Old Age And Treachery Will Overcome Youth And Skill

My brother's and I's volleyball team is certainly not without skill. In fact, my brother is one of the better players in our league. But last night we lent our support to the old adage. We played a team of early 20 somethings. Before the game, as we were stretching we saw our opponents doing the same. We joked that when we were their age we warmed up for games with shots of Tequila. Not these guys. They had talent, speed, and youthful energy. Both their guys could jump serve and their girls were good setters and could hit when in that position. They had beat us in the regular season when we were short handed.

And we knocked them out of the playoffs in straight games.

They telegraphed their hits. They didn't switch their guys into hitting positions giving us rotations that produced a lot of free balls. And more than anything when they got down they couldn't recover. The last game was a rout, 21 - 8.

Mental toughness when playing sports is an interesting thing. The greatest players certainly have it. In the pro sports one thinks of Jordan and Tiger. These are guys that would do anything possible to win. Now I'm not even beginning to say our team has that kind of intensity. We don't. At our level of play though you can see the break down on other teams and the younger teams suffer from it more often. One team in our league has a group of very good players, a team that "on paper" should compete for first place, almost always loses in the first round of the playoffs. They fall apart when they start losing and start making mistakes. The same thing happened to the team we beat last night.

I don't know how one teaches or learns to keep the focus. Maybe it can't be taught. Perhaps it is something gained when one is down and overcomes adversity. And not just in sports but in other life situations. The confidence that comes from learning you can win at the game of life. The confidence is not necessarily a direct function of age as much as it is experience. All pro athletes have some level of this confidence because they have been playing their respective sport for so long. Again, we're not pros but we've played together for a lot of years now. We know what each other is capable of doing. And we've lost games and we've come back when it looked sure we were going to lose.

Those poor kids didn't stand a chance last night.

Dag Gummit!

You wouldn't think fishing show bloopers could be this funny.

Obama's Accomplishments

Erik Loomis at Alterdestiny links to a list of Obama's accomplishments in the first 10 months of his administration. It is an impressive list. I'm still gathering my thoughts about the Afghan plan. My gut, although it may be necessary I don't like it. But, even when one disagrees with specific policy decisions of any politician it is good to keep in mind the good they've done as well.

Did You Need More Proof?

OK, do the following:

* Step 1: Point your browser to www.google.com.
* Step 2: Enter the search phrase ‘can you’.
* Step 3: Look at the drop down list.


Abstinence Only Education is a failure.

Even I Saw That Coming

3rd and 1, first drive of the game and the Eagle bring in Vick. Ummm, Vick is running. How are the Bears not ready for that?

And So It Concludes

2009 has come to an end.

OK, OK, so there are 6 weeks left. But the days are getting intolerably short and getting colder. More importantly softball has finally come to an end.

Yesterday was the last day of playoffs for the team I captain. We lost a good game in the semi finals. 3rd place again. Afterwards the other team to lose in the semis was still hanging out. We decided to use an open diamond to play our own game. The two teams know each other well. We provide each other with subs as needed and party together.

We had a couple cases of beer, a bag full of softballs and all afternoon on a sunny Saturday afternoon. As great as the 2009 year in softball has been this was the most fun game we played. It was a fantastic idea (credit to the other team's captain, Brian).

December is always my sports down time and as I've gotten older it seems more and more necessary. Strains, aches, and pains tend to build up over time. Just this morning I discovered a nasty bruise on one foot. No, I don't know where it came from.

Definitely looking forward to the time off and a couple weeks of no work at the (actual) end of the year too.

Survived To Fight Another Day

Today was D-Day at work. The 15 contractors on the team met with the manager 1-on-1 in 5 minute intervals. The main topic of discussion was will our contracts be renewed after the first of the year and for how long.

We were told about 60 days ago that 1 of the fifteen would be hired full time and 3 let go leaving 11 contractors. Since then the company announced large cut backs in the over all work force. 350 full time positions are to be eliminated by the end of the first quarter 2010. With that news it seemed obvious that the one of the contractors was not going to be hired and 4 were going to be let go.

I was the third one to meet with the manager. I was told I was one of the eleven and to expect to be on for all of 2010. An obvious relief for me. Back in 2002 I was laid off at the end of the tech bubble bursting. There was such a flood of programmers on the market - tech bubble bursting and the end of the Y2K conversions - that it took me 14 months to find a another job. When I did find work I was terribly under employed (read: under paid) for my experience and skill set.

This morning I thought I was ready for the worst case scenario. As I was waiting for my turn in the hot seat though I found my palms all sweaty and my heart rate up a bit. Clearly, I don't want to do that again. If it had happened to me now it would have been a lot harder to deal with. In 2002 I was renting and could find cheaper housing when I needed to. The mortgage isn't going away.

Of the other contractors not many people are talking at this point. I know the fate of my two friends. One is in the same position as me. The other is being renewed but with less confidence of how long he will stay on. One other contractor let me know she was being let go. I suspected she might be one of the 4. I have some speculation on the other 3 but I don't know. The names will come out soon enough.

For now I'll just be content with having survived to fight on.

You Thought The First One Was Bad

A fifteen year old in the 'burbs called 911 to report his parents taking away his Xbox. The police showed up at his parents house after the call.

I can't even fathom what my parents would have done if I had pulled that kind of stunt. I guarantee that the temporary loss of a game would have been the least of my worries at that point.