Professional oww-ies and Becks scores a goal!

My boys are halfway thru soccer season. Carter's team has outscored its opponents 19-6 so far this year. I would like to say that it is my terrific coaching, but that would be a lie. I just have good players.

I don't think Beck's team has lost this season because they have a couple of ringers on his team. And superstar Becks did score his first goal of the year. It was actually a nice real goal (He is the one with the ball on the pic on the right) where he dribbled the ball, set up and kicked the goal. He celebrated by falling to the ground and rolling around for about 20 minutes after giving all of his fans on the sidelines High-Fives!. This is his individual picture (on the left) where he didn't want to hold the ball with his hands because using your hands in soccer is illegal.

Carlos Boozer was a former Jazz player. He just left the Jazz this off season to play for the Chicago Bulls. Many Jazz fans were happy to see him go because he always found a way to get injured and get to sit out 20-40 games a year. Well, he injured himself on a no practice day this weekend. He broke his finger. How did he do it. He explained that somebody rang the doorbell and he was going to the door and he tripped over his bag, fell down and broke his finger. SERIOUSLY? So, a professionally athlete who is flexible and agile somehow trips over a bag and breaks his finger?

Now take me, I am no longer truly athletic nor agile nor flexible and I trip over things in my house all the time and I have never even bruised myself and Boozer breaks a finger? Egads. Now people can understand why I am awfully pleased to no longer have him on the Jazz team.

A day with the Utes

This past weekend was the Ute fan fest. Every year in late August, the University of Utah has a big fan gala. It is held at Rice Eccles Stadium and this year had to be the biggest turnout as it was crowded right from the start.

Carter and Becks love it because they get to walk on the football field, meet some of the players, play in a bounce zone on the field. It was pretty cool too as we saw Coach Jim Boylen (Ute basketball coach) and he saw my boys and he introduced himself to them. I asked if I could take a picture and he bellowed out: "Of course, lets do it!" He then got down to their level for me to take a picture.

We also met some of the hoops players, tennis players and others as well. The boys also got a chance to run out on the field and chase each other and play around. Football season starts this week, Basketball season starts at the end of October and Tennis season starts in January for the Utes. Go Utes!

Tennis and Bodyguards

Last night, Brodi and I played in a mixed doubles tournament over at the UofU Eccles Tennis Center. We had a good time even with Brodi talking trash all night against our opponents. It was interesting though, there were these 2 younger guys in dark suits hanging out. I figured that they were probably not there to watch me...but they were watching the man on the other court. It was Utah governor Gary Herbert.

At one point, Mr. Herbert lost one of his tennis balls. We didn't find it at first on our court but we eventually did and I walked it over to him and told him that we found their tennis ball. I then mentioned that I was going to keep it, but I didn't want the bodyguards to beat me up and throw me in jail if I kept his tennis ball. He kind of laughed. I will say though, I could have totally beaten his bodyguards in a tennis match.

March Madness and DS Madness

It is now March madness time. I remember growing up and skipping school so that I could stay home and watch the college basketball tournament at home. I loved it. I would even stay home away from college so that I could watch the games all day long. It was that bad. I am no longer quite as obsessed, but still love it. Even without the Utes being in the tourney. That part stinks.


Yes, that is a picture of our boy playing games with 3 different DS units. Yes, 3 of them. I took one away, I mean, c'mon, playing with 3 of those is just silly. I am a good dad--2 at a time for one kid is my limit! I do have to say though, that kid is pretty talented.

Tennis stringing by sexy guys and rockin' tennis shoes

I play tennis. And for those that play tennis, you know that you break strings. So, a few months ago, I bought my very own tennis stringer.

Back when I was a teenager, I strung my own rackets. But when I went on my mission, my dad decided to sell the stringer. Now, I decided to get back. The problem--I totally forgot how to string rackets and though this machine looks rather simple, I was totally intimidated.

Finally I decided to string a racket...I got halfway through it, screwed up and gave it up. Until yesterday. My buddy Brandon (top notch tennis star and racket stringer extraordinaire) came over to our house with his lovely wife and fabulous kids and gave me a lesson.

To put this in perspective, he can string rackets in 30-40 minutes. With his guidance and me doing the stringing, it only took me about 100 minutes. Per racket. Yes, I was that slow but we finished off two of my rackets. I am about to quit my job and go into a racket stringing business. I should be rich in no time. Our wives spent most of the 3 hours of stringing saying 'Uhm, so are you really going to play tennis with rackets YOU strung? Lets just take the rackets down to the SportsMall and get them strung' You can feel their confidence in me, can't you? Brandon, on the other hand, has strung rackets for 20 years now so he is good to go. I will probably butcher a few more rackets in the future.


On another tennis note--I got new tennis shoes. I am one stylin' dude now. To make a long story short (or as Brodi would say, making a boring story just a little less boring)--I bought the shoes. The company called me a week later and apologized and said that those shoes were out of stock, but they would give me the latest newest updated shoe from the same company...for the same price as last years model which I had ordered. I wasn't sure and she knocked off another 10% on top of that. Great price and great shoes.

Yes, I realize how boring I am when I spend an entire blog post talking about a tennis racket stringer and tennis shoes. It is all about the simple pleasures in life, no matter how boring it is to you all.

Box mesh, tennis and basketball

We went out to dinner on Friday night for our Valentines Day. I picked a mexican grill restaurant downtown which we had never tried. It had a fun atmosphere and it started off well. We ordered our food and we waited and waited and waited. Finally, our waitress came over and apologized and told us that there was a computer problem with our order but that our order would come out soon. Fine. The manager actually came by and apologized as well and offered us dessert for the inconvenience. Cool. Thank you.

Well, our dinner came out and we had a nice dinner until the very end when Brodi leans over and takes out what looks like a hair out of my food. Egads. Well, almost all of the food was gone so we decided to let the manager know after our check came. We eat a nice dessert and then we finally mentioned it to the manager. The manager replies, 'Are you sure it was a hair? Was it gray and kind of rubbery? Now, normally I would not have spent much time analyzing the hair, but it was just like he described. I replied Yes, it was. He then explains that it was not a hair but it was 'box mesh' that got into my food. Box Mesh? I actually think he was right and that it was not a hair, but it led me to a few questions that I was too tired to ask:

• What the frak is box mesh?
• Why is it dropping from the skies into my food?
• What the frak is box mesh?

These are questions destined to remain unanswered.

The next night, we took the family out for Utah sports night. We went to watch the Ute tennis team smack around Idaho State (if you haven't gone to a college tennis match, you should...highly entertaining--we took the boys to about 5 of their matches last year and this was our 2nd time this year so far). We then went and cheered on the Utes as they lost to #15 ranked New Mexico in overtime. Overall, good weekend...box mesh and all.

The Utes win, thanks to a Prayer

I posted this picture on my facebook account, but I thought it was too good.

I have season tickets to Ute basketball. I took Carter with me. He has started Junior Jazz and is having fun...he is actually a very good dribbler. I told him we would go to the game and he could see some players who are really good at dibbling the ball. The Utes had a big game against Michigan last night. We got there early (back in college, I would get to the games an hour early to 'prepare' for big games) and we were sitting around watching the players warm up.

I told Carter that this was a big game. He was quiet for a bit and then said, 'maybe we should say a prayer.' I laughed a bit and told him that he could pray if he wanted to: He then closed his eyes and started saying a prayer. I have to admit, I kept my eyes open and fumbled for my camera.


It must have worked. The Utes won. Carter got ice cream after the game for his smart decision to pray.

the NBA and Mascots

NBA season starts tonight. I love basketball. Back in Washington DC, I would fall asleep to games at 1am nearly every night. This year will be interesting for Jazz fans to see how the team pulls together...around the league, we will get to see if Shaq can settle in with the Cavs, how good will Orlando be with all of their changes, can anyone stop the Lakers, etc.

To get you all pumped for the NBA season, I have a couple of videos...the first one is of the Houston Rockets mascot messing with fans and it is pretty funny (when you click play to start it, push pause and wait for about 15 seconds and then press play again):



And here is a video of mascot bloopers. Go Jazz.

Utah Site: Delta Center and the Utah Jazz

Back in 1991, one of my best friends from high school, Jia Yn, took me to the first ever regular season game for the Jazz in this arena (they had just left the Salt Palace). I still remember it and the Jazz played the Seattle Sonics (don't ask about the results, it was a bad game for the Jazz). I can't believe that this stadium is nearly 20 years old. This arena cost $93 million and was built in record time, 16 months, to have it ready for the basketball season. Couple of interesting things--the roof weighs 3 million pounds. There are nearly 2,700 panels of insulated glass on the arena. The arena holds around 20,000 people. It is now called the Energy Solutions Arena, but I have always known it as the Delta Center and I refuse to call it by its new name.


I decided to take the boys downtown to see the Utah Jazz have their annual scrimmage. It was a good time. On the outside of the Delta Center, there are 2 huge action statues of Karl Malone and John Stockton. A nice little remembrance of those two and all of those years in SLC. Right when we entered the arena, I said to the boys to get ready to take some pictures...and the cheerleaders were right there and they came up and started talking to the boys. Too bad that the camera was on the wrong setting (darn that Becks and his playing with the camera) but we still got a shot with the boys and the ladies.

There were a couple of pretty cool things that we got to see while we were in the stands. They filmed a couple of commercials with us sitting there...so when you see the Jazz commercials at the start of the season, look really hard and you may see us in the background. We also got to see the Jazz players have a dance off to show who was the best rookie dancer. Kosta Kofous won that very prestigious award.

We left the inside of the arena and wandered down the halls. We found a staircase that was not being guarded and the boys and I headed up to the top floor. Great views and we went to the doors to sneak back into the arena until Carter said, 'I don't think we should be here, should we?' We wandered for a bit more and headed back downstairs.

A nice downtown late stroll back to the car and Carter made me promise that I would let him stay up late during the season to watch some games of the Jazz. I love this pic except Carter is giving one of his absolutely hillariously terrible 'camera smiles.' If you need to get the kids out this winter, a Jazz game is very entertaining even if the kids don't want to sit much as they can just wander the crowds and the hallways.

You paid what? For that?

I love Ping Pong. I play it like I play tennis. I take big swings with tennis strokes. I also make all of the appropriate grunting to be even more intimidating. We had an elders quorum ping pong tournament a few months ago and it brought out some laughs as people felt like we were playing on the tennis court.

We had a ping pong table in our house as well, so I would play 2-3 hours a week as well. I had a favorite little paddle that I used for basically all my life.

The point of this long, rather boring post on ping pong? I was doing a little research on a couple of tennis rackets and tennis shoes and I saw that I could also purchase a ping pong paddle. I thought that may be kind of fun to grab a paddle just in case I play again soon and I could use my own stick. I checked out the Stiga brand and guess what? One of those nice little paddles? $150. Yes, $150. Holy crap, are these platinum plated paddles (say that 5 times really fast)? Now, there were a bunch for $15-20...but they had more than 10 of those paddles that cost well over $100. And if you added up the three brand name ping pong paddles...you had a selection of around 50 different paddles to purchase from. Egads...

Carter, the sportsman

I honestly don't know how big families do it. We have 2 boys. One of those boys is not even old enough to play in organized sports. So, basically one kid and it seems like we are always running around to different activities.

Our week, with only one boy: 2 Nights a week of T-ball games. 1 Night a week with soccer practice. And a soccer game on Saturday. 4 days a week. I actually enjoy it quite a bit. Though Carter enjoys hanging out with his friends more than playing the sport. He has perfected though his 'run' to first base after he gets a hit. Instead of running, he just struts to 1st base. And then he skips to 2nd base and 3rd base. And he has yet to be convinced that he should touch home plate when he goes to home. Anyway, we have had fun with it.

Tennis and a star sighting

If you have never been a college tennis match, you need to go. Very entertaining. Brodi and I bring the boys to go and watch the mens Utes tennis team. We have gone to about 5 match ups this year. Over the weekend, they played and beat BYU. It was rowdier than a basketball game. The crowd erupting after each and every point. Carter would occasionally scream out: 'Go Utes!' as he played with his DS while watching some of the points. It is quite the atmosphere. Alas, no male or female cheerleaders and no band. That would be awesome if they did though.


I went to play tennis with my friend Brandon early this week around 6:30am up at the U. We both are trying to figure out why we wake up once or twice a week to go and play tennis early in the morning. But, it paid off this Friday. I get out of my car and the guy that parked next to me did as well. It was Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham. So, I struck up a conversation. I am sure he was thrilled. I thanked him for the great year and asked how he was feeling about the upcoming year (he likes the team a lot and thinks some of the new guys will surprise). I asked him about the construction that was going on with the workout facilities (they are adding a second floor as well as expanding the main floor). He was very cool and pretty talkative. It ended with me giving a big hug. Ok, kidding about the hug but I did wish him the best. I should have told him that we should be bffs. But the timing wasn't right.

Craptastic tennis shoes

Sorry for the long delay of no posts. I know that you are all absolutely heartbroken and have been checking every hour for an update. Well, I am back and badder than ever.

I just bought a new pair of tennis shoes. Let me tell you--I spent waaayyyyy too much time figuring out which ones I wanted. I waffled between Nike, Adidas, Diadora and Yonex shoes. I wanted a shoe that looked pretty good, was comfortable and light. I think I found it with this Diadora shoe and I get to officially break them in Friday morning with some tennis.






I did turn down a couple of shoes. There are some shoes that you question the logic behind ever making them. Shoes that are so brutally ugly that a kid who had no shoes would still say 'no thanks. Reebok came out with these two hideous creations. The yellow shoe would drive me crazy as every time I needed a tennis ball, I would reach down and try to grab my shoe thinking it was a ball. Why do I have a feeling that it was the same guy that created both of these shoes for Reebok? Why do I have a feeling that this same guy is now living in a park muttering to himself 'They said they wanted something different, they said they wanted something different, they said they wanted something different.'



I have little to add to these two abominations. I mean, they made the shoes so that means that someone somewhere bought those. Can you imagine walking out onto the tennis court with those bad boys? Can you imagine doing anything athletic in those shoes...the mocking would be too much. I am as metrosexy as they come, but even I could not pull off those shoes.

March Madness is coming

But lets be honest, 65 teams aint enough. We need basketball all day every day for months. The NCAA may be announcing something special:


NCAA Expands March Madness To Include 4,096 Teams

Tennis playing and Tennis kinda-watching

We have decided to get Carter playing tennis and to see if he enjoys it. I grew up playing tennis and I started about this age so we wanted to get him going. He goes to the SportsMall and gets lessons once a week and he is loving it. He is always asking to go and he has had a lot of fun. He gets to hit the ball and run around with his cousin Necie and have a great time. So far so good. I guess though we should expect him to like it...he gets to run around with a racket and smack a tennis ball around with his best buddy and some nice women coaches. He is pretty pleased.




We went up to the University of Utah and watched the Utah tennis team play Utah State and it was a lot of fun. The kids watched for a while and then they sat down and played their DS games. Every few points though, the crowd would get a bit excited and yell out 'Go Utes' or something...Carter, while still playing would stand up, pump a fist in the air and yell, 'Go Utah.'

Short Shorts and getting in trouble

So, time for a totally random story, but I remembered this story because it happened right before Christmas, about 17 years ago. I played hoops for West High School. And let me just say...our uniforms were old. That means that those uniforms have been washed and washed and washed. And dried and dried and dried. And that means a lot of shrunken shorts and shirts. I was either the shortest or the second shortest player on our team and I was one of the younger ones which meant that I got to pick last and because I was one of the shortest, I usually ended up with the 'small' uniform. Now, it was small to begin with...but after 5+ years of being washed and dried, they became itsy bitsy.

Basically, I was wearing a speedo on the basketball court. West High thrived on intimidation against other schools due to our reputation. Let me just say--there was NOTHING intimidating about me coming out in that uniform. Other players on our team had to deal with the same thing, so most of us wore spandex under shorts...but they had a High School rule my Junior year that you could wear nothing like spandex under your jerseys unless you had a Doctor's Note that allowed it (seriously, how stupid is that). So, I ditched the spandex and wore longish boxers under my jersey shorts. The two pictures that I have included here are from my Junior year so that you can see just how tight those bad boys were.



So, big game is here: West High vs. East High. I was a West student but I lived in East High school boundaries, so I had a bunch of friends that went there...add to that, it was a huge rivalry. The stands were packed in our game against them at home.

First half was over and it was a tight game. So, we go out to start the second half and we are about to inbound the ball. All of a sudden, the ref blows his whistle to stop the game before the 2nd half even begins. The ref points at me and says 'Fix your shorts Johnson.' I look down and my boxers had gone below the shorts. I kinda fiddle with my boxers to hide them better under my shorts, to no avail. Now, the audience is quiet because nobody knows why the game isn't starting. The ref yells at me again to fix my shorts so I keep trying. My coach yells at the ref asking what is wrong and the ref says back to him that I have undershorts coming below my shorts. The crowd is dead quiet. My coach looks at me and asks me whats wrong and I tell him that it was my boxers. My coach shakes his head and yells at the ref: "Its his underwear, lets play' and the ref yells back at me and my coach 'I don't care if its his underwear, he needs to fix it or he gets a technical.' Yep, let me just say, once again, that every fan in the stands was now hearing (it was amazingly quiet in the gym as people were trying to figure out what was going on) my coach argue with the ref about my underwear. How awesome and disturbing is that?

So, the coach has to pull me out of the game and tells me to go down to the locker-room to fix it. I am running off the court as everyone is trying to determine exactly what kind of boxers that I am wearing. I get down to the locker-room and a teammate is there to get me into the lockerroom (we had to lock the doors down there so that we weren't robbed and he had the key). I run in and I am trying to figure out what to do...and my teammate kindly offers me his underwear. Yeah, I turned him down. Thanks for the offer though, that was sweet and incredibly creepy.

I decided to keep on wearing my boxers though I ended up pulling them up to the my chin nearly so that they would not show. I ran back up to the gym and thankfully I did not get a standing ovation for being able to fix my underwear. I had no problems the rest of the game except for the discomfort of having my boxers about 6 inches higher than they should have been. And yes, we lost that frakkin' game, no thanks to the ref. This story does have a good ending though as thankfully, my senior year, we got new jerseys and my barely-legal basketball shorts were finally thrown away.

Utah football, Pakistan famous

So, I wake up this morning and I open up the Pakistan Daily Times (a Pakistani national newspaper)...well, I check out the Sports page and who is on the front page? Aiona Key of the Utah Utes diving into the endzone. Yes, a University of Utah football player is on the front page of the Pakistani sports front page. Who woulda thunk it? Go Utes!

Football star

So, I am walking through a Rite Aid and I see the clearance bins and decided to take a peek...and my heart was filled with joy! My old football game. Normally $15 which would be an UNBELIEVABLE deal, but it was marked down and I grabbed one on sale for only $4. On top of that, I found another one, so I grabbed it too just in case the first one were to ever break after hours spent playing on it.







I used to spend many days sitting on a Saturday afternoon watching college football with this handy little game on my lap as I kicked butt. The stupid little game computer COULD NOT HANDLE MY SKILLZZZZ! And now, I get to step back in time and kick more computer butt! Brodi does not know what she is in for...who cares about Playstation 3 or the xbox when you have a crummy little atari-like football game to keep you entertained until late in the night. Life is good.

Back in the Swing of things

Well, I am back playing tennis and yes, the title of my post is a bad pun. I grew up playing tennis and played 5-10 hours a week from age 6 until I was 15. I played in all of the tourneys. But, then high school hit and I switched to basketball (I realized that more people would watch me play hoops than tennis...yes, I loved bigger crowds and yes, I know that is pathetic) and only played tennis during the spring for West High.

Now, after a 15-year layoff (I played sparingly over the years), I have been active again. I go out and hit with a friend of mine and top tennis player, Brandon Owen, a couple of times a week and hit with my wonderful wife (you may remember her, she is a tournament champion) at night occasionally.

There were several things that I had to do...Buy new rackets. For some reason, my 20+ year old rackets were no good anymore, so I went out and bought 2 new ones. My 2 rackets though quickly become 1 racket as Brodi stole one of them from me. So, I had to go out and buy another one. I also had to buy new tennis balls as the old ones had so little bounce that they seemed to imbed themselves into the ground when I bounced them.

I finally entered a tourney and played in it at the end of last week and over the weekend. I entered the 4.5 singles and I played the #3 seed to start it all off. He won the first set and we battled it out in the second set. I held off a match point and took the second set and eventually won the match 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. It was nearly a 3-hour match. The match was in Park City and I rushed home in time to puke several times that night. Yes, spewing out everything in my belly. I weighed myself the next morning and I had lost 4 pounds. Pretty brutal. I then played in the quarters and won that match 6-3, 6-3. I was now in the semis and I played a teaching pro from the SportsMall. I played OK, but could not get over the hump and lost 6-2, 6-3.

Rod J. Schmidt (1) Sandy, UT Binh K. Huynh Murray, UT George C. Lukes Salt Lake Cty, UT Steven P. Ferris Anaheim, CA Kevin M. Smith (3) Clearfield, UT Sam Johnson Salt Lake City, Brian T. Van Hecke Park City, UT Scott C. Rockwood Salt Lake Cty, Alex M. Venegas Provo, UT Schuyler S. Mastain Park City, UT Peerapong Aramvareekul Salt Lake City, UT Don Droubay (4) Salt Lake City, UT Andrew S. Pearlstein Park City, UT Christopher S. Bruerton West Jordan, UT Len Bowes Salt Lake City, UT Jason H. Grant (2) Salt Lake City, UT

Quarterfinals B. Huynh 6-2; 6-1 G. Lukes Wd (emerg) S. Johnson 1-6; 7-5; 6-3 S. Rockwood 6-2; 6-1 S. Mastain 6-0; 6-2 D. Droubay (4) 6-0; 2-6; 6-3 A. Pearlstein 6-3; 6-4 J. Grant (2) 6-4; 6-7; 6-1

Semifinals B. Huynh 6-1; 6-1 S. Johnson 6-3; 6-3 S. Mastain 6-1; 6-2 J. Grant (2) 6-1; 6-1

Finals B. Huynh 6-2; 6-3 J. Grant (2) 6-7; 6-4; 6-3 J. Grant (2) 3-6; 6-3; 6-3

It is good to be back playing and I am having a lot of fun even if there is an occasional throw up after my matches.