2009 - We Hardly Knew Ya

Before we turn the calendar for the first time in Twenty-Ten, I figured that I better get out a quick-hitter year-in-review post. I thought about writing in complete sentences but then I decided to just do this:

Miles run - approx. 1370
Married miles on the "runningmoon" - approx. 24

Ironmans - 1
Porto-potty shuffle Ironmans - also 1

times splashed - 1
times dashed - 5
times dashed masquerading as Chuck Norris - 1
times splashed 'n' dashed - 3
PR races - 1 (half marathon)

sports hernia surgeries - 0!
"bad coughs" - 1

Notre Dame basketball losses attended - 1
Notre Dame football losses attended - 3
Notre Dame football wins attended - 0
Notre Dame losses responsible for - probably 4
Gallons of KoolAid drank upon Coach Kelly's hiring - several

wives qualified for the Boston marathon - 1
best buds qualified for the Boston marathon - 1
my jealousy - increasing

hill repeats up Lovers' Lane in the Presidio - 60
Chartered trolley repeats up Lovers' Lane in the Presidio with my brand new wife and our families - 1

skirmishes with mounted policewomen - 1
vehicles commandeered for wedding related purposes - 1
times I married my best friend and love of my life - 1

2010 is shaping up quite nicely already. Jeffro Miami nuptials, Boston Marathon, Hawaii 70.3, UM@ND, ND@SC, plus some surprises along the way. Stay tuned!

Now accepting donations....

....to keep me as far away from Irish road games as possible.



How's this for an itinerary? Andrea and I landed at CAK after midnight Friday night, rented a car, headed to the 'Ville. Up at 7am to drive to Ann Arbor for tailgating and pain. Back to the 'Ville after midnight because the truth was, we had bigger fish to fry.

Honestly, why do I even bother?

You made a powerful enemy that day, Tate Forcier.

More like Notre Lame part 2. -- UPDATE

If you missed it, I've kinda seen some pain at the hands of USC in LA. But wait! There's more! In reverse chronological order:

2/7/2009 - UCLA - Westwood, California
My most recent pain. We knew there was trouble a-Bruin after 12th ranked UCLA jumped out to leads of 14-2 and 20-7. UCLA shot 57% from the field and led by as many as 33 points as the Irish suffered their 7th straight loss, the margin of which matched the worst loss of the Mike Brey era. When we bought these tickets the Irish were a top 10 team, destined for the Sweet Sixteen, maybe better if we got a good matchup. But this was a different team. Just a wasted year for a team with so much talent. What the heck happened? On our way outta Pauley Pavilion I heard more than once: "Got Harangody? Yeah, we got him." Thanks guys!

9/16/2006 - Michigan - South Bend, Indiana
The week after the Irish thoroughly destroyed the Penn State Nittany Lions, the 11th ranked Michigan Wolverines completely punked the 2nd ranked Irish in South Bend. The upside of the weekend? Nate drove Team Vazac to South Bend in a Hummer, we stayed at the South Bend Mariott and didn't have to pay $650 / night, and..... we had fun?... I guess. The downside of the weekend? Take your pick: BQQB's three picks and a fumble, the most points scored against the Irish at home (47) since 1960, and yakety sax. We had nice seats though.

1/02/2006 - Ohio State - Tempe, Arizona
New Years Eve in Arizona? Check. A chance to taunt my fat Ohio mouth-breathing jersey-wearing brethren on Mill Ave? Check. Snapping a 7 bowl game losing streak against Troy Smith and Ted Ginn Jr? Nope. The #5 Irish lost to the #4 Bucknuts 34-20, but it wasn't really that close. Smith had all day to throw, Ginn Jr., SanAntonio Holmes, and Anthony Gonzalez (continuing the tradition of St. Ignatius dominance of St. Wrongsville) were 5-10 yards deeper than our deepest on seemingly every play, Laura Quinn looked like THIS, and AJ Hawk established his spot at the top of the family totem pole with every sack and hit on BQQB. Yikes.

10/02/2004 - Purdue - South Bend, Indiana
Let's see, a 100-yard kickoff return, a 97-yard touchdown pass, and a 25 point beatdown at the hand of Wilford Brimley and the Boilers. What the what? The Irish had won 13 straight games at the House Rock Built against the Boilers, dating back to 1974. I was pretty sure that Kyle Orton was going to be the best quarterback in history after that fateful afternoon in South Bend, how's he doing anyway? Favorite part of the weekend happened outside of Corby's the night before. My buddy Nate bought an entire pigs worth of ribs from a vendor on our way outta there in the wee hours of the morning. He was drooling all over the place, he was clearly about to enter the feeding zone. For some reason, I got the idea to grab the ribs and sprint back to the Mariott, giggling the whole way maniacally. I don't know why, I didn't even want the ribs. I was covered in swine juice head-to-toe when I got back to the hotel. What was I thinking?

11/24/2001 - Stanford - Palo Alto, California
In the driving rain, Notre Dame QBs (Holiday and LoVecchio) completed TWO passes all night. Quoth Bob Davie: "We're 114th in the nation in pass offense, and we looked like it tonight." Yes, yes we did. But that's still no reason to thing that it would be a good idea to hire away the opposing team's coach! If you were at this game, you remember the surreal weather conditions during the tailgate. At 15 minute intervals it would oscillate between 65+ degrees and calm, and 50 degrees and hail. Harbinger of disaster, no doubt. Another harbinger of disaster, only bringing one rain jacket, which means I didn't get to wear it. Maybe it's a good thing we watched the second half at the Old Pro (the Original!) after all.

1/01/2001 - Oregon State - Tempe, Arizona
Why yes, I WOULD like to drive from SF to Tempe, AZ (12 hours) through the middle of the night to witness the Irish suffer their worst bowl defeat since 1973, thanks for asking! With a 5 foot 10 inch former walk on quarterback slinging passes to some receivers named TJ WhosYourMama and Chad Johnson (pre Ocho Cinco days), this game quickly went from Fiesta Bowl to the Fiasco Bowl. Remember that play when Ocho Cinco casually dropped the ball at the two on his 74 yard touchdown pass? What an idiot showboater. I'm sure he'll clean up his act by the time he gets to "The League". Seemingly every car that passed us on the highway going back home had OSU Beaver plates. What a miserable drive home.

9/09/2000 - Nebraska - South Bend, Indiana
Ah, the "Sea of Red" game. Stupid fly-over country. Anyway, so I sat in the faculty section for this game, don't know quite how I got tickets in that area. Don't know if you know this, but the Irish kind of have this giant-killer reputation. Regardless of the sport, we tend to take down #1s with some regularity. #1 Nebraska comes to town, with their eventual Heisman winner, Eric something or other. With the score tied at 24, we decide to NOT go for the win with 3 minutes or less. That old adage of play for the win at home, tie on the road... out the window. We play for overtime, and lose. Good times. Squandered are the 100-yard kickoff return by Julius Jones and the 83-yard punt return by Joey Getherall, who I tutored. Fastest man in California.... but not in computer programming! Zing! Unregardless, we lost, it was terrible, and I was sad. Quoth linebacker Rocky Boimman, who's girlfriend may or may not have hooked up with my buddy in my house that season, "We played hard. We poured put our hearts and souls into this game, and my guts are torn up inside." Torn up, indeed.

12/1/2000 - UNC - San Jose, California
Boy what can I say about this game. I think it was women's soccer, and I KNOW that we were the only ones tailgating in the lot before kickoff. Do they kickoff? Probably. So my memories are this, we were #1, about to win a championship scant 6 months after I had graduated. That counts, by the way, right? I mean, the only championship that ND won while I was a student was in fencing.... surely this post-grad championship was more valuable, yes? So there we are, in San Jose, team e-Pair... everyone kinda hates us for yelling "Kick it!" and "Kick the ball!" and something something "Get her!!!!". So we lost to UNC.

11/6/1999 - Tennessee - Knoxville, Tennessee
Goooood oooooold Rocky Top, whooo!! I tell ya, that was an incredible weekend. We drove down from South Bend without A) tickets, B) a place to stay and C) I guess we had everything else. Tee Martin? Travis Henry? Jamal Lewis? Donte Stalworth? (stupid future Browns). How did their pro careers end up going, can't remember. What I do remember is driving the 8+ hours from South Bend with a guy I used to know, his name was Hiro. Or Hero. Unregardless, we drove down, and the entire way down he wore a children's sized golden football helmet. As our friend, we'll call him Furious, fell asleep in my car the night before the game, Hero and I went looking for more action. We were walking by some frat houses when yells for "Rudy" met our ears. Rudy?! We know him. So we go into the party, sample their finest moonshine. Note to self, never let anything that comes out of a bottle wrapped in caution tape pass through your lips. So we watched the game from O'Charlies, gave a lot of head butts, and yadda yadda, the Irish stink. Boo. We slept on chaise lounges that night.

9/12/1998 - Michigan State - East Lansing, Michigan
My Irish beat the Stunkbears the weekend before, the same team who had won the (split) national championship the year before. Simply put.... this was game TWO of our national championship run. We were sorrrrrrta excited. So. We lost. It was 42-3 at halftime. If you really haven't heard the true story of what happened in East Lansing that night... then maybe we aren't friends. Ask me sometime.

In conclusion, if I have to recap the worst 10 losses of my ND career a couple of years from now, I hope they are the same. It can't *slash* shouldn't get worse, right? Hey Teo, I'm talking to you.

Go Irish? Notre Lame, indeed.

UPDATE
Quick addition, including today's game at Providence, Luke Harongody has scored in double figures in 55 out of the last 56 games. Which game was the exception? Yep, you guessed it. The only ND hoops game I have been to since '99-'00.... wearing a Harongody t-shirt. I indeed have that kind of power. I didn't even have to bring this to LA.

More like Notre Lame (**update**)

I had a lot of time to think on the drive back home from LA on Sunday, what with *someone* sleeping the whole way and whatnot. I got to thinking: I've made this drive before, a lot, mostly after witnessing another huge embarrassing failure by my Irish. Let's stroll down Memory Lane, shall we?

11/30/2002
Thanksgiving weekend 2002 was my first trip down for the USC tilt. With an Orange Bowl berth on the line, we made a Heisman Trophy winner that day my friends, and no it was neither Carlyle Holiday nor Ryan Grant. Carson Palmer threw for 425 yards and four touchdowns, and the Irish were outgained by an astounding 610 yards to 109 as the sixth-ranked Trojans beat my No. 7 Irish 44-13. Oh. My. Pain. With chants of "Overrated! Overrated!" still ringing in my ears, I got back to my trusted old Cherokee to discover that someone smeared ketchup all over the doors. Insult to injury. I should have never gone back.

11/27/2004
But I did go back. Heading in to face the top-ranked Trojans, winners of 19 straight games, I thought that we had our ace in the hole. See, the "molder of men" was the last coach not named Poodle Pete to leave the LA Coliseum a winner, back when he was coaching The Tree. 400 passing yards, 5 TD passes, and another 31-point loss later, we made another Heisman Trophy winner (pictured here and here), (nope neither Brady Quinn nor Ryan Grant). Thanks to the steady rain throughout that night in Compton, no one could see me cry.

11/26/2006
A year after the "Bush Push", the 6th ranked Irish were unable to extend their 8 game win streak as they were once again out-classed by the 3rd ranked Trojans. Brady Quinn and Jeff Samardzija playing in their last regular season games weren't enough to snap the Trojan 32 game home win streak. USC scored on their first three possessions and the former Irish recruit Brian Cushing began his career as Irish-killer by returning an onside kick 42 yards for a touchdown, and then walked directly through my post-game tailgater. The nerve of him! The worst part of the weekend? The damn mariachi band that played throughout the entire first half. If you guys play so loud I'm unable to hear the party cheering for each and every Trojan play. Note to self: people watching the game with rabbit ears know what happens before you do on your satellite. And you won't be happy about it.

11/30/2008
What can I say about this game and weekend that hasn't been said already? The Irish matched my non-existent expectations with their futility. Too much speed and toughness for the 5th ranked Trojans, the Irish didn't cross midfield until the second play of the FOURTH QUARTER. Good times, good times. There goes Jimmah Clausen's undefeated streak against teams from California that dates back to his junior high school days. Whoops!

And those are just the FOOTBALL games against USC in LA. Have I suffered -slash- maybe-been-responsible-for more pain with the Irish? You betcha.

Part 2 coming soon.

Go Irish! Beat Bruins!

See ya in hell, two-hour commute

I'm upgrading my bi-weekly commute. That's right, the bus to the train to the shuttle to the office is no longer the fantastic voyage that it once was. Plus, it takes two hours. Not going to cut it in Ought Nine. Thanks to the good folks at sf2g I have come up with a new commute, a THREE-HOUR TOUR!

It's 50 miles of fun. Not only do I ride right past the airport and TWO of Andrea's old offices, I ride by the famous workplaces of the following Bay Area legends:

Barry Bonds' AT&T Park

Joe Montana's Candlestick

Easy E and Rapper 4-Tay's Players Club on the corner of Third and Newcomb right in the heart of H.P.

More champagne Mr. 4-Tay'?

And what exactly houses their Players Club at that intersection? Any guesses? A library, perhaps? A Gap? A What's Up Dog? An art museum? All good guesses, but no.


Why hello there, Bayview Liquors



"Hey Charlie, did you race for the ND Cycling team?" I don't know why people keep asking me that. Everyone should know that I was captain of both the drinking and making-out-with-chicks team (**high fives himself**). No, no, I didn't ride at ND. I was too busy eating large Papa Johns pizzas. By myself. As a post-dinner snack. Anyway, check these guys for the gear.

I'm sorta a dork for data.

Chronicles of Hernia

Yesterday was the 9-week anniversary of my bilateral sports hernia surgery. That's right, folks, it's been 9 long sad tearful weeks since they put me under at Sequoia Hospital and sliced me up. So I visited the good Doctor Brown, he kinda felt around a bit, and said I was good to go. I have not been in love with how I've been healing down there, but he assured me that I would need to "fall out of a plane" to rip one of those sutures. So I got that going for me.

After the surgery I was completely inactive for the first three weeks. The next three weeks I was running 2-3 miles every other day, at a snails 9-10 minute/mile pace. The final three weeks I've been ramping up the mileage a bit, I was running 5-6 miles every other day until I got the go ahead. Today will be my third run in a row, and I'm finally starting to see some paces that start with a 7. I've got a lot of work to do, but at least I'm cleared to do it.

With this experience officially in my rear-view mirror, I can look back on the last 9 weeks fondly. I think my favorite part was gaining weight. But I also liked "working out" by walking up and down Marina Green stooped over like an old man. I was like a mall-walker. Oh, and how could I forget navigating the icy sidewalks back at Notre Dame trying not to re-tear anything. It was so snowy and icy there I thought there was only one lake! Fool.

You know what you use your core for, folks? Everything. It was eye-opening.

So now it's time to start working on my next athletic injury. Any suggestions?

Don't mind me...

Don't mind me, I'm just e-mailing myself a 2-megapixel photo that I took from my Blackberry of Notre Dame dominating the Hawaii Bowl that I'm watching on Andrea's Blackberry that is logged into my Slingbox Pro HD that is connecting my DirecTV HD-DVR to the innerwebs wirelessly.



No big whoop.

I've only been waiting since JANUARY FREAKING FOURTH!

Wonderful Wald Women

What could better than spending the weekend with a Wald woman? Spending the weekend with TWO Wald women! Especially after you are able to convince one of them to hop on the SV650. No one else can get away with riding such a hot bike in sandals.


Andrea's sister Molly was in San Francisco this weekend and we had a grand old time. We wore Santa hats, cruised up to Wine Country, met up with some friends, and basically just enjoyed our time underneath the Leprechaun Angel.

Anyone who has visited Team Vazac knows that the first and last stop of my privately led tour of SF is the South End Rowing Club. Nothing like being immortalized with your name spelled wrong! Thanks Tim! I demand a recount.

Bygones.

I know what you're asking. Hey Charlie! Did you try to kiss Andrea at all? And if so, were your advances perhaps rebuked?

Perhaps so. Maybe even twice.

Molly, we had a blast with you. Thanks for coming. Next time the weather will be better, we promise! Check out what you missed by only a couple of hours. Never thought I'd see THIS in San Francisco.

Sippin' Cris in Compton

As is so often the case when Andrea's little brother John comes to San Francisco, we had a whirlwind weekend. First time he came to town was when I turned 30. After polishing off a bottle of Johnny Walker Gold, sprinting around the lagoon loop with my best bud James, we had a crazy all-day bbq out at Crissy Field. The next day we imbibed a bit up in Wine Country in style, of course. How else would you get around but a stretch Hummer? The second time John came out, Team Will-Pedal-For-Drinks DOMINATED the field at the Wildflower Half Ironman down at Lake San Antonio, CA. John ripped up the field in his first ever open-water swim and Andrea soared through the course like she was floating. The only disappointing part of that was that HE looked better in MY wetsuit than I ever have. One of these visits we'll get John out to SF and just sit on the couch, maybe play some Parcheesi. Last weekend, however, wasn't that visit.

John landed Thanksgiving morning to breakfast carmel rolls. No better magic trick than making 1000 Calories disappear in 2 bites! After hitting the Lyon Steps and cruising for chicks out near Fort Point, he settled in with us for the Thanksgiving Feast that Andrea had prepared. Oh, and we might have drank some champagne, as well.

Friday morning we drove down to LA for the bi-annual Notre Dame Beatdown at the hands of the University of Spoiled Children (USC). Compton is lovely this time of year, let's just say that we weren't the ONLY ones in town with a beer in hand before 7:30am. The day was a blur. After cursing at DirecTV (another fun Thanksgiving tradition!) I got our SatGo to work. We got the grill fired up, the pizzas were assembled, we tapped the keg, ate some cake off the ground, tinkled just a little bit, we called our bookies (those 32.5 points were just too many to give up), we filled wine bottles with beer for a couple spirited games of 'cups', ate some brats, and passed-back bracelets to gain access to the 'A' toilets as if we were 20 trying to sneak into the Boat Club. A complete blur. Tickets were lost. Couples were separated, most were reunited. Oh, and the Irish lost. It was ugly, but with no real hope of winning, it wasn't as disappointing as 2002, 2004, or 2006. Thanks Charlie Weis for lowering our expectations! Yay!

(Side story: we stayed at the same hotel as the USC players. Were we in awe of these goliaths? Not I. My mind was constantly processing which player was most worthy of Gillooly-ing. My eyes were busy looking for dropped steroids needles. Every encounter between a player and a suit was closely monitored, just waiting to see if they would slip up and the flow of cash would be obvious. Brian Cushing was probably the scariest of them all. #10 is a bad man on the field. And if he found out that I was showing everyone this picture of him, I mean, what would he do to me? Would he snap into a 'roid rage? Likely. But then he wouldn't be able to play the next day. That's win-win-win, my friends. I was clearly conflicted.)

After drinking Cris with LenDale White Saturday night (he promised me that he wouldn't rush for more than 200 yards against my Browns the next week.... I'm going to hold you to that, LenDale!) we woke up bright and early for that long, slow, sleepy drive back up to SF, with our tail between our legs. We got a great jump on the day so I decided to take the Wald twins (have you hung out with Andrea and John? Too many similarities to mention... quite scary) to some of my favorite spots up the coast. First we hit La Super-Rica Taqueria in Santa Barbara. John loved his taco, I loved my -fill in the blank Mexican food with meat and sauce and a shell, I think it was the #11-, and we're pretty sure Andrea liked her bottled water. Still doing well on time, and not quite full yet, we swung by the famous Jocko's in Nipomo, CA.

Did we monkey around? What do you think.....?

We got John back to SFO exactly TWENTY-FIVE minutes before takeoff. He tore into the airport, sidestepped security, stiff-armed the ticket taker, and flew back to PHX. Whew!

Dominance Begins

And so it begins.

I created the blog over a year ago because I knew that there would be a rush on this URL; I had to lay claim to "teamvazac" before someone else did! This is the first post. What took me so long? Maybe I was just waiting for something interesting to happen. Who knows.

What I do know is that Andrea and I were engaged last Friday evening in Sonoma Square. After we had finished up dinner at a lovely trattoria we walked over to the square and sat on a bench. Apparently the chianti had done it's job because she said yes. I was, shall we say, just - bought - fireworks - excited.

This is the last known photo of us pre-engagement. We were up in Seattle watching Notre Dame destroy U-Dub when we ran into our friends Norm, Sarah, Jeevan, and Dinah.  I took a lot of heat for wearing that women's running shirt that day, my friends, a lot of heat.