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Intro 1998 1999 2000 2001

A busy week all round here in sunny Portland. We'll start off with the rugby. On the Sunday, after the first game, we found that our schedule had been changed, and that we now had 2 games on Monday and Wednesday, and 1 game on the Friday. I had only booked the Monday afternoon off, rather than the whole day, as the only game we used to have was in the afternoon. I hummed and hahed about it, but decided to e-mail a message to the client that I was taking the whole day instead.

So, off to Tualatin Hills sports center again in time for 11am. This is quite a fine facility, with 5 soccer/rugby pitches, the main one with grandstands, several basketball courts, a large sports hall and a swimming pool. In the morning we played the Portland Old Boars (ak the pigs), where we lost 11-0. These guys, despite playing in the over 40s tournament, play together regularly, and it shows. I didn't get to play much in this game, but put in some good tackles and support on our own line to stop them scoring.

The afternoon game was supposed to be against a team from San Jose. However, their captain came across not long before the game was due to start and said they had to scratch, not being able to field a team. They had had a few injuries, and several guys hadn't turned up as expected. We did consider giving them a few players and playing a friendly, but that would have put us at risk of injuries for our remaining games. It was just as well I'd taken the whole day off, as if I'd taken the half day and not got a game at all I'd have been well dischuffed.

The Wednesday early game was against the South Sea Islanders, from the Sacramento area. Despite losing an early try, we came back to win, scoring in the last couple of minutes. I played a bit in this game, as well, and then played the whole of the final game, against the PNW Loggers from Seattle. We got well stuffed in this one, although it was quite a weak team that we fielded, resting all our good players, as we were already through to the final on the Friday. In between games I also tried goal kicking, something I've always fancied trying. I proved to be fairly accurate from both left and right sides, but my range was only about 30-35 meters. I'm not about to rival Gavin Hastings, but it was good to know that I wasn't completely useless.

For the final on Friday, I only played the last couple of minutes as my legs were really complaining from the exertions of the previous days. I really wasn't up to playing seriously, but I at least wanted to say I played in the final. This was against the Loggers again, and we were doing quite well, 3-3 just 3 minutes before half time. Then they intercepted a poor pass and romped in for the try, which was also converted. After half time they scored an early goal, dropped a goal and a penalty, which kind of took the stuffing out of the game. Overall, the result was a bit flattering to them, but they were the better team. More guys closer to 35 than 40, and they've also played together more.

So, we were awarded silver medals, except they ran out of silver medals and started dishing out bronzes, which I'll try to swap for a silver. On the Wednesday I also went and registered, and got my free Nike bag, t-shirt and other goodies. For the match fee I paid I also got to keep my rugby shirt. Overall it was a fun week, and I'd like to get involved again (except this time in the over 40s!), but the next games are in 4 years time in Australia. Better start saving now...

Also last week was more soccer. A coaching clinic and the introductory meeting for the 1st Grade 3v3 (Graham's group) on the Wednesday evening and Colin's Rec+ coaching on the Thursday. No wonder my poor wee leggies were tired by Friday. I'm starting Graham's sesions on Tuesdays, so for the next month or so it'll be soccer on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I'm taking the Rec+ team off to Camas in Washington this weekend for a tournament, so we'll see how they do. I've at least maanaged to scrape together a team, when at one point it looked like we might have to withdraw. I even considered putting Graham's name down, as he would be better thatn no player if it helped make a team. I might do it yet.

More soccer. I had 2 phone calls today offering me places on soccer teams for the fall co-ed league. It takes 9 months and then I get 2 offers in 1 day! Sheesh! It's not entirely serious (co-ed means mixed men & women), but is supposed to be good fun. Sounds like my level of soccer!

This past Friday Cathy and the kids went up to the coast with Mitzi, Ryan and Danny. A good day was had by all, although Graham got a bit sunburned. Colin is going quite brown, but Graham just burns. Catriona is also tanning a bit, but not as much as Colin. A lot of time on Monday and Wednesday was spent going up to Tualitin Hills for my rugby. Cathy would take me up for about 11am, hang about with the kids for a while then go back to the apartment, picking me up after the games.

On the computer front my PC is now all set up with the new Eudora e-mail front-end. I went for this one because it appears to be the only one that can be set up for multiple users. Most mail packages can handle multiple accounts for a user, but not multiple users. Now Cathy and I each have our own mail icons to keep our mail separate.

Also this weekend I finally bought a tape drive. Partly this was because I was getting nervous about all the photos stored on the PC with no copy. Dangerous. Also, I wanted to try and load the SBU stuff. Well, 1 out of 2 isn't bad as I managed to back up my PC, but the tape drive can't read the old tapes. Looks like I'm going to have to use the tapes back in Scotland.

Getting the tape drive to work was a bit of a bitch. I got the hardware installed, and booted no problem. Then I installed the Iomega Ditto Tools software and rebooted again. This time it started to load Win95 and stopped. The moving bar at the bottom stopped moving. Bad news all round. I waited a minute or so and then cycled the power. Booting iin safe mode didn't offer any clues, so I tried again. Same result. By this time I was loudly cursing Iomega for producing crap software (which it is anyway - it doesn't even offer an uninstall option) and bing a bunch of charlatans. Anyway I was reading the paltry literature that comes with the unit, when, after almost 5 minutes of system inactivity, the bootup restarts and completes! Trouble is that Iomega give you so little support (their web- site technical support doesn't even offer support via e-mail) that I may have to pay to get some sort of resolution. If there was another option to buying an Iomega tape drive I would, but there isn't anything else to chose from. And it still couldn't read my old tapes! :(

Whilst going on my spending splurge at Fry's, I also bought a new game - Sierra's Lords of the Realm II. This is a fabby little game set in medieval England, where you control a fiefdom. The aim is to expand your controlled area, kick out all the other lords and become king. It's not just that, however, as for any battles and sieges you have the option of fighting the battle yourself, so it's a nice cross between a planning/strategy type game and a beat 'em up. Kept me amused until 1:30am, anyway, and I'll play it some more. Not bad value for only $9.95...

Out and about it's been another warm week. High 90s f are temperatures that aren't often seen in Scotland, but we were playing rugby in them. A tad warm for that sort of exertion. But better than the freezing cold and rain.

The Clinton/Lewinsky affair (!) is coming to a head (!!!). Clinton today (Monday) testified to the Grand Jury, and even made a tv appearance. On this he admitted that he'd fibbed when he said that there was nothing between him and Lewinsky, but he effectively said that it was a private affair and to please butt out. He emphatically denied asking anyone to lie, so I think he's home and clear. Doing a Swaggart was really the only option, IMHO, as I get the impression that most people weren't really that interested in whether he and Lewinsky got up to anything. It was pretty much a running joke giving some radio shows something to talk about. Would you believe that the investigations have been going on for 4 years and have cost about $40 million?!? That's a whole lot of bread for something that most people don't give a hoot about.

Only 2 weeks until we move into the new house, and we're all getting really excited about it. Cars in the garage; a bit more space; a yard; soccer pitch just 2 minutes round the corner. We've got most of the utilities organized, the removers are booked and we've started thinking about packing. We've got the whole weekend to get done moved, but I'm still tempted to get a U-haul van, just for the fun of driving a big beastie.

Finally, I promise, I've just noticed that last week's thoughts weren't set up on the page properly. The file was there, but not accessible. Oh, well, you can read what you missed on the previous thoughts page.

Well, that's definitely enough for this week. I'll catch you all next week.