Grinder

Tied my best season last week, at 31 pts. Been stoked all week about looking to pick up a point or two tonight on the last night of the regular season. Get to the rink tonight for a must win game, and get asked if I'd be comfortable sitting on d for the night. Can't bring myself to put my points ahead of the team, so I spend the night on d, helping us win the game, with a whopping two shots and no points. I know I did the right thing, but... DAMMIT!!

Having a very frustrating season with the 4 on 4 inline team I'm on this year. We haven't won a game since before Christmas. We have the league's top scorer, third best scorer, and the worst record. This should give you an idea of the team dynamic. I don't mind losing to a better team, but I f*cking hate losing because of stupidity. Case in point, during our last game, we played a good first period. Second period, we're in trouble. The D men start trying to beat their checks one on one and drive to the net. No point shots. No passes. Our forwards are already set up for the screen and a rebound or a dump into the corner, so when a D man stickhandling into the zone creates a turnover, it becomes a three on one odd man rush. Again, and again, and again. We go from 1-0 to 1-4 in about 5 minutes. Time out. We talk about the change, what the problem is, and what we have to do to fix it. The result? For another 1 and 3/4 periods, I watch the D keep doing the same thing, over, and over, and over. Mr Top Scorer decides to win the game himself, and it's chaos as our transitions and defensive assignments are shredded, because he's dancing around everywhere. The rest of the team is running around trying to cover open opponents as he leaves his check to try to steal a puck. Everyone tries to scramble and adjust.We took 21 shots in the first period, 4 in the second, 5 in the third, losing 8 to 1. After a while, we just stopped even trying to convince the guys on D to try to pass or shoot. All we'd get is, "Yeah, good call, we have to change that..." and there they f*cking go again. I'm not kidding, for half a second, I thought about throwing a check into one of my own teammates as he tried to dangle down the boards past me again. Like I said, I don't mind losing, but I hate losing stupid. I'm glad there's less than 8 weeks left in the season, so I can look forward to a new draft next year and have a good chance at not having to deal with sharing the same jersey as these asses.

For the last two years, In conjunction with my prinicpal, I've been working like a slave on setting up curriculum and dealing with contractors for the construction and transition to a brand new, $13 million dollar high school. I've been teaching special education and other subjects in a collection of run down, leaky portables for the last 8 years. I've taught my carpentry classes outdoors on good days for the last 5 years, and have been looking forward to using the $35k worth of new machinery and tools that my new, 3500 sq foot carpentry shop is equipped with. Except... At 2:45 today, I was informed that I will likely be staying at my existing facility, to teach adult education. "You've done such a good job dealing with the startup and implementation of the new school, we feel that you'd be a good presence here." F. M. L. Edited for somehow repeating the whole text again.

Played the top team in the league tonight. They have a 11-1 record, and talent to spare. We handed them their only loss the last time we played. With a 1-1 tie in the third, our goalie gets injured (likely ACL, see you next year). While he's down, they're talking sh*t about him the whole time. Our replacement goalie did his best, but we got shelled in the last 8 min, with a final score of 9-1. They then proceed to start a shoving match and a scrum during the handshake. I skated to the bench and stayed out of it - and had an assclown from their team follow me back the whole way, chirping "Man up! Man up!" At another time in my life, I was an unarmed combat instructor in the forces. Now, I have a job in education, and an assault charge would end that pretty quick. I usually smile to myself when I'm walking away from idiots like this, but tonight, sweet jesus, I would love to have 'manned up,' and left him on the ice wondering which dislocation the doctor was going to fix first.

Lmao - Yeah, it wasn't my wife creating the trifecta - I know that for sure, although she was asking me how the march was with a big smile before I even had the door closed. I don't know or care where the extra set came from (nor how the girl in the very back managed to contort enough to squish them against the glass). Not going to complain about too many! It just goes to show that persistence can pay off. Now what? Maybe I'll start suggesting all-girl pillow fights as a good exercise regime...

I guess the plus side is if I see a good deal, I can pick up a new one without much hassle from my better half.

I have an ongoing joke with a couple of my wife's friends about how they need to spend more time flashing themselves topless in public - usually around when my reserve unit is doing an annual 13km ruck march in full kit: "You know, Angie, nothing says 'I support the troops' more than a drive by with fried eggs under glass..." This has been going on for years, quite harmlessly, with my wife's full knowledge. This is my last year in a command role, and yesterday's march quite likely the last one I'd be leading my platoon on. Fast forward to yesterday morning, and there's about 40 of us, full kit, helmets, weapons, safety vehicle to the rear, tabbing along on a rural road about 9km into our route. The shout of "Vehicle rear!" gets passed up, and as the approaching vehicle passes us from behind, it turns out to be a Ford Escape, honking madly and driving quite slowly with yellow ribbons tied to the antenna and roof rack, with three pairs of breasts pushed up against the windows. I nearly pissed my pants laughing and cheering. Out for a pint with friends later last night, and the girls were all about denial, with big smiles and rolling their eyes ever so innocently, but it definitely made a bittersweet day one I can't stop laughing about.

Wife's brother in law asked to borrow my shop vac. "Sure, no prob, but just don't use it on drywall dust, okay? That stuff doesn't even get slowed down by the filters and it kills the motor." Got it back yesterday, full of/covered with drywall dust. Turn it on, and it sounds like an asthmatic with emphysema that just smoked a pack of filterless cigarettes, and it sucks like a nun on a blind date. On the phone, the douche has the balls to say he didn't use it on any drywall - "Just woodchips and some sawdust, that was all..." Riiiiiiiiiiight.

I work in the army reserves part time. I ran a group of high school students through a day of military training (learn to march, camo, and a little walkthrough of the changes in tactics during WW I) before they head off on a battlefield tour of Europe. This is the third class in five years I've done for this teacher. I usually pick the kid who gives the best effort, and give them some type of momento from my regiment to place at a battlefield on behalf of my unit (our history stretches back to 1912). In front of the whole group (students, teacher, parents) I hand this teenager a picture of a cross from the Vimy battle that rests in a museum now, and tell him, "When you're standing at Vimy Ridge, please place this to honour the fallen, and speak a few words from the heart." This kid gets a huge grin on his face, hands me an envelope, and says: "Why don't you do it yourself?" They gave me a ticket to join their group for 10 days in Europe next year, and the chance to visit some really significant places in Canadian history. I'm still in shock.

Truer words were never spoken. 99% of the time, I work hard to appreciate the little things, because I know how fast they'll be gone. It's that 1% day that had me posting. Thanks for the perspective check.

Sporadic fever and choking up lung butter for over a week while the wife's out of town and I'm taking sole care of the kids. Sick and tired of trying to smile through being sick and tired. Also: Two year olds going through the "Why?" phase: "Why is there that in there?" "There's nothing in there." "Why?" "We store those in the cupboards." "Why is there cupboards?" (How the hell do you even start to answer that one?) "So we can store things." "Why?" I love my little boy, and want him to stay curious and articulate, but sweet Jesus, sometimes my head's ready to pop.

I work in the Army reserves. After spending some or all of the last 6 winters building my fitness towards spending some or all of the last 6 summers trying to complete my training as a platoon commander, I've had to finally bow to the reality that my 42 year old spine is not keeping up with my 20 year old spirit. Three years in a row of my back degenerating into the feeling of hot knives and sand between my vertebrae, leaving me unable to complete the course, means I'm done with the infantry. It is what it is, but it's a little bitter reaching the point where no amount of determination will overcome your physical limits. Enjoy your twenties - my ex-wife stole mine.

You can find tubes of hard-ish silicon specifically for reinforcing and repairing shoes and work boots (here in Canada the brand name is Shoe Goo). It's about $5 a tube. A thin layer of it on the usual areas of wear protects the boot. As it wears off, slap on a fresh blob. It's not unsightly, it adds very little weight, it's cheap, and it's added extra seasons onto my boots for sure.

How is it that women can be mad at you for days, without expressing what it really is that they're mad about? I hate playing the guessing game. Oh wait, it's been a month since the last time we played this game. Ooh! Ooh! I know!! I know!!

Wednesday: 0755: Fender bender. So long bumper on my '09 Vibe, so long perfect driving record. 1015: Arrive at school, spend part of day dealing with wanna be gang bangers targeting a specific kid; break up three altercations. 1445: Having spent two hours making phone calls to arrange crisis support counselling for a teen professing suicidal intentions, little miss precious tells counsellors "Didn't mean it! WTF..." and storms off school grounds. 1915: Arrive back at school to catch up on work missed in the morning, discover my woodwork shop has been broken into the night previously, and $4k of carving knives, hand tools and portable power tools is gone, gutting my carpentry program and four years of carefully planned purchasing done on a shoestring budget. Sunday: 2030: Ball drops for late game of my inline ball hockey league. 2031 - 2130: Every stress and hassle gets left behind, never mind the score. Thank you, hockey.