love me do

Been in Ft. Collins since Saturday. It's been fantastic so far. Good weather, lots to do.
We've done brewfest, eaten nearly everywhere we like to go (I've been to Big City three times already), and still have lots to do.
My liver is going to be hating me at the end of the week, but it's a lot of fun now.

alarm

So busy. Going to Ft Collins next week for vacation. REALLY looking forward to that. In the meantime, all of work if blowing up. Some things good, some really bad. I just hope I have a job when I get back.

In the meantime, I'm signed up for the cornhusker state games in Judo, and I just signed up the girls soccer team for the same. Which means on the same day, I'm going to compete in judo, and coach multiple soccer games, all in the 90+ degree heat. Should be great.
Even better? We get to practice in the evenings for the next several weeks in the 95+ degree weather. Good times.

down in a hole

So... Apparently my website was down for a while. I had no idea, because it was working great from my house, you know, where the server actually is. The problem was that the new server wasn't letting anyone from outside the house see anything. So I'm just posting blissfully along, unaware of any problems until Greg told me about it.
So there you go, I'm sure you'll sleep better at nite now that it's fixed.

Life is getting hectic and soap opera-ish lately. Work is going crazy, but I won't complain as long as I'm still employed. Heck, there's even some talk about hiring someone else here, which I'll believe when it actually happens, but that's a lot better talk than more layoffs.

My parents are in the middle of trying to move back to lincoln, which is a huge stress ball for everyone. My long time friend Joel is coming to lincoln this weekend for his 20 year high school reunion, and we're having a party at our place for him and other non-high school friends, which will be really cool. Only dampener on this is that my cousin EJ, who has been slowly losing his battle with lung cancer just died yesterday. Huge downer, but I hated to see him in pain all the time. So we have his funeral on monday too.

Going on vacation to Ft. Collins at the end of June, really looking forward to that. I need a vacation.

So, hope to see a lot of friends and family in the next few days, some for fun reasons and some not, but I'm all booked up for the next few weeks.

mr bungle

Greg called me today to inform me that the website has been down the last few weeks. Well, it really wasn't down, you just couldn't see it. I could see it great from inside my house, (since the server lives inside my house) but no one could see it from outside. No one, including me.
So I think I fixed it, I just hope it stays fixed.

kick

As I have mentioned several times before, this last spring was our first venture into the higher level (spirit) of soccer competition on the girls team. It proved to be a great choice because the competition was better, but we were still competitive.


And there are finally rewards, as the girls got second place medals to show for their efforts. This is much better than just "playing for fun". Now there can be something to show for all your hard work, I like that better.


What I found most remarkable about this was the fact that this team almost didn't happen because I couldn't find enough girls to make a team. At this age, you needed a minimum of 10 girls, and I only had 8, but I begged the spirit admin to let us in because we didn't want to be in the recreational dvision anymore. He let us, and I picked up one individual player.

So now we have to sign up for the fall season already, and we have to move up to the 8v8 division, which means I needed even more  players. So I made 1 call to some players that were on our winter indoor team, and now all of a sudden I have a team of 15 (the max is 16), and 3 more asking to join. I know at least of it is due to some good timing, but I'd also like to think that we are now a desirable team with well known good players (and coaches!).

Now in the fall, the sham will be uncovered, as we are going to be starting over. As of now, we keep the original 9 girls and add 6 girls from two different teams, other than ours. So in the fall, it will be a case of everyone knows at least someone, but no one knows everyone. So we will need a lot of practice to get used to playing with each other, and playing in the 8 man formations on the bigger fields.

hard as a rock

Busy stuff, but a fun week. I won quite a bit playing cards on wednesday, thursday was a lot of fun when Ann and I went to Old Chicago's, where I finished my second beer tour, and all I got for it was a long sleeve shirt. I think the end of tour gifts should get better as you go, not worse.

Friday we didn't do much. I did a lot of reading, as Aubery went to a school potluck thing, so I drop him off, then by the time I get home, he's already called and said "I'm way under dressed. I don't want to go anymore, come back and get me. I'll be waiting in the hallway, I don't even want to go in there."
Quality. So I go back, and when I get inside, he's nowhere to be found. So I walk into the cafeteria area where the potluck is, and there he is, sitting in with everyone. Nice. Now I made a trip for nothing, but at least he's not a pussy.

Saturday we didn't do much, but it was nice to relax. I spent a fair amount of time working on a home program I'm interested in that builds tournament brackets. Not exciting, but it's posing an interesting set of problems to solve.
That nite we went to see the No Coast Derby Girls, the local roller derby team. I had been mildly interested in seeing them since their inception in 2005, but never got around to it. With nothing else going on, it was a good opportunity to check it out, and it was much cooler than I aniticipated.
The idea came about because one of the girls' student teachers is on the team, so they both wanted to go watch her. Now, of course, the girls want to do roller derby, which would be cool, but it's clear that you cannot do that sport until you're much older. They wouldn't let anyone under 18 even sit on the floor level, because the skaters will crash into you, which is fun to watch.


Sunday the girls went to a birthday party for the whole afternoon, so it was an opportunity for Ann, Aubrey and I to go see Star Trek, which was pretty entertaining. Although I'm getting sick of all the time travel plotlines that are being thrown around nowadays. It doens't make for a very neat explanation of much of anything.
I'll put my best example of this in the extended part, it's not really a spoiler per se, but it does divulge some major plotlines.

Now it's back to the grindstone. This is the last week of school for the kids, so this is also the last week of working from home for me. Continue reading "hard as a rock"

crabby patties

Had a pretty great weekend.
Friday we didn't do much, but Aubery went to a high school talent show.
Saturday we just ran around preparing for our crawfish boil on sunday. Cleaning, I was still working on this grill, and yard and whatnot.
Then I met some friends at Bw3s to watch the latest UFC fight, which were some of the best fights I've seen, and I ate 20+ wings.
That was a lot of fun.

Sunday we had a crawfish boil.


It was a fun activity, but I'm not getting crawfish again. They suck. Hard to eat, not hardly any real meat, and don't taste any better than any other kind of thing. Like say crab legs. Those are good and worth the effort.
Yesterday we didn't do much, more cleaning up, and playing some cards last nite at a bar for the first  time in months, which was pretty fun.

walcott

my hands are black right now. Once I stopped working at 5pm, I became a mechanic.
Our neghiborhood is having a garage sale, which means everyone in this subdivision is having a garage sale, it seems. It makes getting in and out of my drive a huge pain since the next door neighbor is having one, and all the people that go there park in front of my driveway, but whenever I go anywhere, I can stop and look to see if there's anything interesting.
On the way back from taking the girls to school in the morning, I happened to notice that one house had a large gas grill at their sale, so I stopped and looked. I have been in the market for a new grill, I hate my current one. This one was very large, and very heavy duty like I was looking for. It was even already converted to natural gas, which was why he was selling it, he said. He just moved there, and didn't have a gas hookup, so he just got a new grill, and was selling this one. It was originally $700 (I verified this later) and was selling it for $75. I gave him $60, and was quite pleased with myself.
So 5pm rolls around, and I go out to the garage and start checking it out more thoroughly, since I couldn't test it at his house (no gas, remember?). I look inside, and it looks terrible, I would bet my life it wouldn't work. But the only real problem were some simple parts on the inside, like the burners, the outside, the cart, etc, are in very good shape..
$100 dollars in new burners and other parts later, and I'll have a nearly new grill. Which is less than the $400 I was ready to spend on a new grill, and it's far better quality than anything I've seen in the big box stores.
So I spent most of the nite tearing this one down, cleaning it, and getting it ready to install all the new parts. It's almost like building it from scratch, so it's kindof fun.

Oh, and I also replaced the front disc brakes on the van, as the old ones squeaked to no end, and it was driving us all crazy.

So between cleaning a grill and changing brake pads, my hands are unrecognizalble to me right now. Perhaps that's a sign to play the "stranger" game with myself. Hmmm. Maybe it doesn't work like that, not sure...

superunknown

Dammit!
The girls ended up losing their last game. It was a chance to avenge a previous loss, and we were tied at halftime, I really thought we were going to pull it out, but it all fell apart at the end. They improved so much this year though, it was really fun to watch them.
Now based on how some other games go, we could finish in a 3 way tie for 1st, (which amazingly I think based on other criteria would ultimately mean we would finish 3rd), or 2nd place outright.

It was a good season, and signup for the fall season is right now, so I have to get that all figured out now too. I have a dilema of where to get more girls who are good, and the same age. It looks like I'll get screwed again, and have to play in the U11 division in the fall because I can't find enough girls we can get who are U10. Which means we will yet again be the smallest, slowest team out there. It makes us better, but it's nice to win too.

candian idiot

Ok, I will say that I had about as good a weekend as I can imagine in recent memory.
Started with me successfully defending my thesis on wednesday. I played cards that nite, but didn't really win or lose anything.

Thursday and friday nothing really much happened, but Saturday. Oh baby.

The girls had a rematch against the best team in our division. The first time we played them, they won 20-1. It was embarassing. I knew we had improved, and really just wanted to hang in there better, make it close. But we took an early lead due to some lucky mistakes they made (their defense getting a hand ball in their goal box = direct kick for us), and we never relented. It helped that our worst player showed up 45 minutes late and didn't get to play except for the last 4 minutes.
I was actually feeling a little guilty at the end I had been so bloodthirsty and desparate to win. We all cheered and high fived when our player did a slide tackle into their keeper right as she was trying to pick it up, kicking the ball away, and inadvertantly kicking her in the face. Ball pops away from newly injured keeper to our forward, easy goal. Everyone on on our side is high fiving each other, yelling "YEAH! Great job!" as the 9 year old girl is hauled off the field on a stretcher.
Yeah, feeling a little remorseful about that bit, but otherwise, it was the greatest game I've coached them in.

Then we had the best meal at Red Robin I've had in a long time.
Mother's day was great because it was very leisurely. Slept in, then went and got all the plants we want to plant in the garden this year. Lots of peppers, tomatoes, and other weird stuff we're to just try, like broccolli. Then Aubrey and I saw the Wolverine movie. It was ok, I would say it was the weakest of the Xmen series, but still ok.
Then we went home and everyone planted stuff in the garden.
I grilled a large package of chicken, and we all ate until we were fat and happy.

Pretty good weekend.

master of puppets

Well, I successfully defended my thesis today. It went far more smoothly than I imagined. I wasn't really even asked any truly difficult questions. Not that I'm complaining, but I expected to be made to look the fool, and It was fairly benign.
So now I don't know what I'm going to do with myself in my free time. No side job, no grad school.
I'll have to try to drum up some side job business for myself I guess.

the scotsman song

My parents are back from Ireland, and it sounded like they had a good time.
One of the things they did there that we did not do when we went, was to do some research on the family histories. Both sides thought they were somewhat Irish, and my Dad's mom thought they were largely English with some Irish.
So he went there and found that he is in fact, basically 100% scottish. So... close, but no, Grandma.
Mom's side was in fact, Irish, but they apparently pointed out that it was a group of Irish that in fact came from England, so I don't know what to make of that.

So I guess now I'm Scottish and Irish.

I feel so much different now.

perfect memory

Well, last nite I finally submitted my thesis into my defense committee. Wednesday I have to go defend it. So I have until then to dress up my slides and prepare for the 45 minute presentation, and generally prepare to get raked over the coals.

It seems to be formatted like a drumhead court martial, or cesaer judging the gladiator with the thumbs up or down. I give my presentation and answer questions, then get sent out of the room for an undetermined amount of time while the review board decides to give the thumbs up or down. Then walk back into the verdict.

I expect to be highly embarassed and humbled, because that apparently is "the way it is", but as long as they still pass me in the end. I have to assume that will be the case, or else why would my advisor even suggest I'm ready, right? Right?
That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

I've been reading classic books that I feel like my public school education cheated me from reading. Books that it seems like everyone else in the world has read just to get through school, and I somehow never did. And I was in several AP (Advanced Placement) english classes. (I'm not bragging, by the way. In fact, I maintain that my being in those classes was good for me, but generally I was in over my head. My reading comprehension/english scores on standardized tests said I was well below average).
So I just finished reading Alice in Wonderland and Tom Sawyer, finally. Not too bad. Alice in Wonderland is weird as hell. Tom Sawyer is very long, but ok.
I just started Moby Dick, and so far, it sucks. It better get good fast, or I may not finish it at all.

set the controls for the heart of the sun

Last week was insane. Lot of soccer, lots of judo.
Girls won their second game of the week, because it was the only team that was in fact the same age as them. This puts us smack dab in the middle of the standings. I'd obviously prefer to be near the top if not the top, but for our first year, at least we're not at rock bottom.

We hosted our spring judo tournament on saturday, and it went pretty good. We put all our faith in a tournament managment program a friend in town wrote, and it mostly worked, but had several hiccups along the way. I was afraid things looked really stupid, but I think most people thought it was pretty good. I competed only in the open category, which is no weight classes, no age groups. I got second, losing to a 24 year old 230 lb guy, who really was quite good. I've never seen him lose, although I'm sure he has somewhere. He didn't use his extra weight to throw me, he threw me with good technique, but his extra weight definitely prevented me from throwing him.


In completely other news, I somehow won a fantasy football league last fall. Complete fluke, and I didn't even realize it until a week later when I remembered to look at the standings. Even then, I had to read it like 3 times to see if it made sense, as I was nowhere near the top going into the playoffs. I don't think I was predicted to win a single playoff game, let alone 3.
True cinderella story, except there's no money to be won, all I get is my name on a trophy. Well perhaps the most valuable thing is bragging rights over people who truly cared about the thing, and put in time, money and effort into it. I'm sure it was a one time thing, so I better brag about it while I can.

havolina

It's been a crazy week so far, and it's only half over.
I've been working non-stop on this thesis, and yesterday finally submitted what I hope is the final version, or something very, very close.
Now I have a week to come up with a 40 minute powerpoint presentation as well. So this nightmare won't be over until may 6th. I just found out the format is what I've dubbed the "gladiator" style of defense, where I give a presentation to 3+ faculty members, they ask questions during the presentation and after. Then I'm sent out of the room for god only knows how long, and I come back in to have them simply "yes" or "no" to passing the thesis defense. So it's like I'm the gladiator getting the thumbs up or down after the fight.
All or nothing baby. No pressure there.

My parents are in Ireland now. Or at least I'm assumming so. I know they left on their flight from chicago on sunday, but my dad was going to get a phone there and call us, and hasn't. So know knows? Most likely they're so busy, and/or he couldn't find the phone like he wanted.

We've had three soccer nites in a row. Tues-Thurs.
Tues we got killed, and I mean KILLED. It was terrible. Wednesday they had a clinic, and tonite we had another game. Tonite we played the only other team that consists entirely of 3rd graders. Every other team is either a mix, or entirely 4th graders. It's isn't a huge difference, but I think 80% of our 3rd graders are below average sized 3rd graders, so you put them up next to the average 4th grader, and it's a pretty noticable difference. They get outrun by every other team pretty consistently, based purely on the stride length of the other players.
But since we played 3rd graders tonite, we were the ones doing the killing. Actually, I hoped it would have been more lopsided, but we won 4-0, so it sure beats losing.

Tomorrow I have to get a lot of work done for work, for this presentation, then we go setup mats for our UNL judo spring tournament, where I have to show up at 8am on saturday, and be there ALL DAY. And quite possibly compete as well.
Then, we have a family potluck to go to that nite, which I'm sure I'll be all revved up for by that time.

I anticipate that next week I'm going to need to take some days off and just rest, from everything.

you've got so far to go

This coming week is going to be brutal.
I literally have every single day and nite booked solid. And yet I'm still trying to put the finishing touches on my thesis and prepare a final presentation somewhere in this coming week. I quite literally cannot see when I will do that, and I've been working on it all weekend.
I even got an extension of sorts on it, as I was originally going to defend it this wednesday. HA! There was no chance that was going to happen. Now I'm going to end up saying the same thing about this new deadline. Not a good sign.

it's BACON!!!

So I love bacon. A lot. Too much. And I eat it nearly raw, which I'm sure is the only possible way to make bacon actually worse for you than otherwise normal bacon would be.

I am not alone in this however, as there are many people out there with the same love of bacon that I have.

These guys are making some products which I've seen made fun of all over,


especially the baconnaise, but really, I think all these products sound great.


But this is the best, the absolute winner of best product of all time.

proud to be am american

This is how international relations should always go.
Could this be any cooler? Could it make you any prouder to be an American? I submit that it cannot.

Anyone pick up on the small detail that our spineless, wussy, non-military president authorized this awesome action? Everyone involved in this kicks ass, which is supposedly what we are known for. Now maybe we can use this as a turning point to be known for that again.

here comes peter cottontail

So I had a pretty good week, and weekend.

Started with me leaving wednesday afternoon to drive out to Fort Collins, where I met up with Jeremey and Tod for a few (ok, a lot) drinks at Old Chicago's. This was not really my first choice as Ann and I go to the Old C's near our house all the time, and wihle I like it plenty, when I travel I prefer to go to a place I can't go to here in Lincoln. But I also have a lot of history and nostolgia at that particular place, so I was ok with it.
We drank and laughed until nearly close, and then I crashed at Jeremey's house. Although I attempted with the most minimal effort to show restraint in the amount I ate and drank, as I had to make weight two days later.
The next day, he and I went to his new work, and had big city burrito with Robin. It was great. Shortly thereafter, I made plans to have dinner at big city burrito with Dave and Tiffany, which was still great, as a very large reason I like FTC so much is to due to that restaurant.

After lunch, I left Jeremy and Robin to go hit the gym, the new gym there that is open 24 hours, a major complaint I used to have about FTC that has now been rectified. I did a workout and verified my weight was where it needed to be, then met up with Dave where we took Madison to her soccer practice, and went to big city burrito again.

After dinner, we went to Old C's again, and played lots of trivia and poker. It was like heaven.

Friday, I verified the weight was good, worked out, and went to denver to weigh in.
I weighed in at 175, which was 3 lbs light, and was all proud of myself when I found out that the masters division I was in didn't have weight classes. Oh well.

Went back home, ate some wings, and a big burger, then went to bed. (Thanks to Micauley for letting me take over his room).
Next morning, packed my things, said goodbye to everyone, and went to the tournament.

My division was in fact, nothing but old guys. I was informed that I was the youngest guy in the masters division, but by my judgement, it wasn't by much. Also in my three man division, the oldest guy in the whole tournament.
The tournament director who was the main coach from Northglenn remembered me from the time I was practicing there, and pointed all this out to me and said "try to take it easy on him".
So I did, and I didn't turn in a stellar performance on the second guy, but enough to win, so I managed to get a gold medal.


This was far better than the rest of the club, would only got 1 win in 14 matches between all of them. It was humbling, but hopefully a positive and enlightening experience.

I drove home that nite, and had a fun easter here at our house with Ann's family, so it was about as fun a weekend as I've had in recent memory.

Now back to reality, and it's going to be a busy, unfun week for me here, which is the typical case when you return from vacation. But it was worth it.

vacation

I'm leaving tomorrow for a little mini-vacation, for myself.
The stated purpose of the trip is to attend a judo tournament in Northglenn, which is the intent, but I was pretty stoked about going so I could hang out in Ft. Collins a few days and see friends.
Only down side is I have to make weight on friday afternoon, and all I really want to do in Ft Collins is overeat and drink beer. I'm at weight right now, but that doesn't mean I couldn't screw this up yet.