Yesterday, after our second game ended early, I was looking over our stats roster and asked about a few of the names on the list. My question was to no one in particular, but it started a conversation with Lori about various people we both knew. At one point, she made a rough but incredibly honest and forthright comment about someone, something about how she liked the person but would never want that person as a teammate. I was taken aback by the sheer honesty of her assessment of the person, and asked, "What do you say about me when I'm not around? I won't be upset with anything you say. I'm curious."

She looked at me from where she was sitting. "I don't think I've ever described you," she commented, but offered to think about it. She had, at some point, described me as "organized," and the Queen of some Realm, but she couldn't remember the Realm. If she remembered, I asked, I'd love to hear it.

I find it very difficult to tell someone something bad (or rather, something I perceive as bad, whether he does or not), so my request to Lori was probably unfair. Maybe I'm projecting there: I don't see her, or any of my friends actually, as someone who enjoys giving someone bad news (or info).

There is, however, only so much information self-reflection can give. Outside input is often quite good, even if difficult to hear.

Later in the afternoon, during the warm up for another game, Lori mentioned she thought of two adjectives that described me well: honest and non-apologetic. My first reaction was, "Hey! Awesome! I like that!" The first is a given as a fabulous trait. The second, well...

I assumed the definition Lori was using was

of the nature of a formal defense or justification of something such as a theory or religious doctrine

indicating that I'm not in the habit of needing to justify myself to others. I had only recently learned of that definition, in the last year or so, from Paul's blog name, so that definition was much stronger in my mind.

From that definition, I inferred, in this split second emotional analysis of her words, confidence (from not needing to justify myself), intelligence (from knowing things that didn't need justification) and all sorts of other positive connotations.

Only after a few minutes did I realize she could have meant the more common definition of apologetic:

regretfully acknowledging or excusing an offense or failure

and the negative connotation that maybe, just maybe, I don't actually admit to my failings, even when I'm wrong.

I probably should have asked her which definition she meant. Pondering the two has been more entertaining than knowing, though.

Then I remembered that Lori had created a Johari window as "an interesting psychological experiment."

In a nearly non-committal sort of way, I could find out from my friends just how far off I am in my own perception of myself.

So, help me out here. If you know me, or think you know me because you've been here a lot and, well, this site pretty much does sum up my personality (just ask Kris, he says he hears my voice when reading, which is saying something, because it's a weird voice), let me know what you think of me. I promise not to be upset.

The good stuff is here: http://kevan.org/johari?name=noasi

The bad stuff is here: http://kevan.org/nohari?name=noasi

Take them both. I can take the criticism (or, at least, I'm learning to take it).

Mischief's season officially started today. The team headed to Davis for the 2008 Davis Ultimate Invitational to start the season with a tournament of tryout players. Last week, when Kris, Andy and I were walking back from the Whiskey Expo, Andy told me to "bring my cleats!" in such an ethusiastic way that I knew I'd get some good playing time.

Since last weekend, I've been worried about my fitness level for tournaments. When the first step of the first point hurts, and the last step of the first point hurts, and every step in between is hard, one has to question how much the sprint workouts have been helping. Sure, they help, but gah, this is supposed to become easier.

So, I've been doing my "I shouldn't be this out of shape" regimen this past week, which revolves around an improved diet and dietary supplements. In particular, liquid iron supplements.

The warm up this morning was easy, and not the chore it was last week. Yay! I probably spent more time than I should have taking pictures, but not enough to actually prevent me from warming up properly. Including that hammie.

When the team started an endzone drill, my usual hesitation from past seasons was gone. I was excited to run this endzone drill, catch a disc and throw it smoothly to the next teammate. Very excited.

During one of my cut, catch, throw, clear series, I heard from behind me Steffi's voice, calling encouragements and compliments. I couldn't help but think of how much I've missed this comraderie in the off-season. There's something about the encouragement of a teammate to help you play better.

Our first game was against Mad Dog 20/20. The team was fairly inexperienced, with some players who clearly could play. Unfortunately (for them), we had enough experienced players, including some spectacular stars, and they didn't really stand a chance for victory.

I had a good time, running down hard on the first pull to disrupt the easy pass, causing a turn over on the second choice. Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows our team, a Crystal (fabulous thrower) to Adam (fabulous receiver) goal started the season on the right step.

I'm more pleased with how I played the second game, which was against Gin and Tonic. The team had a significantly higher skill and fitness level, with their scoring the first score of the game, and keeping it close to 6-4. I had a snippy point where an opponent woman caught the disc on the line, and refused to either accept the turnover or return the disc to the previous thrower for a do-over. Karma reared its head as the same woman caught her team's goal out the back of th endzone, causing a turnover back to us (even if we didn't capitalize on the turn).

On another point, I was fairly aggressive in pushing downfield, running hard to be near the endzone as the disc moved to it. Unfortunately, we turned the disc and they started moving the disc downt eh field My main thgouth at hte moment was darn it, all I managed to do is bring my woman down into the play, especially after she caught the swing and turned to throw. As she released the disc, however, Andy came swooping in for an easy catch. Just as she had thrown the disc, I had turned to run downfield (as every thrower and marker should do: once the throw is up, go go go!), but turned back to the endzone when I saw Andy catch the turn. He saw me and put up a throw that at first I was nervous about being able to catch. Fortunately, in true Andy Style™, he had merely placed it absolutely perfectly: at the very edge of my reach after running hard to it, thereby guarateeing my defender zero chance at the disc. Never ceases to amaze me with his play.

I had a couple other good points during this game, which I enjoyed much more than the first game. I was called handler a few times, which both surprised me and pleased me. I did just fine, with the dumps, swings and downfield cuts. I had a good time.

I'm thinking this cessessation of self-defeat and internal pressure to be perfect is a good thing.

And here's where the end begins.

Instead of the relevant, subtle yet effective text ads of Google, we now have completely irrelevant, image ads, say for an FDA application declination on a software source file control system reference page:

Needless to say, Google has just lost the last bit of charm it held for me.

All downhill from here. Such a shame.

While working in my home office today, I heard a horn honk three times from somewhere close by. The honking sounded like a "Hey, I'm here!" sort of toot, from someone in a car, trying to catch the attention of someone not in the car.

I didn't think anything of the sounds, each of them barely registering on my consciousness.

A minute or so later, three more honks sounded. These three were followed by a pause, maybe five seconds, and another three honks.

I didn't think much of these sounds either, though they DID register on my consciousness.

So, when a few minutes later, the cycle of three honks followed by a ten second pause, repeating over and over again, started up, I wondered if someone was at the front of my house, trying to get my attention.

Kris HATES when people pull up to the house and honk. I'm sure it has more to do with irritating the neighbors, when leaving your car, walking up the driveway, and knocking on the door, will work perfectly fine, rather than announcing to the neighborhood that you're too lazy to move. Needless to say, I don't honk, I walk. I'm fairly certain that my friends are much the same way: they walk up to the door (because rare is the time I'm actually outside waiting for them - very rare).

After verifying the honking wasn't directed at me, I wandered back to the office and started working again.

Ten minutes later, the horn started again. Only this time, it was held down, and just kept going. I waited five, eight, ten seconds, before getting up to find the source.

Out the front door, the sounds echoing off the neighbor's houses. Hmmmm, the source could be the next street over. I walked out to the sidewalk, no, coming from this street to the north. I scanned the cars around, wondering if any were occupied.

Ah, there was one. As I turned to cross the street to approach the car, honestly wondering if the driver had passed out from a heart attack and was slumped over the steering wheel, one final grasp at attracting the attention of help, a woman came running out of the house on whose driveway the car was parked. She threw open the car door. "Stop it! Stop IT! STOP IT!" she yelled at the man in the passenger seat.

I paused.

She threw her purse into the back of the car, and turned back towards the house. I watched her turn, unsure what, if anything, I should do.

As I stood there, she came back to the car, and saw me on the sidewalk in front of her house. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"I don't know if he is," she answered.

"Are YOU okay?"

She avoided my question. "Where are you from?" she asked, pointing in my direction.

"Back there," I gestured noncommittedly.

"Oh, T---'s house?"

I looked at her vaguely, a bit confused. That name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. "T---'s house?" she asked again. "Next to J----'s?"

"Oh, yes," realizing that, dang, she knew which house was mine. I was suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment for my front yard, my weed factory, going strong. "So, are you okay?" I tried to distract her away from my yard, as she had distracted me away from the man who had laid on her car horn for a minute straight.

"Yes, I think so. Thanks for asking."

"Okay." I turned away from the woman. I don't know her name. I don't know her husband's name. I don't know anything about either of them, except that, to her, my house is still T---'s house.

I went up to the City tonight to visit with Elina, have dinner, see her place, pet Mr. Kitty, talk about website designs and the like. I had intended to head up last week, but was thwarted first by work, then by a migraine. This week, today, however, I was successful in my journey. I, of course, took the train up. I'm starting to really, really like taking the train up. Talk about concentrated time to relax, accomplish tasks, and just mediate on nothing, watching the scenery out the window.

Instead of my usual hop-off-the-train and hustle-down-the-Embarcadero route, however, I hopped into a taxi (good lord, will I ever be rid of the need to use taxis - maybe I should start comparing taxis in various cities, most from a novice taxi rider's perspective, at least until I become an old hand at these taxi things), and rode a $7.60 ride to her place.

Her place is an incredibly adorable little one bedroom, with lots of late afternoon light, high ceilings, and cute nooks and closet spaces. It is, of course, also nicely decorated, as is the way of Elina. I suspect that, if she wants it, we could use her as the fourth lady flipping in our little band of adventurers. I'll have to check with Mom and Heather first.

After the little tour, and lots of Mr. Kitty snuggling, we dashed off to Flippers, a gourmet burger joint which also happened to have a fantastic array of vegetarian items available. My eggplant wrap? Can you say bigger than any burrito I've ever had? Yeah, I can say that, too.

I enjoy listening to Elina's stories, expecially the ones where she states the obvious stupidity of those around her. Most of our taxi ride over and the parts of dinner where I wasn't talking about ultimate or the client meeting this morning, was taken up by the story of Black Love Calendar. Oh, to have had a voice recorder for that conversation: I'd have a humourous post instead of a no-one-cares-what-you-had-for-dinner post.

Eh.

We were intending to take a taxi back to her place after dinner, but we became so engrossed with our conversation, and the brisk walk, that we forgot to stop and wave down a taxi. Which suited me just fine: I like the walking and the reminder that this city just isn't as big as some people think it is.

The walk back did, however, take time that we had intended to use discussing website designs, so upon arrival I just jumped into the discussion. I think it went really well, and I'm very excited to see what she designs. She commented on feeling nervous about designing a website, but I'm in the least bit nervous. All of the school projects she's shown me have been fabulous. Since I'll be translating it from design / image / PDF (<sarcasm>oh, joy, my favorite task, theming</sarcasm>) into HTML, any bad HTML will be totally my fault.

Which works for me.

I wasn't sure about the travel time back to the Caltrain station, so I left around 9:05 to catch a taxi back, nervous about being able to catch one quickly. Elina accompanied me downstairs and outside, then walked to the street and tapped on the taxi waiting at a light right in front of her place. What was I worried about again? I don't know, I made the train with ten minutes to spare.

Her taxi luck is just like that.