Ohio Express

My brother's team won the GBA Pickerington Classic -

The Ohio Express 14U team won the GBA Pickerington Classic with a 4-0 record. The Express started pool play with a 59-29 win over the Southern Lady Vols. The Ohio Express then defeated Team Ohio 36-25 to win their pool at 2-0. The team then started championship play with a closely contested victory over the Central Ohio Swish 49-48. The Ohio Express then went on to face Spiece NW Select in the championship game and battled their way to a 42-40 win to clinch the championship.

Check out the rest of the story with details here...

Number 3 is my niece by the way.

A Civil War Weekend

More pleasant then it sounds.

Lisa came over this weekend and as usual we had a good time. The first night (Thursday) I made veggie sloppy joe sandwiches for dinner. It's amazing how enjoyable that little piece of domestic normalcy was. The rest of the night was spent watching the season finale of The Apprentice. We have a love/hate relationship with this show, which I imagine is the case for most people who watch it. I'm glad it's over and I can start enjoying My Name Is Earl again.

Saturday we went to the movies to check out 10,000 B.C. It was a thoroughly competent movie. It was basically a retelling of Stargate (the movie) and so inoffensive it was like a dinner of saltines. It was pretty though. I've basically forgotten we saw it until I started writing this review of the weekend.

After the movie we traveled down to Fredricksburg to check out the Civil War battlefields of the area. I love Civil War history and if I had a memory longer than my pinky toe I would be a genius at it from all the National Parks we've been to that commemorate the war. We see films and tour battlefields and yet I can't remember when the War started or ended. Lisa is pretty indifferent to the Civil War memorials. She's just there for the stamps in our National Parks passport. It's nice to have her along though, sometimes she puts voice to a question I've had before but never thought to articulate. She came up with one such question after watching the film on Fredricksburg. The history goes, the Federal troops commanded by General Burnside charged Marye's Heights (pronounced Marie) but were stopped cold by Confederate troops at the sunken road.

Sunken Road with Confederate Dead

The question on Lisa's mind was why all of these men would continue to march to their doom? I know that isn't exactly the most insightful question ever asked but it is one I've never seen answered in the books I've read or the films I've seen. I mean the answer would seem as simple as not wanting to get shot for desertion but what super genius decides this is a militarily sound tactic? I know from watching films like All Quiet On The Western Front and Gallopoli that it was decades (and probably the advent of the machine gun) that someone decided this wasn't the optimum use of resources. Still, Lisa and I both wondered why Burnside didn't send his troops north to flank the Confederates. The only reason I could come up with is the lack of quick communications on a battlefield in the days before radios and aircraft. As the death of General Stonewall Jackson proves (as if there was any question) recon of a battlefield is dangerous business. I imagine that there are a thousand historians that could explain the reasons. It all has to do with the paradigm of warfare. I'm sure I've even known at one time but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that the philosphy behind warfare tactics was so elemental and ridiculous.

Sunken Road, 29 March 2008. The view from the other direction.

I don't really have a conclusion to this post. I enjoyed the weekend, got to see some interesting history that I will shortly forget and best of all I got to do it with my favorite woman ever, Lisa.

Now We've Got Ourselves A Presidential Race

I just got up to Good Morning America and a segment on Hillary, Obama and what someone has called the "Tanya Harding option". It seems that people are saying with Hillary falling behind she's going for the jugular (or knee as it were). They showed a few clips of Hillary going on about not being able to pick family (a reference to Bill? although I guess she did pick him) but being able to pick churches and shaming Obama. The anchor questioned whether this would tear the Democratic party apart. The only question I have is why did it take so long to come to this? First, it's an election campaign so it's a given there will be mud, second, it's Hillary Clinton, who is a mean spirited witch that would stoop to anything to win (of course that's my opinion). But as for tearing the Democratic Party apart? I think I remember uglier races and I think we all understand that this is what politicians do.

I suggest you just vote for one of these guys, probably the one with the Halo like lighting in the background (I'm a sucker for subtle subliminal messaging).

Favorite Photos

This is a reprint from my other blog Riding

I'm working in Virginia these days. I haven't been able to get one of the bikes here with me yet but spring is starting to force it's way up through the snow, muck and mud. It won't be long before I can't take it anymore. Until that happens I wanted to post a few of my favorite photos. I haven't posted here in quite a while so this is just a way to get my feet wet again.



This first one was taken shortly after got the FZ1. I was doing a job at Camp Pendleton over a summer. I couldn't bring the Vmax with me and I couldn't take a whole summer in beautiful southern California without a bike. I'm not wealthy enough to just by a bike whenever I want but the Vmax had been paid off for awhile and I was still single back then. The other guy in the photo (in front of the orange Vmax) is Rolando. He's a friend from way back and how we ran into each other after eight years is a story for another post. This day Rolando took my on a ride through the Mulholland Hills to the legendary Rock Store and down through Malibu. It was quite a day and a fun ride.



This photo is taken at Wolf's Creek Pass in Colorado. It was a ride a couple of friends and I took from Avon Colorado to Durango. We had another friend following us in his truck. He was so inspired by the fun we were having he ended up taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course (after trying out a BMW and dumping it). A few months later he had a Harley. The ride to and back from Durango was a good time.

These two were taken on a trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. We got lucky in that Lisa, my wife, had a job in the two parks. We had free housing and access to the two parks for two weeks. The picture of the bike in front of the Grand Teton was taken right outside the ranger house we were staying in. Score! The second picture was taken at Hell's Half Acre. That part of the ride was two hundred miles of sheer torture. The route went straight through the flatest, most boring part of one boring state. I included this photo because some of Starship Troopers was filmed there (and it was an interesting chunk of Americana.



This photo was taken while I was working at Crow's Landing in California. This was on California Route 130. It went through the mountains from Patterson California to San Jose passing the Lick Observatory on the way. This was one of the most amazing roads I've ever been on and most times I went there was almost no one to share the road with. I hated to see the job end simply because of this road.



This final one was from a trip I took to Clarksdale and Rosedale Mississippi a few years ago. It's one of those rides that defines in perfect clarity why I ride. You've probably seen the bumper stickers that say something to the effect that "It's a fill-in-the-blank thing. If I had to explain you wouldn't understand." I would amend that to say "It's a motorcycle thing, I can't explain it and am too busy riding to try".

These are more than photos, they are split seconds of perfection caught for my lifelong enjoyment. If you like these you can check out some more on Flickr

Right Now

It's March 13th, 2008 at 8:36 p.m. I'm in Stafford Virginia at the Towne Place Suites by Marriot watching "My Name Is Earl". I'm working at Quantico Marine Corps Base, where I've been since last October. Nothing special is going on but I wanted to write something so in a few years I can look back on this day and remember how bored I was. The local high end supermarket in the Stafford area (someplace called Blooms) has a mix and match beer six pack which I love. For this six pack I had a Warsteiner which I'm drinking now. And right at this minute Giovanni Ribisi is in his tighty whities.