waking up was a bit of a chore.

i was sore all over. i refilled my water jugs and headed off to get some breakfast. i knew i shouldn't eat before running, but i was starving enough to get some mcdonalds. i got back over to the field on 30 minutes late.

i had guessed that we would have 2 or maybe 3 games today, but since there were 10 teams total, there were only 2 left over after the 8 team "winner's" bracket. so the loser's bracket consisted of us and the team from lubbock, texas - both of whom lost all four of their games.

the prospect of only having to play one game was a big relief.

lubbock proved to be really bad - they had decent athletic ability, but lacked heavily in experience. we went up on them 5-0 before getting lazy and letting the game slide to 8-7. after that, we only allowed them one more point and went on to win, 13-8.

it felt really good to have won a game. everyone's mood improved dramatically. i felt bad for lubbock, having lost all 5 of their games.

we shared a watermelon that matt had brought with him with the lubbock players and split up to play some pick-up games before the championship this afternoon.

i saw hunter, from the MIT team. he is working in santa fe for the summer and was playing with the santa fe team in the tourney.

i skipped playing pickup in order to watch him play and to watch chris's atomic fish to play.

unfortuately, both teams lost in close games in the quarterfinals.

carolyn and i decided that it was too hot, and that we needed ice cream. so we headed back into town for some mint chocolate chip. she had a scoop in a sugarcone, i had a pint.

we returned in time for the last half of the semifinals between albequerqe (the savage seven) and flagstaff (the munkens), and between telluride (ryno's rocky mountain revolution) and denver (big sexy).

both games were good to watch, with seven and the revolution winning.

one guy had a shirt on for a team called "discus erectus."

the final between telluride and albequerqe didn't start for about half an hour while both teams rested up. i played 500 with a few guys from out team.

the championship game lasted 2.5 hours. i'd never been to a real tournament that wasn't on the east coast. i've come to realize now that ultimate is very different on the east coast and everywhere else. i think the west has more fun with it.

everyone on the sideline watching the game was playing "fantasy ultimate." you pick two players, one who you think will do well, and on who you think you will make mistakes. no two people can pick the same player for the same side (positive/negative). during the game, if your positive player does something favorable, you get a point or two depending on how cool it was, and vice versa for your negative player.

of course, the scoring and judging is totally subjective, leading to huge arguments among the fans. also, when your negative man has the disk, it is in your best interest to have him screw up. so you call out things like "throw the hammer!" "puke it!" "push pass into the dirt"

and an entire crowd heckling the game on like that is really hillarious.

the game was a very close one and ended up with the savage seven winning 15 - 13. it was a great game to watch, if perhaps a bit long.

carolyn and i left immediately to find somewhere to eat. everyone was going to meet at o'henry's in white rock, but it was closed. so we drove to espanola to try joanas, but it was closed. so we drove to tesuque to try gabriel's and it was open.

yum. that guac is so good. paul and his family showed up later, but we didn't see anyone else there that we knew.

i ate too much. 2 days of hardly any eating and hard exercise leads to a very contracted stomach. a buritto, some quesadillas, and quac was too much for me to handle.

i was in stomach pain for about 3 hours.

so today is the big day i've been waiting for all week. the tournament is so much on my mind that i haven't even been thinking about europe much. whoa.

i put on tighty-whities for the first time in years, and my old coe uniform shorts and socks just for good luck.

adam and i went to furrs to get some fruit and suntan lotion.

arriving at overlook park in white rock, we saw that most of the tournament-goers were already there. tents were strewn about the field, suggesting that many of the teams had shown up early.

i had an apple for breakfast while warming up with the team. everyone had on our icky green shirts.

one team didn't show up (vale/brekinridge), so they split the roster into pools of 5. our pool contained two teams from albequerqe, one from flagstaff, one from denver, and ourselves.

the other pool was the santa fe team, chris's atomic fish team (mostly from california), telluride, lubbock, and salt lake city.

because chris had made the game schedule and field allotment, he made our field assignemnt really easy: we were on the same field for every game, and field was one of the better ones.

our first round was the by, so we watched jamal's team "salsa" from albequerqe, which we would play in round 2.

our game against salsa was quick and ugly. we lost 2-13. we played hard, but too many of our players were throwing the disc away. they played the zone on us, and we're not very good against the zone.

we'd pop the disc to someone, and instead of returning it to the handlers for a reset, they'd try to continue it up the field and throw it away. this was almost guarenteed because all our handlers were back behind the cup, so any poppers were shitty throws.

patience was our big problem. i can convienently separate myself form this criticism, because i played deep without exception and never got the disc.

we scored the first point, but it went rapidly downhill from there.

our next game was against flagstaff ("the munkens"). they were even tougher. we lost 3-13. interestingly, all three of our points were scored by ginger, our best woman. the reason we scored any at all is because the woman guarding ginger was weak in the legs, and ginger is a sprinter.

the third game was against denver's "big sexy." for the first time, we didn't score the first point. in fact, we didn't score any points for a long time. tim, who practices with los alamos, but was playing with santa fe, came over on his by and played with us for a few points. he scored our two points. 2-13, another loss.

the last team we played was the savage seven, also from albequerqe. this was by far our best performance of the day due mostly to an inspiring pep-talk by paul. we lost 13-6.

we were just happy to have scored a full 13 on the day.

[note: our highest scoring game was against the team that would end up winning the tournament]

my entire food intake for the day: 4 apples, 2 power bars, a cookie, and a bagel. plus, 2 gallons of water. - and i didn't need to go to the bathroom.

i was so exhasted from the 4 consequtive games that i fell asleep in the car on the way home.

adam said he'd give me a ride to the party up on the ski hill after he ate dinner, but after two hours of waiting, i left without him.

carolyn and i went to the exceptionally weak party for about 15 minutes. i introduced her to some of the team, and we talked with jude while he dropped chips into his beer.

i wrote jude and told him that he should call me when he was going to come pick me up to go pick up the keg in pojuaque.

the entire plan went to hell.

for starters, jude never got the part about calling me and was just waiting out in front of ottowi for me.

and right before i was expecting him to call, the power in my building went out. i couldn't email him to tell him, so i had to wait for his call that wasn't coming.

after about 5 minutes with just the emergency lights on, guy left for the day. one by one, the emergency lights ran out of battery power and went out.

when the last one went, i was in total pitch black, in the basement of a warehouse. i decided that maybe jude couldn't get to my phone number in the email if his power was out too, so i finally felt my way out of the building to find him waiting there.

he'd been there for 15 minutes.

we got the keg, i paid the $65 deposit that had to be in cash.

and off we went to the carbo-loading party in white rock. there were about 20 people there. everyone brought food and we all pigged out.

6 pounds of spaghetti later, we settled down in front of the TV to watch the goaltimate tape again and then the championship in the women's world cup.

sue came over with the discs and the shirts and we all bought our share. the shirts are this "mr. yuck is green" green and they look hillarious. the design on the back, although abstract, was printed upside down and we got them for just $4 each. the discs glowed in the dark and were $7.

we played with the discs out in back for awhile, which is when i noticed that the house is right on the rio grande canyon. walking about 20 meters from the back door, you arrive at the cliff which goes down to the river far below. it is the best piece of real estate i've ever seen.

i climbed down the cliff to a pedastle that stuck out from the wall a ways and sat there for awhile contemplating the view.

it was gorgeous.

the ultimate game was rather laid back.

no one wanted to hurt themselves before the tournament. i only played a few points. then jason and i tried to get a mack line going, but no one really knew how to do it so it failed pretty miserably.

we got paid today, and the size of these checks combined with the fact that i haven't even deposited any of them yet caused me to break down and spend some big money.

i got a new digital camera for my trip. the old [free] one is ok, but the resolution is crappy. and i don't want to have to carry around my expensive, bulky, heavy camera to get good pictures in europe. so i went to onsale.com and got a $550 camera on auction for $370.

it's one of the better fujifilm models, which shoots 1200x1024 pictures (compared to my current 640x480).

and of course, with the bigger pictures comes a shortage in memory, so i shelled out for three more 8 MB memory cards for it. this brings me to a total of 44 MB of RAM I'll have for my camera.

so, with $450 spent on the day, i stopped.

guy bought a whole new computer for himself, and a bunch of accessories for the one he has. he's so fucking rich...

so carolyn and i go to chiliworks for breakfast burittos before work. when we go in, we see del there (one of the tulsa people). she asks me what i'm getting and i respond "sausage red cheese crispy," which is the chiliworks employee's lingo for a sausage breakfast buritto with red chili, cheese and crispy hash browns.

del gives me this look for speaking in code. so i say, "i guess i come here a little too often, huh?"

at that point, the one employee that always helps us comes out from the back, points at me, and asks, "sausage red cheese crispy?" i nod.

i get an even better look from del.

it was a beautiful moment. she couldn't wrap her head around what had just happened.

i definitely go there too much.

so then, at lunch, i'm sitting there showing carolyn how to write my name in chinese, when my chair spontaneously destroys itself. i wasn't doing anything weird, just all of the sudden one leg shatters, one armrest bends around backwards, and i'm thrown to the ground before i understand what's going on.

i'm laying on my back beside the table with my pen still in hand as the pieces of char are slowly rolling away.

we were out on the balcony which looks out over the city, but the entire cafeteria looks out over the balcony - so i was in plain sight of a couple hundred people.

so, yeah, that was fun...

abie stopped by this evening and wanted carolyn and i to go watch el mariachi with him over at the canyon school. we went, and i locked my and carolyn's keys in my room.

i'd never seen el mariachi before. it's pretty funny. having seen desperado brought out a lot of the inside jokes. the unnecessary fast-motion is good too.

the ultimate people are starting to get really worked up for the tournament. people i've never seen before are coming out of the woodwork for practices, and everyone is playing harder and longer.

i forgot my cleats at practice, and had to play in my indoor shoes. this made for bad cuts and some falling over, but i still managed to score several points.

the team is discussing possible names for the tournament this weekend. my personal favorite is Los Alamos Ultimate - No Count Huckers (LAUNCH), which represents our tendancy towards the quick long play.

other good suggestions: Chris and the forces of distruction, The Compact Discs, Chain Reaction, Napolean, Ghengis Khan, and some other people who will crush you, and LARD (Los Alamos Radioactive Discplayers).

preperations are in order for the weekend. we have the 60 acre field space reserved, a keg of beer and food for the party, and 11 teams showing up from as far away as salt lake city.

it's going to be a lot of fun.