anxiety and the never ending to do list (here we go again).

I found these comics and thought they were kind of funny. I’m really quite baffled that I’ve gotten back to a point in my life where my list of things to do is so robust I’m actually paralyzed by inaction. This post was the first thing I started doing. Alright, this wasn’t really on my list of things to do, but sometimes you have to deviate. Right? Aside from the million projects I have going on at work (don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to have such a wide range of projects to be working on…everything from graphic design to web development) TYUL had it’s first board meeting last night. I was kind of dreading it because of the impending amount of action items that were going to come out of it, but sure enough (as I predicted) I was excited enough about youth ultimate that I just kept wracking up the items on my list. Perhaps I actually have to start delegating some work?

In honor of halloween…

Although Halloween isn’t my favorite, I do like pumpkins….the carving, the seeds (and the pie that starts in November)…. I found this great picture via Two Brunettes…. Amazing. Check out the whole post….

Pumpkin Villian

First Pictures of Haden Grove Church Road.

I mentioned before that I started exploring my road. I think I also mentioned my wonderful encounter with Daisy rolling in cow shit. {As a side note, a neighbor found her collar!} Here are some of the other pictures from my road…I’m hoping to get back to the abandoned greenhouse and cornfield later this week.

Here’s Daisy, loving running down the road. This was before the ‘rolling in cow shit’ incident.

And the cows…. (I’m scowling…).

Experimenting with Cow Shit.

I’ve been experimenting with letting daisy run around the neighborhood. I thought maybe because the weather was so wet and cold tonight that she’d go to the bathroom in the yard and come back to the door in a few minutes. Well as it was getting close to bed time (at least an hour after I’d let her out) I thought I’d go look for her. Sure enough she was in the neighbors yard, down a few houses. She made me chase her around a while before she got in the car, at which moment I became acutely aware that she had been rolling in cow shit. Rolling in shit and dead stuff is one of her FAVORITE past-times. Unfortunately. Not only was she covered in shit, but her collar was missing. Awesome. And giving her a bath isn’t the most pleasant of activities either. I think it is safe to say I won’t be allowing her to run free around the neighborhood anymore.

Exploring.

I started exploring my ‘neighborhood’ this past weekend. {Note: My ‘neighborhood’ is a country road with a majority of inhabitants living in mobile homes.} I’ve stumbled upon some very interesting things and places and I can’t wait for the light to be right to go back and shoot them. I wandered down what appeared to be a deserted gravel driveway, but about a quarter mile down I ran into an overgrown, run down, obviously long deserted, greenhouse. It was eerie and actually quite scary (we all know how good my imagination is)….I felt like I should be in an X-files episode… ug. I think you’ll get it when you see the pictures… but there was also something pretty fantastic about it. The next incredible discovery came when I walked down the service road to the big power lines running perpendicular to the road. I thought this would be a great little path to run on (once I’m allowed). I walked a little ways down this road and ran into a corn field. Not just any corn field. It looked long dead. And was ringed around the outside with 4-wheeler tracks. I’m really curious about the life and death of the corn field…very curious. Anyway, not so sure that will be a great place to run, as the ring around the corn field is littered with smashed corn stalks…probably not so stable for the knees…ankles….spleen? haha.

Last night I managed to take a few shots of some of my neighbors (the cows). The sun was setting gloriously over the hills and as I enjoyed my surroundings I stumbled upon a little lady bug….

vampires, zombies and mummies…oh my!

Ok, first off, I kinda hate Halloween. I mean, I think I liked it as a kid…dressing up, getting a @&*! ton of candy (what person under 16 doesn’t like getting a @&*! ton of candy?)…but it was sometime in my late teens that I started feeling like dressing up and asking for candy was lame.

Then I went to UNC where the Halloween festivities are inexorably linked to massive mobs of drunk college kids stumbling down Franklin Street, competing for the most inventive, funny, cheapest (insert chosen adjective here) outfit…and I admit there are some good ones. There’s nothing to DO, per se on Franklin street on Halloween night except people watch and avoid getting pushed into a fire. Well, I partook in said mob my freshman year, and maybe one other time when I was actually of age and, sorry to say…. it ain’t no big thing. Once would have been enough.

Anyway, I digress, originally I wanted to write this post about the resurgence of vampires and zombies in popular culture and ask WTF? Anyone have any thoughts on this? OR firstly, maybe I should ask if people have noticed the phenomenon? Aside from usual Halloween fanfare….haven’t there been an unusually high number of vampire related tv shows and movies? I’m pretty sure the blame lies with the Twilight series… a series I didn’t read. {Anna read them and admitted they were pretty much crap but impossible to put down. Do I hate or love those kinds of books? Who knows.} But my curiosity is piqued by vampires and zombies and I am wondering what it is about them, OR what it is about our current society that breeds this popularity?

One thing that I find pretty fascinating about vampires and zombies and mummies {aside from what I think about their current popularity} is that they all have origins in reality. I actually didn’t know that zombies had anything to do with reality until I listened to this podcast (which is GREAT). And that’s all the time I have right now….

Los Pictures up.

Open Sectionals, Open Regionals galleries are up. Featuring Los and their opponents.

Sectionals Link
Regionals Link

Recovery Update.

Ok, so I will have another CT scan in two weeks. I haven’t yet gotten the ok to start running. Bummer. And this is taking longer than I thought. My doctor says it usually takes 6-9 months for broken ribs to start feeling 100%, which is a bunch longer than I originally thought. I mentioned to him that they were still pretty tender….

This is just frustrating because I thought I was gonna get that OK to start running again. I’m not even concerned at this point about how soon I can get back to ultimate. I’m pretty prepared to wait for a while on that. But I really would like to be able to run with Daisy…

Open Regionals

Controversy at Open Regionals. No kidding.

Well, I rode up to Open Regionals this past weekend to cheer on Los and some other teams and take pictures. I didn’t do much by way of securing a ‘job’ for the tournament cause I didn’t much want to deal with that stress. I did get some sweet shots though. Anyway, Los played really quite well. Except for their last game on Saturday (painful loss to Truckstop), the last part of the second half against Ring for the second place bid to nationals and their game against Pike for the third place game to go to Nationals they played their game. The regionals outcome was all a mess because Ring ended up losing to Truckstop in the finals. By 1 maybe? But it was a close and tight game the whole way.

So this put Los in a position to be playing Ring for the second place bid to Nationals. Well, Los was up the entire game, by at least 1, usually 2…until it got tied up at 12-12. Going into the game it seemed to me like Los had a pretty tough decision to make because of their history with Ring and desire to make nationals. They needed to decide if they were going to win the second place bid outright and beat Ring (which they have never accomplished in the past despite MANY close calls) or if they were going to save themselves to put up a great fight for the third place game. I *think* they ended up deciding to make that decision outright at half time taking into consideration their performance in the first half and the current score against Ring. Well they played a great first half and were up 8-7. It probably would have been a better idea to tank it and wait for the third game, but they decided to go for it. 12-12 at some point in second half…score tied again at 14s, game to 16… the cap went on.

0-0. Game to 2. Los on offense. Awesome. Well they turned it over and Ring scored. Which automatically ended the game because the hard cap was going to go on after that point. Ring being up 15-14 on Los ended the game in Ring’s favor. I’ve never seen that happen before, but whatever. Shit.

WELL, then, deflated and exhausted Los had to play Pike for the third place bid to nationals. Unfortunately, since the end of that game it has become clear to all of us that Los could have forced Pike to forfeit that game because of a 2-0 record against them for the tournament. There’s quite a bit of discussion about who knew what before the game started. It seems on RSD like Pike was informed of this option before the game started, but certainly Los couldn’t have completely been aware of it…

Basically what it boils down to is another shit situation for Los and lots of frustration all around. A few choice words come to mind too.