A Good Weekend

I haven't done a weekend update post in a while and I don't intend to start doing them again. But for today I will do one.

I was out of town Thursday into Friday and didn't get home until middle of the afternoon on Friday.

I did some minor yard work Friday afternoon before heading to the soccer field for kiddo's makeup game from earlier in the season.


Saturday was supposed to be the last game of the season but the soaking rain that went through PA meant NO soccer.

But it did mean WET PUPPIES! And unfortunately......MUDDY PUPPIES!

They realized that it is easier to dig in mud than it is dry dirt. GREAT!


But then the real meaning to this past Saturday started......


Penn State @ Ohio State!!

If the Lions could win this game than they are on track for their first undefeated season since 1994 and possibly their first National Championship since 1986.

I was PUMPED!

Some friends came by to keep me calm and whatnot which actually did work. I wasn't too hyper and managed to not get too tense during the game.

But it didn't matter at the end!

PSU 13 OSU 6

AWESOME!!


And after that the weekend got busy again.

I woke up Sunday morning to......a mess in the dog crate.....and a mess on the dogs.

One of them had gotten ill in the crate overnight and there was stuff all over the crate and all
over the dogs.


So after all that cleaning and whatnot we went to a hockey game last night in Hershey, PA.

That was a good game to be at (we won 8-3) but the more interesting thing happened around the 2nd intermission.

Wifey and Kiddo went to the bathroom and when they got back there was a story to be told.

A little pre story.....kiddo wanted to bring her Nintendo DS to the game in case she got bored....I said no.

Apparently she didn't like that answer. She had stuffed her DS into her pants before we left the house and managed to sit in the car, walk to the arena, eat her dinner, sit for 2 periods (almost 2 hours), and get to the bathroom without having problems.

And she still didn't have any problems. Apparently the bathroom was so crowded that Wifey went into the stall with her just to get out of everyone's way. And then it was discovered.

I was so impressed that I allowed her to have the DS after the came back.

I would like to think that I would have been smart enough to do the same thing when I was 7!


And now I am here at work to begin yet another week....Yippee!!! (sarcasm intended)

Still A Busy Week

I am still in the midst of a very busy week here in PA.

Last night I had my first fantasy football draft that took about 3 hours to complete. Verb and I have a team together because it costs $100 to join and I don't have that kind of money to spend on games.

But the draft went surprisingly well as we were picking last of 13 teams but ended up with a VERY GOOD team!

The league champion gets $500 so I expect to make some money just in time for Christmas.

Now back to my busy week.

I have soccer practice tonight for kiddo's team.

Tomorrow the family is coming down for dinner to celebrate my sisters birthday and labor day.

And then Sunday a bunch of friends are coming to do our fantasy draft. This one is amongst close friends and only costs about $15 dollars this year. The wife, verb, young buck, lazy old white guy, skittles (formerly monkey), oompa loompa, jari kurri, and myself are in that league so it should be a good time.

And to top all of that off I still have the puppies to watch after and clean up after. They have been pretty good so far this week. No more than a couple messes a day which is a VERY good thing!

Pictures are coming........at some point!

Oh and once again let me remind you where I will be tomorrow during the afternoon and then again after dinner:
Doing what you ask.........watching college football of course!!!!

Quite a Week (so far)

It has been a busy past couple of days at my house.

Saturday we drove out and picked up our puppies!

So the past few days have been filled with trips outside and playing inside.

Having puppies is a lot like having a baby. It is constant supervision and doing everything you can to make them happy and keep them occupied.

I would even say that having 2 puppies is harder than having a baby because they will destroy things if given the chance. (and remember I do speak from experience)

But the good thing about puppies versus babies is that within a couple months the puppies can (in theory) be left alone for a little while. And OBVIOUSLY a baby can not be left alone for years.

There will be pictures soon but right now they are still on the camera.

I have also begun being the assistant coach for my daughters soccer team which is only 2 nights a week, plus games on Saturdays, but it is something else to take my free time.

And I have started taking classes to be a real estate agent. If anyone living in the Central Pa area is looking to buy or sell in the coming months or years, let me know!

The wife has started classes again at a community college near us. This will be her third semester back in school. She is doing good but the puppies are affecting her study time.

And the kiddo started 2nd grade today. She is kind of excited and kind of not excited. Really she seems pretty impartial to the whole thing.

And to top it all off I have 2 fantasy football drafts this week/weekend to prepare for. I have been working on this stuff for the past few weeks but now they are here and I intend to devote a couple more hours to it. Although some (most) of that time will go to setting up one that is being held at my house.

So it has been and continues to be a very very busy week.

Oh and college football starts this weekend!! My favorite time of the year = football season!

WE ARE PENN STATE!!!!!

Best Day Of Sports In A While!!

To know me you have to know that I love sports. My favorites being football and hockey.

This time of year is not much fun for sports because I do NOT watch the NBA and I barely watch any baseball.

But yesterday was great.

My day started with Spain vs Sweden in Euro 2008. It was a great game!!

Spain won 2-1 in extra time. And as far as European teams go Spain is my favorite.

But more importantly in that game I found a European born player that I can root for in Fernando Torres. He is a forward for the Spain team and is a good player.

But more importantly he shows excellent sportsmanship and hustle.

After one turnover in the offensive zone that he committed he chased the guy down and knocked the ball away from him. That is something that very FEW forwards will do. The only time you will usually see a forward in the defensive half of the field is on a kickoff or a free kick when they are back defending.

His sportsmanship was evident when instead of just walking away from a ball that had gone out he went and got it for the OTHER team! That is unheard of in soccer. Usually no matter how close the opposing team is to the ball they will never get it for the other guys. But he did.

And one other time at the half a bunch of the players were complaining to the officials and he stepped in between and got all of his guys away without incident.

It is just the show of respect and SMART play that he shows that will cause me to root for him.

After the soccer game the sports day slowed down for a while.

I watched a little of the College World Series game between Stanford and Florida State but I didn't see the end when Stanford scored 11 runs in the 9th inning.

I also watched a little of Russia vs Greece in Euro but not the whole thing.

But then at about 845 last night I turned on the US Open and watched Tiger Woods make 3 AMAZING shots.

The best one was on the 17th when he chipped the ball in the cup. (if you want to see it I am sure espn has it up on their site or just turn on sportscenter and watch top plays, I am sure it will be there.)

His reaction to that shot was incredible. He seemed almost embarrassed to have made it. He was definitely surprised that it went in. It was impressive.

After that I turned on Georgia vs Miami in the CWS in the top of the 9th and watched Georgia come from one run down to win the game.

All in all a very good day for sports, especially this time of year.

After all that I went to bed around 11 to get some decent sleep after not getting to bed until 5 the previous morning!

A Weekend Review

if you haven't seen this, check it out.


Once again I had a pretty good weekend. There was much mario kart playing and some pretty good eating.

It all started with the previously mentioned trip to Circuit City.

After that was done wifey and I picked up our daughter from school (her last day of the year).

We proceeded to head back home where my daughter and I played some mario kart until verb joined us. She isn't very good yet (she is only 7 and wants to turn her WHOLE body instead of just the wii wheel).

We then went to her last soccer practice for the season where the parents were playing the kids.

Wifey was smart and she packed gatorades and waters for the 4 of us.

Verb played goalie in high school and I haven't played competitively since middle school but we probably could have beaten all the kids AND all the other parents by ourselves.

After the scrimmage we returned home, ordered some food, picked up said food (pizza, sub, wings), young buck came over, and we played mario kart and bowling until about 11.

By the way...I had 8 strikes in a row on wii bowling while LAYING DOWN!! I barely roll strikes when I am standing but laying down, I am unbeatable!

Saturday morning was the day of my daughters soccer tournament. The first game was at 8am.

That's right I was up at 6 AM on a freaking Saturday!

Her team played well. It is tough for kids that age. They don't keep score at any of the games all season and then all of a sudden for one day they keep score and have a champion.

They finished 3rd out of 7 but if the coach knew what he was doing they would have won the whole thing.

Thankfully the tournament was over at noon so it wasn't too terribly hot out yet.

After lunch the mother-in-law took my daughter (let's just call her kiddo from here on) to see Kung-Fu Panda.

And my wife went to work for a few hours.

So what did I do considering it was like 800 degrees outside??

Slept.....for a good 2 hours, woke up at 4 and called wifey to see how much longer she would be, and then fell back to sleep for another 30 minutes.

Got up at 430 when wifey said she was on her way home and verb called to tell me he would probably be up within an hour.

He showed up around 530 and young buck showed up a few minutes later so we watched the Belmont and ate some spaghetti for dinner.

After dinner....

More Mario Kart and a little poker. We didn't play for money though since there was only 4 of us (wifey played too).

Sunday was even more uneventful.

Woke up and watched tv all morning, went swimming at my dad's in the afternoon, and went to Red Lobster for a small over priced meal. (I don't eat much seafood, only breaded shrimp, so it was more for the wife and kiddo) But I got a (somewhat fatty and MAYBE 8 oz) steak, 5 shrimp, and a small baked potato for $17.50.

Some of you may not find that a rip off, but I surely do. I can get an incredible steak down the road for 10 bucks a pound. Seriously the steak is the best you have ever had. If you ever visit the Harrisburg area of PA, let me know and I will make you the best steak you have ever had!

But I didn't have the good steak, I had a Red Lobster steak. oh well.

After that we went home and stayed on the couch until bed.

That was the weekend. The next one will be even more uneventful.

Ah...the all knowing

WOW....two posts in one day?!?!?!? Kind of considering the earlier one was really early in the morning or just late at night depending on your perspective.

I was watching the movie Elizabethtown last night when I wrote that other post, which is what made me think of that topic.

This post is something that I have been marinating on for a couple days now.

This is a message to all parents and to all future parents.

If your child is playing a sport, DO NOT coach from the sideline.

It is fine and very much appreciated to CHEER from the sideline (appropriately of course). But there is no reason to give coaching advice.

Unless of course you are the coach!

So many times I hear parents who think they know what they are talking about telling their child what to do.

What if the coach specifically said not to do what you just told them to do?

My daughter plays under 8 soccer so right now the girls are all learning how to listen to a coach and learning the nuances of soccer.

The other day her team had a game and one of the girls was on defense. But the parent of this girl told her that she can’t help the team by standing back there on defense. She should run up and join the offense so that she can score.

WHAT??

Isn’t defense just as important? And if the coach wanted the girl to go play offense then he would put her on offense or tell her himself.

But this parent decided that his daughter was too good to play defense because she WASN’T helping the team.

No, she WAS helping her team by being in position to keep the ball out of the net if it came back there.

But the parent was unable to see past themselves to realize this.

All I am saying is that the coaches typically know what they are doing.

How do you expect these kids to listen to a coach if you are telling them different things?

The coach tells them one thing and you tell them another….?

That is not going to work and you need to STOP!

Unless of course you don’t want your child to learn the proper way to play. And I think you do.

So just let the COACHES coach and you the parent can offer words of ENCOURAGEMENT from the sidelines.

But PLEASE don't COACH unless you ARE the coach!

A little too much gamble!

Last night as me and the family were eating dinner, my wife and I were complaining a little but about what we had to do after dinner.

I was going to go out and cut the grass, some last night and the rest today. This is the first time that it needed cut in 2008. And by grass I mean mostly weeds. I have almost an acre of weeds and some grass.

She had to take our daughter to soccer practice and stand there and watch a bunch of 6-8 yr olds run around in circles and jump all over each other. Not really soccer but what can you expect at that age.

So I said to her "you can cut the grass and I will take her to practice." I didn't really mean it though. There was a hockey game (Hershey Bears!!) on the radio at 7 plus a game on tv at the same time that I wanted to watch. Plus I hate going to the practices more than she does.

Truthfully I only said it because I was certain she would just say hell no!

But she didn't. I bluffed big and she called!! NO!! Luckily for me I have no problem changing my mind or going back on something I said. So I said that I was kidding and that I would stay and cut the grass.

She pretty much knew I was kidding but almost got me anyways.

The listen here kids is don't be so sure that you know what someone is going to say. I thought for sure she would say no way to cutting the grass, but I was WRONG!! And it almost cost me 2 hours of boredom!!