11/13/22 On To The Next Thing?

     We might have been shedding big tears with football ending and maybe we took yesterday as a day to let it all sink in, I know I will miss running errand boy for Mijo back and forth, but now it is Sunday, and we must prepare for the upcoming wrestling season of which we are at least two weeks behind.  I'm not sure if we are really two weeks behind, but I know official practice started and while football was going on, the big boys that play football could not really interact on the mats, first because of UIL rules and secondly, coach did not want any more shenanigans like Mijo hurting his knee and not being available for football when he was needed.

    Still, now that Mijo is a senior, we must think a little differently, if he will continue trying to be a jock in college, he must find a team that will take him and preferably, pay him for the privilege.  I have been working for the last 3-4 hours getting all his matches from last year and picking out some sort of highlights film to possibly send to coaches that might consider him for their wrestling teams.  Mijo said he would gladly play football for a scholarship/payment of school, however that works, but if it were up to him, he would really prefer to wrestle instead.  There is less money for wrestling, I mean football is king here in Texas, but there are still plenty of kids going full out for other sports.  Hopefully, a mix tae of his best matches/moves can help get him noticed.

    I think wrestling would be a better fit for him, he loves and understands football well enough, but as an offensive lineman, he is a little short, and I am afraid it may affect his play, when average linemen are 6ft 3in and up and he is squeezing in at...let's say 5ft 8in.  He is as strong as any of them with his 350-pound bench and what was a 600-pound squat before his injuries, he doesn't bow down to anybody, plus he has the heart of a lion and does weigh a solid 250+ pounds, but I am afraid he would get wore down trying to keep up with too many 300plus pound monsters.

    In wrestling, he would find his weight category, even if he stays as a heavy, he could gain some muscle and get to a comfortable 260 pounds, while the maximum weight in his category would be 285 pounds.  I really think for him to succeed, he' would be better to fight in the weight class below, and for NCWA, which Texas State is a member, there is a 235-pound weight class he could very easily weigh down for.

11/12/22 Restful Saturday?

     Usually, after the Cougars play, we take the next day off.  We don't plan any visits or go anywhere.  Mijo is usually pretty beat up, so we give him a light day to recoup and just make some food at home.  Yesterday, he somehow managed to snag himself into working at the school, volunteering to man the table for wrestling at the school's showcase.  The showcase as he explained, was an opportunity for the 7th and 8th grade kids to come around the school and see what programs exist that they may want to join.

    His GF volunteered to man the table, so of course, he was going to want to do the same.  Before we left the house, he asked if he could take my coffee maker.  This proves a perfect opportunity to "donate" a coffeemaker that had been bouncing around the house for a couple years.  Luckily, the little carafe was still intact.  Once he had the coffeemaker, he needed instant hot chocolate, cups, a gallon of water, and hopefully and electrical outlet wherever they set up.  We did not attend this; I spent the three hours he was there getting an oil change then going to HEB.  Wife spent it asleep, then taking her shower and getting dressed to go eat breakfast once he got out.

    We ate breakfast at a restaurant then came home, after which I took a nice nap.  The only plan I had was making some chili (love chili when it is cool), then watching the Longhorns play at night.  Somewhere during the day, DDs Wife called Wife and asked if they could come over to hang out.  We love the baby, my future wrestler, so they came over right as the game was starting.  We ate some chili, and sat in the living room, even Mijo joined, laying on the ghetto bed while we watched the Longhorns lose a weird one.  I know they can't win all of them, but this was at home, they are supposed to have an advantage, which they did not capitalize on.  DD and his little family left once it looked like the Longhorns were on their way to losing, with maybe 7 minutes left.

    It is a little annoying that Boy doesn't come over more often, we're trying to give him his space and not force him to come, if he doesn't want to, but it looks kind of bad that his friend enjoys coming over more often than he does.  Oh well, at least for now, we get a baby to adore and love, he is getting bigger and bigger, already sitting and crawling all over the place, he is a cutie.

11/11/22 TIme Change Snuck Up On Us?

     As it does every year, the time change showed up when we weren't paying attention and stirred shit up for no reason.  I don't understand why this antiquated system is not retired already.  It is bad enough that it gets darker earlier, when in the summer it might be 9:30pm before the sun sets, in the fall it sets closer to 7:00pm, but then we do something foolish and roll the time back, so it is now darker by 6:00pm.

    Maybe a handful of farmers like this idea to start their day earlier, but farmers are not the majority anymore, they could very easily just start working a little later, and how many crops are they tending to in the fall, anyway?  

    What I hear is that the shorter days are already causing increased cases of depression and Seasonal Mood Disorder, which if it is a thing, I am sure I suffered from for many years.  I don't know what is real and what we manufacture anymore, but Wife convinced me I had SMD because I go through a bit of a depression when the time changes.  I don't think it is as bad anymore, but back in my 20s and 30s, it took me weeks of not feeling right before I would come around.

    The time change was last weekend, I believe, and the biggest adjustment I saw was Mijo's football team, making the playoffs meant practicing for one more week, but their practice field on campus does not have lights and by the time they go outside, it is about dark, so they were borrowing three mini-buses from the district and the coaches were driving them to go practice at the Burger facility, specifically, the smaller Burger field.  I was able to get out early on Wednesday (I actually went back to work and stayed until 4:30am), but I went to see them practice out there and it was a good, fun practice.

    By the time I got there, it was dark, and a rare cool night, before this cold front showed up.  I thought it a perfect night for what turned out to be Mijo's last practice, with temps in the low 70s and the coaches in generally good moods, for once.

    The spring will always come back with its longer days, and make things better, but for now, we have to accept these shorter days and do the best we can.

11/10/22 Surviving Two Proverbial Deaths In One Season?

     This was not a season I would wish on anyone, as far as football careers go.  Mijo had full expectations of making first team All-District, maybe even more, after having been recognized the last two seasons as a 2nd Team All-District candidate his sophomore and junior seasons.  He worked super hard all summer, at one point squatting a massive 600 pounds and looking like an athlete in his prime is supposed to look like.  Then he hurt his knee in a freak wrestling practice, honestly, he was fucking around, but not doing anything he didn't normally do, trying to wrestle two lighter caliber wrestlers at the same time.  He landed wrong on his weaker leg, and his problems started.

    MRIs and x-rays showed swelling, but nothing broken.  He was cautiously rested for the first four games, to give him time to be solid for the important district games.  Two games into the meat of the schedule and him getting back into form he suffered a high ankle sprain, which without x-rays, the trainer worried it might be a fractured bone in his ankle.  At this point, I witnessed the saddest moment for him as he was crying not because of the pain, but because he just couldn't use his leg, if there were a way to wrap it, he would have continued playing.  All the coaches came through where he sat and the coaches hugged him and kissed his head, like he had somehow died, but still kept moving.

    X-rays and another MRI would show he had a high ankle sprain, which just happens to take 4-6 weeks to heal, when there were about 4 more games in the season.  The doctor was a little blunt but told him, sorry kid, your season is done.  We asked what if they make the playoffs, could he play in 5 weeks.  The doctor said if he can jump on that ankle without being in pain, then yes.  He walked around in a boot to isolate his foot from day to day and game to game.  After the last game, on a Thursday night, we had the doctor's appointment on Friday and he was released after biting his lip a little and lying a bit about how much pain there really was, still some, but not a lot.

    He suited up for one last time and played with his boys as best he could.  Our concern was that he would re-injure himself because he did not give the ankle enough time to heal, but all that worked out alright.  Truth of the matter without their QB healthy, they had no chance of winning and floundered about all game long.  It was good to see him doing his thing one last time, who knows if there will be a college career right now, but it has all been fun.

    The seniors were basically told to sit the 4th quarter out, they had done everything that had been asked of them, it was time for the lower classmen to have the field.  This brought on the tears on Mijo and his classmates, it was rough, the bleachers were a good ten feet too high for us to come down on the field and we were told by the announcer we weren't allowed, so we just saw them crying and stood above not being able to console them.  It was a necessary part of the game, it always ends at some point, but man, it hurt the way it happened.  All I could think of saying when I finally did hug and cry with him for a second was "did you have fun?"

11/9/22 Playoff Game Versus Rouse?

     Rouse was a tough team to get matched with in the playoffs, they have a lot of experience and have had some success.  Because of our ranking in our district, we got matched with them.  We ended up third in our district, while they ended up 2nd.  There was no point in finger pointing or doing any weird theatrics, it only took watching the first series and noticing our QB did not run to tell it was going to be a rough game.  Our QB had something like 1800 yards rushing this season, but he took some hard hits in the LBJ game last week, and as a result, I don't think he was mobile enough to do what he normally does, which is tear defenses apart with his cutting and quickness.

    The whole day was like a dream, starting with everyone was coming to see Mijo play to nobody is coming because of the impending weather, to experiencing the weather come in then wait for the game to start.  I have voluntarily been setting up our flags around our bleachers at every game and last night was rough, with the wind blowing strongly.  The bleachers were massive and somehow built up from the ground, so it felt like we were even more out in the cold.  It took me almost an hour to get all my flags set up and settle down to go sit down.

    Honestly, I missed the coin flip, when the captains go and meet in the middle of the field.  Mijo was chosen, along with three other seniors, all deserving of the opportunity, all have contributed to the team in their own way.  I had also bought a new video card to record the game and dammit, they wrap it in that hard plastic that is about near impossible to tear open without a knife.  I finally set myself up to watch and record the game, but I did miss the kick-off and some of the first drive, but seeing how tentative our QB was moving, it was easy to see we were in trouble quickly.  Not only was he injured and not capable of running, but our two top receivers were also slightly injured, about half of the linemen had some sort of nagging injury, it was just hard to get anything on offense going.

    In the end, they might have beat us that night, but I know that had our boys been healthy, we would still be in football mode, and wrestling would still just be the next thing waiting.  As it is, all things come to an end and although it will be missed, our high school football career is but a shadow now.

11/8/22 When Life Hits The Gas Pedal? (Part 2 of 2)

     Thursday morning, I managed about one hour of sleep before I got up to get reay to take Mijo to school.  If the playoffs weren't a big enough deal this past week, he also started wrestling practice in the mornings, which mean we have to have him at school by 7:00am.  This is the practice he had me take him to school and then promptly called back to go and pick him up and bring him home.  He said he just did not feel right.  All I remember was bringing him home, telling him not to be a whiny baby, unless he really did feel sick, and let me sleep a few hours because I was still planning on going to work.

    In the background of all of this, Wife and I were talking with our families and getting confirmation that they were coming to see Mijo's last game, I still had to move furniture and somewhere go to the store to have food for when they showed up.  I never really found time to go get food from HEB and never got around to moving the bed, my mom does not like the "ghetto bed" in the living room, which is still my favorite place to hang out when it is just us.

    At the Wednesday night practice, Coach had mentioned to the parents standing around watching the team that they were going to go eat at Golden Corral on Friday around 11:30am, so I mentioned this to Wife, and she liked the idea, which we made sure we made time to attend.  Friday was its own monster with the first big cold front of the year coming and staying all day.  Both my parent's and Wife's ended up cancelling upon news that there would be hail and rain all day.  This did not even happen.  The cold front came in later than expected and had rain, but nothing crazy, except for the cold temps later on.

    We went to Academy to get Mijo something thermal he could wear under his pads and found some Under Armor long sleeve shirts.  We sat there and discussed getting one for his two close friends, then I thought of the other senior who has been playing offensive lineman in Mijo's place, and finally the two freshmen who have had to step up with all the injuries, so we took care of all the big boys, it was expensive, but it was our way of helping out.  Mijo said the boys were excited when he gave them the thermals to wear, it surprised and made their day.

    At this point, all we could do was go home for a couple hours and wait until it was time to head to Leander, to go sit in the cold.  It was so very cold.

11/7/22 When Life Hits The Gas Pedal? (Part 1 of 2)

     I haven't written anything in about a week, life just seemed to get away from me for a minute and that just kept cascading.  This was the first week I have had to work late, it has been so under control at work that I am usually done with any work by the time Mijo is getting done with football practice and I was able to eat dinner with them most nights.  This week, of course it happens to be the last one with football practice is when shit hits the fan and I need to stay more than I want to.

    The main reason we got backed up was that one of our analysis tools went down, which forces us to have to share the one tool with the other company we share space with.  Since I technically am scheduled to work after hours, it is easy for everyone to just say "Mando can run it at night."  This means I get no pity and the other company just gets to use our tool during the day.  I guess I don't really mind doing the work, but this being the week os playoffs and so many little things happening, I felt distracted.  For example, Wife was in meetings or something on both Wednesday and Thursday night, so even if I was busy, at some point, I had to stop and go get Mijo.  

    Tuesday, I stayed late, but I was home before 10:00pm, so it wasn't so bad.  Wednesday, we had so much work, my coworker told me to go home for a few hours and come back around 9:00pm, when she would be done with the work she had to run through the tool.  I decided it was a perfect night to go watch the Cougars practice, which is always fun, even when the coaches are working them hard as possible, they find little ways to be fun and entertaining.  I have loved being a part of the team and getting to know so many of the boys.  After practice, we went and ate dinner at Jimmy John's, a sub place.  The next day, Thursday, was a mess.

    I took Mijo to school almost 20 minutes late because he had to go to the restroom.  Fine, it happens.  I had been home maybe 10 minutes and was making some eggs and stuff for breakfast, when he called me, he didn't feel well.  He wanted to come home, felt like throwing up.  This would probably be ok most any other day, but I happened to work until 5:00am, so I was loopy and out of it, still, there I was driving back and forth to school a couple times.  I worked until 5:00am because I had so many samples to run through our tool, and not that they were all due the next day, but we had several more from that customer coming, so waiting to run them would just make the night longer to run, whenever I decided to do them.