Mike: "That was easy," referring to my heading out of the office to pick up lunch for the three of us.

Me: "Of course it was easy! You just sat on your ass the whole time!"

Nothing like a dose of reality on the little comments.

I've been using ecto to compose my blog posts since just before SxSW. It works well in that it enables me to write easily offline, but not necessarily any better than I would write if I were using, say, emacs, my favorite editor. The problem with emacs, though, is the over developed, and often overused, left pinky, from which not only can I do one armed pull-ups, but I can also thwart the most deadly ninja assassin with a pinky flick from my left hand.

Yes, emacs is that good of a pinky trainer.

The problem with using ecto, however, is that to me, I've blogged. I wrote what I needed to write, I've managed to get the words out of my system, and I'm done. Nothing like vomiting words onto a screen and thinking, whoo, that sounds good.

I'm not sure I'll stick with ecto, as a result. I'll need to get some process down to make this easier. I know I want the automatic upload of all of my pictures to a server, which doesn't need to be Flickr, though might be. No reason why I can't add in various easy-posting features ala Vox, while I'm at it.

In that copious, illusory, fleeting and mercurial, mythical entity called "free time."

After avoiding the subject for about two months, I finally went to the physical therapist for help with my hamstring. I've been playing on it since Kaimana, but not at top speed, and not without pain and a lot of worry. I knew vaguely what I needed to do for rehab for a normal muscle pull, sure. But the pop I felt/heard when I pulled it the last time, coupled with the seemingly long recovery time, gave me pause.

Apparently for good reason.

Instead of pulling or straining the hamstring muscle, I also pulled it off the bone. Similar to a shin splint, where the muscle's connective tissue to the bone becomes inflamed or begins to separate from the bone, the pop I heard was, according to the diagnosis I received, the disconnection of my hamstring from my pelvis at the insertion point.

This is bad.

Depending on the severity, the injury can take two months to six or more months to heal. The worst possible movement for this type of injury just happens to be explosive moves, say, sprinting and quick acceleration.

Greaaaaaaaat.

I'm supposed to stretch my hamstring ten times a day for the next six weeks as a good start. And work on abductors and adductors, as well as some gentle hamstring strengthening, during that time, too. Fortunately, I've been doing most of what I'm supposed to do for the hamstring to heal (minus that sprinting thing, and, oh, say, playing ultimate), I just need to do more of it (minus that sprinting thing, and, oh, say, playing ultimate).

Starting out a season with an injury has to be as bad as ending a season early because of an injury. Well, maybe. Since this is the first time I've had this happen, we'll see if that's valid. That, and if the 80 grams of protein I've been trying to eat a day will do more than just go to my middle.

Date:     Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:16:43 -0700
From:     Mike Gull
To:       Kitt Hodsden
Subject:  One of those scary moments...

Do a man on crontab.
Notice the -r option.
Notice how close the "e" key is to the "r" key.
And realize how pissed Mike is that there's no confirm on this  
command....

Fortunately, still had a -l on my screen.

Well, the first of two Mischief 2007 tryouts happened today. I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed in the turnout. You'd think the National Champions would have tons of people trying out for the team. We had maybe 20 tryouts today. Sure, we're in the South Bay, but come on, Brass Monkey had 50 tryouts last year and had to close tryouts after one, given the number of interested people they had on the first one.

How is it that Mischief goes all the way to the top and still doesn't receive any respect? Sometimes I really hate this sport.

I played okay when I played. I didn't participate in all of the skills and drills sections. In particular, I skipped the huck drill, as it seemed too much long distance sprinting for my hamstring to take. I have an appointment on Monday to see what's up with my hamstring, why hasn't it been healing very well over the last two months. I really don't want last year to be my career ending year: I'd like to actually play in my last year.

On the sideline, I talked to Kyle, who also was sitting out some drills. I commented that I hadn't played a full Sectionals since 2001, since playing with Rippit.

In 2002, I pulled a hamstring on the first step of the first game of the second day and was out the rest of the tournament.

In 2003, I rolled ankle in our Donner Party game, which I think was on our first day of play.

In 2004, I was out for four broken ribs from my Ben squishing.

In 2005, I played some, but not fully, as a hamstring injury impaired my playing significantly. Playing on Vicodin is worse that not playing, in retrospect.

Last year, I rolled ankle at Labor Day.

I'd like to play at Sectionals this year. We'll see how this season goes.