Prove It!

When we were 8-9 year old kids, arguments were punctuated with cries of, "prove it." Marc and his friend Krystian were arguing in the back seat today, when Kristian said, "Prove it. Google it."

Getting Fit to Your Bike Works

When I bought my bike at Mighty Riders, they measured me up to make sure I was buying the right frame. Then when the bike was built they put it in a stand and watched me ride and adjusted it further. It was definitely nice to ride.

However, I was still finding that my feet would go numb after an hour, and other parts would sometimes go numb sooner (I won't name the parts so this blog won't get filtered).

Ed at Mighty said, "Bring it back. We'll check your fit." Apparently, it's now their standard practice to make people come back after they've had their bike for a few months. So we put the bike on the stand two weeks ago and they checked out my style.

First, they made me go buy new shoes. I knew my shoes were on their last legs (ha, ha), but they said the shoes were flexing so much that it would affect my comfort on the bike. Fortunately, Mighty Rider's sister store, On the Rivet, had some good deals on shoes. My feet are a weird shape so I had to spend more than I originally planned, but over the life of the shoes it will amount to about $10 per year to be more comfortable.

When I got back to my bike they had flipped the stem to get my handlebars up a little higher, and changed the angle a bit. They said I should probably get different bars so we can move the brake hoods a bit, but we're leaving that for the next time.

Back on the stand and pedaling, Ed said, "You've got to start the push down with your knee over the crossbar. Think about pushing your foot outwards, not straight down." Fortunately, by chance I'd seen a video clip of someone in the Tour de France this year who was doing exactly that, otherwise I might have thought he was pulling my leg.

I think the pedaling style is probably what has helped the most. I just felt way more comfortable the minute I started to pedal that way. And when I start to feel uncomfortable, it's because I'm forgetting to pedal correctly.

They sure know their stuff at Mighty Riders. After Ed watched me pedal for a few seconds he said, "Go home and measure your thighs by putting a string around them. Your right thigh will be bigger than your left." It was, by more than a centimetre.

Marc's Summer Camp Show

We put Marc in a one week day camp with Stagecoach, a drama arts school (www.stagecoachschools.ca). The staff there did an awesome job of bringing out the best in all the kids, especially with Marc. I'm very grateful for the care and consideration they gave to Marc.

Here's a rough cut of the Friday afternoon show they did. It has the parts that Marc was in (thank goodness YouTube now allows 15 minutes per video -- saved me some editing).

Star Wars Concert

We went to a concert of a full orquestra playing music from the Star Wars movies last night. Marc and I went dressed up, me as Count Dooku and Marc as Anakin Skywalker just before he gave in to the dark side of the Force. I think I was the only guy my age, and in fact the only adult, that was in costume. The things we do to keep our kids happy.

Marcos' San Kumi Test

Marc's test for three stripes (san kumi), June 11, 2010.

The Law

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Anatole France

I saw this years ago in a storefront, and with the miracle of Google all it took was to remember to search for it one day.

Throw Ins

Here's a video on how to do a proper throw-in.

Argentina Canada

Canada lost to Argentina 5-0 today, in a friendly match before Argentina heads off to South Africa for the world cup. Watch Argentina's fourth goal at about 3:45 in the video. Three Argentinian players rob a Canadian of the ball. As soon as one of the Argentinian gets control of the ball, the other two run away to an open spot. One pass and Gooooooool.

Awesome Goalkeeping But Nothing Stops Barca

Watch Real Madrid's keeper make a number of outstanding saves. He's almost as good as Jarrod! In the end, Barca's (Barcelona's) players always find the open spot and are ready to score a goal. Barcelona beats Real Madrid 6-2.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Watch Maxi Rodríguez' concentration as he takes a cross on his chest and then shoots the ball into the upper corner of the net.

Move to the Open Space

Watch how players from Argentina in the dark blue always move to a space where there's no opposing player. Then the player with the ball passes to the player who's in the open space. Watch 25 passes and then listen to the great Spanish "Gooooooooool".

Hastings (Empire Bowl) Soccer 2010 -- Italia

Welcome to Team Italia of the Hastings (Empire Bowl) Soccer League for 2010. I'm coach Larry and I'm proud to be coaching my great group of Grade 2 and 3 kids.

Check back here often, as I'll post lots of info for the players and their parents.

Today all I have is the league rules. Be sure to read and understand the rules:

1. I will participate because I want to
2. I will play by the rules -- winning is fun, but so are many other things about the sport
3. I will control my temper -- fighting and "mouthing off" can spoil the activity for everyone
4. I will remember that winning isn't everything -- that having fun, improving skills, making friends and doing my best also are
5. I will acknowledge all good plays / performances -- those of my team and of my opponents
6. I will remember that coaches and officials are there to help me. I will accept their decisions and show them respect
7. I will always make sure that my coach knows where I am
8. I will give everyone an equal chance to participate

Marcos' Dance April 30, 2010

Here's Marc participating with his buddy class in a dance presentation.

Reid Homestead

Grandma and Grandpa Reid's homestead near Meskanaw, Saskatchewan, in Google Street View:


Ver mapa más grande

Kids' Soccer (Football)

My son is playing soccer on a U8 team, which means the kids are six or seven at the start of the year. It's a fun league, which means "we don't keep score." Of course, the kids keep score, and it's highly disheartening for my kids, because we're the team that always loses. (Actually, there's another team in our situation, and games with that team are actually interesting. We even won one.)

I know it really bugs my kids that we lose all the time. I fear some of them are getting turned off soccer. I bet we're not the only league with badly uneven teams. I think part of the solution is to keep score, and for the league organizers to use the information to balance out the teams over the years. Here's how.

Record every game score for the season. Ideally, also record which players actually showed up at each game. That would be pretty easy for the coach or manager to do. When it comes time to make the teams next year, give all the kids who have history in the league one point for each goal their team scored. Put the kids in order by points and assign the kids to teams on a round robin basis. If a coach or parent asks that two kids play on the same team, then the player moved to make room has to have the same number or more points than the requested player (to eliminate incentives to stacking).

Of course this isn't going to be perfect. You don't know about new players who come along. It won't work for the first year the kids play. But it doesn't have to be perfect. Part of sports is to learn to win and lose graciously. But kids have to be doing both. It doesn't do any good to teach some kids that the deck is stacked against them and they'll never win.

Why Lencho Reyes?

If you wonder why my Google name is lenchoreyes, here it is:

First, in my ongoing quest to miss every great development, I totally blew off my brother when he offered an invitation to a beta of this "gmail" thing. So I missed my chance to be larry.reid@gmail.com.

When I finally got around to signing up for all things Google, all variants of my name were taken. So I used one of my Spanish pseudonyms.

"Lencho" is short for "Lorenzo", which is the Spanish equivalent of "Lawrence". So "Lencho" would be "Larry".

"Reyes" is a real Spanish surname that literally means "Kings". When I was first traveling in Central America, the way to make long distance calls home was to go to a telephone company office, write up a little paper form, then sit in a stuffy waiting room for an hour or so until an operator connected your call and called your name. I missed a few calls because someone massacred the pronunciation of my name (for some reason, "Reid" is hard to read for Central Americans which is funny, because "reid" is actually a word in the Spanish spoken in Spain).

At the same time, I figured out that when I said my surname to people, and tried to make it "Spanish" so they could spell it, their brains would translate what they were hearing to "Reyes", because that's the closest surname they could think of to match the sounds I was making. So I just started writing my name as "Lorenzo Reyes" on the phone company form, and I never missed another long distance call.