Carpinteria athletes cap off season at CIF Track & Field Finals

BY RYAN. P. CRUZ • PHOTOS BY ROSANA SWING

Several local athletes qualified to compete in the CIF Division 4 Track & Field Finals at Moorpark College over the weekend, testing their skills against the best in Southern California.

After a good day of competition, athletes from both Carpinteria and Cate came back home with hardware, with a few even taking home multiple medals in the finals.

Carpinteria senior Ainslee Alexander led the way for the Warriors with two medals to cap off an incredible highschool career. Alexander took third in the pole vault with a height on 9’9’’ – the second-best vault of her career – and then finished sixth in the triple jump with a new personal record of 35’4.25’’. With her new personal record, Alexander passes her older sister, Shaya, at #4 all-time for triple jump in the Carpinteria High School record books.

“It was a great way for Ainslee to finish her high school career,” said Carpinteria coach Van Latham. “It is nice to see her rewarded for her work over the last four years.”

Carpinteria junior multi-sport athlete Amarisse Camargo took seventh place in the shot put with a new personal record throw of 32’6.5’’ – good enough to put her at #11 in the all-time CHS record books.

“Amarisse had a great finish, setting personal records in the last three meets of the season,” coach Latham said. “She is just beginning to realize her capabilities with the shot put given the fact she spends most of her time with the Warrior softball team."

In the boys events, Carpinteria junior Wes Chung earned a spot as an alternate in the 110 hurdles, and he took advantage of the opportunity by setting a new personal record of his own with a time of 16.65 to finish in ninth place; senior Ivan Vargas capped off his career with an eighth-place finish in the pole vault with a height of 10’3’’.

From Cate School, superstar longsprinter Sebastian Sutch took first place in both the 800 and 1600 meter finals, setting new personal records in both races. Sutch also ran with the fourth-place boys 4x400 relay team along with Pen Brooks, Tyler Martinez and Justin Musyimi. Musyimi grabbed another medal with a fourthplace finish in the boys triple jump.

Human-scale, not artificial, intelligence

IT’S ALL SURFING

In my work shaping surfboards, I adhere to the original handmade process because my goal is to become a master of the craft. The technology has long existed now to design a technically “flawless” board on a computer, then have it replicated by CNC machine. This is the process that the larger companies all use.

I will eventually utilize that technology as well, and I am approaching my goal of “mastery” (a perhaps overused and hardto-define term). Accurate measurements and precise planer work will also, in fact, produce a nearly “perfect” (another problematic word) surfboard.

At any rate, most days, driving up and back from Ventura to my shop in Carpinteria leaves a maximum of five hours for work before picking up my kids from school. (And since the surf has been good for the last couple of weeks, there have been significantly fewer hours in the shaping bay – don’t tell Natasha!) The point of all this, I suppose, is the notion of scale.

I’ve titled this column “Human-scale, not artificial, intelligence” with the intention of addressing the phenomena of Artificial Intelligence and its potential impact on humanity. I suspect the potential of harm is real with AI, but I’ve become less alarmist in recent years and lean more towards the notion of letting the machines handle mundane tasks, freeing us humans to daydream and paint watercolor seascapes.

Larger than the issue of whether or not AI will take over (it has already been loosed in the world, after all) is how we conceive of ourselves as individuals, and what we deem valuable. AI, like computer-shaped surfboards, will always only be a replica, or in some sense, an approximation, of original, unique and ultimately human creation. (Notwith- standing the potential for deep fakes – a computer-generated president announcing a nuclear strike, for example.)

I’m suggesting a reordering of expectations, of what many of us feel we deserve from life. Not in a sense of diminishment, or a lesser-than existence, but an embrace of the fullness that comes with appreciating things on a smaller scale.

The things that make us human – our seemingly irrational attachments and activities, our desire to have fun, to play (to surf!) – are the things that will pull us through this time of computerized confusion, alienated loneliness, anger and addiction. And as I am always chanting, the old ways will provide a way, too: gardens, boats, fishing, back-country skills.

Hard work, and the hard work of caring for people, is what’s going to save us.

I’ve been thinking about the poor man on the subway in New York, who died in a