my ol' theme

Too much time has passed in which I've failed to mention roller derby. We've been to Nashville and now Louisvill Kentucky in the past couple of months. We've also begun bouts at our new home, opening with our first intra league bout of the 2007 season. The league has faced some defeat, but the skaters continue to grow and develop. They play an amazing game, and they know the rules and usually keep their elbows down.

As mentioned, we have now played a team from Louisville Kentucky. We made the drive in possibly record time Sunday morning with the two teams facing off Sunday night. Monday was another early awake and out the door day for the drive home and getting Momma to work by four. It's amazing what people do for derby.

The original plan for Louisville involved us bringing two teams worth of skaters to face their intra league teams in two abbreviated bouts. Upon arrival, we learned that some of their skaters would be unable to play, so they rearranged the plans and played one regulation bout. That was great news for us as many of our girls were unable to make the trip meaning those that did would most likely have had to play in both games. Because so many of our skaters were unable to come, we certainly didn't put our usual Hard Knox travel team on the rink. In the end, due to our skaters' hard work in practice, we're getting to the point where all our skaters that aren't fresh meat are at a level that they are quite as able as most of the girls to be considered for the travel team.

Momma skated the first jam to open the bout and pulled off three grand slams in the two minutes of skating. A grand slam in roller derby is when your jammer laps the opposing jammer. It doesn't happen that often, but it's kind of hard to keep up with Momma much less stop her.

I lifted this picture from Louisville photographer Mr. Quick, and HERE is the link to his Flickr set of the bout. He's got some good pictures, and if you love derby, go peruse. I hope he doesn't mind that I've lifted one of his pics for the blog, but it is mostly my wife, so I don't actually feel bad about it.

I won't pretend that Louisville was an easy match for our team, because they played well. They don't have the experience yet that our league does, but based on their performance, they will get that experience and make our next win that much harder.

nothing about anything

I haven't been very good about writing here lately, as may have been obvious considering the week long absences and the random and sporadic posts. I'm still reading around the internet and leaving comments that I feel are funny but probably aren't, I just haven't been drawn to write.

This isn't a new phenomenon, and I'm sure that plenty of other bloggers go through the same sort of thing. But for me, it becomes bothersome. I'm somewhat cooped up in the house all too often, and I think that this adds to my lack of desire to post. The weather is brutal, hot and humid as ever if not moreso this year. We had a little rain way back when, which was really nice to see, but once again we are back to drought. The ozone level is just lovely these days, trapped here in our little valley. The haze in the sky, the hot breezes, the instant sweat upon exiting the house all combine to make me just want to go back to bed.

But maybe I'm coming out of my stupor. I'm slowly getting back into a slight writerly mode. I've got soccer beginning again soon, and the roller derby news is still happening even without me writing about it. I actually do have a derby story for you, but first I have to find some guy's pictures and steal the one of Momma that's actually a good picture.

The house is an absolute wreck, and with friends coming to town in less than two weeks, we have a major job ahead of us. Thankfully, the drought has kept me from having to mow the yard too much, though our little bit of rain, while not making the grass grow, did make some crazy and extremely woody stemmed plants try to take over the yard. I finally got that done, but the drought is so bad that I've only mowed twice and it's okay. That's entirely fucked up, and it's not a good thing in the least. I'd rather have the rain and the extra work.

And that's all you get for now. I've once more turned my lack of regular updates/writing into post fodder about itself, something I'm sure to do plenty more over time. Now wait patiently while I work up some posts that are entirely uninteresting. I'm so on it now.

never thought

I have the kid I thought and even swore I'd never have. I looked at those other kids, the kids that weren't mine, the kids that were picky eaters. I'm related to a few of these kids. I have some nieces that are beautiful and amazing girls, but they are the kids that go to the awesome Thai restaurant and order plain noodles. My kids were never going to be like that.

And Big Brother is not like that. He eats almost anything we put in front of him. He will even try things he's not liked before, and he actually likes certain items in certain preparations but not in others. He loves a salad and he loves McDonalds and tends to order from the regular menu at restaurant because it always sounds better than the kid's menu.

The Boy however is that kid. He's still an odd eater more than he is a picky eater, but he's just as much a picky eater as he is an odd eater.

He mostly subsists on peanut butter contained either on wheat bread with jelly or on a graham cracker. Big Brother eats the crust, but The Boy doesn't. He wouldn't even eat the crust if you offered him candy afterward, and believe me, we've tried. The crust is good for you, and to not eat it seems wasteful, but he doesn't care and can't even be bribed.

He likes macaroni and cheese, but the time I made it with a lovely bread crumb crust on top he wouldn't eat it till the crust was completely removed. That wasn't really that bad a deal as I ate the crust for him.

He eats sushi, loves sushi, will devour any sashimi that passes slowly enough for him to get his hands on it. His favorite food however might actually be fried chicken tenders, though if offered sashimi and chicken tenders, he would eat both, most likely trying each in any available dipping sauce. The thought of perfectly cut fatty tuna dipped in honey mustard might destroy some weaker minds and palates, but The Boy would not only try it, but he would love it.

And it's trying, wanting him to be healthy, knowing the variety that he needs, and not wanting to fight with him over food. He's proven that he's willing to make himself sick over food and getting what he wants. He's getting to a point where he can be helped to make connections between diet and waking up vomiting. Yet still he persists.

The oddest things often remind us of how great our kids are. Supper tonight was spaghetti, and I'll admit right off that I rushed and didn't make it nearly as good as the last batch, and the last batch was the closest yet I've come to getting it right. It's still good, but I didn't bother serving him any because he wouldn't have eaten it. Big Brother and I got nice big bowls of spaghetti, while The boy got a plate of plain noodles, a couple of small slices of polska kielbasa and a slice of cheese. It's the noodles that got to me.

He eats his noodles by picking them up, one end in each hand. He stretches the noodle out and bites out the middle then quickly stuffs the ends into his mouth. I've seen him do this often enough, but every once in a while I actually notice the process, and it makes me laugh all over again.

check her sounds

A number of years ago, in our nation's capital, for a brief and glorious moment, there was an amazing ska band named the Checkered Cabs. I was still feeling my way into music post being raised quite Baptist, and while ska was making small blippy things happen on my musical radar, I wasn't quite into it at all.

At some point I did of course realize that I'm a great lover of the ska music. It certainly helps when you discover a band like the Checkered Cabs, and I did via their album Remember, though somewhat after it was originally released. It's an album I still play, and today it came out as the boys and I ran an errand. The songs all took me back, and I began to wonder why I hadn't ever searched for them online. I've known they were broken up, but in the age we live in, if it's not somewhere online, it's nowhere, or something.

Tonight became the night to look into the band, to find out what I could learn, what they were doing these days. It took a bit of fooling around between Google and YouTube which led me to Myspace and hopefully my newest friend. I'm such a geek for this sort of thing.

While the Checkered Cabs were a great band all round, the singer Caz Gardiner was truly the standout of the band. I have to say that, while I also like the new band, The Pressure Sounds, Caz's vocals are always going to steal the show.

Upon finding her on YouTube, I realized instantly that my mental picture of what I expected was the exact opposite of what I got. I'm not sure that there's any reason as to why, but I'd always imagined her as almost a Keely Smith, but she's not at all. That's fine, because I'm sure I only love her more seeing her finally on the ever faithful YouTube. What would life be without it?

Anyway, The Pressure Sounds doing Life Can Be Easier. And oh my god for real how she fucking dances!