Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Soccer Players Have it in Their DNA
Recently, my 16 year old daughter decided to take up Soccer. She's never played a competitive sport ever. Unless synchronized texting across an iPod and cell phone is a competitive sport. I don't know. I use my phone for calling the wife and surfing porn. Anyway, if you were to see my daughter, you'd instantly peg her as a natural athlete. She looks, talks, and walks the part. However, this is a horrible twist of nature. She is woefully uncoordinated. She stopped chewing gum because it was causing her trip and fall while walking. We've replaced three of her cellphones, one that broke when she sat on it, one that she destroyed in anger, and one that she accidentally flushed down a toilet.
She's a klutz.
The team that she's on is one of the low-middle level talent teams in a co-ed league. There's a few players that are really good, some that are ok, and a bunch of players like my daughter, who are there for social interaction or because the cleats look cute.
Watching her play soccer, it's evident that she'll NEVER be a soccer star. She normally lines up at fullback, the last line of defense before the goalie. She really has no clue where to be, how to defend, how to kick, or anything like that. But, she does look cute while doing it. When an offensive player with the ball comes into her area, she'll run along with that player at a distance of 5 feet. I guess she's trying to make it look like she's defending the player. That player could run directly to the goal, and she'll stay with them...at a 5 foot distance. Like an escort. Soccer just isn't in her DNA.
There was a player last night who did have it. The opposing team had a hispanic-looking kid who was REALLY good (I know...hispanic that's good at soccer? Racist much?). I felt bad when I first saw him walking on the field. I immediately thought, "Well, there's the kid they're gonna have to beat".
Anyway, he was waaaay beyond the skill level of anyone on that field. He probably had 2 goals and another 3 assists until the opposing coach finally pulled him out of mercy. This kid had soccer in his DNA, for sure. The final nail in the coffin was when he got the phantom soccer injury. If you've ever watched professional soccer, you've seen this before. Two opposing players will be running side-by-side, and one of them will all of a sudden fall down clutching their knee like it was just shot. Trying to goad the ref into making a call. This kid did that last night. A couple times. All the parents watching were cracking up about it. At one point, he was running up against this 115 lb girl, and all of a sudden he's on the ground holding his ankle and SCREAMING. He rolled around a few times while he was screaming. The ref stopped, looked at him, and laughed. AMAZINGLY HEALED BY THE SOCCER GODS, the kid jumped up and continued playing the game, actually scoring about a minute later.
Are these kids taught this? Do they pick it up watching pro soccer? If they did, then someone must have started this at some point? We should find that person, however old they are, and just beat living bejesus out of them.
She's a klutz.
The team that she's on is one of the low-middle level talent teams in a co-ed league. There's a few players that are really good, some that are ok, and a bunch of players like my daughter, who are there for social interaction or because the cleats look cute.
Watching her play soccer, it's evident that she'll NEVER be a soccer star. She normally lines up at fullback, the last line of defense before the goalie. She really has no clue where to be, how to defend, how to kick, or anything like that. But, she does look cute while doing it. When an offensive player with the ball comes into her area, she'll run along with that player at a distance of 5 feet. I guess she's trying to make it look like she's defending the player. That player could run directly to the goal, and she'll stay with them...at a 5 foot distance. Like an escort. Soccer just isn't in her DNA.
There was a player last night who did have it. The opposing team had a hispanic-looking kid who was REALLY good (I know...hispanic that's good at soccer? Racist much?). I felt bad when I first saw him walking on the field. I immediately thought, "Well, there's the kid they're gonna have to beat".
Anyway, he was waaaay beyond the skill level of anyone on that field. He probably had 2 goals and another 3 assists until the opposing coach finally pulled him out of mercy. This kid had soccer in his DNA, for sure. The final nail in the coffin was when he got the phantom soccer injury. If you've ever watched professional soccer, you've seen this before. Two opposing players will be running side-by-side, and one of them will all of a sudden fall down clutching their knee like it was just shot. Trying to goad the ref into making a call. This kid did that last night. A couple times. All the parents watching were cracking up about it. At one point, he was running up against this 115 lb girl, and all of a sudden he's on the ground holding his ankle and SCREAMING. He rolled around a few times while he was screaming. The ref stopped, looked at him, and laughed. AMAZINGLY HEALED BY THE SOCCER GODS, the kid jumped up and continued playing the game, actually scoring about a minute later.
Are these kids taught this? Do they pick it up watching pro soccer? If they did, then someone must have started this at some point? We should find that person, however old they are, and just beat living bejesus out of them.
Monday, June 27, 2011
First Run
I decided to spend yesterday relaxing as much as possible. The wife was out for the weekend on one of her, ummm, sojourns, and my 16 year old was attending graduation/slumber parties for the weekend, so it was just me and the boys (9 and 2). This can usually go one of two ways. The first, and usually most likely way, is that we are fine until the 2 year old HAS A TOTAL AND COMPLETE MENTAL BREAKDOWN. I'm serious, it's just plain insane. He'll decide at some point that he has just had it with everyone/everything and there is no consoling him. He's done until his next nap, as soon as you can convince him to relax. If you can't...he's just an ever expanding ball of rage.
(2 year old in rage mode)
Luckily, yesterday wasn't like that. We never devolved into the crazy rage ball. It was a good day. I have an old arcade cabinet that I put a computer into that runs classic arcade games in an emulator. He and I played Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug (a new personal high score for me), Burgertime and Mr. Do. He did horribly, pretty much limited to left-right movements with an up-down thrown in from time to time. We alternated turns (I would make sure I would die once he started getting impatient, which was a good decision, I could play Pac-Man and Mr. Do for a loooong time on one guy). It was fun. The nine year old was busy destroying Nazi Zombies on the xbox, so we had a fun gaming day.
Later in the afternoon, when the two boys were happily playing outside (a break in the horrible central ny weather!), I decided to finish my hackintosh project. I had been trying to install Snow Leopard on my PC for quite awhile, with middling success. I could never get the video card fully recognized. I finally figured that out, but the fix took out the USB. After thinking about that for awhile and doing some research, I forgot that bootloader doesn't use the regular com.apple.boot.plist, but uses one in the /Extra folder. Once I added the USB switches to that, I finally had a fully function OS X install on my intel core2 duo based PC. Eventually I have to get the OS X/Win7 dual boot working, but I'm happy with this for now.
Me and the boys had some dinner (cheeseburgers and pierogies...awesome), they had a bath then went to bed. I sat down and thought about things for awhile. I decided to start this little blog and wrote up the first post. Then I watched True Blood (a guilty pleasure, although it's losing me, getting a little TOO out there for even me), and waited for the wife to get home from her weekend. She got back, we talked a little bit about her weekend, and went to bed.
When the alarm went off this morning (after a few snoozes), I got up to do the first run. A friend at work had agreed to start the program with me, so I got dressed and headed over to her house. We exchanged pleasantries, and got to running. Week 1 on the program starts with a 5 min walk, then 60 seconds running/90 seconds walking alternating until we're at 20 minutes total. It's a gradual 9 week program, and this was a good start. I evidently still had some runner left in me, as this didn't kill me as much as the first time I started the program. I never got to the "OMYGODI'MGONNAPUKE" stage, and I even really picked up the pace for the last 15 seconds of the final run. It felt really pretty good. My running partner seemed to do very well also. She made it through just fine. My calves were on fire, but otherwise, I was none the worse for wear. Even my back didn't really hurt as much as it had.
A good start to the day, I hope. I'm in a good mood, although the wife seems pretty down today. I hope it turns up for her. Tonight is the 16-year-old's soccer game (we've got snack duty). Monday is also one of the nights that the wife takes for herself, for some alone time. She'll probably cut out during the game, but we'll see. Maybe she'll stay for the whole thing.
I hope this ends up being a good day.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Anything is possiblllllllllle!!! - Kevin Garnett
A year ago, I thought I had everything I ever wanted. I was getting in shape, I was feeling better than I ever had. I was preparing for a 5k run, and I could do it. I had an amazing wife, 3 great kids, an excellent career, etc...
My wife and I have been together 13 years. They've been the best 13 years of my life. She's given me so much, every day with her has been amazing. Everything I've ever done, has been for her.
Over the last year or so, she started becoming more and more distant. Every chance she could get to leave the house, she'd take. It became very frustrating for me. We'd try to talk about it, and she'd tell me how hard her job was, how she missed her mother.
About three months ago, it all came to a head. We were eating lunch together, and we were in complete silence. I was so frustrated with her and her constant absence, I said something. I told her that she could keep avoiding me, but that she had to start spending more time with the kids, that I couldn't keep being their only parent.
She let loose. She told me that she didn't love me anymore. That she hadn't for a while.
My life came crashing down. Over the last three months, I've watched everything I've ever know fall apart around me. I've fallen apart. She's still here, trying find her love for me, I guess. She keeps telling me that she'll make a decision soon. I sleepwalk through my days now. I do what I need to do for my kids, I try to do the things to help her love me again, but all I feel is constant failure and rejection.
I need to do something. Anything. Starting tomorrow, I start up running again. Doing the couch to 5k program, which I've done before.
I don't know why I'm doing this. Why I'm writing here. But I am. Maybe it'll be cathartic. Maybe it'll help find out who I am, and what I want.
My wife and I have been together 13 years. They've been the best 13 years of my life. She's given me so much, every day with her has been amazing. Everything I've ever done, has been for her.
Over the last year or so, she started becoming more and more distant. Every chance she could get to leave the house, she'd take. It became very frustrating for me. We'd try to talk about it, and she'd tell me how hard her job was, how she missed her mother.
About three months ago, it all came to a head. We were eating lunch together, and we were in complete silence. I was so frustrated with her and her constant absence, I said something. I told her that she could keep avoiding me, but that she had to start spending more time with the kids, that I couldn't keep being their only parent.
She let loose. She told me that she didn't love me anymore. That she hadn't for a while.
My life came crashing down. Over the last three months, I've watched everything I've ever know fall apart around me. I've fallen apart. She's still here, trying find her love for me, I guess. She keeps telling me that she'll make a decision soon. I sleepwalk through my days now. I do what I need to do for my kids, I try to do the things to help her love me again, but all I feel is constant failure and rejection.
I need to do something. Anything. Starting tomorrow, I start up running again. Doing the couch to 5k program, which I've done before.
I don't know why I'm doing this. Why I'm writing here. But I am. Maybe it'll be cathartic. Maybe it'll help find out who I am, and what I want.
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