Sunday, August 26, 2012

Put Me In Coach...

I volunteered to coach Jocelyn's 5-6 year old girls soccer team.  The Better Half kind of dared me to do so after the league sent out a blast email looking for some parents to step up and volunteer.  So, I filled out the application, answered some very direct and pointed questions during the background check, and now await my fate.  Since no other parents have applied, I'll probably get the gig. 

In the meantime, I'm doing everything I can to resist the temptation of turning Jossy's team into my personal Cobra Kai like war machine.  However, I've already started thinking of drills to implement come the first practice.  Someone is going to have to instill a sense of hustle and aggressiveness into these kids because they probably aren't learning those traits at home.  Damn you, checked out parents!!!!  Anyway, I think the take away phrase from our first practices will be 'getting after it'...someone has to win those 50/50 balls and if 60% of the time we can win them all the time, well then...I'll take it. 

Oh, and having fun...yeah, the kids are out there to have fun, learn esprit de corp, team work, and sportsmanship...all things we'll talk about after we win.

Can you sweep the leg in soccer?  

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Oh No, T.O.

I'm going to make my position on Terrell Owens crystal clear - I can't stand Terrell Owens.  I do not have an ounce of sympathy for him and could not possibly care less about his mental and emotional state.  All of the trials and tribulations he is currently experiencing in his personal, financial, and profession life are all self-created.  He's to blame for everything wrong in his self-absorbed little world. 

The Seahawks signing of Terrell Owens needs to be seen for what it was, and it was nothing more than a page out of T.O.'s own playbook - any attention is good attention.  By signing Terrell Owens the Seahawks sent a clear signal that they are willing to sacrifice the development of younger players and team chemistry  for attention from the media.  ESPN has spent more time talking about the Seahawks this week than they did all of last year...all because they signed a 38 year old attention whore with a history of dropping passes.  It is kind of obvious to me that the Seahawks are more than okay with this.

Terrell Owens is incapable of escaping drama, he creates and thrives on it, and he'll bring plenty of drama to the Seahawks this year.  Even if he is on his best behavior, he's not going to be able to escape his own reputation or outrun the fact that he is in dire financial shape...and that's no joke.  He's going to be asked about missed child support payments, the foreclosed homes, Donovan McNabb, Jeff Garcia, being cut by a minor league team for missing a charity event...all of that is going to be snapping at his heels this season.

However, the biggest elephant in the room will be T.O.'s complete lack of contrition and regret for the way he has burned bridges and thrown teammates under the bus in San Francisco, Philly, and Dallas.  Owens may have been low key in Buffalo and Cincinnati, but the drama still lurked in the background.  His inability to admit his mistakes and be held accountable for them is his biggest weakness (alongside his penchant to grow alligator arms in big games) and that weakness fuels his enormous ego.  Owens truly believes the Seahawks need him more than he needs them and it is this belief that will burn and eat at him like a cancer. While he might not be outwardly demonstrative he will make life difficult for Seattle's young QBs, players that won't have the experience and political capital to keep Owens in check. 

To those of you thinking that the 4.45 Owens reportedly ran a 40 yard dash in is impressive, keep this in mind - aside from Peyton Manning and his bolted on head and Tom Brady, NFL players are fast.  That Owens ran a 4.45 at 38 years old and coming off ACL surgery is impressive, but he has always been a physical specimen, and speed in the NFL can be mitigated with coverage schemes...

Several other teams with even more need at the wide receiver position passed on Owens this off-season, not willing to sacrifice team unity and chemistry for a moody player in the twilight of his career.  Owens might still have a decent season in him (I have him pegged for 64 catches, 625 yards and 4 TDs), but the odds are against him staying healthy.  There are other players out there that could have given the Hawks similar stats, but without the wall to wall coverage that will accompany the T.O. show here in Seattle...and that brings me back to one of my original points - the Seahawks signed Owens to sell tickets, generate interest in the team, and move jerseys.  This wasn't a football decision, it was one driven by the very thing that has derailed Owens everywhere he has played - publicity.  In the end, that is what will undo the Seahawks 2012 season...well, that and their 'dynamic' QB situation and the other headcase on the team, Kellen Winslow, JR...but that's another post for another time.

So, welcome to Seattle, Terrell Owens...be nice to Tavaris when he sends a pass sailing over your head and to Matt Flynn when he checks down...yeah, you might have been wide open, but just be happy you are collecting a check with an NFL logo on it.  Seattle is the only team that wanted you, show some gratitude...

Monday, August 6, 2012

Babes In Toyland

The hammer fell on the girls tonight.  I've been asking them to clean their playroom and bedroom for the past two weeks...and they have been ignoring those requests for the past two weeks.  I asked them again tonight if they would please clean their playroom, and they decided that they had better things to do.  So, I did what any parent would do that had reached the end of their proverbial toy rope - I stripped the playroom of toys.

All of the girls Barbies, Calico Critters, Legos, and Playmobil toys are now in boxes and bins in my office.  While my office now looks like a room from Hoarders: Buried Alive, the girls are pouting and crying because they can't play with the toys they had been stepping over for the last two weeks.

This was a rather shocking display of parental discipline from me as I am usually the one that goes soft on them when it comes to cleaning up...especially the toys.  Being the parent most responsible for purchasing said toys, I have taken it upon myself to clean up after the girls which only enables their non-cleaning behavior.  Sure, I ask them to help me, but Maddy is the only one that does so consistently.  Katelyn will clean when given the choice of cleaning up or sitting on the naughty step (the equivalent of being thrown 'in the hole' at Shawshank).  Jocelyn, on the other hand, always acts as if picking up toys is the most exhausting activity this side of being on a road crew shoveling asphalt...in Iowa...in August...mid-afternoon.  Jossy will lay on the floor and whine that she's tired and needs to rest or go to bed.  She'll pick up a couple of things, but it takes her about an hour.  Meanwhile, Katelyn and Maddy have done most of the work...and Jossy not only avoids heavy lifting, but discipline as the playroom has been tidied up...no thanks to her.

The toys are going to be on a two day lock down, a lock down that started tonight.  They can still do arts and crafts, play outside, etc...but no toys.


I'm also hoping that on Wednesday when we carry the toys back that we can play the 'keep this or donate this' game and cull some toys from that room.  If super nanny has taught me anything it is that beating your kids senseless is frowned upon and giving kids a vested interest in getting rid of stuff teaches them some sort of life lesson...I'm not sure what the lesson is, but I hope it's that when dad asks to pick up all of the half naked Barbies lying around, he means it...because he doesn't like stepping on them and looking at them makes him uncomfortable.     

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Taking My Lumpia

Every now and again I'll just decide to try and make a dish I've never made before.  Tonight was one of those nights and the food of choice was lumpia.  While it wasn't the catastrophic disaster that was my attempt at fusion cooking (Mexican Thai Curry Chicken fingers...which doesn't even sound good 'on paper'...this unspeakable horror set the culinary arts back several years), it wasn't smooth sailing either.

I didn't plan on following a recipe because recipes are for people that actually want to be somewhat efficient...work harder, not smarter is my motto.  I had lumpia a few weeks back and it seemed really straight forward...egg roll wrappers, a protein, some vegetables, and some screamin' hot oil to cook it all in.  Yes, well.

My problems began when I went to Uwajimaya at lunch to purchase egg roll wrappers.  You'd think that in a store specializing in Asian foods one wouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting egg roll wrappers (the dead cat is not a reference to, um, Asians eating cats...), yet it took me close to 15 minutes of looking around like a round eye tourist before I finally had to ask someone where the egg roll wrappers were.  The clerk gazed upon me as if I was the most remedial shopper to ever step foot in that store.  Egg roll wrappers were in the frozen food section, aisle 2...so, yeah.

I also bought some authentic Thai jasmine rice as I have grown weary of inauthentic rice posing as Thai jasmine.  We will have none of that nonsense.

Wrappers and rice in hand, I finished out my work day and headed home to make lumpia without a recipe. 

Now, lumpia is really nothing more than an egg roll...hence the egg roll wrappers, although the wrappers I bought specifically said 'lumpia' on the box.  ANYWAY, it is the same basic premise as an egg roll...you fill the wrapper, roll it up, fry it, enjoy! 

I used ground beef, zucchini (from my garden!), water chestnuts, carrots and garlic for my filling.  I seasoned it with a little sea salt, a splash of soy sauce (because the sea salt just wasn't enough sodium for this hypertension sufferer), and some black pepper.  Making the filling was the easy part.  Getting the filling into the wrappers without tearing them was a challenge.  Another obstacle was cultural...being part Mexican I am predisposed to think that any kind of food that requires placing a filling in a flat, round pastry is a burrito.  Years and years of burrito rolling had to be overcome, but my burrito rolling tendencies were extremely difficult to maneuver past...so my first three lumpia were unmitigated disasters.  They looked like chimichangas, but with water chestnuts and zucchini bursting out of them. 

Another problem I ran into was with the cooking oil.  I used peanut oil, but peanut oil I purchased at WalMart, so it didn't really behave like peanut oil.  It smoked too much at too low of a heat, so the lumpia had to sit in the oil longer than it should have.  It took about four lumpia before I decided to go really light on the oil, and that really helped.  Lesson learned - don't buy WalMart brand peanut oil and expect decent results.

Once I had cooked up all the lumpia, it was time to finally eat one...and they weren't bad at all.  I ate the first attempts, you know, the ones that were too oily and were falling apart, leaving the 'good' ones for The Better Half.  The filling turned out really good, although I might add jalapeno to it next time (yeah, I know...I'm dancing awfully close to the fusion line again...but jalapenos have been used in Asian food, and it's not like I said I was going to try to make chicken mole lumpia....mmmmmm, mole) to give them a little kick.  Another benefit is that my lumpia were so oily that I'll be waking up with a youthful glean to my skin tomorrow!  If I were a golden retriever I'd have a nice shiny coat...winner!  I might try baking the lumpia next time...

Now I have to think up a dish to BBQ for our annual block party this Saturday....I'm thinking chorizo infused teriyaki chicken sliders...