Now I'm at Hobo Camp

Hey team:

So kickball continues its resurgence in popularity here at Nerd Camp.

[Actually I'm not at Nerd Camp; I'm now at what's called the Center for Talented Youth's Civic Leadership Institute. CLI is run by employees of the Civic Education Project, which is hosted at Center for Talented Development (similar org to CTY), and CTD is based out of Northwestern. I'm employed officially by CTD, but I'm at a location that has CTY lanyards and CTY rules and regulations, but not CTY culture... which initially worried me, but then we got around to today's game of kickball.

At kickball, this rising junior named Rishi kicks the ball into what appears to be left field. The first baseman (a kid named Charlie) literally runs RIGHT INTO a football player named Taylor's nuts. You could hear the SMACK. Taylor was not paying attention. He was later seen walking around with a big plastic supermarket bag, clutching his you know what. The bag like leaks. Girls regaled to me about how they'd rein in their snickers until after they got past him. Also he lain on his back like a sad, sad person. Rishi is pretty proud of himself for scoring that homerun, since everyone was paying attention to Taylor post:collision. (Also he's proud for causing that injury.) Taylor seemed to boast about the fact that kickball got violent.

We don't get to roll this shabbos

I just want to say it was a blast kickballing with the IDROS crowd this season. Thanks for convincing me to join, Brighton.
The last game was a bit anticlimactic, for those of you who weren't there. Hell, I almost didn't go, until Kat called me to guilt me into a Dayquil-hazed, zombie-like appearance. The opposing team took it too seriously for it to be a ton of fun. Wish I had been up to the task of attending the festivities afterward, but I had to go home and sleep.
That said, I think we did pretty damn well this season. Midseason we had some momentum going that I didn't see coming after our first couple of games. And second-place at the flip-cup tourney was a good deal of fun.
At the moment, I'm not planning on doing the fall league. I just started a new part-time job three nights a week, so I don't know if I want to add more to my schedule. If anyone wants to twist my arm, it's possible that I could be convinced otherwise, though.
That said, y'all should come out to the Red and the Black on H Street NE sometime. I'm working there on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, taking money for the shows upstairs. If you like to see good indie/heavy/poppy/alt local rock, it's the place to be.

We may not get to roll this coming shabbos, but we can certainly drink for dirt cheap at the party that night. See you guys at the end-o-season party on Saturday.

-Steve

The Flipcup Tournament...Belligerence at its Best

We finished 2nd in the flipcup tournament out of 16 teams from all of DCKickball's divisions. We played 5 best of 5 games and 2 best of 7 games and we filled up about 30% of the cup each game. With drinking between games as well, I would estimate that we each drank 15 beers to advance to the final game.

This is me hoisting the trophy after we won the first bracket.

Here is Steve smiling happily.

Here is an action shot.

Look at us. Pure dominance.

We played a really obnoxious team in the final who brought 4 extra players whose job was to yell and cheer. One of the dudes on their team also threw a beer on Carter for no reason after they won. This resulted in Carter calling him "a volcano who can't handle his liquor". This is what happens when you drink 15 beers in the middle of the day.

The Flipcup tournament is one of my favorite days of the year for this reason. Last year I drank 18 beers then decided to hang out with the white team at Millie and Als and take tequila shots. One of the guys on this team was named "Pork Chop" and we quickly befriended each other. We were so drunk we thought it would be fun to slap each other across the face for fun. I don't know what it is but flipcup really brings out the aggression in people. It's amusing to think back about how much of a debacle the day really is.

Instead of playing kickball, I have been at nerd camp

And my summer at nerd camp has been okay. I definitely miss my kickball team and speak of you guys often. On my first day back in LA, a Wednesday, I was on the phone constantly with Hutch to ensure that we had enough people to play. I'm at a site I have never been to in prior summers (four at LMU), which has been good in that I have seen a new place and mostly bad because I a) HATE CHANGE and b) really disliked the lack of organization manifest in the organization. But I did make a couple of friends (a bunch of frat boys from College of Wooster) and form an alliance with the few RAs who were deemed competent (a high compliment in the world of camp counseling).

With one of the frat boys, David, I brought Tom Ryan's favorite activity besides Robot Wars to Santa Cruz. Renamed Glue Stuff to DO and Sirinya (as opposed to Glue Stuff to Tom and Jason), the kids glued and blue-taped streamers, construction paper, twigs, plastic stuff and manboobs for 45 minutes. It was their favorite activity ever.


The original activity:

I cheat at kickball

So we won again last night 8-5 over a team with 6 girls and 2 guys. We actually should have won by more but half of our outfield was drunk for some reason. It was like herding cats.

I don't want to discuss the game for that reason. I want to discuss the playoffs. We are playing the Gold team. Again. Lickballs. They are the Apollo Creed of our season having beaten us twice. The purpose of this post is to tell the world that I cheat at kickball.

While everyone else in the league is sleeping, I'm running stairs and lifting weights in my gym. My favorite are the leg extensions. My quads are humongous right now. This allows me to hit the ball farther than anyone else in the league and puts our team at an unfair advantage.

I am going to go into training for the next 6 days until the game next week. I plan to eat 6 raw eggs and run at 5 in the morning up the steps of the lincoln memorial. I will get one of my friends to repeatedly hit me in the stomach with a 2x4. I will chase after live chickens to improve my foot speed. Playoffs are the reason why I'm here. People think I'm crazy to care so much about kickball. But I question whether these people have ever truly sacrificed themselves in the pursuit of a championship.

Last year we entered the playoffs in a similar position and got to the championship game. I would not be denied that day. I caught a bunt and threw it at the other team's bench and yelled at them to stop man bunting. I hit 3 home runs. It was sick.

Now please excuse me while I run 5 miles, dead lift 300 pounds and do 500 pound squats. I will post later in the week with my progress.

Pre-Game Warm Up

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Last game of the regular season and it's a late one. I'll be organizing a team warm up session, starting at 5:30 or so. The warm up will consist of $3 Jack Daniels drinks (or your performance- enhancement of choice) at Jack's on 17th, right near the field of battle. I think several sets of 80 proof excercises should get us loose enough to play at our best. Let me know if you all are interested. Call me if you need to. 206.790.0888.