If I were President (Covid-19 Part 2)

I never thought I would get anxiety going for groceries.  So much as changed in the past 45 days or so.  I thought I would write weekly and continue this post and share perspectives on some of the tough things in our world like abortion, immigration, and health insurance.  Now I am not sure I will ever get to those posts nor if I want to spend the time writing those posts.

What have I learned since Covid-19? 

I started watching a Netflix series called Dirty Money.  I honestly had no clue how fucking corrupt our world really is.  I suspect the series is relatively truthful, but I honestly do not know.  Just the thought of what some of these people do to make money is disturbing.  A co-worker called out I was not setting a great tone during a virtual happy hour.  He was right, but these acts are shocking.  The episode on Guardianship absolutely broke me.

We also watched another series called "Broken".  As a former Environmental Chemist, I was appalled by the business tactics represented in this series.  A great documentary series but again highlights the evil in our world today.

These documentaries set the stage.

The United States (maybe the world) is so polarized that I am not sure we will ever recover.  As of today, I have decided I must stop using Facebook so frequently.  I may look once a week to see positive things, but even the diverse people I call friends have so much angst.    Especially when it comes to politics.  Family members are not even willing to have a deep conversation on topics.  There is such an "I (we) are right" and "you (y' all) are wrong" mindset.  I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I am considering the same action for Twitter and Slack.  The always-on aspect of the digital age is starting to take a toll on me.

Special interests, corruption, and pure greed rule the day.  When it comes to Congress passing bills there are always contingencies that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.  The attitude seems to be I will sign the bill if you do this for me.   Oh wait, then you need to do that too.

Our economic system appears to be so fragile.  I would never imagine a virus would bring a global economy to its knees in such short order.  Our world is made up of monopoly money and we simply grab another game set to increase the amount.  Our daughter lost her first job that she absolutely loved.  She is heartbroken and so are we.  Millions of people are now unemployed and there is no money to support them all.  I am blessed to still be employed, but I am not happy.  Some talented people are now struggling to find their next opportunity.  Again this breaks my heart because they are great people.  I would like to try something new, but fear gets in the way.  Will we have good insurance to support our illnesses and age?  Will taking the risk of change generate enough income to at least sustain what we do today?  Probably a third of the retirement savings vanished.  I am afraid to look.  I would love to retire in 10 years, but I do not see it happening.  Under the current conditions, there is most likely a higher probability I will not make it to retirement.

People are hungry and some are unable to get food.  Covid-19 has exposed how vulnerable the food supply chain truly is.  I am eating less healthy than I should.  I used to walk at least 4 days per week, but now the motivation is hard to muster and I am lucky to go twice per week.  When I do go for a walk I hope I do not encounter other humans.  I do not like wearing a mask.  I do say good morning or Hi when I encounter others.

I am trying to remain positive, but when I glance at the future the only choices I see are not good.  I used to view politicians as role models and today they are the total opposite.  Social media and the general media cannot be trusted.  We are left to our own processing of data to form any sense of the madness.  What fucking sources do we trust?  I trust none of them. 

At the end of the day, I know what I stand for and what I have accomplished in life.  I am proud of these accomplishments and the family we have fostered.  I feel I could go on and on and on.  I will end with this.  Everyone should do at least one kind thing a day. 

I am starting to get lost.

If I Were President ( COVID-19 )

Based on my outline of topics this was certainly not present in the draft outline.  The first guide to all of the people is to be safe and respectful of others.

As President, the first thing to do is to assemble the most brilliant doctors and scientists to develop the right strategy for our country.  Based on limited reading this did not appear to happen.

In general, I struggle with the First Amendment as it pertains to potential national emergencies.  As the COVID-19 news broke there seemed to be so much misleading information in haste to get the news out.  The public seems confused and that should not happen.  The other negative is immediately the blame game emerged.  Depending on the media source there was finger-pointing at both primary parties.  I support the First Amendment, but I would welcome the opportunity to go back in time when facts and integrity were foundational to the news we receive.  Despite the news source, the facts should be the facts.  Speculation and sensationalism bring little value when we are facing a global problem.  I am truly perplexed on how a President, Government, or Society can correct this news ship.  I will have to come back to this concern in a future post.

For the past few months, I have been diligently studying resiliency as applied to software.  The one primary lesson for me is that in order to get a deep understanding of an incident is we must be blameless.  The term blameless seems to have become a cliche, but it is really true.  COVID-19 is an international incident and the world should inspect deeply all of the things that have emerged.  I thought humans were naturally resilient, but human factors are as complex as our biological chemistry.  It is perplexing that many times the first thing that happens is to blame.  We should form a strategy to mitigate the problem, then analyzing deeply what happened and what could change for the better.

I am puzzled by some of the human factors during this Global Incident.  Specifically the panic purchasing and the hoarding of goods.  This is a psyche that I do not understand.  Are we truly a global "me" society and not a "we" society.  I think this is the most disturbing aspect of the human factors influencing the COVID-19.  As a society are we going to instrument circuit breakers for groceries similar to the stock market.  I am going to have to talk with many people with varying views on this topic to better understand the psyche.  I am certain I have some sort of bias, but I am confident if I needed help some of my human networks would come to aid.  I hope those people who hoarded items, even fought over items, reflect on their actions.

If I were President, we would have to assemble strong business leaders to craft a strategy to help those who cannot work from home and temporarily would be without wages.  I would encourage businesses to continue to pay their employees so that we can survive this Pandemic. 

If I were President, I would have to thank everyone around the globe who is manning the hospitals.  Everyone who has chosen to self-quarantine.  All businesses that quickly took action with work from home policies to flatten the spread of this virus.  All of the experts who produced consumable data and facts that make sense.  All of the individuals who were disciplined and purchased what was needed.

Be kind to all!

If I Were President (Introduction)

This is intended to be a series of posts that I have been thinking about for some time.  I do not believe politics belong on Facebook or Twitter.  If you want to express political views write a blog, so join me on this journey.  Challenge any piece you wish with peaceful comments.

First of all the unfortunate truth is that I could never be President with the current state of things.  I am not a billionaire, a millionaire, nor willing to be bought by some damn greedy corporations.  The blogpost is over.  No, it is not!  What would need to change?

This past Tuesday was the primaries.  I had no primary to vote in.  The first thing that we should consider changing is that there should be a primary for all potential political parties.  For several elections in the past 20 years, I have abstained from the two primary parties or went into a party to demonstrate that I was willing to vote. The fact is that the two parties of power are simply not pragmatic and frankly they are polarizing.  The second thing that seemed truly frustrating about this recent primary was all of the ridiculous poll questions people were asked to weigh in on.  I think those need to move to a separate format so that voters can get things done quickly.  I read that some people in Texas waited 8 hours to vote.  The purpose of the primary becomes focused on reducing the number of candidates and that is all.  Maybe we use Survey Monkey to poll the people

The biggest obstacle to becoming President is money.  My proposal would be comprised of two key things.  The first is every Presidential candidate gets a fixed sum of money to campaign with.  The question is what might be an adequate sum of campaign funds for the primary.  I would propose $500k.  The candidates would complain that it is nowhere near enough money.  Candidates would have to get creative.  The second part of the proposal is that there would be taxpayer funding for public TV and radio channels for candidates to express their views and frankly have professional debates.  Each candidate gets the exact same amount of air time.   All debates are on these channels and all candidates are invited.  Prior to the primary, these debates would be party specific. As a side note, I recall during the last Presidential election there was a congress or senate race in Florida where the candidates spent almost $700 Million.  To me, that is a huge problem because think of all the social good we could do with that amount of money.  This is where the taxpayer-funded TV and radio channels come into play.  We have to stop individuals and corporations from buying elections.

So my party, The Pragmatic Party, now has a primary.  The candidates are all on the same footing as all other parties.  I convince the people that my ideas are reasonable.  The people select me as a candidate.

We move into the Presidential election.  The funding increases slightly $1M per party candidate.  There is more air time because we have fewer candidates.  The candidates have their portion of the air time to convince the people of their ideas.  These amounts can change but they would come from a balanced government budget.

I would require that we operate our government with a balanced budget.  Our monopoly money society has probably made this damn near impossible, but we need to do something.  I am not sure about everyone else, but I do not feel that the tax dollars I contribute are put to good use at all.  I feel the tax dollars are lining the pockets of the greedy or are supported by the greedy or are fueled yet by more greed.  I have worked hard and yes I do want to live a wonderful life. Today to have a good life takes money, but do we need millions or billions? 

While I am living in fantasy land there are a couple of other things I would require.  And the biggest one is term limits.  Two terms for the President make sense and should not change.  For congress, we should also apply the same term limit.  It is really a problem that we have had people in congress for 40 plus years.  People tell me the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again.

So I have been elected, we have formed a plan that will not spend more than we take in in tax dollars.  There is no corporate influence.  Ending lobbyists would be a good thing in my opinion. There is one more thing that must be done.  Bills flowing through Congress can have only a single purpose.  Riders and clauses cannot be added.  We vote on one thing at a time.  I just read today that the Covid-19 bill was denied because of the pork fat added in by our political heroes.  I was devasted years ago when a rider was added to the port authority act to halt online poker in the US.  Did Congress know that was part of the bill?  More importantly, did the public?  I am not the most informed, but I was certainly surprised.  There went my entertainment where I was actually making a small amount of supplemental income.

"IF I Were President" I would end daylight savings time!

Finally. "If I Were President", I would run our government using Agile methodologies.  We would be lean, transparent, and iterative.  We would have a public kanban board where everyone can see what we are working on.  Hopefully, we did a great job of socializing the why and the value of the outcomes.

There are many other complexities that I am probably naive to, but this is where I would start.  One last thing I would completely eliminate is all of the signage placed on fences, billboards, and popping up at voting centers.  This is nothing but pollution!

2018 is Here

What went well on New Year's Eve?

I was able to use my Big Green Egg for the first time to cook a couple of pork tenderloins.  I struggled to keep the correct temperature, but I think I am going to be able to make some amazing food on the Big Green Egg.

We had a nice bonfire and our son had some friends over to roast marshmallows and make S'mores.

I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine, Lagavulin, and a shot of chocolate chili tequila.

I won a couple of small stakes Sit N Go tournaments.

What did not go so well?

Fireworks caused our dog to leave a trail of pee throughout the house.  Nothing like mopping up pee on New Year's Eve.  Fireworks are banned from our neighborhood but do not stop anyone.

What is ahead in 2018?

I think there is definitely some significant changes heading our way.  We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Invisibility

My current theory is that stop signs are invisible.

Yesterday coming back from the Farmers Market, a guy just turned left in front of me without ever stopping at the stop sign.  One must support the local farmers!

A few weeks ago someone was killed in our neighborhood while walking and another person was injured.

About a month ago my wife witnessed someone run 3 stop signs in a row.

Everyone should slow down, enjoy life, and see those stops signs.

Merry Christmas!

Global Poker

I have been playing for awhile on a site called GlobalPoker.com.  They had an interesting way of getting around the stupid appended amendment to the Port Authority act (circa 2006 maybe).  You buy gold coins and they give you "Sweeps cash".

I am a grinder at low stakes and have had many ups and downs.  This is a conspiracy theory, but I honestly question the randomness of their algorithm.  I wish I had tracked the number of times I have lost on the river.

Last night I hit the nut flush on the turn only to lose to quad 3's on the river.  Yes, it could be me just losing my ass and bitter.  It could be the fact that I play for low stakes so no one gives a shit and calls with anything.  Needless to say, it is frustrating.  I have had countless hours of fun!

Now that I am frustrated can anyone recommend other poker sites that permit US citizens to play for money?  Ideally, I would like a site that has freerolls so I can spin gold out of nothing.

Play On!

Three Observations - Poker, Gym, Life

My poker observation playing in the local Friday night game.  A person went all in and I knew he was chasing a flush after I had flopped top set.  I had no choice to call him.  Well, everyone knows he caught the flush on the river, which completely changed my night.  I did have fun playing until 4:30 AM, which is quite a feat for this soon to be 57 years old.

If you belong to a gym that has a towel service, please pick up your towels.  On Sunday there were towels left all over the place including inside of two showers.  I cannot believe grown men cannot pick up after themselves.

I was reading the local news while eating lunch.  I read that EMS was called due to several people over-dosing on K2.  I am like what the heck is K2.  Thanks to Google I learned that it is synthetic THC.  Just smoke the real stuff people.  Amateur chemists are a disaster waiting to happen.

Play on! 

Barista Distraction

The Rock Garden has been dormant for some time.  Recently, I seem to make strange observations about life and I am playing poker again.  I thought I would start blogging about some of my recent life observations.

Today I am about to visit a new dentist and I am hanging in the nearby Starbucks. 

Here is my observation.  A Barista should not be chit-chatty if there are over 10 people awaiting their beverage.  They should focus on getting the job done, then chit chat.

It still amazes me that I drink Starbucks coffee and put up with the sub-par product.  Oh well!  That might be another short post.

Play on!

Playing Poker On-Line Again

Well, it has been forever since I blogged on this site.  Who knows if I will keep it going, but I wanted to share the event from today.  I found this event quite exhilarating.

I have started to play online again at globalpoker.com.  They have an interesting way of getting around US Gaming rules, but I am playing for real money again.  I really wish the US would get their shit together.

I decided to play in a $3 +$.030 NL Holdem tournament with a guaranteed purse of $500.  Everyone started with $2000 in chips.

The very first hand I flop a spade flush (10,9).  I got all-in against pocket Kings.  You guessed it.  On the river, I get counterfeited with another spade and the opponent had the King of spades.

I had $100 left.  Here is where the fun began.  Chip and a chair is true if you take the right opportunities to double up and yes there is some luck involved a hand or two.

So it was a grind, but out of 90 players, I managed to work my way to the final table.  I got pocket Q's when the board brought 7AK.  The turn was a King.  I got pushed all-in and let the hand go.

I managed to a 6th place finish, collecting $23.

I truly forgot how much fun tournament play can be.

Play on!

The Commerce

It has been a very long time since I have posted, but I have a poker story to document.  We are visiting California touring art schools for our daughter.  I was able to convince my better half to let me go to the Commerce Casino.

I walk into the casino and I felt like the bar in Star Wars.  All walks of life in this casino.  I went into one poker room and ask for a $1-$2 NL Holdem game.  A lady who did not speak english very well tried to explain to me that sure there was a game, but she was not clear.  Then this well dressed older man came over and very kindly told me I was in the high roller part of the poker room $600 - $1200 minimum blinds.   Definitely not my place, so he kindly guided me to the other section of the poker room.  There are only 248 tables in this place.

I put my name on a list.  They called my name and I sat down at a table.  They told me it was $100 buy-in.  I happened to have $100, but I thought I was sitting at a $40 buy-in $1-$2 game.  I was swiftly dealt 4 cards.  Oh shit!  Definitely not holdem.  I pretended that I had no clue what Omaha was.  I caught a flush and split the pot with the low hand.  I quickly got up and went back to explain that they sent me to the wrong table.  I was sent to another table that was $3-$6.  Finally I got to the correct table.  I exchanged my $5 chips for $40 worth of $1 chips.  I left the balance of my $60 on the table only to get lectured by the dealer.  If those chips are not in the game you would make the jack pot invalid.  I quickly put them on the floor at my feet.

The third hand I believe I had K2o.  The flop comes KQ9.  I decide to slow play and checked.  I believe it checked around.  The turn was a 9.  Someone bet $4 and I smooth called.  The river was a 9.  I checked.  The player to my left bet $12.  One other caller.  I thought there was no way he had a 9 and the worse case would be I would split.  Yep, he had the nine so my initial buy-in was pretty much toast.

I bought in again and manager to win 3 more hands on the night.  I had to get back home in order to drive to San Francisco, so I could not grind my way back.  I dropped $50.  :(

It is good to say I played poker in the worlds largest poker room.  Although the largest poker room it is not the classiest I have been in.  Now when can I own a poker room in Austin Texas?

Just feel like blogging

I wish I could get in a regular cadence of blogging, but I don't.  So sad!  I do enjoy writing and allowing my 2 brain cells to wonder.  So I am going to meander through my recent experiences with online poker.

First of all I wish the hell the US would bring back online poker.  I do miss the grind of free rolls and spinning gold out of zero investment.  I could rant about how stupid this country is, but that would be one hell of a long blog post.  :)

So I now find myself being entertained by playing Zynga poker via Facebook.  I tend to play their weekly challenge where the quest is to win as much fake money as possible.  Early when I started doing this I thought, "Hey, there are some decent poker players here."  Now as I play more there are a bunch of "all in" idiots.  It is fake money after all so I really should not expect much more than this.

So now the challenge is how do I extract more fake money from these "all in" idiots.  Recently I did win my first Million $$$ Hand.  Pocket aces actually worked for a change because I was up against pocket kings and one rag hand.  Normally the rag hand wins in this scenario.  I also met Irene a good poker player on the site.  So I am also challenged to beat her weekly.  I have 4 million this week and she now has 3X that amount.  Damn it!  Hopefully I will get to play a ton this lazy Thanksgiving day.

BTW - Happy Thanksgiving to the four people who follow this blog.

Shifting gears I played in a charity poker event a few weeks ago.  It was a blast except the blinds went up fast and somewhat randomly.  I played well.  I read a friend of mine like a book and got all in against him twice.  Both times we got me on the river.  The second time was my last.  The after party at the Key bar was definitely something to remember or not remember, depending on who you ask.

Any rate someone mentioned that you could play online again for money legally.  I said no way.  Well it turns out you can using bit coins.  I tried the site, but it was hanky.  Plus I really do not trust bit coins. Heck there was a dude in Austin who made I think over $11 million, selling drugs online using bit coins.

So the short of it is I am stuck playing free fake money poker on Facebook.  WTF!

Even our local neighborhood game has decreased its frequency.  Hopefully one will get scheduled soon.

Play on!

The Poker Game that Wasn't!

Last week I blogged about my excitement of going to a Monday night poker tournament.  I had a beer under my belt and a few for the game.  I had grabbed a tiny yellow Dalek (Dr. Who) to be my card topper.  i was feeling good.  I navigated my way through traffic and I was about .5 miles away from my destination and my phone rings.  "Sorry, but the tournament was on Saturday night!"

No worries!  I went home and did chores.

I am looking forward to the next tournament.  Hopefully it is on a night that I can go.  I usually take a 50 cent piece as a card topper, but for some reason the Dalek seems right.  :)

Shuffle up and deal!

Back on Tour

Tonight I am going back into the lion's den.  I am playing in a local poker tournament.  Our kids soccer practices used to prevent me from playing on Monday nights.  This was one of my favorite poker groups.  Many of them are really good players.  The cash game after getting knocked out of the tournament got out of hand.  Anyone could sit in for any amount they wanted.  That sure puts my $20 at a disadvantage.

I plan to play in the tournament and not the cash game.  Of course I would like to do well, but I really have no expectations.  I think the key will be to try and steal some chips early.  I also need to concentrate more on what I think the opponent might be holding relative to my hand.  Another area I need to improve is reading the player and not rely so much on the cards.

Hopefully I will follow up with a post on tonight's adventure.

Day 1 - Adventure to Pune, India

I promised to blog more, but I am failing to do so.  Today I am going to chronicle my journey from Austin Texas to Pune India.

Yesterday (or two days ago) I headed for the Austin Airport at 4:30 AM.  It was more crowded than I expected.  I guess due to spring break.  I got through security and got to my gate just in time.  The flight from Austin to Newark was fun.  When I arrived in Newark it was snowing.  Things did not look good.

I owe a big thank you to my boss.  He suggested since I had a 9 hour wait until my flight to Pune, that I should pay to join the United Club for the day.  It was supposed to be $50.  For some reason the lady processing my request had trouble, so for me being so polite and patient she let me into the club for free.  Not only did she let me in for free she gave me a pass for another day at the club.  I enjoyed the day drinking Sam Adams and munching on free snacks.  I met some nice people.  CIO of Starpoint Solutions, a lady who works for Rolls Royce, and two brothers heading to Breckenridge for some skiing fun!  Who knows how many beers I had and I added a couple of shots of Jameson.  It was a pleasant day working from the lounge of the United Club at Newark.  Thanks Jack!

The weather miraculously cleared and my flight left close to on time.  The flight to Mumbai was relatively uneventful, but the plane was FREEZING.  I was so glad I had on my Snake Eyes wind breaker.  I watched 4 movies:  Argo, The Dark Truth, Chasing Mavericks, and Trouble with the Curve.  I really enjoyed all 4 movies.  I also played a game on the iPad called Trenches II.  I suck at it, but it was entertaining.  The food on the plane was marginal at best.  I did not like the breakfast much at all.  Fortunately I happened to pack some pretty tasty snacks.

I arrived and needed to go to the men's room due to the wonderful plane food.  Let's just say the bathroom experience at the airport was exactly that an experience.  Trust me, TMI!

I made my way through customs although I declared I was bringing meat into the country, beef jerky.  Nothing happened, whew!  Interesting in that the scan your luggage upon departure from the airport.  I had no phone service so I could not text my family.

I found my driver readily.  Hard to miss the large placard that had my name, but it took a minute or two to scan the large crowd.  My drivers name was Kalyan.  Fortunately for me he was an excellent driver.  He did not know much English, but I felt safe.  I will describe the traffic like this.  A NASCAR track where speeding cars had to dodge large slow trucks of all flavors, motorcycles and throw in pedestrians playing "Frogger".  I cannot do the experience justice in words.  I now love Austin traffic!  There is no way in hell I could have driven in this madness.  Half way to Pune we stopped at highway facility.  Honestly I was not about to use the mens room until I got to the hotel.

Finally arrived at the hotel at 2:00 AM.  The hotel is very nice.  It took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn on the lights in the room.  I felt pretty stupid, but I chalked it up to my sporadic unrestful sleep on the plane.  I was easily able to access internet and let my family know I had arrived.  I took a hot shower and a sleeping pill.  The bed was so comfortable.  I slept like a baby until the barking dogs woke me up around 8:00 AM.  I did feel well rested.

I went downstairs for the complimentary breakfast.  Wow there were so many choices.  I had some scrambled eggs with onions, spicy peppers, and mushrooms.  The staff were amazingly polite.  Here is what the kitchen looked like.  And just a note to my family - I did resist the donuts in the photo at least for today.

The breakfast buffet was amazing.  The service was exceptional and the people warm and kind.  The music was also very peaceful.  I wish I could find out who the artist was.  During breakfast you could hear the occasional crack of a fly meeting what looked like a mini tennis racket.  The coffee was deliciously strong.  I took some photos of some great sculptures.

After another warm shower I am about to head out with my colleagues to tour Pune.  I have no idea what is in store for me, but it should be a fun adventure.

What the hell?

I have not posted a poker blog since 2010.  I did not have many followers, but I did enjoy the poker bloggers I connected with.  I miss the online poker community.  I have some found memories of meeting local poker bloggers for a tournament or two.  It was an inexpensive way to sharpen skills and meet new people.

Since I cannot legally gamble online in the great USA, I am stuck playing sites like Pure Play Poker and Zynga Poker.

I sure wish Congress had not shelved the federal bill, "The Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection Act".

I am going to resurrect this old blog and start posting poker experiences again.

Two Friday nights ago I was playing in the neighborhood game.  I held pocket 7's.  The flop came 7d5d3d.  I made a modest bet with my set and got called.  The turn comes 3c giving me the nut full house.  I made a good bet thinking I can lure someone in.  I got called again.  I am getting pretty excited when on the river comes a blank.  I bet an amount to milk the pot.  I got raised by $8.  I immediately went all in for my $23 bank roll just to get an instant call.  Yes my opponent had flopped a straight flush.  The funny thing is if I had been paying attention to the player and not the cards, I would have realized I was beat.  I should have listening to the pointers in Daniel Negreanu's book "More Hold'em Wisdom for All Players".  I should have called the $8 bet and still ended the night with a profit.  Instead I gave away my entire bank roll.   Another player tried to point out that my opponent was shaking.  If I had simple taking the time to look and consider the possibilities on the board.  We usually play until 3:00 AM and it was 2:50 AM.  No time for a come back.

I learned some good poker lessons with this mistake.

Rant #2 - I went to the DMV this morning with every intention of renewing my drivers license.  I wait in line for a couple of minutes, when I realize that they might not take credit cards.  Sure enough on a big paper sign at the desk is we take cash or checks only.

We live in a world of completely fake money so why not take credit cards.  I could see that a prudent use of tax dollars would be not to pay the costs of credit card transactions. 

Back to the drawing board tomorrow!  I am sure after I go through the entire process I will have rant #3.

I have no followers on this blog, but I need a place to rant so I am starting it again.

The thing that has me a bit ticked is the government's idea of replacing the gas tax with expensive equipment to track our miles.  I find this flawed for many reasons.

First the expense of the equipment.  Who is going to pay for  it?  Oh wait tax dollars!

The gas tax is a TAX.  The government takes enough of my money for worthless purposes, so why not just add on equivalent which would be close to the average current gas tax.  Then allocate that portion to the causes that the gas taxes support.  I am sure they are great causes!

We the people are smarter than that.  We will begin using public transportation or Cars2Go.

We the people already pay in way to much to support bull shit initiatives.

Wake up people!  We should institute the flat tax ASAP!

I am sure I have more to say, but I got that tiny bit of angst off my chest.

Youth Sports

Here I sit in a hotel room in Houston.  I did not sleep well, but the bottom line is our daughters team will be competing for the Texas Director's Cup title in soccer.  The schedule has been turned upside down due to the nasty rain yesterday so we play this afternoon.  This gives me some time to reflect and comment on youth sports.

Topics covered:

Select soccer
Coaching baseball
Choosing a sport

First lets rant about select soccer.   Although our kids get excellent training, select soccer is extremely expensive.  Added to the thousands of dollars for fees are travel costs.  These go up tremendously when team advance into the playoffs.  I guess right now we are blessed that this is something we can afford for the kids to do.  After the expense comes the politics.  Good or bad select soccer is a BUSINESS.  Recently our son's coach was let go.   I will not go into the details but the result of this business decision is that the club lost a good coach, some families behaved in totally unacceptable ways, and one or both sides are lying threw there teeth.  On the positive side I love watching our kids play and try their personal best.  I am trying to calm down as a parent fan and just enjoy the experience.  Occasionally I do have to be vocal regarding a bad call or to motivate our children.  Truth silent parents are better parents.

Speaking of being silent I wish I had not over heard a couple of the Dad's from the baseball team mumbling how they would be better coaches.  In youth sports the coaches are volunteers.  We volunteer because we love the game of baseball and we love to watch kids advance their skills.  This season has not been a strong season for our team.  That being said we are playing at the top level.  I know the boys have the skills, but unfortunately we cannot play the game for them.

This leads me to the last topic, choosing a sport.  Our son is 10 years old.  He is about to tryout for a select soccer team.  I definitely encourage this because soccer is a well rounded sport and the select coaches definitely know what they are doing.  But my son is also pretty darn good at baseball.  He struggles at the plate, but he is a thinker and understands the idiosyncrasies of the game.  Does he really have to choose a sport at the age of 10?  The other sad part is that baseball and soccer are played during the same season in Texas, so he will not be able to play both in high school.  He is also pretty good at golf, but I am thinking that is also a spring sport in Texas.  When I grew up I had the opportunity to play every sport - baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, football, and bowling.  Select soccer is going to be extremely expensive, so we will need to see how passionate he is for the game.  My wife argues if he chooses baseball then we need to get him the same level of coaching they are getting for soccer.  I honestly do agree.

All that said I will conclude by saying youth sports are killing us parents.  We have to leave work early to get the kids to practice and to games.  We have to work late at night to make up for the missed time from the office.  Definitely blessed that we work for great companies that permit this flexibility.  Finally we had to split up the family this weekend in order to cover the two sports.  That is not always an easy decision nor fun.

Kids go kick some butt today.  Good luck to the Dallas Texans Austin Division 97 Girls White team.  Compete and do your personal best at the state finals.  As for the Mustang Diamondbacks please play well and win today so I have the opportunity to coach one more game next Thursday.

Play ball!

I love youth Baseball!

Last night I had so much fun coaching our team in the baseball tournament.  We were playing probably the toughest team in our league as our first game of the tournament.  The conclusion was not ideal, but boy they boys sure fought hard.  In Little League baseball rarely do you get a complete game.  Well last night we went the full 6 innings.  We lost 10-8, but with two outs the boys were attacking. The final out came on a bang bang play to first base.  Although our fans were not happy it was the correct call from my angle as third base coach.  The umpires were the best two umpires we have had all season.  They were on top of the game and enthusiastic.

I saw such great effort from these players I was pumped up.  We may have won the game if one ball bounces cleaner or I did not make a coaching error.

I made some errors in the pitching department, but we stayed in the game.  My big error came during our final at bat.  Bases were loaded.  A better rips a single.  Runners from second and third score.  I did not pay attention to our runner coming from first because I was focused on getting the runner from second home.  He got caught to far off second base in a pickle between second and third.  The result was not good, ending in our second out.

We did have a very scary moment when a batter swung the bat around hitting our catcher in the middle of the back.  He was down for awhile.  What a tough kiddo because he stayed in the game.

DBacks! I am very proud of you!  Now if we can just teach a few of you to not cry when things do not quite go your way the season will be a total success.

Apparently Unsportsmanlike

I can certainly see how someone would perceive my actions on the baseball field today as unsportsmanlike, but that absolutely was not my intention.

I am coaching third base in a U10 baseball game and we are leading 9-4 with one out.  One of our fastest players on the team (our son) is on third.  I am collaborating with him on how we are going to score.

The batter hits a high pop fly down the third base line.  The catcher hustles down the baseline to make a spectacular catch.  The hustle and catch was definitely a web gem.  It is a live ball and no one is covering the plate so I send the runner home to score.  The opposing team was furious with me.  Honestly I did not think I did anything wrong.  One of the coaches is a friend and he was pissed at me.  I asked him if they really thought it was unsportslike and he said absolutely.  I assured him that was not my intention.  I apologized to all of the coaches.

Then the moms were bad mouthing along the fence.  I turned to them and also apologized.

I viewed this move as aggressive baseball.  We have not had many opportunities this season to teach the boys aggressive base running. 

Would I do this again?  Absolutely!  Would I do it with a five run lead?  Probably not!

It was not my intention to cause the other team to get upset.

My friend asked me if they would do this in high school baseball.  My initial answer was probably not.  The more I think about it I have seen this play done during my umpiring days by high school teams.  It would be a rare occurrence.

I will agree that by taking this course of action the timing was not appropriate.  I could have exercised a bit more respect for the fantastic play.

I would also say that some of the things that were said about me on the side lines were not appropriate.  These people have no clue about me.  I try to do the right thing and live life with a great deal of integrity.  I do make mistakes, but I always try to teach the boys good sportsmanship and to play an aggressive brand of baseball.

I will learn from this experience!

Bottom line is that both teams played a great game today.  There were some outstanding plays!