USA’s surprising first place finish in Group C put us in a bit of a predicament: we had fully expected to see the American squad, if they advanced, playing the 4 pm Sunday game in Bloemfontaine just before our last ticketed match at 8:30 that night. Instead, Donovan’s last minute rebounder had lifted the [...]
Archive for the ‘Travel Experiences’ Category
21 Jun
An Introduction, 4 Days Late…
This was intended to be posted upon arrival in South Africa on Friday night, but as things worked out, we had no access to Internet until tonight. So here, late, is that intended post, with a vow to follow with further updates, more regularly, from here on, as we are supposed to be internet-capable from [...]
13 Jun
Sorry, No ‘Green’ Jokes Here
If you’ve come to this blog post expecting for me to pile it on Robert Green, to add yet another witty headline bashing the ridiculed English keeper, to talk about Dempsey’s “Hand of Clod” goal, then you’ve come to the wrong place. That’s the easy path, the proverbial bandwagon choice, the road most travelled, and while I relish the USA draw with [...]
9 Jun
Pre-Game Warm-Up (1995)
Make no mistake, when we leave for South Africa in 8 days and subsequently attend 3 World Cup matches beginning on June 23, it will be by far the biggest stage in which any of us have ever witnessed a professional soccer match, or any sporting event for that matter. It will not, however, be the first professional soccer match we [...]
19 May
Epilogue/Prologue
The conclusion of one event leads to the commencement of another. As I wrapped things up in Chicago, I knew that I could fully turn my focus from preparing a talk on new approaches to address-based sampling at the Freqs and Geeks conference to preparing for a south-of-the-equator trip to watch the world’s biggest sporting event. Even [...]
18 May
The Magical World of Chicago, Part Due
The Night at Wrigley (see Part Uno) , I thought, would be the end of spontaneous adventures in Chicago. No more solitary travels through the famed Second City without backup. Too many things that should have gone wrong went right, better off quitting while I was in the lead. This idea, however, fell to the wayside this [...]
17 May
The Magical World of Chicago, Part Uno
The time away from my blog has been spent working, and travelling, actually travelling for work. My destination was to the city of Chicago, to which I dedicate this post, as a tribute to the good fortunes I have found there. This 2-part post, and my recent business trip with a twist of pleasure, has little to [...]
3 May
The Unintended Consequences of A Florida Soccer Camp
Ironically, my first experience playing soccer in Florida wasn’t when I moved here in my late twenties, wasn’t as a member of Nielsen United. Actually, my first time playing soccer in the Sunshine State was in the Summer of 1994, when, after having seen an ad for the Lanzera National Select Soccer Camp, I ever-so-gently twisted my parents’ [...]
3 Apr
Experimental Travel Part III: Lisdoonvarna and Pata Pata
As I continued to experiment with travel, I soon realized that I was making a fundamental error in my assumptions. The belief that one needs to step outside to be transported from one location is purely false. “Rainy day” travel can be accomplished by reading a book that quite literally “transports” you (not physically, but [...]
23 Mar
Experimental Travel Part II: A-B-C, (Not Quite As) Easy as 1-2-3
Soon after three “random trips”, I decided to step up my experimentation, be more ambitious, really push the envelope on the scope of travel. One catalyst for this heightened desire was the Lonely Planet published Experimental Travel, a book full of short travels with the goal of travelling “with constraints, that at the same time liberates you [...]
