Champions of Life

A couple years ago I started captaining an ultimate team in the spirit league. I managed to get together some great people. We now have a terrific group of friends and have a little bit of history. Each season we've changed our team name depending on the theme of the league, but we've kept our yellow shirts. I've contemplated early retirement because of my knee, but right now my knee feels okay, and I'm enjoying the team too much. After our tournament victory this Saturday Alex sent the team the following e-mail:

Hola Team Vincent/Leinenkugel/Sally Ann Thunder Ann That's a lot of Ann's,

Good job today and congrats.

While excited by the win, I just wanted to tell you how proud I was to play with each and every one of you today. Everyone ran at 110% and stayed positive throughout. We constantly encouraged each other to shake off the drops, play hard D, and do our best individually but also as a team. Winning is nice, but even if we had lost I would have walked away feeling like we hadn't.

More than ever I can't help but feel that frisbee is a metaphor for life. Those teams that leave it on the field and challenge each other to move forward using positivity end up on top. We saw the alternative twice today. Y'all are awesome. I'd play with you any time, anyplace. Not to lose perspective, this is spirit league, and while a win always feels nice, it's only a small part of our world. I hope you all know that in the game of life, you are real champions.

Proud to wear the yellow,

Alex

Sleepless Blogging

I was at Sean's house the other day. I was talking about my insomnia issues. He said, "I have a suggestion for you. Next time you can't sleep get up and write another blog post."

He was right. Once a month seems very infrequent.

Laundry

I walked across the street to the bank to get some quarters for laundry. It isn't my bank so I wasn't making a withdrawl, just a cash exchange. I handed the teller a $100 bill and asked for $60 in twenties and $40 in quarters.

Later I was thinking that I doubt they get very many people walking in to the bank with hundred dollar bills that need quarters for laundry. I would also imagine most people getting quarters for laundry don't ask for forty bucks worth.

My Morning

A week and half ago I had a disagreement with my boss about the time I was arriving to work. Typically, I was arriving between 8:25 and 8:35, and occasionally I would get there a little later. I know this is past my scheduled time, but I don't have a first period class and my first class doesn't start until 9:30. I'm only officially scheduled to work until 2:45 and I'm here until 4:30 or 5:00 every day. So I asked my boss if I could just shift my official time later and he did not agree.

So for the past two weeks I've had trouble sleeping, but I've been making it to work by 8:13, my scheduled arrival time.

The weather has gotten colder, but there is a problem with my heater so I'm been using a little space heater. The last few days it has been bouncing back and forth between my bedroom and living room. This morning I knew I needed to make breakfast and lunch and would need some time in the kitchen so after I showered I plugged the heater into the kitchen.

As soon as I turned the microwave on to heat my oatmeal I blew the breaker in the kitchen. So I moved the heater back to the living room, and tried to figure out what to do to get my fridge working again before I went to work. I have one extension cord that runs from behind my bed out to a couple lights so I dug that out and brought it out the living room. I rearranged the television and managed to get the chord to run out long enough to reach the fridge.

Then I brilliantly decided to finish heating my oatmeal first without unplugging anything else from the living room. So I plugged in the microwave and proceeded to blow the power in the rest of the house.

Now, I'm really stressed out because I have to make it to work by 8:13. My boss said I could e-mail him under extenuating circumstances and let him know I'm coming in late, but I would really prefer to use those on my bad insomnia nights, and not to get my fridge working again. However, I can't even e-mail my boss anyway because the power thus the computer is not available.

I go down to the garage and play with the circuits, but it didn't help. I knock on the new landlord's door, but she does not answer. So I called my dad and he gave me some instructions. I played with the switches again. I went back upstairs and the power was back on. Now I hurriedly finished making my breakfast and lunch.

In the process I managed to knock over a glass and break it. Which of course I attribute this to being rushed by an unnecessary start time and the broken pieces of glass in my kitchen are now a result of work stress. I picked up the largest pieces. There are still a few little glass splinters on the counter and floor I will have to get when I get home.

I finished my food, finished getting dressed, and left work. I arrived at 8:06.

It is good that I am arriving to work on time, because it gave me time to write this blog. Also, I didn't have time to make as much food for lunch as I had planned so I'm thinking about running over to Subway. Once I am at work on time it is okay for me to sign out and leave to go get something if I really need to, but not okay for me to get something before (or something like that).

It is 8:31 now, and I got to work on time.

Modern Technology

Modern phones are so amazing. It is incredible what they can do. Phones now you can say what you want to say and it will transcribe it for you into text and send it to someone as a text message. They can read it, and then speak back into their phone, and send a text message back to you. Then you can have an entire text converation and neither person has to type in anything; you can do it all just by speaking.

Oh... wait...

Don't Judge a Driver by His Honk

Let me try to describe the scene: I turn in to the first driveway of the parking lot. Then I roll through along the top of the lot. There is a pickup signaling left from the main road and two pedestrians along the sidewalk. I can tell he is waiting for them to finish crossing so I make a right into the parking lot. As he turns in behind me he lays on the horn. I hurriedly find a spot down that row and he parks several lanes away, but still going to the same grocery store.

I look out at his truck and his lights are still on and I see a guy pulling two shopping carts as he walks towards the store. I'm thinking maybe it is a store employee, but I don't see anyone else getting out of the truck. Still mad from being honked I walk right up to him and say, "Are you guy driving the truck?"

I recognize most people wouldn't get this worked up about the incident. I also recognize that most people wouldn't want to cause a confrontation with someone that just honked at them. But sometimes I'm not like most people.

We had the following exchange:

"Yeah."
"What are you honking at me for?"
"You jumped in front of me and you scared me."
"I assumed you were waiting for the pedestrians to cross first."
"You had had a stop."
"I don't think I have a stop sign there."
"Yeah, it is on the road."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"No problem."

Did I mention it was raining and this guy was bringing in shopping carts just to help out? He turned out to be a real sweetheart.