Projects ...

... that are keeping me waaaaayyy too busy:

1) All Things Rowing - besides getting out 4 or 5 times a week, I also decided to rehab an old rowing shell (it's taking longer than I expected):




2) Appliances - need to attach the icemaker for the new fridge but I'm chicken and too cheap; the upstairs toilet wobbles waaaayyyyy too much - especially for a toilet training toddler


3) Bonsai - they are growing like weeds and desperately need a trim. (Hey LG, recognize the pot?)



4) Life/Family - highest priority as expected. The better half, the heir and the spare on the way.



I seriously need more hours in a day ...

Damn ... gotta think up a new name ...

... for my new rowing single.

I took the new boat out yesterday:


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It rowed ... very nicely. Hmmm ...

I used to ...

... participate in sports as my main form of exercise.

Now, that I'm middle aged (really? - wow), I realize, much to my chagrin, I'm going to have to exercise in order to participate in my chosen sport.

I'm back on the River and, I don't know if it's my healing nose or my increasing girth or just the fact that I'm almost 41, but I was sucking in air like a fat kid sucking in cotton candy at the fair.

I had to tell Bruce (my doubles partner) that we have to turn around after we rowed about half the distance we usually would do last fall.

Oh well, time to be a grown up and do the things I tell my patients to do each day.

Peace, look for my wheezing up and down the Mississippi this summer ...

Endorphins are cool ...

... I never understood the "Runner's High".

It's this mythical state where a runner has reached a level of training that, during a run, the bloodstream gets flooded with hormones that the body produces that have opiate, or morphinelike, properties. It's an euphoric state that, quite frankly, can be addictive in the right peron's physiology.

I've never really considered myself a runner (it's waaayyy too much work) but I did run track in high school (110m high hurdles and pole vault, thank you) and did my fair share of some 5k's and 10k's when I was in grad school and early medical school.

But, I never got "the high". I remember seeing it in the face of a high school classmate of mine when we had to run a mile in gym class. She had this big grin on her face and literally sprinted the last 100 yards. It was f'in nuts and a little scary.

(Interesting side note - she had 6 kids and is now a fitness instructor at a YMCA in Tennessee; she DID become addicted to the endorphins! Women get an endorphin rush after delivery and experience a slightly less powerful but more pleasant neurohormone when breast feeding.)

Anyway, today was shaping up to be a crap day.

My two rowing partners were out of town and I was looking forward to taking my single out this morning.

But as I pulled into the parking lot on Raspberry Island, the sky was dark and a little rain was falling. Shit. Not ideal conditions, but do-able.

However, the competitive team was coming in (there are ... like a million of them) because of the rain and some lightning. Pussies - I guess they're afraid of 2 to 3 gigawatts of arcing plasma that can essentially melt your nervous system. (just kidding ;))

Shit, again. So I slogged away on the erg for about half an hour which I love (sarcasm), stopping every 10 minutes to look at the weather channel website on my phone.

I hate erging, so I talked to Linnea and Eric (people that rowed Novice with me, but are infintely better than me now) briefly and then adjusted the length and inboard my oars which I had been meaning to do for a while. Finally, it looked like the little break in the rain was about to cruise through the downtown Saint Paul area, but the worse case scenario was about to unfold.

The Juniors.

Nice kids (who all probably row better than me) but watching them get organized and get off the dock is like watching a Keystone Kops movie ... but more annoying and less structured. I don't know their coach very well, but she's very vocal and loud - which doesn't seem to help the kids too much. Shit, cubed.

I went to my happy place for a brief respite and emerged to find the rain had stopped, the wind had died down and I had exactly 35 minutes to row. Finally.

I got off the dock with no problems and after a few minutes of warm-up drills, I felt pretty good. I went up to the inlet which is nice and protected and did a couple of laps in there. Once again, despite waiting for over an hour, everything felt good. I headed back out into the river and downstream towards the club.

I was rowing a 18 stroke rate and I was able to balance and get my oars off the water.

It's wasn't exactly a "high" but everything felt in sync and I watched my pace get ever so slightly quicker and quicker on my stroke coach iphone thingy. I was breathing hard but I didn't notice. My back was good, the linkage of legs, trunk and arms was smooth and I could feel my (yet unnamed) single surge a little after each stroke. Hmm ... maybe I'm not as bad as I thought.

I turned around under the Wabasha Street Bridge and docked relatively smoothly. It didn't start raining again until I was halfway up the ramp. It didn't start raining hard until I was in my car and speeding up 35E towards work.

I didn't care, the endorphins were still tickling my brain ...

"What's in a name? A rose is a ..."

"... is a rose is a rose."

True. A rose flower would still smell as sweet but I doubt it'd be as popular with gardeners and florists is it was called "sweaty butt muncher".

So I'm looking for a fitting name for my boat.

It nameless now, but it's generally considered bad luck not to re-christen a boat when it becomes yours. I don't think there's an accepted time-frame, but I'm arbitrarily calling it a year.

The relationship of man (or woman) with a boat is symbiotic. There's a lot of give and take. Well, mostly 'give'. I bought the damn thing. I transported it across the country. I pay to have it stored at my club's boat house.

And I just bought it this snazzy cover so it won't get all dinged up and covered with dead insects when I precariously strap it to the top of my car:



As far as the 'take', well, as I use it more ... I'm becoming pretty fond of quietly gliding across a nice lake at 6:40 in the morning with no one else around.

(Especially when I run into a dock! Like I did this morning; don't worry - no damage to me or the nameless boat.)

So, I'm taking this naming/re-christening kind of seriously. I've always wanted to try to be appropriate and right on the mark with this kind of thing. Hell, they were almost wheeling us out of the maternity ward before Laura and I settled on "Peter". We were seriously thinking that "baby boy Cytrynowicz" sounded OK, but we were worried we were limiting his future career choices.

We took a long time to name our cars, but "Bob" the CRV and "Miles" the Mazda are so ingrained into our vernacular to the point that we forget when we talk about them to non-family members.

I could go with something profound or moving, but that's not my style. I could just call it "Owen" as that's the name of the manufacturer, but I'm having trouble committing to that - it's kind of lazy.

I'm also contemplating "Minnesota Fugue" - ripping off the name of this blog - but that's too wordy. Maybe just "Fugue".

I don't want some corny, pun-ny phrase like "Myassis Dragon". Or something stoic like "Endeavor" or "Fortitude". However, "Sanity" is looking kind of good now.

A friend of mine has suggested the "Flying Wasp" and I'm considering it as an homage to my youth and one of the funniest movies ever made.

I also don't want to get too personal, but the "Bowlegged Sculler" keeps on percolating to the top of the list. I broke my right ankle in college and as a result my right knee wants to flail out on the recovery when I get tired. It's a definite technique "no-no" but maybe my boat name will let others know that, yes, I do know how to scull, I'm just not that good at it sometimes, so shut your pie hole.

Any name suggestions? The boat is red (my boat club already has a "Red Beaver"). It's old (made in 1988). And, it's helping me keep fit and healthy, physically and mentally.

I'll consider all - just as long as it doesn't contain any of the these words in any order: sweaty, butt, muncher.

Like a (bad) rower to water ...

... I'm back on the Mississippi in the morning.

I'm going out with Bruce and Jim in doubles at 630am, sandwiched between the competitive team and the junior team. I didn't realize how much I missed it.

However, I'm ... sore.

It seems like the flexibility and the core strength that I built up all winter by going to the Y in the dark and frigid Minnesota mornings vanished in the 2 months of relative inactivity since my trip back east. Damn you, exercise physiology!

See you on the water, I'll be the guy in the annoying tshirt that's sweating twice as much as anybody else ...

Well, it was better than Titanic's maiden voyage...

Let's start out by stating that lake water in Minnesota on May 1st is ... chilly, to say the least.

I wasn't going to let that stop my maiden row in my new single. I had the day off and the planets were aligned just right, allowing me a few hours to get out on the water for the first time this year. (Plus, I had an "ok" from the missus.)

I had thought about this all winter. I had scoped out the lakes near my work and had chosen Lake Josephine for a few reasons - a sandy swimming area I could lauch from, it was 2 miles from my work, and my boss has a house right on the lake with a nice dock (for possible launching and storage of my boat!? - all I have to do is ask him). However, it's the wrong shape and locale for optimal rowing. It wasn't long and thin and protected like Lake Hosmer at Craftsbury, it was more round and open. But, hey, we can't all be lucky enough to live in "God's Country" in Vermont.

But I digress.

The air temperature this morning was in the low 50's at best. And it was windy:



Which sucked.

Because when I got to the Lake, it was choppy.



There were 6 to 12 inch waves lapping the shoreline and the chop looked treacherous especially to a newbie like me. Out for the first time of the year. In a 'tippy' boat (only 12 inches at its widest point). With water temperatures in the 40's. Nice conditions for hypothermia.

I was bummed. I had bought this boat half a year ago and trekked it halfway across the country, only to be stopped by some wind. And bone-chilling water.

Fuck.


I lumbered back to my car and called my wife to leave a message that I was just going to the YMCA to slog away on the erg instead and will be back around noon.

As I hung up my iphone, a thought hit me - this is Minnesota, for gosh sakes! There are 9,999 more lakes for me to try. (actually, 11,842 more lakes)

Also, my iphone has google maps and a GPS built in. So, thanks to Jobs and Woz, within minutes I was following the turn by turn directions to Owasso Lake less than a mile away.

I pulled up to the beach area which was in a nice little protected cove. The cove was only about 100m wide but 400m long. It's not a big space - it's not uncommon for one stroke to carry you 10m or more, so I'd only get 20 strokes or so and then I'd have to turn around. But I didn't care. Most importantly, the water was calmer:




Jackpot! The wait was over.

Unfortunately, I was flying solo, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of me rowing. But I did get to row.

And it was fun.

It was a little touchy at first. I haven't rowed on the water in 6 months and haven't been in a single for close to 8 months. So after I almost flipped just getting into the the boat, I was able to take a few tentative strokes and it all came back to me. So far, so good.

So I got cocky and took a couple of good pulls on the oars and ... I almost ended up in the drink.

Humbled again by this sport, I went back to the basics and did some drills and I felt much more stable.

Finally, after about 30 minutes I was able to put together 10 or so good strokes and the boat set up, took up some speed and for a brief few seconds carved a nice straight line over Lake Owasso.

Awesome.

It was better than the feeling of driving a golf ball to within inches of the cup, or hitting a baseball over the center fielder's head or smashing a racquetball into the back of your opponent (I never said I was an good at these sports!).


I'm not ready for Ole Muddy just yet, but give me a few months. I could imagine myself rounding Pike Island and gliding back downstream.

Then I almost ran into a bouy ...

Google Maps says it's only 1159 miles ...

... however, try that with a 27 foot long boat strapped to the top of your car:

(That's my mom and dad at the bow and stern, respectively, by the way. You can click on any photos to make them bigger.)


I finally was able to make the trek back East to pick up my new/used sculling single.

I've been rowing and sculling for the past 4 or 5 years on the Mississippi River out of the Minnesota Boat Club and ... well, I'm addicted.

Or crazy.

Maybe a combination of the two.

I drove 1100 plus miles from Minnesota to Pennsylvania to see my family for Easter; but mainly I had to drop off parts of an indoor sculling machine I sold to a guy in New Jersey and to pick up the shell from another guy in New Jersey, who just happens to know the first guy - small world, huh?.

So, on the Tuesday after Easter, my dad and I braved the rain and traffic in 40 degree weather to make the 140 mile round trip to the Jersey Shore from Philly. The gentleman (a lawyer who started rowing when he went to Penn for undergrad) I bought the boat from was great (well, almost - I'll get to that) and accommodating and everything went fairly smoothly. He rows out of a brand spanking new, multimillion dollar boat house in Ventnor, NJ.

The boat house was an impressive structure that's the home for rowing teams for several high schools and one college, as well as 40 or so private rowers. There were 3 or 4 bays and the boats were stacked 5 or 6 high. Thank god the boat bays were wide enough that I was able to squeeze my CRV into one and load the single on top of my car - out of the pouring rain and almost freezing temperatures! It was such a miserable day, I didn't stick around to take any photos. Plus, it's always a good idea to get the hell out of New Jersey - did ever notice that all the toll roads, bridges and tunnels charge you to get out of Jersey but they don't charge you to get into Jersey? Apropos.

==========================

So, a few days later, my brother and I were getting the boat ready to take the long trip back to Minnesota. We tried to put the cover on the boat (also sold to me (cheap) by the lawyer from Penn) and:



It looked a little funny. The skeg (the black fin looking thing) wasn't lining up with the neat Velcro hole. Also:



It was 10 fucking inches too short!

The bum sold me a cover that didn't fit. And he swore he measured it and promised me that it'd be fine.

After I left a hasty and rather terse message on Ivy League Lawyer's voicemail, we decided to just cut a new hole for the skeg and then duct tape the shit out everything. There is no way that I was going to transport the boat without some sort of covering!

(the guy ended up returning my call - he was apologetic and is willing to refund and/or pay to get the cover altered ... but screw it, I'm returning his shitty cover and I'm going to have a newer more weather-resistant cover custom made. By the way - the cover is needed - look at all the dead bugs stuck to the boat rack. Ewwww)

==========================

Anyway ... The road trip was fun. My brother, Eric, is one helluva great guy and agreed to be my co-pilot on both legs of the journey. He's also the head duct-taper and structural engineer on the whole project - I think we could have driven through an F5 tornado and the boat wouldn't have budged from the top of the car.

It was also fun to stop at divey-motels and eat in greasy-spoon diners along the way. We ate a Texas roadhouse/steakhouse in Elkhart, IN and I felt like something was looking over my shoulder the entire meal:

==========================

The Mississippi River is still fast and high and I don't plan on going out in a single on Ole Muddy until later this summer. I'll still mostly row in a double in the morning for now; but I'm going to be taking my new/used single to a lake near my work one or two days a week for the next few months so we can get acquainted with each other.

But, hopefully, by late summer/early fall, I'll be skimming across the placid waters.


Hmmm ... I still need to re-christen the shell. Maybe "1159 miles"? ...

He who smelt it (part deux) ...

... So, I'm trying to transition back to the erg (indoor rowing machine) from the treadmill in hopes that I'll be able to get back on the water in a month or two and not be too pitifully out of "rowing shape".

The rowing machines at my gym are definitely a step up from the usual fare seen in gyms (I was using one at a YMCA a while ago and the chain was so rusty that it broke while I was using it - and believe me I wasn't pulling that hard) but they still aren't as nice and well maintained as the one that sits sadly folded up in the corner of my office.

So this morning, I decided I could get up 15 minutes later and workout in my office on my rowing machine instead of going to the gym. This is a bonus because Daylight Saving Time is kicking my ass bigtime.

I was surprised how relatively easy the workout was going despite not erg-ing in, oh, 4 to 5 months. Like falling off a bike, or in my case, a treadmill.

However, I have a fiber processing problem. And my office is small. And warm. And I had the door closed. For 30 sweaty, falutelence-filled minutes.

I ... need to get a fan. And maybe some beano.

A look back in horror ...

... well, maybe not "horror" but 2008 had a lot of sketchy moments for me, the country, our planet.

But - I'm not going to blog about any of them. Who wants to reminisce about the crappy stuff? Life's too short for bitching and moaning all the time.

So, today's the last day of 2008 and I can't believe how fast time flew. In fact, I threw a clock and a banana out the window this morning to compare and contrast how things fly. Not very well, I might add, and now I'm going to be hungry and will probably sleep in tomorrow.

Anyway, family life continues to be fun and comfortable. Peter can be a handful at times, but he's also the spark that lights my way home after work each day. Laura, who hates to be mentioned in anything on the Internet for fear of identity theft (and doesn't know I have this blog), is becoming an awesomier (probably not a word) mom every day. Laura and I are able to catch our breath every now and again, and remember to be crazy-in-love couple of 39 year olds.

Our extended families are doing well and we're thankful for their love, guidance and distractions.

We are starting to make a few "friends" out here in this barren wasteland, so staving off insanity and depression for another year is definitely a plus.

Work is fine - there are sick people in the suburbs as well, I have found. Some of them actually take their meds and listen to my advice. It's shocking, frankly.

I was able to row and scull much more this last summer and while I have an extra few pounds on these days, I'm pretty healthy for the most part (knock on wood). My bonsai's are doing OK and I had my first official visitor to the "Steve Cytrynowicz Saint Paul Bonsai Reserve" this summer (Hi, Linda!).

Laura and I are trying to scrape together offspring #2, but it's taking a few months more than the last time. Keep your fingers crossed that my swimmers are good and her eggs aren't past their expiration date. Guess we'll have to keep on trying (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

So, the economy sucks, we have too much debt, we still live 1300 miles away from our closest family members and we still don't have too many friends in this weird state.

But, all in all, I fell pretty lucky and thankful these days.

So, until the "fugue" clears ... Peace and Happy New Year!

Okay, I know I need a little patience ...

But that never has really been my strong suit.

I'm not a complete, blithering id-driven goofball, but when something hits a chord in me, then I have to do something about it. Usually, this pertains to my hobbies, but has also gotten me married twice. Usually, it works out fine - excpet for the first marriage.

So ... I bought a boat:




Well, technically, I haven't bought it yet - I'm sending out a check tomorrow and can't pick it up until April 2009, but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, It's a 20 year old boat from a manufacturer that doesn't exist anymore. But it's pretty and has a good reputation - it's like a really good knock-off clearance item. It may be hard to see but it's part red fiberglass, part wood cockpit and has old-school film decking. It's not a sexy, single-piece, honey-comb, space-age material construction that weighs less than my toddler, but it's a nice boat.

I will go as far as to say it may even be yaarrrr. (go see "The Philadlephia Story" if you have no idea on what I'm talking about.)


So, while I couldn't afford the newest Lamborghini out there, this was an awesome deal on a garage-stored, classic corvette convertible that was only driven 2 miles to church on sundays by an old lady.

I can't wait to get on the water next spring.

One of the sweetest sounds ...

When a rowing shell is set-up (ie - balanced properly), when the oars are off the water, when the releases and catches are clean, when the boat is moving at a fairly good speed ... when all of this happens at the same time ... the shell sings.

It's a mild trickling sound and the ever-so-slight feeling eminating from the floor of the shell.

It's the sound of a fluid dynamics phenomenon called cavitation - millions of tiny bubbles forming and collapsing in microseconds as the water rushes past the bottom of the boat due to optimum flow and pressure differentials.

It's the sound of a good row. And this morning, after the chop settled down, our boat was in fine voice.

One Saturday in the galley ...

Last Saturday was my rowing club's annual early Fall race/challenge (a race for others, still a challenge for me) called the Pike Island Challenge.

It's a nice 13 mile row up the Mississippi, around Pike Island and back. It's nice because the scenery around the island is a mix of scenic (herons, bald eagles and foxes) and industrial (looming interstate bridge overhead at one spot) with a little finesse factor thrown in - it's narrow around the island; in fact, you have to pull your oars in as you go under one of the bridges on the western edge of the island and need to avoid grounding yourself in the Mississippi mud.

Well, it's usually nice, I hear -I had never been all the way around before - but on Saturday I was relegated to the "leftover 8+" and the row waS "interesting". (I had wanted to scull, but instead I was placed in a sweep boat.) I'm not saying the crew weren't good rowers but it was a mix of people who hadn't rowed a lot together or ever - some club rowers, some competitive rowers and me. And, god forbid, I was put in the "engine room" - 6th seat, which is supposed to be the power and technical position. There were a lot more technically-oriented rowers than me in the boat and while I could've been the "power" in the row - the row was more or less an equivalent of an easy jog. No real power needed.

I did enjoy the scenery, but because we were a disparate bunch, there wasn't alot of cohesiveness and camaraderie. While the eight of us were ok (me, for example) to good rowers (two competitive team members) - the boat (ENOTS 1 - a large while whale of a ship) lurched and lumbered it's way up and down the river. There was no sense of swing and it just felt ... uncomfortable. I knew it was going to be a long day when I realized that the boat had only covered half the distance in twice the number of strokes than the double I usually row in the morning about 2 miles into the row.

It was a head-style race and we had been passed by the 4 boats that started after us even before we hit the halfway mark. Discouraging to say the least. Despite this, I did try to increase the pressure and move the boat a little bit with the last mile to go - mainly because we were going on 2 hours of constant rowing and I had lost feeling in my left buttock.

We eventually made it back to the boat house and my spirits lifted when I saw Laura, Peter and Laura's father waving at me from the house's ramps. They had come down to get the breakfast and partake in the social events after the row.

However, my spirits took a little plunge when I got out of the boat and my hamstring wasn't just numb but also wasn't functioning! I seriously thought I was going to have to be air-lifted off the dock, because there was no way I could've made it up the incline on one leg. Luckily, my "dead leg" came back to life after a few minutes and I was able to lurch up the dock, similar to how ENOTS had traveled while in the river!

The breakfast and festivities afterward made it worth the while. My in-laws who were in town for the weekend were enjoying the atmosphere and the scenerey and Peter and Laura and I made the most of the inflatable jumping house-thingy. I'm sure I was over the weight limit, but Peter and Laura and I couldn't help collapsing into a big giggling pile inside of it.

Next year ... no more eights; hopefully a double - hmm, may be a single?

It might just be the boat ...

I last wrote about having a good row due to being tired and blister-y.

Well, I've since had 2 more good rows and I can't say the blisters were that much of a factor. I must be getting better.

Nah ... it might just be the boat.

A blister in the sun ...

I row and scull on the Mississippi River out of the Minnesota Boat Club on Raspberry Island in Saint Paul about 6 months out of the year. The other six months, "Old Muddy" is more like "old slushy" or "old frosty" due to the interminable winters here.

I've been rowing for about 3 years now and, well ... I'm not that good. Ok, I'm not horrible, but I have a long way to go until I'm skimming effortlessly over the water. I even wear a tshirt to practice that states, "It take alot of courage to row this badly" much to the chagrin of my club team.

This morning, I was rowing with my doubles partner, Bruce, before work and my hands were killing me. Last night, I rowed (badly) with my team in a coxed 4 boat and as a result I literally skinned some of the fingers on my left hand. I left alot DNA in the river.

So I was all taped up this morning and it didn't help - my sweat was causing the bandaids and tape to come off and they soon added to the trash floating south to N.O.LA. I was sore and tired from last night and my hands were tender to say the least.

But ... as a result, I was lightly gripping the oar and I didn't try to overreach and I ended up having a really, really good row. Bruce had a good row too; I know becuase he had a little grin on his face after we docked and put the boat back up in the boathouse.

Bruce is a man of few expressions, but a solid and good guy. The grin made my day and my usually futile attempts at this sport temporarily worthwhile.

So, by being tired and being slightly in pain, I was able to accomplish what my coaches have been saying for the last 3 years - "relax and just row". In other word, stop being anal, stop overthinking and trust your body's instincts.

Cool. See you on the river.