A shutout!

And it was mine!

Of course, there are a few qualifications to that statement: it was just a scrimmage, and my offense and defense were really on the ball. Nonetheless, I made some good saves, and I felt really attentive all night.

My favorite save was on a breakaway, with the skater coming straight at me down the slot. I skated forward to challenge then decided to do something special. I quickly increased my forward speed, dove forward, and poke-checked the puck well away from the startled skater. It was awesome!

I am really enjoying the whole hockey experience. This represents the first time that I’ve participated in a team sport in an organized league in many years. Sure, I lettered in band and math team (11^th at State!) in high school, but while those were challenging team activities, they weren’t really sports. No, I must dig deeper into my history to find my last athletic team.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but my intuition leads me to guesstimate eight years of age. My parents convinced (forced?) me to play soccer. I don’t remember much about the experience; in fact, I can’t recall ever playing any games. I am reasonably certain that the local YMCA ran the soccer program, and I’m reasonably sure that our team uniforms (really just t-shirts) were purple.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember an event that must have been from a game. I remember getting a penalty (or something) for touching the ball with my hands, but I complained because the ball had taken a weird bounce and brushed my hand. The ref would hear none of it.

The only other thing I remember about the soccer league was that we played our games at dry outdoor hockey rinks around my community. Grass grows in those rinks during the summer, and the boards usually prevent the ball from wandering off, so it served us well. Kind of like box lacrosse, I suppose.

Before that, I apparently played t-ball on a team. My only memory about that is the color of our jerseys: yellow.

Yup, besides those single seasons of t-ball and soccer, I’ve never been on an organized athletic team. Fourteen years later, that changed, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Ever wonder what a tsunami looks like? Find out with this video. I’m not sure if that’s a video of last week’s tsunami, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

A video that *is* from last week’s tsunami shows just how much water such events can displace. It looks almost as though a major river was diverted into a housing development.

More videos are available.

This morning I woke up to find a coating of fluffy snow outside on the ground.

Tomorrow, the high temperature is predicted to be three degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, three. That’s really not so bad: Thursday’s predicted high is zero degrees.

The predicted low temperature for here on Thursday is -11 degrees. That’s actually two degrees colder than that predicted for Amundsen-Scott Base at the South Pole.

Good to be in Minnesota again!

As some of you know, I’ve been trying to sell my Bonneville for some time now. I don’t understand why it’s been so difficult to sell. It’s in good condition and the price is reasonable, but interest has been sparse. I’ve always been of the opinion that once somebody sees the car in person, they will like it so much that they will buy it. By that theory, all I needed to do was convince one person to come and look at it.

After running multiple weeks of ads in each of the two major Twin Cities newspapers and a perpetual ad on CarSoup.com, I got about 18 phone calls regarding the car. Of these, half a dozen people wanted to come look at the car and take it for a test drive. I set up meeting times with each of them. Now, here’s the really irritating part:

Only one of those people actually showed up. Just one. None of the others even bothered to call to say that they would not be coming. Arg!!!

But it gets worse.

The one guy that did show up took the car for a test drive. He seemed to like it a lot, so much so that he made me an offer. I accepted. He said that he would return the next day with the money. We set up a time to meet. You can probably guess where this story is heading…

He didn’t show up. He didn’t call. No bundle of cash was slipped in my mailbox.

Why must I keep getting stood up by car buyers? Why?? WHY?!?!

I have become enthralled with The Facebook.