entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

I played my last organized soccer game yesterday (assuming i don't pull a Favre in six months).  Many have asked why i'm retiring.  There are a few reasons:

• About six or seven months ago, i landed hard on my right knee and that turned out to be what was likely a meniscus tear.  Given that this only bothered me when i kneeled, i only skipped a couple of games before getting back to it; playing was occasionally quite painful but not the "shit, i should stop right now" sort of pain.  The structural pain subsided eventually but the surrounding muscles are still a mess, stressing the joint in sporadically unexpected ways.  My right shoulder has also been giving me shit, with some rotator cuff issues that limit my range of motion.
• I had also started playing outdoor soccer in November and in our second or third game, the other team started a fight and their "fans" came onto the field, looking for trouble.  That one really sucked the joy out of the game for me.
• I've been paying the team fees for nearly five years and having people just walk away from the team without letting me know, requiring finding a replacement (or just absorbing the expense), was getting old (as well as dunning my teammates).

A simple invocation of lynx -dump http://ronebofh.livejournal.com/tag/ | grep ' use' | sort -nr -t - -k 2 | head' yields my 10 most used tags:

• music - 192 uses
• friends - 136 uses
• politics - 131 uses
• soccer report - 128 uses
• fuckheads - 122 uses
• random stuff - 69 uses
• wine - 67 uses
• meme - 66 uses
• food porn - 65 uses
• pop culture - 64 uses

butterflygenius

The task will be to coalesce actual writing out of the inchoate sputtering i inflict upon Facebook and Twitter.

The good news is that my soccer team won our division again.  The bad news is that we got kicked up to the next division and have since lost our first two games, the second one badly to a team that was superior in every way.  The ugly news is that i took a shoulder to the ribs while clearing an incoming pass.  This is the latest in a series of dings: got kneed in the back three weeks ago, which flared up after the game two weeks ago; and a week after this, i got kicked in the shin right below the knee with the edge of the shoe which caused a huge hematoma...

There's still a bit of residual swelling and numbness.  But, hey, i love the game...

Note to self: if you're on the ground and can't kick the ball away because it would be a foul, trying to head it away will only knock it for a couple of feet and you'll smash your nose into the turf for your trouble.

After almost six years of playing at Off The Wall, one of my teams (HNS, which was named Centavo when i first joined) finally won our division (technically, Quakes won their division while i was on the roster, but that happened during the session in which i only played a game and a half in between thumb injuries, so it doesn't really count, and yes, they clearly didn't miss me that much).  Last week's game was a battle for first place, where both teams had the same point total and goal differential; we started out strong but got a little crazy (again) in the second half, with no help from the ref who called a goal on a loose ball i stopped a good 10 inches in front of the line.  In this week's game we only needed a tie to wrap up the championship, but we were missing most of our defenders due to work, vacation, and injuries; we also started out flimsily, giving up two early shorthanded goals (on the same penalty!).  Luckily, we kept plugging away, pulled ahead, and won, and it feels good.

This week has absolutely blown.  Lots of problems at work for me and Kimmy; yesterday i was helping her out after hours and i managed to slip on some steps and whack my forearm pretty bad.  No structural damage, but the bruise hurts at the slightest touch.  I've not gotten much sleep due to going to bed late thanks to work, and halfway through today's second half of our soccer game, i was completely winded.  We managed to not lose today (5-5 tie), but there was an ugly moment where after a struggle for the ball, the opponent fouled our guy, who fell; the opponent then saw fit to toepoke my teammate in the back.  If it had happened to me, i don't know if i'd held back, but my teammate managed.  It reminded me of a similar moment some months ago where my team was playing like shit, and i was tired from running and flopping around, and as a guy broke away towards me, i tried to beat him to the ball and failed, so i ended up checking him into the boards.  It was mortifying to me, but when i apologized to the guy after the game, he said it was no big deal and even laughed it off.  Anyway... it's easy to lose your shit when you're playing if you don't keep a lid on the adrenaline.  At least it's easier than when stuff and people at work are full of fatuousness.

I'm also grumpy because i'm in a creative slump.  I'll see what i can do to shake myself out of it.

There's been a ton of shit i've been meaning to mention.  Let's see if i can remember most of it...

Just over a year ago, i got a T-shirt addressed to 'rone'.  Then about a year after that, i received an envelope addressed to Ron 'Tron Guy' Echeverri, with a PO Box in San Luis Obispo as its return address, containing a ten-dollar bill.  The "Tron Guy" is an amusing touch given my antipathy towards jmaynard.  I don't mind getting random stuff, although i suppose i would prefer getting stuff off my Amazon wishlist.

Speaking of Maynard, lammah mentioned that Maynard James Keenan and his winemaker, Eric Glomski, would be signing bottles of their wine at the Whole Foods in Cupertino.  Kim and i showed up about 75 minutes early and there were already about 100 people in front of us (Kim heard someone inside mention that some clowns got in line at 06:00, eight hours early).  Keenan isn't very comfortable as a celebrity, which showed as he barely looked at us when we came up, but Glomski was engaging and while they signed our bottles, i got to talk to him about the pinot noir that Kim, Kim's mom, and i are making.  If you feel like you missed out, he'll be at Fresno's Whole Foods on February 17, Petaluma the 18th, and Sacramento the 19th, all starting at 16:30.

Speaking of wine, i passed Viticulture for Winemakers, which was the final class towards my Certificate in Winemaking from UC Davis Extension.  So as soon as i cough up the certificate fee, i should be receiving my first academic certificate since my high school diploma in a week or two.  I'm a bit excited about it, but i'm only getting started with figuring out if i can make this wine thing go.

peglegpete moved from Dallas to Seattle, and stopped by our humble home for room and board.

I got to go back to playing soccer last month.  This Thursday marked the first time i won a game while on the field since... i dunno, last summer.  A last minute squeaker, too, thanks to my teammates losing their minds in the final minutes of the game and leaving me defenseless.  It felt good to win, and i feel like i've finally gotten back into playing shape.

I picked out a bottle of shochu at our local sushi joint, but it turned out to be not shochu, but awamori.  It smelled like tequila a bit, and was quite tasty.

After weeks of grueling rehab (by which i mean maybe two weeks of occasionally remembering to knead my Theraputty and stretch my thumb), i went back on the pitch, uh, artificial turf with HNS (Centavo's new name, after the Croatian Soccer Federation's initials, whose uniform replicas we wear).  We tied 5-5 tonight.  I wasn't too rusty; i got a little winded and had some passing problems, but i managed not to have any bad screwups.  I sure missed playing.

I went back to play soccer last week, as i'd been jonesing to play and i felt my right thumb was well enough to handle it.  Last Wednesday i was pretty rusty, but i was pretty good on Thursday.  Today i was pretty good until one of my opponents kicked my left thumb out of joint.  Have a look or two if you have a strong stomach.

Kimmy took me to the emergency room and, well, there's not much to do.  I'm in a splint, it's swollen, and i'm depressed because not only will i be out for another month, but i am seriously considering quitting.

Last night, in a "winner takes the division" showdown, i called for a ball, but my defender failed to hear me, kicked it away and bent back my thumb in the process, then ran through and kneed me in the head for good measure.  And then we lost the game by a goal.  Not the best of days...