Louis assigned us to find the yearbook photo of our graduating year in high-school. Although everyone felt a little uncomfortable at first, it felt like a weight was lifted off our shoulders. Louis also felt it would be an added bonus if we had the confidence to show them to the public.

]]> http://davenighbor.com/?feed=rss2&p=356 http://davenighbor.com/?p=349 http://davenighbor.com/?p=349#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:49:59 +0000 admin http://davenighbor.com/?p=349

Here I am again in Quebec. Home from my worldly travels energized and fortified and money spent. I can look outside my apartment window and see the deciduous trees of Mont-Ste-Anne lit up with the warm autumn colours but it just ain’t doing it for me. I’m lonely, restless and a little disappointed to be home. The last few weeks were a blast. I was in Austria loading myself up to the brim with training, then got home and went to Boston to absorb it. I’ve spent plenty of time in big cities and small cities, backcountries and backcountry glaciers but I’m always thirsty for more. So, here I am again in Quebec in my quiet, plain apartment with no colour or art on the walls with nothing to do but entertain myself as if it were 1905. But don’t get me wrong, I feel enlightened and excited about what’s to come. My training is resting in a perfect place, ready to race, and artistically I feel as though I’ve been given a road map to the place I always wanted to go. So besides the dullness of my physical surroundings in this quiet town, I’m excited about one great chapter complete and eager to embark on another.

But before I embark on this journey I’m going to pace around and bounce off the wall of my apartment like a crazy person in a padded room. To prevent myself from going completely crazy, I’m going to stay relatively productive: Write about Boston, the rest of my summer and perhaps watch 40 hours of Prison Break. As far as Boston goes, I’ve wanted to go on that trip for a long time and no one wanted to come with me from the team. Most these guys spent all their money in New Zealand and need to save up some cash for when their girlfriends visit. I can understand that. But I had to go because the south was taunting me. Outside my window, opposite of the ski resort are rolling hills that shot south like opportunity: The Atlantic Ocean, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Portland, Boston. I wanted to explore it all and I did last weekend.

My first stop was Portland, Maine. The drive was painless. The scenic secondary highways from Quebec to the Atlantic coast are beautiful, especially this time of year. The roads which are in incredible shape curve around the Canadian Shield delicately, passing rivers, lakes and small hillbilly towns of the US. The border guard was a little suspicious as my passport has had plenty of use latetly. He poked around my car little but all he could find in the trunk was a duffle bag, couple ski boots, roller skis and a frizbee – I was soon on my way.

Portland was busy because of Columbus Day weekend and it was impossible to find accommodation in a 40 mile radius. I went into a Holiday in, slapped my credit card down unknowingly and asked for a room. They replied, “this is the first hotel you’ve tried isn’t it? There is nothing here or anywhere.” They called several hotels for me but there was no use. I came to the conclusion that I had to sleep in my car which isn’t the most pleasant way to start a road trip. However, I sure as hell wasn’t going to drive another 40 minutes at 9 pm to maybe get a room in the middle one nowhere. So I made up a nice cushy bed in my backseat, found a nice spot in an abandoned parking lot and walked around the town. In excitement I called everyone I knew to brag about my trip. I felt great about myself. I yapped on the phone long enough for my cell-phone to die just when I needed to make inquiries about my missing car. When I came back to the parking lot there were skid marks in the sand where my car use to be. Fuck. Long story short, most my night was spent locating my towed car and paying people cash to get it back. I ended up spending as much money as I would have on the hotel.

In the morning, I gazed out at the clear day with my foggy eyes and merged onto Route 95 out of Portland. I was looking forward to leaving the night behind me and thought only of what was to come. I thought to myself and smiled, “in two hours you’ll be sitting in Fenway Park.” And I was.

I watched the Red Sox lose their only postseason home game but the game itself was amazing. There was plenty of action and energy. It was hard for me to bring the same energy to the game as when I’m with friends, so I was more of a fly on the wall of Fenway. I watched all the riled-up, die-hard fans letting everyone know there opinion of every player, ump and the calls they made. The experience was everything I had hoped for.

After all the game, I check into the hostel and caught up on sleep. The night before was a disaster mixed with stress and jetlag so I slept it all away. In the morning I was stocked up with the appropriate energy to explore my sought after US city and I saw everything Boston had to offer.

I site-see perhaps a little different than most: I have a burning curiosity for architecture and art but don’t really know what to make of everything at first glance. I walk around just looking at stuff, sort of downloading it all until I can make use of it. This is what I did that day.

The morning was casual. I spent the first couple hours relaxing in a trendy coffeeshop/bookstore joint called Trident. Once I zeroed myself with coffee, breakfast and the wonderful Monday morning coffee shop vibe I attacked the town. The day started with walking and ended with running. I capped it all off with sprinting north up Harvard Avenue at 8pm, in casual clothes, leather jacket and Nish’s camera swinging around my neck. I had to see the last Boston attraction before I left town: Harvard University. I stood on the steps of the main entrance, hot as hell but feeling content. I looked up at the tall, beautiful brick building with 20 foot high tilled glass. The building was lit up and glowing like a beacon. I only had a few minutes to explore the campus before racing home to be herded with the a dozen over-enthusiastic hostels dweller that were leaving to watch some live jazz/blues.

In the morning it was appropriately raining and I went back to Trident: I drank coffee and ate eggs benedict. I wanted to chill there for a couple hours before hitting the road. It was time to get back to my life and I know it isn’t a good sign for me when I become this introverted. I ignored my head full of Boston architecture and its unique style and listened to several conversations happening around me. I paid the bill I waltzed around the bookstore waiting for something to jump out. After 20 minutes, I was on my way out of the store with Jack Kerouac’s ‘Complete Travel Works’ in one hand and Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ in the other. (The Voltaire is a joke between Nish and I). Passing the magazine rack I stopped and pulled down a quarterly magazine that was meant to inspire the graphic designer. I flipped through the beautiful collection of images and like an epiphany everything I had collected all sort of fell into place – like I spent days collecting pieces of string and all of a sudden I had tied them all together. I put down the ridiculous Voltaire, and Kerouac because I already read ‘On the Road’ and left the bookstore with the magazine.

I drove home in no rush with lots to think about – still very introverted, though. I pulled into the drive way I looked up at my dark apartment and immediately wanted to get back in car and drive. Instead I went upstairs and straight to bed. I miss noise, I miss my girlfriend and I miss my home in the west.

My trip to Boston.

PART I:

Ah, the much-anticipated latest instalment of the The Way I See It – and I mean that personally. I’ve been meaning to write something for about a month or two but had other things on my mind. But now I have some time freed up and so many eager blog readers dying to hear about my current experiences. So like any great story we’ll start at the end: Where I currently am and what I’m currently doing. Originally I promised from a narrative standpoint that I wouldn’t add this but what the hell. I’m sitting on my bed after floating home from dinner with a belly full of food from dinner and a head full of beer from the sauna. We, the CNEPH training center, are in Ramsau, Austria banging out a hard training block. Luckily for the sake of my body we’re resting for a couple days. I’m feeling pretty tired but rightfully so. Training with Louis is great but challenging. It’s kind of like sticking your finger in a flame: You can only go in short bouts and just before you burn, you pull it out and spend three days playing golf.

But before I get into too much detail concerning the fall, we should discuss the summer. It was a great summer but equally busy. During the month of August I drove over 5000km and trained about 80 solo hours in three provinces. The best part about all this is that I never felt any stress of travel. I just sort of rolled with it and enjoyed the lifestyle. Looking further back on the summer I can’t really recall much that happened in July. I know that I was training a great deal but mostly around the bow valley. I find when you spend too long doing the same thing in one place it all kind of moulds into a singular experience. The moment that defines July for me would be running on the power lines adjacent to Highway 1 across from my apartment at Dead Man’s Flats. I only ran there once but it seems that July was spent logging zone 1 training from my apartment.

When running on that power line came to an end, I begin organizing the next three months. I had my comrades flying to New Zealand at the beginning of August and I wouldn’t really see anyone until the second week of September. During this time I had to train, coach at a summer biathlon camp in Camrose, watch a Kings of Leon concert in Edmonton and run a training camp in North Bay. With all this on my plate I was still very adamant about driving across Canada. A few things contributed to that idea but mainly I was reading material that glorified long drives. And why not? Once I had my car in Quebec my options are limitless. I could have limitless groceries for a change and limitlessly drive due south into Maine and over to Boston to watch the Sox. This has been a dream of mine. I want to pick a fight with a Harvard student in one of their campus bars. How do you like them apples?

When the time came to coach the Camrose camp, I threw my roller skis and backpack into Nicky’s car, took over the wheel and drove north up on the Queen Elizabeth. The kids were painful to work with because they didn’t give a shit but the trip was pretty fun. I had memorable workouts on a quiet prairie road on the outer skirts of the town there. This road ran 9km down to a spot on a muddy river referred to as a beach. No wonder the road was quiet. I had lots of time to think on these workouts and I rather enjoyed it. It gave me a break from the delinquents I was working with and allow me to drift away with music, setting the metronome to a moderate but expressive tempo for the 2/3 hours.

The first day we arrived in Camrose, we only had a couple hours to settle before getting in the car again and driving into Edmonton to watch a Kings of Leon show. Great show. I was blow away by the number of fans they’ve collected since their last album. They packed the Rexal Center to the rafters where we were seated. Nicky got tickets at the last minute because of the camp schedule so we were put in the highest row on the far right side. This didn’t wither my spirits though but perhaps Nicky’s, as harsh head-cold symptoms took her down almost immediately after sitting down. Poor girl. I was rocking out solo by the end with one fist in the air while her head were in her hands. All in all it was a great evening, though. Well for me at least and I think Nicky, too. You have to ask her.

Before the show we arrived late to a BBQ at David Leoni’s and chowed down some ribs and corn on the cob before taking the train to Rexal with Natalie and Adam. Natalie was as excited to watch the show as Nicky and I and Adam was just going along with it. Natalie would tell him, “Adam, you’ll like it. You will probably even recognize a couple of their songs from the radio.” Adam was sceptical but he knew he would have the classic Rexal crack beer in his hands in no time.

We got off at central Clark station and walked out on West Lake. We then pointed toward North Michigan Avenue in search of their shopping district. The first thing I did was exhaust my camera battery snapping twenty pictures in the first 10 minutes. They were all fairly uninteresting actually: A picture looking down one street, a picture looking down another – picture of Chicago River, a picture of Chicago River and a tour boat. I guess I was just excited. I also took some pictures of Government buildings, churches and the Chicago Tribune building which intrigued me for some reason. Long and short of this is that I thought I would post a couple pictures I snapped on our quick Tour de Chicago.

Enjoy and expect a summer update very soon.

Wacker StreetNext to the Tribune

Next to the Tribune

After a busy summer as a barista at a local coffee shop denying people’s requests to draw my pretty face in their latte, I jumped in the car in Canmore, Alberta and drove 3200km across Canada to land in beautiful North Bay, Ontario. At this point I should clarify (if it isn’t obvious already) that I am not the Dave Nighbor you have come to know and love, but rather I am his better (looking) half. My name is Nicky. I should also clarify that I did absolutely no driving across Canada as I opted for sleep instead.

At this point you may be asking yourself what is more exciting than being a barista. You may also be asking yourself what could be so important in North Bay to drag me away from my important cappuccino production. The answer is simple: the third annual Dave Nighbor Summer Training Camp. Dave has been giving back to him home club of North Bay Nordic for the past few years in the form of a training camp, and this year he asked me to help him.

To be perfectly honest, I was hesitant to agree to coach a camp in North Bay as I had just finished coaching what could quite possibly be called “the world’s worst camp EVER” in Camrose, Alberta. In early August, Dave and I headed up to Camrose for five days to try and inspire a group of kids to become better athletes. I would have to say my efforts failed as the only inspiring thing I could do was agree to play the role of Hagrid in our group’s ongoing game of “Harry Potter”. Once they grew tired of Harry Potter, I thought for a second that they might be ready to train. Yet again, I was wrong because as soon as Hogwarts got boring, they attached the land of Mordor to the edge of the Hogwarts gates so that it became a super game of Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings. Good grief. The kids themselves were fun, but not a lot of quality training was ever accomplished.

Had it not been for Dave’s vouching for the awesomeness of his club, I would have never said yes. However, Dave’s assurance could not have been more bang on. For the past couple of days, North Bay’s young nordic team has shown me the eagerness to train that I have been yearning to see. These kids are all different ages and sizes and have all worked as hard as Olympic champions. Here in North Bay, I really feel as though I’m helping a group of people in a positive way and that this group truly appreciates it. Talent is oozing from these kids and I have no doubt that if they work as hard all year as they did this weekend, North Bay Nordic will be the club to watch.

This brief but amazing camp is really motivating me to get back to Calgary to coach my new crop of skiers with whom I’ll be working with this year. As long as no one casts a spell on me or calls me Hagrid, I think my upcoming season will be a good one. It’s certainly off to a good start.

Enjoying the lake after a stressful week

“Tree Study” by DAVID NIGHBOR 8 in X 10 in pencil/colour pencil on paper

Posted By JORDAN ERCIT, THE NUGGET

July 18^th, 2009

The chance to score some extra cash could not have come at a better time for Dave Nighbor.

The 24-year-old North Baybred cross country skier, who is one of 28 athletes participating in the General Mills Aspiring Olympians program, received word in May during a trip home that he had lost his spot on the national development team and the funding that goes with it.

So now, in terms of cash, every little bit counts in order to help Nighbor reach his goal of qualifying for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

Whatever comes from the General Mills thing is good, but it’s not going to be enough to cover team expenses and living,” Nighbor said from Canmore, Alta., where he now lives and trains.

I’ve tried to get some help with sponsors from North Bay, but really haven’t had much luck. So basically the way it goes now is I’m (getting monetary assistance) from myself and my parents (and family).”

General Mills announced this week it is increasing some of the financial commitments it will make to 28 Canadian athletes, including Nighbor, through the Aspiring Olympians campaign.

The cereal company recently launched a Gold Box Cheerios promotion, in which General Mills will contribute $5 toward to one athlete for each of the special boxes sold. The consumer must, however, log on to the Aspiring Olympians website and enter a special code to ensure the athlete of their choice receives the funding.

Other cereal boxes represent a $1 donation for one of the 28 athletes, up from 16 when General Mills first launched the program in March.

General Mills has guaranteed a minimum donation of $5,000 per athlete, but the public can supplement the donation to a maximum of $25,000.

As of Friday evening, Nighbor had received an additional $1,349 from purchases since March, including Mayor Vic Fedeli, who was one of the first to congratulate Nighbor on the website.

Still every little bit helps and anything that they (the public) can do is appreciated,” Nighbor said.

Despite the extra cash, the former North Bay Cross Country Ski Club member said he will have to go into debt to finance his training and living expenses, but added that it’s worth the chance to chase down a dream like the Olympics.

He said assistance from his family has been key so far and they came through in the clutch” when he found out his funding was cut.

When I found that all out, I was in North Bay and I was feeling pretty hopeless,” Nighbor said. The Olympics were so close and you kind of have to weigh it out and see if it’s worth it or not to go 15 or 20 grand in the hole.

It was really nice because they stepped up and they told me when I was there . . . they didn’t want me to be stressed out. I’ve been very independent since I moved out and it was a big thing for me to be independent, and it’s hard for me still to go back to them. But they were a life savers.”

However, Nighbor said he has put the national team cut behind him and is looking at things in a positive light before the cross country ski season begins in November.

He has been training with a new coach based in Quebec — Louis Bouchard, who Nighbor believes will be the next national team coach within a couple of years — and said his off-season workouts have produced better results so far compared to other years.

Last year it took me until August to start feeling really good and fit,” he said. This one, I’ve been trying to get fit for the last three, four weeks, and it’s nothing that I won’t be able to hold for the rest of the year.

Sometimes it’s worrisome if you get in too good of shape in the summer, but I’ve been in the weight room a lot . . . I know, doing intensities and running work, stuff like that, I’ve been getting some of my fastest times ever.”

jercit@nugget.ca

http://www.nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1662202

Before you read into too much into the title, I’ll assure you that the term “check engine’ is not used as a metaphor in this article- though it would probably make a good one. One can likely draw clever comparisons between the “check engine” light in a car and evaluating training and lifestyle when feeling fatigued or unmotivated; the engine being all the physical and mental factors that go into training and the light being conscious feelings and energy levels. When the light goes on, investigate. Unfortunately though, I’m not that talented as a writer. I simply had my check engine light go on in my Jetta earlier today and have a hard time getting past it, especially knowing its haunting nickname: the “$3000 light”. So the light is on my mind and I feel the need to mention it, but I know damn well I can’t write an entire article on it. I could possibly get away with a paragraph though… we’ll see.

The truth of the matter is I don’t know what to write an article on. I lost a large amount of motivation after getting kicked off the National team and my funding cut. Blah blah blah. I felt like anything I wrote about was incredibly cliché like I was following the steps of the “Guide for the Disheartened Athlete” or something. I wrote all kinds of updates for my site but couldn’t publish any of them. I wrote positive articles and negative articles – negative articles about being annoyed with my positive articles – training relevant articles and completely irrelevant articles. The irrelevant articles were my favorite by far. I find reading about training and skiing, even if it’s about me, very boring and banal (eh Nish?), so I never finished any of ‘em.

So a few weeks went by knowing that a worthwhile idea would eventually pop into my head but I was finding out that an idea wasn’t often the hard part – it was finding the words to write about it. It wasn’t until I was on a hike with Nish two days ago, across the street from where I live, that I was finally making some progress. It was an afternoon run/hike in the heavy rain and dense cloud on a trail that would eventually lead us to a mountain’s summit. We ran along grassy logging roads adjacent to Pigeon Mountain laughing about various blogs and twitter posts. We were having a discussion about skier’s blogs and whether or not they were worth reading. We talked about our recent Haig Glacier camp and how to write about a camp we’ve experienced dozens of times along with hundreds of other Canadian skiers. We were saying, “Yes we trained a lot there. Who hasn’t? Yes we ate a lot there. Who hasn’t? So how can I sum this camp up interestingly in two sentences?” It was sounding so bland and redundant to us that we left our questions without answers. It sucked though. I knew that there were qualities and experiences in this camp that were worth extracting but we just weren’t seeing it. I also didn’t feel like describing the Haig Glacier to all the people that haven’t never been. Nothing against the people who haven’t seen it, but it would feel like describing my kitchen or living room or anything else familiar like that. So we ran along with the conversation naturally evolving into other things but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to write.

In the meantime, we approached the summit but turned around before we reached it. Our time was running too long. We stopped, drank from our waterbelts and admired the view. I was telling Nish how I wished that I had my camera. He wished he had his. The view was beautiful because of the low cloud that blanketed the valley we just ran through. The cloud gave an incredible sense of depth and perspective which you don’t normally get on a sunny day. We were standing on a steep grass slope that allowed us to see anything for miles that wasn’t blocked by a mountain or cloud: a couple glaciers, meadows likely occupied by a grizzly, large mountain faces and bowls, etc. We took it all in for a minute or so then ran down.

Part way down I had to slam on my breaks because a large grouse stood in my path. My instincts were to kill it because they are so stupid and easy to kill but what’s the point? I wasn’t gonna throw it on the BBQ when I got home so I let it live. Just then, as I approached it, around 15 cheepers (baby grouse) went flying and jumping around like someone emptying a large bag of brown tennis balls. I got a real kick out of this. One cheeper was standing in my way so I nudged him off a short ledge with the end of my pole. He rolled down the path for a few seconds flapping his wings as though he expected to fly. Once he gained his stepping and balance he turned to me angry and changed. Now I didn’t know what to do – I had a little dumb bird the size of an apple running at me with all his speed. Once he got about 6 inches away I reacted with a light kick that sent him rolling down the mountain slope again. This time, once he got his stepping, he looked at me then ran again but in the opposite direction. Laughing I walked past him as he was hiding under a shrub as though he fooled me. They have to be the dumbest animals in the World.

Once we had it with those stupid birds the sure footed Nish picked up speed accelerating down the mountain slope three times faster than we went up. I followed. We didn’t say much on the way home except for the usual banter.  Once we got home I thought to myself, “Write something! Just something so the feature photo on your website isn’t a random picture of a broken doorknob.” But nothing came so I went about my evening and the next day without giving it another thought. It wasn’t until two days later when I was driving that an idea finally came to me – it was like a light bulb came on. At first I thought it was over my head then I said, “shit, check engine light”.

The Way Nish See It #263

]]> http://davenighbor.com/?feed=rss2&p=267 http://davenighbor.com/?p=246 http://davenighbor.com/?p=246#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 21:27:38 +0000 admin http://davenighbor.com/?p=246

It has taken me a while to sit down and debrief my race season and it wasn’t until I was given the pink slip from the National Team last week that I became overly motivated to write an article. Yet, with this new found enthusiasm for article writing, I had to hold back for a bit because I knew if I wrote it right away, my words would come across strikingly similar to the incessant snarls of the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes; I know my facial expressions shared his resemblance at times during the past week. Either way, I’ve had a week to experience all sorts of different emotions and now I am balancing on somewhat of an even keel. I got help from the Google machine to help me identify all of the feelings I’ve expressed (or felt but didn’t express) following more or less this order:

Shocked, worried, fed-up, anger, panic, resentment, sadness, frustration, depression, fear, confusion, anxiety, scared and finally, acceptance and relief.

Let me explain how the whole thing went down so you’ll have a better understanding of my emotional rollercoaster: I received the phone call from Eric last Tuesday (this is about the time the doorknob broke), he asked me how I was doing and went on with about 10 minutes of small talk (was that some kind of joke?). After chatting and joking around about the weather or something his laughter trailed off as he sighed and said, “I’ve got some bad news for you”. Although that was enough information for me to end the phone call, I hung on the line to hear the end of his sentence. He went on to say, “I’m sorry, you aren’t nominated to the National Team for next year.” Shock is the feeling I felt at this time – and actually, when I am shocked I’m rather calm and pleasant. He went on to explain that not only did I not make the team but I wasn’t likely getting carded (government funding or an athlete’s salary) and I wouldn’t likely get accepted to the Quebec Training Center either. I’m still shocked with a pinch of panic and worry. Naturally, anger comes into play a bit later.

So why am I shocked? Why should I be on the National Team? Why am I getting a “thanks for coming out” call to begin with? These are all questions you might be asking yourself.

I’m 24 years old I have been on the National Team for 8 consecutive years (5 years senior, 3 year junior). I’ve won 11 Nor/Am cup races in my career and 12 National Championships races. This past season I’ve won 3 Nor/Am’s in three disciplines: 15km classic and 15km skate (both in which I blew the field wide open) and a classic double pole sprint in Silver Star BC. I qualified second Canadian in the World Cups this past January on the Whistler Olympic Park sprint course. I was the leader of the Nor/Am series mid season which took me over to Europe where I placed 29^th in the Trondheim 50km World Cup (Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey and I all became the first Canadians in many years to place top 30 in a Norwegian World Cup).

Now, why did I not make the National Team after proving myself several times as one of Canada’s best? Cross Country Canada unanticipated the depth of our strong Canadian field and underestimated the number of young athletes that would reach the criteria for making the National Team. The Junior and Under 23 World Championship Team raced very well at their Championships qualifying 6 athletes who finished top 20 in distance or top 12 in a sprint race. All these results trumped my results when I fell 3 points short of scoring 20 World Cup points. I don’t disagree with most named to the team but I do disagree with Cross Country Canada’s short-sighted development philosophy. Instead of accommodating the newfound strength in numbers of Nordic skiers that Canada has, Cross Country Canada consistently opens up the bottom letting go of young and talented skiers and leaving them jobless with no funding and years of world class results potentially unfulfilled.

I suppose that’s where the anger steps in along with being fed-up, resentful, sad and frustrated. I’ve seen this happen to many of my teammates over the years and it almost always results in them spending many years trying to climb out of the financial hole they find themselves in or they just end up quitting. Not only are athletes taken off the carding list, but they end up having to support themselves while spending thousands of dollars on training camps and races. After my brief phone call with Eric the other day, with my head still spinning, I realized something I never have before: There is a price tag on everything –including your dreams.

$40,000 is my fluctuation in funding this Olympic year due to Cross Country Canada’s short-sightedness – but I’m not bitter. At least I’ll do everything in my power to not hold a grudge. I know from experience that bitterness and resentment is counterproductive in life and as an athlete.

So now I’m confused, anxious, and scared. I told Eric to give me Louis Bouchard’s (the Quebec Training Center coach) contact to find out if I truly wouldn’t be able to join the Quebec team. I called him and he accepted my request with open arms and without an ounce of hesitation. He also gave me the first bit of positivity from any coach-type figure since sometime early January. I was also talking on-and-off with Mike Cavaliere about joining the World Cup Academy – who was also very positive and encouraging – the Academy would have also been a great opportunity. It was a very hard decision to make. In the end I had to make a decision and went with my gut: The Quebec Training Center. It will be nice to spend some time out of my “comfort zone” and into the land of Quebecers. I think training with that young, talented group will be a great opportunity for me.

As for the funding part, I’m going to have to deal with it. I can’t be discouraged by something out of my control for more than a couple days. But luckily I have my family stepping up (as always) as my safety net. They proved that they believe in me which was plenty more that I’ve seen from the program I have been involved in.

So what have I learned? When you get the rug pulled out from under you, you quickly gather two things: Perspective and you realize that those who remain to help you back on your feet are the people that believe in you.

Now I’ve got a doorknob that needs fixing.