To start this April 15 post on tax day of 2014, as well as the full blood moon of April, I bring you a couple of anniversaries to remember.
Ahh, It's time to relax....On April 8th, 1994, The Offspring released their album Smash. One of my favorite albums from childhood just turned 20 years old. Wow, how the time goes by. It brings back many great memories such as playing in John's basement with John, Danny, & Pat. As well as Danny & I listening to this cd in our room, and putting track #3, Bad Habit, on super low, so our parents could not hear the famous words Stupid, Dumb$@#t, GodD@^n, Mother F#$&er.
Read this Rolling Stones article about The Offspring & their hit albums
The one year anniversary to my Zamboni Ride at the Blackhawks game on April 4, 2013 was the week prior as well. You can watch my whole experience above! Kinda long, but worth the watch if you are interested in how my life on the zamboni went.
This past week was full of lacrosse and a super productive week as far as videos and video editing goes for me. To top it off, we had the Full Blood Moon last night. Play the awesome song Blood Moon by Deer Tick to get in the mood and continue reading!
On Wednesday the 9th of April, I cut up some onion, in the most creative way I could, and then grilled it up on the stove top. After I cooked some chicken, and cut it up, mixed it with the onion and added some rice. I make some creative meals, usually involving me putting everything together in a bowl. After work, I headed to practice with my team that day, another indoor practice because the fields are too wet to use still, as well as our last practice before 2 games later on that weekend.
Wednesday night and into Thursday began my mass editing binge. I really pumped out some quality lacrosse vids this past week. Two quick game clips to advertise 1223 training are underneath this text, the rest will come later in the post. On Thursday morning I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the dentist where I was told that more gold is coming my way. Hooray for teeth and great dentists in the past.
Mother and I cooked up a tasty stir fry dinner together, which was quite delectable.
Thursday evening I went and taped the alma mater NV play NN at North. Caught an absolute beautiful sunset before the game started. I also found out I had left on my camera mic, so the batteries were dead. Cruz, who I had met up with at the game, and I headed over to Office Max to pick up a couple of 9 volts. 10 bucks for two 9 volts, batteries are expensive. The game was pretty rough to watch, but then I saw one of the wildest endings to a lacrosse game I have ever seen. A last second buzzer beater from 28 yards out. Crazy.
Check out the ending here.
I then submitted the game to LaxAllStars and was fortunate enough to be featured in an article where a similar goal happened in a game in Utah on the same night. Check out the article here. Yay publicity.
Here are a handful of other lacrosse videos I finished this past week. 2 lacrosse games and a long overdue Chesty Cam video from the Big Freeze with the Naperville Apaches.
I also finally had time to put together this little highlight video from an event at work about 3 months ago. Better late than never?
Friday April 11th was the date of my team party for lacrosse, but before I could get there, I had an encounter with an old scruffy dog. I came home from work and this woman was parked outside my house and began to approach my car. I walked over to her and she explained how she had found this pup walking down the sidewalk right in front of our house. It was walking slow and seemed to be old, so it must be someone close by. I attempted to pin point whose dog it was, but really had no idea, we tried a few houses close by, but no such luck. I then (somewhat regrettably) asked if she had things to do. She of course said yes and asked if I could take the dog, lucky me. I didn't really have anything going on until my party, so decided to set up camp with the dog down by the sidewalk, hoping the owners would come looking. After about an hour of talking to parents and neighborhood kids coming home from school, the owner finally came to claim his prize. I would later find out that this dog was 14, partially deaf, and partially blind... no wonder it didn't do anything I told it to do & seemed dead at one point. I also discovered that dogs really are a chick magnet, in my case, it was girls between the ages of 7-12 and we will say 35-50. Not ideal, but we'll take it.
After the dog incident, I had a fun team party which involved back-flips on a trampoline, beers, pizza, ping-pong & some xbox. I was sent home with plenty of goodies like usual, love my team mom! After that party, Brian picked me up and we headed over to Yorkville to hangout with Adam and Brandy at about 10:30p and stayed there until 2a. Just did some catching up and talking around the bonfire. We headed back, picked up my car and I was asleep right at 3am.
A great start to the weekend in which Rachel was vacationing in Florida with Sarah, lucky girls!
On Saturday, my Mom, Dad, & I were unsuccessful in attempting to win some jewelry out in Orland Park, but we enjoyed free subs, free desserts, & free ring boxes with fake little plastic rings. Afterwards we headed over to my Aunt & Uncles to have a barbecue. On the way we stopped at Walgreens and I was blessed to find a bag of all Lemon flavored Jolly Ranchers, the flavor they have since taken out and replaced with blue raspberry, heaven!
At my Aunt and Uncles we had some grilled barbecue chicken, grilled Italian sausage, strawberries, jello, and I had some Sam Adam's Boston Lagers. All of it was so delicious, and the dog, Maggie kept trying to get some. What a beautiful dog!
Sunday April 13th marked the beginning of the Fox Valley season for my 8th grade team. Despite stormy weather, causing a 30 minute delay just two minutes in to the game, we were able to finish both games and came out with 2 victories, 15 - 9 and 9 - 0. Proud of my team playing hard in the rain and wind at Rachel's high school alma mater. Go knights?!
After the game, I stopped at Burrito Loco and picked up a coaching burrito for the two big wins. Celebrating alone, stuffing my face with a burrito, like a true champion.
That night I put in the movie the Conjuring which I really have trouble saying aloud, but is me having trouble to read anything new? The movie was actually an awesome scary movie, it gave me chills for almost the whole thing and was spooky as hell. Great movie, probably not the best to watch at 1 am right before I sleep, but I watched the whole thing and enjoyed it. The thought of possessions and hauntings is something I really am interested in, but that is for a later time.
Monday came, to perhaps give us the last snowfall of the year? I guess we shall see with that and the glorious Full Blood Moon was here! Usually known as a Full Pink Moon, but called the Blood Moon on this date because a lunar eclipse was to occur. A lunar eclipse is when the Earth is in alignment between the Sun and the Moon, so it casts a shadow on the moon, hence the eclipse. April 15, 2014 what a great day in history. I stayed up and took pictures from about 12:50am until 4am. Sometimes heading back inside because it was a bit chilly outside and I wanted to warm up as the full lunar eclipse slowly took over the moon. Finally around 2am if I remember correctly, the moon began to take on the orange/red hint, also known as the Blood Moon. I took a ton of pictures and some came out decent. I am looking into buying a new lens, and really should have considered purchasing a telephoto before this occurrence, but hopefully this occurs again and I will have the lens and more photography knowledge by then!
I hope you enjoyed this post and hope you were able to enjoy the Full Blood Moon, if not then you were able to enjoy my photos of it. I am looking forward to this week coming up which include a National Concert, as well as Rachel's Birthday!
See you next tuesday.
Josh