Life and Volleyball, or something like that...

Christmas Ferie, Nyt Year, og Beyond

2011-01-17T12:52:00.005+01:00

Hi again! Lets take a little time and get everyone caught up with whats going on over here.

We have still been riding the winning train and remain undefeated. Here are the standings from league play about half way through the second round:

Elitedivision Herrer
detaljeret stilling...

		K	V	U	T	Sæt	P
1	Marienlyst	13	13	0	0	39-4	26
2	Middelfart VK	15	13	0	2	41-10	26
3	Gentofte Volley	14	10	0	4	32-16	20
4	Aalborg HIK	13	6	0	7	21-26	12
5	Hvidovre VK	13	4	0	9	19-30	8
6	Skovbakken Volley	13	4	0	9	19-31	8
7	Holte IF	12	3	0	9	11-29	6
8	Lyngby Volley	13	0	0	13	3-39	0

We have a HUGE game this upcoming Sunday, and no Molly didn't step on the caps lock. This is a big game. It is the Danish Cup final vs Middelfart, where we expect to have +2,000 spectators. As you may remember we choked last year after a 2-0 sets lead, and this year we look to make things right. The game will be streamed live on the internet for free. The game is scheduled for a 4pm start in Denmark that means 9am start time for everyone back in Chicago. Do the math if you are somewhere else! So this gives you a nice warm up for the Bears game! You can watch your two favorite teams win championships, what more can you ask for on a cold Sunday in January? As soon as I find the link on the website I will post it so make sure to check my Facebook page again later in the week.

Christmas break was a blast. Joey, Schøler, and I rented a car and drove up to Norway to visit Joakim, a teammate from last years team, and do a little skiing and relaxing. We had a nice ride but the road conditions were not so kind. The car had summer tires on and it made the trip quite slow. Not until later did we find out that it's not even legal to drive in Norway without winter tires. Something we weren't prepared for, and the thought really never even crossed our minds. But we managed to make it all the way into Norway after driving for some 7 hours. We found Joakim's street and we just had 300m to go but the hill was to much for the car/tires. We could not get up the hill. We had gone so far and got so close but all the snow on the hill made it impossible to for us to climb. After 10 tries/failures we drove the car to Joakim's brothers house and left the car there because if we couldn't get up the hill to Joakim's parents house there would be absolutely no way we could make it to the cabin where we would be staying.

Joakim's parents were nice enough to let us borrow their car for the few days we were there and we arrived at the cabin about an hour later. The cabin was located in the middle of nowhere really surrounded by trees and about 150m from a lake. Talk about getting some peace and quiet. Joakim described the cabin as being very modest. It was true. There was no heat, hot water, or inside toilet. There was a wood burning stove and a fireplace that we had to keep going at all times in order to stay warm. The temperatures were dipping into the minus 25-30 degrees Celsius range which is pretty damn cold. The modesty of the cabin was a nice change of pace though, we had no distractions of computers, tvs, or cell phones. We just had a fire some food to cook in the fire and of course some ice cold øl to enjoy. The first night we were pretty tired from the drive so we ate/drank/talked a bit and called it an early night.

The next day we took a walk to the lake Minus 25 degrees the night before and I'm sure the 30 days before it were just as cold so the lake was frozen solid. Joakim brought 3 ice fishing poles and a giant ice drill, or as the late Billy Mays might call it "The Awesome Frozen Auger!" It was hard work spinning that bad boy through 6 inches of solid ice. Once we got three separate holes drilled we took out these tiny Fisher Price looking fishing poles and dropped the lure down into the dark abyss below. We asked Joakim what were the chances that we would catch something. He said slim to none. He had been out there for years and never caught anything! Oh and we were fishing without bait so the odds were definitely not in our favor. After 20 minutes we started to get cold so we packed up the fishing poles and decided to just take a walk on the lake and take in the scenery. It was a clear day and by then the sun was just setting (3:30pm) and it was a very cool scene.

Patiently Waiting for a Bite

Baby Fishing Poles

Frozen Lake

Suns Dips Behind the Trees at 3pm

It was starting to get dark and we wanted to get Joakim's neighbors sauna going so we headed back in off the ice. The sauna was another wood burning stove so it needed to be prepped and filled with plenty of wood. I was in charge of getting the fire raging inside and the other three were in charge of cutting a big enough hole in the ice to jump into in between sauna sessions. Both tasks took about 45 minutes. Once the temperature was reached in the sauna-shed the madness began. We had a big tub of ice water filled with beers so we could make sure we were hydrated properly! The heat was intense inside once water was applied to the rocks it was incredible. We lasted as long as possible then made a break for the lake. The water was of course very cold but we were so warm that wasn't such a huge problem. The biggest problem was running barefoot 30m through the snow. We could stay outside for upwards of 15 minutes as long as our feet were off the ground and mind you it was at least -15 C outside. We repeated this for about 2 hours, well actually time wasn't a factor we ran out of beer, so the beer lasted for two hours is more accurate.

After we made some dinner. We had some pitas that we grilled on the fire that were filled with cheese, bacon, and/or ham. They were pretty good after we got the hang of how to cook them and not burn the bread. We also had some smores. No graham crackers but we had a close enough substitute.

The next day was our ski day. We drove up to Kongsberg. Same place that I went with Joakim last year so I was familiar with it. The other three guys snowboarded and I used skis. It took Joe and Schøler a while to get the hang of the boards so me and Joak made a few extra runs in the beginning but after a few more they were keeping up with us and we all were able to stay together for the rest of the day. It was sooooo cold. The first time I went down my exposed face almost peeled off. Only one time down we had to go back to the ski shop and get some ski-masks. My eye lashes were freezing shut when I closed my eyes it was that cold. All in all it was an awesome day, we had a blast.

Drive in to Kongsberg

There were Icicles hanging from my eyelashes!

A big thanks to the Larsen's for letting us bunk up at the cabin and again for using the car. Without it we never would have been able to do anything. Tak!

Christmas was also a great time. Sad to not be home for the holidays, but I was in good hands over here for the holidays. Christa's parents had a Christmas dinner on the 24th. Where we had a great dinner, danced around the tree singing Christmas carols, and opened presents. The following day there was another party at Christa's parents friends house Per and Helle. Joey took the train to Middelfart and came along with us for this one. We had many types of food. Many beers and of course Snaps shots. Snaps Akvavit is the traditional liquor that Danes drink at Christmas time. It is a strong booze not the smoothest shot in the world with a hint of a piney finish. I would never buy it and drink it for pleasure but, but what can you do it's tradition. The 25th is a big night for people to go out to the city after dinner so we headed into the city like everyone else. Normal night nothing out of the ordinary other than at the end of the night it was impossible to get a taxi. The next day there was yet another party. Yes that is right three in a row. This one was a Christmas lunch in Abenraa at Christa's fathers sisters house. Which is south Jutland. The lunch is a lot of bread and fish followed by cheese and bread. There is a lot of food, Christmas beers, and of course Snaps again. It was a great three days lots of celebrating.

New years eve celebration came next. Schøler hosted a NYE party. There was about 15 people there for the duration of the night. At midnight just like every year the streets erupted with fireworks. I thought ze Germans were coming! It was an impressive sight. The sky wasn't as clear as last year but you could still see legit fireworks in a complete 360 turn all around us. It was a fun New Years.

Thanks for checking in. If anyone wants to contact me you can call/text me at (708) XXX-XXXX. I don't have voice mail so maybe it would be best to text and I can get back to you. Hope to hear from some of you guys back home. And remember to check back in a few days I will post the Pokal Final live web feed address which again will be this Sunday at 9am CST! All for now.

Lets Catch Up

2010-11-27T15:15:00.003+01:00

It's been a little while. Sorry about that. But lets get you back up to speed on what's happening over in the DK.

Since last post we have not lost, so that is good news. This includes regular season Danish Volley League games, Pokal Cup, and Nordic Cup 1st phase. We went through the entire first round of head to head match ups pretty easily. No games went to five, and only 4 sets were dropped in 7 matches. As for Pokal cup it has also been very easy. We are in the Semi-finals vs Aalborg with not much resistance so far. I think 3 wins at 3-0 with large point differentials. The Nordic Cup was a bit closer however. Our draw was Aalborg from DK and Førde from Norway. The first night I wouldn't say we played great but we won as expected. I haven't lost to Aalborg ever, in about 12 matches, so yes it was an expected win. The next night against the Norwegians we really didn't know what to expect. I didn't think they were going to be very good at all, but that quickly changed after the first set. They played very well. Made very few mistakes and served tough. We weren't really in the set at any point. Second set went pretty much the same. They didn't quite play as well as the first set but we were still stuck in first gear. We were down something like 20-24 in the second set, and somehow we managed to tie it at 24. Simon Bitsch came off the bench and gave us a spark we even had a set point in there but we ended up dropping the set. I played very poorly the ball just wasn't agreeing with my hand at all, and I was already probably over a career high in errors after two sets. But the great thing about volleyball is that each set is basically a new life and whatever happened before is erased. I finally found my hand again in the third set. I found it from the service stripe and ripped 4 aces in a row to get my game back on track. Everyone found their serve in game three and we won something like 25-12, we just came to life out of nowhere. Game three was a little more back and forth but we closed it out and headed into a fifth set. The fifth set was again back and forth. I think we switched sides behind 8-7 and were down 12-10, before we turned it on again at the end and won the set 15-12. It was our first big test and we passed. It was also a pre-season goal to make it to the Nordic Cup finals in January. And with a sweep of our pool we were guaranteed a spot in the final 4 round robin championship to be held in Middelfart, DK.

To go undefeated in the first round of the DK league was big because we beat our toughest competition in Middelfart in their gym 1-3. They took the first set easily 17-25, and it looked like it was going to be a long night or a short one rather since the first set was not much of a fight. Second set it looked like the two teams switched jerseys. We came back and won just as easily. Game three and four however we didn't switch the winning jerseys back. The next two sets also were not as close as expected and we escaped from Middelfart with a nice first strike win on the road in front of a decent sized crowd. Other than those two games not much has happened on the volleyball front worth mentioning. Like I said there were only 2 other games where we even dropped a set so lets just skip all of that nonsense.

Since the last post Denmark has decided to turn off the sun for most of the day. And also turned the AC on full blast or placed us inside the freezer would probably be more accurate. Sitting in a freezer with a strong fan blowing in your face is probably even more accurate. Nah, it's not that bad but it is coming. The last two days it snowed and it didn't appear to let up for 48 hours. In Odense there is already traffic problems and if you throw a handful of snow out on the street the city resembles Los Angeles in rush hour. I think the snow removal services wait to see if the snow will melt on its own, and after it accumulates to about 6+ inches they come out and look at how pretty it is, and once it goes over a foot they finally send out the trucks. I went 3 miles by car to drop off Christa at school. It was a one hour round trip! Unreal. But on the way back I drove behind a city salt and plow truck which would have been great if for the half hour ride they actually had the plow down or the salt shooter on. Maybe it was just some farmer who was taking his tractor for a nice snow drive through the city?

Last night we worked the Christmas party at Marienlyst. We were crowd control to make sure the party could go on into the wee hours. It went pretty smoothly. Much more so than last year. It seemed to be a slightly different crowd this year a bit older and slightly more reserved. Still there are a few knuckleheads in the crowd. We had to get rid of one guy and he just wouldn't leave. He would go for a walk then 20 minutes later would be back at the front door trying to come back in. He did this three times before we had to be a bit more forceful. Nothing crazy but he needed to be carried and pushed a bit before he stood 100 feet away still running his mouth. The kid, and yea he looked like a kid, was out of control it was more funny than anything else it wasn't a terribly serious situation, but one that needed to be dealt with because he was on autopilot and being a goof.

The apartment is finally finished. We got a new couch from IKEA, got a new tv, and finally got all the shelves, blinds, and pictures up on the walls. The place is looking good and we can rest easy now to know that it is done! Molly is doing well she has a few more puppy teeth to lose, but she has been a really great dog so far. Hasn't ruined anything to valuable, still nibbling on just about everything, but nothing out of the ordinary. She is getting big!

We have the last few days off which was a much needed rest for me. My shoulder has not really been "normal" all season and in the last couple weeks has taken a turn backwards. I say normal because there are days where my arm is there velocity wise but I don't have the hand eye like I normally have or the range I used to. It is getting really frustrating to be limited but hopefully it is an overuse issue and nothing more. 4 days off is hopefully what the doctor ordered.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be grateful for, and I can start with my family. I know that I have been gone a lot of the time in the past 4-5 years and it is nice to have that support from home while I am gone. I hope that they can come out and see some big games this year, would be great to host them again! Friends back at home it is nice to keep in touch. Missed a big one with one of my best buds getting married a few weeks ago. Congrats to Jim and Tine wish I could have been there!

All for now. Talk soon.

Home Opener

2010-09-29T16:15:00.002+02:00

Hello everybody. Thanks for checking in. Last week was our home opener. We played Lyngby that moved up from the first division last year. To say they were bad is an understatement. I can't imagine playing them two more times, once was too many. At least we only have to go there once. We won 25-14, 25-14, 25-16. Since that match not much has been happening on the volleyball front. We played on a Thursday so we had the weekend off.

This week practice resumed as usual. Our practice schedule has been a little brutal this year though. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are all 8-10 pm. I'm not home until 10:30 most nights. If I didn't make an early dinner before practice I am not eating until 11 or later which isn't good. We also lost sauna Tuesdays. Last year practice on Tuesday was at 4 so after we would have a nice long recuperating sauna/cold pool. The only good thing about practicing so late is that I can get a nice hard lift in at CCS and still be ready to go later. I have been hitting the pool hard to on any day off that we have had. I have been to the pool 5 times so far. Been doing pretty well. Today I did a quick 50 lengths in a 25m pool in just a little over a half hour.

My shoulder felt pretty good at practice yesterday, almost no tightness or pain in the initial hitting warm ups. I hope by next week I'll be back to 100% so I don't have to be tentative every time I hit a ball not in perfect stride. Wondering if this all out swing on an out of system set is going to hurt or not. Hopefully my next post will be the last time I have to mention it, and it will only be mentioned to say it's over.

This weekend we travel to Copenhagen to play Hvidovre, a team that was in the bottom of the elite division last year in Denmark. Should be better than Lyngby but not by much. Wish we could just play double headers with some of these weaker teams in Copenhagen so we wouldn't have to drive 4 hours round trip to play less than 60 minutes.

Molly has been doing really well. She is now 10.5 weeks old. Getting big! Well bigger. We live half a mile from a walking path through the woods down near the Odense harbor. Molly really likes to get down there and get all the different smells and do a bit of hunting. She walks pretty well most of the time. We also live about 2 blocks from a huge soccer field that is actually two soccer fields adjacent to each other so she can be unleashed and run free a bit. She can't run very fast but she has a pretty legit first step burst. She also has started to recognize her name so she listens more and stops doing bad things when she hears "Nej!"

All for now. Talk soon.

Pre-Season Comes to an End

2010-09-20T21:37:00.002+02:00

Last Wednesday pre-season came to an end, kind of, when we had our first LandsPokal match of the season. The LandsPokal is the Danish Cup. A single elimination tournament consisting of any team that choses to enter from the first division and elite division. This side tournament is actually a pretty big deal in Denmark. The finals is played in Odense at the end of January in front of 2,000+ spectators by far the most at any one match all season. Our first opponent was Lyseng from Århus. They were from the 1st division so we were not expecting a tough match. It was really just a nice warm-up match to work out some "real game" kinks, play a few different line-ups, and most importantly put on the new jerseys. We won 3-0 pretty handily and yes we looked good doing it!

The next day we scrimmaged a team from the second league in Germany. A team from Kiel which isn't too far from Hamburg. We agreed to play 4 sets no matter what. We played a different lineup every game while they kept their same team on the court for all 4 games. We split the games 2-2. They were ok, they would probably finish 4th in Denmark's elite division if I had to take a guess.

We had Friday off so I headed to Middelfart a day before the weekend tournament there and stayed with Christa's family. We brought little Molly (9 week old brown Dachshund) along and she had a blast playing with Christa's family dog Ceta ( 2.5 year old Springer Spaniel). Christa's little sister Line especially loved taking care of Molly as much as possible and just wanted to hold her every second. Christa and I stayed the whole weekend and Christa's parents were great as usual. We had great meals, great wine, and had a lot of laughs. It was a nice weekend.

Since Wednesday's Pokal game was the first official game that counted in the win/loss column, pre-season should have technically ended, but anyway this weekend we had the Middelfart International Pre-Season Tournament. I think the international part should have been dropped because there was only 5 teams all from DENMARK! Which was a bummer because we play all of these teams 3 times in the regular season, maybe once in the Pokal, and maybe a few more times in the Nordic Cup. It's always nice to play some unfamiliar teams if only for bragging rights in the end. For the first two matches of the tournament a lot of different lineups were used again. Different personnel on the court for every game. Good to see everyone get out there but not the best for game chemistry. Lots of cold bodies coming in, or lots of once warm bodies but now cold coming back in for the third set, fourth set, or even fifth set. I'm not saying we shouldn't have done it this way. What I'm trying to say is that it's really hard to make substitutions in volleyball. It's not like basketball where people need occasional rest to stay at the top of their game. Volleyball players typically play a whole set/match, then players are switched if necessary. But that 1 set takes every bit of 30 minutes. I might have been able to sit 30 minutes and come into a game in high school or college but I just can't do it anymore. My knees and back would be so cold they would shatter after one jump. It's a tough job coming off the bench in volleyball and I respect that a lot if someone can do it and do it well. Ok, so anyway, we won both of our Saturday matches and everyone got a good amount of time out on the court, so that was good.

Day two, we had an early start. A 9am game to be exact. The day before it was decided that we would play all of the young guys in the early match to see if that would make them more comfortable as a unit. They came out pretty flat lost the first two sets. We changed some guys around and ended up taking the match in 5. Middelfart was 3-0 and we were 3-0 so the last game of the round robin was for the title. Middelfart has a lot of new faces this year. We alternated sets. They won the first in a very close back and forth set. We won the second pretty easily after they made a lineup error swapping the opposite and outside spots by mistake. Set three back to them in another very close game. Set 4 we won comfortably. Going into the fifth set I thought there was no way we were going to lose. 8-4 switch was looking good. 10-6 sideout ok nice. 12-9 well on our way. But then we never scored again. They ran 6 straight on us and just like that we lost the match. It was pretty disappointing to lose in such a fashion after playing hard for an hour and a half. But hopefully all this loss does is give us some more motivation when we face off again.

My shoulder held up pretty good in the match against Middelfart which was good. I had a good amount of power with little or no pain until the 5th set. Some 60+ swings later, so I hope the worst is behind me with this darn thing. I have been back to swimming at the pool, twice since Friday, and I really think that has helped a lot in turning my shoulder around. Well if not completely around at least in the right direction. I was telling Joe today at the gym that today was the first time in a month that it felt like my shoulder was actually part of my body again and not me vs. my shoulder. Practice tomorrow will hopefully confirm that I am on the right track.

I have found a website online that streams the Bears games every week for free so I have been able to keep up to date with this wacky team. Week 1 looked like the Bears might win maybe 4 games all year. Week 2 made the Bears look like a 10 win team or just really highlighted the fact that the Cowboys aren't as good as everyone thought. I just hope the Bears can continue to win in the only way they now how, UGLY!

All for now. Thanks for checking in. Next week I'll upload some pictures of the new apartment as well as little Molly!

And we're back...

2010-09-09T12:26:00.002+02:00

Hello all, it's been quite some time since I last wrote. "Quite some time" is an understatement, but in my defense, every year I think I have been writing more and more consistently. And yes I know, I have never finished an entire season on the blog. So lets set that as a goal this year. To update every Sunday for the entire season. (Yes this post counts as a May 12th post!) Can it be done? Sure. But it's not going to be easy.

I had a great summer at home. Highlights were playing beach ball, hanging with the crew, spending quality time with the fam, Phoenix, Michigan, Lollapalooza, and the Danes visit. They aren't listed in any order but all stood out in a fantastic summer!

I have been in Denmark now for just a day over two weeks. I'm all settled in to the new apartment. It is starting to feel more and more like home everyday. Solid upgrades on the living arrangements are 1) Dishwasher 2)Washing Machine/Dryer 3) Normal sized Fridge/Freezer. Check, check, and check! The location is nice too. A stones throw from the train station, and centrally located between Marienlyst Center, Idraetspark, and CCS. The three places that I spend most of my time over here. The weather has been reasonable too. No heat, but it has been relatively dry which is nice for the daily commutes. (It's raining now wrote this first part this morning!)

My shoulder has been a problem basically since I got here. I'm not sure if I tweaked it lifting luggage on the train into the overhead or I slept on it funny. All I know is the day after I arrived when I woke up I couldn't lift my arm. I tried to practice a bit that night and it never loosened up at all. I tried to swing once and I think I tweaked it even more. Lots of ice and ibuprofen since then. Also lots of light shoulder work at the gym. It has been making progress. I have regained most of my range of movement but I still can't go all out on a swing without pain. So it's a waiting game right now. I have treatment scheduled tonight before practice so hopefully we can figure this thing out. Not being able to play is very frustrating. I need to get going because I haven't really played indoor ball since nationals which was the end of May. I know it's a long season and I shouldn't rush it but I have never really been injured in my entire career so sitting out is not something I'm used to at all and I really don't like at all. I've got my fingers crossed that I will be 100% for the Middelfart pre-season tournament next weekend.

Some new additions to life in DK in the last two weeks have been pretty big as well. As most of you have heard by now Christa finally got her baby dog. We are picking up little Molly this Sunday. She is an 8 week old brown dwarf Dachshund. And as many of you have also heard I got my little baby too, a red Puch Maxi K scooter that I have already got a ton of enjoyment out of. And no Mikkel it's not lazy riding a scooter, but yea ok maybe gay.

We have finally just got everyone to practice so we can see how we are going to look this year. We have a lot of new faces. We lost 7 players from last years team. We added 5 players. The average age has gone down dramatically. I was in the middle last year. This year I am the third oldest. Not sure if that's good or bad but it's just different seeing all these different faces in the locker room. No Bits stories and suana oils, Merty Gerdy hammer left leg, Soe's shoe collection, Travis' saying "nah mate" or "I reckon", Nelly's Ray Lewis hagabow D, Joaks flailing on the ground, or Bertle aka Dilf blasting balls off the ceiling with foot or fist. We will miss you guys. The 5 new guys signature moves TBD.

We had a team trip last weekend. Laid out all the team goals, expectations, roles, and grievances. First night we slept on a gymnastics pad that was harder than the Marienlyst gym floor, if thats possible, in sleeping bags. The next day, after maybe sleeping 2 hours because I couldn't get comfortable and Hjorth was snoring like a chain saw right next to me, we had breakfast and our first team drill was flag football. I ran QB for our squad. Spread the ball pretty well I think everyone on our team scored a touchdown or a PAT. We won 35-13, gave a pretty good beating to the other side. After that we biked to the military obstacle course just like we did the year before. Man that is tough work. Lunch was sandwiches and a beer and then we walked and talked with a partner all the way back to the city center to Munke Mose which was a good hour away. Once we all arrived we had another team building exercise where we had to use some strings and a bike inner tube to move a bucket filled with water to another bucket 50 ft away all while not coming closer than 5ft to the first bucket at any time. And once you have moved it to the other bucket you still need to dump all the water from bucket 1 to bucket two while not spilling any We failed the first time. Second time through we nailed it. After that we biked all the way out to Kaj's house which is not close either probably 30 minutes by bike. Once we got to Kaj's we had to set up a 9 meter x 3 meter tent so we could all "maybe" sleep under it. The "maybe" is because there was this weird secrecy to everything that we were doing. Not at any time did we really know what was going on or what was next. So every question we asked it was either "yea maybe" or "I don't know we will have to see". Once the tent was up everyone had to take a shower. No problem Kaj had a nice outdoor shower with only cold water. Wait what? Yea it was maybe 50 degrees outside and he had a only a cold water pipe on the shower. I said no way I'm not doing that, that is crazy. But according to Kaj no food if you don't shower. So I sucked it up and had the coldest shower of my life by far. It actually felt kind of good but I wouldn't do it day and night like Kaj half kiddingly said he does. After that we sat around a table and went over what our hour long walk talks were about but this time in front of the whole team for people to comment on. And finally at this time we had some ice cold beverages at hand. They were well deserved. We went through that and got ready for dinner. Just about everyone had a job to get the meal ready. Some in the kitchen, some on the grill, and some on table duty. It ran smoothly we ended up with a ton of meat. Chicken, steaks, and sausages. Cold ones going down and wine flowing we were having a good time. After dinner was done we had some more team stuff to do. This time it was called something like team or sport theater. We had to first play a game similar to telephone where you pass on a word down a line and see what you come up with, but this game was a bit different. You had three words to pass on, a weapon, a handicap, and a profession. With only acting using no words you had to get the next person down the line to guess the three words that the other team came up with. The first person in the line is the only one who knows the real words. Once you act each out and get a thumbs up you were done and out from the back room the next teammate would come out and the guy who thought he knew what you just showed him, did it all over again but with what he thought the words were. As you can imagine down the line things were lost and by the end it was hilarious. We had ninja star, dyslexia, and glass blower. I think at the end we had bare hands, illiterate, and fire eater. Bare hands was funny because it initially started out two words 1) ninja - so there was kicking and breaking of necks 2) outside pointing to a star. Then tying it all together. As it progressed to the end all that was left was a guy coming up and breaking someones neck going "ahhhh" it was really funny. We played a few more acting games that were hilarious and then got ready for bed around 2ish or so outside in the tent. Was really cold outside but the sleeping bags did a good job only the ground was so hard my back was and still is really tight. In the morning we had a nice pancake breakfast and went out for a walk to get a stretch in. We had one more team meeting and that concluded the team weekend. Lots of laughs and we got much closer as a team so it was overall a success.

Other than that we have just been practicing and lifting like usual. We did have a scrimmage last night in Arhus but it was pretty uneventful the competition if you can call it that was very poor. Good to see us in a 6 vs 6 against someone other than ourselves but the other team didn't help us much other than to put it bluntly waste our time. Sad but true. We have this weekend off and next week we will be very busy. We have a German second division team coming up to scrimmage us. And next weekend we have the Middelfart pre-season tournament. Like I was saying earlier I hope to be good to go by then otherwise I might go crazy. So it should be good to see how we match up even though it's just pre-season and doesn't really mean much other than bragging rights. We are looking good and I expect us to be just as good as last year or better. Things are looking good. All for now. Miss everyone at home. Talk soon.

Updates coming soon...

2010-04-14T13:54:00.001+02:00

silver & GOLD!!!

2010-02-01T21:24:00.007+01:00

Well, it's been a while since I last checked in, and for that I apologize. But other than the two championship weekends not much has really happened. We had three routine wins against teams from the bottom of the barrel of the elite division which really isn't worth reporting unless we played rock, paper, scissors for the match instead of actually playing volleyball. But the possibility of winning two championships in a span of two weeks? It doesn't get any better than that!

January 24th was the date of the Pokal Finale in Idraetspark in Odense. This building is practically our home away from home. We practice there twice a week so we were feeling really good about taking the top honors. I felt like we had a decent week of practice leading up to the final, not great, but not terrible. We didn't have any substantial injuries or anything either so again, our spirits were high. We even set up the Teraflex floor the night before as a team so we were able to get a feel for the transformation our familiar setting was undergoing. Game day came and we went early to watch the women's championship match. The women's team from Odense won 3-0. The gym was crowded with at least 2,000 in attendance. It is a really special game. So the time came where it was our turn to go out and get one of our early season goals. Set 1 went as smooth as possible we took control early and held for a 25-22 first set win. The second set went even smoother. They made tons of errors and we got out to a really big lead. I think we were up by more than ten after 15 points. I think the game was going so much easier than we thought we took our foot off the accelerator and started to relax. Gentofte looked like they were just going to give us the medal Set two we won 25-12, we were up for so long we definitely lost that killer instinct and settled into thinking that Gentofte was going to lose and we didn't have to earn it. Game three we wen't down early and expected Gentofte to make a ton of mistakes like the first two sets but that never happened. We never recovered from the early deficit and dropped game 3. Game 4 you could almost feel the momentum switch and we got really tight. We started playing safe not trying to make errors and that is not a way to play. It only compounds the problem. Again we got down early made a late rally but couldn't close the gap and again we failed to even get to 20 points. And on to a 5th set. In a shortened game anything can happen so it is really important to get out to an early lead. That is just what we did. We rushed out to a 7-5 lead one point away from the side switch. We failed on three straight side out attmpts to get to eight and they got the switch first. Gentofte played a pretty good fifth set but I have to think that we lost instead of them beating us. After 7-8 we had a free ball hit the ground, a miscommunicated float serve ace down the middle, and a middle trying to set a dig when the setter was right behind and getting a double. Can't do that after 8 in a championship 5th set. But even after all this we still were given another chance. At 14-13 Gentofte's Jonas Napier hit a ball off of our block and the refs failed to see it so they awarded us the point. Now we should have lost right there but what can you do? Either way now its 14-14. Nelly hit a jump float that they overpassed and I crushed to give us match point. What a crazy turn of events! I for sure at this moment though that we were going to win. Next point was theirs however to tie it back up at 15-15. Now I'm not entirely sure about the exact sequence of points for the rest of the way, but what I do recall is a down ref who decided to take it upon himself to be in the spot light. Setter in position 6, puts me in position 3 where I am stacked near the net where I have to be to the left of the middle blocker and in front of the setter. We are in black on the left as shown below.

As you can see, it is really close. But my feet are in front of the setters just before contact. This is the closest we could get it from the video. But regardless, it is so close that if you have to have a debate about who is right is a joke. You simply can't make this call in a 5th set beyond 15 points of a championship. You just can't. That is like calling a foul in basketball with .02 left on the clock on an inbounds play of a tied game. It doesn't happen? Why? Because it shouldn't happen and everyone knows that. Ok, well they missed the touch call so we should have already lost so I guess we are even now so it wasn't time to blow up completely the game wasn't over yet. We side out to tie it back up at 16. Looks like this is going to be an epic battle now for the championship. They side out right back to go up 17-16. Routine pass, great set, I hit the ball as hard as I can for the line it hits the block goes right over my shoulder and out of bounds. Game again tied at 17 all. I am on my way back to serve when I look over my shoulder and see that the down ref, same idiot again, says that the ball touched me on the way out. The ball was 6 inches away from me at least I did not touch the ball. I watched it go right over my shoulder and out. The one time in Denmark we have line judges and some down ref decides to over rule everyone. The up official signaled touch and awarded Gentofte the point and championship point! Sad to see the officials blow 3 calls in the end of a fifth set! This picture explains it all:

It was a tough way to go out. What a game it was. It had a little of just about everything. But who knows how great it really could have been if we were allowed to continue to play? I did somehow manage to get the pokalfighter award which is the game ball for the match. Thought about punting the golden volleyball into the stands, but that thought quickly faded. Here are a few more of the pictures that appeared in the paper:

The good times!

Hitting the outside ball

The good thing about playing another championship the following week was that we had a chance to redeem ourselves. We boarded the bus at 6am on the following week for a nice long 12 hour bus ride to Sollentuna which is a suburb of Stockholm. This championship weekend was a bit different though. It was between 4 teams and it was a round robin. So basically the team with the best record after playing the three matches would win. We came into Sollentuna really wanting to get that championship monkey off of our backs. The first match was against Sollentuna the hosting team. They had just unveiled their new home court a few weeks before so it was a nice championship venue. This gym actually had a higher percentage of doors locked than the Marienlyst Center! You needed a microchip to get into the locker room! We came out pretty flat lost game one playing terribly. However after we settled in we played much better and Sollentuna on the other hand played really poorly so we won the next three sets. Taking it 3-1.

The following day we met Falkenberg. They had lost the night before in 5 to Middelfart so they needed to win this match. We came out strong with a little extra intensity with Joakim on the court. He played for Falkenberg the year before and they kind of treated him unfairly so he was really ready to go and crush them. We came out pretty strong winning the first two sets relatively easily. Our middles started going off and that was the difference for us. We did have a slight lapse and dropped game three but we came back strong and took game 4 for a 3-1 win again. Middelfart won as well after us so it came down to a Danish final winner take all.

First set we came out really hard and played quite possibly our best ball all year. We could do no wrong. Wherever Middelfart hit the ball we were right there. It was a beating and we won 25-12. Second set we were cruising again but we had a passing break down in the middle of the set and never recovered. Dropped the second set. Third set we came back strong again and battled back and forth until we finally broke them and took the set. Set 4, again passing break down middle of the way through and Middelfart looked to be shaking some of their tiredness and were gaining confidence. They held on and took the 4th set. So again to the 5th and decisive set. Jordan started serving and boom first serve ace. Good start. I think we got another two more points and we started up 3-1. We had some troubles and lost the lead and we were down 7-5, the other side of the score from the last championship. But the same thing happened but this time in our favor we got the next 3 points for the switch put us up 8-7. From here we scored more points and took a good sized lead to match point 14-11. First match point I got the ball took a hard swing but it was dug and they ended up scrapping for the point. 14-12. Next play we went to the middle and it sailed out, 14-13. Uh oh, time out us. This is getting interesting! We were in one of our best attacking rotations to so they surely couldn't stop us three times in a row? I got the last set and crushed it down the line off the liberos knee and into the stands and everyone rushed the court! Here is the final point and some other pictures from the weekend:

Kill and court rush!

Hitting vs Sollentuna

Serving vs Middelfart

So much better to win GOLD!!

This is what it looks like to win Silver! See the difference...

New Years and Championship Month

2010-01-08T22:47:00.005+01:00

So what is everyone saying for the new year date? Are you going with Twenty-Ten or Two Thousand and Ten? I thought Twenty-Ten was lame at first, but it's been growing on me and it seems like the favorite now. Two-Thousand and Ten is a mouthful, saying the other is definitely easier. But what about next year? 20-11 vs 2011? I might have to switch for that one. Right now I'm not really digging the "y" in twenty and the "e" in eleven together. We will see.

The days leading up to NYE Christa and I went to Copenhagen to visit our friend Kristine. She is from Middelfart so she is good friends with Christa. She moved this year to Copenhagen for school so we promised we would have to come visit once she got an apartment and was all settled in. So this time was just as good as any to go check it out. We jumped on the train and embarked on our journey. I read on my Kindle and Christa still had her Ipod glued to her head for the duration of the 2 hour ride. Kristine met us in the train station in Copenhagen to ensure a smooth arrival. Her apartment was just a few bus stops from the train stop. Her place was nice. All decked out in IKEA, naturally. The first night we just had some drinks and dinner in her apartment and caught up a bit. The next day we set out for the town to just walk around a bit and see some of the city. Our first stop was to check out Christiania. It's basically a free zone in the center of Copenhagen. Consisting of abandoned military buildings and facilitiess taken over by and interesting crowd of people, free spirits if you will. The area is a tad bit shady but not dangerous during the afternoon when we were there. Wikipedia defines it as:

Christiania, also known as Freetown Christiania (Danish: Fristaden Christiania) is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of about 850 residents, covering 85 acres in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital Copenhagen. From an official point of view, Christiania is regarded as a large commune, but its relation to the authorities has a unique status in being regulated by a special law, the Christiania Law of 1989 which transfers parts of the supervision of the area from the municipality of Copenhagen to the state.

Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004. Since then, measures for normalising the legal status of the community have led to conflicts, and negotiations are ongoing.

It was really special because it was just in the center of Copenhagen, yet it didn't have the normal feeling of being in a city. It really was like you were in a different country or something. I thought that the sign when you were leaving through the arch was pretty funny. "You are now entering the EU."

After that we walked around some more, passing by the Royal Palace. The guards had the bayonets and bearskin hats doing the super stiff walk back and forth. Here there was a pretty impressive view of architecture, from the center looking at the palace and then directly down the street to your right is a massive cathedral. We popped our heads in for a quick peak and continued to walk on. We were getting hungry so we decided to get a late lunch early dinner. We went to a buffet off the shopping strip. It was a buffet without meat. When I heard that I was like umm ok well what am I supposed to eat! But it was fine, pizzas, pastas, rice, veggies,etc. Could have done with a little meat but what can you do, haha. After the dinner we thought it was time to check out Tivoli.

We walked over and got in line to get tickets. We lucked out here because some old guy and his wife were selling two tickets for the price of one including the unlimited rides ticket. This was perfect because Kristine and I were only planning on going on rides anyway. Christa will be mad at me for saying this but she is a baby about rides so she just got the entrance ticket. Anyway it worked out perfect saved a little money and got right in. It was a visually fantastic landscape inside the grounds, Christmas lights on just about everything. The theme of the place was kind of a fairy tale land meets and old carnival. They did have some rides but probably only two that would really get me going. The first ride we went on was called the Demon. It was just a simple rollercoaster. Really short ride and didn't really give you the whoa factor. Ehh not riding that again especially after waiting for 20 minutes. After that we started walking again to the next ride. They had a Giant Drop, which they called Gylden Tårn, or The Golden Tower. There was no line at all, so naturally I was super pumped. It might be my favorite ride ever. I rode it three times in a row, oh man I loved it. After that we went over to the new ride called Vertigo. It was basically a giant arm that rotates a car that resembles a plane, 360 degrees, like a giant arm on a clock. Top speed was 60 mph. We had to wait a good hour to ride this one because only one of the two arms was working. One car only held 4 people! The wait was definitely worth it though, the whoa factor was definitely present. And plus we had a good view of the nightly fireworks show from our vantage point in line waiting. No wonder why it cost so much to come in. Every night they blow the place up like its the 4th of July! After such a long wait we needed to warm up so we hit up a place to grab a drink and a snack. We had some æble skiver and some gløgg. Æble skiver is a Christmas time pastry of sorts. The best way to describe it is that it is like a pancake-crepe in a ball shape. It is served with strawberry jam and powdered sugar. The gløgg is the warm wine with I want to say vodka in it with nuts and raisins at the bottom. My drink was stiff enough to be carried by a Saint Bernard on a ski slope rescue mission. I wasn't cold after that, no sir...ok, well not quite it was a cold night. The next ride was the big boy spinning swings. This thing took you way up, I mean way up. It wasn't scary but what it was was really cold. Whipping through the air way up there at a pretty good speed. Ok one and done on that one too. Back to the Golden Tower! Again no line. I kid you not I rode it 5 times in a row bringing my tally to 8. It was incredible. Get off and then get right back on no waiting. Basically my theme park dream come true. There were 5 different sides to the ride so I rode them all to get a different view of Tivoli as well as Copenhagen. The view from the top was amazing. Then the free fall....awesome!

The next day we went down to the Copenhagen shopping area. Just the downtown street where stores just went on and on and on for blocks. We just walked around occasionally popping into a store to check it out. But it was pretty slim pickins seeing as it was after Christmas and everything was on sale. After we started getting cold and it was getting later we thought it would be a good idea if we headed for the train station to get home. It had been a really hectic break up to that point. I left the day after our team party for Norway. The day after I got back there were 3 straight Christmas parties. One day off, then we went to Copenhagen. It was really nice to finally get home and sleep in my bed.

The next day was NYE. We didn't really have anything planned. It started getting to a point where we were just going to make a nice dinner and maybe just go outside at 12 and see some fireworks. But nah, it was NYE we had to do something. So we invited Travis and Joakim over. It was good because they were in the same boat as us, nothing to do. But get us all together I'm sure we could get into some shenanigans. One of the soccer guys from Marienlyst named Søren offered to have us over at 12, they had some fireworks. We said ok, after all it was in the same building just around the corner. At midnight WW3 erupted in the streets. Professional grade fireworks being set off by normal people. And every party on our block as well as all the blocks around us that I could see were having their own private fireworks show. It was impressive. If you did a 360 you would see legit fireworks in every single direction. I had never seen anything like it. Didn't seem like the safest of scenarios but we made it out unscathed and impressed with how well the Danes celebrate a new years. After that, we went up to the party that Søren was having and had a few beverages. The night was capped with Singstar. All in all a great holiday season. The only way it could have been better would have obviously been to come home. I think if I do play again next year that will have to happen for sure. I do miss family on the big holidays.

Volleyball started back up on the 2nd of December on a Saturday. We have been practicing since then. The first couple of practices were rough. It's funny how much you can lose in such a short period of time. All the food and drinks obviously didn't help, but my god 15 days off and I felt like I never played before. Each practice was better than the last and we don't play until next Thursday so we have plenty of time to get back into form. After all this is an exciting month for us. On the 24th we face off against Gentofte again for the Pokal Cup Championship which is the Danish Cup Championship. And the following weekend we are going back to Stockholm for the 4 team round robin Nordic Cup Finals. The other three teams are Middelfart from Denmark, Falkenberg and Sollentuna from Sweden. Should be a fun weekend. We are driving again so winning it all is really our only option. Losing then having that monster drive would be miserable. But partying the whole way home would be fantastic. All for now miss everyone from home! I updated my Skype number so I have it for another 3 months. Feel free to call whenever would be good to hear from you all! Hej Hej and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas/Glædelig Jul and the Rest of Break

2009-12-27T19:14:00.006+01:00

Lots to report here so grab a cup of coffee or take a nap you might need a little extra boost to get through this post. Ok, wake up, lets go...

My birthday wish for a win over Middelfart in the Pokal semifinal came true. We won 3-0 at home to advance to the final versus Gentofte at the end of January. The game went smoothly we took control early in set one and built a solid lead. This is nothing new against Middelfart. The two previous matches we had big leads in set one but managed to miraculously lose that lead right back and eventually lose the set all together. This time, however, we just kept the pedal down and sprinted straight to 25. Set two was a bit closer, but we had the lead the whole way. Taking set one and getting another early lead made them back off on thier serves and that really helped us sideout at a high percentage. We won set two and three largely due to this. And you also can't forget that we don't lose in the black jerseys. That might have been the most important variable of all.

After the game we had our usual post game beers in the sauna to unwind and regenerate any bones sacrificed in the "bone yard." Our home court is the "bone yard" because the court is concrete with the thinest layer of rubber ever, if you can call paint rubber. So whenever you play in there the floor claims one random bone in your body. You won't know which one and you won't know when you will get it back. So yes, the sauna helps to speed up this recovery process. The first round of cold pool from the sauna was substituted with a run outside into the snow where we did snow angels on the soccer field. It was classic!

The next day was our team Christmas party. We got to the gym and played a few rounds of hagabow. No idea how to spell it but it's a combination of soccer and volleyball. Got a good run in while sipping on a few beverages to set up the feast that was to come. Grabbed a quick shower, cleaned up, and then sat down at the table for an epic feast and a lengthy snaps session. All the Danish dishes that I have come to know were present. There was at least 5 rounds of food. And there was no shortage of snaps. We went through 4 bottles and there was only 15 people there at the most. Not only was the snaps flowing at a ridiculous rate the julebyrgs were practically jumping out of the box. Whoa...Let's just say getting up at noon to go to Norway with Joakim was interesting.

Morning came quicker than I'd like. And Joakim, who I had just seen in my place 4 hours earlier, was at my door and ready to roll. We were pretty banged up to say the least. Joakim's dad came down for the match and stayed for the Christmas party so he could drive us back to thier home for the holidays. Joakim invited me to come a while back and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some skiing in and see another country that I had not been to. The weather was a little sketchy so it took somewhere around 8 hours to get from Odense to Joakim's home town of Sarpsborg, Norway. We unpacked and sat down in the kitchen for a nice dinner with Joakim's mom and dad. It was a nice dinner and they were really nice people they made me feel right at home. After dinner we went upstairs to get settled in and prepare the guest bed room. I layed down at 8pm. No intentions of sleeping but did...for 14 hours!

We got up had some breakfast and Joakim said we had a mission to do. His brother was admitted to the hospital the night before with some sort of flu and was unable to get a Christmas tree. So we put on the warmest gear we could find, grabbed an ax and a hand saw and headed out into the forest to get him one. It seemed like an easy enough task, but to find a tree that was just right proved to be pretty tough. After probably an hour of searching we found a winner. Joak took a few hacks and tiiiiiiiiiimber...ok it was only 8 ft tall so it was more of a slow fall and roll, but still we conquered the forest. I had a flannel on under my jacket so I looked the part at least! We carried the prize to the street where it could be transported to his brothers house later.

After we won gold at the outdoor games we took the car into the towns center area. Joakim's younger brother was in from Oslo and he came along as well. It was so cold out that we didn't get much walking done, but we did more of a pub crawl. Made it into some old taverns right on the water and had a few Borgs which was the local favorite beer there. After getting a few beers in a few different places we stopped for pizza. Had a really good taco pizza and another beer, and continued the mini pub crawl. We had made arrangements to see Avatar later so we were just burning some time until then. We hit up one pub that had a pool table but it was ridiculously expensive to play so we only played two games. It was 20kr a game which is $4. Pretty bold at a pub on a coin taking bar table. Anyway, we bounced to one more place then made it to the movie. Avatar was a pretty incredible movie. The only problem I had was when the Na'Vi spoke in their native language the subtitles were also in Norweign! It was funny because I asked Jaokim what did they just say and he looked at me oddly. I was like dude the subs are in Norweign!! Oh yea...But it was fine I got the gist of what was going on none of the dialog was that far out there. We got home around 1 am and Joakim's mom was still up. She had some Gløk out on the stove. It's a Christmas beverage that you add raisins and almond bits to as well as alcohol if you wanted to. We wanted to get up early to go skiing so the virgin blend did just fine. Really nice either way. Bed by 2 am.

After Joakim hit snooze literally 9 times we finally got up. I wasn't arguing I was so comfortable I couldn't get up either. So we got out of the house an hour later than we wanted to but our goal of to be on the top of the Kongsberg mountain at noon was only off by a half an hour. It was -12 degrees Celcius at noon. It was quite a site riding up the lift for the first time all the trees were heavily covered in snow. The top of the lift was 1600m and you could see down to the city below when standing at the top. The mountain was an old silver mining site. Joakim was on a snowboard and I had skis. My first run was a little shaky took me a while to get to the bottom. But by the third time down I was pretty much settled in. I didn't fall all day! We could have stayed and skiied all day but it came to a point where our hands, feet, and faces were just too cold to continue. We made at least 16 runs over a 6 hour period so it was a good day. Walked away with no injuries we were just so cold it was unreal. We left the ski resort and headed into Oslo.

We were on the way when we figured out that Joakim's brother accidentally gave us the wrong keys to his apartment. So we luckily were able to get a hold of Joakim's uncle who lived in Oslo as well. Really nice and interesting guy. He made us some dinner, we had some wine and chatted for a bit. It was funny I just asked Joakim if it was wierd having to speak English to his family when I was around. Not a minute later Joakim's uncle came in and said you know it's wierd talking to my nephew in English, we have never done this before. It's strange for me because obviously they would never speak English when I am not there but it's really cool that they can so easily just go into either language so effortlessly. And since they don't use it all that often, them being so good at it is really impressive. Joakim and I agreed that we wouldn't set an alarm because we didn't need another 10 snooze morning. Bed by 1am.

The next morning we had breakfast and rolled out into Oslo city. The traffic was incredibly hectic. There were street cars whizzing up and down, cars everywhere, and pedestrians crawling everywhere. Coming from Chicago and knowing congestion I would even probably have to pass on trying to navigate Oslo by car. We made it to a parking garage and headed out by foot. Again it was super cold. And now I'm not dressed in 40 layers for skiing, so it's really really cold. We did a quick walk around the town and got some Christmas shopping done. Oh and there are Subway franchises in Norway! I had to eat there even though it was 3x the normal price. I asked them what the hell happened to the $5 foot long? The commercial in Norway must say $15 dollar foot long, geeez! After lunch and a bit more walking and shopping it was time for me to head to the airport. There was an express train that only took 25 minutes from the Oslo train station. I got to the airport in plenty of time to check out the duty free shops and sit down and have a $15 dollar Carlsberg .6L beer, man these prices make my head hurt! Flight was on time and I was back in Denmark an hour later.

Christa called me while I was in Norway and thought it was funny that the lamp and the table were in odd places when she stopped in to grab a few things before going home to Middelfart while I was away. She just thought we had a crazy time here after the team Christmas party. Not for a few hours after I talked to her did I have a weird feeling that something was off here. When I walked into the front door I saw the bowl on the table where I knew I left money and the bowl was on the couch. Now why would that be. I saw the coffee table drawer was out as well and we never use that. I said ok Christa we've been robbed. She said wait how do you know. Well apart from those two things I mentioned, one look in the bedroom and I saw two more drawers that we never used opened. I pulled up the blinds and saw the window clasps were busted. The only things that were taken, thank god, was the money I had left in the bowl and Christa's camera. We had all of our other belongings with us but still that was not fun to come home to. Just knowing someone was stalking this place looking in the windows is enough to make your skin crawl. Upon further inspection the dude tried three other windows before he was able to bust the bedroom one. He actually tried to get into the bathroom window which is less than 2ftx2ft and that made me laugh a little bit. I already mentioned this in my Thanksgiving post but I have the greatest grandparents in the world but this just confirms how great they really are. After my mom told them what happened they wrote her a check to replace the money that was stolen because they felt bad for me during Christmas. It doesn't get any better than that. I love you guys absolutely amazing!

And now we are on to 3 more Christmas parties in a row...Is anyone still there??? Here are a few pictures from the Middelfart game on December 18th for a brief intermission. These pictures appeared in the Odense newspaper.

Jordan dishing to a middle who is going to crush

Celebratory dive for the fans!

I like Lots of line...

Thanks for coming, yea we are pretty happy!

Ok so you made it this far just 3 more Christmas parties to go! December 24th is the day that is celebrated as THE day. I went to Svendbog to Christa's grandparents on her mothers side. It was a nice party lots and lots of food and I absolutely love the duck that they serve on Christmas Eve. So good. The wine also spectacular. After dinner we got up lit the candles on the tree and did the traditional walking and singing around the tree. All the songs were in Danish so I couldn't sing them but I had heard them before. After all this is my third Danish Christmas. I was even allowed to pick a song so I just went with Jingle bells and we got through the first verse, but two times. All in all, a great nite. I got a juicer, a diesel belt, a long sleeve shirt, and some Dior cologne. Christa and I went in together to get all the presents for her family, but the one I did have to get all on my own was a present for Christa. I got her a purple Ipod nano and she has practically had those ear buds glued into her ear canal since then. So I think I did well.

Party 2 on the 25th was back in Middelfart where we went to Christa's parents friends to do it all over again. Another great time. Great food great people, and pretty much everyone made an effort to try and talk to me at some point. I need to learn Danish because these long dinner parties are tough when 95% is in Danish. After a nice dinner they busted out the Wii dance game not sure what it's called but it was pretty funny. Some of the dances are hilarious to watch as an outsider and even funnier to be a participant. After this we headed to Buddy Holly the bar where there is an annual Christmas party. Bo who was a teammate of mine when I played in Middelfart came to the end of the house party so it was nice to catch up a little bit with him and once he came I knew I then had to go out. I also had to beat him in Wii bowling!

Party 3 - Whoa, tough to wake up again, oh man, lots of refreshments at these Danish parties. On the 26th this party started a bit earlier but it was just as long if not longer and this time we were near the German border at Christa's fathers sisters house in Aabenraa. This one is more of a lunch/dinner. Starts off pretty light with breads and meats and slowly builds up to sausages and ends with tons of cheeses. I mean round after round of food just kept coming. We must have been seated at the table from 2-7. Just the list of food from these parties would probably be longer than this blog in itself! Three parties so much food so many cocktails, but really all great people which made for really nice and unique parties. I had a really nice holiday this year.

So now what? I leave for Copenhagen tomorrow for a few days. Going to stay with a friend of mine as well as Christa's. Definitely making a stop in Tivoli it's supposed to be really nice this time of year. New Years we don't have any plans but I'm sure something will pop up when it gets closer. All for now. Congratulations you made it all the way through this blog, well done! I promise none will be longer than this again! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

That's Real Good Pant...

2009-12-15T21:43:00.003+01:00

Here in Denmark most cans and bottles are bought with a Pant (deposit) added to the cost of the product. I think there are just three levels A at 1 Kr, B at 1.5, and C at 3 Kr. Cans are under the A level so when you buy a case of beer or cola in Denmark you get slapped with the extra 24 Kr. which is $5. Now, you can't possibly keep all of these cans after consumption. It's just not reasonable to think you are going to get 100% of your deposit. Between taking some to parties, some to the gym, some as roadies, some are just going to get lost in the shuffle. So all I'm trying to say here is that when you are able to save some of them from the trash, that's what I like to call "good pant." Every time I bring some back to the store it's like getting a small gift. Granted a small gift you paid for, but either way "good pant" will put a smile on your face. Just saying, "Oh man that's good pant right there" makes me laugh!

Last weekend we faced off against Gentofte, who were technically ranked higher than us even though in our only meeting we won 3-0. We came in confident that we could win again, especially at home. After the previous weeks loss to Middelfart we knew that we needed this win to get back on track to become the team to beat in the Elite division. Game 1 we came out really sharp, we really did most things perfect. It seemed like it was going to be a nice easy match where we were just going to take over from start to finish. We won game 1 easily they never really threatened at any point. I think we won the first set by 10 points. My arm was feeling great. I don't know if it was the days off that week, the swim the day before, or just my back feeling better so my shoulder hasn't had to do all the work but it was nice getting some pop back into the ball.

Game 2 they made some changes, by subbing in some new bodies. This seemed to help them out a bit because, well we lost game 2. It was fairly close most of the way through the set but I think we had some passing break downs especially with some float serves and they got on multiple point runs that we never could recover from.

Game 3 we got back into it had strong serving and a strong side out that allowed us to cruise to a fairly easy set win if I remember correctly. We had a decent handle on what they were doing, and really I think they just made too many attacking errors.

Game 4 we had the float serve passing blues again. Same story multiple point runs from the same guys that got us in the second set. We expected Gentofte to fold in the fourth set and they didn't they wanted to win just as much as we did.

Set 5 uh oh not again! This was a tight one back and forth. We reached 8 first for the side switch. We were up 11-10 when we made a serving sub. Søe our outside hitter/libero/vocal leader extraordinaire came in and hit two epic terror floats at a passing sub which were both practically aces, free balls coming back to us. Just two huge plays at the end of the game turned it in our favor and we didn't even for a second let them back. We finished 15-11 and got the much needed victory at home!

The night after was a Jule (xmas) party at the Marienlyst Centret where Nelly, Joe, Travis, Joakim, and I had to basically work as bouncers. The start of the night was easy. We just make sure everyone had a wrist band that entered. A few knuckleheads tried to break the rules, but no big deal. We were pretty much there for after dinner to make sure that nobody got out of control and started fights or anything. This party was from 5 pm-1 am and the booze was flowing the whole time, so yea, it could get interesting. There were 4 incidents spread throughout the night that kept it really entertaining for us.

1- A table full of guys wearing red party hats had been drinking in the party room at our gym since the afternoon. They were all over the place but the red hats made them easy to spot and keep an eye on them. One of the old guys in the group was so hammered some of the guys had to get a taxi for him. Understandable. But the funny part was the guy was using the parking lot as a toilet with his pants around his ankles and most of his aim was off. Yeah hopefully he had on those liquid resistant Dockers!

2- Guy 1 by the bar gets pushed. Guy number 2 grabs and holds the lapels of guy 1's sport coat. We sweep in. The guy who is using a kung fu grip on guy 1's suit jacked is doing this weird intense staring contest move, and still won't let go of the coat. There is all 5 of us surrounding them both, but there is nothing we can really do. The guy just will not let go of the jacket or the bizarre stare. This goes on for what seemed like minutes either way it was a ridiculously long time to do whatever he was doing. The only way we got it to stop was someone from behind basically started choking the jacket holding guy. Not one of us but one of his friends believe it or not I started prying his fingers off one at a time. I got to the second finger while this guy is turning purple from being choked from behind before he finally lets go. It was totally insane but both guys were fine after that.

3&4 - The start of this story leads to the climax of the night. Joe and I went to take a break and were just hanging out in our locker room when I got a text from Nelly saying, "Boston Tea Party in 5, 4, 3..." I was like uhoh Joe we have to get in there. This was a ridiculous code word we were using to say "start taking people down." It was a joke but he really was having a problem with one of the guys in the gym. And of course it was the guy who was the biggest man/bear/pig who we just knew was bound to start something. I think he had some words with the bartender so Nelly and the rest of the guys stepped in and I think the man beast got a little aggressive but he calmed down ok for a bit. This is a 3&4 because the fourth and final part I guess you could say stemmed from this first incident. It had to do with this guys co-workers or buddies who were all at the same table. Some of these guys start pushing we come in and right away the guys started acting as if we were doing something wrong we were just asking them to please sit back down, let it go, or you will be asked to leave. They pretty much controlled themselves for another hour. One hour later two guys from the same table start another fight at the bar with the bartender. The bartender motions over to us saying these guys are out of here. We just say ok guys that's enough let us show you out. This however was not so easy. The guys refused to walk and when they did they kept trying to make it back to the bar to fight the bartender. They would be walking straight then just start bending their path in a not so sly way which was more back to the bar then to the door. These guys were really drunk and not at all physically intimidating but they just wouldn't cooperate. It took probably 30 minutes to get the guys outside. But even when they were outside they still wouldn't leave. We just stood in the doorway and made a wall and they still tried to keep just walking in. Picture a remote control toy car just driving straight into a wall and bounce off and do it again and again. This is what they were doing but really with no real force to break through or really even break our balance at all. It was really funny. Then some of thier friends came over and started saying we are provoking them when literally all we were doing was making a wall at the door and saying you cannot come back in. More and more of them started showing up and the ones that were still in the party started getting more angry with us and started threatening us. So we just started saying ok you are out too. Get your coat. No big deal the party was over in 20 minutes anyway they were just being ridiculous. Then out of nowhere some dude starts trying to swipe at me from outside. He tries more of a slap but he misses thankfully and by this point we can see that we might need to call the police because these guys really won't leave. We reached our last resort. We had to phone the police. I had to hand my phone to someone because I couldn't tell you how to call the police, even still I don't know. 112 or 211 but now is that for emergencies or for everything? No idea. I had to leave the scene anyway because these guys were really getting on my nerves and I began to not help the situation. The end was nice though. The guy who tried to slap me got taken to the ground hard by the cops, so he was obviously a goof ball.

All in all a great night though. We got to take a ton of food home, had some beers, had a little excitement, but I think a bouncer is not really for me.

This week we play Middelfart who have been a thorn in our sides this season. Our only two loses in the regular season have come at their hands. This time around it is in the Pokal Cup Semifinals which is single elimination so this is win or go home. This is a big game arguably more so than the loss three weeks ago because winning the Pokal Cup is something everyone wants to achieve. A regular season loss, while a set back, doesn't eliminate you from winning the Danish championship so this one we really want to win. We are luckily at home again and this time we hope it goes in our favor!

I know this was a long one but I missed last weeks post so hope this makes up for it. If anyone can actually get through it consider that achievement "a good pant!" Hej Hej

Happy Turkey Day!

2009-12-01T21:48:00.002+01:00

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday and were able to take full advantage of the holiday for me, because sadly, I consumed absolutely no cranberry sauce, no mashed potatoes, no stuffing, no turkey, and certainly no hot gravy goodness smothered over it all! I did however get the priveledge to practice twice and lift weights once so I basically did the opposite of what 98% of Americans did on last Thursday. So yes I missed out on the fatty feast and the NFL games, but what I did not miss out on was a chance to think about all the things that I am grateful for:

Family - I have the best family in the world. From top to bottom. My parents have done so much for me over the years to get to where I am today. Most of the experiences that I have been privileged to have so far have all been made possible because of them. And for that I am truly grateful. My brother and sister seem to be on a good path to working to achieve their goals and I am happy for both of them that they are doing so well. Jen with her hair and make up expertise, and Beetle venturing out into a field that is new and exciting for him. So when I get home hopefully I can get a nice haircut and my blood pressure checked! My grandparents aunts and uncles really are some of the nicest people that I have ever met and I know are always there for me no matter what and for that I do realize how lucky I really am.

Friends - To all my friends and home I miss you guys/girls and think about you all the time. I can't wait to be back. Even though the internet keeps me in touch with what is going on at home I know that I am missing out on a lot. Every time I come back it is like it was yesterday that I left and everything is just the way it was and that is what I love about my friends. They too are there no matter what and for that I am very thankful as well. To Christa my gf, even though nobody from home has met her yet, she is really a genuinely sweet girl and when you get the chance to meet her I'm sure you will say the same! I could say so much more because I have a lot to be thankful for, but I really just wanted to say a quick thanks to everyone that I care about and vice versa.

So what is new with me? Well last Saturday Nelly, Joe and I went to the German/Danish border to stock up on goodies and avoid the super high tax that is Denmark! Beer, candy, wine were our targets. And my god did we crush that objective. I got six cases of beer for 250 kr. ($65) , 4 pounds of gummy bears ($10), 6 bottles of wine and a 3L box of wine ($30), two ten packs of Snickers ($10), 10 Ritter Sport Chocolate bars ($18), and a case of Hustler energy drinks ($20). Dirt cheap prices along with wine tasting in the store = good time! This may seem like a lot but with the prices in DK and the tax this amount of goods would be atlreast 3-5 times that so going big or going home is a must. I was on Skype talking to my parents and grandparents about the trip because when they visited in 2007 they were lucky enough to expirience this shopping wonder. They were under the impression that I was getting food though when they offered to buy it for me!

This week sadly our unbeaten streak came to an end at the hands of Middelfart with a 2-3 loss at home. We had not dropped even a set in I can't even remember how long so this definately came as a bit of a shock. I still believe 100% that we are the team to beat and we have a chance to prove it in the last game before X-mas break when we play Middelfart again in the Pokal Semi-final. Getting knocked down a peg or two might have been just what we needed to get hungry again. At least I hope so!

The weather has been ok in the last few days. It has been consistenly wet but I feel like I have been missing the light showers on my daily bike rides which is good. I did have bike crash 1 and 2 last week as well. Crash one goes like this: I am trying to catch up to Joe after leaving the gym and as I'm standing pump pedaling my bike on it;s own switches gears and causes my chain to fall off. Now it's dark out and I can't exactly see if it's on or if it's in a super high gear because im still cruising but my feet are going at 100 rpm. As I'm looking down, the road slightly curves and I don't notice. Joe looks back and yells ohhh #$%^ look out! By this time it's too late and I hammer into a bush which catches me nicely only a few scratches but it was pretty funny either way.

Crash 2: The weather as of today dipped to where frost has started to accumulate on the grass as well as car windows. I have to coach in the early AM on Tuesdays which means the temperature is still quite low while I am in transit on the old Champs-Elysse Mustang Passion, name make and model of the hog. So I decide to take a short cut riding into the back way to get to the school. I turned one block too early on the last two minutes of my ride so I pull a quick U-eee and my bike acted as if it had shopping cart wheels. The bike just started slidding sideways on some black ice. I was half asleep at the wheel at this point so I don't know how I didn't go down with the ship, but I was able to ditch the bike and land a perfect dismount. The bike went skidding onto a nearby lawn crashing loudly. There of course had to be a witness to this. A women on her bike, her wheels acting properly, just rides by with a slight smirk. Yes I had to have looked ridiculous.

This week we have a match againt KSV near Copenhagen on Saturday. They aren't very good so we should get back to our winning ways. One more thing beofre I go. I have been extremely lucky this year with the amount of Bears coverage on Danish television. The Bears have played 4 times on national tv here. Packers, Steelers, 49ers, and Vikings. But now I must ask...why? I am actually from where this team plays and I can't stand watching it so what do the Danes think! Ugh, well the Urlacher jersey has been neatly stowed in an overhead compartment since week 1 and I don't see it making a comeback anytime soon! All for now hej hej.

Phase 1 Complete!

2009-11-18T17:28:00.003+01:00

After completing the first round of regular season this is how the league is shaping up so far:

Elitedivision Herrer
detaljeret stilling...

		K	V	U	T	Sæt	P
1	Marienlyst	7	6	0	1	19-3	12
2	Middelfart VK	7	6	0	1	20-8	12
3	Gentofte Volley	7	6	0	1	18-8	12
4	Aalborg HIK	7	4	0	3	12-13	8

5	Holte IF	8	3	0	5	15-19	6
6	KSV	7	2	0	5	10-16	4

7	Hvidovre VK	7	1	0	6	6-19	2
8	SKF/Ikast KFUM	8	1	0	7	9-23	2

As you can see from the standings we are currently in a three way tie for first place, but due to the large set score differential we have the tie breaker placing us at the top. The only three sets we have dropped in the first round of games were in a 3-1 loss at Middelfart in the first week of the season. We play Middelfart two times in the next couple of weeks and we are hungry to avenge our only set and match defeats in the elite division.

Not much else happening on the volleyball front though really worth reporting. We played Hvidore VK last Saturday at home and used a different lineup for each set. Was a little hard to get into a rhythm with this strategy but this was a match we knew we wouldn't lose unless we forfeited due to a massive 100 bicycle pile up on the way to the gym. Needless to say we won 3-0, cleaned up the gym advertisements, and had a nice cold beer in the sauna with the the rest of my teammates.

Outside of volleyball everything has been going well too. I have been getting into really good shape lifting 4 times a week and swimming once a week (yesterday was week 5) on top of team practice. Nelly and I pounded out 50 laps again for the second straight week, it's getting easier but it is still a great workout! At home we got the finishing touches done in the living room. We got two lamps and two shelves from IKEA giving us much needed light as well as character to the white walls in the living room.

The weather has been consistent. Raining most days with lots of wind. The sun has been going down earlier and earlier too and that combined with the rain and wind can make biking really miserable. I'm usually double wet after a 15 minute bike ride. Wet from the rain on the outside and wet on the inside from sweating because I usually bike hard to get out of the rain. If that isn't enough to make you go crazy I don't know what is.

Another non-volley highlight was that me and Christa went out to get sushi for her belated birthday dinner. She had never had it before so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to get her to try it. The place we went to was really nice and really authentic with very fresh ingredients. Everything was so good from the Edamame, to the 4 different Maki rolls, even to the Sapporo and house sake. She really liked it and almost immediately after we left asked, "So when can we go again!"

This weekend we play on a Sunday in Holte which is near Copenhagen. No idea why we are playing on a Sunday but it seems pretty stupid to me. Holte has been playing better so I've heard since we first saw them in early September. So hopefully we get a decent challenge from them for the length of the road trip that it is.

I also decided to start Danish language lessons in the city center and I will begin next Monday. The schedule looks like MWF 8-12 so my Danish will be coming along nicely. Everyone here speaks English very well but I think it could be really cool to get a better feel for the native language and make my experience here that much better.

And last but not least, I started playing around with my computer and found out how to capture video so I thought I would make one just to say hi and test it out and see how it works. All for now. Hej hej.

It's a Moose-Goose Hybrid

2009-11-06T22:47:00.008+01:00

Hey everybody. How are ya doin? Good, great, and grand I hope. All is good over here in DK. Back from Sollentuna, a suburb of Stockholm, with two 3-0 victories. Avenged a preseason defeat against Nyborg from Norway on Saturday, and followed that up by taking down the hosting team Sollentuna in 3 close sets on Sunday. Here is a link showing the last ten points or so in each set of the Sollentuna match.

http://www.volleykanalen.se/inslag/091101.html

The bus ride was pretty grueling near 12 hours including all of the stops. Danish law as I was told only allows a bus driver to drive for 3 and a half hours with a half hour stop. Which all said and done is probably a good idea when covering that much distance. The ride there was a piece of cake. We left at 6am and I slept straight to the first break. Nelly discovered that McDonalds breakfast was offered in Sweden which is a big deal because it is not in Denmark. Nelly's family (mom, dad, and brother) was along for the bus ride and they treated some of us to breakfast so that was really nice. Side note: To Grandma and Grandpa: The Nelly's said they still have the wooden ambulance that you made them. To mom and dad: The Nelly's said they missed you and being part of the Loyola vball parents crew :) We climbed back on the bus and I think I was knocked out until the second mandatory stop as well or at least most of it anyway. At this stop we got out to a noticeably colder temperature to eat lunch. Lunch was French bread and a pasta with a mystery bird meat. We were in Sweden and all we kept talking about was where are the Mooses? So that is where I dubbed the mystery meat the moose-goose hybrid. The rest area was a nice wooded area with picnic benches to sit at and a few short walking trails back into the wooded area. There was a sign claiming that that rest stop was ranked #1 in Sweden. The bathrooms were even news worthy. One of our teammates, I won't mention names, thought the sink was the toilet instead of the waterfall wall. Joakim aka paparazzi due to his new Canon SLR got the aftermath on film and it is pretty funny. The rest of the ride up was pretty uneventful.

We arrived in, "Pardon me but your balls are showing, Bumble-Bee Sollentuna" at the Scandic Hotel quickly found our rooms, showered up, and rolled down for dinner. Dinner was chicken breasts and legs and a veggie pasta. Overall ok for a hotel I guess. After dinner we loaded into the vans and headed to the gym to watch the two other teams in our pool face off. The gym was nice a nice clean wooden floor, but the ceiling was really low (ceiling is out of bounds in FIVB) and the lights were pretty much lined up straight in my serving line. Overall not that huge of a deal but definitely not a gym to remember. We arrived and sat in the stands and had a quick talk about what outcome would be best for us. We came up with a Sollentuna win in anything over three sets. We got half of it right. Sollentuna won in three. Thought this would be good because it would tire out our opponent and, assuming we won the next day, would set up a championship game of sorts on Sunday.

Game day Saturday. We were pretty pumped up to play Nyborg again after they absolutely hammered us in the Middelfart preseason tournament and then wrote on their homepage something to the extent of "we are just a bunch of over weight volleyball players who listen to gay music." The background story to that quote is this. We plugged in our IPOD for warm ups and had it playing. About two minutes later they came over without saying anything just switched ours off and put theirs on. Naturally we all obviously start yelling, "whoa, whoa whoa" and "pretty bold" and "that's good Norwegian hospitality" the third line was a gem which I thought was just hilarious. But that is really all that happened. Anyway, we also had the addition of our new 6'9 Aussie middle so our team was looking good coming into this game. First 5 points all stuff blocks. Absolutely crushed this team in the first set something like 25-15. Nyborg pretty much looked like they did the night before playing uninspired ball and really didn't even look like they wanted to be there. Fair enough, we didn't care we just took care of business.

Day two, we got what we wanted a game on Sunday that meant winner would go to the finals of the Nordic Cup. We came out a little bit slow not as much energy as Saturday but we made do. All the games I think were tied at 20 but we just closed better. Won 3-0 and swept the pool to win an automatic bid to the finals in January, location tba.

The ride home was fun. Plenty of øl (beer) to go around for everyone. Jordan our setter from Cali brought his favorite board game with called Partners. After we stopped for dinner we got up to the section of the coach bus that had a table and four chairs facing each other to set up the game. Now I was partnered with Joe both of us had never played before so we had to be taught the rules before the game could even start. The game is kind of like Sorry! but you work with your partner to try and stop the other team with a few more in and outs. Joe and I actually found a way to win game 1 and naturally Jordan and BT (libero) thought it was all luck, they let us pick up misplayed cards, etc. But when they won the next two games it was obviously much more skill and wisdom which allowed them to prevail. We played for I want to say somewhere between 6 and 7 hours. We lost the series 4-2 but it could have gone either way really. Jordan and BT would never admit that but they were really good games. We arrived at 4am at the Marienlyst Centre tired and ready for bed. All in all a great weekend lots of laughs and good volleyball.

I almost forgot. We played Aalborg in a league match and won 3-0 last night. Boring game. We haven't dropped a set in a while lets see if we can keep this rolling. All for now talk to everyone soon, but here are some pictures of some of the action from this weekend.

The black jerseys are legit

Housed...

Tool

Game point...we win

Yes we won...haha

Transition line

Gotta love those jerseys

BT may have got the pancake...but nobody got the second ball

Cruisin'

Boom

Backrow 1 on 1...tak Jordan

Break

Self - Titled

2009-10-27T20:50:00.005+01:00

I would like to start off this post with a quick apology about missing last weeks post. Ok got that out of the way that was easy as pie. No but seriously I got a few threats asking kindly that I remember to update every Sunday like I promised. So yes I am back. So here goes...and how is pie easy? I couldn't make one.

Where did I leave off? Injury status: Nelly - Cleared to play ASAP (leg) Flemming - Swinging hard again (shoulder) Me - 95% (leg) Schøler - out til '10 (knees) Søe - Out til '10 (broken foot)

So 3/5 coming back to the grind is good news. This is really good news because we are leaving for Stockholm Friday morning for pool play for the Nordic Cup. The Nordic Cup is a small tournament featuring Denmark, Norway, and Sweden's best teams. We have a tough draw in pool play with Nyborg top club from Norway and Sollentuna 3rd or 4th ranked club from Sweden. Considering Marienlyst (my team) won Denmark last year that means two #1 seeds are in one pool. Which doesn't make much sense but we are up for the challenge regardless. Not only do we have fresh bodies coming back, but we signed a 6'9" middle from Australia and he landed in Denmark today. This move really solidifies our team and adds much needed depth at the middle position which has been plagued by injuries and absences due to prior commitments and agreements. Adding another full time player will make practices that much more competitive and will really I think make us the team to beat in Denmark if we weren't already.

Apart from the daily practices, miles of biking, and regular weight lifting sessions I decided to start swimming at the local pool. I thought it could be fun and a low impact way to loosen the muscles up and get into good shape. I bought a 30 entry pass and figured I would go once a week and that pretty much covers the season here. Christa, Nelly, and Joe all came with and seemed game for the plan of once a week at the svømmehal (swim hal). It is a nice facility nothing fancy, a 25yd pool with 6 lanes and a springboard diving board. Naturally our eyes lit up at the sight of the board and we ripped a few jumps before we got into actually swimming. We neded up knocking out 24 laps of mostly freestyle with a few breaststroke laps mixed in. It was a really good work out. Swimming is hard! Week two is tomorrow.

On the volley front we have actually been playing some pretty good volleyball. I can't remember the last set that we dropped. We have been starting to click on the pins (volleyball set either front or back all the way to the antennae) and everyone is starting to feel what their rolls on the team are and really performing accordingly. It has been a relief to finally see some of these things falling into place. By no means are we even close to our potential yet but all I'm saying is you can start to see what we could really look like come Feb-Apr and it is exciting.

We had to set up the city again this week (see previous post). It wasn't as bad as I remembered the first time around we got a bit smarter and made it easier on ourselves but the work really isn't fun at all. But I only had to do that Monday. Today I got to travel with the team that I coach on Tuesday mornings at the Hjallese School. Today they played in a small tournament in Bremming a city to the west about an hour and a half from Odense. This was the first time that they were actually playing real matches since the whole time that I have had them so they were excited to play. They are a really fun group of 15-16 yr old girls. I started using some of the little Danish sentences I've learned and it made the day pretty entertaining. I had all of them laughing they must think I'm crazy. But they really surprised me with how well they played today. To actually see them focus all of their attention to the game was really cool to see. They won both matches the first 3-0 and the second 3-1. The tournament was supposed to have more teams but from what I heard a lot of the teams backed out when they heard the winning team would get a bid to play a tournament in China. I guess if you really weren't going to consider going then there was no point in playing in the tournament. So since we won we got the bid to China. I guess they are going to have a meeting and decide if they can afford it. The principal of the school was asking me about if I would be free in July for the tournament. If they buy the ticket I am there. That would be incredible China is on the travel list for sure!

Friday morning we are driving to Stockholm leaving at 6 am and playing Saturday and Sunday in pool play. Probably coming back directly after I would imagine so I will be gone all weekend. I will have my computer so hit me up on Skype anyone at home can call me for free at (708) 572 - 4499. Leave a message if I'm not there, yea it's fancy so what!

Also here is my address for anyone who was curious:
New Address:

Christiansgade 79 stuen tv.
5000 Odense, Denmark

Currently Rocking:
Music Albums- Paramore - Brand New Eyes/ Pearl Jam - Backspacer/ Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They Washed Away/ David Gray - Draw the Line/ Delta Spirit - Ode to Sunshine/ Artic Monkeys - Humbug/ Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer/ AFI - Crash Love

TV Shows- 30 Rock/ Top Gear (uk)/ Miami or LA Ink/ Kitchen Nightmares

Book-Harry Potter 5

Dropping Like Flies!

2009-10-11T22:25:00.002+02:00

It seems like everyone on the squad is getting injured these days. Pretty soon we will have to forfeit matches. We have two outside hitters out for an extended period of time with bad knees and a broken foot. Nelly has some foot issues and has been limited at practice recently and sat out the match this Saturday. Flemming our stud middle has a shoulder injury not too sure how severe it is but he also was held out this Saturday. I am slowly creeping off of the injury report. My leg has been improving a lot thank goodness. It still aches and is not 100 percent so I am occasionally limited at practice but it is way better than it has been. So hopefully the worst is behind me with this stupid leg. I had a small scare while taking down the "city" last week. One of the heavy walls that we set up kind of fell and knocked my knee and bruised it pretty bad. I was unable to practice the next day but luckily it was fine the following day. Phew. So hopefully we get some of these bodies back in order because it is really hurting our practices and slowing our development as a team for sure.

I was really busy last week doing some work for the club so I missed last weeks post. Last Sunday we took down the city. Took 6 guys about 6 hours to do it all. Thought it would be much longer but it went pretty fast. It is frustrating setting up all this stuff in the gym because the system is pretty silly. The walls are super heavy. The majority of the walls are two meters long and about 7 feet tall. They have steel framing and solid plywood in the interior. One of these suckers probably weighs 100 pounds at least. The walls are at least 25 years old so there has to be a modern system that just makes much more sense and is easier to set up. Plastic maybe? Just thinking about having to set up the gym again in December for the next one makes my head hurt.

More work was done Monday-Thursday. We delivered phone books for 4 hours each of the days. We have some designated routes on a map that we had to knock out. This work is fine not to difficult. We got some food on all of the days so that was nice.

This Saturday we had a home match against KSV a team from Copenhagen. They weren't such a strong team so we expected a quick 3-0 win. Like I said before we had some injuries so our bench was pretty much depleted so luckily we had this easy match to rest some of the guys. We did win 3-0 but by no means would I say we played well. Our passing and serving was a bit rocky and we didn't have that much intensity on the court. It was a pretty boring game really. KSV never really pushed us. I was satisfied with my play for the most part. I have got my serve going. Got some aces and killed all but two of my sets I think. My leg held up well I didn't even really think about it at all during the match. Legs felt pretty fresh so all in all I was happy.

After the match I went over to Christa's aunt and uncles for her cousins birthday party. Met some more of the family and had some nice food. It was a nice party. Toward the end of the party the Denmark vs Sweden World Cup qualification game started. Denmark just needed two more points to qualify. So basically a win solidified thier bid to the World Cup. The game was dead locked 0-0 through 78 minutes when finally Denmark scored. That was all the scoring for the match and Denmark won and got its bid. It was pretty exciting much more so than the live game I went to. So it was watchable for me. After the soccer match I headed back to the gym. All of the guys were still there following the volleyball match having some food, some beverages, and watching DK vs SWE match. I got there around 10 I want to say. The øl (beer) was flowing pretty consistantly since I had left for the party so everyone was having a great time by then. We ended up just staying there all night and played some games had some laughs and then called it a night.

Today I just have been relaxing for the most part. Read a little bit on the Kindle. FYI the Kindle has an international edition that was just released! Missed out on that which stinks. I also did some Rosetta Stone with Christa helping me with some of the pronunciation. I feel like I learned a lot in the two hours that I was practicing. Got through 10 lessons and my pronunciation is coming around. It's still super hard to say brød (bread) and rød (red). I'll get it just need some practice making those sounds! After I knocked out some RS football was on and I caught a few of the games on the internet. Bears have a bye week so that is a bummer. My fantasy team took a beating so I lost interest in this weeks games pretty quick. Might watch some of the afternoon games or might watch Inglorious Basterds. Just got that so I think I'll have to do that.

This week we don't have any work so it should be a more peaceful week. Might get a few workouts in over at CCS and get ready for the match this week. All for now. Hej hej miss everyone!

We Built this City...We Built this City On Rock and Rolling Iguanas?

2009-09-30T17:37:00.008+02:00

This week I'll start this post where hopefully the title of the blog will be most relevant instead of typing it all up chronologically. Ok, so this weekend is the Sport and Wellness Messe (Fair) at the Marienlyst Center (place where we play our home matches) in both of the gyms. To get the gyms ready for such a special occasion a small city needed to be built. Let me explain. Companies as well as sports teams come to the fair and each have thier own designated area within the gym to meet and greet or put on a small clinics. These areas are not just simple tables and chairs spread out randomly in a gym. These areas are divided by 6 foot walls. Walls that are not normally there if you were wondering. Well then how do these walls get there? Funny you should ask. Well these walls get there by taking them off of a pallet, placed directly on an "iguana", and then rolled to where they can be put together with "gorillas". Ok I'm not crazy hear me out. Kaj our coach/jack of all trades was basically directing the operation. When we first got there on Monday morning he had names for each of the tools or pieces to assemble these walls. The small cart in which to wheel the walls he called a "dog," basically a small four wheeled cart designed to slide the walls into and transport most effieciently. Now the cart did resemble a dog, but as the day went on I thought it looked more like an iguana and the name stuck within the group (Nelly, Joe and I). Synonyms also included Iggy Pop (big cart) or Baby Igs (small cart). The gorilla was a connecting piece for the walls basically a strong piece of metal with two arms that slid into the top of the walls kind of like a real gorilla with a short body and two strong arms off of it. The name was perfect for it already so it didn't need to be changed.

Over the three six hour days we literally set up a small city. Walls, electricy, bridges and lights. Basically everything a city needs except plumbing. The details of the set up are not so interesting so I will leave it at that, but it was hard work and the 18 hours we were there were used to the fullest. We were also fed in the cafeteria everyday at lunch time so it could have been much worse. Take down is supposedly much faster and easier. I hope!

Ok so lets go back to the start of last week. Tuesday last week we played a Pokal Cup match in Arhus which was our first real game of the season. Pokal Cup is the Danish tournament that every team in Denmark is invited to. The format is single elimination so in the early rounds you can play some pretty low level competition. We played a team from the second division so it was an easy match. The gym was pretty cool, it was an old train station converted into a volleyball gym. So it looked like you were playing in a half tube with old wooden seats surrounding the court. It was cool because the sound was trapped in there and any cheers were amplified by 20. I didn't play because my leg was still aching from the Middelfart tournament just a few days before. I sat on the side and cheered and we won 3-0 pretty easily and on to the next round.

Thursday we had our first regular season game, non-Pokal Cup but regular league play at home. We had another easy draw in Holte from Copenhagen. We played them in the Middelfart tournament the weekend before so we knew what to expect. I again did not play as I wanted to take the week off to see if my leg would improve at all. Again we won 3-0 never in jeopardy of losing a set.

We had the weekend off so we had a little bit of time to have some fun. Saturday morning we went to the Fortuna volleyball match. Fortuna is the top women's team here in Odense but is a different club than ours. Marienlyst does not have a top level women's team. Unfortunately the Fortuna team lost in a quick three which was a bummer, but what can ya do?

After the Fortuna game we went to our first soccer match of the season. We went to watch OB play at home. OB is in the top division in Denmark and is doing quite well so we thought it would be a great opportunity to see a game while it was still reasonably warm outside. OB won 2-0 and we had front row seats so it was exciting enough for me being a none soccer fan. I was constantly asking questions like: What is a kick missing the goal by 30 ft and going into the upper deck like in relation to basketball or volleyball? Is that like an airball or a serve under the net? I have a really hard time relating to the sport because I just never really watch it. Some goals are really spectacular but for the most part watching games with teams that are not in the top 5 in the world with international superstars is not that exciting for me. If you think flopping is bad in basketball, watching soccer will just kill you. Players fall and writhe in what looks like season ending pain and then somehow get up after no call and continue to play. Its disgusting and goes against everything that is sports and I'll never understand it. Regardless the game was fun we had great weather and OB won! Here are some pictures from the match:

1-0 in the distance

Joe and Nelly enjoying the game.

Kid cheering on his team!

GOOOOOALLLLLLLL!!!!

This week other than building a Danish city we are preparing for a match against Middelfart on Friday. We are away and it should be a good match. My leg has been still sore but better and playable so I am going to play for sure on Friday. I still ice and try not to over do it at practice but it is really frustrating not being 100%. But it's getting better.

I almost forgot to mention I watched the Bears win again on my computer I found a great site that streams the games live for free. I also watched the Vikings game. Wow! Favre is incredible. Ok well that is all for now. I still have to upload all of the pictures from last week when I went to the city with the guys stay tuned for those. Hej hej.

Global Warming is great for Denmark!

2009-09-20T16:00:00.004+02:00

Who says global warming is bad? I think it's just your perspective and or location. It has been t-shirt and short weather basically the whole time I have been here so far. But I know all too well what is lurking around the corner just waiting to terrorize me on my Champs-Elysee Mustang Passion (my bike; make and model.) Every Monday I have my fingers crossed that this will not be the week that I have to bike X amount of kilometers in cold, rainy, and windy conditions. The shortest bike route on any given weekday for me is Wednesday at just 2 kilometers to CCS the weight training center . The longest is Tuesday at about 20 kilometers. The rest of the Lance Armstrong week is as follows and this is an absolute minimum:

Mon - 10 km
Thurs - 10 km
Fri - 10 km +2 when I take Christa out to a fancy dinner at 7-Eleven

So on any given week I put about 50 km on my Mustang. Which isn't a whole lot but when you are exposed to precipitation and wind chills you might as well raise that number to the power of 200. So as long as the blue skies and mid 60s weather continues me and my Mustang are on good terms.

Last Sunday I was actually able to catch the Bears game. The only problem was it was on at 230 am. To my Dad's as well as Christa's disapproval I busted out the #54 Brian Urlacher jearsey. I made a deal that I would only wear the jersey once a week and while watching the game, but sometimes when she leaves I put it on to do dishes so I can go 110% full game speed. I wash and dry ok! Anyway, Nelly and Joe came over to watch the game. Being a native of cheeseheadland, Nelly is a Packers fan. The game was uneventful as you all know and it was quite painful to watch even more so into the 5am range. Joe, a Rams fan, was fast asleep by now and every so often would kick the ground really hard and startle himself awake. When this happened for the second time we all agreed the game was not worth watching past 515 am. They biked home and I headed to bed Bears up 12-10. I'm glad I didn't see the finale because I would have woke up the entire apartment complex! At least Cutler played well, NOT. And now Urlacher is out for the season, I might be retiring the jersey to just dish duty.

The bulk of this week was spent in preparation for our second training tournament of the preseason. The tournament was held in good 'ol Middelfart. There were two pools and 7 teams total. 2 from Norway, 1 from Sweden, and the remaing from Denmark. Our pool was much easier than the other pool. The only real competition was Middelfart. We played them on Thursday and played a pretty awful match and lost in a quick 3. Top two teams from each pool advance so we were confident that the other two would be pushovers so we would still make it to the semis no problem. This was true we took out those two below average teams on Saturday. Today (Sunday) we played the first semi-final at 9 am. It was early but it was no excuse we played really bad. So many errors we never got in a good rhythm. The Norwegian team was solid but they too made tons of errors, but unfortunately we won the battle for who could make more errors. We lost in an uneventful 3.

The bronze medal match was at 1245 today against Orkelljunga one of the top teams from Sweden. We came out super flat again and dropped game one. Not sure what turned us around but we started playing more loose and starting winning the balls we needed to to win, but that was it nothing more and nothing less. We won the next three sets to win the match and the coveted Bronze (Middel)Fart Medal.

So how did I play? My serve was on and off all weekend but I think it is getting better. Hitting is also getting better, the speed of the sets are still a problem for me as well as the outsides. I had Jordan, our setter, slow me down a bit and give me some height and I was attacking much better winning many more balls off of that type of set. I think that my defense was probably my best attribute this weekend. Attacking and serving will come with more reps, but I think that I took care of balls that were hit in my direction and gave us a chance to turn some balls. It is frustrating though starting a new season and wanting to be as good as you were at the end of last season right when you step on the court. But unfortunately it doesn't work that way and you need to train hard and get comfortable with your teammates to play as well as you can. It will come and I see we are making strides in the right direction, but it just can't seem to come fast enough!

I spent the weekend in Middelfart with Christa's parents Jens and Hanne. They have been very nice and have made some really nice meals during our stay. It has been great! Lucky for me I get to see the Bears game again on tv. It is one of the feature games here in Denmark this week. The game will be on at 1015pm which is nice so I don't have to be up until 5am ripping my hair out. I can at least get all of the hair pulling done at a reasonable hour and get some sleep.

The poll on my blog page is looking like a unanimous 6 votes for posts every Sunday. I think I can come up with enough silliness every 7 days no problem. I would like to add some more pictures to the blog as well in the coming days. Nelly, Joe, and I went out into the city on Wednesday and I got some good shots of the town on a really nice day. We walked through the park and city center for about two hours. Hopefully there are some good shots in there to share. Ok all for now, farvel. Hej, hej.

You Can Find Me On 'Dem Internets!

2009-09-10T13:48:00.001+02:00

Today: So the internet was finally up and running after only THREE weeks of waiting impatiently. What a relief though I must say. I actually have an outlet to the world. However, I was getting quite fond of sitting on the front stoop of an apartment building stealing a signal from my dear old friend unsecured ZyXel, or sitting in the "nook" with my other unsecured signal buddy Linksys. The "nook" was the first spot that I could sit relatively comfortably and check my email. It was a small window ledge cut into the side of the apartment building about 4 feet high and 2 feet deep a perfect little nook to steal a signal. Between odd looks from passerbys, lost signals, precipitation, and back/forearm fatigue I am glad that I finally had to break up with the "nook."

August 18th-September10: So let's go back to the beginning. I left on August 18th arrived on August 19th in Denmark. My flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was not so bad I watched episodes 1-7 of season 1 of Mad Men which kept me busy. The plane however was not so nice. It was old so there was only one TV screen up in the aisle and not on the back of every seat. Now maybe I was spoiled on some of my other flights but come on if you have to watch what they put on one screen lets pick something other than Hannah Montana! My seat was also very small there was a noticeable 3 inch increase in knee room on my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Copehagen. Not only was the plane like an archaic sardine can but my seat was an aisle seat in the last row near the bathroom. There was a ton of traffic constantly going by. Now I have reasonably wide shoulders but they were absolutely not sticking out far enough to justify a stumbling right or left cheek square on my shoulder. One girl did it three times and I almost had to strangle her. I kept my cool though and took a deep breath and hit play to another episode of Mad Men.

When I landed in Copenhagen it was 9:30 am local time, the flight wasn't too bad and the layover in Frankfurt was just an hour so the trip really didn't take too long. I wasn't that tired and Christa was waiting outside of baggage claim to pick me up so everything went really smoothly. Drove directly to Middelfart (2.5 hours) moved all the essentials into the car trailer to bring back to the apartment back here in Odense. Once we got all the boxes in and bed set up I passed out at 7 pm which was like noon for me on zero sleep. I slept straight to 5:30 am. I was wide awake so I started setting up the place and unpacking. Seems pretty normal right? I always am up at 5:30 am cleaning. Had a meeting at noon with the club they welcomed me to Denmark and I got the rest of the supplies for the apartment from a storage warehouse. Table and chairs, microwave, bowls, pots and pans and a vacuum. All was fine but when I fired up the vacuum it nearly started a fire. It worked for about 20 mintes and did a good job but then it went pop and wouldn't turn on again. Ooops!

On a similar odd note - I know I mentioned this before in other emails and writings but all the doorways in Denmark have this strange rising sometimes a small one but other times it could be a good half inch and it just makes you trip all the time if you aren't looking down or used to it. When barefoot its not nice kicking one. Another strange thing is that in the center of the ceiling is the power for a ceiling light. You string power from that to where ever you want the light placed on the ceiling. Now since they are so interchangeable people take these light fixtures and you are left with no light unless you have your own. Now we didn't have one or one that was so easy to install so we had small end table lights on the window sill and the TV as our only source of light in the dining and bedroom for a week. Really odd. Also the electricity wall outlets are located below a light switch so they are high up on the wall. It's really ugly, chords everywhere dangling. Just a few observations of strange differences.

So where was I? Ok so the meeting with the club. The club director and coach/do everything guy were really nice and gave us some money for a couch because the one they had was too big to fit in our place reasonably. Everything that I have encountered so far has been run really well. No suprises like on other teams that I played on. They really want you to be comfortable and it shows. I couldn't be happier. Oh and the couch is awesome too!

Our first games were against a German First Division team called Wuppertal. We played two exhibition games against them interchanging squads frequently. I think we lost both in 4 but we weren't that far off. Following these two exhibition matches we had a small tournament called the Scandic Cup with 4 teams: Wuppertal, us, Middelfart and Gentofte. We lost in 5 to Wuppertal basically gave them the match it was pretty bad but you could see we were getting it more and more as we kept playing more together. Matches 2 and 3 we won both. 3-0 against Middelfart and 3-2 against Gentofte so we took second in the round robin tournament. 5 matches in 4 days was a brutal assault on my body. Jesus!

Since then we have just been conditioning and trainging as a team. Two Americans from the exposure tour made the squad my good buddy Chris Nelson a teammate from Loyola and a new comer from St. Louis Joe Deimeke. Both good additions which should put us over the top as the favorite to win everything this year. Other than that I have been dominating books on my Kindle and coaching twice a week on top of practicing 4 times a week so far. It has been a great first few weeks and I am looking forward to having a really nice stay here in Denmark.

The only bad thing really has been that I seemed to have agrivated something in my lower right leg and it is usually left throbbing in pain pretty bad after practice. I saw a doc and had an x-ray and he seems to think that it could be over use or some nerve problem. I am off of it until Monday so I hope to be 100% or really close to it by then. We leave tonight after practice for a team building camping trip of sorts I guess. They haven't filled us in on much of the details, but it should be fun. Orders were to bring a sleeping bag, a pillow, running shoes and a bike. I just say ok and show up I don't ask questions. Miss everyone! Keep checking for further posts and pictures...hej hej