Early in last night’s soccer game I had a good break on the right wing and was coming in towards the goal.  There was a teammate in the center ready for a pass, but the goaltender came out and I thought I could poke it past him into the goal.  I reached out with my right foot and sure enough got it past him, on-net, but not as hard as I wanted.

… I never got to see what happened, but I’m told it didn’t go in – their defender got there in time.  The goaltender fell/dove for the ball as I was kicking it and landed hard just below my kneecap.  I could feel the whole works buckle backwards, hyperextending pretty badly.  Ow.  Really, really, ow.

I didn’t feel any specific "pop", just a general scrunchy stretch like when you roll your ankle hard, and even this morning it’s not visibly swollen.  I’m sure there is internal swelling since I can’t quite extend or bend it fully, but at rest with a brace on it’s not really hurting.  Very hard to walk, though, since my range is so limited.  Wah.  I’m going to give it a day or two and see how things go before I think about going to a doctor – the fact that I can put weight on it and lack of swelling makes me think it’s just a bad sprain and probably nothing tore.  We’ll see.

And you know how I have a desk job, and 95% of my days are spent totally in front of my computer?  Wouldn’t you know today’s the day we’re moving a T1 line to the new building, which means physically hauling 5 servers up and down stairs and across the street to their new home.  Son of a…

 Today was a big day for everyone – more house projects for the parents, the season opener of soccer for DuoTeam, and a surprise for me!

First, the forecast: rain on and off the rest of the week. One of the projects on the wish list was resealing the deck, and it looked like it was today or never… Of course they went for it, that’s Rick with the sander at left. Oh, and look, Helpy’s doing his thing! Awesome!

Next they applied some compound that was supposed to open the pores of the wood up so it would accept the sealant better. This was then hosed off, allowed to dry, and the new sealant applied. I don’t have an actual "after" picture because sure enough as I pulled my bike through the back gate it started to rain and the wind kicked up and Karen and I had to run to cover the deck. But trust me it looks WAY better than it did!

That night Karen and I had our first soccer game of the season. We’re playing 6 on 6 co-rec, which means a smaller field and smaller goals and way more fun. Our team is actually pretty inexperienced, but we play well together (broomball) which makes an enormous difference. The bad guys snuck to an early 1-0 lead after we put poor Peter in goal (he hasn’t played soccer in forever), but then Scott (the ninja) jumped in goal and everything changed. That guy’s amazing – aggressively coming out to challenge their shooters, cutting down the angle, making smart plays, the whole works. And he has a hell of a foot! He’s able to launch his goal kicks the length of the field, which is awesome, but sometimes hard to get in their zone in time after coming to help defend. Whew. I know it’s a short field, but man… Lots of running!

We ended up winning (I scored twice and we shut them down after that first goal)!! It was a ton of fun – but even more fun was The Surprise: the Pinolera showed up! Apparently everyone knew but me, and I must say I was genuinely surprised! What fun! I couldn’t believe it when she strolled up to the soccer field!!

The day ended on a superb note, as we toasted our winning game at the Chatterbox. Sweet.