Sucking Wind and Dodging Bullets

Obviously most people working in the Houston Dynamo front office are soccer fans and former players. I am no different. Some guys from the office and I play indoor soccer twice a week. Even though most of us are in our 20's, we talk about the "glory days" of our playing careers reflecting on intense high school state tournament games in horrible weather conditions and wild stories from club soccer weekend tournaments. There also exists the key element of how out of shape we all are. One of the requirements to make the Carroll HS varsity team was to run two miles under 14 minutes. These days, I can barely run five minutes during an indoor game without running out of juice. One of the most important things in soccer is your "touch" or how easily you can control the ball with your feet. When your energy and endurance goes out the window, your touch quickly follows. You can't control the ball if you can't keep your head above your knees. This was my problem the other night. I couldn't control the ball to save my life. I even completely wiffed receiving a pass and watched the ball shamefully roll into the back of our own net. No wonder soccer is called the beautiful game.

I've noticed that weather and traffic are the two main news topics on any given day in the Houston area. So when a tropical storm began brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bayou City entered a minor state of crisis. I didn't think much of it at first, but as that tropical storm was given the name Humberto and began spiraling toward the coast, I couldn't help but get a little concerned. You see, in Indiana, don't have to worry about Hurricanes. You get the occasional tornado, but never do you have to worry about your house getting flooded and ripped of its foundation in the same natural disaster. The locals in the office took advantage of this Midwestern boy telling me to stock up on bottled water and non-perishable food items. I almost fell for it. Everyone was too calm for me to get worried. That night, I laid in my bed waiting for the storm to hit. It never happened. The next morning, the news anchors said we dodged a bullet, but I thought to myself "What about the people to the east who didn't dodge a bullet? What about them?"