for your viewing pleasure

here is a video of spencer on the tonight show with johnny carson. he is the drummer you see killing it in the background. WOW. I can't get over this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53YpKH4DMf0

rockstar acquaintances

so my new roommate is supposed to be moving in any day now, although i have seen hide nor hair of him. spencer is moving out. in the spirit of goodbyes, i decided to google "spencer cobrin" and see if i had missed anything in choosing not to get to know him for the last five months. huge surprise waiting for me: he was the drummer for Morrissey from 1992 to 1998! I read a bunch of articles and a bunch cited him as "the best drummer morrissey ever had" hmmm, I've been living with a rock star for five months and i didn't even know it. Here are some pictures of him with the band, proof that it really is the same spencer cobrin.

also a link to an interview with him, and more pictures. This is very exciting for me, although it's too late to make friends and I'm kind of bummed. This just goes to show that you must always get to know people even if you think they will not be the greatest.

http://therebelmagazine.blogspot.com/2011/03/q-with-spencer-cobrin.html

I wish I had something to share besides rowing news, but alas, it's all there is...

We had a race in Maine last weekend. Two races, actually. It was bitter cold and snowing. No one wanted to be there, and it showed in our first race. We got brutally beat by UNH. Tensions were high coming off the water. There was a bit of a blow out fight that went something like:

Meghan: "This is rediculous. We gave up out there. I'm f*%^*$@ sick of losing! We're stronger than every boat out there but none of you can get fired up enough to beat them."

various girls: "I pulled my hardest!"

"No! you didn't. If we had pulled our hardest we would have won. That's a bad excuse, you're just trying to make yourselves feel better."

So Meghan walked away angry and some girls started to cry and I was very discouraged but running around trying to convince the crying girls of their worth on the team and Meghan that she shouldn't give up on us, we'll find the fire.
A good tongue lashing was all we needed, because in the second race we rowed our hearts out, finally got the stroke-rating above a 32 (we've been trying, unsuccessfully until this race, to row at 35 strokes per minute) for the whole 2K, and won the race. We needed to get angry, and whether girls wanted to prove Meghan wrong or were just sick of losing, we finally got it together and rowed with more intensity than I've ever felt rowing with Middlebury Crew. To give an idea of the difference in effort: In our first race, we were 19 seconds off UVM's time (we didn't race them, but they're our biggest competition so we use their time as a measure of how we're doing). In our second race, we were a second FASTER than their time. Noel had ridden the launch behind us for both races, and said it looked like a different team. He gave us quite the pep talk on Monday, and said how proud he was of our boat that we were finally able to dig deep and push ourselves. He said:

"Racing is hard. Racing is F*&%^* hard," he never swears so we knew he meant it, "I used to be terrified of racing. It took me over 36 hours to prepare myself, mentally, for a race, because I knew that when the starter yelled go I was going to be asked to do something harder than I wanted to do, and the only way I'd have any self-respect getting off the water was if I left everything out on the course. It hurts, and it's not easy to ask yourself to give that much effort, which is why most people are not rowers. But if you ask it of yourselves, and you put all your energy into each stroke, than racing is the best there is. You decide now what you're going to do at New Englands. You have 4 practices left."

After that, we had the best practice I've had with Middlebury crew in my 3 years rowing. The boat was intense, and focused, and every girl was exhausted after each piece. Now we have New Englands in 3 days! I leave Friday at 12:30 for Massachusetts. I'm so excited! I think we finally get the difference between racing to get it over with and racing to win, and we're ready to KDB at Worcester! (KDB is our super secret cheer that we do before each race. I can't tell you what it means, but I can tell you that when we KDB we win medals).

Now off to the library to work on that other really important part of my Middlebury Experience...academics.

Spring is Kinda Here

Well the sun came out in Ripton today.  For a short while anyway.  I said goodbye to Bauer and headed back up to Deacon Hill Road.  Here are some pictures of Bauer.  You can tell he is really sad to see me go.

Bauer asleep.

Bauer waking up.

Bauer fully alert.

I went for a hike / run up behind the house.  You can get on the Burnt Hill Trail, which is a sideshoot trail that eventually runs into the Long Trail near Breadloaf or the Norske Trail, which is the XC ski trail that heads up to the Snow Bowl.  I went a little ways up Burnt Hill and then puckerbrushed over to Burdick Brook which runs off Breadloaf Mountain and right by our house.  It is more of a river this time of year and I got some good shots and a video which I will try to post.  (Thanks for the camera Mom, I'm having a blast with it.)

You are here.

Burdick Brook

It was great to see Grady this weekend albeit for way too short a visit.  We got to have a nice visit as we waited for the 2:09 train which finally pulled into Port Henry headed south around 3:30 on the Monday after Easter.  Speaking of which, we had a very successful Easter Brunch at the Inn.  Hope everyone had a good one filled with chocolate bunnies, hidden eggs and joy!

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

They're Back!

And all the more wonderful for having been absent for so long - thanks for the catchup, Peter and Cailin and Grady! I was beginning to think we'd have to send someone overseas again to restore the blog.

The pictures are a wonderful addition. I'm so glad you have that camera, Peter. If you can make a copy of the one of Dad with the 4 grands behind, admiring the cake, he would love that. I can't do that from the blog, can I?

Cool glasses, Grady. And those are adorable kidlets you tend. Did they ever find KC's shoes? And how cool to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge! The youngest of my father's six brothers, Morgan by name, was a laborer on the construction of that bridge.

Speaking of Morgan (that would have been my Uncle Morgan) - we had a guest at church last Sunday whose name-tag said he was from New London, CT. So, I had to tell him that I was born in New London. When I told him I was a McGinley, he said, " McGinley! You're not related to Morgan McGinley are you? He's my fly-fishing buddy!" (that would be my cousin Morgan, son of Uncle by-the-same-name.) Small world, as they say. Cousin Morgan retired last year as Editorial Page Editor of the New London Day, the newspaper one of our ancestors helped to found years ago. Time for fly-fishing now, I guess.

Cailin, I hope you haven't had to get in the lake this week. Enough of that torture!

I'm off after supper to a panel discussion of the possibility of establishing a Peace Studies course (more ideally, a Peace Studies Department) at Middlebury College. I'm not on the panel - just an interested bystander.

Love (and peace) to all,
GrAnn

Grandpa Jim has a birthday party

What a wonderful time we all had at Grandma Ann and Grandpa Jim's house last night in celebration of Grandpa Jim's birthday.  Missed Grady but got to include her with the Skype.  What a great invention!

We had oven barbequed short ribs.  Ummm good.

Deelish!

Gradsie!!  Electronic participation.

All these people came to my birthday party and all I got was this hat!

What a great time.  I hope we can do it all again soon.

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

I can see clearly now

Two great things: the top picture shows the new workout top that i snagged for the amayyy-zing price of 3.99 at our local discount store. The bottom picture shows me in my new glasses! (I guess the top picture does as well...) Everything is just so much crisper and clearer! It's great to have vision again.

This week was a doozy. I was overnight with Izzy every night and with Freyja and Katla from 8:30 to 5:30 tuesday through friday because KC's boss flew in from England and she had to be in the Manhattan office. Oh, and Simon and Charlotte on Monday and Thursday evenings. I was not at my apartment once the whole week. Rob and Spence missed me like crazy: the tears on their pillows bespeak the pain in their hearts. I estimate that I changed 30 poopy diapers in the past 7 days. I'm so over child feces.

I will be spending the afternoon with frey frey and kitty kat: KC and Baldur have requested that I remove them from the apartment for two hours so they can do a deep cleaning of the place. Three pairs of KC's shoes have gone missing and after they found all their CDs in a heating duct last month they figure that the whereabouts are in some place known only to Freyja and require a purging of the apartment to locate. Then hopefully I will be going into Manhattan tonight because my friend Caitlin, who just moved back to Philly last month, is visiting in town for the weekend.

Two weekends ago I trekked across the Brooklyn Bridge on my day off and it was absolutely beautiful! The sun was shining, the view was amazing, no complaints... I walked all the way from my apartment in Brooklyn to Penn station. It took about four hours but I was walking leisurely and I stopped in the Strand for a new book (Philip Roth's American Pastoral, so far so good, winner of the Pulitzer) so it might have been quicker. I was particularly excited to spot the skyscraper with the panels that appear to be undulating (see photos), because it is a Frank Gehry and I was just reading a really cool article about it.

Also included a few pics of freyja and katla.

Hello Fine Family! It's been too long since I've posted anything! What to start with... Crew, I guess, since it's pretty much all I do these days. It's been a bit of a rough start to the season. Georgia was great! Exhausting, cold, and rainy, but very productive. It was wonderful to be back on the water (after almost a year!) and to be rowing with the boat. By the end of the week, we were moving well together and zipping across the water. I'm sitting 6 seat in the top 8+ this year, with Meghan stroking, Rebecca in 7, Brittany 5, Eliza 4, Christina 3, Catherine 2 and Kalie in bow. Our first race of the season was right after Georgia--we flew into Boston on Friday, stayed over at the Red Roof Inn, and raced in Worcester against WPI, Wesleyan and Smith on Saturday. We got creamed. Last by a lot. Pretty dissapointing after such a good week of training, but we moved on, and last week we raced 4+'s at the Big 3 Regatta against Bowdoin and Amherst, and won! We needed that victory for morale. Until Tuesday Lake Dunmore was still frozen. We were the only school in New England still holding indoor practice, and it's the worst to get back from being on the water for 6 hours a day and be stuck on ergs. Finally things seem to be getting back to normal! and then today happened... We don't have a dock at Dunmore yet, so we've been wading into the water. It's maybe 35 degrees (keep in mind that last week it was still iced over). It's not terrible when the air is warm, but this morning at 6am the air was also about 35 degrees. The puddles and sand had frozen overnight. So we had to walk our boats, barefoot, across the ice, to the freezing cold lake. We couldn't feel our feet, it felt like walking on stumps. Then all the oarlocks had frozen shut overnight, so we had to stand in the water an extra-long time trying to undo them. Most of us were crying at this point. If you know the team, you know we don't really cry. We get angry and frustrated, but never cry. I saw Christina cry for the first time in the three years I've known her (she's tough as nails). It was the kind of cold that makes you naseous. Of course we're all wearing shorts because wading in with long pants defeats the purpose, you'll be sitting in the boat with wet spandex for the rest of practice. Finally we got out on the water. Drops of water that were spraying up from the oars were freezing immediately. My jacket was covered in ice, my hair was frozen, the velcro on my shoes was frozen shut, and the seats were stuck on the slides because they were freezing, too. We couldn't feather our oars because we couldn't feel our hands. At this point we were all crying. Practice was short, but then we had to get back into the water to get the boat it. And derig. Have you ever tried to loosen a bolt that's frozen with fingers that you can't feel? It takes a lot longer than normal. Needless to say, when our vans rolled into ADK around 9:15 this morning they were full of a lot of cold, crying, hungry rowers, and I think Noel was questioning whether or not any of us would ever come back. But on the bright side, I get to wake up at 3:00 tomorrow morning to go race! yay... The day got better though, because a)we didn't have classes, so I got right back into bed (after a waffle and coffee, delish!) and b) I found out where I'm living next year! I got #11 out of 850 for room draw! Draw happened last night and this afternoon they told us that we got our top choice, a 6 person house! I'm living with Kelsey, Alex Margarite, Sasha Rivera, Hannah Epstein, and Tim O'Grady in 82 Adirondack Street. It's the cutest house! With huge rooms, a beautiful living room with a fire place, a dining room and kitchen, a screened back porch, a basement, and two bathrooms! WE'RE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!! The group that I'm living with is great. I don't know Sasha and Tim super well, but they're really nice and relaxed (they're in Bobolinks with Kelsey) which is what we were looking for. Unfortunately for me I'm the only non-acapella person in the house...could get...musical. Since it's April, and that means summer's coming (even if it still feels like January), I've started to think of summer plans. One option is a rowing program in Philadelphia. It's called Vesper Rowing Club, an elite program that would train me to (possibly) be good enough to continue rowing after college. Noel expressed that he thinks if I really want to, and I stick with it, there might be a place for me on the National team!! I haven't heard back from the director yet, but I'm pretty sure that I'll get in because Meghan, our captain, emailed one of the coaches about me and he wanted me to come row for them (connections!). It would be a big commitment, working out 2 times a day all summer, with regattas around the country on weekends, and I'd have to figure out how to do it financially, I'd definitely need to get a job that would let me have the schedule I'd need to row. But I'll figure that out. The other option is for me to head West. I've decided I'm going to work on a Dude Ranch this summer. Too bad that most ranches do their hiring in November. I haven't had much luck. But I'm going to send my resume to every ranch, hotel, restaurant, bar and coffee shop in Colorado and Wyoming and Montana with the hopes that one will hire me. I have it in my head that I'd like to be out there, and now there's nothing stopping me from just doing it. Except Vesper Boat Club, of course. phew. I think you're all caught up! A very late Happy Birthday to Grandpa Jim! I did get to see him last Sunday to say hello, and now I'll get to see all of you this Sunday. Sweet Lornadoone! What a time we'll have!