Good Things, and the Not-So-Good Things

Things I like: Free Coffee on your Birthday

Things I dislike: Barges wandering around with you on the river, making it hard to row - on your birthday, no less! Don't they know it's your birthday?

Things I like: Great friends who sing "Happy Birthday" to you in the locker room shower (so you can't escape it)

Things I dislike: You can't escape "Happy Birthday" when you're in the locker room showers

Things I like: Rowing my single

Things I dislike: Coach making you do a hard practice on your birthday (Doesn't he know it's your birthday?)

Things I like: Crunches, or maybe even pushups

Things I dislike: Coach scheduling jumpies on your birthday (instead of the crunches, or even the 6 pushups you'd much rather do)

Things I like: Chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting (and lots of frosting!)

Things I dislike: brussels sprouts

Things I like: No one makes you eat brussels sprouts on your birthday (or zucchini, either)

Things I dislike: you can't eat chocolate cake and doughnuts all day and expect to feel very well

Things I like: No one bats an eye if you want to leave work early on your birthday

Things I dislike: People scheduling afternoon meetings at work on your birthday, so that you can't leave early


*Update*
Also good things that I like: kind friends & family who send you very nice birthday greetings. Thanks, everyone.

Pics from Kenora Racing

Thanks to our MBC photographer, Matt, you can check out pics of the 2008 NWIRAs here.

Miscellany (mainly Canadian)

Lake of the Woods
Kenora, Ontario, Canada
July 24-27, 2008

-Timbits are a good idea, except maybe when you eat more than 12 in a day. Um, or at one time. Even if you did row 5 races in 2 days, your stomach will still probably hurt. Especially when you combine it with other really random fast food items to which you are unaccustomed.

-I am tired of the wind. This is the second regatta in a row where at least part of the racing has been cancelled due to wind conditions. I can't even remember the last regatta where wind didn't play a factor (I think it was last year some time).

-For having such a short growing season, the bugs in Kenora are gi-normous. This in turn seems to make for larger bug bites than I'd expect. (And I live in Minnesota, where the mosquito is practically the state bird.)

-Drinking coffee is good (even before a race, a nice latte will do the trick of snapping a person awake). Having a Starbucks that doesn't open until 7am is bad. And weird. Do Canadians in Kenora not drink coffee before 7am?

-Our Kenora hotel was clean and seemed to be made of all glass, but it rather unusually felt like it was still 1983 when you walked through the door of our room. Here's one of the reasons why I say that:But then the views from our room were really great.

(You can even see the Mini Cooper in the parking lot in this one. It looks like a toy, but it was fun for a road trip. Until some idiot with a trailer hitch backed into the poor Mini.)

-Even with all of the randomness, I had a good time, and the drive up there is beautiful.

Grieg, Biegel and the MN Orchestra

After eating at Palomino on Saturday night (the food was excellent - I could have drunk the Champagne Beurre Blanc sauce that came on my risotto out of a glass, it was so good, as were the scallops they came with), I went to a concert at the Minnesota Orchestra as part of the Viennese Somerfest (or Sommerfest as they've started calling it the last couple years, I guess). We heard the Grieg Piano Concerto (along with a piece by Verdi and the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony). I love the Grieg - I used to play the 3rd movement all the time (and indeed, pulled out my music and played parts of the Concerto on Sunday afternoon). I have a really hard time with concerts - when I'm sitting in the audience, I want to be up there playing. When I'm up in the orchestra playing, I want to be in the audience, just listening. I guess the grass is always greener (over the septic tank, as Erma Bombeck would have said)...

But there's also the added phenomenon of knowing a piece of music really, really well and sitting through another performer/conductor's take on it. There were some great moments, courtesy of Jeffrey Biegel (some things he did with phrasing I really liked, and he has such quick light fingers!), and then some not-so-great moments (tempos were a bit slow in spots, used too much pedal, dampening his nice technique and light, quick fingers). And then there were some nice things about Andrew Litton's conducting (great use of cello and viola), and a few downsides (way too much French horn - the horn rather overpowered everything else in several spots). So while I really enjoyed it, it's hard to sit through without tapping my toe to the rhythm and tamp down my itchy fingers' urge to play something, ANYthing. But it was still fun. I love a good orchestra concert.

Practice Makes Perfect...or at least a few really pretty pics.

Competitive Team Practice

7-9a, Saturday, July 19, 2008
Mississippi River, St. Paul

See my shiny new oars?
(Our bow needs to get hers painted.
You can hardly see them here.)

Quote of the Franken(stein) Moment

From my daily lawyer joke calendar:

"When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both. 'Turn the other cheek' cancels out 'an eye for an eye,' leaving us free to render justice in accordance with whatever cockamamie principles we happen to come up with that morning." -Al Franken

(No thanks, Al: I don't want your version of joke-ish justice, so please just lose this Senate race.)

Tacos & Pain Relief

Today I burned my tongue on tacos, and then had to cool it off with ice cream. Twice.

(Uh, you might need some more ice cream, Mom and Dad. Oh, and the safety prong fell out of the plug of the shop vac, Dad. Don't worry: I didn't electrocute myself. See you in a few days.)

JibJab's Time for Some Campaignin'

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Quote of the Moment

"Years and years of history books have taught us that America was shaped by the great deeds of great men and women. It was not. America was shaped by the great deeds of ordinary men and women. America always has been better than its government, that its people have always been more decent than their presidents, and that the strength and greatness of this nation lies in them, the men and women who are not great and who never will be." --Roger Simon

Duluth "Ergatta"

MBC went up to Duluth for the annual regatta over the weekend, only to have it cancelled because both the bay and Superior were too rough and windy to row. Instead, we participated in an "ergatta," one of the most awful things ever and something I hope never to participate in again. But I did win a gold medal. I also bought a DRC t-shirt, and have decided to take a fabric pen and change "regatta" to "ergatta." Here are a few pics. The sky was sunny and beautiful, but don't be deceived: it was windy as all get out. Despite the erging and some absolutely horrendous downpour on Friday night, we had a good time.

The Bay: Launching in this would've been a challenge, let alone rowing in it.

This is what we rowed instead: the ergs.

Watching from a distance.

Hanging around, waiting for my last race of the day.

Last race of the day. I was tired.

I also had only flip flops with me for the weekend. I wore a different pair of shoes every race I did. (Thanks to my teammates for letting me borrow theirs. I did have my own socks, thank you very much.)

Two Things That Combine Extremely Well: Ice Cream and Girl Scout Cookies

Happy 4th!

I'm celebrating my patriotism in a traditional American way: the 4th of July BBQ, all while "Proud to be an American" and "God Bless America" run through my head (in a never-ending loop).

Oars

I got my very own oars! It took some doing to get the box to the boat club due to a small food festival that got in the way, but I managed to do it this afternoon. Pictures of said oars will be forthcoming once I get the box opened, the blades painted in true MBC colors and the separate grips delivered and put on (they're orange and not red or white, but there's really nothing I can do about that; okay, nothing that I'd want to do about that).