To Beer or Not to Beer?

Weather moved in Saturday afternoon so Doug called it a day, the beer light
was lit, and drinking commenced. We retreated to the cottage to relax and
have a few drinks before the banquet. We've hardly spent any time at the
cottage, which is a shame as it is quite picturesque. It's on the lake, we
were lulled to sleep every night by the sound of the surf, but we only all
got in the hot tub once, I never even set foot on the beach, and the
bicycles that we'd dragged all the way here hardly got ridden. The cottage
itself is so cluttered with crud crap and bric-a-brac that it can be
difficult to move around in without tripping over something once you get a
couple of drinks in you, but that didn't detract from it's charm.

The Camp will continue on Sunday, weather permitting.

A few people have sent messages asking what the significance of the name of
our 4-way team is. The name of a team is actually very important. It can
define who you are, how serious you are, and what your goals are. Are you
going to be focused and aim for a National title, are you just out to have
fun, or are you just doing it to meet girls?

The team name is 4D. We had discussed (argued about) possible names for a
few months when Josee sent out an email one night:
Hi guys,
I think I found a good team name!
4D
The idea is that we're working with 3 dimensions + the 4th which is time (we
have to do everything not only using all 3 dimensions -doing verticals - but
also fast!).
It's also because we are 4 "designated" something (driver, fall rate setter,
keyer (?), dive engineer ).
And we're 4.
And it's a bilingual name. And it's short.
I'm not sure if you'll like it but I'm very excited about it!
Let me know what you think.
Josée

It stuck. And we stuck with it. And achieved our goals.

When we sat down with Eddy R a couple days before the nationals he asked us
our goals. We gave him the usual list: High average Score, Personal Best,
Make our Mama's proud, stuff like that. I also told him I wanted to beat a
team with matching suits but he didn't seem to believe me. A day and a half
later, after reviewing the day of training that we had done on Saturday, he
said "Congratulations. You've already achieved all your goals. You've
already won." At first we just sat there, but the more I thought about it,
the more I realized he was right. No matter how the competition ended, we
were already winners. We set a goal, hammered out a plan, and saw it
through. 4 Very different people with different skills and personalities
were able to pull together and become a Team. We sat one night and watched
all our 4-way jumps from the last week and it just blew me away. Holy Crap!

We're F*****G Good! Who the hell is that on the screen wearing my jumpsuit
because there's no way I can fly like that! And who are the rest of those
people? Damn they're fast! And clean and crisp and controlled! I want to be
them when I grow up. Not that I'll ever grow up.

But we didn't do it alone. We couldn't have done it alone. There were a lot
of people who went out of their way and worked to help us get here. People
like Mario Prevost and Michel Lemay who gave us priority over their Tandem
customers and made we sure we were able to get tunnnel time when we wanted
it, the staff at work who shifted their schedules around to let me have time
to train, and all the people who offered encouragement and cheered us on.

Thanks to Paul for sticking it out through the learning curve, and being a
good sport about all the ribbing he took while he was still learning how to
not take out our exits.

And a special thanks to the person who deserves a huge amount of the credit
for what we were able to achieve - Richard Bisson, our secret weapon. Riding
herd on 4 type-A personalities for 4 months, teaching and guiding us as we
learned to work together, acting as coach, den mother, father confessor,
leader, and cheering section, would try the patience of a saint. He handled
it all with patience and restraint, taking everything in stride, as he
showed us the way. You're also waaaay undercharging for your services.

And what was I designated in 4D you might ask? I was the designated drinker
of course.

Crazy Larry
Outside Center for 4D, Bronze Medalists in the Open category, Nationals
2009.

Cowdendum: My apologies to the team who took Gold in 8-way. It seems I have
mis-reported their name. And a name is everything as I explained earlier.
Their name was "Brown Chicken Brown Cow". One poultry, one cow, not two cows
as I had thought, but at least I got the color right.