The Final Countdown

A while back I mentioned my softball teams inauspicous start to our season. Well, after a 0-3 run we came back with two wins going into the playoffs. And miracle of miracles, we found ourselves at the top of the standings in the semifinal game. How did that happen?

Well, the first playoff game was won legitimately, while the quarterfinal we one by forfeit when undefeated Team Eddie was all out of town at the same conference. Our streak couldn't last forever though and we went down to Osos last night. Tommorrow night brings a rematch with Team Eddie in the losers bracket and a possible shot at the championship.

My soccer team (yay for a sport I'm good at!) had a nearly mirror experience. After a 3-0 run at the beginning of the season we finished out with a tie and a loss. Last Sunday, we were missing players due to various reasons and had to play eight men versus the other teams eleven. We narrowly lost the first game of the night 0-1, but managed to struggle back and defeat the next team 2-1 still with only 8 men (tired, tired men). Tonight we breezed through the next game of the losers bracket 3-0.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to see my teams on to the finals, but just like Kevin Costner's dad, I will be cheering them on and high fiving Shoeless Joe whenever they score.

Black Hole, Son!

After meeting a perfectly nice man in a McDonald's parking lot (thanks Craigslist), I am now the proud owner of three tickets in the Black Hole for the Raider's/49ers preseason game a week from Sunday. Judging by the fact that the man who sold me the tickets could body slam me one handed and drove a monsterous van that could crush my little Camry, this could get pretty intense.

Luckily, I have a couple of comrades coming in on planes, trains and automobiles. From the corn growing capitol of the world, Mr. Jake the Snake (thats on a plane) Livermore and from sunny Southern California, Steve My Website Still Redirects to the Nuge Heuertz. Its gonna be an uber spectacular end to the summer.

In other news of the day, I saw a car on fire, no wait make that two cars, since one next to the first one caught one on fire. A lot of police showed up and then some firemen sprayed them both down (rather lackadaisically I might add). If you don't believe me check out the ultrahigh resolution picture I took with my Andy Warhol approved cell phone camera. Nothing goes undocumented in the 21st century!

Also, now is the time if you want to start petitioning to be on my team for RAGBRAI next year. I can't let Lance steal my thunder (I announced I was riding first, Mr. Tour de France!). I'm also taking team name suggestions. I have the utmost confidence that our team will surpass Bulldog's Team Pink Floyd in notability. And yes, I already saw that Team Pink Floyd is the third most notable team listed by Wikipedia.

F Minus... click

Yesterday I horribly failed a test, well at least I hope I failed. I really didn't know anything about the subject matter. You see, the test was for people who want to short circuit the standard science teaching credentials program in California. Now I'm not one of those people, but the Man wouldn't let those people pass the test until they had at least 100 scores to normalize the test.

So, they brought in some ringers like me to set the bottom end of the curve. And I'd like to think that I did an bang-up job. One of my lesson plans (that counted for one third of the test), dealt with teaching an ADHD student. I decided the best way to serve this student would be to provide lots of different things going on at the same time. Afterwards, I found out that is apparently the exactly wrong answer. Score one for me!

Apparently, my "teaching foundations" could use some reinforcing.

Hot off the presses!

This news story just came in over the wire...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Doctors researching patient perceptions at the University of California at San Francisco are studying an innovative method of informing patients of their test results.

Patients who normally would have received negative biopsy results in a personal visit with a doctor are now getting those same results in a telephone call from the governor. But, the magical part is that the governor doesn't have to spend valuable lawmaking hours calling up patients personally. Using sophisticated audio recording techniques the researchers are able to playback a clip from the hit movie kindergarten cop where Governor Schwarzenegger proclaims that "its not a tumor."

Many proponents of the technology are pleased that a technique developed by prank phone callers was finally benefiting society, while renowned expert in caregiver-patient relations, Dr. Patch Adams, was just pleased that, "people are finally listening to the radical ideas I was spewing out way back in ninny eight. Now, if people would just go out and see my new movie "The Night Listener," there would be a lot less of that AIDS going round."