JDRF Neenah Walk

Team Q made its last planned appearance at the Neenah JDRF Walk for a Cure. We'll be walking in the first ever Stevens Point Chapter Walk in October, and now our fund-raising energies are aimed at that event. This year's team was the biggest yet, with help from NTC CJ Club members Micky Jo, Dallas, Brandon, Jen Z. and Nettie K., graduate Jen M., regulars Chris, Frank, Elroy, Kelly, Katelyn, Connie, Dee, Josie and, of course, Quinn. Oh yeah, I was there too. Chris did not finish last!

We had planned to do our own grilling, and everybody brought something, except I forgot to bring the brats. I bought them, and they were ready to go, they just didn't make it into the cooler. I've decided that I was rushing. There was plenty already there, so no one starved (like that's likely anyway) and Jen M.'s Mom's potato salad was the big hit.

Quinn Plays Flag Football

Quinn started his first season of flag football this April. While not his first forray into the realm of organized sports, it is his first try with football, and like most everything else he's tried, it's his favorite. He played for the Broncos (in orange) and seemed to enjoy offense and defense equally. The season is pretty short, with three practices and a couple weeks of Saturday games, it's all over too fast. The season is much shorter than Mini-Mite hockey. Hopefully there will be another round in Fall.

Quinn's coaches did a great job teaching the kids fundamentals of the game, keeping them interested on and off the field and making sure everyone on the team got equal playing time and opportunities to touch the ball on offense. Keeping the players on the sideline interested appeared to be the biggest challenge. There are lots of distractions when you are 5 or 6. Scoring is kept very loosely, though I think the kids have a firm grip on their own individual stats. Quinn loves to talk about how many tackles and touchdowns he's scored. As Grandma Blomberg told me, you've got to toot your own horn.

If you get a chance to go to one of these games, you have to be aware of the rules. At this level, two coaches are on the field at all times. One plays quarterback while the other directs (and sometimes carries) players into position. Five kids are on the field on each side of the ball (well, sometimes they have to be reminded which side of the ball is their's) and there are rules dictating whether you must pass or run depending on where you are on the field. The first week it was fortunate if, in the heat of the moment, players could remember which way they were supposed to be running. They seemed to figure out that pretty quickly, and by the last week they all thought they were Barry Sanders - spinning, cutting back, reversing direction - basically running 50 yards in order to move the ball ahead three.

Each team seemed to have it's own superstar, either offensively or defensively. I don't think it was planned - probably just the forces of random distribution at work. Quinn's team's superstar was a third down specialist. Like I said, the coaches did an excellent job of spreading the ball around on offense - every kid got to play - but if it was third and long there wasn't too much doubt who was going to get the ball or what was going to happen. More often than not if he was on the field and running the ball it was a long run for a first down or a touchdown.

Fan support is critical in today's ad-revenue driven world of sports, and the Broncos had a regular cheering section. Rain or shine - it was mostly rain - fan turnout was strong for all games. Mom, Frank, Miriam, John (when the bees weren't too bad), Elroy Dee, Josie and I all made it out. Mom's desire to encourage everyone (even the other team) drew the ire of her fellow Broncos fans. Quinn decided to limit the number of times she yelled "Go Broncos!" to three per game. I still don't know what that was about.

See you at soccer practice...

Shell Shocker Sucks!

All Quinn wanted for Christmas was a Shell Shocker. It was expensive, and of course went on sale almost immediately after the holiday season. I've seen it as cheap as $14.00. Of course that's without the $40.00 battery pack (not included). Did I mention that there are no other toys that use the battery pack?
Winter wasn't a great season to do outside remote control playing, so the mighty Shell Shocker stayed in the box until yesterday when Quinn asked to take it out and charge it up in anticipation of taking it out for a spin today after school. He and the his friend came right home after school and we put the batteries in and off they went. I was out front un-winterizing the lawn mower and they went out back to play.

Ten minutes later they were back out front. I didn't even have the mower fired up yet. I asked why they weren't still out back, and they told me that one of the arms had broken off. How did that happen I asked. Apparently the two decided that what they really needed to do was drive the Shell Shocker off the deck. Unfortunately, and despite being advertised as rugged and unstoppable, the Shell Shocker is not rated for a 18 inch drop off of a deck onto a piece of flagstone. One whole side was broken off, exposing all of the interior gearing.

Quinn's friend was driving at the time, and was apparently the idea man in this scenario. He and his mom have offered to buy Quinn a new one, but what's the point. The Shell Shocker is a piece of crap. If it can't take a little drop like the one off our porch how is it ever going to handle being run, full speed, into trees, curbing or other solid obstructions. I've read some reviews and postings, most are negative. I wish I had read them earlier.

So now I'm left trying to decide if Quinn's excitement over this (or any future) toy was worth $100.00. Anyone need a lightly used battery pack?

The Bad Day Photo

I was working with Chris Clarke-Epstein, going over some stuff for a website update (www.change101.com and www.chrisclarke-epstein.com) and we were looking at some site statistics. We kept finding people linking in from blog sites. Chris has had some interest in blogging, I've been pretty cold to it...I've never read any and seemed to think it is more an outlet for people with no outlet. Anyway, she's done the research and I'm ignorant in this area, so we started to look at some of the sites and what the connection was between all these blog posts and her site.
apparently, lots of people are having bad days. Even more, they like to write about them. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, they like an image to go along with the description, one that captures the essence of just how bad their bad day is. Many of them have chosen this image of my son, Quinn, taken a few years ago at our old house in Oshkosh.
I let Chris use that image a few years back, and she uses it in some of her programs and has it on her site. Apparently it gets used pretty often. I searched "bad day" on Google images and it came up on the first page of results.
I've never felt it necessary to put a copyright notice on an image before, but I put one on it today.