ISU

It has been raining all day and i'm actually happy about it. Wednesday is usually the busiest day of my summer and today everything was cancelled. So I'm going to relax and hopefully get an overdue bike ride in.

My softball is over. We lost last night in the championship of the tournament. We got first for the league though and that's more important anyway.

My sister graduated last year and is off to college in a couple weeks. She is going to Illinois State University in Normal, IL. She will be playing division 1 tennis for the Redbirds on a full ride scholarship. Today she finally found out who her roomate was and was amazed that her roomate has the same first name as her. The littlest things seem to excite her. She moves in on the 13th. She is really nervous to say the least. I'm sad that it is the same day as my first high school practice and I won't be able to help.

Question 2

So your parents are making you get it fixed. So you've been doing the same thing for a month and just found out that it obviously wasn't working and it's still broke. Do you keep doing the thing that isn't working, try something else, or stop and forget about it?

Question

If you know something is broke and it is expensive to fix, but don't know whether getting it fixed will make a difference, should you get it fixed?

Just Wondering
I will explain later.(maybe)

Blackberries

It is finally here, Blackberry season. I love picking blackberries. I don't think there is anything more peaceful, except for bike riding.

My family owns some land, well a lot of land, and many wild blackberries grow there. We pick in a cow pasture that has many steep hills.(the same hills we sled down in the winter) It's quite a task trying to avoid the cows, the 5 ft tall thistles, and falling down the hills.

My mom and I go out almost every morning in late July and pick. However today we went in the afternoon. That was a mistake.

In the morning it is cool with few bugs and the blackberries are cold and wet. This makes them easy to pick because they just snap of the bush. In the afternoon, it is hot with tons of bugs. The temperature didn't bother me that much because when you are in a Bulldog costume for an entire basketball you learn to get used to the extreme heat. What bothered me was the berries kept falling apart. I would pick a big berry and while I was pulling it off I would destroy it. The heat was melting them. After we picked about 2 gallons we had to leave because we were so thirsty.

If anyone could like some berries just let me know and I'll go in the morning and pick some.

Lancer Junior Open

1st Place!!!! My tournament this weekend was at Belleville East High School. It was a fairly large tourney with many people from my hometown playing. I got 1st in the girls 18's and it was my 1st tournament win all summer in singles. It might be because my sister wasn't there, but a win is a win. Many of the others from my hometown won also. We took first in Girls 14's and 16's, 3rd in Boys 18's and 5th in Boys 16's. I also finished 1st in 18's doubles and my brother got 1st in boys 18's doubles. Overall the tourney went extremely well.


One thing that bothered me was that some of the courts were facing the wrong direction. All tennis courts are suppose to run north to south but these ran east to west. It doesn't sound like that big of a deal until you realize the sun is right behind one of the players. Why spend all that money on tennis courts and build them incorrectly. Maybe we should ask the local high school, they would know.

Overall it was a typical tourney with no exciting stories.

Scheduling

I just found out that the weekend that our senior retreat is scheduled for is the same weekend as the tennis team's second biggest tourney.(the first being state) It is also the same weekend as a golf match and a soccer tourney. It doesn't surprise me at all that there is no volleyball matches scheduled for that weekend. Maybe because the principal is their coach and all the girl leaders are volleyball players. Don't worry I will tell the administration how stupid their scheduling is.

Coach's comments

My tennis coach is hilarious. He has a wierd sense of humor, and we hear the same jokes over and over. I figured you might want to hear some of his jokes and nicknames. You have to remember not to take anything he says seriously and he just says these things to see everyone's reaction.


Let's start with some of the nicknames. He gives a name to each of his tennis girls boyfriends because he can never remember their real name. For example, my sister's boyfriend's original name was "land shark" because coach was told he had a large nose. Then later it was changed to "mighty midget man" because he's strong and races midget cars. Others names were "durango" because he was a cowboy, and "gieco" because he was as hairy as a caveman. Oh and there is "miss peggy" but no one really understands that one. Some of the other names are "twagger" and "douche bag."

My favorite is his newest name and it's for his tennis team. He calls us his "prize heifers." Yeah like the cow. He said it's because we have all gained weight since last season.

You have to know this guy to understand his humor. Just remember to not take it seriously and just laugh. That is what we do. There will be more stories to come.

It's Over

It's finally over. It seemed like we were in Indy forever. We got back late last night, but it was well worth it. I lost my singles match, but my sis ended up getting third. We got 2nd in doubles, but that's because we had to play 8 game prosets. My bro and I got third in mixed, also because of 8 game prosets. The tourney was overall a success.

The main reason this tourney was such a success was because I was noticed by a college coach. I was just talking to this man about his daughter's match, but I had no idea who he was. When he told me he was a coach at St. Joe's I still didn't think anything about it. The next day he asked me how I did and said he was going to watch me. While he was watching he talked to my mom about the college and me possibly playing for them.

It is a small Catholic college with about 1,000 students. It about 30 miles north of Lafayette, IN and it takes over 3 hours to get there from my hometown.(not including the time change) It's division 2, so I can't get a full ride. However I should be able to get half for tennis and half for academics. They even have my major, I think. It's pretty exciting.

Riley Benefit

This weekend I am in a tournament in Indianapolis where all the money goes to the Riley Children's Hospital. It started on Thursday with mixed doubles. I played with my brother. It was the first tourney we played together in, and we did surprisingly good. Yes good not well. Well implies that we lost but played well. We won our first match easily and our second match in a third set super tiebreaker (sounds more important than it is). After everyone was done, we ate at a Italian place near the hotel. My food was cold and the waiter hated us because we walked in 20 minutes until close.

On Friday, I played one match at 10 in the morning and didn't play again until 6:30 that night. The first one was a singles match and I won easy. I watched some of my friends play until it was around 4 o'clock then I took a 2 hour nap out in the sun. The late match was regular doubles and we won easy. The funny thing was we were playing the team that got 3rd at Indiana High School State and Hannah and I only got 9-12 at our state.

Today I woke up to the sound of rain, which is about the worst possible sound at a tennis event. My brother was scheduled to play at 8 and didn't get on court until noon because it had to be moved inside. My match was only two hours behind because we played at a different indoor site. I did good. I won 6-1, 6-4. It was funny because during the first set (when I was dominating) I had the song "Pocket Full of Sunshine", and in the second set I had some sad song, I can't even remember. My next match I had to play my sister. I have had to play at every tourney we've both been at. I lost, but who tries after someone beats you a million times. Then we were going to play doubles, and right before they put us on the court it starts to rain. They cancelled all the matches for tonight and moved them for tomorrow.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to play 6 matches(1 singles, 3 doubles and 2 mixed). Pray that it doesn't rain. If it rains they will either move it inside and I will be here until midnight or they will cancel the doubles which is even worse.

Dog Update

Well after an eventful day with the dog his owners called and came to pick him up. In the morning I let him out without a leash. He had me running all over the neighborhood trying to catch him. Then we put my old dog's collar on him and let him back in the house while I went to tennis.

After my morning tennis, I decided to take him to my afternoon tennis. My coach loves dogs, especailly ones who may not have a home. After telling a ton of people the story of how I got him, they spent the rest of tennis thinking of names for him. My tennis coach called him Fred. He had a last name too but I don't remember what it was. He was named after some guy on SNL. My sister wanted to call it Doyle. I didn't like that cause it's a name for a big dog. Others wanted Daisy and Micky but it was a boy. I favorite was Benny but that was because I really disliked all the other chioces.

After that tennis I got a call from my mom saying the owners were coming to pick Benny up. After I told the owners the story they thanked me and told me his real name, Teddy. So I am dogless agian. Oh well it won't be the last dog that we have to house for the night.

Found Dog

After coming home from a long trip to Walmart, I was greeted by a freind sitting in my driveway. She had found a dog a few blocks away from my house and was wondering if I knew who's dog it was. I didn't know. She then told us she could not keep it at her house and if we couldn't house it it would have to be left out in the rain all night. To my surprise my parents said we could let the dog stay at our house until it's owners claimed it.

The picture is very poor quality. He is much cuter than he looks.

Keeping him at our house would be much easier if we didn't have 3 cats that are as big as he is and aggressive toward dogs.

He doesn't have a collar but we are almost certain he isn't a stray because of his behaviors. He knows the commands "sit" and "come" and is also well groomed.

I do need a name to call him though. Any ideas?

NJTL

Many times I feel like the family secretary, and today was no different. My morning was filled with signing up for tournaments, finding hotels rooms, and various emails that had to be read and sent back. After I was finished with all that I had some time to do some research of my own. In 2004 I went to a tennis leadership camp in Orlando sponsored by the NJTL. Here I made many friends from all over the U.S. However, after that week I hadn't talked to a single one of them until today. I miraculously found one of the girls on facebook, and we talked about the camp. Unfortunately she didn't keep in touch with anyone in the camp either. I went to work searching on Google for names of other people in the camp. After about an hour I found it, and have been trying to get in contact with some of the others.

Tonight I have a softball agianst the only team in the league that we lost to. Today we are going to win. Last time was a fluke.

Ultimate Frisbee

Yesterday was one of the best family gatherings ever. It started with an intense game of baseball with 4 person teams. We used water guns for bases and the corn field and house for our foul lines. That game stopped when the food was ready. The next game of baseball was a little better because more people were there. I did terrible. When I wasn't striking out, I was hitting the house, which is an automatic out.
When the frisbee got there is when the real party started. The two best ultimate frisbee players were team captains. I got picked last of course, because it is a running game. We played for a long time, and my time was losing really badly. We blamed this on the fact that the other team had all the tall people. We took a break so we could repick teams, same captains though. I was last again, and we ended up just trading our shortest player for their tallest. This game was awesome. It was 20 minutes before the first team even scored. We said we were going to play first one to 7, win by two. However, when the score got to be 8-8 we said first one to ten wins. It got to be 9-9, and we had two touchdown passes that were dropped. The other team ended up winning. I lost every game, baseball and frisbee.
After that we watched the fireworks and let off some of our own. Then we played rockband and watched the Cubs win. It was a blast. I can't wait until the going away party, it's going to be ten times better.

Recap

I haven't really posted much lately so I'll try to catch up. My cat is almost all better. We have to give her medicine twice a day, but only for a few more days. My sister came home from her senior trip. I haven't heard much of the details yet, but if I'm patient she will tell me. We dug 15 3 foot holes for our new shed. Then we placed 4x6 posts in the holes, and filled them with concrete. My attempts to play tennis were partially ruined because it has been so windy lately. My softball team lost our first game of the season, and the world youth day pilgrims left for their 25 day trip.
Today I'm going to the lake to see the fireworks, tomorrow I will go with my family to set off fireworks of our own. Have a safe 4th of July weekend.