Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Football Hi-Jinx

Almost two weeks into 8th grade football practice and I'm already going nuts.

We started with 22 players ... just enough for 2 teams. Now, with 3 players gone simple because "they couldn't do it," we're down to 19. On top of that ... our players are going on last-minute vacations to whereever and it's totally screwing up our game plan. For example, on Tuesday, we only practiced with 12 players.

Our next game is the 6th. Are we ready? Haha ... I wish we were, but today, I saw considerable progress once we got our roster back up to 18 players again. We finally got into tackling today and while right away during some tackling drills we looked a little rough (shoulder tackles, hitting too high), later on we looked damn good, in my opinion.

This year has been a change, as we were finally incorporated into the high school scheme of things -- running their plays, knowing the terminology so once they get to the 9th grade level, they have a better understanding of what's going on.

Noticing them last year as 7th graders, I had low expectations as what they were doing and how they were performing on the gridiron. Now this year, they've already shown me how smarter they've become, especially in terms of the new formations we've added to our playbook. We've already got a few plays down COLD (running plays ... no passing yet) and we'll gradually get deeper into the playbook as the season progresses.

Slue

Slue.

That's my new word that refers to the "evil women" in this town. The homewreckers. Slues.

And I'm not just talking about the high school ladies in this town ... man, I could write on a book on those from all the stories I hear about doing the most STUPID, ridiculous things.

I'm talking about the older ladies in town ... the ones who've had like 4 kids with 3 different fathers (I may be exaggerating a bit), but again, they can sure start up a shit-storm that will only bring others down to their level. I'm not going to get into any specifics, but these "slues" are starting rumors about yours truly.

Happy about it? I think not. My next-door neighbor of a slue right now is mowing her lawn and I would love to run her over with it.

Monday, August 27, 2007

MN Fantasy Football Draft Results

Last Thursday, I participated in yet another Fantasy Football draft with all my Minnesota friends. Again, we still got 12 players in the league, but the main change this year is the web site that we are using to help us tally up the points and so forth. Last year, we used ESPN.com, but now we are using a site called FleaFlicker.com which is strictly used for fantasy football.

Same rules apply, maybe a couple of points changes, but nothing too spectacular. Again, the 12 teams are divided into three divisions (four teams each), which it makes it a little more exciting. There is a continual excitement in the air for me, as I am the defending CHAMPION from the 2006 season. I see no reason why my team this year can take me deep into the the playoffs, but I'm still hoping that there's that one "dark horse" that I can pick up to carry me to the championship game.

My success in the past years:
  • 2005 South Dakota Fantasy Football League Champion (12 teams)
  • 2006 South Dakota Fantasy Football League Runner-Up (12 teams)
  • 2006 Minnesota Fantasy Football League Champion (12 teams)

This year's draft ... here's the results for the MN League.

  1. Brian Westbrook, RB
  2. Drew Brees, QB
  3. Torry Holt, WR
  4. Vince Young, QB
  5. DeAngelo Williams, RB
  6. Jake Delhomme, QB
  7. Chris Chambers, WR
  8. Kellen Winslow, TE
  9. LenDale White, RB
  10. Santonio Holmes, WR
  11. Jacksonville, Defense
  12. Chris Cooley, TE
  13. DJ Hackett, WR
  14. Michael Turner, RB
  15. Rian Lindell, K

This year, instead of starting 10 players, we are only starting 8:

  • 1 QB
  • 2 RB
  • 3 WR/TE
  • 1 K
  • 1 Defense
  • 7 Bench players

I feel pretty good about my team, but obviously I have holes in my line-up that could be easily filled as the season progresses.

Viper, Maverick, and the Iceman

After a long summer of great times, who would've thought that would I pull off a "last hurrah" of sorts last weekend. One would think that I would be all kinds of tired and wore out from the parties and the softball that the month of August has to offer, but last weekend was one more wedding in the books, as a good buddy of mine, Shane, got married.

When there's a wedding, there's obviously got to be a wedding dance! It would be the second one of the season, following a pretty good one when Jarrod and Jess got married back in July. Things started well, especially with the weather, as the air was dry and temps hovered in the low-70's, so there wasn't much to complain about. Inside the church, however, it was quite a bit warmer. Watching Shane, Schrupp, Mike, and Sean all teetering up there trying to stay on their feets with those heavy tuxes, I couldn't blame them.

The wedding itself didn't last too long, but afterwards it seemed to take forever just to get to the reception. Lacey, Tammy, and myself were all pretty vocal about our frustration over the lateness of the serving of the food (because we were all simply so hungry), but the time came and all was better.

After the dinner, the fun was "attempting" to start, as the beer began to flow. The tables were finally cleared and the music started, although the DJ didn't have a clue what the hell she was doing. First off, the music was too soft, then once she turned it up, the equalizer was all kinds of messed up, as she cranked up the bass and the treble was low -- the result was muffled singing. She finally perfected it well into the evening, especially after she had a few drinks in her.

But all night, we were simply pissed off at the DJ. We wrote up karoke tickets and put them in early, but then it wasn't until 3 hours later until we got up there. We came up with some sweet stage names, "The Man-Whores" floated around a bit, but we pulled off a pretty sweet homage to "Top Gun" with call signs from the movie:
  • Myself: Viper
  • Mike: Maverick
  • Sean: Iceman

Nobody wanted to be Goose. I wonder why?

Mike and Sean thought the DJ was ignoring us on purpose because earlier that night I yelled "You suck!" at the DJ because she ... sucked. But once we got up there, they knew what they were missing!

Dance and Karaoke Highlights:

  • Mike and Sean's "Smokey Mountain Rain" by Ronnie Milsap.
  • Dancing to Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mine" -- the all-famous three-step dance that a bunch of us invented back in high school.
  • Shane and Schwartz singing "My Ding-a-Ling" by Chuck Berry.
  • Mike and myself singing "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.
  • Myself singing Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea."
  • Mike dancing the "Cha Cha Slide." By far, that was the moment of the night.

I didn't want to embarrass myself too much since there were people bartending that I knew pretty well.

We were all pretty full by the end of the night (they were kicking us out at 12:30 a.m.), but we were lucky that Schrupp's wife Becca showed up (sober!) and drove back where the wedding was held and ended up at the bar for one last drink prior to the 2:00 a.m. closing time.

It took a little while to sober up, but I finally got back to The Farm at 3:00 a.m. and I slept like a rock. Surprisingly, I didn't feel too bad when I woke up ... I was just so bloody tired. Later on, I drug my tired old butt over to Sean and Tammy's to watch the UFC pay-per-view that Sean taped from the night before.

Now, I'm still a bit tired (from the first day of In-Service and a hot and windy football practice), but I'm almost recovered. So far, I'm not planning on doing a whole lot for Labor Day weekend, but I'm sure something will come up.

Monday, August 20, 2007

CPI Update -- What's Next?

With the "project of projects" all over and completed, I'm faced with a problem that I thought would never occur: what can I do next?

Some thoughts have been swirling around in my head. Instead of a documentary, maybe pull off an actual film with an original screenplay? That's my main goal as of right now, but I need to pull some ideas together.

This time, I really do not want to depend on myself, I would like to get of my friends involved. Mike and Robb are usually quite the writers (Mike even wrote a short screenplay, a Western) and if they came up with an idea, I can sure write the screenplay.

I've got all this equipment and I would like to put it to some use! We'll see what happens in the future of CPI, since I'm going back to work at school and Mike and Robb have their own lives, but hopefully something will work out.

A Mid-August Update

With the Third Year just a couple of weeks away, I figured to fire up TonyTimes once again. My summer -- this summer -- is probably considered to be the comebacks-of-comebacks, bringing forth so much fun and happiness that I haven't experienced in quite some time.

As the summer wanes, there's a lot of look back on. I never in my life played so much slow-pitch softball in my life, probably since the days when I played church league and men's league ball back in the HomeTown, during those high-school days. I played so much that I haven't been in such good shape since I can't remember when!

But, just last Saturday night on August 18, the summer culminated into the Premiere of the latest Crash Productions, Inc. production, "The Owl Garden: A Retrospective." My first full-length film was completed, all 2 hours and 5 minutes of it.

Due to the cool temperatures and rainy weather, the Premiere was moved to the hay loft in the barn at my parent's farmsite and as it turned out, it was an unbridled success. We had a great crowd consisting of cast members, parents, and siblings. Mike and I set up a large screen inside the barn and the projector that I borrowed from Dad worked out amazingly.

Being the director, I was pretty worried about how it was going to be received. The crowd reacted with applause and laughter, and towards the end of the film, there were a few sniffles in the audience. Although I was getting pretty drunk by this point, it was a pretty good feeling.

Now, back in P-Town, I'm preparing for my third year of coaching middle school football. We dished out equipment and we're ready for practice tomorrow. I'll admit that I'm still in "softball-mode" and haven't grasped the feeling of football yet, but going through some of the new playbooks from our new head football coach and playing NCAA Football 08 on the PS3, it's slowly coming back.

This up-coming weekend should be one for the ages, as our good buddy Shane is getting married. The reception and dance should be a great one as usual!