Dewey Beach

Last weekend for Memorial Day I took my first true beach vacation in the states. Living most of your life in Florida, a mere 10 minutes from the ocean, it is pretty easy to be skeptical about how good a trip to the beach in Delaware could possibly be. I have spent plenty of time at the beach and rarely have I left Florida to do so. I have been to some of the best beaches in the world without leaving the state I called home for so long. And while I have been to beaches outside of Florida, I have never made a specific trip to one until now. The hype given to me by my friends who had been before was immense; I thought there was no way it could be that good. But they were 100% right.

 

We left DC shortly after 5 on Friday night expecting to hit terrible traffic but luckily hit almost none. When we got into the tiny spot that is Dewey beach we checked into our hotel and were drinking by 9:30. Since we were meeting up with friends who had been in Dewey all day the four of us from my car played catch up and we were pretty much hammered within 30 minutes. After that things were pretty hazy the rest of the night and I have just received pictures that I have no memory of taking. With bars closing at 1 am things must have happened fast but we were still up until 6 am somehow, eating late night and drinking back in our room.

 

On Saturday morning I felt terrible. After a night of hard drinking I was surprised to even wake up but we did get up for some small breakfast and headed to the beach. This was probably the most impressive part to me, it was a nice beach, not amazing, but big and clean and packed. The rules were ridiculous, like no Frisbee or football, but we didn’t mind all that much. After a few hours of that and hangovers not going away we went back to the hotel pool and started drinking again. The beers finally killed the hangover and within a few hours we were ready to go. We listened to the jam session that was going on across the street, played 100 games of asshole as people got ready to go out and then we headed out to a new bar. Another night of live music was on the horizon and much like the night before it went very fast, but this night we ran into tons of people we knew. There were people everywhere, some I was happy to see like one girl from work, some I wasn’t as happy to see but it all worked out and much like the night before we ended up continuing our party until there was light in the sky. Only this night, I could not sleep.

 

Four hours after trying to get some sleep I was up and walking around. I tried to get breakfast, but settled for lunch, then a few hours later was joined by my friends and we started drinking again. In the afternoon, we enjoyed another cover band Jam session and that night it was another cover band and another bar. It was like groundhogs day or spring break for people too old to be acting like that. My body still hasn’t recovered. On the drive home Monday I didn’t so much feel hungover as I felt like I was going through withdrawal, I needed a drink the whole way home. And as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what my friends did after I dropped them off. On the other hand, I only had enough energy for a shower and bed. After all that, I have no idea why I hadn’t gone before and I fully expect to go again.

Living for the city

“If we don’t change the world will soon be over… Living just enough, just enough for the city!”

I’m burnt, my legs are killing me and Stevie Wonder is still ringing in my ears. The weekend could not have gone any better. And all it took was a bus ride and good friends. Of course once I got into NY my cab driver picked a fight with someone immediately which was hilarious and since he got me to my destination quickly I really didn’t mind the shouting. From that point on everything went well. I grabbed dinner and sake bombs with college friends before heading out to a few bars. While the bars were forgettable we still had a good time and bumped into familiar faces. Apparently the exchange between FL and NY goes both ways. Friday night ended pretty early though as most of us were tired from long days, so by 230 I was out cold. Saturday would be a different story altogether.

I woke up Saturday morning around 10 and began getting ready for what turned into a really long day. After a shower and a bagel my friend Jess and I headed out for Central Park. This is where I got the sun burn, the day was a bit chilly but very bright. We spent a while sitting around eating sandwiches, listening to music and watching the games going on around us. Eventually we decided to go look for a few other friends who were playing softball at another area of the park, an area that I totally misheard the location of and led to us walking almost the entire place in search of the fields. We did find the game and watched most of it before the weather started to cool down and forced us to head back home. Around 7 Jess and I went separate ways and I was on my way to meet Greav in Brooklyn.

The scene we encountered on Saturday night was much different than Friday. Brooklyn has a completely different vibe than Manhattan, maybe even an entirely different culture. After a beer at Greav’s apartment we hit the road. As we walked to the subway our conversations, as they always do, floated from one random topic to the next while I expressed my distrust of the umbrella. Yes, those umbrellas, I just don’t like them. Of course after we got off at our stop and realized it was now pouring, Greav certainly felt I was too harsh on the umbrella and that this was my fault. So, with no protection from the rain we darted from awning to awning, then bar to bar on our way to the Stevie Wonder tribute party. Again, the bars were non-memorable places where the drinks and the conversation were the story until we hit the party. We finally came in out of the rain too a packed, two story warehouse.  The music was great and the crowd was intense, the energy was contagious and after a while even I was dancing and singing along. The party kept going til 5 but we left a little after 3. The next day as I woke up and got ready to catch my bus back home I couldn’t help thinking how great it felt to be completely exhausted after a great weekend.

Why I do it

5 days a week I workout, I spend hours a day preparing meals, I eat like clockwork. And I just don’t think people really understand why people like I do it. Why do we lift weights and run? Why don’t we eat crap like everyone else? I can’t speak for everyone but I can say that for me it comes down to three things in no particular order: 1. Health, 2. Challenge and 3. The inability to be content.

 

The health reasons are obvious so I won’t waste any time on that but the others are significant. Challenge was my original reason to get started, after growing up playing sports competitively you kind of get addicted to it. I started lifting because of sports and then one day I stopped playing sports because of lifting. I still remember when I told my mom that I didn’t want to play sports anymore because I could challenge myself everyday in the gym. This inevitably led to my mom using hilarious terms like “ripped” and “shredded”. Anyway, the point is that I found a personal challenge that I can enjoy everyday whether it is running faster, lifting more or just looking better. And that leads into my inability to be content.

 

I always feel like I could be better. So I read up on nutrition a lot, I am constantly looking for ways to improve. But, this also means I am rarely happy, which could be a problem. I lose 15 pounds and I want to lose 10 more, I hit one goal and then create a new one. It’s a full blown obsession in something that you can never really be perfect at. Because there is no end date, no time when you can just stop, it’s a constant battle with yourself. And that is hard for a lot of people, a never ending struggle, so I guess I am fortunate that I have the will power to do it. To make my meals for the next day every night before I go to bed, to pack my gym bag, to schedule the time in the gym and to work hard once I get there. Most people don’t have the determination to do that, they want to look good, but they don’t have the mental toughness to make it a reality. Ronnie Coleman said that “everyone wants to be huge, but nobody wants to lift heavy ass weight” and while that probably isn’t true for everyone you can apply it to a lot of other areas. In this society an importance has been placed on appearance, so people generally want to look pleasing to others, yet so few want to do the work. They want magic cures as if we were all students at Hogwarts. There are no magic cures, there is no quick fix, it takes a lot of hard work, and a wealth of knowledge.

 

I was prompted to write this after reading about the US has the highest percentage of people considered obese by BMI. Now, I do not agree with the BMI fully but even if they used other standards this country would still fail health standards atrociously. And what really gets me in this whole thing is that all these overweight and unhealthy people think I am the one missing out. But, I think they are the ones that are crazy, eating 1000 calorie burritos everyday and lying to themselves about how they are eating healthy when they have skim milk with their bacon and sausage breakfast. Don’t feel sorry for me, I like being sore, I like eating healthy, and I like the way I look a lot more than I like the taste of fast food.

20 years

The other day I was standing around at the office talking with one of my buddies about the fallout from the NFL draft. My buddy and I are Vikings fans, his allegiance is different than mine, he being from Baltimore was without a team for a while and for one reason or another he adopted the Vikings. I, being from Minnesota, have always rooted for teams from the Twin cities. During this conversation I mentioned to my friend that there was nothing left to talk about, it was officially baseball season. At this point our common fandom parts ways, he roots for the hometown O’s and I for my beloved Twins. I am sitting here watching the game cast on my computer as an odd thought struck me. This season marks 20 years that I have been a serious Minnesota Twins fan. 20 years really of being a sports fan now. The 1987 season is significant to me because that was the first year I collected a complete set of baseball cards, Topps the ones with the wood looking edges that I still have and the Minnesota Twins beat the Cardinals in the World series.

 

The details of course are very fuzzy, after all I was pretty young. I don’t remember the games or even eating all the gum from the baseball cards but I do remember images. Kirby Puckett and Ozzie Smith, Kent Hrbek and Frank Viola. The Homer Hanky. I remember so many of these things, as the start of my journey as a sports fan. Baseball came first and in many ways it still does. But in between there have been so many good times. Dolphins games watching Dan Marino, UM vs. UCLA when Edge ran for 299, The Marlins inaugural season and World Series that my cousin got a ring for being on the staff, the year of the Rat with the Panthers, the Timberwolves and the Big Ticket, and the greatest offense that the NFL had ever seen when Randall Cunningham was throwing to young Randy Moss. There have been so many great moments but after 20 years of sports memories I have not forgotten those Twins who started it all.