Fishing

   When I'm not coaching soccer, mowing our huge yard, or putting Icy Hot on my sore back after hauling bricks, lately you can find me by one of the 4 ponds by our house baiting a fish hook. The boys just love fishing. When I say fishing, I mean they love reeling the fish in and then letting me do all the work before and after that occurs. James has finally figured out how to hold the fish by the mouth. Alex is still pretty certain the fish is out to get him and wants to bite him, so he's not too keen on much more than poking it with the tip of his index finger at this point. Honestly, I shouldn't complain. My kids are growing up fast, so I enjoy it a lot.

    This week, according to James, we're supposed to actually eat some of the fish we catch for dinner.  Seeing that 99% of the fish in these ponds seem to fit in the palm of my seven-year-olds hand, I'm assuming filleting these bad boys is going to be a job even the best sushi chef would shake his head at. I'm hoping there's at least one big fish sitting idly in the pond this week. Perhaps he's dumb enough to bite that worm dangling over his head and help me out a bit. Of course, I'll take all the credit for it. " Caught this beauty on my 3 ft Lightning Mcqueen Zebco." I'll be sure to post any pics that follow.

April Showers

   April signals the arrival of spring, which means 3 things for my family: enjoying the outdoors, sports, and my least favorite thing in the world...returning to our tornado shelter for safety. When I was a kid growing up in Kansas, I thought dangerous storms were so cool. I grew up thinking we lived in a pretty safe place weather-wise. I remember watching TV newscasts of hurricanes  in the south and earthquakes in the west and thinking, "Boy am I glad I don't live there."

   It took getting married, having kids, and moving away to realize that I actually grew up in an area with some pretty dangerous weather. I remember channel surfing one evening to stumble upon live coverage of the Joplin tornado touching down and feeling so scared. Imagine my excitement when my wife told me she wanted to accept a job offer and move us there! To put it simply, I think tornadoes are absolutely terrifying, and I never want to see one as long as I live. My wife, on the other hand, thinks they are amazing and wants to actually pay one of those tornado chasers to take her face to face with one. This is coming from a woman who screams and trembles with fear if a June Bug lands anywhere near her. I'm hoping that we won't have to head to the shelter much, if at all this April. Stay safe everybody!

Soccer game #2

   We won our first game! Well, we didn't really win. There's no scorekeeper and "everyone's a winner," right? But, in my mind, we definitely won the game 3-2. The boys played very hard and we took some good shots on goal. They were definitely pumped up after we got outplayed in our first match.
   After the match, the boys came running up to me. "We won, we won!" "Coach, did you see it?" I had to calm them down, as the other team was already lined up, ready to shake hands and do the feigned congratulatory "good game" chant in their best monotone voice. No one likes to "lose" and even though they're only seven, and there wasn't an official score, every kid keeps a running tally of the goals in their heads. We celebrated with a snack from the concession stand and called it a night.

My poor NCAA bracket

   No one in the world had a accurately predicted a bracket going into the Sweet Sixteen this year. Let that sink in for a sec.  March Madness has definitely earned it's moniker again this season. Yours truly  failed miserably at picking winners. I started the first round with a potential to score 170 points in my bracket. I ended up with 68.

Of the four teams I picked to make it to the Final Four, only one did so. Oklahoma, thanks to the guard play of Buddy Hield and the briliant coaching of Lon Kruger (KSU alumn!) punched their ticket. I picked KU to win it all, but they fell to Villanova in the Elite 8. Xavier got their hearts ripped out in the second round on a buzzer beater, falling to Wisconsin, and then there's Michigan State. The Spartans are(were) a safe pick in any NCAA tournament. Tom Izzo's team always shows up ready to play and overachieves every year. They've also made four Final Four's in the last seven years. This year? The go down in flames to Middle Tennessee State University in the very first round. It's never a good sign when you lose to a team with a direction as part of their school name in the tournament. My bracket was DOA before the show even started.

Game 1 in the books

   This Tuesday, we had our first soccer match. Alex scored a goal in his game, and thought he just won a world championship. That boy loves soccer, and would probably sleep in his cleats and shin guards if we let him. Like I said before, pre-k soccer is all about cheering for your kid no matter if they score a goal, or pick flowers in the middle of the field while the rest of the kids run around. There's no pressure, and very little rules to boot. I don't know if what we're doing really even constitutes "coaching." It's more just being positive and trying not to laugh out loud at all the funny stuff that goes on in the games.

    James' team had a good first game. I didn't keep score, but if I did, I guess we lost 1-5. During warm ups, the other team was doing group chants and organized running drills on the sidelines, like they were about to be called up to the national team if Clint Dempsey tore a ligament. These kids are 7 and 8, let me remind you.  Either way, I learned what we needed to work on and I'm sure we'll improve. The boys seemed to have fun, and any angry parents disillusioned with my coaching abilities patiently bit their tongues pending the outcome at Thursday's game.

Jasper

   Jasper is the best dog you could ever ask for. I got him as a college graduation gift to myself 11 years ago. I had wanted a dog badly throughout college, but for one reason or another, it just wasn't the right time. I decided I wanted a lab, and found him from a breeder on a farm in southeast Kansas. I had driven down to check out the pups in the litter and chosen him. I came back at 8 weeks, and he was the only one left who hadn't been picked up. He ran straight to me, and we've been inseparable since.
   Jasper has lived with me through six moves, four different states, another dog and cat, and two kids. He is literally my shadow when I'm at home. I can't leave the room without him following me. My kids love him, and he always let them climb, pinch and drool on him when they were babies without ever letting out even a soft growl. He LOVES anything involving water, and we spend a lot of time swimming at the family lake house down in Oklahoma. He's ridden cross country twice in the back of my truck, and spent the whole time hanging his head out the side of the bed, waiting for me to stop at the next lake or river for a swim.

   Obviously, at 11 years old, he's slowing down. Arthritis and a reconstructed achilles tendon have taken away his ability to run, but he still lumbers along trying to keep up with us. A wise old man, his gray hairs and loud snores give him the character those cute puppies lack. I dread thinking of the day when he'll leave us, and hope we still have at least one more great year or two left. He is the world's best dog. If you don't believe me, I can put you in touch with over a dozen friends and relatives who've told me as much.

Let's go Braves!

    Having grown up in Kansas, you'd expect that I'd root for one of the local teams around here i.e. the Royals or Cardinals. Although I love baseball, it might be a surprise to learn that I'm not really a fan of either team. As a kid, no one I knew wanted to root for the Royals...they were just.that.bad. I didn't really know any Cardinals fans, and St. Louis was far enough from my hometown that going to games was really out of the question. Thank goodness for TBS.
    I am a die hard Atlanta Braves fan. My dad is from Atlanta, and just like any kid, I grew up rooting for any team that he liked. My grandfather was best friends with a home plate umpire, so I got to hear stories my father told about sitting behind home plate during summer games at Fulton County Stadium and watching the great Eddie Matthews belt homers. In the summer, I'd go back to visit, and my dad would take us to games. Luckily for me, Ted Turner decided to buy the Braves and place them in heavy rotation on his TV station.
   I watched every day and night game in the summer. Back then, the Braves roster was loaded. David Justice, Terry Pendleton, Fred "Crime Dog" Mcgriff, and Ron Gant were household names on my block. Deion Sanders blazed the base paths when he wasn't shutting down receivers in a Falcons uniform, and the pitching, oh man the pitching! The Braves had the best rotation in baseball. Steve Avery, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz stymied batters while Mark Wohlers shut them down in the 9th. They won 14 straight division titles. From 1991 to 2005, they never finished second, and I'm supposed to root for the Royals?
    True, there was only one World Series title (1995), but they made FIVE world series in 9 years! These days, times aren't as grand. Turner sold TBS, and the Braves went off the air in Kansas. The current incarnation of my favorite team is coming off a next-to-last finish in the NL last season. Management sold off the marquee names and imploded the roster to rebuild the team, and our GM just retired. However, the future looks bright. Our farm system is loaded with prospects we traded those marquee names for. We took a cue from Royals GM Dayton Moore ( KC fans, guess which team gave him his start?) and are trying to make a run at the World Series in the next few years. We're on our way back. GO BRAVES!