Archives May 2011

It seems like I was far from alone in my questioning the game plan when it came to handling the death of Bin Laden.  As the day unfolded there were reports of lots of proof being available like post mortem pictures, video and documentation of them dumping the body in the sea.   I’ll be happy to see it if/when it is released.

I heard a couple explanations of why the decision was made to quickly dump the body in the ocean.  They included observing Muslim traditions to avoid additional anger about Bin Laden’s death and denying the extremists the ability to turn his grave into a shrine to amplify Bin Laden’s becoming a martyr.  Personally I don’t think either of these situations will be lessened at all by feeding Bin Laden to the  fishes.

I am very much a “show me” guy in most aspects of my life, hence my desire to see his dead body on display.  I just wish that his death meant something more than a symbolic victory.  This isn’t going to slow down Al Qaeda one iota, if anything I expect a big retaliatory FU to be in the works as I type.

Jeremy has launched yet another physical challenge on Facebook.  You would think he might have learned a lesson based on the results of the last public challenge he issued. (weighted pull ups)  This time Jeremy wants to have a 4 man King of the Beach tournament involving Randall, Tabby, me and himself.

I think his intention is to prove that his volleyball skills have not shrunk as his body weight has grown, despite the stark contrasting results I had playing with him and then Tabby two weeks later.  The way it works is each person takes turns playing games with every other person.  The King is the person that amasses the most total victories.

I did my best to throw some lighter fluid on Jeremy’s fire by predicting that whomever plays with him will lose so in theory that means Randall, Tabby and I will wind up in a 3 way tie.  There is no firm date set for the event as I can’t even consider participating until after the Rumble in late June.

So I was asleep when the President broke into Celebrity Apprentice to announce that Osama Bin Laden was confirmed to be killed on a raid in a compound in Pakistan. (our supposed ally)  The first mention I saw of it was on my bedside Sony Dash where I saw some of my FB friends mentioning it.

Of course once I turned on the computer I immediately clicked on the headline.  About two paragraphs into the story my internal skeptic meter started blaring loudly when I read this blurb.

“Senior U.S. officials said bin Laden was killed toward the end of the firefight, which took place in a building at a compound north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. His body was put aboard the USS Carl Vinson and placed into the North Arabian Sea.

Traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed, the officials said, including washing the corpse, placing it in a white sheet.”

Immediately I am thinking what the f is this?  You are telling me that the guy that has been pegged as the mastermind of 9/11 that we have “hunted” for a decade is finally killed and we immediately dump the body in the sea to never be recovered again?  Woah, something stinks.

Since that initial report there have been follow ups in an attempt to quell people that raised they same flag as I did, stating that they took DNA evidence, pictures, eye witness reports etc… all supposedly to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bin Laden was dead.

I posted my initial thoughts on Facebook and as expected received a varied reaction.  Some also thought it was odd that we gave a shit about observing the Islamic traditions when dealing with the man supposedly responsible for thousands of Americans dying.

Some reacted very negatively thinking it was basically unpatriotic to not be dancing in the streets on the news.  It seemed like the majority of the populace was perfectly content to blindly take the announcement as the absolute truth despite the nationwide disbelief of government that we see daily in other matters.

Others explained the quick “burial” observing Muslim customs as a way to make us seem less barbaric to those that hate us.  Personally, I don’t think it will put the smallest dent in the WE HATE AMERICA mindset that has created a generation of individuals that are thrilled to jam sticks of dynamite up their ass to get the chance to blow up evil Americans.

Let me clarify by saying this.  I HOPE they are telling the truth.

I have read a lot over the last decade about 9/11 and the various conspiracy theories associated with it.  Part of those theories is the concept that Bin Laden was the calculated figurehead, the face that we could all blame for 9/11.  If Bin Laden was alive we had a reason to be over there.

There are also documented cases where the government released videos that were supposedly Bin Laden that were later confirmed to be fakes, bad ones at that.  It seemed like there was a reason they wanted to keep him front and center.  Maybe to distract the public from the lunacy of invading Iraq.

There are many theories that Bin Laden actually has been dead for years due to several serious health conditions he had been reported to suffer from.

Regardless of the theories that are out there I just have a very hard time believing that we are being told anything resembling the actual chain of events based on the governments track record of truth or lack there of, for the last decade or so..

Is it possible that Obama has simply decided that now is the time to announce Bin Laden is dead since it would be politically beneficial? It’s a nice feather in the cap and will sound great from the podium during his reelection campaign.  Yes it is definitely possible, but man, I certainly hope that is not the case.

The other thing to look at assuming we are being told the absolute 100% truth, what does it actually mean?  Does this mean Al Qaeda gives up?  Did we finally “win”?  Does this mean we can finally get out of the shit hole known as the Middle East?  Of course not, nothing really changes.  They will still hate us, possibly just a little bit more than before if that is possible.

On Friday we had an appointment for the dogs to have their teeth cleaned.  Much like human beings, bad dental hygiene can lead to all sorts of problems for canines as well.  The vet said that Nicki’s teeth were actually ok but Sadie was put under for a full cleaning.

Ali called me on the phone sounding upset after I got back from lunch.  She was sitting there with Sadie after she came out of the procedure.  She was knocked out cold still although her eyes were open and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth.  After Ali sent me a picture of Sadie I understood why she was upset, she looked dead.

She asked if I wanted to come over to help Sadie snap out of it.  At first I said I couldn’t because we were short handed at work but then I made arrangements to come over for a bit.   By the time I got there Sadie had started to wake up but she was very groggy.  She was swaying her head around and was unable to stand up, her rear legs weren’t working quite yet.

We sat there with her for awhile as the cobwebs started to clear, it was weird seeing her that way.  Eventually we got the green light to take her home.  She still couldn’t walk so I carried her out to the front seat of the car and placed her carefully inside.  Ali thanked me from coming over.  Sadie’s teeth look much better, she has a superstar dog smile now.

On Saturday I left the house early for my trip up to Siesta Key to play in another volleyball tournament.  If you follow my blog you know that my last tournament was a scant two weeks ago and I had a very poor outcome, not winning a single game while playing with Jeremy. Ironically, this time I was playing with Tabby who has been playing a lot with Randall, including two weeks ago when Randall and he beat us.

Siesta Key  is one of my favorite places to play.  The beach is wide, beautiful and covered in powdery white sand that is decently packed to assist in more effective jumping.  I got on site about 7:40.  Tabby showed up maybe 30-45 minutes later so I singed us in ahead of time.

We had a an usual pool arrangement where the entire division was a total of 6 teams but it was going to be played on two nets.  This meant two things, we would be playing more games than normal in pool play (5) and we would either be playing or reffing every game which can be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view.

I have known Tabby for awhile but I never have played with him.  Our first game was against a couple young kids, one 16, another 20.   They both were not great ball handlers but they had that some good natural talent and of course speed/energy.  The first part of our match was pretty even however we dominated the second half of the game and won rather easily.

Our next match was against what I thought was the best team on the net even though they lost their first match. They surely had the most skilled player on the net.  His partner seemed to have pretty decent skills as well.  Again the game was pretty much even half way through. However this time it was Tabby and I that self destructed, making a string of unforced errors that allowed them to score 11 of the last 13 points.  We moped back to our umbrellas after the poor performance at 1-1.

Our next game was against a team that was just formed that morning.  They were both guys that used to play regularly but hadn’t in awhile.  They were rusty as you would imagine and we beat them easily to reach 2-1.

Our next match was big, they were only taking the top 3 teams to playoffs and we were playing the only team that was undefeated, the old crafty guys, who were sitting at 3-0.  These guys were by far the most interesting team on the net for me.

They were exactly the type of team that has given me fits over the years, solid ball handlers, with good ball placement and just overall smart play.  The one guy was particularly interesting for a couple reasons.

I heard from the young guys that he coaches volleyball.  He has some sort of weird issue that prevents him from straightening his arms in the way a person would typically bump a volleyball.  Instead his elbows are kept at an almost 90 degree angle and he did all the arm movement from his shoulders.  It was something I don’t recall ever seeing before.

Bob was unique for another reason, his sound effects.  He made a long groaning noise after almost every contact he had with a ball.  His serve was the craziest of all.  He would let out a very loud and long groan at the same time as he made contact.  On top of that as he followed through with his serve he would bend at the waist, winding up with his face down towards the sand. Despite being  weird looking and sounding, his serve was actually pretty effective.  Since he was left handed it moved from right to left consistently.

Tabby and I knew we had to really tighten up our game to minimize unforced errors.  We also had to be ready to move to run down balls that were going to be placed where we weren’t.  It was midway through the game where we really started to click.

The old dudes served Tabby almost exclusively since the few balls I got a chance at were put away.  Tabby did an excellent job of passing well which in turned allowed me to give him good sets to hit.  We wound up blowing out the old guys 21-12. They were very flustered considering they were undefeated going in. We now sat at a respectable 3-1 with one more pool game to go.

We were playing two guys with shaved heads who also were 3-1.  We jumped out to an early 8-3 lead when the shorter, chubbier of the two said, “You win, I am starting to cramp up”  That was a first for me, I never won a game via a cramping forfeit before.  Well it was a weird way to end the last game of pool play but it put us at 4-1.

The bald guys would have made the playoffs even with the forfeit but he later said they were just bailing totally so now we suddenly had a 5 team division.

Their forfeit meant the last game of pool play between the old guys and young guys did not affect the playoff scenario.  The old guys beat the youngsters pretty easily.

So they way it worked out with only 3 teams in the playoffs Tabby and I had a bye in the first round and the old guys had to play the young guys all over again.  It was sort of appropriate for the weird way the day had went.

The team that I thought was the strongest and beat us lost to every other team somehow.  The bald guys forfeiting gave the kids a playoff berth they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

So anyway, old versus young part 2 was looking like another old guy win.  Late into the game they had a 3 or 4 point lead.  Well the kids, who had played progressively better as the day progressed, hustled their ass off and actually managed to beat the old guys.  The game ended when Tabby called net on the one old guy on a hit.  It was funny, the guy didn’t call it on himself which I guess makes sense.  You knew he did it because he hardly protested on the call.

So now the finals were all set, us against the young kids.  However once again early in the game the cramp bug bit the other team, hard.  The 20 year old started developing horrible cramps in his quads.  We gave him far beyond the two, two minute timeouts a team is allowed during a game to try to recover. We would have much preferred to play than win by default.

One of the spectators just happened to be a massage therapist.  She came out and worked on him for awhile.  After 20-25 minutes he was drug off the court with a person under either arm, he was done.  Another win by cramping forfeit.

A friend of the non-cramping youngster offered to step in and play a game just so there was at least a real game taking place.  Tabby and I said that was fine since the outcome of the division was already officially decided.  I believe the guy normally plays A.

Tabby and I were still in the groove and we beat them in the make believe finals by a comfortable margin.  Except for the occasional missed serve, we were hitting on all cylinders.  By this time I had complete confidence in Tabby’s ability to get me a decent set more often than not.  It made a huge difference.  I was now approaching sets aggressively and hitting the ball authoritatively.

Both Tabby and I hustled our asses off running down a lot of balls and winning many more of the long rally points than we lost.  It felt great to be executing so well after having the wheels fall off two weeks ago.

After we collected our prizes for first we were challenged to two more matches.  Groaning Bob grabbed another partner, hoping to avenge his earlier loss to us.  Unfortunately we sent Bob home unhappy as we once again won rather easily.

There was one more challenge  offered up to us and once again we took care of business.  I was pretty tired by that time and said that was enough.  I felt fortunate both to win and to escape without major injury.

Tabby and I reflected on our day of solid play,  it was very satisfying.  I had not had a day where I felt that good hitting the ball in years and years.  For me, the high I get from volleyball is hitting.  Our BB win means the next time Tabby and I play it would need to be in the A division, a click up skill wise.  If we played as well as we did Saturday I have no doubt we could do well in A as well.

I cleaned up my stuff and said my farewells to Tabby.  He was staying overnight since he was also playing co-ed on Sunday.

The drive home was fine except for the swarms of  love bugs I drove through that left the front of my white truck looking almost black.  It was pretty awful.  I grabbed subs from the nearby restaurant on the way for an easy dinner.

Ali congratulated me on my success on the court.  She knew it made me feel much better after the way the last tournament turned out. You can see the latest tips, nicknames and results here on the volleyball section of my web site.

Saturday night we watched The Kings Speech.  The movie interested me not only because it was award winning, it dealt with a subject I struggle with, speaking.  Although my regular lack of enunciation is frustrating and embarrassing at times, luckily for me I don’t have to speak in front of entire nations.

I thought the film was very well done even though I did fall asleep briefly laying on Ali’s lap.  Hey, I had a long day.  I’d give it an A-, check it out for sure.

Despite busting my ass out on the court all day Saturday I actually felt intact enough to do a training brick Sunday morning.  Ali is limiting her activity so her ribs can heal but she came along.  She walked around the park while I rode my bike on the roughly 12.5 mile out and back bike route.

I decided to take my low tech and heavy Dawes road bike out.  I hadn’t given it an extensive ride since I had both wheels and the cassette replaced.  The bike felt better than it ever had.  I was able to pace 18 + mph for the ride, a very solid number for me.

After I got back it was time to hit the pool.  Again Ali was being careful so she used the kick board I bought her recently to put in 800 meters ( a lot of kicking)  I swam a solid 1200 meters in 25:20.

The park was dramatically less full than the last time we were there a couple weeks ago.  We didn’t hang around after eating lunch, I had a bunch of stuff to get done around the house.

Again, since Ali is trying to heal her ribs there is a lot of stuff she shouldn’t be doing right now.  I had no problem picking up the slack, it just meant I had a very busy Sunday afternoon where I knocked out all of the indoor and outdoor chores in a span of three hours.  I actually would have had time to work on replacing the two torn screen sections but I ran out of motivation.  Plus, my right knee by that time had started to swell up a bit so I didn’t need to push it any further.

I have been watching a lot of Dexter lately.  I think I need a break for a bit.  I find relating to a serial killer that only kills bad guys a bit mentally taxing.  Ali actually seems to enjoy the show too.  Quite often she sets her magazine down to see what is going on and she has a basic understanding of where we are at in the storyline.

I will leave my thoughts on the killing of Bin Laden to it’s own entry, deservedly so.