Jonathan

They pulled a prank on me and caught it on video…they taped the jelly bean jar shut with clear tape:

I wrote a little about the first few games of the boys’ football seasons (here and here) but not the second half of the season.  I’ll get around to that sometime soon, but here is Elliot’s photo:

I found the photos from when I played (3rd and 5th grade).  There’s a photo from 4th grade too, but I quit before the season started (because I wanted to play with my buddy after school instead of going to football practice and because the coaches were stressing me out by threatening to make us run extra laps around the field if we ran the first one too slowly).  The first year I was 3rd string offensive line.  I remember one game they put me in on defensive line, and I was shooting the gap into the backfield and tackling the quarterback almost every play…but unfortunately it was a fraction of a second after he would hand the ball off.  By the second year I played, I was one of the bigger players on the team.  Because I had an August birthday (shortly after the cut-off), most of the kids on the team were at least a grade below me.  That year the coaches wanted to play me at tight end (hence my # 40 jersey), but after the first few practices moved me to offensive tackle to replace someone who wasn’t getting the job done.  I also played defensive end and had a couple tackles for safeties that were the highlight of my year.  I didn’t play organized football again after that, sticking with basketball instead.  Here are my photos:

From my Facebook profile:

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. 15 albums you've heard that will always stick with you. Tag some friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. To do this, go to your Profile page, then to your Notes tab and paste these rules in a new note, list your 15 picks below, and tag people in the note).

• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
• Nirvana - Nevermind
• The Palace Brothers - Days in the Wake
• U2 - The Joshua Tree
• Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted
• The Connells - Fun & Games
• The Cavedogs - Joyrides for Shut-Ins
• Toad the Wet Sprocket - Pale
• Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever
• Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
• The Spinanes - Manos
• R.E.M. - Life's Rich Pageant
• The Pixies - Doolittle
• Songs:Ohia - The Lioness
• The Lemonheads - Lovey

Last Sunday I ran a half marathon in Detroit for the second time.  I hadn’t trained as much this year and had put on a few extra pounds, so I wasn’t expecting to improve on last year’s snail’s pace.  I was slower and ended up in the bottom 5 % of my age group.  At least improving next year shouldn’t be too hard.

Here’s a collection of video clips (the shaking sound while I’m running is the bag of M&Ms in my pocket that I eventually lost at some point):

And here are some photos:

waiting for the start

waiting for the start

onto the Ambassador Bridge…a nice view as the sun was rising

off of the Ambassador Bridge

in the tunnel

not sure what this guy was doing

in sight of the finish

afterwards