What a Battle!

Well my Thursday night soccer team finished the regular season in fourth place. This got us into the playoffs, barely. Our first round match was against the first place team. If we beat them, we are in the final against the winner of the 2nd and 3rd place game. We battle hard early in the first half. Later in the half, I get the ball on the left side. A quick shot fake, I cut it inside and fire off a right footed shot that slides right into the lower left corner of the net. Goal! Seconds ticking away in the half. One of our guys is down in the corner fighting for the ball on the offensive end. He blasts it into the corner and it comes out to me right at the top of the goalie box. I hit it with a one touch, left foot shot. Goal!! Again in the lower left corner. The buzzer goes off and we are all pumped up. We are beating the first place team. They are stunned and silent. Second half starts and they come out very aggressive. Before we know it, they go on a 4 goal scoring streak! We are down 4-2. But we arent done yet. Collin and another one of our guys (cant remember his name off-hand) score 2 goals. We are tied and back in it! Then we commit a foul near our goal just outside the goal box. We set up a poor defensive wall and they shoot one in. 5-4, them. We pound away at their defense getting so close each try. The clock is ticking down fast. With just seconds left... they score on another free kick. 6-4... final whistle blows. We are on to the consolation 3rd place game next thursday and they are in the final. Oh well, we gave the top seeded team a scare. They expected an easy match against the lowest ranked team in the playoffs and instead almost got beat.

Week In Review

Lets see where I left off. Ah, last friday night. That following saturday, I get a call from my buddy Craig. He says, "pack up your pc... LAN party!!" Turns out it as a Halo and Ghost Recon LAN party to be specific. And everyone else except for one other had Mac's. There were about 7 of us crammed into the living room of a small house. The floor was covered in wires, cables and hubs. We played for a couple hours then ordered pizza and drinks. Then, played on till about midnight. I was exhausted! Without missing a beat I was up the next morning at 8:30am for a Sunday paintball game down at the Corp of Engineers woodlands near the lake. Me and Courts get there and find we have 8 others already there! It turned out to be a great day of paintball. It was a little chilly but all the running and crawling thru the woods really helped keep everyone warm. I carried my camera with me for a couple rounds and took some pics. They are up on the site under Hobbies\Paintball. What i found funny was there are all these guys there with $200 plus guns and im getting just as many kills or more with my $20 paintball gun. Its gotta be the shoes? Or just my mad skills. haha We played till about 4:30 in the afternoon. A 20oz. tank of air and 1000 rounds of paintballs later I was home and beat. Spent the rest of the evening watching the NFL playoffs and vegging on the couch. It was nice. That night I went over to Val's and we decided to venture down to the new Jupiter Cafe coffee shop. We get there and even though its about midnight, the place is packed! Not an empty seat. So we got our coffee and Chai Tea and headed home. Monday we were off work for MLK day. I spent most of that chilling at the house cleaning the place up and working on a couple PC's. Nothing exciting. Tuesday comes and its back to work for the week. Whoopee! A pretty un-eventful week at work. We are preparing for the big ICMA conference we are hosting so we're working hard to show a clean house to our guests. Im not quite yet sure if I care. Thursday rolled around and it was time for my Dallas teams soccer game. We played a Mexican team who were very aggressive and almost violent in their style. I started the scoring off early with a back post header from a cross that looped over the defenders. At that point I thought we'd kill them. But they fought hard and scored a tying goal. It was deadlocked until late in the second half. They scored to make it 2-1. But in the end their rough play and fouls caught up with them. The whistle on the 6th foul meant a penalty shot for us! Our guy made the shot and it was tied 2-2. It ended that way and i was happy to get a point out of the game. Now, here we are back on a Friday. My mom leaves Sunday for Florida so I went up to their place to help her with some computer issues. I came back and jumped online for the traditional "freaky friday" on the RSi GR servers. We played till almost 2am! Man, what fun. Tomorrow I am suposed to have a first soccer practice with a new outdoor team ive joined. But it looks like it will be rained out. Which means I can make my GR training session at 1pm. Should be a good weekend. I'll update later on!

Mix'n Match

Thursday night is one of my two soccer nights. This teams game are all in Dallas, so its a bit of a drive for those late games. So this last Thursday I had a 10:30 pm game. I pack all my gear in my bag and head down to the indoor playing field. I get to the practice field, next to the game field, and sit down on the turf to begin stretching out and putting on my gear. I open my soccer back and find out I left my soccer shoes at home on the floor!! DOH! I ask my entire team if they have an extra pair of shoes I can borrow. Nothing. No one has anything extra. I wore Addidas sandals there, so I couldnt play in those! I then had an idea. I ran to the main building and went upstairs to the office. I asked the guy, "where's the lost and found". He points me to the room and I go to work. Its a huge pile of short, shirts, kids shoes, coolers, soccer balls and even a pair of underwear. (eww) Finally after digging for a bit, I find one size 10-1/2 New Balance cross trainer shoe. I set it aside. I keep digging. I then found a size 10 Addidas tennis shoe. So now i have a right and a left athletic shoe!! I throw them in my bad and hustle back the field. I put them on and my teammates hit the floor laughing. I look like a homeless guy that threw on whatever i found in the alley. HAHA! I played ok. The shoes really felt strange to play in. My touch was off and I had a hard time shooting in them. We did win the game 4-3 so i guess thats all that matters. Hopefully I'll never have to dig for free shoes again. Oh, and if you were wondering... I left the shoes on the bleachers so they would be returned to the lost and found.

Paradise Ends

Well my vacation flew by! My 11 days total of time away from my work place has already come and gone. But it was a busy week! I got lots done, although i didnt get to update Thorpeland. But thats in my plans soon. We are playing another round of paintball this weekend, and I WILL post pics from that. I took my video camera to the last one, but my brother isnt the battlefield camera man he thinks he is. Most of the video is way too shaky and un-usable. So im going with still pictures this weekend. Toward the end of the week, my girlfriend Val moved into a bigger apartment. So we had a "moving party". We had Mike, Cheryl, Craig, Becki, Mandy, Val and myself all carrying stuff from the apartment to the trucks and up to the new apartment. The new apartment was on the 3rd floor. UGG! It wasnt easy getting the washer, dryer and couches up there. And the entertainment center was just as tough. Surprisingly, I wasnt too beat up at the end of the day to go out and have a little fun that night. Me, Val and Craig headed over to the Jupiter Cafe on the square in downtown Denton. Its a new coffee house thats open 24/7. Its about time we got one here, and its a pretty cool one. The only thing they are missing is Wi/Fi connectivity! Im about to head over to Val's place tonight to continue the excavation known as unpacking. But im excited to get her new place all set up. Its a really nice apartment. Its a 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bath, that is 950 sq. ft! Ok, im off to go help her. Later Thorpeland Fans!

WOOO WHOOO!!

Im on vacation offically today. For the next 7 days I get to just chill and work on projects that ive been putting off because of lack of time or energy. Now im faced with such questions as, will my apartment get cleaned? Will Thorpeland.com get an update? How late will I get to sleep in? haha Those questions and more will soon be answered.

Just Too Funny

About 8 months ago I broke up with the girl I was dating at the time cause things just were'nt right. She didn't get it but I knew I was doing the right thing. So, all these months have passed and I thought id go to her personal web page to read her "whats going on now" page to see how she's doing and how her holidays were. I was surprised to see one immature posting after another immature posting... as resent as this week, making bashes directly pointed at me. And that... is just too funny! Most normal people are able to look back months later on an ended relationship and say to themselves, "yeah, it was for the best it ended". But not her. She continues to make it a point to live in the past and vent her still fuming anger at me, in each of her posts. Well Jenna, if you visit the page and read this post. I only have one thing to say directly to you. GET OVER IT. MOVE ON. There, its out of my system. :)

Fun Times

Well I survived New Years Eve and the day after. Val and I met up with Criag and Becki at her house. There was supposed to be a party there but for some reason or another, everyone canceled. So we all loaded up in her car and headed out to another group having a party. I didnt know them but they were a group of Craig's ex-coworkers from his World Comm days. There were about 6 couples and TON'S of food. I was starving so I introduced myself to the room and hit the buffet with a vengance. haha Later, they decided to play DVD Trivial Pursuit. This is the new version of this old game where your piece lands on a color and you have to watch a short video clip off a DVD as your clue. It was fun. My team won the game on a very ironically funny question. To make a long story short, the answer to the winning question we were faced with was a very bad movie which I recieved for christmas and couldnt stand to watch. (Sorry Steve, its a bad movie. It just is.) The movie being "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane with Andrew Dice Clay". Wow, what a stinker. So after the party we are driving back to Becki's house and I start to get really car sick. And I had not even had anything to drink! I was on the edge of throwing up. But I made it back to her house alive. It was past 3am by that point and they suggested we just stay over. We did and I was out cold asleep within 5 minutes of hitting the pillow. In the morning we all got up and Craig and Becki whipped up a GREAT breakfast! We had waffles, fruit, scrambled eggs and juice. I came home and spent the rest of the day just being a bum, doing small projects around the house. I go back to work tomorrow for one day. Shortest week ever I guess. Im on vacation all next week so I am just wanting Friday to be over with. At 5pm, my vacation begins! I plan on updating my site since I'll have time. I have a lot I want to do but havent had time to. BE SURE TO CHECK BACK!!