Archives for November 2004

No, this is not one of those quizzes you find online, if it was it would be something like:

What kind of chewing gum flavor are you?

What kind of car are you?

What kind of tool are you?

What flavor of ice cream are you?

Hey, maybe I should write one of those quizzes. Nah, back to the topic at hand.

If you could be a character from a book or movie who would you be?

Would you be Major Major from Catch-22?

Would you be Frodo from The Lord of the Rings?

How about Holden Caufield from Catcher in the Rye?

Who would you be?

My answers change, but for now I would have to be “The Cat in the Hat.” He is one cool cat and he has so many tricks up his sleeve, might be kind of nice to try him on for size.

If it is not to Jerusalem I am not going anywhere. I love this state and I am willing to work hard to make it work.

This weekend I am going to attend a reunion at a Summer camp I attended as both camper and a counselor. I am really excited about going back as camp is one of those places that never fails to move me.

It is a combination of the experiences I had there and the actual setting. It helped to provide the foundation for who I am on almost every level. So many things come to mind. Every time I walk the hills I really can hear the past and the present.

When I look at certain spots I remember sneaking away with my girlfriend for a quiet moment. I see intimate moments of joy and pain. I remember falling in love and having my heart broken.

It is where I developed many of my closest friendships. During the offseason I spent many hours hiking around the hills and forest it is located in. Truth be told I used that area as a test for some of my relationships. When I began to get serious with a woman I would take her hiking there and just let the area speak for itself.

If she didn’t tell me how pretty it was or catch the vibe of what a special place it was to me I knew that the relationship was going to be brief.

When I return this weekend it is for the young alumni, ages 25-39. I took a look at an early list of the people who signed up and thus far I am by far one of the older people there. Most of the married people are not attending, or at least they were not. For that matter the list I saw made it look like a large percentage of the attendees are going to be my former campers.

So I suppose that it is a good thing that I am leaving the family at home because it could be kind of boring for them. And this will give me some time to reminisce and exchange stories on my time. It will be kind of nice having some quiet time to reflect. I am looking forward to taking my children to camp to show them around, but I can save that for a different time.

In the meantime it sure appears like I am going to get to play the role of the elder statesman. It should be nice.

While I am gone I will not have any access to the net, the blog will remain as a snapshot of life before the weekend. On Sunday I’ll come home and update it with whatever stories I choose to share.

In the meantime I’ll post away until I leave tomorrow afternoon.

“BUFFALO, N.Y. — Brace yourself. There may be a less-than-miraculous explanation for that image of the Virgin Mary a Florida woman says appeared in her grilled cheese sandwich.

Professional skeptic Joe Nickell says it’s the same phenomenon that lets people see ships in the clouds, butterflies in ink blots and the man on the moon. ”

I apologize if some people find this offensive, but c’mon. If I was eating macaroni and cheese and suddenly saw an image of Moses waving at me I would probably wave back at him.

I play ball several times a week. They are all pickup games and I usually try and match up against players that are better than me because it is how you improve your game.

Whenever I am playing I spend a large part of the game playing mind games with the guys on the other team. I have a number of little tricks that tend to work well. I am not going to share all of them, but here is one that I find to be particularly useful.

During the game I try hard to create turnovers. I have pretty fast hands, so I usually manage to interrupt passes and or a players dribble. Frequently the ball goes out of bounds because myself or another defender has managed to trip things up for the other guy.

When the ball bounces out of bounds most of the time there is a bit of a discussion as to which way the possession arrow is facing, that is, whose ball is it.

If possible I will frequently claim responsibility for having knocked the ball out of play because I want the other players to be worried about my ability as a defender. I want them to think twice about what I might be able to do. I want them to think of me as being a better player than I am.

And you know what, it works.

Someone wake him up and let him know that it is the 21st century and that France hasn’t been a real world power since the 19th century.