Off To An Unfortunate Start

It tends to not bode well for the North Central Soccer Team any season in which they start by losing to the alumni.

Unfortunately for them, it started that way again this year. They were clearly in better shape than we were, but we were clearly more skilled and disciplined (read: game smart) than they were.

End result, a 5-3 victory for the alumni, that could have been expanded further if some of the peple had touched a ball in the last year.

I wish them the best of luck this season, starting with their first official game tomorrow, but they are off to an unfortunate start.

Too Old For This

With another school year comes another alumni soccer game.

Here is to hoping us old farts can keep up with the in shape college kids.

I have a bad feeling about this one.

Answer this for Me

What makes listening to and watching a thunderstorm so relaxing?

No Hole in the Wall

Kool-Aid is what hit the spot today, though unfortunately, Mr. Kool-Aid did not break through the wall to give it to me.

Instead, Jenny made it.

Too Comfortable

The last bunch of days have not been typical August. Outside of 3 or so warm days, the last bunch of days have been surprisingly pleasant.

Some have already begun to assume that this means winter will be long.

I'm starting to be skeptical as well.

Whatever happened to global warming anyway, shouldn't it be warmer?

World's Dirtiest Job

Many people have seen the cable show Dirty Jobs. If you haven't you should watch it sometime, Mike Rowe works what are considered the dirtiest jobs and films it for all to see.

Mike Rowe is also known as the narrator on the famous Deadliest Catch series, which then spawned the Dirty Jobs show.

But none of those may qualify as Mike Rowe's dirtiest job ever.

Instead, head over to YouTube and you can find numerous clips, some wildly hilarious (search for the catsack one, or the Noah's ark one) clips of Mike Rowe in his former job as an on-air QVC salesman.

6 Classes, 1 Quarter

Outside of my internships and an independent study class I need to finish in the next two weeks, I have 6 courses remaining in Seminary.

The plan is to take 1 of them as a September intensive and 5 of them in the fall quarter.

Registration re-opened today and I got into all of the classes I need. Here is to hoping that my sanity can get through 6 more in 4 months.

Draft Time

Thursday starts Fantasy Football season with my first draft of the year.

Sorry Jenny (kinda).

Trying for Cheap

I was trying my best today to spend as little as possible.

I re-read a novel I owned during the last couple of days (The Chosen by Chaim Potok) and decided I would enjoy reading a couple more novels before school started again.

I don't read novels often, but find I care less about owning novels than other books. For those of you who don't know, I don't borrow books well. I feel the need to mark books up and store them on my own shelves, so I own most books I have ever read or might need in the future.

That being said, I don't mark novels much, so I don't mind not owning them.

I decided that I wanted 1 of 3 options in the next book I would read: The Promise by Chaim Potok (sequel to The Chosen), any of the Steven Lawhead books that began a series (he mainly writes in trilogies) or The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I even set out for the library, finding none of the three there. They had The Chosen, but not its sequel, a Steven Lawhead book that was part two of a trilogy, and no Brothers Karamazov.

So I drove to another library. Again no luck. However, on the way home I spotted a Barnes and Noble, which of course carried all I would desire and purchased both The Promise and The Brothers Karamazov.

I now have 1000 pages I need to read in the next week, and am assured that the 700 super-fine print pages of The Brothers Karamazov will make it the longest novel I have ever read.

Odd Bedtime Reading

Someone decided they wanted to read the dictionary, so they did.

They then put out a list of their favorite words that they learned while reading it.

Here are 3 from the list I found useful.

•Acnestis. "On an animal, the point of the back that lies between the shoulders and the lower back, which cannot be reached to be scratched.

•Petrichor. "The pleasant loamy smell of rain on the ground, especially after a long dry spell.

•Scrouge. "To inconvenience or discomfort a person by pressing against him or her or by standing too close.

Bam, Bam on the Chimney

We decided to spend some of the weekend tearing down more of the chimney. We conquered what might have proven to be the most difficult demolition task as we removed the chimney through the finished part of th e house without destroying any of the walls that cased it in.

Doing so required some interesting techniques, like pictured below where I would climb in the wall to demolish the row of cement that I was standing on.


Once we had gotten that as low as we could (until I couldn't bend my knees out through the studs anymore) we had 5 rows of cement (roughly 225 lbs. or so) of blocks still remaining before we reached the opening in the basement.

With one person swinging, one protecting the furnace, and one grimmacing upstairs as we grunted and yelled, we managed to get the 5 rows down with a controlled fall one row at a time.

We were impressed we didn't break apart anything we weren't supposed to, namely our furnace or our bodies, and once we reached the opening in the basement we decided to quit, knowing that the remaining part of the chimney should be relatively easy to remove.

Jenny's Waining Excitement

She asked an innocuous question: "What are you looking at?"

"You don't want to know."

That's right. Tonight began my fantasy football research for the upcoming drafts. Next week I will draft all of my teams for the year, maybe (probably) even a half team.

Jenny is less excited than I am about that prospect.

Adventures are Fun

We had to leave the house to run an errand tonight. (Picking up digital signal converters for our televisions)

In doing so, Jenny mentioned she was hungry so I decided it was adventure time.

She ended up restructuring the adventure to fit her craving more and we found ourselves eating at Cassetta's in Downtown St. Paul.

I made up a new word while there, "lastacholli" to describe what Jenny was eating it.

She doesn't think it will catch on.

It was a mixture of lasagna and mastacholli.

I'm sticking with it.

Practice Makes Luck

I have practiced golf more this summer than any other time of my life.

The last two rounds i've played, i've chipped in for birdie twice.

Goes to show me that practice does make a person more lucky. I wasn't aiming to make either shot, but knew i could get both of them close.

I got lucky.

Luck I did not have a year ago.

Ahhh Sports

Padraig Harrington repeats as major winner winning the PGA Championship.

We win our last soccer game of the season to claim a spot in the playoffs.

The best swimming relay race and most excited i've been during a televised Olympic Event ever.

Sports are awesome.

With all that, we tallied another soccer injury tonight. With a team filled with men getting much older in age, the injuries have been more impactful this year.

Tonight we had a player leave the game to go to the hospital. He ended with three stitches and a tetnis shot as he had a nice gash put over his eye.

Here's to hoping I can remain injury free through the playoffs.

Off Primetime News

The news tonight had only speculation on Brett Favre.

USAToday and ESPN both rarely change much on their webpage after 6:00.

At 11:45 I decided to check ESPN and they were reporting the Favre trade.

It was also USAToday's top story at that time.

Apparently it is a big enough deal to get their writers out of bed and onto the web.

Favre a jet. I guess he at least still gets to wear some green.

I Think Joshua Can Dance

Tonight (Wed.) begins night 1 of the So You Think You Can Dance season finale.

4 contestants remain. We want Joshua to win. If he doesn't, it has to be Twitch. The girls just aren't as good, especially since the best of them got kicked out last week.

In Need of Opinions

I need some other opinions.

If you have been even semi-informed as to the Green Bay Packer's and Brett Favre situation, I am curious about your thoughts on it.

Should he have taken the money?

Should they have offered it?

Should he have been released?

Should he have stayed retired regardless of the money offer?

What are your thoughts?

Screwy Names, Correct Directions

Jenny and I set out this afternoon to unload what ended up being 660 pounds worth of bricks and chimney pieces that we have dismantled as we have begun work on the attic.

I looked up directions to the dumpsite in Maple Grove that would take the material and we loaded the truck and set out.

After following the directions we found ourselves miles from where we should have been looking for where we needed to go, just to call and get directions from our brother-in-law to how the internet screwed up our directions.

He gave us the proper directions to the Maple Grove Transfer Center (called that on the signs in their parking lot) where we pulled up and the lady told us they would not accept our bricks. She then gave us a brochure with a list of places that would accept our bricks and recommended that the one that appeared the closest was the Maple Grove Transfer Center. Again, the name of the place we were at, yet also the name of the place we should go, that is different and about a mile away.

The mile away was precisely where the internet directions had lead us, we just looked at the wrong side of the road at some of the coolest machinery when we drove by the first time, instead of for the small area (not the large dump we had pictured) that was across the street.

660 lbs. and a few dollars lighter, we left to go home, after all of the screwy names and numerous sets of correct directions.

No Energy

I'm too tired and my arms are too sore to write much.

Carrying plywood is not fun.