Breaking the Weekend Down

Friday -
Varsity Hockey Game. We tied, 2-2.
Band performance. We got asked to come back the following night, even though it wasn't scheduled.

Saturday -
Varsity Playoff Hockey Game. We lost, by a considerable margin. A goalie had to step in for ours, and he wasn't any good. Final score was something like 9-1.
Band performance. Pretty good, but they had something planned for halftime, which was kind of frustrating, seeing as we were asked to come and play.
Soc-hop. Came right after the game. Kind of a flop, and I didn't really dance, but still kind of fun. The student body managed to get glow stick all over the place, throw some at the DJ, and break one of the windows up front. I think that was kind of funny.

Sunday -
Helping Jessica move. What a pain. Seriously, it took forever. Having my aunt Terri there helped though.
Band practice. Not BK Band practice, but practice with a more personal band called Event Horizon. I play keyboard, obviously. I didn't get to play much, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Monday -
Oh, but nothing could quite prepare me for Monday...

Back On The Ice

Well it would seem that although it is indeed May, I find myself back on the ice rink with my old Bishop Kelly teammates. And I love it.

Coach Andersohn, the hockey coach, has signed the team up for 3-on-3 hockey in the summer; a game every week. Not to be upstaged, the other high schools have done the same. So it won't be surprising if we end up playing other high school teams every other week.

For me, this all seems very exciting. I mean, what could be better? I'm going to get to play my favorite sport every week against my rivals and with my teammates, and when the school years comes around next year and the real hockey season starts, we'll all be ready to kick some ass.

I know there are a lot of people who don't like hockey, but let me tell you - getting back on the ice after four months and skating is euphoric. There's nothing better. Just being able to glide again... it's amazing.

And so the picture of my upcoming summer begins to take shape...

A Photo Post

I've gotten into the habit of carrying my camera around with me to try to find good photo oppurtunities. And now I've got a lot of pictures to get off my memory card. So here we go.

Last weekend I had the TEAMS competition. I forget what the acronym means, but it's a huge test that fried our brains.

The TEAMS room, with all the people in it.

Our team with Zack, Bronte, Payton, Richie, and me.

After several hours, we looked like this...

Or worse, like this...

The whole Junior Varsity TEAMS participants, as well as Doctor Neznanski, our C. Phys. teacher. He's funny as all hell, I'll have to get him to write something sometime.


A week later came a busy weekend. First off I had to play keyboard with the band at the basketball game

The school band (which I'm in) played at the school's basketball championship. Here's everyone who was there.

Here's another picture of us playing...

Last one... by the way, band is really fun. We play really fun songs like Jump (Van Halen) and The Final Countdown (Europe) and plenty of others.

After that, I went and saw Jumper. It was like 10:00 PM before it started.

Jumper.

All that was Friday. Saturday was the Junior Varsity Hockey Championship. This was what I've been waiting for.

We lost.

6-0.

Oh well. It kind of sucked, but we did make it to the championship. And as a note, Boise (the team we played) had 14 players. We had 8. Plus the refs were totally on their side. Closely following that, I went to the Hallissey Mass. Hallissey is a local inter-Catholic School basketball tournament. My brother took part in it so we went to the mass.

This will give you a little bit of an idea of what the church looked like. Really nice church.

Well that was Saturday. To top it off, I got hurt at the game so I could hardly walk. So Sunday I took a little bit of rest. I did go to the Discovery Center, though. But I don't have any pictures from that, sorry. Monday though, I felt quite a bit better, so I went skiing with my brother Andy and my friend Troy. We found that most of the kids from the hockey team were up there, and we skiied with them.

Bus ride up...

It was a beautiful day out.

Here's most of the hockey team in snowboarding gear. We had a lot of fun and went to the backside several times.

And finally, I got back home from my incredible weekend. I was almost looking forward to school by the time that I finally finished. That can't be good... Oh well. That was my photo post.

The Junior Varsity Semifinals

Well, my hockey season's about at and end and we've finally made it to the playoffs, and more specifically, the semifinals. We were set up to play Eagle High on Saturday at 6:15 P.M. When we arrived, we saw the other semifinals game going on on our ice rink while we were to get dressed and get ready for the game. This one was Boise vs. Meridian.

Let me give you a little background on these two teams. Boise's the best team in the league, according to the stats. And Meridian's exactly the opposite - they're basically the worst team in the league with mostly eighth graders and a few freshmen sprinkled in. So of course, we rooted for Meridian.

At any rate, they tied, due to an official confusion, they'll be finishing they're OT tomorrow. I wonder how they'll do. After sitting in the locker room for 15 minutes with the team, thinking, trying to prepare ourselves for the game ahead. The coaches finally called us out onto the ice and we warmed up.

Let me fastforward. It's 3-1 us, and my linemate, Andrew, is skating up to take the shot. I'm trailing close behind to try to get a rebound. He takes a shot about twelve feet from the net. It bounces off at a perfect angle, and I switch and backhand the rebound in. Goal. First (probably) only goal of the season, and of course it would be in the playoffs.

The second instance of interest was when me and Andrew again ended up on a rush. We were at the blue line and the puck glided up between us. We looked at each other, and, instantaneously, we knew who was going to take the puck. I did, and I missed, but I did draw a penalty when one of the opponents threw a stick at me.

At any rate, all of us, including me, played a great game, and we won, 5-3. Technically I also scored the game-winning goal. So at any rate, we did well. I can't wait til next week. We'll kick some ass!

Possibly My Best Weekend So Far

Well guys, this one was a winner for me. It really was quite incredible. It started on Friday. The school day went as usual, and we got to play "extreme volleyball" in P.E. Shortly following that, I went home, ate, and got my hockey stuff together. Because I was playing a Varsity hockey game today (usually I'm on Junior Varsity, so kind of a big deal for me). To be honest, I thought I would suck.

Ånd to be honest, I think I did just the opposite. Friday was hands-down the best hockey game of my life. I had several great breakaways and great shots, and for a Varsity game I think I did just awesome. We may have tied at three, but it really boosted my confidence.

In short, a day passed, and I played again on Saturday for Junior Varsity. This time I played center (again kind of a big deal because that's a major position). I'm not sure whether it was because coach thought I was a competent player after seeing me play on Friday, or if it was because one of the kids on the team got kicked off due to bad grades. Hopefully the first. It wasn't nearly as good as my last game, but that was mostly because it's been a while since I played center. I think I did alright though, and we won 4-1.

Sunday I went skiing with Andy and Troy. They finally set up Claim Jumper, a bigger, meaner version of playground. Which, of course, we went down countless times over the hours we spent up on the mountain. I had one of the best wipeouts - I was bombing down this bowl but when I accidentally ran over a cat track, it threw me off balance and I flung forward and faceplanted, sliding twenty feet with snow coming up my nose before sliding to a stop. I was covered in snow. I really wish it had been videotaped; it was pretty sick.

God, I am sore though! Too much hockey and skiing. And too think I'm supposed to get up tomorrow at 6 AM for a hockey practice...

Gone Out With A Bang

Well, here we are. School starts tomorrow. So for the final day of Winter break, I had some fun. I went out with a bang.

Here's how today played out:

After inviting my good friend Troy over, we played on my new Wii until my cousins showed up- Nathan (12) and Nolan (9). Mom soon got sick of us playing downstairs and took us out to lunch at Smoky Mountain Pizza. We stuffed ourselves with an XXL meatlovers pizza before nearly passing out from fullness. Geez, they make some really good pizza. A must eat!

After digesting our meal for a little bit, we all shuffled into the car and started driving out to Idaho Iceworld, the local ice rink. Mostly this was because I had gotten an email that said we had hockey practice that day and my folks thought it would be a good idea to bring everybody else out for a free skate. But it turned out that the practice schedule ended up kind of messed up. So what happened was that I skated with my little brother, Troy, Nathan, Nolan, and several other teammates that had shown up on the free skate. And when the coach showed up, he pulled some strings and booked a sticktime for us. So after a couple of hours of skating with my friends and relatives, I walked over to the other rink, put on my gear, grabbed my stick, and got on the ice.

It really wasn't much of a practice, but it was fun as hell. We actually just scrimaged for an hour. And who wouldn't enjoy that?

After finishing that up, my cousins bid farewell and started driving back to California, we took Troy home, and I went home as well. After a great dinner, I went back downstairs, and started typing this. And now here I am. And tomorrow, I have to wake up again to go to school. It saddens me alot to know I can't have any more lazy days during the week. But that's life. I'll just have to make the best of it.

Finals Weekend

Why is it that whenever I try to spend a weekend studying, something screws it up?

You may doubt me, but I would have spent the whole weekend in front of books if it had not been for other commitments. Why are there sports events on finals weekend anyway? I'm surprised that BK allows that sort of thing; they seem to value grades alot more than athleticism. Of course I could be wrong. But Saturday was not a good day to study for me.

I was able to finish some of my homework Saturday, but only a fraction of my ridiculously large 50-page Spanish worksheet. I would have finished more, but it's amazing how many distractions you can find in your room when there's work to be done. About quarter til 3, I put my gear in the back of the car and headed out to hockey.

We were playing the Canyon County Coyotes. Most of them were eighth graders and girls, but they didn't play half bad. Unsurprisingly, the refs sucked and the other team was hooking and roughing without penalization. They actually turned out to be really aggressive, and at one point in the game, they half knocked one of our players down in front of their net, one of those classic brawls in the crease. At any rate, we tied them, 2-2, and I got a good assist (he really deflected it more than anything else). The team's improving a lot though, and we're probably one of the strongest teams in the league by now.

After that I had to hurry to a Varsity basketball game because I'm in the pep band and I had to play. On my way over I noticed that there was a room filled with food and marshmallow shooters. And understand me, I had had no dinner and I just got back from the hockey game. So what do I do? I casually walk in and try to blend as much as possible while taking a piece of delicious brownie. After eating a few snacks I grabbed another brownie and left. My friend Cameron saw me and laughed. "Look at him! He just jacks food and leaves!" Well he's pretty much right.

At any rate I soon found myself playing keyboard with the band. And I got to say, the cheerleaders get a lot more credit than the pep band does, and that seems unfair when it the band takes more effort. I have to get up an hour earlier for band practice every morning, almost without exception. Can they say the same? We played at breaks and timeouts throughout the game and then moved all our stuff back to the music room. My folks picked me up and I was looking forward to sleeping in.

But that didn't happen.

Instead I did what most catholic boys and teenagers fear: get up early for mass. An 8:00 AM mass. School starts at that time for the love of God! Oh well, it was a good mass. I really enjoy the Homilies the most in a mass, probably because it's the most original part of the mass. This one was a good one, and it was shortly followed up by an Anointing of the Sick. When the priest called for those who wanted the sacrament to stand up, Gary stood up. As he walked up, I looked at Mom to see that there was a tear rolling down her cheek. He sat back down and we all held each other as a family, suspended in that one golden, peaceful moment.

I hardly studied at all this weekend, but I spent some good time with my family. I'm content.


"Love...is the strangest thing..." - James and the Giant Peach

The DWA and Hockey Events...

Well. I was right about one thing. Today was quite a big day. My final grade in a couple of classes could have been made today with out my realization. I had two friends that copied workbook pages for me. Only one of them succeeded. I couldn't expect them to be perfect though. I now am missing assignments in C. Phyz, bu this is nothing new. I can't blame him. Next time, he'll remember. I'll recover. I always do.

At any rate, that was not what the big event of the day was. As I talked about in my previous post, I took the DWA today. For anybody reading this who took it yourself, know that I sympathize with you. Ninety minutes of straight writing can be pretty tough, especially when you get a prompt that you don't know alot about. Luckily enough, we got a decent one this year. We had to write and expository for why the driving age should be 16 or 18. I think I did pretty well. I finished ten minutes early and had to scrunch the words up to fit it all on the page. Definite four or five there.

But from what I've heard, it don't matter whether or not you ace the DWA. What's up with that? The school sets up a huge writing assessment and none of the colleges even bother checking our scores on it? Are they just trying to screw with us? That's actually quite likely...

Speaking of school, I had practice today for the school hockey team. And afterwards, we recieved some bad news. We had been getting complaints from the other players in the Junior Varsity League that we were too big and bullied them. The coaches took interest in this and tried to talk to our coach. So now we're essentially not supposed to play a physical game unless they're as big or bigger than us. Which sucks. We're just supposed to throw away our competitive spirit because a couple of eighth graders didn't like being pushed around. It's a physical sport; what did they expect? You don't take a career in football and expect not to get an injury or not to get hurt. Well, there's nothing we can do about it for right now, but make sure we don't get disqualified because our players are too big...

Saturday School

Unfortunately, I spent about three hours of my Saturday in a room like this one. Because I had Saturday School, as my title would imply.

But how would someone as responsible as me have to go to Saturday school? Well, that's a good question. Apparently, they count tardies for zero hour classes. So they sent me to saturday school for three hours.

To be honest, It was fine. I got some homework done, where as I usually would do all of it on Monday morning. They just made us sit down and shut up for three hours. We could do homework or work on the computers or anything so long as was school-related. For some people it sucked, but for me, it was a good chance to get some work done. That's luck for me. A blessing in disguise.

But luckily, that's not all that happened Saturday. Otherwise, this would be a very dull post, nay?

Like last Saturday I had a hockey game. This one was at 6:15 P.M. I showed up about a half-hour early and played in the arcade until it was about time to get dressed. This time we did have a goalie; a goalie and eleven other players. We won. the final score was four to three. We whooped ass.

Afterwards, I got a ride home from the coach because my parents were out. We talked about the game on the way. Once I got back home, it was pouring out. But I was hungy. So what did I do? I ran in the pouring rain to the nearest burger king and promptly ordered ten dollars worth of fatty goodness for me and my brother.

And to finish off the day, I relaxed and wrote in my blog. So now I'm wondering: what's in store for Sunday?


“There aren't enough days in the weekend.” - Rod Schmidt quotes

The Hockey Game

note- this isn't a current picture

Well if I ever needed something to take my mind off dad, the hockey game did a good job of it. I may not have mentioned it, but I've played hockey for a long time. My Dad and older brother, Micheal, both played hockey, so they introduced me to it at a very young age. I've been skating since I was about six. I played Rec. leagues until I hit eighth grade, and then I started playing Junior Varsity for Bishop Kelly. So this is my second year on the team. I'm not great, but I'm good.

At any rate, I came thinking it was just another game, but I was dead wrong. When I got there and got dressed, I checked the time and the locker room. It was five minutes until the game and only nine players were here. And none of them were the goalie. We tried our best to find one, but we soon found that we would have to play either without a goalie or not at all. So we played.

In a situation like this, it works out like this: the team without a goalie gets to have six players out on the ice instead of the normal five. We were desperately undermanned. Nine players? We had only two offensive lines, and the three defensemen (usually two) had to play the whole game through. No joke. By the end of that game I was exhausted.

But we gave them a run for their money. At first I thought we didn't stand a chance without a goalie, but we got off to a great start and had the game tied up three to three by the end of the second period. I even got an assist on one of the goals. We really would've won if we just had had maybe one more line. But we got worn down. All of tthe players were just about done for by the end of the game. The opponent picked up the pace and we lost, six to three.

Oh well. I sure as hell had fun. I got a few shots off and played my best. So I'm happy with that.


You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky