MAO Practice

It's late Monday evening and I've only been home long enough to grab some dinner and take a shower. And I have two more weekends coming just like the one past. First another practice in Texas this coming weekend and then the event the following weekend. And if you'd asked me six months ago what I thought of that schedule looking at it on a calendar I have absolutely no doubt I would'a hung my head and muttered a string of naughty words under my breath--at a bare minimum. And yet, here I am right smack dab--(I'm learning new stuff in Texas)--in the middle of it and I couldn't be happier. Weird, huh? I've never been a big fan of the travel. I'm a destination guy yet here I am almost (but not quite) looking forward to more of the same. And I'm not feverish and as far as I know I haven't ingested any illegal substances. Go figure.
On top of that I had my backpack stolen yesterday after practice. Alex (Martinez), Ryan (his younger son) and I stopped at a Mexican restaurant called Chuy's off the 1604. In hopping out of the truck, an enormous quad cab turbo diesel beast, I grabbed my wallet out of the backpack and in we went for lunch. The truck is so big even Tim Duncan couldn't look inside the cab without using the step so nobody noticed the backpack and grabbed it spur of the moment. Whoever took it had to look inside the truck by opening the door and deciding to lift the backpack while leaving everything else. My son thought maybe the person or persons were hoping for drugs or money in the backpack and if he's right they were in luck--sorta. All my vitamins and sinus meds were in the backpack. Along with maybe two bucks in change, my APPA PSP I.D., some sand, lint and gum wrappers. That and my team notebooks, field layouts, practice notes and a couple of pens. C'est la vie. Thank God I took my wallet with me or this would be a completely different post. And if you happen to run across a two year old Dye backpack spotted with dried paint speckles in the San Antonio area let it go. I hated that APPA photo anyway.
Impact dropped by for the weekend grind minus Bart and his sons who had to stay home because they were buying Manitoba or something like that. It was good to have the rest of the team in and we had a very productive practice both days as we stayed late on Saturday. For those keeping score at home my unofficial stats had Impact getting the best of X-Factor but the points don't go into the record books for another couple of weeks and in the meantime everyone learned a lot and both teams finished the weekend with very clear ideas of how to play the field. Which is kind'a the point, right? There was about the perfect amount of chippiness for a pro practice. Enough to let you know the guys are competing but not so much that the process becomes unproductive. After all, anytime highly competitive guys get together and compete a few sparks oughta fly.
We've got a lot of work to do next week too when Texas Storm comes to town but we have a blueprint for success. Now all we need to do is learn to execute it effectively in one weekend and we're golden. Btw, have you looked at the prelim match-ups in the Champions brackets? Either half could easily be the teams that moved through to Sunday from a year or two ago. Not for the faint of heart.