Monthly Archive for June, 2006

Injury Of The Week

Sketched
by
Dave
on June 27, 2006
in Bummer and Recentisms
. 6 Comments

Yesterday I entertained the idea of playing Soccer after church with some of my college mates. We gathered at 3:30pm, some equipped with soccer gear such as knee-high socks, cleets, the occasional FIFA uniform, while the rest of us wore basketball shoes, XL t-shirts, and ankle socks. Try to guess which of the two I wore. Yeah.

As it stands, this is my second attempt at playing futbol in 2 years. That averages about to 1 soccer game per year. That’s a pretty high percentage on some level I’m sure. It goes without saying that I’m not very good and I should be ashamed, considering my Colombian roots. I have no shame, however, and I’m confident enough in my abilities in any sport to make a valuable contribution. I stuck with what I knew best: defense. A dude who is 20 pounds overweight is good for one thing, if anything, and that is unadulterated brute strength. I crashed into fools like there was no tomorrow. Ah yes, Pain, we meet again.

My first mistake was neglecting to stretch sufficiently. I did a few toe-taps and about 1 and a half leg raises before playing. And I think I squated once to tie my shoes. That was my warm-up/stretch. Then the game was on. I had forgotten how much running was involved in soccer. It’s not like in the video games where the only fatigue you get is from pressing on the directional pad for too long. There’s actual breathing involved in the sport. Heavy, heavy breathing.

When playing against an opponent with a leg-brace, beware collision. I have a nice gash-bruise on my left leg after crashing into my friend Chris for a steal. Afterwards, it seemed as if the Axe body spray was taking effect because dudes just kept crashing into me head-on. And yet I stood relentlessly, bringing on more pain then they could handle. The child inside of me whimpered with each blow to the chest but I yelled at him and told him to stop the Jibba Jabba. He submitted willingly.

After 3 games I walked off the field victoriously, limping, sweating, and laughing. Mostly limping. I think I pulled a groin muscle with all that movement. The limping has carried over into it’s 32nd hour now and I can only hope that my lower body heals some more tomorrow. There’s nothing more painful than having to explain to your co-workers that your groin hurts. I’m convinced that the word groin is never accompanied by good news.

And so I’m off to bed now. Maybe I’ll tune in to Nick At Nite and catch a rerun of Mike Seever’s adventures in Groin Pains.

I’m Not Gonna Lie

Sketched
by
Dave
on June 23, 2006
in Inspired, Mindless Observation and Recentisms
. 1 Comment

Sade

Sade is stinkin’ hot. Her voice. Her skin. That and she said she wants to cook me a soup that warms my soul.

I like that in a woman.

Continue reading ‘I’m Not Gonna Lie’

Sunburns and Sideburns

Sketched
by
Dave
on June 19, 2006
in Mindless Observation and Recentisms
. 0 Comments

It’s been a good ten days since I’ve written. Sorry about that. Life catches up I suppose. I am currently in a bit of new pain thanks to my laziness in an effort to put on sun screen while at the beach. Basically I just didn’t feel like putting it on and then I fell asleep on the sand for about a good half hour. I smuggly stood up, thinking nothing had happened. Two hours later I could see people staring at the unhealthy red glow on my shoulders and face. I’m an idiot. A big red idiot.

I’ve had too many of these life lessons recently. The school of hard knocks. Traffic tickets, my car getting towed, leaving my keys in the ignition after parking my car, picking fights with giant burly men. I wish I learned things the easy way.

My next endeavor will be to find a barber. The last time I got my hair cut was in Brazil and that was about a month and a half ago. I look like some kind of hybrid between Ringo and an Emo kid. My hair was not made to be too long. These days I’ll be wearing my baseball/trucker hat. Hopefully I won’t have to learn some life lesson like “it’s not cool to headbang while the barber is clipping your sideburns”. Or “don’t make fun of your barber’s momma until after he shaves you”.

You know, the basics.

Breakfast

Sketched
by
Dave
on June 9, 2006
in Mindless Observation and Recentisms
. 1 Comment

I absolutely love a good breakfast. If I miss out on a good meal in the morning it shows for the rest of the day. Instead of seeing me smiling and joking, you’d probably find me frowning and drop-kicking. The great thing about Miami is that there are so many little breakfast joints on practically every block. The hispanics have really tapped into a market and made it better. Down here you can get a huge meal of eggs, bacon, french fries, toast and coffee for about $2.50. It’s brilliant.

There are plenty of things that I don’t like about hispanic culture here in Miami, but food ain’t one of them. Those Cubans can talk up a storm, but put them in front of a stove and you’ve got yourself the most delicious conversation you’ve ever endured. God bless ‘em.

Today is a good day. My belly is full, it’s Friday, and I still don’t have any classes. This weekend I’ll most likely go paintballing and skating and balling on the courts. If I could somehow combine all three of those activities into one, I’d probably be the richest man on this blog. But alas, I’m too lazy to start figuring it out.

Have a good day, everyone.

My Friend, Higor

Sketched
by
Dave
on June 5, 2006
in Inspired and Recentisms
. 5 Comments

About two years ago someone asked me how many friends I had. My eyes gazed up and I silently attempted to remember all the conversations I had and all the people I could consider my friends. Dumbfounded, I threw out a number that seemed absurd and yet true at the moment. I said, “...About eight hundred people, maybe even a thousand”. I added up all the people I knew from all the schools I attended, the friends I met in church, the acquaintances I had made in the different seasons and the number felt right to me. I wondered if it would be possible to fill up my sketchbook with two pages dedicated for each person that I knew. Maybe I could put a photo on the left side and a brief description on why they were my friend on the right. I have yet to create this sketchbook of friends, but I am still fond of the idea. And so I begin what I hope is a series of short biographies for the friends in my life. I begin with Higor.


Higor

I met Higor in April of 2003, the year I would graduate from high school. We didn’t speak much to each other initially, as I was surrounded by a bunch of new faces at a spring retreat I was visiting for the first time. I had been invited by a friend to check it out, and it would be my first exposure to a group of Christians who weren’t corny, dorky, or just plain discomforting. Higor and I shared the same bunk along with about 25 other high school students.

It seemed that each day of the retreat he wore the same orange University of Miami baseball cap. Perhaps he was a huge fan, I thought. I soon discovered that he was attending the retreat with his two siblings Sarah, whom I had met early in the trip, and Heredes, who led each service and activity with a guitar in his hand. Higor was a musician, too. He played the drums and I found out he was very good at it. Apparently he was studying at New World School of the Arts, a high-profile magnet school in Downtown Miami, near my own school.
Higor would soon become a very close friend to me. After that retreat, I was eager to continue my friendship with him and all the other people I had met that week, so we figured out a plan. I would attend their Thursday night youth group if he let me stay over his house so I could catch a ride to school the next morning. Higor and I were both products of the Miami Dade Public Transportation system, so we would catch the metro rail early on Friday mornings and he showed me how to get to the church via metrorail and public busses. We continued the cycle of youth group, sleepover and metrorail for the next few months until I finally graduated and owned my own car. We would no longer need to ride the metro. Instead, since I was accepted into New World College, which shared the same campus as the high school, I would drive us to school on Friday mornings from then on. It was in this span of two years that he and I became as close as brothers, talking about everything from faith to girls to music to philosophy and literature. But mostly about girls.

Higor is a talented musician with a heart for people and a passion for the Lord. He has a great sense of humor and a youthful energetic spirit. Observe him at a youth gathering and you’ll know what I’m talking about. He taught me to play the drums and showed me that you can eat late at night, every night, and still remain thin. He somehow defies science.

I was glad to see him and his family when I went to Brazil in April. I hope to see them soon again, maybe even by the end of the year. It feels like I have a brother in another continent.

How About A Heating Pad?

Sketched
by
Dave
on June 3, 2006
in Bummer and Recentisms
. 1 Comment

Today was day two of my return to my gym and I am in pain yet again. This time it’s my lower back. I went a few rounds in boxing again and that was fine. We then went over some jiu-jitsu techniques and that was cool too. But we finished off the class by 2 minute rounds with other classmates. I was placed against a new guy named… actually I don’t quite remember his name. But he seemed set on trying to pin me and tap me out. It didn’t happen. We started off standing and I was holding on to his neck most of the time while he attempted to get under-hooks on me. That didn’t happen either. Eventually we fell over and I ended up mounting the dude and doing a poor-man’s choke on him. He tapped out and I didn’t notice, but since everyone was watching they yelled “Tap!” and I let go immediately. He was fine. Victory was sweet for a second until I felt a sharp pain on my lower back.

Books told me to stretch it out so I did that a few minutes. The pain was still there. I couldn’t get rid of it. So here I am now, hours after my little skirmish and I still feel a soreness on the right side of my back. I hope I have enough energy to play basketball tomorrow. Perhaps another fun injury awaits me there.