Another Season of Soccer

Wrenny and Rei just finished another soccer season, it was a blast. Reiley’s team has been together for over a year, and keeps getting better every game. Wrenny and I had our adventures together, as I coached her team. Wrenny did great as “coach’s helper”, helping me (most of the time) keep the eight rowdy young’uns in line (most of the time) and having fun playing soccer (when they weren’t picking daisies off the field). I had a blast just watching them having so much fun – you can learn a lot about what’s really important from a great group of kids like that. :P

After a long soccer workout Last day pep talk

9.5 Blazing Saddles

Re-watched this old classic recently with boo, we were bustin’ a gut… it’s so hard to find stuff this brilliant any more… must have single-handedly made the word “nigger” laughable and irrelevant… big comic book larger-than-life laughs on a budget that was probably so small that Mel Brooks (and Richard Pryor and all the other writers) could get away with following impulses pretty much anywhere they went…


“‘scuse me while I whip this out…”

Helpless in Asheville

Ken posted to my site! Ken, that means you can do no wrong! Get posting to your OWN site, you madman!!! :> Gimme a buzz if you need help…

Ken Etterman writes “Mike, nice job keeping up you blog, I notice you’ve been very regular (with the blog I mean). I would like to jump start mine again, you as always motivate me in that direction. Hope you guys are well – lets get connected soon.”

Too funny for their own good

I guess they’re teaching sarcasm classes earlier these days… kids these days… when *I* was a youngster, we quietly stood in the corner, and ate paint chips! AND WE LIKED IT!!

Wren (doing a little bean voice impression): “and the big bean was too slow and it got ate-en…”
Daddy: “eaten, Wren…”
Wren: “No, they don’t know how to say it.”

Daddy: “Why don’t you eat your broccoli stems with the tops? It’s the same thing…”
Reiley: “Yeah, it’s the same thing…” (big dramatic pause) “…only different”

My Vegas Angle

I’ve been to Vegas once or twice. It’s fun to play, but I would never bet more than I expected to lose. You can see how people get addicted to it though – it’s easy to start fantasizing and lose track of reality. Case in point…

I thought I had perfected my gambling angle to the point where it couldn’t fail. The idea is to shift the long odds to shorter by decreasing the payout. Here’s the details, it’s pretty simple.

First, some basic Roulette. You can play red (or black) with a 2:1 payout. What this means is that if you bet $1 on red, and the little ball lands on a red number, you win $1. If it lands on black, you lose. All the numbers are either red or black, so it’s pretty good odds – the only down side is the 00 number – if that comes up, EVERYONE loses. OK, now for the angle.

If you lose, double your bet and play again. Keep doing this until you win. Once you win, if you do the math, you will see that you have won $1 since beginning the round of betting. You ALWAYS WIN $1!

OK, one bad assumption has ruined many a scheme, and the same is true here: you can’t double your bet indefinitely. Therefore, it’s just a matter of time until you lose several times in a row, doubling your bet each time, until you hit the betting limit and you’ve lost your shirt. Losing your shirt is typically seen as a BAD gambling strategy.

It’s still not too bad though, if you look at the numbers… UPDATE: yes it is… move on, nothing to see here…

Birds, Bees, Boogers

Andrea and I were joking with the girls that when they were born, Mommy pulled something out of her nose, and it was Reiley, who’s really a booger. And Wrenny was throwup. Then we said, “No, you guys know where you really came from”.

To which Reiley replied “Gross, I need a bath.”

Wrenny turns five

Yesterday Wrenny turned five! What a crazy day…

Show me the CAKE!

The day before her birthday, we had a party at The Party Machine. It was a joint party with a neighborhood friend Jenna, so there were lots of kids to run around and get crazy with. We went out to one of our favorite Indian restaurants afterwards because the weatherman was making dire predictions for tons of that lovely sleet/rain/snow/hail thing we seem to get here every year.

Sunday morning, we woke up on Wrenny’s birthday to find that the weatherman was only partially right – we got tons of stuff, but it was all lovely SNOW! Yipee!! I trudged off alone to church for my debut singing in the praise band (I blame NO ONE for skipping THAT…), and when I returned, it was sledding and snowball fighting for all. I played the human toboggan, with me lying on the saucers and the neighborhood kids all piling on top, until I could no longer feel my butt. Afterwards, we warmed up with hot chocolate. Awesome!

Today, in true North Carolina fashion, it has all turned to slush and ice, and more sleet is falling as I type. I have to admit that I love to drive on the ubiquitous sheet of ice it creates – there is nothing more pleasant than my little Honda go cart in a powerslide. The only problem is tolerating all the other North Carolina drivers’ ineptitude. They are all either going 2 mph or deeply embedded in the forests adjoining the highway…. cest la vie…


Here’s some evidence of the road conditions… WHEE!!

Black Ice
and the day's no better...
Reverse-power-slide into a perfect setup for the next adventure... :P