Kris and I went to Pixar to see The Incredibles with Christian, Lauren, Bobby and Ameeta. Christian and Lauren work at Pixar. Christian worked on The Incredibles specifically (2 credits!). Lauren is working on the next movie, Cars, which is due out next year.

I liked the movie a lot. Kris and I talked about it as we were driving home. We both agree that Pixar continues to make movies with a story, and that's what differentiates the movies from other CG films.

I have yet to see Shrek 2. I should see that sooner than later. Maybe on DVD.

After talking to Lauren before the movie, I really miss the movie industry. It might be time to head back.

Update: Kris commented, "You hated the movie industry." He's right, I did. But it was pretty cool to make pretty pictures. If you ignore the long hours, the politics, the crappy pay and the insane deadlines, it was a good job.

Well, today makes an even dozen. Number 12 started at 10 this morning. I had been up for all of one half an hour when I looked at Bella and couldn't see all of her face. I could see her eyes, but nothing else.

I went to bed at midnight last night, woke up at 8 this morning, arose from bed for a bit, went back to snuggle Kris and slept again until 9:30. The extra sleep is similar to last Tuesday's migraine, in that I slept more than normal (I had slept 15 hours on Monday night in recuperating from food poisoning that day).

So, I'm thinking diet, supplements or sleep. It has to be something. Two times in one week is two times too many. Six in 4 weeks is insane.

What the hell is going on here?

Okay, so I had food poisoning on Monday, the 11th, and slept from about 5:30 Monday evening until 8:30 Tuesday morning, but with a fever of 101° (my usual temperature is 97.6°) that seemed prudent. The fever broke at 1:30 or so, with the help of a couple tylenol. The cause was probably the airport chicken caesar salad.

Before that, however, I had been very, very careful to get enough sleep, but not too much. Sure I exercised hard, but slept well. And I ate very carefully. And as much as I could stomach during the tournament, which I almost rarely do. What is going on? I shouldn't be having a migraine when I'm taking care of myself.

Possible causes:

• Monitors: I started using a CRT monitor again.
• Poor posture: my posture at my desk is awful
• Lack of Magnesium: I stopped taking the supplement before the tournament because of the adverse effect is has on my bowel movements (and anyone elses: think Milk of Magnesium)
• Too much sleep: from the food poisoning
• Lack of blood thinners: I had stopped taking them in Utah and hadn't resumed
• Accidental ingestion of aspartame: I don't know where this would have come from, but I could have ingested some at some point over the last two days

At least it was a mild one. Two Tylenol plus a good night's sleep and I have only a lingering headache? I'll take it.

Regionals are over, it's time to head back to the real world. It's been an interesting season with Mischief. We went from barely staying together as a team to 5th at Regionals (up from a seeding of 9th), thanks largely to the Smith Brothers: Mark, Kyle and Kevin. Which is not to say the rest of the team wasn't instrumental, just that they are our stars.

I played a lot in the tournament. I pretty much played as much as I could. If I stood up and looked at Andy when he was calling players on the line, he called me in. It's an interesting position to be in: at the top of the roster. I'll admit to being at the bottom for so long, that it feels uncomfortable to be one of the players that always goes in. On the other hand, it's why I took the classes at ASA.

I left regionals sore, but not tired. It's been a LONG, long time since I've been sore at the end of a tournament. It just doesn't happen any longer because of the amount of ultimate I play. However, taking about a month off, then playing hard at Regionals, well, made me sore.

My highlight reel from Regionals:

• Kris going up for the huck and skying the guy 6" taller than he.
• Stopping CTR's Chuckles in an iso play, where it was she against me, and Mark intercepted the throw to her (with Rick's voice in my ears the whole time, encouraging me to stick with her).
• Kevin's handblock next to the sideline
• Kyle's many layout grabs

There are more. I'm sure I'll think of them.

What I need to do now is research toenail removal surgery. I keep jamming my big toe toenails and having them fall off. Better to just get rid of them then continue this cycle, I think.

I know that developing a website is difficult. I know I do it well. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish some people would just fuck off.

Being on the webmaster mailing list, I get the full list of "I need help" emails. Some are okay: they ask for help without being aggressive, whiny or overbearing. Others are rude, accusatory and hostile.

In the latter cases, I'm becoming better at the diplomatic response that's usually something like, "Yeah, well, with the limited time and resources we have, we're not spending $1000 in man hours to fix a bug that only 10 people out of 100000 experience." Much nicer than that, of course.

Thicker skin is what I need. Thicker skin. Somehow, this has always been a criticism of me in various yearly reviews, up until VA. So, I'm inclined to think the skin is getting thicker.

Having a problem with this website? Go screw yourself.

Ah..... I feel much better.

ASA MVP workout Sept 29th

Kris and I started out warming up with ladders by ourselves. Originally, we were told that G wasn't going to be in today, but were later told he'd be in, but late. Turned out, a player of his at Cabrillo had broken his collar bone diving awkwardly for a ball at practice. He hadn't punctured the skin, but the bone was obviously broken, as it was protruding outward.

Tragically, the kid hadn't finished the paperwork for enrolling in the class, so Cabrillo's insurance wouldn't cover his injury (the trainer couldn't even look at him inside Cabrillo's facilities). G mentioned the kid was one of his better players, making the injury more tragic. He broken the collar bone of his throwing arm. G said his first question was, "Will I be able to play this year?"

The ladders were strung together, so we didn't have the usual 9 squares - break - 9 squares. Instead, we had 19 straight squares. We did the usual ladders to warm up. G arrived during our warmup, near the end, so we were good and warm. Today would be an upper body workout.

We started off with pushups. Kris did them from two aerobic steps. Because of the time I took off, I started back at clapping pushups (made funnier by the fact I had to do some from my knees). 3 sets of 10, I managed 2 or 3 from my feet, the rest from my knees.

Next came traversing hand walks. In a plank/pushup position, I walked just under 90° to the right, then back 90° to the left. Doing each hand 5 times, for a total of 10 walks. Tragically, my butt was in the air as I did my first three sets, so I had to do them over again, but with my butt down the second time.

Kris, in the meantime, was doing really cool explosive, balancing, single arm presses. Essentially, he lay on a bench so that one side is barely on the bench, with his leg tucked under the leg brace at the end of the bench for balance. His other side was hanging off the bench. With that side, he did 30 pound presses explosively. It'll take me a while to build up to that one.

Next, Kris did tricep pull downs while I learned a newly-invented exercise. G stood on a 12" box, I stood facing away from him on the ground, about a yard in front of him. Balancing on my left foot, I turned around and held my right hand up high behind me. G placed a 2# weighted ball in my hand. Continuing to balance, I touched the ground to the left of my left foot, then explosively tossed the ball up, behind me, over G and myself.

When I was done, I played around with the 0.5#, 1# and 2# balls, trying to throw them against the walk. It was very, very obvious when I threw that my timing was way off. I definitely have little transfer of momentum from my lower body to my upper body when I throw. We worked on it a little bit. We'll definitely do more after the season ends.

Next I did some bench presses. The weight wasn't so heavy, but I did need to use my feet on the last set. I did three sets of 12 at 50#, 60# and 50#. When I was done, I went to do the tricep pull downs.

I forgot the order of the rest of the exercises. I recall being unable to do a ball traversal, where in plank position, I "walk" over a ball, balancing briefly on the ball. I was unable to the exercise at all. I managed maybe, MAYBE two.

To complete the upper body, we did chin ups, with palms facing forward, to exhaustion. I couldn't do one chinup without help. I could get about 1/2 way up, but not all the way up. G had me "complete" 4 "chinups" for each of three sets, but he was pretty much lifting me for all of them.

G gave us the option of abs, or forearms and abs. I, of course, selected both. We did the plate grip, bus driving (holding the plate vertically, twist it 180° clockwise, then reverse).

We did abs last. The usual abs. I find it very difficult to push Kris down during partner push-downs. Ugh.

The last abs exercise was 6-12" leg holds. G said it was on me - 45 seconds, if I dropped, we'd do it all again (actually, I think Kris would do them all again, not me. Heh.). I said, "No problem." About 10 seconds into the exercise (actually, a count of 10 into the exercise, as my count to 30 took 45 seconds), G leans down and starts harrassing me, telling me it would be easier to just drop my legs, take a break, wouldn't it be so easy to just drop them, I didn't need to keep them up, just drop them, we'd get to rest, wouldn't that be nice. Inside, I was laughing so hard! I kept with my count. At 45 seconds, he said, okay, you're done, but did so in such a way that it sounded like a ploy to get me to drop my legs. I had to ask for confirmation, keeping them up longer. Felt good to be able to do that.