Yikes.... that was tough, but we are one day closer to the DAYTONA 500

 Greetings,

So I worked my first USD Soccer match today.  My initial reaction is OY! or YIKES! if this was a regular season, it could be long.... But this is a short season, so it might not be that bad.

From my not very educated knowledge of collegiate soccer is they need more speed!  The Toreros are lacking in that aspect of the sport.

Now, as for my purpose at the match.  I was learning how to do the stats.  I had never stated soccer before.  Yes, of all the sports that I've done stats for, I've never (prior to today) done soccer.  In retrospect, it is very appropriate that today is Lunar New Year.  So I started a new journey at the beginning of a new year!

I picked up the program very quickly as it is not that hard to figure out.  Once I got home from the match, I texted a good friend that is an SID at a local university and asked him why hadn't told me how easy stating soccer was?  His response was "Hahaha. Easiest of all." Yeah, it is.  In just a month on March 20th, I'll be doing the hardest of all the stat programs, Football.

On the journey home, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things for the weekend.  I got a couple of salads, some strawberries and blueberries, some sunflower seeds (cause what's a salad without them?) and both fried and grilled chicken for the weekend.

Once I got everything ironed out after dinner, I recalculated and formatted my hockey power ranking sheets.  With all of the COVID rescheduled games, I needed to reformat the spreadsheets.

Now, I am getting ready to go to bed.  When I wake up in the morning, it will be time to go work a pair of NAIA Basketball games as the San Diego Christian College Hawks host William Jessop University.  The Warriors will invade the Kroc Center tomorrow (later today) with a 10:30a women's game, followed by a men's game.

If you are looking for me on Sunday, it won't be hard to find me.  Look in the living room, it is not Valentine's Day as many think.  It is DAYTONA 500 Day!  Along with Singles Awareness Day.

On Tuesday, it is looking like I'll do my first men's soccer game.

Off to bed to get ready for the final two games of the week.  It's been almost like "normal" times this week.  Six games across six days and a trip up to Burbank for good measure.

Welllll Poop!!!!

 Greetings my friends.  Hope your Sunday was well.

I got out of bed around 10:30 and made a quick trip to Sam's Club to get milk, paper towels and kitchen sponges (I know not your prototypical Sam's run).

Got home around 10:50-10:55 and put everything away and sat down to watch a little bit (less than what I was thinking) of the 24 Hours of Daytona.  I get a text at 11:10 from the SID over at St. Katherine's saying "The game was a GO for today hope you are almost here".  I look at the text from a few days ago and it said Noon... I thought it was at 2p.   OOOOOOOPS!!!!!!!!

So I hop into the car and get going to Northeast Carlsbad/Southwest San Marcos.  I plug the address in to Google Maps.  It says it will take me 46 minutes to get there (11:57a ETA).  I call him and let him know.  I absolutely book it up to the gym.  Actual arrival: 11:55a.  I arrive at the scorers table at the exact moment that he is saying "Good Afternoon...."  I was only scheduled to run both clocks, so no big deal about not being there early enough to get pronunciations.

The game went rather smoothly.  A couple of extremely minor screwups, nothing was major.  Well, except for the fact that everyone told me that halftime was 15 minutes.  I always start the halftime clock when the referees leave the court.  St. Kat's coach pretty much ripped me a new one since it was running and he was still at the table.  So, I set it again and wait for his entire staff to walk to the locker room.

Second half was a piece of cake.

On the way home, I had a good talk with my friend Daniel.

Went to Jersey Mike's for dinner and enjoyed my regular number nine.

Came home and turned on the Colorado Avalanche game against the Minnesota Wild.  Twice in the first period the Avs hit the goal post (that my friends is called foreshadowing).  At the end of the first it was 1-1.  Both teams scored a goal in the second period as well making it 2-2 at the end of 40.  When the start of the third period came a major disappointment.  Nathan MacKinnon, only the greatest player in the NHL, was not on the bench.  While the Avs are a very talented team, when you don't have your best player, it screws with all of the lines.

The Avs did take a 3-2 lead after Brandon Saad made sure that all of the Avs fans weren't sad.  See what I did there???  About five and a half minutes later, Minnesota scored to tie the game back up.

Free hockey (overtime for those not familiar with alternate titles) lasted less than 20 seconds.  on their second shot of the bonus period, Minnesota scored.  See what I meant by the two goal posts???

I'll finish out the night watching either TV or YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube, I'm thinking of starting a series on YouTube of me going out in San Diego and while using the product Pod Decks (a deck of cards that has different Podcast subjects and interview questions) and asking like 15-20 people the same question and see what the answers are and post it up on YT in a series called Street Talk.  What do y'all think?

Third time is a charm.....right????

 Well, back on Thursday I was thinking I was going to be doing three games in three days.  What was I thinking this is 2021 and we are still dealing with Covid-19.  Fool!

So just as you can guess, I didn't have three games in three days.  Not even close.

The game that I thought was going to be on Friday is actually today (Sunday).  I was leaving the house I called my contact at the game.  He answered and let me know that the game was actually going to be on Sunday.  So, I got off at the next off ramp and came back home.  Watched TV and enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to drive 45 miles in the rain!  I live in San Diego, just by living here you can guess if I like rain or not...spoiler alert, I hate rain!

So on Saturday (yesterday), USD was scheduled to play Loyola Marymount University or as we call it here in Southern California LMU.  I woke up to an email from my new boss saying that LMU had a positive test and the game would be called off for today.  I emailed him back saying OK.  Now, because I'm kind-of superstitious I have to wear the same thing if one of my teams is on a winning streak.  Well, that is where we are with the Colorado Avalanche.  The Avs played a game last Tuesday (beat San Jose 7-3) the same day that USD women's team lost to Saint Mary's.  So, the Avs played again on Thursday also against San Jose.  The same day Gonzaga and USD were on the court (check out that blog here to see how that went).  Well, Colorado was nice enough to wait until I got into the truck before they scored and they did so three times on the way home for a 3-0 win.  With all of that said, I couldn't screw up a winning streak by changing something up (See even Kevin Costner in Bull Durham knows).  So, I wore the same outfit that I wore on Tuesday and Thursday; blue jeans, sleeveless undershirt, light blue USD polo shirt, my light blue sweater and my Nike shoes.  I wore this as Mom, Dad and myself went to Point Loma Sea Foods (if you live in or near San Diego, you really should go and have some great Sea Food there is you already haven't) and then watched airplanes (can say multiple cause we saw three) takeoff from Lindbergh Field.  We came home and I watched the Avs take down the Minnesota Wild (or as I refer to them, Mild) 5-1.

Looking ahead to today, I have an issue.  The Avs are playing Minnesota again tonight, but the game that was supposed to be played on Friday is being played today at 2p in East Carlsbad/West San Marcos.  I really wouldn't mind wearing a hoodie with USD on it....but I don't want to mess with Colorado's winning streak. Dilemas Dilemas.

So, I think I will wear the hoodie and not the polo shirt and sweater and just hope that the Avs can take care of business like they should be able to.  If I screw up the streak, I'll take responsibility before the game even faces off.

Until next time.

Oh, and tell me in the comments if you would be interested in seeing me go around San Diego and asking random people their thoughts on different questions on YouTube.  I'm thinking of calling it Street Talk.  Let me know.