Process of Illumination

I literally just got out of the car, quarter to seven. Twelve hours of driving each way for one and a half games. Three dollars per gallon of gas. Totally worth it. I will write my thoughts later today and tomorrow, but I wanted to share this picture.

This is Gigo and Ted at Junior Nationals in 2001. At this point, they'd been playing together for 4 years. Yesterday, they brought their nine years of playing disc together to bear on CUT, with disasterous results for the Northfield residents. Aside from Gigo playing the best I've seen him play, having a hand in about half of Wisconsin's goals, he and Ted shared five goals with each other, including the critical first upwinder after CUT's.

Tyler and I took this picture that Sunday, after being bored at home with little to do and getting the idea to drive south on a whim and surprise them. Worth the drive. Today, five years later, it paid for itself again.

My brother and I always compete against each other. And I alway thought myself the better, more experienced and well rounded player. Today the seed of doubt has been planted. After playing the best game of his career in semis of nationals in '03 against Mamabird, he played one better the following day in finals and was +8 for both games.
Yesterday against CUT he went +9 or 10. Absurd. I've got a lot of work to do.

In the movie Gattaca, Ethan Hawke's character always competes against his genetically modified (and superior) brother. They swim out as far as they dare into the ocean, and the first to give up and swim back loses. When Ethan wins, his brother asks him how, despite his genetic inferiority, he managed to beat him. "Do you want to know why I win," Ethan asked. "I never save anything for the swim back."

Neither does my brother.