Circle of Life

It's official. Summer is now over and my weekly schedule has returned to somewhat normal. This morning I dropped off Benjamin at his new school and headed back to an empty house. How nice.

So I have to tell you about another one of those moments of parental realization for me that happen last week.

I took Benjamin to school to meet his new teachers and talk with them about how he is as an active boy. For the most part it went well. He seemed like he would do fine when school started and he gave his teachers a warning shot of his active nature.

While Benjamin was busy playing with the new toys he found in his classroom the teacher asked me to fill out the emergency contact info and other last minute forms. I didn't think much about it and took the forms to one of the tables in the classroom and squatted into one of the miniature chairs to fill out the information. Then it hit me. Wait a minute. The teacher got me into a midget chair.

At this point my mother is laughing loudly while reading this entry. There is a story that she likes to tell about how I got her into a midget chair when I was in second grade.
Back in the day, I was known as the class clown. I know shocker. Well apparently I considered music class my chance to dazzle my classmates with my stand-up routines instead of learning my do, re, fa, so la, ti do.

So when it came time for parent/teacher conference day all of my teachers lined up for an inquisition of my mother. To this day she still talks about how when she walked into the room there were three big chairs and one midget chair. That's when she was hit with a barrage of attacks on how I wasn't taking the lessons seriously. She said she felt so belittled just by the simple fact that she had to sit in a midget and take the attack I caused.

Fast forward 27 years. As I was writing down my cell phone number a wave of memories hit me. And the feeling of being a parent settled in. I was now sitting in a midget chair in my son's classroom. Thankfully he hadn't been there long enough for me to endure what my mother endured with Mrs. Boone, Mrs. Gonzales and Mr. Campbell.

Final Game of the Season

  Well Sunday night was my last football game until next season. Usually my football season concludes with either a college bowl game or an NFL playoff game but this year was a little different. It ended not with a pro or college football game but a high school one.

  Yes that's right my last game of the season was the Under Armor All-America High School Football game. It basically is a three-hour Under Armor clothing ad on ESPN but they like to call it a showcase of future talent. They bring in most of the nation's top high school recruits to play in an all-star game.

  The big player of the game was quarterback Matt Barkely out of California. This kid could whiz the ball on a slant pass like you see in the SEC. Too bad he's staying home and playing for USC. As if they need another in a long procession of QBs at SC.

  The game was long and at times boring like most all-star games. There was way too much passing which stopped the clock and dragged it out even longer. There were long TV timeouts (Hey ESPN has to make something out of it.) And there were breaks in the action where the TV cameras would show a player with his parents and give his oral commitment live on the air.

  Last year the game was played at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex in the afternoon with a running clock. This year ESPN changed it up and held it at the dump we call the Florida Citrus Bowl and at night. Translation: long game under really bad lighting.

  Most of the pictures that I shot were of individual players and mainly of them on the sidelines. I made some decent sales from last year's game which caused me to go out again this year. The bulk of my sales were just getting a lot of players in isolated areas or waist up with their helmet off. This is because most of the images out there of these players aren't great or clear. So if you have nice clean image of Matt Barkley it'll sell.

  I just wish my football season would've ended in February. Oh well, on to basketball.