Day: June 30, 2011

Hydrophobia

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

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

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

 

Sean Maloney’s Rowing Recovery

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

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

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

%d bloggers like this: