As I mentioned, since turning 30 my body has apparently started its long trip down the road of injuries, slow metabolism, loss of speed, strength, etc. However, last night these things were definitely enhanced as DT and I went down to Santa Clara University to play some basketball. We weren’t the oldest people there, as there was one older guy, but we were definitely up there in age compared to everyone else. Anyways, age doesn’t matter when you get on the court. After waiting about 1/2 hour we get on the court, and since I haven’t played full court in a while, I was dragging. I missed a few layups, turned it over a few times, and just plain struggled to get into the groove. Somehow, we ended up winning the game thanks to a couple of kids on our team that were lightning quick. What amazed me is that back in the day, anyone my size I could pretty much keep up with speed for speed, but last night I felt as if everyone was quicker…even bigger guys then me. I guess this is what happens when you are carrying around an extra 20lbs. since college.

The next game was horrible. These guys were bigger and faster, and basically ran us off the court in no time. What was sad is that I was already winded from the first game, so there was no way I was going to keep up. It’s amazing how you don’t realize you are getting older as everyone around you is usually the same age, and everyone is aging at the same rate. However, as soon as you go back in time, you realize what has happened. Somewhat disheartening, but my lone solace last night was thinking that of all the kids in the gym, I was probably 1 of about 5 that got to go home to my OWN house, and see my kid….all the while thinking I am going to have to stay in shape for another 20 years so I can play ball with Kyle when he goes to college. Gulp!

This was the first book I can remember in a long time where I just couldn’t seem to finish it. Barbie’s parents gave me this book and told me it was a great book and that I would love it, and from what I heard from others who had raved about it, I thought so to. Unfortunately, as I began reading the book, I just couldn’t get into it. There were definitely some interesting things about his life, especially all the travel in France and London as he tried to barter a deal with those governments to get the USA recognized. Also, his roller coaster relationship with Benjamin Franklin was also quite intriguing , but nothing really got me hooked.

I ended up stopping my reading of the book after many hours of trudging through the pages and just not ‘getting’ it. However, eventually someone had the audio book version of it, and it was the abridged version, so I thought I would give it a try and finish the book. After finding my place in the book and comparing that to the audiobook version, I was ready to go. The reader was actually the same reader of a former book I read, so I was hoping this would peek my interest, but to no avail. Luckily, I only had about another few hours left on the audiobook from where I stopped reading, and I was done in no time. John Adams was actually fairly impressive, as well as his wife who somehow continued to support him despite not being there for months, if not years, at a time. However, what did catch my interest was his son, John Quincy Adams. Since John Quincy traveled with his father, he ended up speaking a few languages and having one of the most knowledgeable backgrounds of any one else in the USA. There is no wonder why eventually became a President like his father before him.

Wow…been a while since my last post, so I thought I would get you partially caught up. First, the reason for my recent departure is that I had been spending what could be considered too much time on my site Super Bowl Squares. Basically, the site allows people from around the nation to run their own Football Squares site that is hosted on my site http://superbowlsquares.org. About 10 years ago when I first moved out to California I found out about Super Bowl Squares, and was immediately hooked. I spent the next couple years trying to pass around a piece of paper, then realized it wasn’t very efficient, and all my friends around the nation couldn’t participate. So, I decided to put it online. Well, since I am big believer in open source software, I decided to release the software to the general public. Unfortunately, although it was downloaded often during the NFL playoffs, I would always get a few people saying they didn’t have their own server to run it on, so I would charge them a small fee and host it on my site. Since the code was originally designed to host one site per source code, I had to lots of copying/pasting when I decided to open up the service on a much grander scale. Last year I saw an influx of customers, so this year I rewrote the code from scratch allowing for greater flexibility and scalability. New features were added, and automatic creation and payment acceptance were created, and now it is running just as smooth, just less backend work on my end. The unfortunate part for all of you, is that I haven’t had time to post. So now you know.

The other reason was that the Graver’s departed for Miami for the Christmas holidays. This gave me a much needed break from the California crazies (yes, you are all crazy ). The good news is that my family got to meet Kyle for the first time! We actually had a serious scare for a while with my Grandad who was struggling after getting some medication that didn’t work well with his system, and to be honest, the first day we arrived I was pretty scared he wouldn’t make it. However, as the days passed and the medication got out of his system, he was almost back to normal by the time we left. You have never seen such a happy person as when we would bring Kyle to see him. As he always says, Kyle is a “future Quarterback!”
On a less serious note, Barbie and I were able to hang out with an old school friend of mine that I grew up with, and he happens to sell Kitchen Cabinets, so we were able to not only hang out with him and his wife and 2 year old daughter, whom Kyle absolutely loved playing with, but we also got to design our kitchen. The Kitchen is going to be sweet once it is done, although being the guy that I am, I can’t say it is worth it. Then again, I don’t cook, so I don’t have as much of a say.
The other thing I got to do was play a lot of golf. I think I got to play 3 or 4 times. Unfortunately, my golf game has apparently taken a serious nose dive. When Yamo and I were playing during the summer, I was right around 48-50 per nine holes as we usually played the back 9 early in the morning before work. However, in Miami, let’s just say I added a few more strokes to that, so I was basically playing the worst I have ever played. As a partial excuse, my “good” shoulder seems to enjoy “popping” right in the middle of my swing, which causes my swing to turn to complete mush and the ball to go who knows where. However, since it has about a 25% chance of popping, I spend the other 75% of the time trying to prevent it, which means I’m not really swinging comfortably. The good news, it can probably be fixed through surgery, but the bad news is that this is technically my good shoulder, as I’m already going to have surgery on my other shoulder in the next couple of months. As they say, once you turn 30, your body starts to go downhill.
The other high point of the Miami trip was that Barbie and I got to go to a Miami Dolphins football game. Sure, they lost, but I think it might have been my first in-person Dolphins game. I’ve been to other NFL games, and also to “Joe Robbie,” I mean “Pro Player,” I mean “Dolphin Stadium,” for other college football games, but never to a Miami Fins game. They lost, but we had great seats, and a great time.
Anyways, we’ve got some great pics from our Miami trip, especially of Kyle. Pics of Kyle in Miami

p.s. Big Thanks to the Vairs and Leibkuchlers for sharing all of their kid toys with Kyle so we didn’t have to travel with them!