Travelling at 32.2 feet per second squared

Wiley Update #3:  If it’s a ruptured disk then it seems like it will be weeks before he is back to his normal self.  If it is something other that he may never be back to normal.

So now we are trying to dial-in how much of the steroid he should have.  The good news is that the steroid has helped.  The bad news is that too much of the steroid (and he’s been taking a lot) will cause ulcer and other issues.  So the vet asked us to stop the steroid on Sunday to see how he looked (he’s been taking four pills twice a day).  And all day Sunday he looked fine; came out to the door to see us when Suzanne and I got back from taking the boys to camp.  But this morning he was not so good; could not stand while he ate breakfast.  So he got four pills this morning and was a lot better in the afternoon and at dinner.  Only two pills for dinner.  We’ll try 4 and 2 tomorrow as well and then shift to 2 and 2 to see how that goes.

Gravity:  One of Kevin’s Christmas presents was presented to him the same weekend as soccer in the sand; Suzanne and Kevin travelled north to Charlevoix so that he could skydive for the first time.

Fric and Frac seem to not be as interested in this idea as Kevin is…..Matthew, while attempting enough daredevil stuff to make Mom and Dad cringe, flatly won’t even consider doing the two biggest coasters at Cedar Point right now.  

Kevin says a) it was a lot of fun!  and b) it was really strange to be pulling your legs over the railing out into nothing and c) the best part was the freefall.

Video from the jump if you click below

After the ‘fall’; Suzanne and Kevin went over to some friend’s and went out on a boat and tooled around Lake Charlevoix.

(heading out to the lake)

An Update on the AP Update

You may want to reread this post before you read further. 

Wiley Update #2:  Continues to improve; walked from the front yard to the back yard for the first time in two weeks late last night.  Got up(!) and walked out to the kitchen as I was making lunch for the boys’ trip kayaking on the Grand River today.  Got up(!) and walked outside to say hello when the wet grumpy tired boys arrived home after the kayak trip.  There were a few times today I watched him walking and couldn’t really tell he was limping.  Steroids finally having an effect?  Don’t know.  At this point we will take what we can get! 

Must tip my hat to our vet; she has asked that we call her every morning even though she was off Friday and obviously today.  Sent the refill for the steroid to rite-aid instead of the vet practice; the medicine was basically 1/4 of the initial cost (he is on a human steroid)!  Tomorrow he won’t be getting the steroid…she doesn’t want to overload his system with it.  So will continue to hope for more improvement.  Still a long way from a car ride……

Advanced Placement:  So, how did he do?

Lit:  He thought he would get at least a 4; got a 4.  Placed out of freshmen English.

Government:  Thought he would get a 5.  Was willing to bet large amounts of money on it.  Got the 5.  

Human Geography:  The most important of the tests because it gets him out of a science at NEU.  Pretty confident he did well here too after the test.  Got the 5.

European History:  Not as confident here after the test; think his aptitude for history and the social sciences helped him here.  Got the 4.

Macroeconomics:  Was always the subject he self studied for last and certainly the one he studied the least.  And it showed.  Got a 2 (a two!….#shameful!)

So, Kevin enters college as basically a sophomore, 28 credits earned towards his major.  And with his….oh wait, I didn’t talk about this did I?  How did I not talk about this!

Kevin, shortly after school ended, went out and took the online German placement test.  We, as a family, had some long talks about what to do here.  Better to not do well on the test and take the GRMN over and get good grades?  Better to do your best, study a lot beforehand, and show what you can do?

We decided on just take the dang test, don’t study, and you get what you get.

What you get is placing out of the complete foreign language requirement….Kevin placed into junior-year German and doesn’t even have to take that if he doesn’t want to.  Which led to another family discussion; better to keep taking German and become very proficient?  better to start another language?

As of now, he’s enrolled in GRMN 3101….we decided better to expert in one than so-so in two.  The online reviews of the German class and professor make it sound very daunting….again, does Kevin want to get caught up in something super hard when it doesn’t count towards graduation?  He can always drop I guess….and we’d like to think the rest of the freshman courses are relatively easy so might as well go for the harder one.

Speaking of freshman classes; Kevin has, strangely enough, placed out of the Math 2 requirement due to AP Stats but not Math 1…he has to take what will be a very easy math class at some point.  Hindsight says we should have had him take the AP Calc test even though he was only signed up for Calc, not AP Calc, at school.  He probably could have done more than well enough to place out of that.

 

Anyway, Kevin ends high school as an AP Scholar with Distinction.  If that Econ was a 4 instead of a 2 he would have been a National AP Scholar.  There is nothing to these names other than the name itself.

Soccer In the Sand 2014

Just haven’t been very current about updating the blog…..really need to be better about this.

Wiley Update #1:  Better Friday and Saturday Morning than he was Thursday…..still had to help him get to his feet on Friday morning but was able to walk to food, water, and outside and get up on his own as the day went on.  Not much more than that.  Ruptured disk maybe?  Was out in Grand Rapids on Thursday picking up Matthew from soccer camp…reports from home were very bad but maybe the steroids are finally kicking in and maybe the pain medication was dialed up too much.  At least he is doing the basics……

Soccer in the Sand:  Headed west a few weeks back for the second try at soccer on the beach in Grand Haven.  Last year was an unqualified success; 4-0 and a championship.  This year?  Not so much, 0-3 and a whole lot of disappointment.

Game 1:  Gave up a goal on a goalie miscue….gave up a goal on an own goal.  Down 2-0 after the first period.  We score twice in the second; Matthew has an assist on one goal but we are still down 3-2 after 2.  The third goal against is one of the first of the infuriating ones……we stand around and can’t mark kids on a corner kick so of course they just put it in on the header if no one is going to bother them. 

We give up two more in the third to lose 5-3.  Again, the goal against are infuriating; one time the team can’t do what every team does….build a wall as the other team kicks off and of course they score.  The last goal is the same deal as goal #3, can’t mark kids and they score unimpeded.

So where was Matthew during all of this?  On the first corner kick I talked about he is on the field and he comes back from up front to mark the kid in front of the goal; the guy on the far post is left alone and he puts it in.  He is not on the field for the other two disasters.

I think sand soccer suits Matthew very well…..it slows every player down and accents his strengths.  So he (because there is only other person on the team that they trust to play defense, and he is in the other group of four) is almost always back there and is a rock….always stopping the other team and usually starting us back down field.

Game 2:  Completely manhandled in this team by a bunch of kids who were much bigger than us.

The team we are on is the same as last year for the most part….a whole bunch of kids Matthew used to play with.  And I came away singularly unimpressed by many of them.  Could not create their own shot.  Could not keep possession.  Couldn’t be troubled to play defense. 

But, it is soccer in the sand and the sun is out and it is cool and the water is great so, uh, ok, it’s disappointing and we can live with that.

Game 3:  This game is what I can not live with.  We go up 1-0 on a nice goal.  They have a goal disallowed (it was very clear to the parents I was sitting near that the ball went over but the ref didn’t call it that way) and we are still up 1-0.  And the thing I dislike the most in almost any game happens here; parents thinking this is the world cup.   Yes the ref was bad.  But just because the other team’s coach is acting like a total fool doesn’t mean you need to respond or make sure everyone knows you are a total fool.   Sadly, some of the kids on the other team acted like their coach and played cheap, and even more sadly, our team responded.  More than a few kids were just going in trying to take out the other kid….not play the ball.

I ended up walking away from the field with about 3 minutes to go….just couldn’t stand it.  Which is too bad….I taped the whole game on my Ipad and of course Matthew scores his only goal of the weekend in those 3 minutes.   His goal is really similar to the goal that was disallowed for the other team…off the crossbar and down and in (their goal went almost straight down and barely crossed the line…Matthew’s goal hit the back of the net after the deflection).  And so the other coach again gets loud and snide and starts yelling “How is that a goal when ours wasn’t!?!”.  They are up 5-2 at this point.  Sigh.

But I could care less if the other team’s coach and parents are ogres…..I’m more pissed off that our parents acted that way and some of our kids decided that they could act on their parents’ frustrations. 

Went for a swim afterwards.  Sand, sun, water.  What I really should remember the weekend for I guess.

This boy didn’t listen to his Dad to apply a lot of sunscreen to his shoulders and arms because he doesn’t wear a tank top often.  He had a major sunburn to deal with through the week, with the inevitable peeling by the end of the week.

It’s there. And then it is not.

One of the nice things about sharing my apple account with the boys is that I get to see things….what music Kevin buys, where his phone is, and what pictures Matthew takes (Cpher is on Mom’s account…).

All of these pictures are taken since graduation weekend and pretty indicative of how often that subject shows up in a picture…about once a week.

Heading a ball!

Wiley’s sharp decline into a bad way has been, well, precipitous.  Not less than 3 weeks ago all was well….this picture is probably six weeks back.  Never the world’s most active dog, Wiley has enjoyed a renaissance of car rides this year that has been unparalleled in the last eight years of his life….almost daily trips in the morning and afterschool to drop off and pick up Christopher from school.  And he has loved every minute of it and even the slightest hint of a car key jingle in the morning will send him off to the side of the car to see if the door will open to take him away.

Wiley’s placement in this photo is incidental….but now just the sight of him standing confidently on his back legs is, well, something we desperately hope we see again.  But day by day this seems less likely.  So, what’s happened? 

A few weeks back Wiley developed a pronounced limp….he could still get around, he was sometimes less than graceful jumping into the car or up onto  the couch, but, he was limping.  There were some moments where he was his normal self and would rocket out of the house with Holly chasing god knows what scent in the backyard….so, we weren’t all that concerned at first.  The limp persisted, and we finally made the call to the vet to go in and see what was up.  They took an x-ray, and while there was a lesion on his spine in the x-ray, the big takeaway seemed to be that he had signs of arthritis and let’s try some non-steroid inflammation/pain drugs.

I know this picture is on a US World Cup Match Day….Matthew is sporting his US jersey.

And he was better for a day or so, or, improving at least….and then through the July 4th weekend it just got worse and worse.  Barely moving….would struggle to get up onto all four legs and very reluctantly would come out to eat and drink.

So vet visit #2 was last Monday.   Very obviously is not arthritis….is most likely that lesion, which is in a very bad spot, where all the nerve endings for both legs come together (I have been continually befuddled trying to explain which leg is the problem….because it seems like different ones at different times.  This would explain that).  Solutions here are limited….surgery, but, the minimum cost on that is $3k and that’s not happening.  Dump the non-steroid, move to a full-on steroid to help with inflammation, move to a full-on pain pill and get a heavy-duty antibiotic since he’s running a big fever as well. 

This picture was sent to Matthew at camp on Sunday night…

Improvement since the trip to the vet has been minimal; Kevin and I have had to help pick him up to get him on all four feet at times   A big milestone after the vet visit; could Wiley poop Monday afternoon (because apparently he hadn’t been going because he couldn’t bear down on those back legs).   He did go Monday….and Tuesday….but today he didn’t, and it is not a good sign when the dog isn’t achieving the lowest of benchmarks.  He is eating, and drinking, but, there is next to no movement without a whole lot of encouragement, and none of that movement is without a limp.   Started on two pain pills (he gets them every six hours), tried to dial it back to one every six hours but his movements have gotten worse….so we are back at two as of tonight.

At the vet Monday…..

So what’s next?  A whole lot of hoping……hoping the antibiotics and steroids have an effect soon and Wiley walks better….hope that he can at least achieve something close to normal (eat, drink, sleep, pee, poop) and accept that he is going to be more sedentary.    And that seems to be the absolute best case.  The worst case, sadly, seems to be approaching closer with every day that things don’t improve even a little bit.   Kevin and Cpher are fully aware of what is going on; we have not mentioned this to Matthew since he is away at camp but he will get a full and complete update tomorrow night.

From The Sports Desk – Williamston Four v Four

2014-2015:  Tryouts have come and gone; there are no big changes to report.  We have 16 on the team (one boy was moved down to the ‘B’ team; one boy left to do other sports).  16 is better than 18. 

Operation Fitness:  Both boys seems to be well, if not enthusiastic, at least not openly complaining about the plan.  I think I am enjoying the agility ladder sessions the most (the boys, and the dog, get a good laugh out of me attempting the exercises).

Hard at work….

The hardest thing is the strength and conditioning work that the soccer team has developed….Matthew has definitely been winded and sore at the end of those exercises.

To, um, encourage the boys on Operation Fitness I’ve offered some lessons at the high school….

 

This boy is a little bit more coordinated than the other one at this stage of the driving game…..

The 4v4:  We won’t be doing as many 4v4’s this summer as last…the schedule doesn’t work out for them.  Matthew is gone at camp during a lot of them and then I think the soccer team schedule is going to conflict with the big one at the end of the summer.  

The boys, watching the U12G final.  Matthew’s, hmmm, girlfriend isn’t the right term but it is the closest.  The girl-who-Matthew-is-going-out-with.  That’ll work.  Anyway, she is on that team. 

Game 1:  We lose 3-2 to Corn FC.  Corn is a team of kids from Matthew’s team, but, this game is more the story of us than them.  We hit the post of the goal four times in the first half….great chances, no conversion, and if you don’t score when you can you get this kind of result.

Game 2:  We beat Kickstart 10-2.  They aren’t that good, and we play everyone in different positions and still are scoring when the mercy rule kicks in.  

Feel bad for this team…they were the ultimate victim of some very strange bracketing/scheduling decisions made by the tournament this year.  There are eight teams; they have teams 1-4 play each other and teams 5-8 play each other.  Teams 1-4 are the ‘good’ teams…except for Kickstart, who got walloped by every team they played.  Teams 5-8 were lesser teams and while I can sit back and say the bracketing gave all of those teams some competitive games, the scheduling certainly didn’t seem like it determined who the best team was

Game 2.5:  We’re not playing, but Corn is playing our next opponent BB….and they lose 4-2.  That means, based on everyone’s guess at what the committee is doing, we can win our next game against BB and still move onto the final.

Game 3:  We beat BB 7-4.  BB is made up of six kids from other travel teams in the area and is pretty good….and we don’t miss this time and keep possession and take advantage of their mistakes.  We are winning 3-2 at the half and give up two quick goals in the second half to go down 4-3….but score the next four to put it away.

So, Corn, BB, and us (oh yeah, we were named Tim Howard’s Haircut) are all tied with 2 wins and 1 loss.  We think it will come down to goals allowed, and we lose out on that to Corn….because they know they need to keep the goals down against the weak Kickstart team and play that game to dominate.  If it had been goal differential, we would have advanced.

Turns out it didn’t matter either way…the committee took all the teams in one ‘pool’ and there were two teams in the other bracket who had two wins and one tie.  So both of them move on to the final.  Really disappointing to not even have a chance to play those kids…because any of the the three good teams in our bracket would have trashed them.

Quizbusters – The End

Grand Championship 2014

Click.  Picture.  Video.

Quick 10:  The only time all year that the team is behind in a match happens here…mainly because Ravi buzzes in wrong twice.  Kevin gets the Grimm brothers.  Ends tied 40-40.

Toss-Up 1:  This match, unlike the division finals which are longer than all of the others, is shorter because of the long halftime and trophy presentations.  So not as many questions in these toss-ups as at other times.  Mom, who missed these matches while in Seattle, was disappointed that they didn’t get Betsy Ross a lot sooner than they did.  This match is over after these toss-ups and bonuses, up 140-40

Pop Quiz 1:  K-R.  Kevin does not get Krakatoa (he was late on it).  Gets Coach K.  And was sitting there waiting for Kraft.  Up 180-80.

Toss-Up 2:  The bonuses here are not as hard as the division championships; the ‘busters’ questions were pretty simple until the last one.  Up 210-110.

Toss-Up 3:  Hey, we finally get a quiz bunch question!  And get nothing on the bonus….which figures.  Kevin knows all of these New York mayors…and I’m happy he doesn’t buzz in on the Bieber question…but it seems like he knew it right as Ravi buzzes in.  Up 320-110

Pop Quiz 2:  K-U.  Kevin’s last pop quiz goes…poorly.  Doesn’t get kudo.  Doesn’t get kudzu (says he has never heard of it).  Doesn’t get Kubla Khan. Up 360-130

Toss-Up 4:  Kevin buzzes in pretty early with Arizona and they get a musical bonus.  And the questions, the first two at least, are easy.  Kevin is irked by the last one, the description is pretty similar to Streetcar Named Desire except at the very end.  Up 390-180.

Lightning Round:  Kevin gets Wall Street to start it and gets William Henry Harrison to end it.  They win 450-180.  Kevin knew both questions missed; he easier Pavlov instead of Chekhov and Garrison instead of Smith. 

Boy.  Dad.  Trophy.  Hug.

The End

Quizbusters – Saline

Green Division Championship – aka The Day of the Parking Deck Car Crash!

Click on the picture for the video

Quick 10:  Kevin not happy that Abhijit buzzes in for Earth Day…but he was slow on Arbor Day.  Abhijit and Ravi basically rule this round, we are up 60-20 at the end.

Toss-Up 1:  The difference in this game?  Saline answers early and wrong at times, and Saline gets nothing on the bonus from the toss-ups they win….and we get points on almost all of them.  Happy that the boy got Gettsyburg.  Little surprised they didn’t get the airport bonus.  Kevin starts smiling when he hears island battles in the Pacific in World War II. Up 140-to 30. 

Pop Quiz 1:  H-E-I.   Kevin does not get heinous.  Gets Heisenberg crazy early – they players, especially the ones who go later, write down as many words as they can and know to be waiting for some of the answers….Kevin is particularly good at this.   Kevin does not get heifer. Up 210-80

Toss-Up 2:  Again, we are not as successful on the bonus questions as we usually are; only 1 bonus answer on the Poe question.  But Saline gets nothing on leaders of Egypt.  I think there have been a lot of golf club questions; I think we have missed all of them…..and Saline finally cleans up on a bonus category.  Up 230-140.

Toss-Up 3:  Not doing well on these quiz bunch questions….and Kevin was irked he didn’t get the Crime and Punishment question (I had asked him to read this one summer when he was sitting around doing nothing).  I think after this bonus is when I finally saw the score in the control room.  Again, not cleaning up on the bonuses but getting one or two right every time.  Kevin buzzes in and misses Arthur Miller….but Saline only gets only gets one bonus.  280-230.

Pop Quiz 2:  H-A-T.  Kevin is sitting and waiting for Hathaway.  Both miss the Egyptian God Hator.  Kevin gets hatchback.  Up 310-280.  About as close as a match has ever been this late.

Toss-Up 4:  We win the first toss-up (World War I) and get two of the bonus questions.  We win the second toss-up (Sweeney Todd) and get lucky…a version of that Bolivian capital question shows up again and we get two of the bonus questions.  We win the third toss-up (Australia) and get one of the bonus questions…Ravi had it but they went with lyrics instead of words.  Up 390-280…..this round is where the game essentially ended.

Lightning Round:  Kevin gets Santa Ana but that is it…we win 440-300.