reckless growth

December just snuck up and kicked me in the back of the head.

Yesterday some of us Wooch!ers went sledding out at Lester in the posted NO SLEDDING zone. Prior to headin’ out I bought a Black Ho (a specific type of sled, balanced for performance and affordability) on sale at ShopKo and a bottle of Secret Weapon. We took the noble Tracer to the hill, flew out of her with our sleds ablazin’ ready to conquer the world…

…and discovered the Lester River wasn’t frozen over yet. We forged through the woods trying to find a shallower crossing, or possibly large casks of liquid nitrogen to alter the water’s dastardly wetness. Nothing of the sort was found, but Luke jumped across on some icy rocks. We followed him. I fell in up to my knees.

Sledding conditions were questionable, but we managed to get some fun runs in and even built a nice jump. The Secret Weapon was amazingly effective, and will become a standard item in the Wooch! Extreme Sledding Toolbox. Once everyone was sufficiently frozen we trod back to the car, sloshing right through the cold river. No one was in the mood to deal with slippery stones in the dark.

I took a sauna after returning to campus, and struck up a conversation with a grizzled, bearded fellow amidst the humidity. Our words wandered around the town of Tyler, Danes, ethnicity, humor, Seattle traffic patterns, traveling, Wooch!, Sparky, the outdoors, John Krakauer and loitered on hot springs for a length. We finally got on the subject of driving to Alaska, and I picked his brain on the details of taking such a trip. I know everything now. Cool.

Today Dan came up to play in Duluth. With his girlfriend Amy in tow, we went over to the Nerd House and played Taboo with Beth. I threw a tantrum and threw the game. Dan and I fed off our pile of inside jokes and kept recalling the venomous box, hair eel, SonyGRRRRM and knee grow. Afterwards we picked up Jason and headed off to Old Chicago, where we drank beer and played their in-house electronic trivia game… for nearly three hours.

Then we drove down Park Point and I got in my December swim in The Lake. By pure chance Josh Jacobson and gang were down there, just finishing up their dip. I tossed off my clothes and dove right in. My lack of hesitance in the matter surprised me.

I’m growing reckless, no doubt.