Sports Saturday

So Lincoln is playing soccer. He's always really excited to go play soccer, but it's a total crap shoot what's going to happen once we get to the park.

He did a good job yesterday, he got to kick the ball several times, and once he took it from his own end line past midfield, running past the opposition as he kept kicking the ball. He was eventually stopped by his own teammate. She's 5 to Lincoln's 3, and a much faster runner. She caught him, kicked the ball away from him, and tripped and fell. Lincoln, upon seeing someone fall down, decided to pile on.

Above is photo proof of the episode I described. The girl to the right is the one who caught him. I was talking to her mom later on, and she said that they give her a dollar for every goal she scores. I noticed after that, that she seemed a little more selfish. Plus, her mom said that one week, they had to pony up $27, one for each goal her older daughter scored.

Paying kids for scoring goals... probably not a good idea.

Later on in the day, Lincoln had a free ticket to a Real Salt Lake Game. Real Salt Lake, for those who don't know is Utah's MLS soccer team. Real means "Royal" in Spanish, so their name means "Royal Salt Lake". And they play in Sandy.

Anyway, the facility is really nice. One of the nicer stadiums I've been to. The individual seats are even contoured to accommodate your back. I'd like to see a football game there one day. As for the soccer game that happened while I was there, it didn't change my mind much about soccer. Following is a list of problems I have with the worlds most popular game. Keep in mind, I've actually tried to like soccer. It's true. Just ask my family.

• They need to change that insane offsides rule to be a fixed point on the field, instead of defenders that can move. Like Hockey.


• Rules only seem to be occasionally applied, making newbies like me scratch their heads as to when a foul should be called, and when it shouldn't.


• To help apply those rules, there should be more than 1 ref to make calls out there. Basketball has a much smaller court, and manages to have 3 refs... and they still miss calls.


• Fans should not be allowed to throw urine bombs under any circumstances.


• People should stop trying to make me like soccer.

I don't want to make anyone defensive... I'd just like to know how a die hard soccer fan justifies the above list.

In the end, our royal Salt Lakers lost 2-0 to the Kansas City Monarchs. No word if they are also royal, or just a butterfly. In any event, a 2-0 loss in soccer, is like losing 133 - 0 in real (English definition) football. I think I might spend $10 or so a seat to watch a soccer game again. The stadium was great, the atmosphere was incredible, and the drummer played the drums throughout the entire game. Maybe if my team scored a goal once in a while, it'd be more exciting.

Finally, a gratuitous Ellie picture.

That's her with Ange's cousin Lynsie, or as I call her "bug eyed glasses lady".

The Glass Box

The other day, Lincoln went to bed super easy. So easy, that as I'm walking out of his room, I said to Ange, "We're going to pay for this later." As it turned out, it would be sooner rather than later. I heard Lincoln trying to open the door an hour and a half later, so I opened up and took a look inside. I saw the face of a mime...

Lincoln had somehow managed to unscrew a big ol' jar of cream, and smear it all over himself. If I'd of only had a glass box, he would have looked perfect in it.

Those who have kids know that only half of the cream actually made it on his body, the other half was smeared in the carpet, on the door, on his drawers and clothes and shoes etc...

Then, we spent until midnight or so cleaning up the mess

Also, I decided to post a gratuitous picture of Ellie...

She hasn't broken any bones, or made huge messes lately, in other words, nothing worthy of news.

Finally, I should report that I threw another guy out of a game. There was a play at third, and the throw was a little short, so the third baseman, moved toward the runner to field the ball, just as the runner slid. The result was a pretty sweet takeout slide by the runner. The ball went up the left field line, so the runner wanted to go to home, but was tangled up with the 3rd baseman. So he did what any other logical human being would do and started to kick the 3rd baseman. I called the ball dead and tossed the runner for fighting. Then he swore, which of course didn't change my mind. He didn't want to leave, so I had to tell him to go like five times, using my 'angry voice', which meant that teams from nieghboring fields came to take a look at the show.

I guess five times wasn't enough, because he decided to go back out and play left field. He said that he thought he wasn't really kicked out. I think the league decided that he was gone for the season after those antics.

That should be it.

Kronos

Escargo Anyone?

First off, I'd like to mention that the streak is alive and well. I thought I was going to have to reset my throwup streak, but the thought of doing that helped me tough it out. Now Ange is sick which means I haven't slept in 2 days, and explains this post at 3:30 in the morning.

Next, I have now tossed two people this year. I was thinking that I wasn't going to get to toss anyone this year, but in the last five days, the full moon has wrought strange behavior on softball players.

The first victim of the tossing was a guy who was sent home for arguing balls and strikes. In his defense, he was mad that he didn't swing at the most perfect pitch in history. His team had kind of worked me up with sneaky complaining all night about obvious calls, so when he complained, I took it out on him.

The second guy was sent home for dropping an F bomb. In his defense, he did hit a way crappy pop up. Plus, his whole team thought that if you drop a fly ball, it counts as an out as long as the fielder was diving. These rules can be hard to keep track of.

We can only hope I get more opportunities to toss people, because I have a pretty good tossing motion. It comes from years of practice in the shower. I start my hand at my hip, and swing it up toward my head while pointing just over the nearest fence. It's perfect.

I will keep track of all ejections at the bottom of this page. We can only hope the list grows.

We put sod in our backyard recently. John was the only person cool enough to help out, so thanks John. I'll bat you leadoff next game for your troubles. Now that there is grass in our yard, I've noticed this huge snail migration. They come from under my deck, and try to make it across the grass where there is a wooden fence. This seems to be the goal of the snails. I don't know if snails are bad for grass, but they are a little creepy, so the other night, I went out with a small garbage can, and plucked 58 of those snails off this small patch of grass that we have.

I was thinking it would be a good idea to sell them to some French people as expensive food, but there are no French people that live by us, which also explains why I haven't started a bottled water business, or a surrender your country at the first sign of an invasion business.

So I figured I made my point with the snails, because 58 of them were crawling around the garbage can, so I went out 20 minutes later only to find 6 more crawling around. Needless to say, I was not pleased, so I picked them up and threw them on to the road. I threw them as high as I could to see if I could break their shell. I don't know if that makes me a bad person or not.

Then today, I found ten more out on the grass, so clearly, the message isn't being sent. They recieved the same treatment as the others, and I kind of feel bad that I made snails needlessly suffer, but in my defense, they are pretty annoying.

For those who don't know, we'll be blessing Ella, the date, time, and place will be on the Family Wiki here.

The End
F Bomb Nazi

A New Girl in Town

Looks like Lincoln has been taken down a notch. We welcomed Ella Elaine to our family on June 11, 2007. She was 6 lbs. 15 oz., 20 inches tall, and is pretty cute as you'd expect by looking at her parents.

So far, Lincoln has remained optomistic that this is just a phase.

Ange is doing well, but as usual, food is appreciated. More by me than by her.

In other news, we went to Lagoon, and Lincoln rode the kiddy rides for the first time. His favorite ride seemed to be Kontiki, that one that looks like the Tidal Wave.

He was so interested in that one balloon game where you throw darts at balloons, that I plunked down 2 dollars to play it. They gave me 5 darts. The first 4 found thier mark, and then I asked Lincoln if he wanted to throw one. Without hesitating, he takes the dart and throws it, as the workers are scrambling to get out of the way. He popped a balloon, and his reward was an oversized foam die.

We also discovered that he is about an inch and a half short of riding on Rattlesnake Rapids, so Steph needs to make sure to bring her tall shoes when she comes down.

Finally, I have Platypi stats updated, but nowhere to post them just yet. I'm pretty sure Chad is going to comment on how I can do it on the family wiki, so I will give details. It is a somewhat hefty excel file, that I want people to be able to download. Now I will wait for the response. I would like to mention that right now, I lead the league in walks with 8. And I'm second in the league in triples with 3. I bet most of you didn't see that coming.

Coco Crisp

Oh and Happy Birthday Mike -- we'll beat Salt Lake Blues for you.