Móttökur

Blades of Blue is getting some press in Iceland these days. I find that a little coincidental because I was just talking to Carlee about an upcoming vacation that we are planning for the fall. Iceland and Greenland were two of the locations on the short list.

To all my Nordic friends: móttökur.

Upset

My U-17 team scrimmaged the UL Lafayette team yesterday in a friendly. We pulled out an upset victory and won 2-1. The last 15 minutes we were getting pounded but UL couldn't put it in. Both teams had several clears off the goal line before the final whistle blew. When you watch a group of high school juniors beat a college team you have to walk away pretty psyched about it.

We are headed to Regionals in Columbus, GA in 2 weeks. Roll Thunder.

US MNT vs. England - The Next Day

Well, I don't think I am stepping out on a limb here by saying that game was a complete flop for everyone but John Terry and David Beckham. I think Terry was almost crying after scoring that header. And there was a momentary sensation of historical importance when I saw the 100th cap ceremony for Becks.

In the end, the US dropped to England 2-0. I'm not even sure we were playing with any forwards in our lineup until the late second half. Eddie Johnson and Josh Wolff would have looked useless if I could even find them on the field. All in all, a pretty poor effort turned in by our side. Best quote I could find from a review of the game this morning:

Soccer by Ives: "Anytime Peter Crouch sets up for a bicycle kick you have to just watch in amazement. It's like a National Geographic episode."

US MNT vs. England

The US Men's National Team is playing England this afternoon. Don't email or call me with any updates! I'll be watching a taped version of the game tonight. Above is a shot of our boys during a traditional English training session in the rain. Go US!

Coach

Text Message to Team: Reminder, we have a practice today at 5 PM.
Response from Player: Can't make it. I'm in the hospital. I broke my ankle.

Immediate phone call placed to player's cell phone.

Player: Yeah?
Coach: You broke your ankle!?!
player: Yeah.
Coach: Crap. How the hell did you do that?
Player: Playing basketball.
Coach: Holy cow. This sucks.
Player: I'm kidding.

Weezer - Pork and Beans

Do you like Weezer?

It's pretty damn catchy, but I lean towards believing it will have a shelf life of about 6 months at most. Maybe I'm wrong though...

Jozy and Elvis

Jozy had a play date with her friend Elvis at Moore Park today. The 2 dogs played for over an hour without one incident! Photographic proof of a happy dog play date is below.

After the traditional greeting and some exploration of the baseball field we were at, the two dogs squared off (for play, of course).


Jozy displayed her leaping ability, clearing Elvis in a single bound.


Elvis then displayed his courage and steadfastness, not flinching as Jozy decided to turn and charge.


The two meet in mid leap. And seriously, this was all fun and games for them. No growling or biting. I was amazed.


Elvis then gave chase. And around in circles they go.


The owners were tired out just from watching. So they stayed camped out in the dugout.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day!

Beckham's 70 Yard Goal (LA vs. KC)

In case you haven't heard, David Beckham scored a 70 yard goal this past weekend when LA was playing Kansas City. The keeper was out of the net in an attempt to tie the game on a corner. He got punished.

Beckham scored a similar goal in 1996 when he was playing for Manchester United (against Wimbledon). It is shown below. Big difference: Keeper was in the net when he struck this one from the midfield line. Talk about back of the net on the fly. I didn't make this connection myself - the US MNT blog pointed the way.

Check Out Line

Thing you never want to hear as you push your cart up to the check out line:

"Holy Shit! Do you need all that alcohol!?!?"

Thankfully, this exchange occurred between the couple behind us today. So no worries, I am not going on a bender. I was chuckling for the next 5 minutes after hearing this.

The Figs (Starring an AFC Alum!)

AFC alum Caroline Helm is a member of the local band, The Figs. As I am compiling music for the next monthly mix, themed on this last year's Festival Internationale, I find myself having trouble picking my favorite tune from this band. They are all good! Check out Caroline in this interview on the streets of New York.

And then check out this tune. Go Caroline! Let me know when you want to come back and throw on the old jersey for a kick about.

Chris Albright

I'm watching the Columbus Crew play the New England Revolution tonight. Chris Albright may be a good player but I will always have trouble respecting him unless he shaves his head...or does something else to get rid of the curly locks.

Soccer is not about justice...

It can be such a cruel game.

"Soccer is not about justice. It's a drama..." - Pete Davies

The Red Stick Ramblers - Made in the Shade

Here's a little local flavor for you. The Red Stick Ramblers are one of my favorite bands from this area. Go here to download some bootlegs and rare tracks.

Guest Player

Last night I was a guest player for the UL Lafayette Men's soccer team in a scrimmage game against a local select team. It was a random event, they needed a player and I was just wrapping up my practice. It was incredibly fun to test myself out against college kids again. I must have been doing something right because at half time the UL coach asked if I was interested in taking graduate courses.

I had to leave before the game was over but we were up 1-0 with about 30 minutes left. The one goal we scored was on a PK from a play that I set up so I am patting myself on the back for the impact. Not sure if they ended up winning or not...maybe Tyler can fill us in.

James McMurtry - We Can't Make It Here

So why do I make monthly mixes? Basically because I like to share the things that speak to me in whatever language they choose. So what is the best reward that I can get from that? There are two:

1. Turning a friend or stranger on to something that I like.
2. That same friend or stranger sharing back and turning me on to something new.

Thus, I bring you James McMurty from Fort Worth, TX. Nate Dogg dropped off his CD, Just Us Kids, at our back door this weekend. I love it.

The Headlines of CNN

Yesterday was abnormal. There were two events on the headlines of CNN that impacted my day directly. That is definitely not a normal occurrence.

1. A train overturned in our town and forced the evacuation of over 3,000 people because hydrochloric acid leaked out of some of the overturned cars. Other chemicals in the cars, if mixed with that acid, apparently could have caused a major disaster. As it stands, people have been forced from their homes for up to two days. Luckily, we are outside of the impacted area. One of the players on my team was not and had to evacuate.

2. We were at a crawfish boil last night with about 6 people. One of the people at the boil was an extremely interesting and intelligent man. He seemed a little distracted though as he kept checking his Blackberry and forwarding messages on to various people. After a while, I learned the reason. Turns out he is the brother in law of Teddy Kennedy, who suffered from an apparent seizure earlier that morning.

Strange day.

Choices

I got home from travel and Jozy now knows the name of one of her toys (if not 2). You can put multiple toys in front of her, or hide them in another room and ask her to find her dumbell. She now brings the right one back. My wife showed me this last night and my reaction was pretty basic: "Holy crap."

Three weeks

Well, three weeks of travel are wrapping up today. As usual, my blog activity was light (aka non-existent) this week. Normally I would be breathing a big sigh of relaxation after wrapping up 3 weeks of consecutive travel. Not the case right now. I think I will spend the next week catching up on all sorts of things (work & personal). It will be really nice to be home though.

Week 3

This morning is the third week of travel in a row for me. With a 5:30 am flight it also marks the most brutal morning of the set. Checking the weather in Philly (where I am headed) this morning, I noted that it is 40 degrees and raining all day. Sounds like it just gets better from here. Thankfully though, it looks like it is 70 the rest of the week.

dry spells, hard times

I am sure you will agree that this is a fitting title. Enjoy.

1. Silent Sigh ** Badly Drawn Boy
2. Good Man ** Josh Ritter
3. Consequence ** The Notwist
4. Glue Girls ** Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
5. Skylark ** Arrah and the Ferns
6. I Am John ** Loney, Dear
7. Closer ** Joshua Radin
8. The Girl ** City And Colour
9. Steady Rollin' ** Two Gallants
10. Night Mantra ** Renee & Jeremy
11. Your Arms Around Me ** Jens Lekman
12. Sinister In A State Of Hope ** Loney, Dear
13. Frankie's Gun! ** The Felice Brothers
14. Drawing Board ** Danny Schmidt
15. Country Caravan ** Blitzen Trapper
16. For Emma ** Bon Iver
17. Body In A Box ** City And Colour
18. Southern Comfort ** Arrah and the Ferns
19. Whiskey In My Whiskey ** The Felice Brothers
20. Cliff Song ** Danny Schmidt

Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart

What better way to start the day then with a new Death Cab Song. Happy Friday.

Spyware

Today mostly sucked. I spent 10 hours troubleshooting the infiltration of a spyware or trojan on my machine. After the installation of Ad-Aware, Hijack This, and manually nuking any file from my machine that had a timestamp of today, I think I may have succeeded in purging the issue.

I may be wrong and end up cursing my optimism. These things have a way of reappearing. However, after 10 hours of hell, I need to declare at least a temporary victory.

Battles of Confidence

"What it takes to get from 0 to 1"

Loney, Dear - I am John

Loney, Dear is a Swedish songwriter released on Sub-Pop, who hits some pretty crazy notes in this tune below. The singer at 2:14 is the same singer who starts out the song. I'm not sure what genre of music this other than eerily catchy twee-pop. Enjoy.

"There were seventeen dogs out to track us down"

Looking Back on This...

...10 years from now, I am thinking that Cesc Fabregas is going to think this was an odd thing to sign up for.

Pretty strange concept: Light one of the best players in the world on fire and make him juggle a soccer ball.

The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun

"I hurt him so damn bad I had to hide in Jersey"

Another track off the newest mix (title and cover of that mix are not yet revealed...) by The Felice Brothers, one of my new favorite bands with their first appearance being on I Found It. This is a performance of the tune at SXSW. These guys look like they put on a fun show.

You can go listen to the studio version of this song (which is on the mix) on their My Space page.

Badly Drawn Boy - Silent Sigh

The newest B.O.B. Monthly Mix is complete. Although my friend Mark has kindly pointed out that I am losing the privilege of calling them monthly at the current rate of production. When you factor in my slow pace at mailing out the last mix, he really does have a point...I'll have to think about that.

Anyway, here is track #2, Silent Sigh by Badly Drawn Boy from the 2002 movie About a Boy. Great film, great tune. It must of been on TBS or something this past month because I caught it one night and was reminded how much I liked the soundtrack. Thus, it lands in your browser this Monday morning. Enjoy!

Click a Trick Champion

She may not be able to control herself when you walk in the door but she sure can do some amazing tricks! Jozy graduated from Click a Trick today and basically put all other dogs to shame with her spins, high 5's, bows and play deads (not that I am competitive or anything).

Cajun Signs: BCCS

This is photo (taken by my wife) during my mother's visit after we stopped in Morgan City at a local boiled seafood restaurant.


On an unrelated note, I am testing Blogger's new "schedule a post" feature and this should appear sometime early in the morning. Actually, 7:14 AM Central to be exact. I will be at the car dealer picking up the Honda when this hits the street. Good morning!

State Champions

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. The conference I went to sucked me in and kept me real busy. It was work related and was about a topic that I am extremely interested in so I was pretty focused on it each day. Good news is that I am back home (for a couple of days at least).

Here is a team photo right after we won the state championship (taken by the state and found hosted on their website). I don't feel like I ever had a chance to sit back and reflect on our accomplishment. Maybe this weekend when my week slows down...