Charleston

We're now back in South Carolina and living out of everyone's spare bedroom. Few things worse than living out of spare bedrooms, tiptoeing around, not knowing house courtesy on what to borrow or use, silently getting on everyones nerves, and every once in a while unknowingly step over the line. I've come to the conclusion that it usually takes between 3 to 8 weeks living with someone before you've really worked through the small things that go into being someones roommate...

My Second Biggest Regret...

... is not going to Rome. And pouring salt on the wound was the guy I sat next to all the way from Amsterdam to Philledelphia that had just been telling me just how wonderful and amazing the place is.

Ask any European and they will tell you the top 3 must see cities in Europe are Paris, Rome, and Barcelona. All so different from each other. To really simplify things... Paris has culture, Rome has history, and Barcelona has beaches... being a history major you can bet where I'm drawn.

So these are just a few of the totally amazing things that I've learned about Rome in my life...

When the city was rich, the men were poor... in the founding of Rome the great men gave themselves up to the city, and the city prospered.

When the men were rich, the city was poor... near Rome's downfall the leading men gave no more thought to their city or it's people and cared only for ammassing wealth and power for themselves. Shame the Americans election process favors people with money...

Examples:

1) Lucius Velerius... was Consul of Rome, yet so poor at his death that his funeral had to be paid for from a collection of the people.
2) Quintus Cincinnatus... Owned four acres of land and plowed them with his own hand, was asked of the people to be dictator (even greater than the consul), yet after his victory on the field of battle went back to plowing his fields.
3) Fabricius... offered 1/4th the kingdom by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots and yet preferred the poverty of being a private individual in Rome because he would not forsake his city.

And talk about putting the city ahead of your own interests... they were willing to kill and die for it... when we talk about zeal for our countries we fool ourselves:

1) Torquatus... put to death his own son because he disobeyed his command as general and rushed in to do battle with an enemy against his father's command. The son slew the other man yet was still put to death.
2) Mucius... put his own hand into the fire to show his commitment to killing his enemy. He had snuck into Porsenna's palace in order to kill him (the leader of the nation they were at war against). Unfortunately he slew the wrong man mistaking him for the king. He was caught, and before he could be completely taken down he put his hand into the fire saying that in Rome there were a great many men with the same kind of zeal as he... This display awed the king and very quickly afterwards he made peace with Rome.
3) Curtius... drove his steed off a cliff as the oracles commanded the Romans throw their greatest possession into the gulf in order to gain the gods favor... since their greatest possession was their military might in men, and Curtius was their best soldier, he obeyed the Oracles and spurred himself off into the gulf.
4) The Deceii... a group who dedicated themselves to death in hopes that the Roman army would succeed on the field of battle.
5) Regulus... he had a chance for freedom in Rome as his Carthagian captors brought him there to barter for his release. Instead Regulus argued against paying for his freedom, and instead killing his captors and taking his freedom in Rome, he kept his oath to his captors and returned to Carthage. The Carthagians executed him by standing him upright inside a box lined with spikes all one inch from his body in every direction... he could not lie down or get any rest or he would be pricked by a spike, and thus he died from lack of sleep.

Going Home

A team is gets made up by a coach, gm, tryouts... all of the above... and merely the fact that we have similar goals and need each other to survive on the ice brings us together. Once that goal is gone, and everyone's leaving, it's a weird feeling, like a part of our tie is gone. We still have the memories, good ones this year... and we may or may not keep in touch, but the point is we were a family that Tilburg's a family and I was let in for 1 year... and it was great... but how much of it was real and how much is... I don't know... something else..
Think about it... how many of our friends are friends of convenience...because they're there, because they're close, because we see them... does that make it real? is it fate? Did God have some sort of plan in mind? Or could we get along with anyone from anyplace just as well, and we just so happened to end up in the one we're in? This may end up into a post where I throw out an answer... but as of right now it's a post about looking for a good question.

140 in the Slow Lane

... You don't really fall asleep on the Autobahn... what you do is... you cover the spedometer with you hand and then you have your passenger try to guess how fast you're going. And then your passenger gets really ridiculous and annoyed and says you're stupid and that she doesn't want to play anymore... and then you tell her that she doesn't know how to have fun... and then she says whatever... and then you say WHATEVER whatever..
So why Germany? My buddy plays for Beitigheim and is in playoffs and I haven't seen him in forever and he promised us a free meal... and I never pass up free meals... Beitigheim, which everyone knows is sponsored by Porsche, but to my great chagrin after I got there does not give it's players Porsches to drive... they used to... but it came out that a player got up to 305 KPH on the primest stretch of road in Germany (a 5 km downhill straightaway in between Stuttgart and Frankfurt) and now they don't anymore.
First day we got there they were fighting for their playoff lives down 3-0 in a series against Landschut. We wore red, similar to how Tiger wears red on Sundays and it works because psychologists say that the color red makes a person think of winning... Or at least I say that I heard it somewhere. Needless to say they won... you figure it out.

2nd day was ????.

3rd day was a huge dilemma between going to his road game and waiting around for 6 hours doing nothing while they get ready for the game, or going with the girls to the spa and possibly getting sucked unwittingly into tremendous amounts of girl talk. Spa won out on the off-chance I could get a massage and the intriguing possibility that it could be a Roman style spa. The spa was actually pretty amazing... waterfall... statues... aroma room... steam room... different temperatures of water ranging from scalding hot all the way to ice cold... and lots of different styles of jets designed to massage any part of your body that needs massaging. I literally stayed 20 minutes solid on the neck massage waterfall dealy... And yes, there was a Roman style part... and yes... I had to... all the time in a towel... but I had to. And no... no pictures... for some unknown reason they don't allow cameras into the spa... And sidenote... everyone here says how Europeans are so much skinnier and in better shape than Americans... and I just don't think that's the case...

So other cool parts about the trip?
1) Worms... as in the Diet of Worms... as in either a really bad joke an old person might tell a kid (or I might have told Danelle) about the rare eating habits of preists playing on the pun... but more importantly as in the place where Martin Luther refused to go against his conscience and renounce his 95 Thesis.

2) The Reine River... as in I have no idea why it's important but Dave always talked about it and I think said that he lived near it

3) Exit (In German) is Ausfahrt. I would tell you that the first time I saw this sign was just after we passed through Cologne... and I have to tell you saying that we took an Ausfahrt after passing through Cologne is funny... crudely funny... but funny. Is this word for exit most likely the origin of its close resembling English counterpart?

4) These windmills are huge.. The huge tree that doesn't even go 1/8th of the way up this sucker hopefully gives somewhat of an impression. You could probably charge a whole amish village with one of these things. Don Quixote definitely would have met his match with these suckers. Interesting sidenote: "fighting windmills" has become an expression to describe the behavior of people who, often stubbornly refusing to acknowledge reality, pour their hearts into campaigns that have nothing to do with their actual interests or are dead-end roads on their path to redemption. Used in a sentence... I was fighting windmills all senior year trying to write a thesis that in the end said more of what my prof told me to write than what I actually wanted to write...

5) Embarrassing moments - Anyone aware of 'The Secret' knows that you bring an idea up and suddenly it starts popping up in all these places where you least expect it. I don't know if your brain is more wired to look for it or if it really has something to do with the way the universe is set up... all I know is that we started talking about embarrassing moments in our lives over dinner and then everything started to hit the fan...
Embarrassing dinner happenings included (1) a Death Spider crawling past the face of unsuspecting girl in our party... aftermath included 4 chairs tipped back on the floor... Girl running down the restaurant hiding behind the bar... Donny and me ready to brawl like a couple of spider monkeys crouched in attack position... and Danelle nonchalantly telling us how it didn't scare her at all because they used to have a pet Tarantula when she was younger (2) a flaming B-52 friendly fire straw incident which will stay untyped on account of past history with me and eating and fire and of blackmail possibilities and (3) a broken chair that almost sent me sprawling onto the table behind us...

Non-embarrassing food incidents included the most amazing White Hot Chocolate I've ever had... My first time having Sushi all winter at an all-you-can-eat Sushi place...

And a culinary maserpiece of breaded honey mustard chicken made by Donny G and yours truly. Below you can see the head chef instructing the sous-chef on creating scrumptiousness.

Lastly me getting my fill of German hospitality. Spaetzle (egg pasta), Frankfurter Sausage (a thin boiled sausage made of pure pork in a sheep gut), lentils, and extremely dark beer... the definition of Succulence

The golden boot is given out to the soccer player that scores the most goals in whatever tournament is being played and all the top European divisions. If it didn't weigh 15 lbs and I didn't strongly oppose alcoholism I would probably have brough this back for a gift to somebody.

This grocery store was 3 walmart-sized floors high of any kind of food you could possibly imagine... and they still didn't have Mini-Wheats...

This is the closest I got to touring an old-school castle... one of my only regrets of the year...

And because the year is over I have to leave you with this... it was amazing to watch a hockey game that my heart and soul wasn't involved in every second of every period... where I could actually watch without holding my breath the whole time... where I could just sit back and enjoy myself. The best way I know how to describe it is Saving Private Ryan when they're walking along the ridge at night and it's quiet all around them, but in the background you see artillery fire going off all over the ground... or watching a thunderstorm from a distance... OR in Gladiator when he's on the brink of death and you get a small glimpse into a peaceful warm wind in trees in Elysium.

More Pictures

http://www.lahayefotografie.nl/component/option,com_portfolio/Itemid,32/

Party Don't Stop till 6 in the Mornin...

And even with cola and red bull I'm lights out at 4 the last 2 nights... but I heard it was fun. They mobbed our bus again as we came back to the rink. They cheered about a thousand songs in between players speeches. I always wanted to do some sort of crazy design with my beard after playoffs are over before I completely shaved. Ideas consist of checkerboard, handlebars, ram's horns... in the end I tried to go for lightning bolts with a skinny European 'stache... looked more like staircases with a mustachio but at least the whole beard design thing is out of my system... Danelle didn't appreciate it that much as she actively tried to avoid being seen withme all night. And now I'm up at 4PM and wish I had something great to say about the year and the finals but can't think of anything...
Vince Lombardi probably has some good quotes about this kinda stuff... about lying on the field exhausted and victorious being some greatest achievement of any man. I don't appreciate Vince all that much, and maybe I'm the only one, but he did ruin a couple hundred linemen's careers/lives on the run game that no one ever even heard of. The career span of these linemen were maybe 1-2 years and they went on to live the rest of their lives with no education and head, shoulder, or knee problems that hindered everything they did. I just don't think it's fair for Vince to portray some ideal of the super athlete and talk about the excellence of sports while at the same time completely overlooking the dark side of football. No one is ever hurt. Hurt is in the mind...?"... Sure Vince... And he then went on to give everyone else the wrong impression of why we play sports... " "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing...?"... Whatever you say Vince... say what you want I still think Heerveen has lots to be proud of... And Geleen believed exactly this the series before and put winning a championship as so important they were willing to try to hurt us in order to get it. My Dad told me the same thing happened in Senior hockey in Saskatchewan as players unable to win fairly started a line-brawl in order to win through intimidation. You see it again in the QMJHL with Patrick Roy's team starting a line-brawl to "set the tone" for the rest of the series. And I'm sure we'll see it in the NHL playoffs as well. But what can you do? It pays off, it's entertaining for the fans, so it's a viable strategy...
But down with the seriousness... up with the fun.



Danelle's in the front row... yay superfan!

Kinda looks the same as the Beker I know, but believe me it's different...


Great hockey tradition... the end of series handshake.

And the 'Stache

Here's some videos...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YLb2kFSigIQ
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PTt31Y64Zn8&feature=related

Winning Championships... That's What We Do

27 seconds left in the game and Heerveen scores on a 3rd rebound shot... D-man walking in untouched puts it top shelf over our goalie... ties the game up 2-2... It happened so fast out of nowhere... one second we were in the neutral zone safe and sound the next Heerveen is celebrating... In an instant from the highest of highs (with half a minute to the end of the season and a championship) to the lowest of lows looking at overtime and possibly a game 5... so fast... can't even believe... ... ...if only... ...and it's at their rink so the whole place makes us feel it by going wild... you can barely hear yourself think let alone the words from our coach telling us not to worry... you can see it in the other player's eyes... 27 seconds away... just 27 seconds... a couple tears streamed down Danelle's face...
3 minutes into overtime Bob Teunissen chips the puck past 2 D-men and Mike Lalonde takes it in on a breakaway. I can't even breathe the whole time from blueline till shot. Mike fakes high glove, shoots low blocker... the mesh moves, the red light goes on, Mike's hands go up (it's a hat trick in the game and his 50th goal of the year), and our whole bench goes insane... our whole fan section goes insane... Gloves flying, helmets flying, firecrackers and flares going off, rushing off chasing after Mike... but Mike doesn't even care as he goes European soccer style for a second throwing guys off him and dodging others trying to get to Paulo... talk about a way to win a championship... you just couldn't plan it any better.
And that makes 3. The Ron Berteling Cup. The Beker. And now the Landstitel. A long road by any standards. So many ups and downs along the way. I could only call it a dream season if I hadn't lived through the whole thing.

http://www.tnnmedia.nl/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&Itemid=41&catid=32
http://www.trappers.nl/200708/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=469&Itemid=71