The Fourth Floyd

Wednesday June 18th started off with a little bit of video editing, and then a good workout over at BMT. I had a standard day at work. At the end of the day girls lax open needed an extra player for 2 on 2, so I stuck around. Despite playing 16 year old girls, I had fun and my thoughts were finally confirmed, I am pretty good at girls lax, and dominated. On the way home, it had just stormed pretty hard, but the rain had stopped and I was sweaty from playing, so I had the windows down. As I headed toward a bridge in a constructoin area right by my work, a car was headed toward me coming from the opposite direction. What neither of us saw, was the water sitting under the bridge, and to my misfortune, we both hit the water at the same time. This created a tidal wave of murky dirty water that not only rushed over my windshield, but also went right into my window, covering my in water, as well as into my back window, covering the back seat. Let's just say I got a free shower, and the car has smelled a little funky since that night.

On June 19th, Thursday, I headed over to BMT to workout bright and early, then had a good day at work. After work I went home for a couple hours before heading back for men's league. Right as I started to drive back to men's league, another storm hit and the heavens opened up on Naperville. Now, I understand driving with caution when it is raining, and especially when it is flooding, but some people are just terrible drivers. I was stuck behind a man/woman driving 20 in a 45 and just couldn't take it anymore, so busted over that double yellow and gave them the old pass on my way. There was no flooding, or any traffic around, this person must have just been really bad at driving, it had to be done. I made my way into the facility and had a fun week at men's league, scoring goals, making assists, and being the CandyMan. 

And as soon as I knew it, the weekend was here. Friday, June 20th involved a lot of hard laborious turfing at work, Beth and I spread about 5/6 of a bin of infill on the field. However, while doing so, I saw some extra turf outside, asked the boss what it was all about, and ended up filling Beth's car with a whole lot of turf, which we then spread out on the driveway the next day. Check out this pickup. One step closer to having a turfed basement in the future. Yes!

Rachel and I admiring the turf layout.

Rachel was sweet enough to take the train into Naperville again, so I picked her up and brought her back to work where I showed her what Beth and I had been doing the last few hours. After work ended around 7 we headed over to Rancheros for some dinner. Beth ordered an adult drink, got carded, which was fine. But then the manager came back to the table and asked to see her ID again, since she has a Missouri license, they carded her not once, but twice. After about 15 minutes, the drink finally came out, and they claimed the bar was backed up, but we knew they were "googling" what a Missouri license looks like. After dinner, where I had a chicken sandwich, we headed over to the liquor store just across the parking lot and picked up a 12 pack of Bud Light Limes and a small little bottle of some type of Bacardi. Rachel made a big deal about this tiny little bottle, which was pretty funny, especially when the cashier got in on it. I also got orange tic tacs, thanks Rachie!

After this, we drove over to DG to Jackie's house. She was having some friends over to play some drinking game, True American, from the show New Girl (I think). The game was great to play, especially with people you didn't know, because you got up close and personal with them right away. Unfortunately for them, I had worked out that morning, sweated all during work moving turf, and had not showered today yet. Sorry friends! We picked up some McDonald's on the way home, seems like it is every weekend... ahhh but it tastes so good.

Saturday the 21st of June began with a little bit of video editing. I was trying to finish up a couple of player season highlight edits I am working on for a few clients. Around noon, Rachel, John, Beth, and I jogged about a mile over to Frontier park where we then did a variation of 120 yard sprints. We did 20 total, 2 of 10 different kinds. We ended with 60 yards of lunges, a jog, and then a 120 yard sprint. Killer. Worst part was we had to jog a mile back home, but we all survived. Still got it.

That afternoon around 2 I grilled up some burgers for the family and Rachel, and then showered, cleaned up, and headed over to Rachel's cousin's HS graduation party. The party was awesome, had great Bueno Beef Catering, but it started to storm again. Initially, Rachel and some of her family were going to wait it out under one of the tents, but the winds got very violent and it continued to pour out. Finally after about 30 minutes, we headed back inside 1 by 1 under the comfort of an umbrella. At last a guy brought us out an umbrella and there were 4 of us left. I took 1 of the guys to the garage, then came back for the final two. We decided to take all 3 in the final trip, which was a mistake under the umbrella, since my front got soaked, and the person in the rear had their back soaked. I joked how this was as close as I would get to saving people in a war like all my forefather's. So sad, but so true. Once inside, I found the dessert bin, and kept going back to eat these delicious sugar cookies. I probably ate between 20 and 30 of them, and actually finished off the box, slightly embarrassing, but not really, they were so good.

That night we hung out with John and Beth again at my house, and finally broke in the Deer Tick War Elephant vinyl. Boy did it sound good, the lyrics so clear, the instruments so crisp, love me some vinyl. 

June 22nd, Sunday, I woke up early to finish some editing, then Rachel and I headed over to Gio's to drive out to Three Floyds Brewery with Gio and Kelly. The brewery was about a 45 minute drive out to good ole Munster Indiana. Once we arrived, there was already a line out the door, we ended up waiting a little over an hour just to get seated inside for lunch, but it was well worth it. For apps we had the best beef jerky I have ever had, and some delicious wings as well. They both tasted fresh off a camp fire. I ended up trying the Three Floyds beers on tap, I had their famous Alpha King Pale Ale and followed it up with a Jinx Proof. Rachel tried the Gumballhead first. For lunch I had another chicken sandwich, again was so delicious. The whole time we were eating, there was a super bizarre show on tv, some type of fighting movie where the main characters were missing either their arms or their legs. Not the best lunch film, but we had to take it. After lunch, we went to pickup some beers to go, but they were already out of everything except two kinds, so I got two bottles of Man-O-Awesome or something like that. On our way back, the radio kept playing Pink Floyd songs, and that is when we realized, we were in the presence of the Fourth Floyd. After riding back listening to the Fourth Floyd with Gio, while Rachel and Kelly slept most of the way, Rachel and I drove into the city to her apartment. Once there we watched an episode of Breaking Bad and then the movie The Campaign which I did not find all that funny. Pretty disappointing. Rachel's roommate and BFF from highschool and college had just moved back from Alabama, so it was good seeing her and catching up, as they are roommates once again! How nice!

Awesome Grenade glass that my Jinx Proof came in

Somehow, the neighbor upstairs must have known we were hungry, because he brought down 2 chicken sandwiches for us to try out. I guess he is opening a new restaurant in the city, so we gladly helped him out by gobbling them up. Now that I think about it, that is the 3rd time I had a chicken sandwich in the past couple days.

I was exhausted from the weekend, so called it an early night.

Monday the 23rd of June, I drove home and immediately had to begin editing. I was able to finish it up before heading in to work. After work, I watched a scary movie called, You're Next, it was actually pretty good and bit chilling especially when watching alone in the dark. But a solid scary film, that shows how money is the root of all evil, as family members kill each other to get the inheritance. Luckily there was a bad @$$ girlfriend chick who was raised as a survivalist and ends up killing them all. Pretty great ending. Spoiler Alert...

Another great week and weekend in the books for 2014. Check out some of these throwback pics to Brewtown 2013, I will miss not going this year, but Beth's grad party and a Lucky Boys Confusion concert are on deck. Get excited!

Josh

Flag Day

Let's start off this Flag Day themed blog with the first track of the CD, Born on Flag Day, by my favorite band Deer Tick.

Wednesday June 11th was our first day of goalie camp. I started the day by headed to BMT to get a workout in at 7am. After the lift, I headed over to goalie camp for the boys. The skies were a little dreary and storms were in the forecast, but they held off. It did mist for the last 4 hours, but I wore my Walmart waterproof boots. Great investment a few years back for like $15. That evening we headed out to DT napes with some of the guys from the goalie clinic to Lou Malnati's for some deep dish pizza and beers. I had 2 blue moons, and somehow 5 pieces of deep dish pizza. 3 Sausage / Green pepper and 2 spinach / something else. It was so delicious. It may have been since it was my first meal of the day, or since the pizzas were in excess, but I gobbled and gobbled. So delicious, at this point I would say better than Gioradano's, but maybe just because I have not had Lou Malnati's since like 1999 for JQ's birthday party. Thanks for the pizza and beer boss.

Thursday June 12th. Another day of goalie camp, this time on the girls side. After camp, I went home and immediatley fell asleep. It seems I have been taking a lot more naps these days, not sure if it is since I am waking up at 6:15am to go workout at 7, or I am just lacking energy, either way, I have been getting some more sleep mid day. Thursday night I headed to some 3 v 3 men's league and had a great time being active and having a good time.

Friday the 13th of June, Ooo Ahhh, spooky. That's right, Friday the 13th was here, bring on the bad luck, or as my mom says, the good luck. I think I may be going with my mom, because as I shopped at Jewel for brats and beer, I found Old No. 38 Stout craft beers for $2.50 for a 6 pack. These prices were pre-prohibition like. What a deal. I picked up 3 cases and 2 packs of brats to go along with 12 italian sausages I already had at home. I also scooped some pretzel brats buns, can't go wrong with a pretzel bun. Unfortunatley Jmon couldn't make the cookout, so Beth, John, & I grilled up the meats for ourselves and my parents. Take a look at all that meat. Oh also, on the Born on Flag Day album by Deer Tick, there is a CD titled Friday the XIII, hope you're listening right now.

After cooking and devouring some beer brats, cheddar brats, and italian sausage, we will say 4 for myself, the daylight began to dwindle so we got the bonfire going. The first bonfire of the year was the best yet... But really, a bonfire under a full Strawberry Moon and on Friday the 13th couldn't be a better setting for a bonfire. We got the fire going, and then began to feed in one of my old failed bag boards. Basically I tried to make bag boards a few years ago, but jagged on cutting the circles, so they were a failed project. They have since been sitting on my back patio, but on this fine night, we were able to feed the over sized bag board into the fire pit slowly, but surely. The wood obviously did not fit in the fire pit, as it has a closed top and limited door space, but we made do. It was like the fire was slowly eating the bag board and we kept feeding it in. We also cooked up a tasty Banana s'more, compliments of John who thanks some French kids, not sure which ones, since he knows so many. You slice a banana with a knife down the middle, insert some chocolate of your choice, close it up, wrap it in foil, and toss it in the fire. The result is a gooey, and somewhat healthy treat of melted banana covered in chocolate. Mmm yum. Check out some of the photos, including John and I dressed in the same t-shirt. Done on purpose? It was Friday the 13th, you decide!

Full Strawberry Moon - June 13, 2014

After our cookout, and bonfire, we ended the night with some long exposures and photos of the moon. Long exposures and sparklers may I add. Sparklers that I was gifted by Rachel for my 23rd Bday, yikes that is almost 2 years ago, well they finally were put to good use. I need some more ;) Taking these pics at night are fun and get the creative juices flowing, check out some from the night. My signature to the pictures would be when I would just throw the sparklers off the side of the screen. This resulted in many sparklers burning in the grass, one in a tree, and even one on the roof. Luckily none of them actually caught fire, but we were watching with a close, fearful eye.

That night, as I prepared for bed and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, I decided it was time for my long hair to go. The summer flow was no more. I brought out the hair trimmers from under the sink and began to buzz my hair right then and there. I did a decent job and had my dad touch it up in the morning. 

The next day, Saturday the 14th of June, also known as Flag Day, I kicked off the morning by cutting some t-shirts into sleeveless tees. So fancy. I also found out it was Flag Day because I saw some flags outside and asked my Dad what was with all the flags. He then explained Flag Day to which I said, okay. Fun fact, John McCauley, lead singer of Deer Tick, was born on flag day, hence the name of their second cd, Born on Flag Day. If you haven't been listening to the songs in this blog, you are missing out on some quality tunes. Here is another, straight blues jam.

Around noon, John and I set out on a 5 mile run. After that we got back and did a little shirtless circuit workout on the patio. Great day for outdoor fitness and activities. We continued these activities by setting up not only John's tent that he just bought, but also a tent we have had in my garage for the past 20 years, but have never set up. We did a pretty good job after about an hour of figuring out how to set it up. This is all in preparation for our camping trip to Colorado coming in August. Check out the tent warfare we had going on in Ashbury.

After a long assembly of the tents, John and I brought each tent down in about 5 minutes, pretty speedy if you ask me! After spending the day getting nice and tan in the backyard, I headed to New Lenox to spend the evening with Rachel. Before dinner we went a beautiful walk that ended with hand stands in the front yard. Both Rachel and I are getting pretty good. Watch out world. We had a delicious steak salad for dinner and then had Moose Tracks Icecream, my favorite, as we watched the movie the Descendants. 

June 15th, Sunday, was Father's Day. We started it off by going to Mass at Rachel's church. Before church started some guy approached us and asked us to do some delivering of the gifts. I stared at him wide eyed, but luckily Rachel's fam knew what was going on. We delivered the gifts to the front of the Church at the appropriate time, and as we were about to head back to our seats, the Priest told us how nice it was for Rachel's Dad's son and two daughters to help out and be with him on Father's Day. I just chuckled inside, not because I was referred to as her Dad's son, but because the priest referred to her Mom as a daughter to her Dad, even though they claim he winked, I think this Priest who alluded to drinking, was drunk and thought Rachel's mom was her sister. Those past sentences were tough enough to write, I can't imagine how they were to read.

After church we picked up some Panera on the way. All I wanted was a chocolate chip bagel, but apparently they were out, how do you run out of bagels at a bagel store? Unbelievable. We then walked around Home Depot in search for new housing designs, then went to Rachel's grandparents house on her mom's side to visit. When we got back from there I headed home to grill up some steaks for my Father on this Father's Day. My dad is one of the greatest people I know and one of my biggest influences. I don't know where I would be without him. Thank dad, I love you.

Just Kidding! Despite our striking resemblance, that's not my dad, that's Jerome Bettis. Here is my Dad and I in '95.

Father's Day evening, we watched This is the End and I did a bunch of video editing. Here are a couple of quality lax videos I finished this weekend / beginning of this week.

The last thing I have to put in this Flag Day post is a couple of documentaries I watched this past weekend.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston was a great documentary about singer/song writer Daniel Johnston who was brilliant, but also a lot of crazy. If you have the time and are into music, check out the guy who many claim is better than Dylan. The ups and downs in his life are drastic and interesting. 

I also watched a 30 for 30 on the Hillsborough tragedy in England in 1989. 96 people were essentially crushed to death because of pen style seating and overcrowding at a futbol match. There are so many things / parts of this story that make you scratch your head. A very sad story, makes me think twice about being up front for concerts. Scary stuff.

Hope you enjoyed it,

Josh

Champs at Last

This past week started on the 3rd of June, a lovely tuesday. After work I started to go through my tee shirt drawers. I definitely have way more tees than I need, so I started to get rid of some. I even got rid of some of my Championship tees from high school. Check out how many I had. All Vintage Lacrosse America Champion Tees. We won so many in Indoor or Fall Ball, but when it came to the season, we could never pull out a state championship, let alone win a playoff game, except for one year. Also important to note, about 1/2 of these shirts are XLs, the other have Large. Ahh the life of a champion. I have known it as a player, but never as a coach, the  weekend will give me another shot at it. I also have to give a little nod to my 14 year old DARE shirt that I received in 5th grade, year 2000. DAREing 2BME since 2000.

Later that night I loaded up Anchorman 2 and watched it in bed. Squid joined to watch, I fell asleep, but caught most of it, great movie.

Wednesday the 4th of June was the first day for me and Gio working out at the Gym directly behind us. Beyond Measure Training is run by a local guy our age, and I signed up for a month trial membership with Gio. So far we have been pretty consistent and it feels good to get back to working out. I really enjoy how they have the workouts planned for you and you do not have to do much thinking, however, I will most likely continue working out in my basement for free after the month of June, but this is a great kickstart to summer. Jacked and Tanned, summer 2014. For my second to last practice with my 8th graders, I set up a parents vs kids game for the last hour of practice. It was a great game and the parents who came out really enjoyed it and had a blast. The greatest part of the game was when a kid was heading toward the net and his dad was playing defense, just stood him up like a brick wall and leveled his son. It was a great hit. Awesome. Wednesday night I watched the movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. It was a pretty cool movie, with great graphics, since I imagine most of it was filmed in a green screen. It was much shorter than I thought, just over 90 minutes, but had some great cinematography and soundtrack. I give it an A-

On June 5th, Thursday, Gio and I worked out again in the morning at 8 am. Had a decent day at work and then headed over to watch the 8th grade B All-Star game for a few kids I had nominated for the game. I was able to nominate 5 guys, so I nominated 1 from each position, attack, mid, defense, LSM, & Goalie. My kids played really well, despite their team not being the best. Their team also only had 3 long poles, 2 of them from my team. Like I told my kids, the whole team deserved to be there. That night I started the movie Jobs. From the first 30 minutes of the movie, I came to the conclusion which I already knew. Steve Jobs was a jerk. People claim he is a great business man, which I guess he is? but was a mean and terrible person. I didn't finish the movie, but I will some day. 

Friday June 6th. After work, I headed over to my last practice with my 8th graders. I invited a handful of guys who had played with me 2 years ago and a few other high schoolers. Before I got there, I made a couple of pit stops. First at Sports Authority to buy a Bosu Ball. $120 dollars later, well only actually 80, had a gift reward thing for 40, I headed over to my coach from 8th grade, Doug's house. He had coached Gio, Sean, and I to a 8th grade championship back in the day. The blue middies beat the red team from Naperville. Anyways, I was buying an Iron Gym off of his son who is a freshman in HS and plays lax as well. I chatted with him for a bit and he told me a funny story how he had just found a condom is his son's backpack. His kid was going to a co-ed birthday party and had a backpack, so he searched it. His son claimed that him and his friends were going to fill it with diet coke and mentos and watch it explode.. Hilarious... but wow, freshman in highschool these days.

I then made it over to practice where I had a good start to the last practice before the championship weekend. The last half of practice that day, we had another little scrimmage, my team vs my previous players, some highschoolers, and myself. After the fun filled game, which went about 25 minutes after practice (sorry parents... but not really) a couple of the guys I coached 2 years ago (Xander, Brendan, and Jason) wanted to go to BK, so I drove them there and introduced myself to a couple of new sandwiches. The Rodeo Burger and the Rodeo Chicken Sandwich. Normal burger/sandwich but with BBQ sauce and Crispy Onions. Pretty tasty. Their ride was running a little late, so I drove them to my house where we tossed a lax ball on my driveway. This brought back some memories form high school, just playing under the lights on the driveway.

After they left, I quickly packed and headed to Chicago to visit Rachel for the night! John wanted me to pick him up from a friends place, but after driving in circles and making U-turns for some time, I gave up and headed to Rachels. GPS in the city by the tall buildings does not work very well. Rachel was with her mom and aunt, and after chatting with them for a while, they headed home. I was pretty tired from the day, so we just listened to music and talked, then went to bed. 

On Saturday June 7th, Rachel and I spent the day hanging out until John came over. Once he was over, we did a bunch of Colorado planning, that trip will be coming in August. For dinner, we walked down the street to a bar called Sedgwick's. I had a burger of some sort which was pretty good. They also had the crinkly fries which were might tasty. I need better words to describe food. We picked up some white whisky and ginger ale to have whisky gingers for the evening. Rachel's new favorite drink! Later that evening, we went to a party for her friend Becca from work in Lincoln Park. After the party we walked about 2 miles home to Rachel's place, and also encountered either a homeless or very drunk or a combo of both, woman outside of McDonald's. Once we got back to her place, I went out to McDonald's to get us a late night snack as we loaded up Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. We both fell asleep watching after about 30 minutes or so.

Championship Sunday was finally here. June 8th, the U15 B division IBLA championships. I got ready in the morning and headed out around 10am with Rachel to Elmhurst where the games would be taking place. I was feeling good, had my All-American stick, and the weather was beautiful. My team was also ready to play. Coming in as the top seed, we rolled through the first 2 teams to get into the Championship game. We then watched the 2 and 3 seed play to see who would be playing us. The game went into 2 overtimes and ended with a couple of fist fights, where punches were thrown and kids were being tossed around. I asked, but somehow, no one was kicked out for the next game. I also told the refs I wanted to start right away, and that since we were the home team, we would be wearing white (the other team was as well). A couple of power moves and I knew the game would be ours. Here is the bracket, it would end with FV playing Bartlett for the championship. #1 vs #3.

We had a slow start and fell down 2-0. After 3 goals, one of my players took a pretty big hit with about 8 minutes left in the first half. We were up 3-2 and had the momentum, but now we had a 20 minute delay as an ambulance was called. The kid ended up being alright, probably just a concussion, but I did not let him go back in. To my fortune, the team got fired up after the hit and we exploded out and didn't stop. We kept at it the whole game, and as the seconds wound down and I looked up at the clock, it read 8-4 good guys. Right before the clock hit 0 I felt a rush of cold water hit my back. The gatorade bath was upon me. I didn't expect it, and my team got me good with a nice cold shower. We were champions. I had come close before, but now I finally had my first championship as a coach. I couldn't be more proud of my guys, they fought hard all year. We dog piled, got the trophy, took the pics, and celebrated. Below is a little gallery from the post game that Rachel was able to snap. Play the jam as the pictures roll. Amazing day, that would be followed up with a team party after the drive home.

The team party on Sunday evening was a great ending to a great season. We had bueno beef catering and I was able to get a few adult drinks in before getting up in front of everyone to give a speech. Before I started talking, all of the kids started chanting "Candyman, Candyman, Candyman" over and over which was pretty funny and awesome. They had gotten the nickname from my Apaches jersey that I had worn at Friday's practice. I gave a short recap speech about the year, then I talked about each individual player as I handed them custom handcrafted wooden shafts that one of the parents had made for each player. After talking for about 20 or 30 minutes I was done and the party ended. Many players and parents came up to me to thank me for the great year. It was a very satisfying feeling and I felt like I had made a difference in many of these kids and parents lives. Rachel was amazing and my good luck charm for coming to the games! She snapped a photo of me giving my speech in the crowded room. Such a loving and amazing girlfriend I have!

It is hard to believe the year is over. I will miss each and every one of my players, they all came so far during the season and will all do great things in the future. I ended my speech with a little piece on putting in work outside of practice. Hopefully some of them were listening, despite the side chatter. Each year I have favorite kids and really enjoy coaching my teams. This year was by far the most talented team I have coached, and my favorite team from a holistic approach. Many great memories and player/coach relationships. What a year!

After an amazing and tiring day on Sunday. Monday the 9th of June brought another big day in my life. My first photo shoot, which I had been prepping for for at least a week. Here are a couple shots from the photo shoot, which ended up taking 12 hours. It should have taken about 4 after my calculations... 3 hours to set up, 2 food breaks taking 2 hour total, and another 3 hours of moving the photo equipment around for unnecessary reasons. 8 hours that could have easily been knocked off, instead we spent 12 hours for the shoot, hopefully we got at least one good pic. I was diving on to some very thin and hard mats, there was fog that I tried not to inhale, and there was no smiling. I consider it a success! We will see in a few weeks once we get the pics back.

I leave you a pretty amazing video about a motorcycle. Enjoy it and enjoy life, as a champion.

Josh