Cursed With Ambition

My Olympics

The Olympics have been over for several days and I've been too busy trying to finish my Safari story to write about them.  But I watched them everyday, sometimes 3 times a day, for the full two weeks.  I missed a few days but I saw a lot of the Olympics.  Basically, I would watch for ten minutes or so while I ate breakfast before work, then again for 30 minutes during lunch then Audra and I would watch for a couple of hours at night.  Some of the notable things: 

1. I saw 6 of the 8 golds won by Michael Phelps.  It's hard for me to appreciate what an accomplishment this is because I don't follow swimming at all other than the Olympics.  From all accounts, though, dude is a freak of nature.  The Lance Armstrong of swimming.  Built for it like out of a mold.  Groomed for it from day one.  He was favored and expected to win all eight of his races, but I was surprised that at least a couple were in question.  Especially exciting was the 4X relay where the U.S. barely beat the French who had talked trash before the race, saying "We're going to crush the Americans."  Bitch, please.  Jason Lezak was the stud there making up several yards over he last 50 meters.  I was screaming at the TV, I've got to admit.  The announcer before the race kept saying that he'd run the splits over and over and he kept coming up with a French victory.  He went on and on about how the French were probably going to win, there was no way for the U.S. to overcome, blah, blah, blah.  My cynical ass thinks he was doing this to build the drama and increase ratings.
2. I watched most of the gymnastics; male and female.  The women's balance beam event is inhuman.  They have to twist and flip and land on this four inch wide beam.  Ridiculous.  It really is like some Cirque du Soleil shit.  You got to hand it to Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin - they were nails.  Alicia Sacramone was the goat.  On the men's side, the rings event is ridiculous.  I have to say, our dudes are douchebags.  When they won the bronze they were looking at the camera and saying shit like, "That's how we roll."  It was like the shot of the sideline at a U. of Miami football game right after a touchdown where everyone is putting their faces in front of the camera flashing gang signs and giving shout-outs.  Props to our team on the bronze, but still.
3. I didn't see any of the "Redeem Team" games.  That's quite amazing considering how much coverage I did see.  The odds just favored that I'd catch at least some of it.  I'm glad they won.  It's all about Coach K and the tone he set.
4. Table tennis.  Don't blink is all I've got to say.  I don't really know why the Chinese are so dominant.  Do they have better vision/hand-eye coordination/reaction time that everyone else in the world?  Do they just play more, take it more seriously and start from an earlier age than everyone else?  Probably the latter.  As a half-assed ping pong player myself, I can appreciate what they are doing out there.  Amazing.
5. Badminton.  Not very popular in America, but the top level players pull off some amazing shots.  Interesting to watch.
6. Water polo.  This is a brutal sport.  Not only do the players beat the shit out of each other and try to drown each other, they have to swim nonstop for the entire game.  I can't really imagine a more taxing enterprise.  This is one of those sports, along with handball, that seems to be very popular in the Eastern European and Baltic countries.

The U.S. team disappointed in track with the 2 dropped handoffs in the sprint relays and other sprint losses.  We were shut out of the medals in every distance over 400meters, which is a disgrace in my opinion.  Boxing was another area where we traditionally do really well, but not at all in Beijing.  In baseball, the U.S. could only manage the bronze.  I give them a pass because they are minor leaguers playing against the equivalent of professionals from the other countries.  Women's softball also choked in the final, losing to Japan after dominating the entire tournament.  This was especially bitter because it could be the last Olympics for women's softball.  The U.S. team did exceed expectation in women's soccer, taking the gold after losing their best player right before the competition started, and volleyball, where the men's team exceeded expectations by winning the gold against the emotional backdrop of their coach having lost his father-in-law to a bizarre stabbing incident at a Chinese tourist attraction.

My favorite event, unsurprisingly, was women's beach volleyball.  Me likey Kerri Walsh.  God bless the person who developed the Brazilian-cut bikini.  Ass-men everywhere rejoice!  I watched most of their matches, with the exception of the gold-medal match.  The match was supposed to be played at 7pm and I knew I was going to miss it because I had to work late.  When I got home I intended to work on my truck.  *Sidestory - The check-engine light on my truck has been on for a number of weeks.  I knew it was nothing serious so I didn't take it in to have it looked at.  It had come on before and had been some fuel sensor deal and I figured it was that again.  There was no difference in the way it ran or sounded or anything.  So my inspection sticker expired in July and I found out that they will not pass you if the check-engine light is on.  I found this out by taking it to the inspection place.  The guy there plugged it in to their diagnostic machine and gave me the code for the problem, which was, in fact, a fuel sensor problem.  So I had to get it fixed.  I took it to a dealership to do a diagnosis and give me an estimate.  The code said that the problem was something called the "Idle Air Control Valve."  So the guy calls me in the afternoon after I left my truck there and tells me that sometimes they can clean the valve and it will work, but that they tried that and it didn't work so they are going to have to replace it.  Cost:  $1400.  Instead of just yelling into the phone, "Fuck you, you fucking thief!!" I told him I wanted to get another estimate.  I decided to learn as much as I could about this idle air control valve and possibly do the work myself.  You see, I bought my truck brand new in 2001, partially because I had decided that I never again wanted to work on cars.  Before, when I drove one POS after another, I would try to work on them myself because I couldn't afford to get raped by mechanics.  It was an endless source of frustration.  There was never enough room to fit a wrench or your hand into the tight spaces.  I was always bloodying my knuckles when wrenches would slip off a nut when I was putting 80lbs of torque on the motherfucker.  The job would always end with me having to go buy some super specialized tool that could only be used for this one job and cost a lot of money.  Once, I nearly put out my right eye with a pair of needle nosed pliers when I was working on my brakes.  So I really wanted my mechanic-ing days to be over.  Hence the new car.  Anyway, now my truck is seven years old and it's got over 130K miles on it, so things are going to start going wrong.  I don't want to get a new vehicle yet, so I've got a choice to make.  Either I break out my tools, or I bend over.  I read everything I could find on the inernet about replacing or cleaning the idle air control valve on my model of truck.  I bought the repair guide and read up on it.  The job seemed pretty simple:  remove a bunch of wires and hoses and shit, remove some bolts and take the throttle body off, use some throttle body cleaner to clean off all of the black stuff and put everything back.  Well, I know from experience that these jobs are never simple.  For one thing, the literature always leaves out some critical bit of information and there you are trying to figure out what to do after you are several hours into the job with parts exploded all over the garage.  So I went to the auto parts store and bought a can of throttle body cleaner for five bucks.  When I got home that night I got all of my tools out and got my work lights out and positioned.  One of the first things I noticed was that the dust on the throttle body cover was completely undisturbed.  That meant that the lying sack of shit at the dealership had not even looked at it, much less cleaned it like he said they tried to do.  Fuckers.  I bet they never even lifted the hood.  I followed the step-by-step instructions in the manual and things were going pretty smoothly.  Then I started looking for the idle air control valve itself.  I couldn't tell what I was looking at.  There were several structures mounted on the throttle body that could have been it, but I wasn't sure.  Of course, the manual only had a diagram of the throttle body and idle air control valve for the V-6 model, not my V-8.  I read and reread all of the information in the manual and that I had printed out from the internet.  I cross referenced different sections in the manual trying to figure out where the idle air control vavle was.  As it turned out, the V-8 DIDN'T HAVE A FUCKING IDLE AIR CONTROL VALVE!  Only the V-6 had it.  The V-8 had some other thing - the idle speed control motor.  And, of course, you had to have a hyperspecialized tool that you have to have a fucking license to buy to calibrate the motor.  So even though the check engine code on my truck said that the idle air control valve was faulty on my truck, my truck didn't even have an idle air control valve on it!  See how frustrating this is.  Anyway, I had read that cleaning the throttle body itself can sometimes cure low idle speed, which was the basic problem anyway.  So I decided to clean the throttle body and see if it worked.  And that's what I did.  The throttle body is just a housing holding some electrical components that control the idle speed, fuel-to-air mixture, exhaust gas return and shit like that.  The housing has a circular hole in the middle of it with a round metal plate mounted inside connected to a rod that moves it open and closed to either shut off or allow air into the combustion chamber.  So I cleaned it all up using a toothbrush and the cleaner.  I cleaned it so you could eat off of it.  I retraced all of the steps and put everything back on.  I was really worried about putting everything back on because there were at least a dozen hoses and wires and I was afraid I was going to put one back on wrong or miss one altogether.  I double-checked everything to make sure it was right.  Then I turned on the ignition.  The check engine light was still on.  I had expected this because the light doesn't reset until the problem is gone for three driving cycles.  I didn't know what a "driving cycle" meant, but I thought it might just mean that the car was running.  I drove it around the block, stopping to shut it off twice along the way to reset it.  Still on.  I looked in the manual to see how to reset the light.  Turns out, you can disconnect one of the battery cables to get it to reset.  So that's what I did.  Voila!  The light was off.  I drove around a little bit to see if the idle speed was right, and it was.  Note:  I could have just disconnected the battery cable to shut the light off and gone to get the truck inspected and nobody would have been the wiser.  But, it was idling to low, so I wanted to fix that anyway.  Note:  This was a $1395 swing.  I did a $1400 job for the cost of a $5 can of spray cleaner.*

Right as I was cleaning up my tools Audra comes outside and says, "The Americans won gold in beach volleyball." 

"Yeah, it was on at 7 so I knew I was going to miss it," I replied. 

"No.  It ended just now," she said.  It was 10:30. 

"But, but..." I stammered. 

"It was rain delayed," she said. 

"Well, then why didn't you come get me?  You knew I wanted to watch that."  No reply.  "You just didn't want me to see Misty and Kerri," I accused her. 

"What?  Please.  I don't care if you watch those girls.  What's there to see?" she said. 

I looked at her for a couple of seconds.  Then I was out with it: "BUTTS!!" 

We both laughed.  Then I told her that I'd fixed my truck and saved $1400 for the family.  (That's become sort of an inside joke between us that I started.  Anytime I do something that we'd otherwise have to pay someone else to do or she clips a coupon or something we tell the other, "I saved $XX for the family."  We have no kids so that's part of what makes it funny.  That and the novelty of sharing our money.)

So anyway, that's Ojo Rojo's Olympic experience.  Say what you will, but I love the Olympics.  I think it brings people together and shows that there is something about humans that transends politcal or ideological differences and that we can compete and be civil and make the world a better place.  The hairs on the back of my neck still stand up every time I hear the national anthem played when we win gold.  And I still get choked up when someone becomes a champion.  All of the hard work and pain and sacrifice that goes into winning at that level is something that just gets to me.  You can be cynical about the TV coverage or Bob Costas or China fudging on the presentation of the fireworks using CG or using a cute kid to lip sync what a homely kid actually sung, but none of that shit matters in the face of the bigger picture of what the Olympics is all about - the indomitable human spirit.

Texas Water Safari 2008: Invista to Saltwater Barrier

We pulled out of the Invista checkpoint after taking on fresh jugs of water and ice.  The girls were still getting situated so we decided to go ahead and get our light ready for the coming night.  Sitting up front, Robb was the light guy, so he switched it on to make sure it was working.  Since it was still daylight we couldn't tell so we edged over to the bank where we could aim the light at the shadows under the foliage.  Either it wasn't on or we still couldn't tell.  We decided to pull over to the bank to get out and take a closer look at it.  Unfortunately, the way the boat is designed, the light housing is sitting too far forward of the bowman for him to be able to mess with it while in his seat.  We pulled over and sure enough, the bulb was not burning.  We changed out the batteries even though according to our calculations, our second battery should have had several hours of juice left in it.  We hooked it all back up and tried the switch.  Nothing.  We examined the switch and tried several different combinations of steps.  We looked closely at all of the wires and joints for any sign of damage.  We found nothing visibly wrong with the light, but it was not working.  No light.

We each carried a headlamp with us, so we had a source of light.  But, headlamps were not as good.  Even so, we tried to figure a way to secure my headlamp to the front of the boat as a spare bowlight.  We gave up without trying very hard, mainly because we knew the loss of the light wasn't a huge deal.  Besides, I really didn't want to give up my headlamp.  Fortunately, we were going to have a large moon and with the exception of submerged stumps every now and then, we were not too concerned with things that we needed to be able to see.  Plus, since we were paddling with the girls, we could use their light for the both of us.  The downside was that if we were going to rely on their light, we were comitted to staying with them unless we wanted to go on without a light or to try again to use one of the headlights as a bowlight.  We had planned on staying with them until the bay anyway and I couldn't think of any other reason why we'd leave them, so it wasn't a big deal.  Even though we could manage fine without our light, I was more frustrated that the light failed and we didn't know why.  I pride myself on making sure things go right.  We'd snapped our rudder off, and that was plenty bad, but other than that things had gone exceptionally well.  That's saying a lot for a couple of first-timers because there is a lot that can go wrong.  Still, the light malfunction bothered me at the time.

While we were messing with our light, the girls had pulled out from the checkpoint and were waiting for us in the middle of the river.  We pulled up beside and told them about our light.  Everyone agreed that with the moon and the fact that we were running together that it was no great loss.  In the bay, especially, a light doesn't do much for you anyway. 

We started paddling at our regular pace, which was around 5mph at that point.  It was about 18 miles to the next checkpoint, so we figured at least four hours to get there.  It was about 7pm when we left Invista, so we figured to be in at around 11.  During the previous stretch one of the girls had started feeling nauseous.  She had kept paddling but slowed down considerably.  I was not that concerned about it because I knew that people often "went down" for a while, but that most of the time they would come back from it.  On the first night, Robb had gotten sick and actually vomited a few times, but he'd recovered.  I had felt nauseous for a while on the second day and I had bounced back from it.  So I thought that she was going to be fine.  Even still, I had cautioned Audra at Invista that we might slow down from averaging 5mph to 4mph or worse so that if we were running late to the next checkpoint not to worry too much.  That would prove prophetic.

There was little current here and the river was wide and brown with silt.  The banks were muddy and usually steep, although there were many places that were flattened out where cows would come down to drink.  There were still trees lining the banks so you couldn't see the fields beyond the banks except for the ocasional glimpse.  Plus, with the water level so low, we were sitting pretty low in the river channel.  There were lots of alligator gar rolling.  The gar were a thing that I had never had much experience with before I started training for the Safari.  I'd heard of them, but that was about it.  After spending hours and hours on various rivers I had seen hundreds of them and a couple dozen that easily weighed over 50lbs. or more.  Even though they are smelly and ugly and look like some kind of dinosaur, they are generally harmless.  The main hazard is when the boat startles them and they thrash.  That, in turn, startles the people in the boat and it's easy to lose balance in a tippy boat.  We'd startled plenty of them and never gone over because of a gar.  So I was pretty immune to them.  It was funny to me every time we'd scare one up, especially if it was near the front of the boat, because I could feel Robb react to it.

We chatted some more with the girls as the light faded.  By now we'd learned quite a bit about each other - our jobs and families and athletic history.  We talked about the race and things that had happened.  We were all hurting pretty badly.  My ass was really, really sore.  I had abrasions and sores on the pressure points from sitting in the same position for nearly sixty hours straight.  I'm sure the affliction is similar to the bed sores invalids get.  Anyway, it was painful.  One trick you learn is to use Desitin on your butthole and taint area to prevent chafing.  Essentially, the chafing is the same as diaper rash that babies get.  I'm sure there's bacteria and all involved, but I never looked into it much because I really didn't want to know.  Anyway, Desitin works.  I can say with almost absolute certainty that I would not have finished the Safari without it.

The other major problem I was having was muscle soreness.  They were beyond sore.  They were burning.  One of the body's defense mechanisms is pain.  Pain exists to tell you to STOP doing whatever it is that is causing the pain.  One major component of the Safari is being able to resist that urge to stop because of the pain.  I'd been trying to ignore the pain for about 48 hours and it had continued to get worse and worse.  All of the muscles of my upper and lower back, shoulders and especially my neck were just on fire.  It eased them a little to stretch, so I would go through cycles of exaggerating my paddle stroke and reaching way out to stretch the muscles as I paddled.  My neck hurt so much that I had gone to paddling basically looking down at the bottom of the boat, then stealing a glance up to get my bearings to steer, then back down again.  I had started using Icy Hot every 6-8 hours or so and that provided relief for about 40 minutes.  I had also been popping Advil on a regular four hour cycle, but if they were working I couldn't tell.

Darkness came and the girls switched on their light.  We got in close behind them so we could follow in their track and avoid any obstacles.  We could see fairly well with their light up ahead, but not as well as if we'd had our light working.  I put on my headlamp and tested it out.  It was bright, but it wasn't really feasible to paddle with it on or to use it as a bowlight when it was sitting on my head, so I switched it off and we settled in behind the girls' boat.

Shortly after dark, the pain in my muscles started to subside.  I felt a little calmer and happier.  As we paddled along, I had the sensation of going downhill.  It looked for all the world that the river was flowing downhill at a much steeper grade than what I had perceived in the daylight and that the current had picked up and we were being aided along by it.  Plus, the water seemed "slicker;" like the resistance of the water on the hull of the boat was lessened somehow.  Paddling took less effort.  I mentioned something to Robb about the downhill effect and he said that he could perceive it slightly, but not as much as me.

Meanwhile, one of the girls was getting sick.  She had increasing nausea and was having a hard time.  She wasn't able to draw much force with her paddle, really just dipping it in the water.  She would moan every now and then and I knew she was in real pain.  She was reaching limits.  I had seen her popping what I thought were Vivarin over the previous few hours.  She was so exhausted that I'm sure she was worried about falling asleep in the boat.  I don't know what the effects of that many Vivarin are, but I'm sure it can't be good for the stomach.  There wasn't much I could do to help.  I still thought she would snap out of it and besides, Safari racers aren't allowed to receive any outside assistance, even from other racers.  She and her teammate were on their own.  So while one of them was getting sick, the other had to pick up the slack and paddle that much harder.

I, on the other hand, was entering a state of euphoria.  I knew that the body produced endorphins during strenuous exercise, excitement or pain.  I had experienced the "runner's high" many times.  But never like this.  The feeling of paddling downhill had become even more pronounced.  So much so that I felt like I was downhill skiing and steering the boat side to side to catch a slight edge to slow down, just like a skier does.  I also felt that we were travelling much faster than we probably were.  At this point for me, paddling felt effortless.  In fact, Robb and I basically had to switch off paddling or else we'd go too fast and pass the girls' boat instead of staying in behind them.

The moon came up and reflected off the trees and the water.  All of the bubbles on the surface of the water sparkled red, blue and white.  I started recognizing shapes in the trees.

We paddled up beside the girls to ask them how they were doing.  One was still sick and barely able to paddle and the other was huffing and working hard.  Even though I felt like I was high, I never lost touch with reality and was able to think clearly.  I asked some questions about how much they had eaten and drank to make sure they were staying fueled and hydrated.  We offered words of encouragement, but not much else.  Then I told them, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but I'm in a state of euphoria."  I'm not sure if they were envious or what, but they didn't say anything.

We continued skiing down the river and I was just enjoying the breeze and the moonlight.  We came upon an area where in year's past there had been a massive logjam that was nearly a mile long.  The people with the Guadalupe/Blanco River Authority had broken up the jam at some point during the year and piled all of the debris on one of the banks.  It was a massive pile that was ten or twelve foot high in places and did stretch for nearly a mile.  Parts of the old jam were still hanging into the river and we came up to a spot where it had partially reformed.  The water was rushing under and around it and there was no channel through it.  We could hear it before we got there so we slowed way down.  Robb and I had trained on this section once before the Safari and we knew that there was one small spot that was covered over with logs.  That had been several weeks before, though, so it has all changed.  We eased up to the floating mat of logs and tried to look for an opening.  I flashed my headlamp around.  I also looked on the banks.  We were in alligator country now and I really didn't want to have any close encounters.

We hollered back and forth to the girls over the sound of rushing water. 

"Do you see a way through?!"

"No!"

"We can't either!  It looks like it narrows here to the left though!  You think we can push through there?!"

"We can't really see!  It's worth a try!"

"Do you think we should just portage over it?!"

"Let's try the channel!"

"Okay, we'll go in first and try to push through and make an opening!"

The time we'd come through before getting through had been a simple matter of pushing several floating logs off to the side either with the boat itself or by grabbing them and moving them by hand.  The water was pushing us into the jam as we tried to remain stationary so we could look around.  I had a momentary panic as I envisioned us capsizing and swept under the logjam.  But we'd found a spot where we were out of the main current and relatively safe.  It was still hard to move, but once we'd formed the plan we were able to straighten out and head into what channel there was.  The nose of the boat came in contact with a large log that was blocking the way.  There was a tangle of other logs and branches beyond that.  To the left was the bank choked with trees and vines.  To the right was the main body of the logjam; a twisted mass of logs and debris that reached several feet above the height of the water.

I called out to Robb, "Can you move that log?!"

"No.  I don't think so!  It's too big and it's lodged in!"

Nevertheless, we tried using powerful paddle strokes and the boat to push the log to the side.  It wasn't working and we were using a lot of energy.

"Do you think we can portage it?!"

"I think we're going to have to!"

"Can you get out on that big log?!"

"Yeah, I think so!"

"Okay, then I'll walk the boat and get out on the other side and we'll pull it over!"

"Okay!"

Just then I turned to tell the girls what we were planning and I saw one of them standing next to the bank in knee deep water holding their boat still.  It was a relief to me to know that the water was shallow right here.  My great fear was submerging in deep water and getting swept under a logjam with no way to surface.  But here, it looked like the water was too shallow for that to happen.  I pointed this out to Robb.

He gingerly set his foot out on the log to test it to see if he could put his weight on it.  It appeared to be sturdy and he climbed out the rest of the way and turned to hold the boat while I made my way forward.  I walked the length of the boat and carefully got out on the same log, which sunk a little as I put my weight on it.  I tried another log closer to the bank that was smaller, but stuck in the mud, so sturdier.  Once we were both out I called back to the girls over the noise of the water, "We're going to lift the boat over the logs here!  There's no way to clear a channel!  It doesn't extend much beyond here, so there's not far to go to get to open water!"  "Okay!" they called back.

I had seen once I'd gotten out of the boat that the jam only extended another ten feet or so before it opened up.  The problem was that the only opening where we could pass the boat made a sharp turn so it was going to be hard to pull the boat through.  We grabbed each gunnel and lifted and pulled it up onto the logs where we were standing.  Once we got it up that far we turned it as best we could and tried to keep our balance as we struggled under the weight of the boat and the awkward positions we were in.  We finally got the boat over and set back down in the water on the other side.  I breathed a sigh of relief and shone my headlight into the undergrowth on the bank checking for gators.  I turned to the girls and asked, "Did y'all see how we did that?  Can y'all do that?"  They nodded that they could, no problem.  I held the boat so Robb could walk it up to his seat and once he was in I climbed in as well.  We held up and waited for the girls to come over.  They repeated what we had done and paddled on ahead and we fell in line behind them.  We had made it over the jam without any damage or injury, but we'd used a lot of energy doing so and everyone was already exhausted.

As we paddled away from the jam, I looked up at several buildings and houses on the banks, including what appeared to be an old millhouse and thought to myself that I did not remember those being there when we'd passed through here on our training run.

We settled back into our pace and I was enjoying paddling downhill once again.  The night was still and the moonlight was filtering down through the trees and onto the water.  All of the bubbles on the water shimmered with color.  I was still in a state of euphoria.

I knew all about the hallucinations that many Safari racers claim to have.  I wondered whether I, myself, would have any.  On the first day of the race, somewhere between Gonzales and Hocheim, I thought I had seen a large piece of green outdoor carpet stretched down over the bank to the water's edge with an angled metal lift overhanging it.  To me, it looked like a place where someone launched a johnboat.  When we got up close to it I could see that it simply wasn't there and that I'd imagined it.  Now, I was recognizing shapes in the trees - faces, animals, dinosaurs - but nothing that I ever thought was really there.  That's when I entered The River City.

The shapes on the banks were no longer ambiguous - there were buildings lining the river with windows and doors and roofs.  There were brick and stone bridges arching over the river in places.  There were large buildings that appeared to be some type of apartments.  All of these buildings were well-kept and clean. All of the lights in the windows were out, but I could feel that whoever lived there was asleep inside.  It reminded me of some old European city with a river flowing through it or even some fairy tale city like Hobbiton, though the buildings I saw would never had suited Hobbits.

I mentioned this to Robb.  He said that he was seeing things too, but his visions were mainly in the reflections on the water.  He pointed one out, "See, there - it looks like an apartment building.  See the windows?"  I could.  "Yeah, three on the bottom, two in the middle, three on the top?"  "That's it!  That's it!"  Then I told him to look up to see the actual building.  "Whoooaaa!"  We both laughed at how crazy this was.  I paddled on with a smile on my face, every now and then pointing out an interesting looking building or a bridge over the river.

Meanwhile, the girl who had been getting sick was even sicker.  She was barely paddling and moaning almost constantly.  I started getting worried.  We had already slowed down considerably and I wondered if this was the beginning of a DNF for somebody.  She hadn't bounced back like I thought she would and it had been hours.  She tried laying back in the front of the boat for a while, but that hadn't helped.  I had no idea if she had taken in any water or food.  The other one had been working like a mule this entire time since she'd been the only one really paddling.  I wondered to myself if there was anything I could do.  We had been going so slow that I had started to feel like we were being held back.  I told Robb to slow down so we could hang back and talk out of earshot of the girls.  I asked him if he still wanted to stay with them since I felt like we could probably make a lot better time if we went on ahead.  But we both agreed that they were in trouble and we were worried about them and wanted to stay with them to make sure they were going to be okay.  In any event, we'd given them our word to stay together.  I think we both felt like the competitive aspect had sort of gone out the window and now we were on an expedition and needed to support our fellow expedition mates.  It was the right thing to do and was not a hard decision.

We felt like we had to be getting close to the next checkpoint.  We rounded a bend in the river that opened up to a wide still pool.  Up ahead I saw two red glowing dots in the water.  "Alligator!" I shouted.  Sure enough, it was an alligator crossing in front of us right to left, fully submerged except for its reddish orange eyes.  The girl who'd been sick got a jolt of life and started paddling again.  I flipped on my headlamp and panned the banks.  I saw at least 2 or 3 others.  We were defeintely in alligator country now.  From then on, we'd see one every ten or twenty minutes.  Then, we came to another wide open area and there must have been twenty of them in there.  Red eyes glowed everywhere.  They seemed to only take a passing interest in us.  They certainly weren't aggressive.  They didn't move toward the boats at all, but they were in no great hurry to get out of the way, either.

We could see the sodium lights from the Saltwater Barrier reflecting orange off the humidity in the air in the distance above the treeline.  But there was no telling how close we were because the river twists around so much.  As with every checkpoint, the anticipation is so great that you just want to get there and every turn that results in more river and trees is a great disappointment.  But finally we could see the lights and the barrier.  People at the checkpoint activated when they saw our bowlight and headlamps.

We had encountered a logjam and passed through the River City and made it to the Saltwater Barrier; the last checkpoint before the finish line at Seadrift.  We were almost certainly going to make it.  But we still had to find Traylor cut in the dark and make it across the dangerous bay.

Texas Water Safari 2008: Victoria to Invista

A veteran racer had once told me that he got that "horse headin' toward the barn" feeling at the Victoria checkpoint.  In urban terms, that meant that he could see the exit ramp to home after stalling through miles of traffic.  I didn't really get that same feeling because I was still nervous as ever about some mishap that would prevent us from finishing and we still had a long way to go.  There was some comfort in knowing that we were less than 65 miles away from the finish line, but a lot could happen over 65 miles.  Also comforting was the fact that we had been over every section of the river from Victoria to Seadrift before, except for five miles or so from the checkpoint in Riverside park to highway 59.

We left the checkpoint pulling on our doubles.  The idea was to go a little faster to catch up to the girls and make the best time that we could.  We hadn't used the doubles nearly as much as I thought we would; maybe 10% of the time was all.

Shortly after we got underway again I said to Robb, "You know, we're going to have to make a decision about whether we really want to try to beat the girls."  "I know you probably don't care about that as much as I do," I said, "because I'm a little bit more competitive than you are, but we need to be on the same page.  If we're going to try to beat them, we're going to have to push harder and suffer more."  "Yeah, I'd agree with all of that," Robb replied.  "So I've been thinking about it," I said.  "What if we ask them if they want to run together until we get to a certain point and then it'll be every man for himself," I suggested.  "I'd be fine with that," Robb answered.  "That way, we can relax a little, not push as hard and not suffer as much.  Plus, it might be fun to run with them and talk," I reasoned.

Twenty or thirty minutes into the run we came around a bend and could see the girls up ahead.  When they saw us I could sense a bit of disappointment on their part.  It was that way for both of us each time the other would catch up.  We pulled up beside them and I called over, "Hey, we've got a proposition for you."  "Yeah, what's that," they asked.  "What about if we paddle together for a while instead of playing this cat and mouse game and killing ourselves?" I said.  "We've been wanting to do that since Cuero!!" they shouted.  I think we were all relieved not to have the pressure of "racing" at least for a little while.  We worked it out that we would paddle together and then when we reached the Saltwater Barrier checkpoint at Tivoli all bets were off and we'd race each other to the finish.

The mood changed and everyone was convivial.  We traded stories about things that had happened and race news that we'd gotten.  One of the biggest stories was how the two lead boats, Bugge's Belizeans and the Mynar boat had been neck and neck almost all the way to Victoria when something happened and the Belizeans started dropping out.  The rumor was that two of them had gotten sick and couldn't paddle and another one had gotten fired and kicked out of the boat.  They had pulled out entirely at Loop 463 just outside of Victoria.  That was the rumor anyway.  The other news was mostly about other boats that had pulled out.  Several of the top tandem teams were out, including the solo record holder, Carter Johnson and his stud recruit, David Kelley.  Carter had come in second the year before, besting all but a stacked 6-man boat.  His theory had been that he could win it all with just one more engine.  They put a rip in the bottom of their boat between Luling 90 and Zedler Mill, and pulled out on the first afternoon.  Richard Steppe and West Hansen had had a string of mishaps, recovering each time and making good time.  We had actually passed them within two or three miles of the start when they had pulled off to the side to make some repairs to their rudder.  They had experienced trouble at the Martindale low water crossing too.  But they were on a torrid pace and when Carter and David dropped out were easily the favorite to win the class.  But then they'd damaged the rudder again in DeLeon Rapids and when they got to the Victoria checkpoint made the decision to drop out for good because their repairs wouldn't hold.  Two other top tandem teams, Vance Sherrod/Colin Grimshaw and Phil Gumbert/Corey Laskowski were dealing with illness and had either dropped out or slowed down to a crawl.  That meant that Robb and I had moved up in the class standings from 7th or 8th to 4th or 5th.

The afternoon was hot and even though we weren't pushing really hard we were all tired and hurting.  We passed Hwy 59 where we say Robb's mom and niece for the first time and took on more water and new neck packs.  After a couple of hours we pulled over to swim.  We did so again after another hour or so.  We started watching our GPS's more closely because we knew we should be getting close to the Invista checkpoint.  The Invista checkpoint is famously frustrating because you can hear the mechanical noises and at night you can see the glow of the plant lights long before you get there.  But the river twists and bends so much that at times you are going away from the noise and lights and you start to question whether you missed the checkpoint altogether.  We were hot, sore and a little cranky and every time we'd come around a bend expecting to see the checkpoint there was nothing but more muddy bank and trees as far as we could see.  It actually started getting funny and all we could do was laugh.  We were suffering and all of us just wanted to get to the damned checkpoint.

Finally, we came around a bend and saw some people in a red canoe.  They were not racers, but a film crew that was making a documentary about the Safari, or one team in particular; I'm not sure.  (Incidentally, I think the Safari would make an excellent subject for a documentary and I've often thought of how I'd do it.  Disappointingly, there have already been several documentaries made about it, but from what I've heard none of them are very good.  I haven't actually seen them though.)  We asked the film crew how far to the checkpoint and they told us it was only about a half mile further.

We rounded another bend and we could see people on the banks up ahead.  We'd finally made it to the Invista checkpoint.

Texas Water Safari 2008: Cuero to Victoria

I slept like the dead on that bare patch of grass under the FM 236 bridge just south of Cuero.  I never even noticed the stench from the porta-potties.  After what seemed like 5 minutes after I laid down, Audra nudged my shoulder gently and told me that it had been three hours.  I'm sure I looked groggy, but I felt alert.  I threw off the space blanket and instantly felt chilled.  I started shivering as I put on my soggy water shoes and cap.  Robb got up slowly and I could see at least one other person laying on the ground nearby who had not been there when we got there.  I was pretty sure it was Grady Reed, another first-timer who was going it solo.  I folded up my blanket and walked down to the boat to get ready to go.  I rearranged some food and stowed my sleeping gear in a dry bag.  We took some of the trash out of the boat.  I felt really, really stiff.  And I was shivering and yawning.  I almost looked forward to paddling again just to build up the body heat to dispel the chill.  I hate being cold.

We switched the light on and made last minute adjustments to gear and provisions.  I asked Audra what place we were in and how many boats had passed us in the night.  She said we were 32nd and several boats had gone through while we slept, but she didn't know exactly how many.  "And the girls?" I asked.  She told me that they had pulled in a while after we did and actually slept on the ground next to us before getting up and leaving about an hour before.  I was sleeping so hard I never would have known.  We carried the boat down to the water's edge, said our goodbyes and set off again.  As we paddled away, I thought about how pleasant the checkpoint had been.  There were a few people milling around, but there were an equal number, or more, asleep in cars under the bridge.  Something about that gave me a comforting feeling.  Plus, Audra and my Mom and Dad were all there.  Audra and my Mom had been waiting for us when we came in and they saw us off when we left.  There was something about a bunch of people gathering at this inhospitable place that made me feel good.  I learned later that someone played some soft songs on guitar while we slept and that all who heard it really enjoyed it.

My thoughts turned to the river ahead.  There were two major obstacles on this stretch - DeLeon Rapids I and DeLeon Rapids II.  I had their locations on my GPS chart, but since I knew my chart was off by several miles there was no way I could be sure exactly when we were going to come up on them.  My calculations had us coming through there while it was still dark; a prospect I did not relish.  This section of the river is the same that The Prelim is run on, so we had seen it once before.  Even still, these rapids were tricky and would require us to weave around partially submerged rocks that would be hard to see in the dark.  Early in the Prelim we'd rammed a sweeper pretty hard and dinged the nose of the boat.  It had been above the water line, but it left a sizeable hole that I'd since repaired.  We didn't want to repeat that experience.  I knew the rough location of the sweeper and we were looking to avoid it altogether this time around.  There were also numerous other tricky bends and sweepers and even a long extended rapid that might have had the fastest current on the entire course.  Next to the upper San Marcos, I considered this section to be the most technical.

We paddled along at a modest but steady pace.  The moon was out and the reflection on the water and in the trees gave the whole scene an eerie fairytale glow.  Owls swooped across the river from tree to tree.  Several hooted loudly and the echo carried down the river through the canyon created by the trees.  We recognized that we were coming up on the sweeper that had damaged our boat in the Prelim and called out to each other - "Head left, head left."  The left channel around an island had faster current and no sweeper.  We'd seen that it was the obviously better path during the Prelim, and used that knowledge to our advantage this time around.  Pretty soon after that we saw a bow light up ahead.  We slowly made progress on them until we could see that it was an aluminum boat with the bowman laid back in the front of the boat asleep and the sternman working pretty hard.  We exchanged "hellos" and "how ya doin's" and went steadily by.  There was pretty good current going through this section and I remember looking back upstream thinking I could actually see the incline of the land and the river itself.  A half hour later, or so, probably around 3 in the morning, we started seeing fog.  I had heard about fog from other racers and nobody liked it.  For good reason.  As it is, your bowlight only lights up a beam directly in front and it's nearly impossible to see anything in the water.  Fog would block out the moon and make our bowlight useless.  Hmmm...I thought to myself - DeLeon Rapids are going to be impossible in this fog.  I started trying to think of workarounds.  The only thing I could come up with was to simply portage around them.  The only problem was, we'd have to know exactly where they were so we could get out of the boat upstream with plenty of time and room before we got into the churning water of the rapids themselves.  I got pretty anxious about this because I was not confident at all that we would know when the rapids were coming up.

We passed in and out of banks of fog.  Most of it was pretty thin, but we could see a layer of fog sitting higher above the water and I suspected that it was going to get worse the closer we got to dawn.

I kept looking over my shoulder at what I thought was the light from the aluminum boat that we had passed earlier.  It looked like it was getting closer.  I mentioned this to Robb.  We both surmised that the bowman had woken up and now they were both paddling and gaining ground on us.  They slowly reeled us in over the next half hour or so.  Meanwhile the fog was getting worse.  A lot worse.  Most of it had descended and now we were paddling in a white mist that our bowlight was illuminating and blinding us.  We tried turning the light to the lower setting, thinking it would have the same effect as foglamps on a car, but it didn't help much.  At one point, when the fog was really thick and we couldn't see much more than four feet in front of us, we hear rushing water.  "Can you tell which way to go?" I asked Robb.  "No.  I can't see shit," was the reply.  I feared that maybe we had come upon the rapids already.  My anxiety level increased.  "Let's just try to take it slow," I said, trying to sound reassuring.  The fact was that a sweeper could just appear out of the darkness and swallow us up and there was little we would be able to do about it.  The choices at that point in my mind were to either pull over and wait several hours for the fog to lift or press on and hope for the best.  I never verbalized to Robb what I felt the options to be for fear that he'd want to stop.  I had gained confidence in our ability to deal with obstacles because of how well we'd done on the upper river.  I thought the odds were that we'd be okay, but I was nervous as hell about getting into something bad and wrapping the boat, or worse.

The bowlight from the boat behind us was getting closer and closer.  In fact, their light was reflecting on the fog around us making it that much harder to see.  We were trying to backpaddle in a narrow channel with a sweeper off to the left with them coming up fast behind us when we ground out on a gravel bar.  The fog was really thick and I worried that the other boat was going to ram us from behind.  We couldn't see anything and had no way to avoid the bar.  I finally could make out the other boat.  It wasn't the aluminum at all - it was boat #30, Tom Fleshman and Ralph Castillo.  I had spoken to Tom at the start of the race because I learned we had a mutual friend a few weeks before.  Tom was a veteran of several Safaris.  Once I saw who it was I told Robb that we should try to follow them through because they would know how to get through DeLeon Rapids.  We greeted them as they paddled by and we reentered the channel to follow.  With them and their bowlight ahead of us the fog didn't seem as impenetrable.  The river opened up again and we could relax a bit.  We were close enough to the other boat to talk to them a little.  I introduced myself to Tom again so he'd know who I was.  I asked them if they minded us following them through DeLeon Rapids.  They said that of course we could follow them through; they were thrilled to have our bright light along.  Then Tom said that we wouldn't reach DeLeon Rapids until well after dawn, which surprised me.  I must have miscalculated the distances and times.  Up 'til then, I feared coming upon them at any moment and I'd stiffen up at the sound of rushing water.

We paddled behind Tom and Ralph for quite a while.  They were in a C-2, which is a boat without a rudder.  Rudderless boats are more of a purist's game because they take more skill to maneuver and steer.  I got a real kick out of watching them work that canoe through all of the twists and bends and sweepers.  It was like they were dancing or something.  I know that sounds cheesy, but it really was fun to watch.  Those guys were skilled canoeists.

Slowly, though, they pulled away from us.  We tried for a while to keep up, but they were just going too fast.  We were okay with that, though, because now we knew that at least we wouldn't have to navigate the rapids in the dark.

Soon enough we came upon the few houses lining the river bank that mark the riverside hamlet of Thomaston.  Robb's dad owned some land near Thomaston in the late 80's and early 90's. Just upstream of Thomaston we had recognized the railroad trestle over the river that marked the property.  An old Safarist from years back, Billy Murphy, owned one of the houses on the river here.  I thought I spotted his house because every light in the place was burning.  I like to think that he did that on purpose as a sort of beacon to lonely Safari paddlers that he knew to be out of the river at night.

We paddled on for a good while and the light from Boat 30 disappeared from up ahead of us.  We went through several more fog banks and back into clear air where we could look up and see a bajillion stars.  We came upon the Thomaston highway bridge and there were two boats tied up there.  I looked hard at the boats to see who it was.  It was the girls!  Just as we were about to pass unnoticed, someone on the bank shined a light on our boat.  It was probably the girls' TC or Mike, the boyfriend of one of the girls.  It would be just like them to post a sentry to look for us to alert them if we came by.  I'm not sure if it really happened like that or not, but I found out later that they were afraid to go further because of the fog so they pulled over at the bridge and sacked out.  When we passed their boat I thought to myself, "This is it - finally the last time we are going to pass them for good."

We kept going through the darkness and occasional fog.  At around 4am we came up to an apparent split in the river.  To the left was an overhanging tree with current running under and around it.  We couldn't see to the right.  The way we were lined up, it was almost too late to pick a path, but I asked anyway, "Left or right?" 

Robb said quickly, "I don't know.  I can't tell." 

"We're already lined up left.  We're going through.  Can you see anything?" 

"I can't see anything."

I could hear the sound of rushing water getting louder.  There was something beyond those tree branches.

We came around the branches and leaves from right to left.  As our bow swung around, the bowlight lit up a giant sweeper.  "Oh shit!" I cried.  "Draw right!  Draw right!" I shouted.  But it was no use.  We were caught in a classic bad scenario - a sweeper with current driving into it with a gravel bar bounding it on one side, leaving nowhere to dig a paddle in for traction.  We were out of control and heading straight into the sweeper.  I laid the rudder over hard to the right, using it as a brake as much as anything to try to slow us down and lessen the certain impact.  The boat did turn to the right as it raked across the gravel bar making a sickening scraping noise.  Then, CRUNCH!  We slammed broadside into the trunk of the tree.  The impact nearly threw us both out of the boat.  We came to a dead stop but the current was pushing the boat into the tree.  If we dipped the gunnel slightly into the current, the boat would fill with water in seconds and be sucked under the sweeper and probably break in pieces.  I jumped out of the boat immediately to grab the stern of the boat and start hauling it upstream to avoid the wrap.  I was frantic.  The water was shallow in some spots but there was a deeper channel cutting under the sweeper.  Robb was still stunned and trying to paddle his way out of there.  His paddling and bodyweight was making it hard for me to move the boat because we were partially grounded out.  "Get out of the boat!  Get out of the boat!" I shouted.  He looked back to see that I was already out of the boat and instantly jumped out and we both pulled the boat over to the gravel bar and up on the island.  I had no idea how badly damaged the boat was, but I feared that the hull was cracked and our race was over.  As I donned my headlamp, I wondered how in the hell we were ever going to hike out of from this spot in the middle of nowhere with our boat.  Were we simply going to have to abandon the boat?  Right then I spotted it - the carbon fiber rudder was sheered off right below the aluminum tee.  Our rudder was gone!

"Our rudder broke!" I shouted.  Robb hustled back to look at it.  I was horrified - my beautiful carbon fiber rudder that I'd designed, cut and shaped myself - gone!  The material alone had cost seventy five bucks!  Plus, our spare was a partially cracked old bent up aluminum piece of shit.  I had never expected to have to use it and now we were going to have to rely on it.  I was stunned for a second, but then I sprung into action.  "I'll put the spare on and you see if you can find the part that broke off."  I knew that now we were down to our single flimsy rudder and I wanted the broken off piece to possible fashion into a spare if we broke the spare, which considering what shape it was in, was likely.  I dug into the dry bag to get the spare rudder while Robb looked in vain through the rushing water and darkness.  I fumbled a bit as I started replacing the broken rudder.  My mind was racing and I thought to myself, "I am out here at 4am on the Guadalupe river on some gravel bar in the middle of nowhere."  I also thought about just how much everything was hanging by a tiny thread.  One wrong move and you are done.  Not only could you be out of the race, but you could damage your expensive boat, get injured or die.  On the other hand, I thought, I am well prepared for this exact situation - I've got the spare rudder, I've got the tools and hardware that I need.  I'm fine.  As my mind raced, I took off a nut I didn't need to take off at first.  Realizing my mistake, I cursed myself and told myself to settle down.  The fact was that we were going to be okay.  There was no hull damage and we had a replacement rudder.  We were going to be delayed while I replaced it, but we were going to be fine.  All told we were going to lose 20 minutes or so.  We struggled to tighten the nut on the rudder with only one Leatherman tool, but we got it on there using a flat wooden splint from the first aid kit as a screwdriver.  We put everything away, carried the boat back out into the channel and we were underway.

Thinking of the cracked and flimsy rudder, I told Robb in all seriousness, "Nothing like that can ever happen again.  From here on out we are going to have to be very careful.  No more taking chances."  We paddled on and I noted how steering with the smaller aluminum spare rudder felt a lot different than the carbon one we'd lost.

Daylight came.  Not long after, we came upon DeLeon Rapids I.  We perked up and we picked our way through the rocks, calling out to each other as we went. 

"Right?  Right looks good." 

"Yeah, to the right.  Then left after that big rock." 

"Okay, then left after the big rock."

As we came down the last chute of the rapids I said, "That was no problem; for a Man of the River."  For all of the anxiety I'd had about them, we'd made it through the rapids nicely.  That was the last major known obstacle that we'd have to face and I was very relieved to be past it.  From here on, in my mind, it was just holding on, taking care of ourselves and not getting sick and to keep on paddling to the end.

We paddled for a while and then Robb said he needed to pull over for a minute.  We found a beach and got out.  Robb went up on the bank and I checked the boat over for dings.  I made some minor repairs with Gorilla tape to the bow of the boat.  There were some small chunks missing and a few cracks, but I didn't think we were taking on water.  Just then I looked up and who did I see?  The girls!  They had caught us again!  I was more shocked than disappointed.  You had to hand it to them - they were relentless.  I waved as they got closer.  They asked us if we were okay and I told them that we'd broken our rudder off but that we were okay.  We got back in the boat and paddled after them.  At that point we were a hundred yards or so behind them.

We gave chase.  It helps your pace to have someone to chase.  We reeled them in and chatted a bit when we got close enough.

I didn't know it, but we were coming upon the Nursery bridge - the second access point between Cuero and Victoria.  I thought we'd passed it in the night.  Plus, there had been some confusion between me and our bank support crew about the Nursery bridge.  I told them that I wanted them to meet us there just to make sure that we were doing okay and to take on water if we needed it.  Having grown up in Victoria, I knew the Nursery bridge as being next to a power plant.  I had been looking for a power plant as a landmark for the bridge, saw some lights on the bank and thought that was it.  Somehow I screwed that all up and we hadn't passed it yet.  When we got within shouting distance I asked  Audra and my Mom how we'd missed them at Nursery.  They looked at me funny and shouted back, "This is the Nursery bridge.  "Well, shit," I thought to myself.  That explained a lot.  I never saw the power plant, though.  It must have been further off the river than I'd thought.  The girls stopped to take on water, we didn't.  I told Audra and my Mom that we were okay on water and we were going on ahead.  It was true that we really didn't need any water.  It might've been nice to get a fresh water bottle with ice in it, but I was thinking tactically.  We were going to make some time on the girls while they were stopped.  There had been several tactical moves made by us and them at several points on the course.  We never really said it, but we were racing each other pretty hard.  We got a couple of hundred yards ahead and again I thought that was the last we were going to see of them.

The morning wore on and it started to get hot.  The muscles in my back and shoulders were hurting pretty badly.  Finally we reached the bridge at Loop 463 right outside of Victoria and only a couple of river miles to the checkpoint in Riverside Park.

We pulled within site of the checkpoint and I could see a number of people.  As soon as someone on the bank saw us, I saw people scrambling.  We pulled up to the boat ramp and several of my relatives were there - aunts and cousins, in addition to the regular three of Audra and my Mom and Dad.  We got out of the boat and traded out our jugs.  I rearranged some food.  I stood up and looked upriver and lo and behold, the girls were there!  You really had to hand it them - they just kept coming.  I had the urge to hurry and get back in the boat to stay ahead of them, but I needed to swim a little and put on some more Icy Hot.  I had a hard time taking off my shirt because I was so stiff.  I cracked a couple of jokes for my relatives.  The girls pulled out before we did and we resigned to catch them.  Again.  "Break out the doubles," I said.  And with that we said our goodbyes and paddled away.

2008 Texas Longhorns Football Preview

Some years I'm really into it; some years I'm not.  This in one of those years that I'm into it.  (That noise in the background is my fiance' sighing.)

Overview

Most predictions from the so-called "experts" out there seem to be selling Texas short.  They have the 'Horns finishing behind OU and Tech in the Big XII South.  That's fine.  In fact, it's more than fine.  Although Texas can't ever really sneak up on anyone, I think being underestimated and overlooked is good for a team's MOJO early in the season.  They can play loose since the high expectations aren't there and build confidence like you should - by getting better and winning.

Let's face it, this team has some...unknowns.  (The experts out there call them "weaknesses.")  We have no proven tailback, deep threat wide receiver or tight end.  Our QB is coming off a season where he had far too many turnovers (25 to be exact, 18 INT's and 7 fumbles).  On defense we're replacing both safeties to compliment our already weak corners.  But that's the bad news.

The good news is that we have a stable of talented running backs, any one of whom could (and likely will) prove themselves to be the next great Texas back.  Colt has one more year under his belt and we've got youngsters who could easily fill the big play receiver role.  Plus, with the addition of Muschamp to an already strong defense, you've got the makings for something special defensively.

Running Backs

Vondrell McGee and Foswhitt Whitaker get the first chance to be the guy.  Word is that Whitaker is looking good in early fall drills.  Ogbannaya is probably third on the depth chart, but if it gets down to him I would expect one of the three freshmen to be given a chance.

Receiver

While we don't have that Roy Williams-Limas Sweed type of receiver (yet), we do have two solids in Quan Cosby and Jordan Shipley.  Both have made big plays in their careers, but neither has the stature or speed to simply dominate a DB one on one.  That said, they are both sure-handed and they know how to make plays to win games.  Believe it or not, Quan Cosby will probably get more touches per game than any other player besides Colt, albeit because of his kick and punt returning duties.  I don't know that you look at an offense that runs through Quan Cosby as dominant, but the guy quietly gets the job done.  He's just solid as a rock.  Promisingly, there are 2 or 3 guys (Montre Webber, Malcolm Williams, Dan Buckner) who could be the next big play receiver at Texas.

Tight End

Irby and Ullman have been serviceable, but a definite step down from the athleticism of Jermichael Finley.  I don't think we can can't on the tight end position to do anything spectacular, but they'll be solid.

Quarterback

With the unproven situation at running back, one solution may be to run more with the quarterback.  Enter John Chiles.  Although not the gazelle that The Messiah VY was, he is a proven runner in my book.  While it's always dangerous to switch out quarterbacks (potential for QB controversy, interrupts continuity and rythm), I think expanding JC's role in the offense would be a good thing.  I also look for Colt to improve his turnover numbers this season.  No reason, really, other than I believe he suffered a bit of a sophomore slump and I just think the guy is a winner and will improve.

O-Line

When I think of this year's offensive line I get a warm feeling inside.  They are big, experienced and deep.  And only one of them is a senior!  Ulatoski and Dockery could be early round NFL picks.  This should be one of the strengths of the team.

D-Line

Losing Okan and Lokey hurts but with Houston moving to tackle from end and Roy Miller returning I don't expect a dropoff.  We're not real deep at tackle, but with Houston's better speed and agility than the tackles in the Casey Hampton mold we've had the last few years, we should get a better pass rush.  Defensive end is probably the strongest position talent- and depth-wise on the entire roster.  Orakpo is getting a lot of attention.  People are saying that his numbers weren't great last year because of injury, and that's probably accurate, but he may not even be the best end we've got.  Eddie Jones is the likely other starter and he has shown Derrick Johnson-esque ballhawking ability at times.  Sam Acho and the enigmatic Henry Melton are the backups and they'd start just about anywhere else.  Melton, especially, could be great.  I don't know of a better example of athleticism and size.

Linebackers

When I think of this year's linebacking corps I get a broad grin on my face.  "Animals" "Beasts" and  "Savages" accurately describe these badasses.  If I had to send an emissary from Earth to an intergalactic gladiator ring, I would send Sergio Kindle.  Megads that dude is a specimen!  Bobino has been a solid middle linebacker and it seems like he's been starting forever.  Muckleroy has also proven himself.  Jared Norton might be the best of the bunch.  Keenan Robinson is the next monster.  Muschamp must have licked his chops over these guys when he was considering taking the job.

Secondary

This group scares me.  I've never been a Beasley fan.  Palmer is Foster light.  We don't have that Jammer/Vasher/Griffin/Ross lockdown corner this year and it could prove to be the team's biggest weakness.  Throw in two inexperienced safeties in Ben Wells and Earl Thomas and you could have the makings of a disaster.  I'm still optimistic that the corners will be good enough.  Maybe Beasley will improve and live up to the hype I never understood for someone as small as he is.  Thomas has gotten good reviews in practice and there are really athletic guys two and three deep, so you never know.  I pray Muschamp's influence overcomes this unit's weaknesses.

Special Teams

Kicker and punter are locked down and solid.  Coach Mike Tolleson always seems to do a good job and I don't expect anything different this season.

Predictions

#10 Texas 48, Florida Atlantic 10

#10 Texas 52, UTEP 18

#10 Texas 33, Arkansas 20

#8 Texas 60, Rice 13

#8 Texas 24, Colorado 21

#7 Texas 18, Oklahoma 14

Missouri 36, #3 Texas 20

#9 Texas 52, Oklahoma State 35

Texas Tech 45, #9 Texas 21

#14 Texas 51, Baylor 17

#14 Texas 42, Kansas 13

#10 Texas 28, Texas A&M 12

Big XII Championship:  #10 Texas 35, Missouri 27

Fiesta Bowl:  #6 Texas 28, Wisconsin 20

Record:  12-2, Final Ranking:  #4