Process of Illumination

An annual tradition on this blog since 2006, we now present what every ultimate player on your list wants (besides those tickets to Kaimana).

Patagonia Stellar Black Hole Bag
Maybe you get a discount on this, maybe you don't. It doesn't change what comes in the mail: a waterproof, bomber bag. It's perfect for traveling, leaving on the sidelines, or a canoe trip. It holds 6,800 cubic inches and has backpack straps for portability. Tater took one to Japan and had one thing to say: "Arigato!"

Buzz Bullets Disc
No Bunka Shutter jerseys, no official gloves, but their web site does have one merch item: the Buzz Bullets disc. If you want to support the 2006 Club World Champions, this is the way to do it. Note: I do not know how successful you will be ordering from their site. It appears to be in some foreign language—perhaps Japanese. Google would love to help though.

SmartWool Crew Socks
They may be $15/pair, but that's because SmartWool makes the best socks around. If you order three or more pairs from REI you get 10% off, plus a tiny bit of that back on your dividend. Go ahead, pull the trigger. (They make skiing & snowboarding socks too. Also expensive; also worth it.)

Hodags Replica Jersey
Surprisingly this gift guide is not being written by Hector. But as my man BJar, former Central RC, put it (with reference to Minnesota's burgeoning youth scene): "They all aspire to be Hodags." And you thought the Patriots were on a run?

I Am America (And So Can You) (Audio CD)
Stephen Colbert's shtick wears on me sometimes. I know this is a sacrilegious thing to say in the face of Colbert's truthiness, but that's just how I feel about him. This version of his bestselling book, however, is absolutely hilarious. Not quite suitable for pre-game warm-ups (unless your game face features uncontrollable laughter), but very suitable for the plane or car, in which case you may also want...

Bose QuietComfort 2 Headphones
According to CNET, the industry standard for noise-cancelling headphones have only improved. Unfortunately their cost ($300) remains prohibitive. If you are like me—unwilling to spend anything close to this much—you might check out David Pogue's review of comparable but less expensive noise-cancelling headphones.

UltiVillage DVDs
A version of this gift guide was posted without this obvious choice. Apologies, Rob. You will not err if anything you give comes from UltiVillage. Countless hours of labor have gone into producing the most dedicated discs around. UV covers the best college, club, international, and youth events.

Captain's Chair
Boring but important. My first was a ground score at Poultry Days a few years back, but it's good to buy one once in a while.

Since my ACL reconstruction on Aug 21 things have been a bit like the mountains around here: rocky. Everything was great for about three weeks, then I had PT one Friday morning and the knee blew up, culminating in a second surgery on Oct 19. While I would love to have such a simple scapegoat—some bad therapy or massage or, worst of all, a bad physical therapist—it seems that I was fated to struggle.

Aug 22–Sept 14 had me progressing at an above-average rate. Nothing amazing, but better than many recoveries. My extension and flexion (how close my heel comes to my butt) were improving each week, and my strength was returning like refugees to a war-torn homeland: the landscape was familiar... changed for the worse, but familiar. On Sept 14 I went into PT and had some swelling—normal, certainly, for 3.5 weeks out of surgery—and a stiffer than usual knee cap. We did the routine things that day as well as some massage around the knee cap trying to loosen it up. Next day my knee was extremely stiff and the swelling increased. My extension and flexion regressed to where one would expect to be several days out of surgery, not several weeks.

Weeks 4–8 were downright depressing. I would fight and fight for 1 or 2 degrees of extension and the stiffness and swelling would knock me right back. Fears crept in: Are we pushing too hard? Are we not pushing hard enough? Is my body rejecting the allograft? That would fucking suck. Am I not doing enough at home? My surgeon and I booked a second surgery for Oct 18. We weren't sure what the surgery was for ... making sure the ACL was solid, I guess, seeing if it was infected, maybe. Whatever. It was comforting to know in early October that if my struggles persisted for several weeks more there might be a silver bullet.

But there are no silver bullets in physiology. Every 3 seconds you take off your 200m time requires weeks of training, and lifting in the months prior just to make sure your body could even shave any time off. Every 3 degrees of extension or flexion I gained required weeks of stretching, patience, and pain.

Oct 15, three days before surgery #2, I met with the surgeon and it happened to be a good day. In the up-and-down wave of my recovery he caught me on the upswing, marked by slight gains in extension/flexion and a decrease in swelling. We called off the surgery.

Friday Oct 19 I had a regularly scheduled PT session and the 24 hours prior had been the hardest since surgery. I called in "sick" to work on Thursday, but I wasn't sick, I was nearly incapacitated, immobile. Then Friday morning my knee capsule was bigger than a softball. My PT said he couldn't do anything and called in the PT center's physician's assistant to evaluate the knee. They called my surgeon—caught him scrubbing in, minutes from being unavailable—and he advised to drain the knee, have the fluid sent to the lab. "That is a big syringe," I said to the PT and the PA. "Better to have the RV than the Pinto I guess."

Twenty minutes and two syringefuls (110 cc's) later we had some fluid in our hands and I had a lot less in my knee. Went home. PA called: "By the way, you can't eat anything starting right now in case you need surgery." "Okay." Awesome. It's 10 a.m. and I've eaten cereal and coffee. Later the PA calls ... Lab report says the white blood cell count is very high in the fluid, they suspect infection. Instructed to report to the hospital at 5:00.

Surgery finally starts at 8:30 or 9:00. I&D, irrigate & drain. Knee-related fears being not assuaged at all (It is the allograft. Will I have to start over? Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck shit), my only comfort was the promise of a new Vicodin prescription and, if I was lucky, some ice chips and a snack as soon as I came to. Surgery went fine and they cleaned out the knee, checked on the graft. Everything seemed okay except the white blood cell count from the drain sample.

But lab cultures never replicated a bacterial infection from the blood samples drawn over the course of three weeks. Apparently microbacterial science, in the year of our Lord 2007, is an imperfect science. Yesterday's chat with Alex, a PT student:

11:02 PM me: knee's ok

11:00 PM infection might've been, might not've been

they're not really sure

apparently that field of medical science has not yet been perfected

I'm like isn't it 2007?

11:01 PM but -- getting better now, slowly but surely

11:02 PM Alex: haha

true

unfortunately the big money is not researching microbacteria stuff

me: where is the big money?

11:03 PM Alex: anti-depressants, fat burners and male erectile dysfunction

So I was on antibiotics for a 3.5 weeks. Better to treat a possible infection than not treat an imperceptible infection.

The last 5 1/2 weeks have yielded steady improvement with a slight plateau in the last week. I'm hitting the YMCA 5–6 times a week, PT now down to once a week. Just began introducing cardio to my routine, did some speed ladder–like exercises, slideboard, and lunges. Good shit.

I am optimistic now.

Oh god. I feel it coming now. Nine days removed from Finals and the tips of my fingers are beginning to tingle. I move away from the computer but the keyboard keeps pulling me back.
I've been dealing with the demons and adjustments of another season finished day and night and today I awoke feeling ready.

So here it comes, these next few weeks: The season, and national championship, in review.

We'll be talking about:
The Curse
Shopping
Finals
Bravo
My Teammates
Me and my future in this sport.

Let me start this next creative output by saying thank you to all my teammates for my favorite club season to date. We had a fucking blast, and I couldn't have wanted any more from you guys.

Alright, when I've more time this week, more to come.

After discovering Ultimate during my senior year of high school, it quickly began to overtake my other passions and interests. So it was only natural that after my only high school campaign culminated in a state championship over Colin Gottlieb and his West High teammates, I sought another forum where I might showcase my mad skillz.

It was then that I first made the acquaintance of the Madison Ultimate Frisbee Association (MUFA), MUSL (summer league), and MUSL's coordinator, Robin Davies.

I knew nothing of organizing a team, deadlines, or fees. I didn't even know most of the rules then. I predictably missed the registration deadline, and showed up at a house on Jennifer Street in Madison guarded by two of the most intimidating German Shepherds I'd ever seen. Afraid to even knock, but knowing that it was the only way to have a chance of playing Ultimate that summer, I braved the canines and rang the bell. Robin answered the door. I apologized for our tardiness, explained our situation, and begged to be let into the league. He took our half-filled roster form, smiled, and told us our first game would be the following week on a Wednesday. I left elated.

Back then, $25 got you a disc, a team t-shirt, two games a week, and two free pitchers of beer and two free appetizers from the Great Dane after every game for the length of the summer. That was 10 years ago. Inflation has taken its toll. Now, for $25 you get...the same thing, minus the apps, but the t-shirt is now a 5 Ultimate jersey. And the finals is an open-invite bash with incredible food and drinks served on a gorgeous Madison evening with a boisterous crowd, exciting play, and not a mean-mugging hater to be seen. $25. That's not a typo. My first year MUSL was around 16 teams playing 5/2 coed. This year? 88 teams, 1750 players. The man responsible? Robin Davies. For 8 years he held down the MUSL director position and groomed that little plum into one of the best summer leagues anywhere in the country. That was his baby, and it grew into a mature, stable beast.

Now I pick up my latest UPA newsletter and see Robin Davies is running for an at-large position for the board of directors. I couldn't be more elated. You want someone with a different perspective from all us tired, "elite" ultimate players that care only about the fall series and Nationals? Robin Davies. You want someone with a proven track record of waxing a little league into a self-sustaining powerhouse among everyone from casual city to college-champion players, and having everyone involve enjoy themselves immensely? Robin Davies. You want someone that has spent the last 10 years of his life listening to and addressing the needs and wants of every category of player and person? Robin Davies.

I know most of us are more concerned with not turning it over in pick-up than we are with voting for UPA board members. For some reason we don't care. But, hey, for just one moment, take a breath, click on this sentence right here, and vote. Vote for Robin Davies. I am not the type that endorses shit lightly, and definitely not the person who will recommend someone just because they're a friend. For disclosure, we haven't spoken in over a year and as I type now, no one in Madison knows I'm writing this.

Robin is going to get shit done, he's going to put in the work, take care of the little things, and make sure the voices of the mass number of players get heard: the players out there enjoying the beautiful afternoon, caring less about winning a national championship and more about expanding our base, promulgating the love, and having a good time.

It's a voice seldom heard above the din of the needy "elite", and Robin is a man to represent it.

I apologize for the title of this post as it belies the content. If you were expecting something like Hector's recent pieces on tournament preparation you will be disappointed.

To the 5 of you still reading, congratulations. Two months ago my right ACL was torn by a somewhat late bid on defense. I see no point in excoriating the team or the player here, as they have been shat upon in private. (Though I would like to give a shout-out to Blackfish, who offered me shade and ice — from their beer no less — on the sideline following that painful pop.) But also it is a disservice to think about that time you got hurt. Lingering on that instant of pain and the dread of a season ending in June do very little to rehab your ______.

No, Hector's season and mine are very different now. But to be sure, they weren't the same from the beginning, having different team and individual goals. Johnny Bravo would do well to win Nationals; Sack Lunch would do well to qualify. Those of you playing this Series have practices and workouts, while some of us have PT workouts. We (the injured, editorial we) are putting in our time and it couldn't be more important. You will not keep a good mark in your last game at Regionals if you do not work out in the next 6 weeks. If we do not work out in the next 6 weeks we never play again (at an acceptable level for the elite ultimate player). Relegated to league and disc golf? No sir. I'll be back. You just won't see me at Solstice... twice attended, twice injured.

As for the Game Ready, I recommend this for anyone who injures something that requires constant icing. "Game Ready" is a bit of a misnomer, but I suspect the origin for such a product was the need to ice professional athletes like baseball pitchers. And besides, "Injured On Your Ass" didn't make it out of focus-grouping.

I am also participating in a long-term study for ACL reconstruction patients. Why not help the torn ACLs of 2017 if all it takes is four surveys (present, 2 years post-op, 6 years, 10 years)? Plus the stipend is off the hook... $80 or something.