Free Movie Tickets

I have a free double movie pass to give out to the first person who can answer this trivia question:

What is the name of the high school I graduated from?

First person to give me the right answer in the comments section will win a free double movie pass to a movie called Bon Cop Bad Cop. It is a premier showing on Wed Aug 9 at 7:00pm at Pacific Cinemas in Saskatoon.

Rules:
1) First time winners only (that's everyone)
2) You must be able to attend the movie on Wed night in Saskatoon

Good luck!

Reunited with the Class of '96

This past Sunday I went to my 10 year class reunion down in Caronport. Originally I was on the planning committee and we had a great 3 day class reunion all planned out. However, after telling everyone about it not a lot of people were going to attend. We then scaled it back to a one day affair and I basically had no part in planning it. But a great thanks to Tara and Janice who put a lot of work into it.

The reunion was a great time! I loved it a lot! We had about16 or so people from my class attend along with their significant others and children. It was really great to see everyone again and see what has all happened with them since graduation. There were a lot of laughs and tears (ok, nobody cried, but we did laugh a lot!) It was also really great that some of our old teachers came by including Mr. Appleby, Mrs. Hall, Mr. Reed, Mr. Guenter, and Mr. Frostad. It's funny because I'm sure that to them we are just another class of students (I don't mean that in a bad way it's just that they see so many kids over the years I'm sure it's a blur sometimes) but to us these teachers are people we will never forget. So it was great that they took so much of their time to come hang out with us and walk down memory lane.

We started off the reunion around 12:00pm with a BBQ. I was put on BBQ detail along with Tara's husband and it started out ok. But then we lit the BBQ's and it all went downhill for me. Mike was doing great and the hotdogs were turning out fine. However after I brought in the first round of burgers I made a joke to Tara that they might not all be cooked (and I'll admit I was a little unsure) and so I got booted outside to re-cook them all. Then the funnier part is that suddenly Mr. Appleby was out there talking to us and pretty soon I was no longer BBQ'ing. I found out that Tara had sent Mr. Appleby out there to relieve me of my duties. I was completely fine with that as I'll admit I am not a great BBQ'er and I really just wanted to chat with everyone anyway.

After the BBQ we went on a tour of the school and all the changes. Since I went to school at Caronport there were lots of changes as basically the entire town is part of the school. The biggest change was to the cafeteria. Those students that go there now are extremely lucky at the amazing selection of food they get. There are three stations for them to choose from every day. One if a pizza station where they have 3 kinds of pizzas all the time. Then they have the grilled station where they will have things like grilled cheese sandwiches, burgers, rueben sandwiches, etc. Then they have the classic station where they will serve lasagna, pasta, or other main course meals people are used to. Then they have an international station where you can make your own stir fry and things like that. It's unbelievable. Then they still have a deli bar, a dessert bar and all the beverages you can eat. Actually, everything is all you can eat. Very different from before.

After the tour we went back to the Nelson centre for more chatting and we ordered pizza for supper. Then the fun began. Everyone was heading to the courtyard to roast marshmallows and make smores, but a few of us wanted to play some basketball for old times sake. So one of our teachers let us into the gym and got us a nice ball. I thought it was going to be 2 vs 2, but apparantly basically everyone wanted to play and there was no one at the fire at all. We had a really fun time and played a best of 3 series to 21. Fortunately my team won 2 out of 3 and will remain the champs for the next 10 years. I hadn't played basketball in like 2 years so I was pretty rusty (and out of shape) but I did have a few awesome moments. The first was when I drained a fade away jump shot to win the first game. Then in the 3rd game I was up top and the moment the ball was checked to me I shot the 3 and nailed it. Then I did the exact same thing again later on! I was extremely pumped...the only bad part was that Shiela my wife was guarding me and she didn't like the fact that I could drain 3 pointers over her.

We then all went to the fire and made smores, etc. Finally around 12:00am the only people left were all of us staying at Janice and Brents' for the night so we headed out there along with Andrew and Michael for some poker action and to go to bed. The poker was great, especially when my pocket 6's hit a 3rd six on the flop and 3 of went all in. I won when I ended up with a full house and busted out Shiela and Larry. I played a little heads up against Brent but then walked away ahead around 6 dollars. (I know, we play very low stakes)

That was the weekend! I will post some pictures later on but I just dont' have my camera with me right now. It was great seeing everyone and definately made me realize I need to stay in touch with people more.

Enjoying Life

Life on EI is great. On my first day of EI I just hung around, ran a few errands and basically enjoyed not working. Then on Wednesday I went for a round of golf with a few guys. A few years ago a few of us bought a golf trophy and so each time one of us wins a round we get to sign the back of it and keep it until the next round. In the first 2 or 3 years I didn't win the trophy at all as my golf game was horrendous. Then, finally, last year I managed to win it two or three times. But my reign has ended as I lost the trophy on Wednesday when I shot a terrible score of 118. I hadn't shot that poorly since I first started golfing. Granted this was my first round of the season and so I wasn't really upset. I'm pretty confident I'll win the trophy back in the next couple of rounds. I also played soccer Wednesday night, but alas we got scored on twice before our goalie showed up and we just couldn't recover. We lost 4-2.

Thursday was a great day when my cousins and uncle and aunt came over for lunch. They have been living in Scotland for the last two years so it was great to see them again! We had a good lunch (which I made) and then swam in the pool for a while. It was lots of fun!

Friday I went out and got an oil change and started shopping around for tires. Our car needs new tires before winter but I think I'm going to buy them before we head out on vacation later this month. I also watched V for Vendetta at some friends home on Friday night (I know I'm a little behind the times on movies) and it was a great show.

This weekend I have my big 10 year class reunion! It should be pretty fun even though a number of the people I hung out with aren't coming. That's too bad, but it will be fun with the people who are there and also to see all the teachers again.

That's the update for now. I'll post again after the reunion...hopefully with photos!

Is Volleyball a Sport?

I've never really been into volleyball. I really enjoy playing it, the problem is that I just was never any good. I made the team in grade 7, but only because no one got cut. Then in highschool we never really had a boy's team so I never got good. Sometimes I found it frustrating that I couldn't play volleyball well because I'm an athlete and I don't like not being good at sports.

But now I'm starting to wonder how much of a sport volleyball really is. Take a look at this chart from the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology:

Notice anything interesting. They have labelled Volleyball under "Light Effort" when it comes to exercising! All the other sports on the chart are under "Vigorous Effort". They even have Raking Leaves higher up the exercise chart than Volleyball. That must be why I never could get good at volleyball...I like to focus on real sports!

So what do you think? Is Volleyball really a sport or is it just "light effort" like stretching and easy gardening?

(P.S. I phoned the Public Health Agency of Canada and they said they weren't able to put soccer on here because that is a little too extreme for the general public and they don't want people having heart attacks all the time)

I'm Free from the Man

I'm no longer working for the man because I'm once again unemployed...and loving it! I slept in today which felt great. I felt sorry for Shiela who had to be at work by 6:00am though. I'm really looking forward to being unemployed. I've already rented a video game (a poker game called Stacked) and so I'm going to be playing that a bunch today. Then I've got a tee time tomorrow morning and a soccer game in the evening. I think I will also go down to the Willows this afternoon and chip and putt a few balls since I haven't pulled out my golf clubs all year. Hopefully tomorrows game won't be too rusty.

Catch you on the flip side!

Clarification on Previous Blog

I re-read the previous blog and thought I should delete it, but then decided to just leave it up as some people had already read it and I should probably just clarify what I meant.

I realized the previous post may have come across that I was excluding myself from what I was saying about working hard and having a passion for the game. Don't get me wrong, I am very much a part of this. When I was saying that "people need to step it up if someone gets after them" I was thinking of myself. If I misjudge a ball and it goes over my head, ok people make mistakes. If I do it again, I would hope that my team would get on my case and start telling me to judge the ball better and back up...and I hope I wouldn't get mad at them but realize that they are right. There are times out there where I get beat and I have stopped trying. When I am talking about people not giving up and hustling their butt to make up for mistakes, I am including myself in that because I know that I can improve on that a lot.

So if anyone from our Tauro FC team read the previous post, please don't read into it that I think you don't like soccer and aren't trying. That was not the point and I am not trying to point out any individual players. I also am not excluding myself from any comments I made. My sole desire of that post was to point out that if we want to start wining games we need to be fired up together as a team with all cylinders firing, meaning EVERY player must give it everything they have for 90 minutes and work together as a team.

I'd love to hear any comments anyone has on this.

Passion...We Need You

Last night we played a game against SAL Engineering and we ended up losing 3-2. We scored within the first 3 minutes of the game. Then they scored a nice goal off a free kick and went up 2-1 when they scored on a breakaway. We managed to tie it up in the second half but a late header goal off a corner kick gave us the defeat. The first half was terrible. The second half was great and our team played hard. The problem is that we need to play that way for 90 minutes, not just 45.

It was too bad because that team was not good. We killed them the last time we played them. Some of us went for drinks after and talked about the team and I've decided to post one main thought that came up. There seems to be no passion in some of the players. Now this is obviously not everyone, but where is the fire in our team's eyes. When a player steps on the field it is time to go to war. If you get beat you need to bust your butt to make up for that. If you are continually making mistakes and someone starts to harp on you and tell you to step it up, don't get mad at them because they are right. You do need to step it up.

Playing well is about respect. When I coach my youth teams the one thing I want from them is to be competitive. I don't care if we win or lose the game, but I do care if we gave it our best and made it a game. Bad bounces and bad calls by the referee can cost you a game sometimes and you can't control that, so if you only base things on wins and losses it is not a fair picture. When our men's team plays a game, whether we win or lose I want that other team to know they had a game on their hands. That way they have respect for our team. It even goes down one more level to the individual player. If you want people to respect you as a player, you need to show some passion out there. You don't need to be an amazing player because if you show true passion out there and work your butt off, people will respect you.

Now for anyone on the soccer team reading this, don't get too caught up in whether or not you are one of the people I'm talking about. Honestly, I have no one in mind when I write that, it just seems to be more of a generic thing . I think our whole team needs to bond together, each player focusing on himself playing well, and this ship will turn around.

In order to turn the team around, I've decided (with input from the other people at Athena's last night) to change the focus of the team from wins and losses to something else. I guess you'll have to come out and watch next Wednesday night August 2nd at 7:00pm at Umea Vast (behind Lawson Heights Mall) to find out what that is!

Victory is Ours!

This is my Under 11 Boys Gold (Division 1) team I coach. We are proudly (in a good sense) portraying our medals we won in the Mini Festival of Soccer. Sorry, what was that? What place did we get? Oh, we got 1st place and these are gold medals.

We only have 8 guys on the team now which is ok because at this age they only play 8vs8 and I usually bring up extra players from lower divisons to play with us. We did have 9 guys, but one of them moved to Edmonton but is coming back to play in the City Final. These guys on the team are phenomenal. If they were the same size as our Men's team I honestly think we would lose. They are going to be the future stars of Eastside Soccer. So far this season our record in league play is 9-0-3. We did lose a game in a tournament which devastated the guys, but we bounced back and still won the gold in the Eastside tournament.

The big City Final is this Saturday, July 29th at 8:30am inside the new soccer centre. We are playing Hollandia, the only team to beat us at all this year, and so it will be a big battle as we both fight for the Gold medal and be declared the Division Champions. Feel free to come cheer us on!

U20 World Cup in Edmonton - Want to Go?

It's hard to believe but Canada managed to win the privilege of hosting the U-20 World Cup in 2007. The games will be played across the country in places like Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Victoria, Burnaby and...Edmonton! Yep, only a quick 5 hour drive and you have the chance to watch some of the best youth talent from around the world! Many current soccer stars played in the U-20 World Cup before the actual World Cup. You don't think this is a big deal? Well, the U-20 World Cup is the second largest soccer event in the world...the only one bigger is the World Cup.

I know the games aren't until next July, but I have already bought my tickets...that is I've bought tickets for me and 16 of my closest friends. Yep, so far 17 of us have already bought tickets to go watch a double header game on Sunday July 8th in Edmonton. We are sitting in Section U (which is basically at center field) Rows 39-41 with between 6-8 people per row (that way we can talk to each other and not be all strung out along one long row).

But today is your lucky day...that's right because I actually still have 5 tickets left that are not spoken for. Do you want to come enjoy the fun on July 8th, 2007 in Edmonton? It's a double header game with Team Canada playing someone in the first game and then two other teams playing in the second game (we don't know who they are yet because qualifying is still going on, but I'm hoping one of them is either Brazil or England). The cost is cheap...for only $30.00 you get to watch two games of soccer! That's only $15 per game...that's almost cheaper than a Blades game and I can guarantee you this will be a whole lot better than any Blades game!

I only have 5 tickets left and I'm selling them to the first five people who contact me, so don't wait! Come enjoy the fun on July 8th, 2007 in Edmonton.

Free Stuff!

Don't you love it when you get something for free that you really like? I know I sure do and I've had my fair share lately.

A little while ago I received an item in the mail that looked like a card advertisement. I still read it and low and behold they told me that if I go test drive a car from where Shiela and I bought our Cavalier a few years ago, I would get a free IPOD Shuffle. It was almost too good to be true. So before the June 30th deadline I went on down to the dealership and test drove an SUV...I think it was a Torrent or something. They filled out the form and said I would get my IPOD Shuffle in the mail. And I did! I haven't figured out how to use it yet, but I have it!

The second free item came a few days ago. When the Toronto people were down for the Hbc Run for Canada they saw my cell phone I was using. For those that haven't seen it, it is a Nokia phone and is all taped up in the back because the battery kept falling out. Needless to say people make fun of me every time I use it, which isn't that often as it is aPay As You Go phone and I only put money on it when I will use it a lot. Anyways, one of the Toronto guys says he has a Sasktel phone back in Toronto from an old project they did and that he would send it to me for free. So about a week later I sent him an email to see if he was serious and he said he couldn't find the Sasktel phone anywhere...however he had a couple other phones and said he would send me one of those. So a week later I receive a package in the mail and there is a Telus cell phone in there. What a nice guy that Seamus is!

So yeah, now I have a new cell phone and a new IPOD Shuffle. I don't know if I will activate the cell phone or not. I don't need it right now and it seems like a waste of money to use the phone if I don't need it. But we'll see. I'm just waiting to see what else I am going to get for free!

I'm in Full Swing Again!

Hi Everyone,

Man I feel like I have been gone for a long time...at least without blogging. In my last post I was just about to head off to Edmonton and help coach in the Rocky Mountain Cup with the U13 Provincial boys team. Our goal in that tournament was to get a medal and nothing less was acceptable. Our first game against Newfoundland went ok once we calmed down. When we went to BC we got scored on in the first 45 seconds of the game. We told our guys that if nothing else we cannot get scored on in the first minute. Well, we broke a new record and within 25 seconds we were down 1-0 to Newfoundland. Then suddenly it was 2-0. We finally turned it around and won 5-2.

Our second game was against Alberta North. It was like watching David and Goliath out there as those Alberta boys were big and out muscled us. We probably played our best game ever against them, but we just couldn't pull out the win. The highlight for me was when the head coach got kicked out of the game for saying something to the linesman and I got to take the helm for the final 10 minutes. We scored our only goal against Alberta when I was coaching! But we still lost 3-1.

That set us up for the bronze medal match against Manitoba. Again, we came out a little slow and suddenly we were down 1-0, but at least it took more than 25 seconds. Then they scored again, but luckily there was an early offside call that everyone had missed and so the goal was disallowed. That gave us the edge we needed and our guys went on to a 3-1 victory as we claimed the bronze medal!

Other than that, my job with the Hbc Run for Canada is winding down and I only have another 4 days of work. After that I'm unemployed again and I'm looking forward to relaxing in August (while looking for a job of couse!) So I'm going to be blogging on a regular basis now, catch up on my surgery stories and get back into some classic Fact or Fiction. Stay Tuned!

Quick Update

The Hbc Run for Canada went well with nearly 500 people in attendance. It may be more than that but the official numbers won't be in for a while.

I can't write much because I'm off to Edmonton with the U13 boys Provincial team from Wed to Sunday as we are going to the Rocky Mountain Cup. We play Newfoundland in our first game. I'll be back to regular blogging sometime after July 10th.

See you all then!

Too Busy to Blog

Sorry for the lack of blogs. I won't be blogging until after July 1st and the Hbc Run for Canada is over and done with. There's just too much to do right now and that is all I think about.

See you all then!

Oh yeah, feel free to sign up or volunteer with the Hbc Run for Canada...I still need some help with volunteers and I would also love it if more people signed up to do the run.

Eye Update

In a previous post I talked about how my eyes were looking bloodshot. Well I finally got a picture of them with a digital camera thanks to my friend Janelle.

Here is the picture of my eyes right now:















Here is a picture of my eyes when I open them up wide:


If you look closely on this picture in the top corner of my right eye (the one that is more bloodshot) it is a little yellow. The area just below my eyes also look a little puffy. This is A LOT better than it was on Friday after my surgery. I honestly thought someone had punched me in the face a few times because it looked like someone just beat me up!


This background also looks fake. It's not! This was taken outside as I watched our Men's Tauro soccer team play a game this past Wednesday. It's a pretty cool sky!

I'm looking forward to my eyes returing to normal again. I always forget they look weird until everyone starts staring at me with this weird look. Oh well, let them think what they want!

Anyone else ever had bloodshot eyes like this?

The Surgery - Part 1 of 4 The Preparation

May 25th...5:00am. I roll out of bed for my final time with my spleen. I decide to have a shower but I don't know why since they are going to be covering my body with weird soaps and cutting holes into me right away. But I do anyway since I figure I'd hate for the surgeon to suddenly jerk the knife back when he suddenly gets a whiff of my un-showered self. I wander into the kitchen afterward and look around. I'm not allowed to eat OR DRINK anything until after my surgery so I resign myself to the fact that I'll have to starve. Luckily I had gorged myself on Vern's Pizza and Coke the night before after my soccer game so I really wasn't that hungry.

I had packed a whole whack load of stuff into my overnight bag...books, cd's, discman (yeah, I'm not cool enough to have an IPOD yet) shirts, pants, games, etc. You'd think I was going on a youth retreat or something! I was going on a retreat but the only thing retreating would be my spleen!

As we parked the car and walked towards the resort I felt a huge weight on my shoulders. So I took off my overnight bag and Shiela carried it for me. Whew, that was better! We zipped right through registration and before I knew it I was in a guest room. Ah...I was finally in my room at this resort called City Hospital. As I sat on the bed I suddenly heard a noise, looked up and saw one of the of the resort attendants come into my area. Then came an odd demand for a resort, "Ok Mr. Mathies, we're going to have to ask you to strip down and put on one of our lovely resort gowns. You can't stay here without a gown on." I thought it was a little odd to have to be naked under their resort gowns, but oh well, it was a free resort and if that was one of the rules I could live with that. That was until I put on the gown and realized that it was quite drafty in the back...not a lot of material there. I'd have to walk carefully I figured. Then came the time to put on the resort socks. Apparently not all guests had to put these on, but because I was named Sheldon Mathies and lived in Saskatoon I had to. Made no sense to me but oh well.

As the nurse helped me put on these oversized socks that went up all the way to my knees, I suddenly realized that the gown didn't have any legs to them. It was early in the morning and so my brain was functioning slowly but it went something like this. I'm naked under this gown, I'm sitting on the bed with my legs on the bed trying to put on oversized socks. This means my knees must bend so I can reach the end of my feet to put them on. Oh look, what a nice view out the window. The nurse is helping me put on my socks and she is at the end of the bed. I'm not married to the nurse. There are no legs to this gown. I'm naked underneath. So if she's at the end of the bed looking at me trying to help me put on my socks and my knees are bent then that means...BAM! I dropped my knees down the bed so they were flat. Sorry lady, nobody gets to view that except my wife. It was at this point I realized that certain things may be exposed during my time at this resort and there was very little I could do about it. After that I did my best to stay covered, but mistakes seemed to happen a lot at this resort.

The clock slowly ticked away and then suddenly I was allowed to leave my room. Maybe allowed isn't the right word. It was actually a forced parade. At this resort on our floor around 7:45am every morning they gather up all the guests and line them up in the hallway. And yes, I was one of them. The nice resort attendants were lining everyone up. There was the older guy in the wheelchair, a lady with a shaved head, an older lady with white hair, a younger man with the bad knee in the wheelchair, and a few others including me. I looked pretty normal. I was dressed like everyone else but all I had was an IV pole I carted down the hallway. It was a great parade and we were all allowed to bring along a guest to walk with us. I took Shiela.

Now originally I thought they were lining us all up in the hallway for a race. And since everyone had a guest with them I figured it must be a 3-legged race. So when the resort attendant said "Let's go" I grabbed my IV cord, wrapped it around Shiela's right foot and my left foot and off we went running. A quick "WHOA!!" and three or four resort attendants stopped us and informed us it was a parade, not a race. I was disappointed but I unwrapped the cord from our legs and fell back into line. Apparently those in wheelchairs got to be at the head of the parade.

As we walked down the hallway we went by a few resort attendant stations and it was great. I waved to everyone as we went by and wished that I had brought some candy to throw to them. It was great to hear them cheering for us as we marched down the hallway up to the great door. The great door that led into the holding corrals.

As we marched through the great door I saw many separate stalls. As they led me by my IV to my stall I felt more like a horse at an auction then at a resort. All the members of the parade and their guest were given a separate stall to sit in. We could still all see everyone as no one closed the curtains. It was at this point that the draft must have begun. They told us prior that we all had a certain surgeon and anesthesiologist assigned to us, but I'm not so sure. I think they could all see us in our stalls and they start drafting us based on who they want to take care of. Because as we sat there people would come in and out of the even greater door and they would look at each of us as they walked by and then leave again. I smiled big and tried to flex to show them how strong and healthy I was, but it was to no avail. One by one the anesthesiologist and surgeons would come out and go talk to certain people. First it was wheelchair man, then Hip man, then the shaved head lady. I obviously didn't go very high in the draft because I was the last one picked. Finally, they came out and talked to me and told me all the wonderful things that would happen to me in this special area of the resort. They said I'd have lots of guaranteed rest and I'd wake up a new man. Then they were gone. They had tried to make me feel like I was the #1 draft pick, but I knew better. Oh well, I still got a room in this special area and I was excited. "Guaranteed rest?" I thought, "What do they mean by that?"

I kissed and hugged my wife and then they led me away. I glanced back once to see Shiela smile at me and then the even greater doors magically opened. I stood and stared at this new area...this was going to be an adventure and I really hope I make it back. As I walked forward I glanced back at Shiela who gave me a small wave. Then the magic doors closed and Shiela and I were separated...I could only hope it wouldn't be for good.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of 4 - The Special Room

I'm Spleenless and Loving It!

I'm back home now and decided I should put up a quick update on my surgery!

First of all, I didn't die during it (obviously). The surgery itself went well and my surgeon did a great job of sucking my spleen out of me. Thank you to everyone that visited me while in the hospital...that meant a lot to me and I'm sorry to anyone who had to watch me dry heave or throw up while you were there since my stomach was extremely nauseous and I couldn't even keep down water! I left the hospital on Friday morning and am still recovering at home. The small holes where they cut into me hurt a bit still especially when I turn over or bend over. I have a headache quite often which is annoying because I never get headaches, but I'm taking some strong drugs for that. I feel ok most of the time, but if I go out and about for more than an hour I feel pretty tired. It will be a long time until I play soccer again.

The one thing that didn't feel or look so right after the surgery was my eyes. If you have seen me lately you would think I was demon possessed as my eyes are puffy and VERY bloodshot. When I open my eyes up wide it looks pretty scary. Last night I looked in the mirror at them and saw that my eyes were turning a little yellowish in places along with the red. I immediately figured this was bruising and was a little worried...I don't mind bruising but I don't want to be messing around with my eyes.

So I told Shiela I wanted to go in to Emergency to get it checked out and speak to the Hemotologist on duty. So we headed on down there at 10:00pm. To make a long story short, the ER doctor said the bloodshot eyes and puffiness was just a result of the surgery. It could have been caused by the pressure that was put on my eyes during the surgery (they taped my eyes shut while I was unconscious) or any other type of pressure. He said the yellow in the eye was a good thing because it meant the eye was healing and the body was reabsorbing (or something like that) the blood back into the system. So all in all I was fine, but just to make sure they wanted to take my blood for a platelet count.

And this is where it gets good. My platelet count has been stable around 50,000 but that was on 15mg of Prednisone. Right after the surgery my platelet count went up to 88,000 which was a good sign. But last night, 3 days after my surgery, the doctor said my platelet count was up to 331,000! I can't remember it ever being that high, even after going to get IV gamma globulin done for three days.

So praise the Lord that it appears so far he has healed me through this surgery! I am still on some Prednisone but over the next few weeks I will be lowering the dose until I am off completely. Thank you to everyone for your prayers as God has definately answered them by healing me so far!

Last Post With a Spleen

Yep, this is it. My very last post while I still have a spleen. My spleen and I have had some really good times together...actually all of our times have been together. But tomorrow I venture out into the world on my own. Well, not really on my own. I still have my heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, gall bladder, and many other great organs. I don't plan on giving up doing things just because my spleen isn't here to do them with me. I still have to live life to the fullest! My spleen will understand. It will be watching me live my life from some medical landfill somewhere where all the used up spleens and other organs go. I'm sure it will want me to live a great life! And I plan to do just that!


Oh yeah, happy 100th post to me! I can't believe I've written that many things. For those of you waiting for the story of my BC trip and also the Fact or Fiction story called "The Mysteriously Silent Monkey" it will have to wait until after my surgery.

So, see you all on the flip side!

I'm Back!

This is just a quick note to let you know I'm back in town again from my trip to BC. I was joking with some people that I was on a "business trip" to BC, but in reality that is pretty much what it was. When you start to coach at the Provincial level you don't go to those tournaments to see the sites. You are there for one reason only...soccer. Of course we did manage to get out one night and see some things, but it was a busy and tiring trip.

That's all I'm going to blog about right now...a 19.5 hour bus ride home makes a guy a little tired so I'm going to go hit the sack. I plan on blogging about my trip in some shorter segments over the next few days. Work is going to be very busy over the next few days as I only have two days of work before I go in for my vacation at a local resort the locals call "City Hospital". Check back later on for more!

My Life Update

I'm going away to B.C. for a few days to the BC Tournament of Champions with the U13 boys Saskatchewan Provincial team. I leave early in the morning on Wed and won't be back until later on Monday. so here's a quick update on what's going on in my life:

1) I'm on TV again, but wasn't today. It will probably be tomorrow (Wednesday) on the news starting at 6:00pm. If it doesn't air on Wednesday then it will be Thursday. And that's on Shaw Cable Channel 10.
If anyone has cable (I don't) can you try and tape it for me? I'd like to see what I look like.

2) My surgery is still on for May 25th. Some of you may have heard that it was potentially going to be postponed. My platelet count has been fairly stable at around 50,000 for quite some time now so the Specialist thought we might want to wait. But we lowered my Prednisone dose from 15mg per day to 10 mg per day and after only 3 days of that my count dropped to 35,000. So the surgery is still on as the Specialist said (and I agree) that I shouldn't be on 15mg or even 10mg of Prednisone for a long period of time.

3) I want to write a whole post on this, but I just don't have time right now. (It's 1:11am and I leave for BC in 5 hours) On Sunday I went to see a presentation on Teen Challenge. For those who don't know it's a program that helps drug addicted men aged 18 and over to overcome their addiction. They have a documented 70% success rate compared to the 5% success rate of government programs. All because these men are introduced to Jesus and he is saving these men from their addiction. If anyone has the chance to go hear this men's choir, the presentation and testimonies of the men in the program you should definately go! I think they are coming to Moose Jaw and Swift Current yet so if you live around there I guarantee you will not be disappointed!

Ok, don't check back here for a while now because there won't be anything. But I'll have lots to post after my "business trip" to BC.

I'm on TV Again!

I just got off the phone with the Sports guy from Shaw TV which is cable Channel 10. Looks like I'm going to be on the news Tuesday evening. Tomorrow morning at 10:00am I am going to be doing my little segment with him at Diefenbaker Park where I will talk about the Hbc Run for Canada and how we are raising money for local Olympic athletes. I'm a little nervous already!

But wait! That's not all! I'm also booked in to be on the Sports on Shaw call in show on Thursday night at 7:00pm on June 1st! So be sure to tune in and watch it!

Volunteers Needed!

I was talking with the race director for the Saskatchewan Marathon and she told me that since they have changed the course this year they need a lot more volunteers. I told her I would try to help and recruit some.

This is where YOU come in. Here are the details:

When: May 28th (Sunday morning)
Time: Depends on your job (but in the morning)
What: They need people to stand on the course and tell people which way to go, people to hand out water at the water stations, etc.
Experience: None required!

What's in it for You:

• All volunteers will receive an event t-shirt
• All volunteers are entered to win prizes.
• All volunteers will be invited to their 2006 volunteer appreciation event 1 week following the marathon.

So if you are around on May 28th (and I know that all of you are!) then follow this link HERE and volunteer to help out. Just tell her that Sheldon from the Hbc Run for Canada recruited you (no, I'm not getting paid for recruiting or anything like that...I just want her to know that I was out trying to help her).

*Now this may seem hypocritical, but I'm not volunteering. However, I will excuse you too if you just had surgery 3 days before this event.

Dump and Chase? Where's the Skill!

Last night I watched most of the Edmonton Oilers game. I finally went to bed after the 2nd overtime because I was falling asleep on the couch anyways and I would have missed any goal that happened. Thankfully the Oilers put away the winner and won.

Now I don't want to get into a big fight over hockey teams, but while watching that game I couldn't help but think back to Game 7 in the Calgary series. Those Flames played terrible and they just didn't seem to want to win, or even play for that matter. The Oilers game last night was VERY different. Those Oilers came out flying! They were checking people hard into the boards all night and were skating hard and fast. It was awesome to see them work so hard.

But while watching the game I once again couldn't help but notice the teams using the old dump and chase routine. Now I'm not a hockey player so maybe I just don't understand, but it still makes no sense to me. When I play sports our teams usually like to have possession of the ball (I'm thinking soccer now). When we make an attack, we don't usually kick the ball up the field and hope that our players can run onto it first and win it back. Of course not, that's crazy! Instead, we pass the ball around until we can pass it to our forwards as they make a run past the defenders. But it's a PASS to them, not a long shot into the corner where it becoemes a 50/50 ball and we just hope we win it back.

I see that all the time in hockey. "Dump and chase. Oh, we lost it, better get back on defense. Ok, we're breaking in on the attack. Dump and chase. What! We didn't get the puck! Ok, back on defense." I mean really, keep possession of the puck. Skate it across the blue line or make a short pass to a teammate that is skating across the line. If I was a coach and we were playing defense, I would just tell one of my players to hang out near the red line by the net and wait for the other team to dump it in...then we will just skate it back out again. Simple!

In my opinion whoever came up with the "dump and chase" theory must have watched too much 6 year old's playing soccer where they just kick the ball as soon as they get it!

Am I off my rocker? Feel free to enlighten me in the comments section. I would love to hear what the hockey fans have to say.

Mission Impossible 3 Review

Last night my youth soccer game got cancelled due to the rain so Shiela and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go see a movie. We once again went in for free as we still have a few "free movie" coupons we cut out of cereal boxes over the last few months. We were debating whether to see "Stick It", which is done by the creators of "Bring it On" which is a great movie, or else MI3. It really wasn't a long debate but trust me, we will be seeing "Stick It" eventually!

I wasn't sure what to expect from MI3, especially since I didn't really enjoy MI2 all that much. It has been a long time since I watched it, but all I remember is the opening scene of Tom Cruise hanging on a cliff (which was pretty cool) and the girl. Ohhhg...that girl! And that's not a nice "Ohhg". That's a "I can't stand her" Ohhhg. I just felt that the plot in the second one was terrible and that girl ruined the whole movie.

Anyways, back to MI3. Overall I loved the movie. There was lots of action, explosions, and cool scenes where they need to sneak inot places again. And there was no annoying girl. There's a girl of course, but she's not annoying in this one. I don't want to give anything away so I'll just leave it at that and say that MI3 is a great movie to go see if you want lots of action, cool gadgets being used and you don't want some lousy girl to get in the way and mess everything up! I'd give it an 8.5 out of 10!

Answer to Meeting an Olympian - Fact or Fiction

Most of you got this one right. The answer to this wonderful story is FALSE.

I wrote the story the way I had wanted it to turn out. In reality it went like this:

I left my house around 1:55pm and got to the Midtown Plaza around 2:10pm. I had all my brochures and posters in my bag and I sauntered into the mall like a man on a mission. After circling the mall because I didn't know where the HMV actually was, I finally found it. I went inside and looked around. Immediately I could see it...nothing. No lineups, no cameras, no reporters and worst of all no Jamie. I casually wandered around the store pretending to look at CD's so I didn't look like an idiot, all the while trying to see if she was somehow hiding in the store somewhere that I just didn't see. Of course I knew this was impossible since you can pretty much touch both sides of the store at the same time and it is a terrible room for hide and go seek.

I finally asked one of the workers if Jamie was going to come by and he said "Oh, she's already come and gone." Come and gone, I thought to myself. That has got to be the shortest autograph session I have ever heard of since it's only 2:15pm! "When was she here?" I asked him. "From 12:00 - 2:00pm," he answered back as he continued stacking CD's into the shelves. Hmmm....I must have read the paper wrong I thought as I pretended to look at CD's for a little bit longer so it didn't appear that I had purposefully come there to stalk Jamie. Then I slowly walked out as normal as possible, walked back to my car and drove off to the train bridge to watch pelicans for a few minutes before going home. Oh well, I missed my chance there but hopefully there will be more.

So that's the real story. Stay tuned for my next Fact or Fiction story..."The Mysteriously Silent Monkey"

So Much Effort - Such an Easy Solution

For the last few months I've been having trouble with our printer. It's a great printer and works well, but for some reason it just doesnt' want to print colour any more. I didn't really care for a long time because I didn't want to print colour anyway...it's way to expensive to replace those cartridges. However, I needed to print some things off for work and I needed the printer to start working.

So the hacking began. Now I know what you are all thinking, "You are out of ink!", but no, I wasn't. The ink cartridge gauge said I had 3/4 of a cartridge left. I probably uninstalled and installed my printer about 5 times trying to get it to work. I would take out the cartridges and put them back in. I printed out test page after test page to no avail. I searched for what seemed like hours through all the support web pages for my printer and through all the trouble shooting techniquest. Still, nothing!!

I finally decided to call tech support. So after finally getting through after about a 15 minute wait I was on the phone. Now these tech guys seem to have some weird ways of fixing things. After going through the rig-a-ma-roll of getting all my information like name, rank, favourite colour and most watched reality show we finally got to the problem...no colour printing.

That waas when the weirdness began. He told me to go get a damp paper towel and a dry paper towel. Have you ever tried to get paper towel damp? It's impossible! It's either wet or dry...there is no in between! So I brought back a wet and a dry paper towel and got back on the phone. "Ok," he said, flip over your ink cartridge, put the damp paper towel over the bottom of it and hold for 30 seconds. So I did. And VOILA! I had ink on the paper towel. "I've got colour," I proclaimed to him over the phone. "Ok, now do it again." So I did. This time I had less colour. "Now do it again," he continued. So I did. Even less colour. It didn't take me long to see where this was going.

Then came the solution. "Well, Mr. Mathies, the problem is that you need a new ink cartridge. The one you have is too old and the ink has solidified in it so you just need to buy a new cartridge. Bye bye."

I hung up the phone and looked at my 3/4 full ink cartridge. That's about $30 worth of ink in there. I decided to try it out one more time. Nothing. So I finally gave in and opened up the new ink cartridge package, put it in the printer and printed out a test page. VOILA! Colour! After hours and hours of fiddling and messing around and all I had to do was change the cartridge.

Sometimes I make life so complicated. Any one else out there feel like that sometimes?

Sudoku Master - Not!

As a birthday gift Shiela's parents bought me an electronic Sudoku puzzle game. This little electronic device has 2,000,000 Sudoku puzzles in it and will provide me with hours and hours of entertainment. Little did I know just how frustrated I would become.

Now I didn't know how to play Sudoku but I had heard it was easy...all you had to do was fill in the squares so that every row and every column had the numbers 1-9 in them. I figured that was easy enough. I was kind of busy after I got the game and so Shiela ended up playing it first. She was addicted quickly and was finishing off games left right and centre. Finally, a couple weeks later, I finally found some time and picked it up to play.

WHOA! This was hard! I was working up a sweat trying to figure these things out. I'd look across the row to see if a number would fit and then along the column to make sure I didn't have that number yet and slowly work my way to the solution. And SLOWLY was definately the right word. It took me forever to finish the first one...40 minutes to be exact and I was only on Level 1..but I had to make a few guesses at the end to get it. While playing the game I was telling Shiela that this game was impossible and that you had to guess on a few of them in order to finish. She adamantly told me that you can't guess at all and there is always one number you can get.

I think it was at this point that I started to wonder just how smart I was. There was no way I could finish this puzzle without a couple guesses at the end. Yet I knew lots of people that played these games all the time and were finishing them easily. I started questioning my brain...for some reason my brain was not able to figure out these games! Maybe this prednisone I always take has cut off certain brain functions and so now I can't play Sodoku.

After finishing the first game I started on a new one (a few days later). After many days of playing on and off with a total time of 1 hour and 38 minutes I still couldn't finish the game. Shiela had offered to help me before but my pride wouldn't let her. I was sure that if everyone else could figure out these games so could I! But eventually I gave in and let her look at it.

Shiela took one look at it and then gave me a very confused look. "Why aren't you filling in these empty squares?" she asked me. "Well you can't," I explained, " because that could be an 8 or a 6 and there is no way to know because I can't get the other numbers until I know that one." Shiela looked at it a bit longer and then said "You do know that each 3x3 grid also has to have the numbers 1-9 in them, don't you?" I just stood there and stared at her. As I slowly got closer to her I took the game from her and looked at the screen. There on the screen were nine 3x3 squares. Nobody had told me that each 3x3 square also needed to have the numbers 1-9 in them. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I said as I quickly sat down to finish off the game. 1 minute and 17 seconds later I had finished it.

Now I'm a pro at these things. My record right now is 6 min 52 sec to finish a Level 2 puzzle. It sure does help when you know all the rules. And I also got my confidence back after realizing that I wasn't stupid after all and that maybe the prednisone isn't slowly killing me (ok, it is, but not in this case).

So go out and play the Sudoku puzzles...there is one in the paper every day or you can buy books of them at a Buck or Two. And once I'm finished all 2,000,000 puzzles in my game I will gladly let you borrow it too!

Tauro Prophecy

I just happened to be looking at the Fulchester United website and found an article they wrote on Mar 29th. This was right at the end of the regular season where some teams were fighting for a playoff spot. Here is what the article said:

Dynamo ( 12 ) vs. ( 3 ) Tauro

Dynamo is perhaps one of the surprise teams in Division 3. Tipped by some to be an outside contender for a top 3 spot, the team has struggled badly with consistency this season but still managed to pull off a huge 5-1 upset win over title-chasing Arsenal last week. Tauro for their part have shown outstanding form since Christmas and have lost only two games in 2006. Rob Hydomako has been the go-to-guy for the men in Blue and will be the man to watch again tonight as Tauro look to pip Arsenal to second after a relatively slow start. Isaac Hayes in the Tauro goal has been in MVP form of late and is another player to watch in what should be a high-scoring affair. Dynamo blew Tauro away last time out with Andrew McCarthy scoring three. Don’t put any serious money on a repeat of that result though as Tauro look to bounce back from disappointing 5-5 tie last round.

Prediction: 6-1 Tauro

Well, that game didn't quite go as we planned and we ended up tying them which dropped us a few spots in the overall rankings. But it actually worked out for the best because we got to play the Hawks in Round 1 of the playoffs and we seemed to own them all season.

It's fun reading articles about yourself (or at least my team). Isaac definately was in MVP form and honestly we would never have made it that far without him. Also, Rob was a huge asset to our team all season scoring 30+ goals in 26 or so games. Pretty impressive! There were lots of other contributors on the team that we definately needed or else we never would have gotten as far as we did, but if I start naming names I'd probably miss someone and hurt their feelings. So we'll just leave it at Isaac and Rob.

Speaking of that, the Awards Night is May 15th so to all you Tauro players feel free to come on out for that.

Want to Learn a New Move?

No, sorry _______ (I've left out the name so as not to embarrass the person) it's not a move to pick up girls. Our Technical Director for Eastside Soccer showed me this website that has the best video clips for learning new moves that I have ever seen. I've found a few others but they did them so fast and the clips were so short it was hard to figure out. These video clips are long, descriptive, and they show you how to do it step by step with lots of re-runs of people doing the moves.

So go check out www.bigfootsoccer.com and if you like what's there maybe donate them some money as the site is entirely free!

What a Great Team!

This last Saturday night I attended our U12 boys soccer windup. This was the team I coached in the indoor season and I loved it. The guys were so much fun to coach and they worked really hard. Our season started off a little slow with a number of losses, but we slowly started picking it up and by the end of the season we had beaten Aurora who had only lost to 1 other team all season. That was the highlight of my season right there since around 6 or 7 of those Aurora players are now on the Provinical team I assistant coach with and they had an amazing team. ( Side note: I'm sure I've said it before, but honestly, these kids are amazing soccer players at this level. They have so much skill it is phenomenal! If they were the same size as an adult team they would clean up on them...it makes me fearful of these new youth teams entering the senior men's league)

The windup was a lot of fun. We went out to an acreage owned by the parents of two of the players out in Riverside Estates. What a beautiful area! Unlike the new acreage developments I've seen, this one has been around since around 1968 or so and is very nicely developed...large trees all over, a beutiful little pond with a fountain the backyard, nicely laid out paths winding through the backyard, a large swimming pool right off the backdoor along with a hot tub, a beautiful fire pit area nestled in among some trees in a bit of a valley. Everything about the place was nice and it definately made me want to buy an acreage!

We had a great time eating hamburgers and hotdogs, but then the real fun happened. The boys were playing a game of rugby with a soccer ball. Was it really rugby? No. Actually it was more like "do whatever it takes to get the ball and run it through the other net." Sounds like my kind of game. I got there just as they were about to pick teams. I didn't get picked first (I know, my feelings were hurt!) Fortunately I got picked second and the teams were pretty fair as the other team had the biggest player out there (besides me) and I had to keep him in check. It was an extremely rough game and everyone had bumps, bruises, and scrapes as they were grabbed around the neck and thrown to the ground, tackled into the nearby bushes, tripped while running up the field (I outlawed tripping after one guy was nearly killed). There were a few cut mouths and bleeding lips from being kicked in the face, but overall it was a LOT of fun! And my team WON!

My team and parents were extremely nice to me in the gift they gave me. Two of my players went to Thailand at the end of our season and they bought me a couple cans of Coke for my collection. The first one was from Thailand and it was a collector can for the World Cup with a soccer player on it. The second one was from Korea and I think it is the Korean soccer team on the can. Both cans were extremely cool and not the normal size and shape of our Canadian cans. They also bought me a soccer cd case holder, a soccer ball whistle, and a bobblehead soccer player. Then I also got a really cool Kit Kat bar from Thailand that is actually lemon flavoured cheesecake or something like that. I don't know if I should eat it or not. Finally, they all knew that I really love Coke a lot and like to drink it a lot, so they gave me gift certificates to Sobeys so I could buy all the Coke I wanted! And trust me, I can buy A LOT of coke with the gift certificates they gave me.

I'm really going to miss that team as the players were great and the parents were extremely supportive all season, but I guess we all have to move on. My new U11 Gold boys team has been amazing so far and I love coaching them too! But thanks to everyone associated with my U12 boys Gold team. It was a great season and I'm glad I got to coach you!

Long Overdue Fact or Fiction Answers

Over the last few weeks I've been bombarded with people wondering why I never post the answers to my Fact or Fiction stories. Of course I immediately protested and said I was sure I had posted the answer, but I knew deep down they were right. After a quick look back I found out that there are two stories I never posted the answers to. What's that you say, you want more time to think about it? Well, TOO BAD! You snooze you lose! LOL!

Oblivious To Fame - Fact or Fiction (original post Nov 8, 2005)

This story is FACT! In case you don't remember this was the story of me meeting Bob Bassen and eating breakfast with him. I had absolutely no idea who he was but all my friends who were in the dishpit knew and wished they were me (ok, I don't know if they wished they were me since at that time they were better basketball players than me, but I bet they wished they were in my shoes at that exact moment!)


Freeze Dirt Bag - Fact or Fiction (orginal post Feb 21st)

This story was FICTION! Practically everyone got this one right. This was the first story where we used the Poll system for people to vote on the stories and it worked really well.

The way this story really happened is like this. My assistant coach and I were driving out of the hotel in Edmonton and onto the street when we looked over and saw a cop car with it's lights on. As we glanced around we saw a cop behind this one teenager and he had him up against the wall in the usual search position. As we glanced around we saw a case of beer lying on the ground with the beer spilling out and running down the sidewalk into the nearby grate. (I'm sure any alcoholic that saw that would have had a heart attack because if it had been Coke I know I for sure would have had one!) It was pretty obvious the kid had stolen the beer and was now caught. Yeah, so unfortunately I never got to help with the arrest but it sure was fun thinking of what I would have done had he been running away!

Ok, so now I'm all caught up. I've decided to keep stories on my site for 1 week before posting the FACT or FICTION answer, so stay tuned and keep checking the blog!

Meeting an Olympian - Fact or Fiction

The nice thing about my job promoting the Hbc Run for Canada (have you signed up yet?) is that I get to do things during the day that don't require me to sit at a desk. Yesterday I went to get my blood checked at the local blood checking clinic. I usually go around 11:30am on Tuesdays because there is the smallest line up at that time, but I was already out and about and so I stopped in early. Of course there was a line up, but I didn't care as I sat down in the uncomfortable chairs to wait.

And that is when I saw it...first I only saw the first piece, then another one. Yes, I couldn't believe it! It was the Star Phoenix! I was pumped as I hadn't read the paper in like a week and I had lots of time to read it now. As I scanned through the pages I came across a brief little article about Jamie Cruikshank. She was going to be at the HMV in Midtown Plaza at 2:00pm to promote an Olympic DVD. This was great! I decided to go down there and talk to her to see if she knew about my run. The Hbc Run for Canada is a fundraiser to raise money for Olympic athletes and I figured that if I could tell her about it she could get her friends and family to sign up and help promote it.

So I get down to Midtown Plaza around 2:15pm (I didn't want to look too eager and be waiting there before 2:00pm) and stroll into the HMV. Now it's not a very big store and it only took about a millisecond before I spotted Jamie sitting behind a table of Olympic DVD's and signing them for a few people. There was really no line up after that so I only had to wait for around 30 seconds before I could talk to her. And the conversation went better than I could have ever hoped for.

Jamie is an extremely nice girl and when I told her about the run she was excited. I told her we were trying to raise a $5000 bursary each for 200 athletes across Canada and she said that was awesome. She told me that when she was training for the Olympics (she is a bobsledder for those who didn't know) she would practice for 4-6 hours a day and then have to go to work for another 4-6 hours (depending on the day) in order to pay for her living expenses and coaching costs. She said it was worth it, but if she could not have to work she would have had so much more energy to devote to her training. We chatted for a while longer and she offered to help out with our run whenever she could (she is often away from Saskatoon doing Olympic promos, etc.) I asked her if she could help out on event day and she said yes. So I've decided to make her the official starter of our 10K event!

Our conversation ended there because some more people came into the store to meet her and so I had to leave. But what a nice person...I really hope she gets picked to be one of the 200 athletes to receive the $5000 bursary.

Ok, vote below whether you think this is FACT or FICTION

Is "Meeting an Olympian" Fact or Fiction?
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	FICTION
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Provincial Soccer Weekend

This past week has been extremely busy. I've been working hard at promoting the Hbc Run for Canada and also getting things ready for a running expo I am going to this weekend in Regina. But the most fun I've had this past week has been assisting with the U13 Provincial Boys team.

It's Easter break for these kids which means that if you are part of the Saskatchewan Provincial Training Program you get to come to Saskatoon for a week of soccer training. Our team trained twice a day for at least 1.5 hours of field time each session. Then on top of all that they also have mental training sessions, stretching sessions, goal keeper sessions, etc. It's very busy for them but it's great! It's also very busy for me! I would get up in the morning, work for a while, zip over the new soccer centre for practice, then zip back home and work for a bit, then zip back for another practice, then zip back home and work again. That was for 4 days straight. I was extremely exhaustedby by the end of each day and just wanted to sleep.

Our team is awesome! Not only in skill, but even in personalities. We have a great group of boys and I really loved getting to know them this past week. We are pretty strict with them at this level. There is no tolerance for being late, for wearing the wrong colour of practice shirt, or for not listening. These players need to be sharp if they want to be the best in their age group.

The week ended in an exhibition game where we played the U13 boys Provincial South team. We cleaned up on them and won 4-0. I'm already looking forward to our next training weekend on May 5th.

It's Official...The Day is Soon!

You know there are always days you don't ever forget. I think I will be having one of those shortly.

May 25th

That's the day. The day that some things will leave my body never to return again. I'm speaking of my spleen of course.

On May 25th I will be going under the knife and will have my spleen removed. This is a decision we've (myself, Shiela and the doctors) come to in order to help my ITP. For the most part I don't even think about my ITP. I just live life normally except for popping a few pills every morning and being all chummy with the nurses once a week at the 'ol local blood laboratory. However, I can't pop the pills forever and so by removing the spleen there is a good chance the problem will be solved.

The timing is actually perfect...almost. May 3rd I go for my physical to make sure I am not mentally insane and fit to stand trial, I mean surgery. May 15th I gofor my pre-surgery assessment. They haven't told me much about this, but I think it is where we go into the surgery room and I get to pick out which scalpel I want them to use, etc. I hear I even get to help sharpen it to make sure it's ready to go. Then I meet all the nurses that are going to see me naked on the operating table so I'm sure that won't be awkward at all! Finally they will be showing me to my cell where on May 25th I will sit and wait for my turn in the chair, I mean table. So I'm not sure exactly what is going ot happen, but I do know I will be asking for a nice steak from the Keg with a 2 litre of Coke for my final, I mean pre-surgery meal. Then they let me out on bail until May 25th where I will have to report back to the judge for my sentencing, I mean surgery.

The good part is that on May 17th I leave for Vancouver for a soccer tournament with my U13 boys Provincial team. I arrive back here on May 22nd to enjoy the last few days of sunshine before entering my cell. Then comes the really good part! I think I may be out of commission for a few weeks and guess what is on TV during that time...THE WORLD CUP!! I can't believe my luck! I'm going to be forced to sit at home and watch soccer games all day long. And when I need something I will just yell for the guard and they''ll bring me what I need. It's going to be a great time!!

The only down fall is that I won't be able to play soccer for quite a while. I'm hoping it heals quickly because I see good things for our Tauro club in the future!

And the Winner Is...

Not me. Yep, I came out second best and as the old saying goes, "2nd Place is the first loser."

What are you talking about?!?! you are all probably wondering. Well, it's about a job. Some of you may have heard that I applied for a new job which was to be the Executive Director of the Saskatoon and District Soccer Association. It was a job that I would have loved. Dealing with soccer leagues and situations on a daily basis. Working out of the new soccer centre. It would have been great. However, on Wednesday I got the call saying thanks for coming out (ok, it was a lot nicer of a phone call). The end result was that they decided to hire internally instead and promote Jason from the position of Technical Director to Executive Director. Of course that opened up the Technical Director job, which they asked me if I wanted to apply for it, but that is not quite what I am after.

So am I disappointed? Yes and No and here's why.

Yes I'm disappointed because:

• I think I would have done a great job
• It would be great to be doing soccer on a full time basis
• I need a full time job come July 31st

No I'm not disappointed because:

• I still have dreams and ideas I want to pursue and if I had been given this job I would have had to put them on hold
• I don't know if I'm ready for an actual "office job" yet as I really love my current job
• I won't have to back out or figure out how to do my current job and the new one (I told them I didn't want to leave my current employer out in the cold so close to the event day and would want to try to do both jobs until July 31st)
• I can now go back on unemployment after July 31st if I need to
• I think Jason who they hired will do a good job

There are probably lots of other reasons I thought of before but can't think of now as well. So although it would have been a great job and I would have loved it and given everything I had to it, I guess God wants me to be focusing on something else...I just have to figure out what that is now.

A Tale of Two Teams

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. That pretty much summed up our Tauro season. Starting off with 0 wins and 4 losses we knew we needed some changes. A couple key additions to the team and we were on the road to success. So successful that we made it to the final game of the playoffs (yes, we beat the Moonwalkers 4-1 in the semi final to advance to the final). It was time to once again face Dandylyon (pronounced dandy-lee-own).

It seemed that this past season certain teams "owned" certain teams. There were some teams we always beat and there were others that we always struggled against. Dandylyon was one of the teams that we always struggled against. In our two previous encounters we managed to get up 2 goals and then they would end up coming back and beating us. We never had trouble with some of the top teams in the league including AC Milan and the Hawks, but Dandylyon always gave us trouble. We needed to break this trend.

The game came down on Thursday night at 8:15pm. As the players checked in their player cards with the referee Tauro FC suddenly got a break...Dandylyon's best player and the top goal scorer in Men's Division 3 forgot his player card at home and was relegated to watch the game with the fans. Tauro FC had a full bench with everyone there, including two previously injured players. Things were looking good until Steve realized he was hurt too bad to play and Jeff Peters knew he could not play a regular shift. This left our bench with basically two lines and the odd extra person. But we werent' concerned as we had just played our semi-final game 20 hours before with only 11 players.

The game started with a rush as Dandylyon stuck to their game plan of finesse passing and control. Right off the hop our goalie apparently grabbed the other teams shirt when he got too close to the net and the referee yelled at him to let go. Little did we know how much of an effect that innocent little play would have on the game.

The game was rough and our team was getting pounded by them as they hit us to the ground, took us out in the box and had their keeper knock our forwards to the ground. Our bench was screaming for some penalty shots, but the only response was a "play on" by the referee. The referee had decided to just let us play and was not going ot call a lot, especially since he said he could have given our goalie a red card for grabbling the opponent's shirt. This now meant our team was going to have to take the abuse from the other team.

The game was hard fought, but suddenly Dandylyon broke through our outside defense, slipped into the middle of the box unguarded and pounded a shot into the bottom corner of the net. 1-0 Dandylyon. The Tauro players spirits were down, but no one was giving up yet. The Tauro team continued to pepper the other team's goalie with shots, but it was to no avail. Their goalie was playing phenomenal and it would take a lot to put one by him. The halftime whistle sounded and the teams retreated to their benches.

As the guys threw out some thoughts on the game, Isaac our goalie stepped up and gave a rousing half time speech. We were playing these guys hard and they were scared. Forget about the score, keep playing our game and we will put one in. With goose bumps and shivers rivetting through their bodies the Tauro FC players gave a roaring "1-2-3 Tauro" cheer for the final time this season.

The second half started out strong and Tauro once again had the pressure on. Still down 1-0, the pass came across the middle of the field to the far left side to the talented feet of Robin Dalshaug. With a quick look up he found his mark and with a change up left footed shot it was a 1-1 game when the ball went into the corner out of the goalies diving reach! The Tauro bench and fans were ecstatic and the momentum had changed.

Tauro didnt' let up and only a few minutes later a second goal was sniped into the net giving Tauro the 2-1 lead. Dandylyon was looking down, but definately not out. Then the unthinkable happened and a Dandylyon player tripped our defender and was sent to the box with a yellow card and a 4 minute penalty. Tauro's hopes were high as they now had a power play and a chance to take a 2 goal lead. But nothing materialized. Even down a player Dandylyon dominated short handed and the Tauor offense was barely able to keep the ball out their own net. As the power play ended Sheldon thought to himself that if they can dominate while shorthanded, we definately can't let them get up a player.

Not about to let that happen the Tauro players, now back at even strength, sent a long high pass towards the keeper. The ball bounced off the wall, their goalie played it away but couldn't quite clear it. As the scramble continued Kurt Manz found the open net and headed the ball in for the insurance goal and it was 3-1 Tauro with 7 minute sto play.

7 minutes, but if felt like an eternity. Both teams battled hard while Tauro played smart to keep their 2 goal lead. Until the unthinkable happened. Kurt Manz, a Tauro striker, jumped in front of the goalie to block his throw and the yellow card was up. A 4 minute penalty with only 4 minutes left in the game. Sheldon's nightmare had come true. On the power play Dandylyon played aggressive and were going to use all 4 minutes of the penalty to try and get back in the game. Barreling down the left hand side their striker burst past our outside defender and sniped a shot to the top inside corner where our goalie did not even see it coming due to the screen. 3-2 Tauro with 3minutes left.

The Tauro defense was playing ferocious and there were all sorts of legs in the box. But it only took a small hole and just like that the Dandylyon striker put away the tying goal into the bottom corner of the net. 3-3 with 2 minutes left. The battle raged on and the only thing racing through Sheldon' s mind was "please don't let them score the go ahead goal." Luckily our player in the box was let out for the last minute of the game and though the pressure was intense, the final three whistles blew and regulation time was over. But it couldn't end in a tie!

Stay tuned for the penalty shots story and actual video footage of the penalty shots!

Close But No Cigar

(I really have no idea how that saying came about. Does anyone else?)

So tonight I was sitting at home alone. Shiela had been called in to work, there was no small group and my new soccer coaching season hasn't started yet...so I had some free time. Now my online poker bankroll has been on the rough edge lately. I had taken $5.00 and worked it up to around $135. Then things went downhill. I started losing a lot of $5.00 heads up games and the next thing I knew my bankroll was down to $11.00! Needless to say I lowered my playing limits back to the $0.02 -$0.04 limit Texas Hold 'Em game with the occasional game of $2.00 no limit. So since my bankroll is so small, I can't afford to enter any tournaments...so I'm looking for free ones.

I found this one tournament that was a little different than most. Usually in a tournament the winners win money or else a seat into a bigger tournament. But this tournament was giving away 2 tickets to the April 16th NBA Miami Heat game plus $2500 in expense money to the top two finishers and it only cost 700 player points to enter. So I did...along with 775 other people.

I decided to play very tight this tournament and see how far I could last. It didn't go well. I was playing very few hands and was getting blinded to death. Finally, I was down to 900 chips and managed to win a hand with three people in the pot. That pushed me up to 2500 in chips and things turned around. I kept playing tight and eventually I worked my way up to 50,000 in chips! I was in 10th place overall and was loving it.

Unfortunately as the tournament went on I lost out ona couple hands. One big one was when I had QQ and the flop came A X X. There were four people still in the hand and I figured one of them had an Ace. However, no one bet big on the flop so I bet a couple thousand. Two of them called. The turn was another Ace. I didn't like that. The player to my right bet around 5000 and I went into the think tank. I could reraise him here to see if he's bluffing, but I was down to around 25,000 in chips and the blinds were 800 and 1600. I finally folded as did the other player. Then 2 hands later I held Ace 5 offsuit in the big blind. There were two raises in front of me and I again had to think about this. I was pretty sure someone else held an Ace and my 5 kicker was very low and I was out of position. I folded. The flop came A X 5. I almost cried as I would have surely doubled up there.

In spite of those hands I was still doing well and I made it to the final 2 tables which meant there were only 20 people left. I was dealth A 10 offsuit on the button and I raised aroudn 5000. I was called by 3 others. I forget what the flop was but I had a gutshot straight and ended up calling all in because I only had round 7000 left anyway. I lost and was finished in 18th place.

So althought I won't be going to Miami this Sunday, I was pumped with my overall performance. If I could finish in 18th place in a regular money tournament online I would be doing pretty well (that means I finished in the about the top 2%). I'll have to keep playing these free tournaments and hopefully next time I'll be off to sunny ol Florida!

Playoff Game Update

Our Tauro FC playoff game has been rescheduled to Wednesday April 12th at 11:00pm. I bet I can guess how many fans are going to come out and watch!

I'm Off for a While

No need to check back on this blog every few minutes just itching to read the latest post because I'm letting you all know in advance that I will be away in Regina for the weekend at the Regina Sport and Recreation Show. I'm going down to promote the Hbc Run for Canada!

See you all when I get back.

P.S. If anyone is thinking of breaking in while I'm gone rest assured that my landlord who lives upstairs has been informed that no one should be in our house this weekend. And yes, he has a shotgun behind his front door. And a baseball bat. And I heard he's buying a pitbull on Friday to keep as a watchdog.

Take the Lead - Movie Review

Last night Shiela and I along with her friend Sheena and (I just blanked and forgot her name, sorry!) went to see the movie Take the Lead. "What!" you may say, "that movie isn't even in theatres yet!" To which I reply "You are correct." However, when you have free passes to a premier showing of the movie you get to watch it a little bit earlier.

Yep, I got some free tickets to go see this movie before it hits the big screen on Friday. For those of you in Saskatoon, keep your eys on the Planet S magazine because that is where I received my free tickets. All I had to do was go down to their office on Tuesday at 12:00pm and they handed out free double passes to the movie to everyone there. The guy was giving me a little bit of a hard time for talking loud (not surprised are you Pam) in a joking manner and so he gave me two double passes afterward.

The movie was ok. It's basically about this dance instructor who decides to help out an inner city school by teaching ballroom dancing to a bunch of kids in detention. It's sort of a mixture of Dangerous Minds and Sister Act. The kids however are into hip hop dancing and so the two music styles clash with each other and they need to learn to work together.

The dancing in the movie was pretty good. If you are into ballroom dancing you would love it. I thought there could have been a lot more hip hop dancing and was a little disappointed in that. The problem with this movie was that it didn't pull at the heart strings enough. You never really felt all that sorry for the inner city kids and their lives and actually the problems never really get solved. I also thought the ending was very weak and the only good part about the ending was that it ended with hip hop dancing.

I'd give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. However, if you are into dancing a lot you would have rated it a lot higher. I preferred movies like You've Been Served because their dance moves were way cooler! But overall the moview was a good watch and since I paid nothing to see it I can't really complain.

Heads up: Planet S and Rock 102 will be giving away free movie passes to two more movies in April. Next week they are giving away tickets to Scary Movie 4 and later in April to the movie The Rocket (which I think is about the hockey player Maurice Richard). So read your Planet S magazine (free almost anywhere in the city) to find out when to go pick up your tickets.