Thursday Blurbs

1. Alright, a lot to blurb about today. Where to start? Oh, I know... I was missing $10 from my wallet today. It was probably Alex. I left my purse out on the computer chair last night. Here we go again. Oh, and? We already got a letter from the truancy board that he has 3 unexcused absences, WTF? I'm not sure what the third one was about, because I never got a call from school, but the other two were from Tuesday (when I saw him walking down White Road at 7:40 am with two buddies when he should have been in his first period class) and the other one was from last week when he said his teacher marked him absent by mistake (because they were in the computer lab instead of the class room), which? Was probably another lie. Like I said, here we go again.

2. All this after he had a great tournament last weekend, which by the way, was going to be my main focus of this week's Thursday Blurbs. His team lost in the finals, but he not only got a lot of playing time, but made it count and played really well. I missed the two Saturday games but got to see the Sunday games. Unfortunate (unlucky?) the way they lost in the finals (in a shootout, again), especially after he made a few really good saves including a break away and STOPPED A PENALTY SHOT AND GOT RAN INTO (HARD AND UNSPORTSMANLIKE) BY THE SHOOTER. Of course, the referee decided that he came off the line, no mention about the rough intentional hit from the opposing player and gave them another kick. Yeah, that's kind of how things go sometimes. That all happened with about 5 minutes left in the game. The PK tied the game and it ended up going to a shootout... where, as I mentioned, they lost.

3. Probably the more interesting news happened on Saturday. In the first half of their first game Alex was going for a 50-50 ball against one of the opposing players and when he kicked the ball, the force of the kick caused the other kid's leg to buckle and he had to be assisted off the field. At some point during the second half, the kid left the field by ambulance. The next day the mother of the player approached Alex and told him that her son had a broken femur and would be needing surgery. She also told him that she wanted to say "thank you" for apologizing to her son and for his good sportsmanship. Alex told me that at half-time he had gone over to the player and asked how he was doing and told him he was sorry. The coach was with him at the time and told Alex that it was just a hard play and that it wasn't dirty or intentional and that it was just one of those things. Except is it? Alex also broke someone's ankle last year on a similar type play. *Scary Strong*

4. Weird stuff going on at work. Everyone was all stressed yesterday. We are supposed to have all the location checks ready to send out today (the 8th)... but we don't have any of them signed yet. What to do, what to do? We, our department, was assigned a "project" yesterday to go through all the franchisee binders and fill out a spreadsheet for who has cabinets at their locations and how many. This, after she (the boss) deleted a spreadsheet that had this information in it for the last three years. Oh, and? (she says) the information in the binders isn't really accurate because "I haven't tracked the cabinets when there was a transfer." So, basically we are guessing. This company is a circus. I think they all make stuff up as they go along.

5. Jacob has roller hockey playoffs on Saturday. If they win they will have 3 games... followed by pizza! WhooHoo! Go Jets! Jacob bought "ninja turtle" pajamas at Walmart when we were in Madera last weekend just for this occasion. He says some of his teammates are going to wear pajamas, as well, during the playoffs.

Wreckage from the Yak-42 that crashed in Yaroslavl, Russia

6. I also just registered him for ice hockey at Sharks Ice. He is going to be in Bantums this year, so back to being one of the youngest players again. He has improved and grown so much though, I think he should be okay and at least be able to hold his own.

7. On a very sad note, there was a plane crash in Russia yesterday that killed 43 people. Most of the passengers made up one of the KHL hockey teams, HK Lokomotiv. They were traveling to their first game of the season. Many of the players who perished had NHL affiliations. One of the players in the crash was a 20 year-old prospect that the Sharks had just drafted. He was just here in July to participate in the rookie camps. His name was Daniil Sobchenko. May he Rest In Peace.