AtomJohnson Blog

It would surprise few to find out that I love to play soccer.  In fact, it easily tops the list of my favorite thing to do.  I have been playing consistently several times a week since I was in elementary school.  Boulder has definitely been the best soccer town I’ve lived in so far.  There is a wonderful indoor facility about 5 minutes from my house and an equally nice outdoor complex even closer.  In the fall, winter and spring, I generally play lunchtime pickup at the indoor place.  I also play on 2 different indoor league teams at the same facility.

Well, tonight I played in a game against the owners of the facility.  They are all seasoned soccer players who have played and coached at a highly competitive level.  They currently coach the reserve squad for the Colorado Rapids.  Well, tonight my team beat their team 9 to 6.  I played just as hard as I ever play.  On defense, I always shut the player down as quickly as I can and anyone who has played with me will certainly attest to the fact that I’m an intense player.  In fact, I pride myself on my hard work and intensity on the pitch.

Tonight that intensity came back to bite me.  It rubbed the owner, Rodrigo, the wrong way and after the game he informed me that I would never be allowed to play in the facility again.  Keep in mind that I did not harm another player, I did not lash out against anyone, and I walked on the field at the end of the game to shake hands and was refused this show of sportsmanship from Rodrigo and was instead told to “F’ off” and told that I would never play in that facility again.  I calmly explained that I played no harder than any other player who plays there every single night.  It fell on deaf ears.

My hope was to talk with the referee, who called only a few fouls on me throughout the game….even though the opposing team screamed bloody murder every time I challenged for the ball.  As I walked outside, the referee was crying with hysterical frustration because the owners had yelled and cursed him out on his performance.  He had just quit.

The entire episode seems unreal.  I would love to find another facility to play in, but there just isn’t one here in Boulder.  So, I’ve started my own Boulder Pick-up Soccer Meetup group.  If you are in Boulder and want to play pickup soccer for free, without worrying about unfairly being banned from a facility for life, please join the group.

On Sunday we witnessed Dick’s Sporting Goods Park set the world record for the largest gathering of soccer moms ever in a single venue.  Without a minivan overrun with soccer magnets, we still managed to sneak our way into the match to see the US Women beat the Brazilian National Team.  They got their world record and we got to see a great match.

I grew up making fun of the Renaissance Festival.  I had never been to one, but the commercials were ridiculous and left me no other option.  From my perspective, it was just a step up from a game of Dungeons and Dragons.  While it is really fun, you’d be embarrassed if your friends found out.

Well, now I’m outing myself…I’ve been to a Renaissance Festival, and I’m not surprised to report that it was actually pretty fun.  Alot of it was very much like I imagined.  There are tons of people talking as if they’re in a Monty Python movie, everyone is walking around eating turkey legs with their bare hands, and you’ll never have a better opportunity in your life to purchase and entire matching set of elaborate dragon-themed servingware.   Also, nowhere else can you see a knight in shining armour taking a quick rest to watch a pottery demonstration.

I’m actually considering putting in a proposal to see if they might change it to the Colorado Cleavage Convention.  You’ve never seen more boosteeays and midevil miracle bras in a single setting.  I was actually kicking myself that I didn’t attend this thing during puberty.

If you end up going, the best part is definitely Vegetable Justice.  You pay $5 to throw 5 tomatoes at a guy sticking his head through a wall while he wails insults back at your head.  I have never seen anyone better at their job than these insult artists.  Just be sure to wear some thick Renaissance-era skin….you’re gonna need it.

I’m am officially an Apple geek.  I’m now one amongst the ranks of wide-eyed, Steve Jobs-worshipping uber geeks who have waiting an absurd amount of time to purchase a newly released Apple gadget.  In case you missed it, Steve Jobs recently unveiled the much anticipated iPhone 3G in early June and ensured that few of us would sleep well until July 11th, when we could rest our heads comfortably on our new phones and 2 year year AT&T service contracts.

Actually for about a week leading up to last Friday, I was debating whether or not I even wanted to get the iPhone.  I’ve been very happy with Verizon Wireless and wasn’t sure I wanted to risk getting bad service with a new provider.  But, as I finished up my deadlines on Friday afternoon, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to go check things out at the Apple store.  So, I jumped in my underpowered, fuel efficient Japanese hatchback and headed over to the local Apple store.  As I approached the store, I saw one young man walk by with a sh!#-eating grin and an iPhone 3G bag in hand.  I nodded as if to say, “don’t worry, I’ll be there soon”.  As I turned the corner, I was surprised to see that there was no line.  I guess waiting till the afternoon had paid off.  When I explained to the Mac employee blocking the door that I was here to purchase an iPhone, he pointed across the street to the enormous line of people…also waiting to buy the iPhone.  This was my opportunity to head home and contemplate the purchase further…but, instead, I took my place in the back of the line and graciously accepted a free bottle of water that the Apple employees were handing out.

Over the next 2.5 hours, we saw groups of 12 or so people at a time excitedly walk into the store like catapillars and emerge as beautiful butterflies…butterflies with unlimited data plans on their crisp new iPhones.  As I finally approached the front of the line, I was cut off and asked to wait for the next group.  Just about this time, a photographer from the Colorado Daily showed up and asked if he could take my photo for Monday’s paper.  I managed to not look completely crazed as I knew that I was NEXT!

Finally it was my turn.  I was let into the sacred store and assigned my own personal sales representative to handle the adoption.  Over the next half hour I gave whatever information was necessary and excitedly checked boxes of agreement to terms that I could care less about…as long as it means that I am now amongst that special elite group of 7 million (and counting) who call the iPhone home.

We both woke up feeling very strange this morning.  After taking all of our vitals and looking up our symptoms on the internet, we deduced that what we were both feeling was a total lack of a hangover.  Having never experienced this feeling on July 5th, we were both taken aback and immediately thought we had come down with something.  You never think its going to happen to you, but sobriety has no favorites…it can attack anyone at anytime.

For breakfast, we decided on The Country Bounty…purely because of the name.  Not seeing that the buffet was full of delicious gluten-free options, Jess got her old standby breakfast of oatmeal.  She tried to order some bacon, but our waitress whispered that she could just get some from my buffet plate.  In the end, Jess quietly took potatoes, bacon, grilled polenta and delicious salsa from my plate.  Our waitress didn’t charge us for her oatmeal or her OJ, claiming that it was all included with my buffet order.  The total for both of our gut-busting meals was $8.07.  Our waitress found herself with a very fat tip.  If you’re ever in Salida, CO around breakfast time, stop at The Country Bounty.  They’re basically giving food away.

With bellies full and heads clear, we headed down to Crestone to see Sharon.  Sharon housesat for me 2 winters ago.  We had the good fortune of overlapping for about 3 weeks, so we were essentially roomates for almost a month.  I had heard a bit about the Crestone house during that time, but did not realize just how amazing it was.  It is a straw bale construction house that she has been building for the past 11 summers with her 5 sons.  She let Jess and I look through photo albums of the 11 years of construction.  It is such an amazing little house, but even more amazing when you see all of the work that has gone into it.  She is currently selling the almost finished house in order to move to Hawii. I highly encourage you all to buy it.  If you ever need a housesitter, please look me up.

Jess and I had hoped to head into Alamosa to see the Saturday night stock car races, but were dissapointed to find out that the tracks had recently closed.  The Dept of Transportation is making all of the roadside attractions in the valley take down any signs with writing on them.  I guess it is killing business for alot of attractions.  The lady at the Colorado Tourism Center instead pointed us towards Calvillo’s Mexican Restaurant.  I soon found myself enjoying my second buffet of the day.

As the daylight was fading, we made our way up to Sand Dunes Natioal Park.  These are the tallest dunes in North America.  You can’t even believe how enormous they are.  Anywhere else, they would be considered large by mountain standards, but with 14,000 peaks behind them, they are a bit dwarfed.  We were welcomed by the evening rush of mosquitoes and the late day howl of crying children who did not want to leave.  Once we stepped foot on the dunes, I understood their anguish.  Imagine the world’s largest sandbox bordered by a 100 yard wide creek to splash around and cool off in.  Sadie and Ruby were dying to run around off leash, but government regulations prevent such acts.

To close out the day, we went to the Sand Dunes Hot Springs pool.  This is an olympic sized pool filled with 98 degree water.  Its probably too hot to enjoy during the day, but its the perfect way to spend a cool Colorado evening.

After pouring an insane amount of money into the gas tank this morning, Jess, the dogs, and I all headed south for the holiday weekend.  Jess was a little sad to be breaking her traditional 4th of July plans with her friends, but assured me that she was OK going out of town instead.  The plan was to drive all the way down to my friend Sharon’s house in Crestone, CO and to head back up to Salida in the evening for the fireworks.  Well, after grabbing lunch in Salida on the way down, we opted to just stay there for the night and then head into Crestone on Saturday.  This was definitely the right choice as we found one of the very last available rooms in town for the night at the Mountain Motel.  Your $70 includes three beds, clean towels, wireless internet, and enough pine wood paneling to furnish a revival of the 1970s.

Salida is a very interesting town caught between its redneck roots and its newer, more progressive inhabitants.  Its currently about one half mullet and rubber-peeling Camero and the other half fauxhawk and kayak/mtn bike  hauling Subaru.  I embrace both.

With several hours to kill before the sun went down, we did the most American thing we could find…we played mini golf.  I’m sure a lot of real golfers look down on us mini golfers, but I’ll take mini golf any day.  Being 2 strokes ahead after the first hole, I was pretty confident that I was going to destroy Jess.  It appears that I peaked on the first hole…from there it was all down hill.  That was until the second 18 holes.  We somehow reversed roles and I was unstoppable.  The all came to a head when I got a hole-in-one on Hole #13.  This was a vast improvement from my hole-in-six on the same hole during the first round.  After 36 exhausting holes, I barely won with a score of 110 vs. Jess’s 114.  We celebrated by purchasing temporary lower-back tattoos.

After the sun went down, we did the second most American thing we could find.  We ate about 4 pounds of kettle corn and watched the fireworks.  While the fireworks were exciting, the two forest fires that they started stole the show.  They also cut the show short as the firemen who were in charge of setting of the fireworks were now tasked with trying to put out the fires.

Monday night is “date night”.  If its not Monday, its Tuesday….and sometimes Wednesday or Thursday.  Worse comes to worse, Friday night is “date night”.

Last Monday we took our date night to the Rockies vs. the Padres at Coors Field.  I had never been to Coors Field and we had never had our friend Mac along on one of our dates, so we killed two birds with one stone by taking Mac with us to Coors Field for the game.  What game would be complete without a foot long Bratwurst covered in grilled peppers and onions?  We washed that down with about a gallon of Coors Light.  Jess had the Nachos Supreme until the cheese completely overtook the nachos and we had to surrender the entire thing.

To be honest, I don’t really like baseball. In fact, I think its completely ridiculous, but somehow its still fun to go to the ball park and be in the presence of the great American game.  In typical Rockies fashion, they blew an 8 to 3 lead to find themselves tied 8 to 8 in the 8th….and eventually lost 15 to 8 in the 9th inning.  Go Rockies!

Have you ever seen one of those homemakeover shows where the guy goes out of town on a fishing trip with his buddies while his wife (or girlfriend) makes over a room in the house.  The guy eventually comes home and doesn’t recognize his own house because now it looks completely awesome and there is a camera crew in his living room.  Well, everything except for the camera crew part happened to me last weekend after I returned home from a week in Virginia.  First of all, I came to the door and there was a huge sign freshly inked in crayon that said “Welcome Home…sorry about the game”.  I was surprised about the sign.  Then, I walk upstairs and what was a pretty boring living room, now exudes orangeness, awesomeness, picture frames, non-hideous curtains and brand new pillows.  So, all week when I was asking Jess what she was doing that night, “Nothing” was just a cover up for “I’m completely busting my butt trying to redo the living room before you return on Sunday”.

Please enjoy the pics below of the new living room, along with images of the other rooms we’ve recently redecorated.

I know alot of people are annoyed lately with United Airlines.  They’ve cut back on their pretzels (I think each passenger gets 3 pretzels now), they charge you for a second bag…and apparently now, they have taken up a campaign to destroy the lives of soccer fans everywhere.

I know it sounds far fetched, but nothing else could explain my experience on Sunday.  I was returning home after a week in Virginia.  I got up way too early from having partied late at Steve and Becky’s wedding, and proceeded to wait 4 hours at the airport for them to get it together enough to get us home.  This meant that I would miss the live showing of the Euro 2008 Final game, but TIVO would come to the rescue and deliver it to me later that evening.  I cannot even tell you how much I was looking forward to this game.  I had not missed a single match leading up to the finals….not even at the bluegrass festival.  So as to not accidentally find out the score before I got home, my plan was to keep my head down in the airport and my iPod at full volume.  I didn’t even want to risk overhearing the score or seeing it on a television.  Well, as we’re preparing the cabin for landing, the attendant gets on her airhorn and blabs, “For those of you interested in the European Cup…”.  At this point I shove my fingers into my earholes and start humming as loud as I can in hopes that it will cover the announcment.  Through all of this, I hear, “Spain beat Germany 1 to 0″.  I absolutely could have killed her.  I looked around for anyone as dissapointed and outraged as I was, but most people simply looked confused as to what she was talking about….those silly Europeans and their soccer…..I tell you….

Two more of my friends tied the knot this past weekend.  On Saturday, my very good friends Steve and Becky Hittle were joined in holy matrimony.  The ceremony took place on Georgetown’s campus in a cathedral that might just be older than dirt itself.  It was a traditional Catholic ceremony, and it could not have been more obvious that I was not Catholic.  Everyone was making crazy motions with their hands and responding in unison to phrases spoken by the priest.  I hung towards that back, feeling like the kid who had not done his homework.  Towards the end of it all, the priest announced they were married…so, I guess enough people did the correct hand motions for everything to go through.

The reception was back at their house.  They had setup an enormous circus tent that was soon filled with people, booze, delicious homecooked cuban food, speeches, blessings, smiles, first and last dances.  I’ve rarely seen two people looking more in love than they did during the first dance.

While in the dinner line, I found out that Steve’s backyard neighbor was an extra in The Last Kind of Scotland.  Not to “one up” him, but I had to at least match him by telling of how I was an extra in Hulk Hogan’s hit movie, No Holds Barred.  As I’m saying this, the gentlman across the buffet line says (in the thickest Boston accent I’ve ever heard), “No #$%!, You were in No Holds Bahhhd?!?!?!”.  He had grown up watching this movie nonstop with his buddies.  They had even gone so far as to nickname one of his buddies “Dookie”, after one of the most famous lines in the movie.  It was a few more minutes towards my 15 minutes of fame, but it was perhaps the most rewarding.  Sometimes you have an episode like this to remind you that it really is all about the fans.

No Holds Barred Trailer:

*** As a late addition to this entry, I must praise Steve and Becky’s wedding photographer, Roey Yohai.  He took a candid of us at the wedding and I jokingly asked him if he’d email it to me.  I found this funny due to the fact that he is WAY too busy to be emailing individual candids to every wedding guest.  Despite his workload, he actually emailed it to me.  So, thanks Roey!  And everyone…make sure you hire Roey for your weddings, barmitzvahs, swim team banquets and anything else you’d like a kickass photographer and really nice guy to attend.