DarqByte

Ok, so for the first time ever I have a significant goal streak going in soccer. This easily beats out the one game I had two goals in the last minute remaining, simply because I’ve never had two games in a row with a goal… Let alone three. We’ll see if I extend this out to for on Wednesday.

In any case, I wanted to break down the three goals for you because they’re pretty cool. The yellow circle is the ball, yellow arrows the ball’s path. Red people are opponents, green people are teammates, blue is me and the purple person is the opponent keeper. Our paths all match our colors like the ball path does.

Game 1, Goal 1: Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Game 1, Goal 1: Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I’m not entirely sure how the ball got into that area of the field, but the opposing player had it and was trying to run across the goal to get the ball around me to clear it upfield. I knew he was trying to do that, so I let off just a little tiny bit to give him the idea that he might have an opening. He took the kick and I got my leg out to block it. Low and behold I did, and I got a fortuitous bounce. The ball kept rolling the direction I was running, across the goal, right with me. I took a couple steps to line myself up and shot across the goal low, voila! Goal!

This was mostly all a hustle goal for me. I kept with the guy even though he had the ball and managed to force a mistake close to their goal, giving me a close-range shot, and the keeper didn’t have a chance because it was across and low.

Game 2, Goal 2: Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Game 2, Goal 2: Wednesday, February 3, 2010

This was just all great setup by a teammate. He had the ball near midfield and I snuck a bit behind the two opposing defenders, they didn’t know I was running on the other side of the field behind them while they paid attention to my teammate. He played a perfect pass between the two defenders to the point where, as you can see above, I met the ball. I didn’t even stop the ball for a shot, it was a one-timer where I hit the ball about mid-range vertically and to the right side of the goal. The keeper was on her back foot and had no chance. Great placement of the pass and shot. All my teammate’s doing.

Game 3, Goal 3: Thursday, February 4, 2010

Game 3, Goal 3: Thursday, February 4, 2010

One of my teammates kicked the ball along the right side of the field and it was a bit past me. I got hung up in the corner of the field, but there were no opponents near, the closest was probably at midfield on the left side of the field. This is very similar to what happened on my first goal. I brought the ball out from the corner, set it up a little and took a couple steps, then shot low and across the goal. It bounced off of the side post and in, the keeper had absolutely no shot.

This one was a little bit more special as it was (is likely) my last game with Brittany Gauldin. She’s been on my Thursday team for quite some time and this was her second-to-last game. She wanted to get a team picture and I was the holdout because I can’t make the Thursday games unless they’re 9pm or later. I managed to move some things around with my classes on this day so I could make the game, so it ended up pretty cool. I think I annihilated my accounting exam I took early, too.

34 inches? I know what you’re thinking about but no, I’m not talking about that. 34 would be selling myself way short anyway.

The latest chapter in my whole “make myself look and feel better” thing has arrived. I’ve been putting off getting new clothes mainly because I wanted to complete my weight loss first. I didn’t want to have to buy a bunch of clothes in a stopgap fashion. Unfortunately, my last two pairs of jeans bit the dust, so I was forced to replace them. They were Levi’s, and they were built rather well. The only problem was that it was tough to find 38-30s that weren’t below my heels. They weren’t truly 30s so I kept stepping on them and wearing down the bottom of the pant legs. For the record, I really needed 37s, not 38s. They don’t make 37s.

Now I’m in 34s! 34-30s and they aren’t too long. This makes me a very happy person. I’ve lost at least 30 pounds and 3 inches off of my waist. Good stuff. I’ve recently begun making progress again and I anticipate hitting the 175 mark by the end of this month or early February. That would be 35 pounds off since I started nearly a year ago. I think my target is 160, but I won’t really know until I get there.

I recently looked at photos of me when I went to just the mustache, the Robstache. Wow I’ve lost weight since then. I do look better. Still got further to go. Additionally, I’m going to try to start running in the mornings with Pepper (and potentially Laura). I was supposed to start this week, but being excessively tired when my alarm went off put the kabash on things. Hopefully I’ll start tomorrow.

And if I do start tomorrow, wow what a day it will be. Today I start my next semester of MBA courses. In 50 minutes, actually. I’m in Lied Library right now. But because my classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ve signed up to play soccer on Wednesdays. I was originally waffling on the decision, but Laura’s support for me switching days and the fear of getting really out of shape spurred me to sign up. In any case, tomorrow’s my first Wednesday day of soccer on a new individual coed team, and for some odd reason we have two games tomorrow… What the fuck. Two games? A doubleheader? I’ve done it before, but by choice not by facility scheduling. Running in the morning plus two soccer games in the evening. Wow.

And that’s not the end of it! I told my Thursday soccer team I’d make the games if they were late enough, which is basically 9pm or later. So the 9:10 game this Thursday? Yup, I can make that. And I’m hoping to run on Thursday morning as well. Which would make three runs (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and three soccer games from Wednesday morning to Friday morning. Wow. See why I think I’ll hit 175 this month?

In other news, I wish I had endless time to do everything I want to do. Not only am I trying to find time to work on OMGN 4, I want to write a memoir about my video game life until, well, now. I think it would be very interesting because I don’t think there’s much of anything like that out now. And I’m a pretty good example of someone who gamed a lot when they were a kid and make the transition to being a responsible (well, at least I think so) adult with a married life and a job and other normal responsibilities.

This brings me to another subject: video games. Specifically, the original Atari joystick. See, my friend Jonathan recently got a tattoo in Elvish from Lord of the Rings. He loves it and I’ve always wanted a tattoo and I’ve always loved video games. I wasn’t 100% set on what tattoo I wanted but I knew I wanted a video game-related one, especially after seeing Anne’s roommate Ed’s “Mario 1up” tattoo he’s got. See, I didn’t want a tattoo that was system- or franchise-specific, I wanted one that represented video games as a whole. Now I know the Atari joystick is still Atari, but it represents so much more than that these days. And I’m asking Jonathan to give me a nice illustration of it so I can verify I indeed want to get it permanently marked on my body.

Laura’s been making sure I really want one, and I do. I am, however, curious to know what you all think of it…

Anyway, that’s it for now. Chat at you all later when I know more about my spring courses and I can let you know if I think I’ll be on track to continue my pursuit of a 4.0.

My liver, my liver!

Alright, I didn’t really bust up my liver. But I just think it’s funny to cite your liver as being injured when you’ve messed something else up.

So we came in third place in flag football! It was totally awesome, I tell you what. We won our first game on Wednesday evening, 12-10. I didn’t see much time on the field due to substitution issues, but the two games I played yesterday, I was rotating on and off frequently. We won the first last night and lost the second. I was unable to make the third game, which is the one we won to take third place.

Unfortunately for me, I managed to damage my left knee in the second game last night. I was diving for someone’s flags (and unable to get them), and I landed on a small “grass hill” on my left knee. I went to stand up and my leg wouldn’t support my weight. After a couple minutes I was able to start walking again, then eventually I could jog and run around again.

When I woke up this morning, my leg was as stiff as possible. I had little to no movement in the joint and fell a couple times. As the morning progressed I got a little movement back, but couldn’t lift it up much while standing. I continued exercising it and iced it during a long developers meeting here at work, and now it feels mostly back to normal, save for the big bump on my knee and some lingering movement issues.

I really hope I didn’t totally mess it up. Grr! If I can’t use my knee, I can’t continue working out, losing weight and getting into better shape.

So yeah, I felt awesome yesterday after my marathon day. I played in the two flag football games and played Indoor Soccer despite my knee injury. Felt great after all of that, I was really psyched up. I even got pulled over for going 85 in a 65 on the way home. I figured I was in for a ticket, but the highway officer let me off with a warning to just slow down.

How did I avoid a ticket? Because I’m nice, courteous and I respect police officers. He wasn’t a mean guy and I just complied with everything he asked, since he was in control of the situation. Nice guy. I slowed down the rest of the way. I didn’t mean to go 85, I was actually going 75 before I lost track of my speed. Grr.

Yesterday was fun, but the knee injury wasn’t necessary.