I went away last weekend with work, and because of that, I got Monday off.

As I've mentioned, its bike to work month and after being lent a snazzy helmet, I purchased ear warmers. Not to be confused with ear muffs, these are actually quite cool and certainly make the riding experience a bit more enjoyable. Its basically like a sweat band, except wider and it comes down over your ears. Here it is here

So with all this new gear, my new enthusiasm to get fit, as well as yet another hot day (three cheers for global warming, hip hip....), I thought I'd get up and go for a bike ride. Nothing too crazy, but more then I have done on any other day off since I've been here. So I went and cycled around a nearby lake called 'Greenlake', its about 2.5 miles around. I stopped once around and read some of my book.

After that I picked up and cycled to the office, which is quite close, but still a breath thieving cycle for a newbie. From there a few of us got into an evil car and went to watch a football match, European style. The match involved one of our groups sons, and I was gob smacked once again at the standard, not great. I must point out, for many reasons but not least because its true, that the son we went to watch stood out a mile in terms ability. However, for me the objective of this trip was not simply social, no sir, I went to this game with a secret ulterior motive.

I had received, upon enquiry, an email suggesting that I make the trip down to the Starfire sports complex to tryout for a team down there. Going to this game in the afternoon was to serve, to an extent, as motivation to go along as I'd backed out a few times before.

It worked, and after some transport negotiations I started the long drive to Starfire. Straight away there were obvious long term problems. First, I don't have a car. Second, Starfire is MILES away, at least 25mins on a highway, so you can work that out. Start off by taking the average speed of a car on a highway here (60mph) then find out how many miles that same car can go in 25mins. Third, it starts at 9pm, which is mental. But, I was still on a buzz from my already pretty active day so I persevered. The team by the way is the Seattle wolves.

These are the sort of situations I thoroughly despise, the thought of which had entirely contributed to failed previous attempts of making these tryouts. The idea of me arriving late, walking onto a field in my mismatched shorts and t-shirt towards a group of honed athletes wearing official club gear terrified me. Having to identify the head coach and then nervously have to explain my situation in front of an entire squad of impatient and unsympathetic players is my idea of a nightmare.

Oh but it was worse then that.

"they're in a meeting right now" the receptionist said when I asked where i was to go.

"what, the entire team?"

"yeah, over there"

"what sort of meeting?"

"how should I know, I don't play for them!"

I imagined he must have ventured down a similar road as I was on in the not-so-distant past, with clearly results which had still not healed properly. He was like the human carcase outside the cave I felt I was about to enter.

I went up to the door and had a cheeky glance in. Piss. There were rows of seats filled with players all wearing official club merchandise. I took a few steps back and re-questioned what exactly I was hoping to achieve by doing this. The door opened and an official looking guy came out. I instantly introduced myself and was afforded the relative Utopian luxury of being able to stammeringly explain my situation in private. He suggested I go in and take a seat. Bingo, safe passage.

Still nervous, and with several seats still available, I thought it best to park myself on the aisle so as not to feel to claustrophobic. What sort of team meets in a sort of lecture theatre anyway?! The big cheese, Alex, said we should get going, the powerpoint should take 45mins. What the hell? A powerpoint? He hit the lights and sure enough whose ginormous head was now projected onto a big white wall? mine. I wriggled over to the left as far as I could, desperately grasping onto my dignity and I came to rest in a reasonable position with just an ear and a shoulder faintly showing in the bottom left hand corner of the projection. A reasonable compromise of comfort and humiliation.

Alex then started to lecture us on 'The Seattle Wolves'. The tactics we will employ, the energy we will ex cert, the commitment, the demands etc etc. He explained that he had been working with Manchester Untied soccer schools in S.A and quit to take this job. My heart was sinking beyond trace as the lecture continued. To think just a few hours ago I was watching a high school game with that lovely warm smug feeling of invincibility I have come to enjoy since I started watching 'soccer' here. The sickening climax came as Alex made it clear that we should have no other team then The Seattle Wolves. At that point the dear chap sitting next to me raised his hand and questioned that idea as, I quote, "I have just been called up to the Brazil squad for the ANC". Now I believe the 'ANC' is the American Nations Cup, but no matter, if you've already been severely questioning your ability (and sanity) for the last hour and the guy next to you says he's been "called up by Brazil",in any capacity, it is your cue to stand up, politely acknowledge the room, and retire to the bathroom with a bottle of whiskey and a loaded revolver. I might as well have been sitting at a Real Madrid training session. How much longer would this last?! I was hopelessly out of my depth. When he'd finished he suggested we move out to the field and get going. This was my chance to run. I started thinking about the fridge magnets that said something like "its better not to try then try and fail". I don't know if that is a fridge magnet, but it sounded like the greatest proverb in the world to me right then. But despite the last 4000 words, something in me told me to keep going. Now if we were to draw a nice graph of my evening, maybe related to my confidence or blood pressure you'll be pleased to know that it is here that it would reach its lowest point.

I got out onto the field and instantly looked around me, there must have been at least 40 guys there, but I was watching like a hawk for something to confirm my wildest nightmares. Maybe a trick I'd never seen, or an incredible shot, or some feat of super human strength. But there wasn't. Everyone was clearly very good, and there where people there who had played semi-pro in England, but nothing to shock. We where spilt into two groups; first teamers and the rest. Not being a first teamer I was in the group with a quite eclectic assortment of characters. We got to the first drill which was zero hour for me, and, ironically enough, it was 1v1's. You went up against one person and had to get past them with the ball. Now it is here that I may lose those of you who don't know or care anything about football. The first guy I came up against I dispatched easily with a couple of rusty step overs, after that it was a bit scrappy but solid, getting past the majority of my opponents. Obviously I had to take my turn being the defender, which I did well apart from being 'megged' once by a quite outrageous bit of skill. Connoisseurs may wish to check it out at 2mins 07secs . I was megged with this trick can you believe! www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ueXe2AkT0

Anyway, out of a group of 8 i would put myself 2nd or 3rd. Good start. After that we had time for a small game. 6v6 on a largish pitch with the idea to dribble into the 'end zone' which was marked by cones. Our team didn't have any defenders so I had to defend for this drill. So whilst I was not always in the thick of the action, what I had to do I did very well, and got the distinct feeling, by the amount of times I received the ball, that I'd earned quite a bit of respect from the other players. That was really all we had time for. We were called in for some announcements and then told we could go. I went away feeling that, whilst I certainly wasn't the best there, not even top 11, I was certainly not the worst, and considering I have not played any competitive football for 8 months nor done any physical activity, I did myself justice.

The irony is that I did not go back on Wednesday for the other weekly training session. I work Wednesday nights, and it is too far to get to. It is also a huge commitment which I'm not sure I'm ready for just yet. But knowing the standard I could consider joining next year or even this year but with another team in the division, maybe one with a more accommodation training schedule.

This Blog has now taken so long to write that it is Saturday night, and I have even more to talk about since Monday. I'll try and do it early next week so we can catch up.

Bye

Slave to the blog..

That's right, the honeymoon is finally over and for the first time the blog has felt more like a chore then a privilege. But it is my master now and I must humbly obey its wishes to keep writing marginally interesting things about my life on the west coast of America.

I am ashamed to admit, as If you hadn't realised, that it has been a week since i dipped my fingers into blogworld. However, believe it or not that does not mean that I have done nothing of interest in that time, quite the contrare..

We don't have too much time so lets begin

Last Saturday I took my friend to the soccer clinic that you are so bored of hearing about. It was a lovely day and my friend felt instantly comfortable joining in with my weekly feelings of arrogance and superiority as we prepared to lock horns with the men and women of co-rec soccer.

As usual we warmed up with a few simple drills before finally getting to the meat of our morning which was the game. I had a pretty average game compared with weeks gone by, the highlight being a now trademark wicked half volley from about 20 yards to cement my reputation. My friend on the other hand found it difficult adapting to the strictly non-contact version of the game which is played here. I won't go into too much detail, but I don't think he did himself too much justice and ended up going in goals.

My friends have now gone, but not before coming close to eating every single burrito in Seattle and helping my roommate and I to get the most out of one of the funnest Wii games around. It is called Mario Party 8 and the four of us must have played it a total of near 24hours since my friends arrived. Its a little embarrassing that we spent so much time playing it, but for those of you reading who have played it, I know you understand.

On Saturday after football we were totally at a loss for what to do with the rest of a glorious afternoon. The only reasonable thing to do we decided was to play Mario Party, except this time we would play for 50 turns. Mario Party is like a board game, with each player taking it in turn to roll the dice and move his character. Once all 4 players have gone, that counts as a turn. We normally play about 20-25 turns and that lasts a little short of 2hours. So 50 turns is quite a big deal, and has never been attempted. It took us a little over 5hours. We broke it up nicely though at 25 turns with a classic American beer and pizza trip to Safeway. We also got 'chips' and dip. It was one of those situations that I fear most, the idea that the supermarket cashier can look at your stuff and know exactly what's going on. Its like going to the shop with a full beard and buying only shaving cream and a razor. I feel like its a total passive invasion of privacy, they know what I'm up to and I don't like that. So pitching up to a checkout with a 90inch pizza, beers, chips and dip on a Saturday night can only mean one thing; waster students playing Wii, which is annoying, and not even true!

Lets see....Monday we went back to the near heavenly realm of Jillians for some more 5 buck fun. For more details go read a previous post. Tuesday was...ummm...more Mario Party, and then on Wed they left.

Thursday has beckoned a new dawn for two reasons; Firstly I have to get to sleep in my own bed, but more significantly it is the stat of 'bike to work' month. For the entire month of May two teams from work will attempt to outdo each other by seeing who can accumulate cycle the most to work. My room mate and I have signed up and after making some adjustments to my tire pressure and getting a new helmet, I set off this morning. When I arrived at work I was nearly sick and wanted to cry. It doesn't help that my house is at the bottom of the steepest hill in the world. When I set off this morning by bike was in the hardest gear available and as I went to push down on the peddle I might as well have been trying to push the entire world off orbit. I promptly fell off. I walked bike up a little, then cycled down and frantically flicked through all the gears, then tried again. Same result. So I walked by bike to the top. The annoying thing is that after that my house to work it is 2.44 miles of solid and pure downhill and I still felt I had just completed a triathlon. Needless to say I am writing this post before I am home and I am not looking forward to getting back.

A couple more things then this very rushed and lazy post is done.

This weekend I am going on a weekend away with work. Obviously we haven't gone yet so enough of that.

Screw it, that's enough

There are no photos on this blog to test your committment. well done.