Football, Boots, and Back Problems

My non-league league team had a game tonight. We played the best team in the league (though that's not what the league table says presently, somehow one of the other teams beat them last week). Anyways, they beat us pretty badly the first game 6-1. We were playing 5v5 with no subs for awhile (we got one sub mid-way through the game) though. Tonight, we played 7v7 as all the teams have been for the past couple of weeks. We lost 4-2, but could've easily tied them if I would have just put my laces through one of my shots instead of side-footing it and if I'd gotten a little less spin on my one-touch full-volley.

I did execute one of the best tackles I've done in awhile, more on this, but first, some backstory. I tweaked my back yesterday. Possibly from leaning over Daniel's crib, but the pain came on a little while after I put him down so I dunno. I read that it can happen when your abs are stronger than your back muscles and that seems to fit since I had been working out my abs pretty well, but not my back as much. Either way I was hurting yesterday, but I had just gotten my new adidas F50i boots that afternoon. So I went and played pick-up football for about a half-hour to break them in. My back felt better after warming it up a bit, but it was clear I wasn't at full speed. I have a couple games to ref this weekend so I decided to take it easy tonight and stayed at about 50-70% speed. That's how one of the best players in the league got past me and was 15 yards from goal. I spun around and tackled the ball from behind him and between his legs. Despite his protestations, it was a clean tackle. He did fall, but from tripping over the ball I had just taken from him. He did hit my foot on the way down, but I got confirmation from a teammate (who was a few yards away) that it was after I had cleanly tackled the ball. He said the tackle was beautiful. So that was fun :)

I love my new boots. I ordered them a half-size smaller than I normal. Previously I wore Copas in a size 8 and watered them down before a few practices to shrink them. A few people on football forums suggested ordering them a half-size down and letting them stretch a bit. They're kangaroo leather (as are the Copas) and it, aside from being very comfortable and durable, apparently stretches well. I can confirm this because after playing 30 minutes last night and 40 minutes tonight, they're just about perfectly comfortable and conformed to my feet.

I got the F50i primarily for refereeing since they have interchangeable studs and Kern Valley High School's field gets quite muddy. So I can change out the regular studs for soft ground studs and get better grip. The other nice thing is that the shoe part is interchangeable as well so when my current pair wears out, which going by the life of my Copas, should be in 2-3 years, I can just buy a $40-60 upper instead of a $100 pair of Copas. Though they were somewhat expensive off the bat, but Amazon had them $25 off so that helped a little, but then cost-savings wasn't really the primary goal anyways.

Daniel's Six Minutes of Silly

Abby was out at the salon getting even more beautified so Daniel and I had guy time. We played a bit and then he seemed to get bored with me so I put him on his play mat. He played on his own for a while and then he wanted to play with Daddy. The result is below. A few highlights are: at about 2:02 he giggles, around 2:24 he makes a bird-like noise, and about 3:12 he giggles and squeals.



We had a lot of fun! It was the first time he giggled and was probably the longest time he went just playing with me. I felt so much joy just playing with him and being goofy. I love my little boy and pray that I can be the great father/husband that he and Abby deserve.

Heroes

Samuel Sullivan's accent has been bugging me all season. Samuel is a new character this season. I'm not really sure of his purpose, I'm not sure the writers truly know. It's just a convenient way to keep Sylar around. He's played by Robert Knepper who was pretty good in Prison Break (at least up until a couple episodes into the third season when I stopped watching because it became abundantly clear the season would be a repeat of season one only this time in Panama without the novelty). I cannot for the life of me figure out why no one tells Knepper that his Irish accent is mostly laughable, sometimes okay, and intermittent. Either way, this series seems to be going the way of Lost. If I didn't like so many of the characters (Peter, Hiro and Ando, Claire, HRG, and Sylar), I would've already dropped the show like I did with Lost halfway through last season.

Now that's change I can believe in!

Source

Daniel's First Smile Laugh

I came home today at 10 for our new oven to be installed and I was dressing Daniel while waiting on the installers. I had just finished putting his pants on and started playing with him on the couch and he smiled a couple times and then laughed! It was very cool. I called Abby over and Daniel laughed for her too.

Update: I plead the Fourth

I figured out why I was upset about that search. It was completely unwarranted. The other times I've been wanded or patted down, I had set off the metal detector more than once, usually by leaving something in a pocket and then forgetting I had a belt on. This time none of that happened. I didn't set off the detector once. I didn't have anything suspicious in my bag. Yet I was still searched.

I plead the Fourth

Going through security at Tucson airport just now I was "randomly" selected for a pat-down. I say "randomly" because, as I was in line, I did not see any female passengers selected. The guy in front of me was selected, his wife behind him was not, I was selected, the Army guy behind me was not, but the guy behind him was.

*to be updated later, we're boarding now*

Update 1700:
I'm sitting at LAX now waiting for the evening flight back home. So the screening *could* have been every other person, but I don't remember the person four ahead or behind me being screened, only +/- 2 around me. Either way I am annoyed at the search. I've been selected before, so I'm not sure why this search bothered me. Maybe it's that I've been reading a lot of articles by (and about) Bruce Schneier lately. I understand that there are implied consent issues, but I'm not really up on the law. Nothing was improper about the search (other than my misgivings about its legality), but for the first time I actually felt like I was giving up a right and I don't think the security I get is worth it anymore. It also bothered me that the guy two behind me remarked, "Whatever you have to do" to the TSA officers about his search. He seemed very flippant about his Fourth Amendment rights.

I've got a few posts about my trip (restaurant reviews), but I'll do those later.

Health Care

I'm tired of people saying that because I am a Christian I should support the national health care plan. As a Christian I have an obligation to care for the poor, widowed, outcast, and generally downtrodden groups. What I do not have is an obligation to do is insist that government do my job for me. If I see someone in need it is my job to help them, not get the government to steal money from the rich (who already bear more than their "fair share") and do my job. If churches and charities have neglected their jobs, the solution is to light a fire under them and get them to do those jobs.

I understand why people say that government plan is taking care of those groups so I should just support it. Just because something is easy, letting government take over, does not mean it is right. Is it much easier to support this plan (or any other national health care plan or welfare program) and say that I have done my part, fulfilled my moral obligation? Yes. However, the right thing to do is give money and other support to churches that fill this need and where they do not exist, to start them. That is much harder and requires taking money out of my pocket and giving it away. (Let's just forget that national health care will be funded by the government forcibly taking money from me, people seem to forget that).

I have to go to work so I've left my arguments about the constitutionality of these types of programs for another day.

Civil Unions

The Governor of Utah was rejected by a Republican club in Michigan for supporting civil unions. I think this is part of what is wrong with the Republican party lately. They're picking battles that they can't win and further alienating otherwise conservative voters. I've been debating with myself over the issue of civil unions and, so far, I see no (political) reason why the government shouldn't have them.

The issue of gay unions is a religious matter. The government should stay out of religious matters and not tell religions how they should be run or impose a nation-wide religion (the actual purpose of the idea of separation of church and state). However, the state does recognize marriage, which is a religious matter. As such, the government should not attempt to redefine marriage, but, since they've already recognized a union based on a religious matter, why shouldn't they recognize another type of union? To do otherwise would be advancing one religious view over another (or lack of religious view depending on your viewpoint).

Try to think about it as if the shoe were on the other foot. For example, say our viewpoint, the covenant of marriage was in the minority and the government has already recognized unions between gays. Our argument would be eerily similar to the arguments coming from the gay rights community.

This is not an endorsement of the gay lifestyle, but merely a way to hopefully get people to understand what one of the crucial roles of government is. That is, to protect the minority from mob rule. One day you might be in the minority and if you, while in the majority, have eroded the government's ability to protect the minority, you might not like the outcome.

Let me know what you think.

Quick Update

In no particular order:

As you may have read, Abby beat me at chess the other night. She did very well. She tends to underestimate her skills and become frustrated, but when she thinks through her moves she does well. I'm proud of her. I always have fun playing with her even when I lose.

I had a disc golf weekend with Randall and Andrew last weekend. It was awesome! I have a new favorite course, Coyote Point. It was difficult, but fun. Lots of variation with some altitude variation. It was evident real thought was put into every hole. There was never a very easy route (at least for me). Many holes made me try shots I might not normally try because there really weren't that many options to try. Randall has some photos (I forgot Abby's camera) and I'm sure I'll post at least a few when I get the CD from him.

Our home phone has been turned off. We rarely used it and we both have cell phones so it was an easy cut from our budget. We had the basic service which was supposed to be $9.99/month, but with all the fees Verizon tacked on, it ended up being about $25-30/month.

I canceled our domain name www.travisandabby.com, you can still find the site at tab.hardboiled.dyndns.org. Yahoo wanted $35/year to renew the name, which was up from $5/year. I briefly looked for cheaper options, but it was just a convenience so it's gone too. I have some more pictures to upload. When I do I'll notify you here.

I think that's all. I have two games to ref tomorrow. I think I'm running the line and evaluating the center ref from what Bob said. That should be fun. Then some guys and I are getting together to play the zombie survival game, Left 4 Dead. After that I'm going to get back to tiling the other bathroom.

Pi Day

It's a little late, but Happy Pi Day! We had a semi-scrimmage for co-ed softball today. I played some football after. I really need to run more and get in shape for the 5-aside tournament in May. I talked with Bob about refereeing for the city league in April. I'd heard occasionally they get a USSF instructor to come down and give their course. It didn't sound like that would happen, but FIFA have some slides on their website that I've gone through briefly and Bob was interested in my idea of going over some of them. He's going to see if he can get a room on one of the Saturdays between now and the start of the season.

Dual System & Ignorance of the Rules

It's been awhile. I'm not sure anyone actually reads this, but it's nice to vent.

I am still not a fan of the dual system. I've done it twice since my last post. One time it went alright, but I still didn't feel like I could control the game like I needed to, but luckily it didn't need much intervention.

The second time was tonight. Tonight didn't go so well. I felt we missed some early little stuff because we were too far away from the play (because we were doing a dual) and that led to retaliation, some of which was little stuff that we also missed. The game was never irretrievably out of control, but it did get out of control at times. We called everything we saw, but just from some things I caught the tail end of and reactions I saw, we missed things that were getting to players on both sides and they became frustrated. It frustrated me because we seemed to regain control of the game and then something little or sometimes nothing (at least that I could tell) would set the players off again.

Major contributors to the mood were the coaches and benches of both sides. I was on the home side and one of the coaches, who I've played with out in town and seemed a reasonable, nice guy, got on me when I called a home player for yelling "Leave it!" when the ball was in the air and the opposing player did. The away player had his back to the home player and ducked letting the ball go by him in response to the home player's yell. I instinctively went to my pocket for the yellow card. This type of foul is called "deliberate verbal tactics". It's in the NFHS Soccer Rules under Rule 12-8 Section 1.f.4.

I made my first mistake by allowing myself to be talked out of the yellow and giving a warning. The player and coaches insisted he was talking to a teammate even though there wasn't one nearby that could have played the ball.

My second mistake was that on the restart, it should have been an indirect kick (I gave a direct kick). Luckily, the foul was at midfield and the away team didn't score directly from the kick.

This exact situation is covered under Situation 12.8.1 in the NFHS Soccer Rules. It states, "Player A2 is waiting to receive a ball in the air. Opponent B2, who is behind A2, shouts 'I'll take it' in an obvious attempt to deceive A2 into thinking B2 is a teammate calling for the ball. RULING: Stop play, caution B2 for unsporting conduct and restart with an indirect free kick by Team A at the spot of the infraction."

The coach who berated me for this really bothered me. I usually don't get bothered by anything coaches say. I think it was because I had played with the guy many times out in town and what he said. He said that if I had any knowledge of the game I would know that wasn't a foul. He went on for a little and I told him he ought to recheck his rulebook. I wish I could have remembered the exact section so I could quote it to him.

It bothered me because I obviously know the game, I've played with and against him (and had a great time), and he was the one who didn't have the knowledge of the game. I usually just laugh it off when the coaches (or players) make some comment that is plainly wrong Rules-wise, but that's the first time I was bothered by it.

It didn't affect the way I called the rest of the game, but next time, I'll shrug it off and give the coach a card for dissent because that's what he deserved (the player too if I haven't restarted play yet). I tried to be reasonable and influence the game as little as I can, but, in that instance, I think I did too little. A card would have made him more irate, but it would have sent a message that disrespect is unacceptable and maybe that disrespectful attitude wouldn't have spread to the players.

/rant