"You've become a morning person."

"I'm not a morning person."

"How can you say that? You're up before 7:00 am every day of the week but Sundays. When the ultimate season starts, you'll be up that early even on Sundays."

"I'm not a morning person."

"Yes, you are. Admit it."

"I'm not a morning person, I'm a coffee person."

"Oh."

When Kate approached me to coach a local college team, and I agreed to help her, I was expecting very little. I figured I'd be able to help them with at least a little bit of the tricks, tips and tactics I've learned over the last thirteen years of playing ultimate.

What I wasn't expecting to do, however, is learn from them. Least of all in the way that I am.

Here are fifteen women who are looking to me to provide them knowledge and leadership. If I fail, they fail.

Sure, they're willing to learn, they're eager to learn. They absorb everything I teach them, and apply it very well. They learn quickly, and remember, too. I'm really impressed with them. However, it's strange to be in a teaching position; not really of authority, but of experience and leadership.

I'm used to being the number two in a group, able to do the work, but not really at the top.

Kate's been in a position of leadership in many different parts of her life. I haven't, not really. When I'm at practice, however, and Kate's not, the team looks to me to provide guidance and direction. I've started doing exactly that. I've started to lead.

I teach them ultimate. They teach me how to be a leader.

A big fish in a small pond, but a leader none-the-less.

It's a lesson I'm glad they're willing to teach.

One of Kris' quirks, one that I absolutely love, is that he will ask an unusual question, usually one relevant to the situation at hand, in order to spark an off-the-wall conversation. After a few years of this, I started writing the questions down, mostly because they're so entertaining. I wish I had kept notes about the conversations that followed, too.

"Water splats. It doesn't roll."

It was raining outside, and the drops were really loud on the roof of the house. I commented to Kris that I was surprised at how big the drops were. He pointed out that, no, it wasn't raining: it was hailing.

"It's not about the size of the pie, it's about the size of the piece."

We were talking about something, I don't recall what, but I had made some comment about people's greed in a dying industry. It might have been something comparable to the horsewhip industry in the beginning of the car era, but applied more to a more recent technology, not sure.

The observation seems right on, though. Many times, people are more interested in keeping what they have, in the areas they know, instead of looking around and seeing other opportunities. I know I'm guilty of this.

"It's easier to keep up than catch up."

This should probably be a letter, but Kris said it, so here it is.

He made this comment offhandedly after I skipped a workout. I don't recall if I was injured or not, given the last fews years, I probably was.

Fitness is definitely one of those qualities that takes constant maintenance, and keeping up with it is way easier than trying to catch back up with it. It's not like you can workout for ten hours on one day and be as fit as you would be after working out for an hour a day for ten days. Darn it.

"Large car. Small space. Do you think you have any recourse if you're in an accident?"

We were in the parking lot off Cowper and University in Palo Alto, when Kris asked this question. The lot has many spaces labelled "CAR SMALL" (or "SMALL CAR" if you read it close to far away). These spaces are, as expected, smaller than most spaces, and should be filled by, you guessed it, small cars.

However, the lack of parking spaces in the downtown Palo Alto area often causes the retarded drivers of large SUVs to park in these spaces. And yes, I'm deliberately calling them "retarded," because there is something fundamentally wrong with drivers who park in spots that are clearly too small for their vehicle, a vehicle sized far bigger than the driver truly needs in the first place, and thinks the parking is a good idea.

Clearly wrong.

As we drove by a particularly big SUV, might have been an Cadillac Escalade, in a CAR SMALL spot, Kris pondered what recourse a driver of a small car parked in a small space would have if the large vehicle damaged the car, or blocked the small car in with its size. The small-car driver would, of course, have whatever legal recourse for damage to his vehicle by the large vehicle.

For inconvenience of being unable to leave the spot because of the larger vehicle's size, however, the issue is murky. The larger car isn't supposed to be parked in the spot, but we didn't know of any parking law in Palo Alto that legally prevented its parking. I recall a law was proposed, but I'm pretty sure the political arm of MWSUV (Mothers with SUVs) defeated it in the elections.

We concluded the small car driver would have no recourse, but we didn't reach this conclusion until the end of the drive home.

Which made the question a great one for conversation, and achieved Kris' hidden agenda of asking thought provoking questions to ponder.

I went to Kris' blog today to see if had posted recently. When I didn't see any posts on the front page, I logged in to see the posts.

And couldn't find any.

When I asked him about it, he told me that he had deleted them. He felt blogging wasn't for him, and so removed all of the posts.

I was surprised, and, honestly, remarkably bummed (disappointed, shocked, hurt) about it. He had told some stories, some of which were really cute and quite humourous.

I can respect he doesn't want the content back up, but I could have kept the posts and taken down the site.

I'm just really sad the posts are all gone.

Here only a week, Mom left this morning. I dropped her off at the airport, then went to work. Unlike most people I know, I have a great relationship with my mom. Her leaving is sad, but her visiting is always fantastic.

She had originally come to visit to help me work on the house. We managed to get exactly nothing done while she was here.

Exactly nothing.

We were supposed to work on the garage, clean it out and give away most of the crap in there in the launch of reReuse. Yeah, that didn't happen.

Each time Mom wanted to be motivated, I distracted her. Each time I wanted to be motivated, Mom distracted me.

We're good for each other that way.

So, yeah. Maybe next time we'll be productive. This time, this time was girl time.

Fantastic girl time.