Ray Brinzer

We recently had a minor gas leak in the house. I had someone come over and repair it, but at the end his wife was calling, anxious to know when he’d be home, and I made the mistake of letting him leave without turning on the appliances. We have an old, very large gas “boiler” (strangely named, as the maximum safe temperature to which it heats water is 190°F) which supplies hot water to the radiators in the house. Crammed behind it was an ancient cast-iron water heater, which looked like R2D2′s great-grandfather, sporting a fez, waistcoat, and waxed moustache.

I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. So I read the instructions. Read more »

There was a discussion on The Mat about why we haven’t been able to beat the Russians. While we’ve certainly had our successes on the world scene, I believe that the nature of our system in the USA isn’t well-suited to the task. Here’s what I wrote:

It seems to me:

* We have lots of knowlegeable coaches.
* We have lots of really dedicated volunteers.
* We have lots of very talented athletes.
* We have lots of opportunities for competition.

In short, we have a great grass-roots system, which produces large numbers of tough, reasonably knowledgeable wrestlers who enjoy the benefits of health, character, and so on that we tend to believe wrestling provides. Wrestling, as it exists here in the US, is good for our society.

This system is not at all good for exploring the limits of human potential. Read more »

I moved my personal site from brinzer.net to ray.brinzer.net, which seems more appropriate. “Brinzer” is the whole family, after all. Hopefully I’ll be able to put something useful about the family up.

And speaking of useful… this site hasn’t been. But I’m making a resolution: this June I’m fixing it up, and I’m going to post at least one thing each day.

A fellow from Flowrestling wanted to interview me out at the Central Regional Championship. If you ever wanted to hear me ramble aimlessly for 20 minutes, here’s your chance.

Upon reflection, I too-often fail to give credit where it’s due as I’m talking. While I did wind up at a lot of tournaments alone, at a certain age, my parents also hauled me to an enormous number as well. And coaches in the community like Bill Bauer took me along with their own sons, even when I was being a pest.

As well, I sometimes say “I” founded the club, when I should say “we”. Ty Moore certainly had no less a role in it than I did.

Poor form. Oh well.