Ouch!

USA Men's team not looking too good in the Copa America. They got trounced against Argentina, and were made fools again against Paraguay. I simply do not understand the logic here, playing their best players against sub-par competition in the Gold Cup, then trotting the youngins out against the better South American teams. I understand the Gold Cup has ramifications on CONCACAF qualifying, but couldn't we have beaten a lot of those teams without our best players? Wouldn't they be best served playing against stronger competition? Sigh.

The Domestique would wager Argentina to win it all, if only he had a booky.

Jesus Sandals, etc.

What a momentous weekend we had here at the Domestique, folks, here's the run-down.

Friday night at the saloon with some 5 great friends and one really really lame/weird middle aged man who tagged along somehow to hit on the 3 ladies in our troupe. Descriptors for "Jay" ranged from: "creepy" to "gay?" to "pill-popper" to "big fucking loser." For the record, home slice was not gay, unless my gaydar is broke. He was definitely interested in flirting with the ladies and closed the night by inviting two of them back to his place to "pop open some champagne." As an aside, this is why middle-aged men can land women in their 20s: they have the disposable income to keep around chilled bottles of bubbly for those lucky nights when they run into some younger lady drunk enough to go home with them. This is hardly fair. This lame-O went home alone though, thankfully.

Saturday I picked up some Jesus sandals and an REI membership. These may go down as two of my bigger accomplishments this summer. By Jesus sandals, I of course mean Chacos. These ones here on the left, to be exact. I call them this for a couple of reasons, listed here in no particular order. (1) So comfortable, Jesus would surely wear these if the day of reckoning were tomorrow. I have no doubt he is already an REI member though, so they probably couldn't up-sell him like they did me. But really, these things are amazing. I haven't taken them off yet, except to sleep and play soccer. So comfortable, it's like walking on air, which only Jesus can do. (2) They probably look better with a Jesus-esque robe or tunic, and yet I do not hesitate to rock them with blue jeans, as I do not wear my Jesus-esque tunic outside of the house. (3) They are expensive, not so expensive that only Jesus can afford them (because I clearly purchased a pair), but it would certainly help to have His water-into-wine move to turn all this office paper in my recycle bin into a big stack of Benjamins. If I had that, I'd buy a pair of them for everyone in my life. Which Jesus would want, because he is all about spreading the love. (4) They're primarily marketed as water sandals and hiking sandals. Well, He is the only one I know who can walk on water (beat that Angel Moroni), AND he loooooves hisself a good walk thru the woods; I mean, what savior doesn't?

Clearly, they are some nice sandals. I highly recommend them.

Also on Saturday, I played in my final co-ed game, in fact my final soccer game, here in the District. We were in the finals against a team we tied in the regular season and got handled, 4-2. But we did have three fans in attendence, so that was pretty cool. You know who you are, and thanks for coming.

It'll be sad to leave all my soccer teams here in the district. I had a really successful spring season though, so I feel like I left on a high note. Check out these stats:

• Combined record (two men's teams, one co-ed): 20-5-4 (win % of 70%) including payoffs
• Men's team 1... 1st out of 158 teams in the state (DC/NoVA/MD) in goals against average (0.78 per game), 4th out of 158 in winning percentage (88.9%)
• Men's team 2... 3rd out of 158 in goals against average (.89 per game), 17th in winning percentage (77.8%)
• My co-ed league doesn't track stats as closely as the mens leagues, but by my calculations we let in 11 goals throughout the season and playoffs, so over the course of 12 games that is a GAA of 0.92... not too shabby.

Now, the two mens teams are actually ranked against eachother, so on the two teams I play for, we are in the top 5 in GAA. Guess where I play on the field? That's right, defense and/or keeper. Now I ain't saying I am the reason our teams don't give up goals, but there is a correlation there between me and three teams with GAAs below 1. I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin...

Anyways, enough about me on my own blog, let's talk about the Raven. The Raven is a pretty awesome bar in DC and among my posse, is generally considered in the top two (Saloon being the other one, in fact this was an argument that Beta, Steff, and I had this weekend, which bar is better and why--I vote Saloon). So we went there on Saturday night and drunkenness ensued and that was fun.

Sunday I awoke to the urge for buckwheat and blueberry pancakces. Which were amazing to the taste, but pretty ugly to the eye. I am not the pancake maker in the house. I try, but can never quite get it right. I blame the hardware, we just don't have the right pan for the job in my opinion (Alton Brown would agree, I am sure).

The weather was amazing on Sunday, so after spending the morning packing and whatnot, I went for a nice ride in the hills of upper NW DC. Basically I went and found the biggest baddest hills I could find in the area and attacked them. I can't wait to get out in the real mountains out West. I think I'll get my ass kicked, but that is the fun part. We then capped it all off with a BBQ /housewarming event up in Tacoma Park.

Busy weekend, eh? Did I mention I did it all in my Jesus sandals? As a matter of fact, I am blogging to you right now, live from my office, with my Jesus sandals fit comfortably on my feet (and if you already own a pair of these lovelies, you know exactly what I mean).

Draft analysis

I'll try to keep this brief, but since half my readership (Steff and Slurry, thanks) are hoop fans, I gotta give me US$0.02 (my blog, I do what I want).

First, my old favorite team, the T-Puppies: No deal to get rid of the Big Ticket and blow up the squad, but they did make a great choice in the draft. At number 7 they took Florida star Corey Brewer. If they can somehow get rid of at least 3 out of 5 of Marko Jaric, Troy Hudsen, Trenton Hassle, Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, I'd be estatic. Or keep Blount and deal 3-4 of those gaurds for another big or a future draft pick maybe. This starting 5 sounds very good on paper to me: Foye, McCants, Brewer, KG, Blount.

My new favorite team, the Super Durants... no, excuse me, that is the Super Sonics. They deal Ray Ray to the Celtics to make room for their new superstar Kevin Durant who is going to need the ball A LOT. And what do they get for Ray Ray? They get the Celt's #5 in Jeff Green (who I love and got to watch play a lot at G-Town last year and who I became a big believer when he took over the Big East tournament this spring), Delonte West (a young and getting better point guard), and Wally Szczerbiak (was always my least favorite wolf, now he'll probably be my least favorite Sonic). They now have the money to re-sign Lewis, and I think their starting 5 looks pretty decent too (ok, they are going to suck, but bear with me): West, Lewis, Green, Durant, [Blanking on who will center this team]. What I do like is being able to run the floor with three super athletic 6'9" ballers in Lewis, Green, and Durant.

Too bad they'll be moving after next year most likely. There is a stadium issue, which is very similar to the stadium issues in Minny: the public doesn't want to pay for it when the owner is a freakin' billionaire. There is probably much more substance to it than that, but you get the idea. Oh well, I'll enjoy the team while it's in Seattle, and probably can get some cheap tix to the games!

Welcome to the Peleton

New Peleton members BS and Gansie have a nice new little foody blog over at Endless Simmer. Check 'em out.

Minneapolis is awesome

Of course you knew that already, but this article by the Strib today proves it.

More people in Minneapolis ride their bikes to work than in any other U.S. city except Portland Ore., according to figures released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Figures show that on average, more than 4,700 people or 2.4 percent of people 16 and older who work in Minneapolis pedal to work each day, way above the national average of .4 percent, the census bureau said.

It's a classic case of "if you build it, they will come,"

The city's network of trails and designated bike lanes on city streets have helped make the city bike friendly, contributing to the high number of people who bike to work or take advantage of recreational opportunities...

And they ain't done yet:

Riders might even have more options for pedaling their two-wheelers in the future. Earlier this month, the Transit for Livable Communities awarded a $7.3 million grant to Minneapolis and other communities in the Twin Cities to increase the number of miles of bikeways in the city.

The beautiful game

Oh, I know, the zero-to-hero approach to posting probably violates some blog etiquette somewhere and isn't that nice to readers either. Deal with it, this is for a good cause.

Back on a really oddly warm day in December (I think it was in the 50s), I purchased an umbrella from this young group of girls selling them on the Connecticut Ave, just north of Dupont Circle. Not that I am a giant cheapskate prick or anything, but normally I don't do the roadside fundraising bit. But I gave them a few minutes to tell me that they were a local area soccer team headed to South Africa to a township outside of Port Elizabeth to conduct a soccer clinic for girls there. I was sold, I studied abroad in SA and it was a life-changing experience, right away I knew I was giving money to these kids. But it got better. Not only are they putting on soccer clinics for girls in a country where girls are not traditionally allowed to play soccer, but they were also incorporating HIV/AIDS prevention instruction into the clinics. How cool is that?

It is through this program called Grassroots Soccer, a group committed to:

"Using the power of soccer in the fight against AIDS, Grassroot Soccer provides African youth with the skills and support to live HIV free.

We do this by continuously improving our innovative HIV/AIDS life-skills curriculum, sharing our program and concept effectively, and utilizing the popularity of soccer to increase our impact.

You can read more about these girls in this story from the WaPo, and follow them on this "World's United" blog that the WaPo is hosting to chronicle their activities.

Even talking about HIV/AIDS there is taboo, which is partially why the situation continues to get worse there, so I love the idea of trying to harness the immense popularity of football in Africa to help fight and cure the HIV/AIDS epidemic there. And I love that the messengers here are not teachers or government types or even some smelly Peace Corps volunteers, but the actual peers of the targeted audience: young girls on the verge of becoming young women. Pretty cool stuff. Go support something like this in your neck of the woods.

Crotchpot cooking

It's real hot here today. Every time it is this hot I think of this scene in Good Morning Vietnam:

Hey, can you tell me what's your name?
"My name is Roosevelt E. Roosevelt."

Roosevelt, what town are you stationed in?
"I'm stationed in Poontang."

Well, thank you, Roosevelt. What's the weather like out there?
"It's hot! Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest thing is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking."

Well, tell me what it feels like.
"Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! It's so damn hot, I saw these little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?"

What do you think it's going to be like tonight?
"It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but ain't no good if you're in the jungle!"

Thank you, Roosevelt.