The Lugnut

So, it’s been a long time, but I figure it’s high time for a new post.  The wife and I were in Utah last week skiing.  I grew up skiing, but she had never been.  This obviously created an interesting dynamic.  She did ski school for a half day to start and then was going to learn on her own after that. 

Now, I love skiing.  Especially for one who does not make it a priority in their life.  I hadn’t been skiing in about six years.  Regardless, I love it and have now pledged to work to make it happen more often.  Since I love skiing I was really hoping that the wife would like it.  I was very nervous that first morning while she was in ski school.  If she didn’t like it, I knew it would be a hard sell for me to go in the future.  Skiing is a big expensive trip for folks who live in Atlanta so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to blow our whole vacation budget to do something only one of us enjoys.  I had butterflies in my stomach as I wondered how it was going. 

Well, it was a resounding success.  Despite a slight equipment malfunction for the wife on the first day around lunch time, she loved it.  She went from someone who had no idea what she was doing on Thursday to skiing only ungroomed intermediate slopes on Sunday.  She was barely using the snow plow aka “pizza” technique at all on Sunday.  I couldn’t be prouder of her.  It was awesome watching her progress while we were out there.  She is already talking about planning for next year.  It could not have gone any better if I had written a script. 

Beyond that, we skied some phenomenal mountains.  I had never skied Utah and now I am kicking myself for that.  at Canyons we got to ski some of the lightest and fluffiest powder I’ve ever encountered. 

All in all a great trip.  Probably the best vacation the two of us have taken together.  Here’s to many more ski trips together.

One should not drink an entire bottle of bourbon and expect to function the next day.

That is all.

Ps. I wrote this on my brand new Samsung Chromebook.  My wife is the bomb.com  Just don’t let her know  I feel that way.

So this may seem a little random, but whatever.  I grew up playing sports and am still involved in sports.  I keep seeing articles and stories that praise people for sportsmanship and I’m all for sportsmanship, but the stories that keep coming up don’t scream sportsmanship to me.  I’m not sure what it is, but I don’t like it.  Maybe I’m a bad sport.  I never thought so, but anything is possible I guess.  I’d love more thoughts on this.

Anyway, the story that prompted this was about a high school track runner who was running in district finals or something along those lines.  It was some sort of middle distance sprint like 200 or 400.  Anyway, this runner is in second to last place when she sees someone to her left or right come up lame and start limping down the track before falling to the ground.  So this healthy runner stops running and goes back and helps the fallen runner get back up and helps her to the finish line.  This person was getting applauded and the article I saw about this was talking about what great sportsmanship they displayed.

I could not disagree more in regard to calling this sportsmanship.  Was this a nice thing to do? Absolutely.  Would I have done it?  Not in a million years.  Here’s the thing for me.  Sports, and especially individual time based sports such as track are about competing and measuring yourself and working toward a goal and watching your hard work pay off in faster times and better finishes etc.  In a race like the district finals as this was unless you finish very well your season is over, so essentially everything that you and your coaches and teammates have worked on for months comes down to this race.  If someone gets hurt simply playing a sport and not as a result of a cheap or dirty play, that’s the risk you take in athletics.  Its not as though the runners would be doing multiple laps and this person could get hurt if not helped off the track.  As a fellow competitor this is not my responsibility to help you up.  I’ve worked hard for months to get to this point and if someone gets injured, that’s unfortunate, but it has NOTHING to do with me whatsoever.  I’m actually very surprised the runner had the awareness to even see that the injury happened.  If she was really running as hard as she could it seems that she wouldn’t have been aware of this and would have kept running. There are trained medical professionals on hand, if someone gets injured certainly be respectful and feel bad for them, but let those being paid to do so tend to the injured.

Part II of my issue with this that gets completely overlooked is this: while this race was an individual sport track itself also operates as a team sport.  Each individual’s finish counts as part of the team score.  As a former athlete, I feel you owe it to your teammates to do the best you possibly can.  By stopping to help this injured runner, not only are you cheating yourself out of an opportunity to see your hard work pay off and measure yourself against others (an opportunity that is rare once you get out of school and should be valued highly).  You are also cheating your teammates, the people you have worked with for months if not years toward a common goal.  These people counted on you and you turned your back on that in the name of “sportsmanship.”

In short, I don’t wish injuries on anyone, but I also feel that injuries are part of sports.  I’m not saying to taunt injured players like you play for the Detroit Lions, but rather continue playing and working for yourself, your coaches, and teammates.  As a competitor I’d never want someone on the other team to help me in this instance.  I do not want to be a charity case.  Either I can do it on my own merit or I can’t.  That is the essence of sports and competition. 

End rand.  I apologize for the long nature of this post and how convoluted the thinking may be.  Went with the whole stream of consciousness thing here.  I will try not to make a habit of it.

So my job has me out and spending a lot of time at gas stations and looking for real estate that is for sale and these two activities have lead me to two thoughts this week.

First, you would not believe the number of people who smoke at gas stations.  I get it people are bored waiting for their car to fill up, but people come on!!!  There is a hose shooting a river of highly flammable liquid into your car right now.  Not the best time to have glowing embers around.  It makes no sense to me, but it happens at almost every gas station I visit.  I will never understand this.  Wait the five minutes until you’re done and smoke all you want on the road to your next destination.

Second, I can’t wait for election season to be over.  Not for the reasons that most people feel this way. I am sick and tired of driving around and thinking I see some land for sale only to be let down by the fact the sign in the ground is not a for sale sign, but instead a campaign sign for someone running for mayor or coroner or sheriff.  What a tease!

In other news, today marks the beginning of back to back wedding weekends, neither in Atlanta.  Should be fun though.  We’ll see how I’m feeling during that long drive home on Sunday.  Also, these two weeks just happen to coincide with the Gators two biggest games of the season.  Don’t worry though, I’ll be repping the orange and blue at both weddings and sending good thoughts to the Gators.

I just love the fact that our neighbors are having a big project done in their backyard.  The equipment noise doesn’t bother me.  Unfortunately, the workmen walking around the yard that Bubbles can hear bother her quite a bit.  She keeps losing her mind barking at them, which in turn is causing me to lose my mind. 

Ah, the joys of working from home.