Of course I knew what I was doing; I had a clipboard

As mentioned in several other blog posts I, along with my friend Gary, coached a boys youth soccer team for 8 years (16 seasons). Gary's son Dusty was one of our players, and we coached him from U5 up to U12. Most of the other players came and went, but we did have 2 others who played all 16 seasons on our team, and several others who played 10+ seasons.

Gary and I worked well together. He had more soccer playing experience (somewhat easy, since I had none), so he did most of the in-game instructions. I focused on formations, where each kid played and substitutions. And in later seasons I even carried around a clipboard so that it looked like I knew what I was doing.

When we first started, neither one of us knew much about coaching. However, at the U5 level, it didn't really matter much. At that level, the teams play 3 to a side with no goalies, so the strategy is simply, "Kick it that way!" As they got older, the teams added more players to a side, including goalies.

Once positions became important, we tried to give each kid a chance to play as many positions as possible. Some coaches would put their 3 best kids as forwards, their 3 weakest kids in defense, and the rest in midfield. We actually split the skill level up so that each line (forward, midfield, defense) had strong and weak kids on them. And we moved them around between the different lines because they couldn't ever get better at a position if they never got to play it.

That philosophy meant we sometimes didn't win as many games as other philosophies might have, but it was recreational soccer. We felt it was our goal (pun intended) to make them better players for when they played select soccer or even high school soccer.

We may not have done a lot right in our coaching, but every now and then you get a reminder that there were some things you did do right. Three of our former players are still playing select soccer (2 played 16 seasons for us, 1 played 10+ seasons for us), and their team finished this past season as undefeated state champions for their age group. One of the player's mom e-mailed me about the team, thanking Gary and I for our coaching style. She mentioned her son appreciates that we didn't pigeonhole him into one position.

Sometimes the littlest things we do have the biggest impact.

Epilogue: When Gary and I "retired" from coaching soccer, I took some pictures from the various years and put them here.

I will always have hope

My church has kicked off a fundraising campaign for renovating the sanctuary, and members have been asked to write devotionals for a six week series. The following is the devotional I wrote for the third week on hope.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV).

I was laid off from my job of 8.5 years at the end of March. Like many layoffs, it was due to financial reasons, not because of performance. I was fortunate to have survived several rounds of layoffs over the years because I had been working on a product that was important to the long-term success of the company. That was not the case this time.

Since then I have had a few job interviews, both on the phone and in person. On a couple of occasions I was content with how I performed in the interview, but none of those opportunities have resulted in job offers so far. I have several months left before not having a job will start taking a toll financially, but hopefully an opportunity comes along before then.

I don’t know what God’s plan is for me, but I’m not going to confine what He can do by my limited human imagination. I know that whatever happens in my life He can use it for the good of His kingdom. As the psalmist in Psalm 71:14 said, “I will always have hope.”

Father, help me to trust the plan you have for my life and to be patient waiting for your perfect timing. Be a lamp for my feet, Lord, and make my path straight. Amen.

What kind of tree would I be?

I got laid off from my job last week, so I find myself searching for a new one. I've updated my resume, I've submitted it to a few jobs, and I've had a few interviews, both on the phone and at the prospective company.

During some of these interviews I've been asked one of my favorite questions (other than "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"): What are your strengths and weaknesses?

When answering the "strength" part of the question, you're really trying to give the company reasons to hire you. So, you want to highlight assets you have that you think would benefit the company: things like being a self-starter, being an expert on a particular product (especially if the company uses that product or has a need for expertise with that product), or that you're a quick learner.

The "weakness" part of the question is more interesting, because you're really being asked to give reasons for the company to not hire you. Of course, you want to stay away from answers like "I don't like people" or "I'm a bit of a back-stabber."

There are two schools of thought on how you should answer the "weakness" part. One school of thought is that you should give a weakness that's not really a weakness, like "I'm a workaholic" or "I sometimes get so wrapped up in solving a problem that I won't leave work until I do." I'm not really a fan of this type of response because it always sounded disingenuous to me, so I imagine it sounds the same to the person who asked the question.

The second school of thought is to give an honest weakness, but one that possibly is irrelevant to the job: things like "I wish I knew more about product A" (when product A is not important to the company, or "I'm weak when it comes to testing hardware" (when the duties mostly revolve around testing software). When I interview I prefer to give this type of response.

And what about the kind of tree I'd be? Perhaps I'd be the type of tree with long branches so that I could smack the person who asked such an irrelevant question. :)

My life as a sitcom

TV sitcoms have been around for more than 60 years, and they continue to be a staple on American television. However, the longer a show runs, the more likely it is that at least one episode will use one of the following sitcom clichés: a character is given increased power at work or school and it goes to his head; a fat husband dating or married to a thin wife; the crazy or overbearing mother-in-law; the evil twin; the characters start a business; the husband forgets wife's birthday or their anniversary; a lie gets out of hand; the wife is having a baby NOW; a character unexpectedly finds out about a child he had in his youth; two people who allegedly hate each other but secretly love each other; a character needs money and there's a talent show with prize money that equals the amount of money needed; a character gets amnesia. And there are many others.

One of those clichés happened in my life (other than the evil twin one), and it's all because of Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that allows a person to communicate with friends all over the world, some of whom he or she has never met in person, and let those friends know when he or she is taking a nap. :) But it's also a nice way to catch up with friends you've lost touch with.

And in my case, it's also a nice way to meet the daughter you never knew you had.

I have a female friend that I met back in the late 80's, and we dated for a brief time in the early 90's. We lost track of each other after that, and in the age before e-mail and cell phones it wasn't uncommon to lose track forever.

As luck would have it, I came across her name on Facebook and sent her a message. She responded, and we caught each other up on our lives. She has a couple of daughters, one of whom also has a profile on Facebook. As I was looking at the daughter's profile I noticed her birthday was listed as March of 1991, which is somewhere around the time her mother and I dated.

My mouth immediately dropped. Could this daughter be mine? Is this why we lost contact? Perhaps she wanted to raise the daughter herself, and understandably so. I wasn't exactly the most responsible person during my late teens and 20's. Or my 30's and 40's, for that matter. I wondered if the daughter was smart or funny. Did she have a lot of friends? And I thought about the past for each of us having consequences, even 20 years later.

As I was looking at a picture of my friend and her daughter, secretly thanking God that the daughter looked like her mother, I was reminded of another feature of Facebook: the minimum age for creating a profile. In order to create a profile on Facebook, you have to be at least 13 years of age. Looking at the picture, I realized that the daughter probably wasn't old enough, so she used 1991 to get past the age restriction. Even if she was older than 13, it was obvious from the picture that she certainly wasn't 20 years old.

So, my brief stint as a father came to a close, and thus ended the "sitcom" portion of my life. However, I have decided to start my own business. And hilarity will ensue. :)

Now aren't you being selfish?

When I first moved to Austin back in 1992 I lived in an apartment complex for a few years. I had various neighbors during that time, but my favorites were the Rainbows, a mother and daughter who were both named Rainbow. It was confusing (to me at least) for both to have the same name, so I gave them the nicknames Rainbow Sr. and Rainbow Jr.

Rainbow Sr. was some sort of priestess in her New Age, crystal-reading, incense-burning religion, which probably explains the names. She was a single mom, and from what I could tell she had sole custody of her daughter. Rainbow Jr. was a high school student and slightly rebellious, as teenagers sometimes are. And when her mom went out on a weekend night, Rainbow Jr. liked to throw parties for her high school friends.

And as a mother and her teenage daughter are wont to do, they sometimes argued. Late one particular Saturday night, Rainbow Sr. was going out. For whatever reason, this upset Rainbow Jr. As Rainbow Sr. walked to her car, Rainbow Jr. stood on their balcony yelling at her, loud enough to keep me awake. As I lay in bed I thought it would be "neighborly" for me to let them know they were being too loud. And then, an opportunity presented itself. Rainbow Jr. yelled at her mom, "You're being selfish. What about me?"

Struck by the irony of her statement, I then yelled a retort, "Now aren't you being selfish?"

They were obviously struck by the sheer gravitas of my statement, quietly went their separate ways and pondered the wise words that I had yelled. Either that, or they were embarrassed that they were yelling loud enough for others to hear. Whichever.

Dodgeball = Life?

At my church we have a few camps during the year for the kids. Since I like working with kids and being active, I sometimes help out with the recreational activities.

For the longer lasting camps we try to vary the activities, but I always try to make sure a certain activity is played at least once during camp: dodgeball! For anyone who has never played dodgeball, the game is played with two teams who line up on opposite ends of a court with rubber balls placed in the center. Someone yells go and both teams rush to the center to get a ball so that they can throw them at the other team. A player is out if they get hit by a ball or if someone on the other team catches a ball they threw. A team wins when all the players on the other team have been knocked out of the game.

Of course, when a game involves throwing objects at each other, there's always a chance for injury, but just about any recreational activity has that chance. Personally, I like having dodgeball as an activity because the rules are simple, you don't need a lot of equipment, and games can be played quickly.

And I think dodgeball is a good metaphor for life. Obviously, the more athletic kids will be able to stay in the game longer (survival of the fittest), which for the other kids might seem unfair. And nothing says life is unfair like a dodgeball to the side of the head.

But over time something else usually happens. When there's a kid who is more athletic you see the kids on the other team band together to try to knock that kid out of the game. One or two kids will the draw the athletic kid's fire, and when he is out of ammo, the others on the team will try to hit him when he can't defend himself. If they're successful, then they have a good chance of winning the game.

They see a difficult obstacle, they work together to overcome the obstacle, and they all win.

And that type of plan can help all of us, no matter what life throws at us. Even if it's a dodgeball to the side of the head.

Christmas lights

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. In addition to celebrating the birth of Jesus, I enjoy getting together with family and friends, the food, the carols. But most of all, I enjoy the Christmas lights.

I like how houses look when they are tastefully covered in lights, with additional lights covering the trees and bushes and perhaps a display or two in the yard. For the yard displays I like a general theme: a Nativity scene, the Peanuts gang, or Santa and his elves.

When my incredibly handsome twin brother Ron and I were in high school and college, we put up the Christmas lights at my parent's house. My mom and sister weren't fond of heights, and my dad wasn't as spry (and our older brother didn't live at home), so putting the lights up was our job.

Mom also had a Nativity scene in the front yard, plastic and lit from the inside. We had Mary and Joseph, the baby Jesus (of course), the shepherds and various animals. But in a nice mixing of genres that always made me chuckle, we also had Santa on the roof overlooking the scene.

At my house every Christmas I put up lights on the roof and in the tree in my front yard. Sometimes I've had some in the bushes and around the garage, depending on if I can get all the light strands working. And in the future I hope to add more lights, and I want to have a nicely lit Nativity scene in the front yard: Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the shepherds and various animals. And in honor of my mom I might even have Santa standing amongst the shepherds.

He was a saint, after all.

My Undefeated Season Pitching Little League

I wish I could play little league now. I'd be way better than before. - Mitch Hedberg

Growing up as a twin people would ask us if we ever pretended to be the other one or went on dates for the other one or any other twin-related pranks. And for the most part, the answer was no, especially with dating. It wasn't always easy to get a date in the first place, so neither one of us was going to pass up the opportunity to actually go on the date.

But there are some exceptions. In Jr. High band we once switched instruments as an April Fools joke. Neither one of us could play the other's band instrument very well, but sadly, the band director never caught on. Perhaps we weren't that good on our own band instrument either.

And then there was little league baseball. One year when we were around 11 or 12, I was one of the pitchers for our little league team. I wasn't great, but I could get the ball over the plate most of the time, which is pretty good by little league standards. And unlike the little league pitchers today, I wasn't damaging my arm by trying to throw sliders and off-speed pitches, primarily because I didn't know how.

We had two games per week, and pitchers were only allowed to pitch one game a week per little league rules, so Ron and I alternated games. However, Ron had control issues ... with his pitching ... so almost the entire season I pretended to be him on his pitching days. We didn't switch jerseys, and I never said, "I'm Ron." I just went to the mound and pitched.

No one ever caught on as far as we knew, although one opposing coach asked me before the game, "Didn't you pitch earlier this week?" So, Ron pitched that one game, but I pitched the other 15. I believe I finished the season with 10 wins, 4 losses, and 1 no decision.

Of course, since "Ron" pitched half of the games, I could say I was 8-0.

Outlaw Bike Tour 100

A couple of months ago my friend Wayne asked me if I wanted to ride in the Outlaw Bike Tour 100, taking place on Oct. 9th. The Outlaw is a non-competitive bike ride that takes place in Williamson County with several routes available ranging from 10 to 100 miles. Since the ride was taking place a couple of days after my birthday I wanted to challenge myself, and I talked Wayne into trying the 100 mile route.

I hadn't ridden 100 miles in one day since 1997, when I last rode the MS150, and Wayne had never ridden more than 30 miles in one day, so we had our work cut out for us. We both trained as much as we could with our jobs and other responsibilities. And then, the day of the ride was upon us.

We started promptly at 8am with our group (the 100 milers) starting first. The weather was a brisk 57 degrees, but the skies were clear and the winds were light. We had to make the second checkpoint by 10am to continue on the 100 mile route, so we skipped the first checkpoint. We had no intentions of skipping any after that. Or so we thought.

After the second checkpoint, only the 100 milers were still on our route. All the other routes had turned off to make their smaller loops back to the finish line. Most of the other cyclists in our group were setting a much faster pace than us, so the next few legs were pretty quiet. It seemed like forever, but we eventually made it to the next checkpoint.

Surprisingly, we were at the fourth checkpoint. At some point between checkpoints 2 and 4 we missed a turn and bypassed the third checkpoint. Luckily, the course came back to the road we were on, and we didn't have to turn around. Also, we ended up shaving 5 miles off the total for the route. Accidentally, of course.

The road got hillier after checkpoint 4. Wayne's legs started cramping around mile 40, and he struggled to make it to checkpoint 5 (around mile 50). We took a long break at checkpoint 5. Then we headed out for checkpoint 6.

The course got even tougher. There were several big hills (by our novice standards), and some of the roads were very rough. Our pace slowed quite a bit, but we eventually made it to checkpoint 6 (mile 64). Wayne decided he was done for the day, having ridden a little more than double his personal best. He took a support vehicle back to the finish line, where he was going to wait for me to finish if I could. After resting and hydrating, I headed back out.

The next four miles were still tough, but after that the road leveled off until checkpoint 7 (around mile 73). I took a short break and got back on the road. The road got a little hillier (not as bad as earlier), and around mile 80 my legs started to cramp. My pace slowed, but I eventually made it to final checkpoint at mile 83.

I took a very long break. One of the volunteer motorcycle riders mentioned that there were only 10 people left on the course after me. So I wasn't last. I eventually got back on the road for the last 12 miles. The last leg had some rolling hills, but since my legs were cramping they seemed mountainous to me.

Finally, I made it to the finish line at 4:17pm. The parking lot was mostly empty, but the few remaining volunteers were nice enough to cheer. I had been on the course for 8 hours and 17 minutes, with 7 hours and 2 minutes of actual riding time. And I had ridden 95.49 miles. A big congratulations to all the riders, and a hearty thank you to all the volunteers.

So who wants to ride next year?

Catholic church is hard on the feet

Growing up, I attended a Protestant church, so I didn't have a lot of experience with Catholic services. And by that, I mean I had no experience. When I was in college I had a girlfriend who was Catholic so I attended my first Christmas mass with her and her family.

For those of us who don't attend Catholic church, the services can seem daunting. There's a lot of ritual and congregational responses and standing and kneeling and sitting and more standing and more kneeling and on and on. I'm sure there's a pattern to it and eventually you get the hang of it, but it's confusing at first.

And then there's the kneeler.

For those parts of the services that require kneeling, most (or perhaps all) Catholic churches have kneelers, padded platforms to place your knees on. The particular church I attended had them attached to the bottom of the pew in front of you, and when it was a "kneeling time" you flipped the kneeler down. And when kneeling time was over, you flipped it back up so that it was out of the way.

An excellent idea. Or so it would seem.

As a Catholic mass rookie, I was unprepared for kneeling time so I had my legs stretched out in front of me. When the kneeler was flipped down, one of its feet ended up on top of my foot, which went unnoticed until everyone on my pew placed their knees on the kneeler, crushing my foot.

With that much weight on the kneeler I was unable to pull my foot out. I didn't want to cause a scene, so I bit my tongue (figuratively) and attempted to maintain my balance with one leg with the foot trapped under the kneeler and the other leg with the knee slightly hovering over the kneeler so that I wouldn't add to the weight pressing down on my foot. I don't know if the pain caused me to embellish this in my memory, but it seemed to me that this kneeling section of the service lasted for several hours, which is amazing considering the mass only lasted an hour.

Eventually, that kneeling portion of the service ended, and the kneeler was flipped back up. For the remainder of the service, my feet were safely tucked under my own pew. Hopefully, this story will prevent anyone else from making the same mistake I did.

As if that were possible.