ASC Sprints

The day is done. I woke up early this morning to drive down to Truckee and then up to the summit for the auburn ski club sprints. I usually really like this race because it's fun and short and sunny, but today was not that fun. Today was a super stormy race, probably the stormiest I've ever raced in. I ended up racing on my zeros because I didn't want to bother testing wax, which isn't really a very professional thing to do, but whatever; I'm semi-pro. They were slow, but it was more my fault for not training well enough this summer, and not making the effort to race wax my skis. I ended up 13th and getting beat by many of the young juniors.

I'm wondering whether I want to make the journey up there again tomorrow if it's going to be snowing like it was today. I know I'll do better in a 10k race, but it's gotta be fun too.

I think the rest of the day I'll try to do some reading, writing and laundry.

-Gus

Rejection

I went through a lot of these feels when I didn't get into grad school at UAA, but it works with almost all the fear, and emotions we experience, when we get rejected or anxious about rejection.

The parts I really liked were: "The force of that regret cannot be applied to the past, only to the future, when you'll do it better next time", his distillation of the phrase "it was meant to be" to "it is", and the assertion that rejection is kind of awesome because it means you're trying.

He asks for advice for people dealing with rejection. I would strongly urge them to read the Art of Fielding (which I love to death) and pay close attention to Mike Schwartz.

Be Brave. Live.
-Gus

That up close kind of ache

The following are lyrics from The Monsters of Folk's "Map of the World":
Put the razor to your face/ hot water for a shave/ kill the shadow of yesterday.
Clean shirts, clean pants, clean slate, second chance/ you're going by another name.

I loved this song from the moment I heard it. It captures existential worries and feelings of stagnation so well. Not that I'm feeling those things at this moment, but whenever I do, this song is a comfort to me. I was shaving today and thinking about the lyrics to that song, so I decided to blog about it.

I heard once that people struggling with depression, self-esteem issues, or those going through some sort of trauma often try to exert some control over the world around them (which-in these instances- seems like the world is spiraling in a widening gyre). I notice that whenever I'm feeling that way I try to make a change to bring about that clean slate. It usually takes the form of controlling my appearance, i.e. shaving, not shaving, or getting a haircut.

Maybe that up close kind of ache he's talking about in the song is razor burn ;)

River Folk

Today we had some heavy rain. It wasn't your typical passing thunderstorm, which comes suddenly with a violent surge, but then passes on; leaving defeated-looking clouds and a hint of sunshine. We we've been under a slow siege it seems. It started with wind two days ago, and a gradual moistening, but yesterday we began to get rain. Today has been a constant near-freezing soak, which I think is in line with the siege analogy. From the looks of the weather report we may be in for a couple more days of cold rain, with snow appearing on the tail end of it all.

I needed to turn in some paperwork at the district office for ski coaching at the high school. Driven by necessity, I braved the drive down Highway 89 from Tahoe City to Truckee today despite the rain. Shortly after passing Squaw Valley I found myself being a distracted driver, constantly craning my neck to get a look as what the river was doing. I eventually pulled over to stand in the downpour and just watch. It made me pretty happy. It reminded me of a blog post I read a nearly 3 years ago by a friend, and "river family" member, who was equally enthralled by running water while volunteering in the Peace Corps in South Africa.

The Swollen Truckee

I have driven past this stretch of river dozens of times, if not hundreds, but it took the rain-swollen runoff today to make me appreciate it again. In my list of gratitudes this past Thanksgiving, rivers were not among the items. I'm adding them now.

Below are some pictures from the source at Lake Tahoe. While walking across the dam today, I learned that The Lake Tahoe Dam creates a reservoir 6.1 feet above the natural rim (the point at which the lake no longer empties into the Truckee river), creating an additional 744,000 acre feet of water to supply the Truckee Meadows Watershed. By regulation, the dam is required to supply at least a measly 50 cfs from October to March, and a meager 70 cfs from March to October.

Looking at the USGS data from today, The dam at Tahoe City was releasing 56 cfs and 20 miles downstream, in Truckee, they were reading 1,600 cfs. That was some rain we got today, folks.

Motivated

I'd like to start out with a congratulation to Karsten Hokanson, one of my two followers on this blog, for an awesome race yesterday at the season opener Supertour in West Yellowstone. He raced real fast, and it's obvious that all the hard work is paying off. Congrats to all of the Wasatch Nordic Academy, in fact.

Looking at the results from yesterday has gotten me super motivated. I know it's a little late in the game to be stoked on skiing and getting fast, but my goals are different than they used to be. I am no longer looking to be as fast as I once dreamed of being. Mostly, I just want to be the fast coach who still gives his athletes a run for their money.

Yesterday, riding the wave of motivation from staring endlessly at results lists, was the first day I had run in about 2.5 weeks. It's still very uncomfortable to run on my knee, and I had some swelling in it afterward, but I figure it will be good to give it a little stress to help in the recovery. I only ran for 40mins yesterday and did an additional  20mins before breakfast this morning. I'm going to try to consistently do a morning jog to help strengthen it. Plus I want to get in some secret training :)

Again, Congrats to Karsten and the crew. you guys rock.

-Gus

Thanksgiving

My ride today was so so so much fun, and it made me so happy. It's easy to forget how it feels to do something active, and how happy being active makes you. Now it's time for some great Fall food.

In all seriousness

On to some lighter things. I want to share some of the things I've been loving lately.

Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Sherlock
Hankgames

Thanks,

G-unit

Be Brave. Live.

I told you I loved you in a thrift store, and you didn't take it so well back then. You paused, didn't respond, and told me on the car ride back that you had to think about it, that it wasn't really the best time or place. Then things got bad, and we fought a lot. You, making me sad. And me, making you angry and hurt that you had to, couldn't help but, make me sad.  And eventually we made a deal to be friends; even shook on it by the railroad tracks. Put it there, pal. Friends. Which is what we were before, actually. And then, a few weeks later, when you were drunk and sitting next to me on a sidewalk, you told me you loved me too. And we walked back to my place, stopping traffic on the way to make out in the intersection.

Then it was long distance and we didn't want to do "this" anymore. And secretly I was relieved because this relationship was hardly ever public. We were both hiding it in case it didn't work out. But we were always volatile, secretive, and tenuous in the best of circumstances, you and me.

After all this time I want to say that I'm still glad I said it, even amid the second-hand jeans and cheap DVDs, because it was pretty brave to love you.

---

What it's like to be cheated on:
Well first of all, it sucks. like totally sucks. like, really, totally, sucks.
Then you feel stupid and worthless for not knowing, and knowing all along, and wishing that there was something you could've done. Knowing how stupid it is to think that thought, but thinking it all the same. feeling the blame.

And then, like Emily Dickinson said, "after great pain a formal feeling comes" and you simply distance yourself from it. Like the distance you feel in meeting a stranger, saying, "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Collins."

---

Both of those things are stories. Just that: stories; short snapshots of a situation. I've posted them in an effort to just be honest with "who I am" as a person who writes. So, even though they came out of my head, I don't want people prying into it too far to find the innermost secrets of my psyche. I'm way more than a couple sad-sack blog posts, and I hope that you know that. I just heard an interview with Ben Gibbard on NPR's World Cafe in which he talked about from where his best writing comes. He hinted that even when your topic is dark, sad, or personal it doesn't mean that you are a dark, sad, or deeply secretive person. He finds separation from it when he writes. I like that. He phrased it in terms of being "up" and "down", but it spoke to me more in terms of authorial control, and this is part of the reason I posted those entries.

The other reason is that I've been struggling to publish stuff recently, even before I was inspired to write this blog by Charlie McDonnel. Take Facebook for instance. I've become increasingly worried about who will see posts, and if they'll like it. I'm worried that the relationships I have will be changed because I post something political, or that I'm sharing too much. I'm worried it's annoying those that I respect. This feeling is part of a want to be able to control your perception of me through the things I share. It's terrifying to put things -and your self- out there for the fear that you will judge me. I know how cliche that sounds, but it's true, and that's why it became a cliche in the first place. It once had truth and was powerful enough to become disseminated to the point of exhaustion.

Also, I don't want any of the "be yourself" bullshit that people always offer in situations like this. Because who the hell am I, anyway? I don't know. I've been making it all up as I go. I think we all do.

It's possible the solution, and a better way to go about this situation, is with the "fuck it" mentality. Please excuse the vulgarity, but if I'm worried about posting a pro-Obama facebook status, writing something sad, loving somebody who might not love me back-- well, fuck it.

But that mentality doesn't take into account the real impacts of audience. Putting the self you're creating out there for other people changes things in a real and tangible way. You no longer have control over how it's going to be perceived, which is both unfair and a reality we have to deal with. I have plenty of friends whom I love and respect whom I don't want to upset, or have think less of me because of carelessness in their construction of me. I know that I struggle with it too, but it's hard to give people the complexity that you garner for yourself. It's hard to imagine other people's feelings as as real and immediate as your own because we don't get to experience everything they experience. When I interact with someone, whether it's on the internet, phone, or in person, I'm allowing them to create their own version of me inside their heads, largely without my permission. And what if they get it wrong, misconstrue it? It worries me and I try to manipulate the way in which they see me in order to reflect the way I want to be seen. Does that make me manipulative or sensitive to other people's perceptions.

In trying to grapple with this issue of the right balance between reservation and expression, I'm finding it hard not to speak in cliches: "we all feel this", "we all do that", but I think I may have stumbled upon a few truths which I'm trying to adopt now. And out of it I've found a new mantra: Be Brave. Live. It's premised on the fact that we feel lonely inside our heads, but are scared to let our thoughts be witnessed. The way I see it, being scared is far preferable to being lonely. You can grow comfortable being scared, but loneliness will continue to gnaw at you until there isn't much left to share.

So, that's my advice.
Be brave. Live. It is preferable to be scared and do it anyway, than to be confined to the loneliness of creating for no-one. Don't be like Emily, whom I quoted earlier, and whom created only for herself, but by some lucky chance of ours we got to witness it anyway. Create your self , and for yourself, but share it.

This has been a response to Charlieissocoollike, Hank Green, Ze Frank, and Micheal Aranda:

Summit Sunday So Far and it's future

Hey there,

I'm here to talk about a project I've been working on for the past four months. Some of you must have seen it on facebook and instagram. It's incredible that it has been four months since I started this initiative on a whim, and out of boredom, with my buddy Preston. It is equally weird to call it a project, since it's just something I do, but I guess like most things- it grows in the doing of the thing. Another friend Nick suggested that #summitsunday become a coffee table book, and I think that that would be a very good goal for the future of this silly thing I've been doing, but I can't go to a publisher with a few photos and say "sign me" so here's the plan.

I'll be starting a blog called #summitsunday which will be the official home of the initiative.

Goals

I love goal setting. Almost as much as, and possibly more than, accomplishing the goals themselves. There's so much exciting optimism in setting goals for yourself. Here are a few I set today:

Read These Cover To Cover.

Practice 7 Hours a Week

Train Like You Mean It!

Don't Forget About Grad School.

Listening to Wasting Time.

Update on Life

in an effort to write more I will be posting again. I know I always say that, but here is something to read if you've lost touch with what I'm up to this year. I like having a blog that nobody reads because I can post things on here without worrying that I'm spamming my facebook friends with attention seeking internet attention-whore stuff.

It's been a while and I figured I'd write an update. Lets just start out by saying that I had high hopes of being really fit this summer and I definitely didn't get the training in that I had hoped for. Beach life does that to you, especially when you don't have a Swiss boy to chase around and motivate with. here's a look at my summer so far.

Point O Woods and the Grand Canyon were both part of another good summer with all things considered. 

The Grand Canyon trip went really well. I forget how much I like it down there. Life is just simpler, and you kind of get into a rhythm. I remember looking forward to getting off of the trip around day 12 of 16, but now I miss it. I felt like I had good runs where it mattered (I nailed it in Lava, probably best run of our trip that day). We had 1 flip and 1 hole punched in a dory, both were committed by the trip leader. The flip happened in Horn Creek, which is the first rapid after the Phantom Ranch passenger exchange. It's gotta be crazy to be a passenger at this point. Basically people hike down from the rim, meet us on the shore, have lunch, and then get in the boats to run one of the biggest rapids in the canyon. We give them a brief safety talk of course, but they have no clue what they're really getting into on that day. The ding that cracked a hole in the boat happened at Lava Falls.

It's eerie approaching Lava. First, you haven't had any real rapids for a couple of days. There's this strange feeling because you visit some spectacular side attractions in the days leading to Lava, but the absence of rapids on those days makes you wonder what's around the bend. Next, there's a lot of worry about catching the river at the right water fluctuation. We camped about 10 miles above Lava the night before, and did a lot of calculating to make sure that we got there at the right time of day when we would be expecting to be on the low water from 2 days previous (it is so weird that we were far enough away from the dam to be floating on yesterday's releases). But I'd say the scariest thing about approaching Lava is coming to Vulcan's Anvil which marks 1 mile from the rapid. Here you get an ominous looking volcanic rock in the middle of the river reminding you that Lava Falls was formed because of a lava flow which dammed up the river momentarily (geologically speaking). We scouted the run and ran it all together in-stead of running in groups so that people could see each others runs. I was glad to get it over with and didn't want to have to sit on the shore being nervous any more. All I remember about the trip leader's boat wreck was seeing her disappear below my horizon and hearing a load thud. I then saw her again after the rapid pulled onshore with the other wood boats. I guess she was too tight on the hole we were supposed to clip the corner of at the top and ended up catching a piece of the chine on the rock that formed the hole. We had the whole trip pull the boat up on shore and had the bow up in the air on a inflatable tube, while the other dory boatman mixed up some epoxy from the repair kit. nothing too major though, just a small crack in the foot well. We camped soon after that and broke out the tequila.

All in all a great trip. The water was clear in May. I had never seen it like that. We also had really good whether. Typically in spring there is some pretty stiff wind in the afternoons, but it wasn't bad at all.

Now on to NY. It didn't have the magic that it had last year, and that was probably a combination of things. I think I was more used to how things ran on the island, and I also had more work to do with both the sports field and the teens. I did more sailing this year and am happy about that. I got to go out on a boat a few times, and I know a few more knots that I think will come in handy on the river too. I also tried to stay true to my mountain roots by enacting a little project I called "summit sunday". Maybe you've seen the pics on facebook, but I decided it was my duty as a mountain man to get on top of something in that flat-land each Sunday. I had to get creative.

Right now I'm in SLC living at my parent's for a bit, looking for work. I just got done working on a fence with my dad, but I'm looking for something else maybe a little more permanent to do (maybe something eco/conservation oriented. That or ski coaching, of course!). I have an interview for an internship with the Utah River's Council, but I think it's only for fall, and I'm not sure it is paid. I've got a buddy who has offered me a room to live in here, but I don't want to accept until I know what I want to do next. I've also been toying with the idea of a move to Tahoe. I'd love to be in Tahoe City doing something environmental and skiing my guts out, but I don't know where to start looking and am not quite brave enough to just move out there without a job lined up. We'll just have to see I guess.

I turn 24 on Tuesday and my mom defends her dissertation for a PhD in disabilities studies on Thursday, so next week will be a big one. We're looking forward to celebrating at our family cabin that weekend.

Okay, I think I've begin to ramble, time to go,

G-unit

Some Passions Can Never Be Tamed

Please forgive me for claiming old age in the paragraph below, I am an old soul at heart. I also think my nostalgia is being influenced by my recent reading of Cormac McCarthy's "All The Pretty Horses".

I saw on John Green's twitter that Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer be printing volumes of their encyclopedia, due mainly to internet competition. you can read an article about it here:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/13/technology/encyclopedia-britannica-books/?hpt=hp_t2

After hearing the news, I found myself conflicted and full of that dangerous fondness for the past. Is it strange that I want a volume now, and that a small part of me hopes for a future in which the gearwheels of electronic media come to a rust-filled, grinding halt. Is it wrong to hope for collapse? I feel assured of my nostalgia, and that it is a sign of my aging, when the word "newfangled" no longer slides to the front of my brain as a funny word, used half-ironically because of its quirkiness, but that now it feels right. And it feels right to hold a book in your hand, looking at it, knowing where it came from and how it might have been made. I don't know what happens to country, but I know there's none of it for old men.

G-unit

Superstition

A Far West Senior Team Blog Post
http://farwestnordic.org/seniorblog/2012/02/superstitious-snow/

Bummer

A Far West Farm Team Blog entry
http://farwestnordic.org/seniorblog/2012/02/its-not-spring-and-its-not-fall/

Jaunito's Fiesta Bag of Tortilla Chips

"There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration." -David Foster Wallace


Having been out of college for nearly three months, I am starting to understand what he meant in that quote. I know that three months isn't nearly enough to really get it, but I can at least imagine it from the taste of the real world I've had. I was a little depressed during the first few weeks of being out of school, and I'm just now feeling able to talk about it. I've settled into a new schedule of working, commuting, and reading for fun. I wanted to share the beginnings of a journal entry I wrote last December:

Jaunito's Fiesta Bag of Tortilla Chips
I've graduated, but it's not much of a party at the kitchen table on this late December day. No snow. no work. Just a couple bananas with brown spots and a bottle of wine. I'm feeling older too, but not in the expectant and "mature" way you feel on the threshold of 18 and 21. now 23, but slowly rounding on 24 and sitting here, stains on my sweater, a novel propped open with one hand, shoveling chip after chip in with the other hand because the salsa's too hot to stop. When the party is over, I'll loaf back to bed.

Thinking Back to December, I'm wondering about the nature of nostalgia. I wonder if it's only when the future weighs heavily upon us that we escape by looking back fondly upon the past, to the glory days. It's an escapism on par with the kind people seek in drugs, or exercise, or work, or literature. But, like the john Green said in Looking for Alaska, there's also a kind of nostalgia in imagining the future. I think we get too caught up in where we were and where we're going, and both are dangerous because we forget to live in the present (wow that sounded cliche). The universe demands to be noticed, so I've decided to be okay with where I am right now, graduated and living in Reno, and feeling things as they demand to be felt.

G-span

Welcome Home

Welcome Home

A Farm Team blog post

Trains

Thanksgiving weekend
my first train ride home.


The station: Just what I imagined.coffered ceilings, pine benches, a giant clock, and a mural depicting an adolescent version of a western town


The train's motion: oddly like rafting down the river. where's the engine? better write that down.

The old people in the seats a couple rows back: Idle-old-people-gossip and a peculiar fluid friendlness with strangers. envious. determined to practice social skills with passengers at dinner. what's the right amount of eye contact.

The train bore me inexorably onward and the light faded through my window, as it fades in all places.\

asked the first official-looking person who walked past when the last time a train robbery occurred. He looked at me from over the top of his spectacles with the expression, "dude, I just punch the tickets and collect the trash", and said, "I dunno, maybe when the trains started getting faster than the horses."

When I arrived in SLC the mountains were silhouettes. The only distinct boarder was the ridge-line between the earth and sky, and I tried to remember what the foothills looked like.
  
In SLC there were lots of old friends and old jokes. I won the fastest "resident" of Cottonwood Heights in the 5k turkey trot. We had Thanksgiving dinner like we used to before I was away at ski camps every year. There were so many "it was good to see you"s and a couple of "it was nice to meet you"s which felt genuine.

But the trip's over, and I'd best be getting back.

Read donne's words on parting: Though I must go, endure not yet a breech but an expansion, like gold to airy thinness beat.
all this travelling has me feeling like copper to under penny thickness beat beneath the wheels of a train

They're not cut-offs!

In the spirit of Kim Jong-Il looking at things I wanted to share with you all the pictures I could find of me wearing my favorite pair of Patagonia Baggies. I've decided to dispel all of the rumors and tell you that they are not jorts or cut-offs or in any way made of denim. I also thought it was too easy to upload every picture of these shorts, and have opted to only feature pictures taken on separate occasions (one picture= one day) and pics where the baggies are featured prominently

Lower Salmon 2011. "Strapping"

Grand Canyon 2010. "Who needs nature when you can pose in front of people in nature"

Grand Canyon 2010 eminence camp. "Accessorizes Well With Shoulder Bag"

Redwall Cavern 2010. "Not Off The Ground"

Dorm Room 2008. "Dorm Daze"

Confluence of Snake and Salmon River 2011. "Captain"

Mt Tallac 2011. "lightweight and durable: these baggies will give you wings"

Fire Island 2011. "Bay Watch"

Fire Island 2011. "Epic Fail"

Holiday, Utah 2010 "5k of looking good"

Reno IM Field 2010. "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other"

San Francisco 2009. "Reno 911: Gay Cops on Exchange"

4 blocks plus the one in my brain

I'd like to preface this poem by saying that I was struck by a line from Elliott Smith's Needle in the Hay which goes "gonna walk, walk, walk... four more blocks plus the one in my brain," and I wondered what that might mean. This poem has little to do with the song other than it borrows the title and the image of a needle in a haystack. The longer a poem is for me, the more I feel like it isn't a poem anymore and more like a disorganized ramble. I'm working to lengthen this poem and get more in there without it feeling weird. As always, comments and criticism are welcome.

Four Blocks (plus the one in my brain)
 
Two pieces of tiny dangling silver,
like the flint and stone of jealousy, hung upon each lobe;
which in turn drove him from the bar to the alley,
and across the four city blocks
back to a lonely bed.

Two needles in the hay, come to surface unexpectedly
to prick his ears for a woman taken for granted.
It wasn't the new guy that bothered him, but this which he kept repeating on the 5th block home:
"she was wearing earrings.
she hardly ever wears earrings."


Currently listening to Coldplay's "yellow" and a live Fleet foxes show streaming on youtube from Austin City Limits

Graduation

As it is that time of year again, I thought I might take just a minute to think about the value of education. Is there real value to what we do while sitting in class? Right now my head is spinning with a mixture of literary criticism and organic reaction mechanisms as we approach final exams, so it is quite impossible for me to express my views on education as pointedly or insightfully (which Firefox is telling me is not a word) as I would like, but I'll give it a try.


I will admit I am taking the easy route and simply quoting somebody else when I say that the value in education is awareness, and that a real education is not about acquired knowledge but about consciously choosing what to think about. I've summarized David Foster Wallace here (may he rest in peace), so I might as well give you the whole thing. Here is his commencement speech he gave to Kenyon College for the class of 2005. It is one of my favorites. It is kind of long for most casual observers, but anybody getting a liberal arts degree should hear it or read it. It's called "This is Water"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5THXa_H_N8&feature=related (part 1)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSAzbSQqals&feature=related (part 2)

One of my goals upon coming to college was to "figure out a good answer for 'What do you do with an English Major?'. You know, one that puts both my chemical engineer grandfather and my diet-coke-drinking-Mary-Kay-makeup-saleswoman aunt Connie in their place." -as I wrote in my scholarship application which you can read here:
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=1558500071#!/note.php?note_id=150171138893 

for me, "This is Water" is the answer to that question; you consciously choose what to think about.