An upgrade from last year

Face-off. Shannon is the farthest purple player to the right.

Last year Shannon and I got snowed out of going to the K-State Hockey Alumni Game.

This year we had snow the weekend prior to, but the weekend of the hockey game, it started pretty nice. So, Thursday Shannon and I drove to Wichita, ate with Jayme, Charles, and Nikki and then used Mom's house as a hotel. She was up in Colorado while we were in town. After some stuff and lunch on Friday (at Doc Greens' which I really enjoyed), we drove up to Manhattan.

Rhonda was there already and we just hung out for a while. Friday was Chris' birthday so we at at Houlihan's to celebrate. Then Saturday morning was the game! It rained...and was windy...and was cold. But it wasn't snowy and icy. :)

Club players in between periods.

Jenette and I didn't play, but Shannon did. I did run the scoreboard though. The game was fun to watch. About 17 alumni players and another 20 or so current club members. It was a good time. It ended with the club winning over the alumni, 11-8.

Club players warming up goalie.

Afterwards, we went out to Milford Lake for a picnic. It was cold and wet. Jerry and Colette had set up some tarps to block the wind and rain. That helped a lot. Jerry also brought a generator and super heater. That also helped a lot. It was nice to sit and chat and eat with the players. :) The hockey team has always had some pretty good people on it. So we are able to sit and chat with them.

Can you spot Jeremiah?

Winners!

Our inline hockey team, the Hawks, won the summer season! That isn't too surprising. The season started with I believe 6 teams. By the end of the season, we were down to 2 teams and 2 players from a third team. Of those two teams, our team has players who regularly play ice and have played with each other for a good amount of time. The opponents, Minor Threat, is mostly made up of high schoolers (?) some of which have never played before. We actually played them the last 3 weeks because no one else was around, and won every time.


We also had our neighborhood picnic on Sunday. Complete with inflatable jumpy house, face painting, clown, and neighbors.

The Weather

This Sunday is the K-State Hockey Alumni game in Junction City. It is at 10:00 at the Junction City Spin City rink. If your in the area, you should come!

Shannon and I plan to leave after work today. Drive to Wichita for some din-din with the family and then drive on up to Manhattan after eating. However, we may have to modify our weekend plans.

You see, on March 27th and 28th we are predicted to get some snow. Snow, less than a week before April. That doesn't sound like the Kansas/Oklahoma I know. More like Pennsylvania. A coworker in western OK said they already have about 1" on the ground. It's just been rainy and windy here in Tulsa, but it could be ugly. We will see how things are going to go after work today. I really wanna go play hockey in Junction, but I'm not gonna drive through lots of snow and ice the entire way to do so.

***UPDATE***

6 hours later the radar looks about at foreboding.

The tentative meeting is tentatively scheduled.

Last Friday Shannon and I left work a little early because we had a delivery coming. So we got home, and about 15 minutes later, our delivery came. What was it? It was a bed! Now when guests come over, they can sleep on not-the-futon!


And our first guest on the new bed? Andy! He came in Friday evening and we just kinda chilled. Which is good, because the rest of the weekend was un-chilled.

Saturday we started our day at a lazy noon and went to the Tulsa Zoo and Living Museum. It was pretty nice. There were lots of cute monkeys, a roaring lion (we happened to walk by right when he was roaring, and then he took a nap), kangaroo's chillin' on their elbows, roadrunners, and many many other animals.


Afterward walking around for 4 hours, we went to a coffee shop (Shades of Brown) and I got some tasty, but overpriced chai. Then we went to the last weekend home game for the Tulsa Oilers, who just happened to be playing the Wichita Thunder. Actually, this is the reason we chose this weekend for Andy to come down. The game was crazy. The final score was 6-5 Tulsa. Did you read that, 11 goals! Jeepers, more like a roller hockey or baseball game than ice hockey game. No fights either, the game was just too close I guess. Good times. (The picture below is not mine.)


On Sunday, we again started around noon. We headed down to Tin Star for some lunch and then walked the Riverwalk. Now it was time to hit up an Indian casino. We were gonna go to the new one by Riverwalk, but it didn't look very open when we drove by. So instead we headed up north to Cherokee Casino. I belive that I am the only one of the three of us who didn't lose money. I actually made $3.34. I started with 5$ and played with it the entire time we were there, which was about 1.5 hours. I got up to 16$ once! It was a fun time. Although being at the casino was kinda depressing because you can see how easy it would be to just keep losing money. It's so easy to say "One more time" and push a little button that takes your bet and keeps it. But once in a while, not too bad. (Neither did I take this picture.)


Andy eventually left, after he and Shannon watched Watchmen. I went home and did some stained glass instead.

Nice weekend (as they usually are). I will add some pictures when I get home, too.

The Lone Star State

This weekend I made my first trip to Texas. I've never been before and K-State Hockey scheduled a weekend of games down there. So, Jenette, Shannon, and I went down to watch the team. Michelle rode with us too, but she goes to every weekend the team plays (I mean she is a coach).


Michelle and Jenette got here Friday night and we at at Abuelo's and then went back to our house and played Pandemic with 4 people. This game is really fun. Newgen bought it for Shannon for Christmas and we've only been able to play it with the two of us. That has been fun, but everytime we play we want to try it with more people. So we got our chance and it was really fun. We played about 3 times and lost all 3 times, but were SO close the last time!

Then Saturday we left for Texas. Before we went to watch the games, Shannon, Jenette, and I went to Fort Worth to see Audri's new place. Her and TJ (her husband) just got it 1 week ago after a few months of chaos. But thanks to a really nice guy who works with TJ they got a HUGE house. I mean, huge! It's got like 5 bedroom all with walk-in closets half the size of the bedrooms. The master suite has a bathroom that is substatially larger than our upstairs bedrooms. Plus there are 3 living areas, a big kitchen, and a nice sized back yard! It's pretty groovy.


While there we also saw Brenda and Audri and TJ's two kids. One of which is 1 week older than my niece. It was fun to see how similar yet different they are.

Okay, then to the rink to watch the team. They played Texas Tech first and pretty much stunk. They looked slow and not together. It was rather frustrating. Plus it was the first time I've watched the team and not played on the team. I'm sure that helped in my opinions.

The second game Saturday night was against Univeristy of Texas. We played really well. We were tied 1-1 for a long time and then we were down 2-1 for the rest of the second period (I think). But then UT scored a bunch and we couldn't match. We ended up losing, but the team played together and I think they matched/out-skated UT in the game as well.


After that, we met up with Lyndo at Applebee's and had some un-impressive food. Applebee's really isn't that good. Everytime I go I am just disappointed. But, not many places are open past midnight.

Sunday we woke up and watched 2 more games. We played Texas A&M and University of Texas Arlington, lost both. But again, they played pretty well. In the A&M game, one of our defenseman covered the puck in the crease, which resulted in a penalty shot. C-r-a-z-y. You never see penalty shots.

Well done, goalie.

Besides not having enough shots on goal, there were a number of absurd penalites. The refs in Denton called a totally different game than the refs in St. Louis. Plus it seemed to be incosistent at times. In one game, one of our guys got called twice for roughing while using his body on the boards to get the puck. Totally clean at St. Loius. In the same game, one of our guys got elbowed against the boards and got his upper arm injured a bit, but nothing was called. And we weren't the only ones a little taken by this. A few players and fans from other teams commented to us that it should have been called, but eh. What are you gonna do?

It was a good weekend. It was awesome to see the team and talk with old friends. I didn't realize how much I missed friends and family until I saw how nice it was to just sit and talk with them in the bleachers.

It's been 8 years.

I've played inline hockey for about 10 years now. I play defense, so mostly I'm stopping goals and not scoring goals. But it's not uncommon for a defensive player to score a goal every now and then. Heck, at K-State a good deal of our goals were scored from defense. But I haven't scored a goal when score was being kept in at least 8 years. I've gotten close, but never done it. (I bet you know where this is going).

Yesterday our hockey league had playoffs. We lost our first game and then an hour later played again. In the middle of the second half, I scored a goal! I was so happy! I don't think other people there (besides my husband) knew just how great it was for me to score a goal, after an 8 year drought. But I did it! I made the game 5-2 with us in the lead!

At the end of our game the score was 5-4, us. Our team ended up taking 4th place (out of 6). We probably should have done better, but we didn't. Shannon pointed out to me that I scored the game winning goal. Neato.

Now I can roll another 5 or so years without a goal and be happy (ish).

The Second Half of Christmas

In Tulsa's Whole Foods, we met up with Chris and Jenette. We bought some foods and began to celebrate Christmas Eve and day again. We made lots of yummy food and played some games and did more gifting! It was rather fun.


On Saturday, we ate at Casa Bonita in Tulsa! Crazy! It's not as big as the one in Denver, but it's done in the same fashion. It was groovy. I would really like to go there with Nikki, Jay. So, we need to get on planning a trip. Like I said, we played games. We played Ticket to Ride twice over the weekend (pictured below) and Formula De once. Both good games. Although TtR is a really good game.


Sunday was hockey, a ref vs. player fight (including hockey stick to the head accompanied by blood, I'm making it sound a lot less big-of-a-deal than it was), Boomer-Q, hanging with Rhonda and Michelle (because Nette and Chris had to head home), and some poor Bronco football.

Ice Ice Baby

Yesterday Shannon and I played hockey in Tulsa and won. It was great fun and everyone is so nice (as most roller hockey players are). It was about 70 degrees while we played and a bit windy but not bad. After the game we went to eat. When we were done, which was about 4, we came out of the restaurant and were like "Dang-Brr!" It dropped 10 degrees in an hour!

So we did a bit of shopping and by 10 o'clock at night, it was well below freezing and had started to precipitate. Unfortunately, it was just sleet and freezing rain. When we woke up in the morning it looked like reverse snow.

We got ready for work and headed out at the normal time, because guess who doesn't have to scrape the ice off their car any more. That's right, us.

We didn't get very far. I can tell you that. We drove about 10-15 mph through our development and then went to stop at the sign at 81st street. Well, instead of stopping our car decided to slide until it hit something. That something was just a curb, but we hit it pretty hard. I believe I heard our tire say "Ouww. I hate you guys!"

So we turned right slowly onto 81st street and began to creep up the hill. The road was a sheet of ice. No salt, just ice. We started up the little hill and were giving our selves plenty of room from the car in front of us. When we got to the top of the little hill, we stopped because the cars in front of us were stopped, with a slight bit of sliding-down-hill. Why was traffic stopped? Allow this picture to illustrate.


The blue arrows show the path of our car. Our second (left) turn was not initially part of our commute, but it had to happen. The white blob is a horse-type trailer that was partially blocking the oncoming traffic. The truck was not attached, I'm assuming it got stuck, un-hitched the trailer and left so that traffic wasn't totally blocked off. Anyway.

Since oncoming traffic was blocked, they were trying to get around the trailer by coming into our lane of traffic (this is represented by the black and orange blobs above). The only thing was, they were going uphill. So, the two black cars were stuck. That's right. They were in our lane, facing us, with their tires spinning. Nice. So the cars in front of Shann and I eventually all turned left and we then followed.

As we were turning, we noticed that the orange blob was a large salt-truck. He was stuck behind the two stuck black cars.

Eventually we turned around and went home (arrival of which was about 1 mile and 30 minutes after departure). The salt-truck made it through and about 1 1/2 hours later we tried again and made it to work.

The roads in Tulsa are horrible. They take ages to do construction, need to do reparis on about 75% of the roads, and apparently can't salt the roads in advance.

Charles do it.

This weekend was an interesting one. Friday night Shannon and I just chilled at home. Then on Saturday, we slept in as late as we could (11). We woke up, packed, then drove around a bit and eventually skated around some at the Tulsa inline rink with one guy from our team.

After that we drove to Wichita and had dinner with Mom, Jayme, Charles and Nikki. There was some entertainment, namely this.

Mom said she did it once in the grocery store, and Mom asked if she was cold. Nikki said "nope" and then Mom asked if she was scared and Nikki decided that was it. So now, she acts scared and it is very funny. I have a longer video of this where she tells Charles to do it and Jayme, Shannon, and me to do it, too.

Then, after dinner and a show, Shannon and I tried to get some sleep. We slept until about 12:15am. Then we woke up, took Mom and went to Roller City (warning: lame website) for some hockey. Yes, at 1:45 am, Shannon and I joined up with the K-State inline hockey team to play some hockey.


It was really long, but quite fun. The new guys on the team seem really great. They play well and are nice guys. While playing and watching the team play, I never once thought that someone wasn't very good. I actually was quite impressed by some of the new guys. It is awesome to see the team doing so well. They're 2-6 with the league, which even though it seems bad, it's better than we've done for the past few years. (Last year were ended 1-16-1, Two years ago ended 1-14-3, Three years ago was 1-17-0, Four years ago 1-11-0, ouch.)


We played 3 games round-robin, ended up 2-1. So we played the first round for team seeding and lost 6-3, so we were out. The last game we played around 9:30am.


The turny ended probably around 12:30. Chris and Coleman (both from K-State) played for a different team and that team wound up winning the whole shebang.

Coleman even won a tight competition with himself for top goalie.

Pretzel Sandwich

You can't really tell because the picutre is crummy, but that sandwich is on a pretzel roll. It was just a giant soft pretzel with a sandiwch inside. It was good, but not any where near as good as Shannon's Pot Roast Sliders. We at at the Fox & Hound Pub and Grill on Saturday and got some tasty foods. That place is good and we will probably go back.

On Saturday we also went to a Tulsa Oilers game. While the arena is sweet (and I mean, their sushi is actually good, where as if Kansas Colissum had sushi it would be grosser than gross), the team is not as sweet. They play kinda bad. Maybe they just have to get into the groove. We'll see.

Then Sunday we saw Charity (from Japanese classes at K-State) and her new boyfriend Cory and her old boyfriend Steve (also from said classes). We ate at Chili's, which unlike Fox & Hound, isn't very good.

Then, then yesterday, we carved us some pumpkins with the company of Charity. You know what the coolest part is (besides seeing friends in Tulsa...) we got our new camera! So I can post good pictures! You'll just have to wait until I get home.

Treasures Part 3

I played hockey in Garden City for about 3 years, the first three years I ever played. For some of that time, we met some people from Holcomb who played too. They were younger and needed a ride to Garden some times. Shannon I guess drew me a map with direction's to Dustin's house. Helpful.

In my girl-ier times, I collected (and displayed) Barbies. Here are some of them. I don't know, maybe they will be worth a lot of money one day, or a lot of memories. But right now, it's just kinda odd. :)

Here are some that I took out of the box, that was silly of me. But they are some awesome ones! James Dean, Midnight Something-or-Other, and Native American Barbie. Sweet. They each have a little stand that they go on too. But now, they are in a bag inside a box.

Here are my old back-packs from high school. I used them both in Honesdale. You can't really tell, but the blue one has it's zipper pulls all fur-ified. That is because my sophomore year, I would get a water to drink for lunch everyday and I took the plastic rings off after the I broke the seal around the lid. If you turn them inside out (the rings) they make these neat little spikey things to put on your back-pack. Which is what I did. Somewhere I have a whole shoe-lace full of them, but I still can't find it. I believe I called them "wottles." My random hic-cups started my sophomore year as well.


This little dude I got at a craft show in PA. He's just a silly little marionette.

Treasures Part 1

First of all. I've started work and its alright. Nothing too special. Almost all of my training these last three days has been reading books. And I actually have only ready about 1/10th of the listed things on the training sheet. Nice.

But in more fun news, I've been opening boxes from years ago and finding some awesome things. I wish to share some of these things with you. This is by no means all of the things I've found, just some more meaningful or entertaining ones. I've supplied a small bit on each piece as well. If I've messed up, I apologize. I have this problem with not really remembering events from my past. I know things happened, but I don't remember the details. If it weren't for pictures and accounts of the events from other people, I don't think I'd remember anything.

This is a wooden votive candle holder made for my by one of my sisters. And, thanks to my remagination, I don't know if it was Jayme or Maria. Since no one "signed" it, I can't just flip it over and see. But its all personalized with my name and some kanji. I think it was made around 2000?

Here is a little (like 1" diameter) clay pot that M.H. (or Maria) made for me also around '99-'00 time. Maria was on a kick for a while with making all sorts of little clay things. I was gifted with this fine pot.

This is not mine. No, I never played basketball for a team (this I do remember). This is Jayme's. Yes, Jayme. Jayme tired many sports in her day. While in Pennsylvania, Jayme tried soccer, softball (where she played outfield and pitched), basketball (she wasn't' really very good) (I seem to remember going to Scranton or something to watch her team play. I say her team because I think Jay played for like 2 minutes of the game, maybe...), and field hockey. She started out as not very great at field hockey, but by the end of the season, she was pretty good! She had a little stick and a jacket and it was pretty neat.

She also played some basketball in Garden (hence the KHMS outfit). I'm pretty sure she was supposed to give this back...

I have many more things to share with you. But I also have some other (house-y) things to do as well.

Hockey Rink

After work today Shannon and I located the hockey rink. It is alright. It's not in great shape, our wheels are gonna grind down really low and if we fall our pants will rip even more, but it's big! It's not as big as the indoor rinks at Matteson, but its bigger than the outdoor rink in Garden.

Supposedly there are leagues year round. Shannon and I will just have to figure out when the next one starts up!

Means Matrix

Today I worked on my Masters report for a while. I even enlisted the help of Shannon and his mad programming skills. It's always nice when things finally work out.

In other, less academic, news...Last Saturday we played our Alumni Game in Junction. We lost, the alumni out scored us 10 to 5 in the end, I believe. But it was a good time and we had about 30 people come out to watch us. It's nice to get to play close to home. It'll be really nice when we get to play in Manhattan. I'm really glad that the new rec center expansion will have a hockey facility. Sweet.

Saturday evening, I then drove down to Wichita to watch/listen to Jayme play her tuba at the Wichita State University Contemporary Music Festival. The music, since it was contemporary, was interesting. Jayme's piece had a CD to go along with. It was pretty cool, and as always, she played well! We didn't' get to stay for all of it because Nicki wanted to go "bye-bye".


I did however, get to hear my little niece make some music of her own. Jayme got her a children's harmonica and Nicole just is figuring out how to use it. She puts it to her mouth and breaths in and out really really fast. It occasionally makes a sound and that just encourages her to do it even more even faster. She leans into the thing so much that I'm surprised she doesn't just topple over. I just love that kid. She's adorable, black eye and all!

I very appreciate it.

This is it. The countdown is coming to an end. Only 3 sleeps left until I can finally sleep in!

Seriously, it's been 14 nights since I've been able to sleep in. Having back-to-back weekends of hockey in St. Louis is a killer.

In other countdowns, only 10 days left in February. And you know what comes in March? The new Vampire Counts. Who's excited? I'm excited! There are so many amazing new models (some with rather absurd pricing) and a lot of rule changes. As far as I've heard, I'm okay with most if not all of them. There appears to be a change in that now ghouls, or crypt ghouls, aren't skirmishers. We'll see. I may be wrong, but if it's true, I don't know if I like that rule just yet. But I'm really excited to paint the new models and play with the new rules! I'm sure you will hear more about the updates in the weeks to come from me.

Interveiwed

This weekend we played some hockey. I got damaged on the nose. I'm not really sure how. I have a full cage on my helmet...but it happened. I would show you a picture, but I look rather foolish in the ones I have, and really, it isn't anything impressive.


After St. Louis, I stayed the night in Kansas City for a Monday of interviews with Hallmark. The company paid for me to stay in 21st floor room at the Hyatt. This is the view of Kansas City from my room that night.

The interviews went fine. If you want to know about them, then give me a call and I'll chat it up with you. But I don't feel the need to give detail of my 7 hours of interviews here on my blog. I'm not that good at telling stories.

Now its just time to wait for the offers to start rolling in. And offers there will be!! We hope to hear from Hallmark in Kansas City, a software company in Tulsa, and/or the Stat Department here in Manhattan.

Miniature People

Dude, the little kids were back. They are just as cute as always. Actually, maybe more cute this time. There as a girl (I heard) and this little guy. He was number 9 (my number) and had "Cole" on the back of his jersey. Now, no one calls me Cole, but it's close.

Tiny Dinosaur

He's a dinosaur lost in the small rink. He looks so sad. His little arms too short to roll his body over. From the looks of it, he fell and hit the net pushing it back about a foot.

Maybe the reason he won't get up is because the fall killed him.

Oh yeah. Get ready for it.

Michelle is gonna play hockey with us!! We went to Play It Again Sports in Longmont and she got everything she needs for about 160$. That us super awesome!

Welcome to...

Spin City!! *insert circling lights on a big new sign*


Yes folks. The JC rink is pretty much done. And it is the sweetest rink in the state (possibly 2 state radius). They have a movie theater, an upstairs/loft. And, lights!

Now when we practice hockey we can:
a) stop.
b) turn.
c) see.
d) all of the above.

The correct answer is d.