NASCAR, Soccer and some YouTube learning

Ah.... one of my favorite days on the Sports calendar was this past Sunday.  #DAYTONA500 Day.  It took awhile, like 8-9 hours, because of a FIVE hour rain delay.  Duh, it is February....  Michael McDowell was the first to cross the finish line for his first Daytona 500 victory.  Some good and bad news comes along with this win.

The bad is that he will not be able to use the car ever again.  I say ever again cause next year NASCAR goes to a new style of car.  One of the perks (depending on your point of view) is that the winning car of the 500 goes into the Daytona museum for an entire year.  He gets the car back on the Saturday prior to the next Daytona 500.

The good news is that he has already qualified for the "Chase for the Cup."  So he doesn't have anything to really worry about until September.  That is when the playoffs begin.  All the winners of the 26 races that lead up to the playoffs and then some wildcards based on points.  The top 16 in the season long points battle qualify for the playoffs.

Tuesday saw another soccer match on the schedule.  It was the season opener for the men's soccer team.  The match against California Baptist University (cbu (that is how they stylize their school initials)) out of Riverside was scheduled for March, but was moved up.  Prior to the match, I swung by Gaglione Brothers in the Sports Arena area.

For those that have never heard or (gasp) never had them before... they are DELICIOUS!!!!  They primarily specialized in Philadelphia Cheesesteaks.  I had the mushroom cheesesteak without onions.  I took the sandwich and stopped by a 7-Eleven that is between the restaurant and USD to get a beverage.

I got to the press box and enjoyed the sandwich prior to the match, but not prior to getting yelled at for eating in the press box.

The match was rather easy, with one exception.  Live stats was having a hard time staying current.  It would not update the time when I inputted different fouls or corner kicks.  Heck, it didn't even update on a few of the goals that were scored.  USD ended up losing 4-1.

Today, I went to the chiropractor, like I do every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.  It was a pretty normal adjustment... except for the neck.  He really went deep on that part of my body.  After I got my adjustment, it was time for lunch.  Mom and I went to Firehouse Subs.

On the way home the Matriarch of the family had me stop at my LEAST favorite store in the World. Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I hate that store, most of this hatred stems from my early days as a security guard.  A post that was assigned to me was the very store that we went to, the Mission Valley Center location.  It is a story for another time.

Once we got home, I watched the ending to one of my favorite movies "Rounders."

At the conclusion of the movie, I loaded up the USD softball game that was being played.  Not good news for the Toreros.  They began the season 0-2.  They will be back in action when I'm on stats on Saturday in a doubleheader against Grand Canyon University.

I finished the night by watching some YouTube videos on how to get better at editing.  I've picked up a few tidbits so hopefully, the videos for San Diego Street Talk will be getting better.  Speaking of San Diego Street Talk (now available on YouTube here) I will be out shooting our next episode tomorrow (Thursday, Feb. 18) on the Embarcaderro between the Star of India and the Midway between 12:30p and 3 or 4p.  I will also be in the Gaslamp Quarter on Saturday night after the USD Soccer match to record for episode 3.

For those that are wondering, I have already set out a shooting schedule (hopefully things get opened up this Summer) through September (which will get us to about the episode 25-30 range).

Until next time my friends, Adios.

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.