Hockey In Houston

Growing up in Houston, Texas was one of the greatest things that I have done. Of course, I didn't have much say in the matter, but I sure enjoyed it. One thing that I really loved was how much sports were emphasized, even from a really young age. I think that between the ages of five and twelve I tried out six or seven different sports. None of them, however, could hold a candle to hockey.

I know what most of you are thinking. Hockey? In Texas? Is there even any ice there? Well, no. There is not a great deal of ice in Houston. Luckily, street hockey is the answer to that problem.

When I was ten years old I started playing street hockey, the roller-blade variety. Yes, there was an option where I could wear tennis shoes and run around after the ball. In fact, the first time I signed up I opted for the tennis shoe league because I had never really been on roller-blades before. Unfortunately, or fortunately as it would turn out, there was a mix up when assigning me a team and I ended up on a roller hockey team instead. Result? One of the best mix ups to happen to me in those early years of life.

For the next three years I was a part of a roller hockey team that posted a record of 28-2. Those first two losses came in the first year I played. I had the same coach all three years, and the core group of players remained. I would have played longer if I could have, but the sport became pretty expensive.

There were at least three games that I can remember where I scored at least three goals, a hat trick. For some reason, I seemed to have a natural ability for this sport. Granted, this could very well be because I was playing hockey in Houston, a city (and state as it were) that had hockey as probably the eight or ninth most popular sport. I'll tell you what though, I loved every minute of it.

Moral of the story, be open minded to a number of different things. You never know when you will run across something different that you grow to love. I could have very easily ignored the chance to play hockey and gone for football, the crown sport of Texas, basketball, soccer, or any number of other sports. Luckily, I took a chance, at the age of ten nonetheless, and came out on top.

The Frozen Tundra

No, this post is not about Lambeau Field. I know that might be hard to believe, but it's true. I'm referring to Logan, Utah. Yes, that frozen desert of a wasteland that I've called home for the last two and a half years. Now this is by no means a shot to all those wonderful people who love Logan and have lived here for their entire lives. There are plenty of great things about this place. The snow, however, is not one of those great things.

I am from Houston, Texas. The most snow I've ever seen there was probably when i was seven years old. I remember I was at school and, out of nowhere, my teacher told us to grab our coats and follow her outside. Once we finally walked outside, we saw what amounted to snow flurries. Of course, us kids thought that it was a full on blizzard. We stayed outside for about thirty minutes, staring up into the sky and spinning around in circles. That is my idea of playing in the snow.

All of this was brought on by the eight or so inches of snow that has fallen here in the past day or two. The stark contrast between the two just blows my mind. Living here for almost three years still hasn't done much to acclimatize myself to all the snow that falls here throughout the year. All I know, is that if it is still snowing here come May 1 (like it did last year), I may just have to relocate to Jamaica or the deep jungles of Brazil. Only time will tell on this one.

Memories of Spring

When I was a kid, I loved going to the park. Usually it was to play football with the other kids from my school, but I was in love with jumping off swings and sliding down slides as well. Of course, that lumps me into a massive group with about ninety percent of other children. Let's be honest though, if that many kids like something, then it must be pretty awesome, right?

My favorite time to be outside was in the Spring. To me, that was the premier time to go to the park and swing or slide in the usually humid city of Houston, Texas. There was nothing quite like swinging so high that you would partially fly out of the swing on your way back down because of inertia and momentum and all that other scientific lingo. Talk about a rush! Amazingly, I think I could count on one hand the number of accidents that have befallen me as a result of being crazy on a swing.

Another thing that I really liked to do was make my way to the highest point on the playground and look down at everything. Back then, and even now, it was hard for me to understand the fear people had of heights. Of course, the fear of falling from heights is a much different matter. Anyway, I remember I would climb on to the top part of the slide and stand up and look out at everything that I could see. I would then proclaim myself the "King of the Playground". Sometimes I would substitute "king" with other dominant words such as "Ruler", "Czar", or "Ultra Dominator". All of them were great fits though, so it didn't particularly matter to me which ones my friends decided to use.

After a long afternoon of "ruling my domain" I would usually find a nice big tree somewhere and lay down underneath it. I would stare up into the branches usually looking for squirrels (which were more common than mosquitoes it seemed) and birds. This, of course, resulted in a great deal of bark falling into my eyes, which I'm still convinced has something to do with the sad state of my ability to see these days. More often than not I would fall asleep for twenty or thirty minutes and then wake up wondering why all of the blankets had been pulled off of me. It usually took me about a minute to remember where I was and what was going on.

Those were definitely the "care-free days" that most people long for. Not much to care about besides a page of math homework and wondering when the next time I'd get to play Mega Man was. To me though, Spring Time equaled Park Time. Nothing quite like it.

WotD #3 - Diminution

Ok, so it's been a long time since I've done this. Lately, I have had the awful feeling that I just have no desire to work anymore. Not as in my job but as in assignments for class. I distinctly remember having this feeling about 6 years ago when I was a senior in high school. Back then, I believe this was referred to as "Senioritis". That feeling went into recession a few years ago, but has come back with a force and is dominating my subconcious.

Oddly enough, the word of the day today is "Diminution". I thought this picture was perfect to describe my lack of desire to do those assignments. Just replace "Sales" with "Go-Get-Em" or something like that.

The duck could be my conscience yelling at me, shouting, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU'RE ALMOST THERE! QUIT SLACKIN' OFF!!!" If the duck is my conscience, then I might be the mouse looking down into the hole thinking, "Wow, I didn't think it had dropped THAT far".

Let me level with you. I am still working and trying hard. It's just become increasingly difficult to care about it. Perhaps I suffer more from complacency than anything else. Doesn't everybody go through that stage though? Thankfully this is just showing its face, so if I can stave it off long enough then I just might be able to ride the holidays out until the summer break gets here.

Here's to hoping summer gets here before too long!

WotD #2 - Girandole

Alright, today's word of the day is "Girandole". Yup, the picture of one is right over there --->

I'm not going to lie. I don't know a single thing about these girandoles. This will probably be a very quick post with an explanation that is totally out there. But, I did say that I would try doing this every now and again, so here we go...

Right now I'm working at a high school as a peer mentor/teacher's aide. Basically I help students with anything they need help with and grade papers or other things like that. It's actually not that bad of a gig. Anyway, in one of the English classes that I work, the class is reading an abriged version of Great Expectations. We just read the part where Pip first heads over to Ms. Havisham's place.

So, Pip walks into the mansion on the heels of Estella, and he meets up with the disheveled Ms. Havisham. She's sitting in a chair dressed in a faded wedding dress and one white shoe. The room that is described seems equally faded and run-down, but is still adorned with expensive looking furniture and other such appliances. Granted, there was no electricity back then, but I can totally see this girandole sitting right in the middle of one of Ms. Havisham's tables.

I know this wasn't any amazing beacon of light and understanding by any means, but I think it will suffice those of you who have just become so rivited on my WotD posts. Let me know what you think.

WotD #1 - Unreconstructed

I'm not sure where this idea came from. It's probably a by-product of staying up late and being a bit burnt out at the same time.

I had this idea to, from time to time, do a "Word of the Day" blog. By itself though, I didn't think that idea was good enough. So, I decided to look up the word of the day, which in this case the word was unreconstructed, and then search on Google Images for a picture that was on the first page of results. From there, I would just write about whatever it was that came to my mind when I saw the picture. I guess we're going to see how this turns out.

As a brief note, before I get started, I will add that this word is for February 3rd, although by the time I finish this post, it could very well still be February 2nd still. Don't blame me for the Merriam Webster website being in Eastern or Central time. Now that that's out of the way, let's proceed...

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this picture is how much I would actually like to go there. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a picture of Machu Picchu. I wouldn't want to go there while there are a number of people walking around though. This is one of those places I'd like to explore by myself. Of course, if I was able to get together a huge group of people to play paintball there, then I think I would be ok with that. Wouldn't that be awesome?!? Just look at that picture and try to tell me that playing paintball there wouldn't be the greatest.

The last thing I thought about was how long those stones have been sitting there. Now, I'm no expert by any means, but I do know it has been a very long time. Guess it makes you kind of have to admire the people who built things like that back then. They sure knew how to make things last. If you want another example, just look at the Pyramids of Giza or the Sphinx.

That does it for now. I'll get better at this, but I just had to put this out there to see how things went the first time. Like I said, this won't be a daily or weekly thing. It will come randomly, so be on the lookout.

The Super Bowl

Ok, so let's be honest. When all of us heard that the Arizona Cardinals would be playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl, we all thought, "Ya know, this is shaping up to be one of those 'Giants vs Ravens' Super Bowls". If you're not familiar, that might've been the most unexciting event that was watched by tens of millions of people.

Fortunately, this was one of those fantastic times where the performance surpasses the billing. I expected the Steelers to win, but, I'm going to be honest, I had no idea that it would be decided by one of the greatest Super Bowl catches that I have ever seen! Santonio Holmes needed every centimeter of his shoes to make that catch, along with body control that a ballerina would be jealous of.

To sum things up, I was very satisfied with this game. How could you NOT be? Unless you're a Cardinals fan I suppose.

Honorary mention goes to Larry Fitzgerald. That man made the second best catch of the game, which would've won top prize in 97% of other games. He had two touchdowns, and during the second, ran by the secondary as if they were running through Jell-o. That guy knows how to play football.

Congrats Pittsburgh Steelers. I may not like you that much, but you earned it. Final Score: Steelers 27, Cardinals 23.