soccer

other

Tonight the best in Guatemala faces off with the boys of Seattle. For all that’s awesome about Seattle and Sigi and Keller and Pike Place Market and the squad, lets rout them 4-1.

(and…ah hem..er…for my ego, too)

PS
Alonso, I really, really really wanna see you stuff one in the net. Métela pués compadre, métela con huevones!

EDIT:
We won. 4-1.
I can’t recall the last time I was that happy about a soccer game :D 

other

Yesterday the Sounders played one of their best games ever:

 

 
And today was a great but at the end sad game for the USWNT. The game was intense, but all that matters in the end is the penalty shootout.

 

other

Awesomely brilliant timing and speed from la Pulga, two freaking beautiful goals for the good guys.

Yes the good guys beat the bad guys today. And it makes me so happy.

(I’m less happy about dirty-slide-tackler guy snapping Zakuani’s leg the other day. Not cool, man)

Messi’s second freaking beautiful goal. Solo he schooled the three guys in white in the picture, one other guy in white and the enemy keeper.

 

photography

This community, Maxbal (spoken Mash-bal) is a two and a half hour rough-road (anything without low geared 4wd can’t make it) drive away from the town I live in.

This is the first group of students, ever, to graduate from 9th grade–the community was proud.

The teachers had the students go out into the soccer field to take their picture while the game continued.

Throw in
Soccer and school
photography

This hung out in the “photo” page for a while, it’s time to let it stick for good.

Adidas propped up on the train-ride home
ideas, stories

The way a soccer player celebrates a game-winning goal has to be one of the greatest things ever, whether Saturday morning pickup or the World Cup final. Iniesta looked like a little kid after he scored the goal today*. Picture a child one sunny afternoon celebrating a backyard goal in London or Guatemala or Seattle or wherever else; it’s just so honest, pure and joyful.

The same goes for the moment of a loss–a missed shot or a bumbled save. Straight up pure sadness, dejection and disappointment show their full colors. Again in that moment the pro athlete is no different than the little heartbroken child.

In these greatest moments we’re all like children in wonder and feeling. That means something and is not small.

We all should take this to heart more often.

—

*For when I can’t remember why that means anything special: the ’10 World Cup final was today, Spain vs. Netherlands, and Iniesta put the ball in the net in the 26th minute of stoppage time for the win for Spain. VIVA ESPANA VIVA VIVA LA FURIA ROJA!!!!

By the way, Iniesta’s tank top writing is a tribute to a fellow Spanish soccer player who died of a heart attack not too long ago.

Andres Iniesta celebrating his goal
other, stories

Ok…I’ve resisted a long time. I have not wanted to be one of those harking naffs who writes a really boring several paragraphs every day about every day. Well here are lots of paragraphs about today, because today was nuts.

1. World Cup:
-Tim Howard, you are incredible. Past making boss saves, the one corner at the end, when the other keep jumped up to punch it and his HAND was just barely higher than your HEAD. That is awesome. To the rest of the boys in red, white and blue: you rock. Way to represent your country to the world, what an incredible run. I can’t say it any better than a radio announcer did: “there is nothing left. Those boys left everything they had on the field.”

Tim Howard. What else to say?

2. My little sister:
She’s in Texas right now for the annual National Jumprope Tournament, she spent all of yesterday puking her guts out and her 4 person team took first place in their age bracket today. Like…what? How does that work? How is that humanly possible? She will be on ESPN competing against all other 4 person teams for the Grand Champion title.
Dear Beth: go hit your routine tomorrow like you never have before. Go hit it in the teeth with a big chair so hard, swing for the fences and show’em what you’ve got.
(no photo can capture the awesomeness here, so no photo here shall be)

3. Ham Radio:
After one evening (6+ hours) and one morning (2+ hours) of intense strong-coffee-aided studying of radio, I passed the FCC General Class Amateur Radio exam (lots of capital letters there). Jason and my pops did the same. We can now use all VHF/UHF bands and almost (there are, like, two tiny restrictions) all HF bands. “HF” means wavelengths from 10 to 160 meters. That’s some long waves. With a bit of practice, that means free (well…after buying a radio. Ouch.) and cooler-than-skype worldwide communication with friends and family.
It’s also a good excuse to, someday when I have the pickup I’ll go offroad-camping-exploring in, have a wicked awesome radio on the dash and a nice big antenna swaying from the back bumper.

Old school ham shack (theberrypages.com)

4. “You can put that on the label, baby.”
(see the post above this one)

What a day.

Edit:
…and I just now (10:30pm) discovered a better way to slice cheese. No joke.