Month: November 2004

It was a great week last week.  Got to visit the relatives down south in Kentucky, eat a fantastic Thanksgiving day meal, and get home a day early on Saturday.  I spent Sunday pretty much relaxing after all the travel and running around for 4 days.

On Sunday, on an impulse, I bought World of Warcraft.  This was a change up for me because I really just took a chance on this game.  So far, as of Monday night, I am enjoying it after some casual gaming.

Today, I played an excellent game in an 8-3 victory over the Fighting Squirrels.  However, there is much room for improvement on my game.  I made some good stops, but also allowed some weak goals.  The Fighting Squirrels were undefeated up to this game for a reason.  They just didn’t play well tonight.  It gets harder from here on out let me tell you that much.

Right now, I am pretty tired after waking up extra early this morning.  I won’t be up much longer as I can barely hold my eyes open.

Since I didn’t get a great amount of sleep on Saturday night, I went to bed a little early on Sunday.  It wasn’t early enough.  I woke up 8 hours later and now I am a zombie.  I guess I should have slept a little bit more.  I am walking around like a zombie right now, drinking Mountain Dew and while it helps it isn’t the cure.

 I need to go to bed early tonight so I am fresh for the drive tomorrow night to Fort Wayne.  A short 3 hour drive and then 3 more hours or so to Louisville for the holiday weekend.

 Another thing I am glad about is I don’t have hockey tonight.  If I did, I would take part of the day off for a nap or take one when I get home.

It has been a very interesting trip I must say.  After a day of training on Thursday and part of Friday, I got a chance to go up north for the weekend.  It was a nice getaway from the norm, but there are a couple things I am happy about.

The first thing is I am happy for a hockey alternative.  College hockey is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion.  Especially with the lockout in full force.

The second thing is maybe it is a good idea that I am not in the dating pool.  At the age of 32, I have quickly learned that I just don’t have the patience or charm for that kind of thing.  Especially the charm part.  Case in point, my friend and I went out to a nightclub last night.  This was in a college town, so you can assume almost everyone in this place was under 26 for the most part.  Anyway, I just felt….how should I put it….out of place.  Even if I was single, I don’t think it would have felt right.  I really don’t know how to put this into words.  That is my problem right there.

My last statement in this entry is on Ferris State Hockey and what I am going to do after this season.  My USCHO job is fun and important to me.  However, I am starting to get the urge to try something different.  The drive up to FSU all the time really doesn’t motivate me much anymore.  Especially with everyone I know leaving after the end of this upcoming season.  I am going to be thinking long and hard about this and making a decision at the end of the season.

I thought I might write a quick piece before I head out for the weekend.  It has been a really busy last two weeks.  I got my feature story done for USCHO, I still have my day job, my new XM Satellite Radio is installed in the car, and hockey continues to treat me well for the most part.

First thing I want to log is my hockey experiences.  My Bulldogs team is undefeated, but we have a strong test in front of us.  We are 3-0 right now and lead the division.  We are 2nd in goals for and 2nd in goals against which is a good thing.  However, our test is the defending champions for 2 games and another strong team the Fighting Squirrels for 2 games.  4 of our last 7 games are going to be killer ones let me tell you that much.  That will show where we stand in the division.

I hit another post last night in my Vintage Painting beginner game.  That makes 4 posts on the year I have hit and man that really bites.  The good thing is I am taking the passes a little better than I was and skating with the puck a lot better as well.  I still need to work on my transition skating and my endurance.  After skating out for about a minute at full bore, I am exhausted while others can go much faster and longer than I can.  I love to skate out though.  It is a new challenge and as long as I get the opportunity, I am going to do it.

Ice hockey has been a different story.  After going 1-0-3 in our first four games, we have dropped 4 in a row.  Last nights score was 8-4, and I did let a couple soft ones in.  Course, I faced like 30 shots and made some fantastic saves during the course of the game.  I was a little hard on myself last night, and my confidence dipped a bit.  After a good nights sleep though and some time to reflect, I was pretty content with things overall.  My team scored more goals last night than in the previous 3 games combined.  However, we were outscored 30-7 in our last 4 games.  Some of that is due to me, but it also has to do with the team not playing as a team.  There is no passing for the most part.  The players try to take it up the ice on their own and when you have that going on and the other team is playing like a team, you are in a world of hurt.

The good thing is that I have been practicing one extra day a week at ice hockey and that helped my game last night.  I am going to try to show up on Monday for lunchtime skate and get a little work next week.  Otherwise, I am going to try to make every Wednesday.  The holidays next week are going to put a bite on that though.

Gotta run!

No, I am not talking about the Ferris State Bulldogs, but my Bulldogs rollerhockey team.  It is our first 2-0 start since the session we went undefeated and it does feel good today.  We beat a very good 40oz to Freedom team that pounded us 6-3 last session.  The final score was 5-2, and it was a tight game the whole way.

I get to play a little hockey tonight when I sub in for Rancid, and then I have a little lunch time hockey tomorrow for conditioning and practice.  I am really looking forward to my ice hockey game on Thursday.  My Thursday team has been outscored 12-1 in our last two games and I need to have a strong game on Thursday to turn things around.

Ah, another big hockey game.  Ferris vrs Michigan State, there is nothing like it.  Actually, I prefered the Ferris vrs Michigan game I saw last week.  There just seems to be a little more excitment up here at Ferris State when one of these big market teams come to play.

I had won 3 straight games in net, and after skating out and getting my 4th, I knew I was due for a bad game.  It happened at ice tonight when I was torched 6-1.  Unlike last week when I had an excellent game and still lost 6-0, this team we played tonight was not as good.  I just didn’t play very well.  My team as a whole didn’t do well, but I can’t control them.  There were a couple weak goals I let in.  I wasn’t playing my angles as well as I have in the past.  It was just one of those games I need to forget and move on.

My promise to play more ice hockey has helped my game a little bit.  I am going to start to play on Wednesdays in the afternoon over lunch.  That will help my game a lot if I take the time to play an extra drop in session per week.  I think a lot of my problems in ice hockey have to do with the fact that I am not playing as much of it as I am in rollerhockey.  That isn’t a bad thing, but I need to balance things out a bit.

Hockey has been good to me the last few days.  I have won all 3 of my games that I have played.  One of them in OT last night with a team I am subbing for, Butchs Wings.  I have to admire these guys I played with last night.  They aren’t the most talented team, but they work hard and that is all you can ask for.

My Bulldogs got their first win in a 8-4 victory on Monday.  I let in a couple weak goals, but overall I am pleased with my performance.  It was my first rollerhockey game in over 2 weeks so I was allowed to make some mistakes.  I played stronger as time went on and that helped me in my second game of the night when I subbed for Dekline Builders and won 6-5.

Some people said I stood on my head for the Builders game and even for the Wings game.  I just want to play well and I came up with some good saves to keep the game close or keep us ahead.  Now I get tonight off and then tomorrow I get to skate out and play ice hockey at night.

Now, for the elections….

I have never been a political person.  Even when I casted my vote last night, I really can’t say I was impressed with either candidate.  I placed my vote based on a few issues that were important to me.  One of them was a woman’s right to choose.  Another was stem cell research.  Therefore, as you might expect, I voted for Kerry.

I watched the results as they came in last night, although not in real time.  I watched a lot of shows on my Tivo last night instead.  I went to bed and slept like a baby.  This morning, the conservatives are celebrating and the liberals are praying.  On any other normal day, that would be reversed.  🙂

Why are people so upset or so pleased over the results of this election?  In my opinion, the loser of this election will be the American people, no matter who gets in office.  I am done following the political commentary, vote counting, and the litigation that is going to follow.