Whole Lotta Nuthin

For the first time in a loooooong time, I have a whole lotta nuthin going on this weekend. Paintball has been cancelled because lack of peeps able to make it and Emily has her sister in town visiting, so they are busy. Im just cleaning house and relaxing. Which is pretty nice. Tonight may have something brewing. A bunch of us are planning a bowling outing. Should be fun. Also, I may be going to the Dallas Aquarium tomorrow. Now that sounds like it could really be fun and give me a great photo opportunity this weekend! I'll be sure to post any good ones I take. Which reminds me, I need to take some time and update my website again. Maybe the aquarium will give me a good reason and some good material to update with.

And Then There Were Four...

Last weekend, Emily and I ventured down to the local pet store to look at fish for her new aquarium. I had no intentions of buying anything... until I got there. I happened to walk by the hermit crab section and take a look into their tank. I quickly noticed they had a large Purple Claw hermit crab, who looked healthy and active. This is rare at this pet store. Normally they only have very young and small hermies, who look sick and reclusive. So I quickly got someone who works there to pluck him out and put him in a to-go box. I got him home and placed him into my crabitat with the other two hermies I already had. I then realized, there are not enough shell's for the 3 hermit crabs to share. I need more! So Emily and I headed off to the mall, where I knew they had hermit crab supplies and shells. I found the island kiosk in the mall which sells the crabs. I began to pick out shells when I noticed a nice big Purple Claw hermie running across the sand in their pen. I quick bought him.... along with 4 shells and some hermit crab treat mix. I brought everything back home and put my new hermie into the tank. Now, with four hermit crabs scurrying around exploring, it was some fun to watch! The first thing the newest crab did was start trying on new shells. He switched three times while I was watching, finally settling into one of the new shells I had just bought. I could tell the new guys were happy to be out of their petstore pens and into a truly well designed crabitat. I sprinkled some of the hermit crab treat food into their food dish to see if it was something they would like. I came back 15 minutes later and sure enough, one of them was on it chowing down! So far, I havent had any shell fights or scuffles between any of them. This is a good sign that means they are all getting along well and adjusting to their new surroundings nicely. I will hopefully post some good pictures of them soon.

A Big Win!

Tonight my B Division soccer team, Trouble FC, scored a win over the only undefeated team in our division. We pulled it out 2-1. I didn't get any goals in this one and really I dont feel I played very well. It was one of our late games, 11:15pm. By then, I just felt so tired from a long day already. But I was proud of my team for getting the win and pulling us up to a 3-2 record! We are on track for the playoffs.

Downward Spiral

Im not sure what our problem is. My defending champion soccer team is having a lousy start to the new season. We are now 1-3 after another loss 7-5 loss tonight. Last season, we had the lowest goals against total and the 2nd highest goals for tally. This season we have the MOST goals against and have fallen to 3rd lowest scoring. We're getting beat by teams who shouldn't be beating us. As of now, we have to win the rest of our games this season to even have an outside shot at getting into the final. It will be extremely tough.

Personally, I didn't have a bad game tonight. I didnt get as many shifts as I would have liked to, but thats alright. I scored an early goal to get us back in the game in the first half, then got a very nice assist in the middle of the second half to keep it close. The other team was very quick and didnt miss many chances they had to score.

One thing I can vouch for. If you want a little extra "umph" in a sport, drink one of those Red Bull drinks about 45 minutes before game time. When researchers said they found a 20% gain in an athletes performance after drinking one, they weren't kidding. My legs rebound sooner between substitutions, my energy lasts longer on the field and I generally feel more energetic the entire game. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

Abra Kadabra!

I got to see something really cool and fun last night. Emily bought tickets to magician David Copperfield for me her and her mom. The show started at 8:30 so around 5:30 we hopped in the car and headed south to Grandprarie, about 40 minutes away. We easily found the Nokia Live concert hall and went up to get in line outside. Once the doors opened, we had to kill a bit of time until they would let us to our seats. We found where we were to be sitting and got comfortable. It was a little high up to the left of the stage. But we could still see pretty good. To make sure, Emily and her mom brought some small binoculars to help us see.

At about 8:35, Mr. Copperfield took the stage. He made a very impressive entrance. His assistants rolled out a large box made of white sheets on all sides. They opened it up to show it was empty and spun it around on its wheels to show there were no openings on the back sides. Then, they held bright lights to be the backside of the box so you could see any sillouettes inside the box. All of a sudden, before our eyes, a shape appeared inside the box. Then you heard a loud engine roar up. Then the front sheet of the white box drops down and there is David Copperfield on a large Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was pretty cool.

The rest of the night, he did various tricks that defied explanation. He would pick people out of the crowd and pretty much read their minds. You would think he had arranged the people he picked from the crowd. But the way he picked them would make that almost impossible. He toook frisbees and thru them up high, randomly around the crowd. After they finished bouncing around all the grabbing hands, he asked the person who ended up with it to come onto the stage. He later made a a lady and then a group of people disapear. It was a very fun experience. I wish I could have taken pictures but they didnt allow cameras and it was too dark for my camera phone to get a good shot.

If you ever have a chance to see David Copperfield live, i'd say dont pass it up. It was a great time. The only advice I would give would to be get seats as close as you can. That way you can really see every move he makes on stage. Perpahs you will catch him on a slip up!

Fire Fight!!

This past weekend was a paintball Sunday again. I had awaited all week to play and was excited to try out some new gear. I knew we might have a large group of players, which always makes for a very fun day of games.

I woke up at 8:30 on Sunday morning only to look out my window and see it pouring rain! No!! So I started calling all the guys and they seemed to still want to head out to the field and wait for a break in the rain. I quickly checked accuweather.com and their radar showed a small band of storms over my area but moving out quickly! I grabbed my gear and ran out thru the pounding rain to my car and I was off!

I get to the woods lot we play at and a few of the guys are already there. But the rain is still coming down hard. Shortly after, Courts arrives and we sit in my car waiting for the rain to let up. Suddenly, the hard rain turns into a drizzle... then the drizzle stops completly! Game on!

My buddy Steve had come out with his new paintball gear for his first game ever. I think he was a little taken back by what he saw. Steve arrived wearing a black long sleeve shirt, running pants and some football cleats. He was amused to watch the rest of us lace up combat boots, button up camoflage shirts, strap on remote air tanks and tune our tactical radios to different frequencies. We had a full 10 players and 5 v 5 would make for some intense fire fights! Later in the morning, Tod showed up and added another to a team. The action was back and forth with both teams taking wins. Everyone had a ton of fun as usual and now we have a larger group ready to play the next time.