted and froze this summer), and pumpkin bread pudding. In short, we stuffed ourselves.
Dad and Mom have been super fun to be with and as usual, every time they visit we do some really fun things. We headed out to Tarkio for the day and stopped at the Nine Mile Roadhouse for a burger afterwards. We shopped and dined and hung out to watch movies at home with some of Grampy O's famous popcorn.
A great holiday!

Liam turns One

2007-11-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe, but this Sunday marks one year since little Liam John Hays O'Connor entered the world. Liam is just a super cool, super mellow little man. He's saying the ubiquitous "uh-oh" now, along with "night-night", "thank you", "hi" and "Allie" (our dog). He sleeps through the night most of the time, gets up with a smile most of the time and plays hard until he crashes and burns. Kind of like his Dad!
Happy Birthday Liam!!!!!!

Nationals 2007, Flycoons take 9th and 2nd....

2007-11-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

By now most of my avid readers heard Missoula’s Mental Toss Flycoons competed in the 2007 UPA Club Ultimate Championships in Sarasota, Florida at the end of last month. It was the final round of competition, and MTF was one of the final 16 teams in the mixed division to make it to nationals. Ultimate continues to grow in popularity and the competition keeps getting tougher and more intense each year. Every team looked big, fast and deep. The mixed division is developing "elite" teams and our region is the best in the country, with 4 teams making the championships. I was really impressed with the talent level overall and, save for a few teams, across the board the teams were well represented in talent and ability.

I’m happy to report that MTF is well on its way to establishing itself as one of the top Ultimate teams in the country; the team finished the competition with a 5-3 record, placing 9th and improving two places from last years 11th place finish. Of the 16 teams, our spirit ranking was 1/10th of a point behind the winner (Bashing Pinatas), meaning all the teams we played ranked us extremely high in our Spirit of the game evaluation. We battled every team that beat us honorably and to the end. Our three losses were to the teams that finished 1st (Shazam Returns 9-15), 2nd (Slow White 12-15) and 8th (Tandem 12-15) and, truth be told, we felt the only team that really outplayed us and deserved the win was Shazam, the eventual champs. The other two losses we sustained we pretty much beat ourselves. Along the way we beat teams from Colorado, North Carolina, Atlanta, New York and Minnesota; all teams from much larger markets with more Ultimate players to pull from. We cheered, hugged, laughed, cried and laid it all on the fields. We shared floor space, bed space, food, rides, clothes and whatever else anyone needed. Despite my personal bias, I am confident when I say we represented true team spirit and what I’d consider the ideals of “teamship” if I could add that word to Webster’s…or in the least “sportsmanship”. It’s hard not to be a great team when you have so many kind souls supporting you as well as kick ass athletes getting it done on the fields. Lots of family and friends made the trip to support and watch us and my good friend Sean Brown (of Indy fame, Three Martini Lunch and Chico's Bail Bonds nattys appearances) made the drive over to say howdy.
Offensively we had some major standouts in James Kennedy (winner of the coveted Offensive Parrot), Skyla Sisco, Kerr and Fast Johnny. THese guys were unbelievable, making highlight reels and photo shoots throughout the tourney.
Defensively, it didn’t get much better than Will Sutton, Ryan Applegate, Jen Nichols and Jesse Adams. But I don’t think anyone one of the people listed above would put themselves up on a pedestal above their teammates…it took everyone to make it happen and often it was the small gesture of a back rub or word of encouragement or a hug that spurred on our stars and journeymen alike. All in all, this was a very special year and nationals was a very special event.

If you’ve seen Hugh Carey’s incredible shots on Flickr, click here to see the photos , without a single caption or word they tell the story better than I ever could in most cases. Hugh was simply amazing and he has an uncanny ability to capture a moment almost before it happens, something you rarely if ever see in a person, let alone one with his experience. My words hardly compete with many of those shots to describe the emotional highs & lows but I will do my best below. I also must admit to you my own shortcoming (one of many)…I’ve spent the last several days dreaming of a different finish in the Tandem game, dreaming of that next game to get to the semi-finals and dreaming of a chance to play for the championship. I’ve at various times inserted myself into a situation (of course, giving myself superhuman skills I don’t actually possess), changed a dropped pass to a completion, a missed score to a turning point and a just barely missed bid to a beautiful game saving layout defense. The loss of that pre-quarters game to Tandem, the second time the same un-spirited, ill-mannered group from Boston has knocked us out of the top 8 (Tandem placed last in the Spirit category the past two years), which prevented us from placing higher than 9th, was a crushing blow emotionally. So I’ve spent most of my waking and sleeping moments since Saturday bouncing back and forth from dreaming of what could have been to moping about what was…frankly I wasn’t much in a mood to write up until yesterday and, although it might be better to not make that public knowledge, I think it adds some honesty to the review I’m about (or as our Canadian teammates might say, a-boot) to give.

So…without further ado…

EVERYBODY WAS FEELIN” FI-E-EYE-NE

Nationals Day One (Thursday, 25 October 2007)

Our first game of the day was against the Black Molly, a team from the Raleigh-Durham/Chapel Hill Triangle area of North Carolina. I’d heard they were a team with a mixture of nationals veterans and young guns ready to run. During the warm-up it seemed like every time I looked over to their side, another 6’4” dude was showing up. This game went fairly true to form with both teams having first game jitters. It was close early, with us trading points before we stretched it out to take the half 8-4 I believe. We put pressure on early on and kept it the whole game, despite allowing a small run from the North Carolinians and we got some stellar defensive plays to get breaks going in our favor and we went on to win 15-11.

Our next game was against nationals veterans Bad Larry, an experienced team that went to Worlds last year but a team that had a disappointing performance at nationals last year and an up and down year this year. We knew some players on that team and knew they were really good, which fired up our team. As with the first game, we traded points early on as we tried to figure out their defense and adjust to their offense, but just like the first game our defense shines. We get the breaks early and then a late break to take half, 8-4 just like game one. It’s clear as we talk in the huddle, that what really sparks our team is defense. And nothing fires us up more than seeing one of our teammate’s layout for a defensive block. Bad Larry tried to get back into the game in the second half, but truth be told, it was a lackluster effort and we just weren’t interested in allowing that to happen, so we beat them 15-10 setting up the big game of the day against Slow White, the #1 seed in our Pool and 3rd seed overall.

Last year we Played Slow White in game 1 and, well, they crushed us. We got a chance to play them at ECC this year and they beat us there too, but we were missing several key players and had just come off a universe point loss to Brass Monkey. S we entered this game confident that we could hang with last year’s runner-up and beat them. This was an epic game. We started on defense, exactly what we wanted and used our zone to confuse them early going up two breaks to make the score 4-2 good guys. They come right back and score to make it 4-3…we hold our offense together and score right back to make it 5-3. It is at this point, when we are up two scores and are on defense that the game starts to slip from us. Make no mistake, Slow White is a good team with good players, but our team is better. We cause the turnover and push towards their goal line, actually getting the disc to within about 4 feet of scoring. But we were inpatient and tried to push in a score to a player who was covered. As oft happens, off the turn they run and get behind the defense, huck once and then throw to an open player. Now instead of being 6-3 good guys, the score is 5-4. After some mistakes on our part and great defense on their part, they go up 6-5…they get one more defense on us and close out the half 6-8. The second half was hard fought and we closed the gap to one point at 11-12 and Slow gave us three opportunities to tie it on the next point but they go up 13-11. We turn it over on offense on a long huck that doesn’t work and Slow’s d-line scores on our o line to make it 14-11. We score to make it 14-12. As it did all day, our defense stifles them and has a chance to score but we just can’t punch it in and they win 15-12. This loss was disappointing only in the fact we knew we could beat them, were in a position to do it but just couldn’t quite make it happen. Still, we finish the day right where we need to be, 2-1 and on our way to the Power Pool with the other top 7 teams.

THE GLORY OF VICTORY AND THE AGFONY OF DEFEAT

Nationals Day Two (Friday, 26 October 2007)

So this is where things get funny. The UPA format for the championships takes the top two finishers from each pool (Day One) and moves them to two new pools of four called Power Pools. The bottom two finishers move to two other pools which are play-in pools. Last year we were in the Play-in pools and worked out way up to the pre-quarters. This year we were in the Power Pool! For the purposes of rankings, the UPA takes the winners of the previous day pools and gives them a 1-0 record to start day two (even though they may have had a defeat) and takes the 2nd place from each pool and gives them a 0-1 record to start the day. Since I am not a statistician please do not ask me to explain this logic…I can’t. We were placed in a Power Pool with Slow White (1-0), Rival (1-0), and the number one seed in the tourney, Shazam Returns (0-1). Shazam was upset in pool play by Rival, which had a direct consequence on us as you will soon see. So we started off the day playing Rival, who by virtue of their upset was the current #1 seed. We were pretty pumped up for this game…we beat Rival last year and felt like our women were stronger than theirs. We decided to zone as much as possible and play aggressive defense. This strategy worked great. We got an early break on them, then another, then another and got on a roll. They called time-out when the score got to 5-2. Their captain is heard screaming, “come on Rival…WE LOVE TO BE DOWN…come on” and they quickly score off the time-out but we score right back, giving our defense another chance on the field. Some not so good call come into play on tier part, with one of their vets in particular making about three calls in a row to try and disrupt our flow. It didn’t work and we take half, 8-3. The second half started much the same, with us scoring twice to take the lead to 10-4 but Rival is a come from behind team and they started to mount a come back. We call a time-out and Tim Murray settles us all down. We knew they’d make a run so don’t worry was the message. A good time out call and we go on to win 15-9, making us 1-1 in the pool, Rival 1-1 and on the other side Shazam beat Slow White…so owe are all 1-1.

The next game was nasty for us in that it was the only game where I could honestly say we were outplayed for most of the game. Shazam is good, smart, fast and deep…we pride ourselves in all of those things too so it is never easy to admit when another team is better. But they came out hard early, running head to head with our best players and anticipating our offensive scheme with great effectiveness. We tried to stick to our game plan on offense but they out jumped us when our throws were on and took advantage of every single error. The second point of the game was a marathon point, which they won to go up 2-0. They pulled a perfect pull into the back corner of our end zone and we stranded Ryan. At stall 9 he was forced to try and throw a hammer against the wind, resulting in a Callahan and us being down 3-0. Amazingly, this low point didn’t affect Ryan, who was so fantastic all weekend. Had it been me, my own mind games would have taken me out for the tourney, but not Ryan. As a matter of fact, I think he played better AFTER the Callahan than before and he was definitely on my “studs of the tourney” list. There was a reporter for the UPA covering this game and he had a quote about the game from here on out…he thought we let our history with Shazam effect us too much and thought we wasted too much energy trying to get back into this game. There may be some merit to this, as the game of chess being played around us was hidden to most of us and we couldn’t expect the turn of events to follow. We made a run in the second half, but Shazam controlled the game and won 15-9, our worst loss of the tourney and one of the worst of the year. So now we are sitting at 1-2, Shazam is 2-1 and all attention moves to the other field where Slow White is beating Rival 12-5. If Slow wins the game, they are also 2-1 and Rival falls to match us at 1-2 but we beat them head to head so we would advance to the final round of 8. If Rival somehow won the game, then we’d drop down to the pre-quarters and have to win to get back into the final 8. Imagine the turmoil and knotting of our stomachs as we saw Rival score point after point to close the gap to 12-11…then 12-12. The soft cap horn went off meaning the game was to 14. Slow scores to make it 13-12 and then get the turn…a score and we are in. The captain of the team turfs his throw…just throws it into the ground and Rival scores to tie it at 13…next point wins. Slow gets the disc and after a throw or two, just turns it over again. Rival jumps on this opportunity, scores and wins. Ugh, the sound of 21 people getting hit in the stomach issues up from the windy fields of Sarasota’s Polo club.

So there we were, back in the same place as a year before despite doing everything we needed to do to be in the top 8. And we faced Tandem again, the same team that knocked us out last year. So it is the end of the day, the only teams left playing are the teams fighting for a spot in the quarterfinals. Tandem is big, they have strong women (despite an erroneous report that they didn’t use their women) and they are more than happy to make bad calls to screw with another team, as we soon found out. At this point I’m going to throw out a personal observation…our team is nice; too nice at times. We want to say nice things about people, we want to smile and shake hands, and we want teams to like us even when we are beating them. This can sometimes lead to us not be willing to tell each other the truth. Before this game started we huddled up and said things like, c’mon guys we are better let’s just go out and win…we want to play this game and they don’t. Well, the fact of the matter was we really didn’t want to be playing that game, under the worsening skies of Sarasota. We wanted to be off somewhere celebrating as a team that we’d made the quarterfinals…and Tandem did want to play that game to fight their way back up to the top 8. So when the game started, both teams played the way they really felt. We were flat, unemotional and uninspired. Our best players were in a fog. We dropped the disc, we panicked against the zone and we got beat on defense. They went up 3-1 and then 5-2, then 7-4 before taking half 8-4. We are on our heels and you can see it in our eyes. It is at this point I close my eyes very tight and search for that thing that is so elusive…the thing that can shake a person out of a fog and right the ship…the energy that will turn us all back into the people we really are…but I can’t find it in my head and like everyone else, I am quiet and listen as Tim and mark try to spur us on and Emily tries to fire us up. The second half starts much like the first, with Tandem throwing over our zone, breaking us and going up 9-4. But suddenly it is Kerr and Jesse Adams who begin to inspire us. Kerr is determined to not let up and Jesse is laying it out all over the fields. We open up our offensive rotation even more and it works. We score and then score again. Suddenly it is 11-6. Can we do it? Can we score 9 more before they score another 4? The wind picks up a bit and it starts to rain. As odd as it may sound to outsiders, this brings a smile to our faces…we love bad weather. We score again. Now it is 11-7. They score after a long period of time and are now up 12-7. Just like that disaster strikes. We are called for offsides for the second time and are forced to take the disc 10 yards deep in our own end zone…and they get to set up their defense: Unbelievable. They score and suddenly it is 13-7. But we aren’t done. We score on O to close it to 13-8 and give our defense another chance. They don’t disappoint and we score off the turn to close it to 13-9. They score to make it 14-9 but our offense is finally clicking and we score again to make it 14-10. They shoot for the endzone and Jesse makes a spectacular defensive stop and our d scores…14-11. The very next point we get a drop and put it in again 14-12. Our sidelines are going crazy. The rain is coming down hard and it is cold. Tandem is defeated…you can see it in their faces which were the mirror image of ours at half. The energy is palatable on our sidelines. We are ready, finally, to put them away and reach our goals. Suddenly the loud speakers crackle…lightning strikes have reached close enough that all play is suspended. Players must seek cover immediately. So at 12-14, poised as we are for the strike, we must go and sit under the shelter of the club house porch. First a 30-minute delay is called, then the speakers crackle with more news, the delay will be at least 45 minutes. Players from both teams try to get warm, to eat something and to ignore each other as we are under the same porch. Some Tandem parent I splaying the violin…he is terrible and it is excruciating to listen to him attempt to entertain us, but because we are polite we only send imaginary lightning bolts of our own his way. When play finally resumed the hair on my arms stood up as we huddled and pushed our defensive players onward. I was sure we would win. We pull, they get it midfield and try a big swing…Ryan (I believe it was Ryan) lays out and misses the disc by less than an inch. They go up the sideline and another layout bid barely misses the mark…suddenly I see their star female player streaking for the end zone with Skyla on her hip. They huck it deep…time starts to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n and the players on our sideline all lean out to seek the end zone. The disc is coming in at a perfect angle, both players dive at the same time, Skyla’s arms outstretched, both players land….where is the disc, did she block it, did the other player catch it, did she drop it??????????? The Tandem player rolls over and raises the disc…she scores, we lose. Game over. That’s it, we can’t finish better than 9th No one speaks, and instead there are looks of disbelief, tears, hugs and silence. Our fans, mostly parents, try to cheer us up. They are awesome…they stuck through the elements to cheer and support us and it really meant a lot to us to have every one of them there. But the reality is, we can’t help but be devastated and feel fate conspired against us.

So what’s left? Day three and placement

BADGES? WE DON”T NEED NO STINKING BADGES

Nationals Day Three (Saturday, 27 October 2007)

I won’t lie…it hurt to be in the 9-12 bracket. Not only did we all know we were better than that, we had to play the first game on the field right next to Mischief vs. Slow White a game we would have loved to have been in ourselves. Our first opponent was a team called Bashing Pinatas and….well let’s just say we did not want to lose to a team named Bashing Pinatas. We start a little slow but then cruise out to a big lead, something like 6-1. After that we get a little sloppy and let the back in the game, 6-4. Much to everyone’s chagrin, I call a timeout (I had to do something this tournament, didn’t I?). Luckily someone else says what I am thinking, which is quit messing around, finish this team out in a way that will reflect we are mad at being in this position. We beast them badly, 15-8 I think.

So now it is the final game of the tourney for us and we face off against the Carleton players…dressed in black jerseys designed to look like Tuxedos and with a blue and black flag waving their name,, The Poodle Club of Tulsa…say what? We mix it up this game and play wonderful defense. They are never in the game as we break them, break them and break them again. We cruise to a 15-8 or 15-9 win I am not sure and we take 9th place.

I am not trying to belittle any person or team with this review, but I stand by my comments. We were better than most teams there and I think that bodes well for the future of this team. There will be room for new faces next year and for a renewed commitment to being the best we can be. Ultimate is a great sport and it means many different things to different people…some love to play pickup and spring league, some love it to the point they’ll change wedding plans or miss important family events to play with their team. Whatever your love for the sport, I hope you can respect and honor the people who sacrificed so much this year to play together as the Mental Toss Flycoons…I know I am amazed by every single one of them.

For another year, this is your friendly Ultimate addict signing off. See you all Saturday for the hat tourney.

Johnny O

Off to Florida...Again

2007-10-19T11:48:00.000-06:00

For the second year in a row, my Ultimate Frisbee team has made it to the national championships. Last year we went into the final round of 16 seeded 13th and finished 11th after a tough pre-quarter final loss to Boston's Tandem. This year we've had a pretty solid showing in tournaments and won the Big Sky sectional (Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Alberta). We then went to Burlington, Washington (about 80 miles north of Seattle) and competed in the most difficult and power stacked regional championship. We qualified by finishing 4th in the tourney (out of 16 teams) behind the last three consecutive national champions.
We go into Florida next week seeded 6th, the highest we've ever been ranked in the country. The format of the tournament puts us in one of 4 pools to start and then the pools are reshuffled based upon our initial results. We are up against the third seeded team in the country, Slow White out of New York City. This team beat us last year at nationals and finished 2nd. This year we played them one time, at the Emerald City Classic or ECC and they beat us again. So we are hoping to break that streak. We'll also have to play a team from Denver, Bad Larry who is a perennial nationals qualifier. And the final team in our pool is Black Molly from the Triangle area. All of these teams are good and if we want any chance at holding seed or better, we need to win all these games...or at least that is how I feel.
Our team has changed from last year, we lost Rick to retirement, EZ, Kasi and Russ decided to take the year off, Rebecca moved, Andy Short got injured and Nevin isn't playing the series. But we added some great talent with Matt Luck, Timmy Murray, Theresa Weber, Alex Zimmerman and Grant Alban. Unfortunately, Grant was hurt early on like Andy and neither will be on our roster next week. We're a little worried about the time change, last year it really effected us in the first two games and we lost them both. People are trying to go to bed earlier and get up earlier to prepare as many of us will be getting into Sarasota Wednesday night and have to play at 9:30 AM Eastern time the next morning...that is 7:30 AM Montana time!
I hope to keep you all posted on our progress.

Coming Up for Air

2007-09-28T16:42:00.001-06:00

Yesterday morning at 5:00 AM MST, I took Emi Hokaida, our Japanese exchange student, to the airport for her return trip home to Kumamoto. This sentence alone should alert any reader to what you might have already expected...my life has gotten even crazier since my last post.
Emi (pronounced like the award...emmy) is a wonderful 16 year-old student from the city of Kumamoto, in Kumamoto Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu. For the past 16 years, the top students from her school "audition" for a chance to come to Missoula. Big Sky High School here in Missoula hosts the students. Amazingly, they are only in the states for one week. We picked her up Saturday morning after a small ceremony during which her principal (who doesn't speak a lick of English)gave a rather long and impassioned speech of thanks. She arrived at 1:00 AM that morning, slept for a few hours and then had her first breakfast outside of Japan, consisting of scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon and clam chowder. She seemed to like her breakfast, especially the clam chowder. Emi has studied English for 5 years, but anyone who has learned another language will agree there is a big difference between learning and speaking with someone of your own tongue and actually trying to converse or understand the language as spoken by a native. So, we struggled the first two days with communication, but Emi was so delightful it did not matter.
They study alot more and harder courses in Japan, not a surprise to me. I was surprised to find out how busy her schedule really is and how much time away from home and family she spends on school work. She generally leaves her home on bicycle before 7:00 AM and arrives back home after 8:00 PM, 6 days a week. She also plays field hockey (not a very popular sport in Japan but Emi revels in the uncommon), helps with chores and enjoys spending time with her family.
We packed as much in 5 days as we could but were super happy to discover that the things she liked the most involved spending time with us and doing fun and simple stuff like making pizzas, visiting with neighbors and meeting our friends. On the last night she and her classmates put on a farewell dinner and read to the host families what they loved about their trip...breathing fresh mountain air, drinking coffee, riding in a car, dancing, meeting nice people, going to a football game, etc.
We had a blast.
In other news, my Ultimate Frisbee team won two tournaments and finished second in two others since my last post. We also won the Big Sky sectional and advanced to the Northwest regional championships to be held north of Seattle next weekend. It is our 4th trip to regionals in a row and we're hoping to qualify for the national championships again. We've been practicing real hard and everyone is more committed than ever to reach the championships.
In August we traveled back to the Midwest for my annual trek to Holland, Michigan and to spend time with my family. Liam loved being with Grammy and Grammpy O and getting to hang with his cousins, aunts and uncles. The kids loved the fair, although we chose to go on the hottest day of the year (literally) and Chris's fiance Nichole got heat stroke.
Life really is one big blur these days and it's affecting my memory and ability to keep up. I'm always tired, and I seem to be paying dearly for my years of foot loose and fancy free shenanigans. It's definitely different and definitely worth it.
As I've said dozens of times, I will try to get back on track with posting.

A wonderful reunion

2007-05-24T21:16:00.000-06:00

I seem to start all of my posts these days with some sort of disclaimer about time and me not having any of it let alone having time for blogging. A few years ago I would have claimed such a statement as heresy, but life is one big lesson now, isn't it? So I'll start this post off the same way...my life has been busier than ever (seriously) and I'm just now taking a break to try and write some of it down.
Here are a few things I've failed to write up:

In March I went to Denver, where I was an attendee and a speaker at a medical group management leadership conference. Besides speaking to a group of 300 peers, the only thing worth mentioning is that it took me 17 hours to get from Missoula to Denver thanks to a bad travel day with the airlines. The conference was very good and I've been invited to submit my name to the organizations speakers bureau to speak at future conferences; I guess that is sort of a big deal.
A week later I hopped into my car and drove to Park City, Utah for a great long weekend with Purdue buddies Eddie O, Dave Sousa and John Busald. It was a fantastic time, with a couple of days of spring skiing and catching up and a huge bonus, seeing the Blasters live for free at the base of a mountain. The drive from Missoula to Park City is simply breathtaking and catching up with old friends is always fabulous.
While I was in Utah, Jen was dealing with family stuff back here which resulted in us starting a new adventure in our household as we added one more body (her 16 year old niece) bringing the total to 6 humans and a dog. We're happy she's here with us and the adjustment was quick and relatively painless. I'm still adjusting to having more than just me and my dog Allie around, so one more body in the house doesn't change things much for me...although I'd be fibbing if I said dealing with a 16 year old girl and all that she is going through is easy.
April came and went like lightning, with my folks here from Indiana for a two week visit, which was great fun. Mom and Dad are always a great help and we love them so much. Their stay was capped off by a monster road trip through the Big Hole valley (where we literally almost ran over a wolf). Liam was a trooper throughout the two day drive, showing me once again that there is a lot of O'Connor in that boy. We spent a night in Butte, Montana and also spent some time in Anaconda, Montana. We came across an old cemetery in Anaconda with graves from as far back as the Spanish-American war and even a plot from the USSB...the United States Serbian Brotherhood. The graves were from the era of the mine boon in the Butte-Anaconda area. It was a very cool trip.
At the end of the month I took a quick trip to Las Vegas for a conference. The Vegas trip was short (2 days) but amazing as we were treated to VIP luxuries by an insider, including a dinner at the Cafe Martorano, possibly one of the best meals I've ever eaten.
So here it is, Memorial day weekend and May has flown by. Liam and the rest of the family are battling some nasty viral bug, but surprisingly I have staved off the puking and most of the other associated other nastiness...triple doses of vitamin C, high potency vitamin B and Emergen-C are my weapons of choice.
I titled this post a wonderful reunion because the best things that's happened this month is the online reunion I've had with my friend Heidi who lives in Australia with her hubby and two boys. Heidi was part of the Heidi and Birgitt duo...two physical therapists I recruited to come work in the States around 1993. They were both just incredibly fun, cute, spunky and delightful...I was smitten with them both right away which soon turned into friendships and we then went about having great adventures whenever possible. It seems like ages since we last saw each other and in some regards it really has been, as Heidi moved back to Australia and married her longtime boyfriend and I wandered around in my head, finally meeting Jen and starting a family of my own. And because Heidi and I reconnected, I also reconnected with Birgitt, who is now living in Toronto with her long time boyfriend. It has been so amazing to back fill the spaces between when we last chatted and now; Heidi has been on many adventures herself and has a great family. I'm sure I'll be posting more about her as we send email back and forth weekly.

Spirit of the Game

2007-05-03T09:09:00.000-06:00

This was an article that appeared last week in our local Independent newspaper.

Spirit of the Game
Ultimate Frisbee has become one of Missoula’s most popular organized sports. Jason Wiener sprints into action—mostly singing and drinking—to find out why.

By: Jason Wiener
Posted: 04/26/2007

On the opening night of Missoula ultimate Frisbee spring league, it’s maybe 45 degrees and definitely drizzling, but spirits are high. Most competitors are wearing an informal uniform of longjohns with shorts and either a light or a dark shirt to differentiate one team from the other; almost everyone wears cleats. Before the matches, some teams discuss strategy. Others appear to be trading information about a weekend party. Others go around circles formed by their team, reconnecting with old friends and learning new teammates’ names. Everywhere, Frisbees fly.

Almost 200 people turned out for opening night, nearly triple the number who started the league six years ago. The crowd makes up 10 teams, the only thing limiting more being the lack of available playing fields. Each player paid $25 and signed up weeks ago for the privilege of participating in the 10-game season running through April and May. And another dozen who missed the registration deadline wound up on a waiting list or decided to wait till next year. Nevertheless, some of the latter, still hopeful of finding a team in need, have appeared hoping to become a walk-on.
Photo by Sarah Daisy Lindmark
Nate McConnell comes away with disc while vying for it with John MacLean, aka Fast Johnny. “For those members of the ultimate community who are competitive and really take it seriously,” says Fast Johnny, “its kind of like a duty to run spring league and participate and help people out and teach people how to play.”

Despite opening night’s inclement weather, the size of the crowd and its enthusiasm prove the sport has come into its own in Missoula. The decades-old game—think of a cross between soccer and football, sort of, only using a disc instead of a ball—began as a countercultural lark for some late-’60s high-school students. But since its inception, it’s grown into a sport with a national governing body, the Ultimate Players Association (UPA), blasting almost 25,000 registered players.

In Missoula, from pick-up games to competitive traveling teams, ultimate has become a community force, and the burgeoning spring league—equal parts party and play—is the public face of the sport. (Since Frisbee is a trademark of Wham-O!, which is not the exclusive supplier of competitive discs, the sport’s generally known as simply “ultimate.”)

I came to spring league’s opening night to figure out what the fuss was all about. Expecting to do this from my observer’s post on the sideline, I arrived in the clothes I wore to work—cargo pants, a sweater, long sleeves and a windbreaker with heavy boots. But when the captain of one team turned to the hopeful walk-ons standing next to me on the sideline and told them to join his team, and I realized everyone else was about to do something more than watch, I laced up my boots tight and tried to learn the ropes.

I never touched a disc on my first night. A couple of times I came close while covering someone who had the thing. I even got open once or twice with the chance to catch it. To be honest, though, I didn’t worry about not getting the disc; I worried more about what I would do if I got it.

I’m in some kind of shape (though “great” wouldn’t be a word you could substitute for “some”). I swim three times a week, most weeks, and travel around town by bicycle. But I’m in no kind of condition for sprinting, and I’ve never been very coordinated anyway. So when I’m winded, the last thing I’m thinking about is about how to make a disc fly, especially if I can’t keep up with or get away from the guy playing opposite me. Yet every time I came off the field, teammates congratulated me for my play.

When I asked what I did to merit the encouragement, the veterans on my team just answered “spring league” as if that was enough of an explanation. Eventually, it would be.

“A different game”

Missoula’s ultimate players have a number of competitive outlets, not all of them places where playing like a rookie will get you treated like a king.

In addition to the hundreds of spring leaguers playing this year, Missoula boasts a traveling team, the Mental Toss Flycoons. Though the team’s name—adapted from the lyrics of Frank Zappa’s vibraphone-enhanced opus “Montana”—has been associated with ultimate in Missoula since the 1980s, the Flycoons’ current incarnation only formed in 2004, after a Missoula-based team called Trigger Hippy with members from Bozeman, Idaho and northern California won the national championship in 2001 and then disbanded. (In between some locals tried to form an all-local squad under the name Missoula Ultimate Liberation Army. Despite T-shirts sporting the face of Patty Hearst, the effort ended with the revival of the Flycoons.)
Photo by Sarah Daisy Lindmark
Penelope Taylor gets off a forehand pass against Leigh Greenwood. In ultimate, covering someone in a man-to-man (or woman-to-woman) defense essentially amounts to forcing the handler to throw the disc forehand by covering any passing lanes available for a backhand toss.

The Flycoons make up the most competitive level of Missoula’s ultimate scene. Three years ago, they made it to the Northwest regional tournament where, according to Flycoon and spring league Commissioner John O’Connor, “We promptly got stomped.” The experience made team members more serious about preparing for the championship season and, in 2005, the Flycoons missed a trip to nationals by just a single point. Redoubling their efforts in 2006 earned them a trip to nationals where they finished 11th out of 16 teams. The result left the team with “the feeling we have some unfinished business,” says O’Connor, which they aim to take care of at this year’s national championships in late October.

First, however, there’s six months of practice and tournaments. The largest component of practice is local pick-up games, played Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at River Bowl, the athletic field just west of the Madison Street bridge on the south bank of the Clark Fork River. Despite not being explicitly competitive, pick-up players tend to be less tolerant of ineptitude than spring leaguers; the pace of the games is quicker and skilled regulars predominate.

On Wednesdays during April and May, pick-up at the River Bowl is suspended in favor of spring league games, played on Missoula Parks and Recreation fields at Playfair Park. During spring league games, former members of Trigger Hippy and current members of the Flycoons share the pitch with rookies and rank amateurs. With a focus on recreation rather than competition, spring league tends to be something different from other ultimate.

“There’s this competitive ultimate out there and when you participate in that, it’s actually quite a lot of training and practice and stuff like that,” says Flycoon and spring leaguer John MacLean, known on the field as Fast Johnny. “It’s just like any other sport and so playing spring league is completely different. It’s basically a different game.”

On opening night, those differences are apparent. For starters, the five-minute warning for the start of matches comes 15 minutes late. Commissioner O’Connor, know as Johnny O., or just J.O., gives a pep talk to the team I’ve joined while I empty my pockets. It’s about having fun, he says. Don’t get upset if you blow your coverage or drop the disc. If we lose, we still get to drink free beer like everyone else.

Some strategy talk ensues, something about normally playing a zone but not this week, and then how we’re playing man-to-man (or woman-to-woman, this being a thoroughly co-ed sport), which I also don’t really understand. The basic rules are clear enough though: Ultimate is played by teams of seven on a field 40 yards wide and 120 yards long with 25-yard-deep end zones at either end; if someone catches the disc in the end zone, their team scores a point; the person with the disc can’t move from the spot where she caught it nor can she hold it for more than 10 seconds; if the disc hits the ground, it changes hands. And one thing becomes abundantly clear: it involves a lot of running.
Photo by Sarah Daisy Lindmark
Spring league Commissioner John O’ Connor, aka Johnny O. or J.O., prepares to throw the disc to start off a spring league game.

After my team’s first point, I rotate in. Defense suits me better than offense because I don’t have much idea about how to get open and would prefer to have the attention somewhere else anyway, something that seems most likely if I’m not handling the item everyone is focused on getting. Regardless, I’m hardly an asset going in either direction. I sub myself out. My teammate Skyla Sisco—a former Lady Griz basketball standout and WNBA player, and current Flycoon—is looking for a stick to draw a diagram in the dirt. I give her my notepad and she diagrams out the force defense we’re playing, which makes the concept clearer to me and the other rookies looking on. It boils down to always trying to make your opponent throw the disc forehand.

The match is exciting, full of bobbled catches and spectacular dives, long runs mixed with lightning-quick give-and-gos. I’m glad I’m not just a spectator, and my teammates seem glad of it too even though that means mostly tolerating my performance. I got beat for several points, maybe more than my team lost by, and it wasn’t just because I was confused either. I saw my guy running away from me and there was nothing I could do about it.

“I play to win”

Spring league might tailor its demands to a mellower set, but it still serves the needs of even the most competitive in the ultimate community.

“It’s really good to have a spring league,” says Fast Johnny, “because it gets new people playing ultimate and it gets the community aware of ultimate and it shows people that it’s a good thing, that it’s a lot of fun and so it helps the sport grow.”

J.O. points out that the competitive level relies on the recreational scene. “The more open you are and the more exposure the sport gets,” he says, “the better it will be for the growth of Missoula ultimate because if we can get one guy…who comes out to play barefooted with beads around his neck and then a year later he’s finding himself playing in the national championship—if we can get one of those a year we can keep the competitive team alive.”

He’s not just making that example up. Ken Billington, a UM student who traveled to nationals with the Flycoons last year, was first exposed to ultimate in 2005.
While the league has a “great relationship” with Missoula Parks and Recreation, from whom it gets field space at Playfair Park, J.O. says, the portion of park recently given over to Splash Montana is evidence “the available space for field sports in Missoula is getting squeezed further and further.”

“I found out about spring league,” says Billington, “[because] I was just walking through the park and they just picked me up. I was just barefoot and I like to play Frisbee and they were just like ‘Hey, you should play with us.’ I was like ‘Sweet, is it too late?’ and they were like ‘Nope.’ That was two years ago. A year went by then just last year I got on the [Flycoons].”

Part of developing new talent includes making spring league a priority throughout the ultimate community. Daphne Evans, a current Flycoon and former Trigger Hippy member who has been playing ultimate since the mid-’90s, points out how practice for the Flycoons deliberately avoids days that would interfere with spring league or pick-up games.

“We chose to train on a different day so that spring league wouldn’t fade away,” she says, “which I think was pretty important and pretty hard for the team because it meant four days of Frisbee if you were going to all the pick-up [and spring league games]. But it was important to the people who have been playing for years because it meant that we weren’t going to let it die…The ultimate scene is the pick-up scene.”

For someone like me who assumed ultimate was somehow laid back just because it involves sporting equipment stereotypically favored by starry-eyed love children taking a break from sun-drenched hootenannies, hearing that pick-up was the heart of the game in Missoula wasn’t so surprising. But seeing hundreds of people toughing it out in cold, drizzly conditions—and hearing about why they do it—shows ultimate is more than that.

“The joy that I find in ultimate,” says Fast Johnny, “is not the social laughing and joking around all the time. I mean, it’s still fun and I enjoy it, but that’s not where my joy in ultimate comes from.” Gesturing around at the clusters of competitors standing in the waning twilight with plastic cups of beer, he says, “Some people play ultimate for the party. I play”—and here he pauses a little like a heretic in a church—“to win.”

Judging from the mass of people milling toward and away from a keg on the ground next to the field, Fast Johnny has hit upon something elemental about spring league: plenty of people play for the party.

I can see why; it’s a good party.

“Value the disc”
As spring league progresses, the complexion of the game changes. I notice the opposing team introduces a zone defense. So there’s some theory, something to wrap my head around and watch as other rookies try to do the same. My team broke the zone most often with some long bombs. Hucking the disc the length of the field isn’t ideal—quick swing passes are the way to beat the zone with good form, says J.O.—but it is a way to score.

When we matched up man-to-man, I tried to defend someone from the other team that my teammates told me came to ultimate from disc golf. Carrying a couple of extra pounds around the middle (like me) but possessing a deadly ability to put the disc wherever he wanted (unlike me), he beat me most of the time. But at least I could hear him breathing. The first game, I couldn’t hear anything—I just watched as my guy repeatedly ran clear.

I get more advice as I come off the field. Don’t cover someone with the disc like he’s handling a basketball; since he has to pass and can’t dribble, the key is to obstruct the throwing lanes. Don’t move laterally. Crossings the field when there’s a bunch of people in play just clogs things up. Run up and back—pop in and out—and open up space for people to move the disc downfield by either occupying your own defender or getting clear of him. On a turnover, let someone who can handle the disc handle it; we need to value the disc.

If the hint of flintiness in that last piece of advice tilts toward competition at the expense of inclusion, it’s more than overwhelmed by the silliness built into spring league to ensure no one could possibly take it too seriously. Every week each team honors one man and one woman with awards like best spirit, best defense or best lay-out; the names are announced during a drawing for prizes like belt buckles and beer coozies. Team chants open each half of the game and each squad makes up a song about the other team, performing it at the conclusion of the match.

By the second half of the second game, my team seemed to have settled on a chant—our name, T. Hux!, followed by a long, low growl—not as elaborate as some others but elegant in its simplicity. Our songsmithing could use some work, however. At first, we had a pretty good one playing off the last couple syllables and the implicit promise of our opponents’ name—Teruanewactyl. The next time we were somewhere between passable and sad, adapting a lullaby to rhyme the words periwinkle (the color of our opponents’ shirts) and tinkle (what we would have done if the score was any closer). We also tried to execute a maneuver in which the lightest of us would flap her arms while rolling forward on top of us and screeching like the namesake of the Pterodactyl team we were serenading. We botched the maneuver horribly, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. I resolve to learn the name of next week’s opponent and come up with a better song for them. It seems like the least I can do.

“Social capital”

After Little League games, there’s no keg of beer. That’s a big difference between the inclusion-oriented sports of my youth and ultimate. But something else strikes me as incongruent: after the game is over, when I slap hands with members of the other team and say “Good game,” for the first time I can remember, I mean it.

While teamwork is a big part of play at spring league, the league itself—rather than the individual club teams—seems to be where players’ allegiances lie, at least in the early going.

“My concept of team,” Commissioner J.O. says, “has to do a lot more with wishing people well and caring for them than it does with coming together to crush somebody. We’re not really about coming together to crush somebody and make them whimper off the field.”

At least, not during spring league. Things like cheers that downplay the competitive angle of the game—after all, it’s almost impossible to take yourself or the results of the game too seriously after you’ve rolled around on the dirt and screeched like an extinct dinosaur in front of your opponents—aren’t forced upon it at the higher levels.

“We didn’t really cheer at nationals,” says J.O. “Nobody really cheered at nationals.”

But one element of the sport is consistent among all levels and every player says it’s ultimate’s defining feature: Spirit of the Game. Ultimate does not have referees; players call fouls on themselves and have to work out disputes through discussion, even in the heat of competition. That might seem feasible at spring league’s slow-pitch pace, but it’s a practice that carries up to the highest levels, both club team tournaments and varsity college teams. J.O. describes it as an ethical practice.
Photo by Sarah Daisy Lindmark
Will Sutton, left, passes while Nate McConnell looks on during a pick-up game at River Bowl, the athletic field west of Madison Street on the south bank of the Clark Fork River.

“From a formal point of view, [Spirit of the Game] means it’s self-officiating,” he says. “From an informal point of view you try to say idealistically that it involves integrity, honesty, fairness and respect for your opponents.”

In Missoula, ultimate players aim to use Spirit of the Game as a teaching tool as well. This year, they started a youth league in conjunction with the Flagship Program as a way to get young people active and have some fun but also instill virtues exemplified by Spirit of the Game.

“Because it’s a self-officiating sport,” says J.O., “what it does for high-schoolers who are full of hormones and whatever else is it makes them figure out conflict resolution on their own in a non-argumentative, non-hitting-each-other sort of way.”

Conflict resolution isn’t the only value taught through ultimate. The people who play it form a community, a social network in which people feel free to call upon one another for things that have nothing to do with scoring points during a match. Missoula ultimate maintains an e-mail distribution list with just more than 200 members; J.O. estimates about 30 of them “are interested in playing on a very competitive level and spending every waking moment thinking about ultimate.” The volume of the traffic on the e-mail list seems to bear that out; job postings and requests for a truck topper or the loan of a bicycle mix in with and often overwhelm official ultimate business and trash-talking.

“The thing I like about spring league,” says J.O., “is that yeah it’s a team sport and you’re sort of cheering for your team and all, but it’s a lot more about meeting people, having fun, getting some exercise, learning something different and really just being part of what I consider to be an extremely cool community.”

In his 2000 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, social scientist Robert Putnam discusses the decline of what he dubs social capital, defined as “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” Evoking the image of a lone bowler knocking down pins without the social structure provided by a bowling league, Putnam traces a fair amount of malaise to declining social capital, noting, for instance, that children in places with greater amounts of social capital fare better by seemingly unrelated measures like health and literacy than children in places with less. Watching people socialize after an ultimate match, it’s clear those networks are being formed and the positive effects will extend beyond those networking.

The youth outreach program started this year is a case in point. While a UPA grant funded a portion of its costs, the majority of the money came from spring league registrants—100 players voluntarily paid an extra $5 when registering with the understanding that the money would fund high-school clubs.

The civic spirit embedded in those donations complements the benefit spring leaguers clearly perceive for themselves.

“After the games people are all hanging out,” says J.O. “You just meet so many different people, and you have a common thread so for me the idea…is taking that common thread and making it more solid…It is about building a community…That’s probably the reason I keep running the league even though I say every year I’m not going to do it next year.”

Ultimately, the connections are not just about the game either.

“When I need something or I have something [to get rid of],” says J.O. “I just send an e-mail to the group—‘I want to sell this to someone in the community. I’ll sell it cheaper to you than I would if I put it in the paper—and when I need something, I say ‘Does anybody know anything about this?’ If I needed carpentry work, I’d rather hire somebody who I play ultimate with than I would to go out and hire someone I don’t know.”

“I didn’t know you played ultimate”

The growth of Missoula ultimate is now up against constraints beyond the league itself. According to J.O., the challenge boils down to available field space. While the league has a “great relationship” with Missoula Parks and Recreation, J.O. cites the portion of Playfair Park given over to Splash Montana as evidence “the available space for field sports in Missoula is getting squeezed further and further.” That only compounds the fact, he says, that Missoula “already has a pretty pathetic amount of field space per capita compared to all of our peer cities.”

Not surprisingly, this community issue has spurred the invilvement of Missoula’s ultimate players in a community solution. The plan—to create a complex for field sports as part of a proposed Fort Missoula Regional Park, located on city and county lands between South Avenue and the Bitterroot River—was presented to voters in a 2002 county bond issue that would have funded the project. The bond passed in the city but still failed overall because of opposition in the county, although proponents—including Missoula ultimate—hope to get a retooled issue on the ballot again for next year’s election, says J.O.

“When I was [most recently] setting up the fields for the game I had three different groups of parents come and ask me if they could have space in the park for their kids to play soccer,” says J.O. “I had to say ‘I’m sorry but we’ve got it rented’ because we don’t have the space, which really bums me out and peeves them off. But I keep telling every one of them, ‘Make sure you support the development of Fort Missoula Regional Park because we’ve got the land out there.’”
Photo by Sarah Daisy Lindmark
Michael Farris and Jesse Adams return a keg to the truck after the conclusion of a pick-up game. Each week spring league games conclude with the draining of a keg by the nearly 200 players in attendance.

But at the end of opening day, when the competitors move off the field as a complimentary keg of beer is being tapped and the names of the best spirit winners are being called out, there is enough space, at least, for socializing. In the crowd are university students and their teachers, lawyers and freelance photographers, nonprofit administrators and real estate agents; a few players stand watch over baby carriages, including one woman who rushed off the field at halftime, explaining her daughter is “announcing to everyone that she has a poopy diaper.” All the while, familiar shapes and faces emerge from the deepening shadows.

“I didn’t know you played ultimate,” a few say to me.

I didn’t know I did either.

But I know I’ll be back next week, if my team and the league allow it. The thought gives me a little extra incentive to go out and run around the park or stop and throw the disc when I see a group of people doing so. Furthermore, it gives me a reason to look forward to Wednesday afternoons, when I’ll get in a good game, improve my play from the previous week, see some familiar faces and get to know some new people too.

Maybe when spring league is done, if I’ve improved enough or am just feeling ornery, I’ll drop in at River Bowl and play some summertime pick-up. Or maybe I’ll just wait for next spring to roll around to get my fix.

Either way, the next thing I need to do is get some cleats. I haven’t had a pair since playing intramural football in college, but someone else in spring league has already promised to hook me up.

Feeling the Burn of Bad Willpower

2007-03-22T14:09:00.000-06:00

I am so far behind on posting it is ridiculous. I wrote this and stuck it in my drafts folder two weeks ago.

Saturday Jen and I had big plans to workout together…they were thrown for a loop when the Purdue University men's basketball team managed to get into the Big 10 semifinals against #1 Ohio State and the game was aired nationally. Since I hadn’t gotten to see my beloved Boilermakers play all year I decided to alter my plans and fit the game in. So my friend Rick Simmons came up to my chateau on the hill to watch the game. Jen went for a run and Liam stayed with the men. It was a very good basketball game for 35 minutes until Ohio State pulled away at the end. Jen slipped off a sidewalk coming down from a neighborhood higher up the mountain and sprained her ankle so I went and picked her up and decided to head off to the gym on my own, leaving her with her ankle elevated and Liam feeding…what a woman!

So I hopped on my bike and rode the whopping 2.7 miles downhill to the YMCA. Felt pretty good. Then I got my ass kicked. I Started off with the official Crossfit warm up: 3 rounds of 15 reps of
Samson stretch
Overhead squat with broomstick
Sit-ups (25 reps on flat extension apparatus)
Back extensions
Pull-ups
Dips

I did this in a little over 15 minutes, which isn’t setting the world on fire but was more than enough to get the heart pumping and the sweat flowing.

I then moved into a Workout of the day Rick had described during the game…it sounded easy and manageable (what a fool believes).

4 Rounds for time of:

1. 200M sprints (about 30 seconds of sprinting)

2. 15 burpees

After completing the second round I thought I was going to puke and I’d only been at the gym for about 25 minutes total. My heart was trying to jump out of my mouth along with all the water I’d consumed. I failed to complete all 4 rounds.

Riding home and struggling to get to the top of the backside “shortcut” up the hill, I thought about my willpower and how weak it was at the moment. I need more crossfit and running and less '24' and Good Eats on the Food Network!

A good burpee demo can be seen on this page http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html which is part of the Crossfit site, one of the coolest concepts my friend John Chandler ever turned me onto.

Hope you’re all getting those bones moving and muscles loosened. See you all on the fields very soon!

J to the O

Losing Weight the Rotavirus Way

2007-02-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

Catchy title, don’t you think? After last week I needed to find some humor somewhere, so as I was driving away from the airport Friday morning from a canceled flight, I thought I could write a book entitled Losing Weight the Rotavirus way.

I was on cloud nine Sunday night after the Colts completed their unexpected run in the playoffs with a nice Super Bowl win and was looking forward to exchanging barbs with my Chicago friends on Monday as I lay down to sleep. Unfortunately I woke up at 5:00 AM with a rumble in my tummy that indicated I needed to make a quick dash to the toilet. Thinking I must’ve gotten hold of some bad food, I proceeded to get ready for work since I was already awake. After 4 more trips to the bathroom in less than an hour I knew I was headed for a miserable day in the least. I’ve got a bathroom right next to my office so it didn’t seem to bad at first, but by Noon I’d worn a nice path in the carpet between my desk and the loo. I decided to stick out the day (mistake #1) and drink lots of water. By the time I got home I was finished. What proceeded the following three days is probably considered torture by the United Nations. Between Monday at 5:00 AM and Thursday night I lost 12 pounds (I only weighed 160 lbs to begin with) and nothing stayed in my system.

At 2:00 AM Friday morning it started again and I wished to heck that I could cancel my trip to Denver, where I attended and spoke at a small conference. But life goes on, I said to myself, and so I plodded off to the airport at 6:00 AM only to discover the flight hadn’t landed the night before and everyone with half a brain had already re-scheduled to the other three flights to Denver leaving Missoula. After an hour and a half wait, I was re-routed to Denver through a 5:00 PM Delta flight stopping over in Salt Lake, with a 9:00 PM arrival time. The flight from Missoula to Salt Lake was actually quite pleasant, leading to the false belief that I had turned the corner. The rotaviran gremlins danced with glee in my tummy as I arrived at my connection gate to find my flight was delayed 2 hours. I didn't arrive in Denver until after 11:00 PM, 14 hours after I was originally scheduled to land.

But waiting in airports does have advantages for busy bodies like me…I met a young man from the sticks of Montana who wais heading to Iraq for a 9 month contract to replace armor on Bradley’s and Humvee vehicles… He was at the airport with his 4 month pregnant girlfriend and her family, all very Montana-esque. I also eavesdropped on two evangelical couples heading to Dakar in Senegal… They were so clean that I picked them out as either mercenaries or evangelicals from the get go…I’m good. Across the aisle from me was another woman who was in line with me in the morning, on the same flight Friday evening and on the connection to Denver; she kept staring at me (or I kept staring at her?) and I’m wondering if she either thought I was stalking her or if she wondered if I thought she was stalking me… Boredom and a wandering mind in airports are a bad thing.

And another thing…I hate those damn Bluetooth headsets people wear around these days like hood ornaments. There was a guy in the airport two seats down from me watching a movie on his laptop…..the volume was loud enough to cause stares…and he had his bluetooth in. His ringtone was set to the sound of an old-fashioned ringer and it was LOUD, really loud, as weare his conversations. This type of person bugs the snot out of me. And worst yet, the movie he was watching was “The Postman”, that super shitty Kevin Costner flick.

Ramble, ramble, rambling.

Show Your Colts Pride

2007-02-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Vote for the Colts

It is very strange to me that the Colts are actually in the Super Bowl. Indianapolis is never center stage. Except for the old days when the ABA Indiana Pacers were tops and the Indianapolis 500 was THE sporting event in the world, Indianapolis one claim to fame from a sporting perspective was the Pacers vs. Lakers blowout NBA finals. Although Butler University is enjoying great success (Hinkle Fieldhouse is still one of the best places to see a basketball game), Indianapolis has always been the red-headed step child to the sporting mecca of Chicago. So now here we are, against Chicago.

I really hope Indianapolis wins. Why? Well, they aren't a flashy team with star players (except for Manning) and they don't make headlines. No players are adting movie stars, no one is getting arrested (at least lately), nobody makes the headlines. On the whole, they are a humble lot and they aren't like many of the other players of this generation who are all about "me" and instant gratification. They've been plugging away, doing this the old fashioned way. Plus, their coach is the most humble man you'll meet, who has endured plenty of personal tragedy and who quietly rose through the ranks to become a true leader.

Go Colts!

I have more side bets with Bears fans than I've ever bet on anything in my entire life.

Homemade Protein Bars

2007-01-25T17:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I started my workout routine again. It has been slow going but I am determined to start the Ultimate Frisbee training season in better shape physically and mentally this year. I'm hardly an impact player on our team, and admittedly last year I was hardly a role player either but I am hoping to keep this pipe dream alive and hope to try for one more year of playing mixed club before moving along to the pastures of the masters division.

So I began doing the Crossfit warm up and workouts about three weeks ago. After a week of slow going, things started to pick up and I am now feeling like I'm getting back in shape a little. I need to work on the cardio big time and I also need to concentrate more on what I am putting into my body. I'm a big fan of protein and love the Zone bars. Last week I made a sideways remark about the price to Jen and said I should try to make my own...she called me on it and so I spent a little time surfing the net looking for homemade protein bar recipes.

I found two I liked and decided to use a combination of the ingredients they offered as a base for my own bars. I relied heavily on the directions provided by Alton Brown (Food Network) for mixing and cooking. From the base concoction you can go many directions. In my case, for this first attempt I decided on a "G.O.R.P." type recipe, adding fruit, nuts and chocolate chips. The bars turned out quite tasty and, by my rather rudimentary calculations, are high in protein as well.

I decided to list the recipe here. As I said, I just built off recipes readily available online, so you can feel free to take mine and make it your own. On my second batch, I took a huge shortcut and used Nature's Path Organic Granola with Flax and Pumpkin Seeds instead of the rolled oats and other base dry ingredients...bars were actually better but that is probably due to the added sweeteners in the pre-made granola.

Johnny O's Gob -o- Stuff Protein bars

1 cup whey or soy protein powder
1/2 cup brown rice flour
11/2 cups pulverized organic Rice Krispies
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup flax seed
1 cup crushed raw almonds
1/2 cup crushed pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup crushed pistachios
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup crushed chocolate chips

2 large whole eggs, beaten
1 package soft silken tofu
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup unfiltered honey
1/2 cup unfiltered apple juice
2/3 cup natural peanut butter

Canola oil, for pan

Line the bottom of a 2 13 by 9-inch baking dishes(glass works best) with parchment paper and lightly coat with canola oil. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk the tofu until smooth. Add the apple juice, brown sugar, eggs, and peanut butter, 1 at a time, and whisk to combine after each addition.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the protein powder, oats,flour, bran, rice krispies, salt, nuts and seeds. Set aside.
Coarsely chop the dried cherries and chocolate chips. Set aside.

Add the wet mixture to the protein powder mixture and stir well to combine. Fold in the dried fruit and chocolate (if you want to chop the nuts instead of crushing them, add them to the fruit/chocolate mixture to be folded in rather than the dry mix). Spread evenly in the prepared baking dishes and bake in the oven for 35 -40 minutes (Alton Brown recommends the internal temperature reach 205 degrees F). Remove from the oven and cool completely before cutting into squares. Cut into squares and store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Johnny O's Best of

2007-01-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

Each year I make a "Best of" compilation of the best new music I've come across issued that year. This annual tradition dates back a couple of decades to the days of cassette tapes when I'd trade my best of tapes with Pat Gallagher, a fellow Purdue student and the first person I knew who listened to The Replacements. Pat always seemed to be the man when it came to new music and I miss getting his compilations. In the past three or four years, I've been exchanging compilation CD's with Mark "Weed" Need, who happens to be the hippest law professor I've ever known and surely the hippest Indiana University has ever employed. Although Weed's compilations tend to lean heavily towards the alt.country genre, they are still fabulous gifts and lead me to broaden my musical horizons each year.
Alas, 2006 was not a banner year for me in the realm of discovering music. Not only did my spending priorities change from those of my single-man lifestyle, but there was a surprising absence of what I consider new and exciting in the world of music...or at least the part of that world I 'm exposed to.
Some exceptions I should mention:

1. Love Train - Wolfmother.
I was absolutely delighted by the Australian Rock power trio Wolmother's self-titled release. One reviewer claims this band was 30 years late to the rock party, with their hard-hitting beats and "psychodelic" tunes. Not sure I'd go that far, but they get my nod anyway
2. Seer Believer - The White Birch.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Wolfmother is the group The White Birch, another trio but this one hails from Norway. Their 2006 release is their 5th and earned rave reviews internationally, but longtime fans accused them of "moving to the mainstream" with one reviewer issuing this cautionary statement, "Just a word of caution out of the book of Coldplay: we all know what happens when emotional bands move to the center. Millions of records sold, marriages to supermodel actresses and windsurfing in New Zealand. Don't say we didn't warn you guys."
3. Black Swan - Thom Yorke.
What can I say, I love Radiohead. Someone said he should have called this album Kid B, although I wouldn't go that far. Many of the songs don't do it for me, but Black Swan, featuring the phrase, "This is F*cked Up", repeated over and over, gets in my head and won't leave. My message to Thom, keep creating, keep creating.
4. You Could Be Happy - Snow Patrol
I promise I am not selling out...really. Snow Patrol seems to me sometimes to be another one of those Best Buy created bands, although I know that striking generalization is not fair. But let's face it, there IS an awful lot of mass promotion going on in the box stores for this band. Having said that, I really like You Could Be happy. Haunting melody.
5. Paralyzed - Rock Kills Kid.
I seem to be reverting to Pop-Alternative with these last two selections, or maybe pretending I'm a 20-something, I don't know. What I do know is this song, the result of two years of being a squatter by the lead singer, is catchy and post-punkish in its own way.
6. Level - The Raconteurs.
From the early French, a raconteur is someone who tells a good story, in the case of The Raconteurs, it's a damn good story at that. White Stripes, yada, yada, yada...this side project gained steam and then took off.
7. Hey Now Now - Michael Franti & Spearhead.
I really could have chosen almost any song off of the 2006 release, Yell Fire! This is a solid disc perhaps enriched for me since I was fortunate enough to see Michael and friends perform live at the Wilma Theater here in Missoula. This was the best show I've seen in a very long time. He sings his mind and is a positive voice for peace in the world. Yell Fire Michael!
8. Think Long - Mates of State.
I'm pretty sure this song is included because of a very long solo drive I took to and from Salt Lake City this summer. I was on my way to play in an Ultimate tourney and spent some of the trip calling friends to tell them the news I was going to be a Dad...I played this song about 20 times in a row.
9. The W.A.N.D. - Flaming Lips.
Damn, these guys not only have staying power, but they keep getting better. I think this song puts the Lips back in my rotation, after a sad absence.
11. Put Your Records On (Acoustic) - Corrine Bailey Rae .
I'll admit it...I never heard of here before a recommendation from iTunes. What a beautiful voice! Makes me want to sit on a back porch with a group of friends, a guitar and the lovely Ms. Rae.
12. Could We - Cat Power
Charlyn "Chan" Marshall's 7th album is her best. Her minimalist sound, combined with backing from a group of Memphis musicians, is the perfect combination. I hope you agree.
13. Come Together?Dear Prudence/Cry Baby Cry - The Beatles
Love does it for me, not entirely but the recomposition is a nice round out to my Beatles collection.
14. It Beats 4 U - My Morning Jacket.
From the Live recording Okonokos, this song and Off the Record are strong live performances from a funky, wild crazy southern rock band. I'm in.

So that's it for CD1...I'll post more but before signing off I should mention that CD2 will contain many remastered releases, like The Clash, Neil Diamond, Ella Fitzgerald and Neil Young....plus some new stuff from Pavement, Sonic Youth and more.

Enjoy.

Bathtime for Liam

2007-01-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

We know a couple of things already about Liam; he loves to take a bath and he loves to snuggle after a bath. He also loves to hear sounds like clucks and whistles and tongue blows. He is fascinated by his aqua mobile sent by Aunt Nancy.
Of course everyone thinks their baby is perfect and we're no exception. About a week ago, Liam decided to answer my repeated clucks with one of his own. Now he waits to hear a cluck and then will smile and cluck back. He is tracking and holding his head steady by himself. We think he's awfully advanced and suspect he will start talking any day now...or at least making sounds that I can pretend are words.

Deep Freeze

2007-01-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

This morning it was -8 degrees (-22 Celsius) here in Missoula, which was nothing compared to the -30 in Butte and the -47 in West Yellowstone; in short Montana has been hit by a deep winter freeze. Despite the fact that it is too cold to enjoy many things outdoors, the sun is shining brightly into my kitchen window and I am enjoying looking out and over the house behind us into the Sapphire Mountains looming nearby.

I converted my old blog to the new Blogger platform yesterday, changing the layout in the process. during the conversion I was looking at some statistics and saw just how sharply the number of posts I make has dropped off, from almost daily to not even monthly anymore...so I'll add that to my list of resolutions for the new year...that I will once again start posting regularly.

I thought I'd start by posting some of the highlights of my crazy 2006:

In 2006 I got almost 35 days of snowboarding in, including my first out of bounds experience. I enjoyed another season pass at Snowbowl and took my annual 4 day trip to Montana's answer to aspen, Big Sky.
In April I discovered my girlfriend and I were expecting. Lots of complicating circumstances, lots of anxiety but an overall feeling of joy and obligation ensued.
For the 4th year, I ran the Missoula ultimate leagues and we once again had a record number of players.
I traveled to Salt Lake in May for a men's Ultimate tournament, I hadn't played Open in a while, so it was fun and surprisingly I played decent enough to decide on playing another season.
I started training hard for the club Ultimate season in early June, only to be sidelined by an emergency Appendectomy. Despite this, I made the trip to Calgary with the Missoula team, where we finished 3rd. I also attended tourneys in Portland, Bozeman and Boise, all the while trying to grow my relationship with my girlfriend (as her belly was also growing).
In September our Ultimate team won the ID, UT, WY, MT section in Idaho Falls and qualified for the regional championships, where we then qualified for the national championships (as previously posted).
My girlfriend and I bought a home together in October.
On November 17, 2006 at about 6:00 PM, I proposed and she accepted...an hour later she went into labor.
On November 18 (as previously posted) our son, Liam John Hays O'Connor was born...the first non-Hoosier O'Connor (from our clan anyway) since the late 1800's.
We hosted Thanksgiving for much of my family.
Liam got to visit Indiana over Christmas and we spent New Year's eve in a hot tub down the Bitterroot Valley watching fireworks go off under a cloudless, star-filled cold, cold sky.

Not a bad year.

Being a Dad, at this stage in life, and in the manner I did it, has some unique challenges. I must admit sometimes I feel like I am not myself, rather I am a zombie going through the motions of work, changing diapers, getting up 4-5 times a night and doing it all over again. But as all of you parents out there already know, one smile from Liam or observing him interact with his Mom or siblings, and every other care in the world melts away. It's a feeling I've been waiting for a long time to have and it makes up for all the "stuff" I am missing, like snowbaording, hanging out with my friends and teammates, working out, vegging out and spending time writing letters and emails.

Happy New Year.

Introducing the newest line of O'Connor...Liam

2006-12-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

On November 18, 2006 the world got just a little brighter. On that day, despite the common belief that it would never happen, I became a daddy. Liam John Hays O'Connor was born at 9:39 AM in Missoula's Community Medical Center.
Liam and his mommy were both fine and the little guy took to her right away.

The past month has been an unbelievable journey, both surreal and exhilarating at the same time. Liam is a good little boy; he sleeps, poops, eats and coo's in no particular order.

My mother and father were able to be here for the delivery and my brother and his girlfriend came the day after. So we had our first Thanksgiving together as a "recomposed" family, in our own house we bought together in October, with our new son and family all around. Pretty grand experience, that is certain.

When I catch my breath I will share some of our funny stories and my feelings on going from zero to family in 6 short months.

A dream realized

2006-11-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

Montucky Recipe Corner

MTF Surprise

Ingredients:

3 Full Sarasota days (partly cloudy to sunny is best)
32 Finely manicured fields (with Frisbee central, gear central, first aid, food and beer tents)
60 Ultimate teams (using 16 mixed teams leads to the sweetest taste)
200 + Missoula Ultimate community supporters
7 Family & friend support crews on-site
26 Mental Toss Flycoons players (big smiles, big ups and hot defenders required)

Directions:

Start by nurturing free-spirited, athletic and Ultimate Frisbee loving players in the early spring to begin training (this can lead to confusion and misunderstanding, so mix gently at this stage). Next, slowly add conditioning and some structure to the mix; blend well with Ultimate tournament appearances in Montana, Utah, Washington, Alberta, Wyoming and Oregon: for best results win as many of these as possible. While some recipes in the past have called for setting this mix aside, to get the real surprise, throw in some activities like parties, hiking and camping trips to remove any lumps. Now add a sectional win and a fabulous showing at regionals to get the Mental Toss Flycoons batter ready for the rest of the recipe.

Gather the players from Missoula, Helena, Cody, Edmonton, NYC and Jamaica and show incredible support (this often overlooked and never thanked enough component of the recipe is crucial) by helping to send them to the Sunshine state. Set them up in a team hotel near the ocean and allow the mix to bubble for 12 to 24 hours. In the early morning, while dew is still glistening on the Sarasota Polo Club fields, throw the team into the 16 team mixed division of the UPA championships; allow this mixture to be in contact with the other 44 teams playing in the Open, Women's and Masters divisions while the sun dries the dew...begin to stir in an intense fashion.

Now taste the fruits of your labor:

Missoula's Mental Toss Flycoons(MTF) team represented our town, our State and our section in a big way over the past four days, exceeding seed and coming within a hairs breath of making the championship bracket. In the topsy-turvy world of elite Ultimate, MTF managed to finish the season 11th in the country; not bad for a Montucky team predicted to finish no higher than 13th at the start of the tourney and predicted not to qualify at all by many in the Northwest region.

MTF was placed in what turned out to be the toughest pool to start the tourney, with both the eventual runner-up ("Slow White" from Boston, Northeast region #1) and 3/4 team as their first and second games of day one ("Gendors" from Santa Barbara, southwest region #2). The first game was against Slow White and they rolled us; of course we helped them immensely with 7 unforced drops and 5 throw-aways in the first half alone. They were disciplined, patient and used their talent well all weekendÂwe were their appetizer. First game jitters, a slight wind and mental toss breakdowns ensued, allowing Slow White to hand us our worst defeat of the season, 15-6. Game two matched us against the #4 team in the tourney and one of the top teams in the country, Santa BarbaraÂs Gendors, a team loaded with talent. The first half was a complete opposite of our first game, with everyone clicking on all cylinders; amazing catches by Skyla Sisco, the darling of the tourney photographers, sick defensive plays and cool heads allowed us to go ahead 8-6 at half. After the break we came out strong, scoring twice more, the last score coming on a blade to go up 10-6;it looked as if we were ready to post a major upset. Alas, there was a good reason the Gendors were ranked so high and had been winning tourney after tourney all summer; they don't get rattled and they don't give up. With a chance to go up 11-6 we stumbled, allowing them to get the disc back and drive the length of the field to make it 10-7. They never looked back and we only realized later that we totally changed our game plan. Our player rotation tightened, we got nervous and they ratcheted up every aspect of their game on the way to a 15-1 run and a15-11 victory. It was a shocker but not a downer for this well mixed surprise. With one more game to play on day one, any other team might have simply mailed in the last game of the day to allow the tourney seedings to play out, but MTF is not any other team.

The last game of day one pitted MTF against Atlanta's "Rival", the #1 seed out of the south. Rival had two hard fought games and was also 0-2 on the day, so they were determined to hold seed. What they did not know was MTF was about to open up a can of Big Sky sumpin' sumpin' on them (USA, USA). I have to say this game was simply tremendous. Kerr "I've been sick as a dog but am on the upswing" Rasmussen was incredible and put on an athletic performance that was to be mirrored throughout the rest of the tournament. The team clicked, all the jitters were gone, the sting of the Gendors loss was put in the back of our minds (thanks to the ever present encouragement and positive attitude of all around all-star Fast Johnny McLean) and we showed those Peach city folks what mountain Ultimate is all about; gut, grit and determination. The first half was nip and tuck, back and forth with MTF breaking Rival and Rival breaking back but there was just a sense that we were in control. Rival has some amazing athletes, including a great core of women with serious disc skills, and it appeared to me they felt confident they would win the game, so it came as no surprise to me they began to melt down in the second half as our defensive intensity increased. In the end, we were way too much for them and pulled away to win the game 15-12 and finish our day 1-2 with a shot to fight our way back into the top 8.

The hotel was about an hour from the fields and many of the 1300 plus players and support people were staying on or near Siesta Key. The ride home that night was raucous, with various team cars passing each other, exchanging players, dancing at draw bridges and generally letting it all hang out,so to speak. MTF had a team dinner in one of the efficiency rooms (Pablo is a mean cook and the burritos were on the money) and everyone headed off for some much deserved rest. Because of traffic and travel time, we were up at 6:30 each morning ready to do it again.

Day two put us in the "H" bracket, reseeded as the second seed ahead of Minnesota's 'Salsa Police', and Rival but behind New York's 'Puppet Regime'. The brackets allowed us to carry over our win from the day before, so we started the day 1-0. The Salsa Police had quite possibly the most obnoxious jerseys I saw in the whole tournament but this team was the eventual Spirit Award winner for the mixed division. We knew they were made up of some young guns, many from college Ultimate Mecca Carleton College. IÂm not sure what they expected, as they got to the fields late and seemed to be surprised by a team from Montana warming up, stretching and actually getting ready to play; it showed in the first half of the game, with us rolling, and I do mean rolling, to an 8-1 halftime lead. We were on top of our game and executed both our structured offense and our Markie Mark huck game. Despite a call from one of their captains to show some pride, the MTF machine just kept a rollinÂ' and we crushed them 15-6. This set us up to play our second Northeast team, Puppet Regime. ItÂs funny how nationals works, because despite the fact you can only have one winner, teams from pools, regions and other divisions all give each other tips and suggestions on how to beat other teams, rivals and so and so's from other pools or sections. Our game against Puppet was a fantastic game, with both teams fighting hard and desperate to climb back up the bracket. We both played huge downwind hucks and traded points through the first half. The second half started much the same way, with both teams trading break points but some incredible defensive plays by our ladies and stick to you like glue defense by Russ and Will allowed us to start to spread the game open. Puppet tried valiantly to counter our precision offense, but our defensive line never let up and we won the game 15-12 and the pool 3-0.

So there we were, exactly where we wanted to be and ahead of where all the prognosticators expected us to be. We were sitting in the pre-quarter final play-in game against the overall 8 seed, Tandem (the last place finisher of the spirit award if that tells you anything). All three of the other Northwest teams were cheering for usÂas a matter of fact everyone we talked to was cheering for us. It seemed Tandem came with a reputation for bad-spirited play. We heard they liked to huck and they showed it on the first play when they hucked deep to one of their tall dudes and he showed us what Tandem would bring by chasing the disc down and laying out the back of the end zone in an attempt to score; he was out but his effort set the tone. This was one of the better games of the tourney, in my opinion. The level of play was outstanding and we were able to amp up our game to match their intensity. Kerr and Nate, in particular, for the guys and Skyla and Kasi for the gals were just plain nasty on defense. Skyla matched her defensive efforts with superior offense. She was joined by Fast Johnny, James and many others who stepped up big in the game. As in the puppet game, the first half was true to form, with Tandem taking half 8-7. After a pep talk from the wise sage (Michael Faris) we actually came out strong and took the lead 11-10 and again at 13-12, but Tandem scored and then broke us off of a costly turnover to get to game point. At game point we decided to huck and the disc just barely went off the fingertips allowing them to work up the field and huck for the win. It was a devastating loss that knocked us from the championship bracket for good. The van ride back to Siesta key was not quite as eventful as the night before, but we managed to have a good team dinner and regain the feeling of why we were at nationals; to fight another day.

Day three, the final day of Ultimate for us, was placement day. We were two points away from being able to compete for the championship and all knew we'd probably have finished in the top 6 had we won the game against Tandem. This effect showed on us Saturday morning, as we came out of the gate slow against the central region #1 seed, flaming Moe. they were young and fast and our hearts weren't in it. To their credit, they had a sweet isolation offense and used the long game well. Despite our lackluster effort, we stayed in the game the whole way but lost 15-12 dropping us down to the 11-12 game against another central region team, this one from Chicago...Mr. Briefcase. this was a game for pride and we weren't about to leave Sarasota with a losing record. We trounced them, 15-5 and I was lucky enough to get a defensive block and the winning score on the final point.

Afterwards, we all had time to reflect and be satisfied that we went to Florida and faced the best teams in the country and competed well. We finished higher than seed, showed great ahtleticism and spirit and maintained our great feelings towards each other. A dream come true indeed.

And so begins another chapter...

2006-08-24T16:02:00.000-06:00

Avid readers of "My Mind: Lifesized" (all three of you) have undoubtedly noticed the lack of musings from me this past month and further, a trend of longer time between posts over the past 6 months or so. I feel bad about that. Frankly, I feel bad because it's not as if life has stopped for me or thoughts aren't racing around my brain anymore, but life certainly has changed since February, that is for sure.

In my own mind I've always thought of myself as a free-spirited adventurer and at some point in the past decade or so I sort of gave up on the idea of settling into a life of marriage, kids and becoming a "consumer". I started thinking more in terms of my future as one filled with loads of solo travel and possibly even becoming a traveling vagabond. I imagined villages and trek's and late nights in new friends homes and ruins and becoming a culture sponge.

Well life is what happens when we're busy dreaming and planning what you want life to be...or something to that effect. So it goes with me. The past 6 months have been filled with life-changing events that have swept me along like a log in spring run-off. It's been scary, depressing, exciting and joyful...all at the same time. In February my life changed dramatically, when I began dating a woman who had been a friend for several years. It was a crazy strange time, as the woman was both still married (although separated) and worked with me (although part-time). Our fledgling relationship was set spinning in April, when we discovered that she was expecting. I still can't put into words the emotions and feelings I know we both experienced that day. Suddenly I went from being the quirky, single guy that had a reputation of not being able to commit to something as simple as a dinner party to being an expectant Dad.

The past 4 months have been an incredible and challenging journey. We've gone from friends to partners, we've decided to move in together, we've battled fears and overcome obstacles and are now looking to the future. She has two beautiful children and they have a committed Dad, so I'm busy trying to find a place in all their lives and discovering how to do that while respecting the role of her ex. Books help, advice helps, but so far it has been most helpful to go with my instinct. Incredibly, all my friends were 100% supportive from the beginning and my family has been unbelievable. It has helped so much to know that people care and support us, especially for her, since her life changed so rapidly and not everyone in her life supported her decision to end her marriage.

And so another chapter begins...today I sold my house and tomorrow I hope to put an offer in on a home that will allow us more space and a location that will work for all parties.

Stay tuned, things will get better and I will post more.

Ultimate Training

2006-06-23T10:51:00.000-06:00

Ultimate Training

Bye, Bye Appendix

2006-06-09T20:53:00.000-06:00

I am home now,after spending the last two and a half days in various parts of Saint Patrick Hospital & Health Center here in Missoula. And with the help of a little Percocet (actually the generic equivalent as directed by my health plan), I am sitting at my dining room table while I wait for my pudding to set (liquid diet you know). Oh, the pudding is accompanied by prune juice and a stool softener (sounds fun, eh???). Earlier this afternoon Melanie and Jack Puckett stopped by to cheer me up with a Smith river scrap book and two great magazines.

The story goes like this...about a week ago I started feeling 'funny' in my gut but thought it was either something I ate or some kind of virus. The funny feeling slowly shifted to an uncomfortable feeling and by Monday night I left Ultimate Frisbee practice early 'cause I just didn't feel right. I was pretty crabby at work on Tuesday and couldn't sleep Tuesday night. On Wednesday I asked a nurse in the early AM what might be causing pain down in my gut and she immediately thought my appendix was on the fritz. This theory was soon confirmed by Rick and Karl who noticed "rebound pain" when they tapped my left side and I felt it in my lower right side...so off to the hospital I went(across the street) for a stat CT scan. An hour and half later I found myself laying on my back holding an enema in my boo-twa while a GE litespeed scanner said "breathe deep and hold" over and over. Holding the enema in was even harder due to the large cups of contrast liquid I consumed in the 30 minutes prior to the test. Afterwards I travesty back and forth between the bathroom and the waiting room waiting for the radiologist to read the scan...sure enough, I had appendicitis and was told I was heading over to day surgery straight away.

That was on Wednesday around 1:00 PM. I spent the next 4 hours working my way through the system, signing the requisite forms and meeting my surgeon, the anesthesiologist and the post-op care team. It was almost 'fun' since I know so many of the people who worked on me. Around 5:00 pm they popped a little Versed into the IV and the next thing I knew I was in a very nice single hospital room with a picture window view of the Bitterroot mountains and a whole team of nurses and techs at my service. I had compression hose on my legs and stockings underneath, designed to make sure no blood clots could occur. There was a cool self-administered pain pump which allowed me to pump some pretty strong narcotics into my veins every 10 minutes. I think I complied with the instructions and believe I watched quite a bit of TV but truth be told, I really don't remember much. I do know I had tons of visitors, which was quite thoughtful and I hope I seemed to appreciate their presence.

Wednesday night and Thursday morning are a bit of a blur but I do recall the surgeon drawing a picture for me showing where my appendix, cecum, colon and small intestine all intersected and then explaining how he came across a "mass" during the laparoscopic procedure to remove the little earth worm like appendix. The doctor was concerned enough with the inflammation and firmness that he removed a good portion of the cecum, had it sliced and frozen and sent off for analysis. Although this can sometimes be associated with colon cancer, he ruled it out (at least that is what I thought he said and he did confirm that for me today before discharge). Because he took out more than expected and because my body reacted in a way by essentially shutting off the poop machine, they decided to keep me an extra day.

The cecum test results haven't come back yet so I'm not exactly sure what all that means...my pooper has been percolating, which they tell me is a good sign that things will soon get back to normal. I have three incisions, one right above my tallywhacker (which is a bit bothersome as it sits at my waistline), one at my belly button and one sort of up and under my ribs...they all hurt quite a bit, but other than that and being tired and cranky as an old curmudgeon I seem to come out of this latest johhnyocasm all right.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I hope to be heading to Indy next Friday for a quick three day visit with my family....as Paul Harvey says, soon you'll hear the rest of the story.

Tester Time

2006-06-07T08:01:00.000-06:00

I had pretty much forgotten all about active participation in a political campaign until last winter, when I met Jon Tester. Jon had announced he would be running in the Democratic primary in an attempt to become the candidate to face off against longtime Montana Republican senator (and huge Abramhmoff lackey) Conrad Burns.

Jon is not your typical politician, which is one of the things I liked about him right away. He is a farmer from Big Sandy, Montana...and an organic farmer at that. One of the first things I liked about Jon was his candor and demeanor. I soon found out he was a third generation farmer and that he had gone organic way before organic became cool or corporate...the chemicals were making his wife sick. I also liked how he conversed and his straight forward attitude. Jon is the kind of person you meet that you like immediately and can tell is a "straight shooter". He's served in the Montana legislature and has worked hard for rural Montanans.

Here is a link to his campaign home page. A friend of mine was heavily involved in the campaign and encouraged me to get involved. It has been a good 20 years since I worked on a campaign (Modissett in Indiana???) but I must admit, it was super fun to be part of. Last night it all paid off. I was at the Missoula Tester camp and Jon was there as the results started to come in and when Morrison conceded...it was an electric atmosphere with smiles and hoots abound. It was an amazing feeling to listen to Jon's speech after being declared the victor and to think about the campaign ahead to unseat Burns.

Awesome!

Bozofest 2006

2006-06-02T15:00:00.000-06:00

So this past weekend I headed over to Bozeman, Montana for the 21st annual Bozofest Ultimate Frisbee Disc tournament. Bozofest is always a super fun time, even for a Hoosier who grew up with the belief that Memorial day weekend was about two things, honoring those who died defending our country and the Indianapolis 500. When I moved to Missoula 4 years ago I went over to Bozofest and spent much of Saturday on the telephone with my Dad, getting updates on who was leading the race.

Missoula took two teams over to Bozo, the Flycoons and the Killer Bees. Both teams had great talent, with the team I played on (Flycoons) hoping for our second win in three years (we placed second last year). Saturday was quite possibly one of the most miserable days I've ever played Ultimate in, with temperatures in the high 30's to low 40's (F), constant rain and just enough wind to make your teeth chatter. Despite the weather, we had a great day, going 5-0 against teams from Minneapolis, Moscow/Pullman, Salt Lake City, Kalispell/Whitefish and Jackson, Wyoming. Despite the cold, there were smiles all around. Our team has some new players, who are pretty fast and very skilled, making old guys like me look even slower and older than before.

The tournament party was located about 30 miles west of Bozeman at an archery club near Buffalo Jump State Park. It was super fun. There was a great band, excellent food, a bonfire under the stars and loads of whacky games Ultimate players love. From what I heard, the party raged until 3:00 AM, although by that time I had been in bed for many an hour.

Sunday was a nice surprise, weather wise...the skies cleared and for a majority of the day we played under a mixture of cotton ball clouds and bright blue sky. Unfortunately for us, we lost to one of our main rivals, Salt Lake City, in the semi-finals 15-14. As if to voice her disapproval with the outcome, Mother Nature started dumping hail and rain again after our loss.

The second Missoula team had a great comeback day on Sunday, after losing too many close games Saturday. They fought their way through to win the consolation bracket.

Fun weekend!

Good River, Dude

2006-05-23T16:59:00.000-06:00

I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Helena, Montana's capital, winding down from a three week whirlwind tour of work and fun. Yesterday I moved from President - Elect to President of the Montana chapter of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) ...nationally there are 22,000 members, so now I am a true muckity-muck. I came to Helena on Tuesday, after arriving back in Missoula Sunday night from a 60-mile float trip down the beautiful Smith River. It was strange, having been on the river and in the wilds for 5 days, to turn back around and head over here and be "professional" again...I still have a faint "floating" feeling 5 days post river. The Smith River really is amazing, flowing between the Little Belt and Big Belt Mountains of Montana, through canyons and open spaces full of wildlife of all kinds.

As my friends and I said throughout the week, it was "good river, dude."

My friends Andy & Melanie Puckett have been trying to convince me for months that this would be a trip of a lifetime...and I am the kind of person who gets skeptical when I feel like someone is working too hard to convince me of why I am going to like something. So I entered Tuesday with a feeling of excitement but also wariness...after all, being a single man who enjoys his freedom entering into a 6-day trip where I had no control over anything was a daunting challenge.

We were slated to leave Missoula at 3:00 PM for the 4 hour drive to the Baker Camp put-in near White Sulphur Springs (WSS)...we left at 6:00 pm. Getting ready was a major chore, mostly for Andy & Mel who had to pack for their family and two bachelor's who had no clue what a river float down the Smith River would entail (Steve Larson came out from Providence). Mel, Andy, along with Pocatello, Idaho friends Tad & Paula Phelps, basically planned all the dinners & breakfasts and obtained all the cookware and other accessories that make a float a true experience. Andy strapped boats, packed coolers, arranged dry bags and prepared snacks as Mel crossed off her check list and gathered all the kids stuff. Our drive over was beautiful, even when we crested a butte only to see a huge snowstorm sitting right over where we were to camp. Arriving in WSS we happened upon Tad & Paula, their kids Megan and Julia and Steve, who flew to Salt Lake City, hopped a shuttle to Pocatello and then rode up with the Phelps clan...we ran into each other in the one gas station/casino in town. The attendent painted an ugly picture...it snowed twice that day and she predicted snow that night...ugh, thought I as we purchased night beers for the chill.

We sat our camp up in the dark and soon were joined by the final two in our party, "Mike Dude" and his 17-yr. old son Adam. It did get cold so we huddled by the fire, drank a few beers, stared in awe at all the stars in the night sky and then went to bed hoping there would not be snow on our tents in the morning.

On Wednesday morning we were met with chilly wind and weather, but the skies were clear and bright...a good omen. As with the getting packed, it took us a long, long time to get the 4 rafts ready for the river. I was surprised at how narrow the river was at the put-in, a confluence of what looked to me like two streams moving fast with winter run-ff from the mountains. I quickly discovered that a river float can be quite luxurious, and you can do so many things you can't do on a back packing trip. And because the Smith is a coveted wild place, access is limited to 8 groups a day and campsites are assigned. We got on the river late in the morning and our adventure began right away...it was a beautiful day, despite the wind and I got my paddling arms loosened up immediately. The river took a sharp 90 degree left turn 30 yards after put in and I nearly slammed into a downed tree as I got used to the current. Steve and I were in one boat, the Puckett's and Phelps in two others and Mr. Mike Dude and Adam were in the 4th.

Click here to see what we experienced.

What transpired over the next 5 days was nothing short of magical and stupendous. 5 days of paddling, floating, relaxing, fishing, eating, playing, hiking, bird watching, partying, talking, and unwinding! No email, no phones, no cars, no noise other than the river, the birds, the crackling fire, laughter and good conversation.

In short, the trip lived up to all the hype. We saw falcons, eagles, hawks, and all manner of bird. On the second night we ran across the remains of a deer, which had obviously been munched on by some unseen predator (that was a little eerie). We caught fish, ate elk, lounged in the crisp mornings and late nights and generally got refreshed.

More details in part two...for now I need to make the two hour drive back to Missoula and do some work. I'd rather be floating.

A Special Easter

2006-04-17T16:43:00.000-06:00

Easter has always been a special time for me; growing up it meant Easter egg hunts in the morning and at least two more (at each set of grandparents) with special meals along the way, new clothes for church and lots of candy. As an adult I've gotten to share the fun of Easter with my family and especially my two nieces, but since moving to Missoula my Easter's have been rather uneventful...until yesterday.

I thought my Easter would consist of a leisurely morning, some yard work, some exercise and then a nice dinner with my second family, the Simmons. Little did I know when I woke up how much fun and what a great day it would turn out to be.

First I was happily surprised to get an invitation to breakfast from my little friends, Macy and Coley Schmidt (and their Mom, my friend and co-worker Jen). We watched ducks swim in the creek below and I got to hear all about what the Easter Bunny brought the two kids. Quite enjoyable and a fun way to start the day.

But then the next surprise; my friend Phil Gardner called asking for help. Phil never ceases to amaze...he's involved in the Missoula community in so many ways, is a great Dad, is well-read, finds time to exercise, is a well respected surgeon and is an all around great guy. As it turns out, every year Phil donates a dinner for 8 to his daughters' school for their fundraising auction. This year it was Indian themed and the folks who purchased the dinner asked if they could have it on Easter. So Phil rounded up his friend Rom, who is quite the interesting character himself, to prepare the meal and asked me if I'd help prep. I had no idea what an undertaking this would be or just how much fun a guy could have cutting up ginger, garlic, onions, tumeric, cilantro, eggplant, tomatoes and other bits of goodness.

We started at Noon, with Phil and I talking about the menu and waiting Rom's arrival. I made the mistake of bringing over some of my favorite Indian spices, not knowing Rom is not only a former restaurateur, but also of Indian descent and he makes his own Indian spice mixes from scratch. Yes, he made his own Garam Masala (pictured at right)using coriander, cumin, anise, black peppercorns, cardamom and other "secret ingredients"!

While Phil got busy cutting the lamb (for Lamb Masala), I started on the ginger, onions and garlic. Everything from scratch with no shortcuts and no recipes...this is Rom's way and I loved it. My hands still smell like this crazy mixture of peppers, garlic, ginger and onions, but it was worth it. Over the next 5 hours we cut, diced, mixed, tasted, seared, rolled, minced, simmered and strained our way through to some amazing dishes.

Under Rom's guidance we made saag paneer (making our own paneer along the way), Lamb Masala (pictured left), Dal Makhaani, Bhangan Bharta (pictured below, right)and Kheer for dessert. We also made the most aromatic saffron rice I've ever smelled and homemade Parantha bread.

But it wasn't just the cooking that made the day, although I've always enjoyed the business and mess of making a grand meal. It was everything...Phil & Julie's kitchen is a great place to cook, his daughters, Mabel, Lorraine and Stella (the paneer maker) are awesome kids I love to be around and there was just a great flow of energy throughout the day. There were great stories about Rom's family coming to the US and his grandfather, the who was assassinated in San Francisco during WWI. Stories about his relatives in India, about travel and dreams and about the joys of life. We also had plenty of time to discuss our shared views on the leadership of our country and what we feel are the dangers of religious fundamentalism (including Christian). Fabulous time.

Needless to say, II didn't want to leave. But they had to go serve the dinner and I had an invitation for traditional Easter ham dinner at the Simmons' house. I couldn't help but grin every time I lifted the fork to my mouth and got a waft of all the spices and smells emanating from my fingers!

Fundamentalism in Government

2006-03-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Recently I finished reading Jimmy Carter's latest book, Our Endangered Values. Carter is a unique person...he is a Christian man of great faith, but he served in a way that his personal beliefs were known but did not interfere with his ability to fulfill his role as President. I found the book to be extremely well thought out and quite extraordinary.

Chapter 10 of his book is entitled Fundamentalism In Government...something Carter feels is threatening our way of life, despite his personal beliefs. I thought I'd share an excerpt:

Among America's senior political leaders there are examples of threats to our country's basic separation of powers. Some of the more conservative officials in Washington demonstrated their frustration with the independence of the judiciary by injecting themselves at the last moment into the highly controversial Terri Shiavo case after nearly twenty judges, most of them conservative jurists appointed by Republicans, had maintained their fifteen-year refusal to extend her life artificially.

Making it clear he was speaking as a heart surgeon, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pronounced to his colleagues that he condemned the judicial consensus, "based on a review of video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office here in the Capitol. And that footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state." This diagnosis contradicted the subsequent medical examiner's autopsy performed on Mrs. Shiavo, which reported that she was blind and her brain was "grossly abnormal," less than half its normal size.

Enraged with judges, Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay issued threats of imposing legislative control over state and federal courts. He ordered a congressional investigation of the judges and made a series of irate proclamations: "Judicial independence does not equal judicial supremacy.""These rulings are not examples of a mature society, but of a judiciary run amok." He added, "Congress, for many years has shirked its responsibility to hold the judiciary accountable. No longer. The response of the legislative branch has been mostly to complain. There is another way, ladies and gentlemen, and that is to reassert our constitutional authority over the courts."

Carter then goes on to discuss John Bolton, in great detail and to discuss the term neoconservative as it is applied today:

Some neocons now dominate the highest councils of government, seemed determined to exert American dominance throughout the world, and approve of preemptive war as an acceptable avenue to reach this imperialistic goal. Eight years before he became Vice President, Richard Cheney spelled out this premise in his "Defense Strategy for the 1990s." Either before or shortly after 9/11, he and his close associates chose Iraq as the first major target, apparently to remove a threat to Israel and the have Iraq serve as our permanent military, economy, and political base in the Middle East.

Funny how these so-called neoconservatives, who are fully responsible for our domestic and international government policies, can't recognize their folly...they've done exactly the opposite of what they claim to stand for by creating a ridiculous deficit, by forcing the federal government to intruded into state and individual affairs and by their imperialistic actions disguised as either protecting American lives or bringing democracy to the world.

As Carter points out, and I agree, it is the combination of far right conservative politics and Christian fundamentalism that is creating deeper divides in our own country and a hatred for us throughout the world. Combine these actions with like actions from countries whose fundamentalism is Islamic and you have a recipe for worldwide warfare, hatred and despair.

That's why I'm going to do my part to live by a different credo and why I'm going to try and vote the bastards out of office.

Lubrecht Experimental Forest

2006-02-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

I was feeling so guilty about not getting outside to exercise and have fun this weekend, that after my post yesterday I piled Allie the wonder dog and my gear into the car and headed about 45 minutes up the Blackfoot Valley for some cross country skiing at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest.
The Missoula Nordic Club has a great website which shows locations, conditions and directions to places all around the area for Nordic skiing. Lubrecht happens to be one of the few places where dogs are still allowed (I guess all that yellow snow and messing up the trails was their undoing everywhere else) and it is within easy driving distance of Missoula. They offer beginner, intermediate and difficult trails.
It was a beautiful day and the wind died down just enough to make the 3.4 mile loop (5.5km) exhilarating. I have absolutely terrible form and am slow as molasses, but I have a good time and work up a sweat every time I slap on the skinny skis. Allie had a tremendous time, running up ahead, playing in the snow, hunting for mice and voles and generally enjoying being outdoors.

The loop was a bit confusing for me, as the trails weren't quite as well marked as they could have been; at one point I thought I headed off into the wrong direction and was sure I'd be getting back to the trail head after dark. There weren't many other people and the ones I did see were mostly skate skiing and didn't stick around for a chat.

It took me about 1 hour, 45 minutes to complete the loop and I worked up a nice sweat. The loop passed through the forest, around a like, over a dam, up a nice hill and then back through the forest. Quite refreshing.

Brrrrrrrr.....

2006-02-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

It has been an awfully strange winter in the northern Rockies. It was very cold in December, unseasonably warm in January and was spring-like just a week ago. Just last weekend I enjoyed a 'bluebird' day up at Snowbowl, with great temperatures and a bright, sunny sky. But it was -19F here two nights ago and -11 last night (at 9:00 AM this morning it was a balmy 0 degrees), causing Snowbowl to close the upper mountain (-50 wind chill) and putting a damper on outdoor activities for most people.
Today I was scheduled to travel about an hour and a half northeast of Missoula to a place called Holland Lake with my friend Phil Gardner for some cross country skiing and hiking. The lake sits in the Flathead National Forest and offers views of both the Swan and Mission mountain ranges...it is absolutely breathtaking (here is a photo). Unfortunately, the cold and wind forced us to cancel. It is very strange, as the sun is burning bright and there isn't a cloud in the sky, but the wind and temperatures can create danger, especially out on the ice, exposed, in the wilderness!
So instead I'll sit indoors and watch some more Olympic action...it's been exciting to watch so far.

Cheney-gate

2006-02-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

You know, I don't consider myself a pinko commie or bleeding heart liberal but I gotta say, I am so damned fed up with the way our country is being administered right now that I'm ready to start the no justice, no peace chant again (oops...I blew it. Yes, I did march on DC in April 1987 for peace and justice in Central America and south Africa). Our President has successfully eroded so many civil liberties that one could argue we aren't even really a democracy anymore.
And Cheney...what a lout. This business of him not letting anyone know about his shooting a fellow hunter for 24 hours and then controlling the release of information smacks of a complete disregard not only for the public but for the rule of law. But then again, the law doesn't mean much to Cheney, who consistently skirts rules and regulations for his and his fellow fat cats benefit (lets not forget the secret energy policy meetings attended by his buddies). I think it is ironic that President Bush's own memoirs talk of being open and up front with the public so they will like you when his vice President does nothing open or up front...he refuses to meet the press openly (his latest meeting with the Republican News Channels...errr....Fox news' Britt Hume was a complete joke...Britt should have just given him the blow job and been done with it)...he never meets the public and worst yet, he refuses to even admit he's human! Let's not forget it was Cheney and his lackeys who leaked Valerie Plumes name to get back at her husband. And worst of all, he and his understudies have encouraged an atmosphere of corruption in the Republican dominated Senate that is scurrilous ant best.
I can't wait to kick these SOB's and their corrupt and shameless party out of the White House.

Royalfolio

2006-02-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I moved my office into another suite, down the hall from the other two suites our medical practice occupies. It was a long drawn-out process taking about two weeks with more frustration than trauma, as I waited for phone lines to be identified and connected, paint to be rolled on and new locks installed. Overall, I can't really complain too much about the move, there are a hell of a lot worse things that can happen than a move down the hall.
As with my previous experiences in 'moving', it allowed me to take an inventory of all my *stuff* and decide what to keep, throw out, re-organize or bury for future fun. It was in the midst of this shuffle, somewhere between throwing out some 2000 resumes (from my recruiting business which is rather shelved these days)and finding a little penguin statue sent to me in 1995 by a friend from New Zealand, that I came across a brown resume (portfolio) cover purchased for me by my Mom & Dad in 1984. Although a little faded, I could still make out the gold pressed stamp of Purdue University on the cover and inside I found a resume and a certificate of thanks...both almost 20 years old (egad).
Mom & Dad purchased the portfolio as a confidence booster for me as I prepared for my senior interviews, a rather humbling and meat-market type experience I soon found out. I know of at least three other occasions when I've run across this brown beauty (embossed with the word Royalfolio on the inside cover) and every other time I've almost thrown it away but it made its way into the save for the future 'you-just-may-need-it' pile. It seems to reappear right about the time I forget I still have it and each time it has the same effect...just like looking at pictures in an old and seldom opened photo album...I sort of lose myself in time and memory. Now I'm much too young to profess that I spend all my time looking backwards, into the memories, but I will confess that I sort of enjoy these brief stopovers that tend to make me laugh and be nostalgic more than anything else.
In the case of the 'royalfolio' it brought back memories of ding letters taped to my college room door, interviews where I completely made things up ("who would you most like to eat dinner with, alive or dead, and why? - that was always such a bullshit question) or where I didn't have a chance in hell to score an offer, a suit that didn't quite fit, a bad perm (yes Mom, it DID seem like a good idea at the time) and lost chances. It also gave me pause as I thought of friends who I've long since lost along the way after vows we'd stay in touch forever, parties that were so fun I thought I would explode and that general feeling of invincibility that was not unique to me as a college senior. I thought about friends I lost in college (Waymon Robinson and Jeff Johnson), girls I pined for during that year and long after (Ela, Jill, Kathy, Ann and that beautiful dark-haired Chi O what's her name), nights at Harry's Chocolate Shop with Eddie O, Pete and the crew and music (it always seems to come back to music with me). It was a good visit down memory lane.
I'm keeping the Royalfolio on top of my desk for a bit; if nothing more, glancing at it serves as a nice diversion for a few minutes during the day. And I do so with the knowledge I will slip it in some file or drawer, where it will disappear and hide for a few years and where, when I find it again, it will provide more chances to smile and drive slowly into memory lane.

New Additions

2006-02-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

I've spruced up my blog with two new additions...a guest book and a calendar. They are both simple and easy to use and I'm allowing visitors to post to my calendar (at least for now). Both items have clickable icons in my sidebar.

End of An Era

2006-02-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

Western Union, the company known for telegrams and money transfers, sent their last telegram on Jan. 27, 2006. The widespread use of e-mail and the prospect of new technology, signaled the end of an era. At the height of business in 1929, more than 200 million telegrams were sent around the world. Slightly fewer than 21,000 were sent last year.

Out of Bounds

2006-02-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

For those of us who grew up without mountain ranges as our back yards, the idea of hiking into the back country in the middle of the winter to ski or snowbaord is not a natural one. Sure, you see this sort of thing on the TV or have the occasional friend who escapes the frozen Midwest to hit a ski resort, but the people who undertake such adventures are looked upon in great awe.
Since moving to Montana in 2002 and learning to snowboard, I've slowly learned to take on more difficult terrain and enjoy it. Saturday was no exception to this trend as I tagged along with a group of friends and they showed me all kinds of terrain I hadn't boarded before. The biggest treat of all was an end of the day journey out of bounds that involved a 25 minute hike up the mountainside through forests full of fresh snow (powder). By the time we got to the top my heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear their instructions on what to do next; we had to traverse across the top of a small cliff area to get to the drop-in point. By the time we reached this area I had fallen, hit tree stumps, veered off course (to calls of, "you don't want to go right, don't go right") and otherwise got myself so frazzled that I was spent. All I really wanted to do was find some easy way down and get back to civilization. But the drop-in point looked to me like a wall of trees and bushes...my friends called it "manglies" and suggested I get some speed up and power through the small bushes popping up everywhere. At another time I might have accepted this challenge with a smile, unfortunately for me I was so nervous that I became hesitant, soemthing you really can't be in situations like that. So I struggled mightily just to get down the mountain. Luckily these people are all very experienced and were very patient with me; two people stayed back and watched out for me, cajoled me and gave me tips on how to get down the mountainside. Probably the most fun for me was when I was standing still, watching one of them jump off a cliff or weave thorugh the tight trees with the greatest of ease. They have some amazing skills and I was just happy to be along for the fun.
We ended the day with some wood-fired pizza and laughs...it was my first experience of the kind and hopefully not my last!

State of the Union Funny

2006-02-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

If you are here in the US and happened to watch the State of the Union address by GW last night you probably got a good laugh out of the hot news flash from our ever-truthful and forward-thinking Executive Branch - "We are addicted to oil" - it just doesn't get much more profound than that...

The Survivor

2006-01-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today I met a survivor of a horrific plane crash that happened in Missoula last year. At the time of the accident I recall I didn't pay much attention as it was a twin engine plane with two people on board and they both survived...it wasn't until today the story took on a whole new meaning for me.

First, some background. As most everybody knows, I run a surgical practice out here (Urology). I'm the Practice Manager. I also operate my business that I started in 1995, Motion Medical Solutions and I'm still a minority owner in a small medical supplies business in Indianapolis, eWellness (my personal joke is "one day I'll actually make some money in one of these endeavors"). In 2004 eWellness began selling a new line of cold therapy products called Game Ready in Indiana that were intended for use by athletes. Last year, the company began to focus on physical therapy and post-operative applications for the product and eWellness began to 'rent' the product out to patients. Business took off and we then picked up the Illinois territory and Montana. Late last year I began to establish Game Ready business in Missoula with the hopes of eventually hiring an employee here. I now have one doctor prescribing the Game Ready system for his knee and shoulder surgery patients...and I'm hoping to add two more in the near future. Today I noticed he had an ankle repair on the docket and so I reminded the nurses that I could supply them with ankle wraps if he wanted to try it on his patient.
The doctor decided he'd like to try the ankle unit and so I was notified and brought over the appropriate equipment. Unfortunately there was a leak in the system and so they sent the patient home and called me to say if I wanted to I could contact the patient directly and go to his home to set up the unit.

And so I did...

This afternoon I stepped into this gentleman's home up in the southern hills outside Missoula. I have to admit I wasn't thrilled about having to drive the 30 minutes it took to get there in the middle of my regular workday, knowing the result would be me at the office late again. The first thing I noticed when I entered his home were model airplanes everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE). There were shelves and cases all over the place and there were airplane placemats and photos too, along with a smattering of motorcycle models. He was watching Star Trek re-runs. I noticed his hands were scarred pretty bad and the shiny nature made me recognize burn scars. He had a jovial appearance. I began to explain how the system worked and he thought he recalled having something similar all over his body in the hospital...another sign that he sustained a serious injury. He often interjected that he wasn't sure exactly what he'd been treated with because he was in the hospital for so long.

Not wanting to delve into his private life I never followed up on his statements and just kept talking. He then said he'd been in a coma and that his back was broken and he had an awful problem with muscle atrophy. He kept offering bits and pieces until I finally couldn't take it anymore..."what happened to you" is what I think I blurted out. "Oh, I was in a plane crash", he sad very calmly. "Yeah, I broke my back, got some pretty bad burns all over my body, wrecked my whole right side, crushed my ankle and foot and pretty much was dead". I just stared at him shocked. All I could think to say was, "how'd it happen?" This lead to what turned out to be about an hour long visit with him and his sister. It turns out a mechanic left the turbo engine manual rolled up inside of the actual turbo engine filter by mistake and installed the filter in the engine, where it sat for three months before finally jarring lose, into the turbo prop and causing the engine to explode upon take-off. This man is a pilot for a private company and flew that same plane, almost daily, for those three months. He said it was a miracle he is alive. He described in detail how the accident occurred, how he fought the plane to keep it from flipping and how it slammed into the earth. It was then I noticed his ceiling fan...the blades were miniature propellers and the unit was a replica of the front of a plane...this guy loves planes.

So he started to tell me how he has loved planes since he could remember and that he built every model in his house...including the 60 radio controlled units in his basement. He claims to be one of a handful of people in the world who can fly a radio-controlled helicopter upside down. He then invited his sister to show me the basement and I of course could not refuse. His basement was more like a warehouse, polished cement floor, white walls, industrial lighting and planes of all sizes in neat compartments along every nook and cranny. In one area there was a drafting table with plans taped to the wall and all kinds of drafting utensils. There were two choppers in the base,ment and posters of sports cars and motorcycles and racing planes on the walls not covered by plane compartments. The biggest surprise of all? He is building a full-scale replica of the original test plane for the space shuttle project...he got the original plans from one of the engineers who designed the plane. I saw the fuselage, the wings...he even had special doors installed in the basement so he will be able to remove the plane, piece by piece from his basement when it is complete (It is a walk out). His sister rolled her eyes and said if I let him he'd have me there all day telling me about building that plane.

This guy is amazingly happy...not in a "Life is now beautiful because I escaped death" sort of way but like he has always been that way sort of way. Despite the fact he still appears to have many problems to overcome, he spent almost my entire visit smiling or telling me stories that obviously excited him. I told him that he amazed me and he should become an inspirational speaker or something...his response was very Montana-ish (or rural Indiana)..."oh, I don't know about that, I'm just lucky I guess".

Anyhow, I left the house...it was sunny and windy up there and very open, no trees to speak of...so I left the house and just turned and looked back at it for a few seconds with the wind whipping through me, squinting back towards the door...and was speechless. I came back to the office and have been shaking my head ever since. You geeks out there...and you know who you are...would love to meet this guy.

My Christmas Tree-eating Dog

2005-12-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

Allie Taru, my year-old Aussie shepherd mix, is a pretty good dog overall. Having said that I will also say she is one of the biggest sources of anxiety and frustration in my life. In the past three days she has caused me to lose hair and sanity. It started on Saturday, when she apparantly shat in one of the offices in our building, while I was creating a Winter Mix 2005 CD template to give away to friends for Christmas; I didn't know of her dasterdly deed until I arrived to work on Monday and was informed I had a mess to clean up. She also decided to poop on my spare bed...not under the bed or off in a corner, but ON the bed...meaning she was angry with me for leaving her in the house this morning rather than leave her out in the 11 degree weather. Then the coup de grace happened sometime between 9:30 AM today and 11:30 AM today, when I returned home to meet the plumbers about the leak in my basement (ah, but that is another story)and had a hard time opening the door. The reason for my difficulty is that my beautiful tree (cut down two weekends ago up on the mountains outside of Lolo...again, another story in and of itself) was blocking the way. Allie not only knocked it over, but she then proceeded to remove every glass bulb ornamanet (some over 45 years old) and shatter them and chew them up. She left two piles of shards, one in the living room, next to a hand towel she chewed a hole in, and the other on my bed. So today one bed has been shit on and the other was a trash can for broken Christmas tree ornaments. You can begin to feel my frustration.

What else? Well it has been well over three months since my last post and much has transpired. I've made two trips back to Indiana (one for a Purdue football game and the other to visit family and for the Covered Bridge festival) since then; my wonderful sister made a trip out here to see Montana for the first time; my Ultimate frisbee team made it all the way to the final nationals qualifying game on the campus of Stanford University, only to fall one point short; I broke two ribs (playing Ultimate); and I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee (an old Ultimate injury).

Besides those things, work is busy and I'm trying to grow a side business so that I can afford to hire a person to run the day to day affairs. I'm still Vice President of the Board of Trustees for an International School here in Missoula and am President-Elect of the State Medical Group Management Association. Blah, blah, blah.

Christmas time always finds me a little misty-eyed, thinking of friends and family not with us anymore and of loved ones far away. But I am super excited to travel back to Indiana and spend Christmas with my family and the week after visiting friends and re-connecting.

More later.

Utter Despair, Horror and Fury

2005-09-01T18:03:00.000-06:00

That is what I feel. The complete feeling of hopelessness sank in yesterday when I realized there is nothing I can personally do to help all those starving and dying people in New Orleans and surrounding areas.

The stories and photos coming out of the gulf coast are horrific; people dying by the droves after being trapped in hotels, convention centers and in their own homes. This will surely go down as one of the worst mishandling of a disaster in our nation's history. We knew the storm was coming, we knew it was bad and yet a full 4 days after Katrina devastated coastal communities from Alabama through Louisiana we still don't have a coordinated effort to relieve the cities and people.

I find it despicable that our elected officials have been absent from this until today. Didn't they manage to call a special session of Congress to decide the fate of Terry Shiavo (the comatose woman whose feeding tube was to be removed) in something like 3 hours? And yet until late last night all we had were state legislators and governors trying to wrestle with this disaster? And it is just amazing to me that our President, who has turned the world against us, decided to fit in a "fly over" of the city after a fund raising event and said he was canceling his vacation to get back to Washington to deal with this issue...what a joke. I think when Russia's Vladimir Putin ignored the submarine crisis and was relatively absent during the Chechan incursion in the Moscow Opera House and the Beslan School our country pounded its chest, puffed up and pointed fingers and said that was terrible leadership. Well, what do we have to say for ourselves now?

Pitiful is all I can say. Pitiful that we can coordinate a war half a world away and yet can't figure out how to get water and food to trapped and starving people. The state of Texas at least sent 300 buses to New Orleans...what is the Federal government doing? This is a disaster of biblical proportion...snakes, alligators, disease and death. I am ashamed that all I can do is donate money to help....it is a very sad time for our country and the world.

Starting Over

2005-08-30T21:42:00.000-06:00

That's what it seems to me, as if I'm starting over. My blogging life took a sabbatical this summer as my real life and times kept me from keeping up my online journal.

I've been on small planes, jets, and in boats...I've ridden in cars and on bicycles....I've traveled throughout Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Utah and Michigan...just about the only thing I haven't done since my last post is leave the country.

My folks came to visit and brought my two niece's, neither of whom had ever seen mountains before; we hunted for sapphires, watched bison in rut, fished the Alberton Gorge and explored Missoula together. My annual trek to the shores of Lake Michigan was especially memorable. I rode in RATPOD, a one day 157-mile bicycle ride in the Big Hole to benefit Camp Mak-a-Dream. I traveled to Portland, Moscow (the one in Idaho), Park City and Bozeman for ultimate Frisbee tournaments and got to spend the 4th of July at Flathead Lake...a pretty busy summer.

On the professional front I was elected to the President-Elect position of the Montana Medical Group Management Association (woo hoo) and also was selected to be the state representative for the American College of Medical Practice Executives. I'm still waiting for all the checks to start rolling in.

Western Montana has been hit hard once again by wildfires, unfortunately the most devastating fire (about 25 miles west of where I live) was man made. The only east-west interstate in the state was shut for three days as the fires raged around Alberton and west to St. Regis. The smoke and smell traveled to Missoula. I drove through the scene at 4:00 AM the morning the highway was opened and it was the most devastating and eerie scene I've ever witnessed; the fires were fully visible from the highway. Of course all this is miniscule in comparison to the devastation of the American gulf coast now occurring...my heart goes out to the peoples of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Catching Up

2005-05-24T21:26:00.000-06:00

It is unbelievable to me that I haven't posted since the end of March; I've started to post numerous times but found myself lacking the energy to write or ramble. I can't possibly write about everything and I doubt anyone would be interested in it even if I could. I'll make a feeble attempt to at least catch you up on the main high and low lights:

I just returned from a three day conference for work, the Montana chapter of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)...the significant event being I was elected to the leadership board. I also found out my presentations were accepted and I have now achieved the certification CMPE (Certified Medical Practice Executive)...whoa Nellie, I'm on fire now! Basically this means I have reached a certain level within the field of healthcare administration and I suppose I'm proud of that.

I've also been very busy with all my duties as a board member for the Missoula International School, a unique Spanish immersion school seeking IBO accreditation. I'm the chair of the personnel committee and that has been quite a learning experience and full of challenges. Several weeks ago the school had their annual fundraiser, a "Salsa ball" with a live and silent auction...it was a total blast and fun to interact with parents and the teachers, many of whom are from Latin and South America.

Last month I had a blast participating in the 3rd annual Clark Fork Coalition's Clark Fork River clean-up in downtown Missoula; I was a team leader and got to be on the river with my friends Jen, Karl, Trent (And his kids), Daniel, Jen and her son Cole hauling debris and litter out.

Also, earlier this month I had my first ever visitor outside of my family who came here just to see me and not to see a whole group of people. Brian Thinnes, who I've known for over 20 years, cam through for work and made a point of spending the night in Missoula. Our visit was way too short but super fun nonetheless. Brian is a great friend and a great person and I miss him and his family.

My puppy, Allie Taru, continues to grow and become a true companion...she can get under my skin with all her antics (like digging up my plants, chewing my eyeglasses, pulling all the toilet paper off the roll, getting in the trash, etc.) but I love having her as part of my family.We go on hikes, play tug of war and visit her favorite store, Go Fetch, every week. Go Fetch is an awesome place...they love dogs...and they have an awesome doggie bakery. Allie likes the peanut butter treats.

Three weekends ago I headed over to Moscow, Idaho for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. It was the first year and the organizers struggled to get teams, but we had a blast and won the tourney. So this weekend I'll be heading to Bozeman, Montana for a big Ultimate tourney...the fourth one in a row I've attended; we won last year, the first time a team from Missoula ever won. It is still strange to me not to be in Indianapolis for Memorial day weekend, having a party to celebrate the Indy 500.

So that's it for tonight...I'll post a catching up part two tomorrow and try to get back into the swing of things.

Why NOT To Lose Your Car Keys

2005-03-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I thought I was a real man of leisure....I skipped out on work at noon and headed up to Snowbowl (our local ski hill 20 minutes from town) with two of my doctor buddies (who both take Fridays off) for an afternoon of snowboarding. We were all in great spirits and kept throwing quotes out like, "boy, it's really winter up here" as we drove up the mountain on perfectly clear dirt roads that normally would still be under plenty of snow. "Man, I'm glad I layered" and other such sarcastic comments abound...but it has snowed up in the mountains off and on all week so we thought it would be fun to slide down the mountain on a flatboard.

And we had a grand time....the snow up top was actually pretty damn nice, and these guys are both much more advanced than I am so it was a hard day of fun and learning for me....we'd do one groomer run and then one tree run; the first tree run was actually just my style, nice wide open areas to turn in and great powder. As the day progressed we kept getting into tighter and tighter tree lines....mentally I shut down on a few of them and had to sort of 'slide' down and out of the trees. Once or twice I bit it pretty hard, either hitting a tree or falling into a tree well (the latter can be very dangerous, but we stayed close to the inbounds and to each other). We had an awesome time and ended the day taking a long groomer run that unfortunately was pretty much all hard-packed ice of the bone jarring variety.

We decided to have one slice of pizza and a bloody Mary each, both things being Snowbowl specialties. We spent about 45 minutes chewing the fat on the sun-drenched deck of The Last Run Inn, snowbowl's quaint little restaurant/bar and then headed down the mountain to the dirt parking lot near town where people all park who are car pooling or hitching up to Snowbowl. The lot is day parking only. I guess it was about 5:00 PM when we got down there and started unloading from Colin's car. I reached into my pocket for my keys and they weren't there....the pocket was unzipped. Panic seized me as I began searching all my pockets....no keys. We searched Colin's car....no keys. I re-traced my steps and thought maybe they fell out of my pocket when I was getting my wallet. So my other friend, John said, "no worries, do you have a spare set at home and a way to get into your house"? Why yes, I do keep a hidden key and I've got a spare set. John offered to drive me to my house and take me back so we set off in renewed calm, eating lemon poppyseed bread and reliving the fun of the day. We got to my house, I opened the door and went to my key drawer...no spare keys inside. We spent the next half hour looking before John realized he had to get home to his wife and two kids...he again said, "why don't you come with me, take my truck and after you find your spares you can come and get me and we'll take care of everything...no worries". So we drove the 20 minutes back to his house and he gave me his truck.

By now I'd already missed Ultimate Frisbee pick-up, where I was supposed to distribute rosters for the league which starts next Wednesday. I drove back home and spent the next two hours tearing my house apart looking for the spare keys...nowhere to be found. I recalled giving them to my brother when he visited last fall, so I called him hoping for a clue...none was to be had. Finally, at about 8:30 PM, I called AAA and explained my predicament: No problem, was AAA's response...we can call a locksmith and have him meet you at your car, get you in and make you a new key...And because you are a Plus member, we'll pay for the first $100.00 in expenses. Awesome, thought I. So I drove back up to the dirt lot and waited...listening to the games on a some seriously bad AM reception. By 9:30 I began to get worried so I went to call AAA back...cell phone battery dead. So I drove to the nearby gas station and called the toll free number..."Oh, didn't anyone call you back? The locksmith can't come now,,,they can't come until tomorrow morning" Uh, no...the only call I got before my cell went dead was a confirmation call..what am I supposed to do now? This is a day parking lot only! They will tow my car and it is a AWD car so they will probably damage it when they do. PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE. "Can you hold on Mr. O'Connor"? (I get nervous when people call me Mr.). Well. the only option is if you find someone on your own, we'll reimburse you $100.00 of the cost.
Enter Missoula Security and Locksmith...a small Mom & Pop operation I found who got to the lot at 10:50, 10 minutes after I pleaded my case.
Peter, the Pop of the company, has been opening up cars and homes for 16 years. He was a salty dog who looked like he just got out of bed. My owner's manual didn't have the key code inside so Peter had to do a series of maneuvers to get a key to work...but when he unlocked the door the alarm went off, because I have remote entry that activates an alarm and will not allow the ignition to work. So it took him about 45 minutes to get a key made and another half hour to get the car to start....It cost me $150.00. peter told me the AAA certified outfit in town is notorious for turning down jobs but not usually late Friday night jobs, which allow them to exceed their AAA approved charges...he said it would have cost me about $300.00 to use them.
So now everytime I lock the car, when I unlock it the alarm goes off and I have a series of tricks to use to get past the alarm. I'll be heading to the local subaru dealer this AM to try and deal with that.

The silver lining is I saved $150.00 by getting screwed by AAA...the cloud is I wasted an entire evening and probably the better part of today because I am an idiot and lost my keys.

Just thought I'd share

Big Sky Fun

2005-03-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

This winter has been a rough one in Montana...our snow fall is well below what is needed and the lack of snow hasn't helped the economy either (Montana's number one industry is tourism). You see, Montana is extremely dry in the summer, even arid,and so we depend on the slow melt of high altitude snowpack to keep the water flowing. Unfortunately the mild winter combined with early warm weather all but melted the snow pack around here and left other high altitude areas in Montana and Idaho also in perilous positions.

Knowing all this, I was worried about the annual Big Sky Urology conference that took place last week down in Big Sky, Montana; Big Sky is about an hour south of Bozeman and 4 hours or so from Missoula. Even before I moved to Montana I came out to play at the conference because my friends (two of which are now my employers) attended the conference sessions in the morning and afternoon with skiing sandwiched between. Big Sky is a beautiful resort and about as close as Montana gets to a Colorado style resort with condos, swanky homes and restaurants and big elevation drops. Our friends Kevin & Heather also come out to the conference, from Michigan, so I was thinking they would be spending their time hanging out in hotel rooms instead of on the slopes. But the snow started falling...and kept falling all last week; by the time I left Missoula on Friday night to join in the fun, the snow between here and Big Sky was falling so hard at times I had to pull off the road because of the white out conditions. In a little over three days Big Sky received over 40 inches of snow.

I arrived pretty late on Friday but still had enough time to gab the ears off og Heather & Kevin and catch up on some pictures of their awesome kids. Saturday after breakfast, Kevin, Karl and I headed up the mountain to get some runs in before the Simmons' boys raced in the grand slalom event. The snow was fabulous...I couldn't believe just a few days earlier I was in short sleeves back in Missoula!

After watching Nick and Alex race, along with Ruby, the daughter of another Missoula friend, Kevin, Karl and I headed up the mountain to do a few quick shots through a tree line and down a nice bump run with great snow. Kevin and Karl were on their tele skis and I was on my board; it was the best snow I've played in all year! We broke for lunch and Karl switched to his board; Kevin took the afternoon off...after 4 days of skiing he felt like a break.

In the afternoon Karl switched to his board and we headed up the Challenger lift to get some big snow and steep runs (up here)...well, Karl got the mountain, the mountain got me; he is awesome on a board and looks like the guys you see in those extreme adventure movies, whereas I look like a duck out of water. I'll admit it, the first run I was scared as all get out...just the entry into the run was steeper than most anything I'd been on all year and we had to navigate a steep pitch full of trees to get to the nose. Karl showed me the way, but only after allowing me to make the mistake of thinking I could lead a line I'd never been down...resulting in me having to hop back up the mountainside to avoid heading down the wrong side of the ridge. We got two long runs in before m legs had enough and so headed back inside for a nice hot tub.

It was a short, sweet trip as we opted to leave Big sky, amidst another snow storm, yesterday morning. It was great to see Kevin & Heather and to play in the snow, even if it was just for a day.

Fun Weekend In Eugene

2005-02-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

When this intrepid test-taker last posted, I had just finished tramping about the University area of Eugene in search of good eats. Now For the rest of the story...

On Saturday morning I walked the three blocks to the offices of Agate Resources, the proctor site for the early 2005 ACMPE certification exam. The exam consisted of two parts, a 3 question essay exam and a 175 question multiple-choice exam. The essay exam went first and it was fairly easy, three situational questions requiring an outline, assumptions, an opening, body and conclusion. I took all three hours allowed and was very satisfied with my responses. Although the test was conducted online, as soon as I pressed the 'submit' button, my responses were put into a database, my contact infomration was transformed into a numbered ID and then the results were sent to 9 different human graders (3 for each question); it will take 8 weeks for me to find out if I passed. the second part of the exam was a different story, the questions were very difficult on the whole and frankly I was not prepared. There were 5 people taking the exam and I was the last person to finish (I have never been the last to finish any test I've taken). I was scared to press the submit button because, unlike the essay test, results were promised instantly. I was nervous but fortunately I got 83% and passed.
So my work was done and I had the afternoon to play. I took a self guided tour of the University of Oregon, where I saw the statue that inspired the Simpsons Springfield statue, toured the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and stood at Hayward Field, site of the birth of Nike and home to the legend of Prefontaine. Later, my friends Ryan & Amy Sportel picked me up and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and conversation at a great Italian restaurant. Ryan and Amy both work as RN's at Sacred Heart Hospital and they work nights, so our time was cut short...not to worry, we met at 7:30 in the morning for breakfast at a funky Vegan place called Morning Glory. As I munched on my exceptionally yummy brekkie, I couldn't help but think how much my friends Garrett & Teresa Hart would love Morning Glory. It was great to see Ryan and Amy, they are awesome people and I miss them.

I heard about the Smith Family Bookstore just off campus, where over 300,000 used books pile from floor to ceiling so I walked over to see for myself...sure enough, the bookstore didn't disapoint. There were so many books in the religion section alone that I could have spent all day. It was the one real bit of funk I found in the campus village..the rest were your typical college food/bar/copy/coffee shop establishments.

Eugene was cloudy, cold and damp but GREEN, something I sorely miss. I'd like to go back and explore some more.

Roaming the Streets of Eugene

2005-02-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

It's no wonder my life is still unsettled, I can't even decide where to eat dinner! I arrived in Eugene, Oregon this afternoon at 4:00 PM, a day ahead of my certification exam for the American College of Medical Practice Executives. After a $22.00 taxi ride I arrived at the Best Western New Oregon Hotel, located directly across the street from the University of Oregon campus.

I can't wait to explore the campus, which I hope to do late tomorrow afternoon. But tonight the mission was to find a cool and unique place to eat...something I always like to do whenever I hit a college town. There is something about the atmosphere and the energy of a college town that is attractive to me and so I left my hotel room set on finding an out of the way culinary surprise. I walked about a mile into the old downtown area, skirting the campus and walking past several beautiful sorority and fraternity houses. There was a tasty looking Thai place called Sweet Basil, a wood-fired pizza and pasta place called Ambrosia and a funky looking bistro called Zenon....I snubbed them all, looking for something more. I roamed on, finding a hole in the wall pseudo-Asian joint called The Jail which boasted the best teriyaki in town...and moved on down the road. I past Chinese, Mexican and Italian restaurants before realizing I had been walking for almost two hours as my mind wandered from food to college memories to family and friends and to my little puppy....so i settled on a non-descript Chinese resatuarant called House of Chen.

The House of Chen was not what I was looking for; the food was decent, the service was quick and it was only three blocks from my hotel. But it was ironic that I sepnt all that time roaming and searching and passing up great place after great place before settling on something easy, nearby and known...I wonder if that is a metaphor for anything else?

I'm A Daddy!

2005-01-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a puppy! She's an 8 week-old Australian Shepherd mix (read: Mutt) that is cute as a button. She came from the Life Savers Animal Rescue organization out of Polson, Montana, a really cool goup that saves animals ready to be euthanized. I've been thinking of getting a dog for a long time, so when I saw her cute little mug on the internet, the deal was as good as done.

Her foster family lives in the Mission Valley, outside of St. Ignatius, a beautiful area surrounded by mountains in the heart of the Flathead Nation. Amy and her husband Jovin have helped to rescue about 80 animals in the past year and their yard has dogs, horses and donkeys in it, all happy to be loved. They live on a road named Allison, so i might just name my new puppy Allison

I'm So '80s

2005-01-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

The other day I was bantering with some friends about the recent movie, Napolean Dynamite...one of my buddies (we'll call him Mr. Grumpy for now) just loves the movie and from the osund opf it he has seen it multiple times. I bought the movie, a strange thing for me to do, at Costco of all places on a complete whim. I'd heard so many *good* things about it that I decided I had to have it. The movie is funny, but the hype was such that it did not live up to my expectations.

Anyhow, there is a song on the soundtrack titled, The Promise by the band When In Rome and it is this song that led to all the banter between a bunch of nerdy 40 year olds. That song immediately triggered a memory for me and later that night I dug through some boxes and found a whole box of cassette tapes, most of them from about 1980 - 1990. The tape I was looking for was part of a series made for me by an old girlfriend, Ela. She made me tapes while we were going out and we continued to exchange tapes for several years after I graduated from Purdue.

Looking at the names on the tape covers was like traveling back in time, man was that fun. So I thought I'd share the contents of the tape with , The Promise on it so you can see just how much of a geek I was/am. We thought these bands were so "alternative" at the time; pretty funny.

This tape is titled, But Is It Fast Enough So We Can Fly Away (clever)

Side A

1. Prefab Sprout – The Golden Calf
2. TMBG – Puppethead
3. The Proclaimers – Sky & Akes the Soul
4. The Railway Children – Another Town
5. Wire – Kidney Bingos
6. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions – Mister Malcontent
7. Go-Betweens – Bye Bye Pride
8. Black – Finder
9. Morrissey – Sister, I’m A Poet
10. Hue & Cry – Strength To Strength
11. The Grapes of Wrath – Backward Town
12. It’s Immaterial – Space

Side B

1. The Style Council – Confessions of A Pop Group
2. The Bible – Crystal Palace
3. New Order – Touched By the Hand of God
4. The Connells – Over There
5. The Wild Swans – Bible Dreams
6. The Wooden Tops – Wheels Turning
7. Friends Again – South of Love
8. The Silencers – Gods Gift
9. R.E.M. – Exhuming McCarthy
10. The Colourfield - Confession
11. The Close Lobsters - Foxheads

Some good and not so good stuff on there. I'll post one a day for kicks and grins

Tsunami Coldiron

2005-01-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Tsunami Coldiron

Relief Effort Results...So Far

2005-01-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a wild and terrific 72 hours!

What started as a small idea to help a local person get to Sri Lanka to aid in the relief efforts has turned into a massive outpouring of support and assistance. Bjorn and the folks at Big Sky Brewery had to literally shut down operations to handle the influx of donations, telephone calls and volunteers. In the past 72 hours the idea of sending one person has taken off; Big Sky is committed to sending 8 and possibly more! For my part, all I did was send out a couple of email and make a few telephone calls...the rest all goes to those who responded.

The amount of antibiotics, over the counter medicines, bandages and other medical supplies donated is astounding. From individuals to doctor’s offices & surgery centers, we collected IV tubing, sutures, syringes, gauze, antibiotics, nipples, gloves, sterile wipes and more. On Thursday, the local Dollar rental donated a full-sized cargo van to transport the supplies to Spokane, Washington where a group of paramedics sorted everything by priority...the thought being they'd take it all to the airport and try to get as much on as they could, with the most important items going first. Amazingly, the airline allowed 100% of the supplies to be loaded onto the plane and Darrin Coldiron, the first of 8 volunteers, headed to Sri Lanka. Once there, The American Red Cross’s operations in country and a customs official will meet Darrin and expedite him through. Another Missoula connection (through rugby) lined up 4 host families and a dedicated driver to transport Darrin and the supplies to the hard hit areas. A satellite telephone and laptop were also donated so Darrin and future volunteers can coordinate with other relief efforts and keep us informed as to what is going on and how we might help more. Here's the most astounding news of all, even though we only asked for supplies, through local efforts (especially the 24 hour radio fundraiser) over $26,000.00 was donated in 24 hours and the Paul Allen foundation has now gotten involved.

It is an incredible testament to the goodness and generosity of this community.

Next Wednesday Bjorn will be taking a second load of supplies to Spokane: Children’s medicines, water purification and antibiotics are still needed. Please spread the word and, as before, any interested party can contact me via email or telephone (329-5651 direct dial) or Bjorn at Big Sky (549-2777 x 101). Also, there is room for two more volunteers willing to go in-country. Volunteers need a strong medical background (paramedic or higher is recommended) and if they also have construction experience it would be great. All expenses will be paid. There is a screening process already set-up.

On a personal note deepest gratitude goes out to my friends in the Ultimate and medical communities who rallied to my request for help; there are so many of you who give and give so I really appreciate the extra efforts.

Oh, and Darrin now has a blog of his own you can follow Darrin's Blog

Tsunami Aid Locally

2005-01-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

The last two days have been a whirlwind for me and I'm really excited about a local effort to help the survivors of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka. It all started as an idea a guy named Bjorn Nabozny had and steamrolled into what it is and will become. Bjorn works for Big Sky Brewing here in Missoula, a local brewery that has met with some success in the past two years. One of their part-time employees is a paramedic and firefighter and Bjorn had an idea to send him to Sri Lanka to help the American Red Cross there...he thought it would be worthwhile for Big Sky to pay his expenses to get there and called our office to see if Dr. Guth would be interested in donating some medical supplies...I happened to get the call by happenstance and thought it sounded like a good idea. I sent an email out to about 50 people, including 15 doctors or so and asked them to consider donating supplies, water purification tablets and medicine. I was hoping to get a few items. Within 24 hours I had so many donations that it took two loads in my car to get them to the drop location. And it wasn't just that, the word spread like lightning all over Missoula; within 48 hours of announcing they were sponsoring a volunteer, one volunteer had turned into 8 and the operation became full-time. Big Sky stopped production yesterday so all employees could help sort, pack and divide supplies...4 families in Sri Lanka volunteered to help transport and house the volunteers, the Red Cross arranged for the volunteers to be met at the airport and to get expedited through customs and a village was identified as the base site for aid efforts.
While we can't forget all those in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia and here at home who are needy and in much need of aid, there is no denying how this disaster has rallied the hearts of everyone I've come into contact with...this local effort has really struck a chord with people who seem to be excited about a local connection. A local web development firm is putting together a website to help and the brother of one of the volunteers is creating a blog to track the efforts.
When I dropped the supplies I gathered off at the brewery, they were already loading a cargo van full to take over to Spokane (3 hours west) where they will be loaded onto a plane tomorrow morning for Sri Lanka.
Now, because of the response, Big sky is working on setting up an ongoing supply chain to Sri Lanka and I've volunteered to be part of the effort. It's a drop in the bucket, but there are an awful lot of drops gathering out there.

Merry Christmas

2004-12-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas to all you out in blogland. I haven't posted in a bit and I owe a long rambling summary of the past few weeks, but I also owe an apology to a certain person out there. You see, one of my prior posts (I deleted it this morning) aired some dirty laundry that probably should have been kept in the closet of my mind. You kknow who you are. I'm sorry.

Picking A Tree From the Wayhiup

2004-12-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

When my friends Phil & Julie Gardner used to live in Indiana, there home was tucked away south of Indianapolis is a beautiful wooded area near Martinsville. They called their home the Waydownback and it was frequently the jumping off point for our weekend adventures in the hills of southern Indiana. Phil & Julie moved to Missoula about 7 years ago and now have a home, nestled in the pine forested mountains, about 30 minutes south of Missoula...they've affectionately named their Lolo, Montana home the Wayhiup.

The Wayhiup sits atop a ridge and is surrounded by both logged and unlogged forest. Their land butts up against land owned by the timber conglomerate Plum Creek. Because of the reforestation methods of logging companies, fast growing and invasive species of pine have crept onto the Gardner property and they let some of their friends come up each year to help thin away trees that crowd out the native trees. This year, I got invited and it was a super fun time.

I arrived mid-afternoon and was met by Julie, with some advice on where to find good trees and instructions on what type could be cut. Julie and Melanie even showed me to a promising clump of trees. I hiked around, staying near the house for awhile and then slowly drifting off into the backwoods. It was very peaceful and quiet, with a slight wind keeping me just cold enough to remember winter is here. I found a tree that looked just right, about the right height and fairly full. Unlike farmed trees, the trees out in the forest aren't shaped and can seem a bit Charlie Brown-ish. I cut the tree down and dragged it back to my car, where I used some twine to get the tree ready for the highway drive back to Missoula.

After warming my belly with some of the best chili I've had and getting in some good conversation with the other folks who'd made the journey, I headed back to town and started decorating my
Christmas Tree, what a blast the whole experience was...I can't wait to finish my tree this weekend.

An Early Season Ski Day

2004-12-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, what fun. Sunday, Karl & Lori and I headed up to Lolo Pass for some cross country skiing. Lolo Pass is on the Montana/Idaho border, about 30 minutes or so from town. It was a gorgeous day and the Snow was fine. Karl & Lori are in great shape and are much better skiers than me, but they humored me into thinking I could keep up. Here's me in an action shot on the 3 mile loop course. We also had their dogs Sarah & Sydney with us, so we went on an ungroomed course across from the pass that was fairly strenuous. All big fun.

Brown County Hoe-Down

2004-12-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe a whole week has gone by since I last posted. Thanksgiving was a blast on my end. I flew home last Thursday morning, arriving in Indy at 3:30 PM. I'd hoped the trip would be full of holiday cheer, but most of the travelers were down right grumpy. The bad weather in the Eastern and Southeastern parts of the country ran roughshod over travel plans and left people stranded from Wednesday trying to get home. The higher prices this year also seemed to affect families so many were flying on turkey day to get better deals, so both my flights (Indy to Minneapolis and Minnie to Indy) were chock full-o-grumps. No worries, I just kept right on wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving night my Mom, Dad and brother hopped in the car for the ride up to Carmel, Indiana...my sister's Mother in-law hosted Thanksgiving dinner. The O'Connor's are used to eating the holiday meal around 2:00 and then again around 5 & 6 & 7...we compromised and ate at 8:00 PM. We had deep fried turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry relish, homemade yeast rolls, corn pudding, broccoli, grilled oysters, cornbread stuffing, oyster dressing and a host of other goodies. For dessert there was pecan pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie and my homemade pumpkin roll (made it uncrushed on the plane). It was all delicious. Later that night, back at Mom & Dad's, we tapped into more food. I overate.
On Friday after some quality time with my cute-as-a-button niece Brooke, my brother Chris and niece Tara and the rest of the family, I got back in the car and traveled south, into southern Indiana hill country...Specifically Brown County. My friends Curt & Kathy hosted a post-Thanksgiving party at their split log cabin. I arrived early enough to help Curt and another buddy (John) plant a couple of hundred crocus bulbs. The cabin sits on a beautiful piece of land surrounded by hardwoods and hills. As we planted the bulbs, deer ran freely past us frolicking in the woods (or perhaps running from hunters). It was so great to see many Friends, including those traveling from afar; Marsh & Alyssa from New York City and Christy from Boulder, Colorado. We ate fried food (hey, it was a holiday!) hung out by the bonfire, talked, laughed and had a great time.
Soon I was back in the car heading north to Indianapolis. Saturday morning it was...up early, airport by 7:30 AM, back in Missoula at 1:30 PM. It was a whirlwind trip but well worth it, just to see everyone and to be with family.

Heading Home for Thanksgiving

2004-11-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

You may be wondering where I've been hiding the past few weeks...my posts are becoming less frequent and not as full of juicy details. I've been a busy boy this , working more than usual trying to get 4 reviews completed and preparing for the holiday. I've also been stepping up my workouts, trying to speed up my conditioning so I can try a move to a different workout regimen being used by my friends John and Rick. It's called Crossfit and it's used by the military and police forces as a total body conditioning program. It is very difficult and challenging and to date I've only been able to do a few of the exercise with any degree of success. So I'm now working out daily and I've also started to change my diet to accompany the new regimen. I'm hoping my renewed focus on my physical condition will spill over and keep my mental condition positive. This is always a tough time of year for me, Winters onset (at this stage the theme is cold and grey) gets the doldrums rolling and then I start to think about my status as a single man with no family of my own and...well, it normally just goes downhill from there and is only snapped briefly by Christmas and then finally by the new year.
I am excited though about heading back to Indiana tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I fly out of Missoula at 8:00 AM and arrive via Minneapolis at 3:30 PM Indianapolis time. Today was a terrible travel day for the airlines, with winter storms causing delays all over the country. Apparently this is the busiest traveling season since 2000, so I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well tomorrow. I made a pumpkin roll, sort of a Thanksgiving Yule log, and stuck it in the freezer tonight, so it should be just fine to travel with me tomorrow (if they let it on the plane). Unfortunately I'll only be in Indianapolis for 36 hours...that's the only way I could afford the trip. But I'll make the most of it, visiting family and then friends on Friday. My friends Curt & Kathy Churchman have cabin in Brown County, a very beautiful and rustic part of Indiana about 2 hours south of my parents home; on Friday I'll head down there and get to see friends from NYC (Marsh & Alyssa), Boulder (Christy), Chicago (The Yaffe clan and Bruce) and other ex-pat Hoosiers along with the Indy Oligarchy...that should be loads of fun.
So I'll take a two day hiatus from my workouts and my nutritional plan to stuff my face with all the traditional foods our family has on Thanksgiving. Oh and beer...I haven't had any beer in two weeks but I do believe I will enjoy a few on Friday. Yippee.
Hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving if your here in the States (or are an expat)and a great few days if you're one of my friends abroad.

Cheers

Mean Flower

2004-11-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

This song, Mean Flower, by Joe Henry (from the Album Scar)has been dancing around in my head for days. So much of my idle mind has been filled with it that I had to make a new mixed CD with Mean Flower as the centerpiece. What a gut wrenching and beautiful song. I have to admit though, it's added to the mood of melancholy I've been in ever since the election ended and the skies over the Missoula Valley turned grey...if we see the sun in the valley again before March it will be marked with great joy.
The elections...yuck, yuck and yuck. We've probably all had enough talk about that but for me, it's not that I even liked Kerry that much, it's just that I don't like Bush at all. And my fears about what will come next are only heightened by the nomination today of Cond0leezza Rice to replace Colin Powell as the Secretary of State (SOS). I fear for the future, if her nomination is approved. Anyone who is a student of history, especially since the war of 1812, knows how important the SOS is...in some cases the SOS of the USA has been the most important person in behind the scenes wranglings to prevent war (Kissinger in the Middle East)and in sensitive diplomatic negotiations the public only finds out about much later, sometimes decades later. Can you imagine this woman, who refused to testify to the 9/11 panel, who then refused to testify under oath, who lied openly, who is a war hawk, who refused to meet with Richard Clark, who ignored intelligence reports on Iraq, who probably knew about the abuses at Abu Ghraib in December and countless other audacious acts...can you imagine this woman meeting with other heads of State? She is no diplomat...she has a twisted understanding of world history (she is supposedly an expert on Eastern European affairs...HAH!). She's a rich-ass (can you say board of Directors of Chevron, Charles Schwab, The Rand Corporation and J.P. Morgan????) Ph.D, toe the line war hawk who has no regard for the feelings of the electorate. What a travesty.

Veterans Day

2004-11-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Today is Veterans Day here in the USA, a day where most people only know something is different because the banks and the schools are closed. I put my flag out this morning to honor the soldiers who have served and lived. I'm always a little self-conscious about the act of putting my flag out...but I do feel it is the appropriate thing to do, especially on a day like today.

We celebrate Memorial day as the day to honor fallen soldiers, but we don't pay much attention to the ones who survive the messes we put them in. I have tremendous respect for those who are willing to serve in harm's way, who work for terrible wages and who suffer the mental wars long after the physical ones desist. In our medical practice we deal with a population that is overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly over the age of 50...we have many veterans. Today we made a sign thanking them and put cookies out. It's the least we could do. I called one of our doctors, who was a Navy surgeon in Vietnam, and wished him well and thanked him for his service, he said it was the first time anyone had wished him a happy Veterans day.

I came across this poem today, written in 1915 by Canadian John McRae, a field surgeon during the second battle of Ypres salient, in WWI. He attended the allied wounded for 16 days...mainly French, English, Indian and Canadian troops but also Germans during this second, and very bloody, battle in Belgium. The American WWI cemetery in Belgium is named after the poem. I thought it appropriate for Veterans Day:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Hanging Out In Alleys

2004-11-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

My little house has a detached garage that opens onto an alley, well sort of opens into the alley. The garage, like my house, is quite old; but unlike the house there doesn't appear to have been much of an effort made to at least keep it functional. The roof is sagging and the shingles are only half there, with the remaining ones curled up like a snarled lip. There are two sets of swing-out doors, one I've made permanently unusable after a break-in and the other is barely hanging on...I've sort of rigged them to stay shut.

There were two couples that lived here between 1920 and 2001, and then the yay-who who bought it as a rehab before selling it to me after one year (he is supposedly a contractor, but based upon the quality of the work he did in here I would say he will be out of business soon). Until today I only knew that the last couple (before the yay-who) lived here for about 40 years. But today I learned a whole lot more from an 83 year-old German man named Otto Schwartz.

I decided to try and get my car in shape for the impending cold of winter so today I went to the auto parts store and picked up an air filter, some fuel injector cleaner and some anti-freeze; I then headed over to Costco (don't ask me how I can justify shopping at Costco but swear off Wal-Mart)and grabbed a new battery. It was a nice afternoon so I came home, dug out the dirt in front of one of my garage doors and parked in the alley. I had tunes playing as I was working on getting the old battery out when I first noticed this huge wolf-dog combo and his tiny companion, a sort of raggie mutt. They were strolling down the alley towards me, stopping to sniff garbage cans and the scent of their kind, depositing their own to mark their passage. It was the strangest pair of dog-friends I'd ever seen and was cause for a pause. The big dog strolled past me without hardly acknowledging my presence, but his scrappy friend came right up for a pet. As I was watching them stroll off, an old pickup truck, its' back end stacked with cardboard idled by me and stopped about 10 feet away, behind the dumpster of the gas station that occupies the lot behind me. Out came a scruffy character with full bushels of blackish hair coming out of each ear. His eyes were as blue as the ocean and the hair on top of his head was white as white can be. He had scratches on his nose and wore layers of clothes, all in various stage of decay and covered with dirt. I wasn't sure whether to greet him or ask him if he needed help. He did the honors, telling me he was there to get the discarded cardboard and aluminum cans. What transpired over the next hour was a rambling conversation about his "hobby", the state of city government, the corruption at the BFI landfill, the construction of dams in North Dakota and Montana, "girlie" magazines and other high priced-booty obtained from dumpsters, German homesteading in North Dakota and the former Italian immigrant railroad worker who used to live in my house.

The source of all this information and a majority of the talking was Otto Schwartz, the disheveled dumpster diver described above. Otto is 83 and has lived in Missoula ever since he finished his last dam building job in Idaho. He took a job at the city landfill and eventually became director of the landfill, losing his job after BFI purchased the dump from the city. A flamboyant character, otto is probably the type of guy that the Mayor's office considers a pain in the ass. otto frequently goes to city hall to complain about whatever is on his mind...from our conversation I gather what is on his mind quite a bit is how the city manages development, parking, trash collection and the treatment of the elderly. He had a great time telling me about dumpster diving, which he says is a result of the years he spent at the dump. He collects a little bit of everything that he can sell or get paid to recycle. He was quick to tell me he owns a Toyota Camry and a house and that at one time he could have bought every house in his neighborhood...he obviously did not want me to think he was a bum. Apparently the old Italian that used to live in my house came over to the United States and moved west, taking advantage of opportunities with the railroad system. Otto told me he could never pronounce his name correctly but that he was sort of a big wig in the freight yard here, but in his later years was on a "machine" all the time and only came out into the alley every once in a while to shoot the bull. Otto's parents were German homesteaders in North Dakota and his father mixed plaster by hand for the state teacher college in Dickinson. Otto said the best thing that came out of North Dakota was the road heading west, although he crossed into Montana on a ferry. Just when I was ready to tell Otto I needed to go, he said he'd love to stay and shoot the bull, but he had two more alleys to hit before dark, because the garbage trucks would come through on Monday and he was happy to take money away from BFI whenever he could. He rambled back into his truck and headed out, moving so slowly I could imagine his foot may have not even been on the gas pedal.

As I walked back to my car I thought to myself that I needed to start hanging out in the alley a little more.

VOTE!

2004-11-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a feeling...I arrived at the old Lowell School, the polling place for precinct 89 (my precinct) this morning shortly after 7:00 AM; that's the time the polls opened and there was already a line. The electricity in the air was evident the minute I stepped inside the building. People were EXCITED to vote. And what an important election this is. No matter which of the aisles you fall beside, this election matters more than possibly any other since Hoover v. FDR and the New Deal. In Montana we have 5 choices for President/Vice President...5!!!!!! Personally, I think that is awesome. Nader is on as an independent, we have a Constitutionalist candidate, a Libertarian candidate, a Green candidate and the two major parties. In Montana we're also electing a Governor/Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Three Supreme Court Justices, a Congressman, School superintendent, State Auditor, District Court Judge, County Commissioners and City Commissioners and choosing yes or no to initiatives on medical marijuana, cyanide mining, the definition of marriage and noxious weed management. It's alot to be informed about.

Last election I voted for Nader and I wanted to again BECAUSE HE IS RIGHT...but I couldn't bring myself to do it this time as he would be a terrible President in terms of foreign relations, something we need badly right now...I wimped out. Despite my conservative thinking on economic issues and my support for many ideals labeled "Republican", I couldn't vote for Bush. His administration's bumbling of the Iraq War alone caused me to lose all faith in him (I never really had any to begin with). I do not trust Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and especially not Rice or the war hawk Wolfewitz. I cast my ballot for Kerry/Edwards. What will you do? Cancel me out or add to the role? The most important thing of all is to get out and vote.

From the Abolitionist poet, John Greenleaf Whittier's 1840 Poem, "The Poor Voter on Election Day":

The proudest now is but my peer,
the highest not more high,
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.

My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
for there, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
alike, the brown and wrinkled fist,
the gloved and dainty hand.
The rich is level with the poor,
the weak is strong today.
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
Today, shall simple manhood try the
strength of gold and land
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there is a grief to seek
redress or balance to adjust,
where ways are living manhood
less than mamands vilest dust
while there's a right to need
my vote a wrong to sweep away,
up clouded knee and wrinkled coat
a man's a man today.

The Power of the Internet

2004-10-28T22:42:00.000-06:00

Tonight I got and sent an email from Pete over in Thailand. He's busy with his life, his new wife and trying to start his bronze business. Anyhow, i'm trying to connect Pete with my new friend Hossein, who is Iranian. hossein has some friends who make and sell pottery and I thought he and Pete could somehow cross-network.

Here's a glimpse at how my twisted mind works when I have too much time on my hands. While daydreaming about how all this could lead to some sort of adventure in iran for me, a Greg Brown playing in the background made me start day dreaming. my thoughts of Iran floated to Turkey and thoughts of beautiful rugs and wonderful people and then my mind floated to a dusty corner and the name of Ela Aktay popped out. Ela was the first girl I thought I was in "real" love with and that would have been about 20 years ago. I have some funny stories about meeting her parents (Turkish emmigrants to the US) but I'll save that for another time. So suddenly I was thinking of Ela and I remembered how I found her about three years ago, from a paper I came across that had an E. Aktay of Evanston, IL as the author. I sent her an email and she responded very promptly. We started to exchange emails back and forth but they soon faded. So here I sat, daydreaming and all sorts of wondering filled my head, as it often does when I think about life and the journey we all make through it.

So I googled her...and I not only found her and the reviews she's done, but I found a bio on her and a picture. Wow! 20 years. Pretty amazing. from the sounds of it, she's still married to Matt Booty, a guy I never met him and a guy who had a made up image in my head that has been locked up in one of those seldom visited corners of my mind. He might be a swell guy, seeing how Ela's been married to him for quite some time, he must be. Hmmm. interesting.
Ela 2004.bmp

Being Mad at Blogger

2004-10-25T20:27:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted for a week or so because I've been mad at Blogger. See, I wrote this very wonderful review of the third day at Yellowstone...quite detailed and blogger lost it. I know that sounds absurd, but I posted the damn thing and it just never appeared. no search found the glitch and this isn't the first time.

But I heart blogger and I heart my little corner of the owrld, so I am back 9but I'm still mad).

I'll write another 3rd day review soon.

Our Yellowstone Adventure, Day 3

2004-10-14T17:22:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the hurdy-gurdy approach to my journal these days, but I wanted to put the final touches on the Yellowstone National Park adventure I had with Mom, Dad, Chris & Nicole. If you haven't read the prior posts, you may want to before reading any further.

I awoke bright and early Sunday, as Dad went outside for a smoke and the sound was just enough to roust me from my slumber. It had gotten cold the night before, and the morning sun was already busily melting the frost on the Hoosier's Hotel roof, which was plop, plop, plopping onto the sidewalk.
Cooke City was quite tranquil, either because the locals were sleeping off the Saturday night fun had at the Miner's Saloon or perhaps they were already up and out hunting or something. As I said before Cooke City is an end of the road sort of place. We had breakfast at one of three places open, and the Chinese waitress (with a wedding band on...I'm thinking international matchmaking) was also serving as cashier and cook when we arrived (later a woman who was either Estonian or Ukrainian came in to help...very odd). We downed the oversized pancakes and bad sausage and headed out of town (but not before a fewpictures), back into the park for the last time.
The morning just kept getting better, as we spotted plenty of bison and Elk heading back through the Lamar Valley. The valley floor, so full of activity just 16 hours earlier, was quiet and serene. We decided to try and get back to Missoula before night fall and I had secretly decided to make it to Dillon, so my brother could get to do one of the things he really wanted, stop at the Patagonia Outlet. We made pretty good time to mammoth Springs and stopped there for some Yellowstone souvenir shopping and some grub.
We drove past the sights that two days earlier had been so alien that I felt like I was on the moon and headed west towards West Yellowstone. Our bald eagle was busy somewhere else and we quickly worked our way past packs of cars stopped to look at Elk...Elk! Ha! We'd marked Elk off on Friday....Amateurs!

Heading out of West Yellowstone we took the back roads. The countryside was expansive and lonely...the only people who seem to habituate that part of the state are ranchers and fishermen. We drove past miles and miles of vast ranch land before heading back into the Horn Mountains, clearing Reynolds Pass and meeting up with the famous Madison River. We passed feeders like Deadman's Creek, Secret Lake, and Papoose Creek. The area is just gorgeous. We finally reached the town of Ennis, where the road turns west towards Twin Bridges. Along this stretch we passed through Virginia City and Nevada City, the latter being a complete ghost town (now maintained by the state). The area had the misfortune of being part of the gold rush and was heavily mined using the abhorrent hydraulic technique, which has left the entire stretch from Virginia City to Alder looking like one big messy gravel pit with huge piles of Rick and tailing ponds scattered along the way. Disgusting.

It was at Twin Bridges that I revealed my plan, "it's 4:30 PM", I said, "...we're 28 miles from Dillon and the Patagonia Outlet, which closes at 5:00 PM. I think we can make it." my brothers eyes lit up as he tried to act cool, "only if you want" was his response. So I turned south on Montana 41 and drove like a bat out of hell to Dillon. We passed some amazing farmland, all green and shiny contrasted against the brown of the surrounding Ruby Range. We arrive in Dillon at 4:55 PM and, to our delight, were welcomed into the store. We spent the next hour or so, the only customers in the now closed store, shopping and telling the employees about our adventures. They loved us!!! And they loved our cash too!!!!

We arrived back in Missoula about 9:30 PM, tired and happy. What an adventure we had.The gang

Book Review: A Rumor of War

2004-10-14T07:58:00.000-06:00

I am somewhat of a history buff, including military history. Over the past 10 years or so I've tried to learn more about the history of various parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and the United States. I've also read quite a few books on various wars and conflicts, both modern and historical.
From the moment the United States invaded Iraq, comparisons to the US involvement in Vietnam began to surface. And as time has worn on, the comparisons to me seemed to merit some sort of personal research. My friend Rick is also an avid reader, especially of military history and he suggested I read A Rumor of War, which has been touted as one of the defining pieces on Vietnam.
This book is brutally honest...not only in detailing the often surreal events in Vietnam and the consequences suffered by soldiers and civilians alike from often farcical decision made somewhere far off, but also in the depiction of what can do to perfectly sane and otherwise moral individuals.
It can be disturbing at times, but is so forthright in the presentation of human tragedy that every night I closed the book I sat wondering what I would do if thrust into such a situation.
The western world today seems to have some notion of War that is insane. There seems to be a sense amongst Americans and Europeans that our technology has advanced to the point that "precision" is the only acceptable conduct of War. I think Wendell Berry said it best when he said that if you can accept that death is part of War then you must accept that ANY death is part of War. This book reminds us that War is devastating and ugly and death makes no distinction between color of uniform or uniform at all.

Here are the publisher's comments:
When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young mans experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to todays students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.
A platoon commander in the first combat unit sent to fight in Vietnam, Lieutenant Caputo landed at Danang on March 8, 1965, convinced that American forces would win a quick and decisive victory over the Communists. Sixteen months later and without ceremony, Caputo left Vietnam a shell-shocked veteran whose youthful idealism and faith in the rightness of the war had been utterly shattered. A Rumor of War tells the story of that trajectory and allows us to see and feel the reality of the conflict as the author himself experienced it, from the weeks of tedium hacking through scorching jungles, to the sudden violence of ambushes and firefights, to the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged between soldiers, and finally to a sense of the war as having no purpose other than the fight for survival. The author gives us a precise, tactile view of both the emotional and physical reality of war.
When Caputo is reassigned to headquarters as Officer in Charge of the Dead, he chronicles the psychological cost of witnessing and recording the human toll of the war. And after his voluntary transfer to the frontlines, Caputo shows us that the major weapons of guerrilla fighting are booby traps and land mines, and that success is measured not in feet but in body counts. Nor does the author shrink from admitting the intoxicating intensity of combat, an experience so compelling that many soldiers felt nostalgic for it years after theyd left
Vietnam. Most troubling, Caputo gives us an unflinching view not only of remarkable bravery and heroism but also of the atrocities committed in Vietnam by ordinary men so numbed by fear and desperate to survive that their moral distinctions had collapsed.
More than a statement against war, Caputos memoir offers readers today a profoundly visceral sense of what war is and, as the author says, of the things men do in war and the things war does to men.
This edition includes a twentieth-anniversary postscript by the author.

Yellowstone Park 2004, Day Two

2004-10-12T17:23:00.000-06:00

We awoke early Saturday with every intent to get into the park before the weekend rush. The first of October is the official rate change date, when summer rates go away and many area shops begin to close. Yellowstone is huge and mountainous and the weather changes fast. In the winter, the only road that stays open all season is from the Gardiner entrance to the NE entrance at Cooke City, everything else shuts down and becomes accessible to snow mobiles and winter enthusiasts. So this first weekend in October is just about the last weekend of crowds in the Park and is by far much less crowded than high season...still we really enjoyed Friday and hoped to not get in too many crowds.

I forgot to mention that our night in West Yellowstone ended with a huge bus pulling up and coughing out what may have been the entire male teenage population of some small Montana town, the football team which came down to battle the West Yellowstone high school team. In the morning, they evidently tried to eat anything not nailed down in the Brandin' Irons kitchen. Free continental breakfast was included with our stay, but the high school boys literally ate them out of house and home. It was actually pretty funny and the amount of testosterone floating around the hotel, if bottled, could certainly have given some of the herbal Viagra's a run for their money.

So, with not so full stomach's we headed back into the Park. Chris was the first to spot the Bald Eagle...perched high on a dead Pine Tree overlooking a river. It was a beautiful sight, that early in the morning. The sky was blazing blue and the fall colors were in full display. The Eagle was huge and so regal. It gave us all a big smile. We'd heard there were grizzlies over in the Hayden Valley, which happened to be on the opposite side of the park. We decided to swing back down past Old Faithful and zip through the West Thumb, so we could see some of the beauty around Yellowstone Lake. This also gave us a chance to stop at some more paint pots. We saw waterfalls, bison, elk, hawks, deer and some other greyish birds that i've been unable to identify in my birding books.

We made it into the Hayden Valley and saw more Eagle and a few coyotes, but no grizzly. We saw plenty of stupid people though, some getting to within 5 feet or so of full grown bison...it was amazing. Every year people get gored or cars get totaled because they forget these are WILD animals. Some of the buffoonery has led to death. Just two weeks before we arrived, a man got gored badly by a bull elk in rut, getting up close and using a flash camera on the poor beast. The result was the man went to the hospital with a big hole in his belly, the elk caused $25,000.00US in damage to nearby vehicles and had to have his rack cut off to try and ease his aggression. Anyhow, we headed up to Canyon Village and the infamous Yellowstone waterfalls, quite possible the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in person.

The waterfall is just simply amazing and the canyon it has carved is proof of the awesome power of nature. We were all in complete awe. Afterwards we decided to forego a trip south to Jackson and instead head back up and around to the Lamar Valley, a place of renown for wildlife viewing. We decided not to stop for anything and get straight to the valley, although we did make one detour, taking the Blacktail Plateau scenic route, a 7 mile dirt road that goes into the high country. Pretty amazing.

We came across a viewing area high above a massive meadow and pulled in. There were 5 or 6 other groups of people, some in lawn chairs with scopes set up looking out into the meadow. I talked to a wonderful older couple who'd been there all day...they told me a pack of wolves had killed a cow elk sometime in the middle of the night before and supposedly a male grizzly had also been feeding on the carcass. They were there all day hoping the wolves would return. We decided this might be our best chance to see a grizzly and set up shop too. There were big herds of bison, antelope and elk scatterred across the meadow and it was a beautiful sight,as the sun started to set and the gold of the grass was set off by the blaze of the sun. More and more people came, soome staying some moving on but a very nice couple set up next to us with a huge scope. Two men arrived next and they knew the couple who was next to us, so they too joined our band. The man next to us spotted a black bear (Mark it off!!!!) and so about 15 scopes and sets of binoculors all swerved over to see the bear, loping across the meadow where it rose to meet the mountainside. About that time a young girl, who had said, "is that a grizzly?" about 20 times, shouted, "I think there are some grizzly bears eating the elk"! No one really moved their scopes but sort of looked with some interest out towards where the carcass lay, near the rivers edge. Then the girls' father looked in the scope and I heard an, "I'll be damned" come from his lips...all the scopes swung in unison and sure enough, somehow a full grown sow and the griz cubs had made it into the meadow without any of us seeing them. Apparantly she used the setting sun as camoflouge to hide her approach. It was like something straight out of a nature show. We sat up there watching her and the cubs feed for about 20 minutes, cubs eating, fighting and playing, mother eating and constantly sticking her snout in the air to smell for any danger. The crowd swelled as news of a grizzly traveled. And here we were, looking at not one, but 4 grizzly bear! About 20 minutes into it, momma griz sniffed and sniffed, stood and looked and then took off into the sun, with all three cubs in single file. Soon a three legged coyote came into view...surely a coyote couldn't scare off a grizzly bear? About that time a truck pulled up and a guy jumped out holding an antennae and some sort of reader. He was with the Friend of the Yellowstoine wolf and was tracking a pack...and boom, they came, the wolves in a pack to reclaim their kill. It was astounding to see, these pack animals swooping in, the coyote running for dear life. Excitement abounded and I have to admit to more than a few high fives with the people all around me. It was one of those life experiences for us. We quickly packed up as the light faded and tried to head down the road to see another pack of wolves we'd heard about...unfortunately we only think we saw them as the light just wasn't good enough to tell. So a 30 mile drive through Yellowstone in the dark...a dangerous proposition, lay ahead of us to reach Cooke City, an end of the road town that spends the winter socked in with only one reliable road in and out...the road back through the park and to Gardiner. We stayed at the Hoosier Motel, which featured satellite TV (all 5 channels) and ate dinner at the Miner's Saloon, a local...and I mean local...bar and grill. There were plenty toothless men and spent women whooping it up on Saturday night. A true experience.

Yellowstone Nat'l Park, Prelude & Day One

2004-10-07T17:28:00.000-06:00

Mom & Dad arrived in Missoula last Tuesday afternoon. The weather here was unbelievable; after two weeks of wet, cold and blustery weather Mother Nature decided to shine down on the northern Rockies...it was perfect. We went to The Depot for dinner and the service & food were both wonderful. I worked on Wednesday, letting Mom & Dad have a free day to enjoy our Indian Summer. We spent the evening looking at maps, going over accommodation possibilities and laughing about the fact we'd been planning this trip for two months but still had no idea what we were going to do or what direction we were headed.
My brotherChris arrived Wednesday night with his girlfriend Nicole. Thursday morning we all packed up, stood around the map and finally decided to head to Gardiner, Montana at the northern tip of Yellowstone. I came into the office to wrap up a few things before we stopped at Worden's Market on the way out of town for one of their awesome sandwiches. Worden's is a Missoula landmark and I always take visitors there for the food and the funky people watching.
The drive down to Gardiner, MT was fun because Chris and Nicole had never been to Montana, let alone the mountainous region of western Montana. Every turn shows something new. We stopped just east of Butte to get a photo of all of us at the Continental Divide. We laughed about that one quite a bit. We stopped in Bozeman and visited the Wheat Montana bakery, a very cool bakery where all the products are made from Montana spelt and wheat flour. We got some muffins for the next morning and some 9 grain cereal to make cookies with. Just east of Bozeman we got caught in a pretty hellacious rainstorm and the weather turned quite nasty. The drive from Livingston down to Gardiner was beautiful though, with big puffy rain clouds and spots of blazing sun combining to cast amazing shadows across the open meadows and on the mountain sides. Daylight was running out but we decided to pull a National Lampoon-esque stunt and zipped over to see Chico Hot Springs, the famous and quite quaint resort nestled at the foot of the mountains.
Gardiner is a small and historic town that serves as the Gateway to the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The town was named after a man whose last name was Gardner, but local yore says the people who named it were Easterners who pronounced Gardner as Gardi-nerr and nobody knew how to spell anyway, so over a short period of time Gardner became Gardiner. There were French and American trappers in the area in the very early 1800's but it wasn't until 1872 that Ulysses S. Grant made Yellowstone the first National Park.
We stayed in a hotel overrun by what seemed like hundreds of Japanese high school students. When we checked in they were all over the first floor, crammed into conference rooms and any other open spaces, performing some type of experiment. None of them spoke any English, as far as I could ascertain, and their Japanese and local hosts were too swamped for me to try and figure out what the hell they were doing. A really funny side note is the clothes they all were wearing. The boys were wearing what I can only describe as Japanese-American western wear. Most of them had big huge belt buckles and boots but they also sported some very strange t-shirts and accessories. My brother came around a corner to find two of them doing back bends DOWN the stairs. They all had crazy hair working, with cowlicks and oily matted hair being the style du jour. It was a very surreal evening.
The next morning I awoke to the smell of cooking rice...Seriously. When I walked down the hall I saw at least 10 huge rice steamers lining the conference room with the students busily gulping down brekkie. We decided to eat at the Town Cafe and Hotel, a place Mom had called and was asked to call back because the woman answering the phone was also the waitress, hotel clerk and cashier. The food was your normal Mom & Pop cafe type grub..cheap and filled the stomach. I made the mistake of asking her what she thought of the possible introduction of a state sales tax...not a good idea. She proceeded to 'educate' me on the evil tax system and how Montanans knew not to let government get into their pockets because it would never leave. Interesting conversation at 8:30 AM.
We entered the park through the Original Entrance to Yellowstone and it had all the makings of a cold and cloudy day. Not to be deterred, Mom and I decided to take a soak in the Boiling River...a spot that up until last year was a sort of local secret. Now it has been discovered and as many as 200 people a day soak in the river during the high season. We were lucky to meet two couples from Steamboat Springs, Colorado and enjoyed the steaming pool with them. They've been coming to Yellowstone for 20 years and still haven't seen it all!
Soon afterwards we saw our first Elk and heard them bugle...a really cool sound that brought a big smile to all our faces. We cruised down to Mammouth Hot springs, stopping along the way to watch Mountain Goats, deer and Elk. At Mammouth we got to see the first geothermal activity at the mineral terrace. It was amazing. We then were treated to the first of two sightings of the rare and elusive black wolf. We actually stumbled across the first wolf by accident, having stopped to view some Sandhill Cranes feeding in a grassy meadow. A man next to us had a large scope and was watching a Bison, far off in the field when he spotted the wolf coming out of the treeline. He allowed us to look through his scope, which was so powerful the wolf appeared to be right next to us instead of the 1500 to 2000 yards away he really was. At one point I thought he was looking right into my eyes and it gave me goosebumps. My Mom started what soon became our mantra when she said, "I guess we can mark that off our list". Later it just became "Mark it Off", something we said often over the next two days.
We headed down to Old Faithful, stopping to see vents, coyotes, waterfalls and Bison along the way. Yellowstone is huge, covering something like 350 million acres, so the drive from Gardiner to Old Faithful is quite long. We arrived late in the afternoon and took our spot among the hundreds gathered to watch one of the world's three 'Old Faithful' geysers erupt. There are actually many geysers around Old Faithful and over 10,000 in the park! Old Faithful erupts every 92 minutes now and is slowing a bit but it was still a glorious sight to see. After such as big day we decided to back track a bit and head west to the West Yellowstone entrance. This is when things got really fun, because the closer it got to dusk, the more wildlife we got to see. There were massive Elk, river otters, bison and another black wolf seen. We even got to see two Elk face off across a meadow, bugling away, marking their territories as a large group of cows grazed nearby. It was a marvelous day.

Jeff in Puglia

2004-10-06T21:10:00.000-06:00

Hey, my buddy Jeff Gromen is now in blogland. Jeff is from Indy but now lives in Italy. It's a great way to to hear about an american in Italy. Jeff in Puglia

Yellowstone National Park 2004...An intro

2004-10-04T10:02:00.000-06:00

Not much time to write this morning as I need to get back to vacationing! Mom, Dad, Chris & Nicole arrived last week and we've spent the past 4 days down in Yellowstone National Park...it was everything advertised and more!

We saw Eagles, Grizzlies, Black Bear, Bison, Elk, Otter, Coyote, Mountain Goats, Sheep, Deer, Antelope, Black Wolves and Grey Wolves! We saw geysers, paint pots, mineral springs, thermal holes, mountains, waterfalls, canyons, mud holes and more.

It was an amazing adventure. I'll write more later.

2004-09-27T17:24:00.000-06:00

WPAQ: Voice of the Blue Ridge Mountains

2004-09-24T13:11:00.000-06:00

Category: Music
Genre: Country
Artist: Various Artists

This is the review done by Tom Sheridan at allmusic.com:

These on-air recordings made between 1947 and 1950 at the Mount Airy, NC radio station offer a fascinating snapshot of the musical milieu of the time. From breakdowns like "Old Joe Clark" by the Gurney Thomas Band to the gospel harmony of "I'm Living Down Here on Borrowed Land" by the Silvertone Gospel Harmonizers, it's priceless material.
-----------------------
I'll add to it that these recordings hearken back to a long gone era for me. Sure, we had TV growing up but our family spent alot of time listening to the radio and to old albums. My Dad's folks had a 78 record player too. But most of all these recordings make me think of my Grandpa Orville, Mom's Dad who was a Kentuckian through and through.

For anyone who has a music library and appreciates old timey music, this CD is for you

The Lucky Girl

2004-09-23T16:38:00.000-06:00

I suppose it would be about 10 years ago this summer when I first met the spunky & delightful Gwen Plouhinec, a.k.a. "The Lucky Girl". Gwen is from Rennes, in Brittany (France) and I met her through happenstance. She was working as a traveling occupational therapist down in a rural hospital in Tennessee. She was in the United States on an H1-B nonimmigrant Visa and was working for a company who assigned her to facilities they contracted with for 6-12 weeks at a time. It just so happened she was working in the same hospital as another traveling therapist, Heidi Shubert, an Australian who originally came to the United States to work with me. Heidi and I had known each other for about three years when she brought Gwen up to Indianapolis for the Memorial Day weekend and my Indy 500 race party. Now I had a huge crush on Heidi, with her constantly messy hair, big smile and awesome Aussie accent, so when she said she was bringing a friend I said sure.
I knew I would like Gwen almost from the minute we met. She had only experienced the southeastern and mid-south US, so I spent alot of time telling her she needed to really travel to get a true sense of what the country was like. At some point in time I even told her that if her current job didn't work out she should let me know and I would see about sponsoring her myself and she could work for me.
Well it's a pretty long story as you can see, but 10 years later Gwen and I are still great friends. She's practically an O'Connor as she spent several holidays at my parents house and stays in close contact with my Mom. Our friend Monty and me visited Gwen when she lived in Georgia and I was honored to stand up for her at her wedding in Arcata, CA. I met her family in Nashville years ago and had the pleasure of their company this summer when AW and I traveled to France for Gwen's brother Gildas' (see my archived posts) wedding.
.Gwen and her husband Jack continue to live in northern California and she never cesaes to amaze me. She's one of those people that is so efficient and so energetic that from time to time you just sort of step back and shake your head, because just watching her makes you tired. To top it off, she's very French and very stubborn. The problem for the rest of us is she is usually right. Gwen and Jack have two lovely daughters who are blessed with two sweet sisters from Jack's first marraige. She is very busy.
Shortly after I met Gwen I started calling her The Lucky Girl, because it seemed to me that luck followed her wherever she went. When she was traveling with her brother Gildas, they just stumbled across a Clemson football game and managed to get in...when she went to Lake Tahoe and followed my advice to stop in Alpenglow, she met a world class climber who took her everywhere and introduced her to wonderful people. She's just lucky that way.
I heard from Gwen today. She contacted me because she was a little upset at the "down" tone I used in a previous post about my breakup with AW. She reminded me to be positive and to let good things happen to me. I think she was giving me one of her secrets to life. And, after spending far too little time with her family in France this summer, I gather the way she lives her life has been heavily influenced by her very large, happy and loving family. She really is a great person and a wonderful friend

Missing Posts

2004-09-21T18:12:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend I thought I posted a couple of stories about Dr. Dave's wedding and the rehearsal the night before. Apparently they are floating out there in blogspace.

I attended a fabulous outdoor wedding, amidst not so fabulous outdoor weather. It was the wedding between one of my employers, Dr. Dave and his fiance Pamela. It was held out at Dr. Dave's river place, also known as Tarkio. There were about 300 people in attendance. Rain has been falling over Missoula constantly for about 10 days and even though Tarkio is 45 miles west, the rain was constant there too. But as these things often do, the rain stopped just about 15 minutes before the ceremony was to begin and held off long enough for us to gather down on the beach and watch the wedding celebration take place. They wrote their own vows, which they recited at the same time and were wed under an alter made of river driftwood. It was lovely.

On Friday they had a rehearsal dinner for 100! It was held at the Pearl Cafe, Missoula's new hot spot for fine cuisine. I knew I had to give a roast of Dave so I decided to have some wine to "loosen" me up a bit: I'm not much of a wine drinker and so I wasn't ready for how quickly it hit me. My stomach got all warm and fuzzy and the next thing I knew I was plain ol' drunk. My roast was a huge success, despite the fact I can't remember much of what I said. Needless to say I paid the price for this indiscretion Saturday. Wine headaches are not to be messed with. All I could do was suck it up and work through the pain.

Watch Out for Neon Drivers

2004-09-21T17:48:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I had to run an errand at lunchtime that involved the use of my car. Now I normally don't drive during the weekday, especially at lunchtime, merely for the reason that a gazillion people are all trying to cram as much as possible in an hour and are generally rude and inconsiderate on the road while doing so. So it was with a certain dread that I got into my car and headed across town to the busiest and most McDona-Wenda-Old Navy-Best Buy'ed part of town, the Reserve Street corridor. This is a section of town where all the new development is taking place, where Reserve Street serves as a connector between US Interstate 90 and US Highway 93 and where all the box stores are located. I was heading to the Eye of the Beholder, a custom framing and art shop located in a strip mall next to a mini Pizza Hut. The Pizza Hut was packed with painters, construction workers, truck drivers and a few office folk looking like ducks out of water...all enjoying the $5.99 all you could eat buffet.

I picked up my framed print and started to head back towards the relative safety zone of the 'northside", all the while thinking to myself, "this wasn't as bad as I thought". And then I spotted the Neon. For those of you living outside the USA, the Neon is a sort of poor man's sports car. It's a Dodge model and it is usually driven by 18-25 year olds with a need for speed, a total disregard for others on the road and little to no knowledge of road rules. Many Neon's are tricked out or crumpled and their outer bodies are pretty cheap. This afternoon, my nemesis was in a Kelly Green version with hot pink pin striping. I saw him, about a 1/2 block in front of me in the same parking lot. I hate parking lots anyway, but put a Neon in the same parking lot near me and my palms start to sweat. Sure enough, this idiot had his seat reclined so that you could barely see his head above the steering wheel. He had flashy spoked rims too, which caused me to take my foot off the accelerator and move it to the "hover" position atop my brake pedal. I was in a lane between two parking areas and was heading towards the lot exit, with cars in front and behind. As I neared he of course gunned it, turning left in front of me and cutting off the car coming from the opposite direction. The car driver slammed his brakes, causing the car behind to do the same and the car behind it to hit him. Meanwhile, the little shit in the Neon did the same as he turned onto Reserve Street and sped away.

Dodge Neon's and Honda Civics. I think there ought to be some extra IQ or driving tests or something to weed out all the punks, pricks and idiots who are somehow all driving these vehicles.

That's my salty bitch for the day.

The Straight Story

2004-09-16T22:03:00.000-06:00

If you thought David Lynch could only make movies that were a bit off center, then you need to see the movie The Straight Story.

It's a great movie that will pull at your heart strings and have the whole family in tears. It's slow, and I mean s-l-o-w, moving but at the same time it feels just right. The movie is based on a true story, about a man who drives his lawnmower across Iowa and Wisconsin to see his ailing brother. Harry Dean Stanton is in the flick, a plus for just about any movie. It also stars Sissy Spacek and Richard Farnsworth, Farnsworth in particular does an outstanding job.

The scenery is fantastic and the stories created along the journey help make the movie a success, at least in my book.

Check it out this month on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) here in the states.

Multiply

2004-09-16T21:51:00.000-06:00

Oh this blogging type thing is getting out of control. I just joined another service called Multiply. It allows you to upload photos, keep a group calendar, share recipes and do just about anything else you want. And since (as my Austrian friend Martin so aptly pointed out in my newly added guestbook)my blog is more of an online diary, the multiply site will let me expand outside of the diary concept...thanks for the kick in the pants Martin.

I found Multiply while visiting the blog of a Brazilian girl featured on the blogger home page. Since her site is in Brazilian Portuguese, I just started clicking on links to see where they would take me. in addition to some info on chocolate and some cool photos, she has links to Multiply, Friendster and Fotolog.

My Friends, the Superheroes

2004-09-15T17:48:00.000-06:00

Today I realized just what superheroes some of my friends are, day in and day out. I happen to work for a group of surgeons and I also consider all three of them my friends (Two of them have been my friends long before I moved to Missoula).

I work as their Practice Manager, meaning I run their business. My office is across the hall from the main clinic and my interactions with patients are usually brief (when I'm across the hall and cross paths with them) or about issues related to patient care or their bills. I am not a clinician and I'm never involved with actual patient care. The patient care issues I hear about are usually related to appointment wait times, confusion (or complaints) about their bills or when they want to pay a compliment to our staff or the doctors. It's pretty cool to work in a doctor's office where the patients oftentimes bring in treats or send cards or make things (painting, carvings, etc.) for the doctors and staff. It's a testament to what good doctors and great people they are.

Today was a another rough day, in a series of rough days, for two of our doctor's, the ones who happen to be my close friends. One doctor got called into the emergency room of a local hospital for an incoming trauma; an entire family was involved in a terrible automobile crash that caused the death of a child at the scene, sent another one into the ICU with awful injuries and a third one to the ER where our doctor was called in to try and assist. The injuries were extreme to this young boy, who couldn't know that another sibling was somewhere else in the hospital struggling for his life. As our doctor worked on him he realized this child, if he was going to be saved, needed to get to Seattle and fast. And while all this was going on he became aware that the other sibling was "coding" at the same time. It was heart wrenching for him, to say the least. To have to speak to the parents in such a time of crisis and tell them they needed to send their child immediately by emergency flight to Seattle is just something I couldn't imagine. I happened to meet my friend, the doctor, on the street as he was coming back to our office...he still had an afternoon full of patients he needed to see and needed to give all his attention to: He looked pretty troubled and I asked him how things were going. As we talked about how heavy his mind and heart were, the helicopter carrying the patient took off from the roof of the hospital...it was totally heart breaking for me and I wasn't even involved in the process. To top this off, his colleague, another one of our doctors and also my friend, was seeing patients in our office, trying to use the same compassion and give them all his attention as well...yet in the past week he's had to inform two people they will not live because of cancer that has spread through their bodies.

Most of the time when people think of doctors they think about how much money they make. Doctors don't get much sympathy when it comes to financial issues as the general public doesn't see the exploding costs for doctors and has no idea about what they go through on a daily basis...heck, I've worked here for two plus years and it wasn't until that helicopter took off over my head and I imagined that frightened boy inside & his devastated family sitting somewhere in the hospital that I looked at my friend in amazement. What an unbelievable thing he does with his life and what a heartbreaking day he also must have gone through...all the time not letting his other patients care be effected.

As with every profession, there are good doctors, okay doctors, not so good and just plain bad. It just so happens that many of my friends are doctors and it also is the case they are all great doctors, great persons and they are all superheroes in my mind.