First things first.
You may have noticed that I have changed the name of this blog. I wanted to take a moment to explain why I have done so. When I first started this blog I wasn’t completely sold on the name for it. The title was one that my friend Fabian and I had brainstormed one night and while I loved the sound of it I never really knew where I wanted to go with it nor that it represented me or my interests. Single Barrel Writings felt a little stuffy, a little pretentious even and something about it didn’t seem right. Everyone who knows me knows what a huge baseball nut I am and the other day while watching Dallas Braden pitch from the stretch the idea came to me. This isn’t going to be a sports blog as I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough to go that route but I think it reflects me very well.
On we go.
World Cup soccer has begun and you bet I’m excited! Despite the fact that I don’t follow soccer as much as I should, I can’t help but get excited when international play rolls around. I have said it a few times on my facebook about how, when I was younger, soccer was the one thing the old man and I bonded over. Every Sunday my dad would set up shop in front of the television and it was an all day marathon of soccer. You needed to take you to the store? Well you had to wait for the game to be over and even then you had maybe 30 minutes or so before the next game started so you better know where to find what you need to grab. Needless to say we weren’t the family that went out a lot on weekends and I couldn’t understand what his fascination with soccer was all about, I didn’t understand that is until I discovered baseball.
My dad liked to talk about how his biggest dream growing up in Acapulco was to be a great soccer player. Every now and then he would share how the kids in his neighborhood where too poor to buy a soccer ball and thus had to make their own out of old rags. The fields here, he reminded us, where a godsend because in his neighborhood they had to play futbol barefoot and on gravel filled lots. When we played soccer as children he was the first one up, ready to go, all the time, on time and we hated this! We hated it at first of course because if ever we where lazy and wanted to get out of playing it was practically impossible to do this. He would wake us, feed us, help us get our uniforms together and drive out to the park. My father was there at every single one of our games (I have two younger brothers who also played soccer) and he cheered us on. My father was the Cal Ripken Jr. of soccer dads. He never missed a game.
Since we no longer live under the same roof and my father works very early in the morning, which it seems is when most games will be played, I will not be watching as many games with my old man as I would like. He still is though, just a phone call away and I am quite aware of how blessed I am for of this. Happy Fathers Day Dad!
On another note I will be the first to admit that I haven’t been very good at updating the blog this week and the truth is that I’ve got a lot going on. This week both my brothers graduate, one from junior high and the other one from high school. Wow, time does fly! It is amazing how much my brothers and I have gone through together. I remember when they where little and I walked them to and from school and now here one is a grown man and the other is entering the last four years of his childhood. I guess it goes without saying that I am extremely proud of them.
Also starting this week I have begun to work on what I call my “Better Body, Better Spirit, Better Mind” program. What is this program about? Well I will go into it further in an upcoming post but simply put it is a series of projects that I believe will bring about inner peace and happiness. Part of this program is to get back in physical shape and that has probably been the toughest part of it all. I was in pretty good shape over a year and a half ago after my attempt to do the P90X fitness program. Now let me tell you that program is hard, but it works! I was able to get through the halfway point and for some strange reason I just dropped it. It wasn’t like I couldn’t handle it anymore, for I was in great shape at the time, I just simply stopped doing it and to this day regret doing so. Now I must start from scratch, which sucks but it’s ok, I am determined to make it work this time.
Part of this program as well is to finish my creative projects such as “the” screenplay I have been working on for a while. I kind of hit a wall a few months back due in large part with not being sure where I want to take this story. It is a very delicate story based very heavily on personal experiences and I am still working on the best possible way to tell it. So in the coming days I need to set aside some time and work on a synopsis and really lay it all out and begin the delicate process of weaving this story together.
So come on, put that “comments” section to good use and tell me, in honor of the Father’s Day this week, what bonding experience with your dad stands out in your mind? or if you are working on summer projects, what are they?
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