Wednesday 26th January 2011
Another month has passed but this time around my post won’t be very long. Although I’m loving life right now it has been rather quiet. My days are filed with training, writing emails, surfing the net, reading, eating and more training. It’s what I need to do to be the best. I’m happy with my progress so far but still a way to go before I’m satisfied.
The 2nd weekend in January saw us do a road trip to Dallas where it was a lot colder than the mild winter I’ve experienced here in Austin. The 3 hour drive was done in luxury. Mark has a brand new Audi A6 with the upmarket Stasis package. This car fly’s and has all the bells and whistles you need…Its hard to drive slow.
We skipped the sights of Dallas to get to our hotel on the not so desirable outskirts of town. I’ve been told that downtown Dallas isn’t much to look at anyway. I guess living in Austin it doesn’t feel like you live in the Texas everyone thinks of…I’m told that Dallas is the typical Texan city with real Texans in it….I can’t say too much about it cause I didn’t really experience it.
So we had a really good draw. Our first game was at midday on Friday. It was a tough day with 3 games. The last of which was the toughest. Phoenix has placed themselves as our nemesis. We haven’t beaten them in 3 games. When I played for Atlanta back in 1997 is was the team from Tampa who we could never quite beat. They had the infamous Joe Soares leading the team with the legendary Dave Gould steering the ship. We went hard out at each other and even came to blows in one game. I love a bit of biffo. It was so funny to watch Burt Burns smash Joes glasses across his face. I was on the ground at this point cause Joe had illegally smashed me put of my chair…I threw the ball at his face as I was on the ground and Burt followed through with a left hook….priceless.
Much like Tampa, Team Phoenix Heat is a stacked team. They have 4 international players including Manni form Great Britain. Manni is my nemesis. For years he has been this innocent young fella from Birmingham stuck in the shadow of Troye Collins, Ross Morrison and Alan Ash….Manni had to earn his place among some of the worlds top 2.5 players. I sat back and watched this guy get yelled at, benched and dejected, yet he never gave up. These days, well I’m not ready to say he is taking over me but he is very close….in my opinion. He’s super fast, has great hands and is hungry…He wants my spot but I’m not ready to move aside yet. It’s awesome to have him push me.
Anyway back to the story….We lost to Phoenix on Day 1. Day 2 we had an easy game against Dallas and a one point victory over the Texas Stampede, coached By US coach, Terry James Gumbert. It was a close one but we showed good character to come back from 4 down at one stage. By now though my tank was starting to empty…I was feeling the pinch.
Day 3 was finals day. We were set to play Phoenix again but this time $1000 was on the line. Things were going great. We were up by 3 or 4 at half time but then they threw a defence at us that we weren’t prepared for and they clawed back. In the end they ran away with it and we were left licking our wounds. Next time aye!
We will face them again a few more times this year so I reckon we’ll be alright. It will take a lot to beat them but we are improving every tournament. We’re pretty good really for a team who can’t train together. We all live so far apart that it’s hard to get together and practice.
Last week saw Mark and I head to Puerto Rico for a few days. He was a key note speaker at a conference so I tagged along. I was looking forward to spending a few days in the Caribbean at a 5 star resort none-the-less.
We flew via Atlanta and the flight was relatively easy. Stepping out of the airport in San Juan was awesome…it was sooo warm. It was an hour bus ride to the resort and to be honest I was surprised to see that it was very Americanized. Fast food joints, Walmart, Walgreens and typical stores everywhere. It makes sense though because PR is an American territory. There wasn’t even passport control.
So the resort, El Conquistador, was set on this luxurious piece of land that featured a stunning golf course and cliff top views of the ocean. Is was beautiful….mostly. I’ll say it now and get my grumble out of the way…the place needed a spruce up, it was out dated compared to Fiji, and the food was expensive and yuck…But I’m not complaining about a 5 star resort that we got for $150 where it normally costs $450 per night….I’m not complaing about the free drinks we got form all the great people we met from the conference and I will definitely not complain about our gorgeous bar tenders.
The conference was for drain diggers, sewage workers and other construction type people. These guys were the owners of the companies though. Pretty much nothing on a building site can start without the drains and sewage being in place first so these guys thought they were pretty important.
It didn’t take long before they started busting our balls…Jim was this salt of the earth bloke form Philly. He was your typical meat and 3 vege kinda guy who likes football and probably goes to the same pub every weekend to hang out with his buddies. Anyway we were sitting by the pool having a few beers when Jim says to me and Mark…I’ve never met 2 gay guys in wheelchairs before. Oh it was on after that…I made my duty to make him as uncomfortable as possible by putting my hand on his leg now and then, I started ordering cocktails and telling him to “stop it” with my world famous lisp. The laughs carried on well into the night.
One highlight of the night was my mate Mark Thomas Zupan…..we had just finished dinner with the shit diggers and we were well on our way. By this stage Jim’s wife had him on a leash so we had to find some other friends. Not hard. Anyway we headed to a really cool little bar with a pool table and smoking hot bar tenders. MTZ can play pool and when he saw an opening he grabbed a cue and cleaned out the table. He literally stopped the whole bar from talking while they watched him sink shot after shot…it was poetry.
Me and the other lads were ordering drinks when the girl in the red dress walked in…all the lads turned their heads and jaws dropped….next thing you know MTZ, full of confidence from his pool playing demonstration, is up there saying hello and then proceeds to give her some lessons...in how to play pool. Lets say is was a hands on experience. Not to sure what the fiancée thought about it but that didn’t stop ole matey having a dig. Nice one MTZ, none of has had the gumption to even say hi. Heehee.
I managed to be the last to leave the bar, on my own but thanks for asking, but not before making it very clear where I was from and how to solve the worlds problems…I should’ve left my friends at home, so they say.
Hungover to the hilt the next day was a waste…we sat in the sun, talked shit and I felt like a camel had shat in my mouth. Only one thing could’ve fixed it and by 5pm we were on another mission. Back to the bar with the hot bar tenders…no brainer really. This time it was the White Russian cure. We had another great night with really good people.
So by Saturday morning, our departure day, I had seen nothing of Puerto Rico, had only meet Puerto Rican hotel staff and hadn’t ventured outside of the resort…this goes against everything I love about travel. Ah well I’ve made some good friends there now so I’ll just have to go back. Next time though I’ll stay in San Juan and party on down with the locals. Anyone keen to join me???
This weekend I have a weekend here in Austin which will be cool. Next weekend we go to Phoenix for a tournament then the following weekend we go to Vegas for the IRB Rugby 7’s. I’m still deciding on a costume but I’ll keep you posted.
Hope you are all safe and well.
