Super Wrong Prediction

Well, it is a good thing that I am not above being proved wrong. Unfortunately, the last-second drive was not meant to be, but it still made for a pretty good Super Bowl. I thought that the National Anthem was interesting although I love how Deion Sanders put on twitter that it was simply a "remix." Also, I was just reading all the stories on the Internet trashed the Black Eyed Peas, but I didn't think that they were that bad. Now on to the game. I thought that Pittsburgh came out incredibly slow and dug themselves in way too deep to get out. By the time they decided to start putting themselves together, they were already down by 14, and no team has ever come back from a deficit greater than 10 in the Super Bowl. I thought that tonight might be the night, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. I was very impressed with Aaron Rodgers however. He came up big when he needed to what was obviously a huge part of the game. A number six team pulled off their last upset, so that is always fun, but I was hoping that the result would be different.

Photo by opensourceway on Flickr

Start Spinning

Okay, so as usual, here are my goals for tonight's practice.

First, I want to land some awesome spin kicks. When I was practicing last weekend on my own since I couldn't be at practice, I was getting them very well. I hope I can land them when more people are watching and when everything is flowing at game speed.

I also came to the realization that I should not be afraid of going in reverse. If I am trapped in the corner with someone so that it is a one-on-one situation, everyone else needs to be 10 feet away. While I realize that none of us are perfect with this rule yet, I need to realize that I don't have people right behind me because they should not be there in that situation. Therefore, I can back someone down and then spin kick to clear it out of the bottleneck.

Finally, this isn't really a goal, but I am very excited that, if the Facebook event is any indication, we are going to have a pretty good turnout today. It is so great to see our team growing and developing, and I hope that we keep growing. According to business theory, if you're not growing, you are dying.

Memorable Night

Well, I finally made my way down to my alma mater of Spaulding High School to see the boys' basketball team play, and I really had no idea all that would happen tonight. For one, Evan Tullar put in his 1000th career point much to the enjoyment of the crowd. Ever since he arrived at Spaulding as a sophomore, he has become one of the more dominant players in Division I. So, congratulations Evan on a great night tonight and a great career so far! I told you that I would come to the game, and I guess I picked a good one! What must have made tonight more memorable was the fact that Spaulding knocked off Burlington by 12 which was excellent. I have sat in that gym many times only to see us fall to the Seahorses. Incidentally, what kind of team situated on a lake rather than a sea is named the Seahorses? Shouldn't they be the Lakehorses? I never understood how that came about. Anyway, what made it even greater than that was that the Crimson Tide had to make a comeback in the process. Not that I ever want them behind, but come-from-behind victories are especially awesome. So, congratulations to everyone else as well! There is something about high school basketball that is just amazing.

Photo by chillihead on Flickr

Goal Congruency

So, my power soccer coach Sandy asked me what I wanted to get out of power soccer, so here's a list that I wrote.

·         Be given the opportunity to continue improving through challenge

·         Progress on a track to be able to play with highly competitive teams and not be humiliated

·         Be able to be able to help my teammates improve as well

·         Make a contribution as far as organization or administrative work goes to help our team advance to the "next level"

·         Gain a greater understanding of the game to improve intelligent aggression and decrease senseless penalties (excessive two-on-ones that are clearly my fault)

·         Obviously, having fun and enjoying my teammates

I think it is a pretty good list, but what do you think? I think that these are relatively realistic goals given our current level of play. While I think that they are ambitious definitely, I do not believe that they are outrageous given that they are also not all immediate goals but rather where I want to grow to. This is a good exercise for everyone so that you can understand what you really want out of this great experience of a team sport.

Spring is Coming

I think that all of this snow is ridiculous. Apparently, we are supposed to get a lot more snow over the weekend and next week. That is also ridiculous. Anyway, you can listen to the news if you want to hear that stuff, so that is not why you're here. You're here to listen to me talk about something that I'm avoiding talking about right now because I am still thinking about what I should write. I think I'm going to write about how I was very excited to see my homework level slowly dropping. Along with this snow, I think that the homework is also ridiculous. There are a lot of ridiculous things in the world apparently, and another one will be if the Phillies do not win the World Series this year. Of course, we can't talk like that because we know they're going to win the World Series anyway, so it is pointless to speculate otherwise. I think that this team has the best pitching they have ever had, so even though the Bank is a hitter's ballpark, that does not discount the fact that these pitchers will do better than anyone else even if they do give up more runs than they would if they played in a giant ballpark because the opposing pitchers have to come to Philadelphia as well. It will be a fun year I have no doubt!

Perspective

It can be overwhelming to look at everything at once. I had that happen twice yesterday. I was meeting with my group for my management class and essentially the end product that our group will have to produce will be a 100 page paper. Of course, looking at that right now while we haven't physically written anything is overwhelming. However, if we look at just the 20 page first part that we have to write for a few weeks away, it definitely is not so overwhelming anymore. Then, I talked to some of my power soccer teammates just to talk about the game and visit, and the conversation went to thinking about what is involved in creating a first-class organization similar to what other teams have been doing. Of course, if you look at everything that these organizations do, it can be kind of overwhelming because it does seem to require a lot of money to make these things happen. Of course, it is totally possible to do this because obviously there are teams who are already doing this, but it is important to look at everything in steps. Yesterday was pretty great in that respect, and now I see how all of this stuff will be able to get done.

Photo by Sir_Iwan on Flickr