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sooo, lillis and i left the ATL at about 7AM to head over to birmingham southern for an outdoor 3’s tournament. it was a long tired ride followed by an hour and a half wait for the tournament to begin (uuuggh, i could have gotten in one more peaceful dream). anyway, i hadn’t played any competitive volleyball since 2001. natch, i was a little unsure about how well the body would hold up playing 7 different matches in 1 day. also, i wasn’t sure if i could still hit on a men’s net, having seen only the 6 inch lower women’s height net for the past two years with coaching.

i (and we) started a little slowly but eventually started playing some pretty good volleyball. we went 4 and 2 in pool play (with one major choke) but then got put out in the playoffs. the bummer was that we beat both teams that played in the finals in pool play. anyway, we had a good time playing and it was certainly good to be back on the court. for whatever reason i feel a TON more competitive out there than i do at a flag football game or ALTA tennis match. i played with my college teammate (jason) and one of the guys from his indoor team out of huntsville (james).

lillis was a lovely fan, and took a ton of photos and video. here she captures one of the few times i actually used proper form when blocking an attack.

here i show rather poor from in passing a short serve as jason does a funky dance on the other side of the court.

here jason rips one inside the block.

and i reach to try and hit one down the line.

it was a REALLY exhausting day, but i was pleased that i was able to compete the whole day – and we had a great time. my buddy chad (another teammate from college who i hadn’t seen in probably 5 years) came to watch as well and stayed out there for several hours, providing lillis some company during the matches and jason and i some coaching tips as well. the only ill affects where that my right knee was a little locked up for a day and i felt like someone had caned me for a day or two, but after that i was fine. oh, lillis’ other big role in the day was to save me from death. i was TOTALLY wiped on the drive back to atlanta. after finishing up the tourney (about 8pm) and eating at outback, i was driving off the road. sooooo, lillis drove the last 90 miles of the way home while i slipped into a coma.

oh, almost forgot here are some videos from the weekend.

and here is one clip of a pretty good rally (but one we lost)

soooo, just one night after our super fancy date to tierra (one of my forgotten favorite atlanta restaurants with great central american food and an AMAZING tres leches cake) lillis and i went to visit the aquarium. i think lillis would like to be a marine biologist- or a dolphin. anyway, we met tisha and her friend and erin and teo there and joe guy came along with lillis and i. i think i was the only one who hadn’t visited before. i was sorta shocked by how big the thing is.

we went for their friday night “jazz journeys” at the aquarium. apparently it is open from 7 to 9:30 on friday. they had live jazz music and drinks. it was pretty neat but pretty empty. this was a welcome surprise. i’ve had sooo many people talk about the inherent claustrophobia and olfactory overload that is a staple of a trip to the aquarium. it really felt like we had the place to ourselves and could just walk around whenever wherever we wanted. it was neat and peaceful with it’s eerie blue lights. just me, but i think it would have been better with pink floyd than with jazz music, but to each their own. anyway, here lillis reviews the jellyfish.

and here’s a typical shot of lillis looking at something in rapt wonderment. i think it was either a sawfish or a whale shark.

here are some of the fish

and here is us in front of said fish.

and here is the sawfish, looking somewhat ominous.

here lillis touches an anemone. predictably, just as she made contact with it, i poked her in the side and made a loud noise. she no longer even flinches…sigh!

lillis and i went to the inman park festival the other day. it was soooo nice to be able to go do it, particularly since we have had so little time to just go do anything in the last several months. now, as volleyball drags to a close, we are actually having a little more time to do normal stuff together. this tends to make lillis happy, both b/c we get to spend quality time, and b/c she gets funnel cakes. she actually requested that i take a picture of her with her funnel cake. it seemed like a completely normal request : )

here’s an arm’s length, backhanded group portrait. if you were not there to see it, i could not possibly convey to you the dexterity involved in getting this shot : )

so, as i alluded to above, my volleyball season has now drawn to a close. it was a very tough season this year. we had a team with a ton of talent who at times performed like one of the better teams in the nation. unfortunately, we frequently performed like a group of 17 year olds who didn’t like each other (or their coaches). it was a frustrating twist from last year were at every practice we were met with enthusiasm, energy and obedience (well at least as obedient as any 13 year old could be) players who made every practice and tournament a joy. this year was more of a slog. some of the girls were wonderful and make you so glad you donate your time (i probably logged about 300 to 400 hours helping out this season) and others make you wonder why you’re not spending the weekend with your gifriend eating funnel cakes. i will say, however, that there are at least a couple of girls on the team that if you told me i could either roll the dice with me raising a kid and not screwing it up, or just say “this is what your daughter will be like when she’s 17” i would choose the girl on my team. i did get to see a lot of new youtube videos and laugh at a ton of goofiness, but all in all, i’m relieved to go back to my normal life and drop the schedule that sometimes led to lillis and i only seeing each other for 5 or 6 hours in a 10 day span.

hopefully that will lead to more fun (as pictured below) for lillis and i!