Fall Sports 2019

Odd to be talking about fall sports when it's like 90°F outside, but it is that time of year.  Sampson is heading into his junior year of Cross Country and Peach is playing 8th grade volleyball.  I watched the volleyball team scrimmage one game and they looked much improved from last year.  They did add a couple girls that are pretty good, and a couple of the girls have gotten much better from last year.  Also Peach got her first spike ever in the scrimmage so that was pretty cool.  On XC side Sampson's team should be really good.  They got every scorer from a regional team back and none of the scorers are seniors.  I think at some point they should be ranked in the state this year, if not, it is because they don't have a dominate number 1.  Sampson is trying to fill this role but will have his hands full not only from his team but from some local competition.  Honestly I can see his team getting 8 or 9 guys in before some teams get 5 guys across, and there is the possibility that they can have 3 sub 18 guys early in the season.  I think Sampson's goal is to get to state, be all-OVAC, and all Buckeye 8.  If he could sneak out a win somewhere that would be icing on the cake, but as long as stays healthy and is able to compete I'll be happy.  There are several guys that will be right on his heels for this season, but last year I thought he made some good changes to concentrate on the season.  From icing his legs before races, no cutting out certain foods.  This year he needs to concentrate on the training to have his best races at the end of the season.  The one thing he may be lacking is mileage, but he has probably run more than he ever has so I can't complain.  The coach said he needed to be in the 500 mile range for the summer and I don't think he got close to that, so we'll see.  For perspective, I have run 126 miles since May, and I couldn't even qualify to be on the team, but I'm also not 17.  Like I said I just hope he stays healthy and is able to improve from last year, if he does that he will be in a good spot and if the rest of the guys improve, they could be really good.

For Peach, her team was kind of up and down a little last year and as the season progressed I think other teams got more better (yikes) then they did.  If that makes sense.  Basically they started out better than other teams but they didn't get all of the passing and 3 hitting plays down by the end of the season where some other teams did and they could handle the ball if you just passed it over rather than having a good striker.  Peach says she wants to be the spiker and she has grown a good bit over the last 2 years (still no where near as tall as Dad, but way taller than Mom) so she could fill that role now.  They are also playing on high school nets, no more shorter nets for the jr. high. It will be interesting to see how this season goes as it looks like the summer work has them playing a little more like a team.  It will also be interesting to see how bad Peach can cut herself since she is growing out her nails and she refuses to cut them even though there is absolutely no advantage you can have in volleyball from having long nails, you can only cut your self.  So far she has cut herself twice.  Well here is wishing the kids good luck and good luck to my wallet to get into all of these games.

The Tractor Incident of Aught 19

So Sunday the 28th of July I had a bit of an accident.  Well let's start at the beginning of the day.  First we had church, (well I mean I got up, ate, got dressed and what not).  At church they were doing something different that day, open mic night or day or morning.  Anyway it was a chance to get up and praise God for anything or anything that has happened, and I didn't have a specific story, I mean I could talk about a lot of things, but it was important for me to just get up and say something.  I think when you have that opportunity to witness for God you have to do it.  At some point I will describe my path from college to where I am and how all of the little things kind of worked themselves out, but not right now.  So I said my piece, went and sat down, and Peach was with me and said that it was nice.  Like I said I don't know everything I said, it was just important to go up there.  Did I mention I followed the guy who was formally imprison and found God there, and also had a trachetmy at some point?  If that guy is praising God then I got to get up there!!  So we went out to Mom's after church and we were visiting with Bo and Susie for the kids birthday.  It was getting late, but I decided that I was going to go ahead and mow the grass, so that maybe I could take the next weekend off from mowing.  Well during the course of opening up the yard, I normally take about 4 laps around the house, then go to the outside for 2 or 3 laps.  When I started around the bank I was thinking that I let Sampson open the yard up last week, and there is no way he would get as close as I get, so I tried to get a little closer to the bank, because I figured last week he didn't get as close as I do.  Well he must have. 

Post from April on new Fitness Ap

So I have started using a new health app, the Samsung health.  It actually isn’t new and apparently I have had it for a while and just never really used it.  You see I had the fitbit alta and I really like it but after about a year and 3 months it kind of took a crap and isn’t holding a charge, so I decide to go all in on Samsung and get one of the fit pro’s.  Well Best Buy had one for $150 as an open box and it seemed like a super good deal.   I think I may have to add the 2 year protection though because I can see battery issues coming with this one too.  Anyway the app allows me to input the calories from every food I eat and it keeps track of them.  The best thing is it has some preloaded foods or pulls from a connected data base and it will save any food and nutrient information you put in.  So every time you eat a similar meal you can find it really easy.  So far I have realized that I was eating a lot more calories than I thought…oops. Well this is correctable, but Sophie is gonna be mad because I really want to limit my calorie intake so I can lose some weight.  Yes it is going to take effort, but I am ok with that.  I am *cough* in my forties *cough* so I want to take a little better care of my self.  I started running / walking about 2 years ago when I can and I am picking up my training this year to try and get to 25 minutes in a 5k.  That essentially means I will run the whole race, no walking.  I have been working my way along the local 5k course, gradually building up the distance so hopefully by the end of June I am doing the full course a couple times a week.  Anyway I think if I can lose about 10-15 pounds that will make the racing easier and hopefully help with the weight loss.  Sophie pretty much hates to hear about anything healthy though and has already threatened divorce just 2 days in.  I don’t think she is serious, but just to be safe I’ll try and keep this on the down low.  Hopefully it works and she will want to do it too.  I think that will make things easier if we do it together.  I’ll wait until the anger dies down a little though to introduce these ideas.  Also the Samsung watch comes with the “MapMyRun App” which I hope to try out today.  I like the fitbit app tracking of runs so we will see how this one works.  I also told Peach that if she got straight A’s we could pick out a fitbit at the end of the year. 

Cemetery First Run

So pretty pscyched for training after the race last week, and am picking it up to make up for that 2 seconds.  Anyway I am using the Map My Run app from Under Armor and am experimenting with the courses and training features.  Basically you can set up your own training program, set the days of the week and kind of what your goal is, plus it uses your past performance to gauge where you need to train.  I used it for my last race, but because my watch wasn't syncing the workout, I needed to run the phone and watch at the same time.  Anyway this lead to having duplicate workouts get logged, and I had to delete the one which was synced to the program.  I could always go back and resync the watch work out, but didn't always do it.  This time I am going to try and do better and logging the workouts so it can put me on the correct path. One other feature of the map my run is that you can create a route and load it to the phone.  Now I tried this with the cemetery loop and it wouldn't map the whole thing because there was no road to the school, so I had to do it in two parts.  Well the loop was about 5 miles and I wanted to step up the old training so I figured it would be a good loop to run up the cemetery hill and then back down all the way to the house.  My muscles said it may not have been a good idea.  See I had run the cemetery before, but I drove to the school, would run down the cemetery and then back up.  The difference on this run is I ran to the bottom of the cemetery, then ran up, then around the school and then down the big hill, back to the house.  I was reasonably pleased with the effort as the old legs were burning during the run, but this is probably the first time that was actually easier to run than walk that I have experienced.  I ran a mid 12 minute pace for the whole run (granted the uphill part was closer to 15/16 minutes) and it took about an hour, so I was really happy about that.  There are some other paths I can take as well to stretch the mileage out a little, plus if I needed to put a lap around the school in that would get me up to whatever mileage I would need.  I figure I can stretch the loop to around 6 and half miles if needed.  There is another loop around the same area that can do 8 pretty easier, but that is aways off.  Overall I don't feel bad after the run, like I thought I would, the weigh in this morning was also a low of 196.6 lbs. so that is good news.  The program I'm on I should take tonight off, and then test tomorrow for 12 minutes at race pace. We'll see how this progresses, but so far so good on the first big jump for me.

skyview app - A review

Downloaded the Skyview app for my Samsung S10 and it is the best star layout app that I have used.  I had trouble with apps in the past, but this one actually shows the stars, planets and constellations.  Pretty neat.  You can use it any time of day as well and snap awesome screen shots of constellations doing crazy things...

You can see Orion just hanging out at the fire...

Or attaching Peach during the day.  I don't think he likes the sun...

WATCH OUT SAMPSON!!!! IT'S CANCER!!!!

Hey Aquarius, stop pouring stuff on me...

Sophie attacking a bear.  This is good stuff.  Anyway there is also some neat astronomy stuff too, and it links to the wiki for information on the constellation, you know if you want to use it outside.

2 seconds

This is what 2 seconds looks like in a 40-49 age group in a 5k coming to the finish line.  I mean if I knew that was my competition I would have stepped it up earlier, but looking at my UA map my run stats I was at about 212 beats per minute on the old ticker coming to the line so that was all I was giving at the end. Plus I ran like 90% of the race at my max heart rate.

Betty Zane 2019

So me and this guy - one won the race, and one got second in his age group.  Probably no reason to go into specifics, but I am proud of this kid for getting his first ever 5k win.  Pretty cool that it is at home and Dad got to be in the race too.  So even though I didn't win (spoiler alert, wait did I do that right? I mean seriously you should be able to tell from the pic) I did set a PR with an official 28:58 clocking.  The temperature was about 82° and sunny, it felt warmer than the 82 for sure.  I modified my race strategy to seeking shade when possible and stretching out the walking periods in the shade.  I'm glad I got a PR by about 30 seconds, but I was hoping for 25 minutes when I started training and trying to get to around 27 as a minimum (wait a tick if I change the minutes to seconds . . .that makes it a 24 minutes and 238 second run, so sub 25 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).  I have done more focused training this year than the past 2 years, but feel this result is a little disappointing.  I'm on the right path though.

Disclaimer: on Sunday I did wreck the riding lawn mower at Mom's house over the bank.  It ended up flipping up on one side, not sure how it didn't keep rolling over the hill, but when it tipped over I landed in some pretty tall weeds and apparently some poison ivy.  I have a pretty decent bruise on my leg and the poison was bad enough that I had to get a shot.  So no excuses, but that is not the best way to finish your training before a race.  I told Sampson this and he said "noted".  Love that kid. I may make a blog post on this event...stay tuned.

Anyway he was actually a little disappointed too.  You see the last 1/2 mile or so of the race is pretty much a straight shot to the finish and Sampson had been leading pretty much the whole race.  Well his buddy from last year, who had the bad race at the end of the XC season, came up to him and started chatting it up during the race.  Well Sampson was about out of breath and so I don't think he responded, but then his buddy went out ahead a little and even though nothing was said, Sampson said that he thought his buddy checked up a little bit and maybe... just maybe let him win.  I didn't see the end of the race, like not the first finishers, I mean I saw the end when I got there about 10 minutes later but... I told him that he should remember last year and how is buddy had his worst race of his senior season at districts and he thought he was done until the team pulled out a qualifier for regional with Sampson running a PR and placing number 8 overall and first for the team.  I told him, maybe he didn't let him win as much as he wanted to square up.  Or maybe he just cramped up or something and he got the dub out right.  Sometimes you can't over think things, I mean be glad you won the race kid.

Anyway back to my race.  So I have been training on the course pretty religiously this summer. I would say I have run the full race at least twice, but run the first mile or so about 20 times.  Last year there was a water table right after the first mile, so I kind of planned on hitting the first mile pretty hard, taking a little break at the water station, to wet the old whistle and then run hard to the rec center.  I would try and catch my breath a little before the hill and run up the hill.  Well there was no water station after the first mile.  This through my race into complete chaos.  Well maybe not complete chaos, but definitely had me thinking more, like were there going to be any water stations, and was I screwed, would I die of the dehydration like Bobby Boucher's Daddy.  Anyway I have been training without drinking water on a run, but it was hot and I was trying harder than normal and my mouth was really dry at this point.  Well the first station ends up being at the top of the rec center hill.  Which is actually a good location because you can take a quick break after the big hill, recover and take off on a pretty straight flat stretch, with a nice little down hill for about a mile.  Well once I broke the seal of stopping then it becomes to easy to stop and I probably stopped about 4 more times.  I ran a practice race on Saturday and finished in 29:58 and I only stopped 3 times, and the last little downhill from total sports I clocked a 6 minute mile for about a tenth of a mile.  This time though I wanted to meet that time goal so every time I ran I tried to run hard and with good form, but the endurance just wasn't there.  I think I have some good technique now, but no aerobic.  Anywho, I am happy with the finish, but I have some unfinished business.  Which is good in a way, because I am still motivated.  I do like running, but I need to figure some more stuff out, and do more speed work. I only trained at a max of 12 miles per week, which is above what I have done in the past, but the results are only sub 29.  I mean a tractor did roll on me 3 days prior so there was that.  But I think I need to run around 20 miles or so a week in order to break that 27 barrier, and if I can get the cardio, I may be able to get sub 25.  I'm not sure that I can or will ever be able to keep a pace of sub 20 starting this late in life running, but that may be wayyyyy out there as a goal.  More likely I will run a half marathon before I break 20, but it may be fun to see what can happen first.  Oh some more motivation, the guy who got first in my age group...beat me by 2 seconds.  But honestly I tried to run as fast as I could that last little bit, and I just couldn't get there.

Anyway it was great to run in a race with my son, who I never actually saw after about the first 1/4 mile until the finish line.  But I have some goals and look forward to meeting them.  I was think about running the Debbie Green race, but Sophie said that was a bad idea to run two 5k's in the same week.  Well it is also a bad idea to roll a lawn mower on you and get poison ivy, so why the heck not run two.  Well she never signed me up, so there's that, but maybe next year...

Valentine's Day Massacre

That title may be a little harsh for 7th grade girls basketball, but it totally fits.  You see yesterday was the final game of the season for Peach's team and the girls had gone undefeated all season.  The closest game was maybe 6 or 8 points (more on that later) but the rest of the games were double digit wins and the game before the finals was a 32 point blow out.  So basically all season the team had played the 10 girls on the team at some point every game and for most of the games the substitutions were quite liberal.  Now my opinion on the subject is that junior high teams and high school teams should sub frequently if they want to win... if you have the players obviously.  It is unlikely that a team has 10 players that are all of an equal level, but honestly there are probably about 2 or 3 that should get more minutes and the next 4 or 5 should be subbed early and often.  Also at this point in a season a coach should have developed a rotation of subs - basically if you have 1 or 2 people that you want to sub infrequently you have found a way to sub them at the end of quarters or at the beginning of quarters to get them some extra rest and the other players can develop some chemistry or a style with the big gun on the bench.  Because if you don't the team is going to get tired and you eventually lose due to attrition, and it takes one heck of a coach to pull the trigger for a sub with 3 minutes left in the game when they haven't subbed much before that, and one heck of a player to step into that situation cold.  The alternative is that you use timeouts to generate rest for the player, both of which Peach's team didn't do and resulted in a 34-31 lose to a very good team.  But a team that didn't play everyone, but did sub frequently with 7 girls.  Peach played for maybe 3 -4 minutes in the game out of 24.  Now let me say one other thing about subbing at the end of the season.  I think a lot of people think that as the season goes on you get more and more conditioned to play, but I think it is the opposite.  In the early season you focus a lot on running and conditioning, but as the season goes on, it becomes about practicing plays or game planning for a team and the practices become much more focused on strategy and most of the running a player will do is in the games.  So if you have played without subbing up to this point all the sudden loading players up with minutes in a game is going to backfire spectacularly.  This is how I envision Sampson's team losing this year in either the sectional or district, because we haven't developed bench players, and there are 2 guys that never get subbed unless they are in foul trouble. Any who, back to the massacre...
So Peach's team hasn't lost all year and most of the wins have been by double digits including one by 60 points.  Her team has probably shot more 3's than Sampson's team in less games.  Now traditionally with junior high teams if they are running the table and throwing up big point totals then they are probably pressing and getting layups, but Peach's team has pressed probably less than 5% of the time and plays almost exclusively man to man.  Most of  the time if a pressing team gets beat it is because the other team can handle the pressure and eventually get a layup on the other end because the pressing team is badly out of position against good ball handling teams, so a team that can dominate in the half court and dissect presses is hard to beat, which is what I would call Peach's team.  They also can go 8 deep, (qualifier here, the top girl is one of the better 7th grader's I have seen, boy or girl after that one girl can shoot, one can handle the ball, and the next two are taller, but the first 3 off the bench are versatile, short but fast and a good rebounder, strongest girl on the team) and have been giving more time to the 9 girl at the end of the year so the team is deep.  For this game though the coach didn't sub any in the first quarter or the last quarter, and only subbed once in the second and third for about 3 or 4 minutes total.  The bottom 3 starters have not experienced this kind of work load and to put them in that situation in a championship game was not well thought out.  If you play a certain way (and most of the time after 4 or 5 minutes it was sub 3 girls out) and win your games you should stay with that style and if you win, then you win playing your game, but if you lose, then you lost playing how you know how to play.  The girls didn't get that chance and when they were up 13 to 6 in the second quarter it really had that feel of "if we don't start subbing we are going to get tired and lose"... and that is exactly what happened.  The other thing that cost them is - if you aren't going to sub, you need to use timeouts to get players rest.  We left with 4 timeouts in our pocket.  Another thing they could have done was play zone.  While her team didn't normally play zone, it could have been very affective against the team they were playing.  They used a lot of screening action and back cuts to score that could have been neutralized, plus I don't know that they were a great shooting team, so packing in a defense and making them score over the top could have been very effective, especially after we had the lead.  A zone also helps your team rest, which if you aren't going to sub is kind of important.  But we didn't play any zone, and at the end of the game the girls were getting turned completely around, and couldn't find the ball on defense.
I felt really bad for Peach, because she is honestly one of the best 5 basketball players on her team, but she isn't fast so she gets over looked, even though she is a good passer, dribbler, and rebounder.  I understand coming in the first day of practice, looking at a team and deciding who the best 5 girls are and those are your starters, but if one person has a good day, or one has a bad day and you are too rigid to change your evaluation, then that limits you as a coach.  There was absolutely no way, that you can go a whole season and not see this.  Time will tell but I guess if Peach ever wants to have a shot, it isn't about basketball, it is about how quick they are.  Dumb.  If a kid has a skill set to a sport (good batter or pitcher in baseball, dribbling/passing/shooting in basketball) being super quick isn't the most important thing.  Good technique can make up for a lack of quickness or height in basketball too, but those have to actually be coached.  One last thing, just a coincidence maybe,  but Sampson's 7th grade team lost in the championship too.  They came back and won it all the next season and only lost one game...  No pressure kid.

2018 XC has reached the Finish Line

Well it was a really successful season.  Both teams ended up taking a ton of hardware to the house and in the end they both made it to Regionals!!! So Sampson had probably his best race at Districts this year and helped pull the team through.  Our senior that had finished first for the team all year, cramped up and finished 7th for the team and everyone thought we were toast and that he had run his last race and it was really sad because he had done so well all season and had probably his worst race of his career on his last race.  It was really similar to how Sampson ran last year, like so similar that their times were within 3 seconds of each other.  Anyway when I saw that he was hurting and fading back I started running around and telling Sampson that he was going to have to pick it up and it was up to him to help the team, well all the boys really if they were going to advance.  And wouldn't you know it, it was crazy the way they picked it up and finished top 4, with the top 6 moving on to regionals!! Sampson actually qualified on his own and the boy who would have been 6th for the team end up finishing like 45th overall and that was plenty to move on.  Our senior got to redeem himself at the regionals and took the top spot back for the team, but no one was able to advance to State :(.  On the bright side we did get experience at regionals, oh and the boys that did score in the district, well they are all sophomores and freshmen so the future looks pretty bright.  Oh and one other thing, Sampson got named to the All T-L team for the news paper.  Anyway here is a link to the end of the season video which was pretty sweet.  Coach's husband made it (Coach is a woman so its cool) and she never lets him hold the trophies and stuff, but like he totally should and it would have been awesome if he snuck a pic of himself with all the trophies at the end, but he didn't.  Just would have been cool.

 

Also here is my view of the Parade.  It was pretty cool and you can see it in the first video, but this is what it looked like when they passed me.

The Tale of the District Race of Aught '17

Well it is almost District race time, so it seems like a good time to recap the race from just last year.  You see it was Sampson's first district race last year and it is really good for a freshman to run as a scorer for a high school team, but it may not be the best thing.  You see (man used that two in row to start a sentence, no worries, I'll fix it next sentence) he ran really well for most of the season.  He was hurt in the first race (which I didn't get to see because I had to go to New York for business, and I actually moved the trip back so I could see him run, but it was too muddy so they moved the race back a day and I ended up missing it.  And then we ended up not doing the project at work anyway so it was a complete loss.  Going off topic a little here) and he set out the next 2 races then scored in the 4/5 spot for the team basically the rest of the season.  So the make-up of the team was 2 seniors, 1 junior and the rest of the scorers were freshman.  Yikes, right?  Well they were pretty good last year even with the inexperience, but the inexperience came out at districts, at least for Sampson.  You see (hey it been a couple sentences so it's cool to go back to the old stand-by) he ran his best race of the year the race right before districts a PR of 17:34 (which stood until this last race, now it is at 17:12) so he was feeling really good.  His prep for races wasn't the best though.  We never got overly involved in the prep side of the races, we just kind of let him do his thing and just tried to make sure he didn't over do it the night before.  Well for the district race we did the same thing and he looked fine when he got there.  He started out well, in about 4th for his team probably somewhere around the top 30 or so (top 24 qualify for regional)  and I'm watching him go up the hill and around the school, so I hustle to the side to see him come around.  I get up there and I see the kids he was with and no Sampson.  So I'm like did I miss him.  Then the other freshman on the team comes through and still no Sampson.  So he would be like 5th for his team.  I keep waiting and waiting and now I start getting a little worried.  I can't remember if the other kid came through or not (also a freshman), but when I finally see Sampson he is like gassed...bad.  He grabs his chest and says his chest is hurting like he is really cramping badly.  So I go around to the front of the school and he is really slowing, Sophie is closer to the finish and she is waiting there and getting worried and she sees a kid collapse.  Well he finally finishes, but he does get passed and finishes 6th for the team a little of 20 minutes and ends up at like 103rd in the race.  Well the team finishes 11th or so and he tells us his prep for the race.  He drank a cup of milk.  For like 18 hours.  That is all he had.  No water, just one cup of milk.  That is not efficient to be at top race form.  So this year he is hydrated regularly, and he is taking his race prep a step further.  He is doing ice baths the night before.  The team is similar to last year, but the seniors are gone, the junior has stepped up to the lead spot, Sampson is probably the number 2 guy (he has finished as low as 4 for the team, but not lately), there is another sophomore that is 3 (and has finished no lower than 3rd for the team), 2 freshman and another sophomore for the next 3 spots.  I don't think the team is as top heavy as last year, but I think as a whole they are much better.  Our 7 and 8 are also a freshman and sophomore.  So the future is bright, but they did win the OVAC and have won about 4 meets this year, so there is a chance they can make it to the regional.  I hope they do, but last year there was only one team from our area that made it, and they have their whole team back this year.  Sampson's team has beaten them this year, but last race they actually tied and it came down to the 6th man.  Which our guy was better.  But one thing I am sure of.  Sampson will be hydrated before this race.  Well I'll try and check-in after the race and let you know if the season continued or not.  Hopefully they do.  Also I'll give you a update on the girls team.  #TheFive.  Totally made for a movie.  Hey maybe I could get a bit part in the movie.  I could be the guy at the race that brings the staff.  You know "Race Staff Guy".  I have the staff already, could be pretty sweet.

The Long Way Home

Pretty much a photo that should be up for some kind of award. I took this while me, Peach and Sampson were out for a run/walk.  Well mostly a walk for me and  Peach.  Sampson took off and left us, so we just kind of looked for cool walking sticks and what not.  Anyway Peach wants to be famous so here goes.  I edited it again, here is that version.

Proof of Slow Motion

Just messing around with some of the google picture features and trying to link to blogger.  I took a video of Peach yesterday and in slow motion it looks half way neat, but at regular speed it is hilarious.

NBA 2018-19

Couple of things I wanted to get down so I could look back and not believe how incredibly wrong I could be in the future.  Well now that the disclaimer is out of the way here we go.

First I think Mo Bamba is going to be a bust.  Just saying.  This guy reminds me of Hasheem Thabeet or however you spell it because man that guy was bad.  Any way, I think he is in the same mold of player and I just don't see all the hype.

Luca Doncic will be ROY.  Book it. 

Grayson Allen will be top 3 in ROY voting or at least make the first team. 

Golden State will win the championship (really went out on a limb there).

Lakers make the playoffs, and so do the Cavs.

Butler will end up in Philly, or not.  Sampson says Toronto (HA!) we'll see.

I'm going to watch a ton of games because we got LEAGUE PASS!!!

Ok that is all for now. 

Warble Watch 2018

Just so everyone knows Sophie has not had any warbles yet.  yet...

'Ol 5 hundo

Just as an update the old blog passed post 500 there a couple of post ago.  Up to 503 now.  Only took about 14 years.  Wow.  Been blogging long?  Yeah about 14 years, I just said that.  Hopefully I can get to 1,000 in a little under 30 years.  Well at the rate I have been going lately it may be more like 50.  Anyway thanks for reading and have a nice day 😁.

Queen of the Court

We are also doing volley ball this fall.  That's right, Peach is taking the court for the first time in competitive volley ball, and it is about the most exciting sport the kids have played.  No seriously.  About every 20-30 seconds someone is scoring a point.  So the if the game is out of hand, no worries it will be over in about 30 minutes.  It's a close competitive game that is going back and forth...well that may take a little longer, but you are guaranteed some suspense.  Kind of like what we got tonight.  The girls dropped a tough one, 28-26, 16-25, 28-26.  Just back and forth the whole game and they were trying to do some higher level stuff and miss hit the ball so you can live with because they are trying to get better and you know at some point that will pay dividends.  Right now they are 5-4 with a revenge game tomorrow.  Hopefully they play well.

Sophie and the Spiders

Ok so Sophie is saying she got bit on the face and the spiders laid eggs in her cheek.  I say she is full of it as spiders won't lay eggs in flesh.  At worst it is fly eggs and she'll have a warble or something.  Guess we'll find out in a few weeks who was right.

Ahhhhh Fall weather, are you ready for some... cross country?

Not what you were expecting huh?  Well I wasn't either, at least not about 5 years ago, but at some point this summer I found myself looking forward to cross country season.  Not for myself, but for Sampson.  You see we did the football thing when he was little and around 5th grade he decided he didn't want to play anymore.  Fine by me that was when all of the head stuff was starting to come out and it really didn't bother me that he didn't want to play even though I think he could have done well.  But I didn't know what would take its place.  Well he decided he would run cross country in 7th grade.  I think some of this came from him running a 5k at the end of basketball season as a 6th grader and he put up a time of 24 minutes, right out of the box.  Me not be experienced in the way of the 5k didn't know if this was good or not.  But after 5 years of racing if an 11/12 year old can run sub 25 with no training, that is pretty darn good.  He is now in the 18 minute range as a sophmore so I was getting excited as the season got closer to watch him run.  You see the great thing about cross country is that you can show up at race time, watch your kid race for about 20 minutes (the less they run the better) and when it is over you can leave if you want or stay and support the rest of the teams, for like another half hour or so.  Or you can go to a "team" sport, sit for 2 or 3 hours waiting to watch your kid play for 5 minutes and then spend the entire post game complaining that your kid should be playing more, but they have the wrong name or the coach is an idiot... but I digress. (I think I used that correctly...yep pretty sure I did)  In cross country you get what you get, if you are good you are in the top 5, if you aren't then you aren't.  There is always the possibility that one of the top guys will have a bad race, and if that happens you could sneak into the top 5, but for the most part it comes down to how well you can run.  Watching Sampson run when he was little, this really wasn't the sport I would have picked for him, but as it turns out I think he has an extremely good natural form for distance running.  Kind of funny how the sport found him, but he has done really well at it and he even met his goal of getting all conference already.  Well there is still a good bit of the season left and hopefully I'll be back on the blog and can tell you how they do.  Also if there is time I'll tell the tale of last years district meet and the cramping situation.  Oh it is a good story.

Only 364 Shopping Days Left

Well another Christmas has come and gone

3rd Annual Christmas Letter, 2009

The first real snow of the year is on the ground so what better time to write the old Christmas Letter. In preparation for writing this year's letter I reviewed some of the previous years' letters. That is one nice thing about the old blog, you can just go back and look at last year's letter anytime, not that i don't keep everyone else's letters too. Anyway 2009 was a little different for the Helfen's. Actually is started out kind of hectic as I was unemployed for about 2 days when the Triple C ranch closed its doors and I went back to the Big O. I wasn't planning on staying there, but things started working out and it ended up being a really good fit for me, so I guess it was kind of a blessing in disguise . . . deep deep cover disguise. Anyway after the initial rough phase of the year things started coming our way. I got Sophie a really nice Sony Camera for her Birthday, actually it was after her birthday because we had to do a lot of shopping for a camera that met all of her needs. Which are a lot for someone who is as particular about her pictures as Sophie is. Sampson played T-ball again for the Pirates and did really well holding down the hot corner for most of the year. It was neat to see how much he had improved since last year. His team even pulled off a legit double play. Football was a little rough this year as the Buckeyes came up short in the playoffs even after scoring more points than the other team, but in the third place game he did score 2 TD's so that was pretty awesome. Now he is playing basketball for the 1st time and doing really well, he even scored in the first game. Peach had a pretty rough year too, like old Dad. She started out getting stitches in February after doing a face plant on a popcorn tin, then she managed to break her arm right before her first ever dance recital. She did really well though, she just didn't get to do her Acro stuff, but we waved and made a big fuss for her and she smiled really big while she was sitting there with the other girls. After the recital, she got flowers and a dancer Barbie. She was very excited. Also me and Sampson won the fishing Derby, which was awesome. We had been trying ever since he could hold a fishing rod, ok even before he could, but this year we won, finally.

After the kids' birthday party in July we headed to Pennsylvania for our vacation. We headed to Lancaster for Dutch Wonderland and a stay at the Howard Johnson and their indoor water park. We detoured through Gettysburg on the way and back, which I thought was really interesting, but Sophie and Sampson didn't enjoy it very much. Peach liked it pretty well I think though. We all enjoyed Dutch Wonderland though. They had a combo amusement park and a water park there and we spent the whole day. We did the sky ride and the roller coasters (the little one once with everyone, I had to ride the big one myself), and the big water slides. It was a very fun trip and slightly educational. The indoor water park was fun too, as it was right in the hotel, then at lunch we went to Chuck E. Cheese and for dinner we went to Friendly's which was neat because they had a balloon guy and he made animals for the kids.

Sophie and the kids also got to go to the Columbus Zoo with her Aunt and her boys this year. That was a long day for them, Dad didn't get to go cause they went in the middle of the week, but Peach is still talking about the trip. Sophie got a lot of neat pics too.

The end of the year seems to be picking up for the Helfen household too. Work is going pretty well, the company stock is up about 1000%, but I don't want to take all the credit for that. I mean I'd like to think I helped. I won Fantasy baseball this year too, so if you see Stevie remind him about that. Also I played a bunch of different online games and met some really neat people. Well here is hoping this finds you happy and healthy, and wishing you a great 2010.

Love,

The Helfens

Kirk, Sophie, Sampson and Peach