Word Association for August 31

Looks like it's time for this week's word association.

1. Electrical :: Outage
2. Glasses :: Sight
3. Comics :: Laugh
4. Satellite :: TV
5. Tonight :: Show
6. Sweater :: Warm
7. Clipboard :: Survey
8. Unglued :: Mess
9. Plaid :: Scarf
10. Upsetting :: News

An Announcement

I’ve been giving it some serious thought over the last few months, and I have reached a very important decision.  Given the current state of politics in America, I have concluded the only solution is for me to throw my hat into the ring.  Yes, I am running for President of the United States.

And here is my first campaign promise.  I promise to become corrupted by the power.  I will give the biggest and best jobs to my friends.  (Look at that, an honest politician!)

Here is my platform:

In order to increase the job force, work days will be lowered to six hours a day.  This will create the need to hire more people to do the work that is currently being done.  Those extra two hours a day will be used exclusively for reading.  If you do not wish to read, you may continue to work your full eight hour shift.  Those who regularly read mysteries will get an extra half hour off.

The Trixie Belden Mysteries series will be required reading in all third and fourth grade classes.  To help facilitate that, all 39 original books will be reprinted, and new books will be published written by people who love this characters picked by me.

Ultimate Frisbee will be made the official sport of the United States.  All other sports at all levels will be disbanded immediately and those resources used to promote this sport.  Former professional athletes will not be allowed to play professional ultimate.

The first Saturday of every month will be Disney movie day.  Every resident of the United States will watch at least one movie released by Disney Studios or a subsidiary they own.  (This includes Pixar, Lucas Film, and Marvel Studios.)

The 25th of every month will be observed as a partial Christmas day.  While it will not be a holiday, all radio stations will play Christmas music for that day.  Christmas movies will be shown on TV.  No gifts for Christmas are to be exchanged except in December.  However, Christmas decorations are appropriate to be displayed if you so desire.

To help facilitate physical fitness, all those who wish to participate in mud runs will have a one run credit on their taxes each year.

I am still working on the rest of my platform.  Feel free to post suggestions.  Naturally, I reserve the right to accept and claim credit for or reject your suggestions.

Word Association for August 26th

Here you go - this week's word association.

1. Passive :: Aggressive
2. Crumbs :: Bread
3. Grave :: Mistake
4. Believe :: the Truth
5. Stifle :: Creativity
6. Fish :: Water
7. Crunch :: Sit up
8. Bonus :: Points
9. Flat :: Tire
10. Bubbled :: Envelope

Tournament Time

I really had a good time at the ultimate Frisbee tournament on Saturday.

For one thing, it was nice to be here in town.  I knew where I was going right away, and I didn’t have to worry about that or even really worry about traffic getting there.

We as a team were more relaxed as well.  We were finally more focused on having fun instead of winning.  It helped us with our win on Tuesday night last week, but it didn’t help us with the tournament.

We lost our first game, which was expected.  We were 14th playing the 3rd ranked team.  Actually, everyone was surprised when we were up by 2 at one point before finally losing by 3 or 4.

We won our next game, which was a surprise, and quite handily.

Then we lost the final game.  We played a short game and fell behind and couldn’t catch up.

But with the more relaxed attitude, it was fun.

And, while the weather was hot, it’s wasn’t overbearing.  I mean, this is August in So Cal, so we should expect it to be hot, but last year’s tournament was definitely hotter.

I even stayed longer at the party than I usually do.  I was chatting with some people I’d met that day from other teams.  I was having a great time, so I stayed and talked.  I just wish they hadn’t turned up the outside music since it made it hard to do that.

Of course, I went to my ultimate pickup game on Sunday.  There’s no such thing as too much ultimate, right?

Word Association for August 19th

Here's this week's word association.

1. Hiding :: Place
2. Grip :: Strength
3. Sticky :: Situation
4. Games :: Olympic
5. Tunnel :: Drive
6. Japan :: Island
7. Super :: Mario
8. Map :: Navigate
9. Costume :: Party
10. Secret :: Hiding

Ending on a Good Note

Last night was my final summer league regular game for the year.  And we won!

It was a close game, but we were ahead the entire time.  We started out ahead, and they never caught up to us.  We were never ahead by more than 2 points the entire night, but we were ahead.  The lights went out when the score was 12-11, so we didn’t get a full game.  But we won!!!!

That puts the team at 3 wins for the year, and we aren’t in dead last place.  Both of those things are very huge accomplishments for my teams, and I’m thrilled.

And to show how thrilled about it I am, after our last game on Friday, I was debating about just quitting on the rest of the season and quitting ultimate period.  We had a lousy game, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  Then this happened, and I was back on cloud 9.

The one thing that kept me from quitting is that the tournament is this Saturday, and it’s actually pretty close to home.  After driving over an hour to every tournament I’ve played in, this is wonderful news.  It looks like our first round isn’t until 10AM, and I could leave as late as 9:30 and still get there on time.  If I’m smart I will leave earlier than that.  We’ll see what happens Saturday morning.  But how could I quit when the tournament was that close.

I’m still debating what I will do about ultimate long term, but I’m at least excited for Saturday.

Word Association for August 4th

Quick.  No one's watching.  Let's slip in this week's word association.

1. Substandard :: Wiring
2. Rude :: Expression
3. Equality :: Good
4. Smile! :: Picture
5. Presidential? :: Not this year
6. Fish :: Swim
7. Cloudy :: Rain
8. Wondering :: Puzzling
9. Thought :: Bubble
10. Calculator :: Math

Back from Family Vacation

Usually, when I don’t update my blog for a couple of weeks, I come back with something like “I didn’t mean to be gone so long.”  This time, I really did mean to be gone this long.

See, I just got back from a family vacation.  I was gone just almost two weeks.  We went on an Alaska cruise followed by a few days into the interior of the state, through Denali National Park and ending in Fairbanks.

We didn’t have the best weather.  We had sun and the beginning and end of the trip, but the rest of the time it was overcast, foggy, and threatened rain if not actually raining.  Fortunately, we didn’t get much real rain – at least when we wanted to be outside.  The last couple of days did clear up and we got some sun.  In fact, it was almost 80 my last full day there.

This was my first cruise, and that part was great.  We didn’t have to worry about much, and it was fun to tour a location and then be someplace new the next morning.  All of life should be like that, with the boring parts happening while you sleep.

Plus I got to spend almost two weeks with my family.  My parents and my brother and his family were all there, so I got to be Uncle Mark for two weeks.  That’s always lots of fun.  We flew home on my niece’s birthday, so I got to see her on her birthday for the first time in years (if ever).

We got to see lots of animals.  We saw Orcas and Humpback whales on our whale watching trip.  We saw bald eagles, foxes, grizzle bears, moose, and caribou.

Of course, now I’m back in the real world.  I’ve got up on blog promotional stuff for my reviews and am working on next week’s posts.  And I got back in time for our next month end at work, so I had to hit the ground running.  But it was completely worth it.