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The Village Elders of Cotuit have decreed there will be No Water during Monday’s Fourth of July parade.

Last year the baseball team — the Cotuit Kettleers — skipped the procession because they are the traditional targets of water balloons, funnelators, power washers, garden hoses, and other roadside ambushes. To be fair, the ball players were the ones who first took to their float with SuperSoakers a few years back, so any spectator water attacks have been purely defensive.  Well … semi-defensive. Sitting out last year’s parade paid off as the Kettleers won the 2010 Cape Cod Baseball League championship.

This year — the Civic Association put up this sign at the center of the village, but someone blanked out the “No.” Photo by Paul Rifkin

I met Sean Maloney in Beijing in 2008 during the Olympics. A fellow rower, he had just returned from a row down the course at Shunyi, something I was insanely jealous of as my colleague Alice Li hooked him up with a boat and permission. I didn’t get a chance to row in China, but the expression on Sean’s face as the conversation changed from business to rowing made up for it as he described the awesome feeling of rowing down the lanes where the world’s best would compete in a few days.

Viewed as one of the top talents in Intel’s executive ranks and the likely successor for the top job, Sean suffered a stroke in 2010. The doctors said he wouldn’t row again, so he got in a boat and proved them wrong, competing in the 2010 Head of the Charles.

This video is him telling the tale of rowing and his recovery. I have to say, one year later, he sculls better than I do and has a great finish.

An interesting project, Hear Cape Cod, is recording sound samples at select locations around the peninsula to create a record of what life on Cape Cod sounds like in 2011.

The integration with Google Maps is very cool. Click on a waypoint and the recording will launch. Everything from gulls squabbling at the Pamet River to the wind turbine at the Falmouth wastewater treatment plant.

The Starter Castle Movement that has raped the Cape’s coastline since the late 1980s shows no sign of abating.  The ongoing tear-down and replacement of the original inventory of old shingled summer mansions built at the turn of the 19th century with wedding caked, turreted displays of Pella windows and Chem-Lawned swards of grass is enough to make me launch into a jeremiad of nostalgia. The view has changed, at least for we peons who sail by and have to peer up at the messes, but for the wealthy waterfront homeowner, the view out the window towards Nantucket Sound remains as pristine as ever. No coincidence that this upper echelon of the public led the hue and cry against the construction of a wind farm three miles offshore: the thought of anything sullying their vistas broke out the checkbooks in a flurry of environmental hand wringing.

Another thing that drives me nuts is the new obsession with outdoor lighting and the resulting light pollution. Some of these quaint $20 million haciendas are lit up like ocean liners at night, their balustrades and eaves covered with big honking spot lights to either deter pain-killer crazed burglars or show off the nitrogen-leeching Kentucky Blue Grass growing under the sprinklers. For someone on the opposite shore, the glare is beyond annoying and inspires fantasies of a Seal Team 6 sniper with a scope the size of a wine bottle.

When I was a cub reporter for the Cape Cod Times in the summer of 1980, one of my beats was the waterfront.  At a hearing of the department of natural resources on the legality of clamming with hydraulic pumps, an interesting clash of the two poles of Cape Cod society occurred in town hall. On one side of the room were three dozen commercial quahoggers: eternally tanned, biceps the size of footballs from wrestling with a bullrake all day,  hands stained black from the primordial mud at the bottom of the bays, mostly moustachioed and bearded like a biker gang. On the other side was a half dozen waterfront matrons dressed in Lily Pulitzer pink and green. They hated the sight and sound of the quahoggers working the shallows in front of their manses and wanted it stopped. A local real estate agent kicked things off by reminding the town fathers that these poor ladies paid a disproportionate amount of taxes, only resided in the town three or four months out of the year, and at the very least deserved some peace and quiet. Then, one brave matron took to the microphone and in describing how close the clammers came to her rose garden said, “They’re out there, making all this noise, about a nine-iron shot away.”

I’m convinced the  clammers won the right to keep clamming thanks to the golf reference.

Thirty years later and the current hypocrisy of the burghers of Popponesset Island has to remarked upon. Popponesset is in Mashpee — probably one of the most weirdly incorporated and developed towns in the State thanks to its historical status as the “reservation” of the Wampanoag Indian tribe. Property ownership and development in Mashpee has always had some controversy, with land titles clouded, ancient burial grounds unearthed as nitrogen-spewing golf courses are bulldozed,  and the tribe constantly rattling the legal threat of reclaiming its ancestral lands.

A commercial clammer — the term now is probably “aquaculturist” — sought permission from the Town of Mashpee to maintain a shellfish grant off the shores of Popponesset Island, a place my alma mater Forbes Magazine allegedly deemed one of the most affluent places in America thanks to an average household income of $250,000. He was given permission but the waterfront property owners swung into action, claiming, first and foremost, that the clamming operation would interfere with their view. Let’s keep in mind the waters are public property and aquaculture is a big business in most Cape towns, let alone the fact that clams are a sign of a healthy harbor.

This is extremely ironic since their view is of Cotuit, where, thanks to the philanthropic efforts of one extraordinary old summer family and the Barnstable Land Trust, most of the southern shores of the town is pristine, undeveloped saltmarsh and pine forests.  If you stand in Cotuit on those undeveloped lands — Ryefield Point or Crocker Neck — and look southwest across Popponesett Bay to the proposed site of the aquaculture grant (which is submerged and would be marked by a few buoys) you see Starter Castle after Starter Castle, some ablaze at night in a riot of floodlights, packed together, jetskis tied to the docks. Doing their best to poison the shore.

The Cape Cod Times writes this morning:

“The view from any of the homes on Popponesset Island is nothing less than postcard-perfect.

The picturesque island enclave boasts beautifully constructed homes and even more stunning natural views of the surrounding scenery.

Home prices stretch into the millions, and in January the area was named one of the nation’s most affluent neighborhoods by Forbes magazine.

Reaching the island requires a boat, or a drive over a one-lane bridge.

It’s this off-the-beaten-path charm that attracted its affluent residents — and that has pitted a group of them against the Mashpee Board of Selectmen for approving a shellfish grant homeowners believe will destroy it.

“This impairs their private property rights in a number of respects,” said attorney Brian Wall of Sandwich, who represents a group of 18 residents. “It’s basically going to be a commercial operation 30 feet away from a residential property.”"

The head-shaking news that the Cotuit property of Frank and Jamie McCourt, (the battling divorcing destroyers of the Los Angeles Dodgers) is on the market for $50 million and knowing fate and circumstance, will probably be carved up into a nest of new McMansions by some developer/real-estate-agent-to-the-stars; the tear-down of Cotuit’s historic Hotel Pines; and the ongoing trashing of the harbors by human waste … Thirty years ago the preservationists of the Cape were warning the peninsula was on the road towards becoming the next Long Island. I fear we’ve arrived.

I remembered yesterday that the deadline for entering the Head of the Charles Regatta is coming up soon, so I logged into the HOCR.org site and filed an application for one of the precious slots in the Grand Master Singles scull event. I was lucky enough to score an entry in 2003, pulling a dismal 23’03″ and finishing second-from last in a field of 39 senior masters. I had my excuses — it was my first Head alone, sculling (I’ve always participated in a team boat with at least four rowers), and I had a torn intercostal muscle in my right rib-cage, necessitating a massive overdose of Advil on the dock.

Update 8.3.11: Entry wasn’t accepted by the HOCR Gods so no Head of the Chuck this year for me. I did enter the Green Mountain Head in Putney, Vermont though. Better scenery.

Excuses, excuses and hope springs eternal. So once more I am crossing my fingers and hoping for an entry in this fall’s regatta, arguably the greatest rowing event in the world.

Application filed, I woke up this solstice morning to bluebird skies and zero wind. I set out the trash cans, drank a cup of coffee, and ten minutes later was backing away from the beach at the foot of Old Shore Road in my old Empacher. I set out around Grand Island in a counter-clockwise direction, rowing a slow stroke rate with firm power, cranking along on a mirror-like surface completely pleased to be able to do such a graceful thing on a whim on what I parochially consider the best rowing water I’ve ever rowed on. 8,000 meters and 43 minutes later, and I was pleased to see my average pace at at the same level it was eight years ago in 2003, a good harbinger I hope of some fall regatta success.

Funny, but in the back of my mind looms February and the 2012 CRASH-B sprints, the world championships of indoor rowing. Every pull-up, every overhead power snatch, kettlebell swing and burpee I’ve done this spring has been with that ugly six and a half minutes of agony in mind. To see them payoff on the water is very rewarding, but for some reason the boat is far more arbitrary a gauge than the merciless ergometer.

Training for the Head of the Charles is a matter of working towards a 5 km distance. Funny how the presence of 100,000 cheering spectators seems to shave a minute or two off the time — but to give you and idea of what I’m up against. Here’s the course on the Charles River as mapped in the g-map pedometer:

And here’s the same distance mapped on Cotuit Bay:

One of the great American sounds is that of a Wurlitzer organ inciting a stadium or arena full of fans to “Charge.“  It’s as much a part of the audible sporting experience as the crack of a bat, the hawking of a peanut vendor, and I heard my first at the age of nine at my first Bruins game inside of the old Boston Garden, taken there by my grandfather to watch from the nosebleed seats under the eaves. I’m sure the Romans played music in the Coliseum when the Lions played the Saints, but why does it strike me that the modern music experience at most sports simply sucks?

First off — there is the volume issue. Some wise marketing person in the front office of an NBA team apparently decided that lots of noise means excitement and more ticket sales and therefore out went th edict to turn up the PA and rock the roof off of the arena.  Bar owners have long known that loud music makes people uncomfortable and therefore thirsty. The New York Times reported on this phenomenon during the Mavericks-Heats finals.

“The Mavericks’ equipment involves more than simply pumping up decibels to levels that some experts fear could contribute to long-term hearing loss. Rather, with fans spoiled by earbud fidelity and 5.1-channel home theater systems, owners like the Mavericks’ Mark Cuban have turned hosting a game into producing an event — with “assisted resonance” and “crowd enhancement,” buzzwords for insiders and euphemisms for others.”

Granted, crowd noise can be a good thing — drowning out an opposing quarterback’s audible signals, expressing team unity as everyone lustily cheers for their local laundry.  I’d never begrudge a fan the opportunity to exercise their lungs. But being exhorted to “MAKE SOME NOIZE!” and led like sheep by pre-programmed call-and-respond routines is utterly inauthentic. And what’s the deal with the bad music? I’m sure some purist bitched about Wurlitzers invading stadiums, but do I really need to rock out to Aerosmith in between plays?

Stanley Cup finals. Goal is scored. Old days a loud buzzer went off along with a red light. Starting in Detroit, now every team has a supertanker fog horn and a big God Fart is flatulated whenever a goal is scored, and then an annoying piece of “We’re F$#ing Psyched!” music is played. To wit:

I think this b.s. started with soccer — vuvuzelas anyone?  – and the Ole Ole song the hooligans sing to keep themselves awake while the “beautiful” game drags on for over an hour without anything significant happening.

Baseball has become one of the worst. Every batter has a song which is played as they approach the plate. These songs are apparently relevant in some way to the player’s personality. Why? Who knows. I get it when Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ closer strolls out of the bullpen in the ninth inning to “put the other team to sleep” and Metallica’s Enter Sandman is played. Cute.  Here’s the 2010 Phillie’s compilation, keep in mind you get to hear 15 truncated seconds of this weirdness everytime the player walks up to the plate.

I appreciate the fact that Wilbur Snapp, a baseball organist, got tossed from a game in 1985when he played Three Blind Mice after the ump blew a call.

Casey Neistat is the master of pissed-off protest video. He and his brother took on Apple over the iPod battery problem. Now they take on NYC for giving them a ticket for not riding in the marked bike lanes.

For some reason Microsoft Office 2010 has decided I need to select a “profile” every hour on the hour. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make it happy and go away forever. Not being an Exchange guy, I know it’s Outlook related, and since I am consulting to Edelman I am on their Exchange web client so I can gain access to their internal mail and directory. I suspect it may be related to Google Calendar sync or something, but I do wish it would go away.

Suggestions so appreciated.

It would appear that the International Olympic Committee bestirred itself from its antediluvian luddite position on online media and demanded that the bidders for broadcast rights cease the ass-hatted pre-Tivo practice of taping and delaying coverage for prime-time American audiences and make available the athletic events in realtime AND online.

Online was a misery of DMA takedowns during Beijing (which I lived firsthand thanks to the paranoia of the IOC that any manifestation of YouTube video would undercut the value of its crown jewel broadcast rights).

While details are sparse from the New York Times coverage today, the second paragraph of Richard Sandomir’s article stands out: “…Comcast responded with a knockout bid and a promise that it would show every event live, on television or online, a recognition of the immediacy of technology and a drastic reversal of NBC’s policy of taping sports to show them to the largest possible audience in prime time.”

If you’ve ever watched Olympic coverage in Europe on EuroSport you’re accustomed to getting complete coverage of every event,  , no matter how long-tailed, in realtime. Think hours of men skiing with rifles and you get the European viewing experience, versus the usual NBC saccharine around some perky pre-pube gymnast who overcame Demeaning Plebney while ardent fans of the 50 meter air pistol get bupkus and have to scrounge around online in hopes someone, somewhere encoded a feed of their passion.

If the Games make it truly online — and they sort of have to now that the world is 100% obsessed with video the way they want it, when they want it — then London ought to be a delight for longtail sports fans. Let’s just hope NBC gets its online act together in time, doesn’t strike a Devil’s deal with Microsoft Silverlight, and delivers a multiplatform stream (iPad, droid, PC) that kicks ass and finally delivers on the promise of a truly interactive Olympics. If I were at NBC interactive I’d be on the phone to the MLB.com guys and looking for some technical ninja help.

The online rights and pay-per-view revenue should, in theory, kick the stuffing out of the old broadcast rights that typified the Dick Ebersol era when there were three networks, no Tivo, and no Interweb. My fingers are crossed.

I’ve done some casual hiking in Switzerland  (an ascent of Mount Tendre, the highest peak in the Jura canton; and the Hoher Kasten in Appenzeller above the Rhine River valley) but I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never climbed anything substantial in New England, especially the region’s tallest peak, Mount Washington (6,288 feet) in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Hailing as I do from Cape Cod, a flat sandbar, my outdoors pursuits have been monopolized by the sea and sand, yet the urge to scale something tall in the woods has been growing for years.

Last winter’s literary obsession with mountain climbing tales led me to join the Appalachian Mountain Club, buy a backpack, a stack of maps and drag a nice pair of mildewed Asolo hiking boots out of the closet. While I have positively no Mittyesque desires to ever bag a 8,000 meter peak (e.g. Everest) as the odds are bad enough for experienced climbers in their 30s let alone abject amateurs in their 50s; I do love a challenge, particularly one that kicks my ass, and over the past few months that challenge looked like a Presidential Traverse — a visit to all of the peaks named after Presidents in the White Mountains, an expedition traditionally accomplished on or around the Summer solstice when daylight hours are at their max. This post is not about such a Traverse, but a warm-up to one.

My good friend, extreme sport fiend, and CRASH-B sprint coach: Marta, is renting a place at the foot of  Mount Washington in Jackson, New Hampshire on the banks of the bubbling Ellis River. She’s an amazing athlete and mountaineer, especially when it comes to backcountry skiing, telemarking, winter climbing, and the real hardcore New England winter sports that hark back to the early days of skiing before chairlifts, bunny slopes and ski chalets.  Marta, like me, is into doing stuff the hard way, a fellow hater of luggage with wheels. She’s been up and down the White Mountains countless times — running the trails, cycling up the Mount Washington Auto Road against the clock, a few Presi Traverses — and hence was the ideal guide for my first ascent.

We left her place at 6 am and drove north on Route 16 accompanied by spectacular views of the eastern slopes of the range. We parked at the Great Gulf Trail trailhead, paid $3 for a self-service parking permit, shouldered our packs and set forth down an abandoned road to a suspension bridge pocked with crampon marks over the West Branch of the Peabody River and then west, upstream, along that river on the Great Gulf Trail (which eventually reaches the summit of Washington). After two miles of relatively flat walking — which was enough to start me, the original Mr. Aquaman, sweating under my 30 lb. pack — we split off on the Madison Gulf trail to the northwest up an increasingly steep trail that forded Parapet Brook several times. Marta’s dog Gus balked at one stream crossing, but was generally kind of astounding to watch work up the trail with his four-paw drive. The air was cool and as since we were shaded in the spring canopy, the conditions made for relatively easy going as we worked uphill through the trees, with no views to give an orientation of altitude or progress. Finally, after an hour and half we popped out of the trees on a rocky knob and had a great view into the Great Gulf and the northeastern flank of Mount Washington.

After that tease the trail ducked back into the trees and the climb got steadily steeper to the point that I was basically drenched in sweat, stopping at one point to take off my shirt and wring out about a cup of fluid. Hydration was obviously going to be the first order of the day, and anticipating that I had 100 ounces of water in my pack’s Camelbak, and two additional liters in the side pockets. The Camelbak kept me going through its hose and bite valve and Marta continuously hounded to drink, drink, drink.  All told I pounded down over 200 ounces of water during the day  (and one RedBull) and micturated exactly once.

In a bit of a surprise, we came upon a pair of fellow hikers, a husband and wife in their 50s or 60s, making a descent — something unique as the AMC guidebook explictly says the Madison Gulf trail “is not recommended for the descent, for hikers with heavy packs, or in wet weather.”

They explained they had lost the trail the day before on their way uphill to spend the night at the AMC Madison Hut. Instead they were forced to bivouac in the open forest, in very chilly temperatures, pulling on all their clothing and cuddling for warmth. They asked us to pass along their names to the Hut staff because they had a reservation and didn’t want to kick off a search and rescue effort on their behalf. We offered them food and water, but they declined and passed behind us.

As we continued to climb I saw the granite face of the Madison Gulf headwall to my left, a green-grey monster that rose 1,000 feet from the floor of the cirque. Things were getting steeper and I was forced to use my hands for propulsion, wondering how we were going to scale what was obviously a very serious gain in elevation.

The answer was the Chimney, a sheer stack of white boulders and rocks that goes straight up the face, a gurgling stream/waterfall bubbling unseen underneath. Marta went first, Gus scrambling with her, and I watched her foot and hand placements before making my own moves on the face. Keep in mind I have an unreasonable fear of heights, but for some reason I was okay with the first part of the Chimney,  and actually felt very impressed with myself thanks to four months of  training at Cape Cod Crossfit which has given me a whiff of the upper body strength and flexibility needed for rock climbing.

I was nervous as a slip would have meant a serious disaster, maybe not instant death but definitely a bad injury. Marta later said the Chimney might be categorized as a Level 2 climb, meaning a fall would result in injury, but not a Four or Five which would lead to death. Pitons, rock nuts, and other classic protection are definitely not needed on the ledges, but there were some “interesting” moments when I was pressed flat on the face, very conscious of the weight of the pack on my back, looking for my next handhold and ledge for my toes. Gus the dog was not into some of the sections and started back tracking down to me, leaving the Chimney route in search of another more dog friendly one. Marta had to downclimb to get him, and her theory of why he was balking on a climb he had done before seemed very prescient — my silent anxiety was giving off a vibe that was causing him to doubt himself. In any case, he made it, I made it, and the feeling at the top was pretty awesome, giving me my first empathy with the lunatics who risk death to climb Annapurna or K2.

I have to give Marta credit, she didn’t quote this passage from the AMC’s White Mountain Guide Book to me before the climb:

“The section of this trail on the headwall of Madison Gulf is one of the most difficult in the White Mountains, going over several ledge outcrops, bouldery areas, and a chimney with loose rock. The steep slabs may be slippery when wet, and several ledges require scrambling and the use of handholds — hikers with short arms may have a particular problem reaching the handholds. Stream crossings may be difficult in wet weather. … Allow extra time and do not start up the headwall late in the day. The ascent of the headwall may require several hours more than the estimated time; parties frequently fail to reach the hut before dark because of slowness on the headwall.”

Once out of the Chimney we climbed above the tree-line at 4,500 feet (Madison is 5,367 feet). The deciduous birches and cathedral of the pines flora from at the foot of the climb had given way to stunted evergreens, and then, above that, a barren rock pile interspersed with arctic tundra and cheery bunches of blooming alpine flowers. Signs warned us to stay on the trail and off the sensitive vegetation (what little there was). The air temperature above the tree line dropped dramatically from the 60s in the valley to the high 40s and my soaked shirt and shorts suddenly became a bit of a liability. Hypothermia kills a lot of hikers in the Whites (an excellent book about Mount Washington fatalities is Not Without Peril, by Nicholas Howe), and the unofficial motto of the White Mountains is “cotton kills” — meaning a person in a t-shirt and bluejeans caught in the wrong weather will see all their body heat wicked away from them. One either wears performance synthetics or wool if they want to survive a bad turn of the weather on the summit.

I dragged a polar fleece out of my pack, put it on over my wet shirt, and followed Marta up past Star Lake in the col between Mount Adams and Mount Madison, and down a short rock trail to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Madison Hut, the oldest of the hut system in the range. A work crew was busy digging out rocks around the recently renovated bunkhouse and dining room. We said hi, popped inside (where Gus was immediately banished), refilled a water bottle, and inspected the bunk rooms where beds stacked four high with ladders offer a place to spend the night for a modest fee (reservations are necessary as demand is very high).

“They’d evict me for snoring, ” I observed, but Marta said the place was a “symphony”  when filled to capacity.

We decided to eat our lunch on the peak of Mount Madison, a few hundred feet above us to the east. We climbed to the summit via a segment of the famous Appalachian Trail that runs from Georgia to Maine,  slowly picking our way up the boulders and scree to the summit, a very stark and exposed knob with magnificent vistas all the way around. I shucked my pack, unwrapped a turkey, bacon and avocado sandwich, and shooed away bee after bee homing in on the only food for miles around.

Stopping for lunch was not my best move. The four-hour ascent had thoroughly worked my legs and suddenly stopping caused them to cramp and go beserk with lactic acid. Sweating and drinking as much as I had during the morning had washed most of the salt and electrolytes out of my system. I started to see the symptoms when my hands  began to cramp into claws and my hamstrings went into knots.

It was going to be a long descent.

Psychologically, one thinks a lot about the descent during the climb, comforting oneself with the thought: “Hey, once you hit the summit it’s all down hill and no more climbing the perpetual stairmaster.” The bitter reality is that descending is worse than climbing. The mountaineers adage that one hasn’t really climbed a mountain until you get back down to the bottom, and that most mountaineers die on the descent stuck in my mind. The problem in descending is that one is constantly arresting one’s momentum, fighting gravity, using the legs and hips to slow things down. This immediately causes bad things to emerge around the hips, knees, ankles and toes as one’s foot is repeatedly rammed forward into the boot. I broke out my telescoping trekking poles and with a hi-h0-away-we-go, began to follow Gus and Marta down the Osgood Ridge Trail, the continuation of the Appalachian Trail (AT) that would loop us down and back to the Great Gulf Trail and eventually the trailhead on Route 16.

The Osgood Ridge is completely exposed buttress that runs above the treeline from cairn to cairn with an occasional white painted blaze to mark the AT.  The going is horrible: a constant descent over lichen covered rocks (I hated those rocks, told them they were shitty rocks on several occasions), painfully picking through the maze with only great views and a cool breeze to alleviate the suffering. I click-clacked along with the trekking poles, moving slowly as Marta and Gus flew away ahead of me, always in sight but seeming to descend effortlessly as they moved to the southeast down to the treeline unseen beyond the final knob.  Add to the misery a swarm of gnats and blackflies, and I was quickly losing the exhilaration of the summit to a serious case of self-pity and trudging drudgery. Eventually I stepped on a loose rock, the trekking pole slipped and I pitched hard onto my shoulder and face. That sucked, but no harm done, no bruises or abrasions, just a miserable feeling of being old and tired and embarrassed.

“I fall down,” I joked. Creaked back to my aching feet, and asked Marta to stick a lost water bottle back into my pack. “Falling is not a good idea,” she said. I got the point.

I smeared DEET over my ears and neck (and immediately tasted copper in my mouth, such an encouraging trans-dermal reminder that I had just smeared poison on my skin) to keep the blackflies from having intercourse with my ear canals. After an hour that seemed like two, finally stepped off of the ridge and down into the treeline. Marta warned me — its either rocks or roots — and apparently the Appalachian Trail, because it is so heavily trafficked, is always in rough shape, with very little soil, and as far as the Osgood Trail is concerned, a steep straight-down-no-switchback descent down a chute of rocks and boulders.

The descent of the Osgood through the trees was the worst segment of the day in terms of pain and tedium. It was a never-ending exercise in looking down at the trail, picking a rock to step onto, planting the poles, painfully bending a knee and side stepping downwards. My knees were so trashed I started fantasizing about asking my orthopedic surgeon for a knee replacement.  Eventually I met a trio of hikers coming uphill and had a flash of schadenfreude that at least I was leaving the mountain while they had the flies and rocky ridge well above them to contend with. A man about my age at the back of the string of climbers puffed “Fucking rugged climbing” as he passed me.

The terrain gradually turned more forest-like, the bugs vanished, and up ahead, was Marta and Gus standing by the base of the trail. My knees and hips were trashed. Beyond salvation, and somewhere inside of my right boot I imagined my middle toe had turned black from the constant ramming of my foot. It was an understatement to say I was exhausted.

“Say I fell and broke my leg. Like a real compound fracture. Who would come get me and how the fuck would they get up here?” I asked Marta, beginning to explore my options.

“Helicopter. Definitely a helicopter for someone your size.”

I wanted that helicopter ride. I also wanted a beer. So, not wanting to dawdle and let my cramping legs twist themselves to the point that I couldn’t move them, I drained the rest of my water, leaving a cup in reserve to wash down a handful of Advil back at the car. We descended to the Great Gulf Trail, and backtracked on the same trail we used to start the climb seven hours before. I was aware that my capacity for conversation had ended, but made an effort to be sociable as I over-thought every painful step. At least there were no blisters, a testament to the mighty Asolos, a darn fine pair of Italian hiking boots. Soon I heard the encouraging roar of the Peabody River down below,   and gradually, as we passed hikers headed to the tent platforms with coolers full of beer, I could see the end of the expedition ahead.

Sounds of traffic on Route 16, then there was the suspension bridge … almost …. there ….I creaked up the three wooden steps, swayed across the bridge thinking of the 1938 K2 expedition fording a Pakistani cataract, and then, before I realized it was over, I was sitting on the tailgate pulling off my socks and remarking on how good my poor feet looked. Half an hour later and I was slumped in a chair outside of the Jackson Store with two Gatorades and a bag of salty Fritos, doing my best to get some electrolytes back into my freaked-out thigh muscles. I was cramping so badly that when I yawned my  jaw and lower face cramped into an excruciating spasm. Next time, bring salt pills.

In conclusion: I’ve raced in the Harvard Yale race (rowing) when I was 20 and thought that was the hardest thing I had ever done. I’ve sprinted 2,000 meters on an ergometer in under 6 minutes and 30 seconds and thought that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve ridden my bicycle a century, or 100 miles (with Marta) and thought that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But nothing compared to eight and half hard hours on “one of the most difficult trails in the White Mountains.” My respect for people who climb BIG mountains has rocketed.

Would I do it again? Definitely. I still have yet to climb Mount Washington.

This has transformed my life and ended the lives of hundred of flies. Talk about better mousetraps.

You know the drill, you buy a device and at checkout the clerk asks you if you want to purchase an above-and-beyond warranty or “buyer protection” plan. The smartass answer is generally, “Why? Is it going to break and is the basic warranty no good?” I usually take a pass, but last year, when buying my first Android phone on the occasion of my liberation from a corporate Blackberry, I decided to pay the extra fee given my predilection for being tough on my phones.

The phone broke well within the one year anniversary of the purchase (the charger plug adapter flaked out, a common occurrence on HTC EVOs according to the clerk), so I blithe-fully drove to the Best Buy to get it fixed. Not having a copy of the receipt and original agreement, I went in imagining their customer relationship management software would know who I was and confirm I was covered. I also went in with very different expectations of what a buyer protection plan should do, perhaps one born from the extraordinary experiences I’ve had at Sears with broken Craftsmen tools and L.L. Bean with broken fishing reels and aged Bean boots. In both of those cases I was given the legendary “NQA” – No Questions Asked” experience where a new product was pressed into my hands and I was on my way in minutes, more devoted to the brands than ever before.

No so at Best Buy. The very nice clerk at the mobile department found me in the store computer, confirmed I was cool, and then delivered the bad news.

1. My broken phone would be mailed off. A “refurbished” one would replace it. Ugh. I don’t want someone else’s hand-me-downs. That sucks.
2. I would be given a loaner — not the same model — but I would need to place a $150 refundable deposit.
3. I would need to go to another department — The Geek Squad — to  perform some bureaucratic function and then return to the mobile desk to get my contacts transferred and my loaner set up.

I suffered this news in silence. It was 10:10 am. I walked to the Geek Squad desk and stood stolidly for 30 minutes while the lone service person explained the fine points of expanding RAM to one customer, then virus removal to another. When it was my turn I had to repeat all of the information previously shared with the mobile desk to what was in effect a “human modem” who had to read back my address and spell my name and do all the other Soviet Union triplicate work. A sticker was slapped on the broken phone and by 11 am I was back at the mobile desk.

And then the fun began. Other customers had taken the clerk’s attention so I again waited for them to be served before it was my turn. Then came all sorts of contortions to get my loaner activated.  By 11:30 I was out the door, facing the prospect of a return in three or four days to get the refurbished phone back and reactivated, the loaner returned, and the $150 deposit refunded.

I paid extra money for this process. Someone at Best Buy needs to get on the floor and do some customer experience study, for I won’t buy a phone from them again, nor will I ever take their underwhelming buyer projection plan on any device ever again. The entire process should have been automated, made self-service, and focused on expediting me out the door with a new replacement the instant I walked in. Making me trudge from desk to under-staffed desk only made me grumpy and resentful.

Best Buy sucks.

update 6.5.11: Oh, and they forgot to give me back my 16 gb SD card which is doubtlessly stuck inside the Samsung loaner in some other poor soul’s pocket. Thanks.

update 6.9.11: Card retrieved with no hassle from the Hyannis Best Buy. Staff there is extraordinarily nice and helpful and remembered me as the guy who had to wait a long time on first visit. They even marked down a returned charging cable for me and turned me around in less than ten minutes. Friends urging me to tweet this to get Best Buy’s customer relations team attention. Not worth it. Will post in future on retail customer user experience design and how Best Buy could capture loyalty through the buyer protection plan, increase upsell of those plans, and make all parties very happy.

I skipped the Bruins game and American Idol final last Wednesday night to exercise my democratic duties and it was good.

My political tendencies are very neutral, conditioned by four years of being a political reporter in the early 198os when any suggestion of partisanship was career suicide. I’ve attended an inordinate number of meetings of selectmen, school board, zoning boards of appeals, licensing commission, legislative subcommittees, and state of the state addresses. I’ve questioned presidential candidates, sat on the dais as questioner in a U.S. Senate race (John Kerry’s first term replacing Paul Tsongas), and countless other brushes with government, politicians, elections, and the public hustings.

Last night I attended my first annual meeting of the Cotuit Fire District, and for some reason, felt closer to the governing process than I ever have before. There is a certain mythology about the New England Town Meeting, a very basic, grassroots form of village government where a Town Moderator runs an unruly crowd through a busy warrant of expenses and amendments before the quorum vanishes and everything falls apart. The town meeting is a cherished American tradition dating back to Colonial times,one that has all but vanished under the pressure of professional town management and charter reform.

In the 1920s Cotuit petitioned the state legislature to form a Fire District so the people of the village could raise taxes and spend them on basic infrastructure services that were not coming from the Town of Barnstable. Those services included a village water department complete with wells, water towers, water mains and hydrants; a volunteer fire department, and a prudential committee to manage the budgets and oversee the village meeting place, Freedom Hall. This unique ultra-form of government has been under assault in recent years, as the neighboring villages of Osterville, Marstons Mills and Centerville consolidated in the name of efficiency. But Cotuit has hung on, even looking into the possibility of seceding from the Town, electing its own boards of fire and water commissioners and prudential committee despite challenges and constant calls to modernize and do away with what some critics feel is an anachronism.

I walked to Freedom Hall, signed in with the monitor as a resident tax payer, collected my yellow voting card, a copy of warrant, and the budgets of the fire and water departments. I sat by myself, surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar faces, the prudential committee, clerk and moderator on stage, the fire and water commissioners below them, at their own tables facing the two columns of seats with microphones standing in the aisle between them.

There were a lot of familiar faces, some from back in my grandparent’s time, but still turning out faithfully each and every may to debate the village issues and get the work done. I was embarrassed in the knowledge that this was my first.

The moderator laid down the rules of order, noted the presence of a Barnstable police officer should anyone ignore her gavel and need ejection (apparently the 2010 meeting was extraordinarily raucous). A second moderator was present to take over the discussion of any warrant articles that might represent a conflict of interest for the full time moderator. Introductions were made, and the meeting was brought to order.

There is a particular species of meeting participant I’ve observed in nearly every small town meeting I’ve covered as a reporter who feels compelled to comment on each and every item, or raise fine points of order to … for lack of a better word, make an irksome point. These people are generally categorized as a “gadflies” — a term I’ve never been fond of, as it reduces often very well meaning involvement to insect status.

I won’t report on the meeting, other than to say it lasted four hours, raised some very interesting points, required a lot of attention to follow correctly, and in the end, presented very efficiently the management of the village for the next 12 months. My greatest concern as a resident tax payer is that the Fire District retain its independence from the Town of Barnstable, as a vital definer of the village’s official identity, and a forum in which I can directly have an impact on how my village is managed and tax dollars spent. My heartfelt thanks to the elected officials, engaged citizens, and village employees for making this form of government work and thrive in times of faceless professional management.