Inconsistant Golf

Last night I finally played in my third round of golf for the current intramural golf season. I missed most of the first half of the season due to volleyball practices.

Last night was hot and there was a lot of smoke in the air. In spite of the all the smoke I elected to walk anyway. I just have a hard time riding in a cart when I am supposed to be golfing for the exercise.

Last night I think I invented a new golf game that I am going to call "pars and sevens". For the nine holes we played I shot 5 pars all the other holes I shot 7s. Over all it was a good round for me. Five pars in nine holes is great considering I'm a 23 handicap golfer. Unfortunately because I am a 23 handicap golfer, I shot the four 7s also. I have to thank my opponent for one of those sevens. He gave me a 20 foot putt to save me from having to take an 8.

However I may have pulled off that putt. I played nine holes last night and took only nine putts. Actually I only had to make three putts all night. The other six were gimmes that were surrendered by my opponents. I had that one 20 foot gimme. But most of them were under 12 inches. The three putts I did make were about 4, 6 and 10 feet. I only had one lag putt all night and that was on the first hole, the only hole all night that I had two putts.

I shot a 46. That is a net two under par for me, and that includes to out of bounds shots, one on 14 and one on 18 (two of the holes I shot 7 on). Overall a great night. Except that I only managed to tie my match. But I had a good round against a couple decent guys who were good competitors.

I have missed golfing these last two months and am looking forward to the next two months. But considering how much I am also missing my volleyball team, I would give it all up to be back in the gym with my Starlings on a regular basis.

One Word Meme

Mostly Cajun had this up when we got home and it seemed like a good chance to unwind from the long car ride, so here goes...

In a Word:

1. Where is your cell phone? table

2. Your significant other? sweetheart

3. Your hair? gone

4. Your mother? memories

5. Your father? Cheyenne

6. Your favorite time of day? nighttime

7. Your dream last night? volleyball

8. Your favorite drink? rootbeer

9. Your dream goal? complicated

10. The room you’re in? messy

11. Your ex? nonexistant

12. Your fear? failure

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? retired

14. What you are not? thin

15. Your Favourite meal? steak

16. One of your wish list items? gym

17. The last thing you did? drove

18. Where you grew up? mountains

19. What are you wearing? casual

20. Your TV is? off

21. Your pets? imaginary

22. Your computer? laptop

23. Your life? good

24. Your mood? tired

25. Missing someone? Starlings

26. Your car? Dodge

27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes

28. Favourite store? hardware

29. Your summer? hot

30. Your favourite colour? varies

31. When is the last time you laughed? today

32. When is the last time you cried? week

33. Your health? acceptable

34. Your children? sleeping

35. Your future? confusing

36. Your beliefs? solid

37. Young or old? older

38. Your image? unknown

39. Your appearance? round

40. Would you live your life over again knowing what you know? sure

Home Again

It seems like I just got home last week from a four day volleyball tournament in San Diego and here I am on the road again.

The family and I left for my sister-in-laws place in Pleasanton CA, up near San Francisco. My oldest has been up there for two weeks and is ready to come home. Actually her mother is ready for her to come home. She misses her baby. I do to but don't tell her that it will go to her head.

So we drove up to the Bay area Thursday evening after work. We spent Friday hanging out and doing some shopping. Today we spent more time with the family and eventually loaded up the van and headed for home around 5:30 this evening. We made pretty good time, and arrived home right around 11:30 tonight.

The rest of the family has headed for bed, and as soon as my caffine high wears off, I'm headed there also.

Heller Decision

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Just enough time for a happy dance, then off to work. More later.....

George Carlin RIP

I read where George Carline died of heart failure yesterday. My friends and I used to sit in our rooms and listen to his albums until we had most of his routines memorized. We even went to the trouble of changing them around and replacing some of his language so that we could repeat them to each other in front of our parents.

As I got older I found that I didn't appreciate his current humor near as much as I had in the past. I still loved his old stuff. But in his later years he seemed less of a comedian and more of just an angry old liberal who didn't have anything to say that I could relate to. But I don't hold that against him. I got way to many laughs from him through the years.

A lot of bloggers have memorialized George by quoting their favorite jokes of his. I couldn't possibly pick just one. But I do have a question "Do you think he got a two minute warning?"

Starlings National Championship

My volleyball team and I left last Wednesday for the Starlings National Championships in San Diego.

We started our adventure at the opening ceremonies at Sweetwater high school. The place was jamb packed with Starlings Volleyball players, their coaches and parents. There was a parade of banners, a lot of dancing, laughing and just overall good fun by all.





The next morning we started pool play at the Alliant Sports Center. This is a large canvas roofed building that is big enough to hold 12 volleyball courts. Unfortunately this facility is not air conditioned. This became important as the weather in San Diego was unseasonably warm this week. By the time the first round of pool play was half over it was well over 90 degrees in the building and very humid.

Our day started off a little strange. We were on the court warming up waiting for our opponents from Watsonville CA to show up. We were there, a San Diego Navajo team that was going to be refereeing our match was there, and a team from Mission Bay San Diego. But there was no sign of our opponents. So the other two teams sat there and watched us warm up for a few minutes. Eventually we started scrimmaging with the Navajo team because we were all bored. After twenty minutes the tournament official declared our match a forfeit and we recorded our first win of the tournament without even seeing our opponents.

Next up we had to referee the match between the Navajo team and the Mission Bay team. Our Watsonville opponents showed up in the middle of this match. They had all been riding in the same van that got lost on the freeways in San Diego.

Next up we played the Mission Bay Starlings team. We cruised to an easy 25-4 win in the first game on the backs of Laura and her 11 consecutive serves followed by Alyssa fired off 7 of her own including three jump serve aces. The next game we got a little complacent and allowed our opponents to hang around way too long before we finally beat them 25-18.

Unfortunately that complacency carried over to our next match against the San Diego Navajo Starlings team. We let them get a 23-14 lead over us before we finally started to play. With Jazmine serving seven straight serves our team managed to close the game to 21 to 23 before they finally scored their last two points to win the game. The second game we started out like we finished the previous game – hot! We stormed out to a fast lead in the game and held a 23-20 lead when everyone just shut down and stopped moving. Our opponents outscored us five to two in the last couple minutes to win 25-27.

This 2-1 performance was enough to get us a second place finish in our pool. This put us in the division with the top 18 teams of the tournament, which was all the number 1 and number 2 finishers on Thursday.

On Friday we were in a pool with teams from Phoenix Az, Oakland CA and Bakersfield CA. We played at the Balboa Park Activities Center which like Alliant University also didn’t have any air conditioning. It did however have a little better ventilation than Alliant did so to start it seemed a little cooler inside to start. But by the end of the match it was just as hot as Alliant.

Our first match was against the Oakland team. Both teams started a little slow but the Oakland team warmed up a bit quicker than we did. They won the first game 22-25. But once we got going they discovered what kind of team we really were. We won the second game 25-15. In the third and deciding game the team slacked off again and needed six serves including three aces from Rebecca in order to win the game 15-13.

Our second game was against the Phoenix team. There were so far the best team we had faced in the tournament. We started out a little slow and eventually lost the first game 19-25. But the girls got going again in the second game and took an early lead. But we once again slowed down in the end and lost that game 22-25.

The Bakersfield team was our last challenge of the afternoon. We eventually won a slow and error filled first game 25-21. Then sleep walked our way through a crushing 14-25 loss. But the team woke up and really came out serving and hitting in the third and final game. We changed sides of the court with an 8-3 lead and cruised to and easy 15-7 victory. After the match our referee, Ernie, who is the National Starlings ambassador, called the team over and congratulated them on a spectacular performance. He was very impressed with how well out team full of young players held their cool and didn’t get flustered after that big loss in the second game.

Once again we found ourselves with a 2-1 record and a second place finish. And just like yesterday it was enough to keep us in the top division with all the other first and second finishers.

On Saturday we were one of the eight teams that entered the Gold Championship double elimination part of the tournament for a chance to play for the U14 tournament championship.

Our first match of the day was against the Tehachapi U14 team. This team had also played in the Southern California Volleyball Tournament season with us. But we had never played each other. They were always ranked one to two divisions below us in the standings. But they had finished the season strong and didn’t look to be a push over team. I was hopeful when they took the court because they also had two girls who looked like they were no older than the three eleven year olds on our team. However, those younger smaller players never got onto the court for their team, where all three of young players play – a lot.

Unfortunately Saturday was not to be our day. I don’t know if it was the heat, the humidity, the three consecutive days of volleyball, or the fact that my normally tight, best friends, team that has gotten along fantastically all season was suddenly fractured into three distinct factions that were not getting along on or off the court. I have several ideas about what happened to my team but I’m not going to air them here. But their off the court disagreements and bickering carried over onto the court in a huge way this day and brought a very unsatisfying end to our season.

Our match was against Tehachapi who was playing well but not nearly as well as our team was capable of when they were getting along. Unfortunately we were not getting along, we were not moving, and my players were acting like they really didn’t care if they won or lost. And so they lost – 16-25 and 19-25.

Following that match we had to ref a match. It was a very uncomfortable time because I had to down ref for the match and I was very aware of my team that was sitting on the floor behind me keeping score with a lot of glaring going on and no one talking to each other.

This loss moved us down to the loser bracket of the championship division. We had to play a match against a team called Scripps Ranch from the San Diego area. They were also having a bad day. At times they seem to be a fairly good team who was struggling with the heat and humidity. We squeaked out a 25-21 win in the first game and that seem to really deflate our opponents. They pretty much just phoned in their last game of the weekend and we cruised to a 25-12 victory and a chance to keep playing.

We got a three minute break after the match and had to play our next match of the day against the same Phoenix team we had played on Friday. This team was really down. They had been undefeated going into the day and had just lost their first match of the season to an undersized Navajo team from Tuba City AZ. When they walked over to our court they were all shuffling their feet and walking with their head down. They looked like a bunch of whipped puppies.

I tried to rally the team to step up and start playing together like they used to. But it just wasn’t to be. We gave up 6 consecutive serve aces to start the game and that got our opponents fired up. And as fast as they got excited we crashed. We lost the first game 17-25 and the second 15-25.

Our run at our first ever Starling National Championship ended in a two way tie for fifth place. It was not the ending of the season I was hoping for. But overall it wasn’t a bad finish. We started this season as a first time team with first time club players and a first time club coach. The players learned to trust each other, work together and cooperate as a team. In the end we forgot some of the lessons we had learned but we competed in a tournament with Starlings team from all over the country and finished in a tie for 5th place out of 36 teams.

There's a Starling In My Tree

My dear wife ran out this evening to pick our son up from his Boy Scout Meeting. They arrived home around 8:40 and closed the garage door and turned off the exterior lights.

Then about 30 minutes later my dear wife is filling the coffee maker for the morning and she glances out the window and notices something white fluttering in the breeze in the front yard. She looks closer out the window and announces "In the 30 minutes since I got home, someone TPed our house."

So I hauled my tired old carcass out of the chair and wandered over to look out the window. While I was looking out the window, my dear wife had walked over and opened the front door. Sure enough, I looked out the window and there was toilet paper fluttering all around the trees and shrubs in the front yard. As I turned to walk toward the door my wife stepped away from the door and whispered, I think there is still someone out there.

So I grabbed a weapon to defend myself with - my camera, and headed out the door. As I walked down the sidewalk I saw a familiar looking shape scamper around and hide behind the neighbors car. Then I heard the familiar sound of a bird in my tree. Peering closely up into the wind blown branches I discovered a rare sight, there was a Starling was in my tree.



As I snapped this picture the Starling in my tree serenaded me with it's famous call of "Hi Coach!"

Glancing around the yard I quickly found several other Starlings doing what Starling do best - having fun.





Eventually I managed to get a picture of the whole flock together as they plotted their next caper. But then just as fast as they gathered together the whole flock scattered back around my yard.



As the flock of Starlings fluttered around my yard I managed to snap a few more pictures of their handiwork. For a brief moment the adult homeowner in me started thinking about all the cleaning I was going to have to do in the morning. But it is hard to be irritated with Starlings who are leaving "We love you Coach" signs scattered all over your property.





These Starlings, even though they were up to mischief, were being smart. They had left my new car alone. But that all changed when they asked if they could paint the windows on my new car and for some weird unknown reason I told them yes. I'm glad I did because the windshield ended up with this:



If you are not fluent in reading windshield it says:

Starlings Rock, and sometimes we shoulder roll

That's my Starlings, and I wouldn't trade them for all the TP in my trees, the plastic forks and spoons in my grass and the window paint on my glass.

Thank you ladies. I hope you all had fun.

I did.

FIRE! Again....

It is summer in California which means that it is fire season in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This is the first one we have seen so far this year. The smoke looks like it is coming from deep in the mountains well off to the NNW of us.





I just can't help but ask "Who is going to have to pay for the carbon offsets to pay for all the global warming that this is going to cause?

Also I don't like the fact that the smoke seems to be drifting our direction. My sinuses really are not looking forward to a valley full of smoke and particulate matter.

Getting Back to the Course

I haven't been golfing much lately. I was starting to spend a lot of my time on the golf course last year. I was making a point to get out to the range or the practice green at least two or three times a week. I was getting in at least one full round of golf every two weeks. I was starting to really see some substantial improvement in my game. Sure I was still a 20+ handicap. But I was a low 20s instead of a high 20s.

Then volleyball happened.

Normally the middle school volleyball season would cut into my golfing game and practice a bit, but I still had my weekends free to spend some time at the course. But this year I progressed straight from middle school volleyball to club volleyball. The mai difference was the time involved. Between my daughter's club team that I had to be involved with as a parent and my Starlings Club team where I was the director and coach I was busy every weekend and at least 2-4 weeknights a week. Since volleyball was taking up so much of my time, something else had to give, and that was golf.

(And for the few regular readers that I had here, you will also note that my blogging took a big hit also.)

Now, I do not in any way saying that I regret the time I spend on volleyball the last 8 months. I loved every minute of it. I actually had this week off because it was the end of the school year and I really missed my team. I'm not sure what I am going to do in two more weeks when our season ends for good. I guess I will have to spend some time writing, some time golfing, and some time catching up on my honey-do list.

This morning I ran across an article that has kind of rekindled my desire to get back onto the golf course. A study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet reports:

The death rate amongst golfers is 40 per cent lower than the rest of the population, which equates to an increased life expectancy of five years.

So I guess I have to get back out on the golf course again. At least until the next volleyball season starts. Then my priorities are going to shift again. But this year I may try and make the effort to get in an occasional round of golf during the volleyball season.

Oh, I may try and be a little more consistent writing here also.

I want a gun...

I was sitting at lunch with several friends today and somehow we got onto the topic of boys wanting BB guns. I related my story where my parents would not let me have a BB gun but they bought me a 22 rifle for my 12th birthday. I still wanted a BB gun but the answer was always no. Then they bought me a Winchester 30-30 for my 16th birthday, but still would not let me have a BB gun. Years later when my Dad suddenly realized that they had never let me have a BB gun he got me one for my 35th birthday. No, I didn't shoot my eye out with it.

Suddenly one of my friends said "I want to buy a gun, so that when the government comes to take it away I can tell them NO!"

Starlings Regionals Tournament

The Ridgecrest Starlings Volleyball Club U14 team completed the Southern California Volleyball Association tournament season last weekend by participating in the SCVA U 14s Regionals Tournament.

The Starlings were seeded 32nd out of 32 teams in the Brass Region. On Saturday the Starlings began their weekend playing on Court A1 at the American Sports Center in Anaheim, CA. During team warm-ups the Ridgecrest Starlings managed to sprain an offhand finger on one of their outside hitters, sprain the right shoulder of a defensive specialist, and one of their starting setters took a solid spike to the face just two minutes before the first match started.

The Ridgecrest Starlings were in a pool with the 1st seed team from the Moreno Beach Volleyball Club, the 16th seed team from the San Gabriel Volleyball Club and the 17th seed team from the SHS Volleyball Club from the San Fernando Valley.

Reeling from the sudden onslaught of injuries the Starlings set out to do something they had not needed to do all season – play hurt. In their opening match against the San Gabriel Volleyball Club the Starlings put on an almost flawless team serving performance, with four members of the team delivering serving streaks of six or more serves. Strong performances by defensive specialists Jazmine Stenger-Smith and Brooke Nelepovitz led their team to a first match victory, 25-14 and 25-14. Nelepovitz valiantly tried to end the second game from the serving line with six consecutive serves that included 3 aces before her injured shoulder gave out and ended her serving opportunities for the weekend.

Next up was the 1st seed in the region from the Moreno Beach Volleyball Club. Maggie Champeny led the charge in this match with over 12 serves and a solid spiking performance proving to her teammates that her injured finger was not going to slow her down that weekend. Unfortunately the Starlings came up short in this match 21-25 and 22-25.

The last match of the day was against the 17th seed team from the SHS Volleyball Club in the San Fernando Valley, which having already beaten both the other teams in this pool was looking ahead to an easy first place finish. The Ridgecrest Starlings rallied behind their team Captains Sammi Anderson and Alyssa Ochoa who combined for an impressive 25 serves. Stifling blocks by Miss Ochoa, Laura Metcalf and Ashley Sherrick drove the Starlings to a loud and exciting 25-19 and 25-20 victory.

The Starlings ended their first day in a three way tie, at 2-1, for first in their pool with the Moreno Valley and SHS teams. The first tie breaker was game record which eliminated the Moreno Valley Team. The Starlings won the second tie breaker over SHS to take the day, and retire to a family BBQ at their motel to celebrate their upset filled day.

Day two of the tournament had the Starlings playing at CSU Dominguez Hills as the new number one seed against another team from the San Gabriel Volleyball Club, a team from the Rancho Santa Margarita Volleyball Club and a team from the Bakersfield Club Jamba team.

Again the Starlings started the day by playing strong against another San Gabriel Volleyball Club team. Highlighting the first game was the serving of Rebecca Dwyer and Ashley Sherrick leading their team to another 25-14 victory. The serving duties in the second game were picked up by Laura Metcalf and Maggie Champeny. While Ashley Sherrick added seven kills for a 25-15 win.

The second match of the day was against the Bakersfield Club Jamba team. This match was the first real let down for the Starlings. They struggled to a 20-25 loss in the first game and completely lost track of themselves in the second game to lose it 9-25.

After a two match break the Starlings were back on the court against the Rancho Santa Margarita team. Powerful serving by Anderson, Metcalf and Champeny and strong front row play from Sherrick and Champeny led the Starlings to 25-15 and 25-20 win.

For the second time in two days the Ridgecrest Starlings found themselves in a three way tie for first at 2-1. However this time the tie-breakers did not go their way and they had to settle for a second place finish. But that was good enough to put the Starlings in the upper bracket of the region’s tournament quarter-finals.

In the afternoon’s quarter-finals bracket the Starlings faced a tall, strong team from the Temecula Volleyball Club in a one game to 25 single elimination match. The Starlings stayed with the Temecula team until the game was tied 9-9 but asking for a fifth upset victory in two days was apparently too much and Temecula slowly pulled away from the Starlings to win the game 25-18.

The Ridgecrest Starlings started the weekend ranked 32 out of 32 teams and returned home to Ridgecrest Sunday evening tied for 5th place in the region. By any standards this weekend’s volleyball tournament was a resounding success for this young team.

This tournament marked the end of the SCVA season. But the Ridgecrest Starlings aren’t finished yet. They have finals, the end of the school year, middle school promotions, the start of summer and only three more weeks to get ready for the Starlings National Championship in San Diego. In a four day event starting on June 19th the Ridgecrest Starlings will compete against some of the best Starlings U14 teams from all over the United States.

Mandatory No. 5

Sorry for not getting this posted earlier. I had to get things prepared for Sports Night at St. Ann School.

Mandatory No. 5 found our Starlings back in Division 12. we had briefly played in division 12 back in Mandatory No. 2. The results then were not pretty. After finishing first in Mandatory 4 we were elevated again to Division 12. I was looking forward to this opportunity. We are a much better team now than we were back in March. However, the teams that are in Division 12 now, were also much better teams than they were a couple months ago.

We played at Gahr High School in Cerritos, CA. Gahr High School is right at the intersection of the 605 and 91 freeways. So we had a ways to travel to get there on Saturday morning. Fortunately we were the number four seed in our pool, so we didn’t have to play or officiate the first match. We arrived at the gym around 8 AM. This means that I missed the coaches meeting so I didn’t get to be lectured for the 8th time this season about not letting my team trash the gym, climb on things that are not meant to be climbed on, or take too long on the court. Remember folks we are there to play volleyball and we are there to play it quickly.

Our first match of the day was against the Cal Jrs 14-C team. This team eventually won our pool. They were a good eye-opening experience for my players. This was really the first team we have ever faced that served like a volleyball game is supposed to be served. Of the 9 players on their roster, six of them could fire hard, serves that cleared the net by only inches. They could also hit those serves where ever they wanted them to go. Their coach watched our team during warm-ups and for the first few minutes of play then she started directing her servers where to serve. They immediately targeted both of the younger players that I had playing in the back row. As a result, my two younger players spent most of this match getting creamed by hard serves.

Of course I had options to try and stop this. I could have called time outs to try and ice the server. But in my experience that seldom works if the server is truly good at what she is doing. Icing a server only works with a weaker server who suddenly finds themselves on a hot streak. Usually taking a time out during a hard service run is done more to allow the receiving team a few moments to collect themselves and to get ready to play again. I also could have subbed those players out of the game. But all that would accomplish is to teach them that I don’t have any faith in their ability to handle a tough situation.

So I kept a close watch on my young players and let them get pounded, as long as they didn’t start losing faith in themselves. Four times on that Saturday I watch these two young players get repeatedly hit with rocket serves and after four or five shanked receive attempts I would finally start to see their shoulders droop or their faces start looking at the floor. Each time I would give them one more receive then I was going to call for a sub and get them out of there before they completely lost faith in themselves. Every time I decided that it was time to pull that struggling player they would manage to pop one of those hard serves back into the air and suddenly we were playing volleyball again.

Yes, we had a hard time handling our opponent’s serves. And yes, we didn’t dominate our opponents with our serves the way we had done in some previous matches. But once the ball was received and in play, we were every bit as good or better team than our opponents were. Our defense was as good as our opponents and our hitting and blocking was better than any of the three teams we faced that day. In all three matches we played, by the middle of the first game our opponents were not hitting, and not blocking and any aggressiveness at the net that they may have shown early in the match was non-existent by the end of the match.

We lost our first match to the Cal Jrs. 18-25 and 15-25. Which isn’t bad playing against a team that had recorded four consecutive division 12, 2nd place finishes in the first four mandatory tournaments. Especially considering that our serves were not working and we were really struggling on serve receives.

Our second match was against a team from the Impact Volleyball Club. This team was having a rough year. They started in Division 8 for Mandatory 1. After 4 straight 4th place finishes they were finally down to division 12. But this does not mean that this was a bad team. They were good enough to have won at least one match in division 8, 10 and 11 on their way to division 12. Again we were facing a team that served a lot better than we were receiving. Again, we were facing a team that was targeting those serves at our younger players.

We managed to get a few more of those hard serves into the air where our offense could go to work. As a team we only committed three service errors and our hitting kept the game close. We were down 23-24 when Sammi crushed a spike right at the back line of their court. Everyone on the court looked at the linesman who was very obviously not paying attention to the game. This clueless 14 year old waffled back and forth between signaling in or out for a few seconds. Then she looked at our opponents and noticed all of them signaling out. So she joined in and signaled out. The referee who’s line of sight was blocked on the play went along with his linesman call. Game over 23-25. After the match three different people who were paying attention told me that the spike was in by at least 6 inches. Oh well. We had given up 24 other points in that game to get us into that situation. But I am getting really tired of coaches who will send players out onto a court to call lines or keep score without making sure that first) their players know what they are doing, and secondly) who will not stick around and keep an eye on their players to make sure they are paying attention.

This close loss seemed to encourage our opponents a bit. They played better in the second game. They definitely served a lot better. I think they realized that their hard serves were their best offensive weapon to use against us. Eventually they won that game 17-25.

Our third match was against the No. 3 seed in our pool, a team from the Stealth Volleyball Club. This team had played the last two tournaments in division 12 after starting the season in division 10. So again they had a lot of experience playing against higher division teams. The only difference was that while they also had great servers, they had the same difficulties receiving hard serves as we did.

During the two games we played against them we had 5 different servers with service runs of more than 5 serves in a row. Once our Starlings figured out that they could match this team serve for serve they got a rush that really pumped up our hitting game. We won both of these games 25-15 and 25-17.

The most entertaining part of this match was watching the referee unload on the Cal Jrs. Coach because of the lousy job her team was doing of keeping score accurately and for missing very obvious line calls. If only he had cracked down earlier in the match a couple of the close games that had been played (with and without us being involved) would have turned out differently. We were not the only team that day to suffer from missed calls by linesmen who were not paying attention.

The final match of the day we had to call lines and score keep for the Cal Jr. vs Impact match. I was very pleased with the job my players did that match. Afterwards the referee congratulated our team on their diligence and attention. He told the team “If more 14s teams would take their officiating responsibilities as seriously as you do, my job would be much easier.” I was also thanked by two other sets of parents from other teams for having players who obviously knew what they were doing and paid attention the entire match. I was very proud of our players.

In the end we were 1-2 in matches, and finished in 3rd place. This was a great 3rd place finish. We faced a couple very good teams who were very good at exploiting our weaknesses. We managed stay in division 12 and in the process prove that we do belong there.

The best compliment I received at the end of the day came from a couple parents from the Stealth team. They loved the way our entire team stayed positive, upbeat and focused during the both the matches we were losing and the match we won.

The Creation of Wyoming:

I got this is an e-mail from my niece...


Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days.

Eventually, Michael the Archangel found Him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, 'Where have You been?'

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, 'Look Michael, look what I've made!'

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, 'What is it?'

'It's a planet,' replied God, and I've put life on it. I'm going to call it Earth, and it's going to be a great place of balance.'

'Balance?' inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth. 'For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. And over there I've placed a continent of white people, while over here is a continent of black people.' God continued, pointing to different countries. 'This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.'

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a large land mass and said, 'What's that one?' 'Ah,' said God. 'That's Wyoming, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful lakes, rivers, sunrises, sunsets, rolling hills, high mountains with snow covered peaks, open prairie, geysers, hot springs, water falls, monumental rock formations, abundant wildlife, excellent fly-fishing streams, pure white snow in the winter, white fluffy clouds, blue skies year-round, and a place where a person can see millions of stars in the sky at night.'

God continued,

The people from Wyoming are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace.'

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, 'What about balance, God? You said there would be balance!'

God replied wisely, 'Wait until you see the idiots I'm putting around them in Nebraska, Colorado, South Dakota, Utah, and Montana.'

Indiana Jones Preview

I finally saw a preview of the new Indiana Jones Movie that premiers later this month.

I'm ready to go now....

I haven't been all too thrilled with most of what Hollywood turns out these days. In fact I refuse to go see about 99 percent of it. But I have always loved the Indiana Jones movies, all of them. Even Temple of Doom.

But what I'm looking forward to the most about the new movie? Karen Allen is back as Marion Ravenwood.

I loved her in Raiders and was very disappointed that she wasn't in the second and third ones. It was good to see her back with Indy again. Sure she is almost 57 years old now, but she is a good looking 57 from what I saw. Maybe it's the freckles, I've always liked girls with freckles. Good thing my dear wife has them, huh?

Robot Test

It is amazing some of the things I can find to do to waste time when I am supposed to be doing something useful, like sleeping.


Created by OnePlusYou

Mandatory 4

When the schedule came out for Mandatory 4 we were scheduled to play at Citrus College. This was a wonderful location for us. It is one of the closest to home locations that we could draw, and the start time was delayed until 9 AM. Which meant that we would not have to leave town until around 6 AM which is much better than our usual 4-5 AM departure times. But the day after the schedule came out it changed. Suddenly we were scheduled to play at TBD. Man, I really hate playing at TBD, the facilities there are really bad.

Finally on Friday, a third schedule was released and we were scheduled to play at the Home Depot Center in Carson CA at 8 AM. So we were back to a 4:45 departure time in order to get there in time.

We were the number two team in the pool which meant that we didn't play until the second match, but we had to officiate the first match, so at least five of our players had to be at the Home Depot Center by 8 AM.

For those of you who have never played volleyball at the Home Depot Center it is a really unique environment to play in. The Home Depot Center is also known as the Los Angeles Velodrome. The Velodrome is a large indoor wooden bicycle race track. The infield of the track is a large enough space that they can set up 5 volleyball courts in it. Last year the U16s team my daughter was on played a tournament in the Velodrome. I hated it. The parents have to stay off the court. So they sit outside the bicycle track and watch the volleyball games from over 100 feet away. Between the spectators and the courts is a large black net that keeps the balls from flying out onto the bicycle track. However, this year being down on the court as a coach I didn't mind the place so much. There is plenty of room around the courts, it's actually kind of quiet down there. And the roof is really high, there are no overhead obstructions to get in the way. This however did bother a few of our players. They felt like they were playing in a really large fishbowl. Which is actually pretty fitting. The hitters and setters took a little time to adjust to the fact that the roof was so far away.

Our pool for the tournament consisted of teams from Bakersfield, Victorville and Pasadena. So the Arroyo team from Pasadena was the only team that didn't have to deal with a long drive that morning.

In our first match against the Arroyo Volleyball Club Team from Pasadena. Our Starlings started out a little slow, but quickly got organized and got used to the size of the venue we were playing in. They won that first match in two games - (25-18 and 25-15). Following that match we had our only break of the day. Then it was back on the court for a match against the Bakersfield Volleyball Club. The match my players looked a little more like the team I was used to seeing. Which is not a good thing. After winning the first game 25-19 the girls slacked off a little and tried to take it easy for the second game. This led to a 19-25 loss in the second game, and for the first time this season actually started a little bit of barking and snapping at each other on the court. Fortunately they were able to get things together for the third game. We played pretty even until the side change then my front row took over the game and we ran away with a 15-11 victory.

Following that match was our second officiating duty of the day, then our last match.

The final match of the pool was the 2-0, number one seed team from the White Lightening Volleyball Club in Victorville CA against our also 2-0 Ridgecrest Starlings. The way the other matches had worked out this match was for first place. The loser was going to finish in second. Our servers came out of the shoot hot in this match and when we really started spiking the game ended quickly - 25-16. Unfortunately that quick easy win led my still young and relatively inexperienced players to think that they second game would be just as easy. It wasn't. In a back and forth game where our opponents pretty much abandoned their attacking offense in favor of playing defense to counter our attackers both teams stayed close most of the game. Eventually we gained a small lead and held on for a 25-22 victory.

This left us in 1st place and will move us up to division 12 in two weeks. I hope my girls are ready for that. So far this season the only tournament that was not a first or second place finish for us was Mandatory 2, the one and only time we played in division 12.

Highlights for the day were Alyssa serving 36 times with zero errors and Ashley recording 13 aces in just 30 serves. Oh, and the ice cream I had to buy, because they finished first place again. Yeah, I know I guy who is supposed to be teaching them about healthy lifestyle choices buying them ice creams seems a little contradictory. But what the heck, it they keep winning, I'll keep buying ice cream.

What Language?

This site seems to think that I am:

Older Futhark

Language of the Norse, Older Futhark! Thirty symbols, all told. And no hardier, more warrior-like tongue has ever graced the longships of the Viki or left the Celts and Saxons in such quivering fear. There's only one drawback, that being you died 800 years ago.

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test

Being of Norwegian decent I kind of like that answer. Also these days I feel like I am pushing around 800 years old. Unfortunately I don't speak or read Older Futhark.
I can fake my way through some simple Norwegian genealogy documents but that is about it. I guess I should start studying a bit more. I just don't know when to do it. with all my other hobbies I barely have enough time to slop out a blog entry every couple weeks.

I hope to get back to writing more often in June with the Club volleyball season ends. Until then I have a job, a family and 10 young volleyball players who are taking up most of my time. Oh, I also try and sleep a little each day also.

Picnic with the Navy

One thing you have to worry about when playing volleyball in the park on a Navy base, is the low flying aircraft.



The best think about playing volleyball in the park on a Navy base is that you never know what is going drive by while you are there.

Mandatory No. 3

At our first tournament of the season I gathered all my players and their parents together and tried to explain to them that when dealing with the SCVA and club volleyball they have to be ready to be flexible and just go with the flow of any changes that happen at tournaments. Just as I finished my little speech one of our parents walked around the corner and announced “They just moved us from court C2 to D3.” Thereby, perfectly emphasizing my point.

Sunday we got to test our ability to relax, go with the flow and be flexible.

Mandatory 3 - 8:00 AM - Fullerton College. Or so we thought.

Since we had an 8 AM start time, and we were the number one seed in our pool, so we had to play at 8:00 we left town at 4:30 AM. This allowed us time to make a quick stop for coffee around 6 AM in Adelanto and still get to Fullerton College right around 7:30. Unfortunately none of us had ever been to Fullerton College before so we were not sure where to park. As a result the four cars we took ended up in four different parking lots. But eventually we all met together outside the gym.

Inside the gym, posted on the wall were the pool play sheets telling us who our opponents were and what court we would be playing on. Next to these sheets was a map showing the layout of the six courts that the 24 teams who were there would be playing on. There was also two gymnasiums that each looked big enough to hold 3 courts each. Standing around were a lot of coaches, a lot of players, and a lot of parents. The only things missing were: Standards, nets, officials, a facility coordinator and, lets see, one other thing…. Oh yeah, my bag of volleyballs.

While no one who was at Fullerton College had any idea where the standards, nets, officials and facility coordinator were at, I knew exactly where my bag of volleyballs was at. It was in the back of my car - in Ridgecrest.

Normally I would have been a little stressed out and embarrassed about forgetting our volleyballs. But since it didn’t look like were had courts to play on anyway I wasn’t too concerned - yet.

While several of us coaches wandered around trying to figure out what we were going to do, a lady named Rose, who I met last year when she was coaching a 16s team, and who had a 14s team this year stepped up and took charge. She started ordering all us coaches to find the standards and nets and get them set up while she started making phone calls.

After a bit we found the nets and standards for one gym. The equipment for the other gym was locked away somewhere. Unfortunately the nets and standards that we found for the one gym were not complete. We did not have a crank for winches on the standards. So I borrowed a volleyball from Rose so my players could start warming up. Then several fathers and I started trying to figure out how to get the nets set up.

Eventually, around 8:20 AM someone from the SCVA showed up and told two of the pools of players that they were supposed to report to the American Sports Center as soon as possible to play there. The rest of us were expected to be there at 1 PM that afternoon. Rose, bless her heart, immediately objected that the pool my team was in should be sent to the American Sports Center immediately because of the distance we had traveled and that she felt it was unfair that we should be kept waiting another 5 or more hours to play when we had already been going for the last 4 hours. The SCVA representative was unswayed. I added that one of the other teams in our pool was from Victorville and had traveled at lest an hour to get there also. Again he was unswayed. So eight of the teams immediately headed for the American Sports Center while the rest of us gathered together to figure out our next move. Since we now had several hours to wait to play volleyball.

Our team parents immediately all voted for breakfast. Since we were all parked in different places we decided to all meet at a Subway parking lot across the street from the College. Once there, we discovered that most of us had little idea what was available in that area. I knew that there were several restaurants on Harbor Blvd. So we loaded up the four cars and decided to head down Harbor Blvd. The lead car, when they saw a restaurant they liked, would pull in and the rest of us would follow them.

Thirty minutes later we were all sitting around tables in the sidewalk patio area of the IHop right outside of Downtown Disney. During breakfast, several of our players were talking about going shopping until our game time that afternoon. But many of the parents, who had been driving at 4:30 AM while everyone else slept were tired and had no desire to shop. While watching our players I noticed that several of them seemed nervous and edgy. So I called my cousin who lived just down the road a bit in Cypress and explained our situation. My cousin and his dear wife decided to hop on their white horses and come riding to our rescue. They invited all 20 of us to come over to their house to hang out for a while.

As we invaded my cousin’s house and back yard the players mostly settled into the game room where some of them were playing Guitar Hero. A couple of others were learning to shoot pool and the rest just sat around and kibitzed what the others were doing. Most of our parents found some space on the couch, in a lawn chair on the patio or crashed across the foot of guest bed for a quick nap.

The decision to invade my relatives castle turned out to be a good one. Our players when we left were much more relaxed and ready to deal with playing some volleyball. Sure they were a little tired, but at least they were calmer and ready to play. Unfortunately when we got to the American Sports Center we had to wait almost 90 minutes before we could get onto a court. Which was just enough time for the girls to hang around passing a volleyball in the parking long enough to get tired and impatient.

Finally we got onto a court and discovered that the one team in our pool that was from Victorville had decided to just go home instead of showing up for the matches. I guess they didn’t have relatives in Cypress who would welcome a volleyball player invasion.

The SCVA says that if we get into a 3 team pool we have to option to play three games to 25 against each team instead of the normal best 2 of 3. the other coaches and I all agreed that we had all been through a long enough day that we were good with just two - best two of three matches.

Our starlings team started off quickly but soon slowed and allowed our opponents to catch back up. We ended up losing the first match 25-27 and 24-26. They were close games that we should have taken but the grind of the day was finally catching up with our girls. Our second match was against the team that had allowed us to borrow their practice balls for our warm-ups before both matches. So I felt a little bad beating them, but not bad enough to not enjoy the victory. Our team was kind of flat for the first game and lost it 17-25. But for the second game our opponents relaxed a little, and I think that relaxing led them quickly into a crash after the long day. Meanwhile our Starlings got their second wind and started to play some volleyball. We won the second game 25-21, then carried that momentum into the third and deciding game where we ran up a quick 8-3 lead. After changing sides of the court, we also slowed down a little but managed to hold for a 15-10 victory. This gave us a second place finish for the day.

But our adventures didn’t end there. On the way home one player and a parent who were traveling in different vehicles started getting sick and had to stop several time to leave their lunch/dinner/breakfast in the California ditches.

I just want to take a moment here to brag about my player’s parents. When they could have gotten angry and started complaining they didn’t instead the helped set up nets. They kept their daughter’s upbeat and focused on why were there. They just waited for me to tell them what was going to happen. When we had to make changes they simply packed up our stuff and players and moved to wherever we had to be. I have heard a lot of coaches and directors complain about the parents they have to deal with. I am pleased to say, I have no idea what these coaches go through. I have great players who in turn have great parents.

An Absolut World?

This billboard and press campaign from Swedish vodka maker, Absolut, started running in Mexico last week.



Personally I have to wonder, does Absolut really sell enough vodka in Mexico to make it worth losing a large chuck of their customers in the United States? I'm sure that there will be a lot of people in the United States who will not find this ad offensive. But they will most likely be illegal immigrants or some left wing looney tunes who love to hate this country that gives them the freedom to be so irrational.

In response to a storm of complaints to the corporate offices Absolut left this statement on their consumer inquiry phone line.

“In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues,”

Which sounds to me like they are simply saying "Don't believe your eyes, don't take our ad at face value, just ignore what we said and believe what we tell you now."

Apparently the phone message didn't get people to stop complaining. So yesterday Absolut posted this on their website:

During the weekend we have received several comments on the ad published in Mexico. We acknowledge the reactions and debate and want to apologize for the concerns this ad caused. We are truly sorry and understand that the ad has offended several persons. This was not our intention. The ad has been withdrawn as of Friday April 4th and will not be used in the future.

In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues.

To ensure that we avoid future similar mistakes, we are adjusting our internal advertising approval process for ads that are developed in local markets.

This is a genuine and sincere apology,

By Paula Eriksson, VP Corporate Communications, V&S Absolut Spirits

Again this boils down to "Oh crap, we were really stupid because we forgot all about the internet and didn't think you ignorant Americans would ever find out what we were saying about you in Mexico in order to sell our cheap firewater."

I think that Absolut's next advertizing should be back home in Sweden and should look like this:



Well I am not a vodka drinker. But if I decide to take it up I will certainly not be drinking Absolut. However, Absolut vodka was puchased by the French company Pernod Ricard in March. I don't know if this marketing champaign was started before or after the sale of Absolut but if you are a boycotting type of person you might want to check out the list of other products that Pernod Richard owns here.