I hate kids. They’re barely human. June 16, 2008
Posted by wes285 in Uncategorized.Tags: Gordon Bombay, Ice Hockey
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I’m pretty sure I got convinced to help my friend Andy coach a bantam travel ice hockey team. Maybe midgets. I can’t remember. There was a decent amount of beer involved. If I end up doing it, which I’m leaning towards, there should be some good stuff to write about. Pubescent high schoolers running into each other at 20+ mph with two hands holding onto what basically amounts to a club. I mean, let’s be honest. Ice Hockey is as close as it gets to our neandarthal roots. Gordon Bombay, here I come. Well, minus the douche sack former youth hockey coach. I, you know, actually like most of my coaches.
Possible downside: I’ll be kissing every other weekend goodbye once October rolls around. And who’s going to pay for my gas when I have to trek to Norfolk for a weekend tournament? Then again, money normally spent on alcohol can be spent on gas. And, I’ll probably get some super awesome gift (read: double digit gift certificate to the pro shop) from my kids at the end of the year.
Fiesta Rice Bomb April 17, 2008
Posted by wes285 in Appreciate the Prose.Tags: Elevators, Fajitas, Fiesta Rice, Ice Hockey, Lunch, Making a Mess, NHL Playoffs, Washington Capitals, Work
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I had a great idea for a post ready to go. And then I watched the Caps lose. To the Flyers. In double overtime. If it was my TV I was watching on, I might have actually thrown something at it. Down 3-1, let’s hope for a repeat of the 1988 series, where the Caps found themselves in a similar situation against the Flyers. I might actually cry.
Tuesday is usually Mexican day at the dining center in my office. I decided to eschew the sandwich bar and went for the fajitas with a side of rice instead. For whatever reason, the lady decided to give me the rice in a separate plastic container. To get into the actual office area from the elevators, you have to swipe your ID card. Pretty standard for large office buildings. I had to balance the smaller container on top of the one with the fajitas in one hand in order to grab my ID and swipe. I almost dropped the rice, but caught myself at the last second. Crisis averted. For now. As I walked into my office, my co-worker said something to me and I turned suddenly. Next thing I knew, fiesta rice all over the floor. To make matters worse, the rice was right smack dab in the middle of my office. I couldn’t even get to my chair without tiptoeing around the rice. Absolute debacle.
I picked up the container, still half full of rice and walked around the corner to ask my secretary to call housekeeping. I went back to my office, sat in the other chair and started to eat my lunch at the other end of the office. Five minutes later, one of the housekeepers came by to clean up my mess. The size of my office didn’t allow me to continue eating while she cleaned up my mess. For whatever reason, I felt so uncomfortable standing there watching her clean up my mess. I tried walking into my co-worker’s office to make a little small talk. But, he was on his phone, which left me to fidget around awkwardly in my doorway for two minutes. I generally love awkward situations. I love making/watching people squirm a little. But those were easily the two most uncomfortable minutes of my life.
It isn’t that I dislike people waiting on me. In fact, I love it. Just ask my mom. It just feels a little bit wrong to watch someone on their hands and knees cleaning up after you. For some reason, walking 5 feet away into another office so that you don’t actually see the person on their hands and knees is okay. But standing over someone while they do it, just plain uncomfortable. I don’t think I could ever have a butler or a nanny for my kids.
Oh well. The rice was pretty bland. I didn’t even eat all of what was leftover.
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Appreciate the Prose:
Up and Then Down, New Yorker piece about the history of elevators and the complexity that goes into planning an elevator system. Also an anecdote about a man who got stuck in an elevator for almost 2 days. Yeah, I know, elevators don’t seem like the most interesting topic, but I thought this piece was great. There’s so much more that goes into elevators than you could ever imagine. It’s also a bit long, but read the whole thing. There’s a strange, subtle beauty to elevators.
Warheads (the candy, not bombs) November 12, 2007
Posted by wes285 in Observations, Sports.Tags: Baseball, Bitter, Growing Up, Ice Hockey, Little League, Steve Buckhantz, Sweet, Warheads
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When I was a kid, my favorite candy was Warheads. Nobody remembers the Warhead for the sweet lemony flavor. You ate a Warhead because, for some twisted reason, you enjoyed subjecting yourself to the facial contortions the sour taste would cause.
Why is it that that bitter taste in your mouth always overpowers the sweet, savory flavors? This isn’t anything groundbreaking. I’m sure cavemen had the same feelings. This is true for food, relationships, just about everything. I have some very vivid memories of good times. But, the most vivid are always of something bad. Something painful. I can recount with incredible detail when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. But I couldn’t tell you when or how I realized my mom didn’t have cancer anymore. Why is that bitter taste so much stronger than the sweet one?
I went to the Caps game on Saturday. If you’ve ever been to an NHL game, during at least one of the intermissions they let mites or squirts from a local club play for 5-10 minutes. This is the ultimate thrill for a 7 year-old kid. Playing on the same surface as your idols with the entire arena cheering you on. That’s as close as it gets to the scene played over and over again in driveways and basements. Less than 10 seconds to go in overtime, Wesley intercepts the puck at center ice. Five seconds. Splits the defense and is in all alone. 3 seconds. Dekes the goalie out of his pads. He shoots! He SCORES! And the crowd goes wild HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! CAPS WIN! CAPS WIN THE CUP!
Seeing those tykes got me all nostalgic about playing sports when I was a kid. I played just about every sport growing up. Soccer, baseball, basketball, ice hockey. And I can’t remember being on a single losing team. Those were good times. But then, as I thought about it more I realized that, despite all the fondness, the memories most burned into my mind are of losing.
Throughout elementary school my little league team was one of the better teams in our district. We were constantly hitting the 5 run per inning limits and making other kids quit baseball. There were always two other teams that would actually give us a game. One year we won the championship, but I can’t tell you a single thing about that game other than what is in the local newspaper article that is still tacked up on my cork board in my bedroom at my parent’s house. What I can remember is the year after when we lost to that same team. I remember the last play of the game. Bottom of the 6th, I had just scored on a pop fly to make it a two run game. We had runners on 2nd and 3rd. Line drive right beyond the shortstop. Guy on third scores easily. Play over. We need one more run. Then all of a sudden Danny, who was on second comes screaming around 3rd completely ignoring the 3rd base coach’s signal to stop. The left fielder gets to the ball and throws a bull to the catcher. Out at home by a mile, game over.
I can’t remember a single detail of the win the year before, but that moment is crystal clear in my mind. We were Carolina blue that year and we all got a kick out of wearing Carolina blue eye black. And we lost.
My favorite sport has always been ice hockey. It was my best sport growing up and I wish I was still playing. I was never the best player on my team, but always one of the best. Always second or third in goals and assists. In high school the game I remember most was against my home high school senior year. I went to a magnet school on the other side of the county. We had never beaten them and the friends that I had on that team never let me forget it.
This game, we played close the whole way through. We were down 4-3 late in the game and there was a mad scramble in front of our net. Graham, our goalie, tried to cover the puck up to get a whistle, but it somehow squirted out. I was right there and tried to shovel it ever so delicately back into his glove. Just as the puck would have slid under is glove, he picked it up and the puck slid into the net. DAGGER (thanks Steve Buckhantz). 5-3. It didn’t matter that I scored my second goal of the game minutes after that to make it 5-4 and then almost tied it 2 minutes later as the horn sounded. See, if I hadn’t scored on my own goal, we never would have to to try to tie it as the game ended.
That last year was my best year individually, but I can still see myself shoveling that own goal in.
Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of great sports memories as a kid. But for some reason, the painful ones are clearer. Why does that bitter taste overpower the sweet taste? And more importantly, how do you get rid of the bitter taste?
