Doyle was heading off with Paul on Wednesday, so suggested we have communal dinner tonight instead. Short notice, but lots of fun, nonetheless. Keith and Katie hosted, so all of us went to Assguard for dinner.

Before dinner started, we had the choice of ultimate (the open college CSTV broadcast) or Madagascar. Tragically Andy and I were unable to overcome the collective, and Madagascar won.

One of the characters in Madagascar was a hippo, which prompted a conversation something like

"Hippos are the number one killers of people in Africa."

Someone not listening fully answered, "Who are?"

"Hippos."

"Hippos with AIDS, maybe."

Today was Guy's first day of work at my place. As with Kevin and Kyle before him, I have a college student working around my house this summer, doing all of the little tasks I need done, but never seem to find the time to do. Having someone working at the house solves many of my issues: leaving the house empty all day, leaving the dogs alone all day, having a to-do list a mile long, being short (yeah, Guy's over 6' tall, so he can reach all of the areas above my reach that just need to be reached), you know, the usual.

Years ago, when I said I wanted to hire a high school kid for the summer to work on projects I needed done, Kris thought I was crazy. What person hires a kid for the summer? Businesses sure, but just people? And what kid would want to work all summer on random tasks? It's not like the tasks relate directly to the degree the kid will be pursuing in college.

Just like working in a Dairy Queen contributed little but a great story to my education.

Of course, Paul's parents hate me, so maybe Dairy Queen wasn't so bad after all.

As for who would work on random house tasks, Kyle Smith, Principal Engineer of Krikitt Downs was the first to say yes. Kevin took a little convincing. Guy seems to love the flexible schedule, even if the work is a little bor-ring (there is a reason why the items are still on my to-do list and not my to-done list).

And though Kris thought I was crazy, until all the house tasks started getting done, Mike never thought I was crazy. Instead, he was crazy jealous, and immediately asked if he could have some of Kyle and Kevin's time.

I think they liked him less than they like me. At least my work doesn't involve hard manual labor. Oh, wait, except those cement blocks. Sorry, Kevin, but it was an excuse to get you to take off your shirt, and what do you know? It worked!

So, Guy is following in the Smiths' footsteps. Adam recommended him to me, so I feel good about this working out this summer.

Guy, if you find this post, know that I'm really happy you're here. I'm sure I'll tell you that to your face, too.

I wasn't sure I was going to go to practice today. I was worrying about my knees from yesterday, as they were both hurting so badly in the last round that I could barely walk on the field. I wasn't sure if less than 24 hours would be enough for them to recover, or if practice would make them worse.

I went, though I showed up a ittle late (boo).

The first part of practice was very rough for me. I felt I was always a half step behind my woman on defense, and clueless on where to go on offense. I know that I haven't really played seriously for a long time, and that all of the training at velocity sports is supposed to help me, but my mental game is shot, and I wasn't having any fun.

About an hour into practice, after a particularly frustrating point, I walked to the sideline, allowing another player to sub in on my team. As I walked off, Doyle commented, "That was good defense on Steffi over there." I was surprised, as I was thinking I had done nothing but completely screw-up. His words were just enough to check my downward spiral.

The next set of drills concentrated on the horizontal stack. I lined up against a teammate who would be playing pretty much the same position as I do, so that I could listen to how the offense moves. The first time the ho-stack was run, I was a half step behind my player and she scored easily. Just after she scored, she called out, "Wow, I love ultimate!" She commented to her teammates about how easy the ho-stack was, which annoyed me.

Never one to miss a chance to learn, I adjust my defense and, on the next run, the offense attempted the same play. I stopped my opponent's out cut, forcing her back under to the disc, and marked very hard. She was unable to throw downfield, and eventually turned the disc over on a dump pass. Her teammates started talking to her about how she had to make that throw, she had to throw downfield in this offense.

No comment was made on how perhaps, just perhaps, my defense had been strong enough to stop that throw.

So, offense starts up again. I shut down her downfield cut. She received the disc back under and tried to throw downfield again. Once again, I marked hard, moving back and forth to prevent her throwing, trying to stay lightly on my toes. Her throw is downfield, but short and out of bounds.

Once again, her teammates (my teammates, too, but not at this practice) again start telling her what she needs to do. Once again, no comment is made about my defense.

Just as I thought it was going unnoticed, however, Paul walked by with a huge grin on his face and a little fist pumping. Okay, someone had noticed.

The next point, the woman I'm defending (same player) runs to the endzone. As the huck goes up, I key in on it, successfully position myself well, and knocked it away.

On the next point, the same flow happens, and the disc goes up long for my opponent. I run just as hard to that disc as I had previously, and successfully defended the next huck, receiving a clobber on my right arm which bruised spectacularly later.

At this point, practice doesn't seem so bad. Sure, I'm tired and sore, but I can still play this game. I need to work harder than some people, but, hey, that's the fun part.

I wonder if I can get Doyle to join Kris as the small voice in my head.

Great, just great. Some woman thinks it's okay to let her dog just poop in our yard and walk away. Oh, it's a small dog, its poop is small, she'll say. WTF, mate? It's still dog poop. It's still hazardous to children who might, oh, I don't know, play near it, or pick lemons off my tree near your dog's shit. It's gross, woman.

My dad doesn't pick up his dog's poop, either. "It's small," is his excuse.

Next time, I'm running out, even if I'm nearly naked, and handing the woman a doggie bag. If she doesn't take it and use it, I hereby declare she has given me permission to kick her dog.

It's small. It'll punt quite nicely.

Today was the first, possibly annual, Sunnyvale Savage Seven ultimate tournament. For years (tragically, yes, that plural is true and not just by one), I've thought that the fields at the local elementary school would be perfect for an ultimate tournament. Kris and I would walk by and see the little soccer players on the field and think, we want to play on this field, too!

So, after deciding that, yes, this was the year to host the tournament, I submitted the fields application, set up the website, announced the tournament, arranged the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties, then left the state. Sorta, but close enough.

Yesterday, after arriving home around 1 in the afternoon, I shifted from vacation mode to high gear, helped the delivery of the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties (mostly by dragging an unwilling Bella as I chased down , dashed off to Costco to purchase tournament food, assigned players to teams, and finished the tournament schedule, complete with an alternate schedule should an extra eight people show up to make another, eighth team.

Today, I shanghaied Kris into helping me set up the fields. He set up the three fields. The just-graduated-from-high-school or college freshman players all arrived exactly on time. Everyone else, of course, showed up late. I missed the first part of the first round, which started a half hour late. I managed to play all of the other rounds, however.

There were seven rounds, each team playing the other six teams, with one bye (since we had only three fields). We had eight players on our team, and only two women, so each round we picked up at least one woman. We won all of our games, including the surprising win over the mostly-Mischief team.

The sixth round, our second to last round, had us playing the other undefeated team. Kris really wanted to win that game, and gave it his all. We were up at half, but ended up losing. That round had the only high-strung players on it, with one player drawing fouls on Kris and annoying him. It was interesting to watch Kris try to rally the troops with his Mischief-inspiration talks about heart, intensity and focus. Didn't work, and we lost.

During the last round, Kris left to get the 55 burritos I had ordered for the tournament. Honestly, the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties were half the expense of the tournament, costing more than 55 burritos did. Kris, however, was smart, when he went to get burritos, as my knees were hurting so much during the last round.

I wasn't sure if the burritos would well received at the end of the day. I shouldn't have worried. Everyone loved them, with the first 51 going in less than 10 minutes as teams finished their rounds and came over for food. The remaining four disappeared shortly thereafter.

A large many number of players came up to me as I started cleaning up, letting me know they had a great time at the tournament. I had a great time, running the tournament I would want to attend. Honestly, the burritos and beer pushed the event into a loss. One of these days, I'll actually price an event so that I don't lose money. Considering this tournament was supposed to be a fundraiser for Mischief, I'm disappointed in the loss. I am, however, proud of how much fun the event was.

I blame the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties.

There were only two unfortunate parts of the whole day. The small one was that I forgot to take my camera. I have exactly zero pictures of the whole event. Boo. The larger one was an ankle sprain from one of the just-graduated players. I heard it wasn't a break, which is good. That she had a bad sprain, as I can well attest, sucks big time.

(Fortunately for me, other people did take pictures of the tournament. People like Tish Fagin took pictures.)