I wish I had time for just one more bowl of chili.

First things first: Rachael, are you alive? Or has some inexplicable force prevented your Friday post from appearing on my computer? If you have died, please let us know so that we can get on with our lives without wondering what's become of you. Thank you.

Now let's get down to business. All right, fine. Let's get down to business to defeat the Huns. Happy? Good.

They put up the banners in town about a week ago, and that's when those on the track team who are not freshmen started talking about it. Hell, that's when everyone at Middlebury who was here last year or the year before or the year before or any such year started talking about it. And it didn't take long for the first years to start talking about it either. To put it mildly, people were getting excited. The annual Middlebury Chilifest was back, and it was scheduled for Saturday, March 10
I ought to make a few things clear about this Chilifest. First off, the festival is put on by the town of Middlebury, not the college. It's a public event that draws locals and not-so-locals. More than 50 vendors set up shop on Main Street so that more than 5,000 chili-lusters can try their tongues on various recipes and vote on their favorites. Needless to say, Saturday couldn't come soon enough. Too bad Kit Carson couldn't have been there. (Those are his last words up at the top.)
But there is the small business of getting through the week that needed to happen first.

Michelangelo. Maybe.

Rubens. Yes.

The Bible's been pretty interesting. If you've taken Mr. Gunnin's class (so just Nicole) and you have a good memory (so just . . . hmmm), you'll be aware of the fact that on the very first day of school, Mr. Gunnin shows his class a number of representations of David during and immediately after his encounter with the Phillistine champion, a.k.a. Goliath. On the second day of class, Gunnin presents David's darker side; to be precise, the story of his adultery with Bathsheba and consequent decision to murder her husband,

Bartimaeus is my hero.

both of which end up being mostly excused by God, who will go on to punish David's descendants with what Claudius would call superfluous death simply because they worshiped other gods. After David comes Solomon, which of course reminds me of a book (pictured at left) that I really, really, really, really need to read but haven't gotten around to yet. This summer perchance?

Well, now that I've switched the subject to books, I suppose I'll give you a review of Waiting for the Barbarians, which I finished last Tuesday. And the review is this: The first third is boring. The middle third is entertaining. The final third is boring. It's well written but not well written enough to make up for the boring plot. But I suppose that's better than Samuel Beckett can do. Let me preface the following remarks with the notice that if you enjoy Beckett you're probably just smarter than me. I read Endgame a few days ago and it was just flat-out boring. It's as if Beckett wanted to completely abandon the notion of a story and simply try to explain the human condition via four depressing characters, and perhaps that's exactly the point. While I appreciate the message, I really just prefer to read an actual story. Of course, I'd also prefer to eat ridiculous amounts of chili. Ah, Saturday. So close, yet so far. We're getting there. Stay tuned.

My history professor returned our first paper last week at the end of a class period. (Bear in mind that my semester started halfway through February, so the fact that he's returning our first paper now reflects neither an undue delay in his assigning the paper nor one in grading it.) Before passing it back, he made it clear that we have plenty of chances to bring our grade up throughout the semester and that we should not be discouraged by our grade on this, the first paper. And as he handed them out, he explicitly stated, and I quote, "The grades are low." Well, nothing to do but see what I got and hope to improve next time around, yes? (I realize most of you have guessed the end result by now, but I implore you to be pleasantly surprised when it comes around regardless.) I took my paper, skimmed through his copious commentary in the margins, realized that almost all of them were corrections or suggestions rather than pats on the back, and flipped the last page to see, written in tiny handwriting at the bottom, an A- and an accompanying note of praise. I packed up and left the room, feeling good about my classes, and better about my chili, which was only days away.

Physics is finally starting to get interesting. We are now talking about Einstein (who turns 133 this week) and relativity, rather than the same old stuff that we all knew before taking the class, so in that sense a certain amount of frustration has lifted. On our last assignment, we needed a compass to draw

Compasses are useless anyway.

concentric semicircles, and I didn't want to buy one, so I made one. Actually, I made two. Both of them involved two pencils and a string of sorts; the first string I used was the string from my sock that I pulled out for the explicit purpose of making a compass. I had drawn half of my first semicircle when the string snapped, so I resorted to a sturdier string: my headphones cord. And the semicircles looked fine, thank you very much. I am now for the second time in this post reminded of Artist Unknown. Forgive me.

Paper towel before.

At some point during the week, don't ask me which day or I will smite you, my the strap on my watch snapped. So I went down to the college's general store-type thing and bought a small tube of superglue for about two bucks. I brought the glue up to my room and proceeded to attempt a reconstructive surgery of my watch strap, an endeavor that ended predictably (in retrospect), comically (in retrospect), and painfully (no retrospect required). Let us skip past any detail that could possibly lead any of you to conclude that the event I am about to describe could have been in any way my fault, and let us simply acknowledge the fact that the small and innocuous-looking tube of superglue had two openings, one on either end, one of which was no doubt intentionally created by the manufacturers, and one of which certainly was not, unless we are assuming malice on their part, which I, for the moment, am not. The physics of the resulting event are not difficult to understand. Suffice to say the superglue ended up just about everywhere except on my watch strap. Superglue being superglue, and me being aware that superglue is superglue, I had to act quickly. I could, of course, have stayed their, rooted to my desk, wallowing in misery, but that would naturally have led me to stay put for a very long time indeed and not of my own volition. Within the space of time that it takes for a fan blade to come full circle when spinning at high power, I had figured out that the superglue had immediately attached itself to three things: the outside of the tube itself, the paper towel I had so unwisely placed under the tube for because I thought it would safeguard against some measure of potential disaster, and my fingers, several of which were connected with the tube.

Having read the instructions and accompanying warning beforehand, I was aware that the superglue took 30 seconds to harden once exposed to the air. So I had half a minute to get rid of as much of the stuff as I could before I had to result to more desperate measures. Naturally, my priority was my fingers. About three seconds after the initial spill, I wrenched the tube from my fingers; more than a little epidermis went with it. Luckily, my room is almost directly across from the bathroom, so it took barely any time to get the water running and start scrubbing the glue off, or rather start attempting to do so. At first, things looked good for me. The glue was coming off reluctantly, but it was coming off. But you have to keep in mind the fact that this is only about ten seconds after the initial spill. By the time I was fifteen seconds in, the glue had begun to harden noticeably, and from that point on its removal was a process significantly slower and more painful than it had been to start with.
After what was probably about a minute of sink time, during which I had made good but not great progress with my fingers, I rushed back to my room and tried to remove the paper towel from the desk, an effort that was met with absolutely zero success. I had expected this when I made the split-second decision, which I in no way regret, to save my fingers before saving my desk, but that didn't make it any less annoying. I went back to the sink, spent more time ridding my fingers of the superglue menace, and eventually returned to the desk.

Paper towel after.

Later that day I grabbed a thumbtack and managed to scratch about a square inch of paper towel off the desk over the course of what felt like an hour and was probably at least half that. I've been scratching away a little bit each day since, and it'll be completely gone eventually.
The next day I went down to the same store and bought the same tube of superglue. They didn't have any other type, but even if they did I would have bought the same one for no other reason that to defeat it. I went up to my room and fixed my watch without incident.

I hope that story was worth two dollars and a pile of skin cells. It reminds me of something at Alanna's house, actually. Remember how all of the walls in the Woods' place are covered with little signs and poster with quotes and pictures and fun little things? One of them says something to the effect of, and I don't remember verbatim, "Everything in life makes for either a good time or a good story." I'd like to think my superglue adventure holds to this philosophy. Maybe the chilifest will even do both. I'd soon be finding out.

Before we get to that, however, we've got to talk about a few more things. For one, some guys on the track team made a Youtube video centered on an 800m time trial that one of the guys was running. I'm not going to go into much detail on this, but if you want to see me on Youtube, look no further than 1:46 to 1:59 on the (low-quality) video right below these words. I have a very small part, yes, and if you want to watch more of the video, go right ahead, but you probably won't be interested. It's more or less a compilation of the team's inside jokes.

By the way, everyone in that video was very excited for the chilifest. Don't doubt that for a second. Chili isn't the only food I'm going to mention today though. I believe what I am about to describe happened last Wednesday and Thursday, but it's within the realm of possibility that I am mistaken. Either way, I ate breakfast for five meals in a row. French toast on Wednesday morning, cereal around noon, three chocolate chip pancakes with honey, syrup, crunchy peanut butter, and smooth peanut butter in the evening, waffles Thursday morning, and a multitude of bagels for lunch. Five in a row, nothing to complain about there. As the week wore on, change was in the air, and I mean this in the most literal way possible: the weather. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today have all seen the 60s. This may not seem like a huge deal to some of you, but keep in mind, the last time Vermont had seen the 60s was before Thanksgiving. As you can imagine, this only added to the anticipation that was building up around Saturday's once-a-year chilifest that we all so eagerly awaited. Not only would we be milling about in the streets eating food, we'd be doing it in T-shirts. And the thought of eating food that might even be spicy? That doesn't happen very often. Which leads me to a point of frustration for which I must digress. The following paragraph is a diatribe against the good people of Vermont and their less virtuous neighbors who populate the rest of New England. Why isn't there any spicy food in this corner of a corner of the country? I don't understand. The fact that everyone up here is white is no excuse; I'm white and I love spicy food, as do many other people I know. But not once, and I do not exaggerate in the least here, not once have I come across anything in any of the dining halls here or any food outlet in town that serves anything that could even be called an attempt at spice. It's not that they try to make spicy food and it just turns out mild; they don't even attempt it! Derek is not pleased by this. The chilifest better have something good; and, at this point in my week's story, I'm on the verge of finding out. Friday night was a unique one. The National Championships for indoor track were being held in Grinnell, Iowa, and Middlebury had sent eight athletes to compete, which meant the remaining forty or so of us were left to watch our teammate race via live internet feed, which we most certainly did. We grabbed an empty classroom on Friday night (not difficult to do), hooked up a computer to the projector, and watched us some track. Friday night being Friday night and college kids being college kids, a number of the spectators took it upon themselves to pre-game the watch party, which made it a little more fun for the rest of us. The night consisted of us jumping up and yelling at the screen for the duration of the races that we had runners in, and after that we disbanded. On my way out, I overheard a conversation that further confirmed something I've known for a long time. The conversation went something like this: "I can't believe Iowa's in the Central time zone [relevant to watching the meet for obvious reasons]. I mean, it's so far west." "Yeah, I know, it's so weird. Kinda like how Michigan is in the Eastern time zone, when it's clearly in the middle of the country." "Michigan's in the Eastern time zone? No way, man. Michigan is not that far east." "I'm telling you, it is. Doesn't make sense to me either." What this conversation confirms is the major misconception that seemingly all people east of Kansas have about the geography of our country. They simply don't realize how big the west is. For those of you who do not possess an accurate mental map of the U.S., I've provided one. Take note of the respective positions of Iowa (IA) and Michigan (MI), and join me in shaking my head at the ignorance of the ignorant.

As the curtain fell on Friday night, I tucked myself in with thought of chili dancing in my head like little ballerinas, except chili. But before Saturday's chili comes Friday night's chill. I woke up on Saturday morning eager to get to the chilifest; the only thing between me and it was a brutal hill repeat workout, which would only serve to make me hungrier, so I wasn't complaining. I got out of bed, put on sweats to walk to the locker room in (running clothes are in there), grabbed my bag, made my way into the hallway, walked toward the exit, opened the door, and stepped outside. That was when everything changed. It was sunny outside, completely cloudless. And yet the blanket was three inches deep, all of it freshly sewn. And if Mother Nature dropped three inches on the college, how much was up the hill? I picked my phone out of my pocket and opened my Ski Report app, one of only two that I've downloaded since I first got the phone. And yes, the other one is NHL GameCenter. Unfortunately, Middlebury Snow Bowl doesn't update their snowfall on their website or anywhere else, so the information isn't available on my app. But I knew this in September. So, combining my two formidable and related knowledges of ski resorts and of geography, I looked up the snowfall for Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, and Killington, and deduced that Middlebury Snow Bowl must have received about six inches. And that's when I knew the chili fest would have to wait until next year. Was I excited for the chilifest? Of course. Was I disappointed that I wouldn't be going this year? Naturally. But was my decision to hit the Snow Bowl rather than several chili bowls a difficult one in the least? Not at all. Powder waits for nobody; I've known that since before I could articulate it in a sentence. So I made my way to the locker room, put on my running clothes, and found myself greeted by a teammate saying, "D-Train, you ready for some chili today?!" (Yes, people call me D-Train. I don't know why; someone made it up the first week in September and it's stuck.) I told them exactly what I planned on doing, which was met with general disappointment that I'd be missing out but acknowledgement that, yeah, the snow does look pretty damn good. We ran the workout, saw a man walking two big black standard poodles that reminded me of Chairman, breathed heavily, did our core work (everyone wants to look good for our trip to San Diego), and then parted ways as they headed into town while I headed to my room to grab my skis and catch the free shuttle to the Bowl, a shuttle that took a slight detour because Main Street was closed to vehicles for the day owing to the presence of five thousand chili eaters. As we passed by, not through, Main Street, I saw something that looked a lot like this:

The only street in town, closed to cars. And to free Snow Bowl shuttles.

I feel compelled to mention that I found that picture on a Google Image search, and it's actually from last year's chilifest. This year was a blue-sky day during which far fewer people would have been wearing all the layers you see in this picture. But let us move on to more important things. You probably do not remember this, but in January I mentioned that I had skied a day at the Bowl, and, more significantly, that it was awful. Awful as in literally the worst snow conditions I had ever encountered in my entire life. Bright blue glowing ice all over the runs, impossible to carve in, just a downright disaster. Made Big Bear's usual conditions seem like a powder day at Alta. As for the conditions on Saturday, they were markedly better than those of that January day. I knew all the open run would be skied out (i.e. all their fresh snow would no longer be fresh) by the time I got up there because I had spent so much time at practice, so there was only one place to go, as every skier knows, to find the untouched: in the trees. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the powder between the trees for the simple reason that I don't have my phone out while I'm skiing. I took these pictures, as will become obvious to you, from the chairlifts, so you won't see any of the good runs here. Just know that I had fun skiing the glades (skier's jargon for tree skiing).

That's a ski run. People ski down it. Like that fellow on the right. 'Cept he's not skiing, he's just standing there. On skis. Anything else you need me to explain?

Whadaya know, another ski run!

This is called a chairlift. It's a device used to carry people up the mountain. Very clever.

So at the end of the day I didn't get any chili, but I did get some nice turns it. I don't regret it. Besides, the chili probably wasn't even that spicy. I suppose I should mention that, in addition to real skiing, I did some make-believe skiing too last week. I drew up a trail map of a fictional ski resort that I named Pioneer Ridge. It's loosely based off of Snowbird, but without the tram. I've started thinking, maybe I should take a picture of each trail map creation I have at home and save those pictures to my computer as a safeguard in case something ever happens to them. Those things are priceless to me; no amount of money could replace them. I guess I'll have to wait until May to do that though. On Friday and Saturday the CdM track team opened their season at the Irvine Invitational, and (this is mostly directed at Jason) Sam's "little" brother Teddy ran a 4:32, which is seven seconds faster than I ran when I was a junior as he is. So good for him. Say hi to Sam for me, will you? Thanks. I feel no need to discuss the Ducks in this week's post. They are definitely out of contention now. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not the LA Kings will make the playoffs. They better not. I'll close with a little quiz, because Rachael likes questions and I don't mind asking them. Although if she's dead this is something of a hollow gesture. Please confirm you are alive. And then try to answer these questions. Assuming you're alive. The quiz is very Derek-ish. You have been warned. I'm going to give you three pictures that I found on Google Earth. They can be anywhere in the world. Your job is, predictably, to guess where. Try to be as specific as possible, and bear in mind that, for the most part, I'm not expecting you to get them right. These are guesses, after all. I would rather you try to be specific and get it wrong then you being vague and getting it right. So if the picture was taken in Chile, I would appreciate a guess of Argentina rather than one of South America.

Also be advised that I will not tell you the answer until I see three guesses, and that goes for each individual picture. Those three guesses can be from anyone, not just those who write for this blog. If I decide to keep doing this in the following weeks, I may keep track of correct answers. Being the second person to answer correctly will not count. Only answers in the comments section will count, so don't text them to me; I won't answer you (as if that's new). Enough with words.

A

B

C