Welcome to Zombieland

Starring myself as the head zombie.  Good thing this is a holiday weekend as I could really use an extra day off here.  I had a hard week but not necessarily a bad one.  Got a fair amount accomplished and all but I was ready for this weekend.  Of course before the weekend truly started I had to get through Friday night first.

Friday night I had a football game to referee.  It was the wrap up of the spring practices at most of the high schools and a lot of them played games against each other to finish it off.  So instead of hitting each other, the kids got a chance to hit kids from other schools for a while. 

I expected to be rusty, after all I haven't done a game since early November, but I got into it fairly quickly. Unfortunately I also got waylaid fairly early.  A tight end came across the middle on a drag route about 3 yards past the line of scrimmage.  This happens quite a bit as the offense loves it when a linebacker crashes into the umpire while trying to defend that route.  It's why the NFL has gone to putting the umpire in the offensive backfiled with the referee except in certain situations. This time did not work out quite as well for the offense.  The quarterback was in a shotgun setup and it was a bad snap that he muffed.  As the ball rolled away from him I stepped up toward the line of scrimmage to help cover the loose ball.  The tight end came across and ran smack into me.  He bounced back, I bounced the other way, my hat goes flying.  Comedy all around.  That hurt a bit.  Hurt more yesterday.

The game went pretty well and was not badly played all things considered.  There were not a lot of ticky tack type, players being idiot type fouls.  No taunting or anything like that.  I almost got through the entire first half without throwing a penalty flag.  Then late in the half I got the visitors for too many men on the field on a punt.  Just before halftime I then took a TD away from the home team when I called a holding on a touchdown pass.  It was the only hold I called all night but it was an obvious one.  It didn't matter as two plays later they managed to score anyway.

We knocked out the first half in under an hour and we figured we would be done by 9:30 (game time was 7:30) if the game kept going like it did in the first half.  But it was not meant to be.  About 4 or 5 minutes into the 3rd quarter a kid broke his arm on a play.  That delayed us about 15 minutes.  We went into the 4th quarter with the visitors ahead 14-7 but the home team managed to tie it up a couple of minutes into the quarter.  I was talking to Ron the head ref after the TD and we were both thinking the same thing.  Someone better break this tie cuz we don't want to go overtime in a meaningless spring game. 

At first it looked like a tie was not going to happen.  The home team had really dominated the action after the visitors lost that kid with a broken arm.  But they managed to keep the home team out of the end zone.  It looked like the visitors might pull it out but a kid dropped an easy interception which he would have been able to take to the house on one play.  Then the home team missed a pretty easy field goal late in the game which would have won it for them.  So the 4th quarter ends tied at 14 and we go to overtime. Yuck. 

Much like college football, we play a Kansas tiebreaker in Florida high school ball.  Whereas college football starts at the 25 yard line, we start them out at the 10 yard line.  The home team lost the toss and the visitors elected to play defense.   The home team wasted no time getting 9 yards on their first play then scoring on their second play.  The visitors managed to score in one play on a pass to the end zone.  Both teams kicked their extra points so we went to double OT. 

The visitors started out on offense first this time and fell apart fumbling the ball away on 3rd down.  The home team wasted no time with their 4 downs almost scoring on a run on the first play and pushing it in on the next to win the game.   Good game, enjoyable to ref for the most part (when I wasn't being collided with) and the coaches were not going off the deep end.  Both coaches are new at their schools and seemed to be on their best behavior.  Good thing as the home team coaches were a major pain to deal with over the past 10 years. 

Saturday morning I woke up earlier than I wanted to.  Man did I ache.  Of course since I hadn't done much of any exercising since the season ended last year, I was not in great shape to ref.  I have neglected rule number 1 - Cardio.  The couple of times I was run into or stepped on didn't hurt.  I was a complete zombie all Saturday morning. Besides being sore I was also really really beat.  Even after drinking a large iced coffee and having a couple of donuts, I just couldn't get moving.  I didn't even do any blogging like I had planned to do.  Instead I spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon just watching Law and Order and napping.  Finally late in the afternoon I started getting it together. 

This morning I woke up a bit earlier than I wanted to as the dog was pretty insistent on going out about 6:15 am.  I made breakfast for the family and didn't do a whole lot after that.  For one I'm kinda poor due to the expenses from moving, for two I'm still a bit sore and tired, not like yesterday but my body keeps reminding me that I'm closer to 60 than 40.  I should have poured myself a glass of V8 yesterday but I forgot.  I made sure I did today.  I know a lot of people (my family included) who can't stand V8 but an old softball umpire swore by it as a good way to prevent cramps after doing some games and it seems to work pretty well for me too.  I feel much better now than I did early today, not to mention yesterday.  Wish I had remembered to drink it yesterday as well.

I have not done any poker playing to speak of over the past few weeks.  I did stake the PQ to play in a tourney last weekend.  It was a ladies only tourney with the top 2 places getting a seat to the WSOP ladies tourney.  Unfortunately she ran well but went out 6th.  While she was doing that, I was drinking beers, talking to a few guys and betting horses for the Preakness.  My Kentucky Derby luck did not translate over and I lost some cash on that one. 

Well that about wraps it up from this end.  Sorry it so boring down here.  Only about another 5 months of 90 degree weather to go before it cools down.  Maybe tomorrow I'll try to hit the poker tables but probably not.  For now I hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day weekend.  For those of you on the real or virtual felt, stay lucky you nuts.