Jules

Yeah, Russia and some of the Scandinavian leagues are only exceptions. Qatar was a terrible idea in the first place and this is just rubbing in the stain.

Staying in Israel?

:cheers: Good luck moving and all!

Rumours are we are getting a KHL team nearby. KHL is interested in luring Cologne Sharks (K?lner Haie) to their league.

Guess I can't be a Rangers fan, since I'm not from New York City or anything even remotely close. Bummer.

Oh, I get that, it's not for everyone and if you aren't invested in a team an average game can be boring when watched on TV, but I'm responding to people who claim that soccer is o so boring and than list an example of how boring it is that I've not seen happen in twenty years of watching the game.

Hockey is in a league of its own in terms of continuous excitement. That's the greatest selling point of the game.

At best during 10 seconds of uneventful play. It's the equivalent of a replay as the pitcher gets ready for the next pitch, as the referee and teams get ready for the next face-off or a football team preparing for the next snap. There's rarely a sudden break during actual play and certainly not for commercials.

Hey, but you know how boring a sport is when something happens that never really happens if you actually watch the sport.

I can't wait to hear where and how often you watch soccer to see this happen, because I've watched soccer all my life and on feeds from around the globe and I've never seen an in-game commercial break. Not an Asia, certainly not in Europe and not even when I watched it in the US.

Not for everybody. I liked it, saw it with multiple people who fell asleep.

This is great. https://www.youtube.com/embed/X9Pc1vf_tlg

Never been. Sorry.

Day at the beach tomorrow, then three more days with Grace before she heads back to the US. Already feel terrible she's leaving again.

Brazil deserves the opportunity, but the timeframe given was too short and the problems (safety, poverty, drug war, infrastructure) are extremely difficult to tackle. I have a friend who works as a sports and news journalist in Rio de Janeiro and his stories really are a back and forth between sadness and hope. I am not necessarily against having these events in Brazil, but I believe the time chosen to do it was ill-informed. There are soccer teams who travel the country with armed guards out of fear of being kidnapped for ransom by cartels. I don't feel any excitement thinking about the fact that western sports teams will suffer same nervous travel arrangements for WC and Olympics.

Hey, but everybody there has convinced the world that Brazil is such a great place to have the World Cup and the Olympics. /cough

For all but one month of 2012 I lived in a really nice studio apartment on my own and I've always learned from my parents to be really energy efficient. I turned my heating low or off when I left the house, I used water saving faucets, I showered 2 degrees colder than standard setting, in the winter I taped my windows shut and I used different bulbs. This apartment building charged the cost based on average use estimates for everyone else and then checked actual cost later and repaid or charged the difference. My energy efficiency was so good last year, they just refunded me nearly half the cost of a plane ticket to the US. I was 40% more energy efficient than the average person on my block. Laugh all you want, being green puts some green back in your pocket sometimes. :)

I've been having a great weekend in Amsterdam so far. :) Grace got to represent the USA in a promotional event sprint racing (200 metres) on the Amsterdam canals yesterday and today she had two of her best races yet for the Vesper Boat Club on the Olympic distance (2 kilometres), leading her to qualifying for the semi-finals among current Olympic and World champions. It's really great to see the strides she made lately and to see her go toe-to-toe with the very best in her sport. Here's a video with some highlights from the promotional event on the canals. Grace is rowing here with Matt from California RC here. She's in some shots starting at 1:22. Obviously canals are not the usual location, which is outside of the city on a purpose-built rowing facility called the Bosbaan.

Yeah, what's next? That's a great question. I won't pursue a doctorate for now. After five years in college it's time for something new and it would seriously interfere with my plans to move towards Grace. For now I'm continuing my current jobs here and countdown the unknown amount of days until Uncle Sam and the US immigration services invite for the most important interview of my life. So, well, what's next... hopefully a move to the US, but when and where, that's a big question mark. Oh, life.

Yikes. I'm done with grad school. Done with college. This is scary. But hey, a masters title is pretty neat. I'm a happy kid right now.

Almost thought your were preggers after that opening line. :rofl:

No. No summer trip to the US planned this year. I have some stuff left to do here before I leave, I already took the trip in April and Grace is coming to see me for the month and then we'll wait out the time it takes to be invited for the visa interview at the consulate in Amsterdam.

Grace just booked her ticket for next week and she's staying in Europe for almost a month, competing in both the Amsterdam Holland Beker and the Royal Henley in London. Stoked. :)

No, final in 2010 was in Johannesburg at the Soccer City stadium.

His coach Gertjan Verbeek is the Dutch soccer version of John Tortorella. A relentless, hard-nosed, hard work coach who is at a constant war with the media. I'm not sure if he'll stay in the Eredivisie with AZ Alkmaar for next year. I hope so, he's been a pleasure to watch and is an addition to the talent level of our league.