First (official) day of practice and words of wisdom from Mike Ness

So...the big day is...September 22nd! Some friendly advice- be prepared!!! A few more reminders; Physicals will be September 15th (last names A-L) and September 16th (M-Z), and we are tentatively planning our first team meeting for September 3rd at 830 pm (site TBD).

I have got two fun weekends coming up (yeah for me!): This weekend I will be (hopefully) seeing the Old 97's at Webster Hall in the city, and next weekend I will be in Providence and get to see Lucero. I am pretty psyched, two of my favorite bands, in a few years I will probably be too old for that stuff.

For those of you who are not prepared, our friends from (another great band) Social Distortion would like to leave you with these words:
"So I'm pulling out the weeds, i'm taking stock
you can talk the talk, but cant walk the walk
Your narcissistic ways have gotten the best of you.
So I'm leaving you to sink, in all your glory
For you and me it's the end of the story.
Get out of my way, I've got better things to do...
I'm leaving you far behind.
I'm leaving you far behind.
Stop wasting all of my time.
I'm leaving you far behind."

Enter the Bubble

I guess it is time for me to start worrying about everyones health, as in a span of a few hours I find out Jimmy split his head open and Kendrick broke his leg. I of course wish a speedy recovery to both. The rest of you...put yourself in a bubble or something!

Trials and Tribulations

I hope you all had time from your busy lives to watch some Olympic Trials. I guess impressive may be an understatement. I could obviously go on and on about it, but I will just touch on a few things. Everyone has great technique and everyone has a great kick...hint hint. I was happy to see Matt Grevers make it in the 100 back (I used to see him swim as a high school kid in Illinois) and I was equally disappointed for Randall Bal not making it (I just like him as a swimmer). What can you say about Dara Torres, kind of ridiculous. Hopefully the Trials and upcoming Olympics will give you inspiration and motivation going into the 2008-2009 season.
I am currently at Hamilton College working swim camp (2 weeks to go)! The past 8 years I have had to run early morning masters swimming, early morning club practice, early morning swim camp practice, be aquatics director, run night club practice, prepare and run our two big club summer meets, and work swim camp all at the same time. This year it is just swim camp, and I can not even explain how nice that is.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I hope everyone is working hard to help us be a great team in the future. It is easy to get caught up in life, make time to work out and swimming would be great! We have to be blue collar, we have to develop and earn our talents and success. It will never be handed to us. Do your part!