A very good weekend overall

First thing I want to mention that I was pleased to announce that I was able to get my sabbatical approved for the week of Thanksgiving and the Thursday and Friday Prior. I was so stoked, I couldn't wait to tell my wife. My daughter was equally stoked. I think we're going to try a mini romantic getaway in either Capitola or Sausalito. Both sound good.

On Saturday my son turned a year old. It truly was a celebration, I hate to sound story book like, but you ask anyone at the party that knew of the ordeal we went through would say this is a joyous occasion. Especially if you told me two weeks after he was born and brought back to Walnut Creek that he was going to make it to his first birthday, I wouldn't have believed it, but I can honestly say faith was a lot more stronger than science because science said he wasn't going to. Well if Gabriel could speak he would say, "Screw you to science." And I wouldn't put him in time out for it either for I would share that feeling. He was a happy boy that day. He was especially popular with the girls. All week last week I heard comments on the eyelashes. Even here at work I heard it (I recently put up recent pics of him). Anyway it was a good turn out and everyone seemed to have had fun.

It's also my Dad's first day of retirement. I think I'm still in shock because I cannot image him not working. However, his company still loves him and wanted to retain him for something better then just being a tailor. Looks like he may be doing workshops. I think it would be good for him. It sounds like he can take time off whenever he needed to. Hopefully this would be good. He just seemed happier then in a long time.

I reffed a game on Saturday morning. Should have been cakewalk but a few things happened that made it less fun. The coach for Dublin is a friend of mine. That made it tough because when I took the game, I didn't think it would have been his, but the self assigning said I had to contact coordinator to get the assignment which means they didn't want just anyone doing it. The second part was a called a PK in the first 2 minutes of the match. I didn't want to and when I saw the foul I had a "did that just happen?" moment when I saw my AR put the flag up, there was no more questioning about it. My friend of course shouted at him to let me make all the calls. I could have booked him there, but I choose to let it go, it didn't seem to phase him. I called a penalty kick in his favor 2 minutes later. They missed. Actually they kicked it straight to the keeper. That made him mad even more. I can tell the U16 team didn't have much respect for him. 35 minutes and 6 more goals later a seventh goal was scored and my friend thought he was offside. It looked pretty close that I had to give it to my AR to make the call which he kept the flag down. Well my friend went ballistic and was yelling at my AR. I had it at that point and ran straight to him. I said, "You need to stay off my AR." He proceeded to argue and I cut him off. I said, "you leave my assistants alone." Then he started to talk again and I said, "You are the only coach on the roster. If I send you home, this game no longer continues." While that shut him up, I heard a light round of applause for my actions. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was tired of it.
At half time I had my own problems. I had a father and son team. The son was a grade 8. The father was a grade 9 and judging the fact he wore a 2007 badge I knew he doesn't even have a year's worth of experience. It showed on the line as he was not with the second to the last defender and he didn't follow all balls to the goal line. This caused a lot of problems. There was a shot on goal which hit the post. I saw it, everyone saw it. My friend said, it hit the back of the net. Anyway, it would have been easier to sell with him on the goal line. There was another occasion where he should have been on the line. Fortunately I was close enough to sell anything to the players. So I ripped him up and down and didn't even go into the fact they arrived 5 minutes before kick off. The young ref had the proper dress and appearance. The elder didn't and he wore long pants. I asked him if he had shorts on. He first said yes. I asked him to remove the sweat pants and he refused. I said you have shorts on? He recanted his statement. I knew the shit would roll downhill.
Anyway, 11 goals later, I had to call back the one goal Dublin did put in the net. He was offside and it looked that way before my AR raised the flag. He rose it and I hated to call the goal back, but I did.

At the end, I filled my game card and my friend was waiting for me. I shook his hand and said, "No hard feelings?" He said, "Nah, I was out of line and we both had a job to do. You could have let us have that goal."
I said, "I really hurt to pull that one out."
All in all I'm glad it ended the way it did, because I had to see my friend later that day at my son's party. I found out my Cheetah Girls tied with the other team 1-1 and it was a hard fought game. I was sorry I missed it, but at the same time, my Son's party was important.