Still Ate The Ice Cream

I strenuously object to what the weather app had to say yesterday  

If I recall correctly, the forecast was for upper 50s temperatures and cloudy.  

Exactly.  By my expert opinion, the temperature never got above 12, and it was stupid windy.  

Fortunately for all of us, you're not an expert on weather.  

I'm an expert at being whiny when I'm cold.  Yesterday, I was cold.  Cold sucks.  

So, many of you know that I play volleyball.  Many times, when the weather is nice, this involves playing outside.  Sometimes, it involves a more rigidly scheduled event which involves being outside when the weather isn't quite so nice and/or conducive to playing volleyball.  Yesterday was one of those times.  

We had a tournament scheduled for this past weekend.  The weather forecast for the Greater Jeremy Area wasn't overly promising, with rain most of the week beforehand, a chance of rain on Saturday, and turning significantly colder with lots and lots of wind for Sunday.  That's exactly what happened, though fortunately, the chance of rain happened after we were done playing, so that worked out well.   

The weather for volleyball on Sunday was lousy.  It was windy, which led to blowing the ball all over the place, making everyone's job much more difficult, and rendering most games into a serving battle since nobody could pass.  More importantly, it was cold.  I, like everyone else on the field, froze my tuchus off, wrapping myself in a long sleeved shirt, hoodie, and blanket in between games to stave off the misery as much as possible.  People were actually playing volleyball bundled head to toe and with hoods up and tied.  It was a little ridiculous, and the weather app said the temperature was in the 60s.  I disagree. 

Ever Read The Words To Auld Lang Syne?

3…2…1…Happy New Office!

Today marks the first day of Jeremy Is In The Office from the new office!  It's really a very exciting time.  

It's really not.  Here I am in my new cubicle, privacy at work a forgotten memory while somebody gets to enjoy their new office...the one that I got booted out of.  

Truth be told, it hasn't really affected me all that much up to this point.  My neighbors are all pretty decent, and most of the same people that were nearby my old office.  See, we all got the boots put to us together and all had to move over here.  I was at least mildly disappointed to learn that my new filing cabinet doesn't lock, and roughly a third of the electrical outlets don't work.  So, not only is nothing quite in place yet, but I have power cables running all amok over my desk because I can't plug things in where they're supposed to be plugged in.  Also, I can't have any confidential material in my filing cabinet yet, because I can't lock it.  

There's also no place to hang my coat in the winter, but I don't have to worry about that for a little while yet. 

There's also the fact that this is my first day back from vacation, and nobody ever likes coming back into the office after vacation.  I exchange beach, sun, and sand for a cubicle and a laptop and three more meetings before I'm done today.  That's a pretty lousy trade.  Speaking of meetings...it's now farther to walk to all of my meetings since I'm in a different building, so I'm off! 

Classic Pitcher's Duel

Saw almost 3 soccer games and 2 goals not on penalties.  Sounds about right

Soccer is a lot like hockey, but on grass.  Where there's no scoring.  Or checking.  

So, as you may know, soccer is a pretty big deal around the world.  Not so much in the US aside from the World Cup every four years, but basically everywhere else.  It's big.  So, when important international soccer tournaments come rolling around, it's not such a terrible idea to check them out.  

It's a slightly worse idea when the temperature is near 100 degrees, but that's beside the point entirely.  

I attended a CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal not long ago.  It featured four reasonably highly ranked international teams vying for tournament supremacy, and some kind of qualifying spot in the next World Cup or something.  I'm not sure how it works.  

We got to see a crowd of well over 70,000 people celebrating the sport of soccer (or football (futbol), as it's known everywhere but the US), cheering on their nation's team (Not the US, mind you...their heritage nation), lots of faked injuries, hydration breaks, a full 2 2/3 games of soccer...and 2 actual goals.  

In reality, the ball went into the goal 14 times in two games, but it's a little more complicated than that.  The first game went 1-1 at the end of the regulation 90 minutes.  Then begins the 2 15-minute periods of non-sudden-death overtime.  So they played 120 minutes, or 1 1/3 games of soccer.  Since nobody scored in the OT, they decided the game in a 9-round penalty kick shootout.  I don't count these as goals.  They're penalties.  Not goals.  

The second game went much the same, except for the fact that the score at the end of regulation was 0-0.  (Pronounced Nil-Nil.)  Only in the 123rd minute (stoppage time after the two 15-minute overtimes were played with no further scoring), was a penalty called on a questionable play.  The player converted the penalty kick to win the game 1-0.  So, they played at least another 1 1/3 games.  And only scored on a penalty.  Not a goal.  Penalty.  

So, all things totaled, 240-some minutes of soccer.  2 goals.  Yikes.