On Vacation

In which I'm in Michigan

Be back in a week¹.
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¹ I've been waiting to make this joke for over a year now.

On Patriotism Through Athletic Competition

In which we take an anecdotal look into the love of sport and country.

Something you may not know about my friends is that we love a good chant.  Not in a Gregorian sort of way, more in a goofy, obnoxious sort of way.  For example, if you walk into a room with a large group of us hanging out there is a good chance we will start chanting, “Tim, Tim, Tim…¹”

This past weekend I had the honor being an usher at my good friends’ wedding².  At both the bachelor party and the wedding reception we got some fantastic chants going.  The best, however, came right before Brett and Jenny left the reception.  All the guests that were left had been chanting a ten second countdown in an effort to force the happy couple to appear, but to no avail.  Too keep the crowd into we switched chanting the ABC’s.   As we approached the last quarter of the infamous song I whispered to my fellow ushers.  The result was the following:

“…R…S…T…USA…USA…USA…”

Everyone around us quickly jumped on board, it was glorious.  The USA chant us one of our favorites and had been used as both the wedding and bachelor party multiple times.  But what was the cause of this sudden, and raucous outpouring of national pride?   A little thing I like to call the glory of sport³.

In case you haven’t heard the World Cup (in which either soccer or football is played depending on where you live) is currently going on in South Africa.  It’s only the most watched sporting event in the world, if you don’t count yourself among those that do watch you should probably get on that.  There have already been some memorable moments for the good ole US of A.

In game one versus England the US was down one-nil⁴ early on and things were not looking good.  Until the Americans had a strong shot on goal.  It seemed like England’s goal would field the ball cleanly until.




Whoops! USA…USA…USA!  Final score 1-1 (+10 national pride points for hanging with the limey brits).
Game two versus Slovenia was one that we absolutely couldn’t lose if we wanted to move on.  Slovenia jumped up to a seemingly insurmountable 2-0 lead.  But the scrappy Americans clawed their way back in and tied it up at 2-all (+7 national pride points for hanging tough New Kids style).  Then, out of no where, on a free kid the US scored a third goal taking the lead.


USA…USA…USA! But wait, the head ref call a penalty on the US and waves the goal off.  However, on replay there was no foul to be seen.  Commentators and pundits around the world can’t believe it.  Even Fifa benches the ref that made the call.  Final score 2-2, the Americans are officially robbed of a win (+20 national pride points for getting royally boned).

The final game of group play against Algeria has now become a must win game.  They manage to break the “fall behind early” streak that plagued them in the first two games.  Unfortunately they were not able to break the “mystery penalty that costs them a goal” streak and so the game remains tied at 0-0 for all 90 minutes of regulation. 

Then, in the second minute of stoppage time⁵, a ball is shot and bounces off the Algerian goalies hands setting up a shot for Landon Donovan, one of the US’s best and most well known  players.


USA…

 USA…

 
USA…


 USA!

Final score 1-0 (+15 national pride points for edge of your seat, last second heroics). So the US wins in spectacular fashion and moves on to the second round of the World Cup.  Which is great because now Americans cared about soccer for at least another week.

Yesterday, however, the hopes of our national team were dashed as they exited the tournament, losing to Ghana by a score of 2-1.  However, they fought bravely and forces an overtime period.  Hopefully the national interest in soccer will continue and in four years we will be ready to compete again on the world-wide stage.  For now I’m just happy that people are watching and me and my idiot friends⁶ get to chant “USA…USA…USA!”
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¹ Or whatever your name happens to be.
² Technically I was asked to be an usher, then forgotten about before I reminded Brett and was made an usher again.
³ It could have also been the beer consumption at the reception.
⁴ Nil is a limey soccer term for zero.  Other phrases include “the pitch was slippy".”
⁵ The time added to the game as a result of any penalties or injuries.
⁶ I apologize if you are one of those friends, I love you dearly.  Except for Tim (Felton) who never reads my blog anyway.  You don’t get an apology you buster.

On Filling a Gap With History and Humor

In which apologies are given, pictures shared and laughs had, hopefully.

So due to completely foreseen circumstances¹ I was unable to get last weeks blog post put up.  It is currently about three quarters of the way finished.  I will most likely spend some time this week making some changes and streamlining it as it is running a little long already.  However, I didn't want two weeks to pass between posting so I figured that I would write something shorter now and then finish up the post I have started for later in the week.

History and I have always had an interesting relationship.  I really enjoy learning about and discussing the past.  Which, I imagine, surprises some people since I will often avoid really intense historical/political conversations and documentaries.  But there is something about the past that just grabs me, especially when history and pop culture collide².

This last week at work, or at least at the first half of work³, I had a lot of free time on my hands so I decided to check out Hark! A Vagrant.  I had heard about this site a number of times over the last few years and I have to say it is pretty rad.  Kate Beaton, the author, is a cartoonist who also enjoys history and so she started an online comic about that very subject.  I thought I'd share some of my favorites in an attempt to persuade you to check it out.

Let's all agree that a) it would be cool to hang out with St. Francis of Assisi and 2) birds bringing you muffins would be way rad.

Fourth of July, as see by a canuck.

Beaton doesn't always interact with history:

And part 2:

And sometimes she doesn't even deal with history (ps this is probably my favorite of all of her work).

I would totally read a longer story with mystery solving teens.

So that was Hark! A Vagrant.  Hope you enjoyed it, you should check it out right here.  You won't be disappointed, I promise.

Back soon with a game that I created.
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¹ I knew that I would be working a ton, and had a bachelor on Friday and Saturday so things just didn't get done when I wanted them to.
² See http://bravodeploysatchmo.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-war-on-film.html
³ Last week and this week I have been working two jobs.  One at Jackson Creek M.S. and also at a summer camp program.  It has been exhausting to say the least.

On Maintaining the Integrity of the Pouch

In which a long promised blog and a long blog promise both come to fruition.

This blog is the result of two conversations separated by a month's time.  The first conversation took place at Sarah and Tim’s graduation party.  I don’t remember the context, all I remember is the topic (which we will get to in a moment) and the phrase “maintaining the integrity of the pouch.”

The second conversation took place at Rodeo Ruby Love’s CD release show¹ this last weekend.  My friend Alena mentioned that she had read the blog which started a discussion between the two of us as well as Jon and Kevin.  At some point Kevin ask me if I could write shorter posts².  That’s really not my way, but this week I will do my best to keep things short, and have lots of nice pictures.  Anyway, I suppose I should start the actual, you know, content of the post³.  Think of these first to paragraphs as a preface, or introduction (if you are classless).

Getting old blows.  I’m not even that old but I still know that it can be pretty sucky.  One good thing that comes with getting older is the ability to complain about people that are younger than you and how things are easier/harder/lamer/more fortuitous for them then when you were that age.  For example.

Kids these days have no idea how easy they have it.  Growing up a staple of every youth soccer game that I was a part of was having Capri-Suns at half time⁴.  This is most likely still the case, but have you seen the Capri-Sun pouches they have these days?

That arrow?  It’s pointing to the hole where you insert the straw.  If you were to purchase some Capri-Sun for yourself you would discover that the hole is made of a thinner material than the pouch so that the straw is easily inserted.

This wasn’t always the case.  Back in the day there was a little circle designating where you were supposed to place the straw.  However, it was made of the same foil material as the pouch; the straw has a sharp edge to it so that you could break through the material.  This led to one of two outcomes.  The first was that in exerting the force needed to puncture the pouch you accidentally drove through both sides.  This caused the straw to become less effective and robbed you of your delicious halftime drink.

In an attempt to avoid this first outcome some people would squeeze the pouch to separate the front and back.  Unfortunately the meant that the juice was being forced upward placing pressure in the general direction that you were now going to cutting open the pouch.  Once the straw entered the pouch there was an eruption of juice, again wasting valuable liquid.

So what were young soccer players to do?  Ah, that is when youthful ingenuity comes into play.  Step one: remove straw from package.  Step two: turn pouch upside-down.  Step three:  with your thumb on the blunt end of the straw jam the sharp end into the bottom of the pouch in a swift downward motion.  Step four: enjoy.

Pretty smart huh?  I tell you what; kids these days just don’t have any idea how easy they have it.  It’s sad that in a few years we will be led by people who never had to overcome the Capri-Sun conundrum.  What a pity.

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¹ It was a rocking show, and they are touring all summer.  Check out http://www.myspace.com/rodeorubylove to see if they are coming to your town.
² I think he needs to man up, this ain’t no Twitter account.
³ See, short just isn’t my way.
⁴ Orange slices were the other staple.

On a Year in the Blogosphere

In which we take a trip down memory lane.

I don’t know what is harder to believe, that it has already been a year since I began this blog, or that I was able to blog for the whole year.  Either way we made it to a year and that’s pretty exciting.  So to celebrate I thought that I would remove the veil and let you all take a look at the inner-workings of my slice of the blogosphere.

You have probably never wondered what exactly goes into the planning process for this blog¹.  But I am going to tell you about it anyway.  Normally while I am writing one week's blog I think of some idea that I want to write about the next week.  Throughout the week portions of the post will come to mind.  I never pre-write anything, which sucks when I sit down to type and get hit with writer's block.  I do, however, think about what visuals I want a head of time so I can do some google searches.  This is all completely accurate except for the times it’s not.  There have definitely been weeks where I have had an idea in mind and scrapped it at the last minute (see last week).

Once I write the post I’ll run it through a spell checker on Word to catch any spelling or grammar problems.  Then I will read through it and catch a few more.  After it has been posted online inevitably I will find new problems every time I read it².

Here are some interesting facts about the last year of blogging:

• This is my 45th blog post.
• March had the most posts with six³.
• September, August and May 2009 each had the least with one.
• Since June 20th 452 people have read my blog.
• They represent 21 countries.
• July 6th marked the apex of daily visitors, clocking in at 31 visitors, thanks to On My Jams.
• I have 7 blogspot followers and 16 Google Reader followers.
• 31 posts had comments; no post was commented on more than my first post.
• I have been asked to edit (and did edit) two of my posts after they were up.
• I have deleted one post all together.
• Including this post I have had 132 different tags.
• The footnotes made their début on Friday, October 16th.
• They became a permanent fixture on November 8th⁴.

As far as my highlights for the year I would say that I had the most fun with the two On Random Thoughts postings.  I felt that my most creative moments came from On Fulfilling a Birthday Wish…Kind Of and On Scramping.  My favorite post, though, was probably On War On Film.

I have greatly enjoyed the last 12 months of blogging.  Especially when I decided that I was going to make it a habit to write something once a week.  While it has been a challenge in come up with topics to write about it has really pushed me to be creative and also just to write more.  I don’t know if it has done anything to improve my skill as an author, it certainly hasn’t done much for my spelling or grammar.

So what am I looking forward to in the next year of blogging?  Here are some things I have been considering.  Interviews, more personal stuff, Capri Sun⁵, more pictures that I took, and maybe, maybe, contests.

One of my favorite parts about this blog is the comments that I get⁶.  Unfortunately Google Reader makes it easy to not comment.  But I’d love to hear your thoughts about my first year of blogging.  So escape the clutches of the reader, venture over to the blogspot and let me know what you think.

Thanks for sharing this last year with me.  And get excited for Bravo Deploy Satchmo Year 2.
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¹ Or maybe you have, what do I know I'm not a mind reader.
² I am a terrible speller, and have an uncanny knack at missing any and all grammar mistakes.
³ That has since been decreased to five (we'll cover why in a minute).
⁴ To date I have used 157 footnotes.
⁵ I'm just going to keep on teasing this until I write it.
⁶ Except the crazy Chinese posts that come with a ton of links, its such a hassle to go in and deleted them.

On Breaking a Promise For the Sake of Trivia

In which the hidden mysteries of a common expression are revealed, and minds may be blown.

So I know I promised to write about Capri Sun this week, unfortunately it is going to have to wait for a least another two weeks.  Sorry.

Yesterday, at work, I was out on the football field with one of the gym teachers.  We were watching our students run a half mile because they were being obnoxious.  During the course of our conversation he used a common idiom and we talked about where it found its origins.  I remember finding it a fascinating bit of history, however I can no longer remember what the phrase was, or what the history of said phrase was.  The experience was almost entirely stripped from my memory by the what followed.

The teacher asked me if I knew the meaning behind the saying, “Near but it ain’t aplomb¹.”

I told him that I could guess given that I knew what aplomb meant².

He asked me if I knew how you measured to see if something was aplomb.  I told him with a plomb-bob.  He then asked me if I knew why they were called plomb-bobs.  I told him I didn’t.

Traditionally, plomb-bobs were made by hanging pieces of lead from a string.  You let it hang straight down and you can tell if whatever you are making is straight up and down.  Now if you remember back to your last chemistry class the atomic symbol of lead is Pb.  The reason for this?  In Latin lead is called “plumbum.”  Thus the plumb-bob.  During the height of the Roman empire plumbum was all the rage.  It was very malleable, relatively easy to extract and refine from ore³, and most importantly it didn’t rust.  So when the Romans went about creating a system of pipes with which to deliver water to their cities lead was an obvious choice.

Unfortunately, for the Romans, they were unaware of a little thing called lead poisoning.  Some scholars theorize that the fall of the Roman Empire may have been hastened, if not caused, by lead poisoning.

But none of this was really all that mind blowing.  Here is what got me.  The original sewage pipes were created out of plumbum, and what do we call people who work on our pipes today? 

Plummers.  Ka-boom.
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¹ This isn’t the exact phrase he said, but I know I had never heard it before.
² It traditionally means that something is straight up and down.
³ Plus, add some sheep and wheat and you got your self a D-card.

On Discovering a Video That’s Been Discovered By Two Million People Already

In which well-trod ground is traveled and foreshadowing.

When I arrived home from work today I had received an email from a friend of mine¹.  The subject line read ‘Ahh Christian worship’ and contained only this link.  I watched it and found it to be pretty clever.  The music stuff was better than the speaking stuff.  In the comments someone mentioned something called “The Academy Award Winning Trailer.”  I had never heard of such a thing so a’googleing I went.  My search let me to this video.  Go ahead and check it would and we’ll talk about it when you are done.

This video absolutely made my day.  Most everything about it was so spot on.  For me the two highlights were the conversations with the concerned friend² and the music throughout the entirety of the trailer, but especially starting at 2:26.  It seemed like it was an actual movie that was coming out, which is kind of sad.

The weakest part?  The Avatar scene, it just didn’t jive with the rest of the trailer.  But I suppose you can’t win ‘em all.

Hope you enjoyed the brief post/video this week.  Come back next week for a discussion about Capri Sun.  No joke.

“LEAD FEMALE’S NAME!!!”
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¹ Who won’t be named so that he, or she, doesn’t get in trouble at work again and cause me a huge headache.
² “Friendly concern that a string of heightened and seemingly unrelated plots may now arise."