Feeling Good

Long time, no something or another. It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog but I figure it’s time to get going again.

First I’ll give a brief explanation as to why I haven’t been updating as often as I may have wanted to be doing so. I haven’t been inspired to do so. Not the greatest of explanations but that will be all you’ll get out of me. It’s been a really long summer; ultimate took up way more time than I wanted it to (again), family health crises popped up (we’re all rooting for you Ben), work got out of control and… I think that is pretty much it.

It is now the first of November and I am sitting in front of a computer feeling ridiculously refreshed. Ultimate took up a lot of my fall but in a good way, Ben seems to be doing pretty well (http://benjaminskira.blogspot.com) and work has calmed down in a big way. On top of that I have only been in the office seven days over the past three weeks. Not a lot of work combined with lots of play makes for a happy Daniel.

Since we all agree that the summer was a write-off I’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of what has me feeling so good these days.

On Oct 11, after a busy day of work following up many prior busy days of work, I left the office and went to the airport to catch my flight to Vancouver. Purpose of the trip, coach the McGill women’s ultimate Frisbee team at the Canadian University Ultimate Championships. My expectations for the team were relatively low compared to our 2005 when we finished as the top ranked women’s program in the country and 2006 when we took home the silver medal. My goal was to make it into the semi-finals but I knew even that would be a challenge. There were a lot of young, inexperienced girls on the team this year and they were going to have their hands full with the more experienced teams from such obscure places as UBC, Saskatchewan, U of T and U of A. In the end they exceeded my own and I think even their own expectations by making it to the finals against an exceptionally talented but unfortunately arrogant UBC team. I don’t think the score of the final necessarily represented how well our girls played but the most important thing is that they had a whale of a good time and exceeded expectations. Score a big one in the feel good department.

On the Monday I had the good fortune of not having to fly back to Montreal to sit behind my lovely office desk but rather I got to board a flight bound for beautiful San Francisco. Next stop on my whirlwind tour of North America was the Meritage Resort and Spa in lovely Napa. This leg started out great as I was flipping through the EnRoute magazine and to my great surprise, when I got to the section where they highlight hotels from around the world and right there was the Meritage. It took a turn for the worse when we pulled into the hotel which looked like it was located in an industrial area of the valley. My first impressions of Napa weren’t great as you approach it from the south through a predominantly industrial area. My hopes were raised again when my boss explained that the “real” Napa Valley is north of the town of Napa and not anywhere near where we were. Things kept getting better when the big boss, Rick Wood showed up. Rick has a passion for the Napa Valley and its wines and I was hoping to get a chance to share that experience with him.

As luck would have it on Tuesday night we had a free night and the Canadian team went out for dinner at Celadon, a nice restaurant on the water in Napa. Rick took charge of the wine list and ordered a 2004 Cliff Lede Claret with dinner, a bottle of 2002 and 2003 Far Niente Dolce dessert wine. The Claret was phenomenal. I’ve never been a huge fan of red wines but that is probably because most of the red wines I’ve tasted are cheap and tasted more like grape juice. So it was love at first sip with Cliff Lede. I’ve also never been a fan of dessert wines and I’ve actually had some good ones before. While I’ve not been converted to dessert wines the Dolce was extremely drinkable. Of course at $90 a bottle one would think that it should be quite good. The cool thing about the Far Niente wines is that the labels are made from real gold leaf so you know they are putting some care into their product.

The trip got even better when Wednesday rolled around and as luck would have it the Canadian group didn’t have to attend any of the meetings until 4:30pm. I’ll give you one guess as to what happened next. Yup, we (Max and I) piled into Rick’s rental truck and were taken for a day to remember. We started at Coppola’s upscale winery, Rubicon, moved onto Beringer to see the lovely grounds, came back down to Cliff Lede and then finished off at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Rubicon definitely worth the $25 fee to see the winery and indulge in a 5 wine tasting. We actually tasted 7 wines thanks to our generous host. This was a top notch outfit and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Napa. Beringer is touristier but also worth the trip as it is one of the oldest and most spectacular wineries in the area. Cliff Lede was worth it for the wine but the people were a little less friendly. I found that surprising especially considering that they are owned by a Canadian. By the time we got the Stag’s Leap I was all tasted out and didn’t really care to try more but Max and Rick said it was really good as well. This winery is less about the facilities and more about the wine. In the end I finished the day with a bottle of 2005 Cliff Lede Claret and a bottle of 2004 Beringer Cab to take home. Darn Canada customs and their two bottle limit. In the end I think the limit is probably a good thing as I seem to have developed a taste for higher end wines in the $35-$90 a bottle range. The moral here is that I need a higher paying job to be able to sustain my new habit.

I was finally back in the office on October 19. One day of work and then the weekend; I could get used to this life. I had to be at work the following Monday and Tuesday but that was really just passing the time until Tuesday night. That was when Eric and I had to drive down to Burlington to catch our Wednesday morning flight to Sarasota. Daron was nice enough to put us up for the evening and then the real fun started on Wednesday. Our flight left on time as did our connection from Atlanta. We were in Tampa by noon and by 1:00pm we were on the road to Sarasota with John Bar as another passenger.

You might be wondering what I was doing heading to Sarasota for the weekend at the end of October. Eric, John Bar and I were on the way to the UPA Championships of course. I picked up with DoG this fall and have been playing masters ultimate with them since the beginning of September. We qualified for UPAs and now it was time to show up and play. This was huge for me because for the past 12 years I’ve been trying to qualify for this tournament and I finally did. I had hoped to get a shot to play in the open division but at this point I’m not going to be picky. UPAs is the absolutely biggest ultimate tournament in the World and I needed to go. By playing for DoG I figured I’d be able to ride the coat-tails of some of the legends of the game and qualify for “The Show”. Little did I know that I would be the game changer on their roster. I was just looking forward to getting a chance to play and learn from so many of the guys who kept destroying teams that I played on when I started out. By the end of this fall run I was the guy they were putting on the field to make the big plays for them. How cool is that!?!?!?! I’ll give you more details of the tournament later but the highlight of the tournament was after we won (YES, WE WON!!!!) the final, we were all huddled up and I’m surrounded by the likes of Parinella, Alex, Dick Brown, Seeger, Cameros, Zazlow, Coop, Paul Greff, etc. and Steve Mooney calls me out in front of all of these guys as the team MVP and gives me a high five. That right there is a moment I will never forget and is probably the highlight of my ultimate career.

Of course we won the masters division final, the partying starts which was fun and went on way too long, or not long enough depending on your point of view, we watched some high level ultimate on Sunday and then we had to come home. Eric and I got to the airport only to find out that our flight was overbooked by 25 people. What nearly turned into a nightmare scenario was saved by the US Airways woman at the gate who found us an alternate flight back to Burlington which actually arrived before we were scheduled to get there. On top of that we both got a flight voucher out of the deal.

Now you can see why I’m feeling pretty good right now. It’s been a long time coming but I finally feel like I’ve been able to recharge my batteries. In the next few days I’ll do a review of UPAs and post it for all to read. I’ll tell you all about the awesome stuff (the fields, the beach, the weather, the games, the gold medal) and the bad stuff (having the tournament end). Until then I’m going to go and drink a glass of nice wine, look at the silver medal the girls earned for me, wear the gold medal I won for myself and keep that silly smile on my face.

Dan