A Note About the Holiday Party...

November's half over; the holiday season arrives, and calendars are filling fast. Here's a date to put down:

WH2O's Annual Holiday Extravaganza.
Saturday, December 15th, 2007.

Details to follow, but mark it in your calendar.

Your Loving Secretary

UCLA Swim Meet

by Christopher Smith

On Saturday, November 3, a small group of swimmers stole away to the Land of the Bruins and represented our team at the UCLA Bruin Masters Short Course Meters meet. What I expected to be a cold, somewhat stressful, and lonely competition turned out to be quite a bright, relaxed, and sociable one.

The weather was beautiful as I entered the familiar swimming complex at the Student Activities Center (formerly the Men's Gym). I set up shop in the back corner after figuring out what should be a healthy balance between solitude, shade, and warm rays which I anticipated would last through the day. Expecting to be alone for the day, I came equipped with my iPod which I instantly turned on for warm-up motivation. Within 10 minutes, I found WH2O teammates Gregg Ogorzelec, Adam Davis, Tamara Draper, and Grady Harmon. No need for that iPod! We quickly formed a 200 Meter Freestyle Relay and ended up winning our 120-159 age group.

The meet was casual and comfortable. In gearing up for Regionals, most of us agreed we were essentially attending to gauge our mid-season progress. And to have a good time, of course. Gregg and Adam spent the morning warming up,
swimming, and recovering from what I (a devout sprinter) consider the most
grueling event, the 800M Freestyle. Grady, Tamara, and I swam the ever-popular
sprint freestyle events. Grady topped his day off with a nice 200M Free, while
Tamara dabbled in a 50M Butterfly and I attempted the 100M and 200M IM's. After all, we had to try out our new techniques after all of that stroke work these past weeks!

Though our team was small, the camaraderie echoed that which I experienced at Nationals in Washington this past May. The Bruin Meet ended up confirming not only that even L.A. weather is unpredictable, but more so my belief that our team consists of unique and supportive individuals who share a real passion for the water. Congrats to everyone who made it out!

Santa Clarita Swim Meet

by Seymour Liao

After quite a long hiatus from the blocks and some inkling of going to IGLA in Washington DC next year, I decided to take the plunge and sign up for a meet. Given that it’s now short course meters season, the likely venue for IGLA, it seemed like a good opportunity to get a notion of what reasonable entry times would be. The last meet I swam in was IGLA Paris (2000!), and the only thing that I really remember about my swimming was that fishnet stockings provide much more drag--in the water that is--than one might think. So I picked a handful of events (50 fly, 100 breast, 200 free and 200 IM), drove up to Santa Clarita on Saturday, October 20th and deck entered what I hoped would be times that I could easily beat. That way I could worry about more realistic challenges such as not disqualifying myself after seven years of practicing illegal turns, keeping my goggles on as I entered the water and not false starting.

Upon walking onto the pool deck whom did I see finishing the 1500? None other than Dan Adams, who said that he swam well but unfortunately his time wasn’t as fast as he hoped. No worries Dan. You made up for it on the 100 breast when you swam almost the entire race with your goggles around your neck and were only a tenth of a second off your best time. (Hmmmm…. don't know why I was worried about that.) Dan finished off the day with a 50 fly, but requested that I not divulge the results of that race. It should be sufficient to know that my time was faster--I mean come on Dan, really.


The real star of the day, fashion footwear expert and third WH20 swimmer in attendance was Gregg Orgorzelec, who swam the 100, 200 and 400 free. Our newly ordained Most Improved Swimmer of the Year dropped his 400 free time by two seconds from just two weeks prior at Mission Viejo with an impressive 4:37.32. Gregg’s 50 split times demonstrated his great pacing! Way to go Gregg! And you looked fabulous in those red pumps (well, Crocks) you were wearing on the deck. Gregg also turned in an impressive 2:08.79 for the 200 free. (Sorry Gregg, I missed your 100 time.)

As for me, I can say that I did indeed beat all the times I entered, although the 200 IM by only 2 seconds (d’oh) and didn’t DQ (yeah). One nice thing about small meets is they go by fast. I have to admit I felt like I swam a workout more than a meet given how fast the events came up. So for all of you thinking about IGLA there are two more meets in this short course meters season – Woodland Hills Turkey Shoot on Sunday, November 18th and Regional Championships hosted by Long Beach Grunions (“Two words. fa boo” – Marc St. James) November 30th through December 2nd.

The Anniversary Video

Okay, wh2o.org is going multi-media. I'm in the process of converting the video yearbook that screened at the banquet into a clip that can be posted on our blog. Watch for it in the next two weeks.

Your Loving Secretary

WH2O Celebrates 25 Years

by Seth Harrington

The San Antonio Winery lies just north of Chinatown right across the Los Angeles River, and near the intersection of three major train lines. It is one of the most unlikely places to find a winery, you could think of. But, like so many hidden gems in Los Angeles, you turn a corner and there it is, a classy winery that could be right out of Napa Valley.

Our guests began arriving at 3pm sharp, and by quarter after, there were over seventy people in the room. There was an initial ice-breaker, that had people collecting signatures from members who joined the same year an event happened. For example, a box on the paper said “When Ellen came out,” and then you had to find someone who had joined in 1997 and get them to sign.

Then, as the music of Erasure pumped out of the sound system, the fashion show began! 15 members, each wearing a different WH2O t-shirt from a different year, strode down the catwalk and threw some attitude. Neal Wiener took to the podium and narrated the history behind each one. Tom Reudy gave us a special show, when he stripped off his shirt and tossed it over his head. Had she been there, I’m sure Towelette Moist might have dryly remarked “nothing we haven’t seen before.”

As the fashion show wound to a close, the meal was served. Amazingly out of a group of 86 people, there were only two vegetarians. The rest feasted on a full-course meal with Chicken Marsala as it’s main course.

Then it was awards time! First, Seth Harrington, the outgoing VPsocial read a long list of volunteers, thanking them for their help during the year, then President Bryan Libit presented the Volunteer of the Year award. It went to Paul Abraham. Brian Olver collected the Spirit Award, after an amazing year of serving double duty as both coach and board member.

Ben Carillo and Joy Mendenhall won the two Water Polo awards; MVP and Most Improved, respectively. Most Improved Swimmer went to Gregg Orgozelc. Among the many people he thanked was his boyfriend for “allowing him to swim every morning with all these beautiful men in their speedos.”







Amy Dantzler collected the Swimmer of the Year.








And finally Dan Adams shared with us all the story of Dave Nelson missing the train to Bordeaux. Dave won the double whammy.






We closed out the banquet with by far the most popular segment of our program. We presented our audio-visual Yearbook! To the tunes of “Chariots of Fire” and “We are the Champions” the pictures of wh2o-ers in their pool attire and the year that they joined flickered on a large screen. It was a great treat for many of the newer members to see pictures of our veteran members from the years when they joined. It also allowed for a quick way for everyone to grasp the history of the team. Thank you to everyone who sent in their picture. Specials thanks to Jim Cude, the Secretary for putting together the Yearbook and doing such a nice job on it.

Then the lights came up, people socialized, pledged to see each other again at practice and filtered out towards their cars.

Our New Board

Congratulations to the 2007-2008 WH2O Board of Directors.

Top row (left to right): Brad Lengyel (Swim Rep), Dan Adams (Treasurer), Mike Wallace (Development), Boyd Quinnell (VP Social), James Cude (Secretary), Fritz Hemker (Water Polo Rep). Bottom Row: Bryan Libit (President), Joel McKenna (VP Admin.) Not pictured: Brian Olver (Facilities).

Thanks to all these individuals for stepping up and serving the team. Good luck!