NASC Women's U-23 Scores

Thanks to my rugby friends for these updates ...

USA U-20s defeats Southern California, 44-0

West defeats South, 32-0

Northeast defeats Mid-Atlantic, 42-12

Midwest defeats Pacific, 39-15 (HELL YEAH!)

You can also see some more live updates here at YSC from Wendy.

Can someone verify that MARFU loss for me? The two-time champs are out of the final?

I'm looking for some more Midwest glory! Let's get that 2009 title Thunderbirds!

And there are a few great Wisconsin kids on that USA Eagle U-20s team as well. Great job all around for Day 1.

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Crouch, Touch, Pause & Engage

We welcomed four new small fish to our household last night.

Four very small red and blue neon tetras. We named them Crouch, Touch, Pause and Engage.

Can you tell it's a home of two rugby players?

And our young cat Frankie now won't leave the tank alone. Keep your fingers crossed I don't come home to a very wet cat and a destroyed fish tank.

**********

Biked to work today as well. No bacon being given out this morning, sadly. However, I did see some biker road rage, some baby canadian geese and some baby mallards. So I consider it a worthwhile bike ride.

The biker road rage happened after a young dumb guy in an orange car cut off myself and an older man on our bikes with his car through a crosswalk when we had the right of way. I just hit my brakes, then proceeded on my merry way. Older man thought it was worthwhile to pull up next to the young dummy stopped at the nearby light and bang on his car with some colorful phrasing. And then he zoomed past me on the path ...

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Women's NASC's in Pittsburgh

Best of luck to the Midwest Women's U-23s in Pittsburgh!

I'll post any scores as I find them. Sending positive winning thoughts to the Thunderbirds so they beat MARFU.

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"coach" and "owner of fish"

I just sent in my form for my first ever coaching certification course via USA Rugby. Milwaukee July 11-12.

I am taking the Introductory course. I am looking forward to it. And glad that it worked out so well that I could take a class close by home this summer on a weekend free of a good tournament.

Also ... tonight I hope to be the proud owner of some fish for our new 10 gallon aquarium. Purchased after many hours spent discussing how cool the ocean is while in Belize. Not quite the same as the ocean, but still a cool little aquatic world hopefully.

Plus, the cats will like it. Hopefully I will not become the owner of a wet electrocuted cat who couldn't stay out of the fish tank with its various lights and whatnot.

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Bike to Work Week ... Bacon!

I don't have a twitter feed. I've thought about it ... but I have this fear that somehow the twitter feed will start publishing the thoughts I'm thinking and not just what I'm typing.

That could be a really interesting and likely troublesome situation ...

For instance ... so far today, the brain twitter feed would go something like this ...

• Dress up for work or wear T's pants again? T's pants win!
  
  
• If I'd known that they would be giving out free bacon for riding my bike to work today, that would surely have been the tipping point in biking, not driving. I can actually smell the bacon!
  
  
• A baby bunny!
  
  
• Why do I feel the need to look up those two idiots from that MTV show on Wikipedia? But ... can't stop myself. Must know more about heidi and spencer. And then beat my head on desk.
  
  
• Someone needs to pay me to go to parties and live in a jungle in Costa Rica. seriously. I too can smile with my eyes.
  
  
• Must you leave a huge hairspray cloud in the bathroom right where I need to wash my hands? ack.
  
  
• Bacon. Bacon. Bacon.
  
  
• T's pants ... who have I convinced around the office that I am fashion forward?
  
  
• Someone should clean my desk ... wish I had a house elf. Perhaps an office elf and house elf. And a car elf. Probably a laundry elf so I don't need to wear T's pants to work. two days in a row. :)
  
  
• bacon.
  

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Clean & Simplify ...

I keep running into people who tell me that they used to read this blog all the time.

Sometimes they know I am "Blondie". Sometimes they don't and then when they ask if I know her, and I say I do, they ask me to tell her to blog again. So I do.

I am back on here today to clean up. There are a lot of cobwebs and dust bunnies. And it was getting too busy and full of random broken whatsits anyway. It needs a good purging. And some love. It's like that nearly dead plant on your windowsill, hanging on somehow without water, light or attention ... all brown, but you see the tiniest bit of green somehow.

Are you glad it's summer? Me too.

The sheer possibility of an open summer is awe-some in the truest sense. Full of awe.

I'm attempting to not be busy. But you know how that goes ...

I'm playing. Can you ever not play? Don't answer that. I'm signed up for the Lakefront 7s in July and our home tournament, SD 10s, in August. I am waiting to see if I go play a co-ed harlotfest in a few weekends - forces are conspiring against full enjoyment though, so that is up in the air. It's hard not to want to show a few guys how to play better though, isn't it? Why do men always assume that because you have breasts, you're not going to beat them to the ball? Perhaps the breasts are distracting?

I was a Under-23 women's select-side coach this spring. First, for the Wisconsin team (undefeated in Midwest Tier 2 and heading back up to Tier 1 where they belong for 2010). And then I was invited to be a coach at the Midwest Under-23 women's elite select camp a few weeks ago. That was a great experience, met a lot of great new rugby contacts, learned some new drills, reiterated to myself that I know this game and enjoy sharing the learning experience with others. A great opportunity to be a student and teacher of the game. Thanks to Steve, Jennifer, Sue and Matt for letting me help out.

I have also been asked to be the coach of the University of Wisconsin-Madison women's team starting this fall. This will shake up my rugby priorities, already is. But I need something new, something fresh. I am really looking forward to it.

I am hoping to take a coaching certification clinic this summer.

Outside of rugby, I am working a lot (always?) and just recently got back from nine days in Belize.

To say it was a great vacation doesn't do it justice. To say that I am seriously considering working very hard for a few more years to pay off everything that keeps me locked in a typical 9-5 job and then ditching it all to go work as a scuba diving instructor for a while seems ... not enough.

We spent four days of the nine scuba diving on the reef off of Ambergris Caye, an island off of the northern coast of Belize. T and I slept through a 7.0 earthquake and a tsunami warning as well. We'd been out late for his birthday. It was "ladies night" at a nearby bar on a dock on the ocean, with a live DJ and lots and lots of rum. It's better to sleep through natural disasters, because you wake up and find that you're still safe and only need to e-mail your parents to calm down, you're safe, and all is well still.

Only major downside to Belize? They only play soccer. But bringing rugby to Belize could be a great new life's mission. Just keep my dive tanks full and the rum drinks and ceviche cold.

GOOD LUCK!

I'm listening to "Let it Rock" by Kevin Rudolf (and this particular version had Lil Wayne too), a song I already like, but was inspired to find on YouTube because it's on the Eagle Women's 7s playlist.

They're off for Dubai and the World Cup. All I can say is AWESOME!

Kick some global butt Eagles!

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Thoughts on Rugby on ABC

Like most of you (hopefully), I'm sitting here watching the USA Rugby 7s highlight show on ABC right now. And it's fantastic to see rugby on American national television.

Hopefully, there's a whole lot of non-ruggers watching and not changing the channel along with us right now.

That said, it's very obvious that this is a broadcast for men. All the commercials are for the male demographic, generally. Lots of Bridgestone tires (main sponsor), but then e-trade, other dude-specific.

So in turn, just a very tiny highlight of the women's tourney and finish. Plenty of shots of the USA Rugby bunny fans though. This is fine though. Expected even. Any promotion for the sport on a national level is good for all of us.

Did you see the Rugby Magazine commercial? It would've been nice to see at least one female face in their action shot montage. It's on again - and there are two female faces, but they are two fans (maybe the bunnies?) hugging an Eagle player from the stands. So that doesn't count.

Ha ha ... prostate commercial. Flomax. More dude stuff.

Did you also see the interview with USA captain Chris Wyles? I wonder how many non-rugger Americans watching this are wondering why our national team captain has an English accent? Wyles did try to explain and say he's an American. The marketing side of me says perhaps we should've had an American player do the interview. And now listening to the play-by-play between England and Argentina, I'm also thinking we should have American commentators. Realistically though, there probably aren't any qualified enough to call these games.

Oh well ... all in all, this is rather cool. I keep looking for my friend Kim in the stands or anyone else I know.

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"Rugby Players Go Ape for Monkey Bar Workout"

Our Madison teams were featured in a recent article in one of our local papers about gym culture. The article focused on a our rugby team class at the Monkey Bar Gym. Check it out and be sure to check out this video too. Pretty cool.

Main Article on Gym Culture: Let's get physical: Madison fitness centers offer range of options

Rugby Players Go Ape for Monkey Bar Workout & Related Video

I'm in the photo and the video trying hard to never look like I was dogging it. But that workout was tough that night. The poor reporter couldn't keep up with us.

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Could I be more lame?

Yeah, the answer to that question is definitely no. I am lame lamerson of lameville.

So, I greatly underestimated my ability to set aside free time to check in here regularly. I'll be honest, my new job keeps me quite busy and nearly always on a computer, but not for updating one's blog. I'm not supposed to even check my facebook, but I sneak that in anyway (but am cutting back for the record!).

Anyway, so yeah, it's February. I'm dead tired. I have been putting in quite a lot of 10 and 12-hour work days over the past couple of weeks, plus a number of Sundays where I still head back into the office for some more work (ugh!). I'm simultaneously putting together a major publication, hitting deadlines for my monthly magazine, beta-testing our new work website (bugs!) and then putting out fires that pop up routinely.

And rugby has started. So there I'm taking my Monkey Bar Gym classes twice a week, trying to get our team and officers organized for spring, being an assistant coach for our state's U-23s and serving on way too many boards (team, city, state ...).

Pathetically, I have only been to my new gym twice! But I'm still getting works outs, so it's okay, but I hate to think I'm paying them for a membership I'm not using. Once work settles back into 8-hour days, I'll get there.

My boyfriend/roommate/landlord/fellow cat wrestling fan is also on deadline for his work, plus gym, plus rugby, plus board meetings. Our two cats aren't seeing much of us lately, so when we do get home late at night, they follow us around. Our house is probably 2,000 square feet or larger, and yet all four inhabitants will end up sitting on the same couch in the same 3-cubic feet of breathing room.

Well, please know "blog more often" is on my to-do list. Right after "balance checkbook", "do taxes", "floss" and "make flier for chili cook off".

What else is happening?

Our team opted to move back up to D-1 after one year at D-2. Now with the superleague restructuring, our Midwest D-1 division was in danger of being folded into the West or something like that, so our team and the Detroit Women stepped up. We'll have a D-1 league of Chicago North Shore, Chicago Women, Detroit and Wisconsin now. Other D-2 teams that finished in the Midwest Final 4 from last year were invited, but I guess they said no. It should be good rugby. We just need to get our numbers up and lock in a coach. More stuff on that trusty to-do list.

In other unrelated news, does anyone else think the whole world is getting pregnant? I think it's just my age and the age of the vast majority of my social world, but I swear there are a lot of babies being made right now. Tim and I aren't anywhere near that place right now, but it is interesting to hear about all the tummies growing. And the strange facts that you don't find out until you're pregnant (or in my case know several people who are pregnant). Each time Tim and I find out about someone new, we always have some discussion about how the cats are like babies. But we can leave them home because they can poop in a box, feed themselves and be perfectly happy. It's probably the ability to poop in a box that really clinches this deal for me. Hence, the lack of dogs.

So, I'm super tired right now and have to get up at 5:30 to be at work on the other side of town at 7 a.m. for a political debate (yeah media!). I just got home from Milwaukee after attending a practice with the talented University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's rugby team. Good to see and meet some more of them outside of U-23s. So thanks to their coach Scot P. for letting me attend.

I'll try my hardest to get on here more.

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