There is no "off" season in Soccer

Who could have known that teaching is such a tiring activity.. probably the 20 or so teachers in my extended (and immediate) family. I spent 3 hours on Friday, 9 on Saturday, and 8 on Sunday teaching referee class. 3/4 of the 35 or so students were under 18, yet they were quite a good bunch of students.

I guess in this picture most of the students look bored, sleeping, dazing, day-dreaming, or otherwise uninterested. That is probably because they are just finishing or have just finished a 50 question multiple choice test and a pretty boring test at that. In the end this class saw about 22 new grade 9 (recreational) referees certified with USSF after 12 hours of being stuck with me as an instructor.

This is the smaller group on Sunday that was either recertifying as a grade 8 referee or upgrading from a grade 9 to grade 8. I ended up with 9 folks taking this class and only 3 of them were not 18 or older. This class is a bit more fun for me since a lot of the class already has referee experience and we don't have to cover in painstaking detail all the little details of the lawbook. At any rate, we got 9 more referees either certified or recertified in this class. Then at the end of class we got the update that the USA men's hockey team had tied the game in the last minute, so everyone rushed off to try and watch OT, though I only made it home in time to hear the bad news.

In other news, I tipped the scales Monday March 1st at 199.5 lbs after my 5 mile run. My original goal was to hit 200lbs by the end of January, but since I wasn't able to really start conditioning and workouts seriously until almost the end of January, that goal was pushed until the end of February. Besides this past weekend where I was stuck in a classroom each day, all day, I have been pretty strict with a minimum of 4 core workouts a week (sometimes 6) for 40-60 minutes and a minimum of two 5 mile runs a week, sometimes 3, and two 90 minute games of lunch bunch basketball at the YMCA, and 2.5 hours of indoor soccer on Sunday night when I am in town. So far this week: I ran yesterday and today, 5 miles both times, on the treadmill. I plan basketball Wed/Fri and another 5 mile run on Thursday and hopefully some outdoor running on the track on Saturday. (the weatherman is promising 40F and sun) And then I plan to start next week with Sunday night indoor soccer.

I've been accepted to Jefferson Cup as a referee on both the boys and girls weekend, so I will start getting back into referee mode here in a week and a half. Shortly thereafter the spring club season and assigning duties start as well as college spring friendly games. I also got my official paperwork back from NISOA saying I was accepted into the NRP program and if I send them some more $$ I will be at Elizabethtown National Referee Camp this summer.

In a little family news update, Sarah and the kids and I will be traveling to the DC/VA area over spring break to visit with Sarah's uncle and to do some touristing in DC - and then Sarah and the kids are going to stay with her uncle while I travel down to Richmond for Jeff Cup. Harrison has two more indoor soccer games left and I'm hopeful he will get at least 1 more goal (especially since I wasn't there for his 2nd goal). I have also signed Harrison up for spring outdoor soccer on a U8 rec team and he is very excited for this. The last time he played outdoor soccer he hadn't quite turned 5 and he wasn't very focused!

Safe for work - Lets laugh at soccer players and refs!

-John

Welcome to my blog!

Seems like just yesterday that I posted on this thing last, but I guess it was a month ago. I guess I'm not very dedicated to my blog - probably because my blog is terrible..

Yes, that is Harrison moving so fast on the court that he is entering a time warp and moving Back to the Future. Harrison has had 4 soccer games now which means we have played the other 3 teams once each and one team twice. The team we played twice is the "best" team. They have 2 dominant boys (co-ed teams with usually 3-4 girls and 4-5 boys per team). So we lost twice to the "best" team and tied a game and won a game. We are not supposed to be keeping score, and winning is not supposed to be "important", but the kids sure keep track and so do most of the adults involved, and surely when coaches have their best players on the floor all the time.. Yes, I'm too competitive for recreational sports and get easily frustrated with unbalanced teams.

At any rate, Harrison is having fun(most importantly) and he scored his first goal this past Sunday (SUPER AWESOME HALF-VOLLEY). We didn't get a live action picture of the score, but I heard it made the ESPN shot of the week reel. Sarah did get some pics of the team and then a little "coaching moment."






In other exciting news, winter has kicked the crap out of PA the last couple of weeks. A week ago Saturday Harrison and I spent 4 hours sledding after we got 14" overnight. That was the storm that all the sissy policitians in DC used as an excuse not to go to work. That storm was followed by another 6-8" the following Tuesday & Wednesday. We have had up to 4' snow drifts. A few days of sun this past week melted a lot, but we still have a lot of snow on the ground, especially where stacked up from plowing and shoveling. And now last night we were getting snow again, expecting 4 or 6" more by tomorrow night. When God deals you a messload of snow, make table top jumps! I built a launch ramp and a nice sledding track in our front yard:








Was good fun for Harrison & Claire. Harrison and I built the 4' table top jump on a much steeper, longer hill at the park - no pictures, sorry. Harrison did outsled the other kids and adults in the neighborhood down at the park - never once wiped out off the table top jump and had the longest 3 runs. He was easily clearing 5-6' vertically and launching 10' out over the jump. Impressive stuff - he admitted he was closing his eyes.







In other not-so-exciting news, I have been keeping a pretty rigid workout schedule. Basketball for 90 minutes Wed/Fri, running 3-4 miles Tue/Thur, 30-40 minute core strength workouts 5 days a week and 2.5 hours of indoor soccer on Sunday evenings after Harrison plays. I've almost lost back the 10 lbs to where I was before the evil Holiday break. This weekend I have a referee meeting in Monroeville and then the following weekend I will teach a grade 9 referee class as well as a grade 9->8 bridge class, both in State College. I'm looking forward to teaching the class in State College since I was getting my appendix out last year and missed the class. I kind of feel like a sissy, however, since Bryan Johnson has like 40 stitches in his foot and changed the fuel pump in his car in the snow like 2 days after major foot surgery. Appendix removal is for kids.

Lets see if I can update this thing again within 1-2 weeks. I didn't feel like posting a youtube about doing Russian twists (which is all I could come up with), so instead I will share one of my favorite quotes:

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
-George Orwell

First day of Indoor!

Harrison had his first indoor soccer game yesterday. In fact it was the inaugral indoor soccer match for Bellefonte Soccer Association. Things went really well for a first game. The entire team showed up - on time, and all of the kids were really easy to work with and appeared to have fun. We got spanked - while we don't keep track of the score, it was like 8-2. The best part of the whole thing was this: at half-time the kids on my team were making suggestions for a team name. We were getting standard suggestions for a team with a color of blue - blue whales, blue jays, blue dragons, etc. One girl on the team, however, had very direct suggestions for the team name. "Blue Soccer Players" and yes, she even suggested "Blue Balls" AHHhhHHHhhhh. If only to be young and innocent again. We get next Sunday off and then play again on the 24th - I'm hoping to play a team we can beat to help the kids get some morale building.

In other surprising news, the weather in January in central PA SUCKS! I know this may be shocking to many of you. HI temps this weak are forecast in the mid-20's with most nights in the teens or single digits. This makes outside time mostly suck and I try to limit my outdoor time to that which it takes me to travel from some [heated] building to the car.

In referee news there just isn't a lot going on. I've decided to attend the pro clinic in Ohio South for the 2nd year. I also have found an assessor course in MD at the end of the month to attend, so hopefully I will finally become a legitimate assessor.

No youtube videos today - hopefully in my next update I can find some pictures or a good youtube to share.

-John

New Year Resolutions

It is not #1 on my list, but updating this thing once a week or so is one of my goals for this new decade. Since I last updated this thing, lots got done - the house finaled and we moved in (last summer), the college soccer season came and went, and I drove the family out to AZ for the Christmas break. Sarah also finished her first big step in her PhD program - that much closer to Dr. Douglas. Lots of little things in there as well.

In no particular order, some of the goals for this year:

-finish up some details on the inside of the house
-complete all our landscaping needs
-spend more time with the kids
-go shooting more
-go hunting more
-lose 20 lbs
-pass the "new" USSF pro fitness test this spring
-get accepted as a NISOA national candidate
-submit my USSF national candidate paperwork

A little soccer summary for the college season of 2009:

I worked about 55 games including my August pre-season exhibitions. I traveled over 7000 miles for those games. I did about 10 Div. I games. I was the center for the AMCC mens final (Div. III) played in Buffalo, NY. I was the center for 1st round NCAA mens tournament match at Slippery Rock, PA (Div. II). In total I think I worked 6 or 7 post-season games. I also completed the required assessments and other requirements to become a NISOA national candidate.

My NISOA goals for 2010 - referee at least 60 games, at least 15 Div. I, at least 8 post-season. Complete at least 1/2 of my national assessments, work at least one NCAA tournament center. Score a 5 on all parts of the NISOA fitness test. Attend national camp this summer.

A summary of my USSF soccer season:

I didn't do nearly as much as I would have liked, but I did get in a couple pro games. I attended a pro clinic in Columbus in the spring and passed the fitness test (even though I only had ~2 weeks to get in shape after my emergency appendectomy at the end of Feb.) I upgraded to grade 7 as an instructor. I finally completed my grade 5 upgrade as well. I officiated some state cup and open cup games for PA west. I officiated at Region 1 championships. I taught 2 recertification courses as lead instructor here in Bellefonte.

Looking forward to USSF in 2010, I have some more goals. First is to attend a pro clinic in the spring and pass the new fitness test (interval testing). I hope to work at least 5 pro games (USL1, USL2, PDL, W-league) and would like to work 10 or more - we'll see how many folks pass the new pro-clinic fitness test. I hope to get officially certified as an assessor, but this seems doomed since the course I was scheduled for in PA West this coming weekend got cancelled. I hope to attend 2-3 major tournaments (Dallas Cup, Vets Cup, Regional Championships -youth or adult, Disney Showcase, etc.). My goal is to end this year by submitting my paperwork for national candidacy for certification in 2012.

The holidays always tend to be a brutal time for fitness and healthy eating. This year was no exception. I took my running gear to AZ, but only managed 1 good run and a few long walks. The rest of the time I ate, drove, ate, watched TV, ate, hung out with family, ate, hung out with friends, ate. Unsurprisingly, I gained 10 lbs due a lack of exercise and an increase in eating. 10 lbs is not much, but my goal is to be back to ~200 lbs by the end of January and 190 by fitness test time in the spring. My goal is to maintain 188-195 lbs for the majority of this calendar year, but definitely during the pro and college soccer seasons.

Harrison starts indoor soccer this coming Sunday (U8) and I will be coaching his team. Not much coaching to do, however, as this is the first season of indoor for Bellefonte Soccer and they are not allowing practices - just 8 weeks of games. I'll update on how that goes in my next post. Other than that, not a lot is scheduled for January. Sarah starts back to work/school next week and Harrison started back to school yesterday. Claire and I will be chillin' around the house a lot until I find some jobs.

Some Youtube action: Bellefonte City Rap

Happy New Year!

-John

Progress!

Since I last posted, a lot (a relative term) has finally been done on the house. I finished the roof, the insulation is in and the drywall is all hung. The siders have begun installing the vinyl siding. The gas company finally showed up and put the yard line in and thus I am now able to get heat on so that the drywall can get taped and finished. Tomorrow the weather is calling for snow, sleet, ice, and rain. Thus, I imagine little exterior work getting accomplished, but the first coat should go on the drywall. Here are a couple of recent pictures.. the interior picture is about a week ago and the exterior is from today.

In the good world of soccer, things are about to get busy. I have a class to teach in 10 days in State College and have accepted some college assignments for spring friendlys starting in March. I got back on the treadmill last night to start training, but my knee still is hurting a lot. I played indoor today and it was hurting then as well, but the doctor says I can just play through it. We'll see.

I was trying to think of a good youtube to post, when this beauty jumped out at me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkqrI3IibYI&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div

All hail the previous moron, lets hope the next one isn't as dumb.

-John

I suck at blogs!

So the title about sums it up.. if you don't make regular posts to these things, I don't think it will work right. Who knew?! Since I haven't updated this thing in a while, I will have to cram a lot into one post and rather than start way back in November with anything interesting, I will start with what has happened recently.


What, you may ask, is this lame picture to the left? Well, as it appears, it is a picture of the side of the house. The item to the left of the window sitting in the snow is the bundle of roof shingles I was bracing my foot against when I decided to get off the roof the fast way. The disturbed snow area is where I came to "rest." Nothing appeared to be broken or otherwise in bad shape, so I got back up on the roof again. Now maybe you are asking yourself "Why is this idiot on the roof?" Or maybe you just know me well enough to know that question answers itself.

The main problem I've been having since before Christmas is the craptastic weather here in central PA. Not only is it cold, more than negative 10 a week ago, it is icy. I enjoy snow and I have come to detest ice. Less than 48 hours after I got the roof shingles deliverd and hand stocked them across the roof, we had a doozie of an ice storm, followed with snow storms which were intermingled with more ice storms, and then a wind storm that would make Flagstaff folk feel at home. So I ended up with a roof with a few hundred square feet of felt paper torn off by the PA style tornado, covered in an inch of solid ice which in turn was covered by 6-8" of snow. Yay. After realizing I probably couldn't wait for mother nature to work her magic and melt the roof off so that I could start laying some shingles, I got up on the roof and started shoveling snow, chipping off, and sweeping the roof clean. This led to this:


which happens to be the start of me shingling the roof. This past Friday it was in the low 40's, yes a heatwave struck central PA and I'm sure somewhere, someone died from heat exhaustion. I spent the afternoon in a t-shirt up on the roof and made good attempts to get off the roof the fast way again, but failed miserably. So now it is Sunday and breezy and snowing lightly and cold and miserable again - yes, back to standard PA winter weather. I managed to get the roof about 20% shingled and 90% clear of snow and ice before today. I am hoping tomorrow that I can convince the building inspector to let me insulate and start drywall even though the roof is not on. That is the stage the house is at - a roof partly done and ready for insulation and drywall inside and waiting on the siding crew to get started on the outside.

On the soccer front.. I flew out to central CA (Lancaster, CA) the first week of December for the US Soccer youth development academy. This was a 4 day tournament where the US Soccer program recruits players from U15, 16, 17, 18 teams for the US national teams. The U17 team from Brazil and also from Australia were at the venue and played a round robin of friendly games with the two US U17 teams. I was slated to referee games Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, but managed to screw up my IT band (my knee) on my first day so didn't work any games Sat/Sun and then had 3 more games on Monday. My final game late on Monday afternoon was between the Nike Rush team from Virginia and the DC United U18 team. There was no love lost between these two teams and it was quite a challenging game. That ended the 2008 soccer season for me - it was nice to end with a difficult game.

As I was preparing to travel back to PA at the end of the tournament in CA, I instead ended up traveling only so far as Phoenix and spent time with family there and said a goodbye to my grandmother who had lived a phenomenal 95 years. She passed away peacefully while sleeping in a morphine wonderland. And as with the passing of one life, the start of a new one was not far behind as Pat and Dusti Prentice welcomed a little girl (Rori Jordan) into the world in the first part of January 2009.

So now I am all caught up with my blog duties. Soccer has already struck as I attended a referee admin meeting in Pittsburgh last Sunday which made me realize just how soon the spring soccer season starts here in the East. In a month I have a new referee class to teach and soon thereafter starts the spring season and the uniform goes back on. With a pro clinic in Ohio in April and state cup in May and regionals not too far after, I'm sure it is going to be a very busy spring. I still hope to finish the house up and be moved in by the end of March.

To make myself feel better about getting down off the roof the fast way, I thought I'd share some other construction "incidents". Safe for work - enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8h0RtMqx94

-John

Ready, Steady, Frame

We lost 3 days due to "weather" which would include rain, cold, snow, ice stormy crap, etc. Luckily, we started framing last Friday and the picture is from today. Walls deliver tomorrow and trusses next week. Nothing much else exciting is happening!

I did one mens playoff game last week, but it wasn't very competitive. In light of that, I thought I'd post a referee youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjynbUNlvWU

Enjoy.

-John