I'm just a test...please ignore me

Ok, so I saw this in Nick Starr's blog and thought I would give it a try.  It's a new web log client from Microsoft (yes I know...the evil emprire etc etc) called Windows Live Writer.  So if you see this post...it works!

Life's little absurditiies

A bumper sticker read "Hang up and drive!" with a illustration of a cellphone surrounded by the international 'do not' symbol. This was on a car parked outside my son's school. Obviously this person deeply cared about the welfare of others on the road. Which makes it all the more absurd when I tell you that this car was parked in the middle of a crosswalk outside the school!

Overheard somewhere...

Dedicated to my son....


Adult: Are you my son?
Little Boy: Yes!
Adult: That makes me what?
Little Boy: Proud!

Now THIS is the way to see EPCOT!

Segway Tour

Podcast

Don't forget to check out my podcast here!

Hair.....

Okay, it has been nearly a week since I have written here, so there is a lot to catch up on. This week has been all about hair, in one form or the other. Hair you say? Yes...good old human hair. Here is what I mean.

Let's go back to last week. Last Thursday I told the boys on Bullets that if they won every game this season (no loses, no ties) that I would shave my head. That seemed to breathe new life into them as they crushed their opponent that night 5-0. On Sunday we played that team again, but this time missing 3 of our top offensive players. We still were able to keep the pressure on and won 1-0. We were now 4-0 and I started to think it was possible I'd be bald before school vacation started!

Our next 'hair' story has to do with "The Amazing Race". This week was the two hour finale of the season that my aunt and I had applied for. I was sickened all season watching that disgusting "Sawks" fan "Boston Rob" of Survivor fame cheating and coniving his way around the globe. Talk about an ugly American! My family were all rooting for the husband and wife team of Uchenna and Joyce. Uchenna had started the race bald, but along the way Joyce had to have all her hair cut off when she took part in an Indian ritual in order to win a "Fast Forward". These two struggled with bad luck constantly but never quit trying. They nearly missed winning because at the very end of the race they were begging for money to pay their cab fare to the finish line! Suzie was in tears as the made it to the final carpet in time to hear Phil declare them the winners. It's great to see honest, caring, hard working people win over lazy, manipulating, slackards like "Boston Rob".

Now we move onto Wednesday night. I had dinner plans with my football buddies (Bill, Bob and Eugene) and decided to trim my beard before I left. I started with the normal quarter inch setting that I usually used. For some reason it didn't seem to be trimming the way I liked it, so I moved down to the eighth inch setting. Now that was doing that job! I made quick work of the beard and moved onto my mustache. Well, I guess using the eigth inch setting wasn't the smartest thing to do on my mustache as on the first swipe it took away nearly my whole mustache. As I stared at myself in the mirror and said "Oops!", I realized that I would now need to take off all my facial hair and proceeded to do so.

Now we come full circle, back to the soccer team. As the boys arrived last night for their game, they all noticed my missing 'hair'. "Coach Bichler, I thought you weren't going to shave until after we won ALL of our games?" I explained to them that I had meant the hair on top of my head and we went on with the game. It turned into a very close game in which we had possesion of the ball nearly 65-70 percent of the time. Each side had some great opportunities with us having the best one. One of our players had the ball, all to himself, standing directly in front of the goal, with no one including the goalkeeper within 5 yards of him. He slowly, calmly kicked the ball and watched it sail wide right, completely missing the open net. We had several other chances last night but none as open as that. Even with the referee constanly making illogical calls and often not making any calls in dangerous situations, we managed to hold on for a scoreless tie. As one of our players made his way off the field, he came over to me and said, "Well Coach Bichler, I guess you won't have to shave your hair off".

Testing new Blogger client

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but I promise I'll try to catch up tomorrow.

Boy, do I feel old....

Pac Man celebrates his 25th birthday - May. 10, 2005

Odd Jobs

The last two days have been a chance to catch up on a lot of little things that have been neglected in the last week. Got the grocery order finished (we use Peapod), do two weeks worth of laundry, have the roomba vacuum, wash some dishes, along with a million other little things. I've even managed to find time for the kids to have play dates with some of there friends and help them get together things for Mothers Day. Of course soccer has to encroach too, fields to open and close, games to plan for. As lazy as I can be most of the time, I amaze myself about how much I can accomplish when I am motivated. Of course now matter how much I do get done there still seems to be a huge list of things that don't get done. Oh well, life has never been boring!

I hope to be able to find some time tonight to create another podcast. Earlier this week I listed it on the various directories online in hopes of getting noticed. It seems to have attracted a few more listeners, but I'll probably need to work a lot harder to keep them and expand that base. I just wish I would get some kind of feedback about either that or these blogs. I know people are reading/listening to them, but I don't know what they like/dislike about it.

Well, I don't have time to write any more right now, still things to finish.

Until next time,

Ho Hum...another game another win....

Well, we finally got to play another game last night. This was the game for week G, but was only our third game. It almost didn't happen! Two days ago the opposing coach, who had agreed to moving this game to a weeknight, called our head coach to say that he probably wouldn't have enough players. Our coach convinced him that we'd rather play shorthanded too than to have to schedule yet another make up game. He said he would be able to bring 10, so we agreed to play with 10. When he showed up he only had 9 players and while we could have dropped down to 9, we felt it wasn't fair for our kids to have to sit more due to the poor planning of the other coach, so we stuck to our word and played 10. We started out slowly as we shook the rust off and adjusted to playing with one less player. The other team had a few opportunities until our kids realized that these guys were for real and weren't gonna just roll over and play dead.

We finally broke through for a goal about 10 minutes or so into the game. North Hunterdon kept it close for the rest of the first half. We finally broke through for a second goal just before the end of the half which helped ease a lot of tension on our sideline. In the second half we really began to pull away as the other team wore down from their lack of players, the thickness of our grass and the size of our field. We kept rolling players in and out so that no one was too tired. When the final whistle blew we had a 5-0 victory and our second clean sheet of the season.

The biggest news happened on the parents side of the field however. Our goalkeeper's mom had a severe asthamtic attack. The fast action of a few of the parents (who included doctors, nurses, fellow asthma sufferers and other health care professionals) prevented an even worse situation. The local rescue squad was called out to make sure she was okay, but she refused treatment and spent the rest of the game in her car. The parents were also smart enough to screen most of the happenings from our goalkeeper so he didn't see what was going on while he played.

We play this same team on Sunday and warned our kids that it likely won't go the same way, since they will have their full squad and we will be missing two of our key players.

Until next time,