Ding, dong, the listTroll is dead. We the assembled moderators of two lists, have not only made her the first person to be banned (ever, let alone under two IDs) from either list, and have gone so far as to send a note signed by all of us to our assembled listmembers. So far I’ve seen five ‘thank-yous’ and no complaints about our actions. The rest of these people (and of course, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane) are why we keep moderating, even though we sometimes complain. (By the way, despite what she says, Phelps really did do most of the work.)
We taught the first classes of new Intermediate and Beginners rowing sessions today and both went fairly well. The Intermediates are not bad at all -- at this point, several of them have only been rowing for four weeks, and they have a lot to learn about rowing, let alone doing it together, but that’s to be expected. Their skills will improve a lot during this session, and their next challenge will be learning to wake up at 0’dark thirty, if they want to join the Advanced or Competitive groups. The Beginners are a quiet bunch, except for one guy who is a friend of Queue’s, and it will be interesting to see who lasts. The ones who joined up for exercise sometimes find it’s a little more intense than they bargained for, but it’s the ones who joined rowing because it looks like such a beautiful and serene sport who are most cruelly disillusioned. Beautiful, yes, eventually; serene, only from a distance.
It’s rather like ballet in that way; spectators see the smooth grace in the motion of those who have learned their craft, but they don’t see the sweat, pain, blisters, and gritted teeth that go into making that beauty.
We’ve got a bunch of races coming up, including Long Beach next weekend, but are considering several possible destinations for a purely pleasure trip for Memorial Day. My favorite alternative possibility would let us meet Mechaieh and the BYM in the incarnate flesh.
Actually, it looks like my suitcases will get a healthy workout this year, between Memorial Day, regattas up and down the West Coast, and our second time participating in a friend’s annual houseboating trip on Lake Powell. Last year’s trip involved 1 jet ski, 2 houseboats, 2 windsurfers, 3 fried turkeys, 3 waverunners, 4 speedboats, assorted water skis, canoes, and kayaks, and about 35 people, and quite a bit of alcohol. Almost everybody can remember the whole trip, and a good time was had by all. However, most of these people being coworkers, the rule was "Anything that happens at the lake stays at the lake," so no detail here!
Posted by dichroic at April 28, 2001 03:31 PM