Junior's Ramblings

moving on

2007-10-25T19:58:00.001-04:00

i'm signing off from this blog for the time being.

i'm starting a new blog with a couple of buddies called "the cultural taproom." this way i can blog once a week and together with several other people we can create an active blog without having the pressure of delivering several times a week.

so check us out at theculturaltaproom.blogspot.com

ta ta for now.

fall TV and life update

2007-10-12T15:33:00.001-04:00

The new fall season is in full swing. Now that I have the time, I don’t have the commitment to shows, new or old. Monday night, nothing. If I’m dragging I will check in on Rules of Engagement or 2 ½ Men. Tuesday is of course House night. The selection process has both been intruiging and concerning. It was hard enough solving cases with House and a team of three, each one having a specific area of knowledge. With the mob of doctors to sort through at the beginning of the season, it doesn’t make much sense. Last week House narrowed it down to 10, but now you have 10 opinions, informed or otherwise, instead of 3. The one applicant, #13, got it right, but didn’t follow through and the patient died. Not sure if that’s good or bad. I think this season is building towards House’s existentialist angst. In the season premiere he says his disbanded team, two for real, who snuck back like the sniveling little dogs that they are, and one not for real. Synergy is something not easily found, now that it’s gone, House feels its absence. Add to that, the attempt to see what the after life is like and the next show, where a patient can actually see the dead, and it makes me wonder if the big façade of House will come crashing down at long last. Relationships matter, people need to be treated with a little respect and not like playthings, spirituality is important.

By the end of the season, the team will be back together, but the time apart will make them better. House will treat the team with more respect and the camaraderie of the team will improve. I hope this will make them a stronger diagnostic team, able to only have to almost kill someone once, instead of three times, as that is how the formula has developed.

On to Wednesdays and Kitchen Nightmares. You have to watch this show. A stomach turning, unbelievable car wreck of a show that will have you crying, laughing, gasping and throwing up in your mouth a little. Forget Dr. Phil. Gordon is the man to call to turn your life around. And he’s much more interesting than the guy from Extreme Makeover, Home Edition.

I gave the season premier of Dirty Sexy Money a try. Ugh. Not a bad idea but why too scattering. I get it. Rich family needs representation to get them out of the many and outrageous situations that they encounter. But 6 or 7 out of control children? I couldn’t keep track of all of their problems. I won’t even try to describe them all. I probably would have stuck with it if they had tightened down the children to 3, which could have been done easily. And doesn’t the no talent ass clown blond daughter look like Lindsey Bluth?

Other than that, soccer is coming to a close. My men’s over 30 team goes for the double on Sunday against the Arse. The girls have a couple of games left. Kinda sad that they will be done and off to college soon.

As for work, ridiculous. I have a line of T-shirts I’m developing. It’s gonna be sweet.

TV, how i've missed you

2007-09-21T08:09:00.000-04:00

So I have taken quite a lot of media over the past couple of days. Last week was the BEANER’S franchisee meeting and that took a lot of the wind out of the sails. Add to that soccer, playing and coaching, plus chasing Larry around, and doing nothing was quite nice.

Last Friday night Erin and I went and saw The Brave One. Intense is the word that sums up the movie. It was a interesting plot, although a bit of a reach. Turning Jodie Foster from NPR chic into Charles Bronson from DeathWish takes some getting used to. It’s worth seeing, not just worth seeing in a theater.

Sunday night after playing in my soccer game, I sat in front of the TV all night. Despicable. I was just too lazy to do anything. I would have rather watched the Pats/Chargers game, but it was a blowout, so I ended up flipping between the Big Brother retrospective and Anchorman. I’ve been in and out of Big Brother this season. How the dad and daughter reached the final is beyond me. I missed how Zach got knocked out. I’m just glad the Jameka or Amber didn’t win. ANNOYING. As for Anchorman, over the top. There were one or two funny parts, but it was kinda stupid.

Then there was Monday and the series premiere of K-Ville. It was kinda interesting. It’s a show that I will probably watch now and then. The back stories of main characters could make for interesting shows, and with the back drop of hurricane ravaged New Orleans, the show has a chance.

Finally, last night I watched the end of Kitchen Nightmares. This is the Hell’s Kitchen Road Show. It was SWEET! Gordon completely ripped this guy a new hole in front of his staff. I noticed it was sort of like Super Nanny, but with more adults and much fouler language.

small world

2007-09-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

So at the franchisee meeting this morning, I’m chatting with one of the owners of the upcoming Madison Heights store, and we’re talking about this and that, and the subject of his location comes up. Madison Heights is just south of Troy and I’m familiar with the area. I point out landmarks and the fact that I’m from Troy.

Franchisee “So am I. Where did you go to High School?”
Project Assistant in Store Design “Athens. You?”
Franchisee “Me too. What year did you graduate?”
Ass “1993.”
Franchisee “Wow. So did I.”

Turns out we were classmates. I had no idea who he was, and probably vice versa. One of his other partners, went to Athens too, but I didn’t recognize the name. In a class of 400, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we weren’t on a first name basis. Add to that the fact I didn’t do much to heighten my high school experience and there you have it. I’ve been off the high school reunion radar and I’m hoping that this encounter does not lead me down some weird reminiscent path. We shall see.

labor day

2007-09-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

Labor Day has come and gone, and for the first time in many years, I actually had the day off. No work, no threat of work, so that was a nice change. Watched AC Milan vs. Fiorentina, went to cookout and played some cards. Nice.

Spent Saturday helping the Brown’s paint their house. While working, we had the Michigan game in the background. Every time I listened closely, Appalachian State was scoring. I was like, Hmm, that’s interesting, wait till the second half. But it was more of the same. I actually stopped working when Michigan made an amazing play to set up the game winning field goal. And then that was BLOCKED. I honestly could not believe. I know Appalachian State is a good 1-AA program, but seriously.

The more I’ve thought about, the more I’m convinced of these ideas.

1. Typical Michigan. They go outside the MAC whipping boys for their first game and get slapped.
2. Typical Michigan. They can’t stop a mobile, athletic quarterback.
3. Lloyd Carr should have been fired the moment the final whistle blew. Yes, he won a national championship, 10 years ago, but this has been brewing. He can’t beat OSU, he can’t go for the jugular and he can’t build a top program. Michigan has top 10 talent and underperforms almost every year. This is a TREND.
4. They should drop out of the top 25. No excuses. (I just checked, this actually did happen, so at least the voters can get that right, although some jackhole ranked them 16th. Not so fast my friend. They got beat, as someone at work said, by the 120th best team in America. That may be overstating the case but you see where he’s coming from.)

Michigan has now lost three games in a row going back to last season. It won’t get any easier, and what would happen if they didn’t even finish in the top 3 of the Big Ten? And that’s a distinct possibility.

Anyway, enough college football talk. Go rent Hot Fuzz and if you don’t laugh out loud/fall off the couch/spit out your pop at some of the lines, you either don’t have enough pop culture background or you don’t have a sense of humor.

Ta ta for now.

a trip in the way back machine

2007-08-27T15:15:00.000-04:00

I’ve always had a thing for the ‘60’s. In the past, when asked what period of history I would like to return to, I would answer the 1960’s, completely ignoring the American Revolution, the early Roman Empire, the Egyptian empire and other historical epochs. And why? Sex, drugs, and rock n roll are pretty appealing. Combine that with the revolutionary fervor of upsetting the status quo, and it’s a pretty intoxicating mixture.

I bring this up because I’ve been going through a ‘60’s phase. After watching the Jimi Hendrix video, I rented Monterey Pop, which documents the festival of that name in 1967. The Janis Joplin performance was amazing, but what really blew my wind was the Ravi Shankar footage. He just kept going and going and going and going. He would build to a crescendo and you expected a finale, but he explored another area and kept the moment going.

I looked up Monterey Pop on wikipedia and was shocked to learn this fact: it cost $1 dollar for the weekend. Can you believe that? My mind cannot comprehend that because my frame of reference is Woodstock ’94 and Lollapalooza, with the high priced tickets and pervasive corporate atmosphere. The producers built everything from the ground up—sound system, first aid, refreshments, security. Monterey was the precursor to Woodstock and I was unaware of this.

Nothing like it could happen today. And that’s fine. It was a different time and we just have to accept that.

As for Jimi Hendrix, I rented another DVD with lots of concert footage and interviews with and about him. I am both stunned and ashamed. Stunned because of what he could do with a guitar and ashamed because I had a poster hanging up for in dorms and apartments for years without knowing anything about him. I mean, I could recognize Hey Joe and the Wind Cries Mary, but my source of knowledge was basically Garth in Wayne’s World performing Foxy Lady. So I’ve been listening to a couple of different Hendrix albums and have a better appreciation for his music.

Needless to say, the sixties are gone. The anti-establishment has become the establishment and the youth of today are too fragmented to try to change the world. So it’s back to tending your own garden, and my garden is soccer and my family, with a little work thrown in.

ode to summer

2007-08-14T14:50:00.000-04:00

8/11 9:15pm listening to: Jimi Hendrix Experience

Let me just say there is nothing like a summer night, sitting on the patio, smoking a cigar and drinking a beer. I have Jimi providing background to one of those rare moments of perfection in earthly existence.

I rented the DVD chronicling the recording of Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was amazing what Jimi was able to record. From almost all the instrumentation to vocals to effects manufactured from any item he could get his hands on. All in an effort to produce the sounds in his head on a record. One person interviewed went as far as to say that Jimi was a modern Mozart. Interesting.

One of the songs on the album is “All Along the Watchtower”, which I was introduced to by U2 on Rattle and Hum. I found out afterwards that Jimi Hendrix did it and then found out it was originally written by Bob Dylan. From what I have read and heard, Dylan is one of the greatest influences on modern music. I have to admit I don’t get it, but there has to be something there. So that’s on my list of thing to learn about.

But as night falls, I’m going to finish my cigar and beer. Winter is only days away.

the future of global sport

2007-08-08T18:56:00.000-04:00

Manchester United signed a 9 yr old to their academy based solely on a DVD.

article:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=449604&cc=5901

video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3dhG47FDenyXw

As all sports become more global, this is on the first of many stories of how a prodigy from the nether-regions comes to the center of a particular sport. Think NY Yankees sign 16 yr old from India or LA Lakers sign 17 yr old from the congo. Think the TV show Next Big Thing on a global sporting scale.

Mrs. Sandra Egbo and the Sopranos

2007-08-04T18:54:00.000-04:00

I’m always willing to help my fellow man. For instance, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I thought about going to New Orleans to help. A displaced family lived across the street from us for a little while, and, in that way, I was involved.

So when I e-mail came in my inbox with the subject line of “I need your assistance with Mrs. Sandra Egbo”, I immediately opened it up to give aid and comfort.

Enough with the junk mail. Are you kidding me? “I need assistance with Mrs. Sandra Egbo”? And guess who the sender was? Mrs. Sandra Egbo. Who are these people and why do they feel the need to fill my e-mail account with crap? And it’s not even slick, well-produced crap, it’s messages with ridiculous subject lines and even worse text. Like “Hello, Mr. LONg. I follow up re: your request more information on love products that are sensation global and be delivered imeditately.” Don’t spammers have spell-check or foreign language of choice-to-English dictionary?

Whoa. Got off on little bit of a rant there.

Finished Soprano’s season 6 earlier this week. I know how it ends and, knowing that, you can totally see why. Tony makes poor choices or, even worse, is indecisive. He seems to freeze up and the most important moments and spends the rest his time and energy cleaning up the messes of his own creation. As for the series ending, the Journey song, etc., you get a slight foreshadow at the season finale. With the extended family sitting around the Christmas tree, Meadow is missing, and the show just ends with no cliff hanger and no resolution. Something to think about.

TNT soccer season starts this week, so free time will be a minimum. I hope to stick with my goal of blogging once a week but we’ll see. TTFN.

recent media intake

2007-07-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

I have been very busy lately. With soccer, work and the family, my days are flying by. I get a little break after this weekend before the girls’ premier league season starts.

In my downtime, I have been watching movies and TV shows. At the library I found two series starring Rowan Atkinson—Black Adder and The Thin Blue Line. Black Adder, while not getting, all the jokes, is pretty funny. The Thin Blue Line is hilarious. Office politics, interoffice romance, clashing personalities. Hope to get the rest of the first season tonight.

I’m still waiting on Season 6 of the Soprano’s. Really want to catch up and see how it ends.

Last week I decided to broaden my Shakespearean horizons, so I took the easy way out and rented the movie version of Macbeth. They didn’t have the four hour Kenneth Branaugh version, so I just grabbed one of the shelf. During the opening credits, I noticed that it was a produced by Playboy. I was like what? That can’t be right. Then I thought, there’s a Lady Macbeth. I hope she is not running around naked. She wasn’t.

The general idea of the plot was decent, with the idea of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely being prominent. But the production value was HORRIBLE. It was painful to watch. The soundtrack drove me inside and the lack of a production budget really hindered the movie. I read online that they filmed this in Scotland. My guess is that they blew the production budget on traveling expenses and had nothing left for props or actors. I need to watch a better version and soon so I can those terrible images out of my head.

are you serious?

2007-07-09T07:12:00.000-04:00

robinho's third goal against chile in the group stage from the copa america.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=L5jhx-qHQ54&mode=related&search=

2006-2007 la liga final day

2007-07-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

2007 will go down as one of the greatest years for footballing drama. Big spending Chelsea with a shot at the quadruple. Spanish upstarts Sevilla chasing the treble until the last day of the season. Three major European leagues going down to the last day of the season, with the Dutch season going literally going down to the last second.

To recap Spain, three teams had a chance at raising the trophy. Sevilla was a long shot, having to win and Real and Barca having to lose. As for Real and Barca, they were level on points, with Real holding the edge because of their win earlier in the season. Basically Real just had to match Barca’s result, which looked to be impossible as Real went down 1-0 and Barca cruised to 3-0 lead. Then everything changed. Real equalized and finally went ahead and got a third for insurance, rendering Barca’s 5-1 win meaningless. After four years of undoing the Galatico policy, Real won their 30th league title, preventing the Barca cycle from emulating the Dream Team of the 90’s, managed by Cruyff. Real promptly fired their coach and Barca bought a half a dozen new players. Can’t wait for the start of the new season.

This summer showcased the best of European U-21’s. Some cracking goals and drab nil-nil draws produced an England v Holland semi. Holland equalized in the dying moments to force extra time. Then the penalty shootout. After 32 kicks, sixteen for each side, Holland prevailed 13-12. England was down to 10 men and one of them was injured. He hobbled up, ankle and leg heavily taped, and drove the ball into the side netting. Amazing effort. Find the entire shootout on youtube. The quality of the kicks is quite good. Of course, what irony. England finally makes penalties and still can’t win.

Copa America is down to the semi-finals. The US went home without winning a game. Well the US B team went home without winning a game. I won’t go into all the details about why the US sent a second rate team, but let’s just say, it’s been 12 years since we’ve been invited to this South American spectacle and it will be at least 12 more before we are invited back.

After Copa America, the David Beckham experience begins. And then it’s on to another season. Sweet.

spellbound

2007-07-03T16:13:00.000-04:00

Watched Spellbound a couple of nights ago. The film follows eight kids as they compete at the National Spelling Bee. I thought it was going to be awful and was planning to watch it purely for the car wreck value, but it turned out to quite good. I found myself cheering for the kids, even the really nerdy and annoying ones.

These kids work. They have huge lists of words to study from and study day and night to master them. The sad thing is, despite knowing thousands of words, they can never know all of them, so the final becomes something of a crap shoot. A contestant could get knocked out on a word, yet know every other word every other child gets, including the final word. Sad really.

I imagined the parents to be overbearing and forcing the kids to know every word ever produced by humanity, but the sampling filmed seemed to have a pretty good perspective of the situation. Most of them just wanted the kids to enjoy the experience and weren’t necessarily living vicariously through the children in pursuit of glory.

The really unexpected aspect of the movie was the feelings and memories it stimulated in me from playing Bible Bowl. Several similarities confronted me and I returned to days long left behind. During high school, I studied a lot, several hours a day. One Saturday a month was the round robin, so an entire day was given to Bible Bowl. Add to that the tournaments during the summer and Bible Bowl took up to 10 months of the year. I didn’t mind because I was good at it. Plus my parents didn’t make me do it. I was self-motivated and loved to compete, so I pushed myself.

The team I played on did well at the state level and did ok at regional tournaments. At the Nationals we never quite got over the hump. It’s funny, you study so hard and then because of the better competition and different questions, it’s like you didn’t do anything. My junior and senior years we finished in the top 12, which was nice but nothing liked I dreamed about. I wanted the national championship and the ginormous trophy that went to the winning team.

The farther I move away from it, the more I realize how immature I was about the whole situation. Pissing and moaning when things didn’t go my way, riding high when we were on a winning streak, not appreciating the bigger picture of the whole situation. Really got too wrapped in to it and now I want very little to do with it.

But watching those kids work so hard and being crushed when they missed that one word, I could all relate to that.

a warning and a recommendation

2007-06-25T12:38:00.000-04:00

Now I’m not one to criticize, I’m usually a pretty positive person, but I just wanted to make you aware of the worst new TV show on the airwaves—The Loop. This horrible show is on Fox, it seems like all the time as they kill the minutes until the new Prison Break (now in its third season, which seems sort of odd, because if they got out, then are on the run, wouldn’t it stand to reason that it wouldn’t be called Prison “Break”, but rather On the Lam or The Fugitive or American Prisoner where each prisoner competes for America’s vote to stay out of jail.)

Apologies for the tangent. Back to the dreadful show, The Loop. Now I don’t really like Scrubs, but I get what it’s trying to do. This show is a direct rip off of Scrubs, except set in the Airline industry, and is infinitely worse. I guarantee that the following will happen. You will read this entry, and think, Austin, you’re full of crap and I’m going to give this show a chance. You’ll watch the opening sequence and think, again, Austin you’re full of crap, this isn’t HORRIBLE. Then you’ll watch the intro credit sequence and you will a) throw up; b) scoop your eyeballs out with serving spoon; or c) smash your new gigantic, plasma, Hi-Def TV into smithereens. And by the way you will acknowledge that I’m right.

So save yourself the trouble and avoid The Loop at all costs. Trust me.

On to better things, the Tony Kornheiser show comes to end this week, which is a shame. It is by far the greatest show I’ve ever listened to. Mainly because TK and I are on agreement about almost everything and eviscerate things in a very similar matter. Kornheiser is going back to Monday Night Football, which I don’t really watch because I don’t have cable and I don’t stay up that late. But I am planning to make an effort to catch a game or two, just to see if he is as bad as he says he is. So do yourself a favor and find the podcast or download on iTunes or washingtonpost.com.

El Aura

2007-06-22T16:13:00.000-04:00

This past week I watched El Aura, an Argentinean film, which was about an introverted taxidermist with visions of the perfect crime, who gets caught up in a real life caper and must put theory into practice. Did I mention that he, during the credits the character is simply referred to as the taxidermist, is an epileptic? Obviously that factors into the story.

Understated cannot describe this film enough. A film noir with no dramatic, explosive action sequences. Simply a series of dialogues interspersed with the taxidermist’s criminal scenarios and punctuated with moments of violence as the story winds its way toward the conclusion. A dark and cautionary tale about how the average man and the criminal are quite different and the line crossed leads to an entire new world.

The term comparing apples to oranges is quite apt when juxtaposing El Aura with Lucky Number Slevin. Slevin is clever, slick and over the top in violence. The movie was actually pretty good. I was expected it to blow, having my expectations lowered by the piece of crap known as Smokin’ Aces, but I enjoyed it.

Imagine Ocean’s series, with the schemes and counter schemes, with the violence of a typical Quentin Tarantino movie (not Kill Bill). Josh Hartnett was perfect. I haven’t seen anything with him, so I don’t know if this typical or not. Bruce Willis was solid. He’d better be careful or I might actually forgive him for contributing to the waste of celluloid known as Armageddon. Forget Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s. Slevin and Sin City and Unbreakable and Sixth Sense may cancel out that crime. Of course, Die Hard 4 comes out soon, so he might be back in the hole.

death of a president

2007-06-19T16:01:00.000-04:00

no, it's not a headline, it's the title to a recent movie. http://imdb.com/title/tt0853096/

released independently within the last 8 months, it explores a scenario in which president bush is shot. it was well made and came across as a legitimate documentary.

the mixing of filmed and archived material was quite extraordinary. the crew took a lot of time and care to create an alternate reality. the director spends a lot of time developing backgroud characters (secret service, presidental staff, activists, etc.) in order to provide plausible depth and texture for the new reality.

the assassination and the events surrounding it were surreal. when the president was shot, i actually gasped. the following days chronicle america's search for justice and the mistakes that were/can be made in rush to judgment. everyone thinks that a lee harvey oswald type cover up couldn't happen again. this movie makes you think again.

the movie makes you think a lot about the government and their role in the role in iraq. it also makes you think about how this country is made up of over 300 million individuals and how any one person's actions can affect other's throughout the country. it doesn't really make much of a political statement. it's not saying the bush 43 should be shot. it extrapolates current events, puts bush in the middle of them and introduces a violent element.

the movie is definitely worth seeing.

back in business

2007-06-14T11:41:00.000-04:00

So the last several weeks have been hectic. Work has been very busy. With several store openings in the next couple of weeks and another group on the way, there's been plenty to keep track of. Combine that with the spec book that I'm working on (the bane of my existence) and there's not any time for youtube and Arrested Development and checking soccer scores from the third division of Uzbekestan.

Outside of work, I have been kept busy coaching and playing soccer. The high school season is over, but I have TNT tryouts Friday and Saturday. I was expecting a nice window off, but we are going to a college showcase in late July, which means the girls have to practice, which means me being there to run sessions. As for playing, I'm playing in two leagues this summer--men's open and men's over 30. The men's open team is pretty good. We won again last night, putting us at 2-0. The league is pretty competitive. Our team seems to be quite good and it's been more fun that I thought. The over 30 team is off to fast start. We are winning on talent, not because we are playing particularly well. We have big games the next two weeks and then we go to Detroit for the Michigan Tournament of Champions.

What else? The bus rides are going well. Tuesday I was late for my connection, so I spent an extra 45 minutes in downtown Lansing. I'm getting so much more reading done.

Tuesday night we went bought a camping tent and some supplies. Not sure if we will get much use as our weekends are booked through July, but Larry loves it and has slept in the tent the last two nights.

That's it for now, and I plan to get into recent movies and shows I've seen this weekend or early next week.

update

2007-06-06T15:54:00.000-04:00

haven't had a chance to blog lately. due to soccer and work, i've been on the go for the last couple of weeks.

the high school team lost last saturday, so that season is over. tnt has tryouts next weekend, and after that i get a coaching break. more free time with the family and more of a chance to relax and jot some notes down.

one quick note, i've started riding the bus to work. bought a month long pass and we'll see how that goes. right now i walk about 10-15 minutes to the nearest stop and then catch a bus that takes me right to work. i'm really not saving that much in gas, but every little bit counts. larry loves riding the bus and we took it in to work yesterday.

that's it for now. i hope to meet my goal of at least one post a week as i move forward.

ta ta for now.

recent media intake

2007-05-18T15:10:00.000-04:00

Finished the fourth season of Soprano’s. A lot of the issues explored in the first couple of seasons bubbled to the surface and burst in an explosion of violence and emotion and confrontation. Tony Kornheiser talks every Monday about each episode of the last season, so I have some idea what’s on the horizon, but I’m ok with going through the seasons to get there.

What I’ve notice about Adrianna looks like one of the queens from the Alien movies. Those long, sharp nails and the forehead that fades into the angled helmet of hair. I keep waiting for another mouth to explode out of her head with another cigarette. It seems as if her beauty has faded each season as she sinks deeper and deeper into the mob life, coupled with a dependence on drugs, added to running her own business.

Last weekend I rented The Right Stuff, which I had never seen before. Pretty good. The beginning was especially powerful as Yeager kept pushing the speed envelope. The candidate process of the astronauts was especially telling as men vied to be the first American men in space. Of course, men like those are strong willed, daring, and combative, so to put them all in enclosed space was especially dramatic. The John Glenn character stepped forward and took control of the group. The competition with the Soviet program was compelling, but the longer movie went, the dynamics of the group and their wives became more and more melodramatic. I have no idea what the BBQ in Houston was about. The nearly naked ballerina covered only by giant feathers dancing about in a intentionally mislit arena was bizarre. All of the astronauts shared telling glances at one another, but I’m not sure if this surreal moment brought them together or what. The juxtaposition with Yeager’s attempt to set an altitude record was jarring to say the least. Possibly the director was comparing the spoils of celebrity against the brave renegade who continued to push on despite his anonymity. The final launch elevated the spirit, as the original group, with the right stuff, propelled America to the forefront of the space race. All in all, a movie that has held up after 25 years, providing a snapshot of a very complex, exciting and extraordinary time.

soccer update

2007-05-08T15:05:00.000-04:00

So not too much going on right now. In the middle of girls’ high school season, which has been a bit frustrating. The team is very young, so that requires a lot of patience from the coaching staff. And that is not our strength. We keep telling ourselves, next year, but it seems like we’ve been saying that for a couple of years now.

On the European soccer front, most of the leagues have been settled.

The Dutch title came down to the final day with three teams level on points. AZ had the advantage over Ajax and PSV due to goal differential. Unfortunately they lost and finished third. Meanwhile Ajax was up by a goal for the season and won 2-0, meaning they were three goals clear of PSV. PSV went up early, got pegged back and then exploded at the end to win 5-1, which gave them the title by one goal over Ajax. Amazing.

Wednesday was supposed to be the dramatic conclusion to the English season, but Chelsea faltered at the end, drawing the last two games, meaning that they were six points down to United with two to play. Theoretically, they would have had a chance except that United’s goal differential dwarfed that of the Blues. So the match is sort of anticlimactic and will just be a preview of the FA Cup.

That leaves the German title with Schalke, Stuttgart and Werder Bremen fighting it out. Werder is fading and after getting blown out of the UEFA Cup, the momentum seems to be with Stuttgart.

And then there’s La Liga. Saturday Barca played Sociedad in a top versus bottom clash. Barca has been playing poorly recently and a slip up would allow the pack to finally catch them and probably end Barca’s recent dominance. I got to watch the game live, and while Barca dominated for long stretches, they were unable to transfer their position into goals. A nifty moment from Iniesta gave them the edge and, at the end, Ronaldinho carved open the defense to release E’too to secure Barca’s points.

On Sunday Raul and Sevilla battled it out as #2 played #3. Real’s revival continued with a 3-2 win and lifted them to second, two points behind Barca. Real has the momentum and may yet win the title, which would cap off a crazy year in Spain.

That’s about it. Just waiting for the FA Cup Final, in which United will go for their fourth domestic double in thirteen years. Then there’s the Champions League final which sees Milan and Liverpool reprise the 2005 title. Milan is the better team. My desire is that they win in a classy fashion (like the second leg against United) and unmask Liverpool for the pretenders they are.

one less speeding ticket

2007-05-02T07:13:00.000-04:00

Recently the speed limit on 496 through Lansing was changed from 55 to 70 mph. About time. People are zipping around Lansing and then have come to almost a complete stop in the downtown area. And the cops were always out. Hiding behind the crest around MLK or sitting up on the on ramp. Ugh. But now those days are behind as the city has joined the 21st century and upped the limit.

Of course driving on 496, I still have a hard time going 70. I love to go fast and get places, but I feel like I’m doing something illegal by going anywhere near 60 and over. I’m like I can’t get another ticket. Wait, why is everybody flying by me. It’s 70 mph, let’s go. I’ve been conditioned to go slow and, even with permission, I’m still leery of pushing the limit. I’m sure that will pass and the more times I have to go across Lansing, my leadfoot instinct will kick in. Thank you to whatever governing authority made this happen.

thrilling conclusion

2007-04-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

The 06-07 season is winding down in European soccer with three dramatic races.

England: Manchester United and Chelsea are each going for the treble and, if they both reach the Champions League final, then they will play each 3 times in 15 days for domestic and continetnal honors. By the way, if you didn't see Man Utd/AC Milan, first leg, then youtube for extended resuls.

Spain: Barcelona and Sevilla are each going for the domestic double. With both sides each having one foot in the cup final, they will face off for that piece of hardware, while Barcelona tries to hold on for their third straight La Liga title. If you haven't seen Messi's goal versus Getafe in the Copa Del Rey, here you go:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zrao0ROwpAM

Holland: PSV has blown an 11 point lead and now trail AZ and Ajax on goal differential. This Sunday is the dramatic finale to the Dutch season.

Game on.

the wonderful world of podcasts

2007-04-23T15:00:00.000-04:00

Lately I’ve been subscribing to podcasts. With the high speed connection at work, I’m able to download them in minutes rather than hours.

One of first ones I checked out was the ESPN Soccernet podcast. Fantastic. Very English feel, which is fine, because while I may not a comprehensive European summary, I don’t have to deal with Stuart Scott wannabes. And that’s a good thing. Great banter and lots of opinion and information.

Another one I subscribed to was the UEFA.com vodcast. It’s OK. I was expected more goals, especially from the Champions League and UEFA Cup, but I’m sure due to the PPV service, I don’t really get them. It’s mostly interviews, cheesy human interest pieces filled with the usually clichés. So-so.

My favorite it the Tony Kornheiser show on Washington Post Radio. I used to listen to him when he was on ESPN. He left that show and went to satellite and I hadn’t heard him in years. Somehow his name came up and I was all over like white on rice. This is perfection. A dash of sports, a dash of politics, a dash of pop culture and heaping cups of complaining and neuroses. His production team is a great asset. They sit there and chime in and add to the show instead of staying in the background. Mister Tony’s current whipping boys are the schedulers of MNF, the cruise line business and the coming revolt of the animal kingdom. But his constant analysis and discussion of American Idol is tops. A breakdown of each singer, a prediction of who’s in and who’s out and changing guesses of who will eventually win. It makes the five minutes of Idol I watch before House that much better.

deal me in

2007-04-19T08:19:00.000-04:00

So I got asked to a poker game by one of my bosses at work. After scrounging up some money, I made it. Now as you may or may not know, walking into unknown situations, with a superior, and not knowing anyone except the aforementioned superior is not at the top of my list things to do in general. I like control, I like the ins and outs, I like the “what typically happens”. Like playing poker with people at church. Dan will bet outrageous amounts, cripple me or put me out; Tom will play solid and will be hard to knock out; and Heather almost always wins. But how am I going to get better if I don’t play against new people?

Anyway, I show up in what can only be described as a man palace. Two cars for one person; one an Intrepid, Impala type, probably for business and the other one an Audi something or other, for kicks and giggles. You walk in from the garage and there’s practically a bar on the kitchen counters. Good enough. Looking into the family room, your eyes are drawn to a gigantic, flatscreen TV, complete with gaming system and sound system. Looking around, there are guitars hung on several walls in the house. Glancing into the bathroom, you are welcomed by a huge Rolling Stone cover of Christina Aguliera covered only by a guitar.

The house was remarkably clean for a bachelor. Maybe it was because people were coming over, but you combine that with the décor, each room with a separate color palette and theme, and you begin to wonder what other forces were at work. But I digress. I was there to play cards.

Armed with a Big Blue and a complementary cigar, I started playing. Played pretty conservatively, as is my nature. Made my money back the first time around. Feeling Ok. The second time, I’m doing well, and am in the money again. Get a K-J, with a flop of A-x-10. I’m raised and call. The turn is a Queen. This time I bet and am called. The river is another 10 and I’m put all in. I call and turn over the straight, feeling pretty confident. My boss, MY BOSS, turns over an A-10 to make the full house. I was absolutely gutted.

I just went into the bathroom and discussed my unfortunate situation with Christina. No real resolution. I sat back down at the table and passed on the next tournament. I just couldn’t concentrate. After sitting through another round, I joined back in. My host made me a G & T, with a lot of emphasis on the G, and brought my night to a screeching halt. Made my money back and called it a night.

All in all, an enjoyable evening. Decent cards, good beer, and tons of conversation about music. We listened to the grunge/alternative 90’s station on XM, and shared memories and thoughts about music from the recent past. Saw my first NHL hockey shootout. That was kinda cool.

Went back last Thursday and got crushed. After the success of the first evening, the follow up was devastating. Now that I’m into soccer season, I probably won’t be able to get back for a while. We’ll see.

recent media intake

2007-04-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

Soprano’s update. I have completed season 3. The end of the season was great because it tied Tony’s new mistress to his mother and all of the psychological baggage that is attached with that. And then Jackie Jr.’s flameout framed against the troubles of Anthony Jr. Where the show goes from there I don’t know. I am interested to see if Carmella sticks around. I could see her trying to leave, then making Tony choose between the mob (killing her) and his wife (leaving the mob, which would be next to impossible).

In addition to the Soprano’s, I saw two movies that I had heard a lot about: Casino Royale and The Prestige.

Spoiler Alert

The first half to two-thirds of Casino Royale was typical Bond, even great Bond because of the darker, more calloused nature of the character. The blatant screwing with M was particularly revealing. And how he left the wife of the Greek arms dealer was fantastic. Has that ever been done in a Bond film? Anyway, the movie is cruising along to the confrontation at the Casino and everything is fine. The poker goes somewhat as expected. I didn’t see Bond busting out, but I should have. Then he wins the money, gets tortured, but still ends up with the money. And then the finely tuned Ferrari of a movie comes to a screeching halt in the immovable brick wall of a love story. From there, not so much. I’m still trying to figure out why he has to save the girl. He was betrayed and didn’t know of the altruistic nature of Vesper’s motives until the debriefing. He should have shot her for her double-cross, taken the money and then that’s that.

So to conclude, either put the love story at the end or the beginning, because honesty that movie should have ended when they were galavanting wherever they were galavanting. To rachet up the intensity of the movie and have the woman die was cool yet too much. I was mentally checked out because he had the money and the girl and then had to keep watching to see a twisted but unsatisfying ending.

No spoiler

As for The Prestige, great movie about an obsession and what people will do to reach it. Great performances for Bale and Jackman, and Bowie added a nice element. He seems to do well in his parts. Warhol, Pilate and Telsa. I have seen Dark Crystal, so I can’t speak to that. Anyway, I figured out the movie about halfway through, but continued to doubt myself right up to the end. Usually my solutions are way off, so I thought this would another case of that. Turns out I was right and the ending was still worth it.

But may I say that the characters in this movie were way too clean? We’re talking turn of the century here and to think that these struggling magicians were walking around as finely dressed and well maintained dandies seems a little far fetched. Daily use of shower and deodorant probably wasn’t even an option much less a desire. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

continuing super bowl memories

2007-04-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

In 1998, I didn’t watch a single minute of the Super Bowl. I met up with some friends in Mt. Pleasant, and just talked and hung out all evening. We ended up at some diner and had something to eat I believe. It started to snow, so we headed home. As luck would have it, I missed a fantastic game. That’s my M.O. Dedicate myself to a team or event and turns out to be a blowout. Don’t care and I miss one of the classic sporting events of year. For example, UM football. When I moved to Michigan in 1986, I started rooting for the Wolverines. Don’t know why, just did. I follow them and got into it with Spartan and Buckeye fans; every Saturday afternoon of the season was a big event; saw Desmond Howard do his thing; watched the heartbreaker against Colorado. You know the drill.

Until I finally stopped letting sports control my life. I let UM football go. It’s just a game I told myself. If they win fine, if not, fine. That was right before the 1997 season. And what did they do? Win the national championship for the first time in over a generation, led by a Heisman trophy winner who played DEFENSE!! Ugh. Can’t win for losing.

The following year I ended up at the Macomb Christian Church Super Bowl party. My brother was the youth minister at the time, and I can only guess that I was bored or something was going on for me to end up there. Hanging out with a bunch of high schoolers was not and is not my idea of a good time, but things happen.

The only thing I really remember about the game was that Atlanta went for two at the end of the game when it really didn’t matter. Atlanta’s failure on the conversion somehow upset the bookies, and it seems like there was some conspiracy theory involving Dan Reeves and the gambling establishment. Whatever.

For the 2000 Super Bowl, I was in Taiwan to visit Erin for a couple of weeks while she was serving as a nanny for missionary family. Because of the time difference, the game came on at 5:30 in the MORNING. I had just arrived and the jet lag was kicking my arse, but I was wide awake at the time. So we went to one of the missionary couple’s apartments and watched a thrilling game. Imagine being one yard, only three feet, away from your goal. How devastating.

I just remember watching the game and listening to simultaneous Chinese and English commentaries. You’d hear Al Michaels being over run by the Chinese equivalent of John Madden. Weird. Most of the missionaries were from St. Louis, so they were pleased with the result. The most important thing is that I got to see Erin.

WC 2006 thoughts: Portugal and Brazil

2007-04-03T12:37:00.000-04:00

I know it has been over six months since Italy lifted the trophy, but I keep coming across notes that I wrote down or thoughts that I've had, and I can't help feeling that the tournament could have been better, could have been different. Especially for these two teams.

Portugal
There were times when the Portugese were playing with NO forwards. What? A 4-6. Nice plan. Really paid off. Pauleta blows in my opinion, but I learned something about him. He is Portugal’s leading scorer. I was shocked. He must score 6 goals every time they Andorra and Uzbekastan or whatever minnow they play in qualifying because he disappers in major competitions. So much so that I am convinced that he didn’t even touch the ball in 62 minutes against England. Where was Nuno Gomes? And Portugal? Thanks for showing up for the third place game.

Brazil
Jaded. Emerson was non-existent. Ronny was exhausted. Roberto Carlos, please go home. Nice defending against France. Kaka was trying to do everything himself. It seems as if the Brazil coaches shackle their team and then hope that somehow they will sneak through.

cello @ church

2007-03-31T18:04:00.000-04:00

Recently I’ve started playing my cello at church. Figured I might as well do something with it. Larry and I had been fooling around with it from time to time, and I decided to do something a little more concrete. Introduce Larry to music, use a portion of my gift in the service and pay some dividends on the time and money my parents put into my musical education.

I was surprised at how much I remembered. I hadn’t played since Madrigals I think, which was over ten years ago. Putting the music together is like a puzzle, because I just have notes, actually letters, to play and have to watch what Ryan is doing, as opposed to playing notes off of sheet music. I still need to work on my “ear”, but that’s why I have a tuner. I won’t be joining the Lansing Symphony Orchestra anytime soon, but I am contributing to the church in a more meaningful way.

shine like it does

2007-03-25T17:00:00.000-04:00

Last time at the library, I picked up the INXS anthology, “shine like it does.” Can’t tell you the last time I had listened to INXS, but almost every track was like a familiar, comfortable, long lost t-shirt. The One Thing, Black and White, This Time, What You Need, Listen Like Thieves, Devil Inside, New Sensation, Suicide Blonde, Taste It, Elegantly Wasted. I had forgotten how great their music was and how much it was a part of my youth. It all started with Kick. Man I was in middle school when that come out. On an orchestra trip I picked up Shabooh Shoobah, which I think was the album before Kick. (No, it was Listen Like Thieves). Then there was X and Welcome to Wherever You Are. Funky, fun pop songs. What could be better? Little sax, little sex, oozing coolness.

I can vaguely remember hearing that Michael Hutchence had committed suicide. What are you going to do? INXS by that time were “over”, so it’s not like he went out in the prime of their career, like Cobain or that guy from Blind Melon. But how cool was that guy? Hot pants, an open shirt and long, curly hair? He pulled it off with style. During the hype of Kick, there was no one who could touch him.
I admit that I did watch the INXS reality show, where they did an American Idol type search for the next lead singer of INXS. I’ve already forgotten who won. I saw the album at the library and passed. Maybe it’s the greatest album ever but I doubt it. Who am I to stop people from making music? But I’ll just hold on to the memory of who they were and the music they made then.

Recent media intake

2007-03-22T07:08:00.000-04:00

I’ve been watching an unbelievable show lately. Gripping drama, lots of sexual tension, tons of dysfunction, plenty of interdepartment politics and of course, the display of an extraordinary gift by a loner trying to keep the masses at a distance through sarcasm and a veneer of superiority.

Think I’m describing House. I’m not. I’m referring to the show Cracker. Came out in the early 90’s in the UK and starred Robbie Coltrane. Was in the occasional Bond movies of Pierce Brosnan. The similarities are striking. House is hopped up on vicodin while Fitz constantly drinks and gambles. Both say the most inappropriate things while maintaining their aura of infallibility.

The stories are amazing. Fitz deals with crimes of violence and emotion. Example, young guy with a speech impediment acts out to impress a manipulative girlfriend. Robert Carlyle is involved in a story arc as a frustrated blue collar worker, who finally snaps when his father dies. A critical element to the story was the Hillsborough disaster, which, because it changed English soccer stadiums and the culture of fans, was very interesting to me.

Both House and Fitz are masters of breaking people down, of getting to the core of people’s dysfunction, which makes for fascinating confrontations. Yet their own lives are in such disarray, are filled with such misery, that the gift becomes a curse in some ways. And people stay in their lives despite everything, trying to bring them towards humanity instead of them spiraling dangerously away.

Fantastic show. I guess they tried it America, but trying to translate dreary Manchester into sunny L.A. was always going to come up a little short. So find Cracker and watch it.

Of course I will have a lot more free time to watch Cracker because I’m going to get fired. Why? Poor job performance. Maybe. Inability to master the intricacies of the job. Very likely. But the main reason I will get fired will be the fact that I can watch Arrested Development any time I want on msn.com. How can they, whoever “they” are, make it that easy to access a hilarious show? Twenty minute escapes are only clicks away and twenty minutes becomes three hours, which become all day and I realize that the only thing I’ve done all day at work is turn on my computer. Dozens of e-mails and voicemails and missed deadlines and stacks of documents surround me but I’ve been too busy getting “Bluth’ed.” Sad really.

super bowl memories

2007-03-11T16:45:00.000-04:00

That brings us to 1997. Midway through the fall semester of 1996, I decided to drop out of school. So December rolled around, I failed my finals, packed up everything in the Grand Prix and drove to Alabama. I conveniently arrived when my parents were at work, moved everything back (read: hid) into my room and then waited with a sense of anticipation and dread. January 1 came and then the 2nd and 3rd and I was making no effort to get ready for school.

Finally my parents and I had “the talk.” The full details of this will be revealed a later time, but basically I was a college drop out, living with my parents. So after a couple of weeks of doing nothing and having it everything I had hoped it could be, I got back in the Grand Prix and drove to Michigan. Visited my brother and sister at GLCC, interviewed for the vacant soccer job there and then went over to K-zoo to visit people. Ended up at K College at Erik’s house, hanging out at the house while he and the roommates went to class. Finally the college experience I had always dreamed of. Each evening we’d have a couple of adult beverages and then wake up to do it again. The week culminated in a big party at someone’s house. There was a lot of drinking and smoking and general frivolity. I really have no idea how much I drank that night. I have pieced together that it involved Goldschlager, Jell-O shots and beer. I have heard that I talked to many people and was the general life of the party, but that I ended up in one the home’s inhabitants passed out. Passed out until I sat up and projectile vomited all over her room. I woke up in unknown surroundings, not smelling very good and having a throbbing headache.

I stumbled out into the living room to get my bearings. Turns out I had it lucky. One of the party goes ended up going to the hospital and having his stomach pumped because of alcohol poisoning. After trying to get my self together, I was informed that my clothes were in the washer. I really wanted to get back to Erik’s, so I made the best of a bad situation. Squeezing into the girls jeans, yes I am/was/will be that skinny, I threw a jacket and shoes on, walked out into snow covered Kzoo and struggled back to Erik’s house.

Waking up later that afternoon, I wandered out into the front room to check in, where I was caught up on the night’s events, which were shocking and appalling. Someone flipped on the TV and we realized that it was Super Bowl Sunday. The events of the previous couple of days had blocked out the buildup to the greatest day of the year, so say some. Basically we were in and out of the game, trying to sleep and recover rather than breaking out the face paint and foam fingers. To top it off, a friend of the house comes over with a couple of six packs ready to party. He was not met with a favorable response. He left soon there after.

So that’s my story. Who won the game anyway?

choose your words carefully

2007-03-07T17:04:00.000-05:00

tact /tækt/

1. a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations.

2. a keen sense of what is appropriate, tasteful, or aesthetically pleasing; taste; discrimination.

3. touch or the sense of touch.

So I’m working at LISA Sunday night, manning the concession stand and the front window. It was the first week of the session, so things were busy. Lots paperwork to get filled out and collected; lots of money to account for; lots of new people running around getting familiar with facility.

I see someone at the concession window, so I walk over.

“What can I get for you?”
“A Propel.”
“There you go. That will be $1.50.”
“What? Are you kidding me? You guys are raping me. Raping me.”

Now what I think of the pricing policy is of little concern. Management can change whatever they want. I work one night a week to cover my player fees. So I’m not going to argue either way.

What I will argue about is the person’s choice of words. Rape? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? Here you are, watching your daughter play soccer, with dozens of other kids playing or running around and you raise your voice and use a word like rape? Have some decency man. Disagree with the policy all you want. Complain about it. That’s fine, but couldn’t you use a little tact and choose a better word to voice your displeasure? Seriously.

FC Barcelona crest

2007-03-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

I found this description of the FC Barcelona crest on the internet. How great is that?

Erin redid a poker table in Barcelona colors. It's sweet. Burgandy and blue stripes with navy blue pockets. It looks just like one of my jerseys

Anyway, here's that for any soccer geeks out there in cyberspace.

the oscars/the departed

2007-02-28T14:44:00.000-05:00

Getting home late Sunday night from the arena, I walked into the major awards for the Oscars. Usually I don't care what they (the academy) say and usually don't even see the movies anyway. I think this stems from Unforgiven being named best film in the early 90's. Ugh.

Anyway, Forest Whitaker wins best actor. That’s cool. Been around forever. Been in several decent movies. Kudos. His speech was pretty intense. It was inspiring yet made me what the actor's role, pardon me, is the big picture of thing. To reveal the present in all of us? Seems a touch pretentious.

Next award was best director, which was won by Scorsese. Fine. I had seen headlines saying he was past due, and how could one of the greatest directors of all time have never won an Oscar. Well I’ll tell you why. 1, people are idiots. 2, look at the movies he has made. Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino to name a few. Dark, violent, disturbing films that don’t have the feel good quotient of say, Forrest Gump. 3, the tension is unbearable which breeds more tension, which entices viewers and more media coverage, which adds to the tension of the will he, won’t he, etc. So he won. Great. Now Scorsese and Manning have the monkeys off their backs. We can move on, right?

Best film was The Departed. Saw it last night.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
When the trailer came out, I thought with all those big time actors, either it was going to be the worst movie of all time or the worst. It was good but for me it hit a wall about 2/3 of the way through. The romantic element was too much. The shrink is banging both of them, ends up getting pregnant (who’s baby was it really?) and then she ends up getting a mysterious package that is unresolved. By the way, for a shrink, she could use one for her self-esteem or lack thereof. Yeck.

The duality of the characters was quite gripping. Little Donnie Brasco mixed with the need for a father figure, shaken with police corruption, with a hint of Dudley Do Right, served in a glass of Boston organized crime, topped off a super sized macho cherry.

Anyway, the ending was Tarantino-esque (think Reservoir Dogs) it seemed, which is mildly humorous b/c Tarantino rips off Scorsese. Wahlberg ends up with everything, which is cool because his character was such a prick that just maybe he thought he could pull it off. Lots of unresolved story threads, which is fine, but it just ended and left many issues to speculation instead of having a cleverly resolved twist that brought things to a close. I don’t know. I’d have to see it again and think things through. The cinematography was phenomenal.

So it probably was the best movies of the year based on the actor’s performances and the directing, if not the complete story.

By the way, the show was over 4 hours long. Is that absolutely necessary?

super bowl memories continued

2007-02-27T15:49:00.000-05:00

By the time Cowboys/Bills II rolled around, I was in college. I watched it with Eric and Anita. It seemed like a boring game. I was doing something else, with the game in the background. The Cowboys broke the game open in the second half and that was that.

The next year I watched at the Village Green Apartments, where a bunch of students had an apartment off campus. Again the game was uneventful in my opinion, except that it got the proverbial monkey of Steve Young’s back.

For the Cowboys and Steelers, I was in Stillwater. A group of us went out to eat before the game and I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the restaurant. It was this place across the street from the Tumbleweed. We got back to Josh’s and he locked his keys in his car, so we couldn’t get into his apartment. The sun roof was open so I tried to reach/squeeze through. No dice. Josh said screw it, pried it open and got the keys. Of course the next time it rained, his car leaked. Anyway, a guy in the group was a big Steeler fan, so he wasn’t very happy that Neil O’Donnell almost won MVP for the Cowboys.

Super Bowl memories

2007-02-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

The latest super bowl got me searching the memory banks about what I’ve actually done during this momentous event. I expected to stroll down memory lane and scan the same memory, but I was actually surprise at the wide spectrum of places and people I’ve watched the game with. It also provides interesting markers in my life. All in all, a revealing exercise.

Through high school, there was usually some sort of church sponsored Super Bowl party, with other activities being the focus. The earliest I can remember is the ’86 game, Patriots vs. Bears. I was at church and was running back and forth between the game and the official activity. When it was obvious it was a blow out, I stopped running and checked in occasionally. I happened to be in front of the TV when the Fridge scored. That was wild.

Another game I can remember is game of the Ickey Shuffle. I’m pretty sure that was the year a guy broke his leg horribly early in the game. That freaked me out. Anyway, I was doing other things and fortunately came back to the game as Montana led the game winning drive.

I grew up a big Cowboys fan, so when they finally returned to the Super Bowl, I was very excited. Then the game turned out to be a debacle. Quit watching early in the second half and missed Leon Lett’s moment of infamy.

music update

2007-02-15T08:58:00.000-05:00

In the last couple of months, thanks to Limewire, the internet and the library, my music collection has experienced enormous growth. Forget about filling my iPod mini, I can now fill 2 of them.

Every time I go to the library, I check the CD’s and usually pick up a couple, take them home, find a couple of good tracks, load them onto iTunes and return the discs back to the library. So far I’ve discovered the Soundtrack of our Lives, the Groove Armada, and Paul Oakenfold, as well as adding to my Chemical Brothers, Beck and Black Crowes collections. Plus I picked up a Stevie Ray Vaughn double live album, which was sweet.

As I listen to Pandora, I pick up a couple of bands or songs that I like. Then I go to Limewire and see if I can download them. Found several Killers’ tracks and this band called Under the Influence of Giants. Their single In the Clouds is fantastic. Also, got several more tracks from Electric Six to go with the High Voltage single that was on the Impact a couple of years ago.

I’ve also found a website for Detroit rock. It has all the songs from Goober and the Peas available for free. I grabbed a couple that I thought I remembered and WOW! That’s what I’m talking about.

I’m also trying to recover the music of my troubled years. Anything from like 92 to 96. The original Foo Fighters album, Republica, Screaming Trees, early Garbage, the Posies’ album Frosting on the Beater, and anything else I can think of. This music along with Oasis’ and Sloan’s first two albums are the soundtrack of a very formative part of my life. Most of it is on cassette and I can never find a cassette player that works, so it’s like there’s a hole in my musical landscape. Every time I hear a song I can remember a time or a place or person or a memory. Some good, some bad, but it takes me back to a place that I can probably never go to again. As I confront full-fledged adult hood, I long to return to a time that resonates with my very selfish nature, which I have to control these days.

Anyway, before I go off on a therapy moment, while music may be dead, there are a couple of decent bands and songs out there in cyber space. I just have to keep looking for them as I search through the piles of crap.

a letter of appreciation

2007-02-12T16:49:00.000-05:00

I’ve always loved my wife, but now I’m realizing how much I appreciate her. It hit me when I was sitting in front of the computer while she was cooking meals for me for a week. She’s going to Ohio for a couple of days to do a Mary Kay event and visit my sister, so I’ll be a bachelor for several days. I’m ok with that. But there she is making sure that I won't starve or be left to my own devices, which means I probably would starve. Then I started thinking about everything else she does for me and our family, and it is amazing.

When we bought our house, she decorated it. Not only did she come up with the concepts, but she did the work. Painting, sanding, applying the coating on the hardwood floors, ripping up the basement. She’s the one who puts up the plastic on the windows to save us a couple of bucks on our heating bill. She’s the one who fixes the faucets when Larry rips them apart.

She’s the one who takes of Larry, which is a full time exhausting job. He is in constant motion and wants things done his way. His endless curiosity needs continuous attention. He enjoys playing with his parents and since Erin is home most of the time that means she is the playmate. Larry wears me out in short busts, and how she does it all day is beyond me.

She is a supportive, loving, nurturing wife. She supported me through my time of depression going to therapy and talking things out, helping to improve our relationship. She stood by me when I wanted out of Beaner's management and took a lower paying job that made me a little happier. She handles all the money, figures out the budget, and decides what bills gets paid and what bills wait. She deals with all that pressure and I just hold my hand out and say where’s mine?

And I never tell her thanks. I just take from her giving heart without ever acknowledging how much she does and how much she means. Well I just want to say thanks and I love you.

dcc retreat 07

2007-02-07T12:51:00.000-05:00

this time last year i was venting about all the problems i perceived in the church. i tried to articulate my thoughts and possibly create a dialogue heading into that weekend. we came out of the retreat with the possiblity of three branches and the need to be focused while branching. for a while after, i thought about the long term vision of the church and what we should to, blah, blah, blah. basically i had all this anger and tension and angst last year, and i have none of that this year.

our branch is going along. we are focusing right now on a) improving our teaching time through being very purposeful about topics and scheduling; and b) improving fellowship amongst the members. our branch had a pretty stressful late fall/early winter. the berry's baby, my job saga, kissling's to austria. attendance was up and down and that affected the dynamics of the branch. but now it seems that we are back and can move forward.

i can't speak for the other branches. i know there has been a reshuffle with the nugents but that's about all i know. the super bowl party was fun. the gang watching the game had a good time as far as i could tell.

so this year, i'm just going to see what's happening in the other branches. also, to what people are thinking about and what we want to do moving forward. just going to to enjoy some time away, some fellowship and some worship.

Super Bowl Recap

2007-02-05T20:47:00.000-05:00

Usually I don't intently watch the Super Bowl. I paid attention during the Cowboys' run in the early 90's but since then I could take it or leave it. As for the commercials, whatever.

Last night I watched nearly the whole game from start to finish. Why? Don't know. Just did. Didn't really care about the the two teams. Just hanging out with friends watching the game. While the execution of the game was sloppy due to the conditions, it did liven things up because you never knew what was going to happen.

Couple of things I noticed. Phil Simms was terrible. I think he was more nervous than some of the players. This guy was a Super Bowl MVP? Yikes!

Prince. What in the world? He has written hundreds of songs for himself and other artists and he plays two of his own songs and a cover medley? Purple Rain. The Batman soundtrack. His stuff with the New Power Generation. All the songs he made as the symbol. And he plays two minutes of Proud Mary, Bob Dylan and the Foo Fighters? Highly disappointing.

And the commercials. Ugh. I felt stupid. Not a new feeling, mind you, but I felt as if I was missing something. Like I didn't get the joke. Or I wasn't clever enough to "get it". Salesgenie.com? What is that? And that stupid Coke commercial where the bottle goes through some psychedelic trip through the vending machine? By the way, where do you get Coke in a glass bottle? By far the worst commercial was the Revlon/Sheryl Crow/Behind the Music voice guy. Painful. Can her hair care product handle the rigors of a tour? Who cares? And I don't give a flyin front door about the stylist either. Dumb idea horribly executed.

All the hype about the commercials. Over $2 million dollars for 30 seconds and that was the best you could do? I'm bitching and complaining and someone asks me--Could you do better? No, but I'm not going to make something and spend that kind of cash to get it on TV.

All in all, it was a fun evening. An intriguing game that Indy patiently ground out; lots of mocking--players, commentators and ads; and a great spread--wings, chili, chips and dip, and best of all, EL Fudge.

another bad beat

2007-01-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

I have another hand to add the my personal bad beat list. And this one hit a little too close to home.

So we had people over and we were playing for a while. It eventually got down to me and Erin. First hand of heads up I'm dealt a ten and six of diamonds. The flop came up three diamonds. I made a medium raise and Erin's calls "all in". I immediately called thinking I have the chip lead, I can win this in one hand, how great is that? And then we turned our cards over. I'm like, I've got the flush what do you have? She flipped over a jack and nine of diamonds. Ouch!!

How can we both have had flushes? What are the odds of that? So I went from winning in one hand to having her clean my clock. I was just in shock. Can't really be pissed at her. Can't really dwell on that because that's poker. Plus she's my wife, and we were playing for free. I was like I just have to concentrate on the rest of the game.

Of course after that, our guests decided to leave. Didn't really want to stay and watch us slug it out. Can't blame them. Erin and I plan to finish sometime and hopefully I can recover and win my chips back. Could just let it go and call it even. But if we're playing for "fun" why are we keeping score?

sloan, soccer and drinking

2007-01-25T12:34:00.000-05:00

Retro boys night out was the theme of last weekend. Sloan, soccer and drinking. Stuff Erik and I did back in the "good ole days."

A quick drive to Erik’s house in Troy, where he updated me on his latest music purchases. He’s killing me in the iTunes race. Got some Killers, Echobelly, and other assorted treats. We watched the first half of the United States and Denmark game and then went downtown to grab something to eat before the concert.

Boy has Detroit changed. New construction, lit streets and walkways, a sense of security while walking around, lots going on. We went to Hard Rock first but it was totally full, so we drove around and found a bar next to the venue. That was really busy as well, but we managed to get upstairs after a big group had left. Our waitress is obviously frazzled from serving a church group of about 30-40. Something told me she was chemically coping with the situation. No matter. However, when she served our food, she spilled part of Erik’s food on me. The damage wasn’t that bad, but still not cool. She apologized and came back with shots for us. Raspberry Stoli and energy drink. Pretty tasty. And then she came back a little later with another round. And then right before we left, she returned with round 3. Needless to say, we were feeling right for the show.

My last Sloan experience had sucked. It was at the Arts, Beats and Eats festival in Pontiac. The sound system absolutely sucked and we couldn’t hear a thing. Very disappointing. This show at St. Andrew’s Hall made up for it. Hadn’t been there in years. What a great venue: compact, great sound, easy in, easy out.

They played a lot of the new album, which I had never heard before. I’ve been listening to it since I got home and several tracks are awesome. They didn’t play anything from Action Pact, which was disappointing, but they did do Pen Pals, a song I haven’t heard live in forever. Patrick was in rare form and totally changed the dynamic of the band. Usually he looks pissed off and can’t wait to hit the exit. But that night he was engaging the crowd, showing a lot of emotion and playing his heart out.

Sloan and their music is part of the fabric of my life. Some of the first concerts I went to were Sloan, when we had to cross the border to see them in Windsor. I’ve seen them probably 7 or 8 times, and every since Smeared, I have looked forward to each album. There are so many great songs, and while Twice Removed was my favorite album from start to finish, it has been replaced Action Pact.

The music of Sloan is part of my relationship with Erin as well. When were dating we saw them at MSU’s Erikson Kiva, and then she took Twice Removed and Between the Bridges to Taiwan while we apart from each other.

What a great band. Rockin out for over 15 years. Who knows how long they will put out albums and go on tour? But if they do either, I will be all over it.

SLOOO-OOAN!!

Got up the next morning and watched the second half of Inter and Fiorentina. Back teams were lackluster. Lots of long ball and not much possession or build up. Inter is having a great season in Serie A, but no one cares because Juventus is in Serie B, and Lazio and especially AC Milan were weakened, all resulting from the match fixing scandal. So Inter may go unbeaten and win their first scudetto in almost 20 years, and it will be a hollow victory because their main competition are recovering from penalties. Inter’s only hope to gain respect for their amazing year is to win the Champions League.

The next match was Man U and Arsenal. Wow. No holding back there. Pulsating game with technique on show all over the pitch. Rooney’s turn on Eboue was sick. Evra had a great game, but unfortunately he didn’t do enough to stop the second Arsenal goal. Lehmann had a fantastic effort and his saves at the end of the first half kept Arsenal in the match. Henry’s winner was deserved. A draw would have been a fair result, but the Gunners kept on coming and United could never find the next gear after being pegged back at 1-1. The run-in should be nail-biting. Can United keep their great run going when Champions League action starts again? Can Liverpool hang around and make something happen? Can Arsenal make up the ground or will they drop out of the league race and go for European glory like last year? And will Chelsea recover or implode, causing the special one to leave in shame? Cannot wait.

continuing world cup thoughts

2007-01-23T10:09:00.000-05:00

England

I hate Sven. What an asshole. Now to be fair, he got England to the last eight of two World Cups. But how did he do it? The hardest way possible and with a lot of luck. Denmark didn’t bother to show up in the round of 16 match in 2002 and Ecuador was a little inexperienced and a little unlucky to punish a poor England team. He went to Germany with no proven, healthy forwards. Are you kidding me? Rooney was in some oxygen tank trying to get fit. Owen was coming off injury. Crouch was a freak show. Walcott was 17 and hadn’t even played a Premiership match. What a retard. Just leave proven, experienced players at home and don’t even play Walcott. Nice gamble. Hargreaves was England’s best player. Joe Cole wasn’t horrible. Becks was done. Yes he can still hit a dead ball but that’s about it. Then the penalty shot nightmare. Are you kidding me? Bring in Carragher for 2 minutes and then he can’t even wait for the whistle before taking his kick.

One of the greatest generations of English players wasted.

letting go

2007-01-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

Now usually I don't get attached to cars. I mean I've always been told a bad ride beats a good walk. Plus my first car was the family grocery getter. After that it really could only go up. Got the Sundance when I went OSU. Promptly had a near death experience and wrecked it. Stepped up to the grand Prix and for almost ten years that car saw me through good times and bad times. And now it's gone.

I didn't give it a name. It wasn't a he or a she. It was just the Grand Prix and it was a mode of transportation. Over 225,ooo miles. Can you believe that? The car could have died several times but didn't.

I first got it back when I went back to OSU for my ill fated third semester. That car got me to and from plenty of "events". Then I decided to drop out of school, so I packed everything up and drove back to Alabama to face the rest of my life. The rest of my life took me to a construction job, to Florida several times with the Amy's, to points near and far, and finally back to Michigan.

There it became my transportation to a series of jobs that finally reached some sort of stability with Beaner's. Who could forget all those pizza runs and trips to Okemos to the soccer store? And the car got me to more than a few soccer venues around mid-Michigan.

Then I got married and it became a family car. First for just Erin and I. Can't forget our wedding anniversary when some a-hole backed over the hood, went into his apartment and hoped we wouldn't notice. Or Erin getting t-boned at an intersection by a lady who wasn't paying attention. Yet with the help of terry, it took a licking but kept on ticking. Not a sight to behold, but it got us from point a to point b.

And that brings us to the end. Terry took the car and is going to try to sell (don't ask me how) or junk it. I've now upgraded to a luxurious Park Avenue. Wow. It's got a couple of quirks but I hope it lasts a couple of years. Maybe by then we can afford a reasonably priced "certified previously owned" car. It can't possibly last like the grand Prix; but it doesn't have to. Just has to get me to where I'm going for a little while.

new job

2007-01-14T14:51:00.000-05:00

So everyone has been asking how the new job is going. After two weeks I can say that it’s going pretty well. I was pretty overwhelmed at first. Lot of organization to be done and a lot of information to absorb. I’ve been trying to keep in perspective and do a little every day. Every time I get started on a project, I get another added to it, so that’s frustrating, but in time I’ll have things under control, so it won’t be that bad.

What do I do? When franchisees sign a lease, I help them get their blueprints and a builder. I also help them along as they get their equipment. As they get closer to their opening date, I help schedule deliveries of equipment and products, as well as training and anything else they might need. I move them along in the process so that their store opening is as smooth as possible.

The corporate atmosphere is different. I am low man on the totem pole and have to ask a lot of questions. Everyone is working in their own department but they are friendly, which is cool. Having the training center down the hall is nice. Helps me get through my caramel withdrawal. I’m back on caffeine, which is a little scary. Hasn’t affected my sleep that much yet. Did have a crushing headache, but I don’t know if that was from the caffeine overload or something else.

I wanted a change, and I got it. When I leave work, I’m done. No 1am phone calls about alarms; no calls in the middle of the afternoon saying that so and so didn’t show up; no staying up all night making a list of what to do the next day. Plus I get weekends off. Really I get Saturday off. Sundays I have church in the morning and I’m working at LISA at night to help pay for my soccer leagues. But I get a whole day off. It’s fantastic. I got to watch both NFL playoff games last week, and I’m going to see Sloan next Saturday at St. Andrews.

All in all, moving forward.

bring on beckham

2007-01-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

yes i know david is coming to america. still amazed at how his talks with real broke down in like 72 hours.

why is he coming here? i'll let john brewin from soccernet.com explain:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=399472&root=europe&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1&cc=5901

so how is this for becks? becks has something that will defy age--ball striking ability. no one in the US has ever seen anything like this. sure joe midfielder might score a great free kick or switch the point of attack, but can he do it consistently and with pinpoint accuracy? i doubt it. becks can. it's amazing. yes, becks is "slow", but that can be compensated for. when i watch mls, you can easily counteract the speed of the 19-23 kids with a footballing brain. possess, see the field, pick your moments. (not run at 100 mph and hack everything in your path). becks can do all of that. LA needs a team of solid defenders, a combative defensive mid to carry becks water, and two hard working outside mids. forwards? can you stand in front of the goal and let the ball bounce of you? yes. then you can play. becks is then free a la zidane to just do whatever. think valderamma with tampa bay. not the fastest guy ever yet he was effective because he was technically gifted and footballing smart.

what does this mean for US soccer. it's a decent pick up. he will put fannies in the seats, temporarily, until the novelty wears off. that's fine. is becks going to anchor the future of US soccer? i hope not. no one player can do that. this is the first salvo fired by the mls. yes, you-- 30 something decent european based player--can play here in the US. $250M is a ridiculous number to start at. when the next fading european superstar asks where's my money, i'm not sure what the answer is going to be. if the mls continues in this fashion, they will go the way of the NASL. so we'll pay you an outrageous amount of money if you can play and sell tickets. the second part is key. we'll give you money if you can make money. if you can't, you'll have to wait until you're past 35 or not get the major cheese. simple equation. you dig? the mls has to continue this strategy. i just don't know where they're going to the money.

so circle LA at Chicago. i'll probably go. finally get to see him in the flesh. i won't explain how i missed seeing him before. maybe another time.

Beaner's Party

2007-01-09T19:00:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago we had a BEANER'S reunion party. A chance for some of the baristas to get together and hang out. Claddaugh's Irish Pub was the location and it was a pretty good time. Our server was a little suspect. No, not a little, a lot. Either it was her first day or she wasn't used to large groups of people. Because we had a group of more than eight, we automatically tipped 18%. I usually tip generously but I would not have tipped 18% for that level of service. Win some, lose some.

I had a Black and Red to drink. Guinness and Murphy's Red. Fantastic. Better than a Black and Tan and probably better that the Belgian Brunettes (Guinness and Stella) I had been drinking lately.

Anyway we hung out for a while and then tried to figure out what do next. Bowling? I would watch people bowl but didn't want to bowl myself. Go to the bar? Not everyone was over 21. Go to BEANER'S? We decided to go to the 24 hour BEANER'S. I made a stop at Oade's Big Ten and picked up a half pint of Kahula. You know, to take the edge off.

In a word, nightmare. The shop was pretty full so we couldn't even sit down. So we just stood in the lobby looking at each other. To top it off one my former employees was there. I had fired him for a number of reasons and it had not gone well. He had since reappeared at the Frandor BEANER'S which was one of the store I most frequent. I walked in one day and was filling my mug and out of the corner of my eye there he was. I immediately turned around and left the store. Since then I have had to scope out the store to see if he's there. If not, I go in. If so I go up to Lake Lansing and Abbot. Sucks that I'm controlled by him, but I'm non-confrontational and don't want to deal with the uncomfortablity of the situation.

Back to the 24 hour BEANER'S there he is. I was like let's get out of here. Then he walks up and I go out to the parking lot and wait for everyone to come out. I should've just gotten in my car and left, but I wanted to say good bye to everyone. After like ten minutes, he comes out so I go back in, but he catches me before I make the front door. Ugh.

Hey Austin, how's it going?

Fine.

Heard you got a job at a soccer place.

How the hell does he know that? I just went back in.

Not the greatest night of my life, but I'll get over it.

technology update

2006-12-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

been exploring myspace. i've been looking up artists that i am interested in. songs on demand. pretty cool. i have no idea if the songs change but i can look up the band, hit play and hear the song that's been bouncing around in my head at once. nice.

been listening to the killers lately. the songs i've heard have a u2 feel to me. also, i looked up nina gordon. used to be front woman for letters to cleo, now she's on her own. fun, pop sound, with a little belinda carlisle vibe.

i took songs from danny's windows media player, e-mailed them to myself and then downloaded them and imported them to my ipod. nice. i could get used to that. i've decided to break down and buy songs that i really like from the itunes store. unfortunately i still have dial up so i'm not sure if i'm going to do it at work or what.

sam introduced me to limewire.com. the new napster. wow. i picked up about 60 songs while i was at my parents. some stones, songs that i have on cassette tapes, singles that i like but don't want to buy the whole album. tremendous. i'm so pumped. there's still a ton of songs that i want. i'm going to try to download it at work and go from there. with dial up at home, it would take forever.

my next project is to get my songs off of bunce's computer and get them on to my itunes, so that i have them all in one place. my ipod got wiped clean a couple of weeks ago, costing my about half of my collection, which is loaded on an itunes at bunce's house.

now having got all caught up in the ipod madness, i have come to find out that my ipod mini is not a long lasting piece of equipment. between the drive and the battery, i've heard that it lasts about a year, which is about how long i've been really using it. the battery is already starting to go. i charge it for about two days and the charge lasts about half and hour. ugh. but i'm going to us it until it dies and then figure something else out.

any tech secrets, suggestions, or knowledge would be much appreciatead.

treble try

2006-12-21T17:44:00.000-05:00

In the continuing expression of my competitive nature and the realization of the meaningless of it all, I bring you this post . . .

So I was going for a first session treble at LISA—Coed, Men’s Open and 30+. Entering the final weekend, the teams I played on had the chance to win three league titles. I was in unchartered waters. Dan Raben, the Lansing king of indoor had won tons of trophies at MSU and the Summit, and he was standard I was aspiring to. He had never captured these three divisions but he’s not over 30, so too bad.

My Coed team is named Fatsui Scrapbooking. Long story on the name. Anyway, we go down 2-0 to the second placed team right away. We were playing very flat, but we turned it around and by halftime, we led 5-2. We eventually got up 8-4 and I was feeling pretty confident about the first leg of the treble, and then in the blink of an eye, we were pulled back to 8-7. Eventually we closed it out and it was one down, two to go.

The Men’s Open game was back and forth. We defended so poorly, especially in the first half that it is amazing we didn’t get blown out. Went down 2-0 right away but evened it at 5’s by half. The second half was tight but we held on for a one goal victory. I scored two late goals, so I actually contributed to the victory. And with two championship runs completed, I came back on Sunday for 30+.

We came out firing and were up 3-1 at half. I thought, here we are, 25 minutes away and then all hell broke loose. They immediately tie it up and then take the lead. I play a crappy ball out of the back, the shot deflects off of me into the goal and the other team goes up 5-3. I was gutted. To be honest, I never recovered from that. We scored twice to make tie it at 5-5. The other team got a red card, so they were a man down, but we never seemed to take advantage of it. They scored on a counter and all of the sudden we’re down 6-5 with timing running out. We equalized, but a draw was not good enough because of head to head and goal differential. We pressed but could not find the winner. To top it off the other team scored as time expired, so not only did we not tie for the league, we lost it.

I was a little disappointed. We lost to our big rival, lost the championship, and I lost the chance to have a little special one-up on some of the coaches and players. You can’t win them all I suppose. Not that anyone is ever going to remember what happened. There’s not going to a SportsCenter retrospective on indoor soccer here at LISA. Hence the futility of even caring.

On to next session. I’m taking men’s off, but am continuing to play Coed and 30+. Time for the double/double.

World Cup 2006 Thoughts Part I

2006-12-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

So why did I create the previous post? After each major tournament, I like to know what the experts think. What did they see and does it match what I saw?

Here’s what I saw at the latest World Cup.

The Africans are very good. Their transition and fitness and technical ability are right up there with the rest of the world (read Europe, Brazil and Argentina). Where they failed was in the final third. They weren’t patient or experienced enough to break down compact, organized defenses. Time after time, they would win the ball in the defending third, transition with pace through midfield and, if they didn’t create a chance on the break, find themselves stymied. The result was a long, low percentage shot or 1 v the entire back four which, more often than not, resulted in a turnover. The best example of this was Ghana v Brazil. Ghana, in my opinion, outplayed Brazil. I would even go as far to say as they out-Braziled Brazil. Yet their finishing was so poor and their mistakes so costly that they ended up losing 3-0.

I hate the one forward system. How are you going to score? You leave a forward by himself versus one, two, or three defenders, and then you whack the ball up to him and see what happens. Holland left Ruud up by himself, and then when they actually transitioned and served the ball from wide areas, he had very little chance of scoring. They did the same thing at Euro 2004. England had Peter Crouch up top and served these high, searching balls for him to flick but no one supported him. Even France at times left Henry by himself at times. Teams get numbers behind the ball and then just jack it up top to a high forward who can win headers. I’m with you so far, but if you’re not going to support that player then forget about it. Play the target player’s feet; he can hold while numbers come to support him; and then a mini-break or fluid attack can be launched.

I highlighted the word cautious in the report. I understand that this is the world’s biggest sporting stage, but you have to go for it. You have to trust that the players who have been training to defend their whole lives can defend. Pick a solid back four, maybe a holding midfielder and then go at it. Think France at Euro 2000. Lizarazu, Blanc, Desailly, and Thuram at the back, with Deschamps and/or Petit to shield the defenders. The rest of you, GO SCORE GOALS. Now Austin, my team is not that talented. Then break out Euro 2004 tapes and watch Greece. Played a 4-5-1, but played the counterattack. Suck them in, win the ball, play the target player, support that player quickly with numbers and then attack. If it breaks down, get numbers back and repeat. Italy kept bringing on attackers against Germany and they won in extra time because of it. Too many coaches play not to lose. Ugh.

As for the defensive midfielder, how great was Pirlo? Pulling the strings from 18 to 18, like Keano back in the day. Thought Cambiasso had a good tournament as well. And Viera seemed to improve throughout the tournament. The key is that this player can no longer just be the destroyer. He must destroy and become the first attacker, because if he can create, his team will be that much more dynamic.

Next post: selected team break downs.

tactical analyis of the 2006 World Cup (selected topics)

2006-12-15T13:54:00.000-05:00

These notes were taken from the FIFA.com website
(italics and bold inserted by me for emphasis)

Playing systems
Compared with the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, when 24 of the competing nations opted for a conventional 4-4-2 and eight went with a 3-5-2, in Germany there was a clear trend towards a back four, with 27 teams choosing this option and just five fielding a three-man rearguard. But even these teams often made a flexible transition to a four-man backline, as demonstrated by Croatia. Costa Rica and Japan turned this into a five-man defence by pushing back their wide midfield players. Japan eventually went over to a back four. Only Mexico employed a threeman defence throughout the tournament.

Various formations were to be observed in midfield. Fourteen teams opted for the classical structure of two central midfielders in front of the defence and two men on the flanks. Advocates of this approach included England, Sweden, Brazil and Germany. Five teams went with a diamond configuration featuring a central holding midfielder, two men on the flanks and an attacking player behind the strikers, e.g. Spain, Argentina and, to begin with, Italy.

Seven set up a fiveman midfield in front of the back four at the expense of the attack. Just one striker was deployed up front, which often led to less penetration when going forward. No uniform five-man midfield was to be observed, however, with various configurations in evidence. Teams such as the Czech Republic put a defensive player in front of the backline and arranged a line of four in front, with two wide men and two attack-minded players (e.g. Rosicky and Nedved) in the inside central positions. As the tournament progressed England and Brazil also adopted this system. A formation with two holding midfielders in front of the defence and a line of three consisting of two men on the flanks and an attacking player behind a lone striker was selected by Poland, Côte d’Ivoire, France and Portugal. Italy and Switzerland elected to change their original 4-4-2 to this more compact alternative. The Netherlands placed their faith in their traditional 4-3-3, in which a finely tuned midfield triangle operated in front of the back four. In attack the Dutch went with two attacking wingers tasked with creating openings for the central striker. Mexico remained true to their own style, fielding a flexible five-man midfield in front of a three-man defence. The central line of three was bolstered on the flanks by two hard-working players who supported the attack and the defence in equal measure.

The longer the tournament went on, the more cautious the play generally became, with teams opting for a compact defence to avoid going behind. Of the four teams who reached the semi-finals, Italy, France and Portugal played with one striker. Only Germany stuck by their 4-4-2 system. With the exception of Italy’s 3-0 win over Ukraine, the goal tally was low from the quarter-final stage on. Two quarter-finals were decided on penalties, while France’s winner against Brazil came from a free-kick. It was a similar case in the semi-finals, when Italy triumphed courtesy of two late extra-time goals and France won by a penalty. The two goals scored in the final which eventually went to penalties also resulted from set pieces, a penalty and a corner-kick. An exception with regard to the number of goals scored was the match for third and fourth place between Germany and Portugal (3-1), which produced some refreshing football.

The defensive midfielder
The main task of the player in this position is to support and stabilise the defence. Primarily, the role is defined in terms of defensive attributes. Strong-running, tough-tackling players with vision and the ability to read a game such as Makelele of France, Portugal’s Costinha and Mascherano of Argentina are outstanding examples of this breed of footballer.

Once possession has been won it is usually the creative players such as Vieira or Zidane, Maniche or Deco and Riquelme who then dictate their team’s attacking play. At this World Cup players such as Pirlo, Essien and Xabi Alonso put a new face on this position. Pirlo, in particular, used this deeper-lying position to instigate moves. Almost all Italy’s attacks were channelled through him. With his technique and creativity he became a key factor in their attacking play. In today’s game the further teams advance inside the opposition half, the less space and time they have, so this type of player can benefit from playing in a withdrawn position. It allows them to pull the strings, dictating their team’s play with ingenuity and ideas.

situation report:church

2006-12-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

right now DCC is at 3 branches. 2 on sunday morning and 1 on sunday night.

our yearly retreat is in february. an agenda is being planned. one thing that is being considered is our name. currently we are delta community church, with delta christian church being a possible new name. also, we will continue to reflect on our church's convenant and our faithfulness to it.

lately due to work commitments, i haven't been going on sundays. my church involvement ebbs and flows and right now i'm at "low" tide. we took a branch survey and i responded negatively because my part is not being done. i hope that with the new job and new life patterns i can be more involved.

the church is great as a whole. we have met needs, and the church has met the needs of my family recently. we continue to strive to do god's will and be a more faithful witness.

more to come.

i have a new "new" job

2006-12-10T10:34:00.000-05:00

so here's the story with my job.

i wanted out of beaner's, specifically the day to day management. i could go on and on about the reasons why, but let's just say i was exhausted and needed a new challenge.

i interviewed about beaner's corporate this summer about a store opener position. the conclusion, not a good fit. lots and lots of travel was the biggest reason. corporate said they would keep in me mind for future positions, but that was 6-12 months into the future.

so i decided to get out of the store and find another job and move on.

i took a job at lansing indoor sports arena. i needed a paycheck; i like soccer, which is big part of the business; it was definitely something different than beaner's. so i'm at the job a month, and who should call? beaner's corporate.

so i go into interview with them again. two positions, a "district" manager or an assistant to the vice-president, who helps new stores go from signing their lease to their first day of business. again the district manager position involved a lot of travel. i liked the idea of it but in the end corporate thought i would fit better in this other role. i interivewed again, specifically for the position, they offered and i took it.

i'm basically helping franchisees move along in the process. do you have such and such done? is this form filled out? have you called this person in re: to this aspect of your business? so on and so forth. it's a 9-5 job, 40 hours, stable, very little travel, if any.

the person before me doesn't seem to have been that organized. i've got a lot of work to assembling the tools i need before i can really get going. then we'll see how it goes. there is a lot that i don't know, so i'm a little intimidated by that. for instance, i can make a great caramel marvel, but i have no idea how the products get there and how to get the espresso machine to the business site. have to get up to speed quickly, so that's a touch scary.

so for the rest of the year, i'm working full time at LISA, more than full time, but that's a different conversation, while going into the beaner's office a couple of times a week to get caught up. i officially begin the first of the year. new year, new job, blah, blah, blah.

so i'm back at beaner's. details to follow.

Crash: another viewing

2006-12-08T08:36:00.000-05:00

Due to a re-run of House, we watched Crash (http://imdb.com/title/tt0375679/). The movie continues to grow on me. At first I thought it had too many storylines, that it was too intense. But after multiple viewings, there is a richness and a depth that all the storylines provide. It is like Magnolia in that way. The characters come in and out of the story and each other’s lives. Their actions impact character threads and the story as a whole, all building to multiples moments of climax.

Watching the film, real words, what people really feel are coming from the character’s mouths. Punches are not pulled. It’s pretty depressing for the first half of the movie. The tone turns when the locksmith is confronted. There are dark moments to be sure, but some of the characters find moments of truth and redemption.

And that’s what great about the film. Characters rise and fall. Characters have moments of supreme humanity which in turn are followed by the revelations of terrible flaws which are balanced by acts of kindness. No one is perfect.

The other thing that really stands out is Brendan Fraser’s terrible performance. Here is a film filled with famous and not so famous actors bringing this story of life, and then there is Fraser, wooden, monotone, devoid of the electricity and vibrancy that is pulsing through the other actor’s performances. It reminds me of Michael Madsen in Sin City. What a movie. What an amazing job by the cast, except for one guy and because the rest of the cast is so good, one man’s performance sticks out like a sore thumb. Ugh.

Go see Crash. After you’ve been blown away by the intensity of the film and shed a couple of tears, see it again. Reflect on what you’re seen and see it again. Ask yourself how much you know yourself and why you do the things you do.

parenting

2006-12-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

recent events (watching the soprano's, reading miss wyoming, conversations with other people) have led to an increased pressure, no increased awareness, in my parenting. i am responsible in large part for how larry turns out. that's scary. how i act, how i discipline, how i treat my wife, how i treat other people, the language i use. all of that affects how larry sees and interacts in the world.

and i need to be careful or otherwise i might produce an philandering foul mouthed gangster or a media over saturated sick boy or any host of maladjustments.

i think when larry was first born, i was so concerned with his health that i didn't give much thought to my impact on his upbringing. now that it is fairly obvious that he is healthy and doesn't have any long term concerns, i am faced with the responsibility of raising him.

for instance, schooling. pre-school or not. if pre-school, where? can we afford a private pre-school? are we doing everything we can tostimulate him and provide him with a foundation for future learning? or take bed time. does he stay in his bed all night or can he come upstairs? or potty training. or any number of issues.

i am feeling a little pressure to get it "right", while knowing that noone gets it right and that larry could make decisions in the future that will "undo" everything erin and i do now. and people wonder why we don't have a second kid. are you kidding? i am just trying to deal
with the one.

moment of genius

2006-12-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

Ronaldinho's goal v Villareal

i dream of these moments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OwloR8RgWM

Freddy Adu at Manchester United

2006-11-29T15:39:00.000-05:00

Freddy Adu, the future of US Soccer is on trial at Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs in the world. It’s an amazing opportunity and has the chance to influence US Soccer in general and the MLS in particular.

Adu has always stated that he wants to play in Europe. So he is going to leave. Understand that. And he is a talent, but he is young (17) and starlets don’t always pan out. The question is not whether he should go to Europe but where? Adu’s coach at DC United, Peter Nowak, has come out saying he should pass on United, (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=393972&cc=5901), and I agree with him. Where is he going to play? He has Scholes, Fletcher, Richardson, Carrick, Christano Ronaldo, and Park Ji-Sung ahead of him in midfield, while at forward it is Rooney, Solskjaer, Saha, and maybe even Alan Smith. Rossi has already been loaned out, and why? Because he is young and needs games and won’t get them in the current set up.

Why go to United or any European giant right now? Adu needs games, games, games. He’s not going to them at a superpower. He’ll get a steady diet of reserve game, league cup games and bench sores. Go to an English Second Division team or a Dutch first division team. Go somewhere where he will play and learn his trade and then in 3-5 years, when he is in his early 20’s, he will be sold, as an experienced, semi-polished star, for some outrageous amount of euros.

Adu has to go. Dempsey has to go. Donovan should suck it up and go back. These are the stars of US Soccer and they have to go to the biggest stage. Look at the Africans and South Americans. Do they toil and stay at home in crappy leagues and waste their talents in second rate stadia while avoiding confetti, firecrackers and the kidnappings of family members and friends? No, they haul ass out of the country and go to whoever will have them. Brazilians would rather play in RUSSIA than Brazil. Africans have been going to France en masse and it paid off in the World Cup.

Not only do they need to go for their development as a player, they need to go for the financial stability of the MLS. Sell a couple of prospects every year, and use that money for infrastructure and the purchases of superstars, say David Beckham. The aging superstar is a viable strategy. Valderama, Stoichkov, the old man contingent that started the Chicago Fire. But the MLS can’t buy them and not refill the coffers; otherwise they will go the way of the NASL. So sell the young talent, take the money to get the proven players looking for one last paycheck, get fannies in the seats, and repeat. The MLS will never be a big player in the grand scheme of things. At least not in mine or Larry’s lifetime. So we take players, develop them through the youth system, get them in the MLS and let the league be the stage on which they show their stuff. Those that shine, get picked up and are the backbone of the US team and the means by which the MLS stays afloat.

miss wyoming

2006-11-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

finished douglas coupland's miss wyoming this afternoon. it was like gen x without all the angst. completely absurd situations littered with factoids and trivia and misunderstandings. great fun. pages flew by. was it the greatest book ever written? no, but a nice diversion.

story focuses on two characters who have twisted childhoods and reach some level of success in the entertainment world. and then the superficial, vapid, whorish balloon burts and they wander about in search of meaning. they happen to run each other and spend the rest of the book trying to find each other again. story bounces back and forth between the main story of trying to get the romantics together and visiting the paths of their lives. in the end, they come together and they are left with the chance of future happiness with some level of normalcy.

some of the dialogue is laugh out loud funny. coupland has this ability to taken the ridiculous and make it seem possible and hilarious. moments throughout the book poke fun at the media industry and makes you wonder why people put with trying to "make" it and trying to keep up with it.

a comparison between miss wyoming and gen x is the influence that screwed up parents have on the next generation. coupland creates scrwed up parentals and they produce media saturated progeny who quote, re-create and actualize fictionalized dramas and comedies. you are what you eat, and these kids eat the media; therefore they become creators and conduits of that very thing. his stories would be pretty boring if mom and pop showed an acceptable level of love and attention, thereby sending out somewhat confident and adjusted kids.

i will defintely read this again. it's up their with microserfs and gen x.

sopranos season 1

2006-11-25T19:39:00.000-05:00

ok, so maybe the show is worth watching. i'm not sure how it's going to go for six seasons, but this first season was pretty stinking good. family drama, hints of betrayal and lots of money.

i've rented the first episodes of season two. we'll see how it goes.

Dagwood's

2006-11-17T21:36:00.000-05:00

ever since we moved to our house, i've driven past this bar called dagwood's. located at 127 and kalamazoo, i would describe it as a hole in the wall, except for the fact that it is a free standing building. let's just say low-tech. anyway i go by it all the time and think, i should check it out, but i thought it was like a old person bar. like, remember when we went to korea, you know, for the war. why? don't know.

some girls from beaner's would go there to have a ladies' night, and i would ask them what the crowd was like. normal. any old people? young and old alike. still i was hestitant to go.

well wednesday night after work, i finally went. tom and i wanted to have a beer and dagwood's is the closest bar to me, so i suggested it. what did i find? a yound crowd having a great time. not too crowded and a great deal on food and drink. a pitcher of bud light ($1 off pitchers), wings and fries for $10.50. are you kidding me? so now that i've finally broken the duck, i'll be going back. it's place where you could defintely become a "regular." you know, cheers and all that sort of thing.

deer hunter

2006-11-14T22:17:00.000-05:00

rented deer hunter last week. robert deniro, christopher walken, meryl streep. should be good, right? the acting was pretty good, especially from the big names. the story wasn't bad. spent a lot of time in character development to get you to care about the characters. the first third, almost half, of the movie is set at a wedding. ok, these people get drunk and stupid events ensue. the movie is really about the effects of the vietnam war. soldiers are not the same afterwards. in that regard it was very powerful. there was emotional, mental and physical injuries suffered and the three men from pennsylvania express each type of suffering. the movie was so-so, but what really dragged it down was the soundtrack. oh my god. over the top music telling you, the audience, how you were supposed to feel. it was painful to listen and really took away from the critical moments of the movie.

so, it was the best picture of 1979. maybe that's a reason worth seeing it. personally i liked platoon much better. i have to think of movies that deal with post-war aspects a little more. can't think of any at the moment. maybe born on the fourth of july.

soccer fashion don'ts

2006-11-10T19:58:00.000-05:00

surfing the web, i came across these ugly pieces of crap. enjoy.

http://www.subside.us.com/us/store/product_details.jsp?pid=72057594037945236&cid=12&brc=&red=product_list.jsp?id=12,cwin=30,hos=1,

http://www.subside.us.com/us/store/product_details.jsp?pid=72057594037945318&cid=12&brc=&red=product_list.jsp?id=12,mid=-1,oby=,hos=1,srs=-1,txtSearch=,cmbPriceStart=-1,cmbPriceEnd=-1,page=3,brc=,cwin=30,

http://www.subside.us.com/us/store/product_details.jsp?pid=72057594037945318&cid=12&brc=&red=product_list.jsp?id=12,mid=-1,oby=,hos=1,srs=-1,txtSearch=,cmbPriceStart=-1,cmbPriceEnd=-1,page=3,brc=,cwin=30,

the sopranos

2006-11-08T19:23:00.000-05:00

so i've started watching the first season of the soprano's. why? because it was the only thing that was somewhat decent at the library. and i've always heard "it's so awesome." plus i don't have cable, blah, blah, blah.

i know i'm late to the party. but that's how i operate. anyway, i've watched the first six episodes of the first season. it's pretty good. makes the bad guy the hero with flaws. the anti-hero becoming the hero who is the anti-hero. great banter and relationships between the characters. the tony soprano/therapist relationship is an interesting twist and has a great dynamic.

everything about the show is about how people treat one another. good, bad, indifferent. what are you willing to do or sacrifice or compromise in any given situation. family, business, personal relationships. doesn't matter if it's a fictional mob family or the real world, it comes down to the things people do to one another.

so the whole first season is at the library. plan to watch it and then go from there. would appreciate any insights those of you out there might have.

pandora.com

2006-11-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

searching the internet, i "googled" free music. up comes pandora.com. i go to the site and the header is something about the music genome project. what in the world? anyway, you choose groups or songs that you like and it creates virtual radio stations that have the same qualities.

it's great. music is from groups that i've never would have heard of. you don't like it, skip it and move on. you like, make a note of it and it will re-occur later. no commercials. YES!!! some songs and groups can't be played because of various legalities, but what are you going to do?

i did an oasis station. that was ok. the best station is the dandy warhol station. first of all, dandy warhols are great. the other artists are pretty good as well. so i'm looking forward to exploring this site. maybe i can actually find some decent music out there besides what is played on the radio.

view from above

2006-10-25T20:21:00.000-04:00

a hawk full of majesty hovers,
in an indescribable blue sky,
silently peering down into the earth,
covered with trees and leaves and dirt,
searching for his next satisfying meal.
a jet full of passengers defaces
this indescribable blue sky,
loudly cruising above the earth,
covered with houses and factories and malls,
opening their next prepackaged meal.

situation report:soccer

2006-10-22T14:11:00.000-04:00

coaching

this fall i'm helping with the TNT u17 girls. have been with this team off and on for over 5 years. after a very disappointing season last fall, we're on top of premier 2 with probable promotion to premier one. the team has come together and we have a big tournament in tennessee in december.

playing

this season has been very successful for CCFC. we won the league again. 11-1-1 record. played well despite varying numbers of players. in july we went to the michigan tournament of champions, which is a tournament of league champions from around the state. we finished top of the group to win the competition, qualifying us for regionals. unfortunately, that tournament was rained out. last week we lost in the finals of the lansing over 30 tournament. disappointing but gives us incentive next season to win the "treble."

now it's on to indoor and winter training.

situation report: beaner's blog

2006-10-19T14:02:00.000-04:00

what ever happened to the beaner's blog? it was one of my better ideas here at the store. create a blog where employees could communicate and share and be informed. i had it broken down into sections where there was an employee phone list, so that people could call other employees to get shifts covered, switch, etc; a schedule so that people would always know when they worked; an update section to pass along information re: changes and new products and all that jazz; then finally a section where employees could rant about anything.

but it went over like a lead balloon. first, employees didn't like having their phone numbers all over the internet. fair. second, people like to bitch out loud not on some website. third, my employees didn't like to switch shifts or help people, for the most part. fourth, my employees can't read, so putting updates on the internet was as pointless as putting a BIG FRICKIN' MEMO on the back door.

oh well. can't win them. over time i will try to present all of my big ideas for beaner's. i mean hey, after tomorrow i don't work there any more. maybe now they will actually happen.

recent media intake

2006-10-17T14:24:00.000-04:00

House has been great, but I'm not sure where it's going.

CSI has grown tiresome.

The Office. Hello? How funny is that show?

I've been reading Daredevil Trade Paperbacks. Brian Michael Bendis is phenomenal. Didn't know anything about DD, except that he was blind, and Bendis totally sucked me in. It's about the characters, their relationships, and their reactions to situations.

Really haven't seen any movies. Over the summer I watched Touching the Void, a recreation of two people's terrible experience on a mountain in Peru. Gripping stuff. On the other hand, I got so bored one day I watched Under Siege. UGH!!

Battlestar Galactica rules, but I need answers and resolution. I'm not patient. And if this show is cancelled before I get answers, someone's going down.

situation report: work

2006-10-16T14:21:00.000-04:00

After months of frustration, I decided to leave BEANER’S. Just needed out. I originally said I would work through the end of the year, but the owner started taking over my duties, which was perfectly within her right, and her way of doing things added to my frustration. So we had agreed that if she found someone to replace me or if I found a job, we would give each other two weeks. I chose to get out. I was no longer in control of the store, which I need or at least a semblance of control, so I gave my two weeks and this Friday is my last day.

So what now? I have accepted a position at the Lansing Indoor Sports Arena. (www.lansingindoorsportsarena.com) Definitely different. It’s a new challenge, which I wanted, and we’ll see how it goes.

so long

2006-10-12T14:35:00.000-04:00

so i'm quitting beaner's. next week is my last.

i have been doing this for six and a half years, which is longer than i've done anything besides public school. it's time for something different, a new challenge, a new enviroment. what will that be? no idea.

i have applied at a couple of places and have leads on a couple of others. may even move. i love beaner's and will continue to go there for my java, but i just can't work there right now. i'm not even closing the door, i just need time away to do, experience something else. who knows? i might go back to the almighty B at some point. just have to out of there now for a while.

can't sleep

2006-09-25T23:19:00.000-04:00

can’t sleep
brain asleep
but body awake
the blues play on
blink
11:11
blink
2:37
blink
4:03
blink
6:20
alarm goes off
time for work
the blues still playing
body asleep
brain asleep
can’t stay awake

this was written almost ten years ago. seems like my insomnia, my lack of a good night's sleep is nothing new.

thought i'd say hi

2006-09-22T23:10:00.000-04:00

It's been what, five months, since my last blog. To sum up: work, unhappy, stressed, searching for something else, more stress, decisions. Oh yeah, the world cup, which for the most part was a great sporting spectacle.

So I've decided to get back into the blogging swing of things. It's important to set attainable goals, so I'm going for once a week. I'm going to try to stay away from the negative. There are some real issues in this world and in my life, but it's important to have a healthy dialogue instead of just bitching and complaining.

I do plan to post poetry I've written in the past. I'm trying to purge/explore my past, if that makes any sense, so this is one attempt. I'm also going through old journal entries and re-reading them with a new perspective to see if there's anything I can learn from days gone by. I may be having some serious time on my hands, so I may be doing some serious introspection. Trying something different.

status

2006-05-03T10:12:00.000-04:00

well obviously i haven't posted in a while. i'm planning to redo some stuff and have a "re-launch" this summer. i have been working on a side project, a beaner's blog.

until this summer . . .

covenant thoughts

2006-02-27T14:43:00.000-05:00

As I get ready for the covenant retreat, Sam has some interesting thoughts regarding the nature and establishment of a covenant.

http://mobygunner.blogspot.com/2006/02/in-other-wordscovenant.html

our next branch

2006-02-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

Another issue to consider is the next branch of our church.

Both groups are growing and getting to the size then things break down: space to comfortably hold the group, food for the Sunday meal, intimate fellowship amongst the members. (Well the morning group is feeling these things for sure.) How do we start a third group that will have a connection to the first two groups, have a complementary set of giftings and have the best chance at healthy growth in the future?

One. One of the braches could discuss which members would desire to set out on this task and then the original branches would throw their support behind the third branch in the critical early stages. The elders of the original branches would provide wisdom and support as the new leader(s) guide a new group. The rest of the members would provide whatever resources necessary to help: tools, mechanical and otherwise, a supportive ear, childcare, etc.

Two. Each branch contributes members to form a third branch. At first I thought this was the logical solution, but now I’m not so sure. I think each branch has the same goals, with different ways to accomplish them. The first months would be spent figuring out how things should run, rather then developing relationships inside and outside the church.

Further branches need to consider the make up of the church: education, gifts, children, housing. I think our first split got some things right, but we got some things wrong too. One of those is having all the children in one branch, and this has become a big obstacle that is constantly being confronted.

So I think this topic needs to be discussed at least briefly at the retreat. This spring and summer will determine a lot for the morning group. Two to three couples may be leaving to pursue educational opportunities, so another branch may not be what is called for. Regardless, both branches need to start thinking about how future branches will be formed, how previous branches will support new ones and how all branches will interact down the road.

busy

2006-02-18T14:15:00.000-05:00

So I decided to go in a new direction with my blog, but I haven’t been able to follow through like I’d hoped.

Work has been very stressful lately. I lost a couple of key, experience staff members, so I had to begin the long, arduous process of replacing them. Training is time consuming and risky. Not everyone I hire pans out. So then I begin to worry if I’m going to have to replace the people I hired to replace to ones that left. Ugh.

I had a whole other idea for how 2006 would go. It’s not going to go that way, at least not for a while.

Business has been very good. Higher than projections, which is a good problem, but when trying to service customers with new employees, it can be quite taxing. This is supposed to a slow time, a time when you can bring people along and focus on things that you have overlooked or plan for the upcoming busy times. Instead we’ve had to throw people into the fire and hope that we can keep up, all the while not getting to those things that have slipped through the cracks.

Add to this big corporate meetings, and I’ve got a lot going on at work. Unfortunately I carry the stress and the problems home and spend energy on that when I should be spending it with my family and taking some time for myself. The last couple of weeks have not been that great.

I’m going to try to get the house church issues out there, along with some writings. Finding time to get that done is difficult.

Focusing on the negative

2006-02-12T18:54:00.000-05:00

This morning while leading the Bible study, I was convicted of several things.

DCC does many things well, quite well for a group that is growing and experimenting and desiring consensus from all of its members, led by the Holy Spirit. It seems that I find the flaws, it is in my nature to criticize, and focus on that. So while I am bringing issues that I find fault in, I am reshaping my spirit to be one of love and understanding and unity for the retreat. The two branches aren't fighting. Part of the problem is that most of us don't know what is going on in the other branch. How can we remedy this?

So if people from the other branch are reading this, please understand, I want control, to have things organized, to be manageable. And in this endeavor, that is not always necessarily so. I want the best for all involved and am opening up in order that we can grow together.

An Analysis of the DCC Branches

2006-02-11T11:41:00.000-05:00

Editorial note: I belong to the morning group. I know and can sense a lot about this group. As for the evening group, I am basing comments based on feelings, snippets of conversations and unsubstantiated guesses. If I am wrong, I want clarification.

One of the biggest issues our house church faces is the make up of the groups.

The morning group is predominantly marrieds, most with children. There are 15-20 adults, plus up to 10 children under the age of 10.

The evening groups is a mix of singles and married, with no children. There are about 12-15 adults.

The morning groups is mostly GLCC grads, who are conservative in nature and personality. Don’t get to socialize a lot due to the desire and need to spend time with their kids.

The evening groups is a mix of GLCC grads and friends and people who have moved into the area. They do socialize a lot because they have a desire to and the time to do so.

This produces, in my mind, a couple of things.

The morning group has a family like characteristic. A couple of people who attend, who are over 50, a lot of young people (22-35) who are starting the adult phase of their lives, and a large number of children. Every Sunday is like a family reunion that takes place around the holidays. There is a high level of education (see John Nugent) and the desire of the group to submit to those who have greater wisdom and understanding.

The evening group has a college feel. Some amount of spontaneity, desire to try new things, and be crazy just because. One of the biggest strengths is sociability. There are in the world, (game night at Clem’s, BW3’s, Frank’s, etc.) and are able to meet people outside of the church and GLCC to a greater degree than the morning group.

Yet it is those strengths that make inter-church fellowship that much more difficult. One of the battles that this church has confronted from the beginning is fellowship. How do we become part of one another’s lives? In a world that is busy with work and class and kids and working on the house and a host of other things, how do we nurture and maintain deep relationships with those in our church community? And this is important because it is these relationships that give an example to those around us and act as a foretaste to the kingdom to come.

One of the biggest themes of our inter-church meeting at the end of last year was time. The morning group does not have it; the evening group does. Right now, the morning group is trying to maintain the fellowship of its members, providing acts of service, raising the kids in a kingdom-like environment, and meeting a number of other responsibilities (work, class, immediate family, etc.) The proverbial plate is full.

So if one of the goals of DCC is to maintain deep relationships between the two churches, the evening group will have to make the sacrifice to make that happen. Babysitting and advance planning are two examples. The morning group needs a tremendous amount of help to achieve this goal.

Now it is possible that we agree that this level of fellowship is not possible. We allow that the monthly get together will provide an attempt at keeping up with the other group. I am not opposed to that. Although I will say that the get togethers will have to be intentional, that is to say that some time will need to be set aside for sharing and forced integration. Examples of this would be continuing the oral history of our church, started at Lumley’s membership party; assigned seating like the inter-church meeting; the mindset that we will introduce ourselves to new people (I struggle with that).

The covenant articulates what we are trying to accomplish. Could we tweak it here and there? Sure. Could we get further clarification of how an ideal manifests itself in the real world? Sure. For me, the retreat should be focused on a)reviewing the covenant and re-committing to achieving those goals, b)forming bonds with new members within the last year and renewing acquaintances of previous relationships, and c)how do we want the two churches to interact.

This group has come a long way in five years. We are still experimenting and learning and exploring. If we can come to a consensus on a covenant then I think we can come to an agreement on how we want to approach the next year in the life of our church.

a new direction

2006-02-08T18:08:00.000-05:00

A couple of conversations and some deep introspection have confirmed one my deepest character flaws—selfishness. Where it comes from I don’t know. My parents are giving people. My brother and sister are involved in other people’s lives with no ulterior motive, giving and serving with a humble attitude. Maybe it’s a first child thing. Whatever it is, it is part of me. I didn’t “grow out of it.” I’ve never fulfilled any three or ten or twelve step self-help programs.

I’m not completely self-absorbed. I think good thoughts; I desire to help others; I dream of a positive utopia for everyone. But when push comes to shove, I choose me and my wants and needs and desires about every time, and if a person or circumstance interferes with any of those aforementioned wants and needs and desire, anger and rage and bitterness rise within me. It’s not about what I think of myself or what others think about me or what I or others hope I will become. It’s what I think and say or do when the pressures of life are applied. The result is not pretty.

So I thought marriage and a kid and belonging to a church and being a mentor to young people and a host of other things would influence this aspect of my life. Sorry, no dice. Instead it took me leading a bible study at church on the book of Luke to convince me that I am not a loving servant of Christ, but a bitter pursuer of selfish desires. Reading and contemplating on the actions and words of Christ, I have realized that I am not a man of God. I am a boy of the world. What Jesus says and does, that resonates with me, that is something I desire to be.

In keeping with that, I’ve decided to move in a new direction with my blog. I know pop culture is disposable, inane and not very creative. Chances are, you know that too. Rant after rant about it is not going to change my mind, or the 6.5 billion people who are not reading this blog. While I may still comment on contemporary media output, I will try to turn down the sarcasm and bitterness and focus on the production value and quality of the endeavor. Other than that, I would like to start focusing on the life of the church I belong and our problems and solutions and impact and stuff like that. Our annual covenant retreat is less than a month away and there are few issues that are bothering me and, in my mind, need to be dealt with. I am trying to organize my thoughts so that I might articulate them at the meeting.

Another thing I am considering is posting my writings. Maybe some old journal entries and how I feel about that topic now. Poems I’ve written in the past and what I was dealing with at the time. I’ve also written a short story that only a handful people have ever laid eyes on.

In the end, I guess what I’m saying is that I am selfish. And for the first time in my life, I am willing to work on that. Also, I would like to devote more of my time and energy to the life of the church and use the blog as a place to gather my thoughts. And finally I’ve written a lot in the last ten years. I’ve filled a number of notebooks and journals and piece of scrap paper. Maybe it’s about time I picked through it and figure out if any of it is worth anything.

house church

2006-01-28T02:05:00.000-05:00

so i'm not sleeping. surfing the internet while playing poker. came across this article about house churches.

http://www.housechurch.org/basics/simson_15.html

our house church's covenant retreat is coming up and i've been thinking a lot about our covenant and how we living up to it. point #11 was particularly interesting.

just some food for thought.

Last Temptation of Christ

2006-01-20T09:27:00.000-05:00

So I’m in charge of the bible study at house church for the next couple of weeks. We are going through the book of Luke, and thus far, I have been struck by the humanity of Jesus. The commentary I’m reading constantly reinforces the idea that Jesus, although the Son of God, is a Jew, first and foremost, and this is a critical element to the narrative. In my upbringing, Christ’s divinity was at the fore, yet his humanity was rarely considered.

Looking for additional sources, I watched Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ. I had seen it a couple of years ago and what struck me was what Christ gave up when he allowed himself to be used on the cross. I was particularly interested in the temptation sequence. The film twists the moment significantly. Jesus is tempted, not at the outset of his ministry, but during it, when he is battling whether he should preach love or the ax. The temptations are represented symbolically rather than as a conversation between Jesus and Satan. Scorsese’s symbols are somewhat viable, but only after I read a commentary that argues that each temptation represents an aspect of Christ’s ministry: social, political and religious. The scene concludes with Jesus being shown that the way of God is the ax, not love. After this he goes into Jerusalem and the temple sequence is one of battle. Eventually the Christ character realizes that love is the way.

I really didn’t enjoy the movie as much this time. Now while a study of Luke is revealing the humanity of Jesus, the movie goes overboard on the humanization, if that’s a word, of Jesus. Also it takes a lot of license with Jesus’ early life. A carpenter that makes crosses? Not too sure about that. I’m reading the gospel of Luke and trying to match it up with the screenplay and I don’t see too many similarities. It tells essential elements of the story, but not in order and not in the way that the writer of Luke expresses it.

The crucifixion in the movie, while not as graphic and violent as the Passion, is critical to the movie. The walk through Jerusalem echoes the opening of the movie, and as Jesus is hoisted up, you can’t help but wonder at the pain of that moment. It is here where the movie got me. Jesus is shown all that can happen if he comes down from the cross. This could be seen as the opportune time that the devil is waiting for because it is the devil that is tempting him. Jesus could have exercised his divine power and come down; he could have loved and lived and died as a human; he could have chosen a different way and avoided the suffering. But he didn’t. He followed God, his Father, and became a sacrifice, once and for all. In that moment, his glory was and is revealed forever.

I’ve often thought of doing a comparison and contrast of Temptation and the Passion. How does Hollywood present and explore the life of Jesus? The Passion I’ve seen once. Didn’t really enjoy the brutality of the crucifixion. Not sure how to get around that. Anyway, is it possible to not over dramatize the life of Jesus? Present his message and sacrifice in such a way to stay true yet bring the story home?

what if?

2006-01-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

Revisiting my Titanic rant of years ago has caused me to re-evaluate money in cinema. Particularly how much there is to be made if you hit the right buttons. So I started writing a sequel. I’m in the formative draft and plan on contacting/stalking James Cameron until he gives the finished product the green light. I figure if the original made an amazing return and every female of a certain age has it in her collection, I might as well tap into that. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em sort of mentality.

But how can you write a sequel when one of the major protagonists is dead and the major prop is deep in the Atlantic Ocean? I give you the future. Let’s suppose that Leo’s character knocked up some girl before hopping on the boat. Entirely plausible. And let’s suppose that love child has a child and so on. Give it a couple of generations. And let’s suppose that Kate’s great-great-great-grand child is someone wandering around the 7-7.5 billion running around this orb in the not too distant future. And let’s suppose that in the year 2112, there is shuttle service to some lunar resort. Well guess what the marketing geniuses are going to call the orbital cruiser? Right. You with me? So our two characters conveniently named Jack and Rose will meet on the ill-fated cruiser and the rest writes itself. At the end of the movie there will be an instant poll via cell phone to see which one makes it alive to the lunar resort and which one floats through the coldness of space. Each theatre will have the choice of two endings. How great is that? Movies and technology copulating to form the perfect media animal. Choose your own ending. Customize your movie experience. And guess what? If you’re pissed that so and so didn’t die, then gather up a car load of your friends and make sure your outcome prevails. I don’t care as long as you see the movie again and again and again. I’m a fricking genius. So get ready for Titanic 2: Lunar Love coming to a theatre near you.

trickle down immorality

2006-01-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

responding to posts re: titanic and money spent on movies.

i would start by saying that it's not a matter of what is Christian and not-Christian. let's make something of quality. i loved sin city. not in any way wholesome but they took a comic and brought it exactly to the big screen. i'm all for that. the latter batman movies were a travesty of money and time. american beauty did not have a high moral quotient but it looked at life and said look closer. is this really what you want? i would say that's a question that needs to be asked.

what is good and bad is a matter of taste. i wish there was a higher standard for media that is put out. is it an underproduced gem of real life like an independent film at the el film festival, or is it an overproduced piece of crap, like almost everything else? rarely does someone spend a great amount of money and produce a cinematic treasure. why? because the money is hiding the lack of substance and depth. and i would say the opposite is true. why do you pick up an independent film and say wow, that was great? because the homely actors, the clunky car they drive, the wasted town they shoot the movie in is all they have. if it's a good script, the truth, the nugget of life is not overshadowed by the effects.

as for the trickle down effect, what exactly is trickling down to us? fornication, violence, outlandish schemes and actions that would never work in the real world, rationaliztions for every act? sorry but if we have to spend that sort of money for those things to get to the masses, i think we can do better.

so yes, people can do whatever they want with their money. but i would say, let us, the public say we don't want that. let your money and how you spend it be the weapon. if king kong in all its rehashed, special effected, overhyped glory opens at a disappointing $60M then guess what, they'll make more like it. but if it starts at $10M, they'll reconsider that type of movie.

Tiger and Titanic, Part II

2006-01-05T16:39:00.000-05:00

Titanic on the other hand is an abuse of the moment. I will say I have not seen the cinematic classic, I mean movie. I feel myself blessed, but I digress. My biggest problem is that it cost $200 million. No form of entertainment is worth $200 million. Especially when we have people starving in this country and all over the world. I am told that this money was spent in order to make the movie "historically accurate." I see. My response is that in 1912 a huge cruise ship set sail, hit an iceberg, sank, people died, people survived. That little synopsis is free and can be supplemented by an encyclopedia and books (free through a library, although if you consider your tax dollars it might not be free), and any one of the 5,000 movies made about the disaster before this epic (cost depending on your video store). Here is what I see: people spent $200 million on an accident that happened over 75 years ago, an accident everyone knows the outcome to. "But it's a love story." Well then $200 million is perfectly acceptable? Of course not. There are any number of ways to tell a love story, many of which do not involve sinking ships and the budgets of small countries.

I remember in 1989 when Batman came out. Michael Kenton not Adam West. It cost around $50 million to make, an astronomical amount at that time. Here we are 10 years later and the cost of a major production has quadrupled. And for what? Are the stories any better? Are they any more meaningful? No, they are flashier and more marketable, both of which shield the lack of substance. Money is the driving factor, and it is a factor that is rapidly increasing on things which don't matter (political war chests, players' salaries, movie/TV costs), all the while ignoring things that need our attention (hunger, medical coverage, the environment). Society is turning away from the problems to stare at the bright lights of entertainment. I’ve heard of people seeing Titanic four times. What the hell is their problem?

I see Tiger and Titanic as problems. The media packaging history and money not being well spent. What’s the answer? One, enjoying the moment, not stressing out about your "team" in whatever aspect they are competing. Two, making deliberate choices about entertainment. People are out there telling stories for under $200 million that are rich with meaning. Some of them are even in books or music or poetry. Stop throwing your money at $8 movie tickets and $100 sports tickets and contributions to candidates who lie to you. Do something helpful with that money. Do something.

Tiger and Titanic, Part I

2006-01-04T17:26:00.000-05:00

originally written 6.5.98

After getting through the social pleasantries, I begin to talk with people about the problems I perceive in the world. My voice level begins to rise, there is a great increase in hand movement and my eyes start zeroing in on the person in front of me, as if to say, "and it's all your fault." It’s not their fault. I’m not talking to Hollywood types or sports owners or marketing executives or corporate bigwigs or greedy politicians. I talk to normal people, whose fault, I believe, is of not questioning, not seeing through the mask those in power and those who want power have put on society.

Inevitably the question is raised: what are you going to do about it? I wish I could organize the thoughts in my head instead of ranting and give someone my manifesto. As of right now that glorious moment has not happened, so until that time, I take small steps in line with my vision and continue to raise questions about the world we live in.

For example, Tiger and Titanic. These two phenomena symbolize many of the things wrong with our society.

Tiger Woods is a golfer. He is young and of various ethnic backgrounds. He has won three USGA junior amateurs, three USGA amateurs, seven professional tournaments and one Masters. These are the facts. He is not the second coming of the Messiah, as Sports Illustrated would have us believe. He is not a black golfer solely. And he is not the greatest golfer ever. This is what the public is told however. I point you to the Wheaties box. He is one of eight permanent cover people. Others include Walter Payton, the NFL's all-time leading rusher in yardage and a super bowl champion; Michael Jordan, winner of six NBA titles and 10 time all-star; and assorted Olympic athletes who capture gold. What has Tiger Woods done? I refer you to the previous list of accomplishments. Maybe you could put him on there for his amateur achievements, for no one has dominated amateur golf like Tiger Woods. Not Bobby Jones, not Jack Nicklaus. I saw Tiger come back in that last amateur championship and I cannot describe the moment other than to say unbelievable. Professionally however, he is average. Winning the Masters with a record score and by 12 strokes is not average, but that was one time. Arnold Palmer won four times. Jack Nicklaus won six times, the last coming at the age of 46!

What I’m particularly pissed off at it the increased warping of history. Tiger has been declared the greatest golfer in history by the media. By the way he's 22. He may be rising star but how can you evaluate his place in history? The media decides who the history makers are and what their impact is long before the initial moment is over. This is just sports. Other people in politics, entertainment, business, are built up and bronzed in history before the awaited tearing down process begins. We refuse to let things happen. There is constant analysis. History is allowing time to pass, looking back, hopefully armed with the data of facts and different perspectives. History is not the constant repackaging of the moment. Tiger is a perfect example of this. Every week is how is Tiger doing? If he loses, what's wrong? Well what's wrong is the fact that golf cannot be dominated. Golf’s greats are measured by success over a long period of time. Only one time has golf been dominated. Byron Nelson won 11 straight tournaments in a row in 1945. Let us talk of Tiger in 50 years. For now, let us enjoy the moment without the criticism and prediction of every little moment because no one gets to read the final version of humanity.

sick of being sick

2005-12-23T14:48:00.000-05:00

My sickness continues. I thought I’d finally turned the corner on my head cold, but then I got the flu. Nightmare. Vomiting, aching, exhaustion, horrible. I figure next up for me is SARS, but that’s so 3 years ago. I guess I should be worried about the Asian chicken flu pandemic, but I just got my TAMIFLU delivered from eBay, so I should be all set.

Well it turns out “24” is quite popular out there in blogland. I’ll be honest, the first season I was very intrigued by the idea. I watched one show in the middle of the season, so I had no idea what was going on, but I thought, one day all shows will be on DVD and can be watched at my leisure, one day, when there are flying cars and manned missions to Mars and soma. Then I heard there was another season. I was like, OK, so the gimmick worked, and they’ll do another person in a life or death situation. Once I heard it Keifer, I checked out. Forget it. Are you kidding? I don’t care how suspenseful or intense or interesting they make the plot, you don’t get to ruin this guy’s day, season after season. I liked it the first time, when it was called Die Hard. Because isn’t that what “24” is? A TV serialization rip off of Die Hard? John McClane is the right at the wrong place three times. John, meet Jack. Jack, meet John. And cut.

o holiday tree, o holiday tree

2005-12-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

there has been considerable hoopla on the talk radio circuit re: the phrase surrounding this holiday season. is it happy holidays or season's greetings or merry christmas or merry ramahanakwanzmas (credit glenn beck)? put the christ back in christmas!! respect everyone!! i don't want to offend anyone!! blah, blah, blah. as mitch albom said, i feel good about this country because this is our biggest, and seeming only, problem.

jason at beaner's store #11 has this view.

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/051221/news/index6.asp

now i have no idea if his statements about pagan history and american vernacular are true, but i think you get his point.

on a completely different note, what is the blogging etiquette on links? should i copy and paste the link? or the article? or neither? help me out there bloggers of the world. or at least readers.

recent media intake

2005-12-18T21:01:00.000-05:00

Arrested Development. Have you seen it? No, I’m not talking about the group that produced songs such as Mr. Wendell and Tennessee. No, the TV show on Fox. Hilarious. Storylines can border on the absurd, but there are always hints of truth in them. Family tensions, hypocrisy, family tensions, cultural taboos, and, did I mention, family tensions. I just heard that it’s going to be cancelled. Of course. Because it’s funny and smart and has a touch of sophistication. As Glenn Beck says, why can’t smart people have a show instead of the stupid people getting all the shows? Catch it before it’s gone.

And finally, I’ve had a jonesin’ to see William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. You know the Leonard DiCaprio one? Why? Hadn’t seen it in years and probably because I found the soundtrack and thought I’d give it another try. It’s crazy. Shakespeare on crack. I really enjoyed it. Thoroughly modern with Elizabethan English. Leo’s kinda girly for the part, but what are you going to do? The supporting cast is quite good. John Leguizamo is great and Pete Postlethwaite is tremendous as the priest.

House was quite good last week. The last couple have been excellent. Dealing with interoffice politics and medical ethics and how the characters play off and feed off each other. Positive use of character development instead of whatever they were doing before.

recent media intake

2005-12-14T20:26:00.000-05:00

I’ve been sick for the last week or so. It began with a sore throat and moved on to strength sapping numbness followed by the body aches, which has led to current state—severe congestion, what I can’t hear you, and a constant need to blow my nose. Bouts of energy and exhaustion have hit me, which have led to severe instances of house cleaning and unhealthy amounts of media intake, respectively.

For instance, I was so exhausted on Saturday that I just wanted to watch TV. Nothing was on, and nothing in my collection interested me, so I picked through movies we had borrowed. Came across Panic Room. It wasn’t horrible. Had a slow beginning but the conflict is super intense and the movie has a very violent ending. Little disappointed with the resolution, but I took it because it’s all I had at the time.

I’ve been reading a lot of Batman comics. Brought them home from my last visit to Alabama. Gotham by Gaslight. Good. Little rushed but the essential storyline of Batman’s origins in late 19th century Europe and Gotham, coupled with his conflict against the Jack the Ripper is worth the read. I also read Year One and Dark Knight Returns. Awesome. The reason I read comics and the reason why Batman and the accompanying enemies and friends and circumstances are worth exploring. Son of the Demon was good as well. A little corny with Batman getting “married” and walking around an ice palace in his costume, but the temporary alliance with Ra’s is key because of the similarities it reveals and makes their conflict in other stories that much greater.

But a couple of things occurred to me during my Batman retrospective. First, whatever happened to James Gordon, Jr? He is born at the end of Year One and, for the life of me, I can’t remember a single mention of him. Second, Barbara Gordon doesn’t fit into the Batman continuity, if you use Year One. Bruce is 25 when James was born. Moving on to Killing Joke when Barbara is shot, she is at least in her early 20’s, making Batman, supposedly in his prime, in his mid to late 40’s. Huh? Third, there’s the son born at the end of Son of the Demon. Did Talia fake a miscarriage and then give up the baby for adoption? Interesting.

So my suggestion to DC is to use these loose ends to shape the future of Batman. You could set up a Batman 2099, like Marvel did before they used the Ultimate line or fast-forward 15-20 years. James Jr could be a cop, following his father, or a quasi-Oracle, echoing his sister. Bruce and Talia’s son could rise up to take Ra’s position. You could have Dick Grayson transition from Nightwing to Batman and have him partner with James Jr to battle Ra’s grandson. The psychological elements are ripe to be explored. Bruce would want him to help the world, yet he would be in opposition to his surrogate son and the son of his greatest ally. Would Bruce Jr respond to the will of his father or the lure of his mother and grandfather? Or you could have Bruce Jr become the new Batman and have him battle the conflicting bloodlines within him. Well there you go, free ideas. Make it happen.

retiring the word retirement

2005-12-13T20:26:00.000-05:00

So for all of you with too much time on your hands—money designers, trackers at wheresgeorge.com, TV/movie simpletons, fantasy football players—I’ve got a project for you. Develop a new word for retirement, especially for professional athletes.

Boxers as an example. How many times has Holyfield returned, only to come back? Larry Holmes came back. Larry friggin Holmes. Foreman takes a break from selling grills to win a piece of the heavyweight championship in his late forties. All of these boxers come back for one more payday, one more chance at glory.

Lance Armstrong says the ’05 Tour was his last. Big to-do about it. He wins and like two months later says, he’s going to continue to train and wouldn’t rule out a comeback.

Roger Clemens. Says he’s going to retire. Then the Astros offer him a sweet deal, like only showing up when it’s your turn to pitch, and he’s like Ok, I’ll stick around.

I was crushed when Michael Jordan said he was going to retire. Wore black and moped around. But then two years later he was back. The Bulls achieve dizzying heights, and he goes out with game winning shot to win the ’98 NBA Finals. You can’t do better than that. So he goes, I’m done, break up the Bulls, etc. Well he does go, they do break up the Bulls, and they descend into competitive hell, and then he decides to come back with the WIZARDS! Ugh. The previous playing level is not matched; the legacy is somewhat tarnished; and he becomes a minor joke trying to lasso in another joke, Sir Charles, for one last chance for the AARP team.

Barry Sanders retired. Yes, he shocked everyone, but he retired and disappeared. Didn’t play in some flag football game or show up at OSU training camp and send out rumors of a possible comeback. He RETIRED.

Well Austin, people change their minds. Fine. How about waiting until some time has passed? Don’t throw strike three of Game7 of the World Series and say, I’m done and then all winter regret those words. Don’t say what you’re feeling today and then say I’m feeling this way tomorrow. Introspection, check it out.

Or if you can’t make up your mind, say based on physical or emotional or family reasons, I’m ___________(insert new word here). Taking time off, processing, deciding, something other than retiring. But Austin, this is all they know how to do. Giving the game up is a big deal and not something to be trivialized in some insignificant blog that no one reads. I realize that this may be the only thing they know how to do in life, but please reinvent yourself. It happens to people all the time. Teachers and factory workers and management types. Something they know how to do is taken from them and they have to move on and learn to do something new. And they don’t have a multi-million dollar bank account to help them through the times of trial.

So there it is. Put on your thinking caps and give all of these mentally anguished athletes out there a word they can use in their final press conference ever, when they say something like,
“ . . . and I mean this {being retired}, because look at this team, I’ve enjoyed every moment of my career, especially the one when I treated a fan like shit and took him for granted while doing something that millions of people would love to be doing but didn’t win the genetic lottery or didn’t work hard enough in order to be at a point to make millions of dollars in a brief window of time and be financially secure for the rest of time. But nothing is ever final.” Except death, the Lions sucking and Jennifer Tilly being the most annoying actress of all time.

touching and technology

2005-12-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

Rule #1 is: don’t touch me. Imagine that. I’m not a warm, extroverted, touchy feely guy like I pretend to be. I maintain my bubble and am not afraid to tell you if you’re in it. People at work are amazed I got close enough to Erin to have a kid. Well I do make exceptions.

Take massages for instance. To get temporary relief from pain, I let a complete stranger touch me for 30 to 45 minutes. Face your fears I guess. It’s work it. Now am I going to let you touch me? No. Stay over there.

In regards to facing your fears, I should probably look into the dark, malevolent face of technology one of these days. I’m moving along the information superhighway very slowly. One of the few instances where I’m not speeding. Computer, very basic. Dial up, word processing, occasional video game. Cell phone. Get one because of work. No camera, no text messaging, not video games. TV. Finally got a new one but we don’t’ have cable. At the Bunce’s we had the dish and DVR. Loved that. Love DVR—no commercials (huge bonus), no tapes, on hassle. Just enjoy.

But everything else, I’ll be honest, terrifies me. Chalk it up to can’t teach an old dog new tricks or something. I don’t want to learn how to use photo shop. Erin won an iPod at her Mary Kay seminar and I’ve used it twice and only with the songs that we’re mistakenly downloaded on to it. And I had to have 14-year-old girls tell me how to turn it off. My dad has a friggin bluetooth. He breaks it out and shows me how it works, what its range is, and all the doodads. Whenever he visits, he whips out the laptop, does his business, checks his e-mail, and presents the grandchildren slideshow. My dad. Me, if I get a laptop, it would be to get out of the house and play hearts over at Beaner’s.

news and views

2005-12-07T19:45:00.000-05:00

the crawl during a football game on Sunday read, 1-10 Texans eliminated from the playoffs. thanks for the newsflash. idiot.

if every episode of Lost, ER, Survivor, is the one i can't miss, does that mean i'm really missing out?

shouldn't there be mercy rule in college? Saturday gave us texas/colorado, usc/ucla, fsu/va tech. ugh. all snoozers. boring. waste of time.

if iraq is our vietnam, what will be my generation's apocalypse now? or full metal jacket? or platoon?

so the billboard music awards pre-empted house. how about less music shows? do you really need to recognize yourself so much? are play dress up? is your life that stressful that you need a constant stream of after parties? less shows, more free concerts.

impact--the future of music?

2005-12-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

I figured it out. Now I know why the Impact 89 FM sucks. Not only is it because the world is out of pop music talent, but the people selecting the songs are complete idiots. Sunday nights is Sit or Spin, in which the panel listens to new music and decides whether it should go into heavy rotation. I listen to it on the way to and from indoor soccer. Each week I am more and more shocked at what they pick to listen to and then am appalled by their comments. By the way, not only has talent gone but the ability to pick band names has gone as well. Ugh. Like did you take random words of strip mall signage or were these the only words you could remember before your bong hit or are you trying to overly clever. Oh the Shitty Beatles. But I digress.

Last Sunday, they played a song that almost made me pull over in disgust and loathing. Imagine someone ripping out the singer’s vocal chords while dragging a cheese grater across the guitar strings. Yeah I know.

Austin’s response. Sit the damn song. Burn the album, burn all the albums. Take the hot poker to the part of my brain and purge this tiny bit of information. For the love of God please.

Panel’s response. Great. Had big sound. I’ll spin it. Really taking it in a different direction. Spin it. Used lots of different time signatures. Best song I’ve heard tonight. I’ll spin it too.

Are you kidding me? I’m tired of shit radio, of pushing the envelope, of music and lyrics that make no sense. You know what I’m really tired of? Pussy rock. All these young men singing falsetto, with stripped down music, with lyrics about feelings and imagery and spiritual (in a humanistic, natural sense) elements. Yeah, I know you were probably raised by men trying to buy into the whole concept of sensitive man of the 90’s, but why should I have to pay for it?

I want to rock out, especially in the car. Sex, drugs and, gasp, rock n roll. Maybe something witty and clever once in a while, like Nada Surf’s Popular. I don’t want to be put to sleep. Let’s get it together people. Eliot Smith is not a hero. He’s a cure for insomnia. The rest of you pussy rockers, grab an electric guitar, crank the amp to ten, throw together a couple of power chords, and let’s do this right. Now don’t swing the pendulum to the screamin’ hard-core guys. Get out, excuse me, download to your iPod some Zeppelin, some Crue, and some Stones. I would say grab Definitely Maybe by Oasis but then you’d know that I’m a biased little Brit wannabe. Anyway, let’s take a defibulator to rock and get back on track.

the modern quagmire

2005-11-29T19:33:00.000-05:00

i'm not a hawk or a dove. i'm a lover not a fighter.

i don't know what the answer is in iraq. as an american, i think the motives were intentional and honest. using wmd's to get us there, with the information being iffy, not so good. just say we want you, saddam, out and we want to spread democracy and blah, blah, blah. of course right now i'm not that big a believer in democracy, so what exactly would we be giving them? maybe there is an iraqi thomas jefferson over there, but in time wouldn't they just end up with mohammed clinton? having said all that, couldn't you just somehow liberate the people and let them decide what they want? but then you set the stage for saddem II to arise and there all kinds of religious and ethnic complications. maybe it would've been better to leave well enough alone.

as a christian, i shouldn't wish harm on anyone. war is not the answer. we should forgive those who attack and wish harm against us. am i really supposed to hold a candlelight prayer vigil for the islamofascists as savage would say? is that really what i'm called to do? or am i to be aware of the conflict but not take sides in a geo-political conflict but focus on my local community as a citizien of the kingdom?

here some interesting historical facts presented by dave reynolds.
http://bimmergeek.blogspot.com/2005/11/historical-perspective.html

what to do with democracy?

2005-11-25T08:53:00.000-05:00

I don’t know if I’ve told you or not, but I’m not so sure democracy works anymore. Well Austin, everyone gets a voice and their voices together guide elected representatives through this governmental experiment. But what happens if the voices are selected or stupid or readily susceptible to any number of influences?

Less than 50% of eligible voters vote. How does that give a mandate to anyone? Well Austin, did you vote? No. Why? You’re voting for different shades of the same thing. But that’s another topic for another time. How can poll after poll say one thing that the public is for, yet laws are fought for and passed saying the exact opposite? The answer is money. Now while money is what makes the world go round, gravity and orbit notwithstanding, is that what we want making legislation and controlling this country?

People vote on how their favorite musician/actor/athlete tell them. Are you kidding me? If it wasn’t for the industrial revolution and use of fossil fuels, which in turn led to ever increasing leisure time (which, by the way, is my new favorite argument regarding my partial media blackout and the abhorrence of anything new or anything to have/make/produce just for the sake of having/making/producing) these people wouldn’t have a DIME. Who cares what Sean Penn thinks? Two hundred years ago, he would’ve been beaten to a bloody pulp outside a dilapidated theatre and no one would have given it a second thought. In the same vein, a term of endearment: starving artists. The reason they starve is because either no one cares or no one thinks their stuff is any good. Just because you’re on a nationally televised awards program, which wouldn’t be on without the support of millions of advertising dollars, doesn’t mean I should or have to listen to you. So shut up and stop listening to them.

And it comes back to people and one of my axioms of life: people are fucking morons. I’m an idiot, you’re an idiot. Well I’m less of an idiot than you are, and we’re just trying to survive on this rock spinning around at high speeds around a star 93 million miles away. Now Austin that’s just not nice. But it’s true. Let me talk you back to the election disaster of 2000. You know, ineligible votes, hanging chads, Gore invented the Internet. I was making drinks behind the counter at Beaner’s and we’re not supposed to talk politics, so I just nodded my head when people brought up the subject. But I noticed that the same people who had a beef with Bush 43 or Gore were the same people who when I called out their drink went, Huh, what, is that what I ordered? Forget hanging chads. You can’t even remember the drink you just paid $4 for and walked 10 feet down to the other end of the counter without forgetting it. And you want to influence the direction of the country? And maybe a higher percentage of morons come into Beaner’s then you run into (or ordered at Pizza Hut or One Hour Photo), but people don’t read signs or observe what is going on around them. Last spring we lost power at the store. So the lights are out, no one is inside, there is a sign on the front door and people just walk in and say, I’d like a Double Tall Caramel Marvel. Hello?? You want to vote? How about you learn how to read first?

If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. If we can vote, then everyone votes, and a refusal to do so is a punishable offence. Let’s really find out what people think. And if not, then let’s scratch it and star with something else.

Of course, here’s the problem I’m having. I want to reshape American government, yet what is my role as a follower of Christ? Does being in the world but not of the world mean that I shouldn’t care what the corrupt, wayward nature of the government? Does trying to be foretaste of the kingdom mean that I shouldn’t care about the dolts who vote and voice their opinions all the while ignoring facts and common sense? Is there something in Christ’s life and message that supercedes America’s foreign policy and our role in globalization and the unending battle between the haves and have nots? So I debate in my mind what I would want a new government to look like (vision, principles, organization) while thinking, I should worry about my witness and my spiritual formation. It’s very frustrating.

tuesday TV

2005-11-23T20:26:00.000-05:00

Last night, while waiting for House to start, the clicker came to rest on some music awards show. As some of you are aware, I’m of the belief that humanity is out of talent and this show could be state’s exhibit A. And who dress these people? The first girl was up there shakin her thing in what looked like a white long sleeved shirt and 8” fuck me heels. How she could stand upright is beyond me. Next was Gwen Stefani. Ugh. I was never on the Gwen bandwagon, but then she’s up throwing down with these two rappers, her hair in, dare I say it, some sort of 50’s pompadour, with the stiletto heels as well, and what appeared to be Capri flooder jeans if such a thing is possible. Finally, there was Hillary Duff. No talent ass clown comes to mind. Anyway, she’s got her little black dress on with some sort of sock/boot number. The accoutrement may have been painted on for all I know. But she’s got these four guys gyrating wildly all around her. I can’t even describe what they were doing. For a visual, see the FatBoySlim video with the guy dancing outside the movie theatre.

All of this in preparation for one of my little slices of the American media pie: House. I was hooked on the show by the medical mysteries and the arrogant, unfeeling, brash Doctor House. This season the show has focused heavily, and I mean heavily, on the character development. Last night, it seemed over the top, like, yeah, this guy’s sick and we’ll figure it out, but in the mean time, I (House) have to manipulate and hunt down a rat to get back with my ex-girlfriend, who is now married to a cripple I had to save and two of my underling doctor slept together, while one of them was high on crystal meth. I (Austin) have to say, take it slow. I’m in this for the long haul. You don’t have to reveal each character’s foibles and peccadilloes and history and flaws halfway through season two. Let’s just figure stuff out by innuendos and conversations and the occasional flashback. Last night was like some sort of soap opera and if I want that I’ll go back the anchor of my high school TV scheduleàGeneral Hospital. Ohh, days gone by.

free roll success

2005-11-22T19:47:00.000-05:00

The free rolls at PartyPoker are a gamble in and of themselves. Not every one who registers shows up and then I’ve been kicked off and the tournament just stopped. Very irritating. But I keep playing them. A while ago I made it to the top 300. Considering that about two-thirds of the 2500 that actually registered played that afternoon, I thought I did well. The next one I made it to 40th. Never had a big stack so I kept hanging on until the end. On my attempt I finished 69th after getting of to a great start. Made a flush on the flop and thought, here it is, my breakthrough. Go all-in. Another player calls with a pair of 6’s. Fine. The flop was xd, Qd, 6d. I have him. But no, a Q comes on the river and I drown. Ugh.

But two weeks ago I had an awesome night. Decent, ok great cards, stayed away from marginal hands and as the night wore on, my stack got bigger and bigger. Started at 9pm and by midnight I was till in the thick of it. Pretty soon I had beaten my best of 40th and before I knew it, I was at the final table. And after three people had been knocked out I was in 1st with a commanding chip lead. Other people knocked each other out and then it was down to TWO. And that’s when I lost it. I made three mistakes. After trading blinds, I went fishing for a hand. Finally pulled away after significant damage. Strike 1. I made up for it and took the lead again. Back and forth and then I decided to bluff. Got called twice and finally caved. More damage. Strike 2. So the other guy has a 2:1 chip lead on me. At 1:40am after four and a half hours of play, I got a J/10 and the flop came up K-Q-10. I went all-in. Strike 3. My opponent turns over a K 10. Good night now. So I finished 2nd out of probably 3000.

The night was almost Zen-like. Good cards. Nice flops. Bought pots. Got away when necessary. All of those hours of reading and watching and playing paid off. Well you say, it was a free roll. Yeah I know, but it’s the competition. I want to win. I can’t play for money but I play for the rush, the interaction, and the chance to win. I don’t play for fun. If we’re playing, I keep score. Ask anyone who’s played football or basketball or soccer or ping-pong or Settlers or anything with me. There’s another free roll tonight. Hopefully I’ll do well again.

almost a millionaire

2005-11-21T19:46:00.000-05:00

Poker has become my #1 hobby. With no cable, and no money or desire to watch contemporary media, poker is the default option.

So here’s the latest in a series of poker updates. Recently I played in the satellite for the Million Dollar Freeroll at ParadisePoker and I’ve been playing lots of multi-table free rolls at PartyPoker.

At Paradise, you can win a million dollars for free. I know there’s no thing as a free lunch, but maybe there’s free money. Here’s how it works. You have to finish in the top 15 of a 2000+ person free roll, and that qualifies you for the next round, and if you win that, you’re a millionaire. So I gave it a whirl. I played well and got lucky on several occasions. After one of the breaks, I was in the last 300, which is usually where I make a mistake or get agonizingly unlucky. But I kept plugging away and made the last 200, then the last 100. After getting in to the top 75, I thought I had a chance. Then I was in the top 50. I got to play a J-6 unsuited for cheap. Flop comes A J 6, all of diamonds. I couldn’t all-in fast enough and hoped to buy the pot and avoid someone making a flush. Bad idea. The other guy calls and turns over 2 diamonds. I was like oh shit. But then I realized that if I hit a jack or six, I could make it. Didn’t happen. So I finished 37th. Pretty close. Not as good as my 28th for a chance for a trip to the Caribbean, but pretty stinking good.

By the way what would you/I do with a million dollars?

soundtrack of our lives

2005-11-15T20:14:00.000-05:00

I’m in the process of purging my CD collection. CD’s that I don’t like anymore or have grown out of or don’t listen to anymore or am ashamed to own. (New Kids on the Block’s Hanging Touch comes to mind.) I have done this several times and I always debate about getting rid of them until I realize that I haven’t listened to some of the records for YEARS. Obviously not that important.

I have my CD’s in alphabetical order. Part of analness manifesting itself. Got to the B’s and hit Beck. Why do I still have Mellow Gold and Odelay? Loser is good every once in a while. Beer Can is a fun song. Devil’s Haircut and Where it’s at were big on the radio back in the day. I really haven’t kept up with Beck, so why are these in my collection? I don’t know, so they’re gone. I realized later that Mellow Gold was a particular CD for particular time--when I was getting high. Smoke a big bowl, sit out on the porch, have the CD on in the background and waste time. There are some CD’s that are purely there because they were soundtracks to get stoned to. But now that I don’t do that anymore, the CD’s just aren’t worth having.

A CD collection can reveal a lot about a person. Taste, timeline, influences. I always check people’s stack of CD’s because I want to find out about them or have some common ground or ammunition to rip on them. Think about all the CD’s you’ve ever bought or borrowed or lost or stolen and each one captures a moment in time of your life. We all have our personal soundtrack.

But I’ve also realized that my soundtrack is aging. I just don’t enjoy anything new. It’s like it stopped in the late 90’s. The only new CD’s I buy are from bands I love and still follow and put out a new record—Oasis, U2, Sloan—or old bands that I go back and get their stuff—Buffalo Tom and Dandy Warhols. I’ll hear a single on the Impact and really enjoy it but I don’t go out and buy the album like I used to, especially on Daddy’s dime. I suppose I should use all of the Internet resources and buy singles and burn compilations, but I’m lazy. No thanks. I guess I’ll just stick with what got me here. Another example of how I don’t want to experience anything new. Something I definitely have to explore.

Anyway, back to the crates of CD’s.