Today was rainy. As a result, there were a lot of accidents on the freeways. And, as a result of that, Kris took over an hour to get to ASA, and G couldn't make it at all. After getting stuck in traffic for 45 minutes and not moving at all, G gave up, called in and went home.

Pat Frost, an ex-MLB pitcher, stepped in and ran the class for us. We started out with ladders. I started well before Kris arrived (mostly because he was taking so freaking long to get to class). I managed to get all my ladders done, and two runs at the T drill before he was ready to run.

Ladders included my favorite LR-RL etc. One leg in, both out. Hop scotch (L R together). Ali shuffle. Shuffle R first (facing sideways, R foot in, L foot in, next square R foot in, L foot in, etc.). Shuffle L first. Facing sideways, R foot in, L foot in, R foot out, L foot out, advance one square. There were a few others in there. The outside foot in horizontally, both feet outside, other outside foot in horizontally, etc. I'm sure I'm missing a few new ones.

Next was the T drill. The T had 8 steps on the base, 3 across the top of the T. I did four shuffling to the left first, another four shuffling to the right first, for a total of 8 runs. Most of my times were around 9.5 seconds, though I had an 8.9 in there somewhere, and a 10, too. P didn't do too well in telling us suggestions like, stay low, use the arms, butt down on the shuffle, don't pop up. On the runs I did things well, I ran quickly. Otherwise, I did only okay.

Next, we had ice skaters & hurdle jumps

Next was box jumps and 180° jumps with weighted ball.

Last was abs. Instead of our regular, brutal G abs, we did 4 sets of 30 seconds of 5 ab exercises. Starting with bicycles, we did swimmers (lying on our backs, arms out sideways, legs out straight in front of us, move feet up and down from 6" to 12" off the ground), then criss-cross (same position as before, holding feed ~12" off the ground, cross them left on top, then right on top, repeat). Next, we had trunk lifts (hold feet up in the air, left hips off the ground), and finally Supermans (or, lie on your stomach, hands under chin, lift head straight up. That's one set. Repeat 3 times. Four times total.

It was neat to have a new instructor. I prefer G, but I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow. Change is often good.

And today, we're officially back to the Real World, away from the ultimate community. The RW is a strange place to be after 5 days in the UC. I guess the biggest differences are the sense of fairness and the ability to undo.

Think about it: in ultimate, there's the spirit of the game. SOTG (nearly) guarantees respect between individuals. So often in life, that respect is lacking (just drive to the grocery store and count the number of times you have to drive 1/2 the speed limit, get cut off in traffic, have people cut in front of you in line or something similar).

And, if you disagree, you can redo the whole thing! Send the disc back. What a deal. You can agree to disagree. In the RW, it doesn't work that way. In the RW, everyone still disagrees and gets pissy at each other. Bah.

Anyway, Real World. Work. Stuff to do. Life goes on.

There are various ways to piss me off. Actually, there are many, many, many ways to piss me off. Here are just a few that I experienced, why, just this past weekend.

• Take credit for my work
  
• Don't do the work you're paid to do
• Get mad at me because I can't solve a problem of your creation
• When you're part of a group, don't pull your own weight
• Don't give me enough information to help me help you solve your problem
• Sit around on your ass while your boss is running around like a chicken with her head cut off
• Tell people my idea was yours
• Stick your nose in where it doesn't belong
• Start a job, do a crappy job, then leave it 95% unfinished
• Lie^H^H^H Exagerate to people about what you do
• Fail to give credit to all the people who support you
• Hire someone to do your job because you're too lazy to do it (or maybe can't do it? not sure there), thereby doubling the cost of your job to your employer
• Do a shitty job
• In a panic, ask me to solve your problems because you were too clueless to plan ahead
• Don't plan ahead
• Waste people's time, thereby burning big favors from said people
• Dress poorly when it reflects poorly on your employer
• Show extreme disrespect to your coworkers

I'm not 100% convinced that any one of these things would piss me off by itself. But when the same person does all of them, well, I admit I'm pissed.

One of the problems I have, however, with getting pissed, is that the person I become is not a person I like. I don't like getting angry. I don't like the downward spiral that happens when I start complaining. I don't like that sometimes I need to rant, and that Kris takes the brunt of that ranting. Poor Kris. He's so good to me. But this is an entry about being pissed off...

Personally, I can't stand being angry without a way to solve the problem. I don't want to complain, I want to solve the problem. What's wrong? Fix it.

But how do you fix clueless, egotistical, immature, disrespectful people? With patience? With understanding? With maturity, respect, gentle persuasion and, well, not a little manipulation?

*shrug*

I guess I can give it a try.

More random thoughts of later rounds.

• Quickest game to half in the secound was Riot vs Electric Mayhem, in 19 minutes.
• Quickest division to half was womens, by far.
• Quickest game to end was Riot vs Electric Mayhem, 15-2, finishing in less than 40 minutes

I lasted until 1:20 before I had to take my jacket off.

Heh. Once again, my name has spoofed another person. I introduced myself to Joe Seidler, who stopped by to talk to Shiella. We chatted a bit, and he admitted that he thought I was a guy until someone told him, "She". Heh. We chuckled.

Many close games (DoG vs GOAT ended 16-15 well over the time cap), and a couple upsets (Pike beat the number one seed Sockeye 15-12), and many, many games holding seed. Some games were blow outs, soe appeared to be close the whole way. I managed to watch only the first few points of a couple interesting games, dashing back to the nest to enter half time scores.

A few notes of interest:

• The quickest game was Riot vs Nemesis (15-3), over at 10:42
• The quickest injury was in the B+ vs Chad Larson (17-16) game. The UPA's lawyer had a "I can't look at this injury it's so gross" broken ankle injury on the fourth point of the game. He ended up leaving the tournament in an ambulance.
• SubZero took half 8-4 on Johnny Bravo, but still lost to Bravo 15-12, for the biggest come-back of the first round.
• The last game to end was the DoG vs GOAT game, ending at 11:54, with DoG winning 16-15
• White shorts are big this year, with at least five Open teams wearing white or whitish shorts
• Most common scores were 15-{3-5} in womens games, 15-{8-10} in mixed games, 15-12 in open games and 15-{5-6} in masters games.