1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing five years ago?
I was getting ready to make my move from Atlanta, Georgia to Michigan to begin my studies at the Library and Information Science Program at Wayne State University

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
1. Work
2. Get Five Things out of the way
3. Read Sweethearts
4. Begin my Library Arsenal series
5. Put gas in the car.

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Nachos
2. Doritos
3. Chips
4. Pistachios
5. Quesadilla

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Retire
2. Buy a house
3. Disappear
4. Buy a baseball team
5. Hide it

What are five of your bad habits?
1. Chewing fingernails
2. Falling for the wrong gal
3. Drubken emails
4. Doing anything but reading
5. Something else that I won’t say cause it’s a family blog

What are five places where you have lived?
1. Dover, New Hampshire
2. Canton, Michigan
3. Snellville, Atlanta, Tucker Georgia
4. Monterrey, Mexico
5. Farmington Hills, Michigan

What are five jobs you’ve had?
1. Deli-boy
2. Paper boy
3. Paraprofessional at Farmington Community Library
4. Librarian at Farmington Community Library
5. Web editor – freelance

I now tag:
I don’t have any Internet buddies that would do this – except maybe oomny, but she’s probably already done it.

From Anne’s party earlier this year.

Sadly, this went on for three more hours.

(You may notice I’ve changed the default theme — to the Agregado theme. I hope to make it my own soon.)

I still can’t be honest.

In fact — all I can do is offer up this pithy post and wish that time would fast forward.

Monsieur will be here this weekend — which is good. I need my friends now more than ever as I stumble along.

Ariel — I’d send you that letter — but the story keeps rewriting itself. Sorry.

Tomorrow is also the arrival of the new Macbook — which ought to help tremendously in terms of comfortable writing spaces. This lappy before me is whirring away right now and can’t seem to handle all the little externals I’m throwing into the mix. Having a modern machine may make tasks a little less tasklike and provide for more memorable moments – untethered by the cords that now surround.

Tomorrow is only two minutes away – so to bed I go.

Yesh it is a big string of links.

I can see that. You can see that. We all can see that.

It’s because there’s something happening.

Some sort of “life” thing — that is so stocked full of incidents it doesn’t allow time to report on any of them. The minute you try to capture one — the next is upon you. Oh ho ho! Life is so funny like that!

There is something beginning to burn inside me though. Something that can be written in code in a manner that all the future employers of America will not worry whether this immaculate find isn’t worthy of their laurels. Something that can be written so that it can be written and gotten out of the skull.

This site might go away soon. Yezbick is too proud a name to be left to arbitrary links. Art should fill the gaps in the letters so that when one sees Yezbick – one sees the world. We should all strive for that. But we’ve gotten to an age where website urls are no longer meaningful. They’ve become ubiquitous.

I think we’ll keep the yezbick name on the web – and save this spot – but I think our outlet will probably be moving soon. It’s really quite astounding how many people can get to know you.

That said — the collective “we” may just be the artistic exercises.

Long ramblings such as this. They’re easier anonymous. Words can just flow.

You don’t even have to close.

Offical Symposium Weblog – the webcast should be available soon…I’ll post here when it is…

With the copious amounts of documentation available there, why should I even bother? Cause I’m pretty sure I have to write up a review of it anyways for the job – and this’ll probably bring my brain back around to it. These are notes I scratched down — and are not nearly as detailed as the above. A little personal flair, if you will.

To start with — a summary: Disruptive Technology > Change > Copyright. Those are probably the three biggest themes…with Collaboration just behind…and Library as Space…

There was also ample discussion concerning Wikipedia. It seemed nearly all speakers made a reference to it at some point.

I attended in person on Friday – but watched the webcast in my pj’s on Saturday — and the notes very much reflect that…

Panels: Library | Keynote | Research | Publishing | Adam Smith / Google | Economics

People: Barbara Allen | Suzanne BeDell | Paul Courant | Daniel Greenstein | Jean-Claude Guédon | Michael Keller | Tim O’Reilly | Karl Pohrt | Adam Smith | Ed Tenner | Hal Varian | Alicia Wise | Karin Wittenborg | Ann Wolpert |

Panel Session: Libraries

Josie Parker (moderator) Director, AADL -

• “first library director to blog.“
• Price of not changing: irrelevancy
• Proof of return on public investment

Audience QA: Audience member provides one of the best points of the conference — a matter of linguistics — we should speak about materials RISING into the public domain — not as FALLING.

Barbara Allen – Director, Committee on Institutional Cooperation

• Research Library Trends
• Changes in User Behavior
• Building Collections
• Actions

2003-2004 ARL Report
• Circulation / Reference Below 1991 levels – fewer people coming into the library
• Interlibrary loans are up 148% [wow!]
• Users demonstrating clear preference for digital format, even if available in print – for example – JSTOR – print items were used 692 times, in the same period – the digital format was accessed 12,000 times.
• Expenditures for collections up 4x while staffing per student is down, and 17% fewer products available.
• 1994 – 63 libraries – $11million dollars in electronic resources
• 2004 – 100 libraries – $270 million dollars in electronic resources — 14 libraries, 50% entire budget e-resources – mostly commercial publishers – journal literature
• OCLC database — 32 million records – NEARLY 40% UNIQUE PRINT BOOKS – 50% FROM BEFORE 1977
• Opportunity for collaboration in digitization.

Converging Trends
1. University Libaries must rethink their space — democratic OPEN space — bringing people together
2. Organizing principle: coherent ACCESS — partner with others – commercial and public collaboration to digitize unique records across organizational boundaries
3. Develop intelligence about our collections

A means to acheiving public happiness. We have the keys — without corrections – we are half monks — half beasts.

Michael Keller — University Librarian, Stanford University
Litigations…

1. Change terms of reference…
• The notion that the library is a building…
• The library of the mind
• The effect of the library on the scholar.
• The library is also an ethereal ideal
• Electronic card catalog — 50% increase in use
• Indexing by google increased hits on Highwire – from 10 – 15 million to a 1 – 1.5 billion
• Increasing ROI
2. Beyond Intellectual Access
• Sales of current books increase when you can search the books
3. Beyond Indexing
• Increase stock of knowledge – find new connections
• Not just about snippets, INTELLECTUAL ACCESS
4. INNOVATION
Taxonomical index:
• Informatics
• ***citation linking from footnotes in books***
• — Navigating information topographys —
• information in an explicit context
• A “who’s reading?” service — (AADL already has something going on with their HOT items).
• highlight names — direct link to biographies
5. Copyright and Fair Use
• Orphan works decision – amendment – 1923 – 1964 books not registered
• Section 108 – Copyright law — for archival reasons – to allow for reading online
• FAIR USE
• Intellectual Freedom
• Access to Information
• Alexandria library — Discussion of 500,000 books in the Arabic language waiting to be digitized revealing a more liberal history of the Middle East — Jenica pulled a nice quote so I’ll grab it as well — “If the people in these embattled lands can see the importance of preserving the universe of information in their culture, surely we can do the same.”

Karin Wittenborg – University Librarian, University of West Virginia

Google Project
• One of the most important projects — mass digitization will CHANGE everything
• Changing the status quo is a good thing
• Major redeployment of resources

Space
• Physical library – much depends on what we as librarians do in our reinventing
• “Libraries are sinkholes for space

Things we might do differently
• What are we going to do with our own space? Utilizing
• Libary as an Intellectual crossroads
• To discuss ideas
• Programming

Role of libarians

Q&A

More group study spaces…fewer paraprofessional staff…more professional staff…digitization resulting in index to contents…democratization of information…digital repositories…

Most works go out of print w/in 5 years of publishing…Article I of the Constitution — Section 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Disaster Planning Question
• What needs to be redundant?
• Resource disruptions – great opportunity for collaboration
• Comment from Smithsonian Institute: Katrina is an argument for digitization…
• If information is in digital format – I can get it – by driving to the nearest network — or just getting to the network
• If information is in print — imagine trying to xerox a 342 page document

• ♥Putting a copy of the Fair Use statute next to every copy machine♥

Keynote

Tim O’Reilly

What Job Does a Book Do?
• If a book is immersion – World of Warcraft is a book

Hacks series
• Teach and appeal to entertainment
• Make Magazine

Britannica vs Wikipedia
• Showed several graphs of wikipedia trouncing britannica

• A device that has a lot of DRM will not take the world by storm
• 1988 – The Davenport Group
• — SOM links – self organizing maps — looks for material that is related
• Safari U

What Job does a Library do?
• The preservation of information
• Archive.org vs Library of Congress — shows graph of archive.org dwarfing LOC in hits…

Why the Google Project matters
• Free is replaced by commercial ecology only when you let it go
• Last.fm vs. Pandora — Both suggest new music — but last.fm has the plugin Audioscrobbler which listens to what you actually play when you’re not listening to the service to better gauge your listening habits.
The Orphaned Works problem
• Books:
  • 4% in print – [amazon search inside this book]
  • -75% or more – The Twilight Zone © Not for sale, rights reverted to author, may be in the public domain
  • -20% public domain – Open Content Alliance
  • 32 million unique titles in all U.S. libraries
• Fewer than 4% of books are commercially exploited
• ***DRM is a lot more like a cat than a dog — When you take a cat to the vet – you hold it loosely – whereas you take a dog to the vet — you hold him tight***
• The near term opportunity

The Long Tail
Does Online Search Drive Discovery?
• Compare sales of physical books versus e-books
• Print Books show 6% spike in sales with online library searches
• Safari tech books show 23% spike in sales
• Google Print v. Bookscan

Building a Digital Economy
• Incentives for turning books free
• Depending on the job a book does – Reference may eventually be entirely online

How will publishing itself change? Visions of the future
• Web 2.0 – The Internet as a platform – Information Businesses
• Software as a service, harnessing collective intelligence
• Once you’re on the network, how do you gain value from your users? COLLABORATION
• Amazon — 10,000,000 user reviews – on every page – amazon asks the user to add value
The Perpetual Beta – Ongoing Services
• Rough Cuts — giving access while the book is being written, watch it grow and comment while it is being published
• Asks how many people use linux? A few raise their hands. How many people use Google? Everybody raises their hands.Google is a linux application.
• Data is the next Intel Inside – applications are increasingly data driven
• Concern of the publisher — all of the data lying with one producer
• An internet of interoperability
• Platform beats an application every time
• Safari API – A Web Services Based Help System
• Bookster?

Panel Session: Research

Ed Tenner — Professor & Author, Princeton University

Unintended Consequences: The future of search; the future of libraries
• Literacy level controversy – several stories on the low levels of literacy amongst the incoming college freshmen
• Google searching and the “good enough” syndrome of relying on the first page of hits
• Comparison with Clusty
• World History: Wikipedia v Britannica (there is no entry
• Everything Bad is Good for You – but does this mean that everything good is bad for you?

Academics and Open Source
• Search Engine Optimization? – In the 21st Century – “Good Enough” isn’t

[It should be noted that Superpatron pressed Mr. Tenner on his remarks on Wikipedia's version of World History -- which Mr. Tenner found to be inadequate -- asking if Mr. Tenner then contributed to the page. Mr. Tenner said he hadn't - but that maybe now he would, and write a paper on it. Looks like he could be pursuing that avenue].

Jean-Claude Guédon – Professor, University of Montreal

Mass Printing v. Mass Digitization

Digitization of our culture — Possibilities
• Dissertations and theses – citation metrics – reorganizing the map of knowledge…
• Concordances — finding the least used 100 words
• H.G. Wells – The World Brain
• Wittgenstein - language games — communities — the semantic web

Ann J Wolpert – Director of the Libraries, M.I.T.
Research / Teaching / Learning

[There were lots of audio problems here -- and I found this to be the slowest part of the entire symposium - so not much noted...check the others]

BREAK

Publishing Panel

Suzanne BeDell – Vice President, ProQuest Information and Learning

Alicia Wise – Chief Executive, Publishers Licensing Society

Publishers and Google

Vision
• Growth in digital markets
• value added services

Daniel Greenstein University Librarian and Executive Director, California Digital Library

Open Content Alliance
• Placing the information into a single player’s hands

The Publisher’s panel left me wondering — if you’re so concerned with one player having all the information – and you keep talking about collaboration and the expansion of the market – Why aren’t you contributing as well, and if you are – why aren’t you doing it better?

Adam Smith – Google – Funny how difficult it is to find a bio page for him…

Google Books
• Full Book View – Public Domain – 20%
• Sample Pages View – 5%
• Snippet View – 75%

Graph that showed that when it comes to Google Books — google is doing the digitization, hosting, indexing and authentication of the materials. In google scholar — google is only indexing.

Discovery
• Full-text search
• Serendipitous Discovery
• Comprehensiveness requires collaboration
• 67% of monographs known by OCLC not held by current partners
• 60% titles are unique
• Discovery metadata and Google — URL LCCN
• Examples of way people are using googlebooks to make lists

Here’s where I asked my question – and somewhat bungled it. Something to the effect of — You showed us the greasemonkey script that allows one to look up materials in the local library, and your books in the libary project have “find in a library” links in them — but ALL of your books – or at least most of them — have ISBN’s — and therefore should be able to have a “find in a library” link. I’m just wondering -why the discrepancy — and why are you letting your users write your programs for you?”

I SHOULD HAVE SAID: Why do your users HAVE to write your programs for you?

What I remember him saying: We love that our users write these programs…It is part of our agreement [the find in a libary links]…

Why I don’t remember anything else:
Everything went black except for the microphone — which pulsated in front of me…Stagefright? Adrenaline? I felt like I was in fight or flight mode…

Anyways — Saturday –
I woke up and logged on in my pjs and only took a few notes:

Panel Session: Economics

Paul Courant – Professor, University of Michigan

Hal Varian Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Like I said — not many notes on Saturday…
I did, however, take Karl Pohrt up on his recommendation and checked out Accelerando from my library…

Panels: Library | Keynote | Research | Publishing | Adam Smith / Google | Economics

People: Barbara Allen | Suzanne BeDell | Paul Courant | Daniel Greenstein | Jean-Claude Guédon | Michael Keller | Tim O’Reilly | Karl Pohrt | Adam Smith | Ed Tenner | Hal Varian | Alicia Wise | Karin Wittenborg | Ann Wolpert |

A few things broken in my own: the acoustics, meeting room space, and young adult area.

When the library discovered the community wasn’t going to let them move into a cozy spot next to a local community college a few years back – they began an expansion project on the current grounds. The results: towering ceilings and a collection housed in a manner that places non-fiction on the opposite end of the library from fiction and audio/visual media. It makes for lots of walking. The main set of computers sit between the two, right in front of the reference desk. [these need to be timed for equal use, coupled with a print management system that requires printing fees to be paid up front. ideally there would be roving tech pages to assist with issues so that the queue at the reference desk doesn't begin to wrap into the computer section] The towering ceilings and long hollowed out hallway that winds away from reference and past circulation makes for bouncy noises. Bouncy here bouncy there — echoey cavernous library. Apparently the architect was going for open and airy. It’s just too open, and too airy — and in all the wrong places.

The library as meeting place becomes a library of isolating spaces. Meeting rooms are in constant demand in an environment where one does not want to be disturbed or to disturb while studying in groups. Couple that with the lasting stigma that libraries should be quiet places, and you have an exceeding demand for possible space. Often, the kids out of school want to snatch up a room so they can unleash some of that after school energy in a sealed environment. Some actually do homework — sometimes it’s a festival of cookies and cuttin’ up.

When the four meeting spaces fill up, which they do, inevitably, each and every day – the kids head toward the young adult section. Tucked back into a corner of the library far from the reference desk – but conveniently located next to the browsing room where the magazines and newspapers and plush leather chairs and fireplace are all sopped together for a nice place to sit and relax and turn pages. But those high ceilings! They’re everywhere! And bouncy bouncy bouncy noises fill the room to the brim.

“Don’t make me shush,” I plead inside. “I don’t want to be a shushing librarian.” But I must – because the bouncy bouncy bouncies are disturbing those who expect the library to be a quiet place.

So — for the next person who builds a library — wrap the building with terrarium encasements for use as group rooms. People outside see people inside. Couple the isolationist environment wisely with the meeting environment. People move in herds — and want to be in their respective herds. (Mingling and meeting seems to be met with some degree of consternation in my location by those who would be mingling and meeting.) Build it in the round – so that the reference team is equidistant from each collection. A big ole bullseye right in the middle. A gigantic paddle wheel – so I can peer down the stacks. And build it with a children’s and young adult section — so that we don’t have to shush as much.

Of course you can’t. How can you afford it? But wouldn’t it just be a dream?

[someday soon i'll find some time to spruce up the back pages of this site -- whose styles are currently non-existent.]

I set up camp on the Adult Nonfiction floor – and checked Netstumbler for a Network — and came across only a very strong encrypted signal. I asked the man at the reference desk (not sure if he was a librarian or not – but I sure hope so) whether or not they had wifi. He responded in the negative with a lil info about Starbucks having one and maybe that’s what I was picking up. I thanked him and went back to my window seat.

Then all hell broke loose.

It started with thunder. Intermittent at first. Then the sky went pitch black. I MEAN DARKNESS. The wind began whipping trees sideways and branches were flying around. WALLS OF WATER. I was stranded.

I approached the desk again, observing as I did that the gentleman was in the process of reading some website flashing a Minority Report Banner. Definitely not busy.

Me: “Excuse me. Do you know how big this storm is?”
Him: “No.”
Me: (Puzzled) Well, do you know if it was supposed to rain today?”
Him: (Somewhat annoyed, perhaps?) “I don’t really keep up with the weather.”
Me: Blink. Blink. (pick up jaw from floor)
Him: You can go down to the 2nd floor and use our internet terminals if you need to.
Me: Blink Blink. Uhhh. Ok. 2nd floor. Right. Thanks.

So I go down to the second floor – and remember that signing onto the terminal in Dekalb requires a library card — which in my case is tucked underneath the glass cover on my desk for fond remembrances and posterity. Signing on requires that I go to the desk and get a desk pass – which I do – and then sign on – for all of two minutes — to check the weather…

Lesson learned — or better said — lesson known but reinforced:
If you can help the patron — help the patron. You are the conduit between the patron and the information they desire. My request — or at least my hint of a request — was not something outrageous – and not something I should’ve been sent to a different floor to accomplish on my own. A minute long request wound up taking nearly 20 minutes…

It may be a tad bit spoiled of me — but I’ll remember this experience, and employ it – if ever I am to be employed…

BTW — Storm passed about an hour later. Several trees were down and the houses at the head of the street where I was staying were completely without power — a tree having crashed down on Coventry Street – knocking out the street light on Scott as well…

Someone should really buff down those edges.

Things have been quiet around here lately because things have not been around here lately. These things are namely me. (I suppose I could argue that things haven’t been around me lately, but can one be a moving centrifugal unit? Wouldn’t that create a world of chaos where all other sentient beings thrown into this plenitude of existence are constantly pushing against each other’s opposing space bubbles? I suppose…brings to mind monads…and the world is chaos…but I have managed to digress sans elegance.)

What I mean to say is that I recently spent the week between my last final and the beginning of grad school in the state of Georgia — and the week escaped me. I couldn’t stop it. The damn thing spun too fast. If ever I was centrifugal it was in relation to last week.

There were many happy moments of music, drinking, experiments in child psychology, and an incredible, phenemonal dinner of delirium that won’t be soon forgotten.

Then, all of a sudden, I was eating a Jumbo Chicken Burrito, sipping Sangria and saying my goodbyes on 05.05.05.

Yet this time I was ready to go. Not because I don’t love my friends. Not because I was anxious to get back. Rather it was because I didn’t belong there.

This dawned on me darkly while driving somewhere between the eighth and tenth hour of the return trip. I’ve been trying to sort it out since — sketching it out in my little black book in the hopes of turning it into some resplendent piece — but it has managed to remain somewhat grizzled.

There’s probably a reason for that — and I should just get down what I’ve gathered so far — and allow you to make your own inferences into why I might have arrived at this supposition.

There is a town in Georgia that lies on the map approximately halfway to Atlanta from Athens, and, thus, approximately halfway to Athens from Atlanta. That town is called, for some odd reason, Between. It is neither here, nor there. It just is. And perhaps that is where I should go for to do my living.

From what I can recall – the day of my awakening was brilliant. Nearly perfect. Blue skies, sunshine, not too hot, not cold at all. The kind of day that sickens people if they are forced to watch it pass from the interiors of some personal Bastille. A day of romantic romanticizing, jubilant jollies and dreamy daydreams – all of which can be accomplished without the presence of such a day, but prosper in an environment that fosters such fancy.

In plain speak, it was a perfect day for thinking.

As I drove along, crossing into the eighth hour of a planned 11 hour drive, I was getting plenty of thinking done. There were certainly distractions to be had. NPR’s Day to Day was flowing from the stereo, other cars were around to be avoided, the Ohio landscape was stretching out to the horizon – but the day was just too bright to be ignored. Too damn cheery. The day was becoming an intrusion. It was the antithesis of my own feelings.

Wrapped in that sunshine, my arms extended onto the steering wheel, my feet pressing and releasing the gas and brake pedals with no real harmony, my body began to disappear – and I began to sink. I sank into myself, I suppose — and the brightness of the world seemed to pour down into my blackness, two streams spilling into a great vacuous shell. From my vantage point I was able to observe the deluge from its two entry points merge and fall, spilling down from above, the light of the cars and land and sky and world segueing into dissolution. (I wonder now whether this is the same point at which another’s intuition and/or empathy begins to fail.) Perhaps the most marvelous part of all was to watch as my own reactions rose into the light, manifesting themselves as something akin to flitting butterflies.

Watching those golden Lepidoptera rise to the mouths of the cave meant that I had become something of a third party to the whole process. It was the first feeling of comfort that I had felt in quite some time. I was alone — with great distances not only between myself and others, but between myself and my self. There was none of that charge of expectation, that electrical energy that surrounds one when in familiar places. That energy was now a cradling wind of reality that billowed about in the cavernous depths – touching everything without selection.

Perhaps this distinct disconnect, this self-awareness is the aim of meditation. But the immediate difference is that in meditation one is attempting to control thought. Here I was simply observing – almost being struck by thoughts, much like the bugs meeting their timely ends on the grill of my Ford Focus.

And what thoughts come? What surfaces out into the world and eventually overtakes me – from either the week past or from conjectures of what is to come?

There is a recognition that I had lost a lot of what I had taken with me when I first moved. I had forgotten details about certain people – certain mannerisms had managed to recede into what they should be — nothing worth remembering. Certain frailties in relationships — or even relationships that had managed to mingle themselves among those ugly little beasties -grudges- had all scattered and run for cover once I had escaped their area of communion. Since my return they had on occasion come out to remind me of their existence — but upon realizing that they were no longer relevant – simply shrank away in shame. Those are the details I had lost — and with that realization – a particularly amazing member of the legions of golden lepidotera flitted by with this quote emblazoned upon its wings:

“The devil is in the details.”

The quote brought me closer to the surface long enough to hear Ridley Scott on NPR declare that, “Someone once said God is in the details.”

There were moments in the week when I was hit with those sudden remembrances of lost details: some which certainly should not have been forgotten – but losing many of them had made life just a bit sweeter. Could it have been selective memory? I can’t say. But to be in a situation where they suddenly drift in and distort the picture of reality you are struggling with is disconcerting to say the least.

In the end, standing there at the bottom of that cave as my body drove for Michigan, I came to a realization that seemed rather timely:

I am neither here, nor am I yet there. I am in between. I am constantly between. Upon leaving Atlanta, it was to begin school, and upon beginning school it is to get a job, and constantly there will be something to set at either end — so that I may remain between. Always between.

So…
That’s that. I’m gonna be setting up another blog as a repository concerned with class notes and whatnot — stuff not likely to be of interest to very many. I’ll drop a link along the way once it’s done. I can’t be sure how much time I’ll be spending here…Although I do have a couple humorous moments from the first day of class that would be better suited here. All business there — all funny funny here.

That’s me. Beeping my own horn.

Over the weekend Espaldita and I ventured out to Pinckney, Michigan with the aims of completing a 5 mile “fun run” over hill and over dale. The Road Ends 5 mile fun run has been a staple of the season for many a year now – each year enticing hundreds to climb out of their caves, widen their nostrils and squint their over-compensating bulbous eyes in order to navigate their way along a thin path complete with stray roots and slippery rocks. (Actually – most everyone there was sportin’ some sort of bionic running gear and looked as if they were suffering from withdrawal fits from standing in place more than 5 minutes. Espaldita and I felt quite out of place waiting for the call to the line…) It is something of a tradition to declare those not competing in the run to be WIMPS, and said as much in the email.

This year mother nature had a trick up her sleeve — blanketing the runners with a steady snowfall and record low temperatures for such a late day in April, thus ensuring the absence of any form of wimpage. Watching the flakes falling, I could feel Espaldita’s confidence rising. This was precisely the type of weather we had been training in! Notice the excited exclamation points!!!

For this first attempt at organized running we were fortunate enough to have the wonderful Aunt Barb as a wing person. In fact, she was the one who cooked up this crazy notion of running with other runners in the first place. We promptly left her in the dust after the first dip down a hill – about thirty seconds into the run.

“My name is Kevin Yezbick. This is my back. Get used to it, cause when I’m running it’s all you’re going to see.”

Yes — there we were, Espaldita and I, breezing through the snowfall, right up in the front of the pack with the leaders – no worries to be had — until we wandered into…

THE FOREST OF DOOM!!!

Ok. It wasn’t really a forest of doom, per se, but there were plenty of leg grabbing roots and snow slicked rocks which leapt out as one tried to pass them over.

And then there were the hills.

Yes. Espaldita and I were cruising along with the front of the pack — until we came upon the first hill. I guess this is where the bionic suits come in really handy — because some of these people seemed to just take the elevator up. Our pace slackened and we fell back a bit — just far enough to pace ourselves next to a really attractive member of the opposite sex.

Things I Learned While Running My First 5 Mile Fun Run
1. Don’t try to keep pace with someone whom you find attractive.
There are many, many reasons to heed this first rule. You must, first of all, realize that this is your first attempt at any sort of organized running – and that this fine specimen running alongside you has likely been doing this much longer — and is much more adept. That being said — you will feel a colossal sense of shame as you are forced to realize that you have fallen a good clip behind her, and can’t convince your body to keep up. You have been schooled. Accept it, move on, before someone REALLY gets hurt.

2. Watch your Sustenance Intake before the run.
You’re supposed to eat familiar foods in the days leading up to the race — and at least three hours before the gun — preferably sooner. This rule ties in with the rule above. Fortunately – this is a rule I followed – escaping possible further embarrassment on the trail. I mean – just imagine — you’re running along next to that perfect ’10′ when all of a sudden your lower regions are doing their best metronome impersonation…Or worse — you’ve only been out on the trail for a few moments, kicked up just a few pebbles and just begun breathing at an advanced rhythm when you feel something stirring — and like a hammer on a nail – continue to feel it with each clenched step.

3. Hills Suck.
We now return to our tale…

So there we were — falling back in the pack after the first series of hills — Espaldita hanging in there like a true champ — bouncing along with me inline with about thirty or so other runners at a similar step. The path was narrow and somewhat winding and the twists and turns and spring leaves combined with the gathering snow made it somewhat difficult to see what could be just around the next bend — but I’ll give you a hint:

Hills. Lots and lots of hills.

After about the seventh hill I was pretty convinced I wasn’t going to be finishing first. (Actually, it was more like the moment I laced up, but– to return…) It wasn’t until after the eighth hill that I saw the first mile marker — and wanted to beat the living daylights out of it.

Continuing on — the pace well slackened — quite ready to break with the running for a while — I found myself alongside quite the mare. She was bigger than I, wearing a semi-bionic outfit — and seemed to be an excellent match for pace. I pulled into a slot on the trail a couple of steps behind her – and was confidently drafting – when I picked up on her breathing.

Now – you’re supposed to have rhythmic breathing — it helps with that pace thing I’ve been talking about — but this woman’s subconscious mantra had managed to manifest itself. I’ve often been running with Espaldita and to keep that perfect step going I’ve counted in fours or some such manner to take the mind off the body. This woman was in the same situation — only she had completely lost her sense of surroundings and was making her mantra audible to all around her. Her mantra?

“Al-an, Tram-mel. Al-an, Tram-mel. Al-an, Tram-mel.”

At least — that’s what it sounded like to me. I could not run next to this woman. To hear her pronouncing my favorite ballplayer’s name through heavy breathing was sure to drive me insane — so I let off and fell further back into the pack.

As I kept sinking and slowing I thought back to my previous experiences with distance running.

There was the time I wanted to “belong” as a freshman in high school – so I went out for the Cross Country team – which lasted a day. There were the baseball tryouts — which I was motivated for and found to be doable. And then there were the basketball tryouts — which tore out one’s soul. It was during one of the mile runs following wind sprints that my nose developed a whistle at precisely the same moment Crampy McCramperson took over my right side. I distinctly remember one of the older guys encouraging me, “I know it hurts, but keep going. Fight it, Fight it!” But I also distinctly remember another older guy later in the pack, who very nonchalantly passed on the right and looked me in the eye while annunciating, “Nice nose whistle.”

I had to stop running.

So – after about 2.5 miles, Espaldita and I dropped into a brisk walk for about thirty seconds. People passed – and people passed — and after about a minute, maybe less – we decided to give it another go. We made it to the water station soon after – and with a smooth transition from volunteers hand to my own — we swallowed down a cup and kept on moving. The water seemed to invigorate — and it was at this point that somebody who I never looked at, but could tell was wearing a bionic suit, pulled alongside:

“Garble garble 50 degrees garble garble garble water,” he said. Looking back – I’m not even really sure he was talking to either Espaldita or me – but I responded with:

“Yeah, (breath in) just when you get acclimated (breath out).” To this he seemed to make some sort of hesitant guttural noise before kicking up his bionic heels and leaving me in his dust. I think he may have realized I was crazy. Espaldita and I thought about it quite a bit for the next few minutes – mulling over what he could have possibly said and why we even bothered trying to respond, when Espaldita began to pout. I don’t know if it was from embarrassment or what, but Espaldita and I began to disagree at about 3.5 miles into the fun run.

At the foot of a hill the volume of the argument went up a notch and we had to step to the side of the path. Sneakers shot past, our eyes keeping to the ground, our breathing heavy, our shame for our display evident. Sometimes sharing an embarrassing moment with someone can bring them that much closer — and this was the case for Espaldita and I here. After several deep breaths, I kneaded my thumbs across her, smoothing out the pain — and we continued running…and stopping…and running…and stopping.

We came to a cross in the trail where a park ranger had parked their car. (I’ve forgotten to mention that Aunt Barb is an authority figure in the state parks.) They shouted out to me, “Are you Kevin?” to which I replied in the affirmative and asked if they wanted to take my picture — which they did — and which will be in my possession shortly. I continued on my way when perhaps a minute and a half later I heard shouts of glee and the ranger’s siren going off on the car. Aunt Barb was just behind me.

Espaldita and I had to get moving.

To make a long story even longer — we ran a good deal more before stepping into one last walk — just before the forest opened — until I spotted a goofy bearded man who resembled me – only advanced by thirty-some odd years — standing in a clearing, waving and cheering. Emerging from that FOREST OF DOOM!!! was like a rebirthing.

Espaldita and I kicked up our heels and finished at 56:01. (The results say 56:06, but that’s only because they had trouble taking off my runner’s bib at the finish line.) Not bad for a former pack a day chimney.

There are plenty of other items of interest I can’t delve into here for want of boring you to death — but I should at least point out Don, the snarky concession stand owner who allowed Barb and I to stretch out in the back of his shack – where it was nice and warm – and who upon observing the other runners stretching out outside exclaimed, “Oh God! Those crazies are trying to push the building over!”