Jules

I'm so proud of Grace. She was officially invited this week to join the USRowing National Team Training Center in Princeton. That's no guarantee to represent the US at international events just yet - in hockey terms: some rowers end up as healthy scratches, or "spares" - but it's an enormous step in the right direction and her best chance at one day making the World Championships and even the Olympics. A long way to go, but this is some great recognition of her talents and potential.

That's a question better answered at a store, I think, but you can get really good sound no matter what the space is like, unless it's pretty much a concrete bunker with nothing, but if there's a couch or seats, it should be fine.

Yeah, Alaska is definitely on my list too. It looks amazing.

One of my childhood soccer heroes, Fernando Ricksen, wrote a biography about his mad life of soccer, drugs, booze, hookers, and fucking famous women. He started for my local team Fortuna Sittard, then played for AZ Alkmaar, Glasgow Rangers, Zenit St. Petersburg and after winning the UEFA Cup with Zenit he quit soccer to detox from drinking. He eventually came back on an amateur contract to save Fortuna from relegation to the amateur leagues and succeeded. He was on a Dutch talkshow to promote his book, but instead of that, he announced he has ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and will likely die within just a few years. Fuck. :(

That goal against Anderlecht was just ridiculous.

November 15th and 19th, if I read the schedule correctly. Portugal hosts first. It'll suck not to see one of them, but fuck Ronaldo and fuck Portugal. They've taken out The Netherlands too often and they dive like penguins. Heja Sverige!

I hope he rips Portugal a new one in that World Cup play-off matchup.

LOL, no, of course not, but Karem, Aime, Indre and some other names are regular names in France, while some others are Indian. I mean, I've never heard of Tronika, Rubicely, Olaronke, Jaqwavn, but part of the list didn't strike me as odd. I think some typical Dutch names would truly make people frown and I've lost count of how many times people expected me to be either black or a woman based on my (originally French) first name. :rofl:

Are these names she considered strange? Because I'd say at least five of those names are as typically French as her own. :D

Arguable the best goalie, most talented and best striker in the Premier League today are on that page. At age 12. It's really awesome.

You were probably suspended, because spam was sent through your account and people flagged you for it. This has been going on a lot, but not sure if that's really on Twitter.

Okay, so tonight's game is a 4AM start for me, I woke up at 5AM this morning to go to work, there's no way I'll stay up. Do I nap now and stay up late, nap before the game again and then sleep on my Friday off? Do I stay up now, sleep early, wake up at 4 and then just be tired all day? Do I nap now, eat dinner, sleep early anyways, nap after game? Probably the last one. Zzzzz.

What impresses is that they don't panic. Down 1-0? Stay the course. 0-0 after 60 minutes? Stay the course. So far, doing so has led the great results roll in. Wenger and the team know they don't need many moments to make the difference and the team is good enough to not rely on the youth, but to develop them. What a difference an ?zil makes.

Arsenal is on course to win 10 games in a row. ?zil is magic.

4AM? Ugh, I wake up 5.45AM for three days now and that sucks already, man. If only because it's really difficult to find a good time to Skype with Grace if I can't stay up late. It's been really busy times and my mind hasn't been on sports much. I haven't seen a minute of pre-season Rangers hockey and I have watched maybe 2,5 games of the Badgers so far. It'll get better when I get to the US. Congrats on the OSU win. Wisconsin had more chances than I thought, but made some key mistakes that the Buckeyes just didn't make.

The biggest downside to a regular job is that my sleep schedule becomes normal, which means I can't for the life of me stay awake later than 4AM on weekend nights. Wisconsin is playing one of the best match-ups of the year and I'm bowing out and going to bed. Dammit, I feel old now.

Very much agreed. I heard so much bad stuff about it, but when we finally went I couldn't believe how nice it was. The sports venues are mindblowing, downtown is great, the restaurant scene is top notch and it's very family friendly. I had a great time.

You can do that through the popular unlimited texting app Whatsapp. It connects to Google Maps and your GPS and you can send your location to a single person or in a group chat. I use the app daily for both business and personal, as it allows anyone with an internet connection on a phone to text with extremely low data usages. I use it for thousands of messages a month and just the texts are under 50kb. It's pretty awesome. It works with any number, anywhere in the world and to all mobile OS platforms. I have Android, Grace has an iPhone and one of my managers a Blackberry and that's no issue.

Grace flew back to the US yesterday, which obviously sucks big time, but my agenda is filled with work, which is great. Glad the season is so close.

"Meanwhile, greenhorn Jimmy over at the 128ft East River Ferry..." :D

LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Best vacation pic ever. http://i.imgur.com/erpMgXW.jpg

Boo him the moment he gets up.

Starting a new job tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked. :)

Fortuna had ridiculous bad luck with injuries lately, so they lost two more D-men this week. Three of the four defensemen were youth players tonight... and they won 3-1 against an outright title contender. I love when soccer is ridiculously surprising.

The fire is out, but rules say games postponed for more than 30 minutes are cancelled for the night. Even crazier is the solution: they will finish the game at 11AM tomorrow morning without fans and at either the stadium or the training complex, kicking off in the 59th minute with the current score and players on the field (AZ was red carded early). A unique solution, but hey, beats losing on UEFA rules. AZ is down 0-1 in the game, but won the away match 1-3, so Atromitos need two more goals.