Too Close For Comfort

My dad recently took a trip to visit me here in Minneapolis. As I played host, part of my job detail was that of driver and tour guide, shuffling around the city by car. On more than one occasion my dad stiffened his back, put his hands forward and said "look out!", right before I hit the brakes. The first time it happened I figured that he was just a little nervous, but I started to think about it more seriously after it happened again. Was his eyesight going? Does he not trust my driving? Was he developing some anxious schitzoaffective tic that only manifests itself in the car? While all of these are probable, I started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, it was me to blame. Was I actually driving too close? Am I a tailgater?

The diagnosis of a tailgater is a hard one to swallow, and I'm still in partial denial. Us tailgaters have the utmost confidence in our ability to "see the road". We can whip around cars at a moments notice, brake on a dime, and we possess a preternatural understanding of traffic patterns. I'm not a tailgater! I'm just a superior driver!

But if I am a tailgater, which I'm not completely admitting to, where did this come from? Neither of my parents are, so unless it's a recessive trait, then my DNA is not to blame. Maybe it was born out of experience: some deep psychological scar that I have repressed for years that surfaces in the form of my driving habits.

And then I remembered Arthur.

My high school summer job was at the local Chevrolet Dealership. The job that I applied for was "car transporter", and the job that I got was "lot boy". Where the prior is the dream job of a car-coveting high school male, the latter involves sweeping up the shop, taking out the trash, and cleaning the interior of leather cars that have been cooking in the midday sun. While the dealership was happy to have a minimum-wage lot boy, they knew enough to let me drive a car around once in a while to keep my spirits up. On my first transport trip I met Arthur.

Arthur had the droopy sun-beaten tough skin of a man who was once bulky with muscle. There was a large faded tattoo of an anchor on his left forearm that he made sure to display by always having his sleeves rolled all the way up. There was always a pack of smokes in his T-shirt breast pocket and he sported some sort of gold-plated orthodontic work. He never went anywhere without his NAVY ball cap that he displayed proudly, precariously placed on top of his head, two-sizes too small. His life story was an incomprehensible cluster of gambling, failed marriages, glorified "good days", and, of course, the Navy. I can still picture him now, rolling onto the lot with the company transportation van, left arm hanging out the open window proudly displaying the tattoo, gold tooth glinting in the sun.

Our paths crossed when I was sent on my first mission to drop a car off at the auction. The operation was simple enough: I would drive said car, alongside Arthur in his van down to the auction, and then we would ride back together. Not only was I allowed whip around in a car, but it also meant that for at least a couple of hours I WASN'T cleaning the bathroom. It was a win-win.

I can't remember what kind of car I drove, but I can only assume it was some POS that my boss had shined and buffed and would sell at an inflated price to some sap who gets excited at the look of his own reflection in the side panels. But as a kid without my own car, I could have been driving a rusted-out Yugo as long as the wind flew in the window and the gas pedal responded to my foot.

Before we left the lot, Arthur got out of his car and waddled up to me. "Stay close to me" he barked. And then he put his fingers up in the pinching position, showing me the distance he wanted between his rear bumper and the front of mine. "Sounds good" I said, and we set off. But stoplights and cars got in my way, and after five minutes there were two cars between us. I could see his van just fine, and when he pulled onto the freeway, I jumped right back in behind him. Order was restored. I wasn't worried.

And then be pulled over. Not in a driveway, side road, or even the breakdown lane of the freeway. He pulled over on the one-lane on-ramp. I pulled over behind him, hoping the poor guy wasn't having a heart attack. As cars honked and flew by us, Arthur got out of his car and began walking back along the road towards my car. I rolled down my window as he got closer. He held his fingers up again, showing me the distance that I clearly did not understand the first time and then he unflinchingly shouted above the roar of engines, wind, and horns flying only inches past him, "When I say this close, I mean THIS CLOSE".

Well, I followed him pretty damn closely after that. As a 16-year old kid, when a tattooed, gold-toothed war vet tells you to do something that loudly, you do it. For the rest of the trips that summer, if I was following Arthur, I was living on his bumper. There was no distance too close, no stop sign that could come between us.

Osama

You know, I hate to be the kill-joy devil's advocate, but I can't say that happiness was the first emotion that ran through me when I heard about Osama bin Laden's death. In fact I'm a little weirded out by the smiles of joy pasted across many of my fellow American's faces.

Now look. I know this guy did terrible, atrocious, unspeakable acts of violence. I understand this. And no, I don't live in New York, and I luckily didn't know anyone who died on 9/11. So please excuse what could be construed as emotional and patriotic detachment. I also wish the best and safest for the Americans who are serving abroad right now. I am a safe blogger because you are doing the dangerous work. That is the truth, and my beef is higher up than you. There are no bullets whizzing by the men who make the real decisions. There are no mortar blasts killing their friends and keeping them awake at night, shooting into the darkness. So please come home well. Thank you, truly.

And yes, I am American. And I did feel the vulnerable and soul-crushing collapse of security and confidence as the World Trade Center buildings collapsed almost ten years ago. I saw the faces of New Yorkers on CNN, covered in ash and fear, scrambling away from rubble and rolling clouds of death. I've seen the footage of workers jumping from their windows, out of the frying pan and into the fire, so that death would at least be on their terms. That day will forever be burned into my memory, and I STILL can't watch a documentary about the purported struggle on United flight 93 because the emotions are too real and raw.

Was Osama bin Laden responsible for this? Yes. And to that effect, he should be held accountable. But where does joy enter into the equation? Where does happiness? His death, if anything, should bring about a somber measure of closure to this grueling war of attrition we have been fighting on "terror". A collective sigh of relief.

If nothing else, I felt sad when I heard the news. In the complex game that is American foreign policy, the best we could do ended up being eye-for-an-eye Pashtun justice, with the same narrow-minded dogmatism of our enemies. We have responded to death with death, and I don't see any joy in that. I see retribution. I see the cold and calculated final balancing of a spreadsheet.

And what has this cost us? Where do we go from here has a country? Have the billions upon billions of dollars footed by taxpayers that have funded this international manhunt been worth it? There's no way of knowing. But it's hard not to wonder what would have been if that money was used elsewhere. It's hard not to think what our federal deficit would be right now if we hadn't taken the bait and plunged our resources into the middle east.

And now as a country we stand waist deep in the Afghanistan quagmire, one arm in Iraq, another in Pakistan, and our credit card is reaching its limit. Its hard not to say that this manhunt for the white whale has bested us. That's why I'm sad.

Literary Analysis: Bottoms Up

I would like to introduce you to what I hope will be a recurring trend of literature analysis posts. The popular "pop" music of a culture is known as the barometer of the times. It speaks from the undercurrent of the communal psyche, and echoes the slippery ephemeral zeitgeist. Those who have their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist represent the diamond in the rough. Let me introduce you to one of our culture's literary genius's. Trey Songz (feat. Niki Minaj). I'll add my critique and analysis after the most poignant verses. Enjoy.

[Intro]

Yeah

Oh oh it's Mr. Steal Yo Girl

Oh oh it's Mr. Steal Yo Girl oh oh

Let's go

-Mr. Songz starts off this piece with a recantation emphasizing the importance of his good looks. He subtly underscores this by letting you know that your girlfriend would also agree.

[Chorus: Trey Songz]

Bottoms up, bottoms up, ey, what's in ya cup

Got a couple bottles, but a couple ain't enough

Bottoms up, bottoms up, throw your hands up

Tell security we bout to tear this club up

Bottoms up, bottoms up, pocket full of green

Girl, you know I love the way you shake it in them jeans

Bottoms up, bottoms up, throw ya hands up

Bottoms up, bottoms up, bottoms up (up, up)

-Like the viking cultures before us, Mr. Songz echoes the chant of imbibing. He wants to know what is in your cup. He also advises that two bottles aren't sufficient, highlighting the importance of planning ahead in hard times like this. It also pleases him the way that the listener shakes her butt.

[Verse 1: Trey Songz]

You know what it is girl, we back up in this thang

Money stay in my pocket, girl, I'm like a walkin' bank

Tell me whatcha drank, tell me whatcha thank

If I go get these bottles, we go alcohol insane

Callin' all the girls, do you hear me?

All around the world, city to city

Cheers to the girls, throw a deuce to the guys

Now I got a chicken and a goose in the ride

Gettin' loose in the ride

Hatin' ass nigga you can move to the move to the move to the side

-Mirroring the financial crisis where banks have been reluctant to give out loans, so too is Mr. Songz. Be responsible, he says. Be prudent. He is still asking what you are drinking, and also wondering if you can hear him. Something about farm animals. The music is played at high decibels in dancing clubs, so he repeats many verses. Many times over. Just in case you didn't hear them the first time.

[Chorus: Trey Songz]

Bottoms up, bottoms up, ey, what's in ya cup

Got a couple bottles, but a couple ain't enough

Bottoms up, bottoms up, throw your hands up

Tell security we bout to tear this club up

Bottoms up, bottoms up, pocket full of green

Girl, you know I love the way you shake it in them jeans

Bottoms up, bottoms up, throw ya hands up

Bottoms up, bottoms up, bottoms up (up, up)

-Again, pockets are still full of green.

[Verse 2: Trey Songz]

My vision's blurred, my words slurred

Its jam packed, a million girls

And I ain't tryin to lead em

We drunk so let me be your alcohol hero

Callin' all the girls, do you hear me?

All around the world, city to city

Cheers to the girls, throw a deuce to the guys

Now I got a chicken and a goose in the ride

Gettin' loose in the ride

Hatin ass nigga you can move to the move to the move to the side

-His voice is slurred, which lets the patient listener know why he needs to repeat himself so much. By only changing the first part of verse 1, Mr. Songz illuminates the deep parody of "efficiency" in this copy-and-paste world. 

[Chorus: Trey Songz]

Bottoms up, bottoms up, ey, what's in ya cup...

-Freakin' again with the bottoms up.

[Nicki Minaj]

Yo, could I get that 'Tron*? 

*80's entertaining movie about the cyber-reality

Could I get that Remmy*?

*80's entertaining crime series "Remington Steel" starring Pierce Brosnan

Could I get that Coke*?

*80's form of nasal entertainment

Could I get that Henny?

Could I get that margarita on the rock rock rocks?

Could I get that salt all around that rim rim rim rim?

Trey, I was like "Yo Trey"

Do you think you could buy me a bottle of Rose'?

-This ironic comment shows the importance of paying attention. The more attentive listeners will remember that the money "Stay in [his] pocket, girl". Nicki, like the rest of us, will have a hard time getting a bottle of Rose'.

Okay, lets get it now

I'm with a bad bitch he's with his friends

I don't say "Hi", I say "Keys to the Benz"

Keys to the Benz? Keys to the Benz!

Muhfuckin right yeah, weed to the 10

If a bitch try to get cute Imma sock her

Throw a lotta money at her then yell fucka, fucka, fucka,

Then yell fucka.

Then Imma go get my Louisville Slugger

Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm really such a lady

I rep Young Money

You know Slim, Baby?

And we be doin' donuts while we wavin' the .380

We give a lotta money to the babies out in Haiti

Yellin all around the world,

Do you hear me? Do you like my body?

Anna Nicki

Rest in peace to Anna Nicole Smith

Yes, my dear, you're so explosive

Say hi to Mary, Mary and Joseph

Now bottoms up and double my dosage

-The name Nicki "Minaj" indicates the French correlation to "minaj-a-trois", AKA the holy triumvirate, which is hinted at in her line about Mary and Joseph of biblical fame. Her deep religious convictions are also shown by her philanthropy to those in Haiti, as well as throwing a lot of money at a cute girl and yelling "fucka, fucka, fucka." Then yelling "fucka" one last time.

[Chorus: Trey Songz]

Bottoms up, bottoms up, ey, what's in ya cup

Got a couple bottles, but a couple ain't enough

Bottoms up, bottoms up, throw your hands up

Tell security we bout to tear this club up

Bottoms up, bottoms up, pocket full of green

Girl, you know I love the way you shake it in them jeans

Bottoms up, bottoms up, throw ya hands up

Bottoms up, bottoms up, bottoms up (up, up)

Bottoms up, Bottoms up, Bottoms up, Bottoms up, Bottoms up

-The music must be really loud. Bottoms up people. Bottoms up. How can you not after listening to this song?

I just finished "Where Men Win Glory" by John Krakauer. It's a non-fiction journalistic novel about Pat Tillman; the man who left the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army post 9/11. In truth, I wasn't crazy about the idea of reading this book. I had just finished "Into the Wild" and a friend recommended Glory in passing. I'm not much of a war horse, and I certainly don't like reading about self-important football players with a gun fetish. There wasn't much in this guys history that piqued my interest. But I respected Krakauer's judgment in choosing a character to write about. There is an element to Krakauer's work that echoes my own sentiment of curiosity and wonder. Mostly, I identify with his dogged pursuit of truth and understanding.

So I picked up the novel, which chronicled the the intertwining story-lines of Afghanistan's recent history and the life story of Patrick Tillman.

As each chapter unfolded, it became evident as to why Krakauer chose Tillman as his subject. He was a jock, but he wasn't a meat head. He was confident, but he wasn't cocky. He was well-read, but he wasn't pretentious. And he was absolutely fearless. The more I read, the more I started to realize that not only was I sympathizing with Tillman, but I was actually wanting to become him. Through the lens of the novel, Tillman was unafraid to speak his mind, whenever, wherever he may be. Lined up with other new troops in front of the drill sergeant just prior to signing his commitment papers to the Army, he barked back for being given contradicting orders "Hey, you're confusing everybody. Besides, you're treating us like assholes, and we haven't even signup up to be treated like assholes yet." After a shouting match ensued, Tillman and the sergeant almost came to blows before being separated. In no lesser terms, he was the dude.

Tillman was incredibly stubborn, but never maliciously. His set of values were always changing, and always up for discussion, but if there was one thing he wouldn't put up for it was bullshit. If you were around Tillman, you could say what you meant, defend your opinions, and enjoy a deep conversation.

It's clear which side of the isle Krakauer sits, as he lambastes the Army along with the Bush administration with convincing facts and rhetoric alike. The language dips into acerbic at points, but it's hard not to share Krakauer's emotional pointedness. The story of Tillman is one of the most moving and emotionally taxing I have ever read. The fact that he was killed by friendly fire was terrible, but the insult that the army administered to his family afterward was tenfold worse. The tragic loss of his character, honesty, and strength was heightened by the ineptitude of lesser men that sat above him. Far lesser men. And the perseverance and strength that his remaining family displayed after his death is no less than heroic.

It's a good book, go read it. You'll understand more about what the war in Afghanistan means, more about America's involvement in the war on terror, and more importantly you'll understand more about what it means to live a good life, a life of purpose.

Of course, Hollywood already has the rights to his story:

Self-Destructive Saturday

The title really says it all. Actually, hold on. Let me grab a beer.

Thats better.

If it's going to be a self-destructive Saturday, there damn well better be a beer involved.

Ok, so the title is a little dramatic. I'm not really self destructive today. I just wasn't very productive. And in this fast paced, broadband-speed, micro-managing, iPod shuffle, instant get-ification, credit card fueled, frenetic world we live in, it feels like if you aren't making leaps and bounds towards the end goal of your dreams then you are falling behind. Today felt like one of those days. I actually really like my iPod shuffle. I didn't mean to lump you in with micro-managing. Sorry shuffle.

I blame my non-productive day on a couple of things:

1) A stupid migraine. About once, maybe twice a year I get a very minor (stupid) migraine. For those who get blinding vomit-inducing migraines that force them into a curtain-drawn room for the better part of a week, I apologize. That sounds terrible. If you have the Hulk Hogan of migraines, I have the Peewee Herman of cranial discomfort. It doesn't have the strength to bend a steel pipe into the shape of a rabbit, but it does have the shrill unsettling tenor of a man who speaks one octave too high and exposes himself to children.

Are you ready for photophobia?

I was taking an MCAT practice test this morning when I noticed the faint aura appear in my left field of vision.  Like an old neighbor you didn't want to see again, wrapping on your window while you are in the middle of your favorite movie. Crap. Of all the times to get a migraine, taking a practice test is one of the more inconvenient. Taking the real test, of course would be far worse, and I would rather not think about that situation for the sake of my blood pressure. I'm pretty sure my headache this morning was due to chronic over-caffeination, and I have the refrigerator pack of Red Bull to prove it.

Per usual, the aura (imagine the after effect of staring at the sun for a moment) was a small linear segment off to my left, but I knew it was on the move. If history could be learned from, the spot would grow in size and migrate across my field of vision. This means that I am now racing the aura. I needed to finish 20 minutes of reading comprehension before that sneaky little bastard is dead center in front of me and I can't see anything that I'm looking at.

The problem is, I'm already rushing myself on what I consider the hardest section of the MCAT. It doesn't help that I have a clock in the corner of the screen reminding me that I'm a slow-ass reader, but now I have a biological detonating wick crawling its way across whatever I look at. Great. I didn't end up doing well on that section. And the pot at the end of the rainbow, the reward for watching the phantasm inch its way rightward for the better part of an hour, is a hangover-like headache that lasts a few hours.

2) I said that there were multiple things to blame for my non-productive day of so-called self destruction, but I can't think of another legitimate excuse. I gave myself plenty of time to think of one while describing my headache with unnecessary detail. Oh wait! I've got one.

3) Random re-arranging day! That's right. Every blue moon (which happens about twice a year) something magical happens. I will be innocently cleaning around the house when I notice an object out of place. So I move it. But it doesn't look good there. So I put it somewhere else. And then I think, well damn, it would look really good sitting over there. But of course, there is something in its way. That means I need to move that other thing. And then find a better place for it. This means moving something ELSE out of it's precious little niche. After about an hour, I have all of the furniture on the front lawn, and I'm staring at an empty living room trying to visualize the best place for a crooked IKEA lamp. Hi. My name is Oliver and I have a re-arranging sickness.

So the house is spotless. Completely re-arranged, but spotless. My poor MCAT knowledge has not progressed with the light-speed evolution that I had planned for. I promise that tomorrow will be a new day. Self-CONSTRUCTIVE Sunday I'll call it! Oh what a day this will be.

Another hour before midnight means that I have time for one more beer though...

Radiation (don't use your bananaphone!)

Via MB

The Birkie (26-50K)

"In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, 

hitting the wall or the bonk describes a condition
caused by the depletion of glycogenstores 

in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself

 by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy."

Throughout the first half of the Birkie (see post below), my eyes were open. I was experiencing the race. I was enjoying the people watching. But as I crossed the halfway mark, my field of vision began to simplify. I didn't glance over at skiers beside me, or look as ambitiously for gaps in the crowd. Because of that, it was hard to tell exactly what happened when, but the series of events roughly fell into this order:


28K-
My legs were getting incrementally more sore with each uphill. At first I only felt a deep burn on a steep pitch, but now even slight incines would send signals to my brain that politely said "Excuse me, I'm not sure if you noticed, but we're getting a little tired down here". I needed a new game plan. The first goal would be to get as much glycogen into my body as possible. This meant that every feed stop would warrant a banana, and a power drink. My legs were out of carbohydrate stores, and the lactic acid from the anaerobic energy production was beginning to pulse through my veins. Literally. The only energy that I could give my muscles from here on forward would be directly via the gut.
   It was at about this time that I also took a mental inventory of my body. My legs were aching, but I knew they still had some extra reserve in them. My arms, on the other hand, felt great. My lungs and heart also felt just fine. So a new plan was hatched. The classic tracks that ran along the side of the track were slick and fast. If I double poled along the gradual downhills and tucked the steeper declines, I can save a TON of work from my legs, and nearly keep the same pace.
    I set the plan in action. I haven't bonked yet, and I'm determined to salvage what's left of this race.

29K-
I'm passed for the first time by another skier. He's another wave 5-er like myself. I hear him coming up from behind me and turn my head to see who's making the charge. "Good job man!" he says "I've been following you the whole time". I think he meant it to be a compliment, but I can't help but feel like I just paved the way for this guy's race.
"I'm just about done" I say, feeling like I need to give him an excuse. I let him by me. The competitive side of me growls.
"I know what you mean" he says.

But I can tell he doesn't.

I don't even contemplate sticking with him. He moves up the pack, which is finally starting to thin out at this point. I tuck as much as possible on even the slightest of downhills, and use my arms as much as I can, but I'm faced with two inescapable facts: 1) every uphill needs legs, and 2) There are a lot of uphills left.

30K-
I've admitted to myself now that I have completely bonked. There are only 20 kilometers left in the race. I am 3/5 of the way there, but the winding and climbing snowy trail in front of me seems like a hellish, unending mobius strip. I've bonked countless times before this, and I know what to expect, so I slow down. The name of the game is just to finish. My friend Kevin gave me some pre-race advice. "Thats the great thing about the birke" he said, "you just go out there and ski, and if you get tired you just slow down and enjoy the race."

I slowed down, but I didn't know about "enjoying the race". It was at this point that I started to harbor ill-will towards this competition, and little prince Haakon, for starting this blasted tradition. When your body goes, your mind soon follows.

35K-
The strangest thing has happened to me. I've gotten cold. And not just my fingers and toes, or my exposed facial skin, but I'm cold at my core. This has never happened to me in a race before. Usually, if dressed properly, you arrive at the starting line slightly chilled, and once the gun goes off you warm up. By the time you cross the finish line, you can take your shirt off in -20F temps without blinking, cascading steam off your torso into the frigid northern air, and feeling like an all-around bad-ass.

But I felt chilled, and not much like a bad-ass. More like ass-bad. The reason, I figured out, was because I could no longer ski fast enough to keep my heart rate up. My legs simply didn't have the power to keep me moving. This meant I needed to start double poling faster, just to keep my internal temperature at a reasonable level. Its not that it hurt to use my legs, its just that they weren't working.

More skiers passed me, some from wave 5, but others from wave 4. I saw the familiar faces of those that I had passed so casually earlier in the race. I would be embarrassed if I weren't so tired, but I feel like they are smirking deep down.

Damn you, Prince Haakon, damn you.

I see a sign on the trailside. 13K left. I can make that.

38K-
Not so soon thereafter, I passed another sign that read "38K", and silently cursed to myself. I must have misread the previous sign, and it now feels like someone just tacked on an additional 3K to the race. All I wanted was that 40K sign. I wanted it so bad. For me, the race was now all about baby steps. Kilometer to kilometer. Hill to hill. If you are in the depths of a bonk and try to visualize the entire race, you will collapse to the snow in a heap of despair.

I knew that there was an infamous hill coming up here shortly, but I wasn't sure where exactly. The night before I had written down all of the landmarks that I deemed "worth remembering", and committed them to memory. Well, there wasn't much left of my memory at this point, and I couldn't recall if it was 41K or 45K. Irregardless of where it found itself on the course, it's called "bitch hill", and as I rounded a tight right corner I could see it in front of me. It's not the biggest hill of the course, and it's not the steepest, but for someone like me, someone who was scraping the bottom of the barrel, someone who had the haggard gleen of defeat in their eyes, a hill of this caliber meant death.

It was a race of many firsts, and for the first time in a competition I stopped and put my head on my outstretched arms. I couldn't move my legs. The lactic acid permeated through my cardiovascular system, and I could feel it in my lungs. I could taste it in my breath. It reeked of deprivation. Skiers continued to pass me, but I noticed other skiers who have also stopped on the side of the hill, looking no less dejected than I. After ten seconds or so, I got back into it, and ambled up the remainder of the hill. Keep moving. Keep moving.

40K-
By any standards, I was on the home stretch, and during my last feed stop, I drank a water, a power drink and ate two banana halves. They were frozen, but I carelessly stuffed them into my open mouth, ignoring the ice-cold sensation on my teeth. Best bananas I've ever had.

I stopped again on a hill. My vision began to narrow, and I could see only my skis in front of me. The next 8K  were a blur, and I don't remember much about them.

48K-
What I do remember, is that wave-4 skiers continued to pass me with regular ease. For the first time I let myself picture finishing the race. I think I can make two kilometers. I looked over at a skier next to me. He was a big guy, maybe 6-2, and he reminded me of an eastern Massachusetts master skier. He had to be in his late 40's or early 50's and everything he was wearing was expensive, from his skis to his glasses, all the way down to his high-tech water-bottle holder and the Volvo I'm sure he has parked in the driveway. I could see pain in his face, and I knew that he was hurting as much as I was. Under any other circumstances I would have tucked in behind this guy, and blasted around him with 1K remaining, leaving him in my snowy dust wondering what happened. But for the time being, I had to send out hate-beams and hope I could out-glide him on downhills, because he was beating me to the top of every hill.

My mental state was starting to deteriorate noticeably at this point. Not only did I feel physically tired, but I'm also beginning to experience a sleepy grogginess. When I tucked down a hill, I let my eyes shut and wonder what it would be like to go to sleep.

More people started to appear on the sides of the trail and I turned a corner to the greatest sight of my life: the lake.

49K-
The lake represents the final segment of the race. The trail mercifully exits the northern Wisconsin forest and carves a perfectly flat line onto Hayward Lake. There was a linear swath of black dots in front of me, leading the way home like the yellow brick road, ending one kilometer away in downtown Hayward.

The best way I can explain bonking is by using the rechargable battery analogy. The first 10K might have drained all of my energy, but with some downhills and some drink to recover, I can recharge up to 90%. But each time I use the battery, it charges up a little less the next time. At this point I could use my legs for about 5-8 seconds before I needed to get back into the classic tracks and double pole. So that became my new pattern. Double pole until my arms were tired, then skate for 8 seconds. Then 7 seconds. Then 5. Each time I kicked or poled I released a breathy grunt. I can't slow down. 1K left. I've got tears in my eyes. Give me a break, I said to myself, but my body was slowly shutting down on me.

50K-
I told Nels before the race that "there's always something left in the tank", referring to the way that the sight of a finish line can cause you to find that last little morsel of energy that your body had been oh-so-wisely saving from you. As I made the 10 foot elevation climb off of the lake, and onto the snow-groomed streets of downtown Hayward, WI, I wanted to find that last morsel.

The sides of the trail/street were fashioned with gates, with hundreds of spectators and racers cheering on. I could actually see the finish line, and I started to skate again. And my legs felt great. I passed about five people, and was only about 200 meters from the finish line when the morsel ran out.

My quads started cramping, and I couldn't control the timing of my leg kicks. Each time I tried to push I felt a sharp pain that would stand me up straight. I'm not sure what you would call my technique as I crossed the line, but "hobbling on skis" is probably apropos.

Cheering on the sidelines were Kaj and Nels. "It looks like Ollie might have bonked", said Kaj as he watched me "ski" to the finish. "Oh yeah" said Nels.

Crossing the finish line was a mix of relief and anger. Anger at myself for joining this race, anger at myself for not training more, but thankfulness that I could take off these skis and get into some warm clothes. Race support came up to me and asked me if I needed help. I almost fell into one of them due to an unplanned leg cramp, so I think he took that as a y-e-s, and called for someone to help him hold me up. A third volunteer took my skis off. "Are you OK?" they asked. I looked at their eyes and I saw genuine concern. "Yeah I'm fine", I said, and picked up my skis, limping out of the finish gates. Nels and Kaj met up with me, and graciously helped me with such mundane tasks as getting my arms into sleeves and not falling over.

Now that I'm stopped, I began to uncontrollably shake. My teeth were chattering like they did at swim practice when I was 8 years old. Nels pointed me to the tent where they are passing out warm soup. He mentioned something about where to meet up, but I wasn't paying attention. All I could focus on was the warm bowl of chicken noodle soup.

As I stood there, in the middle of a massively packed tent, I noticed all the other skiers around me. Some of them shivering, some of them talking and joking about the race. Others telling stories about high-speed crashes on the course.

Right next door was the medical tent. And in there were people in far worse shape than I. My shivers dissipated after a second bowl of soup, but there were skiers with frostbite, hypothermia, and more serious conditions that needed medical attention.

I can't imagine what it would take to conquer the Birkebeiner with any less training that I had. Or any less fitness. Or slower skis. But there were hundreds of people who did that. Thousands. It was a humbling experience to think about, and I kind of felt like a wimp. Because, man, that was really hard.

Who am I kidding. That SUCKED. But maybe it sucked enough to get me back out on my skis again and train for next year.

The Birkie (1-25K)

The most appropriate way to describe the Birkebeiner is to break it up by kilometer. In a race so long, the storyline can change three times or more from start to finish, giving it the quality of an episodic adventure.

Arrival:
Due to the annually congested traffic in small town Cable, WI, we arrived at the athlete drop-off area about 10-15 minutes before Nels's actual start time. This wasn't the ideal time-frame Nels was hoping for, but it did provide for some last-minute excitement, including watching him jump out of the back door of the bus and getting  scolded by the bus driver. Needless to say, he missed his start, but the race was managed with chip-timing so it turned out to be more of an inconvenience than anything. That was the last time I saw him for the next four hours.
  Somehow, per usual, I took my sweet time getting ready for the start (45 minutes later), and just barely strapped my second ski grip on when the starting gun went off. Luckily, the time that elapsed between the gunshot and the person in front of me actually moving was another 2.5 hours, so I had plenty of time to get everything in order.
  Starting in wave 5 was an interesting situation. The Birkebeiner is broken up into skate and classical skiing (mostly the prior), and each discipline is broken up into waves so the race course won't be too congested. With a total attendance of 8,700 racers, congestion is inevitable, but organizers do a great job at mitigating it. The way they do this is by seeding each skier by their finish time from the previous year, or by an officially-sanctioned qualifying race earlier in the year. This way, they can break up the pack by speed, sending the fastest first, and have each heat of 500-900 skiers start at 10 minute intervals.
  I started in wave 5 and want to give all of the readers ample evidence for pending excuses I will soon present for not winning the race. Or coming in top 100. Or 300.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here, let's start the play-by-play.

1K-
After a relaxed and slow start, I'm in great spirits. Despite the cold temps (~0F), the sun was out, and I felt good. Not only that, but the pace was AMAZING (AKA slow). Seeing as how I didn't give myself enough time to warm up (zero seconds), this casual saunter through the first leg of the course will get me up to speed, cardio-wise, and then I can make a move when the field starts to thin out.

2K-
I've already passed a dizzying number of wave 5 skiers. Each skier's bib number starts with the number of their wave, and has an associated trim color. Nels gave me some advice from his experience last year, which was to "ski relaxed", so I planned to do just that. I kept my technique non-labored and smooth, relying on slow long kicks and long glides. I felt great. I was passing people like it was my job.

3K-
(Don't worry, there isn't a post for every kilometer)
The first section of the Birkie traverses "the powerlines", which are a typical source of cross country trails in the US. It's easy to groom a course on land that the government already paid to deforest. I had studied the elevation profile of the course the night before and was fully aware that the first 15k contained most of the climbing for the race. On the first few hills I could feel the burn in quads, but attributed the sensation to not warming up.

4.5K-
We turned into the woods, and I am still surrounded on all sides by a sea of red-colored bibs. My late starting position meant that I needed to pass hundreds of skiers to get some fresh air up front and stretch out my legs. At this point though, I wasn't panicking. It's a long race, and you can do more harm than good by pushing the pace so early. As I round the first turn into the woods, I see a mass of skiers and spectators obstructing the trail. My first reaction was that of alarm. It was hard not to see this type of gathering and assume that someone was terribly injured. As I got closer, I started to see plastic Dixie cups strewn about the snow and realized that I had arrived at the first of 8 feed stations. Water, powerdrinks, sliced bananas and oranges were being offered by the race crew, and the skiers swarmed like flies to either size of the feed zone. There was no way I was slowing down this early in the race, and I took full advantage to weave through the crowd with care. I estimated that I passed about 50 skiers in five seconds. Not bad. I contemplated taking a swig of my "emergency mix" that I was carrying in a water-bottle holder, but it was still to early. I still need to focus on moving forward through the pack.

Intimidation is half the battle

~10K
Throughout the large climbs that accentuate the start of the race, I have not once been able to ski at my own pace. Each hill followed the same format.
1) Weave through traffic at high speeds.
2) See everyone stopped at upcoming hill
3) Slam on the brakes and stop at the bottom
3) Pick a line to stand in, and move up the hill at the pace of the slowest skier ahead of you
4) Start a conversation with the guy/girl standing next to you
5) Wish that person good luck and take off when you get to the top.

On one hill I complimented a gentleman on the festive blue wig he was wearing. As I was about to take off at the top of the hill, he noticed my Olaf ski suit and shouted "I go to Olaf right now!". I yelled back "Good luck!" and then began to play a high speed game of Frogger on the trail. I was actually starting to enjoy the pace. The hills were slow enough that I wasn't getting tired (at all), and I could show off some top speed and zoom around people at the top. Fun!

15K-
The course is now on a gradual decline, and I have already passed a considerable number of wave 4 skiers, and I'm starting to see wave 3 (those who started 20 minutes prior). Someone on the sidelines shouts "I've only seen a couple other 5's! Go 5!". What he was telling me was that I was top-3 in my wave at this point, which was encouraging news, because I was pining for some open trail. It also meant that I might be in better shape than I had hoped! Spirits are still high. I've gone through three feed zones now, without stopping, and estimate that I have passed at least 200 skiers because of this. I don't want to get cocky though, so I take my first sip from my emergency mix, and chew down a frozen goo pack.

Emergency "Anti-Bonk" Mix (16 oz.):

• 1 part Red Bull
• 1.5 parts Gatorade
• 2 parts water
• Two ibuprofen liquigels (opened and squeezed into the mixture)

Because of the temperature, I need to keep the water-bottle upside down in my holder. This is a winter athlete trick so the top layer of the drink doesn't freeze over. As I take a pull of the elixir, I taste slush, and can see the ice layer forming on the bottom. This started earlier than I had hoped. It must still be colder outside than I thought.

20K- 
I no longer feel great, but I don't feel bad yet either. I call this time in the race as "the zone". I have settled into a moderate pace that my body feels comfortable with. I now lack that childish exuberance that had me jovially cracking jokes with other skiers in the first 10K. The race has become more internalized, and I keep my focus on staying efficient. Right in front of me, I see another wave 5 skier. I see this as a great sign. It means I am still reeling in the leaders from my wave. A little voice in my subconscious, a pesky little pessimistic nay-sayer, who had been quiet so far in the race, began to whisper a word of warning. Don't try to draft him, it says, race your own race. You might go too fast if you try to run him down. I listened to the voice. I watched the skier in front of me, and he was "skiing strong" (as they say). His technique was marginal, and his sloppy upper body motion led me to believe he was probably a freshman in college. His hips were on a swivel, and his arms were all out of whack. But despite all of his dynamic flaws, he was moving at a good pace. He had strong legs, and I could tell that he wasn't tired. I didn't feel all that fatigued yet, but I was definitely not feeling strong. In fact, to be honest, I haven't felt strong since college.

18.5K-
I stopped at a feed stop for the first time, downed some warm energy drink, and scooted back into traffic.

25K-
My water-bottle is starting to freeze considerably. I squirt whatever is left into my mouth on a series of winding downhills and flats. I can't see myself, but I imagine that my Buff is covered in ice around my chin, and I have a considerable amount of frozen snot under my nose. My feet hurt, but that is par for the course. After a 60 mile rollerski 10 years ago, my feet have never been the same and I tend to lose sensation in my toes once the temperature drops below 15 degrees. After a series of back-and-forths with the poor-technique wave-5 skier, I suck up my pride and let him go ahead of me. If this were a 30K race, I would be on him like glue, but I need to conserve my energy and ski smoothly.

As I near the 25K marker of the course, I start to feel something in my quads. It's a sensation that I have been dreadfully anticipating. I had jokingly predicted to Kaj before the race that "I'm going to push the pace for 30K, bonk, and then drag my sorry ass the rest of the 20 kilometers".

As that 25K marker slowly passes to my left I feel the dull aching in my legs. The aching isn't constant, and I only feel it on the steep uphill. The sensation I have at this point is unmistakable. After thousands of hours of distance training throughout my life, I have learned how to read my body's hints and signals. I'm starting to bonk. I reach for my water-bottle, which is a useless cube of frozen caffeine and NSAIDS. I rip off my last goo packet and squeeze as much of the frozen goodness into my mouth. I can only get about half of it out using my teeth. It tastes good, but I want more.

I haven't bonked yet, not all of the symptoms have presented themselves. But I do know that the game has changed completely. I no longer have any aspirations of a reasonable time, but I do know that the aching in my legs can be mitigated if I am careful. I need to slow down a little bit, and focus even more on skiing efficiently.

I think about the fact that I am 25K into the race. Where I was once excited to be halfway to the finish, I'm now filled with a quiet dread. I didn't know it at the time, but there was still 6K until the next feed station.

I'm only halfway there.

Birkie Fever and Chills (part deux)

It's February 23rd. Three days before the Birkie.

I was told by a track coach in high school that it takes 8 days for a specific workout to have an impact on your fitness. According to that rule, anything I do from here forward will only hurt the freshness of my legs. This was also the same coach that tried to motivate our team via the inspirational methods of accounting. "It's like you're making a deposit into the bank account!", he would say enthusiastically to a room of blank-faced students. So who knows how true that is.

Sunday was my last-ditch effort for any sort of fitness going into this race. I slogged my way around a shortened, icy track for almost three hours. The sun went down, and I was still there, cranking around the loop with a look of spellbound fatigue in my eyes. I silently was praying that my coach was wrong, and that I would be able to reap the benefits of this workout in time for the 50K. Maybe it's 7 days? 6?

Needless to say, if the skiing community had Birkie fever over the past couple of weeks, it has now been replaced by the chills. There's no more time to say "Oh I'll get in a workout tomorrow", or "I'll just race myself into shape!". Nope. Now it's 8,700 skiers drinking beer and melting $700 worth of fluorinated wax into their skis, cursing to themselves, and breathing in borderline toxic fumes.

"But just go out and ski it for fun!" you say "Just enjoy the experience".

Oh what a world that would be. What a fantastic and wonderous world I would live in, if I could just ski the course, passing out flowers, helping the elderly up big hills, and smile and wave to spectators. I would let people pass me, and get joy from the fact that they felt good about themselves. Heck, I could even stop and have a snack break. It's just a race! Enjoy it!

As great as this nordic utopia sounds on paper, it would crumble like a house of cards the moment I heard the  starting gun. As soon as that gun goes off, no matter who is next to me, no matter how I was feeling prior, no matter WHAT, I will devolve to a single-minded automaton of competitive energy. If you're in my way, prepare to have your poles broken. Drafting me? Prepare to get cut off. Are your skis faster than mine? Well, then...you suck, there's nothing I can do about that.

So I would like to offer a formal apology right now to my legs, for pending hurt-fest. Because when 75 year old Bjorn Bjornson passes me on a downhill at 40K, there's no way I'm going to let that old man beat me to the line...

Birkie Fever and Chills (part 1)

Last fall I proclaimed, quite brazenly, that this winter would be "the comeback" for my ski career. I had planned on ramping up my training, racing myself into shape, and opening up a 6-pack of whoop-ass on the 50-kilometer, season-capping Birkebeiner race. Fun tidbits about this proclamation. Firstly, a comeback requires to actually have been there. Secondly, the phrase "ski career" is an misnomer in the US, and the two words "ski" and "career" should not allowed anywhere near each other, unless "-lled mechanic" is inserted in between them.

But if mice and men, the best laid plans often go awry, and my lofty dreams of 3-hour skis and local race domination have turned into afternoons at work and evenings hunching over books. Scratch that. Evenings watching TV, and telling myself that I need to start hunching over the books in about 10 minutes. Or as soon as this show is over. Let me just see what's on Comedy Central. I'm hungry.

Whatever the case was, I was certainly not going to schlep all of my ski stuff over to the course just to freeze my feet off in -20F winds. Especially when I had so much work to do. Oh, is Top Chef on?

So here I am, faced with my February 26th planned piece de resistance (french for: $100 non-refundable commitment) for this ski season: a 50K race from Cable to Hayward Wisconsin called the American Birkebeiner. This race is so long that you need to adjust your watch to the new time-zone to see what your finish time is. I've heard of skiers coming of the woods not knowing what year it was, clearly wearing last years bib, and looking rather gaunt and unkempt. I mean, this is the real deal. So with the prospect of engaging on this glycogen-depleting crusade in little over a week, I have hit a critical juncture. With the amount of "training" that I have done so far this winter I can either 1) Panic, or 2) lower my expectations (considerably). While both of these options seem perfectly acceptable, I chose option 3, which is a healthy combination of 1 and 2.

More on this later.

Wii-athlon

At this point in my life, if I were to invest in a video game system, it would have to be the Nintendo Wii. There's something about the simplicity of the Wii that resonates with me, just like there is something about about the complexity of Playstation 3 and XBox that numbs my hands in a rather arthritic position. If fact, at the end of any "realistic" game, I find myself not only at the bottom of the scoring bracket, but also nursing a migraine and applying eye drops because I HAVE NOT blinked in 30 minutes. It's just not for me. The Wii allows a simple-minded person such as myself to be competitive in a game by just swinging my arm back and forth as fast as possible, which is about as complex a motion as I can handle without needing to pop an Adderall.

So when I see that our friends at RTL Interactive have been making a biathlon Wii game, I start to get a little excited (the first twinkle that caught my eye was the re-release Goldeneye, which is the only "complicated" game I've ever been good at).

I have been told that biathlon is the biggest winter sport in Europe, which is something hard for an American like me to understand. Don't get me wrong, I like biathlon more than about 99% of Americans, but that's because I am part of the 1% who has actually heard of it, not to mention part of the 0.0001% who has tried it.

My only worry is that the game play will over-simplify the dynamic process of biathlon. There are so many subtleties that can be missed by the average bystander, and these details are what make the sport so enjoyable to watch. For this reason, I have outlined commandments that should be included in any biathlon (or nordic) skiing game:

1) In the intro, when all the teams show up in their tricked out private buses and wax vans, the US must show up in 4 mid-sized rentals from the airport, with a wax-bench strapped to the roof.

2) You can pay extra "ski dollars" to prep in the Austrian wax tent before the race. Your hematacrit gets +10, but your "trophy room" is erased.

3) Playing as a Norwegian, you can enter the secret code which causes Ole Einar Bjorndalen to mutter an ancient Norwegian prayer. This causes the Scandanavian God Ullr to materialize from the snowbank and strike down the closest Swedish skier.

4) Playing as an American, a secret code will give you the antidote to the death-flu-virus that you invariably picked up at the airport. Another code will let you cough on the skier who is shooting adjacent to you, spreading that same illness.

5) The possibility to upgrade your "measly .22" for a real man's weapon: a grenade launcher.

6) If the going get's tough, the tough get gangster: press and hold L and R for 2 seconds to switch to "gangster  mode", which lets your character pull a Glock from the back of his spandex and shoot wildly (and sideways) at the targets, missing them all. This also gives your ski technique a slight limp in the left side.

7) Training mode, in which the athlete trains for 600-1000 mind-numbing, thumb-blisteringly boring hours per year for about 5 years before being able to ski in his/her first race.

On Language And Swallowing Pride In The Emergency Department

Since September I have been working as a scribe in a couple of emergency rooms, working 40 hours a week, and paired with a physician each day. My goal is to capture the patients "HPI", or history of present illness, in a way that is medically relevant (and also relevant for billing). For each patient that presents to the ER, I follow the physician's process, step by step, from introduction, to ordering labs and imaging, to the various consultations he or she may call upon until the patient is either feeling well enough to go home, or they are admitted to the hospital for further evaluation. When it's all said and done, my final product should show a complete history of what brought the patient to the hospital, what was done to help them, and when exactly everything happened.

I spent the first couple of months in what I refer to as "treading underwater", as I struggled to learn the dialect of physicians and nurses from scratch, a language that they have spent many years and hundreds of thousands of academic dollars learning. Being at work often reminded me of the year I spent in Norway, having been introduced to a brand new language, armed only with ambition, humility, and a strong desire to know what the hell was going on. Here in the hospital, I felt the same way (and still do at times), and struggle with the elaborately precise diction that can, at times, can seem ridiculous.

As a new scribe, there was nothing more terrifying than calling the "dictation line". Whenever a patient gets and X-ray, CT scan, MRI, or other type of imaging, it is sent electronically to the radiologist who reads the film and then dictates their interpretation onto the phone database. As a scribe, it is our job to see a) when the images are ready, b) call and listen to the radiologists interpretation, and c) relay that information to the physician. A simple process. But simple does not always mean easy, especially when the interpretations of images are riddled with terminology that you have never been exposed to. Now throw in a radiologist at the end of their shift who is reading as fast as possible. Still too easy? Maybe you get one that is so overwhelmingly complicated that it's about as long as this paragraph. So I ended up with my ear to the phone hitting the "3" button time after time (rewind), listening with every potentially-recruitable brain neuron for some clue as to where one word is ending, and another word could be starting (or maybe it's just one long word?). At times it seems like an evil game of Apples to Apples.  And throughout this whole ordeal, if the physician needs to go to the next room, you stop where you are, save what you have, and try again when you have free time.

But, like the rest of the job, the terminology comes to those who are persistent, and all of us are (we have to be). The process of learning can be difficult and stressful, which is compounded by working with physicians who expect the absolute best out of themselves, and through the scribe's role as the physician's "literary representation", the best from us as well. To me, there is nothing more disheartening than being given a task and falling short of expectations, and it's hard to come to grips with my inevitable shortcomings through this process. I hardly go home after a shift and feel as though I did really well, but at best I feel as though I survived.

However, this is the natural process of head-first learning. This is being thrown into the deep end of the pool. I am finding that there is a fine line between accepting  my limitations and yearning for perfection. I will always make mistakes, and there will always be somebody out there who is better, faster, or smarter, and sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow. Perspective needs to be maintained in moments like this, when the pressure builds, and the patients keep coming in, and that creeping sense of overwhelmed confusion starts to tip-toe around the corner. I suppose the mindset needs to be "Do your best at the time, and if your best isn't good enough for you, then find a way to make it better later".

In terms of the language of medicine, I've learned that I need to be patient with the learning curve. Either actively or passively, the terminology is going to root itself in my vernacular. And I have learned that pride is overrated in the ER. If you don't know something, ask.

Happy New Year

January 1st, the day dubbed by Comedy Central as "national hangover day", provides a unique viewpoint for reflection. While most may be milking the injuries of alcohol withdrawal, I find myself fighting the day-long murky sensation that follows an overnight shift. My mood is apropos of the preceding year: haggard, spent and satisfied.

It's been a year unlike any other in my life, and while I won't bore anyone with the details, I think it's important to provide a couple of highlights if not only for self-reflection.

• Studying
• Working

Well that was depressing. Let's consider this little thought experiment waste of time.

Despite my apparent lack of diversity in daily activities, a few philosophical nuggets have lodged their way into my psyche (please note forced use of imagery). I'm beginning to understand that self-reflection is important, but only secondary to planning. I famous author once said in an interview "Descartes had it wrong. You don't think therefore you are. You DO, therefore you are". A subtly obvious phrase that I will always carry with me.

So happy planning everyone. Make the most of your new year.