Proof That We Need A Test To Have Children

6-Year-Old Drives After Mom Smokes “That Stinky Stuff”

I am not sure what would be on the test but it needs to be put to a government commission.

Because we all have done something like this

This is a VW commercial that I was reintroduced to by a guy that lived on my couch for a month last year. When we would go out out with my roommate, Couch Guy would sit in the backseat and just sing this song over and over again.

I have also been riding around with one of my other roommates and passed a piece of furniture and we stopped and actually looked at it and decided if we wanted to pick it up or not. Fun times.

This video says everything that I have felt for the last two weeks. Ten hours of researching tech information about Eastern Europe. Then I get to play around with a Wiki Space to get all of it up there. I'm now white and nerdy.

So apparently I Am Paranoid

My girlfriend told me so last night. But I am not the normal type of paranoid that comes with my line of work, no. I am paranoid about the weather.

Coming from Tennessee to Pennsylvania was a major shock. There actually is something referred to as Fall and it lasts more than two weeks during football season.

We get all the pretty color change stuff back home but we rarely get the cool evenings and semi warm days that PA seems to find common place.

Then, on or about, the third week in November, the bottom drops out in a crazy deluge of thunder snow and bitter temperatures.

The first time I saw more than an inch of snow, I almost shit my pants. I am use to a dusting at best. As a matter of fact, as I sit and write this, Nashville is expected to get snow today. It probably will not amount to much.

So when I do my morning news rundown yesterday, I was surprised to see that we had a winter storm watch issued for Erie. They predicted a couple inches of snow at best for tonight into tomorrow. Imagine my further surprise when I get to class today and see that it has been upgraded to a winter storm warning, just as I predicted.

I told my girlfriend, who happens to be from New York, that I thought it would get bad again before the weekend and she called me paranoid. I can't help it.

Graduate-itis

This was most of us in college.

Sprawled out on a blanket in the quad on a nice sunny day when you knew Spring was coming and so was graduation.

Wait, why is it so cold out? Oh that's right! You were skipping your team meeting and your only class of the day because you just did not feel like going.

I have long since moved past those days but it seems that some people have not.

So when did graduate students become so lazy?

I think it is the simple fact that while yeah, we have tons of work to do on top of looking for a job and trying to get to our current job on time, lets not forget that their is a thesis in there too somewhere, we carry our undergrad habits with us. Most of us break them in the first week or so when there is suddenly a stack of reading that comes to your knee.

Unlike undergrad, the professors will know when you are not doing the work. Well, if the professor is any good they will. The Socratic method becomes your worst enemy, especially if you are in law school. You never really seem to get your head above water.

Two classes a term my ass. You might as well be taking a seventeen hour schedule with Farsi or Chinese as your foreign language.

I am mostly doing this article because I have become burned out. Graduate school is just not kicking it anymore for me but with one term left, I'm not gonna bug out now. That's dumb. I would not have left with two terms left just to work at the Men's Warehouse and contemplate going back to school.

I don't sleep in past meetings just because it seems like the fun thing to do. I go to class and if I still had a job, I would go to work. I would come home and do my reading, fire off a handful of emails, make some dinner, do more reading, workout, shower, watch the new, and go to bed. I would get up and do it all over again the next day. I might invite my girlfriend over. You never know.

Graduate-itis is no better than senior-itis but to sit around and blow off stuff when you are this close is just lost on me. I do not understand that laziness that pervades the student culture these days.

Christmas and New Years Round Up

We are three days into 2009 and I am finally sitting down and talking about the holidays. I did not end up getting anything footy related this year for Christmas but that's fine. I did make out rather nicely though. I got a Tennessee jersey, The Dark Knight, a new wallet, and very nice pocket watch. I have not got my presents from my roommates or my girlfriend yet, so there is no telling what I am getting when I get back to Erie tomorrow.

I did go out and buy myself some stuff after Christmas. I got a new cardigan, and two new sweaters, and new tie.

I have also been giving my humidor a workout as of late. I have found a new favorite smoke in the form of the CAO LX2. It is a really smooth smoke that allows the smoke time to cool between puffs.

I also had a Partegas maduro a few weeks back. It was rather splendid as well.

I recommend, if you are a smoker, to go out and patronize these two cigar companies. They are both amazing brands and are worth some praise.

Body by Soccer.

While I was home for Thanksgiving break, I had a chance to catch up on some cable shows. We don't have cable here at the house, you can imagine what I'm like on match days with no ESPN.

I ended up laying on the couch and watching a marathon of True Life on MTV. There was an episode about these two individuals that could not control their eating habits, so they both experimented with dieting.

The gentleman cut himself off from his family and friends and ate a meal of 800 calories once a day.

One meal for the entire day.

He went from roughly 340 pounds down to 214 in around a years time. He was pushing himself to loose the weight so much that he went out and ran steps on the night before he reached his goal weight. He was exhausted to the point of near sleep from doing so because he was not taking in the food his body needed.

The young lady experimented with crash dieting. Apparently the experiment never worked, because she continued to do it over and over again. She participated in very little physical exercise during her diets but she would loose the weight. However, she would gain most, and oft times more, of it back once she went off the diet.

I think that it is sad that people cannot bring themselves to find an activity and participate in it instead of locking themselves in an apartment for a year, or crash dieting.

I started playing soccer casually at first, simply because I had never touched a ball outside of a school gym. But then it became more than that to me. It became a pursuit. A need. My balls, my cleats, and my gloves are all my friends.

My weight has fluctuated a lot since I started playing. I attribute most of it to breaking my leg last summer. I have never given up though. When my heart races from bounding down the wing with the ball and delivering a beautiful cross, it makes me want to be in better shape so the ball goes further when I swing my leg at it.

I suppose it takes getting to that point. If you have the fortitude to eat 800 calories a day, then I am sure you have the fortitude to do ball work for forty five minutes a day.

My daily routine, when it is not too cold to venture out, consists of general stops of the ball. Simple passes against a wall coupled with trapping exercises. Throw in some cuts, crossovers, turns and pullbacks. After all that is done, I juggle. I always do 100 touches a foot.

By the end I am sweating and I feel better than when I started.

Some people have told me that it is impossible to loose my weight.

Impossible is nothing.

Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll!

It is now officially Thanksgiving. No, I haven't done some weird family right of passage or anything, it's 1 in the morning. I am putting a few finishing touches on a post I made to Bleacher Report and I am about to head off to bed. I have a battle with 12 pound bird when I wake up and I will need all the sleep I can muster.

I figured I would write a bit about what I am thankful for over this past year. I am thankful that Chelsea has done so well. Thankful that the head coaching job at Tennessee will get a breath of new life. But seriously, I am thankful for the time that I was able to spend with my wonderful friends this summer. And I am thankful that they let me be a part of their big day. I am thankful that my friend Country has not blown himself up yet. Thankful that I have gotten through four out of six terms of graduate school. I am thankful that I was able to make it home for the holidays and, God willing, I will make it back home for Christmas. Most importantly, I am thankful, not only now but every day of the year, that I am live in the greatest country in the world.

...also, Josh, if you read this, I did not cry at the Bordeaux goal. I cried when I realized that Man U is STILL 8 points off of both Chelsea and Liverpool.

Sunday Ruminations

I went and picked up a couple of books at Barnes & Noble last night. Empires of Trust by Thomas F. Madden details how the US is similar to Rome but not in the sense that we think. He argues that the US and Rome both had empires of trust, that the nations in which they were overseeing could trust them to do the right thing if needed.

I also grabbed Hidden Codes & Grand Designs by Pierre Berloquin. I shouldn't have to explain what that one is about. The new issue of 4-4-2 is out, so I grabbed that as well. You know with all the books I have to read for school, I can't believe that I go out and spend money on even more of them.

It looks like the good ol' boys at Bleacher Report have started to notice the fluff articles that are being turned out at a breakneck pace by this beautiful young girl. She basically writes lists. Top ten this, top ten that, and she's averaging at least twenty comments per article. There was an article about how the world football community on Bleacher has gone to the dogs.

I agree and disagree with that. Yeah, some of the authors are cranking out three and four articles a day and all it is is a couple of lines and a random joke. I usually write one article a day or one every few days simply because I don't know what I want to say most of the time and I rather take my time and produce something that might not be rubbish.

Mmmm shrimp

There is nothing I like better than footie and all you can eat shrimp. The Blues won today and took the top of the table after Arsenal lost to Hull, and me and one of the roommates went out to Red Lobster for all you can eat shrimp. Now all I need is to sit around and read the rest of the league recaps from todays games and I can sleep a happy man this evening.

I think this could be the year for Chelsea to come back and really show Europe, and England, that they can survive without Mourinho. Granted, I would like to still have the special one here, but Scolari isn't doing too bad of a job.

So I might be loosing my mind.

I am going to attempt to keep up a two front approach to writing. I will be publishing articles on Bleacher Report and articles here. Bleacher will of course be more formal and here will be random fluff.

Random Soccer Pictures Are The Best.

I am trying to pimp my profile out on another site that I post to and I wanted to find a cool footy image for the background and I happened to come across this picture when I was looking. I think it's absolutely hilarious.

On another note, I leave at 0-dark thirty tomorrow for my last session of the summer. I am having to set my alarm tonight before I head out to go to the bar. It will be interesting to see me hungover at 5:30 AM but the way I figure, I will not have another chance to do this for a while, so I might as well live it up while I can. I will be returning to Fado for the fourth time since I got here. I am upset though that there is nothing on really. No soccer. No nothing. And to make things worse, they have a DJ on Friday, so it defeats the point of it being an Irish bar. I did get a chance to see a band last night when I went, The Forty Thieves. Dixieland Footie supports these guys because unlike the big name Irish acts, such as Flogging Molly or The Pogues, these guys are not that well known but they are willing to take the music that I love and putting their own spin on it. So go check them out and Happy Footy all.

Staff Training Continues. ... Oh Yeah, There's This Footy Tournament Going On Too.

So, staff training has been going really well so far. It isn't anything that I haven't already read or heard before. Don't do anything dumb and make sure the kids don't do anything dumb. And make sure that you count, count, count. I don't mind the repetition but the walks back and forth between lunch and the places we are having our sessions is a bit much. I will say one thing, I will definitely get a workout this summer.


Even though it seems like I have blinked maybe twice since I have been here, the past three days have seen the start of Euro 08 and let me tell you, I am pissed that I am missing these matches. I just saw the match highlights for The Netherlands v. Italy and watched the Italians walk around like puppies without masters. I don't know the record but I doubt that any Italian team in the last ten years has never been beaten that bad in a competition. Truly amazing. There is still hope for the Italians yet if they play strong in their remaining fixtures. They might have a chance to face France in the final this year but that's still weeks away so we will have to see.

Lead America Staff Training Day 1

The beautiful Georgetown University! Pretty sweet eh? Well I am currently in one of their dorms getting ready to start my Lead America staff training experience. The flight into DC was uneventful really except for the fact that my head was really hurting when I was sitting in the terminal in Nashville. I will not have a McDonalds chicken biscuit ever again. I got here and stood around for about twenty minutes with all the other kids waiting on the shuttle to get us here. Got here, unloaded the buses, stood in line for fifteen minutes to get photoed, and bombarded with so much stuff it isn't even funny. I have polo shirts, a huge binder, my garment bag, and my laptop case passing back and forth between my arms as I am trying to sign forms and get my picture taken.

I finally got all of that squared away and got to my room and let me tell you, the dorms are ten times better than UT. They are completely carpeted, and the shelf and desk space is amazing. But the big surprise is the view. My curtains were up and I look out the window and there is the Georgetown lacrosse and footy field right below. It is indeed a beautiful sight and kinda reminds me of the way Leyton Orient have their field set up with the apartments in the corner of the pitch. I just wish that one of the teams were in season so that I could have a watch.

All in all, staff training seems like it's going to be ok. Are schedules are jam packed for the rest of the next five days and then I make a short trip over to Catholic University to start the first of three sessions as a Lead America Team Leader.

So, I Leave For DC Today

I will be hoping on a plane in about ten hours to head to our nations capital to teach for Lead America. I will be teaching an intelligence and national security program which is pretty much my bread and butter these days. I am looking forward to the experience because I would love to teach at some point in the future and if I can teach high school kids, I think I will do fine with angsty college kids.

I also look forward to NOT being able to watch any of Euro 2008. I suppose I will catch the highlights at 11:30 every night and hopefully the sites we are at will have internet because I will exercise the hell out of soccernet and bbc. So, how will live without footy for a month and a half? I am still trying to figure that one out. I am taking my hacky sack with me in hopes that I can at least get in a few minutes a day with it. I will be having footy withdrawls when I get home at the end of July that's for sure.

So, I Need To Play More

I found that out the hard way on Monday. I went down to the field that kick around at and ran into three guys playing. They were taking turns in net and they let me kick around with them. Well, I always bring three balls with me and that allowed us all to have something to rocket at the net. And rocket these kids did. They had incredible shot speed on them. It was nothing too fancy, no dipping, curving, or diving balls, but they were able to put some mustard on their shots.

After I was there for about half an hour when I got stupid and decided that I would try my hand in net. The first shot rang off the post hard. The next shots went really well. I got hands to them and either caught them or poked it away. But then they started going for all this top corner stuff and I was winded and simply couldn't get to the shots. I ended up on my backside and shoulders more than I would have liked to but I kept my form when I did save. It just shows what not playing consistently for a year will do to your game.