Category: Sports

Categories
Sports

What happened to football Sundays?

Today was the first NFL sunday of the 2008 season.  This used to be such a major event for myself.  Usually my friends and I would all get together rig up 2 TV’s in one room and make sure one of us had the NFL Sunday Ticket and we’d watch football most of the day.  Every weekend it seemed we were greeted by some special guest appearances.

We had many stadiums (aka: a living room) over the years, some great others not so (I always left with headaches from the TV bigger than the room).  The camaraderie always kept things fun, despite how poor the game on may have been.  

Slowly but surely the past several years there has been a steady decline in faces on Sunday.  No longer must you call fives if you must get up from your couch seat if you don’t wish to be banished to the floor.  Nor any singing of the Ford Truck Man song nor the Ring of Fire (popular commercials from a few seasons ago).  Or any of the other nonsense that was to be had.

This year I went to Charlies to watch the early games with Wes and Jared.  They’re both Dolphins fans and didn’t want to miss their game.  It was cool, to see all the games on the various TVs.  While the tradition is not as strong as it once was for me, it does survive.  

Categories
Sports Video Games

Wii Fit

Wii FitPicked up a Wii Fit on Friday at EB Games.  Got the last one.  Getting the last anything from a store always seems cool to me.  When I got home from work I figured I’d fire it up and give it a shot.  

It starts you off by selecting your Mii (I haven’t been able to make one that looks like me) then asks you to stand of the balance board so that it can test you out.  The balance board weights you and measures your center of balance.  My balance was off to the left a bit but not too far from center.

It then gives you some balance tests.  I had to stand on one leg and balance for a bit.  This test showed me that I can’t really stand on one leg to save my life.  Then another balance test had you have to lean left or right to line up your balance in some boxes.  This one was a bit easier for me.  It then gave me my Wii Fit age of a whopping 50 years old!  I was a bit disappointed by this.

I’ve been doing many of the examples, determined to get my age much lower than 50.  I can now kinda balance on one leg, still gotta work on that a bit more.  The strength exercise I’m great at, with perfect 100 scores in most cases.  So I still have some dignity left.

This morning one day 5 of Wii Fit, I’ve lost almost 6 pounds (don’t know how that happened) and my Wii Fit age was 31!  So I’m glad that I’m no longer 50 and can now almost balance on one leg.  Overall I’m very much impressed with this, while I won’t stop going to the gym several times a week.  It does do a good job of working in many balance and flexibility exercises I’d like to incorporate into my routine.

Categories
Adventure Sports

Saw 2 maybe 3 snakes today

While playing disc golf today in Vineland the Shepherd and I spotted two and perhaps even a third snake.  I never run into snakes, so it was kinda cool for me.  

The first encounter occurred when the Shepherd went to retrieve a disc that went slightly into the brush.  Apparently the disc landed right next to the snake.  It was a pretty large snake.  We were able to retrieve the disc without bugging him too much.

The most impressive snake on the day was a big black snake that ran across the top of a hill right in front of us.  Must’ve been at least three feet long, probably longer actually.  After doing some research on snakes found in New Jersey, I’m pretty sure it was a black rat snake, but may’ve been a northern black racer.

 

Categories
Sports

Terrible at Basketball

Played a little basketball last night in Longport with Mr. Yuk-Yuk.  First let me begin with a Wow I’m really bad.  I mean really, really bad.  But oh well, I just went out there to get a little exercise and was successful in accomplishing that feat.  It was getting the ball in the hoop and not dribbling it off my foot that I was not quite as successful at.

Unfortunately my left ankle has little to no support in it.  Even the lightest of jump and the thing caves in with a healthy dose of pain to go along with it.  I’ll have to look into purchasing an ankle brace and some high tops for some support.  

Hopefully we will continue playing. Who knows, maybe I might even graduate from terrible to pretty bad.

Categories
Adventure Sports

South Vineland Park Monsoon

The good Shepherd and I embarked on a voyage to play the disc golf course in South Vineland Park.  We had a hard time locating the park, apparently the park doesn’t have a mailing address, so attempts to map it to the car’s GPS proved impossible.  So we had it map what we felt was the street where the course would be found.  This of course took us a great distance out of the way (also known as very lost).  

Luckily we did enjoy another fine lunch as Sugar Hill Subs.  So despite being lost, tempers never did flare.  While driving there the heavens opened up and let loose a downpour of biblical proportions.  With little to no visibility it seemed that not only would we not find this legendary course; even if we did locate it we’d be rained out.  Luckily we were able to weather out the storm (with headlights off almost the entire time dummy), and eventually find the park.

The 18 hole course was amazing.  And the heavens cleared during the the 2nd basket, giving us a most glorious day to appreciate this newfound course.  This proved to be a most challenging course, with the distance to the baskets being much greater than what we’re accustomed.  Another notable challenge is the narrow lanes that one is faced with.  There’s times where you must navigate a 300+yd forest opening that’s no more than 5 feet wide.  An extremely daunting, but rewarding task.

The changes in elevation brought a new dimension to the great game of disc golf to us rookies.  It’s something that must be seen to be truly appreciated, on a drier day I will have to take some photos to share.  The Shepherd took a nasty spill down on of these treacherous slopes that I speak of.  While and extremely funny sight to behold, there was no shame in the slip.  For I almost had several spills myself.

An extremely impressive disc golf course, one that must truly be given a try.

Categories
Sports

Mercer Madness Dodgeball Tournament

DodgeballThe first annual Mercer Madness Tournament is being held on April 12th. I’m in the process of assembling a team to participate is this monumental event. There’s four divisions being offered, looks like we’ll be participating in the Adult Open division.

I don’t think I’ve played dodgeball in probably 12 or more years, but I’ve seen the movie, and it didn’t seem too difficult. Now that I think about it, it’d be amazing if Chuck Norris was at this tournament like in the film. It would be a true honor to throw in Norris’ presence.

If you’re interested in playing or have an idea for a team name (haven’t thought on one quite yet) please let me know.