Zen and the Art of Speedskating

All over the world skaters are racing, the international results pages at DESG are simply overflowing. Heck, even Lake Placid is rumored to have opened up the Long track ice this weekend! I always used to celebrate whenever I saw this picture on the Lake Placid webcams showing the concrete replaced by ice.

I would have liked to have raced this past weekend, I could use the work, as I only raced a handful of times in November, but there are more important things than Speedskating.

My cousin Patrick got married this past weekend in Las Vegas, and so Jessica and I hopped into the car and drove the 5+ hours directly south to join my brother, parents, awesome cousins, and the big love/snow family celebration.

Las Vegas is a strange place. Our drive from Salt Lake to Vegas started in a blizzard, but then passed through a heat blasted and bizarre desert landscape that looks more like scenery from the Star Wars Podracer scenes than anything of this earth. Imagine your insulated landspeeder/car skimming across the barren and twisted desert floor at 85mph; mountains and desolation surrounding on every side, you crest a final hilltop and wham! Suddenly a city of 1.5 million people rises from the Mojave Desert. It’s simply wrong!!

I could SEE the hotel I was staying at from 16 miles away. Admittedly, that was because the Stratosphere Hotel is the 800 foot high pin on the right of this photo,, but still…..

You descend into the valley, into one of the most wretched hives of scum and villainy in the known Galaxy, Ruled by the obscene obesity of the all powerful Hutt corporate-crimelords. Here is the view from the top of the Stratosphere. This thing is so big, after it was built jets coming to Vegas had to make changes to their approach patterns. They pass by you on eye level, am I on earth or at the Mos Eisley spaceport???

Getting around Vegas, an ancient taxi driver told us “The mafia was ok, sure they fought among themselves, but they treated people very well, but the corporate mafia!! They are horrible, they treat you like dirt unless their computers say you have spent over $10,000”.

Yet Vegas is nothing, a glittery shell compared to the people who are there. Walking through the casinos, the only way I can describe the scene is this way: A lot of years ago, I owned a bakery, during breaks my employees and I used to watch cars drive up, and we would try to guess, as a person got out of their car, if they were headed for the bagel shop on one side of the bakery or the liquor store on the other side. We got to about 90% accuracy in our predictions, heavy drinkers/alcoholics have a certain dehydrated stiffness to them, and even if they have significant bodyfat, usually there is a wasted aspect to their musculature and a dullness to their eyes, almost as if their bodies were already dead leaves waiting to fall from the tree.

What I saw in the casinos, was overwhelmingly the liquor store crowd. Pouring drinks down their throat and money into the open mouth of Jabba the Hutt. More power to them if they are having a great time, if this fulfills them. Personally it gave Jessica and I the creeps.

But I was not there to gamble, or even to make my elitist and snotty observations; I was there to celebrate Patrick and Rebecca getting married. It was also great to see Patrick marry someone who has the strength of soul that he does. He truly has found a partner, a peer. My cousin is an officer in the US Navy, and flies Helicopters. I said to him, “For the first time in your life, all the people who care about you, friends and family, we are all here.” Without batting an eyelash, Patrick said “well, not everyone is here, about half of my friends are in Iraq right now.”

There are truly more important things than Speedskating, like the safety of friends in very dangerous places.

I will end this entry with an interesting thing I had never seen before, a tradition at military weddings; it’s the “sword arch” and the price of passing is that the bride and groom must give each other a kiss. Marriage traditions abound in endless variations, but it’s all really about joy. Today was Joy, and a doorway into a lifetime of joy for Patrick & Rebecca.

Pat, go ahead and forward this video to all the guys who wished they could have been there (and Grandpa, we missed you as well, I have many pictures I will email to you).

Filed under: Audio/Video, on the road