I hate Daylight Savings Time; I was born during standard time, and I would prefer we kept it all year, and here they've gone and shortened it beginning in 2007. I mean, it's a nice idea, but does it really save energy anymore? I don't really care what time it gets dark at night - I have the same stuff to do each day regardless of the daylight. Time is time, and people can manipulate it all they want, but in the end, it doesn't really matter, does it?
Halloween is over for another year; it was kind of anti-climactic this year, for some reason. The big kid didn't dress up this year, and the little kid went Trick-or-Treating, but it just didn't seem to have the same impact this year. Maybe being on Monday made it weird this year. We got the outside lights plugged in that one day, and now it's time to take them down. I'll try to get them down and have them down for a couple of weeks before we get the Christmas stuff out. Man, Turkey Day is only 3 weeks from tomorrow. DH's family really wants us to come up there; I've told them I'm supposed to work that weekend, moving the computers to the new building and getting some very valuable OT, but I'm not sure I really care about it now. I kinda want to go up North for the weekend, but it's always such a hassle - 4 days of living in the car, arguing over who goes where when and for how long. I'm just not up for that kind of crap right now - there's plenty of stuff to argue about at home, no road trip required. I could use the money, if I stayed here and worked (not Friday - that's tree day). Eh, we'll see.
Speaking of road trips, we had a game in Savannah this past weekend, so we made a weekend out of it. We left Friday at noon (got the boys out of school early, including our soccer son, Rigo), and got down there in less than 5 hours, including 2 stops. The weather was great. The game was Saturday, and I had heard from a few people to expect the reffing to be bad, and that the park was in a bad area, to not keep anything valuable in the car. We got to the park, and everyone who was supposed to be there was there, and the one we knew wasn't coming was there, too! I guess they felt guilty. It was good to have him there - he's our best new player, and we would have missed him if he hadn't been there. So the game started, and right away, we knew the ref was going to be bad. By the end of the first half, we were down 2-0, and we had had at least 2 huge fouls IN THE BOX that were totally blatant and totally not called. The ref was chatting to the home parents, in the course of the game, and we were getting the shit knocked out of us. We came out for the second half, and really started playing well. We came back to tie it up, but the better we played, the meaner they got, and it was really getting out of hand. The Savannah goalie, on a couple of the goal kicks, took damn near a full minute to put the ball back into play (DH says the rule is 7 seconds); he was out there, moseying around inside his box, ball in hand, acting like he had all day, and you knew he was killing time intentionally. And the ref is down there joking and smiling with the parents, acting like, "You think that pissed them off, wait, watch this!" and one of our kids got a full forearm in the upper chest, in the box - no call. I saw two hands flat on my son's back and he went flying - no call. Of course, we're all jumping out of our seats and hollering, and their parents are being all stupid saying "What, you guys going to argue with everything?" Uh, yes, you stupid git, when somebody is getting hurt for absolutely no reason other than out of just pure meanness - that's not what this game is about. We scored 3 goals pretty much back to back, and that gave us a lead of 2, and it got really bad. DH and the ref got into it at one point, and DH said "Don't worry, we'll discuss it after the game". The ref ended up letting the game run about 10 minutes extra, I assume trying to let the home team catch up, which they would never have been able to do at that point - we were too hot by then. We (us and their parents, too) were wondering when he was going to call it, when one of the parents hollered out to the field "Hey, Carl, how much time you got left?"; Carl took a few seconds to try to figure it out, and he yelled back, to his buddy, obviously, that there were about 4 minutes left. Whatever; it didn't help. We won 5-3, they actually had a yellow card, but we had 2 bloody lips/noses, one almost broken leg, and the ref left so damn fast we didn't even see him leave. He called it pretty fair the last couple of minutes - I guess after he confronted DH, he decided he'd better get his act together, because we were on to him.
You know, when you are competing at this level, you expect some level of professionalism from the refs. This whole situation was totally uncalled for. It was the U-19 Savannah team that started all the crap up at our soccer complex a few weeks before that; the team had trashed the bench area, and the parents had trashed the stadium, and when someone asked them to pick up their mess, it turned into a big confrontation that ended up involving several cops. One of our people was in the act of calling 911 when one of the Savannah people threw water on them, and shorted out the phone. How stupid is all of this? And people wonder why soccer parents have such a bad rep - when people have to play dirty, at this age group, instead of playing the game, or have to be shitty afterwards because they are such poor sports, well, it's not really any wonder, is it? It makes me sad to be a part of it. In my personal opinion, I don't think the Savannah teams should be allowed to compete with us next year, after these two incidents (and probably more that we don't know about); they do not possess the proper attitude to be representative of the state and its youth athletics at this level. I am going to write a letter to someone at GYSA about that ref; as a paying parent, I expect, and believe I am in a position to demand, some unbiased (as much as it can ever be) reffing. That's what they'll get when they come up to our park - it's what I expect when I go to theirs. Otherwise, we'd stay home and play Rec ball, wouldn't we? Bastards.
Christmas is getting close - I am not ready. I am usually damn close to being done shopping by this time, and I really haven't even begun. I got the boys' lay-away at Wally World just last week, but haven't done anything else at all, except the 2 bead gifts I am making when my big order arrives. As usual, I have no idea what to get either of my parents. I have the gift for my Friend's mom almost done - I was working on it last night when I was rudely interrupted by people coming home from practice and expecting food. I'd like to get that finished up tonight - I'm not going to ship it for a few weeks, still, as I need to order my boxes still, and it's too far out yet (and I have to make another thing to go with it). My HR person here at work may order a few things, too; if so, I hope she has an idea of what she would like in the next couple of weeks, in case I need to order anything - time grows short. One of the girls that works with DH wanted to know about my stuff, too - I think it was a bit more pricey than she was expecting, though I was willing to offer discounts. Oh well - maybe next year. Actually, since I'm not really ready for business yet, I guess maybe less would be better. We'll call it practice for next year, I hope....
I would really like to get back to my cross stitching - I haven't touched the pumpkins since before we went to Savannah. I want to get those done, and get back on the castle. January and February are the two months that I really make a lot of progress - soccer is still going on (indoor), but no traveling, and the weather's not good enough to have me doing other things, so if I can get back to the castle by then, I expect to get a lot done, if not completely finished. At least it should be done by the time the boys are out of school, unless the beads really take off and consume a lot more time than I'm foreseeing.
I just ripped through King's DT VI - Susannah's Song. I really really like those books, and there's only one more, then I'm out. I still haven't seen VII in trade paperback yet - I have all of them in that format, so I've been waiting to get that one. I'm reading it as soon as I can get it. I checked Amazon a while back, and I think it's supposed to come out this month; I hope so. Diana Gabaldon's Breath of Snow & Ashes is out in hardback; I also have all of those in trade paperback, so I'll have to wait a year before I pick that one up. AT least I have a little breather, to catch up on the Nat'l Geographics from last year that I never got to; I am in the middle of November '04 now, should finish it tonight, then move to December '04. It was actually nice not renewing that this year, though I do really miss it. But they sent me a $15/year offer, and I couldn't resist at that price; I assume that'll pick up in January again. I wish I could pick up Archaeology and Smithsonian again, but that's just too much, especially when I have so many books I want to read, I have to maintain a spreadsheet listing them. Yes, I am AR. So?
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