Happy Halloween!

 

Monarch Butterfly

These guys are EVERYWHERE right now... one landed on me on my ride Sunday and stayed for a while! They're on their migration south. And do you remember the Viceroy butterfly? (Surely you studied this stuff in elementary school ;-)

Whatever you do, don't...

let a 12-year old sit in a tricked-out Mini Cooper-S (like this one here owned by Litespeed's coolest dude, Herbert Krabel - notice the double racing harnesses /seatbelts) because after that whatever you tell her she's getting when she's 16 will not be cool enough ;-)

We saw one today that looked just like Herbert's... they are way cool!

Girls won, and I'm going riding!

The girls won 6-0, and Kiersten had two goals!

It's 75 degrees, 42% humidity (low for here) and 10mph winds (super low for here) so I'm going for my loooooooong ride... peace out!

The kids are in a music video on MTV!!!

Have you guys heard of the Scissor Sisters? They're the hottest thing on the airwaves right now and the kids are in their newest video! I'm not kidding!!!

Check it out:

I Don't Feel Like Dancing!

Man, what a game!

It started a bit inauspiciously playing short-handed and with our goalie being late but once the whistle blew the kids went straight to business.

Five minutes into the game with the score 0-0 (but with our boys spending most of the time down by the opponent's goal) Kees shot into the goal only to be blocked by the hand of one of their defenders. He got a penalty shot but it was inches over the crossbar!

Our boys kept persisting, executing perfect passes and keeping the ball down in the opponent's end but every time they shot wide for some reason. I think the pressure of remaining undefeated was being felt by the boys. Our defense did a great job as well, as did our goalie who only had to defend the goal three times, and we entered the half tied.

0-0

We'd never entered a half without a goal, nor tied with any team so I had to get the kids fired up. They wanted to win this one and we talked about changes we had to make.

I rotated my goalie out the second half and put him at forward to give us some more size up front, and offensively the second half started just like the first half with our boys mostly down on the opponent's end of the field. The other team got a couple of good breakaways, though, catching our defenders off-guard but thankfully our new goalie pounced on their shots and cleared the ball immediately.

Kees got several shots but every one went wide. Finally, ten minutes into the second half Kees pulled his patented move... drawing the goalie to the left and then with his left foot shooting across to the right of the goalie for a goal!

1-0

Our kids had played a hard first half, and it was showing the second half. Several times the midfielders were left flat-footed when a ball shot by them, and our defenders were reacting too late to breakaways. Finally, the opponents beat both of our defensive zones and shot and scored.

1-1

Our offense was really struggling, putting a lot of weight on Kees' shoulders (and legs) so I swapped out right forward with a fresh player and within two minutes he slipped in between two opposing players and shot and scored!

2-1

With only five minutes left in the game and our defenders noticeably tired, I beefed up our defense by putting our starting goalie back in, setting the midfielders in defensive positions and required our forwards to cover more field. If we tied I was confident we'd win a shoot-off because we have the best goalie and best shooter in the league, but I'd much rather beat them on the field.

Finally, the whistle blew... we won, beat the only remaining undefeated team, and are the only undefeated team remaining!

2-1

Way to go boys!!!

Some more from my peeps in the low lands: cyclocross

Cyclocross - Elite Men - Neerpelt, Belgium, October 8, 2006

Holloween fun: Vampires mathematically impossible!

A researcher has come up with some simple math that sucks the life out of the vampire myth, proving that these highly popular creatures can't exist.

University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou's work debunks pseudoscientific ideas, such as vampires and zombies, in an attempt to enhance public literacy. Not only does the public believe in such topics, but the percentages are at dangerously high level, Efthimiou told LiveScience.

Legend has it that vampires feed on human blood and once bitten a person turns into a vampire and starts feasting on the blood of others.

Efthimiou's debunking logic: On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600. A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.

If mortality rates were taken into consideration, the population would disappear much faster. Even an unrealistically high reproduction rate couldn't counteract this effect.

"In the long run, humans cannot survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month," Efthimiou said. "And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of reproduction."

So whatever you think you see prowling around on Oct. 31, it most certainly won't turn you into a vampire.

From my peeps in Holland

It's in Dutch but look at the two pictures and try to find the three differences. Allegedly only 2% of the population can find all of them:

Drie Boomen

I found two. One hint I'll give: shoreline

Culture Day

It's Culture Day at school and my camera is being serviced so here's a picture of the kids in Volendam several years ago. 

Clash of the Titans

Well, it looks like this weekend's soccer game will be a clash of the titans again. For the last three years we've both entered this game as undefeated teams, and each time we've lost (with our only loss) and they've gone on to an undefeated season.

This year, I think, will be different.

First, is that we've shut out almost every team and only had two goals scored against us in the entire season whereas they've had several very close games. They start out slowly (like we often do) so the key will be to score quickly and often in the first half.

Second, for the first time Kees has at least one and sometimes two players (when I pull the goalie out and let him play forward) on his team that can score regularly. Kees is still by far the goal-leader, but it takes the weight of having to score all the goals off of his shoulders. When we play three forwards we have three kids weighing almost 100 pounds each who are fast, can control the ball, and shoot from either side. Backing those forward up are at least two mid-fielders who can score as well.

Third, we have very fast, small, mid-fielders who are like busy-bees and always where the ball is, offensively or defensively. That it makes it very difficult for the other team to move the ball up, takes some pressure off the defenders and gets the ball to the forwards quicker.

Regardless of how it turns out, it will be a good game!

Girls won!

Oops... forgot to post this... cold and rain but the girls won! 

It was so windy and cold that the armless, camoflaged, bandit made his appearance! 

More soccer

The girls blew a 2-0 halftime lead to lose 3-2, and the boys remain one of only two unbeaten teams shutting out another team 5-0.

Sorry, no pictures... giving the camera a rest ;-)

John Cobb

John Cobb fitting Lance... yes, that lance...

and me... although he didn't get as much speed out of me as he did with Lance ;-)

Truthfully, though, when he fit me five years ago I gained almost 2mph and won the state duathlon title, so I'm hoping to get those 2mph back for my comeback in '07!

(And dang, I don't know why I look fat in that picture... I guess I'm expanding my diaphram trying to breath deeply while spinning...)

She's in the Big Show!

She made it... now let's see if we can juggle all the extracurricular activities ;-)

Three more games... three more victories...

The boys and girls won again... sorry for no pictures of the boy's game but here are some from Kiersten's game on Sunday...