We had just sat down after singing a rousing round of the national anthem in church. Doré, leaned past Novalie to tell me something. “I like baths and burning witches.” To be fair, I have a problem which makes it difficult to understand speech which is whispered or mumbled, and Doré is a soft-spoken person. [...]
Yes, World Cup 2010 South Africa began today, and so did the stress upon me, the lone ambassador of soccer to the Jolley and Vernier families, as well as to the staff of ProFormance Physical Therapy, the surrounding community, and most of the region of Eastern Washington. I’m not complaining, but it isn’t an easy [...]
Nobody was expecting this blog post, least of all me. I saw it in the list of un-published blogs, and had to laugh. I’m pretty sure I was going to write something about the names that the ping pong, soccer, and bouncy balls have all been given by Novalie. My Adidas F-50 soccer ball is [...]
The following is based on an instant messenger chat I had with Ben Walden, a big Alaskan soccer player who works in Engineering programming the interface and buttons for our instruments at Decagon Devices, Inc. in Pullman, Washington. I could kick a ball a quarter mile back in 1983. I think it was a Mitre [...]
It wasn’t easy for Novalie to wait to ride her new bike. She received it as a gift from “Old Grandma” (Celia Vernier) on Saturday night, and had to wait all the way until Sunday afternoon to take it out for the first real drive. Albion doesn’t have terrain suitable to biking (dirt roads and [...]
I’ve been keeping a mental list of the coolest names in world sport. Always near the top were names like Tomas Hitzlsperger (German Soccer player), Magnus Hedmann (Swedish goalie), Gigi Galli (Italian rally driver), Jari-Matti Latvala (Finnish rally driver), and Gianluca Pagliuca (Italian goalie). Now I have a new one for the list: Mark Winterbottom. [...]
It was too hard not to watch the high school students as they walked past in their various groups. We occasionally watched some football as well. We decided that it would be good Friday night fun to go to a high school football game. The atmosphere, the energy, and Novalie was sure to love all [...]