Delusions of Grandeur

"The college years are the best years of your life."

Depending on who you ask, this is either a common expression or the least funny anti-joke of all-time.

In just a few short months, I will be turning 25 years old. Maybe it's the prospect of finally being able to rent a car or maybe I am going through what, according to the average lifespan of my undying ancestors, would amount to a "quarter life crisis", I can not help but take some time and reflect on my past for a moment. According to the expression above, my best is behind me and all I have in store for me now is the steady loss of senses, everyday household items and an increased percentage of my paychecks. At this age, gifts become more practical than exciting and I receive a cake that, with each passing year, becomes a greater fire hazard to my home.

As a chapter closes, I believe that it's natural to think about things I wish I had done differently. For example, I wish that my infant agent had talked me out of doing that Preemie Playboy shoot that permanently put semi-nude photos of myself out into the universe. I wish I could somewhat confidently spit the hot fire that is the lyrics to "Lose Yourself" by Eminem without sounding like someone who's trying to angrily recite the dictionary while running on a treadmill, but given my age and current level of cardiovascular health, these will remain regrets.  

It's certainly not all bad though, I was and am very fortunate growing up. I got to go on a lot of nice vacations all over the world, experience new hobbies and have a rum and coke at a diner in Madrid, realizing a little later than I would've hoped that, despite our language barrier, the waiter was pouring a "tell me when" portion with the rum.

If, in fact, my physical and intellectual apex is behind me, I'd like to share with you what I consider to be my two crowning achievements


Accomplishment #1. I Ran a Half Marathon in 2008
From 5th grade up until I graduated high school, I spent the Fall running cross country and the Spring running track. The physical benefits of participating in these activities was far outweighed by the social and psychological schism my sporting choice had created. The thought process behind the Men's cross country uniform seemed to be "Let's take a fragile, paper-thin little high school boy and put him in a sleeveless shirt and booty shorts."  The terminology associated with the sport didn't help either. Football and basketball players had games, that's exciting! It's game time! Cross country and track gatherings are referred to as "meets" as if we are all getting together to hang out.

"Hey man, what's up? Good luck out there. Watch out for the roots in the woods on Mile 2."

"Thanks. I appreciate that. Hey, what's that guy yelling at us about over there with the pistol?"

"I don't know. Let's get out of here."

You are just never going to here monumental sports movie monologue when all that a coach really needs to say is "Everybody run fast, okay?" In all fairness, runners did try to make it cool, Basketball had those And1 shirts that said "Not in My House" and Cross Country countered with a T-Shirt that said "My Sport is Your Sports Punishment"  because that sounds a lot better than "My Sport Is That Thing You Instinctively Do When The Linebacker From The Football Team Finds Out That The Answers You Gave Him For His Geometry Test Got Him A D+."

At the end of the cross country season my sophomore year of high school, my dad and I ran the Detroit Half Marathon. We had trained for months and overall, I was very pleased with how I did. Although, I don't think any training or motivation is required to place someone in the middle of downtown Detroit and tell them to move as quickly as possible. The sad part about this whole thing is that I trained for months and months in order to be able to run a half marathon. To me, it sounds much more impressive to say "I ran a 13 mile race." People run full marathons. You'll never hear someone brag about climbing halfway up a mountain. Even in the Dixie Chicks song, "Landslide", they climb the entire way up before taking natures' earth-quaking elevator down. A few days ago, I ran on the treadmill for the first time in years. Remembering quite clearly the physical feats I was once capable of, I assured myself that I had definitely not lost my mini marathon mojo and cranked the treadmill up to that speed that made the old lady on the elliptical next to me stare. I finished five miles. I had neither the aspirations nor the ability to get out of bed the next morning, but I had run five miles. My point here being that, if that half marathon was the peak of my running performance and 13 miles is my limit of the furthest I will ever go, I would be best served to keep it to myself treat it like the North Shore Mathletes final answer to take home the championship, as though the limit did not exist.  

Accomplishment #2: I am an Olympic Gold Medalist

Prior to arriving on a college campus, incoming freshman are usually sent a list of things that they will need along with a list of items that are and are not acceptable in the dorm or around campus. This list typically includes everything from clothes hangers to binders, an alarm clock to Ramen noodles. I would not find out until I arrived on campus that there was another item required of all incoming freshman. That being an expert level of understanding and application of knowledge as it pertained to playing Halo 4. I had never really played these games before, but I thought I'd participate purely for the social aspect of electronic engagement. Waiting to try out Halo for the first time in college, on the games' fourth installment was kind of like someone deciding they want to start working out again at the NFL Combine. At this point, it seemed as though everyone that I played against knew every nook and cranny of every map and could kill me with a head shot through a two centimeter hole four buildings over. Or the video game glitch that allowed you to shoot someone through the wall on the Longbow level provided it was between 1 and 3 p.m. on a day starting with "T" and the game was being played on a Samsung television that was facing east. I am no quitter, but after a few agonizing attempts, my response to Halo invites became the same as my response to the invitation to play football with my church members on Thanksgiving, "I will just watch, thanks."

Not that I didn't play video games. Oh, I played video games. I was much more partial to sports video games, particularly, hockey video games. I bought NHL Blades of Steel '99 for the Nintendo 64 and continued to purchase the the latest and greatest in holographic hockey games up until NHL 13 for Xbox. I now realize that this is the greatest financial faux pas of all-time, annually purchasing a similar game, with a similar objective just because the players' toothless mouths and black-eyes are a little less pixelated.

I accomplished everything there was to do in these games. I created a player and brought him from the fourth line of an AHL team with a nagging girlfriend telling him he's never going to make it to the starting Left Wing on a Stanley Cup championship winning squad and an entourage of ice hunnies. I made trades and brought a tailor-made team from the preseason to the top of the postseason totem pole. Without a doubt, my greatest on-ice accomplishment was when I entered into the "Olympic" mode where I got to pick a country and compete for the glory of the gold.

With the computer set to All-Star mode, which allows the opposition to be injected with electronic adrenaline and special software steroids, I dismantled the likes of Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and in an unfortunate Gold Medal match-up, the United States. Do you know what country I did all of this with?............Nope, it was Japan. I wanted to challenge myself and as uplifting and unlikely as the story of the Jamaican bobsled team was in "Cool Runnings." The story of how I brought together a bunch of ice inept underdogs onto the podium is hardly deserving of the title "Memoirs of a Gretzky." While I am grateful that my Honda CR-V handles fantastically on the New England ice. I can promise you that based on what I saw in these imaginary Olympics, the guy who made it definitely does not. I missed a lot of wide-open shots and struck air most of the time I went to check someone, but my thumbs had a decade of sports dynasty building under their belt and I was not to be denied. You may think of Japan as that place that made your cell phone or your car, but I think of them as the 2006 Turin Technological Electronic Olympics Gold Medalists.