Author: Joe

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Playoffs

Last night was both a very exciting and sad time. It was the dodgeball playoffs, and also the last night of the season.

Our opponent was the Lightning Donkeys and the first round game was an eleven match game. We started with our guy squad first and someone grasped onto a win thanks to Kevin. The man always finds a way to stay alive.

Matches were exchanged early on, until we ran into a bit of a hole. I gotta put a lot of blame on myself for this one. I just played horribly, not sure why I didn’t feel too bad physically going in. I had a couple of drops of what should’ve been automatic catches.

Kevin and Dustin gave us hope early on, but ultimately it wasn’t enough.

We wound up losing 6-3, which really bummed us. We can and have played better than that.

I did make and present awards to the team afterwards. I tried to sum up each teammate with an adjective that I thought best described their contributions and play this season. Everyone seemed to enjoy that, which felt good. They are a really good bunch of teammates and I really enjoyed playing with each and everyone of them.

Afterwards most of us headed over the the Windjammer in Somers Point. The SJSL was offering free beer, and that really got a lot of the league to show up. Handing out afterwards was a lot of fun too. We’ve got some characters in this league and I had a good time telling ridiculous stories and hearing some as well.

Categories
Books

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to ArmsI was a little stumped looking over the recent arrivals at the library, nothing was really catching my eye. So I figured I’d stroll down the fiction section and see if anything jumped out at me. Apparently, you can’t just walk by aisles in the library and expect books to jump out, you kinda need to be looking for something specific.

I noticed a whole shelf or two of Ernest Hemmingway books. I knew he’s considered to be a great author, so why not give him a shot. I wasn’t exactly sure what to pick from the bunch, but went with A Farewell to Arms since I had read up on WWI a little while back.

The book was excellent. It bis one of the darkest and gloomiest things I’ve ever read. You really get a sense and feeling of how people felt during that time period. Nothing is over the top or greatly exaggerated, just dark and sad.

Even though you know that doom is coming, I still found myself rooting for a happy ending to this tale. The last several pages made absolutely sure that there would be not a shred of happiness to be found in this.

While not exactly an upbeat tale by any means and more of a romance story than I usually care to read, it was still a great book. I haven’t read anything of Hemmingway’s since high school and am glad that I went back and read another of his works.

Categories
Sports

Amazing Flag Football Game

Played in arguably the finest flag football I’ve ever played in this morning. We all met up at the usual field in EHT at 8:30 am. All the games we’ve been playing have been a great time, but this one really took it to the next level.

It was four on four. Chris, two Mikes and myself against Wes, Josh, Mr. Yuk-Yuk and Geoff.

We played up to ten, and the game took tow and a half hours. It was just a highly contested game, with each and every play battled over. There were for broken plays the entire game, just a steady back and forth answer for answer.

We used some early corner blitzes from Chris that were very effective. We never blitz him, and it really caught the other guys by surprise for a while. Both our Mike’s were amazing, making some incredible catches and throws all day long.

I’m old and my nagging groin injury isn’t helping matters much, but I did my best to create space for my teammates running routes, and throw a few blocks to help us march down the field a few times.

On the final drives of the game the other team seemed to be driving plays specifically against me. I sensed this would happen, hobbled I was clearly the weakest member of our team this day. I may be old and beat up, but I have played in many backyard games and made several plays on passes on the last two drives.

I knew how hard my teammates had played all day, and how much they carried me early on. It was great that I was able to come through for them on those last few drives, guaranteeing us a hard fought win.

Easily on the the greatest, evenly matched games I’ve ever been a part of. So glad that I have some good friends who wake up early to play flag football. A great bunch of guys led to a great game.

Categories
Books

Dog On It

Dog On ItWent with a different approach with my last read. While I knew that I liked dogs, I wasn’t sure if I’d like a fiction story about a dog, a detective dog actually. Turns out this was a very enjoyable read.

Chet (the dog) and Bernie (the human) are private investigators on the case. But the book is written from Chet’s point of view, which was a nice touch. The author does a great job of thinking how I’d imagine a dog actually thinks.

For the record I did write a short story titled Dog Town for a 7th grade project, so I did almost come up with it first. Believe I got an A on it actually, will have to see if I still have it.

Back to the book, it was a solid mystery. Nothing too over the top (besides a narrative dog of course). Very solid book that appears to be a series which I’ll have to really consider reading more of. It was entertaining stuff.

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Week 8

Our final regular season game of the season was against the Banzai Executioners. We’ve had a couple of bad weeks, taking some tough losses. I really wanted to see us finish the regular season strong even though we’ve been getting some breaks.

I couldn’t of been more proud of how we played as a team last night! The energy, effort and just overall dodgeball smarts were great to see. I felt like we finally played great as a team last night.

Everyone was moving around well and throwing great. I think the week off really helped us all recover and come in fresh. We all talked to one another, and just had a good time. It was great.

Despite our stellar play, we did lose the game 9-7. But just to finish that strong and bring that momentum into the playoffs next week will be great.

The only drawback on the night for me was that I hurt my right elbow pretty badly early in an early match. It’s swollen up pretty good, and really giving me some limited movement today. I’m in full recovery mode and will play in the playoffs next week even if I have to use duct tape.

Categories
Sports

Thanksgiving 2011 Football Game

Easily one of my favorite traditions is our yearly Thanksgiving flag football game. This year we had the same core return. I knew it wouldn’t be one of my finer games, been shut down for a while with a really nagging groin injury that I just can’t seem to shake.

The morning was a little on the cold side, probably the low 30’s, but it was quickly heating up outside to a very comfortable game temperature. Josh set up the cones for boundaries and the rest of us had our pre-game warm up rituals. Many had a catch, a few stretched, I did some light running to gauge how fast my groin would allow me to run today (as it turned out, not very fast at all).

The first game was all big plays, with some very quick scores. It was almost comical in how fast the teams were scoring. Apparently I had also scored the first safety of the season and perhaps ever in out Thanksgiving tradition.

Unfortunately our QB for the day Mark banged up his knee and had to eventually sit out. He played on it for a little bit, but it was clearly giving him some trouble and finally had to shut it down for the day.

Luckily we had extra player and former MVP Dave in the wings and shuffled up the teams a bit.

I liked the new teams, thought both teams were fairly equal. We had a QB change and Mr. Yuk-Yuk really had a very solid day slinging the ball to us. I don’t believe he had any turnovers, and had some solid throws throughout the game.

Chris really carried our offense. Which was really great, I wasn’t moving nearly as well as I’m used to. Probably a combination of injury and just plain getting old slowing me down. I did get a chance to use a few stiff arms after making the catch, and still enjoy making several people have to take me down, even in flag somehow.

Our defense was especially solid as well. Gregg, Chris, Joe and myself all played consistant enough to give our team the win. I was especially impressed with how well we all played well together, it was a very solid team effort. Everybody picked up one another’s slack when necessary, and it was a very refreshing experience.

I did roll my ankle pretty good during the second game, slipping on mud a bit. But luckily it didn’t keep me from finishing and didn’t swell up as much after the game as it initially felt like it would.

All in all, another great game and a tradition that I really hope we can continue doing for many more years to come.