Stranger Things Have Happened

It's movember. Gross. Yet it's for a good cause. Growing a mustache to raise awareness of prostate cancer. Stranger things have happened I suppose.

Making for a good segue, my brother is coming to town tomorrow. He had a ridic mustache last year. It'll be nice to see him. I haven't seen him since July, and I haven't seen his son or fiancee since the spring. Yeah, way too long.

I'll be spending most of my weekend in Victoria. I've been in victoria the last 3 weeks, and the hour and a half drive is pretty easy at this point. My U21 team has been playing on the road in Vic for the past 3 weeks, and we have 2 more weeks there to go. They've been playing well. We're unbeaten at 5-0, and atop the league standings. One of the parents started a fan website for the team. You can check it out here.

COD:MW2 is coming out in 3 days. For all you non gamers who are out of the loop, that's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The hype is pretty huge for this thing. Not just with me. The youtube community watched the trailer more than any other video a few days ago. You can see the trailer here. I've been really excited to get this game since I heard it was coming out, like a year ago. On tuesday it comes out, and I'll be out there getting it hopefully.

I have this stupid sickness that has been steadily growing for a few weeks. It's reached it's worst point in the last few days. I wish I could just get good and sick, and get it over with. At least that would be better than feeling without energy for a week, then getting a nasal cold for a week, then a sore throat, and so on. It hasn't stopped me from working, coaching, or anything like that.

I'm in the process of booking my may trip to mexico for my brother's wedding. I'll kind of be relieved when it's all booked and taken care of, then I can relax about it. It's going to be an amazing experience, although I'm keeping pretty low key about it. I've never been to an exotic place before, and I'm not going to let expectations ruin anything for me. I'm sure it'll be a blasty blast, and I AM going to get pumped up for the fact that my bro is getting married. Good times with rings.

Other than this weekend with soccer and my brother coming to town, not much is new or remotely exciting.

Christmas is lurking. Really?

'Here's the hitch, your horse is leaving'

Storm In A Teacup

Woo crazy month.

I had kind of a hectic month. First off, I no longer have a computer. I got home one morning and it wouldn't turn on. After troubleshooting a bit, I took it in, only to find out that the cpu, motherboard, power supply, and video card were all shot. Woot. So no computer for me.

Second, my roommate's neglect for her dog - which created a semi-crisis in july - nearly got us all evicted a few weeks back. After we had the damage fixed, we were told we were allowed to stay - for how long? It was kind of an interesting process. It was the second landlord incident I've had in the 5 years I've lived on my own. The first was another fun little miscommunication back in 2005 - 1. we secure a house months in advance; 2. we prepare to move in; 3. landlord pulls out a day before, leaving me and saul stranded for a week.

The landlord process doesn't bother me. The fact that my current landlord cannot communicate properly with me is another issue. He doesn't speak english well at all. The problems that stem from that alone are pretty self explanatory.

The whole month wasn't hectic. Not having a computer may actually be a small blessing in disguise. A new years resolution of mine was to cut down on my screen time, and while a newly acquired tech device may set me back (the fabled PVR), not having a computer is giving me way more time to do other things.

Soccer is totally my life right now. I am in the coaching zone right now, and I stay awake at night trying to figure ways to make my perfect team more perfect. After 3 games (a very small season sample), we're perfect, and in first place.

I've also been playing a bunch, which is very therapeutic. Coaching all week, all I crave sometimes is to step in and play. Watching my team play, without lacing up cleats myself, may be one of the hardest parts of me taking up coaching. Anyway, a couple United teams have been using me for a few games. I've still got it!

Stream of consciousness, that a month off from blogging will create: Old buddies are back in town, and fall should be pretty fun with them. My parents are less than impressed with how I've been treating them, which is very similar to the way they treat me. I miss my brother more than I ever have, as he has almost become the new voice of reason in my family. I need to work more. I need a roommate. I need to take a snapshot of how I feel about coaching right now, as the feeling won't/can't last, and I'll be searching for it later.

See you in a month?

'Another loose cannon gone bipolar'

Bang The Doldrums

Yawn.

Hey it's fall. It was like 26 degrees yesterday, and it really doesn't feel like fall.

My team has had the start of the season pushed back two weeks, and we finally start this sunday in Victoria. The boys are pretty amped up for the start of the campaign. I have to admit that I am too. In the past, I've only ever begun training a month before a season starts. We've been preparing formally for 8 weeks. So we're more than antsy to get going. I have absolutely no concept of our opposition, which kind of hinders our preparation. Doesn't really matter. I expect that we'll do reasonably well this year, even though we are very young and inexperienced. In 7 exhibition games we went 4 wins, 1 loss, and 2 ties. Which, like NHL preseason, means nothing.

My weeks are really structured now. It's kind of weird getting back into the idea of looking forward to weekends as the reward for my week. Sunday's are when we play our games, and that's going to be the day I look most forward to every week. It's interesting to change from this summer, when day to day plans were really unstructured, and I never really looked forward to anything. Here we go though. Tomorrow's going to be a good friday.

I have an interesting dilemma. Well, dilemma might be a bad word. I want to move to Victoria. Not like next month or anything. But next year, like apr/may/june 2010. I have no problems walking away from any job(s) that I'll have then. But I don't know how tough it'll be to move away from my parents and friends. To be fair to my friends, I don't see them very often, and think that moving away from the same city as my parents will be kinda tough.

How do I balance this situation?

I guess I have to weigh the reasons why I want to move. In my opinion, I have more reasons to leave than to stay. This city is too small for me to continue to deal with what I've created in the last 5 years that I've lived here. That sounds bad. Ex girlfriends, people I don't like, places I don't like, trends I need to escape, and an atmosphere that I find choking are good reasons to leave. Not 'deal-maker' reasons, but contributing factors. I'm just plain old sick and tired of running around the same old town. That's allowed to be good enough for me.

Victoria seems like the perfect sized city for me. I couldn't handle a city as big as Vancouver, nevermind somewhere like LA. I'm not major city material. The greater Vic area has 300K people, like 4x's the size of nanaimo. I don't need to live in a 1M plus population.

Anyway, that's a ways away. Somehow I already miss my friends, like I'm already moved. Oh well.

'If you want to get out alive, run for your life'

Growing Old Is Getting Old

I'm back in the busy swing of things. I'm working two jobs pretty regular now, and soccer is taking up 3-4 pm's a week.

I have started 3 of my 4 kids programs at the community center. It's pretty neat, and the kids are completely awesome in their innocence. All they want to do is play and play and play. I am required to structure two of my programs, and I'm kind of disappointed that they haven't been received well. Some kids are two shy to step out of their shell, while others are too rambunctious to cooperate. My programs go until April, giving me ample time to figure shit out. I am meeting a ton of new people, which is nice.

I sometimes see people as potential cogs in my machine. Maybe they have opportunities for me. Maybe they know people. I think that meeting 100 new people in a month is going to do wonders for me.

I had a 'what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-with-your-life?' moment last week. It hit me at 1am last friday night when I was drunk and maybe high, and it kind of wrecked my night. I like running around with the boys sometimes, doing guys stuff. I asked myself the same question the next morning as I hunted around for the tylenol. I came to the conclusion that I don't really care what I'm doing with my life right now. It doesn't bother me that I'm not saving for a mortgage. It doesn't bother me that I'm not doing things that are life-productive. I'm not exactly being counter productive, I just like to spin my wheels sometimes.

I remember last september really well. I was living out the last of the small summer fortune I had made, and I was kind of puttering around on fumes for a few months until I finally got my shit together late October. I am super stoked to not be in that position this year. God damn. I am busy, I am banking, and I am not puttering. I'm really excited about 25 being a good year. 24 was more or less forgettable for me, with a few exceptions. It doesn't really matter why. But I'm optimistic about 25.

Thanks for reading.

'I've been now sauntering

Out and down the path sometime

Come on, it takes me nowhere, which I knew'

The Road

09/09/09. Spooky.

Wow I haven't blogged in a while. I'm not going to dwell on that. I'm probably going to continue to post fairly infrequently. I'm pretty busy these days, and I don't feel the need to write as much anymore.

I just wrapped up my summer with a roadtrip to DMB at the Gorge in Washington. It was an interesting trip. I made the same trip last year, and I felt it was more fun than this year. There were plenty of good times and crazy memories from this year though. Me, Jen and Amanda saw DMB play both saturday and sunday night. I was kind of skeptical about hearing DMB's new stuff live, but I actually was blown away at how awesome it sounded. The concerts themselves were definitely the best part of the trip for me. The first act on Saturday night took the stage at 6pm, and DMB played past 11pm. It was pretty sick.

I had my birthday over the weekend, and I'm officially mid-20's. Awesome. I managed to get everything I wanted from my family and friends. I feel like I'm too old to be asking for things for my birthday, plus I'm not really needy.

I have my soccer team picked for the year. We are finally practicing alone, after 6 weeks of painful practices with 25-50 guys. The season officially starts in a week and a half, and I'm very excited and confident with my team. It's kind of fulfilling to create and guide something, and see success in it. That's talking ahead of things, because we haven't found much success yet as the season hasn't started. But I am pretty certain that we're going to do fairly well. I have a very talented team, and I feel like even a rookie coach like me can steer them into title contention.

Well that's basically it for my summer. Bookended by the two camping trips I took on May long and September long, I had an eventful and busy summer. I attended an amazing wedding, took in 4 insane concerts, and played endlessly with my friends at tennis courts, golf courses, volleyball courts, and the disc golf course. I worked very little, and managed to live within my means. I lived well, worked when I had to, and enjoyed the bulk of my time off. I began to learn how to coach, and met tons of great new people on the turf field. 17 of those great people are now under my leadership for the year, and I'm proud to call myself their coach. I drank too much sometimes, I ate too much others, and I usually overdid each thing I did to the point of exhaustion. In the name of having as much fun as possible. I think I'll look back on this summer as a memorable one. I'm happy that so many friends could be a big part of it.

Now that the weather is turning, and summer feels done, I'm going to grind out some work for a while. My roommates are both back in school, so things around the house will have a little more focus. Although fall will bring a few really fun activities - quadding, and the return of landon and court - I foresee a lot of hardworking days that start with me riding the bus, and end with me at the soccer field. I will be at the conference center a pile, and my community center programs start this coming monday (bring on the 0-4 year olds!).

I'm going to go think about sleeping. I'm in love with stephen king again, but I have a meeting early tomorrow. Dangerous balance to find...

'Oh and when the kids are old enough

We gonna teach them to fly'

Old Habits Die Hard

September is right around the corner. It seemed like summer just started yesterday when we went to Sproat for May long. That was almost 3 and a half months ago. Even though summer goes another month, I can't help but always feel like my birthday bookends my summer. I haven't decided whether I'm going to have a party yet or not, but I have decided what I'm doing for my birthday.

I'm heading down to washington for my birthday with a few friends to go camping and see Dave Matthews. It's the same trip I went on last year, but this year my birthday falls on the saturday of the trip. I'm getting pretty excited about it. If it's anything like last year, it'll be an absolute blast.

I found out today that Buzz Aldrin - yes, Apollo 11 Buzz - likes two things in life: space exploration, and hip-hop. Awesome! The clip I watched showed Aldrin jamming with Snoop, soulja boy, and a few others. It was a major sign of the apocalypse. Apparently he has a new single out.

It's kind of a rainy day today, so I thought I'd spend some time on my computer. Catch up on my blog/twitter/facebook/youtube. I email every day now that I coach a soccer team, and I'm sending 30-50 emails a week now. It's kind of weird being the sender, after years of only checking my email for received messages.

Speaking of coaching, I really can't get through to my players, even when I use really blunt terms. Some kids are going to be really dissappointed that they don't make my team, and they have only themselves to blame. I try to give everyone a lot of opportunities to prove themselves and make their presence known on my radar. All the guys that are questionable for making the team, don't show up more than 50% of the time, and then email me to find out their status on the team. 'Well buddy, I don't really see you with a place on my team'. I think that's just it. They think it's their team, and they can come and go as they want. It's not. It's all mine. I make the picks, I run the show. Oh well. Dissapointing kids is the least of my worries I guess. In a week I'll have my team, and we'll be going in the right direction.

That's it. 10 days until my birthday. It's all soccer and work these days. The conference center is ramping up again, and so is the community center.

'Hungry people don't stay hungry for long'

Help, I'm Alive

Strange days.

I'm in full coaching mode, and I've been busy with my u21's trying to make the perfect team. It's difficult with ego's, injuries, etc. I find myself lost sometimes trying to coach these guys. They aren't overly perceptive at taking direction - they talk the talk but can't walk it. The season starts in a month, and I have a lot of work to do before then. I really hope the regular season isn't this stressful.

I also have experienced a number of other quirky abnormalities that have made this week strange. My roommate just got a puppy this week, then took off on vacation and left his sister in charge of the infant animal. Nice. After a difficult evening, I'm now taking care of the puppy. Perfect. I love dogs. But I don't want a dog. I also love sleep. Not getting much of that though.

There's a party at my house tonight, and I won't be anywhere close. I have to work, then rescue the puppy from the mayhem after my shift is done. I totally wish I could just fast forward to tomorrow morning. The thought of living another week in this house like the week I've just had makes me want to kill someone so I could enjoy life in a prison. And that's before tonight even happens. YAY!

Oh pessimism. When all is said, the puppy is super cute, and I'm pretty good with it. I have a soccer game tomorrow morning, and I'm pretty excited to have my boys play better.

'You can't always get what you want'