What kind of fuckery is this?

A bit less to report/revisit tonight than recent times... had a hard morning practice, 4x2k at rates between 20 and 26. I was sitting 5 seat behind Silas and in front of Oz, which was fun. Some switches were done, but none of us were included. Our boat lost the first piece by a little, won the second by a bit, then lost the next two, post-switches, by quite a bit, which sucked. Losing is never fun. The free speed that seemed to be being fostered while Greg Hughes was here has been kind of pushed to the side for now... I think Mike Callahan is approaching things from about the exact opposite way as Greg. Greg was micromanaging and getting the small things perfected from the get go, with the bigger things to come later, whereas Mike seems to be wanting us to just swing together first, and pull hard, and then maybe later he'll go back to the small technical stuff. It's kind of frustrating, especially when in bow like I was this evening, because people are doing things fairly differently from how I thought we were going to collect as a group when Hughes was around... hopefully things will come together. This evening was not an easy row either, but a bit shorter. Some technique stuff, then leap frog (they still do that after high school rowing?), with the trailing boat going at a higher rate (23, then 27) and the lead boat trying to hold them off at a lower rate (19, then 21). My boat was a bit faster this time and we could hold the others off much longer and go through them much quicker, which was a lot of fun and kind of a relief to know that whatever boat I'm in doesn't automatically lose.

This afternoon I met Ottavio's friend from Dartmouth named Trey. We grabbed lunch at Lou's diner, which was fun. He's a really nice guy who DJs around campus and plays ultimate, overall a pretty mellow guy who reminds me a bit of Byron (he's a stocky Mechanical Engineering major from Virginia... who woulda thought. Oh yeah, he's also in the same frat as Byron... creeeeeeepy). Anyways, had a good lunch and he said I could hang out at his frat house if I get bored. He's friends with Ottavio, so he must be a good guy.

After that I came home, puttered around on the internet for a while, and took a short nap before practice. As I woke up, I wondered why our room was less well-lit by the small windows than it usually is, and when I went to the big windows elsewhere, I saw the reason: dumping rain. Perfect for practice outside... not. We got to the boathouse and there were flickering moments of hope of sun but then it would start pouring again. Luckily, by the time we got down to the boats, it passed and actually got pretty hot. Some rain came during the leapfrog, but when you're doing pieces, you don't really notice. Came home, had what dinner was left over from Debbie and Dan, watched some college baseball and have again just been puttering around in my room until now. And now it's bedtime.

Caroline made plans to come out, which is very exciting. She's flying in on the 29th I think, which will be great. It will be fun to have someone to really hang out with and do fun things with as opposed to just doing nothing at the house. She's an ok person to hang out with... I guess.

Soundtrack for the night? Well, for the afternoon it was Rihanna's "Umbrella" again, which was quoted profusely by all the crew boys due to the downpour. The soundtrack for the evening, however, has been Amy Winehouse, an album I got from Coop that is really excellent. Good, mellow listening that has small elements of hip-hop but most of her songs could very easily be mistaken for 70s Motown or even something prior to that, like the Marvelettes or the Chantelles. Super croony, great voice, with catchy lyrics and good beats. Works for me. She came up with Coop's new favorite word, "Fuckery." As in "what kind of fuckery is this." Pretty good, and I should probably adopt it into my daily vocabulary.

Off to sleep, only to arise and do it all over again. Could be pieces, could be seat races, could suck, could be good. What kind of fuckery is this? The repetitive life of rowing, my friends.