Dispatch from the Birkie

I headed 45 miles north yesterday to Hayward, WI for the 36th annual racing of the American Birkebeiner cross-country ski race. The 54 km race had over 7,000 participants, and it was reported that another 15,000 were on hand as spectators. To put these numbers in perspective, the population of Hayward is only 2,100 people.
The annual event is a highlight of the Northwoods calendar, and I now understand why.

I pulled into town about 10:20, parked the car, and hustled over to the finish line (basically, they dump a few feet of snow onto main street, and cordon it off) just in time to see the winner cross in 2 hours 11 minutes. The womens race featured the sort of photo finish you see only in movies, with both racers neck and neck across the line, with a video review needed to determine the winner.

Judged on the number of participants, this is the largest ski race in North America. There were skiers competing from 48 different states and 21 countries. A 12-time Norwegian Olympic medalist (including 8 golds), Bjorn Daehlie, also competed, which is pretty damn cool. As contestants finished, the announcer would read their name and hometown. He was dropping Russias, Slovakias, Norways, and Swedens all over the place, in addition to basically any state that gets snow at least once a year.

Those that were on hand as spectators seemed to be having a blast. Exhibit A being the number of bloody marys and cold brews being consumed at 10:30 am while watching skiiers cross the finish line. In talking with some folks it seems that Saturday night is quite the party. I can imagine it being so, especially with the trans-national/international flavor to things.

I didn't stick around past the afternoon, but I'm half-tempted to pull a group together next year and make a weekend of it (don't worry, no delusions exist about myself or any of my beer-guzzling compatriots being able to complete a 50+ km cross-country ski race). Anyone game?

Oh, and lest people begin to think I am photographically talented, the pictures in this post were poached from various news articles about the event as nothing I took did the event any justice at all for what it was.

This is gonna be one rockin' summer

Spring training has officially started. And after a four hour wait in a "virtual line" on the Chicago Cubs web site I bought tickets for the Minnesota Twins - Chicago Cubs series at Wrigley Field.

Anyone else ready for summer?

Best Sport....Ever

I had nearly forgotten about the great sport of Cricket until I stumbled upon something titled "International warfare on a ball field" while wandering though the interweb this afternoon. If you're not familiar with the glories of this sport, check the link out.

I was first exposed to Cricket in a London airport while watching tv waiting for a bus on my first day in the United Kingdom. I had a chance to view the sport live a few times over the subsequent months, as well as to be exposed to it daily on television and on the Sports pages of the newspapers.

I also had a chance to play the sport a few times as well, and honestly, have no idea how to even describe those experiences. Other than to say that it was one hell of a good time.

In summary, England creates a sport and exports it to the colonies it would take men, resources, and goods from over the next 250 years. Fast forward to the twenty-first century and said countries kick England's arse in cricket every year.

Giga-waabamin minawaa.

Annual Performance Review

So I have my annual performace review this afternoon, which has absoloutely nothing to do with the general focus of this blog. But it gives me a chance to plug one of my top-10 clips from "The Office."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjBQc2bCFk8


Which begs the question, do people still get raises when the economy is in the crapper? Or is the least I can hope for is having my "salary kept consistent with inflation?"

In preperation, I have reviewed the Wikipedia entry for negotiation .

And there goes any case I had whatsoever for being someone that uses my time at work productively.

Population: 105

The landscape of Northern Wisconsin is littered with crossroad settlements, villages, and dried-up ghosts of towns. Many of these classic "blink-and-you'll miss it" stops were once considerably more populous logging-camps or railroad stops.

You know how the story goes though, people move somewhere and create a settlement based on some sort of economic opportunity in that area. If that opportunity is single-pronged, though, when the opportunity eventually dries up so do the people.

These small villages are all slightly unique, but have much in common too. They all have a shuttered, crumbling, closed school. Most have a shuttered, crumbling, closed church too. They all at least have a bar. And then there are the 2-3 blocks of less than a dozen houses each. I wasn't kidding when I said these places were small.

The population game gets to be a vicious cycle. Kids grow up, leave because there are few opportunities, and day by day, the population ages that much more. Without young adults in town to start families, there's no longer any need for a school - and then there it is, one less reason to move to the village if given the chance.

One of these burgs does stick out from the rest though: the Village of Tony, population 105, and hometown of former Wisconsin Badger star and current Baltimore Ravens player Jim Leonhard.

The village is proud of their local-boy-makes-good. They've got a huge billboard devoted to him as you drive through town. The bar has his jerseys on the wall.

It is kind of a neat idea though, that any place, no matter how small, desolate, or empty can produce anyone capable of anything.

I'm watching Leonhard play football on tv as I write this.

The Place Where A Kid Can be a Kid...

Doing some random websurfing over the holidays, I stumbled across this interesting site, Urbangeography. It's basically a web clearinghouse of graphs, charts, and other visual items related to information. I suppose there is some sort of vague link to geography with most things posted, although not all. It may just be my inherent geekiness that made the site attractive to me, but what the heck, check it out.

Anyways, stumbled across this little graphic showing of all things police reports from calls to Chuck E. Cheese restaurants. It's a pretty funny snippet, but a little disturbing too. I don't recall any major incidents from my age 7 birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's but maybe that has more to do with the fact that it was in placid Omaha more than anything else.

I did a little further digging and found this article from the Wall Street Journal which delves a little deeper into the trend and comes up with an unsuprising culprit: alcohol. Apparently, most Chuck E. Cheese's serve both beer and wine.

The Milwaukee branch of the restaurant has even gone so far as to begin having armed guards stationed at their location. Go Wisconsin!

Unfortaunately, I haven't ever witnessed the mayhem at Chuck E. Cheese - I can see how it would be one hell of a show though. The best I can do is to recall the time I saw a family at Chippewa Valley low-caliber pizza buffet specialists Pizza del Rey that had their two children (who had to be aged somewhere from age 10-12) dressed in footie pajamas.

So where are you gonna have your next birthday celebration?

Obligatory Year-End/ Year-Beginning Post

Here it is, the end of one year, and the beginning of another. It's interesting how one of the unintended consequences of the calendar is that the end of each year triggers near universal recollection and introspection at the course that we plotted over the previous twelve months. Inevitably there are things that we wish would have gone better, tiny (or sometimes not so) failures, and to be fair - victories of the spirit as well.

The process of looking back at the previous year leads us to make mental notes of things that we'd like to see ourselves do differently over the upcoming one: resolutions. Oftentimes we don't quite make it to the point of following through successfully on those resolutions, but for some of us, we're bound to get it right eventually. One of these years, something will click, and ta-da we'll finally be where we've wanted to be for so long.

For myself, 2008 was not one for the record books. It opened with a brutal winter season before segueing into a middling summer season, and ending with a fall in which things where on the upswing. I've got high expectations for 2009, though. Both of fate and the random rolls of life's dice, but more importantly for myself. There's alot that will be up to me. This time, I'm ready for the fight.