24 Hours

On Monday evening after the kids went to sleep, I got the mail which included a rather significant check from all of the games I worked as a soccer referee this fall. Wooooo! Then, I took the 2016 soccer referee recertification test online. (Please note that the next portion of this blog post is about soccer ref stuff, but there's non-ref stuff below.) This 100-question, multiple-choice test is painful. Some of the questions are poorly worded, and there are plenty of others where they are trying to fool you. Here are some questions:

#1: A player, while in an offside position, is guilty of interfering with the opponent and therefore guilty of offside if he does the following:

A) blocking an opponent’s view of the ball but not involved in challenging for the ballherefore guilty of offside if he does the following:
B) running beside the opponent towards the ball without making contact with the opponent
C) making gesture of not playing the ball obvious to everyone
D) none of the above

Does no one proofread this? Although the answer is A, I answered none of the above since I had no idea what the wording in A was supposed to be.

#2 True or false. The ball is in play on a corner kick when the ball is kicked, moves, and leaves the corner arc.

Fortunately, I've taken the recertification exam enough to know some of the quirks. While it's true that the ball is in play on a corner kick when the ball is kicked, moves, and leaves the corner arc, they are asking if the ball is required to leave the arc to be in play. Therefore, the answer is false.

#3 Red #20 is ready to take a throw-in. White #31 pushes a Red attacker down inside the penalty area while jostling for position. You stop the throw-in and caution White #31 for unsporting behavior. The restart is

A) Dropped Ball
B) Thrwo-In
C) Kick-Off
D) Corner Kick
E) Gaol Kick

Is it too much to ask to spell throw and goal correctly?

It took me nearly two hours to take this exam, but I passed with a score of 87%. I don't feel bad about this score either. After the exam, I watched the end of the Detroit Lions-New Orleans Saints Monday Night Football game almost entirely for fantasy football purposes. In a semi-final match, one guy (we'll call him Mike) had a slim lead late in the fourth quarter. His opponent (we'll call him Michael) still had Saints RB Tim Hightower and Lions WR Calvin Johnson. On the last play of the game with victory certain for the Lions, Hightower caught a meaningless 18-yard pass. However, with a half-point per reception and .1 points per yard, this play gave Michael a victory by .1 points. Oh, this play happened just a minute after this rant by Michael:

I *#(@ing don't make the finals because some fat &*^% can't rember to tell the official he's eligible on second down after he remembers to do it on first down. That's the biggest bull &$*# ever in the history of fantasy football.

I feel like the fantasy gods will (or at least should) look poorly at Michael in the championship. Of course, now that I shared this, perhaps the fantasy gods will look poorly at me for the two leagues where I'm still in contention.

On Tuesday morning, I had my regular dentist appointment. I'm sure that I've mentioned this before, but I have a great relationship with my dentist. She knows that I don't floss and never says anything about it. (She also got me an electric toothbrush as a wedding gift.) However, the dental hygienist apparently doesn't know this deal. She asked how often I floss. I replied about once every 6 months which basically corresponds to when the hygienist does it during my appointment. So the hygienist made sure to give the spiel that I need to floss. I'm still not going to floss. If flossing was so important, the dentist should include some with the free toothbrush & toothpaste bag. On a different topic, I need a filling though this is nothing that flossing would have prevented.

This is turning into a very long post. Thanks for staying with me. After the dentist, I took my car to my mechanic for the required state inspection. I've been dreading this since I knew my car wouldn't pass due to an always on airbag light and my driver's side window not working. My 2003 Honda Civic only has 118,000 miles, and I only drive it about 5,000 miles per year. While I definitely need a car, I don't want to put too much money into it or start with a new car payment.

It turned out that the air bag light wasn't a problem. However, my headlights were. Another Honda was there, and I could see how clear they were in the other car compared to my foggy lights. Then, I needed a new window regulator and motor driver. I'm just happy that Warren G is involved with my car.

So my car is now fixed and passed inspection but the soccer referee money is gone.

Finally, I had my soccer referee recertification class. With the class scheduled for 3:30-8:30, I brought snacks and hoped they would provide pizza like they did in previous years. No pizza. I was hungry when I got home but I knew I couldn't eat too much so late. Therefore, my dinner consisted of a cheese stick, clementine, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Dinner of champions!

Weekend Review

- Virginia had no sales tax on clothes this weekend, so I ventured to Kohl's with dozens, if not hundreds, of my closest friends. After trying on probably eight pairs of pants, I settled on exactly one pair along with a few shirts. Then, I ventured upstairs to buy some kids' clothing. I happily found 3 pair of size 4 boys pants. They seemed a little big, but I figured that my older son would grow into them. Apparently, the growing into them could take a long time. I needed to buy size 4T pants not size 4. Who knew there was a difference between the two? I later returned them to Kohl's but did not stay to search for 4T pants. I had my fill of shopping for the week month day.

- I own two suits but wear them only a few times per year. However, between a conference, a wedding and Rosh Hashanah, there's a period in September when I'll need to wear a coat and tie nearly every day for a week. I tried on both of my suit coats recently and noticed that they are huge. They were slightly big when I first purchased the suits, and then I lost about 30 pounds over the years. So I went to Men's Wearhouse over the weekend to see if they could help me. They refused. I had the same result at the place where I take my dry cleaning. In both cases, there would be too much to do, and the arms and shoulders would still look awkward. So now I'm stuck looking like this:

Of course, the Men's Wearhouse guy offered to sell me two suits for $500. I declined.

- Another weekend highlight was my driver's side car window going off track. I was able to close the window but now it won't open. You can hear the power window mechanism trying to work, but the window doesn't move. I called the dealership to get an estimate, and they believe that they need to replace the regulator. (Who knew there is a car part named after the legendary Warren G song?) The estimated repair cost is $491 or the cost of two suits. I guess I'll just open my car door if I go to a fast-food drive-thru or ATM or when exiting the Metro parking garage.

- My 4 year-old could be a photographer one day judging on how much he likes taking pictures with my phone. This picture of Ziggy came out rather well.

Of course, then there are dozens of pictures of the TV and floor like this one of the remote, so he still has some work to do before becoming the next Ansel Adams.

(Though perhaps there's some meaning behind this picture. Maybe it's a post-modern reflection of society's need to have the remote control and how lonely things can be with the remote on the floor. Or something.)

- If you're a fan of all Pittsburgh sports, I hope that you watched the Pirates regular season game on Sunday evening rather than the Steelers pre-season game. The Steelers didn't even play Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Le'Veon Bell, Maurkice Pouncey, James Harrison, and Martavis Bryant. Meanwhile, the Pirates scored 9 runs in the 7th inning to defeat the Dodgers 13-6. Naturally, I fell asleep with the Dodgers leading 5-1, so when I later woke up to see the Pirates leading 12-5, I was shocked. Let's Go Bucs!