...stealing bread from the mouths of decadence..." Off the best vocal album in history. Put two awesome singers together.

I got back from Junior Olympics last night. We had a pretty successful tournament. The first day, we were tired, and not at our tops, but I played really well and held us together. We got 3rd out of 4 teams in our pool, which was a pretty bad start. The next morning (after 6 hours of sleep), we got 1st in our pool of 3, which put us back in the running for a medal. Later that day,we had a pool of 4, with two extrmely difficult teams (SCVC 14QS, our club's taller team, and OCVC-14-1s, our rivals). We upset OCVC in 3 games, and had an incredibly close third game with anther team we'd never plyed (we won the first game, they won second, we won the third, which is usually to 15 win by 2, but ended up going to 22). We barely lost our other team, so we ended up with 2nd in our pool, which was enough to guarantee us a top 8 spot. The next day, we had the 2nd and 3rd seeds in the tournament, and a team that was seeded a little lower than us. We played like crap against the 2nd seed, who was Puerto Rican, but they were so good it wouldn't have made much difference. We played okay against the 3rd seed who we've played all year, 5 times, and beaten once. Our lats match, didn't make a difference if we won or lost, we would go to the same place. For this reason, our coach had me sit out due to a shoulder injury, so we ended up barely losing. I'm kinda pissed at myself because I would've been enough to nab a few extra points and win, but no big deal. We got 4th in that pool. On the last day, we were guaranteed at least 7th place, so once again, I sat out for the most part because my coach didn't want me to tear my shoulder and ruin my Summer. We barely lost to them, but finished 7th. Two of the teams above us were Puerto Rican, so we finished 5th in the United States. Out of 100s of teams in the country, that's damn good to me.

My shoulder injury came from excessive hitting. In a game, a hitter usually gets set (the "setter" puts the ball in the air for a hitter to spike) about 7, maybe 10 times a game. I got set an average of 18 times a game. I wasn't wussing out either, I was swinging hard. I hit .500 (half of my hits were kills, meaning they got us a point), which is a very high kill percentage. Our coach said that I got our team where we were in the regular season and without me we wouldn't have gotten close to 7th, which obviously made my a little giddy. The director/owner of our club was walking with the coach form Stanford (the high level college that has a great vb team), and brought him to see us, and the Stanford coach said "Who's that kid with long blonde hair? He's really good!" That made my day when I found out he said that.

At the end of JOs, everyone always trades jerseys with each other. I traded both my jerseys, backpack, old warm-up jacket, and sweatshirt. In returnI got a shirt from the club St. Louis High Performance (who we tied, and kind of befriended), but the kid who gave me it either lied or didn't notice that he had his jersey (probably didn't notice because he's really nice), and we caught him with his jersey later, so I got to keep his shirt and his coach made him give me the jersey back. I traded my white jersey for a jersey from Torrimar (the 2nd seed Puerto Rican team, really cool guys) from last year (the best player on their team, possibly in the tournament), traded jackets with him, gave my crappy sweatshirt for another Torrimar player's shorts (he took them off in front of everyone, nothing but boxers underneath, yes, I cleaned them before wearing :P), and traded backpacks with him. I traded my other jersey for a shirt-jersey from another Puerto Rican team, Naranjito in the other division, and that was it. Torrimar actually got ne jerseys this year, and I was disappointed that I couldn't get an old one, but one of them had his old jersey, so I was pretty excited. I really wanted the jersey from Torrimar that said "Sexy Boy" on the back, but maybe next year :lol:.

Very successful year for me. I wanted a medal, but I didn't expect it, and I kicked a$$, and stuck out on the team (so I've been told), and I was extremely recognized by older team's coaches. And finishing 7th overall, and 5th in the United States, that's great. Our other team got a Bronze medal (tied for 3rd), and were co-champions of the U.S. (along with the 3rd seed team we played). Torrimar got Silver, and the Puerto rican club consisting of a lot of jerks, Pitirres got Gold. One of Torrimar's players hit a spike out to lose, layed down and cried. The kid with "Sexy Boy" on his jersey threw a fit, but they cooled down. I was rooting for the all the way, but they lost. At least none of them freaked out while we were trading :P.

I'm proud of the fact that the team that finished the season ranked one above in Southern California (they were 3rd, we were 4th) was knocked into 13th place, solely by our upset. The 5th ranked team got 9th place. Last year, the #1 ranked team got 9th, and our best team did the same as us, so we're in the ranks of the top teams.

That was actually my last tournament on a 7'4" net. Next year, we move up to 8'. Doesn't make a difference to me though, I practice on an 8' all the time, and hit just as hard.

Anyway, not too much else to talk about. JOs were all I did for the last week. Some cool stuff happened in Salt Lake City. We went to a Mayan themed restaurant that was almost like a more dark "Casa Bonita" (actual restaurant, but most people know it through South Park), with cliff divers, that actually performed a show, and pretty good food. It was really fun. I honed my card counting skills and whooped everyone in blackjack. Oh, and someone stole my iPod Touch. That, it'll turn up in Delta Airlines' lost & found. I got sand in my phon recently, so I may just buy the new iPhone when demand goes down.

Because of my shoulder, which hurts like hell sometimes, I have to go to a Physical Therapy session tomorrow so I can get it healthy in time for some training at a camp and a program to increase my vertical jump so there isn't a difference between 7'4" and 8'.

I'll have more things of your interest soon, but for once, a few people will have to comment on the volleyball section! Muahahahaha!!!

Oh, right, and Obama's kicking McCain's a$$ in General Election polls (average 6 point spread) and Electoral Vote counts (winning by 70 in proections currently,as Obama has made Virginia close and taken back Michigan in polls. Obama's been running a great General Election campaign, much better than McCain's so far. Not out of bias, but he's gaining more votes than John, taking states from him in polls, and showing a little more substance and a little less flare than usual. John McCain still sounds like a retard when he gives speeches, and did that stupid speech up agaist the "green screen" that Stephen Colbert's been making fun of. Hilarious.