12 Lessons learned

12 learning and discovery lessons:

1. Keep your keys, cell phone, and wallet in the zippable pocket of your MCC sweatshirt and zip it up.

2. Let someone else drive, so you can just back-seat drive and criticize and make fun of the windshield wipers going instead of the turn signals, the near misses, the wrong turns, the left-side-of-the-road curb brushes,and the wrong-side-of-the-road, right-hand drivers-wheel parallel-parking attempts.

4. Trade sweat shirts by watching the master trader, Dan (pretty easy since our long- sleeve, high-quality, colorful, good-artwork shirts were the classiest around).

4. Have redundancy of cameras, that is, if you really want a video of your killer, body-breaking 200 fly, and train the cameraman, even if he is a highpowered CEO;

5. Go to the bathroom immediately before every race.

6. For relays, practice starts and handoffs many times with the exact team you pick, so that your fastest and most-experienced swimmers are not too quick off the blocks.

7. Have at least 5 males and 5 femals register as MMM. Enter five A, B,CD and E MMM teams per free and medley relays so that if there is another Jim Hallett or Frank Buckley type cop out, we can choose relay teams with all MMM team members present.

8. If the above cannot be completed for relays, add some ringers from other teams in advance of the meet who are of the right age to substitute for our regulars and who register as Manhattan Magnums as well registering for their water-polo team. (Forget about trying to reason with FINA).

9. Learn to blog earlier rather than later, and post results when the readers are hungry for information, take more pictures, and post more pictures,

10. Get in better shape.

11. Start workouts with Pat.