Learned something new...

Alright I'm 37 and never really ate Sunflower seeds before. Let me be clear, I've tasted these before and I'm talking about the buy'em in bulk, shelled, throw them back, chew and swallow kind of seeds.

So a co-worker brings in this bucket of David Sunflower Seeds and I'm talking a bucket the size of a large restaurant size pickle bucket and inside it has a bunch of tiny little bags (Net wt. 1 3/4 oz.) of Roasted & Salted Sunflower Seeds. I grab a bag to see what its all about.

Yes I've never done this and to the shock and almost humorous horror of the rest of my co-workers. Perhaps its all the work involved with braking into these things and knowing that someone has already shelled these somewhere and I wonder why I want to spend the time trying to pry into something so small and only find a little seed.

So they start to tell me how you cram a handful of these in your mouth and set them on one side to soak and then you move one over to the other side and crack it with your teeth. Next you pry open where they split and extract the seed and spit out the shell. It's all the fun of having a mouthful of what looks like tobacco chew and the spitting I suppose.

So I grab around 5 or 6 seeds for starters. Mind you I don't want to have a handful of seeds in my mouth and end up swallowing a bunch trying to learn. So I'm trying to move some to one side and then move one over. Lets crack it open and see how this goes. Ok, so I've got about a dozen shards of shell on one side and I'm told that I should have let them sit a bit and soak and they'll almost come apart on their own. Spitting the shards out and going to shell number two, its soaked a bit more and I feel the little gap and start to work into it with my teeth. It's at this point that a new feeling of stabbing my gums with the point of half a shell sets in. They say its alright and the gums will tuff up to that.

This was on Monday that I started this and I'm still on the first bag. I'm a little better, I said little better and will have this bag for most of October I'd say. I've decided that if left on an island and all I have is these seeds, that I'll starve or might make it rich opening my own business shelling these damn things for others like me. Then again, I'm probably the only one on the island that's new to such a thing like this and I should worry about something else. Like getting off the Damn island.

Storms coming...

It's interesting to think about how weather was looked at in the early days, compared to instant access today. It made me look around a bit to see how some of the technology was used and came about. I'm amazed that it was not till around May 1957 that Radars were starting to be used to detect weather.

I remember the old days and watching TV news reports for weather. I remember these old black and white images, flashed on the screen to show storms approaching. I never thought at the time how new this technology was. I'm guessing around the time I started looking at this, it had only been around for about 20 years perhaps.

To think they used this same old stuff up to the early 90's, sure it improved a bit over time, but for the most part the same old detectors were still in use till around the early 90's. It was not till about that time that the switch to the Doppler method started growing. And to think, before that time, say around 1956, they must have just looked out side and saw storm clouds. They must have relied on people in surrounding areas to call or something and say, Storms coming your way, better take cover.

So to think that its only been for the past 11 years from the time I was born, that they've been able to see something on a Radar and it was close at hand and at about 12 years after the first usage of the WRS-57, that we also landed on, walked on, and returned from the Moon? Then again, some us don't believe that ever happened.

Goooaaaalllllllllll !

Last game for the season and it was a tough game. We play 7 on 7 in a Co-Ed league and we play no more than three guys out in the field, a fourth guy can be the goalie. That leaves the rest of the team made up of three girls. Pretty much the make up runs like this and we normally have a sub for every person (goalie plays the whole game).

Last night we had the goalie, three guys, and five girls. That meant that the guys would be running around like crazy for the whole night. We ended up subing one of the girls in for guys at times. The game was a lot harder with out the extra subs to give everyone a brake. I've been playing more defense lately, but we've done a pretty good job at covering and letting each other make some moves up the field. Believe it or not, switching and falling back to defense can give someone a little bit of a brake at times in Indoor.

This season I've also been limited in my right leg some, I pulled a Quadricep early on in the season and its been hard to really take shots with the stronger leg. So I've been working on my left more and I had at least one power shot from the left last night. I normally just dribble and try to get in places to feed the ball to others when I move up the field.

Last night towards the last minute of the game I had pushed up and my chance finaly came. I turned with the ball and headed towards the goal and was pretty much one on one with the goalie at this point and with my right I nailed it towards the mid to upper righthand side of the box and out of reach from the goalie. I scored, its all I really wanted, just one goal for the season. Its a part of the game that makes you feel good, when you take a nice shot and place it just out of reach of the goalie.

I'm looking forward to next season, maybe I'll try for two goals now.

Raptors update

Tomorrows the big day, its game time for my daughters YMCA, Mighty Tots, girls soccer team. This evening will be the 3rd time for them all to meet for a last practice before the first game.

The main goal for the 4 years olds is to have fun and learn a bit about soccer as well. Next to the fun part is the basic, this is a ball, that's a goal, kick the ball into the goal and don't use your hands, unless your a goalie.

They've only had a couple practices, the first was pretty good and last nights was more of a team meeting, since it started to rain. My wife helped in making sure that all shirts were passed out, along with the team schedule and she gathered more contact information. Since the light rain kept up a bit, I decided to call the practice and see if they could come back one more time tomorrow. My fingers are crossed that we can play a little and work on some stuff before the first game.

No matter what happens tomorrow, its going to be a blast. I hope the girls will enjoy the season and find playing on a team to be great and continue learning more about the game.

Hibernating Kat

It's been way to long and some of my friends like to joke and say, "Robert use to ride a bike...". Its been some what of a never ending April Fools joke I guess. The bike was flooded, plugs fouled, and it needed a valve adjustment. So it was time for my 1996 GSX600FT Katana to get a tune up of sorts.

Well as you can see all the blue fairings (plastics) on the bike cover most of the bike and the tank sits right on top of the motor. To get to the plugs, you have to pretty much remove everything, just no other way about it. Now the bike was not running right after being flooded a couple times and the plugs being fouled. So the only option was to brake her down and replace some stuff.

We got so far, might as well keep going we said. That's right, we went ahead an broke her down more an adjusted the valves too. Worked in reverse order and put her back together. Still not running right. Took her to a shop and they helped a very little bit, but could not tell me exactly what was wrong an needed. We've messed with her some more and have decided its time to take her to another shop. This time, my hope is the new shop really will know what needs to be done. The sleeping Kat needs to wake up... I'm so tired of the high price of gas and really miss being on two-wheels. Plus my friends don't quite remember that the bike was real at one point.

Raptors join YMCA Mighty Tots league

Its now official, I went to the first coaches meeting, for my daughters first time in playing recreational soccer. The Raptors have been formed and the colors should be Kelly Green. We asked her if she wanted to play in the YMCA league and she seems very excited about soccer. I decided to volunteer as a Coach and was selected to help guide her team.

They will play 6 games this year and each game will be made up of 4 seven minute quarters, with 2 minute brakes in between and 5 minutes for the halftime. No offsides or penalty kicks. Each team carries a total of 10 on the roster and 7 play (6 plus a goalie) on the field.

The goal is to have FUN and start teaching them about the basics, ball, goal, kick into goal, and no hands (unless your the goalie). This should be a lot of fun and give them a chance to run and meet new friends. As they grow older, they will start to learn more, they'll add more players to the field and play longer games. Each season is setup to build on what they have learned in the past.

Games will start on September 17, but the fun begins tonight and the next few weeks. Calling all the parents and seeing when all of them will be available to practice. I hope to get them all together at least a couple times before the first games start. Schedules will and uniforms will be available on the 10th.