Well deserved success of champions, and the ones that got so close.

We congratulate so many of our friends who had well deserved success at Cynosport last week. And we wish some other friends well deserved success this coming week at the FCI Worlds in the Czech Republic.

And if you didn't come out a champ, I read a quote somewhere that said, "The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising after you fall." So if you messed up real bad last week, hopefully you're done with your weepies. And if you're about to mess up this coming week, sorry in advance if I cursed you.

I think a lot about the difference between being mediocre and being a champion.

There were some street punk girls sitting next to me on a bench the other day, down by the beach. They had tiny bikinis under their armored squatter cargo pants held together with rancid safety pins and patches made from old t-shirts, duct tape and band flyers, and a hat out on the street for donations to their cause. The stubby dreadlock one who smelled like pot says to the other two, "You guys going to fire spinning tonight?"

The youngest looking one, with belly tattoos and a big, orange, plastic necklace that read KEOGG points to her friend and says, "She can't go. There's that thing on Front Street. And I'm going to the Unscruz for Burning Man."


She talked really slow. They both talked really slow. The squatter girl had a big magnifying lens that she held over her eye and was staring at her hand. Then they busted out pink hula hoops and started doing some dramatic body hooping. They weren't very good. Glad they weren't going to fire spinning. But they were trying.

"Damn. I can never do that on my right side." And they'd pick it up and try again. People walked by and mostly stared. I don't think anyone put any money in their hat. They didn't hit the dogs with their hoops. Hooparama didn't last very long. There was an unceremonious, Bye, and two of the girls left. Squatter girl remained, with her hat out on the street. She put her patched and pinned together pants back on over her shorts and just stood there with her big lens over her eye for a while.

I didn't ask her what she thinks about the difference. Don't know if she's a champion of anything or not, or if she'd say she was just mediocre. Don't know how hard all the tourists walking by, in their sunburns and tattoos, try to be the best. Does anyone care that much? I know that nobody was working hard at practicing anything, walking around in the sun, beers shrouded in brown bags, kids hoisted on shoulders, surfboards and volleyballs, everybody just out for a day in the sun. I wasn't practicing, I had thought about it, but the how and where made my brain hurt so instead I made the dogs walk down the crowded hill and sit in all the commotion for a while.

They don't much like that.

Champions try harder, that's something I have heard. They try harder and they work harder than everybody else. And they try again after they screw up. I don't think they sit around on benches by the beach.

Tomorrow, we will practice. And try very hard. The dogs are all, whatever. At least no one got impaled on a hoop.