Author Archives: Dan York

Youth Curling Open House – Fri, Dec 28, 1-3pm – Petersham, MA

CurlingWould your kids (or you if you are ages 5-18) like to try out the sport of curling? If so, if you live in north central Massachusetts or southwest New Hampshire, you will have an opportunity tomorrow to see what curling is all about at:

Youth Curling Open House
Friday, December 28, 2012 from 1-3pm
Petersham Curling Club, Petersham, MA

Curling is a fun team sport that is open to pretty much anyone to be able to play. I play in an adult league on Tuesday nights and my 10-year-old daughter (pictured) plays in the youth curling on Saturday mornings. It’s about a 45-minute drive for us from Keene, NH, but it’s worth it to play on good ice and learn the sport.

You are welcome to come by tomorrow and try it out. The open house is free and directions are available on the Petersham Curling Club website.

If you can’t make it tomorrow but are interested in staying up on future events like this, we also have a Facebook page for the Petersham Youth Curling that you can “Like” and stay connected.

We’d welcome any youth who would like to join us on the regular Saturday mornings… it’s a great amount of fun!

Walking In Red Square – Reflections Of A Child Of The 1970s

Dan moscow 1I was born in the late 1960’s and grew up in the U.S. in the 70’s and 80’s when the Russians were the enemy. When the Soviet Union was the evil empire bent on the destruction of freedom, democracy and everything we held dear. When calling someone a “Russki” was an insult and when the news media routinely showed images of the Soviet military parades in Red Square. When we were sure that the Kremlin was sending spies into our country to steal all our secrets and would do whatever it could to destroy our lifestyle.

And when the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” meant that we didn’t practice hiding under desks, as our parents might have, because we all knew that if the Soviets launched their missiles, we’d launch ours and the world as we knew it would end. (How many movies were made on this theme in the early 80s?)

Of course, the only “Russians” we really knew of were the evil villians of the James Bond movies and countless spy thrillers… or the state-sponsored “super athletes” that we saw in the Olympic Games and who we understood to be intent on showing how Communism was so much better and would triumph over Capitalism.

In many ways it was a much simpler world-view.

The Russians were the enemy.

Period.

Kremlin wallsI thought of all this tonight as I strolled along through Red Square taking photos. Drinking in the magnificent beauty of St. Basil’s Cathedral. Taking photos of the walls of the Kremlin. Stopping to look at Lenin’s Tomb.

How could I ever have even remotely imagined that I would someday be here?

Moscow… Red Square!

Unbelievable.

Granted, we were also the generation that watched as glasnost and perestroika took hold in the Soviet Union under the reins of Mikhail Gorbachev. We saw the Berlin Wall fall. We saw the opposition under Boris Yeltsin. We saw the Soviet Union dissolve and simply cease… to… exist. We saw multiple nations and economies emerge.

StbasilWe watched as the story we’d been telling and retelling for so long was shattered into a million shards… to be reborn anew into new stories of new nations… of a new worldview… of new threats… of new powers.

It’s been 20 years now since Russia was reborn, and no sooner do you arrive than you immediately understand that this is a vibrant market economy full of energy and full of passion. I’ve had the privilege of spending the last two days in a room full of technologists and business people, of marketers and politicians … all focused on how to make the Internet more capable within Russia and the surrounding countries. To make the Internet faster, better, safer, more secure, more powerful… and more open. It’s been an outstanding event where I’ve both learned a great deal and met some truly remarkable people.

Yet still… I am a product of my childhood.

As I went for a morning run looping down through Red Square this morning… and then walked back there tonight… I could not help but be utterly amazed by how our world has changed. How different it is today from those decades ago.

Alas, I will not get to explore more. This was my typical business trip where I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, spent two days inside a hotel and now will leave in a few hours to go back to the airport to fly home. My morning run and evening walk were the only times I got to see anything beyond the hotel walls.

But I have learned much from this visit – and would welcome the opportunity to return.

Perhaps there was no greater sign of the change in Russia… at least for those of us grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and can appreciate the exquisite irony… than this, an advertisement for the latest James Bond film, prominently displayed on the sidewalk in Moscow:

Jamesbond moscow

Our world has indeed changed. And this is a good thing.

Youth Curling League Starts This Saturday at Petersham CC

Youth curlingYea! This Saturday is the first day of the youth curling league at the Petersham Curling Club down in Petersham, Massachusetts (about 45 minutes south of where I live in Keene, NH).

It will also be the start of my second year coaching as I’m helping out with the “Little Rockers” who are between the ages of 7 and 11. (Including my now 10-year-old daughter, pictured in the photo accompanying this article.) I helped out last year and didn’t realize how much fun it would be to do! On a certain level it shouldn’t have been a surprise given my love of teaching, but I didn’t expect how much I would enjoy it.

I’m looking forward to getting back on the ice this weekend and seeing what we can do this year with the kids.

If you are interested in learning more about the youth curling league and live in the area of north central Mass. or southwest NH, you can check out the web page about the youth curling or you can contact me directly. The Little Rockers curl every Saturday from 9:30-10:30 from now through the end of March.

We’ll probably be having an Open House soon where people can come and check it out… stay tuned for more info!

Second Time Running The Covered Bridges Half-Marathon This Sunday

I'm going to do it again… only this time my goal is to run the entire race!

Tomorrow, Sunday, September 2, 2012, is the Swanzey Covered Bridges Half-Marathon, also known as "Elijah's Race".

Last September this was my first – and so far still my only – half-marathon, as I chronicled first in a post about the upcoming race and then in a post about the results which photos and charts.

It was a great race and I really enjoyed running it.  It was fun to put the "13.1" sticker on the back of my car when it was all over.

However, I had a severe problem with my running pace that I hope to change this time around.

If you look at the image to the left with the map produced by my Nike+ iPhone app, you can see the problem. It's showing the pace of my run and you can see from the color legend at the top the speed at which I was traveling going from fastest (green) to slowest (red).

I started out at the very fast (for me!) pace of about 7 minutes a mile… and then…

… I nearly collapsed at mile 12.

Oops.

In fact, I walked through the water station at mile 12 as I had been walking through all the aid stations… but then I just kept on walking!

After what I remember was close to a half-mile, I said to myself that I "just" had a half-mile or so left and that I really should run that final bit. So I picked up my feet and struggled to the end.

My issue was that at the very beginning I had positioned myself in the middle of the pack of runners and so when they all took off… I took off with them all! Running very fast! My "normal" pace is about 10 minutes/mile and so dropping it to a 7 minute mile was a definite – and unsustainable – speed increase.

Added to the situation was that for a short bit near the beginning you run over a trail by some power lines that is quite narrow with little room to pass. So once you enter that section it is really a "channel" through which everyone must go and it's hard not to run fast with people right behind you.

This year my goal is to do the "tortoise approach" and run slower and steadier for the whole race. If I can run it all at around 10 minutes / mile that would be an excellent outcome. If I could even do it a bit faster in between 9 and 10 mins/mile that would be even better. Last year the official results had my overall time as 11:13/mile and I would like to do better than that.

My strategy, such that it is, will be to start out at the back of the pack so that I don't get sucked into the adrenaline-fueled initial surge. I also have a friend of mine who is running with me… and said he'll make sure I run the whole thing! 😉

I've also had an entire year more of running, along with a set of other races (although none this long).

We'll see.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to the race!

P.S. If you are in the area (or want to travel here), information about the race is online. Online registration is closed but I believe you can register on the morning of the race.

Flying A Foreign Flag – One Day A Year

Canada dayToday, July 1, here at our home in little old Keene, New Hampshire, USA, we flew a foreign flag from our our front porch.

As we have done on every July 1st since 2002… and probably will do for every July 1st in the years ahead.

You see, today is Canada Day and our 10-year old daughter was born in Canada during the 5 years that we lived in Ottawa, Ontario. Through the beauty of the great relationship between the USA and Canada, she is both a US and Canadian citizen.

So today we proudly flew the Canadian flag to honor our daughter, to honor her birthplace and to honor all the friends we made up there.

At something like 5:30am she was softly singing “O, Canada” and we all joined her in singing renditions of the tune multiple times during the day. (In English only, of course, as none of us know French well enough to do that verse, although our daughter is learning French in her school.)

This we all do gladly for her.

Tomorrow, the Stars and Strips will be back on the flagpole… for another 364 days…

Happy Canada Day to all our friends living up north of us… and to our daughter!

P.S. And I hope that any of you celebrating today up North did get a chance to have a beavertail, some poutine, or at least a double-double or some timbits from Timmy’s, eh?

One Year Ago Today, The Big C Changed Everything…

BigcToday is a somber anniversary in our household. One year ago today, we sat down with a doctor here in Keene to go over the results of some tests on my wife. He came into the room and went immediately to the point… hardly even saying hello. I don’t remember his exact words, but they were basically:

“I have some bad news. You have cancer.”

He may have said it differently… but that was the core message. Simple. Direct. To the point.

And everything changed for us.

The rest of that appointment and indeed the year has become a blur of learning more about cancer, medicine and the medical system than I ever expected to learn at this age.

My wife, who at the time was in the best physical shape she’d ever been in, proceeded down a path where she lost her breasts, lost her mane of hair, lost parts of her memory, lost her stamina, lost her ability to quickly process things in her mind, lost her physical health… and basically lost a year of her life.

The good news, of course, is that she didn’t lose her life, and that as a result of the treatments she’s undergoing and the fact that they caught the cancer early, she’s got a very strong chance of being around for many more years. Her cancer was “only” Stage 1 Invasive Breast Cancer, and could have been so much worse had it not been detected.

Intellectually, that’s easy to say. Emotionally, it’s a lot harder. It’s been a hell of a year.

And the journey is not over. She’s still got another 7 months of Herceptin treatments… and another 4 years after that of daily Tamoxifen pills (that she is also taking now), both of which have their own troubling side effects. And as we’ve learned, you’re never really “cured” of cancer. You win battles, but the war inside your body continues.

A year ago, the big C invaded our life and became a thoroughly unwelcome houseguest. Now we just have to continue learning to live with it…

Some of the articles I’ve written about our journey with cancer, in chronological order:

U.S. Curling Championships Start Rocking Philadelphia This Weekend!

UscurlingchampionshipsFor those folks lucky enough to live in the Philadelphia area, or who can travel there, this weekend begins eight days of the US national curling championships! The best men’s and women’s teams will be in Philly vying for their chance to qualify in a slot for the 2012 World Championships and the 2014 U.S. Olympic Trials.

Expect to see some outstanding curling happening this week!

More on the story:

A local Philadelphia country music station also seems to have helped produce a video with interviews and shots of what is going on there:

Looks like fun, and if you are in the Philadelphia area, this is your chance to get to see some of the best curlers in the nation!

Can Komen Ever Regain Our Trust?

There is perhaps no more powerful statement on the betrayal felt by many women with regard to the Susan G. Komen / Planned Parenthood debacle than this one simple video from “Linda”:

The pain of her treatment is that felt by at least 1 in 8 women during their lifetime. Her scars on her chest are like those of my wife and so many other women for whom the “cure” involved radical changes to their bodies.

Her sense of betrayal is that of so many women.

Komen ideologyIt’s not that the Susan G. Komen For The Cure organization can’t choose who it wants to fund based on ideological/political reasons. It can. That is a perfectly valid way to run an organization and to choose who to fund.

But that’s not what people signed up for.

It’s not what they donated money for.

It’s not what they ran or walked races for.

They donated/ran/walked/volunteered… FOR THE CURE.

There was never an asterisk on the “cure”.

It was never “for the cure as long as said cure meets our ideological/political guidelines“.

It was for the cure. Period. Full stop.

Perhaps it was naive to believe that no politics were involved, but people believed in the story of the Susan G. Komen For The Cure organization. They completely empathized with Nancy Brinker founding the organization based on a promise to her sister who died of breast cancer. They believed in the story. They supported the organization with their time, money and energy. They made the Komen organization the amazingly powerful force that that is today.

It was for the cure. Period. Full stop.

But then Komen completely mishandled communicating the Planned Parenthood issue and made it far worse with a disastrous interview with Andrea Mitchell that raised many more questions than it answered.

Sure, the Komen Board eventually reversed its position, which was pretty much guaranteed to satisfy almost no one. And certainly many people may be pleased at the departure of Komen VP Karen Handel.

But Komen has a far larger problem.

The proverbial curtain has been pulled back and Komen supporters are learning more about the organization that they have supported.

They are learning of the political activities of the organization’s leaders. They are learning about other instances, such as the ending of funding to organizations that supported embryonic stem cell research, even though no Komen funding apparently went directly to such research and the Komen organization had in fact trumpeted the potential of such research back in 2006. A statement about this topic on November 30, 2011, was apparently posted to the Komen website but subsequently removed.

Regardless of how you may personally feel about embryonic stem cell research and whether you think it is should be pursued or whether you think it should be outlawed, this is another example of the politicization of Komen’s grant-making.

It was for the cure. Period. Full stop. Never with an asterisk.

And more questions are being raised about Komen’s methods, their choices, their staffing… and, well, pretty much everything about the organization.

And while there can be no doubt that the Komen organization has done a tremendous amount of work for breast cancer education and research (just look at the last few pages of their 2010 Form 990 to see all the many grants they’ve given), the question many of us (including my wife and I, who have been definite Komen supporters during my wife’s ongoing fight with breast cancer) are now asking is:

Are they the right organization to whom to donate?

Can we trust Komen’s leaders to truly put the “cure” above their personal politics?

Are there better organizations where we should focus our time, dollars and energy? Can our dollars be more effective going to organizations directly involved with research?

How do we find a cure for breast cancer? Or at least better tools than the sledgehammers we have today?

Komen’s now lost the trust of the Linda’s of the world who believed so strongly in the mission and purpose of the organization. Can they regain that trust? Maybe. Maybe not.

It was for the cure. Period. Full stop. Never with an asterisk.